Upping the ante: A website of organized nonsense

Yes, ladies and gents, you are looking at the proud owner of a new domain weighing approximately…well, howevermuch a bunch of electrons weigh these days. Actually, you’re looking at your computer screen, as am I gazing upon mine as I thwack upon my keys, composing this blog post, but let’s look past that little detail in the interests of moving things along, shall we?

Good.

In true wömblian fashion (and yes, you naysayers, that umlauted beauty tucked neatly into the beginning of this sentence is indeed a word, at least in the environs of this website) I have procured a domain entirely appropriate for me. Without meaning to hurt any feelings, whether it is appropriate for you or not is not really any of my concern at the moment. It’s my domain, I’m hanging on to it, and you can’t have it. So there!

Back in Portland, if only for a short time

It’s great to be back in Portland (Oregon), if only for a short time. Each year around Christmas I come back and spend the holidays here, soaking up all of the lovely rain and cloudy skies as I expect a native Californian might soak up the sun and warm beaches when returning home on Holiday.

There’s always so much to do and so much to see in Portland. Living in a relatively small community in New England means that coming back to Portland is almost like venturning to a large city. Portland will never be a large city like New York or Boston to me, but there do seem to be new buildings popping up like weeds, and the traffic always seems a bit heavier each year. I say seems as it does seem that way, although I am wary that I might just be wistfully imagining a more perfect past Portland, the way that everything was larger when you were younger and the way that men’s suits, a salesman told me today, always seem to shrink in the closet.

Back of the Envelope Calculations: Revelations, Oceans, and Blood

I was recently discussing Revelations and the Rapture with some of my friends. Apparently there’s an outfit called Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, USA that has assembled a group of Atheists willing to take care of pets if/when the Rapture occurs (for a nominal fee).

At first thought, the whole thing does sounds a bit contrived, but the execution is rather extensive and well thought out. The group’s website even includes a useful FAQ page that includes such Q&A’s as

• How do you ensure that your representatives won’t be Raptured?
• How can we trust that you’ll honor your service agreement, afterall you ARE atheists. [sic]
• What if one of my family members is left behind? Will you still take possession of my pet?

I mean, it would be rather…unfortunate, shall we say, if 3 out of 4 family members were Raptured and the 4th one somehow didn’t make the cut. Three people would be up in Heaven, while the odd man out would be on Earth, in what are estimated to be pretty harrowing conditions.

So you might be wondering: What happens post-Rapture to all the people and stuff left on the planet? Does God just CTRL-A, CTRL-X everything left on Earth?

Well, not exactly. If you’re not familiar with the general conditions, they include asteroids hitting the Earth, the crust of the Earth breaking open, locusts and other animals scurrying about stinging people, and the oceans turning to blood. Yes, blood.

If you’re anything like me, one of the first questions you might ask is: I wonder if there’s enough Iron on Earth to turn the oceans to blood?

Motorola Droid vs. HTC Droid Eris: Side-by-side spec comparison of Verizon’s Android Phones

Being stuck at home for the past couple of days has afforded me extra time to get things done. One thing I’ve wanted during the past week is a side-by-side comparison of the technical specs of Verizon’s new Android Phones.

I’m interested in getting either the Motorola Droid or the HTC Droid Eris as I’m eligible for the New-every-two upgrade plan and could save $100 if I upgrade when the phones come out on November 6th.

Being a strong supporter of Free Software, I’d like to be able to replace the stock Android build with an entirely Free Software build such as Replicant. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Verizon has locked down the handsets to such an extent that it is impossible for us to replace the OS running on the device. That’s why I’m going to wait a couple of weeks and see how far people have gotten in rooting the device before I make any decision.

Maple Syrup: Testing out the Pig

A few weekends ago I brought a few friends over to my place and we tested out the Pig.

The Pig is my homemade maple syrup evaporator. It’s got a body made out of a 55 gallon metal drum, legs from Cyrus’s futon frame, a front damper/door made out of a discarded STOP sign, and a chimney made out of old heating duct.

Outdoor Movies: Kicking it off with “Duel of the Tough”

When was the last time you went to a drive-in?

For me it must have been at least 3 years ago. There’s a drive-in over in Fairlee, VT, and during the summer season they show double features for $8 per person. It’s a lot of fun to pile in a car and head over there, hoping for clear skies.

The Fairlee Drive-in also has a motel, and the rooms are situated such that you can open the curtains on one of the walls and watch the movie. It’s kind of a fun gimmick.

Last night I kicked off my career as a projectionist with the spectacular film Duel of the Tough, originally titled Shen tui mi zong shou. We’d had a BBQ over at my place and Cyrus stayed around to poke at the fire when I had the epiphany that I had finally acquired all of the pieces necessary to project movies outside.

Oktoberfestivities 2009

Last night was Oktoberfest 2009. We had a lot of tasty food including hendl (chicken, in Bavarian), almonds mit hoenig (I can’t remember the german term for almonds), sausage, mashed potatoes, beer, and just a drop of Jaeger.

Oktoberfest, as I’m sure you all know, is that other fall holiday when guys and girls get to dress up in sexy costumes. Unlike Halloween, Oktoberfest encourages the guys to wear leather shorts, and encourages everyone to dance, drink, and sprechen deutsch. All in all it’s quite a good holiday.

This morning I wrote hijacked a song. Would you like to hear it? Oh, I bet meine lederhosen schwartz you would:

Jaeger-weiss, Jaeger-weiss,
Every morning you talk to me,
Dark and sweet, tastes of deer meat,
Jaegermeister I love thee.

To quote the Black Eyed Peas, “Tonight’s going to be a good, good night.”

Zooomr Simple Organizer

Zooomr is a nifty service. Unfortunately, the user interface has some problems.

For example, I can’t make the default license be CC-BY-SA. 99%+ of my photos are going to be CC-BY-SA, but I can’t just set that as the default. There are also no batch operations, so I can’t just select all freegeek pics and change the license.

Thankfully there is a Greasemonkey script to partially solve these problems. Zooomr Simple Organizer will put an “Organize” button in your top menu between “Home” and “You”. I couldn’t find it at first and wondered if the script was actually doing anything useful. If you get confused, just log into Zooomr and click this link.

Anyhow, install Greasemonkey and the script. They’re not perfect, but they will save you a lot of time.

–Q

Bûcheron

Goat cheese…. or a lumberjack?

It turns out that it’s actually both. But I suggest that you don’t try to chop down any goat-cheese trees, as I feel that wouldn’t turn out so well.