Squirrely Weather Report

Foamy reports from Louisiana on Hurricane Katerina.

Ren Faire in the Park

(click to see album)

Twas a time before bras...
My friend Kristi turned me on to the Renaissance Faire held this weekend in Golden Gate Park. I met her there, as well Kevin and Rick. Had a pretty good time. There were a wide variety of historical periods represented, much to the chagrin of the purists. :-) They had folks there doing matchlock demos and the rapier dueling contest was pretty interesting too. This one guy had a dragon costume that was really quite elaborate. There were also periodic mini-parardes through the fairgrounds. I kinda wish I had picked something up at the Pirate Store for talk like a pirate day, but oh well. Missed the battle royale, but I heard it wasn't much to see this year. Anyway, I took a few pictures of dubious quality, which I uploaded to Shutterfly, that will hopefully give a flavor of the afternoon.

Brothers Grimm

Kind of uneven. I have heard that Gilliam had difficulties getting this movie out and I can believe it. I didn't really develop much empathy for the characters, which is why I was disappointed, I think. I can't quite put my finger on what was missing, but something was. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which fairy tale such and such a scene came from. The one good thing about the movie is that it's inspired me to check out the original Grimm's Fairy Tales, which I think are a lot less sanitized than the ones I remember.

Lego Star Wars Video Game

>
Yes. I put all those words together in the same title. WTF? Do we really need a Lego Star Wars: The Video Game?

The 40 Year Old Virgin

Hey, this movie gives me hope that there are men out there who are worse with women than I am! Pretty funny movie. A bit on the crude side, but not super bad. Not great cinema, but I got some good laughs out of it.

Pat Robertson Goes Off Deep End Again

I guess it's probably not a huge revelation, but Pat Robertson has gone off the rails again. Now I've come to expect a certain amount of insanity from Pat, but this pegged the dementia meter. Pat has called for the assassination of the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. Pat feels that this is the simplest course of action, relative to invading that country. Since we need it to keep the commies and muslim terrorists (I'm not making this up) from invading the US. So, uh, what happened to "Thou shalt not kill," Pat? I mean, he is ostensibly a man of God. The Mercury News has a pretty good article (subscription or bugmenot required).

Good Weekend

Had a nice weekend. Got a bunch of CDs and comics on Saturday (including the first Y: The Last Man trade paperback, which is quite good). Then I went over to my friend Hui's place and practiced guitar for a few hours, followed by dinner. Yesterday, I must confess, was dominated by Farscapey goodness. Sigh, now back to the work I ignored over the weekend. :-p

RIP Bob Moog

Robert Moog, the inventor of the Moog Synthesizer, has died at 71. Moog synthesizers became popular in the 1970s with various prog rock bands such as Yes and the Moody Blues. Moogs and other analog synthesizers were eventually displaced by digital synthesizers, although they've had something of a resurgence in popularity of late. I personally have enjoyed a lot of the music generated by Moogs and am saddened by Mr Moog's passing. [article]

And People Give the Goth Bands Shit For How They Dress

Ohhh, this is some funny shit. I believe Black Metal is what they call Death Metal in other parts of the world. Like, say Scandinavia. Anyway, a friend of mine forwarded me this article of the 10 Most Ridiculous Black Metal Photos of the The Year. WARNING: some of these pictures are not work safe. Funnnnny, but not work safe. I love #8, he looks like the Kiss Army showed up on Endor.

Another Fine Day For Humanity

Henrico County, VA decided to sell off some of their old iBooks at $50 a pop. They had a thousand of them. Over 5000 people showed up. They had five cops providing security. I think you can guess where this is going. The video on this site (Real Player) shows the pandemonium that ensued. [article]

Bush Administration Opposes .xxx Top Level Domain

The Bush administration is evidently trying to get ICANN to hold off on registering sites using a new top level .xxx domain that would house pornography sites. I am not sure if I should be pissed off or amused. It's too bad (or maybe it's not, again I'm of two minds on the matter) that no one in the administration realizes that with the pronographers in a top level domain, you can effectively block all of them at one fell swoop because you can block the entire domain. Unlike the current system where some of the porno sites are in .com, but not all .com sites are porno sites. [article]

Crocodile Blood to Treat HIV?

It sounds kind of unscientific, but scientists are looking at crocodile blood as a possible way to fight HIV. Crocodiles evidently have far more vigorous immune systems than humans do. This is an adaptation that has arisen as a result of the vicious fights the crocs have in nasty, germ filled water. The antibodies in the croc blood do a much better job fighting off HIV than human antibodies do. [article]

$10 DVDs at Target?

Man, what's the world coming to when I can get $10 DVDs at Target.

What the??

Videos on MTV? That can't be right.

Wedding Pix

(click to go to album)

Some pictures I took while the batteries lasted, before things got out of hand.

Strange Natural Phenomenon

It sounds like there's water falling on the roof of my house. How curious.

White Stripey Goodness

Saw the White Stripes tonight with Rick at the Greek Theater (which, oddly enough, is an outdoor amphitheater) in Berkeley tonight. Great show, when annoying dickheads weren't talking loudly enough behind me to be heard over the guitar. Jack sure loves his distortion boxes. And so do I! :-) Sadly, they did not play Fell In Love With A Girl <sniff>. Seven Nation Army was great, though. Jack played a few songs with a slide on a dobro or resonator type guitar, which was especially cool. I always forget how chilly Berkeley is compared to SJ, though.

Your Fifteen Minutes of Fame Here

The First Amendment Project is doing kind of an interesting fundraiser where people can bid on E-Bay to get their names into books written by famous (and not so famous) writers. Authors include Stephen King, John Grisham, Amy Tan, Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, and Peter Straub.

Stephen King, for instance, is offering this:

One (and only one) character name in a novel called CELL, which is now in work and which will appear in either 2006 or 2007. Buyer should be aware that CELL is a violent piece of work, which comes complete with zombies set in motion by bad cell phone signals that destroy the human brain. Like cheap whiskey, it's very nasty and extremely satisfying. Character can be male or female, but a buyer who wants to die must in this case be female. In any case, I'll require physical description of auction winner, including any nickname (can be made up, I don't give a rip).

[auction here]

Hummer H2 Tribute Site

Saw this on Noelle's blog and got a giggle out of it. Photograph your tributes to the H2!

OMFG: Ninja Kitties!

The folks at rathergood.com, the people (I think it's mostly just one guy) who brought us viking kittens and those terrifying hamster things in those Quizno's commercials now have a new video featuring terrifyingly cute kittens. I give you: ninja kittens!

The lyrics include (I'm not making this up):

I'm gonna flip out
like a ninja,
cause that's what ninjas do.
I'm gonna flip out
like a ninja
and you should flip out too!

Someone clearly understands Real Ultimate Power!

Evidently the guy has joined a band, so a lot of the newer videos are for their songs. The animation quality seems better, I think Joel has more time to play with Flash. :-)

Hanzis Matter? Hanzi Smatter?

Found a reference to the site Hanzi Smatter (on Neil Gaiman's blog) which is sort of the counterpart to engrish.com . I am so glad because I really wanted to know how to communicate that someone has a foul smelling cooter in Traditional Chinese. Or is that Simplified Chinese? Oh well, nothing's perfect.

We're Getting the Band Back Together!

(click to go to the album)

Some friends of mine playing in a band. Finally got around to processing the pix I took at the gig.

New NIN Video

Love this song. Love this video. (requires Quicktime, 18MB)
And it's directed by David Fincher, the guy who did Seven and Fight Club.
But seriously, did Apple pay for the product placement?

Atkins Nutritionals Goes Belly Up

Atkins Nutrionals, the company founded to capitalize on the Atkins Diet, has filed for bankruptcy. Hopefully this means that Americans have come to their senses, or at least let go of the particular madness that is low-carb mania. [article]

Novak Draws Back the Curtain

Robert Novak revealed that Karl Rove was the person who supplied him with the information about Valerie Plame's identity. And a CIA agent has asked him not to use her name, but he did anyway. However, Novak:

"In his latest column, Novak, who did not respond yesterday to a request for an interview, objected to the notion that he had "ignored an official's statement that I had the facts wrong but wrote it anyway for the sake of publishing the story. That would be inexcusable for any journalist and particularly a veteran of 48 years in Washington," he wrote.

He also expressed antipathy toward Wilson, saying the former diplomat had been "discarded a year ago by the Kerry presidential campaign" after a Senate committee concluded that much of what he said about the Niger issue "had no basis in fact."

Others have suggested that Novak's claim that Wilson was "discarded a year ago" is information published by the factually dubious Jeff Gannon. Yeah, the guy who was paid by GOPUSA to masquerade as a journalist at White House press briefings. So, it would appear that Novak will ignore the statements of officials or use "wrong facts," but not (and I cannot stress this enough) not both at the same time. Douchebag.

Multiple File Upload With Shutterfly

Shutterfly has a browser plugin so I can select multiple pictures at one time for upload instead of one file per form button. Woohoo! This has bugged me about Shutterfly and Yahoo Photos forever.

Palmeiro Suspended For Steroid Use

Baltimore Orioles star Rafael Palmeiro, who got up in front of Congress a few months ago to declare he had never, ever taken steroids was suspended on Monday for testing positive for steroid use. Palmeiro has amended his statement to he has never to his knowledge used steroids. So, I guess, somehow, he took steroids without knowing about it. Poor guy. What're the chances? [article]

Riding the Tiger

What a groovy weekend. I really should take Fridays off more often. I took the day off to avoid the traffic nightmare that was brewing downtown. Friday I had lunch with Noelle, got my hair cut, and ran some errands around town. Wound up the day by going for a hike at Rancho San Antonio. I don't don't know if the sudden burst of exercise gave me an endorphin rush or what, but I left the park feeling really great (Vertigo came on the iPod, so I think that helped.). If one had seen me, I would have been the wacko racing down the hill with the radio blaring, waving his arm out the window and dancing in his seat while he was driving. This was followed by similar jubilant celebration on the drive home on highway 85. Then I spent some time at home poring over guitar tabs trying to figure out how the Edge plays Vertigo. Saturday I got up late and eventually hooked up with Noelle and Carl and Derek to go get greek food at Vasili's. Yummmmmm. The evening was rounded out with a viewing of March of the Penguins downtown. Remind me to never complain about my life. Great film, but those bastards live a really tough existence. Penguin chicks are super cute.

Woke up late Sunday and zoomed up to Oakland where David and Nancy were hosting a skybox party. Good to see them (and some of the other folks there) again. And the A's handily thrashed the hapless Tigers, so that was good, too. :-) Zoomed back down to SJ for our semi-annual D&D game. Good times!

La Chingada Del Racimo

I don't think that's a very good translation, but I gave it my best shot. Click the above link to see some pictures I took on the race course (aka Almaden Boulevard) for the SJ Grand Prix the day before they had race cars on the track. Kinda weird wandering down Almaden without any cars on it.