You Gotta Be Kidding Me

So, about an hour or so before I was supposed to go to Thanksgiving dinner, I flushed the toilet in my house and water started shooting out the bottom. Thus began my three hour (and counting) ordeal of watery hell. It appears to be a blocked mainline. We've got a guy in the house now looking at it. I guess because I missed the same problem last Easter because I was out of town, Fate wants me to fully experience the messed up toilet experience.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My pies are baked and we're eating in an hour or so! I hope everyone is having a great Turkey Day!

New Internet Scam

So I heard about a new scam where legitimate vendors (such as fandango) partner with companies that put a link at the bottom of the legitimate company's checkout page that says Click Here to Collect . If you click on that button, the Bad People grab your credit card info out of the legitimate company's cookie. If do not explicitly opt-out from the page they send you (e.g. you decide it's crap and close the window), congratulations, you're now signed up for a monthly "service" that you'll be billed a small amount of money every month until you notice the innocuously named charge and get it cancelled. Nice, eh? Google "MLI scam" and see what I mean.
[more info here]

Another Perspective

TV's Frank offers us the Executives' perspective on the Writer's Guild strike.

Beowulf

Noelle and I caught the Beowulf premiere last night (in 3D) and wow was I impressed! The cinematography, if you will, was really fantastic and the story was quite gripping. The soundtrack was also suitably epic. I forgot at times that it was an animated feature. Ray Winstone stars as the voice of Beowulf, the hero who saves king Hrothgar's hall from the monster Grendel.
[official movie site]

Set Your Goals 2007

So just a year or so after the last ones (I'm getting better!), here's a recap of last year's goals and how I did:

1. Keep my sweety happy with me.

I think this one has been fairly successful. We're cohabitating and she seems to like it.

2. Visit at least two national parks I've never been to before.

I didn't make this one, unfortunately. I don't think I went to any new parks.

3. Read at least six books.

I think I squeaked by on this one, although I can't depend on JK Rowling or Neil Gaiman to bail me out every year. Unless you count graphic novels and trade paperback collections of comics, in which case I did a fine job.

4. Improve my photography skills. Go to at least one workshop or class.

Nope, not even one. Sigh.

5. Get my passport renewed and travel abroad somewhere.

Yes! I got my passport renewed and visited the Dutch and French Antilles, aka St Maarten/St Martin.

6. Improve my guitar playing ability. I got the new axe. I should get a new teacher and try practicing at least half an hour a day.

Oy. I really failed abysmally on this one.

7. Process at least four of the photo sessions I took in the past year. Which is a pathetic goal.

I don't think I did this one.

8. Lose 20 pounds by my next birthday. Specifically, make a concerted effort to get into the gym four times a week.

No, in fact I think I went the other way, much to my chagrin.

9. Improve my brain: learn a new language, brush up on my atrophied math skills, don't get stale.

Didn't do any of those things, although my brain atrophying doesn't seem too severe for some reason.

10. More volunteering/public service.

Nothing comes to mind.

11. Go camping at least four times.

Wah. No. Did not do. Very sad about this one.

12. improve my Mac OS X hacking skillz. I even have a project in mind.

I don't even remember what the project was. Sigh.

13. Fix up the house!!! Do at least four of the ten items I have my whiteboard to-do list.

Ok, this one I completely blew out of the water. I got a new garage door, a new back door, double paned windows for the entire house, we repainted the hallway, we put in a new sprinkler system, I had the sod replaced in the front and back yard, I had trees planted, I threw out a ton of stuff from the garage, I had the house insulated, etc, etc, etc. I made a lot of progress on home improvement.

Ok, so it was a mixed bag as was last year. Some things I did great on, others were terrible failures. Maybe I have too many goals, maybe I'm not focused enough, whatever. Que sera, sera. So let's throw out some goals for next year:

1. Keep my sweety happy with me.

2. Organize my finances better for retirement, etc.

3. Read at least six books.

4. Improve my photography skills. Go to at least one workshop or class.

5. Visit at least two national parks I've never been to before.

6. Improve my guitar playing ability. I should get a new teacher and try practicing at least half an hour a day.

7. Process at least two of the photo sessions I took in the past year. Which is a really, really pathetic goal.

8. Lose 20 pounds by my next birthday. Specifically, make a concerted effort to get into the gym four times a week.

9. Improve my brain: learn a new language, brush up on my atrophied math skills, don't get stale.

10. More volunteering/public service.

11. Go camping at least four times.

12. Improve my hacking skillz. Develop a project and do it.

13. One largish home improvement project: E.g. repaint the living room.

Travels to the Edge

Canon is sponsoring a PBS show called Travels to the Edge featuring photographer Art Wolfe. I will have to check that out. Hopefully there will be some cool photography stuff on the show.

Endoscope Photography

I found a cool website the other day of a Japanese photographer who supposedly uses an endoscope to do macro photography to get crazy shots like the above. There are more at this site. Check out Gallery 1 (the buttons are in the frame on the left) in particular. Unfortunately I don't read Japanese, so I can't tell you much else about the site. Some pretty neat pictures, though.

BSG: The Razor

Noelle and I caught a sneak preview of the Battlestar Galactica movie: The Razor at the Cinearts in Santana Row. It was really great seeing BSG 30 feet high on the big screen, the occasional Microsoft ad notwithstanding. The SJ nerds seem to have better hygiene than the Comic-con nerds, too. Anyway, the movie was great, providing a lot of backstory on the Pegasus and what happened between the time they took control of the Pegasus and landed on New Caprica. And there were some great bits for old school Battlestar fans, too. ;-)

State Department Employees Protest Forced Deployments

Condoleeza Rice's minions are trying to quell an internal revolt at the State Department where "directed assignments" are being considered if not enough volunteers can be found to serve at the Baghdad Embassy, which is currently understaffed for some reason. If given a directed assignment, State Department officials can either go or resign. One employee at a town hall meeting likened the directed assignments to "potential death sentences." Ouch. It's pretty bad when the Bush Administration can't get it's own employees to support its policies. [article]

Kids Do The Darndest Things