Extra88

We'll see how this goes. I decided I should "push" a little less through email and "pull" a little more to stuff online. It's also a hassle to figure out what to send to whom. Now people can just come here and read what they want. You never know, this might actually be useful.

So here's something Kung-Log can't do. You can upload files with Kung-Log but it can't use the optional image manipulation features of the blog server. By uploading a picture through the web interface, I can choose to have a thumbnail image like this one automatically created which can then be linked to the original uploaded picture (which is big, btw).

This caught my eye A) because it mentions Taichung (where my brother and his wife are) and B) has a picture of a cat wearing a "surgical mask." Awwww. Everything's actually ok in Taichung, right guys?

I'm not sure how fast the SARS bug is spreading, but the meme's pretty infectious

I was browsing around the site of a usability wonk and came across his assessment of Band-Aid Liquid Bandage. Usability is cool and so is idea of liquid bandages so article was right up my alley. The short version is the current experience of using a liquid bandage leaves much to be desired but it does have its advantages.

Miss me?

I'm living the bachelor life again which pretty much sucks. The cat didn't even sleep on the bed so he knows something's not right. So it's amidst this cheerful attitude that I pour myself a bowl of Cheerios and discover there's no milk! Left with just my OJ, I browsed for a while then went back in the kitchen to find the bowl of Cheerios still sitting there. Am I just projecting my current attitude or is there something really lonely about a bowl of dry Cheerios sitting on the counter?

Okay, maybe not, I might have tried it 10 years ago or something but if there was a last time it didn't work out, otherwise I would've been making omelets.

It looked pretty good. I was using a brand new non-stick pan so that made flipping it pretty easy. How did it taste? It was all right, good for a first try. Not quite done enough in the middle.

As you may or may not know, I'm especially squeemish when it comes to exposed brains. I once was channel surfing and Discovery or TLC was showing brain surgery and I started hyperventilating. I've gotten better about it but I still wouldn't want to go to Hannibal. Anyway, this brain gelatin mold is just the thing to not get me for Christmas.

Boy, I sure am glad Yahoo increased their free email quotas ;)

I don't really use the account, in part because of all the spam it receives. I didn't realize I had gone so long without checking it. It appears I last checked it in late March and in that time have received over 50,000 pieces of spam. That's not including anything their SpamGuard caught (usually 30%). Almost all of it is in a sub-folder because I have a couple of mail rules that moves the messages if, for instance, my address is not on the To: line.

My problem now is the system won't let me delete a folder with messages and I can't delete more than 200 at a time. Maybe it's time to just walk away. I've had it a long time, but the only part of "My" Yahoo that I ever use is the calendar so it'll page me. I used to use Yahoo chat a bit but now I just use AIM.

This weekend I went to New York City for a short post-Turkey Day holiday. While I didn't spend much time in shops, it wasn't nearly has busy as I feared. Anyway, one of the highlights of the trip was seeing a recent play by Caryl Churchill, "A Number." (here's a local copy of the page if/when the original disappears). In the play, a son has found out there are "a number" of clones of him. The story mostly involves the details of the situation and how it came to be.

Saturday was the big New Haven Ikea trip. 2 1/2 hrs. each way and almost 5 hrs. in the store! Granted, we did each lunch (decent sandwiches) and "dinner" (we split 2 not-so-decent hot dogs, a coke and a bag of chips for $3) there. First and easiest decision was 3 79"x31" Billy bookshelves. We bought glass doors for one and opted to put off buying the shelf extenders for now. We're hoping to put at least one in the living room but that room has electric heating along every wall so that may not be possible. Otherwise, they'll all go in the study. The bedside table was a fairly easy choice but could have changed if we went another way on the dresser. It's somewhat of a tight fit but very nice to have.

The most important piece, the dresser (or wardrome, chest, whatever), took the longest. I was initially inclined to go unconventional and get a pair of tall (the 79" not the even taller ones) and skinny Pax wardrobes and fill them with shelves to make the most use of vertical space. Ultimately we went with a large chest that matches the bedside table. It doesn't seem to be listed on Ikea's site but it's big, it has 4 half-width drawers and 4 full width drawers. It's the thing we needed most and I think it's our favorite from the trip.

The final piece of furniture was a desk for me. We went for a very basic and cheap one, it's not something worth spending a lot on. I still need a chair and there were a couple of good options but Leah saw one at Staples the other day that might be better/cheaper for me. We weren't seeking non-furniture but we did find a red comforter cover. We recently put up brown roman shades and after the green walls of our last bedroom, we were definitely lacking color.

Sunday was Day 1 of assembly, we managed to do the dresser, bedside table and the desk. The dresser was by far the most complex. The bedroom furniture is solid wood (pine, I think) except the back panels and drawer bottoms and the desk is a manufactured wood material. I believe the bookshelves are the same material as the desk. We'll probably get to the bookshelves on Wednesday.

Aside from a desk chair for me, what we still need are rugs, at least for the bedroom and living room. We looove the oriental (which never had a place for in the previous apartment) and currently have it in the living room but it's too small for that space. I tried it in the bedroom but it's too thick for the door to clear it. That may be a problem, I think I'll have trouble finding a rug I like that is flat enough. It's a strange problem to have. We saw some possible rugs a couple of weeks ago but didn't want to make any choices before we were better furnished.

Ebola comes from fruit bats

This story is a weird collision my early 90's interests. In college I wrote a crappy one act play called "Fruit Bat Love" which didn't really have anything to do with fruit bats but one of the characters did own one. A few years after college the ebola virus was making big, scary news and I was fascinated. I never read Richard Preston's book, The Hot Zone, but I did read his magazine article on which it was based. I used a picture of the virus as a background image on my first web site, a site which also hosted a copy of "Fruit Bat Love." That site is gone but a few other sites linked to the play (people who actually care about fruit bats apparently) and at least one of those pages still exists.

I still have a copy of that site, I should put it back up on Cognize. It's healthy to embarrass one's self periodically.

Update: I did it, my first web site is back up; bad design, bad writing, liberally garnished with broken links. Enjoy.

Someone had Katamari Damacy checks made. They are awesome. I heard about Katamari Damacy ages ago but only played it in December. I received the sequel, We Love Katamari, for Christmas but I haven't played it yet (I received other games as well).

I've finally gotten sick this season and would like nothing more than to stay home to roll around a ball picking up tacks, matchboxes, mice, milk bottles, cats, fences, children, street vendors, trees, houses, bridges and clouds. Instead, I'll wear my manager hat, re-image PowerBooks, and herd cats discussing an upgrade to a major FileMaker database, all while trying not to drip on things. Today is definitely a no-tie day.

What else could bring the blog out of hibernation? LEGO! (Yes, all caps.) I didn't know about their U.S. stores and there's a LEGO Store in Natick.

When I was a kid, one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up was a LEGO Master Builder. I would have passed out at the site of Wall of LEGO found in these stores.

Like many from the LOS (LEGO Old School), I'm not happy with the proliferation of custom pieces in sets these days. However, some of the Star Wars sets are cool. This RotJ Death Star set looks amazing! Sure, it's ~$300.00 but it's 3449 pieces! That's less than 9 cents per piece! The Jawa Sandcrawler looks pretty great and comes with 11 minifigs.

Another cool development is the LEGO Digital Designer software. This is a free program that lets you design, in 3D, your own models using dozens of different virtual bricks. You can then save your design, take screenshots and share them, which is nice, but you can also order a custom set with all the bricks you need to make the model you designed! I'm sure the cost is significant but I think designing a model then being shipped the kit would be great for a kid.

Yes, I qualified that with "for a kid." While I'm still fascinated by LEGO, I don't feel that desire to build and play with them. All my bricks are at my parent's house and even when I had easier access to them, I didn't touch them (not that it would be okay to get rid of them!) I've moved on to other interests, including building things out of ones and zeros. But I don't have a good creative outlet, I need to find something that invokes the joy of creation as LEGO did.