| A New Year’s Benediction |
[Jan. 1st, 2010|01:59 am] |
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself. –Neil Gaiman
Originally published at David's photography blog. You can comment here or there. |
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| New Adventures in Branding |
[Dec. 31st, 2009|08:26 am] |
Last night marks what I *think* (I have a tickle in the back of my mind that seems to imply that it might not be, but I can't pull the memory to the fore) is the first time I've seen a restaurant selling the food of a different restaurant by name on their menu.
In particular, Jack Astor's is selling Amaya butter chicken in a little inset bar on their menu.
It struck me as odd. I wonder how long until we get a restaurant that doesn't sell any of their own foods, but simply conglomerates signature dishes from a dozen other restaurants on one menu. We could call it "remix cuisine". |
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| Home! |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|06:31 pm] |
:)
*pets the fuzzies* |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|01:17 am] |
I almost forgot to talk about my Dad's awesome non-sequitur lecture over dinner, at which he presented the phrase, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," asked (intending it to be rhetorical, I gather) if anybody knew what it meant, and when I concisely explained what it means, he ignored that and went on to tell us all that it was a phrase thought up by Einstein to illustrate "thought experiments", which Einstein apparently invented. The meaning of it, according to my Dad, is even if you know someone is wrong, it's important to understand that they might not believe that they're wrong, and so you have to ask them why the believe the things they believe in order to build an understanding of the root causes for their beliefs so that you can better explain to them in ways that will make sense to them why they are wrong. I tried to point out that it's really wrong to use, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," as a basis for illustrating a framework for telling other people that their perspective is wrong, but every time I would raise an objection or try to respond, my Dad would just ignore what I'd said, but respond to a fictitious argument he'd thought someone might bring up instead, usually by giving another example of his idea as if we'd not understood it. My Mom, on the other hand, couldn't get that my Dad had pulled a complete non-sequitur with this whole lecture, and so she kept demanding over and over for someone to explain to her what this had to do with the conversation we'd been having before, despite everyone at the table telling her repeatedly that it had nothing to do with that at all -- my Dad had just started a new and unrelated topic.
This after a day that started out with me having a red mark on my face because I slept on my pillow funny and coming out into public to have this conversation:
Mom: Why do you have that mark on your face?
Me: I slept on my pillow weird.
Sister: Maybe you cut yourself shaving?
Me: No, I slept on my pillow weird.
Mom: I think it must be that you scratch your face in your sleep.
Me: No, I slept on my pillow weird.
[...continue for several minutes...]
On the other hand, I did spend most of the day relegated to my usual visiting-the-family job of repairing everything. This included setting up a wireless network so that everyone else in the house could escape to the sanctity of the internet for sanity every so often, fixing my Dad's computer which wouldn't install Windows Updates anymore, doing my best to diagnose, clean and optimize his old laptop that he wants to give to my Mom (one problem of which is that it has only 512MB of RAM -- when I told him that was an issue he insisted that it had 4GB in it and that the memory module must have gone bad, and when I popped it open to show just an empty expansion slot other than the 512MB in the factory-filled slot, he then told me that the repair guy he took it to once must have stolen the 4GB that was in it -- I didn't bother pointing out that that model maxes out at 2GB), giving my nephew tips on how to fix his computer which kept trying to attack / infect all the other computers on the network and reduced the speed of the internet connection to a crawl for everyone else, and replacing the busted tub and shower faucet. Of course, a good deal of that time was also spent with my Mom yelling at me from the other room to do this or that instead because she doesn't like anything anyone does and always demand they do something else (even if they're doing what she just suggested they do).
Aaaaaaaa...... |
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| The infamous straw |
[Dec. 29th, 2009|12:15 am] |
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I just dropped my laptop such that it fell screen-edge-first right on the tip of my nose. It hurt LIKE HELL and might be bleeding. Or my teeth might be bleeding. I'm not sure. I haven't gotten up to look yet. Somehow instead of just one really painful incident, it managed to feel emotionally like the culmination of every moment of failure in my entire life. I'm really glad that we're going home tomorrow, but it's not going to be for an unspecified but probably very long while yet before I get some solid hermit time. |
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| Post-Christmas |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|04:34 pm] |
Well, Christmas happened. It wasn't a very present-heavy affair, as most of the money this year was spent on flying me back home.
Owen and I bought my dad a 1TB network storage device b/c his computer ran out of space on the data drive. Eesh. The whole computer should be replaced, really. Windows 7 FTW, but that won't happen until the thing melts down or something.
Owen gave me a Highlander anime DVD because he thought it would be amusing and an anime called Read or Die because it has steampunk elements.
We got my mom a Star Trek TNG movie set and the new Star Trek movie, also True Blood Season 1.
I gave Owen his Whitworth wrenches and Assassin's Creed 2. |
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| Semi-incommunicado |
[Dec. 27th, 2009|10:36 pm] |
Apparently, I am not receiving text messages here at my parents' house. I'm not entirely sure why. Also, my Dad has no wireless networking, which leaves my nephew, my sister, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) okoshun and I with no easy way to connect our laptops. In particular, I think okoshun may explode. She had already told me that we're going out first thing tomorrow and getting him to buy a wireless router, (He talked about doing that while we're here.)
Otherwise, it's been nice so far. Very nifty loot. Some Bananagrams played. Some Pandemic played. Mom made me a very tasty veggie chili, although my tummy complained a bit after. No real complaints.
I am off to read the awesome book I received!
If you need to ccontact me, e-mail is probably best (or call my cell if it's an emergency). |
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| Addiction! |
[Dec. 26th, 2009|10:42 pm] |
Well, I made my first "Christmas Money," purchase today. I bought, "Peggle," for the PS3. Most of you got over Peggle millenia ago, I'm sure. I'm pretty out of the loop when it comes to casual "Popcap-style" gaming. However, they put out a demo, and I try pretty much every demo that comes out for the PS3. Then I found myself going back to re-play the demo levels, which I figured meant that I should buy it. Also, I read some reviews to make sure there wasn't something really irksome about it that I'd missed, and the one reviewer said, "The only reason to not buy Peggle is because you don't have any money." So I figured that that was a ringing endorsement.
I finished all the "Adventure" levels and all the "Master" levels today, which the game says makes me a Peggle Master. However, I have to finish the "Challenge" levels before I can become a Peggle Grand Master. Then there's apparently an expansion called Peggle Nights. *shrug*
In part I bought it because I thought okoshun would like it, and indeed she played a couple of hours of it tonight before going back to her online Boggle game, which is a lot for her.
So hey, fun! |
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| Lovely and Painful All at Once |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|09:03 pm] |
Today I spent time in a great deal of lovely company, first at okoshun's Mom's place and then at 's sister's place. I was also showered with a great many lovely gifts. The food was also quite tasty.
okoshun did most of the driving, since I'm not feeling well, but I drove us home, since she wanted some alcohol with her dinner. The drive home was extremely gruelling. It was only between 90 and 120 minutes in duration, but I felt like hell the whole way, and it was torrentially raining to the point where it made it hard to see the stripes on the road. okoshun slept through almost the whole thing, though, and we arrived home safely and without incident, so I'm thankful for that.
I'm really about ready to be done with this whole "illness" thing. It's sucking rather mightily. Also, at least one of the cats is feeling unwell. We came home to a couple of locations where they'd thrown up and one spot where there were other.. surprises. And while we *were* home late, we weren't home *that* late, and there have been some other signals recently. I'm hoping that we can manage to head this off before it gets worse. I have some theories. But it ultimately might be that Bean needs his insulin adjusted, which is a lengthy process involving several vet visits.
I really can't complain too much, but I'd especially like to be feeling better before we go to my parents' place, because it's trying at the best of times, and at the outside, before New Year's Eve, because I'd like to be able to enjoy our party.
Some of the things that I got relate to my synthesizer, which is exciting. I received another chassis, parts to build a third if I so wanted (!!!), a whole bunch of cables from multiple sources, and four new modules. I also received a tiny digital storage oscilloscope, which I've thus far gotten so far as proving to myself that I have no idea whatsoever how it works. I'll need to order some more components before I can really put the new chassis into use, but it's still all very exciting.
The only sort-of-a-bummer thing is that despite being told several times to NOT buy me clothes, okoshun's Mom decided that she wanted to buy me clothes and she'll buy me clothes if she wants to. Unfortunately, since we've been specifically telling her not to buy me clothes, we also didn't update her as to what size I take these days, and *all* the clothing is in the wrong size. It also all appears to have been bought at Outlet stores in the U.S. I feel bummed that I don't fit into it. okoshun might, and she likes some of the styles, so she might take some. The rest I'll probably donate to charity.
But all in all, despite the illness and the wrongly-sized clothing, it was a very nice Christmas day, and part 2, involving my family, is yet to come. I'm very lucky. I think that I will go try to see what I can do to reduce my desire to remove my head until it stops stabbing me, though. |
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| NVIDIA: Only in Black! |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|12:04 am] |
- Go to Dell.ca. (Also works on Dell.com, I can't swear for other countries.)
- Click "For Small and Medium Business" at the top, then "Laptops and Tablets".
- Click "Choose Vostro" under the Vostro laptops.
- Click "Choose" under the Vostro 1520.
- Click "Customize it" under the rightmost model that says "Includes a 256MB Video Card".
- Click "System Color" in the icons near the bottom.
- Choose "Deep Cherry Red".
- Receive a compatability warning telling you that the NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS 256MB (the only video card option for this model) is incompatible with your colour selection.
Buh?
P.S. Merry Christmas, everyone who celebrates it (and happy Friday to everyone else)! (It's just a hair past midnight here.) |
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| +/- |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|10:18 pm] |
+ Today was my last day of work before the holidays...
- ...but I'm going to have to remote in and work a bit during my "vacation" due to poor planning, or something.
+ I had a lovely dinner out with today...
- ...but I seem to be infected with whatever she had the other day. I hope it passes as quickly as it did for her. I feel pretty crappy at the moment, and Holiday Mayhem begins tomorrow.
+ elwoodontario gifted me with a lovely gift for use on the Sony eBook Store, for which I am very grateful.
- They seem to have made some changes to how the store couples Sony accounts and Adobe accounts which may cause eeyorerin, and I a very large amount of grief. |
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