11/05/2002

Life continues to be good. I finally figured out a couple of semi-interesting things to say, so I guess it's time to post once again. The site building system seems to be working quite well. I might come up with a new rant, soon.. I got pretty much all that was bothering me off my chest in the last two.. :) Life is good, and Thanksgiving is hotly anticipated..

For programming fun, I've been looking for something to do to teach myself Perl. I found something! Being a UNIX junkie, I use the command-line most of the time (think of that scary C:\>_ thing..). I also like to listen to music, but the only players I know of for the UNIX command-line only play one media format, whereas I've got several mp3's and ogg's and other types that I'd like to just play randomly without me worrying about the filetype. So, I'm writing a Perl script to recognize what kind of file wants to play, then use the right player. Play randomly, from lists, etc. It's fun so far. It'll go up on the Programming page when I've got something tangible.

And one last note. Terribly exciting mid-term elections! My team won again! Yah GOP! Ah, but my true sympathies and ideals lie elsewhere than the Republicans. I'm really a little more concerned with personal freedom, as in what Thomas Jefferson and the gang likely envisioned. The Libertarians suit my fancy a bit better. And you know what's cool? My high school best friend's dad (link removed.. it's pr0n now..) was running on their ticket for the senate in Illinois! How cool is that? Apparently he got about 2% of the vote, which is pretty darn respectable for a Libertarian. I thought that was awfully cool.. Go Steve!

And to wrap up, I bought a CD for the first time in about a year. Yup, being broke stinks. Listen to Great Big Sea and buy all their albums. Then go see them live, like I have three times in the past year. They're fantastic live, and are actually pretty popular in Canada. I just bought the new album, Sea of No Cares, which I'm enjoying quite a bit. Go invest in your favorite artist! :)

11/12/2002

Keeping up my rigorous schedule of updating my log regularly. Whew.. Make one comment to someone, "You should update your site more often.." and see what happens? That girl is nuts. :) Speaking of Kathleen, Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh is looking pretty for sure, unless I want to eat a non-refundable plane ticket instead of a Kvortek turkey. Turkey sounds fine to me..

I got that perl program done in record time. Perl, as I have heard, seems to be pretty quick to write and test. I named it in homage to the two main programs I have it use to play media, mpg123 (actually, I use mpg321) and ogg123. My program's name is thus mus123, as it plays anything potentially, as opposed to just ogg or mpeg audio. I'll get a link up soon on the programming pages.

Home this past weekend was good fun. Good quality time with the lil' sis, and PND did an excellent job with the fall production of Neil Simon's Rumors. They're hoping to make it to the state competition, and it looks like they have a very good chance. Go Irish!

Oh, and a happy little bonus for the weekend. The drive home to Peoria was fairly rotten because apparently the antenna on my car is pretty non-functional. I spent a couple of hours with no radio. I sang to myself a lot and had some quality "me" time, but I had had about enough of that by about halfway through my 6 hour drive to Peoria. So I decided that this weekend was the time to buy a new car stereo, before I either fell asleep at the wheel or ran my car off the road to break the monotony. Do I have a video game attention span? Perhaps.. So, with a little bit of early birthday help from Dad, I stopped by Circuit City and got a deal on a stereo with a CD player and an auxiliary input, so that I can hook up an mp3 player, computer, or whatever else. Fun fun.

Obligatory links: art for hire at timwasson.com. Tim's a great artist, and kook to boot. His personal page is vulgar but hilarious. All I can say is I'm glad I never lived with those guys..

They must have noticed my latest update.. We aim to please.

11/13/2002

Another day, another update.. Well, that hasn't exactly been the policy here, but it's good to want things, right? Well, in the interest of entertaining you even though I don't get to see you that often (interpret that how you will) I've come up with what appears to be fun little site. eBaum's World. If the front logo doesn't trip you out, the insensitivity cards may bring a tear to your eye. Little crude at times, but what can you expect? This is the internet. The more I look through this site, the more I realize it's mostly just collecting other stuff from across the internet and putting them together. Everything from fun flash games to to not-so-fun dating simulators. <shudder> That's a little scary. Fun stuff, and fun collection of internet crud, but also a bit of "mad sketchiness," as my friend Jackie might say if she were to see some of the seedier stuff. Long enough description?

14 days. Two weeks. One fortnight. Antsy? Me? Neah..

11/20/2002

File this update under the eternal struggle to find Cool Computer Parts™. My brother ran across a discussion on KCGeek about a really cool new case called the I-Tee. Besides the iMac-ish name, it looks cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet. Probably the most original case design I've ever seen. I emailed them to see if there was an American distributor or if they could ship to me in KC. Here is the response I got, which sounds like it ran through babelfish a few times:

   Dear Mr. Brian Kelly,

   Thank you for your e-mail.
   We are very sorry to advise you that we haven't export our i-Tee
   case to USA now, but there are some customers who want to 
   be our distributors in USA and we still discuss this thing.
   After we have distributor in USA we will advise you soon.

   Your cooperation with us should be much appreciated.

   Best regards,

   <Name removed to protect someone who didn't do his English homework>

I had a good laugh at the last line, but it looks like they may be able to get one to me eventually, so all good. It's an awfully cool case, and one part of a new computer that I could get now, pay an exorbitant amount for, and then sit on while I collect the rest of the parts. Cases don't go obsolete too often. :) They've got a customer in me as soon as they can sell to me.

No plans for the weekend. I think John is heading to Iowa to watch some of his crazy "healthy" friends run through the mud while he drinks beer. I'm sure that'll be a good time. Maybe I'll come along, but the logistics of a departure time probably wouldn't favor that. I'll probably just get closer with my video games. Yup, it rocks being me sometimes.

I've always known it was "Hook." That's the name of the song, ya' know. :) Good tune..

11/21/2002

Front page getting too big again. Backed it all up.. The website keeps chugging and I keep plugging. I finally saw a doctor yesterday, thanks to my nice insurance plan. Perhaps I'm on the road to Wellville? Or at least feeling-better-ville? Not that I'm feeling real bad lately, just like to be proactive. :) Life continues to be good. Sorry nothing too interesting to say..

11/24/2002

Pretty mellow day. Got the oil changed in the old Saturn and no not-so-fun surprises involved, so I was happy. Talkative guy in the waiting room. Nice guy, but I just wanted to read Newsweek. Funny. :) Following a quick catch-up with John (in Des Moines) including directions to the mall, I headed south to do some shopping ("Hmm, this Dalai Lama guy has a lot of books..") and check out Harry Potter's latest adventure. I found the movie really really enjoyable. I laughed a little too loud at times for being "the guy by himself" at the theatre. I think a lot of the kids there thought it was pretty scary, especially the spiders. Heck, I was freaked out then. Hate spiders..

Depressingly, I got fast food for dinner, and the guy at the drive-through recognized me and gave me a free soda. I don't know what to think of that.. I think overall it's bad. I really don't go there that often. Usually too poor. Played a bit of Zelda and got frustrated ("How did I lose the big key?"), so put that down. Well, there's mass in the morning; that's pretty much the up I need..

Off to P-burgh soon enough.. One day of work..

11/26/2002

Work is going well, but my mind is elsewhere, believe it or not. I should get approximately 4 hours of sleep tonight, but I figure I'll be pretty wired tomorrow, so it'll work out well in that I'll be able to go to bed when Kathleen's parents do, which she tells me is a bit earlier than what I'm used to. :)

I finally rustled together enough cash to get a cell phone. Surprise, I got Sprint. With unlimited nights and weekends, don't be surprised when I go on calling sprees at right around 9pm central. I got one of those new PCS Vision phones that you can learn more about here. I like it, and it has Super Monkey Ball!

Visions of stuffing and drumsticks, dancing in my head..

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