I got Jay a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, being that he has a pedantic attention for grammar and punctuation. Within four days of that purchase, I now find my self in possession of two e-mails that either demonstrate that the authors have broken keyboards, or they are engaging in some form of performance e-mail art.

Good Morning Everyone!

Hope everyone is well and had a good weekend.

STUDENTS ONLY - (Name removed)'s computer system is not fully functional, at this time. She has requested that I ask you to please, if you have orders, to be placed, to walk your orders to her and she will place them, for you, at another computer. For those of you who sent e-mails, with your orders, last week, to also, please hand carry them, fully composed, to her, for submittal, in Oracle.

Thanks so much.

(Name removed)

and this one from a shipping company, which is apparently bill their e-mails by the vowel or sends them via telegraph:

good morning i have been advd by your agent overseas that we have a cod due at this time on your shpt from the steamship lines that is for documentation and terminal handling charges

the amount for this is usd xx we have been advd that is is to be collcted from you at time of dely so be prepared at this time to pay this amount day of dely of your goods

if you have any questions on your move, please contact (name removed) at (number removed) he will be following up on your shpt thanks

ln m, honeyfields, pqbon, and I got into a long discussion over the aesthetics of the new iMac (with some Powerbook tangents). This comic succinctly summarizes much of our 30 minutes of conversation, right down to the post-it notes.

I would also like to add that IMHO, it looks like the iMac got hit with the stupid stick (I'm sure Jay Leno likes it). I also boldly assert that this is the least user friendly computer design manufactured by any company (including PCs) in the past five years (no easily accessible USB ports, headphone jacks, or power button -- in fact, everything is equally inaccessible).

Any other praise/not-praise?

zealot sent me a link to the Grayson 'trailer' over at Untamed Cinema. Its one of the few trailers you want to give away a lot of the plot, seeing as the actual movie doesn't exist. Fun stuff.

I have a pattern of alternating styles of books, usually intermixing non-fiction or thought-intensive fiction with light-hearted sci-fi. I've often referred to this latter category as a "palette cleanser," as its main purpose is to wash my mind clean.

I'm starting to rely on Terry Pratchett books to fulfill this role (not that humor isn't good literature) because his books are both hilarious and quick-to-read, which are both good properties of a good interstice. I also don't feel bad about not remembering the details of what happened, as Pratchett doesn't appear interested either, particularly as it pertains to geography. Seeing as Pratchett's written a bazillion of these Discworld novels, his books will enable me to continue this pattern into the foreseeable future. (I used to use Stephen King as my palette cleanser

I've finished the fifth book now -- Sourcery -- and I figured its about time that I do an entry on one of these books. It somewhat defeats the purpose of an interstitial palette cleanser to do a blog entry on each one, but five sounds like a good number to do one. It wasn't my favorite of the first five in the series (that honor probably goes to Color of Magic or Equal Rites), but it was entertaining nevertheless.

In the extended entry I have four quotes that I liked, with full page images for you to enjoy.

I thought above graphic is an interesting representation in how the current set of politically minded books isn't opening minds as much as it is reinforcing current divisions in our political discourse. Apparently this graphic by Valdis Krebs was first published in the New York Times, and it was recently mentioned by Udell. It uses Amazon related purchase data to generate the links.

Kerry Rips Cheney Statement (washingtonpost.com)

In a change that highlighted the sensitivity of Cheney's statement, the White House yesterday released a revised version of the transcript of his remarks. The official transcript, posted on the White House Web site Tuesday afternoon and e-mailed to reporters, said: "(I)t's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again."

In a version released Tuesday to reporters traveling with Cheney, however, the period at the end of "hit again" was removed and replaced with a comma, which linked his blunter statement to his standard stump language expressing concern that future attacks would be treated as "just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war."

Yesterday, the transcript on the White House Web site was altered to make Cheney's remarks one sentence. Cheney's White House spokesman, Kevin Kellems, issued a statement saying that the first official transcript "contained a typographical error" and was an "interim draft." "These types of corrections are not uncommon in the transcription of verbal statements," Kellems said. "The final transcript accurately reflects the statement as delivered, which is clear when watching video of the event."

I just read through Flexbeta's Guide To Firefox Extensions and ended up installing a couple more Firefox extensions. My current list of extensions is:

• DOM Inspector (rarely use, just re-enables the old DOM Inspector)
• BugMeNot (frequently use, makes it much easier to read news on registration-required sites)
• SpellBound (frequently use, lets me spellcheck )
• Web Developer (frequently use, though prefer CSS editing bookmarklets in general)
• Adblock (always in use, NYTimes and WaPo never looked more legible)
• Copy Plain Text (imagine I'll use, haven't had the need yet, cleans up clipboard text)
• Translate (sometimes use, saves me from typing in babelfish)
• LiveHTTPHeaders (frequently use, awesome if you sysadmin or write servlets)
• MiniT (sometimes use, lets me reorder tabs)

Just installed: * DictionarySearch (search for definition of any word on page) * FLST (when you close a tab Firefox will switch to the last open tab, which seems more correct) * Allow Right-Click (override annoying javascript that disables right click menu) * ImageZoom * Statusbar Clock (can't have enough clocks on my desktop)

Spotted this at one of the booths at the T-Mobile bike race. You can get more info at forzzaimports.com. (More photos in the extended entry)

I got in a lot of sports watching this weekend. I got to see USC beat up Colorado State 49-0, and the Redskins defense beatdown the Bucs 16-10 (the offense was a bit lacking). The biggest event of the weekend, though, was watching this year's T-Mobile International (Al and Jill came along, which was great, because I'd never been able to convince anyone to go with me before). As always, the race provided a very exciting finish.

It was a bit of the old and new in this year's race. Armstrong did not start for the first time, and the free "Go Lance!" signs were missing (sad, because I really wanted to get a 6x sign to go with my 4x and 5x signs). The US Postal merchandise tents seemed eager to be dumping old merchandise and was selling 4x and 5x champion gear at a discount.

Previous winners Chris Horner and Charles Dionne were back, but with Horner's Saturn team now defunct, and with Dionne perennially vying for a new contract every September, both were now racing for the local Webcor team.

With three laps to go, everyone (including myself) had thought that the US Olympian Jason McCartney had won it all -- he had a lead of over 4:30, which with 15 miles to go seemed unassailable. When you're watching the riders go by, a 4:30 lead seems like a gigantic distance, especially when the Muni officials are able to let six trolley cars safely cross the race course in-between the leader and the next rider.

US Postal pulled riders back from chase groups and formed an alliance with Webcor to chase McCartney down, but their coordinated pace still did not seem quick enough as McCartney took 1:30 lead into the final lap.

Horner did the pulling for Dionne, and Dionne launched a killer attack on the Taylor hill, which became McCartney's undoing. Hincapie, despite all the efforts of his US Postal teammates, didn't have it in him to give chase, and only Fred Rodriguez gave any pursuit (after wasting time trying to recruit others to help chase).

I got to see Dionne and Rodriguez come around the final bend, and the gap was simply too much to be chased down, so Dionne became the first rider to ever win the SF race twice.

I was amazed to listen to Rodriguez's interview after the race, in which he talked about his crash during the race and mentioned that after the crash he couldn't use his left leg to pedal anymore. So not only did he catch back up to the pursuit group after getting his bike replaced and seat adjusted on the fly, but he was also the only person to give chase to Dionne at the end and did so with only one leg working. It's easy to see why he's the US pro cycling champion.

Dionne repeats as T-Mobile champ

The Java's builtin XML parser (Apache Crimson) is a steaming pile of poo. Those of you who wish to save 1MB by ditching Xerces, I would ask, "Is a pile of poo worth 1MB?"

I just downloaded the preview release of Firefox 1.0, and they've just added a new feature that makes you think, "Now this is how things are supposed to be."

The feature that has me loving the new Firefox is Live Bookmarks. Described simply, Live Bookmarks allow you to add RSS feeds to your bookmarks that appear as folders, i.e. if I create a live bookmark for my site, then there will be a folder called "kwc blog" filled with bookmarks for the latest entries from my site. There's even auto-discovery, so when you visit a site that has a feed you'll see a icon on the bottom status bar that you can click on and choose the feed you want to create a Live Bookmark for. But it's so much cooler than that.

The reason why its so much cooler is that I can create Live Bookmarks for my del.icio.us bookmarks. Now my online bookmarks appear as real bookmarks inside of my browser, and it only took a couple clicks to setup. For those of you who use del.icio.us, you might understand why I think this is so cool. Those of you who don't, you're missing out :).

I got back all my photos from the T-Mobile race. Unfortunately, my first roll was ruined by stale film, but there's still more than enough photos to surf through. All the more reason for me to get a Digital Canon Rebel.

T-Mobile 2004 Photos (127 photos)

Note: none of the timestamps for the 35mm film photos are correct, though I did try to approximately place them so that the flow of the photos would be reasonable. If you're sharp enough to be able to tell the difference (hint: digital photos are blurry) then you can gauge the time correctly.

For reference, US Postal's number assignments:

12 Viatcheslav Ekimov (Rus)
13 Jose Azevedo (Por)
14 Michael Creed (USA)
15 Pavel Padrnos (Cze)
16 George Hincapie (USA)
17 Jose Rubiera (Spa)
18 Benjamin Noval (Spa)

I've got tickets to Friday's Giants game. I'm crossing my fingers that Bonds doesn't hit a homerun tonight. The 700 HR festivities would probably be a lot of fun.

Update: Woohoo! No Homer!

Bob Full gave an interesting forum at PARC almost three years ago to this day, so there was a bit of nostalgia when I came across this press release updating on his progress with his cockroach and gecko.

PARC Forum: Bipedal Bugs, Galloping Ghosts and Gripping Geckos: BioInspired Computer Animation, Robots and Adhesives

Apparently, a Dell X300 laptop cannot survive a fall from a car seat to the pavement below. It now awaits the services of the Dell Necromancer, who should have it reanimated by Tuesday or so. From now until then I'll be toting around a 15" TiBook, experiencing the wonders of not being able to access menus directly with the keyboard.

Besides the keyboard shortcut problems I've been having, my Powerbook experience has gone fairly well. It's hard to judge off of just one day's use, but I wish the following applications were on Windows:

• Adium: IM client. Visually better than Trillian with a lot more customization. Also has scripting support, which could theoretically be used to implement some cool features such as IMing your home computer to find out it's current CPU status or what it's playing on iTunes, or write more advanced applications like caltrainbot. No metacontacts yet, though that appears to be coming soon.
• Quicksilver: I'm hoping Google improves its deskbar and/or their Puffin technology will be competitive with this. Any application that makes it so that I don't have to use a mouse for a task is instantly a favorite with me.
• iTerm: terminal window with tabbing.

I also installed Fugu for SCP/SFTP, but this is slightly more clunky than WinSCP when it comes to bookmarking directories and sites.

As for OS X, I like the fact that application installation is so much easier and doesn't result in 200 files being copied onto my hard drive. I also think that the way applications and user data is separated makes it a whole lot easier to backup your personal data.

I also like the fact that OS X doesn't suffer from the branding/marketing spam that Windows does, though that's not necessarily Microsoft's fault. When I first setup my Dad's HP desktop, the entire desktop was covered with ads for AOL, HP products, Musicmatch, etc... Somehow the OS X aesthetic seems to resist this clutter. The same lack of clutter applies to the laptops themselves: my Dell is covered with Intel, Windows, FCC, licensing, service, and other stickers and certifications that get gummy and nasty with use.

I also appreciate the fact that applications are named more simply. Microsoft's applications have clunky names like Outlook Express, Windows Movie Maker 2, Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, etc... (apologies if I got any of these wrong. My Windows laptop is resisting power-on). It's kind of nice to create a new account and see "Mail", "iTunes", "iPhoto", etc... along with a nearly empty desktop. Not all of Apple's applications follow simple naming conventions, but I do imagine that a novice user would have a much easier time getting started with a Mac than a Windows PC (and there's no stupid Start Menu to have to keep organized).

Anyway, that's it for now. Off to the Giants game. This may be the only game that I will cheer for Bonds, lest Kenji pass me in the fantasy baseball standings.

I got to see Bonds hit his 700th homerun. It was only my second Giants game and it was sweet. Driving up Al said that he didn't think that the Padres would pitch to Bonds, but after we immediately found a street parking spot two blocks from the stadium he changed his mind -- we were feeling lucky.

The Giants were teeing of Peavy pretty good early in the game, but Peavy hit Bonds in his first at bat -- Peavy was at least pitching to Bonds. In his second at bat Bonds took the second pitch over the left field wall. It wasn't his typical right-field blast, but you could feel that thing carrying. Then there was pandemonium with fireworks and streamers and a lot of screaming and brief standing ovations.

It was a good night.

Photos of Bonds 700th HR (no photos of the actual HR as I was too busy watching the ball fly out of the park)

The disk running the database for my computer looks like it might be ready to burnout. Its getting old and its been hit by a wave of power outages. If you had/have trouble commenting or reaching this site, this is probably why. I will have to take everything offline soon and fix it, but in the meantime apologies for the outages.

Our tech guy here took my laptop apart into tiny pieces and reassembled into a whole beast again. There are a couple of ugly cracks, but otherwise it appears to be roaring once more. This probably means the end of the Powerbook experience, though it was fun I liked the applications on OS X; in general the freeware stuff tended to be much higher-quality than what you get on Windows, which suffers from (a) too much legacy (b) too much signal-to-noise (c) lower-quality developer tools.

However, I missed the zippiness of my Dell laptop. The turnaround time on some of my code edits was like watching grass grow. Extrapolating from my history file I spent 32 minutes today waiting for my code to load on the 500Mhz (almost 30 seconds per load). If I did the same task on my 1Ghz laptop it would have only spent 6-7 minutes (we clocked a 1.5 Ghz Powerbook at 11.5 minutes).

My conclusion: it would be nice to have a Mac around the house for non-coding tasks and to run Mac-only apps, but at work I can't live without my PC.

The clickwheels look way cooler without the touch surface on top of them. I wonder how I can modify mine?

MP3 Insider: The Secret Behind the iPod's Scrollwheel

(SPOILER NOTE: I don't discuss any plot specifics, though any critique of a movie will tend to affect the way you view a movie, so if you wish to see the movie with virgin eyes, read no more). There's something I find amusing about Sky Captain in that they spent $70 million to on CGI to make a movie that looks a lot like Citizen Kane. That's not entirely true of course -- Citizen Kane didn't have gigantic robots for one -- but in many ways, from the characters, to the lighting, to the framing, I felt like I was watching an Orson Welles movie. There's also a bit of comic book style to the flick, and some Indiana Jones.

It was fun seeing a movie based in 1930s/40s mechanical sci-fi fantasy. With modern sci-fi busy exploring the takeover of mankind by computers, a nostalgic look at where we thought science and technology were taking us is refreshing. The dashing aviator and heroine reporter were also fun to see back on the big screen.

With all that said, I don't know if I would recommend Sky Captain or not. As adventure plots go, I thought it was poor. There are times where suspension of disbelief was not enough for me to cover-up contrived plot elements -- there was a certain element of, "Oh, we're under attack? Lets wait until they start blowing stuff up before we react," sort of logic to the whole movie that was off-putting. The movie also failed to build up dramatic tension for me -- the save-the-world story flow was so formulaic that it took itself for granted and didn't seem to bother trying to invest the viewer in itself. The characters act so non-chalantly in the face of danger that the viewer has trouble feeling any suspense on their part.

On the other hand, the visuals/style were beautiful. The CGI style reminded me of something Dave McKean said with regard to Mirrormask. He said that many people view realism as the goal for CGI, which seems silly, because with CGI you have entire realm of possibility outside of realistic (illustrative/dream-like). Sky Captain exemplifies some of these possibilities in ways that may echo through future movie productions.

Verdict: I dunno. See it as a matinee and split the difference :). You'll probably have fun, but you'll probably have more fun watching the new Star Wars Trilogy DVDs.

Are people interested in a viewing of the Star Wars DVDs at 99, and if so, in what format (i.e. marathon, one a week, just Empire, etc...)

I just found out that MLB.com has video clips of games for sale for $0.99 (full game is $3.95). This seems fairly reasonable for me. $0.99 and I get to have a video clip of Bonds 700th to keep as a memento.

I don't have time to try it just now, but I'm going to give it a shot later and figure out whether or not its good/bad/overly DRM'd/etc...

Major League Baseball : DDS : Digital Download Service

Joey arranged a little shooting trip for us, which was a whole lot of fun. I haven't shot since I took the Pistol PE class in college, and I've never been able to shoot that many different firearms. There were a couple shotguns, a .44 magnum, a Desert Eagle, a Glock .40, various .22 revolvers, a Sig P226, and some other guns that I'm not gun-savvy enough to remember. The P226 was the best balance of accuracy/power of the guns I shot, though I thought the Glock .40 felt better because the grip on the P226 was a bit small for my hands. The Desert Eagle and .44 Magnum were pure entertainment.

One of the more entertaining aspects of the evening was watching honeyfields holds guns that grossly outsize her. If you're in need of entertainment, be sure to check out the video of her shooting the shotgun (click on photo above, ~5MB). You can see the range instructor come in and out of frame as he tries to position himself to catch her in case she flies backwards. There's a another clip I have of her after her first shot with the shotgun when the range instructor asks her if she wants to shoot some more and she's holding back this grin. You can e-mail me if you want the URL of that one as well as some other photos.

You can checkout photos of my target in the extended entry. It's not very interesting -- we only got one target so I had to shoot to use the whole target. I aimed at the center, left 7, right 8, top 8, and bottom 8 for the most part. We were rotating guns so we didn't get to adjust the sights, but beyond 20 feet my groupings sucked anyways and I couldn't see where I was hitting on the blue target.

USC 10  7  7  7 31
STA  7 21  0  0 28

I love going to USC games. I haven't been to any home games, but their games at Stanford are great events. There are enough USC fans that it seems like a home game, and the USC marching band does performances both before and after the game to keep the USC fans entertained. You also have to like a team where even the head coach is playing catch during warm-up, and the football players come over the USC section to salute them.

Last time I saw USC play Stanford in person, USC stomped the Cardinal 49-17 (2002), and given that today's line was 22 points, I was expecting a similar experience as two years ago. Man was I wrong.

USC went up early, but Stanford picked away at the lead with a pass attack and good punt returns. USC also made its share of mistakes, including allowing an 82 yard touchdown on the final play of the first half on a run where Stanford was just trying to run out the clock. Even when USC forced fumbles, Stanford seemed to recovered (3-0). As the game went into halftime I was shocked to see Stanford up 28-17.

The second half was a different story. Reggie Bush seemed to wake up -- his punt returns looked like someone was hitting the spin button on Madden and his running game went from backwards to 5+ yards/carry. USC scored two touchdowns in the second half and could have scored three (they ran the clock out), and their offense gained control over the game.

It helped that Buddy Teevens seemed eager to coach Stanford out of the game. Despite having no evidence of a running game in the first half, Stanford kept going to the running game in a failed attempt to run some time off the clock. If he had stuck with the successful passing game, who knows, but instead Stanford kept going three and out, which gave USC plenty of time and opportunity to catch up.

Your wedding was a great conclusion to a great weekend. Congratulations and have a great honeymoon!

An earthquake this morning and I missed it all because my car suspension absorbed it all. Granted, it wasn't even strong enough to dislodge my collection of iTunes promotion bottlecaps, but still, where's the fun?

I've added my reading queue to my reading list. The list is a bit overwhelming at the number of unread books on my bookshelf represents over a year's worth of reading, especially since my Caltrain time has decreased.

I'm looking for suggestions as to which books to promote/demote in the list. If you liked/hated any of the books in this list, or, heaven forbid, you have more books to recommend, feel free to comment.

PS: the list is still incomplete. There's a several more graphic novels, some books on loan, and non-Amazon-listed books in the queue as well.

I'm starting to browse through teachingcomics.org, which I saw referenced on Neil Gaiman's journal. It's a site designed to help teachers teach comics as part of their curriculum.

I'm already hooked now that I read Stan Sakai's Usagi Step-by-Step Handout. There are also study guides for Maus, Watchmen, and Ghost World among others, which reminds me that I need to add all three of those to my reading backlog shelf. There's not too much original material on the site, but there's more than enough for someone like me who has no drawing/writing talent.

Nah, I'll stay an Orioles fan, even though they suck too: Expos moving to Washington

Besides taking one of the best digs at Terrell Owens ("Tonight, we will leave our mark on the game of football... We will NOT, however, leave our mark ON the football"), Sharpie now has retractable markers. Must... have.... them... all...

After a series of mis-starts, it looks like Discovery is finally gonna let loose with the new MythBusters season. Tonight's episode features Archimedes using mirrors to set fire to the Roman fleet. I'm looking forward to the "Beat the Radar Detector" episode Oct. 17 and the "Levitation Machine" on Oct. 6.

In other TV news, I'm headed over the s's place to see the Lost premiere. No other new show this season has caught my eye so I'm looking for new shows to fill up my TiVo with.

I got my first TiVo referral today, which qualifies me for an exciting set of TiVo coasters, a limited edition remote, or a USB network adapter. I'm really hoping to get up to 4 referrals, which will qualify me for a brand-new iPod. I figure by the time that I actually get 4 referrals, there will be a brand-new uber-iPod out by then with every dream feature I've always wanted.

Update: according to my login menu, this entry is 1337