Geek

Oldies.

I was just able to import all of my old blogger blog entries from July 2002 to May 2005 into the current incarnation of “Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity”. Looking back over these moldy oldies makes me realize a couple of things:

  1. I babble on and on about the same things.
  2. I’m constantly looking to improve myself.
  3. I’m sort of eccentric in an odd way.

Now I just need to figure out how to get that first year’s worth of manual journal entries into the software. Maybe I’ll save that task for the next rainy day.

Me. Me.

Michael at Manhattan Chowder has tagged me for a meme so now I get to write about Me. Me. Shocking!

So here are the rule of the tag:

* Post a similar post like this one and add a linkback to the person who tagged you.
* List down 5 reasons why you blog about the things you blog on your blog.
* Choose your 5 tag ‘victim’ and tag them nicely 🙂
* Write a comment on their blog letting them know that you tagged them. Voila!

And away we go:

5. I think it’s important to give the world the opportunity to see into the lives of your normal, everyday, low drama gay couple.
4. I like writing. I ain’t so good at it sometimes but nonetheless I love throwing words on a computer screen, arranging them in a sensible manner and making them stick.
3. I like the geek aspects of blogging, making everything look nice, arguing with my webspace provider on what I want to accomplish, keeping the software running.
2. People in my real life have grown bored of my bitching, now I can just bitch out loud to anyone that will spend a few moments on my blog. I have an opinion on anything and everything and it’s good to be able to share that.
1. I love making people laugh, giggle or at least chuckle. Hopefully some of my blog entries do that for the reader.

So now I get to tag someone else. As we spin the wheel of bloggers, we land on:

Sean at Idle Eyes and a Dormy
Séan at pretinama
Karl at Adventures in Gastronomy
Pete at It’s Just Nothing
Jeffrey at Allogenes

I’m not a big fan of leaving comments tagging people, as I feel like I’m trying to push viagara or something when I’m doing it, so don’t be surprised if I don’t mention it. Does that make me a bad meme-er? Gosh, I always feel so dirty with the tagging part, like I’m passing a chain letter or something. If this is a chain letter then I wish nothing but happiness for those that receive it, regardless of what they do with the meme.

Now I won’t feel as guilty.

Group Effort.

So last night was the season finale for “Heroes”, bringing a close to this volume of the series. Be forewarned that I may mention spoilers if you haven’t seen the episode yet.

Earl and I were in his hotel room in Schenectady last night so we had to watch the episode in “real time” versus tape delay via TiVo. I don’t know how normal viewers tolerate the huge number of commercials in the show! It’s a little bit out of control. I highly recommend that those with access to iTunes download the episode if they can’t watch it without the ads via a TiVo or something.

It looks like I’m running contrary to the fans on the 9th Wonders message board (one of the many sites devoted to the show). Most of the fanboys felt this episode was a let down but I have to say that I truly enjoyed it. The writers would be fools to bring complete closure to the series with this episode, so we were left with some lingering questions that will undoubtedly be addressed in Volume 2.

This was the first episode where I actually cheered for Niki when she whacked Sylar across the face with the parking meter and when she knocked out that increasingly irritating Candace. One little nitpick: previous episodes alluded to the fact that Candace never appears as her true self because she’s heavy, and when she was knocked unconscious (or dead) by Niki she went back to the pretty version of Candace. Should she have reverted to some person we’ve never seen before?

I thought the teaser of Volume 2, with Hiro in 17th century Japan, looked interesting but it didn’t engage me as a viewer. I’m not sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for next season.

On the whole, though, I appreciated the fact that the Heroes were all working together at the end of the episode and I was pleased with the manner and amount of resolution we were presented with.

The only downside to the showing was the preview of “Bionic Woman”. That looks like it could be a good show but it is definitely NOT the Bionic Woman we know. They should have come up with a new Bionic Woman and then got all Buffy or Alias on us. I wish they would change the name of the lead character to something other than Jaime Sommers.

Once You Go Mac…

So I’m back on my PowerBook G4 full-time again. Last night I had to catch up on some web site work for my various sites, as well as some sites I maintain for various charitable organizations. While I don’t use a lot of the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing functions unless I’m in a crunch and use the same text editor on both Linux and OS X (Vim for the most part), I had a dilly of a time trying to create graphics and maintain the sites using the tools available on Linux. I could accomplish the task, but it wasn’t as easy to do as it was on my PowerBook.

Plus, any and all fonts look infinitely better on OS X and that makes a considerable difference when you’re staring at the screen for long periods of time.

So I moved all my files to the larger server in the house (we have two here, yes I am an übergeek), powered down the HP computer and powered my PowerBook back up. The rest of my editing flew once I switched back and the whole experience felt more comfortable.

If you don’t want or have a Mac, I still recommend Ubuntu Linux for the everyday chores. I had a weird thing going on with YouTube videos locking up the system that I couldn’t solve and I couldn’t make any vidcasts using Linux due to a lack of webcam drivers, but for everything else I must say that Ubuntu was adequate. It’s not as nice as Mac but it’s not as vulnerable as Windows when it comes to security and the great part is the fact that it’s free.

I guess it’s true that once you go Mac you never go back.

Coming Soon.

My friend Sean at Idle Eyes and a Dormy just sent me the link to the cover art for the upcoming DVD release of “The Secrets of Isis”. What a beautiful way to start a day.

Here’s a link to the article. By the way, I’m the one that’s been changing Wikipedia back to “The Secrets of Isis” (with ‘secrets’ a plural) because that’s the way it’s suppose to be. I might be hazy on a few things about my childhood, but I am never hazy about Isis.

Andy Mangels, author and comic book editor (and bear!), is guiding the project, which is scheduled for release on July 24.

Isis DVD.

Switch.

Some of my readers have noticed that the “Made On A Mac” badge in the right-hand corner has been replaced with a “Made On Ubuntu” flag. It’s true, and I may have mentioned it before, but I have moved off of my beloved PowerBook G4 onto my HP Pavilion laptop full time. There’s a couple of reasons for this, the primary being that I had this beautiful laptop that we had purchased last fall for school that I wasn’t using. It was just sort of sitting there on the other desk, occasionally being used for school work. I couldn’t post my homework to my online classes using it, because Windows Vista isn’t compatible with the industry standard “Blackboard” software (for online classes) used by thousands of college.

The other thing that has been sort of bugging me about Apple, aside from the delay of their latest version of OS X, Leopard, is their advertising campaign. The “Hi, I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” ads have been on for a year or two. They’re starting to get on my nerves because I’m finding them somewhat hypocritical. Apple makes fun of the fact that Microsoft delayed Vista for five years and then delays Leopard six months. Apple’s latest ad makes fun of the trial software installed on Windows computers, which I find exceedingly annoying as well, however, Earl and I have had to remove trial software from our new Macs. Plus the guy that plays the Mac is getting entirely too greasy for my tastes. I like my Macs to look clean cut.

As a former commercial copy writer for both television and radio, I always worked under the thought that the best commercial is the ad that points out the positives of a product instead of harping on the negatives of your competition. At the very least, don’t harp on your competitor for doing something and then doing the exact same thing.

So I wiped out the hard drives on my new HP and installed Ubuntu Linux. The setup survived the acid test of the 12-hour ride in the car yesterday, with several stops in wi-fi spots.

I’ve made the switch. To Linux.

Blog Maintenance: Here We Are.

Well, I’ve messed around with this blog layout on and off all day today. After a discussion with Earl regarding our website, we’ve decided that we’re going to completely revamp the site, so this is the new look of the blog.

I hope that you find your reading experience in this new format to be enjoyable, please let me know if there are any quirks that you encounter. I’ll still be tweaking here and there as my moderate OCD kicks in, so you might see a few improvements once in a while.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program!

The Panera Experience.

Earl and I are sitting in our local Panera. Oh, by the way, we’re back home from Gettysburg. This is our second Panera stop today.

Earl finished up his meetings this morning around 11, so we checked out of the hotel and hit the road. We were originally going to visit some of the historic sites and the battlefield at Gettysburg, but Mother Nature decided that we should visit another time when it’s sunny, so we headed north to Harrisburg. Earl had a conference call at noon, so I got him situated in the car in The Capital City Mall parking lot. I went and browsed while he chatted with his peers on the cell phone. He then joined me for lunch when he was done.

It was still raining so we decided to head home. To break up the monotony otherwise known as Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, we stopped at a new retail outlet called “The Shoppes at Montage”. By the way, adding the “ppes” to “shops” makes it trés chic.

Actually, it’s a nice place to browse and shop. We picked up a couple of picture frames for the house at The Christmas Shoppe. We also had a quick snack at the new Panera there.

We got home just a little while ago. It’s still raining, but not too bad. Not in the mood to cook, Earl suggested our local Panera where we could surf and dine. So that’s what we are doing right now. Like many of the retail establishments in our area, this Panera has been “localfied” with a strategic amount of wear, tear and disarray to make the locals feel at home.

I find the effect rather disconcerting.

Blog Maintenance: Don’t Be Afraid

I’m in the process of migrating my blogging software to a new platform (WordPress). It should be done by the end of the weekend. You might see some weird messages or changing formats untiI I get everything in place, but fear not, my entries and your comments will not be lost. I would never let that happen.

Update! If you’re using an RSS Feed to monitor this, you’ll probably have to update your bookmark/favorite.

Technology.

I am sitting in lovely Syracuse, N.Y. in the food court at Carousel Center as I type this blog entry. I had no intention of coming here today, but I’ve been riding around in the car and decided that this was as good a place as any to stop for a bit.

I’ve been riding around because I’ve decided to take a new approach to my vidcasts. I have retitled the feature “Let’s Go For A Ride”, and I videotape them as I’m driving. I’ve done two so far and as soon as I get my YouTube channel set up properly I’ll be sure to post the link so the curious can indulge themselves.

Carousel Center has high hopes of becoming the largest mall in the United States soon. For the past ten years or so the developer has wanted to turn this into “DestiNY USA”, which would be a huge tourist attraction with hotels, an expanded mall, an indoor park and many other visitor friendly attractions. They’ve also mentioned developing a monorail system through the city of Syracuse to go hand in hand with this venture. So far a few symbolic beams of steel have been pounded in the ground as the developer and the local politicians fight back and forth about tax benefits and other assorted widths of red tape. I’m not as informed on the topic as I’d like to be, but I’d really like to see something positive happen in this area and I can’t help but think that this venture would be a positive thing for all involved. But what do I know, I’m just a college student with a big mouth and a blog.

One little delight I hadn’t planned on was the new Chicken Salad Frescata sandwich at Wendy’s. I usually don’t equate “yummy” and “Wendy’s” together, but I found this sandwich to be quite enjoyable. I highly recommend it.