Starting on Saturday (yesterday) I began a 10 day vacation, the first real time off I’ve booked from a job in years. My goal is to return more relaxed than when I left. I am not traveling, I’m just hanging out and trying to, as they say, chill.
I’m beginning to think I may have been better off going somewhere. It’s hard to truly relax and feel vacation-y when you’re at home and all the usual obligations keep staring you in the face. Sure I can ignore them but the guilt kicks in automatically. It’s just the way my brain works. My guilt gene is highly developed.
Regardless, I’m determined to do some fun and accidentally productive things like:
gaming
reading
writing
running
It’s true I’d do most of these things, anyway, but now I’ll be doing them with extra gusto and no transit passengers to bug me.
I’ll report back on where the relax-o-meter sits eight days from now. Exciting!
For the first time in six seasons the Vancouver Canucks have been eliminated from playoff contention. The possibility of playoff-based riots this summer is now zero, insuring that if disaster is to strike the city it will have to come from a source other than disgruntled hockey “fans”.
I spent some time thinking–several long minutes–over what to write for the one-thousandth post of this blog.
Should it be something deeply profound and insightful? Haha, no. I’m not about to take the blog in some bold, new direction.
How about a list? I love lists. This was very tempting but collating a list about the blog, such as links to “the best my brain could come up with” posts felt too much like work and a random list didn’t seem worthy.
A haiku? They’re fun and simple. But lazy, really. Doesn’t this milestone deserve something that takes more than a few seconds to dash off? Probably not, but I can pretend it does.
After mulling these three ideas my several minutes of thinking was over and here I am.
I now present all three below. What tremendous blogging value I give to the several people accidentally stumbling across the site because I wrote “Zachary Quinto naked” into this post.
Something deeply profound and insightful
I don’t actually have anything for this but take a look at this Wikipedia article on the Observable Universe and try wrapping your mind about how big it is, how small we are and just what the heck is out past the part we can’t observe, anyway? I say space monsters.
[box title=”A list of the 10 most-used tags on this blog in a fancy box” box_color=”#329242″]
59 he’s got legs
57 random stuff
46 he’s got (tired) legs
40 Africa hot
33 random thoughts
32 stupid ankle
28 damn snow
27 National Novel Writing Month
27 book reviews
27 weather you like it or not[/box]
This list demonstrates several things, leading to a bonus list (but not in a fancy box):
I’m obsessed with my legs, admittedly the sexiest part of my body.
I’m also obsessed with randomness. What is the difference between random stuff and random thoughts? A good question.
I complain about the weather. How trite and predictable. Expect more starting this summer.
I’m determined to write novels in 30 days or less.
I am at least semi-literate, having read and reviewed several books.
I am not above puns or terrible wordplay.
A haiku about my blog
What to write each time
A never ending challenge
No naked Quinto
I have a rule I try to follow when it comes to posting on this blog and that is to not just air complaints. Sometimes (sometimes more than sometimes) I break this rule, provided I can make the complaint with style or insight.
It is not easy.
But complaining, that is easy. Delightfully easy.
But I resist, because lists of complaints are kind of boring to read.
I hope to be posting more often soon. I know at least several spambots are excited about this.
Environment Canada is reporting that March will likely be cooler than normal for most areas of the country. We have the possibility of snow in the forecast again.
However, things are looking up on several other fronts, so I am cautiously optimistic than this month will be better than the cruel mistress that was February.
I will start the month with a semi-hopeful haiku:
March enters the scene
Spring is close enough to see
Snow is forbidden
Personal journals are always an embarrassment of riches. No, that’s not quite right.
Richly embarrassing. Yes, that’s it.
As I’ve mentioned previously I kept a journal for a short time in 1996 (age: 32) and on March 6 I had this to say about the Internet:
Meanwhile, I’ve got a two month trial membership on Mindlink and I’m trying this whole Internet thing out. While it’s great for e-mail, the World Wide Web (WWW) is, as an information source, kind of like leafing through a magazine which has pages that can only be turned every five minutes. In a word, slow. I’ve already found files on the Web and then switched to Mindlink’s BBS to download the file in half the time it would take to get piped through the Byzantine host of servers on the Internet. Although it is immensely popular and overhyped (see Time Capsule Note, above), I think the WWW is something that will truly be practical and convenient at about the same time video phones are practical and convenient. When hell freezes over, you say? No, but give it another five or ten years (remember, the video phone is one of those ideas that was thought up decades ago that still has not moved one inch closer to being an everyday thing. This, in comparison to other devices that have become common sights in this end-of-century world we live in: baby machines, personal heli-cars and robot servants to clean up after us.
Yes, I called it “the WWW” and predicted it would be practical in 5-10 years instead of realizing I just had a crappy ISP and a dial-up connection to match. Two years after this was written I got my first cable modem and learned that the Internet actually stayed on all the time!
While we still don’t have baby machines, you have to admit that personal heli-cars would be a terrible idea. Look at how poorly people drive in two dimensions, never mind adding a third. And we do have robot servants now if you count the Roomba. We just needs dozens of other special purpose robots now that vacuuming has been automated.
In conclusion, my ability to predict the future, especially when it comes to technology, is pretty spotty.
I was right about the 8-track tape being a dead format, though.
In the end I found a Blu-ray version for purchase at Best Buy for a mere $9.99, not much more than a rental.
I just needed a Blu-ray player, an HDMI cable and an HDTV to watch it. Luckily I already had the TV.
The rest, once taxes and the you’re-killing-the-earth fees were added brought the total to $97.96. A little more than a rental.
But it looked very nice and the Sony Blu-ray player adds to the growing list of devices we can use to watch Netflix on. I’d make a joke about how you’ll be able to watch Netflix on your toaster soon except some company is probably prototyping that as I write this.
Oh, and the movie holds up nicely, too. I’ll write more on it later but I love the way Spielberg portrays kids as insane, monsters or insane monsters.
The ties, though. You could have picnics on those things.
Here is a review of a hardcover book from a user on amazon.com:
The cover is pretty scratched up and it was late arriving. However, the packaging was geat, lots of bubble wrap to keep it safe.
I think “geat” might be Scottish for “pretty all right”. I shouldn’t blame Twitter and its billions of users for this sort of review as it could have just as easily appeared forty years ago as today. I’m also not sure if this is a troll or something from a very literal-minded person, but I kind of like that this is a succinct review of the actual physical object and not the words contained within.
And hey, if you need lots of bubble wrap, this could be the perfect gift for you or someone you love.
The visions of spring dancing in my head were abruptly ended when it began to snow on Saturday morning.
Come Monday night and it was still snowing. Despite this we are not up to our armpits in the white stuff because it’s been a heavy, wet kind of snow that packs down nicely, forming slick injury-making sheets of compacted slush.
Today the sun came out and it’s warming up, causing a gradual and pleasant melt. I trust this will be the last of the snow this winter. THANK YOU, MOTHER NATURE. MOVE ALONG PLEASE.
I’m now ready for summer. Only four months until the community pool at Hume Park opens. I hate swimming but it’s one of the official markers that you can doff the parkas and don the Bermudas.
When mechanical keyboards came back in vogue I started buying them, trying to find one that felt just right.
My first was a CoolerMaster Storm Trigger with blue switch keys.
It’s a fine keyboard in many ways and I like the solid clacky feel of the keys. When I resist pounding on the keys like a deranged ape they aren’t even that loud, really, because they actuate before being fully engaged.
However, there were some things I didn’t like:
the Windows key doesn’t work by default. You have to enable it in a profile. This is because it’s a GAMERZ keyboard and gamerz don’t need Windows.
it’s extra wide due to the macro keys,. I have never used macro keys on a keyboard.
the red LED lighting is distracting. When it’s off the keys are hard to read.
So I searched on and got a Metadot Das Keyboard, also using blue switches.
No backlit keys and a standard keyboard layout, no funny macro stuff. It would seem ideal, except for one thing.
The keyboard casing is glossy and the keys are as well, to a lesser extent. They reflect light and my computer corner cubbyhole has a light that sits nearly directly above the keyboard, so this becomes a problem.
Onto keyboard #3: The Filco Majestouch 2. This one has brown switches, which are less clacky.
(The lovely green border came as part of the stock photo.)
On balance I don’t mind the brown switches but if push came to shove I think I find the blue switches a little smoother in feel. The lack of a numeric keypad was a bit disconcerting at first but I realized I never used it much and the narrower width of the keyboard more than makes up for it. The finish on the keyboard is nicely matte so the keys are easily readable. I think if this keyboard had blue switches it might cause me to end my search.
But it doesn’t.
But Filco makes a model that does! Now I just have to find a retailer.
Also, their website is a charming pastiche of quaintly clumsy English and images like this:
I conclude with this video of the Ducky Shine 3 Yellow keyboard. This is a keyboard with backlit keys. And the keys are blank.
There are some things you can search for using Google and pretty much guarantee the results will not disappoint. One is “funny hats”. Observe:
I especially like the use of the drawstrings as legs.
The alt-text on this one would have to be “butt head”.
These are two examples. There are millions more. I am not kidding. The phrase “funny hats” yields over 450 million results. I don’t know what this means about our world but it simultaneously delights and depresses me.
And then there is perhaps the most-searched term on Google: cats (551 million results).
But cats alone, while adorable, is a bit plain for a search. “Funny cats” on the other hand yields 378 million hits, including these:
Note that nearly every image of a cat with a caption is incredibly unfunny, almost as if by design. This is about 377,999,950 of the images by my rough estimate.
Again, I’m not sure what the takeaway is here. We have a treasure trove of material on the web and the means to find virtually all of it instantly and vast amounts of this material and related searches consists of things like funny hats and cats.
In conclusion, I leave you with this, a cat wearing a funny hat:
The hat’s not really that funny but cats apparently do not take to goofy headgear the same way people do. Probably because of all the clawing and biting.
