What do you think of the new digs?

I'm not done re-decorating, but hopefully, all the hard stuff is done and I just have to rework some colors. Putting shocket in the post title has been a huge pain in the butt to figure out, but I'm kind of like a blind person finding my way through a strange castle there. But I think I made it work, finally. We'll see. Hopefully, I'll put some pictures up and the like tomorrow. Wanna help me pick out curtains?

Dave

More thotz on 2006

These thotz are partially inspired by the Olympics, but not all...

• How to improve, or at least make more entertaining, the Winter Olympics:

1. Allow elbowing in short track speed skating. Nothing to the head, but everything else is fair game. I'm imagining late in the race the announcers sounding something like this - "Oh boy Jim, I think we may be headed for a new world record in this event. It looks like this may be the longest it has ever taken a race to finish, because we currently have two of the four racers oddly contorted and unconscious in the corner of the track. Hope they can get some medical attention soon, but Olympic rules dictate that no one but the competitors are allowed on the ice until the race is concluded. However, as our other two athletes are engaged in a fistfight, I don't know how soon it may happen..."

2. Introduce the Winter Olympic Triathlon. Perhaps you've heard of the Biathlon. It's where the athletes cross-country ski from site to site where they stop, drop and shoot a gun at targets. The Winter triathlon is just like that except instead of just shooting at targets, it's combined with Aerials. So the athlete goes from site to site and stops, drops, and fires at Aerialists from opposing teams. Each gun-toting athlete gets 6 shots. If the Aerialist lands on anything but his/her feet, it's considered a hit. If the aerialist does land on his/her feet, wounded or otherwise, it's a miss.

3. Mixed Doubles Luge It's a fight to see who can make it to the finish least distracted.

4. Ice Pole Dancing Tanith, oh Tanith, I got yer gold medal right here...

5. Full Contact Curling It's just like the sport is now, only there is one guy from the other team trying to stop the rock from getting to the end. To fend him off is another player from the offense trying to push him back. The guys with the brooms and such are still there.



Ok, the day after Valentine's day is the official start of the Easter season, right? Hershey has what they call simply "Eggs." And I just can't get enough of them. They are not the kind where you unwrap the foil for the chocolate nugget, these are more akin to M&Ms, with a candy shell. They are dangerous, dangerous things. Those and KitKat bites are my favorite candies. Oh, and Halloween M&Ms, you can't beat those.


Audiobooks - Listen to them? I recently listened to The Da Vinci Code and I'm glad I did! Prior to Mrs. Dave being interested in it, I didn't really care much about it one way or another, it sounded kinda more High-falutin' than what I usually would go for, though I knew zilch about it. But she was interested, and I noticed that it has been on the bestseller list for about three years straight, so there must be something to it. I was very pleasantly surprised. It's a great audiobook if you've never given one a chance. I forget the guy's name who reads it, but he's a really good voice actor. I can't wait to see this movie. Of course, it will probably not quite live up to the book, a movie rarely does, but I have high hopes. Everyone keeps saying that Tom Hanks is miscast as Langdon, but I don't think so. He's not exactly how I pictured him, but he's not some huge jump that I can't believe they picked him. But the actress playing Sophie Niveau, purrrrrrr. Also not how I pictured her (for some reason, I kept picturing an actual human version of Mirage from the Incredibles (Syndrome's female assistant), but this actress will do just fine. ;-)

Dave

Bandwagoneer

Alright, guess I'm going to have to join the gang and customize this puppy of a blog. So tell me dear readers, all 4 or 5 of you, should my theme be something along the lines of the photo blurs or should I go with the shocked socket theme like in my HOW Avatar? Or would you not be able to face another day without seeing the back of my son's head? Hmmmmmm?

Dave

Holy Canoli!

Has it really been that long since I last posted? Guess I haven't been too creative here the past couple of weeks. We had a big snowstorm last week. Had about a foot of snow. Usually that would cause widespread panic in Baltimore, but this time it was a fairly controlled response considering how much there was. Got to work the next morning no problem. Funny thing was, almost as fast as it came, it went away. We had a couple of days in the 50s and 60s that wiped most of it out. Today, only the really huge piles of plowed snow are still around.

Things with my niece have improved, thank goodness, but they are still tense. She is now with Mrs. Dave's parents, which is really the best place for her. They are going for temporary custody (we'll find out in March) and after that, permanent custody. But the web of lies her father and his girlfriend have woven has only snared themselves. And every new one just digs them a little deeper. It's just becoming increasingly clear that they have no concern whatsoever about my niece except as a status symbol. They are now claiming that she is uncontrollable because she has an Oppositional Disorder (BS!). She's a little girl that didn't have the chance to bond with her mother or anyone else for an extended period of time, then had to endure her father and his girlfriend beating and abusing her. So here's one of the snares they have caught themselves in. They have said (in a joint session with a counselor) that they don't have the problems with her behavior like Mrs. Dave's parents do when she stays with them overnight (screaming fits, biting, scratching), but yet they think she has an Oppositional Disorder? It just doesn't fit, and the professionals surrounding the situation are starting to realize it.

But at least she's safe and in an environment where she feels comfortable. Hopefully in March things will go our way. Stay tuned. Oh, but this isn't the March news mentioned in an earlier post. No, no, there's more...

Dave

Paradise by the Dashboard Light

In response to many requests (so what if they were all from me?), I am, for the first time, posting wallpapers of my blurred visions. I have this as my own wallpaper on my computer and thought it was cool enough to post. I get a lot of comments about it at work, "Whoa, way out dude..." the majority of them. You can thank Veer for supplying the Cinema display size specs for you.




So, without further ado, enjoy.

1920x1200
1680x1050
1600x1024
1440x900
1280x1024
1024x768

Ok, I find it hard to believe you are reading my blog if you need these two, but since I am all-loving, here you go...

800x600
640x480

Oh, I know, the other thing with this wallpaper is that I challenged myself to find a useful purpose for the "Fish" Text Warper in Photoshop. Interesting how it worked out. Can you find it? Just an FYI, with the exception of flopping a copy of the graphic layer to fit across the cinema sizes and the fish text, the graphic itself is untouched in photoshop. No sharpening, no blurring, no color correcting, no liquifying filter, nothin', just ghostly coolness.

Dave

Potpourri

Just like the category in Jeopardy! and smelling just the opposite of that stuff women keep in jars and in cloth bags, here's a bunch of photos taken recently. Most are from my trip to Savannah Georgia for my company's National Sales Meeting, but not all. (Click on an image to see a larger version)

1. Here are a few blurs that turned out to be very interesting, at least to me.

This one is just neat in how tight the blur is. Almost like a bunch of bows were tied together in a line.




I love the streamer/party feel of this one. But if you look closely, you'll see all these arrows pointing the same direction. There are actually just two of them, pointing to the lanes you can use at the time to go through the tunnel.




This one reminds me of the Washington DC subway map.




Lastly, this one is way cool. It's just a photo of my stereo display in my car, but it's very ghostlike in a way.





On to Savannah...

Just to prove I flew there, in case you needed it...from my usual seat...




I think it was foggy throughout the southern US the day I went down to Savannah, and the day after. Here is a shot of the Savannah River.




And a little further down the shore...




This was taken from the dock in front of the hotel.




Here is one of the ferries that take people from the convention center to downtown. I was playing with the sepia tone setting on my camera, turned out kinda cool.




Again with the sepia setting, one of the many palm trees in the courtyard/garden of the hotel.




Here's a shot of the hotel itself. I stayed in room second floor from the top, on the left side, the first room between the rooms with balconies. (I was jealous).




Here was the view from that room.




I accidentally forgot one particular medicine I needed, so I had occasion to drive through Savannah. It's beautiful, too bad I couldn't capture more or better pictures than these:

Here are the famous trees that make a beautiful canopy over the streets of Savannah, while I know I saw it, I don't remember the name of this breed of trees. All I know is that they are creepy and beautiful at the same time.




Now this image is oriented the way it was taken, which was by holding the steering wheel of the car with my left hand and holding the camera in my right, pointing the camera out the window from under my left arm to try to capture the top of the church. I could put it the normal way, but this way is more fun.




The next day turned out to be much nicer, however windier:



That morning I took the ferry across to get some souveniers for the boy. This photo really doesn't do justice to how neat this bridge is. I forgot to take my camera when I played golf, there would have been some great shots of the bridge from there. The way the wires criss-cross is mesmerizing.




Here is the deck of the ferry as we made our way across.




And last, the inside of the ferry, very cool considering.



So, that oughta make you happy for a few minutes...;-)

Thanks for all the guesses on the news coming in March. You are all very, very close.

Dave