Ultranormal

Author: Kevin Lawver

  • This round of Blogger Insider

    This round of Blogger Insider paired me with Dan, who provided the following lovely questions. Thanks, Dan!

    1) I see that you turned 27 a couple months ago. Your wife Jen turned 28 recently. What is it like being married to an older woman?

    It’s great, I tell you what. She knows all the answers to the questions on Jeopardy, and she can tell me what happened in 1976, because she was two, and I was one, and she kind of remembers it. We’re actually only 10 months apart, which I think washes out in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t it?

    2) Don’t you feel that your Blog title “Fighting Spacemen with Pointed Sticks” contributes to the ongoing persecution of spacemen?

    I realize now the title can be misunderstood. It’s not fighting poor defenseless spacemen with pointed sticks. The Spacemen fight with pointed sticks. They’re like the Fighting 51st or some other mythical military force. I found that picture I use as my background and thought it was really funny that this astronaut was all tricked out in his space suit, but has basically a big pointed stick in his hands. What does he do with that pointed stick, try to pop the other spacemen’s suits? See? It’s ripe for comedy.

    3) You work for AOL. How do you live with yourself?

    I live with my wife and son. Actually, I do just fine. AOL‘s not the most evil corporation in the world. When I started here in 1995, we weren’t evil at all. We were the little guy trying not to be crushed by the likes of AT&T, Microsoft, Prodigy, Netscape and CompuServe. It’s only the last three or four years that we’ve graduated to Evil in the Microsoft sense, and well, I really don’t think I could do what I do (work on about a dozen different search applications) if I worked anywhere else. So, I’m OK with it.

    4) You list “The Eighth Day” among your favorite movies. Do you mean “The Eighth Day” (1967, Dir.: Charles Gagnon)? What appeals to you about a fifteen minute movie that’s older than you are?

    Yeah, so I didn’t run it through the spellchecker… I suck. The Eighth Day is a beautiful French film about a man with Down Syndrome with an amazing zest for life who shares his view of the world with a stuffy motivational speaker. It’s an amazing film by the same writer/director who did Toto the Hero, another one of my favorite films.

    5) Why does Jen hate fish?

    That’s an excellent question. I think that her dislike of fish is like\
    me and my irrational hatred of anything that tastes of bananas. It’s just something she’s never liked, never will like, and any attempt to convince her to think otherwise is in vain.

    6) Your son Max is featured often in your blog. Do you think he will look back through the blog when he is older? Does this excite or frighten you?

    I hope he does. It’s like a family album. Since his extended family is all over the country, they get to share in his growth and development. I hope that someday, he keeps his own journal, online or off. It excites me in that I think if he shares his thoughts and opinions, he’ll have to defend them, which will hopefully lead to him developing better/stronger opinions that he can defend.

    7) You link to Salon.com. What are your feelings on the subscription service issue?

    It’s annoying, but I think it’s a creative way to stay afloat. I hope it works out for them. Salon is one of the best sites ever for alternative views and great writing, and I hope they stay around forever. I wouldn’t try to tell them not to try whatever they can to make a living.

    6) Do you consider yourself more of a geek or a nerd? Explain.

    Oh, I’m definitely a geek. To me, a geek is anyone who has an overwhelming passion for something. Nerds are those poor bastards with no social skills that hide away in the A/V labs and computer closets of any institution that will take them. Geeks are sometimes nerds, but not always. I am a pure geek. I still like people (well, most people) and can communicate without staring at the floor. I just love computers and technology, especially search applications. Is that so wrong?

    5) Are you ever going to post the Creamy Cajun Chicken recipe, or is that a cruel hoax?

    It was a cruel hoax. I didn’t think anyone would actually want the recipe. Here it is:
    Ingredients:

    • One chicken breast per person who will be eating this stuff, sliced into bite-sized chunks
    • Cayenne pepper (to flavor)
    • Chili Powder (to flavor)
    • 1 small container sour cream or regular cream. If you’re feeding a lot of people, think about two tablespoons cream-substance per chicken breast.
    • 1 pinch salt
    • 1 pinch pepper
    • Fettucine or Linguine, I’m not picky (whatever you need to feed whoever’s eating)
    • 2 tablespoons olive oil

    Preparation:

    1. Put olive oil in big skillet over medium/medium high heat.
    2. Once oil is hot, add sliced chicken breasts and saute with chili powder, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper until cooked.
    3. After chicken is done, turn heat to low, and add cream. Stir until cream turns a lovely shade of pink/orange (from the chili powder – ummm, did I really need to say that?) and it starts to thicken up. For sour cream, you need to make sure the cream melts all the way, then it will start to thicken, usually this takes 3-5 minutes. For regular cream (the preferred method, but sour cream is fine in a pinch), it may take 5-8 for it to start thickening.
    4. Pour over cooked fettucine, toss with a little more black pepper, and serve.

    4) Did you notice when the numbers started going backward?

    Yes, yes I did. I was all comfortable with the status quo, and bam, you changed it up on me. Very sneaky.

  • I like David Coursey. He’s

    I like David Coursey. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but asks some good questions, and loves starting a fight. His latest missive, the ill-researched, by the seat of his pants Can a Windows User Learn to Love Linux? is hilarious. He wrote is as he was installing Red Hat. It’s almost stream-of-consciousness. To answer his question, yes, a Windows user can learn to love Linux. I did. I love it for its power, speed and all of the tasty stuff that comes with it.

    Learning to love Linux is like learning to cook or speak a new language. At first, it sucks, and things don’t make sense. But, the more you use it, the more you dig into documentation and talk to those who know, the better it gets and easier it is to use. Depending on the distro, it’s not “You opened the box and it tells you how to use it right off”. You have to learn in order to love it, and that’s the beauty.

  • So, mozblog works finally! It’s

    So, mozblog works finally! It’s extremely cool. If you use Mozilla and have a blog, go get it today. It gives you a nice little editing window rigth in your browser with the ability to post, edit and delete posts on the fly without going to Blogger.

    In other news, I went to the doctor this morning about the cough. I have some chest infection and get to take antibiotics for the next week. The best news was that, though I haven’t lost weight, I haven’t gained any since I saw him in March. I’ve got a new plan. I don’t even need to diet, since I don’t eat a lot of junk food now. I just need to eat a little less and do a little exercize and the weight should start coming off. I started yesterday by buying some tilapia at Costco. Have you ever tried tilapia? It’s tasty stuff. It’s a light white fish without a big fishy flavor. It’s nice and firm without being dense, and saute’s nicely. Good stuff… Jen might even like it, and she hates fish.

  • Why is it that I

    Why is it that I always leave feeling like my clothes are on backwards when I go to the chiropractor?

  • Do you have OS X?

    Do you have OS X? Do you still love Unix? Oh, brother, then do I have something for you! Go check out Fink. It’s a easy way to get Unix packages installed and running in OS X. Sweet, sweet ingenuity.

  • He Shoots, He Scores!! I

    He Shoots, He Scores!!

    I took my little brother (ok, he’s not that little anymore, but I’m still bigger and older) to the Thrift Store so he could look for a new monitor (in my day, there were no computer parts in thrift stores, just crap). While he was testing, I wandered the store looking for anything to keep my interest. I stumbled into a pile of CD’s, covered in dust and under some magazines. I had hit it – the Thrift Store Motherload. My other brother and I used to wander the pawn shops and thrift stores of Mississippi in search of the fabled Motherload – that secret stash of amazing music (or comic books at the time) that the owner is oblivious to the value of. We found many. I am sorely out of practice, and haven’t gone out looking for the sweet vein of value in a long time.

    But here, I had stumbled into it. I got:

    • Orbital – Sides: It has one of the greatest “I’m a spy” songs ever on it.
    • Loop Guru – Amrita: Not sure what it is, but it was stuck between Orbital and…
    • Jesus Jones – Doubt: Who doesn’t need a copy of Right Here, Right Now? I have no idea when it will come in useful, but I know it will pay off one day.
    • Orb – Orbus Terrarum: The Orb are the same group that did the Little Fluffy Clouds song from the VW commercial.
    • Live! In Concert: An Alligator Records collection of live stuff. It has a bunch of stuff from the amazing Koko Taylor who I saw live a couple times in Tucson.

    It was a small vein, but it was just enough of a reminder to bring back all those memories of muggy summer days in our crappy Cavalier, wandering the countryside in search of cheap treasures.

  • Go Away, Bill I despise

    Go Away, Bill

    I despise Bill Walton as a basketball announcer. He’s a flagrant Lakers supporter, biased, banal and annoying. His mock-gravitas is grating. His unending garbage metaphor and purile catch phrases make watching the games almost unbearable. I find myself muting the commentary instead of subjecting myself to the buck-toothed wonder. I hope ESPN is smart enough to realize that they can do better than Mr. Walton. Please, a team of Dick Vitale, Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay and Gilbert Gottfried would be better than anyone and Bill Walton.

    On a related note, how much of a let down have the Finals been? The Lakers/Kings series was awesome. It was the best basketball I’ve seen in years, and brought me back. Of the two and a half games in the Finals so far, it’s just been depressing. New Jersey is completely overmatched by the Lakers. Now that Shaq is hitting free throws, it’s pretty much over. It’s predictable, boring basketball. Snooze-o-rama.

  • Vanilla Coke taste vaguely like

    Vanilla Coke taste vaguely like Robitussin.

  • Back to the back I

    Back to the back

    I think I like the new colors… they’re growing on me. Now, I just need to move things around. You know what my favorite part is? I didn’t have to go to Blogger and mess with my template or any of the other pages on the site. All I did was change my stylesheet, and voila, new look. And moving things around will be the exact same exercise. Position this, position that, ::poof:: all done. I love CSS.

  • If I had disposable income

    If I had disposable income (and a lot of it), I would buy this faster than you can say “money pit on wheels”.