Ultranormal

  • Craptastic

    Craptastic says it all. Never take hypertension medicine without eating. Never take a diuretic without eating. I felt like crap all day: swimmy head, jitters, stomach ache; and I just kept going. I got things done and didn’t bitch about it. I even went bowling. I bowled like crap, but I bowled.

    My head still hurts and I’m pissed off. Why? I’m not really sure. It’s a lot of things. Work is vexing. Home is good. I now have to be in training next week on my anniversary. Ok, that’s enough. I’m done. Good night. See you tomorrow.

  • Schillinger Goes to Maggiano’s

    If you’re thinking about going to Maggiano’s, don’t, unless you like being crammed into a postage stamp-sized table two feet away from people crammed around other postage stamp-sized tables. You’re more likely to hear the four tables around you than the person sitting right next to you. The food was good, but the service was pretty crappy. If you want good service, amazing food and a bill in the same ballpark, go to Zeffirelli in Herndon.

    In something completely unrelated, I’ve been thinking about Oz. I love the show, and I’m almost embarrassed to admit it. Why do I like it? Why do I love it? It’s completely alien to me. It’s a world where there are immediate consequences for your actions and mercy doesn’t exist. There are no heroes, just lesser villains. It’s absolutely brutal and without remorse. See, so unlike my world. The acting is always top-notch and the story are as original as they come. Seasons one and two are out on DVD now if you haven’t seen it. Just make sure the kids aren’t around. Also, be sure to take it in small doses. It’s sometime (ok, often) hard to take. Ok, that was the worst review of anything ever. But go get the DVD and come back and tell me what you think.

  • Oh, Steve

    Steve Case to resign from AOL Time Warner

  • The Switch Is On

    The switch went well today. I got a lot done and by the end of the day, I was using Apple+Left instead of Home to get to the beginning of a line and having a wonderful time. I see now I do need to go get BBEdit 7. BBEdit Lite is good, but it’s not everything I need it to be. I need macros, dangit!

    Why am I making the switch, you may ask? I hate Microsoft is the easy answer. They’re predatory and unethical. They’ve pirated the greatest innovations of the last twenty years and made them barely usable crap. Through an unmatched marketing machine, they’ve foisted utter garbage on the world, and now the whole world uses it. Ok, that’s a little strong. But, underneath it all, you know it’s true.

    Apple has their problems, like overpriced hardware, a sometimes lax update schedule (which hasn’t really been true with OS X, but was pretty bad with OS 9 and before), and some weird positions on things, like not admitting that some of us need more than one mouse button and some of us who do are left handed and WANT TO SWITCH THE DAMN BUTTONS AROUND. But, overall, my Mac is more innovative, offers me more and is just more fun than my Windows machine. I know all the games come out for Windows, but I have a PS2 now, and haven’t played a game on my Windows machine in months.

    I’ll still use my Windows box for testing and maybe to play UT on, but I’m a Mac (and Linux) guy now.

  • Grandma and Linux

    An Interview With a Grandmother is an interesting look at Linux for the Home User. I don’t see it as a win for Linux, per se, because HomeBase is such a specialized product that wouldn’t work for us geeks anymore than Solaris would work for my grandmother. I think it’s more a rousing recommendation of Linux as a platform for Consumer Electonics and specialized computer needs. It’s open and easy to customize. You can do whatever you want with it and make it your own. That EOne decided to use Linux to build their system on is a testament to Linux’s portability and customizability.

    I think Linux has a way to go on the desktop market, more from a momentum perspective than a lack of features or usability. People don’t switch. They’re not motivated to use something that’s better. They’re happy to use what they know, and unfortunately they know Windows.

    For example, I’ve been working switching my work computers. I have a P3 and my Quicksilver G4 and I want to switch to OS X permanently instead of using OS X and home with the Powerbook and my XP machine at work. But, I have all these workflow habits I’m finding hard to break. Today is the first day of my attempted total OS X experience, and it’s hard going. It’s not that using OS X is hard. It’s not. It’s getting used to writing code and doing my daily thing using different keystrokes, with things in different places, etc. Doubly odd is that when I go back to XP, I notice how cluttered and clunky it feels compared to OS X.

    Ok, this has turned into a ramble and I’m going to stop now.

  • Blubber-B-Gone

    I went to the doctor’s this morning before work and got some great news. Not only have I lost weight (8 pounds in the last two weeks!!!), but my blood pressure is down almost ten points on both the top and bottom. My cholesterol’s not bad either. His exact words were, “It’s not brilliant, but it’s not bad either.”

    He went so far as to tell me to slow down with the weight loss. He said a couple pounds a month is enough. At that point I told him to shut up and punched him in the stomach. No, really, I told him that I’m not doing anything crazy and that I’ve just cut out soda and have stopped going back for seconds. It doesn’t feel all that bad, actually. It’s something I think can keep up for the rest of my life and not miss out on anything. I can still eat the same things, just not as much. I miss the soda, but not enough to start drinking it again, except maybe the root beer at Sweetwater.

    I love good news first thing in the morning…

  • Greasy and Honest

    It’s extremely rare to find honesty in business, especially auto mechanics. I always follow my dad and use whoever he uses to fix his problematic cars (oh my, the stories I could tell you about my dad and his car trouble). Dad has a way of ferreting out honest auto mechanics and then inundating them with expensive and funny car problems. Thankfully, my cars aren’t that bad. Still, I like knowing the guy I take my car to isn’t going to rip me off.

    For example, after our latest snow storm, my left windshield wiper stopped working. I figured it would be an expensive “replace the whole thing” affair. So, Jen and I dropped off the car at lunch today. Not two hours later, I get a call at work from the guy saying it’s all ready to go and there’s no charge. Apparently, when it’s icey, the pivot bolts get loose. It was a 2 minute find-it-and-wrench-it job that would have cost me $60 anywhere else. So, if you live in Northern VA, definitely give Houda’s a call. You won’t regret it.

  • Home From Safari

    I surfed with Safari last night and I have to say I’m not impressed. On my TiBook (500mhz w/ 512mb), it took 5 seconds to launch. Mozilla takes 9 to bring up the first browser window, and I get more. Chimera only took 4, and provides most of the features of Mozilla. I’m not going to switch, because there’s nothing really new there. Steve touted the snapback button, and the improved bookmarks, which I don’t think are really all that great to begin with.

    It’s not that it’s not good software. It does render pages quickly. It is nice to look at. But, it could be so much more. I’m not really happy having to worry about another browser, even though its rendering problems seem minor.

  • Keynote Ramblings

    I picked up the MacWorld Keynote by Mr. Jobs in the middle while he was showing off iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD. What just came to me while watching this is that Apple isn’t gunning for the workplace anymore. They’ve ceded that to Microsoft. They’ve created an amazing Lifestyle Suite of software. The collection of iApps is robust, and with the new features, I think the Mac’s killer app. We geeks can talk about the BSD underpinnings of OS X, the cool things we can do with things like Fink and the Apache webserver built in.

    Yeah, and I just saw the part where he dropped the name on us: iLife. Yeah… Ummm… I called it?

    Anyway, I’m pretty excited about the bundle and the new features in all three. PLUS, the predictions were wrong. You’ll be able to download iPhoto, iTunes and iMovie for free or go buy the bundle. Sweet.

    Ummm, why did they go and build their own browser? Hopefully, it’s based on Gecko so we don’t have to worry about yet another browser’s quirks. It’s pretty funny how familiar the Safari toolbar is to the Windows AOL Client’s. I’m honestly not seeing anything too hot about Safari so far. The benchmarks looked good, but the features don’t look compelling enough to make enough people switch to make supporting it worthwhile. Also, Steve, please stop touting the Google integration. Big deal. There are Google bars for pretty much every browser out there that offer the same features. Hopefully, it won’t be another HotJava (Sun’s unbelievable horrible browser packaged with Solaris).

    If you don’t own a Mac… consider it. I’m making the switch as we speak (it’s harder at work than at home, where the switch is already pretty much complete), and I’ve been extremely impressed.

  • Christmas Pictures

    The Lawver Family

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