nanovivid

I am no longer toothpasteless (and there was much rejoicing). During my shopping spree today I also bought new handles for the drawers under my bed (see picture below). They look so much nicer than the old <insert adjective pertaining to horribleness> ones (one of which you can see sitting on the floor). Yay for new hardware!

As a disclaimer, the carpet is not really that color. It’s much more of a grey-blue. I was just too lazy to correct it.

There have been a couple recent site redesigns worth mentioning… Toby has a new minimal look for his site that is quite nice (and, amazingly, has less pink ;-). Then just today Matthew launched his new design and it’s quality. Go check it out.

Also, thanks to Matthew’s reminding me of its existence, the worldview gallery has been given a fresh new look (aka updated to the look of the rest of the site). Also, comments work on the worldview pieces once again. Either nobody had tried commenting or nobody bothered to tell me they were broken. Anyway, just wanted to remind you that gallery of art still exists so feel free to browse and leave comments. I wonder if I’ll ever get back into doing that art stuff. Hm…

I was counting today and I have seven lights in my room, not counting the overhead light that I almost never use and the christmas lights under my bedframe. What can I say… I like good lighting. :-)

♫ Dryve - Thrifty Mr. Kickstar

Sticky tac that is (is it "tac" or "tack"… I’m never sure). I used it all up earlier today. My room decorating project (finally… it’s only been almost three months since moving in) took all that I had. I’d been thinking about doing some sort of a project with my way-too-many cd cases for a while, and so this weekend I brought back about a hundred of them. I was originally thinking of attaching them to foam core, but then I remembered that I had a ton of sticky tack left over from my days in the dorm. Hopefully the massive amounts of sticky tac will hold the cases… I don’t want them falling on my head in the night! I need to go get more soon so I can finish the project.

Here are the results so far:

The staff retreat today went well. There was some good stuff about making an effort to communicate with people instead of going to another person about them. That’s something I could definitely work on at work. :-)

Bryan has his website up and running… go check it out. It seems he did all this so he could get in my coveted (?) "People" box. Awwww.

I need to stop staying up so late… or else get a job with a different schedule. ;-)

♫ Le Knight Club - Nymphae Song

I’m going to apologize in advance for the length of this entry. I just haven’t found time up until now to write. This has been quite the weekend.

It all began Friday after work when, after packing, I headed to the interstate to drive to my parents’. Unfortunately, my car had other ideas of what to do. I had gotten brake work done on Monday/Tuesday (the master cylinder needed to be replaced as well as one of the brake lines). Afterwards, I had noticed that my car was running a little off sometimes, but didn’t think much of it until I got on the interstate and it started to shimmy like crazy. So I drove to the shop and thankfully there was still someone around who looked at it and agreed that the brakes were not releasing all the way. He loosened the brake lines and that released the pressure. Thus, I was able to get where I needed to go, but the brakes are still tightening up sometimes. I’m gonna see how it feels tomorrow and then maybe take it back in. ::sigh::

Friday night, after I got to Jeremiah’s apartment, the weekend started for real. Ryan and Rianna were there also, and I arrived about halfway through the watching of E.T.. The part I saw, I enjoyed, having not seen the movie since it scared me when I was little. Then after the movie, Jeremiah, Ryan and I geeked out with our computers and video chatted with Bryan (the latter lasted for well over an hour). That was all great fun with great people.

After getting back to my parents’ waaay late, I pretty much went straight to bed. Saturday morning I headed out with my family to go shopping and have other adventures. We ate lunch at this amazing Indian restaurant. After that, it was off to the mall for shopping. I bought two shirts and two pairs of shorts at Hecht’s… for a total of $20! I couldn’t pass that up. We also went to B&N, where I was unable to resist purchasing Fischerspooner’s #1. I haven’t quite listened to it enough to make a definite judgment about the album as a whole (I already knew I liked three songs at least), but I think I like it.

That afternoon I was talking to Jeremiah online and found out that he and Ryan were going to see Bruce Almighty that evening, so I joined them. I really enjoyed the movie. It was quite funny and also made me think some. So go check it out — it’s worth seeing. After standing in the parking lot after the theater forever because Jeremiah kept seeing people he knew, we went (again) to B&N for coffee but once we got there, Ryan saw his ex’s car in the parking lot and didn’t want to go in. We tried to go to another place but it was closed. Then Ryan decided it was his bedtime, so Jeremiah and I went back to his place to hang out. That was by far the best part of the evening. We talked about a bit of everything and watched Trading Spaces and it was just great. It’s almost scary how much alike our tastes in decorating are. He had some catalogs and magazines and one that I really liked was West Elm. Their catalog is beautifully designed and the furniture and accessories are awesome too. He also introduced me to Naked Juice, which is delicious. I need to get me some of that. After TS was over, I hung out a little longer and finally at 2:30 headed back to my parents’.

Today, not that much happened, which is ok, because the rest of the weekend was awesome. I’ll hook my iSight up tomorrow and get some more pics of the new haircut (the one from Sat is still on the webcam).

We’re having a staff retreat tomorrow, so I get off work at 2:30. I should probably work for a couple hours to make up for some of the other time I’ve missed, but we’ll see. :-)

♫ Fischerspooner - Sweetness

Yes, I’m talking about my haircut. What, you thought I was quoting Fischerspooner? Well, I did get #1 today, so it’s both, actually.

I’ve got a picture on the webcam of the new look. Check it out, yo.

Sorry about the shortness here… I need to eat and then I’m gong to see Bruce Almighty with Jeremiah and Ryan. I’ll give a full update on the weekend’s activities later. Wheee!

♫ Fischerspooner - The 15th

A few website updates worth mentioning… Jeremiah and Ryan should be back online soon. Finally.

Mozilla.org has been redesigned, and it’s really nice to have the download links right out front. The page seems a little busy, but it’s much much better than what they had. (Rather sad about AOL laying off the remaining Moz hackers though).

And some new linkage… last week Dan asked me "Have you seen this crazy lady?" Heather is completely hilarious and a very good writer. My roommate Steve now has a website and it’s very… Steve. ;-) Also, I figured I should give Travis/Matt/Matthew some linkage since he linked me and seems like a pretty cool guy.

So you thought I had some actual content? Ha! I fool you again! Though here are some pictures from Atlanta, courtesy of Denver.

♫ Madonna - Deeper/Music [darkpulse.rmx]

Yesterday, I actually got away from the hotel and conference center a couple times. The first was to go out to lunch at The Vortex Bar & Grill. It was quite tasty, and since the company included Ney, Lynley, Cameron, Jordan, Kyrce, and Maureen, it was very entertaining. The most memorable moment was when Maureen was talking about the British version of What Not To Wear and how much better it is than the American one. I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out how to explain the event, but it just isn’t turning out right. Executive summary: Maureen tells a story, Courtney laughs so hard that chili goes up her nose. The rest of us didn’t quite get what was so funny. But that’s why we love Courtney… she’s always there to laugh whether it was actually funny or not. ;-)

After lunch, we decided to go shopping, sans Lynley, who had to chaperone two hundred kids on a field trip. We went to stores, and I bought stuff (see Figure 1, below).

Figure 1: The spoils of shopping

Then it was back to the conference center, evening session, bla bla bla. Afterwards, Jenni, Bill, and I decided to go out and get something to eat. It soon became very apparent that we are in the wrong part of Atlanta for cool restaurants and bars. The extent of things available was: Hard Rock Cafe (we tried - 45 min wait), Hooter’s (we tried this too… and we got a table… and nobody ever served us at all… for at least half an hour… so we left… at least I can cross "Go to Hooter’s" off my Things-To-Do-Before-I-Die list… not that it was on there to begin with), and McDonald’s (really long line… and not worth it). So after failing miserably at finding food, Jenni went back to her hotel and Bill and I came back to the Omni and ordered an expensive-but-tasty pizza.

Anybody got any suggestions for cool places to go that aren’t too far from Centennial Olympic Park? Because they would be mucho appreciated.

♫ Something Corporate - Good News

Nice cheesy pic, eh? :-)

♫ Groove Armada - Lazy Moon

Don’t read the next paragraph or the article I’m linked in it if you don’t want minor spoliers about The Matrix Reloaded.

Great article at The Register about the hack that Trinity employs in The Matrix Reloaded to bring down the power station. It was very cool to see hacking that was fairly realistic as opposed to the usual graphical junk.

I have a new picture of me! While I was packing for moving one night, Steve was randomly taking pictures and I held up this crate to the camera and we decided it looked cool so he took some shots. You can check out the original without the spotlight too. Better with, n’est pas?

We’re going to see A Mighty Wind tonight at 10. That should be good funny stuff, according to Julie’s 2904804926042 Reasons Why A Mighty Wind Kicks Ass.

Tonight for dinner, Andy and I made lemon pepper chicken tacos. We went a bit overboard on the lemon, so it was über-lemony, but still tasty, and quite unique. :-)

♫ Kursk Advanced - Breathe

And the snow came down… and it came down… and it came down some more. Then just when we thought it was done… you guessed it, more snow. It’s hard to say exactly how much we got because there is a lot of drifting, but it’s around a foot. Quite the winter wonderland.

Last night I wandered into Dave’s suite for their 300th Simpsons episode party. That was good times. Dave, Ross, and Welby decided to build a column out of all the cereal boxes they had been saving. Despite several peoples’ attempts to knock it down, it’s still standing. Oh, and the Simpsons were good too.

I’ve been listening to Mint’s Digital Mix pretty much all afternoon and evening. It’s some quality deep/progressive house that I’m totally digging. Great tracks, great samples… just good all around. My favorite track from the mix is Mint’s remix of Structure by Dream Traveler. As Courtney said, the vocals are eerie and sweet at the same time. If you have a fast connection and/or can deal with a 125 meg download, definitely download it (the Structure remix comes in around 45 minutes). Alternately, on the Listen page at Mint’s site there is a clip of Structure. Either way, it’s worth listening to.

I know what you’re thinking now… where are the deep introspective observations that adam’s been giving us so much of lately? Well, none for tonight. Don’t worry, there’ll be more later. ;-)

♫ Mint - Digital Mix

As of just after 2pm today (when I turned in my geometry exam), I am finished with college. How insane is that? I’ll tell you, it’s totally mad. And by totally mad I mean really freakin’ awesome.

Speaking of the geometry exam, it was quite… difficult in places. I actually didn’t spend as long on it as I did the last one, largely because I got some hints from the professor early on. But there were still some not-so-easy problems.

So there’s this question on the geometry exam that says “Prove that if three points are chosen, one on each side of a triangle, then the circles determined by a vertex and the two points on the adjacent sides of the chosen vertex meet at a point.” and I answered as follows:

Once upon a time there was a student who wanted to get a good grade on the exam but he had no idea at all how to go about solving most of the problems. Then he talked to his teacher and she helped a lot but he still couldn’t solve two of the problems. Since the student couldn’t prove either of the problems, he decided to write a story about one of them and draw a pretty picture.

There was once a triangle named Fred. He was a very nice looking blue triangle. Then one day Fred got the chicken pox. All of a sudden there appeared six red spots, one at each of his vertices and one on each of his sides. Fred was very upset by this and called his circle friends to see if they could help him out. George, Bob, and Jim hurried right over. While they were inspecting Fred’s spots, Bob exclaimed, "Look at this! I can fit myself over the spot at your left vertex and the spots on your adjacent sides! " "Great. " Fred said dejectedly. "You just go on ahead and lie there. It’s not helping me get any better." Then George made a similar discovery: "Fred, I fit over your top vertex and the spots on the adjacent sides!" This did not help Fred’s mood. "I called you guys over here to help me get rid of the spots, not to play on them!" Discouraged, the circles were about to leave when Jim tripped and fell onto Fred. "Um, Fred, I don’t want to cause any trouble, but I just fell onto your right vertex and, well, look!" Amazingly all three circles were meeting at a single point. "Wow!" said Fred, "How can I ever repay you for helping me figure out the reason for my spots?" "Well," Bob replied, "you could prove why we are able to meet at a single point like this." So Fred tried and tried, but he couldn’t determine why the circles all lined up like they did. He died an old and bitter triangle. The end.

And the moral of the story is: If you have three green circles for friends, don’t let them play on your chicken pox.

Maybe I’ll get some points for creativity. :-)

Other things happening lately: I’ve been watching Taken on and off. I’m not as addicted to it as other people, but it’s an interesting show. Tuesday night I watched Pi with some other people. I enjoyed it… it’s a kinda messed-up-but-cool movie, and i found it to have a lot to say about the search for meaning in life. Oh, and I really liked the music… I gotta get me some of that. Also, we had an ice storm on Tuesday. That was exciting and very pretty. My roommate took some cool pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I wish I had a camera with me this morning. After our networking exam, Dave and I walked up on "the hill." The valley was so amazing, with fog and rising and the trees all covered with ice and shining… it brought new meaning to the phrase "winter wonderland" :-) Somebody did get a shot of it though — the top right picture on the ice storm page on EMU’s website is a bit like what we saw. But of course it’s not nearly as cool as being there.

Now that I’m done, what’s next, you ask? Working, of course. I’ve got a full-time job doing IT type stuff. Sound exciting? Oh, you know it is!

♫ Reverence dj mix by DJ Lorraine (listen at DJPatD.com in the music section).