Posts with mood blah (14)
simultaneous dance video!
Mood: blah
Posted on 2009-09-13 12:27:00
Words: 21
Coordinated in advance on the internet:
kinda down
Mood: blah
Posted on 2009-01-28 09:47:00
Tags: whereslunch weight wedding
Words: 137
I was in a fairly crappy mood yesterday, seemingly the result of two things:
- whereslunch.org is honestly pretty much done. I should tweak up the design a little bit, I guess, and try to promote it somehow, but neither of these are very exciting or appealing.
- this wedding crap is already starting to get to me, which is a terrible sign given how far there is still to go. Hopefully we can figure out a date this week (the new target month is July, it seems) but there's so much crap to do and blah blah blah whine whine whine.
Anyway. The good news is that despite being absolutely terrible yesterday, my weight dipped down a bit. Of course this means I'll be good today and will gain a lot tomorrow and then be depressed about it.
link monday
Mood: blah
Music: Smashing Pumpkins - "The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning"
Posted on 2008-11-24 10:31:00
Tags: netflixprize math links
Words: 364
I'm actually feeling a bit down from finishing my talk - I guess I was looking forward to it more than I thought? It's weird. Maybe I need to work on whereslunch.org some more or something. Anyway, to cheer myself up:
more early voting info
Mood: blah
Posted on 2008-10-23 11:51:00
Tags: politics
Words: 109
As a follow up to my previous early voting post:
Here's the Austin League of Women Voters Guide (20 page pdf). Part of the irritating part is knowing which local things you get to vote for - this Travis County voter registration lookup tells you what congressional and state senate district you're in, as well as your county commissioner district, and even your polling place on election day if you're unable to early vote. Here's a sample ballot lookup for Williamson County.
Interestingly, the Austin American-Statesman voting against Proposition 2 (the "Stop Domain Subsidies one") this morning. I was planning to vote yes on it, but now I'm not sure...
random whatevers
Mood: blah
Posted on 2008-10-03 14:16:00
Tags: links
Words: 766
Feeling a bit on the crappy side today - anyone else's allergies bothering them?
I've heard of Desktop Tower Defense but hadn't tried it until this week. Warning: quite addictive! (there's also now Whiteboard Tower Defense which I haven't tried)
For some Cold War nostalgia (which is a little weird since I wasn't alive/aware during the interesting parts), check out the Wikipedia entry on CONELRAD, precursor of the Emergency Broadcast System which preceded the Emergency Alert System (doesn't the logo for the Emergency Alert System look kind of frightening, like the country's falling apart?) CONELRAD's purpose was to control electromagnetic radiation by shutting down all radio stations except for a few frequencies (a station would stay on the air at one of two designated frequencies for a few minutes, then cycle off and another station would start broadcasting on that frequency) to confuse enemy planes that might try to use the signals to home in on cities. Apparently Japanese planes used a Honolulu radio station to home in on Pearl Harbor.
The British version was the Four minute warning (the estimated time between the detection of a nuclear attack and when it would hit). The announcement is pretty chilling:This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service. This country has been attacked with nuclear weapons. Communications have been severely disrupted, and the number of casualties and the extent of the damage are not yet known. We shall bring you further information as soon as possible. Meanwhile, stay tuned to this wavelength, stay calm and stay in your own homes.
Remember there is nothing to be gained by trying to get away. By leaving your homes you could be exposing yourselves to greater danger.
If you leave, you may find yourself without food, without water, without accommodation and without protection. Radioactive fall-out, which follows a nuclear explosion, is many times more dangerous if you are directly exposed to it in the open. Roofs and walls offer substantial protection. The safest place is indoors.
Make sure gas and other fuel supplies are turned off and that all fires are extinguished. If mains water is available, this can be used for fire-fighting. You should also refill all your containers for drinking water after the fires have been put out, because the mains water supply may not be available for very long.
Water must not be used for flushing lavatories: until you are told that lavatories may be used again, other toilet arrangements must be made. Use your water only for essential drinking and cooking purposes. Water means life. Don't waste it
Make your food stocks last: ration your supply, because it may have to last for 14 days or more. If you have fresh food in the house, use this first to avoid wasting it: food in tins will keep.
If you live in an area where a fall-out warning has been given, stay in your fall-out room until you are told it is safe to come out. When the immediate danger has passed the sirens will sound a steady note. The "all clear" message will also be given on this wavelength. If you leave the fall-out room to go to the lavatory or replenish food or water supplies, do not remain outside the room for a minute longer than is necessary.
Do not, in any circumstances, go outside the house. Radioactive fall-out can kill. You cannot see it or feel it, but it is there. If you go outside, you will bring danger to your family and you may die. Stay in your fall-out room until you are told it is safe to come out or you hear the "all clear" on the sirens.
Here are the main points again:
Stay in your own homes, and if you live in an area where a fall-out warning has been given stay in your fall-out room, until you are told it is safe to come out. The message that the immediate danger has passed will be given by the sirens and repeated on this wavelength. Make sure that the gas and all fuel supplies are turned off and that all fires are extinguished.
Water must be rationed, and used only for essential drinking and cooking purposes. It must not be used for flushing lavatories. Ration your food supply: it may have to last for 14 days or more.
We shall repeat this broadcast in two hours' time. Stay tuned to this wavelength, but switch your radios off now to save your batteries until we come on the air again. That is the end of this broadcast.
(here's an article about that nuclear script)
vp debate wrap
Mood: blah
Posted on 2008-10-03 09:46:00
Tags: politics links
Words: 199
Actually getting a little tired of national politics(!) - here's my quick debate summary:
You can check out my twitters during the debate (that was kinda fun but I'm not sure I'll do it again). Palin did well enough - there were a few awkward silences but certainly nothing like the cringe-worthy Couric interviews. (and she got the wrong name for the commander of our forces in Afghanistan) Biden started out very stiff and unanimated, but by the end he was doing much better - got his shots in at McCain and showed he has a command of the issues.
Most insta-polls show people thought Biden won. Probably the important thing is that Palin didn't falter or hurt herself/McCain. My guess is she'll avoid giving interviews until the election.
In its stead: local politics! Lots of local businesses are for Proposition 2, which would Stop Domain Subsidies. The other side is somewhat amusingly named Keep Austin's Word. I'm leaning towards voting yes on Prop 2 but I'm gonna read about it some more first.
Austin's commuter rail starts March 30 - yay!
the usual
Mood: blah
Posted on 2008-09-15 10:40:00
Tags: music politics links
Words: 165
Clinton and Palin on SNL:
Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes - one of the things I'm most looking forward to the end of is cronyism - hiring friends for the job rather than the most qualified person. It looks like Palin wouldn't be the end of that at all.
Picked up a few new albums yesterday (I looooove me some amazonmp3.com!) - "Appetite for Destruction" by Guns N' Roses and "Speak for Yourself" by Imogen Heap. I didn't know that Guns N's Roses first album had both "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Sweet Child O' Mine" on it! Interestingly:
According to Rose, the inspiration for the lyrics came from an encounter he and a friend had with a man while they were sleeping in a school yard in Queens. When they were approached by the "little black man", he yelled at them, "You know where you are? You're in the jungle baby; you're gonna die!" This incident inspired the main lyrical declaration for the song.
nope
Mood: blah
Posted on 2008-07-23 16:39:00
Tags: politics links
Words: 84
McCain says Obama would "rather lose the war in order to win a political campaign".
Now, look. I understand if McCain thinks Obama is going about the war the wrong way, or if withdrawing our troops on a timetable (which 60% of Americans want to do, including Obama and al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq) is bad, etc. But saying he's trying to lose a war to score political points is pretty offensive.
Also, cause and effect relationships undermine American troops. Take that, causality!
Musical friends & family show?
Mood: blah
Posted on 2008-07-18 14:13:00
Tags: asmc
Words: 33
Before I forget, does anyone want to come to the ASMC friends & family show? It's Friday, August 1 at 7 PM. I have a few spare tickets but in general they're going fast!
blah, screw it
Mood: blah
Posted on 2008-01-28 09:57:00
Tags: getflix politics
Words: 194
Another session of being frustrated at my getflix project has led me to give up the idea, possibly forever. Not only is it frustrating to do,
- I have a lot fewer movie ratings than music ratings, and I don't think the statistics are going to be particularly interesting
- The only way to get the data out of Netflix is screen-scraping (looking for particular text in the HTML) which is a) certainly against the Terms of Service b) very fragile to Netflix changing things, even small things, which means that I would have to keep maintaining it, which is pretty certainly not going to happen, so it has a limited lifespan anyway
So, begone! Next project might involve Django (per spchampion's suggestion) if I can think of something interesting to do with it.
Go Obama! He won the South Carolina primary by a wide margin, and won the coveted endorsements from Edward Kennedy, JFK's daughter, and xkcd. (not to mention Lawrence Lessig, who now focuses on anti-corruption issues) We'll see if he's able to compete on Super Tuesday (a week from tomorrow). This is the most exciting primary season in my admittedly short political life :-)
united way iPhone giveaway - bleck
Mood: blah
Posted on 2007-11-26 14:18:00
Tags: rant
Words: 113
I just got a second email reminding me that if you donate to the United Way now, you're entered to win an 8GB iPhone. Color me unimpressed. Doesn't it seem kinda backwards to entice people to donate money with a prize? Maybe McElroy Translation (who donated the prize) should have just donated the money it cost to buy it - it's not like Apple donated it or anything.
Worse yet, this sets up the idea that you're not donating; you're buying a chance at the iPhone. Will you be so eager to donate when there's no possible reward?
(I understand this is a cranky attitude about it, and probably it's not a big deal)
I am incapable of finding colors that look nice together
Mood: blah
Posted on 2007-11-07 10:11:00
Tags: color itunesanalysis
Words: 75
This is a known issue ever since I'm growing up. I'm not actually color-blind (although people who kept calling my red shirt "pink" might disagree!), I just have no sense for color. "Queer eye" my ass. Anyway, here's my latest attempt at colors that look reasonable together. (the fact that colors look very different on my Linux box at home from my Windows machine here doesn't help) I used this color scheme generator to help.
weekendish activities!
Mood: blah
Posted on 2006-05-08 09:59:00
Tags: dallas ruby palmtogooglecalendar
Words: 475
So djedi and I went up to Dallas this weekend to visit his sister and two nephews. I had a good time, despite the long drive and somewhat awkwardness (since I don't know them too terribly well). The kids are really cute, though, and they were pretty well behaved. I played with the older one (Donovan) a fair bit and he called me "Uncle Greg" once near the end, which really made me feel good. Man, I don't know how they keep up with them - they're ages 5 and 3 and bursting with energy!
I did take some pictures, but didn't have time to put them up last night. Maybe tonight...
Saturday night we went out to see "Ice Age: The Meltdown" which I wasn't terribly impressed with. It was clearly aimed at kids, but unlike "Shrek" and, oh, every Pixar movie made so far, there wasn't much there for adults. I chuckled a few times, but that was about it. The kids really seemed to enjoy it, too - they're old enough to mostly sit through a movie at the theatre, which is neat.
I hate Dallas. This is not news to many of you, but there it is. While driving up there, I discovered another reason I hate it. So the interstate system has some pretty neat features, one of which is that interstates ending in 5 are roughly parallel across the country (i.e. I-5 goes through California, I-35 and I-45 go through Texas, and I-95 goes along the East Coast, etc.), and interstates ending in 0 are the same thing, but east-west (i.e. I-10 goes through Texas, I-90 goes through, erm, North Dakota or something). However, Dallas totally screws this up - not only do I-35 and I-45 meet in Dallas, so do I-20 and I-30! It's making a mockery of this beautifully designed system. Screw you, Dallas! (the floor is open for more reasons to hate Dallas)
Ooo, might Futurama be coming back?
So I stayed up late last night and made some more improvements to my Palm to Google Calendar importer. I fixed some irritating timezone issues (thanks to the TZInfo module) and, instead of deleting all existing events and adding all new events, now it compares the new ones with existing ones and only deletes and adds ones it needs to. Sort of like a diff/patch type thing. I also went ahead and split up repeating events into individual events so the calendar could handle it - hopefully they'll fix that someday and I can go back. Anyway, once I improve the Palm parsing of events, it'll be pretty much feature-complete and I'll put a web interface on it so anyone can use it. (at least maybe fairydust1 will find it useful) But even if nobody else does, it's very useful for me, and I'm learning more about Ruby and such. Whee!
blarg
Mood: blah
Music: Fuel - "Song for You"
Posted on 2006-01-03 13:56:00
Words: 115
Well, New Year's is basically over, and yikes. I had a lot of fun, but I'm exhausted from all of the festivities, and being at work is toughish. Good to see people, though - I'll put pictures up at some point. I got to see the paper arrive in the morning (a little after 5) right before I went to bed on the morning of January 1. And many thanks to djedi to driving quijax to the airport very very early this morning!
The product I work on released! Yay!
Hopefully, a quiet week is ahead. My stomach hasn't been feeling the best, and I gained a little more weight, but that ends next week. Grr.
This backup was done by LJBackup.