Two things I've never seen before

This weekend Paula and I drove about four hours south to visit some of her friends. Along the way, I saw two odds situations. The first was a woman riding a motorcycle...with a man riding on the back. I've seen women riding bikes, but never with a man riding on the back. I just thought it was a bit odd.

Later in the weekend we were eating dinner at a local restaraunt. There was a nicely-dressed couple sitting near us (probably in their 60's or 70's). Nothing odd about that. But they were talking to the waitresses, who were both white women with cornrows in their hair, and the couple was asking questions about the hair style.

Picture that again. A nice, distinguished-looking couple discussing cornrow-haircuts with two white women.

And no, it wasn't the Champagne Velvet Pilsner I was drinking affecting my vision.


-- C.

House Hunting

A few weeks ago we contacted a realator and started looking for a house. The apartment was good for me when I was single, but getting married and moving in all of her belonging is putting a strain on our storage space. (She was at her parents' last week and found six (6!) boxes of book, and another couple bags of books. She weeded out about a third of them, but we still need to make room, somewhere, for all the rest.)

Our lease ends in a month, but I really don't think we'll find a place before then. We've looked at a few places, but none of them are quite right. One looked like a good deal, but it would take a lot of work (just minor things, but it adds up). I'm not much of a handy-man-fixer-upper-do-it-yourself-kinda-guy. It was a two-storey house with a full basement and a good-sized attic, and a nice yard, in a nice neighborhood not far from where we are now. I'd rather keep looking and see if we can find something a little newer.


-- C.

On Writing Well

"On Writing Well" is the title of a book by William Zinsser. I haven't read the whole book, just a few excerpts online. I think any budding blogger would do well to read his thoughts and try to apply them.


-- C.

DVD Rentals

I guess Paula got tired of watching the movies I put in my Netflix queue (zombie movies, movies others suggested but which suck, movies I remembered as being good but really aren't, etc). She asked me to add a few movies she was interested in, such as Memoirs of a Geisha, The Family Stone, Capote, and Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Last night we were watching The Family Stone. My old DVD player hasn't worked well for a long time, so we've been watching movies on the PS2. The cats were playing around in front of the TV when one of them got the bright idea to run-as-fast-as-he-can into the kitchen and the other followed right behind, without regard to any cords that might be between them and their destination.

The PS2 was knocked to the floor and the movie stopped playing.

We had a "chat" with the cats, and after we got back from the vet...I'm KIDDING!

We picked things up and tried to start the movie again, but the PS2 kept reporting "Unable to read disc." We opened it up and cleaned the DVD a little, but the PS2 refused to continue the movie. We tried another DVD and it worked. We tried The Family Stone again, but still got nothing. I put in a game and it worked. But not the movie we wanted to finish watching.

(Paula had some interesting ideas:
P: Did it get erased?
J: No, I don't think the PS2 is powerful enough do that....
P: Did it get de-magnetized?
J: No, it isn't magnetic.
P: Maybe it *got* magnetized?
J: I really don't think it works like that.)

She started getting her shoes on. "Where are you going?" "We're going to the store to rent it so we can finish watching it tonight." "*WE* are? It's after 8 PM."

I convinced her to just send it back to Netflix and get a replacement, even though it would mean a few days delay before we finished it.

This morning I brought the DVD with me to work and tried it in my laptop. Worked fine. I'll take the laptop home with me tonight we we can watch the rest of it. But why in the world is the PS2 so prejudice against this particular DVD? "Hmm, last time I was playing this movie you threw me on the floor! I ain't playing that one again!"


-- C.

Hmm. Hmmmm.

I really don't have anthing to say. It's been almost a week since my last post. I've notice some of my friends' blogs don't have recent entries and I felt obligated to write. Dave has an entry, and I tried to comment on it, but the site kept hanging up and never saved what I wrote. Hopefully this post will work.

Blah. Blah blah, blah. Blah.

Cerpicio OUT!
-- C.

13-year-old Chinese boy commits suicide after playing "Warcraft"

I just saw a news story about a young boy in China who jumped out a window after playing "World of Warcraft" for 36 hours. He suicide note said something about him wanting to join his online heros. The parents are suing the distributor of the game, but not the company who wrote and maintains it.

One thing they want to do:
"His parents' suit also calls on the distributor to put a warning on the game's packaging saying 'playing games excessively harms health,' the report said."

Is that really necessary? You would think a 13-year-old would be able to figure that one out. Whenever I hear stories of people killing themselves, or sometimes others, after playing games (online multi-player games, D&D, or whatever), I always wonder if there wasn't something else going on in their lives that caused the problem. If it wasn't games that set them off, something else would have. Computer games don't make normal healthy people do things like that.

And no one noticed a boy sitting in front of a computer for 36 hours?! No one kicked him off?

I'm sorry for the parents' loss, but I don't think this lawsuit is going to solve anything.


-- C.

The happy couple

The Happy Couple:





Thanks Lori!

-- C.

Bad dream

I had a horrible dream over the weekend. I dreamt my friend Marcus came over and watched a movie with Paula and me -- a movie called "Cabin Fever." It was a senseless horror movie, over-using profanity and the fake blood. The movie was a gift from my in-laws. I would like to know how they found out about this movie and why they thought it was worth giving as a gift.

After we finished watching it I noticed the DVD even had a "Special Features" option on the menu. What, this movie has deleted scenes or something? What editor sat there and thought, "Oh no, I can't leave that scene in, it would ruin everything!" Are you telling me there was a scene so bad that it didn't make the cut into this abomination? Yikes.

I'm hoping it was all a dream. I couldn't face the reality of that movie actually existing.


-- C.

Handwritting recognition

My sister sent me an email from her new cell phone. The phone is more of a PDA, with a stylus and touch-screen. She was testing the handwritting recognition and it looked something like this:

"Nell I am sending this from my cell phoneI wanted to see horSloopy Farantl Aerofl on hawo+rccogntZed"

Which she said should read:

"Well Iam sending this from my cell phone Iwanted to see how sloppy I could write and still have it recognised."

If any of you want to use the name "horSloopy Farantl" as a band name, just be sure to give us credit. (And a split of your profits.)


-- C.

Gotta love TheOnion.com

"New Solar System Discovered Four Feet from Earth"

The article is from 1996 but this is the first I've seen it.

"...efforts are underway to analyze the new planetary system using telescopic spectrographic analysis, as well as shovels, in gathering data from distances of up to 48.5 inches."

"Future research projects include a NASA mission to lean a ladder against the planet and attempt a manned climb to its surface, a plan tentatively scheduled for November 1997, with a projected cost of approximately 60 bucks."

"Added Lando, 'We must also remember not to get too close, as our telescopes might bump into it, poking us in the eye with the other end.'"


Funny article...you should read the rest of it.
-- C.

New memory and video card!

The new memory is in and working well, just screwing around with video drivers now.

I was just planning on putting in the memory first, but the video card was kinda in the way, so I ended up just doing them both at the same time.

I'm now 20% through downloading the 35 MB it says I need for the driver. Man, that's crazy. I'm going to end up being up all night and it's already "past my bed time."

So far I haven't blown up my computer (yet), it's just taking longer than expected (doesn't it always?).


-- C.