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I am Joe's Hard Drive

I just finished Chuck Palahniuk breakthrough novel Fight Club. Yes, the novel that inspired the movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. (On a side note, I’ve mentioned to one of my friends that I don’t think Ed Norton has ever done a bad movie. Even that one with Robert DeNiro – not a good movie, but it had DeNiro.)

The book was amazing. It’s very short, just slightly longer than a novella. The movie was surprisingly closer to the book than I expected, but the book’s ending was better. I can see why the movie couldn’t go that direction and applaud the way the movie did end in keeping with the spirit of the book.

I am Joe’s impressed reader.

The book makes you question everything – how you live, American consumerism, and what matters. The prose’s style is quick and captures you. You quickly overcome the quirkiness of the prose itself and have a hard time putting the book down.

The book has been on my want to read list for years, and my wife got it for me for Christmas. Now to collect the rest. Unfortunately, most of his books are trade paperbacks, and are fairly small, so paying $10-$14 is a bit much. I’ll have to check half.com to see if regular paperbacks were ever published.

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Vacation…

Vacation is half over and I haven’t done a damn thing. And I like it.

Lots of playing WoW, and I have worked on the server a bit (damn DHCP and firewall giving me errors).

I’ve also aggregated all of my music onto one machine, which will lead me to cleaning some hard drives and installing linux on one of my other PCs. That machine will have rsync automated to back up the master collection on the server so I won’t have to worry about another hard drive crash.

Back to more vacation.

Favre 4-ever



100_0249, originally uploaded by silwenae.

I had mentioned some of the other Christmas presents I received this year, but this one is by far my favorite.

From my parents, an authentic Favre jersey, autographed and framed, with a pigskin matte in the frame. It’s huge, the picture doesn’t do it justice.

Now to get the basement finished so I can build my shrine to the Packers.

89.3 The Current

I’m consistently impressed with 89.3, KMCP, The Current. The music keeps getting better and better. I had some money left in my MusicNow account, so I took Mary Lucia’s advice and picked up Ted Leo & The Pharmacist’s Shake the Sheets. I had looked for it at Best Buy, but they had had only 2 of their older albums. I also picked up Tegan & Sara, a Canadian folk duo (sisters, I think) that have opened up for Sarah McLachlan a few times.

Both discs were their newest releases from late in 2004, and both kick ass. Ted Leo reminds me of a fast driven Tim Mahoney, with a similar vocal style, but very different musically. Tegan & Sara are impressive in their own way, with poppy, fast alternative.

About 2 weeks ago The Current started giving away bumper stickers one or two nights a week. Unfortunately, the volunteers were always in downtown St Paul or Minneapolis, or Uptown, and I live in the boonies in the suburbs. I was pleasantly suprised to get a letter from The Current yesterday with a thank you for donating, and one bumper sticker and 2 window clings, and a promise that my welcome kit would come in a month, and my vinyl record in a few more. Time to get a car wash, peel off my Kerry sticker, and replace it with something better.

Current Bumper Sticker

Super Day

The big enchilada. The game they all play for. The Super Bowl.

I love football – it’s the one sport I have a passion for. While I hate baseball, hockey is ok (if they ever play), like NBA basketball, really like NCAA basketball and would put NCAA football a step above that, it’s NFL football I make a point of seeing week in and week out.

NFL Europe, training camps, I’ll do whatever I can to get my fix during the offseason.

And today is the day that all that hard work culminates in one game for the players.

But what drives me nuts about the Super Bowl is some of the hype (not all, but some). 8 hours of pre-game – 8 hours? Really? And after Janet Jackson last year, this year’s focus on being “tame” – and it’s just ridiculous. So it’s okay to have an erectile disfunction ad, but yet Fox changes the name of the Best Damn Sports Show to the Best Darned Sportshow? It’s ok for Mike Ditka to tell me about limp dicks but Fox yanks Mickey Rooney’s ass in a commercial spoof?

All ranting aside, here’s hoping to a close game like last year, some decent commercials, and good friends and food to watch the game with. (And go Pats!)

Paper Sushi

The New York Times has an article up about Homaro Cantu (no registered required link!) who prints edible pictures of sushi on a Canon i560 inkjet printer and serves them to customers.

Mr. Cantu has a vision to make technology enhance the dining experience, including making food levitate, edible printouts (in 3d no less), and edible utensils.

Interesting stuff.

Comment Spam

The Comment Spam I’m getting is out of control. I mention the word “poker” in a post Friday, and I’ve had spam sites try to add over 500 comments in the last 48 hours. I’ve tweaked the site a bit, and even before that, I’ve been lucky enough that none of the comment spam has gotten through yet.

It’s quite annoying to have it all sit in the moderation queue though. Rumor is WordPress 1.3 will be out soonish. I’m hoping it has built-in spam comment control, otherwise it’s time to start looking at some plugins.

How annoying.

MythTV & Filesharing

The New York Times has a decent article up about MythTV, the Broadcast Flag, and Filesharing up. While it’s fairly high level, and some parts are wrong (Bittorrent letting you download a 1 hour show in minutes for example: I’ve downloaded plenty of TV shows and it’s not that fast, trust me) it’s not a bad article.

Even mentions the EFF and how they’re going to fight the Broadcast Flag, which may or may not put a stop to some of the filesharing. I agree with parts – I own Alias, 24, Sports Night, and every season of the Simpsons available on DVD. Purchased them and everything. I don’t mind buying TV I love (though it drives my wife crazy why I buy TV shows on DVD for shows I’ve already seen). But the government regulating even more the TV that comes over the air on what I can record, and how long it stays recorded for I start to have issues. It’s one thing if we’re talking about pay TV, say the Sopranos. But when I miss a week or two of 24, what is the issue if I download it?

If I miss an episode of 24, and I can’t download it, there is a good chance I am done watching for the season. Especially with serial shows like Lost, 24, Alias, and Desperate Housewives. Is it worth it to Big Media to not allow me to download and lose me as a customer for the entire season? I don’t think they always see the forest for the trees.

I’ll be buying a pcHDTV card for my MythTV box prior to July 1st when the Broadcast Flag goes in to effect. Maybe even two since hard drives are cheap now.

An Asinine Hodgepodge

So I’m browsing the ‘net mindlessly this afternoon, and decide to take a peek at the Star Tribune’s movie page just to see if any new movies have come out I may be interested in. And what do I see halfway down the page but a story to the movie “Alone in the Dark” that came out this week, and this is what the synopsis said before you even click to read their review:

If you took the 100 worst ideas ever conceived for a science-fiction film, rattled them around in a Lotto tumbler and spilled them out onto the screen at random, you could not produce a more asinine hodgepodge than this.

How many people do you think will even read that review, much less go to that movie? That cracks me up, tell it like it is Star-Trib!