Dumping Grounds

• Big LCD monitors with USB hubs in them are just the coolest thing. why have I not used this feature before?
• I’m currently somewhat obsessed with turning my old powerbook into a PVR (Tivo) but damn… MythTV is cool. Especially since I have MythWeb working again.
• I have not made this any sort of a public thing, but I’ve been trying to lose weight. I have not gained any in the last couple of years, I just decided I wanted to drop a few. 10 pounds down, and… uh… several more to go. I’ve got a goal that I get to do something I have been wanting to do when I stay 15 pounds down for 3 days. Almost there.
• I’m not going to get into the Israel thing. I want to go to bed, and that could take a while.
• Work still stinks, but it stinks less than it has. We’ll see how this week goes.
• Oh, and Liz, no I could not photograph the space shuttle, my scope doesn’t track that fast… although I could see it go overhead from my backyard.
• Thanks to Jason for the help fixing up my bike. I rode further today than I have ridden lately. As much as I would like to claim it’s because of me getting in shape, or weighing less… it’s probably due to the fact that that brake is not dragging on my wheel anymore.
• And yes, Alan, the ante is going to make the blog. Do you know you have to pay .50 per hand to play blackjack in Oklahoma? What a crock of shit. If you are betting $5 a hand, that’s a 10% house edge, right off the top. For those of you who are not blackjack math geeks… assuming you know what you are doing, on a $5 bet, your expected losses per hand are about 20x greater in Oklahoma than in Louisiana. Jeez. I’ll go to Shreveport next time. That said, Alan won anyway. I didn’t play, I could not get over the ante. But I had fun hanging out. I like the casino atmosphere… and as much as I wish it was… the ante wasn’t hurting their business any.

• Congratulations to Floyd Landis. The stage 18 comeback was among the most amazing things I have ever seen in sports. Plus… anything that chaps the ass of the French makes me smile.
• George W. Bush should be absolutely ashamed of himself for vetoing the Stem Cell research bill. Whether or not you believe that a fertilized embryo is a human life, and deserves protection, is completely irrelevant. The simple fact of the matter is that those embryos are a by-product of in-vitro fertilization. Those embryos are going to be destroyed anyway. They are not potential human life. I’m sorry if the language offends anyone… but this is an opportunity to use garbage to find a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and a variety of other horrific diseases that affect millions of people worldwide. George Bush has taken the position that the moral rights of garbage trumps the moral rights of many hundreds of thousands of sick Americans. Even typing that simply disgusts me. (Merriam Webster Online defines garbage as â??discarded material.â? I think this genetic material qualifies.)
• Sports Illustrated has done what I thought was impossible. They made me want to root for Terrell Owens. This weeks’ article on T.O. turns the widely held view on its’ ear.
• SciFi’s new series, Eureka, got off to a nice start. I enjoyed the pilot. I have serious doubts about the staying power of the overall premise, but so far, it’s been enjoyable.

• I’m not upset that the Stars signed Eric Lindros. Sure he’ll be hurt a lot… but for the games he’s playing, he’ll go a long way toward replacing Jason Arnott. Count it as half a player signed. It’s not like they gave him any real money.
• Not that I plan to do this anytime soon, and I’m hoping it never happens… but if I were to be damned to Hell, I’m fairly certain that my punishment would be to ride American Airlines flights to Orlando and back for all eternity.
• I tried to switch web browsers. I really did. There’s all sorts of cool new ones out there… OmniWeb, Opera, Camino… but none of them have people writing extensions for them like Firefox. Even though it’s slow, I think I’ll stay where I am.
• As part of my browser experiment, I needed a way to move my bookmarks. So I uploaded them to http://del.icio.us. What’s the big deal? I don’t see how del.icio.us is community, useful, or cool. It was an inconvenient way to move my bookmarks around, with a lousy interface.
• My life would be less stressful if Wall Street analysts would keep their damn mouth shut if that have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. In the last week analysts have said: downgrade Apple, profits will be lower than expected, projections will be even lower, and new-model iPods will be VERY late. Reality: They upgraded Apple, they reported the second (or third, depending on how you measure) highest profits in the history of the company, third quarter projections are just fine, and new model iPods may be introduced as early as 3 weeks from now. <sigh> Inaccuracies like that cause huge stock swings that stress me out.
• I’ll add to this post as I think of more.

Ever have one of those [days|weeks|months] that makes you truly feel that God has nothing better to do than piss on your head?

I’m living that month.