Dumping Grounds

Several things have come together to get me to finally do this… I’ve been putting it off a long time.

• Many of you who know me know that I have lost a LOT of weight in the last year. A little over 70 pounds this year, and a little over a hundred overall. Needless to say I have a huge pile of clothes that no longer fit, but are plenty wearable.
• I’m off work this week, so I had to find something to do.
• Amy told me she didn’t think I would do it.
• The Ticket’s Norm-A-Thon inspired me.

So, what did I do? I emptied out every single closet, hangar, pile, drawer, box under the bed and anywhere else I might keep clothes… and went through each piece to determine if I ever thought I would wear it again. The criteria were as follows:

• If it had a University of Texas or Texas A&M logo on it… it got donated.
• If it made me think of the University of Texas or Texas A&M simply because of the color it was… it got donated.
• If it was two sizes bigger than I wear today, out it went.
• If it was more than 10 years out of style… gone.
• If it didn’t belong to me… into the donation bag.
• If it was a concert t-shirt… you know the drill. (More on this later)
• If I had to think more than 10 seconds in making a decision… it got sent.

Here’s the picture of the final stack, from the top of my stairs… linked to a bigger version on Flickr (that has labels to identify all the stacks).

The final tally:

• 16 pairs of jeans
• 32 pairs of socks
• 20 t-shirts (not including any of the ones I intend to photograph)
• 18 collared shirts
• 10 button down shirts
• 10 pairs of underwear
• 1 suit
• 5 sweatshirts
• 8 sweaters
• 1 scarf
• 1 coat
• 4 pairs of slacks
• 1 fitted sheet
• 1 pair of sweatpants
• 5 pairs of shorts
• 1 weird neck warmer type thing that I assume was used while skiing

I certainly encourage everyone reading this to do the same thing as soon as they have time. My donation is going to a women’s shelter in Garland.

I have some other things that I want to write about, but I really thought that I needed to recognize some outstanding customer service I received today.

I walked into an Apple Store with a busted Mag-Safe power connector. No computer, no serial number, no receipt, no appointment.

Walked to the Genius Bar in the back of the store, made my appointment for right then, explained my problem (and gratefully, I was never questioned â??Did you do this?â? â??Did you try that?â? â??Here, let’s test it and see if I can replicate the problemâ?) and received a replacement (which I am currently happily using). They looked up my serial number on line, verified my identity, and gave me the new connector. Total elapsed time? About 12 minutes. Total tally? One replaced connector, zero hassles, and one happy customer.

That’s why Apple is making money.

So, I am discussing with some friends how Lost is geting on their nerves…

Seems they are a little disgusted that the show seems to have completely forgotten any overall plan that they may have had to begin with. It’s rambling. It’s scattered. And while I realize a little confusion is part of what makes Lost, Lost… the show as it stands now makes no sense at all.

I’d like to point out that just a bit over 2 years ago, I pointed out that this was a distinct possibility (and boy, did I catch grief for the Twin Peaks comparison), and that ABC had a history of trendy television that captured the public’s imagination, then lost them by becoming so obtuse, so inconsistent that no one could follow what was going on, and eventually they stopped watching (and in the case of Twin Peaks, leaving the story utterly hanging).

I’ve heard no less than 5 people compare Lost to Twin Peaks in the last week. While they have an awful lot of good stuff in common, they also have virtually all of their tragic flaws in common, as well.

As a side note, I’d also like to point out that ten minutes after the end of game 1, I also opined that Tony Romo would be a better fit for Dallas’ anemic offensive line. Not that I necessarily think he’s a better QB, but he’s definitely a better fit when the pocket is constantly collapsing. And although the Cowboys are a strikingly average team, no matter who is at QB, Romo has done a better job, simply because he can move around a bit.

I have the following games available for the upcoming Dallas Stars season:

Mon, Oct 23 7:30PM Vancouver
Mon, Nov 20 7:00PM Colorado SOLD
Fri, Nov 24 7:30PM Los Angeles
Wed, Dec 6 7:30PM Phoenix SOLD
Thu, Dec 14 7:30PM NY Rangers
Sat, Dec 23 7:00PM Edmonton
Tue, Jan 9 7:30PM Phoenix
Mon, Jan 15 3:00PM Los Angeles SOLD
Tue, Feb 6 7:00PM Minnesota
Sun, Feb 11 2:30PM Colorado
Fri, Feb 23 7:30PM Anaheim
Sun, Feb 25 2:30PM Vancouver SOLD
Fri, Mar 2 7:30PM Columbus
Sun, Mar 18 7:00PM Phoenix
Mon, Apr 2 7:00PM St. Louis SOLD
Fri, Apr 6 7:30PM Anaheim

Good seats, basically the first row of the upper deck, in between the blue lines. $74 per game. E-mail me ( mcave at matthewcave.com) if interested or leave a comment. First come, first served.

Nobody browses over there yet, so I figured I would try to steer some folks in that direction.

Couple of cute pics of my dogs.

Go see: http://www.matthewcave.com/

And I certainly would not complain if you clicked on an ad. Or two.

Obviously I have rolled out a new look and feel.

There were several reasons for this.

• The amount of comment spam (note: I received 11 while composing this post) I was getting was getting to be completely unmanageable, so I upgraded MovableType to get the latest and greatest spam fighting tools. The old template was broken in the new version.
• Now I have a search results page.
• I removed my name from every page, as it had become entirely too easy for someone I had just met to learn a little more about me than I was comfortable with.
• I was tired of looking at the old page.
• The new style validates. As a web professional, several people had ridiculed me for the number of HTML errors in the old format.
• It was too damn hot today to go outside.

Hope you like it.

• Throwing a cigarette butt out your automobile’s window. You have an ashtray, why don’t you fucking use it? Oh, I know why… because cigarettes smell like a monkey’s ass, and you don’t want to smell that shit in your car.
• Having a web page with background music.
• Having a web page that makes any sound at all unless I click on something that clearly indicates that it’s going to make noise. (Do you hear me, ESPN? I hate your damn Motion video on your home page.)
• Letting your children run free in a restaurant. If they physically touch any patron, or touch any other patron with food, you should have waived your opportunity for a trial. Instant death.
• Opening your car door into another vehicle in a parking lot.
• Parking so that you take up multiple spaces (bad parking should only be punishable by public caning, death is reserved for the people who do it on purpose)
• Poor spellling and bad grammers. (Yes, that’s a joke)
• Typing â??Uâ? for â??youâ? on a full sized keyboard. I will grant that cell phones are inconvenient enough to type on that this MIGHT be OK. But only in text messages typed on a cell phone.

• 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.