Picayune, Weblog format, two years later (belatedly)

Posted on July 4, 2007 by Steve

Whoops! I forgot that the shift in Picayune‘s style was on July 3rd, not the 5th. So what do you all think now after 677 entries in two years, a new set of colors every month and according to the Server, over 270 graphics?

Despite the limitations of Mac OS X Server 10.4’s Weblog-based solution, I remain 80 percent satisified with it. Only 80? Well, there are these cool Last FM tables my brother has on his site and my friend Adam has these counters that measure how long he’s been married and other personal milestones. I did make some progress in year two. I’ve learned how to cut down on the comment spammers because the authentication plug-in lacks instructions; I know how to control how many entries are visible per page (or category); and with a little AppleScript, I can add past stories from Volumes I-IV with pre-July 2005 dates. Still no luck on getting the title formatting repaired thanks to a security modifcation incorporated into 10.4.9’s update. I’m not in any hurry for 10.4.10 until I back up the server adequately.

Blojsom (the Weblog’s actual name) solved the biggest problem I had with running my own web page, updating it with new information quickly.

As I said last year, if I could only get you guys (my friends, the readers and actual audience) to post comments more often, then this solution would be perfect.

I do remain grateful for any attention you shower on Picayune. Now on to its third year!

Posted in Anniversary, News | Leave a comment

Happy 43rd Birthday Yeardley Smith

Posted on July 3, 2007 by Steve

Everyone will always remember her as the voice of Lisa Simpson and it’ll probably be on her tombstone. If you go to imdb.com, you’ll see her larger body of work outside of Fox (Herman’s Head quickly came to mind). I have no recollection of her in the teen sex comedy Heaven Help Us but she was probably overshadowed by the lesser Dillon brother and Andrew McCarthy. She did stand out in Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive as a rather loud-mouthed bride everyone hoped the trucks kill. I don’t remember how that lousy movie ended, maybe someone will post a comment to let us all know.

Posted in Diversions | Leave a comment

Walk a mile in this kitty’s paws

Posted on July 2, 2007 by Steve

Seems someone in Germany found a way put a camera on a cat collar to take pictures from the cat’s perspective. Here’s the shots from Mr. Lee’s first trip.Thought about getting it for Miette since she’s the better climber around the house but I don’t know if the devices is Mac compatible.

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More of the Summer 2007 line (of T-shirts)

Posted on July 2, 2007 by Steve

A visual gag on Rose McGowan's character in Planet Terror.

After going to see Ratatouille at the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar, we took in Mondo Tees next door and scored these additional fashion accessories for the Summer of 2007. What a fun little side store the Alamo people started up. I’ll probably cover more of it in the Austintatious section.

Too late to "shut yo' mouth!"

Posted in Funny Ones | Leave a comment

What’s with these colors this month?

Posted on July 1, 2007 by Steve

You may be asking yourself or me, “Ugh! What’s with these colors? Don’t they have Garanimal Tags for web pages?” No, there’s a method to my madness. On July 24, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s will hit the shelves and these tacky, retro colors felt appropriate. I can’t help it, it’s a great game and I’ve been practicing again because my friend Mark M got it recently—I actually scored five stars on “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine. I also have a pair of Chucks with these colors, seriously. They’re black with neon colored trim and lace holes. These colors are also fitting with it being the 25th anniversary of the Eighties really getting started. To me, 1980 and 1981 had remnants of the Seventies’ malaise in taste. Could’ve been me too. I was living in Central Illinois and usually the Midwest took longer to catch on with trends from the Coasts, something a college professor called coastal myopia which I’m sure has been killed by the Internet. The neon color trend came later than 1982 yet it’s fitting as the game will be a mish mash of all the Eighties cliches.

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1867: Happy Canada Day, 140 years of “Blame Canada”

Posted on July 1, 2007 by Steve

This isn’t quite Canadian Independence Day, it’s more like Canadian Intention Day. When the (American) Civil War started, the people of the Great White North were still part of the UK and they feared a repeat of the War of 1812, especially if the Confederacy succeeded (won or got an armistice). Despite the UK being the toughest world power in 1867, war with the US over British North America (official name for Canada then) would be difficult, expensive and probably impossible to win, even if it were just the Union portion invading. So the British government told its colonists they’d have to learn to defend themselves or make peace with the Americans—this explains the Peace Garden in North Dakota Brian and I would ridicule when we lived there.

I’m not sure if the UK wanted Canada to become a sovereign nation during the height of its empire though. It worked out for the best since World War I and II ended UK dominance. However, Canadian Intention Day is still more appropriate as it’s really a treaty that reads like a business plan on how the country would be organized. There’s nothing stating the unfairness of Queen Victoria as our Declaration states about King George III. Decades would pass as Canada grew into its modern counterpart and gradually they got permission from the UK to take on more self rule. Or at least, that’s how it reads and how some Canadians explain it such as The Daily Show‘s Samantha Bee. Today it’s comical to think the UK could ever coerce Canada into anything now.

What brought this on anyway? I think my stream KMAG must have been reading my mind because this morning it played South Park‘s “Blame Canada.” It’s still one of the best numbers in the movie. I wonder of Canadians get a laugh out of it. I’d like to hope so, besides Hockey, Molson beer, lumber, paper, oil and Rush (the band, the Right Wing blowhard is an American defect), comedy is their biggest intellectual export: The Kids in the Hall, SCTV, William Shatner’s singing and numerous members of SNL. Okay, maybe we scratch the last one, I can’t think of a decent movie starring Dan Akroyd, Mike Meyers or Norm MacDonald in the last decade.

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Birthday cake – Miss Spider

Posted on June 30, 2007 by Steve

This was for a little boy’s birthday. I don’t know how old he is and if he picked out the characters he wanted. I do know, little kids do like Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends even if the computer-generated graphics appear primitive v. Pixar. What few episodes I have seen were cute and enjoyable.

Posted in Somara's Cakes | Leave a comment

Free Agency Frenzy starts tomorrow

Posted on June 30, 2007 by Steve

Free agency opens up tomorrow and we’ll see which teams will be paying too much right away and then see if the decision is vindicated by Christmas. Sadly, Robert Esche will be shown the door by Philly as Biron was shored up before the end of the season and Niitymaki in the last month. The salary cap has been raised to $50 million and change. This gives the Flyers some room to land an experienced center to help out Gagne and if Pitkanen is dealt, maybe another defenseman and/or third-line forward.

The bigger and funnier news is the Preds’ current owner bailing on the Blackberry guy. Seems he didn’t want to be tarred and feathered as all five Nashville hockey fans drove him out of town. Rumor has it, the team will be sold for much less so it can be moved to Kansas City, another place that failed to support the NHL in the Seventies. Ever heard of the Kansas City Scouts? Course not, they bailed after two seasons for Colorado and finally settled into New Jersey as the Devils. KC was the first city the Penguins talked to in the blackmail campaign on Pittsburgh; and if the PA legislature doesn’t approve the subsidy (NHL welfare), the new arena will be delayed. Why is the Preds’ owner taking less? The other element of the rumor has to do with Bettmann pulling it in KC’s direction because he wants to bring hockey back there. Other than trying to keep the conferences/divisions the same and attempting to create a inner-MO rivalry, I’d say the NHL needs a new commissioner who’d concentrate on getting hockey back on ESPN and the NHL network in the US.

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iPhone is here, now back to the Paris Hilton coverage

Posted on June 29, 2007 by Steve

Just as Ambassador Kosh said in Babylon 5, “and so it begins.” The Daily Showbit and Stephen Colbert were funnier.

I think the iPhone will work out in the long run and if it follows the path of the iPod, it’ll slowly work its way into the world until it’s ubiquitous in a few years. I was wrong about the iPod, I didn’t think it would be as big as it turned out because the first one was pricey ($400 in 2001, over $450 today) and MP3 players were having difficulty saturating the market. I might be wrong on the iPhone yet I doubt it. Cell phones as they are are long in the tooth and this one may actually succeed in the achieving the phone-computer convergence.

Meanwhile, a couple friends of mine spent today waiting in line at the Domain Store. Hopefully they’ll have pictures.

Update Jun. 30, 2007: My friends who waited in line are pretty pleased with the phone. Adam posted pictures, I lifted the link from the comments. Seems the person/people behind boingboing.net posted good things too, that’s an improvement over their ill-informed DRM editorial a while back. On the negative side, there’s the constant naysaying of Slate. Then again, what would you expect from a site that was born with Microsoft’s DNA before being sold off to the Washington Post. I present it to throw in some skepticism. However, go to a store, find someone who has one, etc. and draw your own conclusion. I’m going to be in the wait-and-see category too yet my friend Jeremy says iPhone is living up to the majority of its expectations.

Posted in Apple, Science & Technology | 1 Comment

Durant passed over for Oden, only time will tell who’s #1

Posted on June 29, 2007 by Steve

Seems Portland is going to repeat history by going with the not-so-popular Greg Oden from Ohio State, the school that can’t seem to beat Florida at anything. So I’m being a (fair-weathered) hometown fan by laughing at them for not taking Kevin Durant of Texas. Personally, I think both guys are too young to be in the NBA, look at what a brat Kobe Bryant has turned into and he didn’t even go to college. Not that college will give these guys any maturity, the players at Marquette were jerks to the end.

The Trailblazers have a really awful reputation (the Portland Jailblazers) and they’ve really sunk since the days I remember them with Clyde “the Glide” Drexler and Milwaukee fave Terry Porter. My friend Scott who really follows UT sports says this Durant is not just a great player, he’s a genuinely nice person and Portland needs this as badly as they need victories. C’est la vie. This draft was a chance to really turn it around and conventional wisdom said the GM wouldn’t repeat the same mistake his predecessor made in 1984 when the Blazers passed on Michael Jordan for Sam Bowie. Course with how much the NBA and Sports Press fawns over Michael, Jesus Christ would’ve been a bust of a basketball player.

Posted in Austintatious | Leave a comment

Seems cats have been around us for over 100,000 years

Posted on June 29, 2007 by Steve

I was half awake for this story on NPR/BBC this morning (much to the wife’s irritation, I like to have the radio on early in the morning which is another story on the “why” element). I knew the domestic house cat originated from North Africa: there’s images of them all over Ancient Egypt, outdoor ones love to use open sandboxes for a toilet and my vet said they don’t need much water because their bodies are more efficient in the number one department (explains the smell). How long these furry friends have been around was the surprising part. The scientist in the interview brought up a great point on how humanity’s shift to agriculture probably led to the domestication of some wild animals that didn’t provide sustenance. I think he hasn’t found their mooching and being cute abilities in their DNA yet.

Posted in Cats | Leave a comment

KMAG’s patterns for 2005

Posted on June 28, 2007 by Steve

I know my Best of 2006 page is long, long overdue but one of the things I have been doing during the times I can’t think, can’t write and/or I’m killing time; is sifting through KMAG’s logs (the home/main version). With a little help from BBEdit, FileMaker Pro and Excel, I culled out all the entries entailing errors and matters not pertaining to it playing a song. Then I broke up every year into a separate database to keep on file. I started going through and counting up the details, etc. on the stream’s patterns and trivial landmarks when it has played 500,000 songs. When I started, 2006 wasn’t finished, as in, it was still December so I began the tedious process of gathering the numbers on 2005. Here are the results.

Songs Played: 133,013

Songs in Playlist: 5255

Most Played Top 30 Song of 2005: “The Ballad of the Kingsmen” by Todd Snider at 158 times.

Average Number of Times a Top 30 Song is played: 108.9 times.

Most Played, Non-Top 30 Song of 2005: “The Loneliest Person I Know” by Splender at 43 times.

Average Number of Times a Non-Top 30 Song is played: 21.2  times.

Most Played Artist/Band of 2005: David Bowie at 1599 songs/times.

Artist/Band with the Most Songs in 2005: David Bowie at 70 songs.

Seems that the last two go hand in hand. With the Most Played Song, it usually helps if it is one of my current Top 30 Songs at the beginning of the year since it will get played once every 10 hours for five to seven weeks and then randomly for the remainder.

This also states that I really like David Bowie’s stuff. Sure, but I think he just has the advantage of making good material since the late Sixties. I definitely need to see how the analysis goes for 2006 and try to crank up the amount of tunes from other personal favorites. I know this points out how I have overlooked many possibilities to expand the stream by a couple hundred.

Posted in Music | Leave a comment

Alamo Drafthouse is dead, long live the Alamo Drafthouse

Posted on June 27, 2007 by Steve

How fitting, the 666th post is about today being the original Alamo Drafthouse’s last evening. I fear not because there will be a replacement on Sixth Street in September (say that three times quickly) where the old Ritz Theater used to be and we will continue to see first-run movies at the Village, South Lamar and Lake Creek Festival.

I’ll blather on about this Austin gem another day since I’ve been pressed for time. But remember, with my movie reviews; if the flick is great and watching it in a theater enhances the experience, then it will always be Alamo Worthy.

Update Jun. 28, 2007: Someone named Neil posted on this. I would appreciate it if this person sent me an e-mail me so I know which exact Neil and Ben is mentioned since the only Neal I can think of has an ‘a’ in his name and he doesn’t know the Ben I tend to associate with.

Posted in Austintatious | 1 Comment

George Orwell should’ve been an advertising copywriter

Posted on June 26, 2007 by Steve

When I went to Costco Sunday, I saw that they’re already selling Olestra II…I mean Alli. I first heard about it on The Colbert Report but I thought he was kidding. No, it’s real and it is comic gold for the Adam Sandler crowd now that Viagra has run its course. I love how the pharmaceutical industry (aka Big Pharma) uses the Marketing dialect of Newspeak to spin the product’s side effects (see above). Then again, one will have more success selling diet pills to people too lazy to exercise and stop eating Fuddruckers if their told they’ll have “gas with an oily discharge” instead of skid marks and wearing shorts may be unwise. Their description of the oil resembling the grease slick on a pizza definitely has curbed my appetite, thanks Big Pharma for ruining one of my favorite foods.

Posted in Factoids | Leave a comment

Move over Emperor, here comes the Venti Penguin

Posted on June 26, 2007 by Steve

The BBC mentioned a pre-historic penguin found in Peru last night. It lived over 30 million years ago and stood over 1.5 meters tall (almost five feet)! This is definitely a setback to penguins’ ongoing PR campaign to present themselves as comical, peaceful, flightless birds who like to tap dance, surf and listen to the soothing narration of Morgan Freeman. This could explain where their vindictive streak against Batman may have originated.

Palentologists' best rendering of at what the pre-historic penguin may have looked like. They weren't available for comment on the rare South Pole walrus found at the dig.

Posted in Biology, Science & Technology | Leave a comment