The Daily Planet is an Austrailian brother than went public last year. It seems that they're about to get out of the brother business to avoid some police investigations into their stockholders.
There's a new 70 megapixel 360° webcam out from a company in Switzerland. ~$7700, webserver included.
Ever wonderif there's any merit to all the ads that will make body parts bigger (and more). Well here's the facts from Popular Science.
This past January, JJ the Boss ran in the Disneyworld Marathon. He's a fit little ex-F14 pilot, so with the proper amount of getting ready he was able to accomplish this without too much trouble. He's since decided he is a marathon runner, looking forward to next going to a marathon in Quebec.
He's also going to next years Disneyworld Marathon. Not wanting to be alone, he's added a little incentive for his out of shape employees. If we participate in the Disneyworld Half Marathon he'll pay for the trip down and the hotel. We all think this is a good idea, because it not only coerces us to get into better shape, but there's the payoff of it all being paid for.
Being in the worse shape of the bunch, I'm not sure I can make it. "You can do it." said co-worker Jer. "You've got 8 months to train. You can even walk it. You've only got to average 4 MPH for the 13.1 miles to finish in the alloted time." JJ the Boss chimed in with "I'll even make you a training schedule. You've got 9 months to train."
So, the first thing I've learned is why our schedules are rushed, because the 6 months until the race has been called both 8 months and 9 months. Being realistic, I let everyone know that my normal walking pace (at least on the treadmill) is 2 MPH, half of what it needs to be. On top of that, I'm good if I go 1/2 a mile at that speed, much less 13.1.
But I'm going to try. I've started my training. I'm getting everything for my will together, making sure emergency numbers are in place. This morning I even tried a little harder onthe treadmill, going 3/4 of a mile in 20 minutes (at least it's a little progress). Still, I'm gonna die.
After working on it off and on for the past 5 months (and a whole lot the past 2 months), I've finally finished and puclished the shopping cart version of the Bioventures website! There are still the inevitable bugs that will pop up as real people that don't know which buttons to push, as opposed to me, start to use the thing. I think I've learned enough in my shopping cart creation lifetime to limit that, though.
So this means I once again have free time. What to do, what to do? I've finally got time to put forth more effort into my wrestling game. I've been looking for time to invest, and I think I just may have found it. A couple of people have expressed interest in the game, or at least the concept, so it's nice to know that it may actually get played once it's made.
I'm also going to try to learn some Flash. Months ago I bought the Flash MX Project. It looks like a good way to learn Flash, especially for the web-based things I want to learn how to do. It presents everything as an actual web project from beginning to end, building on what you've done before. I like the concept, now I'll have to see how well it works.
Beyond that, I'm going to have a couple of quality couch potato days. I've been watching the Babylon 5 series and have just started the final season, which I never caught when it originally aired. The latest Legends of Wrestling game is supposed to come out Tuesday, so I may hook up the X-Box and give it a try. But mainly I'm going to enjoy my lack of any current deadlines. Ahhhhhhh....
Yesterday one of my best friends from my Birmingham Southern days passed away from a brain tumor. Gerry had been diagnosed with the tumor in July of 2002, and at the time he had been given less than 6 months to live. He and his family fought the battle, but Wednesday it became too much.
Jer and I, along with many others, are off to the funeral Friday morning. This is the first of my friends to die. Every other funeral I've been to has always been some relative (or relative of a friend), usually at the age when death is expected. So far, the relatives have always been somewhat distant, none that I grew up close to felt a special bond. Gerry is different. Gerry was one of the people that helped shape who I was to be after leaving home. He and Boyd lived in the dorm room next door, there wasn't a day that went by for 9 months that I didn't see him. It's hard to put into words, but that was a special bond for me, a special friendship.
After I left BSC, I didn't see "the gang" that often, especially once everybody graduated. The last time I saw Gerry was at Jerry's wedding in '96. It had been years since the last time I had seen either him or Boyd, but along with Jerry we fell into our old routine of snappy banter, cutting up, and talking amongst ourselves. I was amazed that although it had been years, we were talking like we had all seen each other the day before, there was a total lack of awkwardness. I was telling this to Janice, Boyd's wife, and she told me that it was due to the bond that we shared. We would always have that closeness, regardless of how long it had been since the last time we spoke. That was a part of that bond that was formed at BSC.
When someone dies, or comes close to death, you start to think of stories and experiences you've shared. Most of my fondest memories of Gerry involve either him having too much to drink or the word "fucker". My favorite story to tell was when Boyd and I were studying for a history mid-term. The BSC dorms had couches that folded out to a full size bed. Gerry was asleep on his bed while Boyd and I were sprawled about on the couch and floor, notes everywhere, studying. Gerry was a big Lebonese guy who would sweat like there's no tomorrow when he was asleep. As Boyd and I were quizzing each other / arguing about what to study, Gerry suddenly flailed about until he ended up with his face turned toward us, eyes wide open. Very wide open. "Isn't that the damndest thing?" said Boyd. "He's still asleep, he just does this every once in a while." We kept studying and after a few minutes Gerry turned his head, hopefully closed his eyes, and stayed steadfast asleep. I had thought Boyd and I were making too much noise and had bothered Gerry, so I had tried to tone it down a little. But of course, after a little while Boyd and I were back to quizzing/arguing like we were before. All at once, Gerry, face down on the bed, begins banging his head into his pillow while saying "Fuck the fuck can't get no sleep" before once again entering his quiet, blissful sleep. Boyd and I looked at Gerry, then each other, then Gerry again. We wanted to prod him to see if he was really asleep or not, but thought it best not to. It seems Gerry was still sleeping. We wrapped up our studying for the night and both managed to catch some sleep. The next morning, we asked Gerry if he remembered what happened. he didn't have any idea. We told him what happened and he got a kick out of it. Ever since, "fuck the fuck can't get no sleep" has been a part of our vocabulary, even though we don't know what it means.
Gerry also had a mutant ability to name what was in his hand when he had a little too much to drink (or maybe just a good buzz going) while not looking. I'm not just talking about knowing you put a pencil or sheet of paper in his hand, but he could tell you the details. To test it out once, we had him face down on his bed with his hand behind his back. We started out easy, pencil, pen, paper. Next came a book, which he knew, but he also told us what book it was (I want to say it was a biology book, but I forget details after 17 years). Next was a medicine bottle, which he identified, along with the allergy medicine that was in it. Maybe the stuff was too easy for him? Getting sneaky, Boyd dug out a fishing trophy Gerry had in the closet and proceeded to unscrew the fish from it. He then placed the fish in Gerry's hand. It took a minute of flipping it around, but Gerry suddenly said, "It's... it's the fish from my trophy. You fuckers took apart my trophy!" Ok, time to find something more difficult. At this point, Boyd went into his closet and got out a car wash kit that his girlfriends parents had given him the Christmas before. He had never used it (it wasn't good enough for his car at the time), but he opened it and took out one of the plastic parts. He took it and put it in Gerry's hand. About 5 minutes later, Gerry said "It's a part of that car wash thing Janice's parents gave you for Chrsitmas." How did he know? He couldn't see it, he was faced the wrong way. There was only one explanation. Gerry was a mutant.
I've told these stories for years, and they've always brought a smile to my face. They still do that as I type them in here. And I'm still going to share them.
Gina told me that we're overdue going out and seeing a movie, so I'm forcing her to take care of that tonight, going against her "on a weeknight?" policy of going out. Yes, a weeknight. I think I can get my homework done in time.
She doesn't know it yet, but we're going to go see Shrek 2. Since she mentioned it a lot on our little vaation a couple of weeks ago, I'm hoping that I've taken the proper hint.
While looking at yahoo to find what times the movie starts, I discovered something interesting. There aren't enough movies out. Case in point, at our local super movie cineplex that has 18 screens, there's only 9 movies currently showing. It looks like The Day After Tomorrow and the latest Harry Potter are being shown on half the screens. I think I know why we don't go see as many movies as we used to. There just aren't as many to go and see.
Or maybe I'm just old and would rather flop on the couch with my popcord once the movie comes out on DVD. I bet that's really it!
As always, correct spelling is optional in any blog entry. Keep in mind that any links more than a year old may not be active, especially the ones pointing back to Russellmania (I like to move things around!).
Tags have been added to posts back to 2005. There may be an occasional old blog that gets added to the tag list, but in reality what could be noteworthy from that far back?
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