Archive for category life
I Took From The Oregonian?
The Newspaper I Took From
I just got a call from the Oregonian because I recently cancelled my subscription. This is how it went.
ME: “This is Jon”
LADY: “Hello, is this Jon”
ME: “This is Jon”
LADY: “Hello yes, since you recently took away your weekly paper from us I want to offer you the daily paper free.”
ME: “No thanks”
LADY: “But its free for 5 months.”
ME: “No thanks”
LADY: “OK then you get no free paper. *abruptly hangs up*”
One thing. I didn’t take anything away from The Oregonian. So its strange that she said I took it away from them.
With word choices like that its like saying: “You took something from my yard, please have something from my yard for free.” Then again, I love words and find it funny/strange/cool how people use them.
All in all a completely strange conversation.
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
Posted by jdodson in life, offhandstrangity on December 10th, 2009
The Wizarding World Map
“The Blu-ray and two-disc edition DVD of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” was released today. A special Wizarding World of Harry Potter sneak peek feature on the extras disc reveals a few more details for the new land at Universal’s Islands of Adventure.”
More details about the theme park are here.
The wife and I are resonable Harry Potter freaks. When we heard about this we were pretty excited. Give it a few years and we will prob go. On our nutty Harry Potter scale, id say we are a good 6 of 10. Reading the books thrice over isn’t too bad. 8’s are cosplayers and 9-10’s go to JK Rowling book signings dressed as characters and host “Hogwarts parties.” Then again one year for Halloween we went as Ron and Hermione.
Designed For Microsoft Windows 95
Intellegent design.
I am wiping the drive on a old office computer for my wife. Its so old I am going to donate to Goodwill. Usually I fix it up and ship it off to a friend in need. This computer is so old I am not going to do that. Its an old HP Pavilion 8260 designed for Windows 95. Windows 95!
Here are the specs on this speed demon.
* 32MB RAM
* 266MHZ Pentium II
* 4.0 GB Drive (formats to 3.831GB)
* Windows 95
This computer has suited my wife at her work since she got the job MANY years ago. It was a computer they had around the office as the primary desktop for quite some time. I upgraded it from 95 -> 98SE 5 years ago or so. I had to put a new CDROM in it 3 years ago. Beyond that its run like a champ.
She used it to network with another computer and it ran Open Office fine albiet a bit slowly. The wife finally wanted to replace it after about 7-10 years of use after she got a printer that didn’t have a Windows 98 driver. I futzed with it to get the XP driver working but she decided as I was installing the XP printer driver to get a new computer.
We replaced it with a Acer Nettop that cost $200.
The acer nettop specs:
* 1.6GHz Intel Atom 230 Processor dual core
* 1024 MB DDR2 RAM
* 160 GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
* Windows XP
She had no spyware or malware on the machine. Well, then again it was never hooked up to the internet. Which is the best way to keep a Windows 98 machine safe.
How am I wiping the machine? With an old Windows 98 boot floppy of course. I have one around for posterity sake. Though, I think it might be safer to wipe it using a Linux rescue CD.
Question For the Ages
Question for the ages.
Question for the ages: What good is a 4 day weekend if you spend it doing work? *sigh*
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving
I wish you well this holiday season, including today!
Bioshock Cosplay Done Right
Posted by jdodson in life, video games on November 23rd, 2009
Wow.
Some people take Cosplay to new levels. Like this guy and his homemade bigdaddy costume(as seen above).
“We did it! After two months of back-and-forth with the PR reps at the Georgia Aquarium, we were allowed to bring Big Daddy in for a photoshoot!
This was a colossal effort, and just like the original display of the piece, several hands went into making it happen. Much thanks to my friend Kim and Jay for getting up at 5am to come with us and be our handlers, to the Georgia Aquarium staff for this amazing opportunity, and to Matt Nicholson (and his fiancée!) of Dim Horizon Studio for doing such fantastic photography and editing.”
Creepy rad.
Twilight fades Through blistered avalon
I love listening to music. I loved listening to music in High School too. Lately I have been getting cheap used CD’s off Amazon for $1-$5 that I either had in High School and later lost/destroyed and want to listen to again OR never had but wanted. Its cool being an adult and having resources to do what you want.
I really liked The Smashing Pumpkins in High School. I still like them now. In fact if I had a top 25 musical acts list, theyd be on it. In High School I had a friend Dan who loved that band. I used to listen to his rather large SP collection and tape songs off his stuff to listen to on my tape walkman. He had a ton of SP stuff including The Areoplane Flies High which is a sweet collection of bsides off the amazing Mellon Collie double album.
Side note: Mellon Collie is in my top 5 greatest albums list.
Mellon Collie Album
Well Dan didn’t seem to like the SP albums after Mellon Collie. Something about them putting in distorted piano or something. I don’t totally remember what it was beyond “distorted piano” and him not liking that. For the record I don’t know of any distorted piano on Adore so I am not sure what he meant, but I may have his opinion wrong. It was a few years ago.
Anyways, I remember liking what songs I heard off Adore and Machina. Anyways, I got those albums and they are mind blowing. I am listing to Adore right now in fact. My fav song on the album so far is “Daphne Descends” its a got great driving beat with a countryesque flavor. At least it reminds me of country music in a way.
Adore
Machina is also a very good album but I haven’t really dug into it yet. Still reeling in Adore bliss.
I also got Third Eye Blind’s self titled first release. It was an album that in High School was too uncool to like. I had to like rock/punk and hardcore NOT really popular music! Since I don’t care about that shit anymore I bought it for 50 cents online. Its a really good album minus some annoying songs ive heard WAY too many times. You know the songs I mean.
Third Eye Blind
I am entering a phase in my life where I don’t care about whats cool as much as I used to. Even if it means admitting I purchased Third Eye Blinds self title release for 50 cents and liking it. I know I am losing “cool Portland hipster points” but really, I am running a deficit anyway.
** UPDATE **
The song “Tear” contains distorted keyboards in a middle of the song keyboard part. Dan was correct. That said its a pretty cool sound for the song to my ears.
Back This Thing Up Already!
I used to religiously backup my server every week. Sometime twice to thrice a week. Its been months since the last one. Doing it now.
Priorities shift when you get older.
And PS I could automate the backup but then id have to keep my USB drive on all day. I don’t keep it on much at all(only during backups) so it will last a LONG time.
I guess manual backups are a downside to that, but the backup will last quite a long time then.
The Hackers Diet
Saw this on Slashdot, its pretty cool.