The LBC Gift Exchange took place in San Francisco again. I won’t have time to post pictures of the event until sometime next year. Okay, I hate people that say this in late December–freaks. In any case, Jayson Santos hooked me up with Hitman 2 for the Xbox and I have a feeling I will be playing it continuously for the next couple of weeks. Thanks. |
Oh, I am afraid that the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive. Our friends did arrive from Los Angeles today and hopefully everything will work well and as planned. We are looking forward to the annual LBC gift exchange to take place sometime tomorrow. |
Melissa and I have returned from our trip to Los Angeles. I hope to get some time to post some pictures from the trip. I gotta work on some essays for school right now, though. |
Damn, don’t you hate it when really important scientific advancements are devalued by crazy cult members? Apparently, the scientist that announced the first human clone a few days ago is somehow affiliated with the Raelian Revolution, a cult that believes that extra-terrestials were the genesis of humanity. The Raelians believe that cloning is important to achieve immortality and that the next step of their research is to engineer a way to transfer brains from humans to adult clones–thereby achieving eternal life. This cult affiliation completely diverts the attention away from the importance of the scientific achievement. Human cloning could advance stem cell research and the development of human organs for transplants and the like. The fact that quacks were behind it should be irrelevant. It’s too bad that these are the circumstances. One thing is certain–a successful human clone will raise a lot of ethical issues on the use of the technology to benefit humanity. Check out all of the relates stories on CNN for more info. Interesting. |
Melissa and I are heading down to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with family and friends. I am taking a break from The Nugget for the next couple of weeks. We also may be going to Tahoe on a snowboarding trip before for New Year’s–check out the conditions. Happy Holidays!!! |
The ex-porn star and used car salesman, Brian, won Survivor: Thailand over Clay, the hillbilly. Brian played a helluva game and won immunity three times in a row going into the final vote. He worked his ass off while on the island and that seemed to be the deciding factor for the votes. One thing is clear–Survivor is officially The Amazing Race’s bitch. After watching both finales, The Amazing Race is clearly the best reality game show. At the end of the day, teamwork and endurance are better human qualities than lying and deceit. Watching a team cross a finish line is much more exciting than watching a pissed off jury begrudgingly choose between two people they dislike for “sole survivor.” I probably have Meerenai to thank for getting me hooked on the “The Race”–I can’t wait for the next one. |
Amazingly, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers manages to surpass the bar that was set by Fellowship of the Ring last year. Kudos to Peter Jackson and his crew for recreating the world of Middle Earth to near perfection. |
The Amazing Race 3 finale had several twists and turns. Flo and Zach almost called it quits after yet another tantrum by Flo. However, they managed to hold on for a win. Flo wanted to quit several times during the race! If you ask me, Zach deserves at least $750k of the $1MM prize money. If it had not been for Zach, Flo would not have ever crossed the finish line. Flo was not nice to him throughout the race and apparently just wanted a little action from Zach. She stated at the end of the race that a little romance would have been better–better than $1MM!? That’s what I call being a little sexually repressed–no wonder she was such a bitch. Zach deserves the discomfort she gave him for not “tapping dat ass” at the pit stops. Live and learn. I am now hooked on this show and can’t wait for the Amazing Race 4. |
Conseco filed for bankruptcy protection today, making it the third largest bankruptcy in U.S. history–coming in close behind Worldcom and Enron. I am sure we all can’t wait to see what kind of accounting magic was performed to create fantasy earnings and pump the stock in the last couple of years. The executives there should start picking prison bitch names. Also, looks like it’s time to rename the Fieldhouse. |
Anyone that has ever worked on computers knows that fuckotrons are evil gremlin-like electrons that spontaneously spawn and live inside computers. A couple of fuckotrons in your machine is not so bad. However, if a group of them start to party, bad things start to happen–printers, storage devices, applications, and operating systems start to malfunction or hang. The most common fuckotron is the blue fuckotron that lives behind the Windows operating system’s “blue screen of death.” However, other fuckotron varieties may be found anywhere where you find their cousins, the electrons. Hell, they are even in toasters! The only way to rid yourself of fuckotrons is to cold boot your machine by powering it down and powering it back up. Simply resetting the machine will not kill the fuckotrons, it will just piss them off. Pissed off fuckotrons will fuck you up–that’s how they get their name. So remember, the first step to resolving any computer issue is to rid your machine of fuckotrons. Don’t feel guilty, do it with impunity and know that no matter how many of them you take out–they’ll be back. |
Well, Storm Watch sounds a bit dramatic–it’s so NBC. Anyway, torrential rain hit the Bay Area all weekend, particularly last night. Howling winds that reached 100 mph in some areas and heavy rain pummeled windows and made it hard to sleep. We only lost electric power for about two hours on Saturday afternoon. However, some people lost power for much much longer. The last time that I saw weather this bad in San Francisco I was visiting in December, 1995, when rain and high winds destroyed the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. |
I broke down and ordered a Canon FS2720U film scanner to scan my 35mm film negatives and slides for printing enlargements. I am gonna hold off buying a digital SLR for as long as possible. The scanner will allow me to continue shooting with my film SLR and still be able to manipulate the film images digitally. Merry Christmas to me. |
Everyone that knows me can attest that I am not a morning person. I mean the only “6″ I know is “PM.” There are very few things that I’ll get up at the cracka dawn to do. I have been getting up early on Saturday mornings to go to school. I just need to vent. I can’t wait for this class to be over so that I can have my Saturdays back. |
Google just launched a beta of its new Froogle service, just in time for the holidays. It is an online product search engine that finds the cheapest online prices for you. I think c|net had something like this a while back. Anyway, the good news is that it is a sweet service. The bad news is that the Canon 1Ds digital SLR is still selling for $8k. I’ll be waiting a long time for that one to come down. |
The state lottery office estimates the odds of hitting two jackpots in the same day as one in 24 trillion. For thise that are mathematically challenged that’s 24 followed by twelve zeroes. I think that makes these guys the luckiest people, well, ever. |
A Belmont couple won two separate lottery jackpots on the same day. One of them was Super Lotto Plus and the other was a Fantasy 5 jackpot. After taxes their winnings total $6.6MM. I’d be happy just to hit the smaller of the two jackpots for $126,000–I’m not greedy. The moral of the story is that determination pays off–they bought about 600 lottery tickets a month for years. |
It’s rainy, foggy, and downright gloomy here in the Bay Area. I can only imagine what it’s like in Seattle, where there are more days of rain than sunshine throughout the year. This sucks. Maybe I’m just sad because I’m tired of writing essays for school–this rain isn’t helping. |
Newsweek just ran this story on Google detailing how it is changing our culture. People are using the search engine to research everything under the sun–from corporate due diligence and tracking down con men to women doing background searches on prospective dates. I’ve googled almost everyone I know at least once, just for fun. I’ve been preaching the praises of Google for several years and it’s nice to know that the rest of the world is finally catching up. |
I dusted off my Magic: The Gathering cards and found way more cards than I thought I had, about 3000 cards. I was really into this trading card game back in 1993-94 and had not played in over six years. Now, one of my co-workers has gotten into it and has pulled me back in. A planned two-hour session turned into an all day extravaganza. What can I say–I’m still a geek. |
I am a die hard Lakers fan, but I am sitting here watching them struggle against the Dallas Mavericks with a 28-point halftime deficit. Topping it off they went into this game with a 7W-13L record. I have to remind myself that these are the three time defending world champs. They suck! They are playing like the Clippers–not the new Clippers, the old Clippers. What the fuck is going on? I am disgusted and embarassed to be a Laker fan. They’re gettin booed by the home crowd and deserve it. Let’s get it together people… Then suddenly in the fourth quarter, as I type this, the Lakers show signs of life–they initiate a scoring run from a Kobe Bryant dunk. They run continues and they go on to outscore the Mavericks 44-15 in the fourth quarter executing the largest halftime comeback in NBA history. The Mavericks leave Staples center with their 24th straight loss in Los Angeles. They have not beat the Lakers on their home court since 1990. I love this game. But, I am still embarassed by the Lakers (now 8W-13L) record. |