In China, an online video game player was stabbed and killed by another over a dispute over a virtual sword. Apparently, the sword was lent to the victim and he then sold it for $870 without informing the other guy. When the other guy found out about the sale, he went to the police to report the “theft.” However, there are no laws for virtual theft in China or elsewhere for that matter. The victim promised to pay the guy back, but he didn’t pay it back fast enough. After running out of patience the wronged gamer stabbed and killed him. You can’t make this stuff up! |
Guess what I still don’t have–wait for it–that’s right, a TV. And adding insult to injury I just found out that this Tuesday will be a special two-hour Amazing Race 7 episode. Okay, so I got a chance to catch up on posting photos and shit, but c’mon! Two weeks is way to long to be without. Yes, I admit it, I am addicted to TV. There, I said it. |
Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. However, taking into account the emergency room visit in Tahoe, the surgery at UCSF, and the subsequent visits to the doctor, my new wrist cost me, or my insurance I should say, about $20,000. The image shown here shows the hardware within my wrist. A t-shaped 4.5″ steel plate that has a total of nine screws attaching it to my bone. At the top, you can see the four screws that attach the plate to the distal area of the radius. The plate then bridges my triangle-shaped fracture and has a total of five screws attaching it to the shaft of the radius (the dark circles going down the shaft). The five screws aren’t very visible from this angle, but you get the general picture. Bottom line, I broke this bone in the worst way possible! Oh, and it’s a gnarly scar too–it’s about 4.5″ long–the same length as the plate. The fracture has yet to completely heal and is still very visible on this Fluoroscan image that was taken on Thursday afternoon. As the fracture heals the triangle-shaped “fracture” lines on the bone will disappear. For now, I am wearing a cast that will come off on April 7th and then I’ll wear a removable Velcro splint after that for a while until I regain my strength. Piece of cake, right? |
For years I’ve been using my old 400MHz Pentium III as a file server on my home network. I had installed an ATA RAID controller and a couple of mirrored 80GB drives. A couple of years have passed and we have totally outgrown the 80GB. With Melissa’s music collection and my photographs it’s a wonder that it lasted this long. Besides, it’s a pain in the ass to have to turn on a desktop machine to get to a file. Do you know how long it takes a Pentium III to boot up? So I broke down and bought a Network Attached Storage (NAS) server, the Buffalo TeraStation. The server comes with a terabyte of storage space that when mirrored is equivalent to half a terabyte, or 500GB. It was easy to setup on my network with a web-based GUI interface and it is quiet enough to leave on 24/7. No more waiting for a machine to boot up to get to data. For redundant storage at home I highly recommend it. |
A woman in a Wendy’s in San Jose bit into a human finger while eating a bowl of chili, I assume it was beef chili. The woman spit out the “well-cooked digit,” told the restaurant staff, and proceeded to throw up. I am sure this all happened in a matter of seconds, but it may take weeks to figure out where the finger came from. All of the workers at the restaurant had all of their fingers, so the authorities believe the finger probably entered the food at the manufacturer. Crazy. |
Well, as many of you know I am without a television right now. Actually, I just got off the phone with the shipping company and found out that the TV I ordered will not arrive until Friday afternoon of next week! April Fool’s Day. As such I won’t be able to do full episode summaries for a couple of weeks. Until then I’ll have to get my AR7 fix from the CBS website–pretty sad indeed. However, I am happy to say that I called it this week. Rob & Amber are back in 1st place and Susan & Patrick were eliminated. Told ya. |
I am tired of hearing about this! I want news about issues that change the world not just one family. Surely there are happpenings around the world that are more pressing for our society. Aside from this lady’s family and the evangelical Christians, who want to be in everybody’s business, who really cares about this? I am not trying to be mean, but damn! |
It’s pretty clear that if you live on a street that has the work “creek” in it, bad shit can and will happen to you. A man in Scotts Valley who just recently bought a house on Bean Creek Road barely escaped with his life after a mudslide “moved” his house downhill. More evidence? We had good friends that lived on Creek Road in Fairfax and their power would continually go out during storms, the creek adjacent to their backyard would sometimes overflow, and their garage was also sometimes flooded by rain runoff. Below are articles I found on Google by typing “Creek Road” and the words mudslide, flood, or fire: Mudslide Wednesday closes road, McIntyre Creek Road, Canada, 02/2004 I hope my friend Larry doesn’t take offense to this post–he loved his little house on Creek Road. Thankfully now he lives in a beautiful home in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii which will help him forget the good times and bad times in Fairfax. Hopefully he’ll just forget the bad times. |
The British Department of Constitutional Affairs has said today that Camilla Parker Bowles would assume the title of queen should Prince Charles ascend to the throne. This contradicts Prince Charles’s earlier statements that Camilla Parker Bowles would assume the title of HRH Princess Consort if and when he succeeds to the throne. According to the government, legislation or amendement to the constitution by parliament would be required for her to assume the lesser title. Seems like small news, but expect a brouhaha over this shit. |
No television isn’t dead as a medium, but mine is. My trusty 1993 27″ Sony Trinitron Flat Panel CRT died last night as Melissa watched Oprah and Dr. Phil off the TiVo. According to the eyewitness account, in its final moments the TV snapped, crackled, and popped for a second or two and that was it, it was dead. Today I ordered a new TV, but it won’t be here for about a week or so. These things are so heavy that they only ship ground apparently. I also got a good deal for it too, much cheaper than the price at the Sony store at the Metreon. Still, waiting a week or more with no TV sucks for me. |
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In this leg of the race, teams made their way from Santiago, Chile to Argentina. Teams had to drive across the Andes Mountains from the country of Chile to the country of Argentina, which seemed like an awesome drive. The road was filled with huge switchbacks to get over the mountains and the views looked stunning. It definitely looked like something worth doing the next time you vacation in South America. I definitely want to drive across them. Before teams could depart on their drive, they had to wait for an underground car park to open. Rob and Amber were so far ahead from the other teams that they went back to the hotel to get a little shut-eye before taking off. When they woke up, they stole Debbie & Biancas taxi that was waiting for them while they got directions in the hotel lobby. This was an omen for things to come, as Debbie & Bianca would have a really bad day. The cab stealing didnt afford Rob & Amber any lead on the race, but it managed to annoy Debbie & Bianca. |
Bernie Ebbers, the ex-CEO of Wolrldcom, was found guilty of nine counts of accounting fraud and will face up to 85 years in prison under tough Sarbanes-Oxley sentencing guidelines. At the heart of the case was shady accounting masterminded by Ebbers to protect the company stock and his personal fortune, and $400 million in personal loans made by Worldcom to Ebbers right before filing for bankruptcy. This is the first CEO to go down hard under the new SOX rules and surely more will follow. Stay tuned. |
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Dateline just did an investigation on counterfeit Live Strong bands and found that fake bands are being sold anywhere, from eBay to grocery stores, and even in gas stations. People are so desperate to get the bands as a fashion accessory that they are buying fake ones that don’t have anything to do with raising money for cancer research. I don’t mind the original ones being sold for a profit since the Lance Armstrong Foundation still makes $1 off them. But selling fake ones seems pretty screwed, what do you think? |
Judd at TechnoTaste created a Google Maps plugin for Firefox. Now you can use the search bar in Firefox to find places anywhere on the planet. Need some Cuban food in Pembroke Pines? I recommend Padrino’s. They have an all you can eat lunch buffet. Tasty. And the next time I’m in San Fran, I need to stop by Sun’s Cafe. They claim to be a Korean Teriyaki House. ??? |
In case you haven’t noticed, the comments board is gone and has been replaced by thumbnail pictures of my photo collection and Jimmy’s mobile blog photos on the sidebar. Also gone are the Amazon ads that appeared on the front page. Although the Google ads on the individual blog entry pages will definitely remain. All in all, I think that this is a change for the better. What do you, my six devoted readers, think? Let me know. |
Melissa and I went to Europe almost six months ago. We went to Germany and Spain, and while in Germany we attended the wedding of friend and ex-coworker who happens to be a member of German royalty. Well, I just posted the photos on my Flickr account for everyone to enjoy. I guess it takes a broken arm sometimes to catch up on stuff like this. Let me know what you think of them. |
Erik Jendresen, writer for the next Star Trek film broke silence yesterday and gave some news about the new film. The story of the film will take place approximately 160 BK, or about 160 years before Kirk. However, the film will not feature anyone from the Enterprise series cast. Instead of focusing the action around an Enterprise crew, the story will center around the Romulans attempting to start a war with Earth. Jendresen also hinted that by the end of his film, “everything isn’t fine.” Good, we need some change. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait a while since it isn’t going to be ready for release until 2007. |
In Michigan, a cat shot his owner by knocking down a 9mm handgun off a kitchen counter. The gun discharged and shot him in the ass, hmmn, the lower torso. I guess the cat was pissed that the owner wasn’t cleaning his litter box. |