I was looking at the Scrabble iPhone app and saw this really funny review:
I immediately clicked the “Report a Concern” link and entered the following:
“I am concerned that this person is studying Japanese and doesn’t know that words don’t contain nouns.”
You’ve come a long way, baby!
(read the ad text)
Update: Christy’s comment over IM after seeing it: it is awesome. it is win
I stumbled across the very cool “Kool Knobs” site and knew that I had to have him make a shifter for Tina. I debated over what exactly to have made. The owner of the company suggests hat pins as something to put in. I can’t tell you how many hat and lapel pin sites I looked through, but nothing quite grabbed my attention.
Then one night, inspiration struck. I had a Hellboy action figure sitting on one of the bookshelves. This one had interchangable hands. Zoë used to play with the extra hand so it ended up sitting on my desk. I sent Bruce over at Kool Knobs my idea and he said “heck yeah, that will look great”.
About one month later, the completed project is here and I think it looks awesome! The black base with the red hand matches the black and red color combo of the Mustang very well.
So without further ado:
Since Audrey arrived, we’ve had the Charger as our dependable family car and I’ve used Parker as my hobby/drive 5 miles to work car. Over this winter and especially during the last month or so it’s become very apparent that we need 2 100% reliable cars. Parker is a wonderful car, but not a car you want to drive during rainy weather or on long trips. So since I had some stock coming available soon, I decided to start looking for a 2nd “late model” car. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much 2005 and later Mustang GTs went for. We thought about a mini-van, but after looking at prices it became apparent that it wouldn’t be that much more expensive to get a Mustang. So when it came down to it, why have an awesome car and a min-van when you could have 2 awesome cars? So Mustang it was.
For those not in the know, Craigslist is an excellent source for used cars. Both dealers and private owners use it fairly extensively. I started looking around early February, which was something of a mistake. Knowing that I wouldn’t be buying until the middle of March, it drove me crazy seeing all those great cars waiting to be bought.
Around the end of February, I saw an ad reposted for a great looking 06 down in San Diego. It had 17,000 miles on it, some modifications that I had been planning to do, was owned by a car collector (so you know it was taken care of) and was only $17500. I sent an email to the person posting the ad asking if he wouldn’t mind me checking in with him around the 15th to see if the car was still available. I got a response back saying “Why don’t we just count on you picking it up on the 15th, give me a call and we’ll talk”. I had a nice chat with the guy and he was willing to take it off Craigslist if I sent him a token deposit of $100 to hold the car. I did and on the 20th I went down to pick up the car.
Phil (the previous owner) turned out to be a super nice guy. He asked me to send him my flight info so he could pick me up from the airport. From the airport, we went over to his storage warehouse where we spent the next hour looking through his collection of classic cars. He had some really unique vehicles, we’re talking “only 11 of them exist” type cars. He had 1 car that had been owned by Elvis and another that was owned by Frank Sinatra. I had a great time hearing all the history of the different cars.
After the tour, we went over to 1 of his 2 restaurants. While sitting down for lunch I told him how every time I visit San Diego, I have to stop by for some Lolita’s carne asada fries since there are none of comperable quality to be had outside San Diego. Phil said, “hang on a second” and went into the back.
He came back with the cook in tow and said “tell him what you like on your carne asada fries”. 10 minutes later, a plate of AWESOME carne asada fries was placed in front of me. They were so good that I even skipped my trip to Lolita’s!
After lunch, I thanked Phil for being so cool (I’m paraphrasing) and headed over to a stereo shop I have used in the past to see if they could install this in my car. They managed to fit me in since I was going to be driving up the next day. They said it would take a couple hours, so I walked over to the trolly and headed over to the mall to see if I could catch a showing of “I Love You, Man”.
I got to the theater and saw that there was a showing at 2:15. Looked at my watch and it was 2:13. Score! Enjoyed the movie, headed back over to the stereo shop in time to chat with the guy at the counter for 10 minutes about our over dependence on email as they finished up the install. Got in the car and drove up to Irvine to check into a hotel.
Woke up early the next day and blasted up the coast. It was gloomy all the way up the coast, but I hit no traffic and the Mustang was a blast to drive. Overall, I have to say this was a really great experience.
Here are some pics I took at Gaviota State beach just a little north of Santa Barbara:
Nina Simone has always been one of my favorite jazz singers. Something in her delivery has just always hit just perfectly with my tastes in music. With such influential musicians, there are always people covering their songs. Especially in jazz since it’s all about the performance and everyone sings standards at some point in their career.
That brings me to my current artist of the week: Kim Nalley. Kim is a local jazz singer and released an album of all Nina Simone covers. It’s filled with great music.
I know its a little sappy, but this song is my favorite Simone tune:
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Here’s another great from the album:
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I find that I tend to kinda fixate on a particular kind of music for a week or so at a time. So to help infect others with my odd behavior, I’m introducing the “Band of the Week” feature.
Current BotW: The Bird and the Bee
I admit, I’m a sucker for indie pop with female singers. My latest discovery in this category is “The Bird and the Bee”. I just picked up their latest 2 albums from Amazon’s mp3 download store (love it) for about $12 total. Woo! While listening to the albums, I came across a really amuzing song called “The Polite Dance Song”. I immediately went to youtube to find a video for it to post. Little did I know the crazy treat I would find when I entered in the song title into the search box. The video is oddly hypnotic.
Enjoy:
Here’s the song that turned me on to the band:
If a picture is worth a thousand words do you also count words on the picture? Would this picture (that so accurately depicts my feelings) count as 1002 words?
The premise of this movie sounded really cool. On one side you have humans with powers referred to as “Others”. These powers range from being able to see the future to shape-shifting into an animal. On the other (that’s “other” not “Other”) side you have vampires. Centuries ago a truce was formed between these two groups and the “Nightwatch” and “Daywatch” were formed to police the each side’s activities to ensure the treaty wasn’t broken. Sounds like a cool premise, right? I thought so to. The problem was that it just came off as goofy.
Anyone that knows me knows that I have an unhealthy appreciation for cheesy movies. Evil Dead, Hard Boiled, Heroic Trio, Kung Fu Hustle, The Big Hit and Torque are some of my favorite goofy movies. Nightwatch just didn’t make the cut. I think the problem was that the level of goofiness was very uneven. In Torque when there’s a kung fu battle with motorcycles, it’s awesome because the movie has been that way all along. In Nightwatch when they slam on the brakes of their jet powered utility van and do a forward flip over a pedestrian it is completely out of context.
I had heard a lot of good things about the movie, so I stuck through the first hour expecting it was going to get better. After that first hour I realized it wasn’t getting better, but I had already over halfway through so I figured I should just stick it out. Bad decision on my part. I appreciate that it’s really Russia’s first big “blockbuster” movie. Kudos to them for stepping it up and trying to do something interesting. Unfortunately it just doesn’t quite cut it.
If you find yourself thinking about renting this, think again.
I’ve never really understood people going ga-ga over Disneyland. Sure it has some fun rides and a pleasant atmosphere, but it has never really been a place I would go out of my way as an adult to visit. Having lived in close proximity to both Disneyland and Disneyworld as a kid, I took my share of trips there. Yet when I try to think back on it, I have very few enjoyable memories. All I seem to remember from those trips are people either rushing to have fun according to a schedule or arguing about something or other. When Maryanne brought up the potential plan for a trip to Disneyland, I thought “why not” and set everything up.
What I was not prepared for was this:
 |
| From Disneyland |
The absolute wonder that Zoë experienced when she first saw Minnie Mouse and Goofy made it all worth it. Now I completely understand the draw to Disneyland. I seriously found myself contemplating staying an extra day just so she could have more time to play.
Being able to take my little girl there and have her so excited has replaced any negative memories I had about trips to Disney. While I’m not sure how many lasting memories Zoë will have from this trip, I know I have some that I will carry with me as long as I live.
Good job Walt!
(for more on our trip to Disneyland, see Zoë and Maryanne’s sites)