January 2006 Archives

January 31, 2006
To: Felix From: lord@loardandmaster.com Subj: Not So Lordly Anymore Not so lordly any more master stein loser. More like lord of the looooosers! More like master of the masterful looosers. Have fun drinking out of your silly plastic cup.----- --------... (read more)
I realize it's been slow around here. Apologies for that, but I've been wanting to focus my time/energies on other projects at the moment. Tonight, I spent some time getting together some Flash files for Ben, as I'm walking him through creating a dynamic XML-driven Flash photo gallery tomorrow, after... (read more)
I spotted a call for entries today for the Chicago Underground Film Festival. And you knwo what the crazy thing is? I might actually submit something! I'm not sure if my current experiment will qualify, but I think it will. I think it constitutes a "short film," or at... (read more)
Attention poets from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin! Check out the Poetry Center's 12th Annual Juried Reading and Awards. And the final judge is none other than one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins. Big thanks to Matt for hooking me up with this link.... (read more)
I tried to defend my possession of the Lord and Master Stein™ today for a record FIFTH time, but alas... Kashif ended up the victor. Dang! Played several games today, post-work. Chris, Justin and I ended up doing several $2 games. I won one, and Justin came in to win... (read more)
January 30, 2006
A long, long time ago I stumbled across rachelleb.com. Her blog is one of the few out there that updates on a daily basis, and she lives not too far from where I'm at. It's interesting to see another blogger go about documenting their life on-line, especially someone in... (read more)
Played a bit of poker after work today, with Ben and Chris. And guess what? Yours truly became the first successful FOUR TIME defending champion of the Lord and Master Stein™. At the end, it was me and Ben going heads-up. In two instances today, he took a bad... (read more)
The CD's that I ordered arrived today! I'm a little miffed it took over two weeks for them to get here, but whatever. I was pretty excited to get these guys, as I've been checking my work mailbox daily. I haven't had much of a chance to give these... (read more)
January 29, 2006
Well, that was definitely an experience. I was pretty nervous the whole time, and ended up chewing gum like a madman. Towards the end of the game there, my jaw started hurting because I was just chomping away like a starving cow. I didn't touch any booze, and so all... (read more)
I don't know whether it will bring me good or bad luck (since I'm doing this on the Chinese New Year), but I'm headed to enter a Texas Holdem tournament in a few hours. I'm pretty excited, and fairly hopeful. I plan to be patient and play smart. But, well...... (read more)
Today marks the begining of the Year of the Dog. Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! While I'm not going to Chinatown to take photos, I'm including a link to my first ever Chinese New Year Parade in Chicago's Chinatown. For those who haven't seen that entry, think fireworks and... (read more)
January 28, 2006
Spent the day doing more work on the new experiment. Getting closer now, and I even got official permission to use the music track I've had my ear on these past few days. Sweet! Working on a design/layout for the thing, and I'm not feeling all that inspired. It's ok... (read more)
January 27, 2006
So... I decided to enter into a Texas Holdem tournament this weekend. It's to take place on Sunday at 2 PM. It's inside a bar (back in a private room, apparently), and well... I'm a little excited, a little nervous. It's a $65 buy-in, and so far the rumor is... (read more)
Sadly, the promotion is only running in Japan. Dan! If you're reading this, it's time to go token-hunting. You need to win this robot! It's a moral imperative!... (read more)
I found a wonderful surprise waiting for me at my door, when I got home yesteday. Gretchen totally sent me this on the sly, and it caught me off guard. Included in this surprise package was a great letter, a copy of Stash 15 and an I Ching coin.... (read more)
Window display, Quimby's bookstore on North Avenue.... (read more)
January 26, 2006
God DAMN. This thing is gonna be sweet, once I get it properly sized out for the web.... (read more)
Another slow blog entry tonight. Came home and started in on the new experiment, which resulted in about a good 3 hours of Photoshop batching images. I was going to turn in earlier, but I started working with a few files... and I think I've solidified how I'm going to... (read more)
January 25, 2006
Slowly and slowly. Working on it.... (read more)
Hung out with Chris, Justin and Will tonight after work for a quick drink. The mention of a winter camping trip has been out there for a while, and we ended up kicking around a few scenarios this evening. Sadly, work is at a pace such that camping anytime in... (read more)
January 24, 2006
Well, I've made some more progress on this new experiment. So far, I've done what I've needed to to my images. My problem now is in the ginormous filesize I'm contending with here. I don't know exactly how I'm going to try to make this thing web-friendly, but that's the... (read more)
After a long hiatus, The Iguana Diaries returns. I've been a fan of rastafare's writing since Year One, when he moved down to the Caymans and worked to bring his family down there with him. Great writing, and I can't say enough good things. Definitely go and poke around... (read more)
January 23, 2006
Dangit. I really want to stay up for another hour or three, just to get through more of this. I think I've figured out the remainder of my technical workflow. All that's left should be sorting and editing/deleting. Which... should take a few days. Good stuff in the past hour.... (read more)
Spent more time tonight trying to extract height/width info from my images. You'd think something like this would be a simple freaking thing to do via AppleScript. But so far, I've run into roadblock after roadblock. Today, Justin showed me Extra Suites, a background scripting application by Kanzu with a... (read more)
January 22, 2006
dang.... (read more)
My friend Gretchen called me today, and told me about her adventures riding the NY subway sans pants. Listening to her story, I learned about a prankster troupe called Improv Everywhere, and today marked a mission they've dubbed No Pants 2K6. This sounded like a blast (although eight people did... (read more)
I meant to mention this on Friday. Somehow (I have no idea how it came up), Chris and I both discovered that we're fans of Andrea Bocelli. More than that, we both discovered a mutual fascination for one of his songs: Con Te Partiro (or rather, the English version... (read more)
Remember this wonderful little bet we had, about a month ago? Well, I finally got around to re-editing the footage and made a new and improved video recap of the entire day. I posted up a QuickTime version (19 MB). But if you would rather view it on this... (read more)
Not much to show for today. I spent a good deal of time working on AppleScript stuff. I learned about "Image Events," but discovered that I couldn't retrieve Height/Width attributes. With this stuff, it's at times infuriating - I know exactly what I want to do, just not how to... (read more)
January 21, 2006
Got a call from Justin in the late afternoon, and an invite out to the suburbs. He was planning to purchase a nice TV from a friend of Ben's, and I decided to accompany him to visit Ben and Laura (and the kids). Interestingly, the entire trip was a series... (read more)
January 20, 2006
Got a call from Will tonight, and he told me he just purchased a new iMac. He's got one of the fancier Intel-based Macs, and he was excited to try out the new video feature that comes with the new machines. I've got the same thing, but so far... (read more)
I TOLD you they were competitive. Today, Chris sank the ball twice and Ben got it in once. And Rey got one as well. This game that used to be difficult has become seemingly too easy. I'm not sure how we're going to up the stakes.... (read more)
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Today, my workday got interrupted because of an error Mike stumbled across in one of the apps we built. This thing was something I had a hand in creating, over a year ago, and we were all pretty stumped. As far as we knew, the app had run without any... (read more)
Spotted this forgotten bong on the corner of Honore and North. This right here? This is yet another reason why I love you, Chicago. And for the record, yes. It was cashed.... (read more)
January 19, 2006
Some neat films over at Pleix. I haven't had a chance to go through all of them, but I remember seeing Beauty Kit a long while ago. So far Netlag is one of my favs. Link via Icculus.... (read more)
This morning, as we were getting our coffee, Ben spotted a new sandwich on the menu at Artisan: the Carlos Santuna. Wasabi Mayonnaise? I'm sold right there! The sandwich ended up being quite delicious (I also got a bit of swiss cheese to go along with it). As I... (read more)
Well, I'm happy. No, proud. Proud to report that yours truly (thank you, thank you) was the first person to officially sink the rubber bouncy ball into the Lord and Master Stein™. I threw it straight in, as per the original terms of the bet. Sadly, there was nothing at... (read more)
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Some Star Trek fans got together and picked up with the original series left off. With "a growing network of Star Trek professionals" in tow, they're looking to release a third episode this spring (each episode is 51 minutes long, broken into 5 acts like the originals). Link to... (read more)
I'm really not someone who's into Sudoku at all, but this interface was too cool not to mention. I dig the design, and the controls all seem really intuitive to me. And I think the archive goes back a full month (and keeps track of the ones you've completed).... (read more)
January 18, 2006
A big Happy Birthday to Trogdor, who turned three today! For those of you who might not be familiar with Strong Bad's Emails, it's time to take a small step forward. Your Monday mornings will never be the same. Here are a few links to get you caught up,... (read more)
I was talking with my friend Gretchen today, and the topic of hot sauce came up. I'm a total lightweight, and can't touch the stuff (my sister on the other hand, can eat spicy food until the cows come home). As we talked, I remembered this great poem by Craig... (read more)
Hot
by Craig Arnold    I'm cooking Thai—you bring the beer. The same order, although it's been a year —friendships based on food are rarely stable.   &bsp;We should have left ours at the table    where it began, and went to seed, that appetite we shared, based less in need than boredom—always at... (read more)
Well, according to the guidelines for the 2006 Weblog Awards, 150 randomly selected voters were given a list of the top contenders in each category a few days ago. They had until yesterday (Tuesday, January 17, 10PM EST) to pick their five favorites from each category. So technically, the first... (read more)
We had two new folks in the office today, helping out on some backend development. Scott and Jahnavi are our hired guns, coming in to help Justin, Matt and Kashif with what will turn out to be a pretty busy month and a half for all of us. Scott agreed... (read more)
Spotted this spray bunny on the corner of the Damen/North/Milwaukee trisection. It's been there for a while, and today was the day I finally remembered to grab a shot of it (in some daylight). I don't have a real reason for it, but I dig the design. I like... (read more)
January 17, 2006
I was going over my referrer logs today, and stumbled across this little jewel: one of my experiments is listed on Wikipedia, under the entry for Infinnite Monkey Theorem. Woohoo! *wipes tear* I'm ... I'm so proud. It's one thing to get linked up, but to have monkeys involved... (read more)
After work, I ended up hanging out with Justin for a bit. We were on our way to grab a drink, and decided to duck into Myopic. I didn't really have anything I was looking for, so I ended up just wandering the stacks aimlessly. Next thing I knew,... (read more)
Remember last week, when I wore the half-suit? And when Ben went so far as to shave himself for work? Well, here's a quick glimpse as to what that was all about. I looked over and saw my mug sitting on Jane's computer. I asked for a screenshot, and... (read more)
January 16, 2006
Hung out for a bit at Danny's tonight, while Justin was doing his DJ thing. I showed up somewhat early, and ended up sharing a table with a girl named Kelly. She and I talked for a while (a weird experience for me, chatting it up with a total... (read more)
Finally got a sort of hack going, where I was able to modify all my images. I ended up doing some stuff manually, as it was taking me more time to research Applescript syntax than it would have for me to just do it by hand. One of these... (read more)
Really, the only way to top off a lunch at Hot Doug's is to go and play a little poker. The three of us set up in Chris' kitchen. There, Will and I got to meet Fozzie, Chris and Leslie's new cat, for the first time. Fozzie is incredibly... (read more)
Since we had the day off today, Chris, Will and I decided to pay a visit to Hot Doug's - the best damn hot dog joint in the city. Though I took this photo after we left, the line we encountered on arriving was similar. That's right - people... (read more)
January 15, 2006
I spent the day like a sloth. No real much of anything, other than watching the Colts lose to Pittsburgh. I'm not a big sports person, but I was fixed on that game - lots of ups and downs, a total rollercoaster ride. They had a chance there at the... (read more)
Justin will be spinning at Danny's on Monday, January 16th. Probably starting around 10PM until 2. Swing on by, and if you find me there... I'll buy you a free drink.... (read more)
January 14, 2006
Hot damn. I was about to sign off and go to bed. But I chanced across a mention that Google Earth is now available for Macs! Yeah! I first saw this application while visiting Alex, several weeks ago. Me, Alex, Justin and Dave were all mesmerized, looking all over... (read more)
I think I'm trying to get better about updating that audioplayer (on the right). Too often, I let the same songs sit there for a month or more. Tonight, after discovering I am Robot and Proud, I decided it was time for another update. The Bells, by Dave Fischoff. More... (read more)
I came across I am Robot and Proud this evening, thanks to yet another great link on Ektopia. I'm not sure how to describe the music - electronica? That's probably not the right term. I'm not a huge music person, as you can tell... but if this is any... (read more)
Check out the latest work from Arsis, one of the many talented Flash guys over at Twelvestone.... (read more)
After my post about the Stardust@Home project, I've found myself in awe of aerogel. It's the lightest solid, a great insulator (as evidenced above) and just looks crazy neat. I can't believe this shit has been around since the 1930's - that part alone blows my mind. I did... (read more)
January 13, 2006
Hung out with Justin a bit at his house, looked over some of the stuff he's developing, and watched a bit of a punk rock documentary. We grabbed a few drinks over at Rainbo, and ended up talking about The After-School Project™ a bit. It's funny that when we... (read more)
After work, Justin and I headed over to Rainbo for a few drinks. Spotted this silhouette spray-painted on a gate, along Division. As we continued down Division, I started seeing more and more of these guys. It got me thinking about street art and vandalism. I've taken a lot... (read more)
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When we first moved back into the office Chris and I came across this small bouncy ball designed like a mini soccer ball. We bounced it off of desks/shelves, and that lasted maybe a week and we forgot all about it. Today, out of nowhere, the ball started making the... (read more)
After shaving himself for work yesterday, today Ben finally gets rid of "the flavor savor." And it seems only appropriate here that I offer a bit of a flashback to September, 2002, when our fledgling department had both a low number of people and a low face to stubble... (read more)
January 12, 2006
Ok. Wow. I remember hearing about this substance a while back, but god DAMN - some of these pictures are amazing. The used Aerogel on the Stardust spacecraft to collect particles. Simply stunning photographs.... (read more)
There's something a-brewing over at Berkeley again. Similar to their prior multi-user projects like SETI@Home (which I participated in, for a long time), the Stardust@Home project affords would-be researchers to help lend their eyes in search of dust grains from the recent Stardust spacecraft. Unlike SETI@Home though, this isn't... (read more)
After work today, Chris, Ben and I ended up playing a really fast game of Holdem. After Ben left (he was rushing to catch a train), Chris and I decided to play another game - just the two of us, heads-up style. Only... we decide to spice it up a... (read more)
A few days ago, I posted a video that showed a magic trick that Bryan had taught everyone. Well, all of us have been sort of practicing it, off and on, since then. Lately, it's become this thing where Jane and I have tried to make silly bets as to... (read more)
At work, from time to time, we end up grabbing a digital camera and going on a photoshoot. We mostly know what we're doing, and it ends up being a lot cheaper than hiring a photographer or buying stock. In order to get the images we need for our... (read more)
Just now, I remembered a cool link to a $14 Steadycam that I saw on Ektopia a few days ago. You know - in case anyone decides they want to create something for current.tv.... (read more)
My boss Rey sent this link out to all of us a week or so ago, but at the time I didn't do more than glance over the site. Today, I happened across a BB post about the site, and ended up taking a closer look. Wow! Talk about... (read more)
January 11, 2006
Yesterday, I posted a poem by Billy Collins. Today, I was searching around some and stumbled across a small cache of mp3 files - six poems in total! Check out this page on download.com for some free audio files and get your poetry on.... (read more)
This is a pretty wicked Java-based game, posted by GHaST over at Twelvestone. Lots of interesting interactions. Plants grow in water; fire burns oil; water puts out fire. I haven't fully figured out the sand and cera and salt just yet... but this thing is like your own little... (read more)
January 10, 2006
by Billy Collins The other day I was ricocheting slowly off the blue walls of this room, moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano, from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor, when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary where my eyes fell upon... (read more)
Out of all the poetry readings I've ever attended, I've laughed the most while listening to Billy Collins. There's one poem in particular that I've been meaning to share with you, and the other day... I was reminded of it. I was watching an episode of the West Wing, and... (read more)
So, my problem with the EXIF info on some of my photos? It's looking like I need to create my own script/solution to take care of things. Tonight, I made a cup of tea and settled down with a Mac OS X book Justin loaned me. I was able... (read more)
Talking with Gretchen tonight on IM, she gave me a link to Sam Brown, who draws images based on titles people send in. This one is Gretchen's favorite, and I have to admit I'm quite fond of it as well.... (read more)
Some jaw-dropping images here, by photographer Michael Wolf. I remember seeing this link a while ago, but was reminded again of it by my friend Jesseca. And she was right in her thought that I'd go all apeshit for the repetition/symmetry. These are some amazing photographs of Hong Kong... (read more)
"A seemingly random smattering of elements that, viewed from a specific point in space, coalesce into a tangible planar element." This is the most recent entry on a blog called gravestmor. I've only had a brief bit to look around, but this one just made it to my bookmarks.... (read more)
With lyrics like "angels sang out in immaculate chorus / down from the heavens descended Chuck Norris," how can you possibly go wrong? The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. Thanks goes to Chris.... (read more)
Wow. Well, I didn't take any photos today, but I got a ton of fun links from people. And to think that I was kind of worried I'd have nothing to post tonight. Lots of fun stuff here. If you like anything here, keep in mind it's because my friends... (read more)
January 9, 2006
My friend Matt (aka Tha.Riddla) has done it once again. Last year, I told you about how he got into the U.S. Barista Championship after placing at the Great Lakes Regional competition. Well, recently he was at the Great Lakes Regional, and placed first! This means he gets an... (read more)
Looks like my friend Will (aka The Jerkstore and one of the authors of The Shotgun Rules) has updated his site. Stop on by and post a question, or just say hi!... (read more)
This... This is what the Internet was created for. Thanks to FlamingoJeff for the link. The first act has a super long intro to it, so give it a chance. Once it actually gets going, it's pretty darn silly. Some of my favorite moments: Pirate Captain: Ninjas like to... (read more)
It's been a while since we moved in to this office. And during these months, two paintings that used to hang above Ben desk have sort of been sitting around. Well, today Ben and Jane took hammer in hand, and put thought to action. They hung up these two... (read more)
Bryan brought in this cool camera today - a Nishika N8000, some sort of 3D camera. I guess this thing spits out a stereogram - two versions of the same image side by side, from slightly different perspectives. The thing you would then do is to cross your eyes,... (read more)
Matt brought in not one, but two bags of quarters today. You may remember that he purchased a house a while back, and is the landlord man. In the basement of the place he's got two coin-operated washing machines, and from time to time... he empties out the quarters.... (read more)
January 8, 2006
I've spent the evening, doing some slight blog stuff and prepping some financial documents for my company's website. There was a VPN issue tonight, which ate up a bit of time. I blew an hour or so trying to figure out if it was a local issue, or something bigger... (read more)
After my fiddling around this morning, I took a trip over to the Apple Store and bought myself a fancy new game to play. I realize that Macs aren't in the same league as PC's for games... but they do have a few options. While this iMac isn't an... (read more)
Today's been an odd mixture of slacking off and work. I woke up this morning and spent most of it digging around on my new Mac some. Still getting used to some of the ins and outs, still trying to muck around with things like the Spotlight and Automator. I... (read more)
January 7, 2006
Tonight was the annual Martini Party, as hosted by Cathie and Anthony. This is their first official Martini Party as a married couple, to boot (though I'm waaay behind on posting their wedding pics). I spotted this guy and had a chuckle, as Anthony's last name is DeMoon. I... (read more)
Most weekends, I like nothing more than just lazing around the apartment. It seems like today was the first time in a long while where I've had a decent amount of free time. And so, what do I do? I ended up waking early, going out to the grocery store,... (read more)
January 6, 2006
I guess the email I got was from another Muffin Lady in Colorado, who came across my site after doing some keyword searches. But the one I know is the local Muffin Lady, who was busted back in November of 2004. Getting this email today made me go back and... (read more)
From: The Muffin Lady To: Felix Subj: Ah, if you only knew that I dear Blogger am real and The Muffin Lady Inc., and the best one that there is. Laso if you ever get out to Colorado make contact, for will give you a few of the baked treats,... (read more)
January 5, 2006
At the end of the work day today, Rey told us all that we would be likely hitting our divisional budget by the end of the week. Awesome! This means we have our stretch goal to achieve (which I think is like another two hundred thousand), before we can officially... (read more)
I came home tonight to find a small package waiting for me. Lo and behold, Alex and Linda sent me an awesome gift. Sweeeeeet! I wonder if this bread is from Kavarna Cafe. I can't wait to dig into this guy. According to the instructions, I heat this thing... (read more)
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Coverflow: a pretty sweet app that allows you to view all your iTunes music via album covers. It even goes out to retrieve cover art from places like Amazon. Sadly, it's a demo version and only for Macs running Tiger. But still a pretty neat thing to check out.... (read more)
12/30/2005 12/31/2005... (read more)
January 4, 2006
Made plans to hang out with Liz and Steph tonight. We were originally going to go to some new bar on North/Damen called "The Tavern," but it ended up being way too crowded. Instead, we met up at a place called "Celebrity," which used to be a seafood place... (read more)
January 3, 2006
I was able to get through all the pics/videos from the 30th and 31st. But I don't have time to post and comment them tonight. I'll try to get to those soon, this week. On a completely unrelated note - as I was digging around looking for reasons why you... (read more)
Well, I realize this is a super old link... but I was reminded of it this evening. For those that haven't seen it, this is a jaw-droppingly gorgeous commercial for the Sony Bravia. The visuals are absolutely stunning, and the song by José González is the absolute right song.... (read more)
Since I got the new iMac, I've been encoding video a bit differently. Up until now, I've been using the Sorenson codec. But now, with Flash 8 (and the Video Encoder that comes with it), I've been using the On2 VP6 codec. Truth be told, I don't have a clue... (read more)
Well, I've not really heard of this thing until today, but I figure it's worth a shot. Lo and behold, the time has come for the Sixth Annual Weblog Awards. Famewhore that I am, I'm asking any and all kind readers to submit a vote for yours truly. I... (read more)
January 2, 2006
I updated the audioplayer (on the right) with a few new songs. I'm guessing you can spot the theme.... (read more)
12/24/2005 12/25/2005 12/26/2005 12/29/2005 12/31/2005 I have a lot more photos/vids from the 30th and 31st, but not enough time to get them all updated tonight. I'll post more as I'm able, but in the meanwhile... I hope these will entertain. I know I've been away for a good... (read more)
January 1, 2006
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A Man and His Tiger, Jackson Blue Line Stop
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