6.28.2006

Garden 2006 ed. Check out what 1 month can do....

Click for greater detail. Pic taken on 5.28.06





The moons have aligned and the earth springs forth with copious abundance. These pics were taken exactly one month apart and I believe this is what some may call Progress or in honor of the great brethren of the north, "PRO-GRESS"..... :p




Click for greater detail. Pic taken on 6.28.06










I have had to already harvest three of four red-leaf lettuce heads due to such rapid growth. I am just about to harvest the lone lettuce, but wanted it in the pic. I plan to drop four more lettuce plants into the ground pretty soon. Might as well take advantage of the earth since the harvest has been excellent up to this point. I have dozens of tomatoes in the beginning stages from all six plants. I have also harvested some basil, oregano and parsley with excellent results. Things are progressing nicely.


The zuc plant is getting massive and I predict 3-4 zucs will be shooting out of it in the next two weeks. The eggplants are gaining girth, but those tend to take a bit longer, but not as long as the peppers. The pepper plants look good though. The cucs are also growing nicely. So far, so good.

More updates in another month....

6.27.2006

Who should you follow?

It's no secret that I am fan of Apple, but I can assure you that it was not always this way. Well, it was, but it's not like my first computer was an Apple and I did not jump onto the iPod bandwagon when they first hit the market. In fact, my first iPod was/is a Shuffle and that came out just over a year ago. I have a 4.5 year old ibook that is my primary portable and is running strong; I replaced the battery on it last year. I also have a mini that I use as a cool "any-purpose" machine that has a ridiculously small footprint. I should get a medal for swapping out the ram stick in that thing...Let's just say sandpaper and a putty knife did the trick; no case damage occurred either.....Anyway, we have established that I enjoy Apple's products and many people do which gets me to the main situation of this post....So many people (maybe even readers of this blog...hint, hint) make noise about the iPod and how overrated and expensive it is and that people who buy them are just following the crowd with no reasoning and without reservation; sheep, if you will....I find this amusing if you flip the script on them and see if they use a PC as their computer of choice. Is that not the same argument that can be used? Let me answer that. YES, it is! I have 6 year old HP (works fine; replaced the HD 2years ago) and a 3 year old PC that I built; runs Photoshop like a champion. I am not a gamer, therefore, I look for the PC to really handle Office tasks, Photoshop, Web Dev (testing), misc prog use and some other not so processor-intensive tasks. I am in no way a PC-hater, but given the choice, the Mac destroys the PC in terms of user-experience and just overall cool-factor. Oh, I have never had ad/spyware or a virus on either of my macs.

This post is more about the whole digital music scene and the platform or music playing device of choice. I prefer the various versions of the iPod. No question of it’s superiority in terms of UI, durability and plain cool factor.


I’m an open minded person though and I actually have this Creative Zen Xtra that I bought 3 years ago due to a great deal amazon had that it came out to like $120. At the time, getting 30GB in music player was NOT cheap and I wanted to be able to say that I knew what the “other” side of the music player world was like. 30GB is a large amount of storage. The quality of the music is fine assuming the proper encoding occurred in the first place, but the navigation on that thing is junk. The small plastic “wheel” on the side is junk. The software Creative used for that thing is junk. It really did confirm to me that the iPod is king and everyone else is a pretender. I am not someone who buys every new gadget that comes out, therefore, the next time I get a music player will be different than the first time I bought one, but unless I get the same experience as what Apple and the iPod give me, then on the shelf will stay those other products.

Without further ado, I leave you with a link to a site that provides motivation to look for alternatives to the iPod. I think the ad campaign is fairly decent; I don’t agree with it, but there will be a segment out there that likes it and will try to dethrone the iPod. People should keep things in proper perspective as they use their PCs like the rest of the sheep out there.... :p

6.24.2006

Let there be light.....


I am in the market for a new desk lamp. This should be a simple purchase, but I am not in search of just function. I require style in this purchase. I like to think of myself as a frugal (ok. who am i kidding? i'm cheap) guy, but certain purchases require me to step up my game and consider paying a bit more for durability, longevity and style. Examples of items I HARDLY ever go cheap on would be dress shoes, cutlery, cookware, sneakers, wallets and boxer briefs. I know...it's somewhat of a random list, but it's true. I've learned my lesson by knowing people who have tried to save cash and end up spending more by not paying more in the first place. Also, I have been guilty of this IN THE PAST, but I don't need to go through it again as a reminder. One and done. Anyway, back to desk lamp. I just want something stylish with a small footprint on one corner of my desk. Since they recently opened an IKEA that is not too far from us, I need to get over there and get this purchase over with. I have dozens of sites saved and have been to several office/department/furniture/etc stores, but it's hard to satisfy my mind's eye sometimes and my price point is one that I don't want to exceed. The IKEA has been jammed since it opened and I know how some people can be quite vicious when it comes to a new store opening up. I can wait, but not for much longer......

6.21.2006

Heat Win!!! :(

BS. Man, I wanted this series to go 7games and Dallas to come out on top. I really wanted to see Mark Cuban grab all the face time with his antics. Plus, I felt Dallas was a much deeper team and I like Avery Johnson as the coach.

D. Wade is a warrior though and he earned that title and MVP award. Great, and now "marbles in the mouth" O'Neal will be steppin to the mic somewhere in the M-I-A and asking the crowd, "CAN YOU DIG IT?" He did come through on his promise to bring them a title. His legacy just grew. Good for him.

Well, at least my rage has disolved now that the NBA season is over and my Pistons will have an off-season to retool (with or without Big Ben and Sheed?...Hmmmmm) and I can focus on the World Cup, MLB and NFL. By the way, has anyone seen my Tigers....? Oh my, am I dreaming?

6.18.2006

Let's just dress up and act like this is real....

So, we recently went to a party. The party was fine, but before going there was a one-way conversation someone had with someone to tell them that someone at the party should not hear something that "that" someone was told. Got it? Well, then the someone who was told the something not to tell the someone at the party started to consider questions in the mind of the someone who was told that particular something. The funny thing was that the something that was told to the someone was something that the someone at the party thinks to be the contrary, but the someone that was told asked the someone why they would not tell the someone at the party if their relationship was so good and the someone who told it would create certain problems.

I would think bigger problems would be created by keeping the particular something inside and not discussing it, but what do I know? I laugh when people insist on claiming they have such deep and meaningful relationships and then shy from discussing issues as they are. Life may be like a box of chocolates, but sometimes one must eat a chocolate and then talk about how bad it might have tasted....

By the way, the King in the pic for this post is very scary and I put him on the same level as clowns in terms of making me jump out of a window if I were sleeping and that character woke me up or if I woke up one day and 50 Kings were in my room laughing... :p

6.15.2006

Interesting Fitness Product of the Day

I am truly unsure of the comfort level of these "shoes", but I can see how they might be a really nice cross-training piece of equipment. Some of you may have seen or actually have the Nike Free shoes and I liked the idea of a shoe like that when I first saw these last year sometime. Apparently there are numerous health benefits to walking/running barefoot. I must admit that I am not particularly a fan of walking/running barefoot unless it is on a beach sans yellow sand from someone's pet. Maybe it's because I did not do so that much as a child or had some sort of fear of stepping on a piece of glass, a nail, a syringe, etc. :p I don't know, but I do know that walking barefoot is a positive trigger to the senses. Running on sand is an absolutely great exercise due to further strengthening of ligaments, tendons and muscles. I'm unsure if I would ever buy these Vibram shoes, but I kind of like how the technology is trying to mimic nature a little bit better.

6.12.2006

World Cup 2006

Who's your team?

6.07.2006

Do these morons think it's 1985 or something? Honestly......

I happen to be scanning the tv post dinner this evening and ran across the NBC Dateline show entitled "To Catch A Predator". I am sure that you have heard of this. The basic premise is about these losers (dudes) who chat online (usually a myspace situation) and after days or weeks of chatting with what they think is a 12-15 year old girl (or boy) (actually a police decoy in the cyber unit or 19yo girl they utilze for talking on the phone and video chat), they agree to meet for some "partying". The host of this report, Chris Hansen, is absolutely HILARIOUS in how he talks to these sick morons and then produces the transcripts from several sessions of explicit chats. Mr. Hansen actually walks in from another room into the kitchen while some of these guys sit there with some type of brew in their hands (Mike's Hard Lemonade seemed most popular). I love when he asks these idiots if they have heard of Dateline and seen the show on catching people like them... Oh man....I never tire of seeing these mostly predictable people sweat bullets and then either flip out when the cameras come out from being hidden and then the guys run out of the decoy house and get arested. I say mostly predictable because sometimes they get a real loon on there who starts taking his clothes off right when he gets into the decoy house....It's pretty ridiculous. It is truly amazing to me that ANYONE would think that in 2006 you could set up a session of "partying" with an underage person and not get caught.........eventually. The sick thing is that although these idiots claim that "this was my first time doing anything like this", we all know otherwise. It's pretty bad when tonight's show displayed a teacher who was married, a student from a religious college, a paramedic and some other people with certain job titles. I have seen this series in the past with doctors, lawyers, engineers, rabbis, pastors and the list goes on and on.....It just shows kind of shift in societal circumstances thanks to the Internet. If kids (and adults) would be more cautious and flat out emotionless within chat rooms and message boards, many of these types of things would not have opportunites to become criminal activities. I suppose the whole annonymiety vs trust dicotomy of the Internets plays around with some people's sense of reality.....


PS,
I can assure anyone reading this that neither Hall nor Oats were harmed in the formation of this post. :p

6.05.2006

Just another day at the zoo....


I've said it before and I will say it again; being in a cage makes one do things one may not usually do.....

6.01.2006

I wonder how they act at home.....


This is one for the ages. For those of you who work in a place with several departments, you are probably familiar with what I am going to talk about today. The all too familiar work-sponsored food event, aka pot luck or catered lunch/dinner is what I will shed some thoughts on. We recently had one of these situations at work and aside from so many people acting like they were just released back into civilian life after serving 10yrs in the state pen and getting their first meal outside of the prison walls or that seemed to have been raised in the wilderness by wolves in how they hoard their food, there is that further magnified issue of giving food to other departments after a certain department-sponsored event is over. Well, this happened and I wish I was joking, but there was an aluminum container with about 35 chicken breasts in it and 3 people came in to the room and CLEANED HOUSE! Seriously, they had like 4 plates each stacked with these chicken breasts. I suppose they planned to feed their families and a few neighbors. I was rolling on the floor laughing in my mind when I witnessed this nonsense. Do these people have no shame? Do they not think no one sees them? These are not some poor college kids either. I am talking about middle-aged people with kids. I am sure these are the same idiots that pick their noses when they drive and think that eyes in a rearview mirror or a stare across a lane does not apply to them.....Pitiful people....