ever so gently rambling, rambling at my chamber door
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Your Movie Buff Quotient: 88% |
 You are a movie buff of the most obsessive variety. If a movie exists, chances are that you’ve seen it. You’re an expert on movie facts and trivia. It’s hard to stump you with a question about film. |
Response from anyone who knows me:
well, duh. of course you’re a movie geek.
There’s been a fair bit of hubbub about the social network/micro-blog services twitter and most recently pownce.
twitter is a bit of an interesting concept as it boils down to very short (less than 140 characters), text-only posts about what you’re up to. You can post updates in a variety of ways (web, email, im, sms message via cell, desktop client) and receive updates from your circle of twittery friends in a similar way (web, email, im, sms, desktop client, or rss feed).
pownce is a new contender to the field (so new it’s still in private beta). As far as I can tell, a fair chunk of the excitement about this platform is the involvement of Kevin Rose (of digg fame, all things revision3, and formerly of TechTV back when it had some actual tech). It also appears to be one of the first apps to be built using Adobe AIR (platform for developing net-based desktop apps). They don’t appear to have as many ways to send/receive updates (just web and desktop client at this point?), but they provide a number of other features that aren’t present in twitter. Notably: ability to send updates to subsets of your friends list (not just “everyone”), and the option of sending more media-rich updates (music, photos, videos, etc).
Since there’s been a fair bit of commotion on the web about these two services, I thought I might give them a spin and see what I think. You can check out my feeds at twitter and pownce. Don’t think I actually know anyone who’s currently using either service, which may make this experiment somewhat pointless, but I thought it might at least be worth a look-see.
Since pownce is currently in private beta, let me know if you need an invite to check it out yourself, as I have a handful to give out at this point. twitter is publicly available, so you can easily register for your own account if you’d like to check it out.
I’m not sure how to describe Joost aside from on-demand, internet tv clips from the crew that put together Skype and Kazaa. A while back I managed to land an invite from Joost for their private beta test, and have enjoyed running it on my Macbook Pro (they support Windows and Intel Macs at this point). Very little lag when you first fire up a program, and haven’t had any issues once a show starts. They seem to be landing more and more content every time I check in with it. They’ve got all sorts of channels:
Anyway, it’s turning into a pretty cool source for free tv goodies as long as you’ve got a decent net connection. Some stuff relies on advertising, but it hasn’t been as obnoxious as what you’d find on regular tv so far (e.g. 10 minutes for ads in a 30 minute show on real tv).
Since it’s still in beta, you need an invite to get in. They’ve apparently scaled to the point where they can handle faster growth of their user base as they’ve given everyone “unlimited” invites at this point. So if anyone wants and invite, let me know.
Kait (aka student dr. blaze) pinged me for an internet meme she filled out. Since I’m not sure I know many people with blogs, I suppose I’ll have to tap Richy and see if he’ll fill it out and pass it on.
Main Entry: meme
Pronunciation: \ˈmēm\
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of mimeme, from mim- (as in mimesis) + -eme
Date: 1976
1 : an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture
[Source]
So the Simpsons are headed for movie theaters everywhere toward the end of the month. Supposedly it’s good, but I think I’ll wait for the rental. What prompts me to write this post however is one of the features available on the movie website… create your own Simpsons avatar! Reasonably well done Flash affair where you select body type, hairstyle, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, etc. There’s of course only a limited number of each of these, but you can achieve a fairly reasonable likeness and save it out as a jpeg. I took a stab at making mine and here it is:
To be honest, I think it’s pretty cool and might use the head as my new IM icon and maybe slap it at the top of the right column of the blog where people sometimes put a “photo of the author.”
In case you’re wondering, I didn’t select the blowfish due to its connection to the Simpsons (does it have one? many of the shirt options seemed to, but I don’t know what it is for that one). In fact, I selected it because I the other choices didn’t “speak to me” and cartoon blowfish always make me think of the OpenSSH mascot.
And yes, Virginia, I realize I’m a dork.
Three years ago yesterday, Amanda and I were married in the walled garden in Allerton Park. To celebrate, I made dinner and dessert (many thanks to Giada De Laurentiis of Food Network’s Everyday Italian for the tastyness):
In ethology, zugunruhe is anxious behavior in migratory animals that are prevented from migrating, especially in birds. When these animals are enclosed, they exhibit this behaviour during the seasons in which they normally migrate. Behaviourists have been able to study the endocrine controls and navigational mechanisms associated with migration from studying zugunruhe.
This term is German in origin and is a compound of Zug (move, migration) and Unruhe (anxiety, restlessness).
Adrenocortical hormones are known to act in concert with prolactin in stimulating this behavior in White-crowned Sparrows.
From Heroes:
Mohinder: When a change comes, some species feel the urge to migrate. They call it zugunruhe. A pull of the soul to a far-off place. Following a scent in the wind, a star in the sky. The ancient message comes, calling the kindred to take flight and gather together. Only then can they hope to survive the cruel season to come.
Those of you who know me should know why I haven’t updated in a long time. Amanda and I had a very long month when we went down to Huntsville for Mike’s wedding. We had our baby Isaac prematurely, and after fighting for three long weeks in the Huntsville NICU, he passed away peacefully in our arms. We’re still having a hard time with it, but I suppose it’s good to talk about it.
But I suppose I should continue to try and work on returning to “normal” life, so I’m going to go ahead and post some photos I took while we were down there.
We took a hike at the state park up on the top of Monte Sano:
We also took a trip to the Hunstville Botanical Gardens:
And on our way home, we stopped by the Jack Daniel’s Distillery which is just across the border in Lynchburg, TN:
Took some pictures of the snow yesterday and put them up on flickr:
We definitely got a fair bit of snow, and some of the drifts were pretty impressive. Unfortunately, the winds and the city plows concentrated and packed the snow on our side of the street (but it did mean our street was plowed a few times as opposed to the more minor streets that maybe saw one pass… benefits of being a city and school bus route). Fortunately, while I was out there starting to shovel when someone driving a pickup with a plow attachment came by to do the neighbor’s driveway. Asked if I’d like ours done as well for a small fee, and I jumped at the chance. Good thing too because it left some impressive snow piles that I don’t like the thought of making with a hand shovel:
There were also some pretty neat patterns in some of the snow drifts that I thought made cool pictures:
