Year: 2004

I just wanted to mention how much football rocks and why the NFL is the most popular league in the country. It’s a Saturday in the middle of April, months removed from both the Super Bowl and the start of next season, and I’m watching the draft on TV. I’m getting excited about who teams – that I don’t even care about – pick. Brian and I have already screamed our heads off over the stupidity of the Giants, not to mention how cool the Raiders and Jets picks are. And oh yeah, the Eagles haven’t even picked yet! I love this game!

Woke up this morning to find an IM from the dj rekall saying that Orbital would be calling it quits in June. I had hoped his news source was a little mixed up – alas he was right. I guess it’s good to see them go out in top form (well, I’m assuming their last album will be yet another masterpiece 🙂 ), but it’s doubtful that I’ll get to see either of their final shows in England. At least I got to see them a few times when they were here in the States.

For those of you unfamiliar, Orbital are the Brothers P+P – Phil and Paul Hartnoll. Possibly the most groundbreaking electronic act of our time. Since ’89 they’ve been pumping out music that not only pulsates across dance floors, but fills your mind with the amazing possibilites held within our aural senses. Their performances demonstrated that electronic music could truly be live and included improvisations their antecedents had not dreamt of. I suggest that you take some time to visit their site and listen to some samples. I’ll more than gladly recommend additional listening material to anyone interested.

I’m slowly making it through the day after a somewhat ill-advised late evening with Joseph. As usual there were rampant discussion about philosophical and scientific theories, effects of the Internet on humanity, the many uses of a nail gun, and a brief history of Scandinavian mythos.For some reason people avoid us at the bar. There were more personal topics broached that had necessitated the evening of drinks, but the big finale was a breakthrough discussion on the movie Lost in Translation.

Lisa and I absolutely loved the movie, but Joseph and his companions left the film somewhat disinterested. Fortunately, around 2 AM this morning he finally got the chance to truly discuss Sophia Coppola’s masterpiece with me 🙂 . I don’t think I’ll be revealing any spoilers here, but if you haven’t seen the film you might want to skip the next paragraph.
Continue reading “Lost in Discussion”

A rather unsettling news report has come out saying that former Cardinals safety Tillman was killed in Afghanistan. I’m not one to say that it’s more upsetting when a famous person dies, but you have to understand that Tillman walked away from a $3.6 million contract to join the military. That takes a lot of courage and strong convictions. I may be against the war and all for its politics, but I still respect the men and women who are over there fighting for what they believe in.

Also noted is the fact that his brother, Kevin, was also a professional athlete and decided to join the Rangers (not the ball club) in the conflict.

It looks like Mozilla Thunderbird will not be undergoing the ephemeral naming process that has plagued Firefox. I say this because the Thunderbird icon has also undergone a redesign. Check it out. I like the look and it’s rather fascinating to take a gander at the design process itself. Indeed, the name Firefox itself is most likely going to stick after the last stellar release, which helped considerably in solidifying its overall look and feel – including a new icon. Firefox will also be the final name of the standalone browser, and Jon Hicks (part of the design team) also showed some of that design process. Sometimes it truly is in the details, and the entire Mozilla Foundation feels like it is headed in a stronger direction thanks to these efforts in branding.

This site has had several identity crises during its relatively short life. More accurately, I’ve had several identity crises relating to this site during its relatively short life. I have scribbled countless redesigns and overhauls on napkins in bars and restaurants all around New Jersey, yet I rarely bother to follow through. But this time I have some real plans that matter – and some of them are simple enough to be done immediately.

This begins with the links you may (or may not) notice to your right. Last week I removed a few outdated links to friends – primarily those who had completely abandoned their Diaryland accounts for the safety of LJ.
Continue reading “And what exactly is the point of this site?”

As many in the WP Community already know, Nuclear Moose Candy (website of WP user, fanatic, and team member Craig Hartel) is no longer available. Apparently driven by incompetence, dotCanada has determined that WordPress is the cause of their server woes and discontinued their hosting of his site without giving anyone a chance to fix it. They now have the distinction of being the first host listed under “Bad Hosts” on the WP site. Not that many of you wacky neighbors to our North are out there listening to me, but I figured I would add my support by letting people know to avoid this host. I am also offering use of my server to Craig, although I’m sure he’s had enough people do that as well.

Courtesy of Lisa (co-worker, not girlfriend) comes this “Lying Action Figure” of Bush. Sure to amuse all (particularly Mike and Mark), this has probably already made the rounds. Enjoy.

Mmmm… vino! Last night Lisa and I headed down to Philly to meet up with some of my family for dinner at my sister Suzanne’s house. She, Alex (her husband) and their kids moved in there quite a bit ago and I have yet to actually see the place. When you have a large family you tend to all meet centrally (at, say, your parents’ house) rather than each others’ houses. It was great to see them and dinner was of course wonderful, but afterward was the real treat. My mom, sister Kathleen, Lisa, and I all headed out to the Chaddsford Winery for a tasting of the lastest vintage (and some older award winners).
Continue reading “Gimme more of those bacon thingies”

So in game 3 of the Montreal/Boston playoff series a bunch of Montreal fans booed The Star Spangled Banner. Obviously I’m not gonna bite on major stereotypes (ok, maybe I am) but that’s incredibly classless and something you’d more or less expect from sports fans over here. So how did their American counterparts respond. Aside from a few boos, Bruins fans cheered the Canadian national anthem. Wow, I never expected a group of Americans to actually take the high-road, especially in an incident such as this.