Author: Thom

I really need to start a linklog or something, because I lose too many sites I want to mention to browser woes. Here’s a quick rundown of things that have caught my eye:

This t-shirt is brilliant, but I really need this one. Go through the entire Oddica catalog when you get a chance.

I may not always “get” toothpaste for dinner, but it’s certainly worth it for gems like this. Also, more great t-shirts.

Somehow I suddenly have a feeling that the justice system in Malaysia is way better than ours.

I don’t care how many people love soccer, I’m just not going to watch it. Unless you mock it heedlessly to “Yakety Sax”. Also, the next time someone wants to claim that it’s something that us stupid Americans just “don’t get” because of our arrogant culture, I’d like them to explain what part of its high-class culture resulted in 9000 arrests.

You’re watching the show with ze frank, right?

Mark Jenkins is doing some truly awesome street installations. (thanks to Boing Boing)

Great ideas for a Move to Philly campaign aimed at New Yorkers. (thanks to Furey) When I was in the city a couple weeks ago all I could think about was how much people pay to live in a place that smelled that awful in the summer. While I plan on being in this house for a few years, I hope to move further from New York and closer to Philly whenever we can.

I’m sure plenty of my friends will appreciate Cork’d – I need to sign up for an account pronto. (thanks to SimpleBits)

Zooomr 2.0 will be unveiled this evening. I’m very excited to see what they’re doing. In the meantime, check out the archives of Zooomr Hits for some cool shots. (thanks to Thomas Hawk)

I’ve got a bit of a backlog, but that should start you off.

I finally upgraded this site to WordPress 2.03. I try not to wait a month and a half to fix security problems, but I’m lazy. Actually, I heard hints that 2.04 would actually be very hot on its heals due to an unrelated issue, but last week they were still working on a bughunt for the next two versions. All of this does emphasize the total neglect for this site I have, even when I am updating regularly.

But I’ve got fancy plans… and pants to match. At this point, however, I think I need to just concentrate on getting hitched, and make all of the great big changes when we get back from the honeymoon. I’ll still be posting, but I’ve got to ignore my pretend plans to redesign this site and others until the end of August.

I’m giving Zooomr a try. Flickr is still cool and all, but I’ve never been a big user, and probably never will. Once I have the time to really sort through my photography, I want it on my own site. But for quick sharing, it’s time I try to use one of these sites at least somewhat regularly. Besides, they are giving away free pro accounts to bloggers.

I was thinking of doing a new self-portrait to start off the new account, something to contrast with the series I posted earlier, but with my updated, clean-shaven look. Unfortunately, I’ve been so lazy with photographs lately that I knew I wouldn’t get around to it. So, instead, this is one of my favorite pictures I’ve taken of myself. The quality isn’t great, the lighting is terrible, the framing is off, but it managed to capture a rather silly moment of early exploration with my first digital camera.

Update: Holy cow, that was fast. It took a matter of seconds from posting this entry and submitting it to their prioritizer for Zooomr to upgrade my account to pro. I’m not sure what the benefits are, but I’ll certainly give it a try.

Update: According to the e-mail from them: “Zooomr Pro will allow you to upload 2GB of photos every month with unlimited storage!” So that answers that question.

Just because you guys can’t seem to get enough of those wacky crickets, here’s another update. I caved in the other night and finally decided to launch into chemical warfare against those jumping freaks. I whipped out the can of Raid I found the other day that specifically mentioned killing their kind on the label (unfortunately it didn’t mention the wasps that are currently guarding the clogged gutters that are the bain of my homeownership *shakes fist pointlessly*). And when the lone soldier attempted to frighten me off with his hippity-hoppiness, I let out a long stream that was probably enough to kill an entire colony. Then I ran around like a madman spraying the windows as if they were the key to my madness…

The entire thing reminded me of my first Civilization game, in which I finally broke down and launched a vicious nuclear attack against France that wiped out most of the Earth’s population. Actually, I’m not really sure why it reminds me of that, and I really wish I hadn’t mentioned the story as its nerdiness is too high for even my blog…

Honestly, I’m not big on using chemicals like that at all. My plans for the future include nurturing the baby praying mantis in our front yard until he’s big enough to eat all of the other bugs and at least intimidate that skunk that thinks its funny to spray around our living room (seriously, it’s getting annoying – I don’t care how cute you are). But that leads me to my next freaky point: *DON’T READ THIS PART IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH* The bodies are disappearing!!! The first couple kills I cleaned up quickly, but the other night when I was really pissed I just left them there as a warning to others. When I came downstairs the next day, there were only a few random legs left. EEWWWWWW!!!! What the hell is eating them?!?!

I really can’t wait until our basement no longer gives me the heebee-jeebies…

Last night, after a couple pint o’ Guinness and some shots of tequila, there weren’t a whole lot of options for dinner when I stumbled home. I decided the remaining Hot Pocket in the freezer would help my tummy, and threw it in the microwave. Despite their popularity, I only recently had any of these mysterious “stuffed sandwiches” and found them adequate for quick hunger fixes. But what amazed me was the proclamation on the back of the packaging that they were, in deed, award-winning.

At what point in time did it seem appropriate to bother judging meals that could be prepared via two minutes of “nuking”?

Get home. Check basement. Get drink. Turn on TV. Flip by SciFi:

Voodoo Moon – Eric Mabius and Charisma Carpenter star in this horror movie about siblings who search for a demon responsible for mass murder.

If it weren’t down to the last half hour already, I’d have my evening set.

Update: Those bastards didn’t mention Jeffrey Combs was in this – I would have left work early!

After my epic battle with the creepy-crawly-things-that-invade-my-home, I made an epic blunder – I forgot to turn the dehumidifier back on. And while I laid in bed that night, itching dozens of imaginary bugs that I was sure were running across me, I listened to the pouring rains above my head with scant thought of the potential disaster brewing down below. Sure enough, running late yesterday morning I walked downstairs to find an empty dehumidifier and a full basement.

Once again, I am making a mountain out of a mole hill – or more appropriately, a great lake out of a backyard pond. The water only came into the semi-finished portion of the basement (which is about 1/3 of the entire area), and even then didn’t even cover half of the floor. But it wasn’t the tiny puddle of the other week – oh no, this time the water even went splishy-splash when I walked through it. And all that splishing and splashing was to rescue the boxes that had already been rescued, as the rain waters had managed to go far enough to reach their new location. Once again, I found myself tearing apart cardboard with the strength of two or possibly three of middling strength to move my CDs to higher and dryer ground. Ain’t homeownership grand?

Amazingly, by yesterday evening the floor was almost completely clear – which was pretty lucky considering I just lent out my wet/dry vac. That still left me with the unenviable task of clearing out the rest of our home invaders and destroying the damp cardboard that tempted them so. It sure weren’t pretty, but those suckers were no match for my cunning guile and unending supplies of boxes, wooden boards, and metal sticks to throw at them. Cleaning that mess is not something I wish to relive anytime soon.

Now I’m just hoping we can shift the growing ecosystem downstairs back towards an indoor one – preferably nonaquatic. The fact that I found a salamander – yes, A FREAKIN’ SALAMANDER – in my basement tells me that I better take care of this problem before I attempt to really finish that area. I’d rather not be so creeped out while doing the laundry anymore.

I don’t know what the hell those hopping insects in my basement are, but they certainly know who I am now. The struggle between man and the creepy-crawly-things-that-invade-his-home took a drastic turn this evening. After an unexpected encounter, a battle ensued with five or six lives lost. Fortunately they were all on the other side. I did not emerge unscathed, however, as I have a full blown case of the heebee-jeebees (not to be mistaken for the far more embarassing jeepers-creepers). Exact numbers are unknown, but there appears to be only one remaining enemy – and he is hiding out in the darkest corner of the basement. Just biding his time…

Actually, it turns out these things are called camel crickets. WTF?!?! Alright, the name cave cricket makes a bit more sense but, regardless, these suckers are nasty (not safe for the faint of heart). They make me long for the days of the enormous spiders I battled with in Montclair – although they are still an upgrade over the creepiest of all crawlies. I’ve told Lisa to steer clear of the battle zone as I’ve left the remains as a warning for all would-be followers. That, and their bodies don’t squish so nice and neat, so clean up is being left ’til morning.

I’m in the process of backing up the files from server at home (which really just serves files, as I haven’t run my websites off of it in a couple years) because I know at least one of the drives in it is faulty. Rather than trying to salvage it, I’m just dumping whatever is broken and admitting that I don’t need every movie I’ve seen in the last three years as well as the entire run of Misfits of Science at my fingertips anymore. What’s really important is that I have every song I’ve ever had ready to play at a moment’s notice.

Since I’m slowly moving all of the mp3s over to my main external drive, that also means that I’ve got a lot more available for my listening pleasure here at work. How much fun is it to listen to great albums I haven’t played in forever? Today I’ve already put on The Art of Noise’s The Seduction of Claude Debussy (a staple for late nights back in the day) and am currently bopping along to The Avalanches’ Since I Left You (forget the overplayed “Frontier Psychiatrist” – the rest of the album is a brilliant display of turntablism at it’s best). Once I get all of this sorted out, I’ll really be digging throught the archives – and then you won’t hear the end of how cool I used to be…

So I got tagged in LJ for one of those meme-y things. I was going to keep it in LJ – because I’m such a blog snob – but though maybe this one was more appropriate for my real site. Anywho, you’re supposed to name 10 of life’s simple pleasures – let’s see what I can come up with:

1. The first few notes of new music – when I realize that I’m hearing something special.
2. Guzzling down a Yuengling after some serious hard work.
3. When I’m playing basketball or football or something, and I just end up slamming into a friend – sure it’ll hurt later, but it brings out the kid in me in the meantime.
4. The sudden realization of how to get something to work.
5. Sitting in bed, watching TV or surfing the Internet and listening to Lisa sleep next to me.
6. The smell of bacon cooking in the morning… or the afternoon, or the evening, or even the middle of the night.
7. Getting a comment on my blog from an unexpected source.
8. Walking into a bar and finding friends I wasn’t expecting already there.
9. Being told that I was missed.
10. Coming home to find Lisa waiting there at the door.

No tagging other people – they already did it.