THOMnottom

One of the greatest tastes of the Fruit World is the Pomegranate. Of this, there can be no denial. But the 45 minute it usually takes me to unveil said fruit’s lushish seeds can be rather frustrating – even if it is clearly worth the wait (oh yes, it is!) But now, thanks to James (of Aces Full of Links), this process is a mere 10 minutes of foreplay before devouring can commence. Behold: The Illustrated Guide to Opening Pomegranates!

Thank you, James, for your wonderful work in the field of Pomegrantology and the messy dissections you have suffered through for its progress. If only there was a service that could instantly deliver this grand delicacy directly to your door, I would be sending you one in thanks at this very moment.

I feel weird posting pictures when we don’t actually own it yet, but I still want to show off. This is the house that Lisa and I will soon call home. There’s also a picture of the backyard on flickr. I have a bunch of shots from the interior, too, but I’m holding off on them. I’d rather show off the before and after from when we move into it empty and begin the painting and whatnot.

Which brings me to my follow-up question – what are you doing on the 4th of February? We close on the 27th, and I plan on spending that weekend moving in some boxes, cleaning up, painting, and possible doing some minor work. That will leave the following Saturday for the real move. Any able-bodied hands would be welcome – and beer and pizza will be sure to be flowing. I’ll be sure to send out e-mails, too, but please leave a comment if you already know you can help out. Thanks in advance.

So, have any of you heard of this show Lost? I really think it might take off… Okay, maybe I’m just a tad late to the party, but I actually was interested in it from the beginning. I just don’t think I had a DVR yet – and that means all TV viewing was suspect.

Once they started showing the re-runs, however, Lisa and I caught the first few episodes. I wouldn’t say I was instantly hooked, or anything, but it got my attention. Of course that still didn’t get me watching regularly. Instead I downloaded… I mean I procured the entire first season in a viewable format (much easier when your DVD player does DivX and Xvid) and spent much of our “winter break” catching up (especially on New Year’s Day).

I still wouldn’t say I’m totally hooked, but I am enjoying the series. It’s a tad uneven, one episode will be brilliant and leave me anxious for the next one, only to be left indifferent with some of the storylines. Part of that might be the overdone score, which tries too hard to add to the suspense rather than just emphasizing it in the background. Nevertheless, Lisa is bordering obsessive and we’re trying to catch up to the broadcast schedule so we can talk about it in front of everyone not watching… Oops, I wasn’t supposed to reveal that part of the plan.

Anywho, while waiting for Parasite to end and Raptor Island to start (just can’t get enough of those crappy Sci Fi movies), the time seems right (well, overdue) for me to review my viewing habits – for all of you blissfully unaware of what you might be missing. So what is on my DVR these days:
Continue reading “Get Lost”

I’m just testing out the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin. Even with the site back online, there are little changes that keep me from actually posting. Maybe this is the plugin I really need to move forward (yeah, right).

EDIT: The tags are working, and the weird funkiness I originally saw in the edit window appears to be fixed. Now I just have to fix the main page template which still references the categories (although Michael did a really cool job of addressing tags in the individual post pages).

Thanks to the Akismet spam plugin, I’m hoping to keep comments open far longer than the previous 21 day period I was using on ye olde neverhood.net. It’s all part of my masterplan to make this a far more interesting site than in the past. I was planning on re-opening the comment form for all previous posts, but there are two issues holding me back:

1. For continuity’s sake, it makes sense to preserve the old content, but stop further discussion unless I decide to create a new post referencing an old topic.
2. I’m lazy, and don’t know what kind of SQL query to run to quickly re-open all comments.

We’ll see whether or not laziness and a lame excuse win out with this decision. In the meantime, Akismet seems to have already begun cleaning out the spam remaining in the database (274 instances found – not sure where they cam from), and brought this gem to my attention:

your site is exactly the kind of sites which make the net surfing so fun. quilt your fabric yoyo:

It’s that brilliantly nonsequitor combination of startling praise and confusing demands that make spam comments so much fun. The constant use of such closing lines as “I finished the 6th ball” or “1 small clove garlic” are amusing enough, but when they add a bizarre use of a rather mild insult (such as yoyo) a big smile can’t help but cross my lips.

If only I possessed such wit.

I give up. At least for now. I wanted to make this switch something like… well, a while ago. But I can’t stand not writing these days. So much has gone on during the past month, and I feel isolated from getting to share with the rest of the world. And what can my legion of adoring fans do to cope without my mindless updates?

Oh, wait, I forgot to sey hello and welcome you to my new website. I’m terrible at this, but let me try this again:

Hello, one and all, and welcome to THOMnottom.com. This will be the new home for me (I’m Thom)… at least the new home for my journal/blog/gallery/whatever. Like I mentioned before, I wanted my website to become more personal… more connected to who I am. The play on how I spell my name was an epiphany – one day it just popped into my head, and I just had to register it that instant. Since then, I’ve been waiting to come up with a redesign to make the transition – but the redesign continues to roll around in my head.

But here we are – shortly after the release of WordPress 2.0 and another beta of K2 – how could I resist closing out 2005 by returning to the blogosphere?!?!

There’s just so much for me to tell you all, but let me take a breather as I’ve obviously lost my mad 1337 writing skills and need to reconnect with blogging itself, now that I’ve begun to reconnect with all of you… was that a cheesy enough closer for a return to blogging post? I hope so.

Thanksgiving was very cool, except for the illness that has transpired. The congested sinuses has slowly cleared to make way for congested lungs. I’m not sure which I hate less. Either way I’m just coughing and hacking these days which makes life unpleasant. It also makes it difficult to deal with the big news…

We are buying a house! At least that’s the way it looks. Lisa and I met the sellers halfway between their “final” offer and ours. The lawyers have done their little edits and we’ve signed off. Tomorrow the inspector will make sure we’re not buying a lemon. And then it’s off to the races banks to determine who will own our souls for the next 30 years (alright, it’s not likely that we’ll be there for more than 5 or 6 years, but you get my meaning). It’s all very nerve racking, and I am so thankful for how much of the work Lisa has done. But it leads me to my next semi-announcement…

I’m closing up this site. No, I’m not leaving the blogosphere, but as I mentioned months ago I have plans for a new site. Unfortunately, I’m keeping myself in limbo by trying to continue here (which isn’t really happening) at the same time as I try to set up that one (which isn’t really happening). It’s also left me paying the bills for two different host as I attempt to transfer servers.

So with this post I am closing all comments to freeze the content until it can be moved over. The next post you will see here will be an announcement about the new site, and eventually neverhood.net will become something else. I’m hoping to do this all this weekend, but unless I force myself to, it won’t happen.

See you on the flip side…

Looks like I get to stay in the country:

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations – you got 8 out of 10 correct!

Better luck next time Michael!

Lisa and I have been talking about buying a house, preferably before the wedding… scratch that – yesterday Lisa went out with a realtor to look at some houses… scratch that – we put a bid on a house… scratch that – we put a second bid on a house and are waiting to hear back from the realtor.

Things are moving at a slightly faster pace than planned (at least in my mind). Right now I’m not sure what I’m more scared of – the sellers not accepting our bid or the sellers accepting our bid. At the same time that I’m arguing with Lisa as to whether or not we can actually swing it financially, I’m already putting up shelves and knocking down walls in my mind.

I can see us in that house, and that’s both comforting and terrifying.

I found this link under the heading “Funniest thing in the history of the internet” (must watch with sound on). I must say, it’s definitely in the running. I nearly wet myself the first time watching it. The best part might actually be the guy playing a game the whole time in the back.