Category: Favorite Things

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All I Got For Xmas 2010



All I Got For Xmas 2010
Originally uploaded by rynosoft

Once again I had a very bountiful Christmas. Click the picture to see the details but my gifts included:

  • Earth: The Book
  • Microwave safe soup bowl
  • Soup spoons
  • Chopsticks
  • Microwave safe coffee cups
  • Instant coffee
  • My four favorite Beatles albums remastered
  • $75 in cash
  • Personal audio mixer
  • Let It Be…Naked
  • Sugar free candy
  • New earphones for my iPhone
  • Six pack of grilling sauces/rubs
  • Two iTunes gift certificates worth $45 (not pictured) – redeeming for various apps and songs
  • Amazon gift certificate for $50 (not pictured) – redeemed for iLife ’11

Thanks to Buddy, Leroy, Tom, Jan, Michelle & Ric, Tina, Thomas, Graham and the Kittens. I know I’m hard to shop for and appreciate when people do so anyway.

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Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll

If you were a teen in the 80s like me then you probably remember the short-lived sketch comedy series, Fridays, on ABC. Although it only lasted two seasons, it left an indelible impression on my young brain.

Sadly, a DVD release of those two seasons is reportedly held up by Michael Richards. Luckily, YouTube has most of their great sketches including the ones I’ve included below the fold:
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Fun with the iTunes “search box”

Here’s a fun little exercise you can do in iTunes:

  1. In iTunes, click on your music library in the sidebar.
  2. Turn on shuffle, ensure that you have “By Songs” selected in the Shuffle menu (which is in Controls in the main menu)
  3. Type the first word that comes to mind in the search box
  4. Play one of the songs that is displayed
  5. Pick a new word or name from the currently playing song, type that word into the search box
  6. Listen
  7. When song changes, repeat 5

Note that in step 5 that you must pick a word that will include the currently playing song or iTunes will get confused and stop playing after the song is over. Obviously, having a large music library (23847 songs for me) and lots of metadata helps make the game interesting.

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“It’s Like Two People in a Room Talking”

While chatting with my old friend, Rob, I noticed he was typing a weird character combo. So I asked him about it:

Rob gives the thumbs up
Rob uses Apple’s default chat client, iChat. It supports AIM and Facebook.


Mick sees boobs
I use an open source chat client called Adium. It has support for almost every chat service but evidently doesn’t know how to give the thumbs up.

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Page 2: In Which I Explain My Life To The Class of 1985

I’ve been in Portland since 1990 after a short detour to San Diego after graduating from Wartburg. I met and married my wife, Tina, in 1992. We have two awesome boys who dictate how we spend most of our time. Both are very active in Boy Scout Troop 820 (troop820.org) and both play the double bass in the school orchestra after converting from the cello.

Graham is a nerd of the first order and thinks I’m the coolest nerd on the planet. He loves to play video games on our Xbox and Wii but is enthusiastic in almost everything he does — even when I enlist his help in yard chores. Since he was a baby we have known that he is strong-willed and joyous. He’s also very intelligent and somewhat arrogant about that fact, regarding it as a fact of life that he’s smarter than everyone else. I’m trying to work that out of him.

Thomas is more reserved than Graham and less likely to risk looking uncool. A year ago I helped him buy his first electric bass. Since then he has learned to play all of his favorite sons and a few “classics” that I asked him to learn. He can also has pick up Tina or my guitar and play them much better than either of us. In many ways he’s very much like I was at that age: long hair, quiet except with friends, stubborn and often inconsiderate. He’s also very smart but not always willing to work hard for great grades.

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N E R D


N E R D
Originally uploaded by rynosoft

Last Thursday morning Tina and I got new tattoos in downtown Troutdale. I have a free touch-up which I can use in a couple of months if it starts to lighten. I may get the letters draw bolder then.

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Olbermann Apologizes

Last week Jon Stewart had some fun at the expense of Keith Olbermann but with a serious point. Olbermann addressed it at the end of his show last night:

Keith’s response was rather graceless and his joke about Jon was a bit mean-spirited. However, he did admit he was wrong and apologized.

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Lucky Louie

Tina and I just finished watching the first and only season of Lucky Louie the other day. Lucky Louie was a sitcom that ran on HBO a few years ago starring comedian, Louis CK. The show sort of harkens back to the classic sitcom of the 70s but with adult content. The adult content is not necessarily nudity (although there is some of that but never female nudity) and isn’t just about sex. It’s a thoughtful and funny look at situations that adults, and especially parents, sometimes find themselves in. The clip below is a great example of a show-opening scene:


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