My So Called Life

What I’m doing

/ Shane / 2 Comments

What I’m watching:

Juno is a really funny, fantastic movie.  Ellen Page is great and really makes the movie.  She is snarky and sarcastic but although I’ve heard complaints otherwise, I didn’t think she was so over the top as to not be believable.  Maybe I’ve just known some really awesome people and the complainers only know boring people.  Anyway, the movie is well written, the soundtrack is quirky, and I would recommend it to anybody.

What I’m reading:

Although I don’t usually stray far from my typical genres (fantasy, sci-fi, horror) I’m really digging this book for its historical aspects.  Of course I am biased since I not only live in Chicago, but specifically in an area that would have been on the grounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition.  Still, it was such an amazing time to be an American (and specifically a Chicagoan) that you can’t help being swept up in it.  I honestly was disappointed when a chapter about the serial killer came up…I was like, “No no, tell me more awesome stuff that was invented for the fair!”  As you read the story you realize what a spectacle it really must have been considering how much stuff is still common knowledge to us 125 years later!

What I’m listening to:

That “quirky soundtrack” mentioned above is due mostly to Kimya Dawson who has about half the songs on the soundtrack (counting Antsy Pants and Moldy Peaches songs).  Although they take some getting used to, her songs get majorly stuck in your head.  So go check her out, especially this song about her anxiety when her baby wasn’t moving.

And if all of that doesn’t keep me busy enough, I can go sign up to play Fantasy Movie Mogul.  Kind of like Fantasy Football, but instead you try to pick movies that will do well in real life.

P.S.  Brother Love asked ME for a friend request on myspace, not the other way around.  How awesome is that??  Totally made my day, even if it is promotional.  Brother Love Rocks AOW!  Summertime baby!

Incomunicado

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I will be gone to a conference next week, so I won’t be able to update anything.  It will be interesting because this will be the longest I’ve been away from Evie and the longest Sara will be alone with her.  I know she is nervous about being able to get everything done and get to work on time, etc.  To all you single mothers out there (Hi mom!) I don’t know how you do it, because I can’t imagine not being able to hand her off for a second when you need to make dinner or uh…use the facilities.

Anyway, to hold you over I will leave you with this game.  It is the perfect balance between being slightly challenging so you feel accomplished, but not so challenging that I couldn’t beat it in one day.  Just make a path to get the ball to the box…simple!  All you do is draw lines and let gravity and physics do the rest.  So you’re like learning and stuff while you play!

If you get bored with that one, you can move on to this one.  It is a simple turn based RPG (remember how popular those used to be?)  I haven’t beat it yet, I’m on the one with the submarines.  And if you beat THAT one, you can hit up parts 2, 3, 4, and 5.

P.S.  The Office was off for so long, I almost fell out of love with Jenna Fischer

Audio books = brilliant

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I must be like 100 years old because I am just not interested in listening to music radio anymore, only talk.  Opie and Anthony had such a short tenure here, it is almost not worth mentioning, and normal “safe” morning zoo-type radio disgusts me.  I can’t handle listening to political talk radio of any persuasion because I abhor fanatics and I always end up so mad when I get where ever I’m going.  So after football season ended, I just couldn’t take listening to the radio anymore (you KNOW I wasn’t going to listen to baseball talk) but what the heck was I supposed to do on my extremely boring commute to and from work? (*for NPR see below)

But then on a whim, I discovered that the Chicago public library lets you check out and download audio books for free!

To make a long story short, I tried many (mostly illegal) ways to get the audio books onto CDs to listen to in the car.  Ignoring the price of the blank CDs I would go through (audio book are really long…like 16 hours), most of the methods for cracking the encryption etc. take so many steps and so much effort, it just wasn’t worth it.  I am too lazy even for criminality!  Finally Sara agreed to buy me an mp3 player for my birthday (not an iPod since they’re not compatible with the audio books) and the matter was settled.  For much less than the cost of satellite radio I have basically unlimited entertainment now!  (I’d also like to take this moment to point out that I didn’t get the mp3 player until like 3 months after my birthday and only then because I ordered it myself…Happy Birthday! 😛 )

Oh man, and it is so fantastic!  Thanks to Evie I don’t have much (any) time to read anymore, and that was really killing me.  And now I find more and more reasons to listen to my audio books.  For example, I used to read before bed every night, but had to stop when Evie was in there.  Also, it passes the time when I’m doing dishes, which I hate more than anything in the world except yard work.  So anyway, I am thoroughly enjoying the mp3 player.  Oh yeah, its good for music too.

*What about NPR you might be asking?  I will admit that I stumbled upon NPR a little late, but that might have fit the bill.  By the time I figured out how awesome it was, I was already committed on the mp3 player path and that worked out so well I haven’t really gone back.  Everybody I know already listens, so in my desperation for entertainment I gave it a try.  I used to think what everybody who doesn’t listen to it thinks; that it is boring, random and snooty.  But it turns out the first two end up being the strength of the station.  A story comes on about like the shell mound people of central south america (as opposed to south central america) and you think to your self, “how could I possibly be interested in that?” but then you listen to the whole thing.  And then it jumps to a story about a special filthy hippy school at Waldon pond, and you get sucked into that.  You couldn’t make up a transition more random than the ones they actually have, and surprisingly, it ends up being great.  So anyway, I now listen to NPR when I get a chance, but that’s not often now that I have the mp3 player.

In other news, my vast network of Internet spies has informed me that if you liked the Internet Forum Business Meeting, you will perhaps enjoy the sequel or see what happens when the Internet takes on a funeral.  (Take that Meg) (Aw shoot, I went over to her blog and she already had something better! )

P.S.  I think this marks the first occasion when somebody actually submitted something to me for my blog.  Usually I either find the stuff myself or people send me stuff because I would enjoy it personally and it ends up on here.  It’s going to be Fark around here soon…

Spring is in the air (kind of)

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Today we attended an outdoor “Spring is here!” party.  It was like 40 degrees, grey and rainy…not very springy!  Also, it was in a garden that is still all dead and brown, which didn’t scream spring either.  Still, we were there hoping we could get a plot this year, both to grow some food for ourselves and so Evie could have a *little* green space here in the city.  There was actually a lot of really good food and everybody was really nice, even though we didn’t talk to that many people.  There was obviously a sense of community.  A few of the people were…interesting, to say the least.  It is a very eclectic group of people, that’s for sure.

The strangest thing that happened while we were there was some sort of protest / performance art that took place.  There were people linking arms and digging in the dirt with hands and the next thing I know we were repeating things like “they are poisoning our food supply” and “we embrace Mother Earth.”  As Sara said, it was “worth the price of admission.”  The best part was the disclaimer that the views represented were “not necessarily the views of the gardeners, the experimental station, or the performers themselves.”  Well, who’s views are they exactly??

Last weekend a very strange coincidence happened.  I was browsing one of my favorite blogs, Hyde Park Progress (see over there on the right ->), but it is on hiatus at the moment, so there wasn’t much time killing to be found there.  Next I flowed over to I Hate My Developer for the Woodlawn perspective, which I fully intend to spend more time reading.  There I found a post pointing me to another Woodlawn blogger, Swim and Glitter, with a very nice review.  So I started reading that and lo and behold, I find out that I know that person!!  Well I kind of know the person; they used to be our landlords!  I don’t know how much time you spend on the Internet, gentle reader, but it is a very large place!  So, to stumble randomly upon someone you have had contact with in the real world is very startling.  Needless to say I have subsequently been cyber-stalking her.  Her blog is everything I wish mine could be, so pop on over there for T.M.I. and some frank talking.

Finally, I will leave you with the pinnacle of human achievement.  Gentlemen, I give you…the Dough-Nu-Matic!  And yes my friend, there is a video.  Okay, it’s not quite the pinnacle of human achievement, because Tony Vegas came up with a rotating conveyor belt with 3 Dough-Nu-Matics on it, rotating once per minute so you were never without a doughnut popping in your mouth.  Apparently, even the perfect can be improved upon!

The new Me

/ Shane / Leave a comment

So…the new me!

I mentioned a while ago that I was getting pretty frustrated with LiveJournal.  Everybody knows time has sort of passed them by, but in particular it is ridiculous that they don’t have an integrated search feature!  I also was annoyed with the lack of support for Google Analytics or any sort of page tracking at all.  Those were probably the two biggest problems.

So I got a Blogger account and spent some time getting that all set up the way I wanted it.  I really like how Blogger lets you adjust the style sheet manually if you want to, something that WordPress charges you extra for.  With Blogger I could integrate Google Analytics (you better be able to since they are both Google products!) and of course there is a search feature (again, Google) so I was happy enough about that.  I went back and forth for a long time, but eventually it was clear the only reason I was staying with LiveJournal was loyalty. 

 So I was all ready to make the switch when I discovered that you can’t easily import into Blogger!  I certainly wasn’t going to let all of my old posts disappear!  There were clients you could download to do it, but it essentially amounted to adding all of your old entries and then backdating them.  Kind of annoying. 

Of course WordPress is sort of the hmm hmm hmm of blogging and I kind of always felt deep down inside that a computer programmer aught to be using something a little more complex than LiveJournal.  Really though, the ease of importing is what caused me to make a 90 degree turn at the last minute and set up a WordPress account instead.

So I like the integrated page tracking / analytics from WordPress, the search capability, and I already mentioned the built in import (and export should I change my mind) functionality.  I like the ability to customize the sidebar that I didn’t have with LiveJournal.  I like having the comments on same page as the entry so you can look up and reread it, as opposed to the Blogger style where the comments are on a separate page.  And LiveJournal had the stupid idea to ignore my nice style I spent all that time setting up when you clicked on the post or went to look at the comments!  I also like the idea that with WordPress I can always host my blog in my own domain in the future if I so choose, not just redirect there.

So anyway, here I am!  I don’t have a mood or music setting with each post, but frankly I won’t miss them!  Sometimes it was annoying to try to think of my mood and the whole thing seemed kind of myspacy (although pre-myspace).  I have a lot of options to explore (a lot more than I had with LiveJournal) so I will probably still be tweaking things for a while.

So tell me loyal readers…what do you think?