Ploafmaster General

So here's what's actually happening:

Sunday evening, I'm heading over to the Richmond Apple store, and I'm buying a MacBook.  It's finally going to happen - I'm switching!

I'm still planning to get the Mac Pro, and I wasn't stating in my earlier post that I was rushing out to buy that tower right away.  That will likely happen around the spring after Leopard comes out and the mighty machine has gone through a revision or two.

Meanwhile, I'll be in Williamsburg this weekend, but my next post should be from the glorious goodness of my new 'pooter!

Alright, Stevie J and co. announced, not surprisingly, the Mac Pro.  And I want one.

The case is the same as the G5 tower in all it's minimalistic metal glory, but inside...well, I'll lay down the config I want...

TWO 2.66 Ghz dual-core 64-bit Xeon processors
2 Gb ram
500 Gb hdd
Wireless/Bluetooth
23" Apple HD monitor
everything else standard, which is still the hotness - nVidia GeForce 7300 GT with 256 Mb of RAM, loads of ports, lots of expansion/upgrade capability, greate software, etc.

Mmmmm...Apple.

So two fantastic things to report:

1. I finally freakin' saw Ozma last night!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Jake, Elizabeth, and I went to the Norva in Norfolk, VA, to catch Ozma playing with the Rentals - wow, what a show.  Ryan from Ozma was not only a freakin' amazing guitar player, but he also played with the Rentals on most of their songs.  And while Matt Sharp can't really sing, I must say that the Rentals were freakin' excellent live.  They've essentially re-tooled most of their old stuff, and it sounds fantastic.  Ozma played Battlescars, which pretty much satiated me :-)

2. Today is day one of the Apple WWDC in San Fran.  This means Stevie J announces the latest and greatest for Apple, and I'll be glued to my screen continuously pressing F5 until I found everything out.  Huzzah!

Yeah, I took down the ads.  They pretty much didn't have anything relevant for my site.

On a seperate note, I've been wicked busy lately, and since Valerie's computer died, I can only maintain my blog at work - not the best idea, so I've been slow to keep up.

Hopefully I'll have my first Apple in a few weeks and I can post more regularly.

Heh heh...yeah.  So I'd been wondering why I couldn't see the Google Ads on my page, and then it struck me...

Adblock for Firefox.  I'd been bolcking the whole Google Page Ads thingy, so I couldn't see it, even on my site.  I took that off for now so I could confirm that it works, but now all I see is a "public service" ad.  It's great to donate to Katrina relief, and all, but does this really mean that there are no relevant ads for my site?

That's wack.

So I'm expirementing with ads on my site - but feel free to ignore them.  It's for something on which I'm working with friends, and we've never used AdSense before.  So my site is the guinea pig :-)

Well that was...ick.  The Czech's mutilated us today, beating the US Soccer team 3-0.

Let's hope our boys can tackle the Italians on Saturday - though I won't be too broken up about it if we don't, since, well...they're Italian :-)

I don't typically follow soccer, but I do find it entertaining.

This year is the World Cup tournemant, and the first game for the US team is against the Czech Republic, Monday, June 12th at noon EST.

I mention this because I'm getting ready to head to Prague, and I'm not quite sure what the mood towards Americans will be if the US happens to best the Czechs in game one.

I'd say I'll root for Italia, but they're in the same group in Stage 1, so either way I could experience some sour looks at the sound of my English...If we win, of course :-)

Afghan donkey bomb plot foiled

It's really hard not to laugh at that...

Holy CRAP!

My crazy lil' bro Nick just got a call (well, my mom got the call, but it was for him) about an audition he did for Evan Almighty, the upcoming sequal to Bruce Almighty.

I don't know what kind of role he'll have, be it extra or walk-on, or maybe one line...but apparently they've been trying to contact him for a while via cell phone, but his battery has been kaput, etc...

Either way, they're filming in the Charlottesville/Crozet area, and he'll be doing something.  I hope it's a visible part, just so I can see my bro on the big screen!

Woot!

Well I officially have the U-Haul scheduled for July 1st when Valerie and I move!

I believe Val has scheduled the movers as well, for June 30th, to take care of the furniture.

Now we just have some final maintenance and packing, and it's count-down to moving day!

I just read a hilarious review of the wretched film, Bewitched, on New York Magazine's website.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Well I finally dug out the manual for my digi-cam, and figured out how to take pictures in "Macro" mode - the special set of functions designed for taking pictures WAY up close.

This lets me take focused shots of objects just under 2 inches from the lens - so I decided to experiment :-)

Check out the results on my Flickr page, or course.

And now for today's dose of piss-you-off-real good:

American TV Stations in Fake News Inquiry

Wow.  Thank you, you six conglomerates who own almost all of America's media outlets.

O-jay biz-Nachez, I've finally posted a few photos of house stuff, like I said I would.  Though I only posted three...why?  Because that's enough to get the point.

Love it.  Deal with it.  Go to my Flickr page.

Yeah yeah yeah, no pictures yet, blah blah.

But I did see a movie last night.

Dave and I watched Shop Girl – my latest selection of the ole’ Netflix queue. This morning I gave it a 3 out of 5, which was a little generous; I was feeling more 2.5, but to my knowledge , Netflix doesn’t allow half stars.

Steve Martin’s novella-turned-film starred Claire Danes, Jason Schwartzman, and Steve Martin himself. The acting was generally decent, but acting alone couldn’t save what appeared to be amateur screen-writing. The story felt disjointed all the way through, and every time the movie took a turn for poignancy, Steve Martin’s voice kicked in - not as his on-screen character, but rather as an omniscient narrator. Martin’s bland narration further interrupted the flow of the story, as well as what could have been a few moving portions of the film.

I agree with Dave, who felt that this movie could have been truly good had it been about thirty minutes long and without dialogue.

Okay, so it's been a while since I've written anything, but hey - it's been a busy long weekend.

Hopefully tonight, I should be posting the pics of the refinished hardwood floors on Flickr, along with some snaps courtesy of Dave from James' bachelor shindig.

Peace, doge.

I may have my first bit o' freelance work coming up shortly...

My buddy Patrick may have a site to design in the near future which requires some database storage and retrieval. Since I'm the main database dude that Patrick knows (I think), he's asked me if I want to help him with it should this pan out. So I said yes.

We'll see! Could be a nice small-scale start into my own side projects!

This past weekend I had the floors refinished in the entire house! The final coat of polyurethane should be cured and dry by tomorrow, so I really can't wait to see the final results around the place.

I already saw some of the floors and the difference is remarkable. It looks like I have brand new floors in the house.  I'll post some photos on Flickr after I take them tomorrow.

For you B-Bawlas out there, I just read an excellent, exciting post on Kottke.org about the 2006 NBA Playoffs.

I've discovered that while I still don't particularly enjoy mowing the lawn, it feels a lot less crappy when it's your lawn.  There's something quite satisfying about making your property look nice.

So change has begun at the homestead...Val and I ripped up some carpet in a room with the aid of her sister, Elizabeth.  On Saturday, the hardwood floors will be refinished.  I even replaced the light bulbs on the front porch (It looks so much more inviting!).  Finally, we're having a roofing estimate early next week to compare with one we already have.  The re-roofing of our house should happen some time in the next few weeks.

I still have to figure out about getting some stuff painted, and I need to buy a weed-eater.  I also need to figure out if I should call a moving company in advance of the July 1st moving date...

So much to do, yet so exciting!

You know, I told Mugs that since I bought the special version of Weezer's Blue Album, it's like I've found an old friend.

That sounds really cheesy, yes, but I mean it. I have so many good memories associated with that album, and I just plain love the tunes.

This past week I've found myself driving with the windows down and the stereo BLASTING. I still know all the words, and I can even hum along with every guitar solo. This album represents so much of what was good about Weezer before they pooped out the Green Album. There's some pop sensibility without sacrificing all of their musicianship. Are they virtuosic? Certainly not, but you can actually hear some attention to musical detail on this album and Pinkerton. The lyrics, though not often serious, at least appear to be more carefully written. Not like the last three albums these blokes put out...

Listening to the Blue Album again has made me want Pinkerton even more. I still don't know how I lost the discs so many years ago, yet managed to keep the cases.

More than a stronger desire to have Pinkerton back in my collection, hearing the Blue Album after so long an absence has made me even more dissappointed in Weezer's decline. Their sacrifice of quality in an effort to attain and maintain commercial success is obvious. This isn't a simple matter of calling them "sell-outs" because they've acheived popularity. There's a palpable difference between the quality of the first two albums and everything else they've released since Rivers' public statement about seeking fame and fortune.

Oh well...I can't have everything I want...I can only hope that Ozma won't make the same mistake now that they're back together.

Okay, so Mugs FINALLY decided to ditch Blog.com and hit up some mad-hot WordPress action.  His blog has moved - again - and I've changed the link on the side bar accordingly.