Anyone who thinks that children don't pick up on things sometimes hasn't seen their five year old spontaneously act out Bringing Down the House (complete with homeboy choreography) four months after it was shown at Uncle Keith's house, with no advance notice.

I ran across a pic of David Mancuso on the Loft site on Sunday.



Definitely not me.

    

See? With or without goatee, I'm my own guy.

I am thinking about growing my hair that long, though. Like Sister Catherine Immaculee in first grade said, "Always keep your hair long, David--that way I have something to pull when you're not behaving."

Here are all the details (if you're willing to spend $20 for the guide on how to prep your songs digitally and get the contract done).

If I recall correctly though, Brad told me that cdbaby.com can publish your songs on iTunes as well for a 9% cut.

Or at least a viewing? Check them out here.

Actually, I've seen a number of these, and they're quite good.

If you didn't know already, MS Word can track your changes as you revise documents. If you later post your document in a publicly accessible forum (like on a web site), be aware that people can dig into your document for the old words you've carefully deleted out when making your final copies. some of these rough draft sentences can be potentially embarrassing, as you can see here. It's not exactly playing fair to dissect documents like this, but you yourself should know that your words may be resurrected against your wishes.

The PowerPage seems to be pretty certain about this.

One more power bump with the same form factor before G5 PowerBooks hit sometime in the future with new form factor (the picture with the PowerPage article is an artist's concept of a dream form factor, not what a real one will look like).

Hm. I wonder how long it will really take for a G5 PowerBook?

Again, not me, despite what similarities the guys at work might see....

From GrandSlam Magazine, an article about David Mancuso. Choice quotes include:

"Mancuso, a Sixties seeker, like many of his generation, had been profoundly affected by acid guru Timothy Leary"

and

"Mancuso, in accordance with Buddhist principles, relinquished his material belongings to, in effect, follow the way of the monk. Only problem being that there was no monastery for him to retreat to where likeminded people could have helped him on his journey within, so instead he found himself admitted to the psychiatric ward of New York's Bellevue Hospital."

and

"Having said this, it's only now, thanks to "Love Saves The Day", that the Leary / Mancuso connection becomes crucial to our understanding of the origins of dance culture."

and

"...if there was anybody worthy of this title it would surely be David Mancuso, who is often described as a somewhat mystical figure..."

Just download it and enjoy as long as it's there (6.8 megs but well worth it, especially if you've heard Hey Ya, this year's Grammy winner for Best Urban/Alternative Performance). (Thanks to Lu's Locker for the link)

What can I say?

It's come a looong way, believe me. Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) is rock solid and works great. It's funny, I never hear the "Apple's going out of business" stories anymore.

Really though, all operating systems have come a long way. XP was a nice facelift over Windows 2000, although 2000 was the real step forward. I'm looking forward to Longhorn in a few years, although I think Microsoft is bloating it up to provide features that they think will make us upgrade. That's the problem with a marketing-driven company where the revenue is based on upgrades and new product sales. They have to think up "features" that we may never use or care about. In fact I just postulated a theory that Microsoft could market and sell a slim word processor with just the features you absolutely need and probably make it profitable. I'd buy it. Maybe.

Also, Linux is getting better. My last install of SUSE Linux went great--I put it on an old Acer but then repartitioned my PC laptop hard drive and put it alongside Windows XP in a dual boot scenario. the only problem is that anything I install has to be hand-built and compiled. Linux will never succeed in the consumer desktop market if it doesn't have binary, self-building installer files. You shouldn't have to hack into the command line to install a printer.

Huh--the Vet is being imploded tomorrow.

Thanks to Metafilter for the link, here's an animated version of the Exorcist in 30 Seconds, performed by bunnies (pretty funny--try it!).

The diary of the 8 year old girl on the same site is cute, too--it's an actual diary, resurrected by the owner years later and presented in varying voices.

Don't ask me why--I restored my cascading stylesheets this afternoon in a free moment, but it didn't seem to do anything. Maybe my browser just didn't reflect the change.

Regarding the previous post, it just spilled out of my fingers into my keyboard. Not all the posts have to be funny, right? Some of them can be just out there a bit.

Hmmm. My psychic hotline tells me that Brad is having a hard time choosing from the myriad ways in which he wants to comment on the last paragraph...

Tonight, March 18, 2004, snow moves toward this area to blanket us with a six inch covering.

Eleven years ago last weekend, snow moves to trap Denise and me at Kevin's in Philly with several feet during the Flower Show. It takes us eight hours to get home to York a few days later; most major roads are closed and secondary roads are the only way to struggle home.

Sixteen years ago last night I'm meeting my wife Denise for the first time. Hours later in the middle of the night, I'm getting a telephone call from my mother that my grandmother has passed away, a strange twist of kismet.

Seven years ago last week I'm sitting at a bar with Dennis Humphries, an old friend and co-worker. I go home to hear that Denise and I will be welcoming Alyssa Noel Mancuso into the world sometime around Thanksgiving (several months later, we're choosing the name "Alyssa Noel" after weeks of heavy discussion).

Twenty years ago last week I'm driving down to Texas with Kevin, Bliss, and Terry. A side trip to the Mardi Gras follows days later, where many necklace beads are thrown at us from the parade floats. Four years ago I wonder where the last saved necklace has disappeared to.

Twenty-eight years ago I'm walking with Kevin on top of two feet of snow; the top few inches have hardened into a covering that holds up our twelve year old frames. School is closed again; it's been closed for most of the last few weeks.

Two days from now I'm driving down to visit Kevin; it's twenty-eight years later. We're both forty years old. We're talking about how slices of time can be just as real years later as when they happen to us in the past.

...I met my wife Denise.

Life is good.

I noticed that I've already had 6 spam comments on this blog in the one hour since I rebuilt the site at the new location. I'm targeted for spam.

Lucky for me MT-Blacklist is around. I installed it and de-spammed the website in ten minutes.

Yee-ha.

You, know, I read a statistic that 1 out of every 12 emails today is spam. I think that number is too low, actually.

I updated my template, but hmmm--now it went back to an older style--kind of. I don't think I'll mess with it more tonight.

At least it's not as bad as Crazy Apple Rumors. There's something cracked about that guy, but he makes me laugh.

Well, not that you'd notice. the Splitfocus website moved to a new web hosting server this afternoon and evening. The export, migration, and import to the new site went pretty smoothly, as far as I can see. Nice. Apparently I have an Atom feed with the new site--funny. If you've never heard of Atom, dont' worry--no one with a real life has.

The web hosting provider? Modhost. They come highly recommended, and have worked like a dream so far. I got the Home plan--it fit my needs.

I've mentioned theremins before, but TechTV's The Screensavers had Bob Moog (pronounced like "mode," not "mood") on tonight. He demonstrated a theremin (actually, a theremin virtuoso musician played the instrument). Dr. Moog is selling the instrument on his website, and a kit model is only $349, which is a steal.

I thought I'd mentioned it on the blog, but it's all a blur from back then. My dad just got back to work after being off for a while. The second stent operation was a success, and he went down to Florida to recuperate. He couldn't fly, though, so he had to take a train. He could barely restrain his joy at taking 24 hours to make a trip that usually takes 3 hours on his airline, but he managed somehow.

My dad now has six stents in various arteries. I think he's about "stented out." His doctor said that if he were any other patient, or if they were any other practice, stents wouldn't have been an option. I have to hand it to my dad, though. He insisted on, and got, a successful stent procedure. This means that he's never had to go through open heart surgery, which it about as invasive a procedure as you can get.

I don't know if my dad was really ready to go back to work yet, but he's a lot better off now than with three major arteries amost totally closed off. He looks better, too. People still think he's my brother rather than my father (I think that's more a reference to his youthful appearance than my early aging, white hair aside).

Living in the Mancuso household means knowing that your carbon monoxide detector works perfectly, since it goes off every morning at six am when you take a hot shower with its attendant steam.

Certainly helps wake the kids up, though.

Denise found this on the floor tonight, a to do list from Alyssa:



Hmmm. This from the kindergartener who is just learning to read. She's apparently learning (or teaching herself) how to write and spell now, at least phonetically.

I'm not sure how she's going to make the tent, though. If I leave the sewing machine out at night, maybe we'll find out--she's pretty resourceful (or stubborn, however you look at it). Like father, like daughter!

Part Uno
Me: (Singing a song to Denise that she didn't know.)
Denise: Don't give up your day job, Dave. Hey--I wanted to tell you something. What was it? I can't remember, but it was important.
Me: Well, apparently not as important as picking on your husband and telling him not to quit his day job.
Denise: Ha-ha, Mr. Funny Man.

Part Deux
Me: Drew, you were answering some tough questions at music class today--good job!
Alyssa: But Daddy, he never answers questions.
Me: He did today.
Alyssa: Yeah, but he only answers questions if the parents are around.
Me: Well, Miss Tattletale, I saw him answering questions, so I'm giving him a little praise.
Alyssa: No way, Daddy! He didn't pray at all! Even once!

Part Tres
Me: (Trying to settle Alyssa down at the dinner table--I make the clap, clap, clap-clap-clap sound her kindergarten teacher uses to bring the kids to attention)
Alyssa: (Looks at me and laughs, but doesn't respond at all)
Me: Alyssa, you know that sound, right?
Alyssa: Sure I do, Daddy.
Me: So what do you do when I clap like that?
Alyssa: Nothing, Daddy.
Me: Why not?
Alyssa: Because you're not my kindergarten teacher, that's why.

Part Quatro
Drew: I want that, Daddy! And the other one too--and the Transformers toy and (ad infinitum, ad nauseum)
Me: You know the family rule, Drew--"You can't have everything in the world you want--where would you put it all?"
Drew: Um--I could make room in my closet.

When I was at 30th Street Station, outside, waiting for the SEPTA train, I noticed that all the steel girders had these weird little strips of spikes all along them. They were like little stalagmites sticking up. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that they were put there to keep the pigeons off the griders. Sure enough, on the few girders without spike strips, several pigeons were roosting.

That's a lot better solution than the recorded cannon boom they play at the Park City Mall to scare birds away. That freaks you out if you don't know what it is.

I lent Jeff and Lisa the van last week and the dropped it off at Dad's on Wednesday. I decided to take the train in to Philly to pick it up--that way I avoid dragging Denise, the kids, and a second car along for the ride.

It's interesting going to Philly this way. It was pretty fast, despite a couple of stops. Only an hour and a half, and I was in 30th Street Station. This train station is huge. The ceiling in the main lobby is a couple of hundred feet up--the room is so big that some pigeons are flying around in here, mistaking it for a roost or something. No one pays any attention to them.

Huh. Oh well, off to Ridley via the Septa rail system. Funny--the last (and almost only) time I went on that route I ran into Kim Fatzinger, who told me about poor Rick Stefanowicz passing away. That would be, um, 1988 at about this time of year.

Time flies.

Thanks to my lovely wife for this link, a 1961 automobile in-dash (actually under-dash) record player!

It's here at Consumer Reports. Ah, the halcyon days of my old 45s...

I just found out that Nicole and Brad (and probably Mike and Dan), who are ten years younger than me, have never heard (or even heard of) I Don't Like Mondays by Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats.

Never.

I don't really know what to say--I'm into pop culture obviously (although there are huge holes in my knowledge--see John Davies or Kevin Corcoran or Sam Caggiula for a real collective awareness). Nevertheless, I'm shocked when a piece of pop like this disappears from the cultural consciousness.

If you go to the iTunes Music Store and search for "I Don't Like Mondays," you'll get the Boomtown Rats version as well as a Bon Jovi cover (with Geldof) and Tori Amos' version (I realy have to work harder at appreciating Tori's music--she always sounds so depressed).

It's a radically new concept in automobile engineering--will the public go for it?

Seriously, this is an exhibit from the Fleming Museum at the University of Vermont. It does show the kind of style that I hope to see in the upcoming 2007 new VW Microbus, though.

:-)

(click on the picture to go to this exhibit at the museum--the Quicktime VR movie is pretty cool)

Saw this last night, but I figured I'd made enough posts for one day. Here's the online test.

I scored 35, which means that I'm definitely a libertarian, but not very extreme. This is probably due to the fact that I don't advocate overthrowing the government (according to the quiz, I lose points because I actually believe that government is necessary to keep society functioning--go figure).

Burn a disc on one side, burn the label on the other side with the same optical drive. Check out the story.

Ladies and Gentlemen: the Spam McGriddle!

This sounds as good as our old tongue-in-cheek Denny's menu proposals: The Danish Italiano (with it's yummy Marinara danish filling), the tasty Trout and Eggs breakfast, and the Spam Slam (Spam hotcakes with Spam eggs and Spam meat on the side--don't forget the small cruet of spam-flavored syrup!).

Doesn't that do wonders for your appetite?

Check it out at Wired News. Assuming that you'd want to use this (I wouldn't, believe it or not), I can't imagine that this would be anything other than expensively priced; $25-$30 per flight is pretty exorbitant.

Especially in a 35 mile per hour zone.

But that's what the state trooper said when he stopped me. I swear I was going 45 tops, but I could have been wrong. Hey, I was driving back from Philly to Etown in a haze of illness, so I could have not noticed my speed. He said his radar clocked me at 59 and then he followed me for a half mile to make sure.

Luckily, the trooper just told me to slow it down. Someone must be smiling down on me.

You know, every time my sister comes up to visit, I tend to have an interaction with the police. Not that I'm saying there's a connection, but--hm.

[updated--corrected hasty typos after reading helpful comment. :-) ]

Sunday was torture--Monday was almost as bad.

Something snapped Monday night (like my mild fever) and Tuesday was worlds better. Today was almost back to normal.

I was the last at work to get it, so hopefully we're all done with it.

McCain said that an offer was highly unlikely, but yes, he'd certainly consider an offer to become Kerry's vice presidential running mate.

Wow. It's a long shot, but a Kerry/McCain ticket would be an amazing sight. The integrity and political clout that McCain would bring to the table would be a force to reckon with.

Here's the story at WGAL's website.

(Thanks to Taegan Goddard's Political Wire for the link).

Check it out at the Bush/Cheney website.

Like Goddard's site, I can't help but think that this could be used for evil purposes...

Brad wrote about TiVO. He wondered why I haven't written anything about it.

Isn't it obvious? I'm not writing because I'm spending all my time watching TV.

Seriously, with all due respect to the feelings of the people who put down TV for political and programming reasons, there are some things worth watching on TV. The problem is that I don't have the time to sit around (or stay up) to catch the few shows I want to see.

TiVO solves that problem for me. Rather than watching crap, I set the box to find a show I want to watch and it records it. You say "so what?" OK--unlike a VCR, TiVO finds the show whenever it's on, on any channel, forever, avoiding repeats if I want, until I tell it to stop. That way I don't have to keep looking for when Extreme Homes or Hometime is on, for example. Then I can watch or delete them as I find time, on my schedule instead of the TV's. That is worth $5 a month to me.

The second big thing to TiVO is the 30 second skip. This is a button you can set up to skip 30 seconds ahead instantly--no waiting for fast forward. The first big attraction of this is to skip through commercials by hitting the button five times to instantly skip ahead two minutes, for example. The second big attraction is to skip through parts of a show you don't want to see. I do this with the TechTV show The ScreenSavers all the time.

I can watch an hour show in probably 30 minutes this way.

I've actually cut down my TV watching by using this box, and I watch the stuff I want instead of junk. That seems to me like a solution to a problem.

Now, I can catch junk with TiVO too, like Futurama episodes (I never saw them when they were on prime time). But at least I get to choose.

Hey, I can even search genres or interests for shows I might want to catch--that's how I set TiVO to record the AMC broadcast of George Pal's The War of the Worlds. I haven't watched it yet, and I may just delete it if I don't get a chance to play it in the next few weeks--but it was so easy to set up I couldn't resist.

TiVO (or any programmable digital video recorder) helps you intelligently watch TV without being a political extremist.

I got it from Brad. I guess I shouldn't have been so close to him this week at the office (nudge, nudge).

But y'know, if the world didn't suck at times, we'd probably all fly off into space.

...trot on over to this site and get your fix while you can. Somebody put a scary amount of time into indexing and scanning the entire Calvin and Hobbes catalog of strips--searchable even (I searched on Spaceman Spiff). It's obviously a labor of love, but I can't help but think that it violates copyright laws and will be gone soon.

Go here to this site now.

See you later. Warning--this stie requires Flash and may suck you in for a long while.

:-)

I used the new Frequency beta to transfer the picture below. It's Alyssa at the family reunion last October--she asked me to take that picture, so the pose was her idea...

:-)

Check out their research projects here.

Apparently my friends and I are Content Omnivores:
"Content omnivores are among the heaviest overall users of the Internet. Most are employed. Most log on frequently and spend considerable time online doing a variety of activities. They are likely to have broadband connections at home. The average age of this group is 40."

Or maybe Power Creators:
Power creators are the Internet users who are most enthusiastic about content-creating activities. They are young, their average age is 25, and they are more likely than other kinds of creators to do things like use instant messaging, play games, and download music. And they are the most likely group to be blogging."

I'm the one who does the grocery shopping in my family, mostly because no one can stand to shop with me. We have occasional debates about the "menu first" vs. the "buy the deals at the store" philosophies, but since I do most of the cooking, I shop the way I want (I get the specials and then make my menu--unfortunately it's mostly in my head, and no one but me knows what we're eating on any given night).

So I went to Giant on Saturday armed and ready with my special 10% off coupon.I got it a few weeks earlier as a "Bonus Buy" coupon and it had to be used by February 28th. Now was my chance to stock up, so I went at it with a vengeance.

Unfortunately, as I reached the frozen food aisle I realized that I'd made a terrible miscalculation. If you decide to really stock up, you need to make sure that you can handle everything you get. I was only two-thirds through the store and I'd filled my cart to overflowing. So much for the logical attack.

Sooo, I called Denise and asked her take to the kids and meet me at the store (what else could I do?). In the meantime I got a second cart and began filling it up.

By the time Denise got there, I'd filled up the second cart.

At checkout time, is $450 of groceries too much? Maybe it is, but after my discounts it was $113 less, so I rolled out of there with $337 of groceries.

I made a written menu after a "discussion" with my wife about the purchase and I came up with a month of meals fully laid out on paper. So I think I did pretty well. Say what you will, but once again, single-mindedness triumphs. I rest my case.

Now if only my wife would stop shaking her head.

But it's still funny. Is anyone using Netscape 7 right now, unless it's just to test compatitbility? It's a good product, although I prefer it in it's Mozilla (and Firefox, and Camino) form.