Digital Watches are a Pretty Neat Idea

The changing definition of a late night out

2006-03-25T10:08:00.000-06:00

I was out late last night. Until 9 PM. It's funny how the meaning of a late night out changes.

When I was in college, I and everyone else in my dorm always seemed in danger of becoming nocturnal. Now thanks to working a regular job, and being a little older (the ripe old age of 27!), I rarely stay out that late. When I do, I need some recovery time the next day.

Last night I met some friends for happy hour and grabbed dinner afterwards at The Parthenon (Gyro! Fry!). I felt like I had a pretty good night out, when I looked at the clock on my car as I left the parking garage downtown. I noticed it was only a little after 8:30.

While I'm on the subject of sleep schedules, where did my ability to sleep in go? I want it back. This morning I woke up at 6 AM. Why do I wake up earlier on weekends when I don't have my alarm clock set? Why?

Bill Maher, the Prez, and the Oscars

2006-03-12T09:45:00.000-06:00

Bill Maher: "I think it's a shame the president's performance was too late for this year's Oscars, because usually when you play a retarded guy, you win."

This while talking about the video showing Dubya had quite a bit of warning about how bad things were going to be when Katrina hit.

Real Time with Bill Maher is the main reason I keep HBO. Watching CNN, FOX, MSNBC, just pisses me off, because they spend too much time on issues that aren't important. Why don't they have real discussion? I'm thankful I have Real Time, NOW, NPR's Morning Edition, and Salon.com.

Nobody says it like Pitchfork

2006-03-09T21:41:00.000-06:00

Pitchfork: "Matisyahu (née Matthew Miller) is a guy from White Plains, N.Y. who smoked weed and followed Phish and played in those drum circles everyone hates." Their review is hilarious.

Matisyahu seems to be getting quite a bit of exposure. Once I stopped laughing after reading the Pitchfork review, I started thinking of Cartman from Southpark in the "Die Hippie, Die" episode.

Cartman: "Ma'am, I need to clear out your giggling stoners and your drum-circle hippies right now, or soon they're going to attract something much worse"
Old Lady: "What's that?"
Cartman: "The college know-it-all hippies"

\m/

Pitchfork review found by way of Salon.com's Audiofile.

Hosting a Tiger Woods 2006 game through a firewall

2006-03-04T09:30:00.000-06:00

My parents gave me Tiger Woods 2006 golf for my birthday. It's quite fun, and reminds me of the old days playing Links 386 on our first PC.

Tiger Woods 06 supports playing over the Internet. Ben and I were going to play, but before I could host a game I had to figure out what ports to open up in my firewall. The first bit of information that I found was on Electronic Art's support site here. It didn't work, but I wasn't too surprised.

Tiger Woods has two Internet game modes, one using their game matching lobby, and the other Direct/LAN game. My guess is their instructions are for the gaming lobby, not the LAN game. So how did I find out which ports to open up? I had to look at my firewall/router logs to see what ports Ben was trying to connect on.

Here's what I did:

Find out your friend's IP. On Windows XP, the running IPCONFIG from the command prompt should list the IP address. If you're behind a router, you can go to IP Chicken to list your public IP address.
Look for the IP in your router's access log. On my router it has a message like: "Connection attempt to dst:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:12345 was blocked", where 12345 is the port number it was trying to connect on.
Open up the ports to port forward to the internal IP address of the computer you're playing on. On my router, I forwarded the ports:
- 2302-2308 TCP and UDP
- 13505 TCP and UDP
- 20803-20809 TCP and UDP

As far as the outcome of the game, Ben beat me, but it was close, so I'll have to practice up for a rematch.

Red Meat on Creationism

2006-02-26T16:52:00.000-06:00

This week's Red Meat is great. I need to remember to check it out more often.

My 27th Birthday

2006-02-25T12:09:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was my 27th birthday. It was a great day of friends, foosball, and sinful food. I started off with Greenbush Bakery donuts for work. After work I met friends at Buffalo Wild Wings, played foosball at The Pub, had ice cream, then closed it out with Pizza De Roma. And I didn't even need Tums at the end of the night!

Have a look at the birthday pictures.

Dear Cold

2006-01-22T22:10:00.000-06:00

Dear Cold,

It's that time. Time to tell you that you've overstayed your welcome. It's understandable that some sniffles will come to visit this time of year. I accept that. However, it is time for you to go. One day of staying in and refighting World War II with The History Channel is fine, sometimes even fun, but I'm reaching the cabin fever point. You're like the leftovers in the back of my refrigerator (I really should toss those) that are starting to smell. I've got things to do, and you're just slowing me down, so it's time for you to get out of my life.

More Musical Nostalgia: A New Supergroup

2006-01-14T18:33:00.000-06:00

I've been home sick with a cold today, and I got bored enough I revisted some web sites I hadn't been to in a while.

When I visited Below Empty, the Stone Temple Pilots fan site, I found out Robert and Dean DeLeo (bassist and guitarist for STP) are forming a band with Richard Patrick (vocalist from Filter). There was a news blurb on the STP web site back in September, but I just found out about it today.

The new band is called Army of Anyone. Their album is due out sometime in early 2006. I'm looking forward to it. I've enjoyed the recent supergroups (Velvet Revolver, Audioslave), so I'll be watching for the new album.

Old Enough For Nostalgia

2006-01-14T11:18:00.000-06:00

I finally picked up the new Nine Inch Nails album, [With Teeth].

As I listen to it, I get taken back to my high school days, when my brother Josh introduced me to NIN, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, and Nirvana. All that cool alternative music. Flannel. Am I really old enough now to be nostalgic? I'm closing in on 27 soon. I guess that's old enough.

I've finally hit the age that I'm cranky about new music. I read somewhere at a certain point new music goes from being cool and interesting to scary. I'm not at the scary stage yet, I'm at a point in-between where most of it sounds like crap. Whiny pop-punk bands? They can all dissapear from the face of the earth and I'll be happy. Cookie cutter nü-metal bands? I've mellowed out enough I don't need your generic anger anymore. Oh, and generic "I'm a badass, I have lots of money and bitches" hip-hop? I wasn't all that enticed with you from the start.

As far as [With Teeth]? It's pretty good. Is it the music or the nostalgia I enjoy? It's both.

My Landlord Still Sucks

2005-12-04T13:12:00.000-06:00

How I miss my old property management company. My apartment building changed ownership back in August and things haven't been the same since.

Last night was nice and snowy here in Madison, and the trend of the management ignoring the lawn mowing and cleaning has carried over into an unsurprising lack of care when it comes to snow removal. Last night I came back from dinner with friends and almost got stuck coming up the driveway. This morning they still hadn't done any plowing by almost 11:00, and they had just finally gotten two guys out with shovels. Not very impressive.

In addition to not taking care of the place, they're starting to work on the development of a carnivale atmosphere for the apartment complex. For some reason they are having a problem keeping all of their units rented (maybe they should try maintaining the building?), so they've increased their advertising. It started with flyers on every single door in the building advertising rewards if you recruit a friend to move in. It should have said, "Want to lose a friend and gain $250? Get them to move in." I would have thought placing posters just on entry doors would have been enough, but they covered EVERY door in the place with them. They've since slowed down to only posting flyers on entry doors, but they've still posted them about every 2 weeks for the last couple of months. I think everyone has gotten the point by now.

Apparently flyers just weren't enough. First they started with 4 identical signs in a row out by the road. Then they moved to 6 signs, one of them pretty good sized. Then they got one of those little waving guys that is inflated by a fan. Still not enough. Time to pull out the stops and put balloons up everywhere. Still, nobody is renting.

How do they top themselves? They stole their next marketing idea from the Little Cesar's down the road. I come home the other day and they had new flyers up. A new employment opportunity! Be our human directional. "Go Crazy! Costumes welcome!" People standing around in front of Little Cesar's was a little cheesy down the block, but isn't it a bit much to have one out for an apartment complex? Their flyer even asked for anyone interested to supply their own costume. So far it looks like nobody took them up on their offer.

I'm just glad my lease ends in July. Right now July feels pretty far away.

Halloween Was A Blast

2005-10-30T16:38:00.000-06:00

Paul came down from Chippewa Falls last night and we went down to State Street for Halloween.

I've made it down to State Street for Halloween every year since I was a freshman, and last night was the nicest Halloween night I can remember. The weather was great, it wasn't raining, the crowd was well behaved while we were there, and we had a great time.

We stopped by Caroline's for a great party, and then wandered around State Street for a while and took lots of pictures. Have a look at the pictures in my Halloween 2005 gallery.

My favorite costume was the Vikings Cruise Lines Ship. The costume was a take off from the recent Vikings Cruise Sex Scandal. I have a few pictures in the Halloween gallery. The costume had a fake body in a recliner engaged in some hanky panky with a blonde doll and there were blonde barbie dolls scattered around the deck.

My second favorite costume was a group costume. There was a group of guys that went as foosball players. They had pipes strapped to their backs to connect them all together and a handle hanging off one end. The costume didn't fly with the police though, so they got turned away from state street.

Just as we were getting ready to head home, we had an encounter with some public pissers. Paul and I were walking down the stairs from the balcony of Wasabi, and there were about 4 or 5 guys all lined up down the stairs taking a leak at the same time. I managed to dodge them, but one of Paul's shoes was hit. Casualties are an inevitability on a night like last night.

I also provided the most directions to random drunks last night of any night that I've been downtown. It was always directions to a place that you could see from where we were standing too.

The Truth About Santa

2005-10-25T21:25:00.000-05:00

According to Santa's Slay, Santa Claus is really the son of Satan, and he's just nice because he lost a bet. Now the bet's over. I love B movies.

Lets check to see if it's a B movie:

Star: Bill Goldberg, everyone's favorite WWE wrestler.

Plot: Completely predictable, and cheesy whenever possible.

Flashbacks: A stop motion (a la Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer) flashback of Santa losing a bet over a game of curling.

Yep, it fits the B movie criteria.

Oh, and Santa's slay is pulled by a man eating buffalo.

Getting Old Is Wierd, and Yes, Single People Can Be Happy

2005-10-23T20:17:00.000-05:00

I just got back from a wedding in Eau Claire. The wedding was for my friend Michelle from high school I think I hadn't seen since high school. It was kind of funny go to her wedding and have the conversation start, "So, what have you been doing since high school?".

I also met up with Erin and Kelly, two friends that I've only seen a handful of times since high school, but we've almost completely lost touch with since then. It was great to catch up, and strange to see old friends married, owning houses, and having children.

I went to the wedding with Danielle, and she made a great point at the service. The priest was giving blessings, and said bless all of the happy couples, bless the president (blargh!), and bless all of the sad and lonely people. What about the happy single people? Where is their blessing?

Sometimes it feels like society views being single as a terrible state to be in, "Oh, poor Chris, if only he can find a nice girl and settle down". Well, I'm a happy single person! And instead of giving the married person's response to what they did last night ("we went to home depot"... "we visited my wife's parents"), I can say instead, "I went out dancing"... "I saw a great concert".

Anyway, to all you other single people out there, you're not broken, you're just fine.

One last thought - do Catholic weddings really need to be that long?

Update: I posted wedding pictures in my photo pages.

Al Gore's Speech at "We Media" Conference

2005-10-09T11:15:00.000-05:00

I miss Al Gore. Well, really I miss intelligent leadership of this country. Every time I see Bill Clinton it just reminds me how much I miss those years. Why can't we have a president that doesn't trip over his own tongue every time he speaks? When I watched Bush addressing the UN a while ago, I just felt embarrassed. Can't we have someone more intelligent represent us to the world?

Anyway, I just finished reading the text of Al Gore's speech at the "We Media" conference. It follows the theme of the news media focusing on trivial issues and not spending enough time on issues that are really important. He goes off a little at the end with a rant about the Internet (at least he doesn't call it "The Internets"), but it is well worth reading.

I particularly enjoyed his, "more than four years later, between a third and a half still believe Saddam was personally responsible for planning and supporting the attack" when talking about confusion around the invasion of Iraq. The administration has done their best to muddy the waters confusing Saddam with Bin Laden, and the news media hasn't done a very good job of clearing this up. I've seen this from my own personal exprience. Around the time we were invading, I was discussing the invasion with a coworker at a previous job. She said something along the lines of "We have to invade because of what they did to us on 9/11". Further discussion revealed she couldn't keep Saddam and Bin Laden straight. It scares me that a large part of the American public can be that confused on something so important.

Vonnegut on NOW

2005-10-09T10:55:00.000-05:00

I just caught the second half of Kurt Vonnegut's appearance on PBS' NOW.

My Sunday morning ritual involves sitting in my pajama pants, drinking lots of coffee, and watching NOW. During the week I usually flip around the news channels while I eat breakfast, but I find the news channels so irritating with their reporting of lots of news that I just don't care about that watching NOW on Sunday mornings is a nice sigh of relief from the regular news.

Kurt Vonnegut was fantastic, and now I might have to pick up his new book, A Man Without A Country.

Blog Posting Tools

2005-10-06T21:29:00.000-05:00

I ran into a post about Qumana, a little blogging client to help you with quicker posting so I decided to test it out.

So far it seems pretty nice. I figure if I have something to make it easier to post, then I might post in my blog a little more often. So far I'm impressed.

I actually found it in a post somewhere about Flock, a new browser based on Firefox that is supposed to have integrated blogging tools.

Blog Posting Tools

2005-10-06T21:26:00.000-05:00

I ran into a post about Qumana, a little blogging client to help you with quicker posting so I decided to test it out.

So far it seems pretty nice. I figure if I have something to make it easier to post, then I might post in my blog a little more often. Sounds nice.

A New Harvey Danger Album

2005-10-03T22:29:00.000-05:00

Harvey Danger (you might remember "Flagpole Sitta") has a new album out called Little By Little.... It is well worth listening to. I just downloaded it last weekend and I think it's pretty good.

Downloaded you say? Isn't that what music pirates do? Won't the RIAA's jack booted thugs bust down my door? In this case, no. Harvey Danger is self publishing the album and they decided to publish the album as a direct mp3 download and via BitTorrent.

Right now my favorite song is "Cream and Bastards Rise". Read their "Why we’re releasing our latest album for free on the Internet" and then grab a copy for your listening pleasure.

I hope the experiment works out for them. I probably wouldn't have heard much of their new album otherwise, but now I'm considering buying a copy of the CD.

It Came From The Lounge

2005-09-28T21:08:00.000-05:00

Ben turned me on to Richard Cheese a while ago. A lounge version of Disturbed's "Down with the Sickness" anyone? I didn't think it could be topped.

Well, it has. Paul Anka just released Rock Swings, lounge covers of rock songs. Checkout a blurb and covers of "Black Hole Sun", "Wonderwall", and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at NPR. If it doesn't cause hysterical laughing fits, something may be wrong with you.

Found by way of The Old New Thing.

With My Dancing Shoes On

2005-09-19T22:42:00.000-05:00

I just got back from my second swing dancing lesson with Jumptown. I'm taking a beginner Lindy Hop class. I took a number of ballroom and swing classes quite a while ago, but I got out of the habit of dancing at anything other than weddings the last few years. It really feels good to get back into it.

And yes, those are my dancing shoes at the top of this post. I'm willing to compromise on many things, but wearing comfortable shoes isn't one of them. They're also my walking shoes, driving shoes, and working shoes.

Anyway, I'm really excited about the classes, and it will be nice to be a little more clueful the next time I get to JT Whitney's. Jumptown has a swing dance there every Wednesday night, and it is well worth checking out.

The Bruce Campbell Goodness Never Stops

2005-09-06T21:05:00.000-05:00

And it shouldn't!

Man With The Screaming Brain comes to the SciFi channel this Saturday at 8 PM CST. Clear your schedule and mark your calendar, because you can't possibly have anything more important to do than witness the next episode of genius from Bruce Campbell. Excuse me, I need to go watch Army of Darkness for the hundredth time now. Hail to the king, baby.

Thanks Ben for giving me the heads up about this.

Back where it all begins

2005-08-29T22:11:00.000-05:00

Yes, Back where it all begins is an Allman Brothers Band song, but in this case I'm referring to the novel that was one of the prototypes for cyberpunk novels. I just picked up a copy of William Gibson's Neuromancer from Frugal Muse, one of my favorite used book stores in Madison. As soon as I started reading it I kept feeling light bulbs going off as I saw where other cyberpunk novels picked up their roots. My brother and I really got hooked on reading ShadowRun novels back when we were younger and now I can really see where those ideas came from. It's alot like the realization I had when I first started reading H.P. Lovecraft.

p.s. I love Wikipedia.

What could possibly drag me back on the computer?

2005-08-29T22:03:00.000-05:00

I was just talking with Ben earlier tonight that the only thing I blog about anymore is how much I'm ignoring my blog or how long it's been since I've written anything here.

Well, tonight I have something else to talk about. Ben has a blog! I look forward to reading what he has to write. It feels kind of silly, when I can just walk downstairs to find out what's going on in his life since we live in the same apartment complex. Then again we used to call each other on the phone when he was directly next door, so I feel justified now that I have to walk down two flights of stairs to say hi in person.

OK GO - Love that Choreography

2005-08-21T14:47:00.000-05:00

Just found a great new video by OK Go. Quite some stylish dancing around in their back yard. It feels like a flashback to some of the cheesy choreography from my high school show choir days.

I haven't really followed them much since their first full length a few years ago, but I might have to check out their new album when it comes out. I'm a sucker for power pop. It sticks in my head and I can't resist it.

Found by way of Said the Gramophone, which I found from an article in the latest Wired about Ben Gibbard's favorite mp3 blogs.

Lots of New Photos

2005-07-30T11:43:00.000-05:00

Yes, I've been ignoring my blog again. The weather is just too nice to sit on the computer these days, but I decided it was time for an update.

My brother Josh got married on July 23 at Gooseberry Falls State Park. I put up a slew of wedding pictures on my photos page if you'd like to have a look.