Archive of <January> <2004> [reverse chronological]

9:57 AM Friday, January 2, 2004
So 2004 rolls around. Yippee. Ended up ringing in the New Year at Medill, but eventually made it to Top Shelf. Loft warehouses are freakin' cool. Makes me wonder what could have been with Monster Loft. Oh, the New Year's Eve party that could have been. Didn't drink, was a driver, not a loser, baby. Had a family luncheon out in Schaumberg, which was good. Finally finished, well, mostly finished cleaning up the place. Still need to organize/trash a bunch of electronic stuff, go figure. Started trying my hand at CafePress stuff. It's really really cool. Very very easy way to sell personalized stuff. Easy, super easy way to do jerseys for a special occasion. Looks like Sai tonight. And hopefully, a whole lot of sleep.
12:44 PM Friday, January 2, 2004
So my ongoing issue with Outlook at work and iCal/AddressBook at home and a t68i at both, well, I've decided to try something else. Using iAppoint to turn my outlook calendar into an ics file, scp it home, and using phpicalendar to publish it, and then use iCal to subscribe to it, and then use iSync to sync the phone. Long and convoluted, I know. It also doesn't put my personal calendar into Outlook. But then again, why should it. But we'll see how long this lasts. If only there was an iSync client for Windows.
1:34 PM Monday, January 5, 2004
Jack Frost finally made an appearance in Chicago and dumped some snow. So after Christmas and New Years, on the last night of Zoo Lights, it snows. A lot. It really feels like winter now. Makes me happy. Makes me happy that I don't have to drive. Makes me want to get my boots though, which I don't have. Anyway, weekend was good, sushi on Friday, pre wedding party and birthday beer in Andersonville on Saturday, and lots and lots of sleeping on Sunday. One look outside and it was back to bed. Back to the diner this morning, definitely good to be back. Only thing on the horizon is Vegas this weekend. I'm rather interested to see what Apple will be releasing tomorrow at Macworld, and I'll be reloading constantly, trying to figure it out. Or, maybe I'll try out IRC.
1:46 PM Tuesday, January 6, 2004
Kept track of my first Macworld via IRC with the #macrumors crew. IRC's pretty cool, which I guess makes me a newbie, bigtime. But still, nice real time transcript. No pictures, but then again, nothing too exciting. I'm only really excited about iLife '04, mainly iPhoto. More Rendezvous sharing rocks. Otherwise, G5 Xserves. mini iPods, which I don't get. The Xserve is interesting as I research more and more on co-locating. I'm doing bandwidth research on my home machines to figure what plans might work for me. Using ipfm. It's freakin' cold out by the way. Finally. Started Clear and Present Danger. Good to get the intro and history of Ding and Clark, especially after Rainbow Six.
1:47 PM Wednesday, January 7, 2004
The most exciting thing so far from what I've read on Macworld, is elgato systems and their EyeTV and EyeHome products. Finally a firewire TV Mac system and a set top box to hook into desktop media. My issues, beside not being official Apple products, is that the TV thingie isn't HD, and the set top box isn't Rendezvous with iPhoto and iTunes, it uses an additional server on the computers to serve the stuff up. Oh well. Maybe next time. CES started today, and even though I'm going to Vegas, I don't think I'll be able to get in, since you gotta pay to do so. Probably be pretty busy anyway. Watched Finding Nemo last night with Leah. Good movie, but quite sad, depressing, scary at the beginning. Like I wonder how little kids could sit though it.
1:56 PM Thursday, January 8, 2004
Even heading to bed at a very early hour, waking up this morning I would have loved to have kept sleeping. If only. And with Vegas this weekend I have no idea how much sleep I'm going to get, not much I assume. Wonder if I should even bother to bring a book to read on the plane ride, or if I should just use that time wisely to sleep. Leah made dinner last night, good stuff, and Monday night as well. I'm making something tonight, I'll figure out something. Gotta pack and do laundry tonight. Still keeping track of Macworld and CES. Nothing too life shattering. Dave Morse managed to get himself to CES this year. That's pretty cool.
3:25 PM Monday, January 12, 2004
Vegas was a good time. Flying was no problem, especially since I packed light, a backpack is all. So easy. I managed to miss a bunch of the hassle leaving on Sunday by flying America West, which put me at a B gate, and using an E-ticket. Managed to get a Cinnabon both coming and going. Driving also no problem. I never thought of myself as a traveler, but it's pretty easy to deal with. Alias was a good time last night. 2 big Oh My God moments on the show, and a whole handful of other Wow moments. Pretty big reveal. Still wonder what they're going to do for the Superbowl. Also can't wait for the 3rd Season to end and come out on DVD. I need a whole lot more sleep to catch up.
1:25 PM Tuesday, January 13, 2004
I still haven't caught up on sleep yet. Currently I'm going on a 1:4 sleep/awake ratio. Ideally I'd like to be at 1:2 sleep/awake ratio. Oh well, I'll catch up hopefully eventually. Watched S.W.A.T last night finally. Good summer movie. Not as much close quarter combat as I wanted, I must have misremembered too much. I'm loving CafePress. I'm getting ready to roll out my own store, mostly ultimate stuff, almost all stuff by Tony. It's so easy.
9:04 AM Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Dinner last night was at Green Tea, a little tiny sushi place on Clark just north of Webster, just down the street from Leah's place. The sushi itself, at least the makis were very good. The miso soup could use some help, the edemame wasn't so hot, but the wasabi shumai were wonderful. And the rolls, the rolls were quite good. And much closer than Sai, and cheaper as well. And finally, plenty of sleep last night. Still could use some more, but that's always the case. Oh, a Harris Bank is going up on the corner of Halsted and Addison, which puts a nice no charge ATM right around my home to correspond to the one close to my workplace. That was a pleasant surprise.
2:33 PM Thursday, January 15, 2004
So I'm picking up my tux today for Russell's wedding this Saturday. He'll be my first good friend to get hitched and it'll be my first (besides my brother's) wedding I'll stand up in. So that's a little exciting. Otherwise, Leah and I snuck in a viewing of Bed of Roses last night over fried rice. It was the first showing of that movie on my big screen TV, and it looks mighty fine.
8:36 AM Friday, January 16, 2004
I finally got my GPRS internet connection through T-Mobile working flawlessly last night. It's amazing. Not speedwise, because it is like dialup, but just the fact that almost anywhere I can receive a phone call, I can now go online, ssh around, check my mail, and so on. It's really really cool. Really cool. Last night I whipped together a little Honey Mustard Chicken to go with a salad by Leah for dinner. And them some chillin'. Got my tux, and I have to say, I look pretty sharp. Fits great. And so the true festivities begin. I haven't made too much additional progress on my shop, but I'll put it out there anyway, so people can at least check out the beginnings. I'll make notes when new products are released.
12:07 PM Monday, January 19, 2004
Sarah and Russell's wedding went well. A lot of fun. From the rehearsal dinner at Rock Bottom to the wedding and festivities at Hotel Intercontinental. All in all a good time. I'll see what I can do about getting some pictures up, finally updating the gallery. The new year and new projects start to pile up. Gotta add more stuff to the shop, fix up that Spring League Draft App in Java for the upcoming spring league for Ultimate Chicago, pictures on the gallery, that whole linux box for Bjorn. Small things, but it adds up. Not much in terms of plans for the next couple of months.
2:37 PM Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Upgraded most of my software last night to the newest iLife stuff. I did not have any corruption of my iPhoto library so far, knock on wood, and managed to do a DVD backup of my images, currently at 2900 or so. iDVD looks definitely cool, as I tried to back up my photo library onto a DVD that I could pop in to my DVD player to view, but decided against that. I also got an , which is a pretty cool little dohickey. Recording into iMovie seems just fine. Might have to actually put up a web cam on this site, huh, wouldn't that be a trip. Don't really mess around with GarageBand at all. I'm thinking of getting one of those Macmice iSight flex holders. After seeing some pictures by Sally, I find my camera, the sony u30, to be merely adequate. But it's the trade off I accept for portability. Oh, and I'm going to start using the red eye reduction flash from now on, since everyone except me manages to show red eyes when I take candid pictures. Odd, makes me wonder if it has anything to do with contacts or not. Making dinner tonight, Chicken Paillard. And I get Overnight Delivery, a nice romantic comedy that I've been waiting for on DVD.
11:47 AM Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Daily Radar might just be coming back, possibly, in a new form. Ever since that humorous look at movies, television, video games, and other stuff went away, I've been looking for a replacement. As the Apple Turns, Crazy Apple Rumors, ESPN's Page 2 all try to fill the void, but fail. But ESPN's new venture, Page 3, just might fill the bill. It takes a Page 2 view on Entertainment. And that is good news to me. But it's got some navigation issues, and I'll wait and see if they can keep it up or not. But it's promising.
11:00 AM Thursday, January 22, 2004
Added some new products to the shop: for Ultimate Chicago fans, trucker hat, which means I should probably ask for permission or something to use the logo, which I hand converted from the GIF it was to a nice Illustrator doc, and for Kaze a set of other panda stuff featuring sumo, spendy, preachy and happy on a mug, a large mug, and a stein. Also new is a spendy panda camisole for those kaze or kaze significant other's that like to shop. I'll probably end up breaking the store down to Official Kaze Replica stuff, and then fun Other Panda stuff. Look for the 2003 Season t-shirt soon. Most of that was accomplished while watching S.W.A.T. with Leah and Christie after a fabulous fajita dinner by Leah. I finished up Clear and Present Danger and I'll move on to Cryptonomicron again.
10:59 AM Monday, January 26, 2004
Added a Kaze 2003 Season T-Shirt and a whole slew of things featuring the Scandal Logo. In the workings is some Tea & Strumpet stuff, and maybe adding some things with color instead of all this black and white stuff. Dinner at Sai last Thursday. Watched Keeping the Faith, a wonderful movie. One of my favorites, maybe more so because of the personal connection I might have to it. Also finally watched Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Did some laundry with Leah on Sunday, watched Overnight Delivery. Guess I've decided to start linking movies now. Looking forward to You Got Served coming out Friday. On the non movie front, not much else. Oh, Jessica Jenkins was kind enough to invite me in to orkut, which makes me feel pretty cool, in that geeky sorta way.
11:09 AM Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Vacuumed last night. Exciting. Found and cleaned off my boots. Good considering the weather. Also exciting. Updated machines around the house with security updates and airport. Too exciting. Ate leftovers and cleaned the kitchen. All so very exciting. Tried to watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom but failed. Got too excited about adding a Tea & Strumpets section to my shop. Figured out how to do that nifty starburst background. Sleeping was difficult. Steam radiators suck. Especially in a three story apartment building with the thermostat regulated on the third floor and sleeping on the first floor. Snow's cool though. Tired. I believe I'm finally all caught up with Nationals finances.
1:00 PM Thursday, January 29, 2004
Wow, so I missed a day. That hasn't happened in a while. Go figure. Tuesday night got some bad chinese food and finished up Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Wednesday got to watch Spellbound with Leah and good chinese food. Gonna try and watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Got lots of leftoever delivery food to eat too. Gonna try and make some cookies.
10:27 AM Friday, January 30, 2004
It's cold. Damn cold. Groundhog Day's coming up. Time to watch Groundhog Day. Didn't watch Last Crusade, maybe tonight, maybe Monday night. Baked a few cookies. Saved some batter so I can make up some fresh baked cookies this weekend, holed up at home. Still got lots to do. Started taking customization orders for the shop.
Archive of <January> <2004> [reverse chronological]