Uncle Mark

I'm an uncle! Jeanne gave birth to James Brown at 7:10am Thursday, June 14, 2007. Vital stats: 10 fingers, 10 toes, 19.5", 7 lbs. 5 oz., and cute as can be. He's got huge hands and feet, so he should be a great swimmer!

Worst Clam Chowder. Ever.

While we were in Monterey, Charity and I stopped at Sly McFly's on Cannery Row, primarily because they claimed to have the best clam chowder in Monterey. This turned out to be a horrible mistake. The soup was like something from the glue factory with some salt and clams thrown into it. We didn't bother finishing the thing and just beat a hasty retreat.

Nikon D40

I've been taking my time replacing my poor old Nikon CoolPix 4500 which died a few years ago. Charity had just bought a Cannon SD700, so it wasn't too big a deal. I'd been contemplating a DSLR, but I've been very skeptical on how often I'd lug such a big camera around. Well, after much hemming and hawing, I finally settled on a Nikon D40. It arrived just in time for our trip to Monterey over the Memorial Day weekend.

I shouldn't have worried. The D40 is a lot of fun to use. So much so that we sometimes have to fight for the camera. The click you hear when you snap the picture is just so reinforcing that it has a sort of Pavlovian effect on me. Must... take... more... pictures... to hear sound again...

The fun and games ended last night though when I finally uploaded all the pictures and started looking at them. And the big dark spot I'm guessing is caused by a speck of dust on the sensor. Grrr... I guess this batch of shots will definitely be getting the Photoshop treatment.

Joey recommended that I get Giottos' Rocket Air Blaster to deal with the dust, so now I'm just waiting for it to arrive.

Desktop Tower Defense

Timesuck alert! Desktop Tower Defense is freakin' addictive. Wasted most of my day on this... Normal was a breeze, and then I made the mistake of trying the 100 challenge. Best I did was level 77.

Rob warned me about this a while back, but I promptly forgot.

Women in Art

Speaking of something different, check out this YouTube video of women in art through the centuries. After the first few, there were very few I could identify.

Whim

Thought I'd try something different...

CFL Bulbs

There seems to be quite a bit in the news about CFLs lately. The one that raised the most eyebrows was a sensationalist article claiming that it costs $2000 to clean up a broken CFL due to the mercury inside it. However, it seems that this urban legend has been debunked.

I've been on the fence with CFLs for a while now. On the one hand, I like the fact that they use less energy and last longer. On the other hand, the ones that I'm familiar with tend to take a while to reach full brightness, emit a low buzz, and/or have a strange hue to them.

The last time I did any research on this was a few years ago when I was remodeling my house. I just bought a few brands and tried it out to see how I liked them. I wasn't very impressed back then, and decided to only use them in certain applications.

I've started paying attention again since Charity and I are remodeling our house, and we'll be putting in lots of new lighting. The good news is that it looks like things have improved. Popular Mechanics has an article reviewing newer CFLs and it looks like the color problem seems to have mostly been solved.

Dungeon Twister

Played Dungeon Twister for the first time last night against Danny. It's a pretty fun dungeon crawl-ish sort of board game. The fact that I won may have contributed a wee bit to my enjoyment. ;)

The only negative thing about it so far is that it's only a two player game, which limits the chances it'll be played. Fortunately, there's a 3-4 player expansion available...

"New" Bike!

Yee-haw! I've just bought a used 2004 Yamaha FZ1. From Ohio. Off eBay. Now I just have to figure out how to get it shipped here...

The average person...

I've been playing with Channel 4's human footprint calculator and the one factoid that stood out is:

The average person will know 1,700 people in the course of their lifetime. Of the 1,700 people we know, 305 will die of heart disease, 179 by stroke, 99 of lung cancer and 32 of breast cancer. 10 people will take their own life, 9 will be killed in road accidents and 1 will die in a fire.

Yikes! If you know me, I hope I'm in your other 1065.

If Only I'd Known

Better late than never, I guess, but this sure would have helped when I was having problems with Java's security manager.

Speaking of Restaurants...

Forgot to mention that I found Layang Layang through Restaurant.com.

They sell gift certificates to restaurants at reduced prices (typically $25 certificates for $10). They're also having a 50% off sale right now using the discount code "SPRING". It's nice in that it makes it a little less risky to try out new restaurants.

Update: The "SPRING" discount code has been replaced by "APRIL", which is 60% off + a $10 credit.

Restaurant Discovery

I can't describe how excited I am over discovering Layang Layang, a new, good Malaysian restaurant.

I've only been there once, but everything we tried was good and authentic. We started with the lobak and roti bhuddist, and they're definitely the best I've had in the US. The entrees didn't dissapoint either. The kari lamb and belacan okra were perfect, and the ikan bakar was decent. For desert, we tried the fried ice cream and banana. Not too shabby, but when I hear fried banana, I'm thinking goreng pisang, and I've not had any really authentic ones in the US.

You can bet that we'll be going back!

A Good Food Day

Had lunch at Per Se and dinner at Babbo today. Mmmmm!

Taxes

Did my taxes today. I've been using TurboTax for the past few years but decided to look for something different when I realized that they've raised their rates. A bit of Googling found me a very informative blog entry that compared the various tax prep companies and lead me to TaxSlayer.com.

Silly name aside, it did get quite a few good reviews, and was the cheapest at $9.95 to e-file both federal and state returns. As a sanity check, I entered my numbers into both TurboTax and TaxSlayer, and TaxSlayer actually gave me a bigger refund (some 15% more).

I have to say though, this does come at a cost -- their UI is definitely not the most user friendly. There really isn't much in the way of help, and they don't provide any overview pages to see all the numbers you've entered. You just have to trust that they're doing the right thing until the end, when they present you with the completed forms.

Water, water everywhere...

And so is Voss. I've been seeing their distinctive cylindrical bottles everywhere - in more and more restaurants and tv shows, everything from Dirt to Top Design.

They're marketing themselves as high-end water and they are only allowing their products to be sold in exclusive bars, clubs, hotels and restaurants. The water comes from an aquifer in Iveland, Norway, and to protect their exclusivity and supply, Voss is actually trying to stop the local townspeople from using their water source:

Ole Christian Sandberg of "Voss of Norway" confirmed the company wants to preserve Voss' supply and said his company is "in a dialogue" with township officials that he hopes will end the practice of local residents literally bathing in the precious water.

Don't drink this water because we want to sell it? Puh-lease. Don't even get me started on the travesty of bottled water.

Speaking of water, March 22 is World Water Day.

Movies

Saw two completely different movies yesterday: 300 and Bridge to Terabithia.

I was fairly excited to see 300: I'm a Frank Miller fan, they'd managed to pull off the movie adaptation of Sin City perfectly, and I'd heard some good rumblings on the net. Alas, I came away fairly disappointed.

First off, I don't think that this was as close an adaptation to the original 300 as Sin City was, and it wouldn't really matter except that I felt that something was lost in the translation.

Let's start with the visuals: everything looked absolutely gorgeous, but after two hours of that limited color palette, my eyes were crying for something different. And while the long battle scenes may have worked on the page with Frank Miller's succinct visual style, it too just became excessive on the screen. Perhaps I'm just getting older, but it felt like there was too much fighting, too much gore -- much more than necessary for the story.

Even more disheartening is that Frank Miller's distinctive, stilted dialog rang a little hollow from the actors. There were a few moments where it became very obvious that the actors were just posing to hit a specific frame from the comic. The combination of these two issues seriously undermines the emotional thrust of the movie -- that the Spartans sacrifice was worth something/meant something.

Like I said in the beginning, there's no denying that the movie looks good. It just works better as an extended trailer than a feature length movie. The one scene that stole the show for me was the Oracle's dance. I have no clue how they shot the scene, but it was just breathtaking.

I'm a little torn on how to rate the film, but in the end, I can't give it more than 3/5, and a 2/5 for those who are gore averse.

And for something completely different, I also watched Bridge to Terabithia. About the only thing I knew about it going in was that it's targeted at kids and has some fantasy elements in it. Unlike 300's trailers, which accurately depict what you get in the movie, the trailers for Bridge to Terabithia are totally misleading. This isn't a Narnia-wannabe. It's a story about friendship and the power of imagination.

I have to say though, I'm not sure how many kids out there who will actually appreciate the underlying themes of the movie. I guess that's for the parents. It's sort of a coming of age movie dealing with loss. That's about all I can say without giving anything away. It's a gentle, subtle movie that's (amazingly) carried by the performances of the children. When I was watching, Bailee Madison, who plays May Belle, consistently got all the "Aaaaw"s from the parents.

Worth watching: 4/5.

Refreshing Honesty

I called Continental's reservation line tonight hoping to change a seat assignment and was told that the current wait time was 174 minutes. Umm... I guess some warning is better than none at all but that's a little insane.

Update: I used Skype for the call and just left it running. I woke up this morning to find that it took 6 hours and 40 minutes before someone responded!

3.14...

Got Married...

I finally got married over the weekend! It took a while, and planning the wedding seemed to take forever, but it's done and now I've got this piece of metal wrapped around my finger that'll take some getting used to.

Highlights from Saturday included:

• My best man, Rob Owen, losing Charity's wedding band five minutes before the ceremony.
• My groomsman Bill Avery coming to the rescue by lending us his wedding ring.
• Charity having trouble getting my ring on since it was such a tight fit.
• Actually marrying Charity.
• The gorgeous reception hall at the Asian Art Museum. I thought the sight of the wedding cake from the entrance was just stunning.
• The first dance with Charity.