It seems that my allergies have returned which is odd because traditionally they are done by July. However for the past couple of mornings I’ve woken up with a strong desire to sneeze and sneeze and sneeze. Also last night I had a big sneeze attack in the middle of the night (which was irritating because I needed the sleep). Perhaps I should purchase some allergy pills if this continues tomorrow. It makes for a more uncomfortable existence otherwise.
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2006.
Tags: allergies
I have it. I’ve listened to a couple of the tracks and it seems to be what I expected. I’ve put it on my iPod for listening tomorrow at work and on the ride home. I’ll post a review once I’m done listening to the whole thing.
Tomorrow I’m going to be setting up a corporate blog at work. My goal is to use it as a tool for inter-group communication. We don’t have a good way of distributing knowledge to a lot of people at once and my impression is that a blog would fill that need. I’m of course going to be using Wordpress to set it up; it’s idiotproof, offers the user management features that I need and I hope to be able to introduce RSS and the advantages of syndication to other people in my group and in the company. I’m not sure they’ll take to it like I have (I plan on using Thunderbird for RSS syndication of this internal blog).
One of the first things I did at this job was set up a wiki; two years later I’m setting up a blog. It’ll be an interesting experience I think and it’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while: partially to boost the “soft” skills that will be required of me but also to show initiative. When you’re pushing for something you have to provide as few reasons as possible for people to doubt you and as many reasons as possible for people to believe in you. Irreplaceable without domination. That’s my motto these days.to
Tags: blogs, Career, corporate-blogs, rss, thunderbird, wiki, Work
The weather has been quite ideal for the past few days; it’s felt so much like fall that the maple leaves in our front yard have started to turn and fall down (red-like). We’ve had moderate day-time highs and quite cool lows in the evening which is perfect for keeping the windows open. It definitely makes sleeping a lot more enjoyable than facing the stifling heat of a few weeks back (is it really that soon?). I shouldn’t complain too much about the former heat as we had central air plus the moderating effects of the lake which helped enormously in making the whole ordeal a little more bearable.
The sun is setting a whole lot sooner these days. When I used to play softball it was the games in August that had the shortened timeframe to get the game finished; you didn’t want to play when it was dark for fear of safety. Now my softball days have turned into software days and the early sunset gives me a subtle reminder that we’re on our way to the low point of the year with the snow and the wind and the cold. We’ll leave those thoughts for another day however and relish the sweet late summer weather.
Tags: baseball, nostalgia, softball, software, summer, Weather, winter
What do you mean if? He’s blogging about his Exboxe CCCLX games right now. [via]
Tags: blog, exboxe, games, geoffrey-chaucer
Stephen Colbert decided to put Jon Stewart On Notice. Here’s the video from Monday’s Colbert Report about the aftermath of that statement. Very funny.
Tags: colbert-report, jon-stewart, on-notice, stephen-colbert, video
While driving to Ohio and back this weekend I think I saw more state license plates than I’d ever seen before. Below is the list of states that we saw:
- Alabama
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Conneticut
- Florida
- Georgia
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kentucky
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- New Jersey
- New York
- North Carolina
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
That’s 31 states out of the 48 continental ones. That’s pretty high if you ask me. It makes for an entertaining drive trying to find the ones you still need to complete the set.
Tags: license-plates, Travel, united-states
Via Waxy for this particular link I’ve been watching the pilot episode for Aaron Sorkin’s new show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (more Wikiality information can be found here). He’s the creator of The West Wing (I posted about it here). I’m not sure how long the video will stay online and there’s even a rumour that it’s been intentionally leaked on YouTube to garner attention and buzz leading up to the fall season (YouTube and NBC have a joint agreement). It looks to be a show worth watching if the pilot is any indication. It has quite the cast – Timothy Busfield, Matthew Perry, Judd Hirsch, Amanda Peet, Bradley Whitford. Mondays at 10 it’s scheduled to air. That would conflict with CSI: Miami here but it’s rare that I’ll watch that show unless I’m playing the drinking game. Also from the Wikipedia article it says that it will cost $2.5 to $3 million per episode to make. That’s probably close to what it cost to create The West Wing.
Anyway, check out the video if you have the chance. I’ll be looking forward to Mondays at 10 starting in September.
Tags: aaron-sorkin, amanda-peet, bradley-whitford, csi-miami, judd-hirsch, matthew-perry, nbc, studio-60-on-the-sunset-strip, Television, the-west-wing, timothy-busfield, youtube
Well the heat wave should be over after tonight but from the looks of things it’s going to be an interesting ride. I’m seeing a lot of lightning and hearing a lot of thunder right now but no rain yet. The instability in the two fronts will create quite the thunderstorm. At least here where we live we’re well above the surrounding neighbourhoods so it’s extremely unlikely that we would flood (the advantage of being on the Bluffs). The cats aren’t too scared yet. I looked outside a minute ago and the willow tree is whirling around quite a bit. I’m always afraid in high wind situations that the tree will lose some big part of itself and cause some serious damage. I should take some pictures of our willow tree; it’s quite the impressive sight though as I said having something so impressive also comes with its risks. I should finish this post before the power goes out.
Stay dry.
Via BoingBoing I discovered this Vanity Fair article about the 30 hours of NORAD tapes that they had access to on and after 9/11. It’s on my toread list.
Tags: 9/11, norad, september-11th, toread, vanity-fair
I think I mentioned somewhere before that they’re making a movie version of Fast Food Nation, the book written by Eric Schlosser. Perhaps not. In any case it’s a fantastic book that I read a couple of years ago. The movie version is directed by Richard Linklater and comes out this October (the 6th to be precise). I just watched the trailer for the film and it looks pretty interesting. I would have never thought that the book could be made into a movie and particularly not a fictional one but from the trailer it looks like they may have pulled it off. We’ll see for sure once October rolls around and it’ll be interesting to see what the fast food companies do in terms of a reaction to the film because it’s pretty damning of their practices and offerings. They won’t be getting much positive praise in the media come October that’s for sure.
During my university days fast food made up an unhealthy amount of our diet. However since graduation and particularly after getting married the amount of fast food that I eat is down near the zero range. That’s definitely thanks to Marcy; she keeps me alive in more ways than one and if I didn’t have her I’m sure my diet would consist of little “good” food. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t eat healthily but I’m more healthy because Marcy is with me. I can thank my stars for that.
The link to the trailer comes courtesy of the fantastic The Movie Blog. I started reading John’s site a few months back and it brings me my movie-related news each and everyday. It rarely disappoints.
Tags: eric-schlosser, fast-food-nation, Food, greg-kinnear, Movies, richard-linklater
Stephen Colbert did a very amusing “The Word” segment on Tuesday about Wikipedia. You can see it here on YouTube while it’s still online. He discusses how with Wikipedia you can build truth and reality through consensus as opposed to facts. He edited his own page and encouraged people to edit the page on elephants saying how the population has tripled in Africa over the last six months. It was a very humourous discussion which prompted quite a few pages to be locked down and protected because the SysOps on Wikipedia didn’t want vandalism. I believe the pages are still protected because if there’s one thing that The Nation can do it’s follow their leader.
Anil had a great article on Wikipedia entitled “Antipedia” the other day and it provided some excellent reference links for further reading on what the future of Wikipedia could be and a discussion on what it has become. I’ve bookmarked them for later reading when I get some free time (should happen any day now right?).
I think Wikipedia is a great community achievement. Considering how frequently I link to it from here I use it quite frequently but I would not use it as a definitive reference. I’ve had this discussion with Marcy too because a lot of her students tend to use Wikipedia in their research, usually as the sole source for their research. That’s not a good practice; high school students need to know how to do proper research – visiting an actual library, reading the books, taking notes. Using Google alone to do your research is not really researching. There’s a lot of skill involved in researching and I hope that that is a skill that doesn’t get lost in the coming years.
Tags: colbert-nation, colbert-report, elephants, research, stephen-colbert, wikiality, wikipedia
Well as I alluded to yesterday we are in the midst of a heat wave this week here in Toronto. Today or tonight it should break with some welcome relief via thunderstorms. I have my new umbrella with me in case it starts to rain when I’m heading home.
As of Friday I’m on vacation until the 14th. It’s a well-deserved vacation and I’m looking forward to spending some time during the day with Marcy. We’re going to Ohio this weekend to visit my parents and then next weekend we’re planning on going up to Thomas and Christal’s cottage for a couple of days and then the last weekend the plan is to go to Ottawa. I’ve never been and I think I should probably see our capital at some point.
After the vacation is done it will be time for some internal searching to determine my next path. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know what I decide and it’ll most likely be in cryptic sentences.
Tags: cottage, ohio, ottawa, Toronto, Travel, vacation, Weather
The temperature this morning was 30 degrees at 8:30. My glasses fogged up when I went outside. I’m going to try and stay inside as much as possible today because I’m sure the heat and haze and humidity will be quite oppressive today. It’s looking like the temperature will break on Thursday with a nice cool front. Until then we suffer in silence.
Recent Comments