Over the course of the week I've been moving all my data and other odds and ends off my old Windows PC and onto a new Macbook Pro and for the most part it's as simple as you would expect. The only times when things get a little more tricky is when you are trying to move application data that maintains paths to files on the system, such as Lightroom and iTunes do. Luckily in the case of Lightroom the move was fairly simple.

Note: Adobe says that the official way to move files from one computer to another is to use the export catalog feature, move the catalog over, then import. Well, that's nice, but 20K raw photos would take forever to export and I didn't want to mess with that if I could avoid it.

So, plan B was to simply move everything over to the Mac, open up Lightroom, and hope for the best. Here's what I did ...

1. Make sure that you have the same exact Lightroom version on both computers as there can be differences in the catalog between versions. I did this using 1.4.1.

2. Copy all your Lightroom data from Windows onto your Mac either via an external drive or if you want you can just do it over the network. In specific, you need to copy the Lightroom directory under your "My Pictures" folder which holds your catalog file, preview files, etc, plus you need your original image files. Hopefully you don't have your original photo files spread out all over the place because if you do then this will be more of a pain, so you might want to fix that first.

3. Simply remove the Lightroom folder on your Mac (assuming it's empty) and replace it with the one from you Windows PC. Since Lightroom uses the same exact catalog format on both OS' it won't have any problems reading the catalog off your Windows PC.

4. Now open up Lightroom on your Mac and you should see all of your images (with previews), your collections, metadata, etc. In the Library view you should see all the folders in the Folders dialog marked in red, which indicates that Lightroom can't find where those folders are on the system.

5. For each folder in the Folders dialog just right click and select "locate missing folder", then use the file navigator to point to wherever you copied that folder to on your Mac. Lightroom should then go through all the files that were in that folder and check that they are there. Once it's done that folder should be back to working as usual. Just repeat this for all your folders and you're done.

This process worked out great for me and it only took a few minutes to fix up Lightroom after I had copied everything over to my Mac. One thing that definitely helped the situation is that I had been letting Lightroom manage all my original photos and it was storing them in simple date based folders where the top level folder was the year the photo was taken. So I only had 4 folders for 2005-2008 which needed to be updated with their new location. If you use tons of different folders then this part would take you a bit longer.

My Ferrari 3400 has aged pretty badly and now that the defacto laptop option in our team has become MacBooks it is finally time to give in and be assimilated. So here's some impressions after my first day on a Mac. Note that Windows holds no dear place in my heart and I have actually wanted to rid myself of it for quite some time. My main computing goals outside of work are stability and simplicity.

• So far the change in keyboard is probably the most annoying difference. I'm sure it's just a matter of learning the differences, but nonetheless it can be frustrating. Things I'm not particularly fond of on the Mac are the loss of having both a backspace and delete key, and the addition extra command key. That and the fact that the control key is in a different position. blarg.
• The touchpad is sweet. I still need to get a bluetooth mouse 'cuz it's just faster and more useful, but the touchpad is silky smooth. It took me 'til this afternoon to figure out you can scroll by using 2 fingers. super sweet. I do still long for the right click, but it's not a big deal.
• The overall look is just much more comfy than Windows. You can tell Apple goes the extra mile to apply little details that make your desktop look and feel nicer. Shadows between overlapping windows, lots of little animations, things bouncing in the dock. I'm sure you can do all that in Windows, but on a Mac they are default.
• I wasn't impressed with my first attempt to install an app though. I went to download and install Firefox and since I didn't know anything about .dmg files it was a little confusing. I actually ran the app out of the mounted .dmg at first because I hadn't realized you need to copy things into the "Applications" folder to install it. Once you sort that out it's fairly straight forward, but as a total newb it was not apparent to me at all.

Most of the rest has been more or less equivalent to the Windows experience IMO. The "System Preferences" on a Mac does seem much better organized and easier to modify than the Windows "Control Panel". I actually learned a number of things just be fidgeting around in there a bit.

Now the one thing I want more than anything is the ability to paste-selection using a mouse center click. I sure hope that's possible on a Mac. That's probably the only thing I have felt my Solaris desktop at work does so much better than Windows. Oh, that and the ability to have a window roll up on a double click rather than minimize. Those two features are gold.

Supposedly the U.S. government felt that it would be saving folks some energy costs by extending daylight savings by an extra month, but reports of that actually happening have been inconclusive. What it definitely has not done, at least in my case, is made me more productive because just when sunrise and morning light were hitting that perfect time of 6:30am here in the bay area, DST kicked in and it's now still dark out well past 7am. What's up with that?

I am generally a morning person, but there is one thing that I cannot handle and that is getting up when it's still dark out. Won't do it, no way, no how. Not unless I am forced. So thanks to the new DST policy my work schedule is out of wack and on days where I do have to get up early I am grumpy.

So thanks for nothing you lame-o U.S. government peoples. You've ruined daylight savings for me and I'll likely never forgive you.

P.S. i didn't even mention how messed up by cell phone is with the new DST times. all of my calendar appointments are off by an hour. again, productivity down the tubes thanks to DST.

This is probably true in other states as well, but I was recently surprised to find out that voters who are registered as "independent" in California have an opportunity to vote in the Democrat Party primary if they wish. Simply ask for the ballot when you get to your polling station and that's it.

So if you're a registered independent and feel like you would like to take part in the Obama vs. Clinton showdown, then do it! I know I am.

personA: "I don't like the word 'hike', it just doesn't sound like a fun thing ..."

personB: "Well, then throw in a power bar and call it a picnic."

=)

It's not too often that I consider it a bummer to be living here in California, but unfortunately today is one of those days. There is a total lunar eclipse happening today and basically the western U.S. and eastern Australia are the only places where you won't really be able to see it. Bummer, because this could have been a good photography option.

This diagram says it all ...

Over the past couple of years I've gone through a number of feed readers, each one improving over the last and the lastest in that line is Google Reader. I switched to Google Reader a few days ago after deciding that Newshutch just wasn't cutting it anymore.

Now I'm not what I would consider an avid feed reader or data junky, but I do have a modest and growing list of feeds that I keep up with and of course you need to have a decent tool to do that. When I first started reading feeds I was using desktop tools because I didn't think the online offerings were all that impressive. I used Thunderbird for a little while but found the experience uninspiring. RSSOwl got a bit of usage time but I never really felt comfortable with it. BlogBridge was pretty nice and I used it for a while but I never felt that their feed list synchronization stuff worked properly and ultimately once there were better online readers I had to jump ship. Newshutch was the online reader I had been using up until now, but after a few days using Google Reader I am officially pulling the plug on Newshutch.

It's not that Google Reader is anything miraculous, but it's certainly a step up and fixes some of the very annoying behaviors of Newshutch that I can no longer stand. The big things that forced me off of Newshutch is that they had problems with updating the feeds regularly and that gets really annoying with feeds that change frequently, so that's the main reason they got dropped. The big wins for Google Reader over Newshutch are that they let you view a composite of all entries in a folder rather than forcing you to read one feed at a time, which was really lame. Google Reader also auto marks things as read while you scroll through them which is a nice little perk because I hated having to manually mark all the entries as read, and if you ever forget you end up re-reading things =(

Colts 23 - Bears 24

This was too funny not to pass on ... 8 important lessons learned from 80's cartoons

well, it's been confirmed, e3 is officially dead. at least the old e3 that we all know and love.

i'm not sure why this matters so much to me, since i don't actually go to e3, but the couple times that i did go it was like being a 5 year old in a candy store, or better yet, your first trip to Disneyland. e3 was one of the last great meccas of adult entertainment, and now all i can think of is the new generation of gamers who will never get to see it in all it's glory.

sad day. very sad.

So I'm at the dentist monday for a regular cleaning and as I'm sitting there letting the dentist poke, prod, gauge, and scrape i got to doing some thinking. The rest of the medical world seems to making advances through technology, but what about dentists? I'm sure they have fancy new ways of doing fillings or prettier ways of replacing teeth, but what about the basic stuff, what about simple cleanings?

Seems like you still go in and have someone grind away with a sharp, pointy metal object while you try not to cry. After about 15 minutes of this they give your teeth a quick polishing and you're done. Can't they come up with some kind of new sonic cleaning, laser plaque removal, deep gum massaging, etc, etc? Anything better than sharp metal objects scraping away at my teeth?

Maybe then people wouldn't mind going to the dentist?

Well, the sunny season has definitely started here in the Bay Area ... I can tell from the sun burn =(

And from the looks of things this weekend, I am not at all alone.

alright, alright, maybe i should find a little more time to some blogging because as they say ...

"the blogosphere waits for no man." --rr

truer words have never been spoken.

Just flipped on the tv and saw Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls playing on cartoon network.

You can't show live action movies on cartoon network. That's almost as bad as MTV! sheesh.

I think I leave horrible phone messages. You know, bad enough that I continue to cringe for the next 10 minutes as I replay what I said in my mind. Seems like a simple skill, but I'm pretty sure I suck at it.

Of course, the root of my problem is that I am not good with phones. This is actually something I have pondered a bit in the past and here's what I came up with. First off, when you can't see the person you are talking to you lose a huge portion of contextual information about the conversation. Everything becomes more ambiguous, and as i've said before, I am not a big fan of ambiguity in communication so I think I get discouraged. Then there's the fact that phone time is naturally more boring and distracting because you don't even get the best part of the conversation, watching for all the little quirks in people's faces as they laugh or smile or roll their eyes or whatever. Without the good stuff it's so easy to drift off and lose focus, which anyone who's been on the phone with me for more than three minutes would know. I am so bad sometimes that I will essentially forget that I am on the phone with someone while I am doing something on my computer, whoops =(

Now take my obvious phone talking deficiencies and then compound them with the fact that leaving a phone message is like talking to yourself. There isn't even anyone talking back to you so it's like giving a monologue, except that it's unscripted *and* recorded. sigh. I can't think of many things that are a greater recipe for disaster than that.

So, to anyone I happen to leave messages for, I appologize in advance.

Well, thanks to Rama's suggestion to check out the Ticket Assassin I managed to get my first ticket dismissed. Wahoo! Once again my record is clean =D

Thanks ticket assassin!

I don't play a whole lot of poker, but over the past year I've started to play a bit here and there with friends. I always thought that poker was a pretty fun game, but I wasn't hooked until I started playing no-limit hold'em. After watching parts of the 2004 World Series of Poker on tv I started to realize how complex and interesting poker can be, so recently I decided to work on my game and order a few books.

The first couple books I got were David Sklansky's "The Theory of Poker" and Mike Caro's "Book of Poker Tells". As each book arrived I dug in immediately, but about a quarter of the way through each book I could tell I wasn't ready for these books. Caro's book is obviously for people who know how to play poker and are looking to improve their ability to spot tells, and I'm not there yet. Sklansky's book is more along the right lines, but it's not hold'em specific, and so much of it is theory that I got the feeling the info wasn't going to sink in until I had a little more experience. So I decided to try some other books.

I bought both of Dan Harrington's books on "Hold'em: Expert Strategy for no-limit tournaments". Jackpot. I tore into the first book getting about a third of the way through in only a couple days. This book is perfect for anyone starting out in no-limit hold'em. Harrington breaks down the theories in easy to manage chunks, focusing on just the most important elements like playing strategies, calculating odds, betting patterns, and some basic reads on the table. He walks you through scenerios making sure you are thinking about the right things along the way. Best of all, each chapter wraps up with a set of problems which are brilliant. As you get further along in the book the problems become the bulk of the material, and rightly so because they offer enormous amounts of information about how to think about all the steps that happen in the course of a single hand.

Over the weekend I got my first chance to test my new found knowledge and it worked wonders. I could have just been getting lucky, but finishing first, then second in our two tournaments is about all I could ask for. I might have even won the second tournament if I had been willing to be a bit more patient, but it was 3:30 in the morning and I decided to push, which was bad because my opponent ended up getting monster hands in heads up play. KK and 33 (then flopping a set) in the span of about 4 hands. how?

I've only read through Harrington's first book and I am eagerly awaiting my chance to dive into the second book, but consider this a strong recommendation.

See, this is what I was alluding to when I was dismissing the video ipod. As read on slashdot, Tv on Mobiles? Not there Yet? I think it's quite obvious that the market for portable video is vastly different than the market for portable audio. The fact is that a relatively small number of people have a desire for portable video, and that's why just slapping some video playback on an ipod is not going to drive the sales of ipods.

Highly Recommended Reading. This is a great book for anyone interested in understanding more about the history of societies and more specifically, how humans evolved from hunter/gatherer societies into the modern domestic societies which cover pretty much the entire planet today. My dad originally turned me onto this one and it had been in the book queue for about a year until I got hooked on audiobooks and finally got through it.

It's a pretty intense read, so be prepared. I ended up with the abridged audiobook form and I loved it. It only took me a few days to get through the whole thing (6 hours) and I believe it was far easier to listen to than it would have been to read. The book is chalked full of history explaining the evolution of humans around the planet, how humans expanded to different continents, and ultimately why some societies became the most dominant on earth. All fascinating stuff.

In addition to Guns, Germs, and Steel I would also recommend The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, the two books actually complement each other very well. The Tipping Point does't really focus on history or societies, but it does explore and breakdown those exact times in history when things seemingly start to "tip" and result is massive change. I'm sure that Jared Diamond would agree that there were "tipping points" in the history which affected the evolution of societies.

I was just reading this article in The Independent and it got me to thinking about the state of modern ethics. What happened? When did ethics become just a conept rather than an actual principle to live by?

The whole fiasco behind what is called the "Palmgate" incident reaks of unethical behavior. I don't consider myself a saint, but the idea that someone forged documents which stated that the Iraqis were trying to buy Uranium for building nuclear weapons is insane. The article claims that it was these documents that were picked up by Italian intelligence and contributed to the misconception that Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction. That's not just being unethical that's being evil.

How do you cope with that? I don't think everyone has to be perfect, if nothing else that would just be boring, but it seems like everywhere we look now people just keep getting worse and worse. It's depressing. How about this for a troubling question, is the problem that we just aren't choosing ethical leaders anymore? or is the problem that ethics and politics are mutually exclusive?

I don't know why I didn't catch on to this before, but I am completely addicted to audiobooks right now. It makes reading so much easier and more enjoyable.

I usually don't do nearly as much reading as I would like because I don't have a whole lot of time, I am not a fast reader so it takes me a while to get through a book, and what time I have I like to spread among different activities. The result is that it often takes a month or two just to get through a single book. With audiobooks that has changed completely.

With audiobooks, not only is reading much easier because you don't have to sit and stare at a book to read it, but it's so much faster as well. Depending on the size of the book you are typically talking about 5-10 hours. For me, that goes by very quickly, especially considering that I can now use my work commute time (when I'm driving) to be listening to audiobooks. That means I can comfortably get through a book in a week, usually with time to spare.

I am also astonished at the selection. There hasn't been a single book that I haven't been able to find on audible.com, iTunes, or elsewhere. You can buy them and download them instantly, so it only takes about 10 minutes time between thinking of a book you want and actually having it on your iPod ready to go. Can't beat that.

So if you have and ipod or other portable audio player and haven't tried audiobooks I definitely recommend giving them a shot.

Yesterday I got into a little bit of a debate with my roommate about some of the propositions in the upcoming California special election. We went back and forth on some things and ultimately I realized that I still needed to gather some more info about some of the propostions so I did a little reading up today. After reading up a bit on proposition 75, which will require some unions to get permission from their members before being allowed to spend union money on politics, I realized that this seems like something that the unions should be voting on, not me.

Why should I be making decisions that affect how unions spend their money when I've never been in a union and probably never will be? I feel like this happens reasonably often, where I as a voter am asked to vote on something that has very little implication to me. Doesn't it make a little more sense if just the union workers were to vote on things like this? If a majority of the workers in the affected unions support this proposition then why shouldn't it pass?

This is something I often find disturbing about politics. It seems to me that in many cases voters are making decisions which don't apply to them directly. So I guess I don't really like the idea that voters are passing judgements on things that they don't really need to have a hand in.

One of the coolest things about having a trainer has been actually keeping track of my progress through regular tests. Yesterday I had my third test since starting up with my trainer after surgery and some of the changes are pretty interesting.

In the past 3 months I've gained 8 lbs yet lowered my blood pressure and % body fat. +1.25 inches of girth in shoulders, chest, and thighs, with smaller increases to girth in pretty much all other measurements. I managed 55 push-ups in a row, which is not bad, but more impressive is 40 inclined sit-ups in 60 seconds.

Looking back to 6 months ago the changes are even more crazy, and I even started in pretty decent shape and was mostly focused on injury rehab this whole time. I guess that goes to show you the value of a personal trainer.

For those who might be interested, here's where I train ...

Devine Design Body Sculpting
3199 S Bascom Ave
Campbell, CA 95008-6728
(408) 371-5313

This past tuesday my roommate invited me out to the Elbo Room to see "a brazilian group". I didn't know anything about the group or the music, but I was down to go out that night anways and I'm glad I did!

These guys are amazing. Anyone who's interested can check out their website and keep a watch out for live performances. I still have some of the songs playing in my head :)

I haven't talked about my knee progress in quite a while.

It's now about 9 months since the surgery and a couple weeks ago I started my new lifting cycle, the squat cycle. 145 lbs x 10. whoot! actually, 145 x 10 isn't all that impressive considering that a reasonably strong person should be able to do their body weight x 10, but I'm pretty happy about it anyways. This squat cycle is basically the last step before I am all set to return to full activities and *finally* get back on the soccer field. can't wait.

Pretty impressive when you sit back and think about it. Less than 9 months after having my knee sliced open and having one of my ligaments completely removed and replaced and I can already pack 150 lbs on my back and do some squats.

Gotta love it ... all you can eat pizza mondays!

There's just nothing better than sitting down with a pitcher of cold beer and all you can eat pizza after a tough monday at work. If you're in the neighborhood then you can enjoy this too, just head on over to Goat Hill Pizza at 300 Connecticut St, San Francisco 94107 (Portrero Hill). Lines are long on Monday nights, so prepare for a little wait.

It's always good to see soccer getting a little spotlight here in the US. Today the MLS all star game is being broadcast live on ABC, which is a good sign that network television is at least interested in the possibility of making soccer a primetime sport.

Up 'til now one of the biggest reasons network stations have steered away from soccer, aside from its limited popularity, is the fact that soccer is a continuous game which does not provide stop time for commercials. ABC has actually done a pretty good job of solving this problem with what they are calling "side by side". Basically, every once in a while they will split the screen and show a single commercial while still showing a small screen with the game on it. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

We still have a ways to go to get the quality of the games/league up with the rest of the world, but I think we're well on our way.

Well, that's twice in about 10 months now. This time the thieves were a little bit nicer and only broke the small thin window by the rear passenger seat, then just unlocked the door. how nice of them!

I actually smirked for a couple seconds when I got to my car this morning and realized what had happened because this time I was not so stupid and I had taken my stereo faceplate with me so the bitches didn't get my stereo. Unfortunately they were probably a little upset about that so they took my vizor full of cds instead :(

I still got the last laugh though (well sorta) because I actually had a full cd case hidden underneath the back seat which the thieves missed. haha punks, shoulda looked harder :p Also strange was the fact that they pulled my sunglasses case out of the compartment under the armrest but just left it on the front seat. Those babies cost over $200.

I think my new policy is to burn copies of all of my original cds and only keep copies in my car. All in all I am pretty fucking pissed that they got my Mushroom Jazz 5 cd ... I love that thing.

Maybe for next time I should setup some booby traps ... hmmm.

San Francisco has a reputation of being *the* city of fog and before I moved up to SF from the south bay I was actually a little worried that all the tales were going to be true and that I would be living in darkness for months at a time. Well, things couldn't be farther from the truth.

In fact, today was the first day since I've lived in SF that it's been foggy in my neighborhood when I came home from work. Granted, I supposedly live in the area of SF with the best weather, but still, that's pretty good. Pretty much every day it's the same, I come into the city from the south and as I pass through South SF and Daly City it's completely fogged in and things look bleek, but normally as I come into the mission things clear up again and it's crystal clear skies.

Anyways, this isn't really all that exciting, but I wanted to try and dispell some of the rumors that the entire city of San Francisco is just engulfed in fog year round. Some parts of the city probably come close, but others, like the Mission have great weather :)

I'm sad. I recently got my very first traffic ticket which breaks my almost 8 year shutout :(

It was a stupid ticket, but then again I bet most tickets are stupid. I was going 50 in a 35 and it was definitely valid, but the lame part is that the zone I was in probably shouldn't be a 35 because nobody goes that slow. I was the unlucky one that day though.

Bah ... now I have to go to traffic school too.

Wahoo! Verizon finally fixed whatever bug was causing problems when making online bill payments from non-IE browsers. I've been trying every damn month for almost a year now and they finally fixed it ... yay! Good work Verizon, now I won't have to switch my service again when my contract is up.

The Tour deserves it's very own category, after all it's basically my special month long religion :)

Go Rasmussen! His win on Sunday was just amazing, and now after hanging in there today I've got to say he's my favorite rider right now and I hope he gives Lance a serious run.

I think I'm getting bitter towards Lance actually :/ He's totally amazing, but I like to see a good competition even if it means Lance loosing. It's never fun to watch if it's one-sided right?

So, Go Rasmussen! Go Basso! Go Ullirch! Go Vino! Go anybody but Lance! Just make it a good race dammit!

I usually forget to post about cool places I find in SF, but this one was easy to remember. I tried this place based on a recommendation from my stylist and it turned out to be fantastic. Like trying different foods? Ever had Burmese food? Well now's your chance. Burma Superstar is located at 309 Clement in the Inner Richmond area and you are almost certain to discover a new culinary treasure on your first visit. It has a nice cozy little atmosphere perfect for sharing a good meal with friends, family, loved ones, etc. Lines can be long though, so prepare to spend a little time waiting if you go at prime time.

Anyone else tried it? I think it's horrible, but then again I never drink soda so that could be part of the problem. I'm not sure I can finsh the 20oz bottle i have in front of me now :/

Too bad ... it does sound good though ...

bwahahahah. friday funnies. this email was sent to a friend of mine today ...

!! ------

You must be ...

The cutest girl in the world. I saw you at lunch today and I kind of started crushing on you. I was the guy in the red shirt at the table next to yours about 20 minutes ago. Anyway, you seem to be uber sweet and are definitely uber beautiful. I thought I'd better email you, cuz I probablly wouldn't ever see you again if I didn't try to contact you. If you think I'm cute and want to be my pen pal, then just reply to this message. I promise I'm not a stalker and this will be the last time you ever hear from me if you don't reply.

Bests,

-Hopelessly Romantic

It's true. I dunno why, but I suck at mail. Not email, but the old school style snail mail. For some reason I am always about 3 weeks behind in my mail because I get it and either drop it on my desk at home or throw it in my bag and forget about it. Then with outgoing mail I always carry it around with me for about 3 days before it finally ends up in the mailbox. sigh.

The funny thing is that I am quite good with email, check it all the time, quick and easy. All I can say is ... thank god for paying bills online 'cuz otherwise I'd have serious credit problems :/

What would be awesome is a postal service that collects all your snail mail and converts it to email for you ... that would rock. When are they gunna come out with that?

What a pimped out idea ... let people style their own equipment and order it online. I just ordered some pretty dope looking FC Futbol iD shoes ... schweet!

check it out ... NIKE iD

Now who says advertising doesn't work? I actually just followed the ad link to this off of Gizmodo. boing!

Okay, this place is not to be missed. It's a reasonably small and trendy little joint basically at the corner of 19th and Valencia that serves up dazzling Thai food. The interior is very sheik with a very modern feng shui kinda vibe. The food is beautifully presented, priced reasonably, and totally delicious.

If you're looking for a good SF restaurant to try I would definitely recommend it. Be careful of primetime fridays and saturdays as you will likely have to wait a good hour :/

Man ... there just isn't anything like it. A couple sausage mcmuffins w/ egg, a few hash browns, and just sit back and enjoy the ride. Sure, I may have just lost 3 weeks off of my life expectancy, but it was worth it!

Ah ... what a fine thursday morning it is :)

What is it with American drivers and the middle lane? It's as if people think there is something wrong with the right hand lane, like it's only for tractors and slow trucks.

Every single time I am driving on the freeway, and especially when it's not too crowded, everyone piles up on the 2 left most lanes and leaves the *slow* lanes empty. I know you've noticed it too, those slow ass old folks who get in the second lane from the left and go 60 mph while getting passed on both sides. why? why must they do that?

I guess in Europe you can get a ticket for blocking traffic and not moving over. We should do that here in the US as well.

silly Americans.

I hate blogging about how I haven't been blogging, so lame. Oh well though, for some reason it feels compulsory in a situation like this where I have obviously been neglecting my blog :(

I would give a lengthy explanation for my absense but I don't really want to defend myself right now. The short version is that I have been busy, and not so busy that I couldn't post, but mainly so busy that I haven't been putting any thought into what I want to post.

After a bit of blog neglect I always seem to end up coming full circle and reflecting a little bit on what I like about blogging. The best thing about blogging, IMHO, is that it's so easy. Sharing information has never been an easy thing, but blogging takes a big step in the right direction. The web has always been the perfect place to share things, but up until blogging it still required a certain amount of expertise to setup a web server and then be able to author content. Now both of those things have become trivial, and hence you get an easy way for *anyone* to have a website for sharing whatever they like.

I also love the journal type format of blogs. There is just something so intimate about reading someone elses journal and I think that really adds to the appeal of blogging.

Then of course there is the freedom and anonymity (If you want) to write about anything you choose. It's always interesting to discover what things people are willing to share when they can do so anonymously.

You just can't fight it ... blogging rocks!

I don't really consider myself an anal consumer and usually i am willing to put up with some shit because a company is doing a pretty good job, but this one I just can't forgive.

All I want to be able to do is pay my bill online. You know, enter a credit card number and amount, click submit, done. But no, some group of meatheads over at Verizon think it is okay to say "we don't support Mozilla", uh wtf!?

This is one of those situations where if I actually did come face to face with the person who is accountable, I would kick 'em in the nuts as hard as I could and not even feel bad about it.

I hate idiots.

Originally uploaded by geezer87.

too funny not to pass on.

I could pracically rename this blog "Rigor Mortis" :(

Well, the fact is that I have been incredibly busy both at work and at outside. I was already reasonably busy working on opensolaris, and now I am set to contribute some time to the development of roller which is used by blogs.sun.com. Lately I have had enough to do that I will often forget to even check my personal email during the day ... sheesh.

On top of the chaos at work I am still juggling therapy sessions for my knee, figure drawing at ccsf, and of course there is The Madness, which brought me to Las Vegas last weekend for some fun.

I'll try and keep a more steady pace moving forward though.

-- AG

We all know we say it ... "There just isn't enough time in the day", "If only the days were longer", and "I need more time!" Even though your boss and employer really don't want you thinking about it, you must wonder from time to time if the 40 hour work week is a little too much?

If you do a little math and consider just the parts of your day that you contribute to essential living activities, like sleeping, eating, working, etc, then I figure my typical day constitutes nearly 20 hours. Now about 2 of those hours are commute time which sucks, but not at all uncommon. The days of the 10 minute commute are gone, at least most likely if you live here in the Bay Area.

So 20 out of 24 hours assuming I get a full nights sleep (8 hours) and spend some time on the basics, showering, eating a few meals a day, and of course my 8 hours of work. That's 83% of my time each day, gone.

We all know that those numbers get fudged here and there so we can try and make more time for ourselves. We either sleep less, eat fast food, or even telecommute nowadays. But the question still remains, in a society where a lot of people believe family time is losing to work time, are we really being overworked? I mean, who was it that decided that it should cost you 40 hours a week to earn your lifestyle, why not 30? Would a 6 hour work day provide society as a whole a better opportunity to reestablish a good family life?

well, i figured it would happen, just not this soon. over the weekend my car was broken into and my stereo was jacked.

it would have been truly classic to see a video of my reaction as i opened my door and climbed in to see the face of my dashboard flapping open in front of me. I remember thinking ... "hmm, that wasn't like that when i left." Then about 3 seconds later i noticed the stiff breeze that seemed to be coming from inside of my car and looked over my shoulder to see a nice back seat full of glass. At that point it clicked and the whole suprise element really set in ... "wow, i've been fucking robbed."

The next step was to survey the situation and try and remember if i had left anything valuable in my car, most notably my cds ... *fear*. Luckily I had been smart enough to keep those with me at all times and never leave them in the car, especially over a weekend, so my cd case was safe. I almost never leave anything of value in my car, but I kept looking around just in case. I remember a sudden fear when I realized the glove compartment had been opened and emptied. I immediately thought that for some reason the person had grabbed my car insurance and registration info, but again I was lucky and the glove compartment had simply been emptied onto the floor. As I finished assesing the damage I was suprised to find that the person had in fact left everything in the car except for the stereo ... they didn't even take the cds sitting in the visor above my car.

At the end of it all I just ended up with a broken window and stolen stereo, which in truth I had thought about replacing a few times over the last year anyways. Above all it was more of a rude awakening about the realities of living in a big city. Once I replace my stereo I am sure i'll be *much* better about taking the face plate with me when I go.

Now the question is what new car stereo should I get? :)

This item at slashdot peaked my interest. It says "[The UK] leads the world in TV piracy, accounting for 38.4% of the world's TV downloads, with Australia coming in second at 15.6% and the US in third at a pitiful 7.3%"

Here's some other stats:
UK population - 59 million
Australia population - 20 million
US population - 295 million
California - 35 million

What is interesting to me is that the UK and Australia, which have small populations when compared to the rest of the world, are the biggest pirates. Why? Why aren't americans higher on the list? Is it because the average american really does respect copyright laws? or because the average american doesn't have the technical skills to find, download, and watch this stuff?

I imagine that all the english speaking countries are at the top because most of the entertainment industry is english based, so there is a bigger market for it. A guess as to why the US isn't at the top could be because americans have easy access to all the latest entertainment in legitimate form, while the UK and Australia may have to wait 6 months to a year before getting the latest season of certain shows. Maybe they are just impatient?

You do have to admit that it is strange that over half of the tv piracy in the world is dominated by a population less than a third the size of the US. And where is China? we know those guys like to pirate right?

As mentioned in a Slashdot article this morning, the record industry is now trying to predict hit songs using software.

I think this is the ultimate example of why *pop*ular music is such junk these days. To think that you need a computer to tell you when a song is good or not is so totally ridiculous it's hilarious.

It's almost as if they shouldn't actually call it music anymore because it's only purpose nowadays is entertainment (read $$$). Anyone who thinks that Britney Spears (or any other pop icon example you prefer) is a musician is an idiot, she is an entertainer, and a good one i'll admit, but she is no musician.

Ick. Had a bit of the flu this weekend and it was not fun. The thing I hate so much about the flu is that when I get it I always get really sore all over my back and neck and it's just so damn uncomfortable. bleh. I'm glad it's over now, but I still have a lingering cough to deal with :(

It's 3 days later now and I am still feeling the vibe, that's how intense it was. 4 days of pure art frenzy ... learning, sharing, enjoying ... ahhh.

I'm not sure why, but I somehow didn't expect nearly as much from this workshop and even after the first day I was totally blown away at the level of creativity that was all around me. The whole event was too great to put in to words and I can't wait 'til the next one. In the meantime I gotta hit the books (sketchbooks that is) and work on seriously improving my skills.

As soon as I get my scanner back I'll make my sketchbook available online.

Oh, and if you are ever in the mood for some good artwork ... check out conceptart.org

You would not immediately think this is possible, but I have found out the hard way that it is true. I suppose that "over massage" may not be the best way to explain my experience, but oh well. The fact is that last wednesday after physical therapy i had a massage, and since it had been a month since my surgery and i was feeling good i asked the masseur to go a little harder. Well, maybe that wasn't a good idea. I felt normal on wednesday after the massage, so no big deal right?

Well, as thursday and friday passed I started to notice my knee feeling a little weird. Nothing painful, just a hint of laxity which gave enough of an unstable feeling to make me a little worried. I also noticed a slight throbbing or pulsing sensation mostly on the outside part of my knee. By saturday and sunday I was really worried that things didn't feel like they were getting better, and still come monday morning I was sure I would get to physical therapy and find out that I had somehow inadvertantly torn my replacement ACL.

I described this to the physical therapist as she examined my knee and I was figuring the worst. Luckily she told me that nothing was wrong with my knee and that it wasn't anything to worry about. After making it through the whole work out (some parts a little more shaky then they had been before) she told me that it was most likely that after the massage my muscles had relaxed a little too much. Combined with some decrease in swelling over the weekend and my still current lack of strength, the instability was simply a result of a sudden lack of tension (nothing too severe, just enough to make a difference).

So the moral is ... don't over massage when you've just had surgery and you aren't strong enough to make up for large decreases in tension.

There's a bunch more inside the printable pdf doc. sooooo funny.

So I've been MIA the past week due to my knee surgery. I still can't believe that I needed a major surgery. I consider myself a fairly healthy and cautious person, so surgery was something I never considered likely for me, but so much for that.

Anyways ... the surgery went great. I was only in there for about an hour and as it turns out my ACL was totally ripped up and I also had 2 matching meniscal tears to go with it. Now, not even 1 week afterwards, I am already moving around pretty well in my knee brace, and the swelling is well on it's way down. I still can't bend my knee past about 90 degrees, but the p.t. guy said that is mainly due to the swelling, and as that gets worked out the range can be increased.

Here's a photo of my knee from the day afterwards when I had a checkup with the doc. Sorry for the crap quality ... had to use a camera phone since I forgot to bring my camera with me.

I have more, including some before surgery pics, and a variety of afters, but i haven't had a chance to unload my camera yet.

This whole surgery thing is certainly a trying process, can't wait 'til it's over ... months from now :|

*sigh* ... this will certainly be worse than allowing people to choose their own colors in AIM. It looks like Verizon, and others, are starting to offer ringback tones which will allow people to choose what a caller hears when their number is dialed. i.e. you can force people to listen to old Depeche Mode songs every time they call you ... hmmm.

For now it seems that it's only available in a couple California locations, but will be widely available some time next year and costs $1 per month to use + the cost of the ringback tone.

This is one of those features that borders on intrusive/annoying if you ask me. I think it will be fun to see what people choose as their ringback tone, but at the same time I doubt i'll really want to hear it every time I call them. I suppose I'd go for it if I can find a decent tune not from Britney Spears or one of her lame-o-pop cohorts. we'll see.

If you buy dvds then you should know about this. Deep Discount Dvd is having a huge 20% off sale for thanksgiving. Coupon = "DVDTalk".

And if somehow you didn't already know ... Deep Discount is the very best place to find your dvds for cheap, sale prices aside. So pony up and buy some dvds, I know I am.

NOTE: sale ends 11/20, so don't wait too long.

Caught word of this little event via The Drawing Board. A really great idea to get out and draw for a day. Idea and image courtasy of Enrico Casarosa ... so join the fun and spread the word.

Well, the election is over and Bush has won, *sigh*

I usually don't bring up politics too often for two reasons. First off, political discussions can quickly make friends into enemies when you hit a touchy subject, and secondly because very rarely do I find that a political discussions leads anywhere. They seem to be like philosophy discussions to me, they just go in circles and at the end of it you are just tired and angry.

However, on such a day one must vent at least a little bit. So my question is why? Why are people supporting a man like George W. Bush?

From polls, the two biggest issues surrounding this election were "the war in Iraq" and "Terrorism", and I beg someone to prove to me that Bush is the man to lead the U.S. on both of these fronts. We *know* that while he has a cavalier attitude toward attacking terrorists that he still can't tell which terrorists are the right ones to attack. No weapons in Iraq, no connection to Al Qaeda, and yet we still attacked the Iraqis while leaving Osama bin Laden running around free. And while I will admit that progress has been made in Iraq, at what cost did it come? We *know* that Bush has not managed the Iraq war as effectively as he said he would and I see no reason to suggest that the situation will improve. Colin Powell, arguably the most intelligent person in the Bush cabinet, never supported the war in Iraq and is now expected to leave his position. *sigh*

Now to prove that I am not totally biased against Bush I will concede that if economics is your big issue then Bush (I really mean republicans) are my preference as well. I am a strong stupporter of a free and open economy which favors buisness, and so even though it's painful to say, I do think Bush will provide a better economy for the U.S.

However, I believe that all three of the topics mentioned above are insignificant when compared to the ramifications this election will have on our international reputation and domestic social and environmental issues. Those two topics decided my vote and I don't see how anyone could ever support Bush as the right person to make decisions on these topics. He has proven that the environment is not a pressing issue for him and so basically what we have is another four year delay on important environmental issues. Don't get me started on gay marriage and abortion. And then the biggest disaster of all is our foreign policy. The sad fact is that most Americans have never been outside our country and therefore don't realize how much the rest of the world loathes George W. Bush.

I feel like I'm at the beginning of a four year prison term. Ughh.

Here's an email I just wrote to Kinkysweet records ...

I'm so pissed off right now I don't even know where to begin. I just happend to buy a couple cds that came from kinkysweet records and I am appalled at the DRM you have embedded in these cds. I really don't understand why you would try and make things harder on the people who actually buy your cds.

I buy music every week and all i want to do is take the new cds that i purchased in full and rip them to mp3s for use on my portable music players, but you guys have to make that impossible. well fuck you guys. i refuse to have you decide how i will use the music i purchase.

first off, you will never stop music pirates with DRM ... ever. second, what good is DRM if it drives away your valid customers? gawd ... get a clue.

sincerely,
Allen Gilliland a.k.a someone who will never buy from Kinkysweet ever again.

well, let's hope that 3 is my lucky number, cuz saturday was the 3rd time that I injured/re-injured my knee and right about now it looks like a big ugly water balloon. It really sucked because in the back of my mind I knew that my knee wasn't fully recovered and ready to play, but at the time the team was short on players and I had made the trip all the way to Munich in order to play, so I was going to give it a shot. 10 minutes in ... ughh.

it's sad irony how we often put ourselves in situations where we just could not make the decision we know we ought to make. oh well, that's just being human i guess.

as for me ... at least 4 more months on the bench. sigh.

16th @ Valencia

Pakistani food; fast and cheap. This is a really great bang for the buck place which serves up good quality food for a few bucks. We had plenty of food for 4 people and spent only $37. Add to that a nice 22oz beer from the corner market (they don't sell any alcohol) and you've got a great meal.

I pickup up a wireless ethernet bridge today figuring that I would use it to eventually connect to the wireless network we'll setup at home, and when I started it up to just see what it could do I was startled to find 5 networks already prime for me to access.

So I jumped on one and here I am. Sigh. I am glad for the free connect, but i fear the number of unregulated networks that must be out there waiting to be abused.

I think the fact that I've started riding the train frequently has somehow lowered my car karma. I was down in SJ on Tuesday going to a movie with some friends and after the movie I get in my car to leave and it won't start. Luckily it was easy to just go to my parents house for the night and borrow a car from them for the next day while the car could be looked at.

The good karma part is that it ended up just being some corrosion around the battery, something which i probably should have been able to notice and fix myself, but i suck with cars. The fact is that I've never ever had problems with the only car I've ever had, so there really hasn't been a reason/opportunity to learn anything. But this time I did learn about corrosion around a battery connector.

Tip:
If it looks like there is built up corrosion around one/both of your battery connectors then simply disconnect, clean it off, reconnect ... a soda like coca-cola works fine for breaking down some of the corrosion that is solid and won't come off.

something new every day :)

Last night I tried out this vegan/vegetarian restaurant at Valencia and 20th (i think) called "Herbivore". Now, I am always a little reluctant to eat at vegetarian resaurants because for some reason they just never seem to work for me. I love veg. food, but I find that full veg. restaurants always go off the deep end some how and can't deliver good meals.

Luckily "Herbivore" was pretty good and kept me interested enough to go back for another try. My meal wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. What I loved about the place was that you get a lovely, good-sized salad with your meal, and the portions are huge. i mean huge. i was in pain about halfway through, you know ... like when you start to slouch over your meal so you don't have to lift the food as far into your mouth, then you get *the extremely long chew* and each bite seems to go on forever. Anways, i got a heaping pile of brown rice w/ veggies and tofu that easily left me with enough for a second meal.

So, kewl place, good portions, but try something other than the Kung Pao.

Went to this great Vietnamese place called "Sunflower" right on the corner of 16th and Valencia. The food was excellent, especially the clay pot catfish which was some of the most juicy and tender fish I've ever had in my life. I didn't try the Pho this time around, but I'll definitely be back some time to try that out.

mmm. nothing beats the food in the city =)

So one of the things that was pretty exciting about moving to SF was the opportunity to take public transportation to/from work. I had done some research here and there, looked at time tables etc, and knew that taking caltrain/bart would get me to and from work, but i wasn't sure how long it would really take and if it would be worth it.

Wed night I took the Sun shuttle from work over to the train station, then caltrai