somuchtosay.net News Blog

two milestones

First, this is the last post of NaBloPoMo! I made it!

Second, this is the 100th post on this blog. Cool.

Aside from that, I'm glad it's almost the weekend. And right now, SQL is getting on my nerves.

pretty cool...

I came across a Slashdot article tonight about how Legos are made. I had a TON of Legos as a kid. I had a gas station, an airport, several planes, various cars, and a few of the space-themed kits.

As I was typing up this entry, I thought about all of those Lego sculptures that are posted all over the place. I thought I had bookmarked some of them, but I didn't. I think Eric Harshbarger's sculptures are probably the most well-known. Then I remembered some computer case mods made of Legos, like this one and this one. Cool stuff.

I may be going to Minnesota next year for a trip -- I think there's a LegoLand attraction in the Mall of America. If I'm right, that may be worth checking out...

(one more to go!)

checking the calendar...

It's Tuesday, November 28th. For about another 75 minutes, at least. A few thoughts on what this means:

-- After this post, only two more posts to make the NaBloPoMo complete! I admit, I haven't been the best blogger around. But I've managed to keep up the pace.

-- Only one more day of the November sweeps. Thank goodness. That should ease some pressure at work.

-- Unfortunately, that also means that a lot of primetime TV shows will dip into a brief hiatus until January or February. I know that next week's Heroes is the last one for a few weeks. Studio 60... probably the same thing. Lost has been off for a few weeks now. How I Met Your Mother... dunno what they'll be doing there. The good news is that it will give me a chance to finally start watching my West Wing season 7 DVDs. I've had them for three weeks now, and haven't watched a single episode -- that may be a record for me.

-- A big day of college football is coming up. Well, sort of. It's inconsequential for Miami once again. But I will be at the ACC Championship, because we already had tickets. And it should be a good game: Georgia Tech and Wake Forest have been solid teams this year. Wow, that sounds weird. Something is not right in the world.

movie references...

Two thoughts while watching Heroes tonight:

-- At one point, Hiro said "Great Scott!" If you have watched the show and know your movies, you'll understand this one.

-- I saw a commercial for gifts.com that included a Zoltar fortune teller machine: someone is trying to get advice for gift-giving. Zoltar was that thing involved in Big.

(Back to Studio 60.)

Day 26: quick hits, part 2

-- The TV spot for the new iPod shuffle is pretty cool. In case you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out: http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/ads/
I tried finding out more about how it was done, but have not yet had any success.

-- Bizarre day in the NFL. Jaguars lose on a last-second field goal. Giants lose on a last second field goal, to the Titans of all people. After having a 21-0 lead. Bears and Pats combine for nine turnovers.

-- On another NFL note, it seems there's a buzz about the NFL Network's "debut" last Thursday. I read one blurb that said their coverage was good, considering it's their first time out. Then another said that it left something to be desired, and that CBS and Fox don't have to worry about the NFL Network taking away more games. What seems to be an agreed-upon point is that nobody (comparatively) is seeing these NFL Network games, because of the cable carriage deals.

-- TV Week did an audio interview a while back with Doug Ellin, one of the executive producers of "Entourage." I stumbled upon it while looking for something else. Cool stuff. One warning: it's spoiler-y for the end of season 3. But if you haven't seen that episode by now, you probably aren't interested in listening to the interview.

-- Last night (around 1 AM) I looked at the upgrade process for Gallery. Then I realized it wasn't something I wanted to start at that point in the night. I may install it on my personal server, then do the "real" upgrade/install. This agrees with the advice Dawn gave me in a comment to a previous post. (Thanks, Dawn!)

that's one way to pay for a new computer...

... sell ad space.

It seems Leah Culver made a decent pitch for it, and managed to raise the cash. And it definitely makes the laptop stand out. And it doesn't really look ugly or anything. Helps that it's a Mac :)

(via a tangentially-related Slashdot article.)

day 24

I'm this far along with NaBloPoMo, not gonna let it slip by now...

Some quick hits:

-- Larry Coker is officially fired as the head coach of the UM football team. Not exactly a surprise, since plenty of people have been expecting it for the past few months. He will coach the bowl game, if we get an invitation -- that largely rests on the outcome of tomorrow's VT-UVa game. And as far as the new coach... who knows.

-- I saw lines stretching all the way around a Best Buy shortly after midnight -- five hours until the store opened. Nuts. I know some people love it, but it's not for me. Three years ago, I went to a Circuit City on Black Friday (around 10 AM, after producing the morning show), and picked up a scanner at a good price, as well as some DVDs and CDs. Don't think I've been shopping on the day since.

-- I now have a new UM sweatshirt. Which is a good thing, because my current one is about 6 years old, and starting to shrink.

-- In the next few days, I may be upgrading the software that currently runs my photo gallery. Right now, I use Gallery v1.x. I'm thinking of giving 2.x a shot. It looks like it's a nice upgrade. There are reasons for the timing, but I'm not going to elaborate on them here at this point.

That's what's running around my mind at the moment (or at least a sample of it...).

classics...

Last night, I was listening to a tape of DMB's show from 11-17-94. I don't remember where it was. Maybe Colorado. Either that, or Virginia. Either way, the combination of a great setlist and great sound quality (soundboard!!) made for a great tape. I think there was a Seek Up opener -- good stuff. I grabbed it off dreamingtree.org -- I don't remember if it was one of the new-old shows, or if it was just a random upload. Regardless, it's a great tape, and worth a download :)

Turkey Day stats

Thanksgiving Day facts, courtesy of the Census Bureau

They're actually interesting. A sample:
Minnesota is expected to produce 45 million turkeys this year.
There are three places in the US with "Turkey" in their name: Turkey, TX (pop. 492), Turkey Creek, LA (pop. 357), and Turkey, NC (pop. 269).
3 million tons of corn will be produced and processed this year in the U.S. (Obviously, not all of it is eaten on Thanksgiving.)
The average American ate 13.4 pounds of turkey in 2004, and 4.7 pounds of sweet potatoes/potatos (mmmm). Again, not all at Thanksgiving, but you can imagine it accounts for a large part of it.

So, chew on that. Happy Thanksgiving.

don't try this at home...

YouTube - Rubens Tube physics experiment

Found this over on the Tapers Section boards. It's a "hot" way to visualize music.

keeping clean in Times Square

Charmin is putting toilets in Times Square. Welcome news to anyone going to NYC during the holiday season. Of course, the lid closes for good on these cans at 6 PM on December 31st. So the New Year's Eve revelers will be ... well ... out of luck.

this seems to be a Big Ten issue...

Once again, a Big Ten team wins a big game, and people set stuff on fire. This time it was OSU. But I've seen it happen at other schools: I think it happened in East Lansing a few years back (after a basketball game). And I'm pretty sure it's happened at OSU before. The funny part of this AP story about last night's incident is that the headline is "Columbus relatively calm after OSU win," despite the fact that there were dozens of fires and 40 arrests. Fires and arrests, and you call it calm... suuurre.

reading list

On the way home from today's UM-UVa watch party (let's not discuss the game), I stopped by the library and picked up a few books. Among the selections:
Creating an Empire: ESPN by Stuart Evey
The Making of the Super Bowl by Don Weiss with Chuck Day

Looking forward to reading them.

rumbles in the blogosphere

Jason Calacanis is leaving AOL. He's done a whole slew of high tech things -- apparently he was recently in charge of Netscape. I wouldn't have even noticed the story on Slashdot, if i didn't recognize the name from when I briefly met the guy at a broadcasting conference about 8 years ago (it was a session on the web):

this is pretty cool...

There's a site that shows NFL TV distribution maps. It's a good way to figure out what game you'll be seeing on Sunday. If you're in an NFL market, at least one of your games is set -- and another is potentially blocked, if they're playing at home. And if you're near an NFL market, and the team's on the road, you could be locked in to a game as well. I've seen these on the ABC/ESPN website, for college games. I've seen NFL distribution maps a few times (a long time ago...), but I think this is the first time I've seen them aggregated like this.
Cool stuff.
(via Maura)

edit: Just noticed the distribution of HD games among the networks. CBS has 3 this week. Fox has 6. Talk about a deployment of HD trucks...

MS Zune, take two...

This is kind of funny, on the heels of yesterday's post about the Zune's error screen. Now it's being reported that it's not compatible with Vista. Oops.

well, that's one way to do it.

I've seen this photo linked in several places as the result of an error with the new Microsoft Zune player. Some people believe it's a little, umm, racy. Check it out, draw your own conclusions. If it really is an error splash screen, well, that's an interesting easter egg...

scratch that off the list...

Looks like Butch Davis is headed to Chapel Hill. Most Miami fans will agree that there will be a coaching change made in Coral Gables... now the big question remains who will come in.

ugh.

So, not the greatest football weekend for me:

Saturday: Miami loses to Maryland 14-13. The good news is that Kirby Freeman did a great job as QB. Also a redeeming point to the day: FSU losing 30-0 to Wake Forest, for Bobby Bowden's first ever shutout loss at home.

Sunday: Jaguars lose 13-10 to the Texans. For the second time this season. Not good. If our defense hadn't been playing as well as it did, it would have been more of a lopsided loss. Very few good things to say about this game.

Not helping matters: One of my fantasy football teams is getting just pummeled. The other is holding on, and should win (despite some under-performing performances). But the first one is just getting clobbered. Ugh.

I'm a PC. I'm a Mac. (No, I'm not.)

Apparently Justin Long (of Dodgeball fame) is no longer a part of Apple's Mac/PC commercials. Slashdot is reporting it, as is Wired's Cult of Mac blog.

oops.

DMB recently released a "greatest hits" compilation, The Best of What's Around. An assortment of studio and live tracks. You could buy it through the Warehouse pre-order store, which would get you the "encore" CD, with even more live tracks. I managed to miss the pre-order deadline, partially because I kept putting it off.

Sunday, I saw that Best Buy would have the CD (minus the encore CD, of course) for 11.99. I decided I'd buy it there, and just deal with the fact that I missed the extra tracks. So I did. And it sounds pretty good.

Today I see an email from DMB saying that they are making the encore CD available for a limited time at a premium price... $10 in addition to the price of the CD, if you order through them. One, I already have the CD at this point. Two, paying $10 for something that was free last week doesn't make much sense. Oh well.

(side note: one-third of the way there.)

it wouldn't be an election without lawyers...

Election Law: A Quick Look at How Some Court Rulings Affected Voting for Congress
The article/blog posting takes an interesting look at some races around the country. Most of the cases involved changing names on the ballot, for one reason or another.

(No offense to any lawyers or future lawyers intended by the post title.)

(Also: Day Nine.)

elections and sports...

What do the two have in common? Well, there are winners and losers. One has recounts, the other has ties. And some athletes are now succeeding in the political arena. Like Heath Shuler and a few others.

quote of the day

"Election night is fantastic. It's catnip. It's crack. It's the best, and I cannot wait."

-- Brian Williams, quoted in the Baltimore Sun

It can be a fun night. It can also be a rough one. We'll see how this plays out...

it's still Monday in my mind.

I watched Studio 60 tonight, as I have since it started. Within the first few minutes, the general plot smacked of "Celestial Navigation" from season one of The West Wing -- person of importance is arrested in some tiny town, lots of people go to help, and the whole story is told using flashbacks. Real creative, Sorkin. This seems to be a recurring theme (the plot reuse, that is). Of course, the commentary of the show is classic. I still have a feeling the show won't make it through the halfway point of the season.

the coaching carousel...

For Miami and FSU fans, this football season is pretty much a lost cause. But I've thought of one bright spot for Miami fans.

Our school can fire its coach, if it so desires. (Which is pretty much a foregone conclusion at this point.)

Because, you see, it's awfully hard for FSU to fire Bobby Bowden when they've named the stadium/field after him, and put a statue of him out front. And it doesn't sound like he's ready to step down on his own just yet.

Which brings up the next coaching thorn in FSU's side -- Jeff Bowden.

It's hard for Bobby to fire his son. Which gave me an idea.

Have Tommy Bowden hire him at Clemson.

No, not necessarily as a coach. Something involving less strategy. I was thinking... maybe waterboy?

I'm not doing a very good job with this...

Well, to recap last night: sushi was good, The Prestige was good. The movie definitely has some twists and turns.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to use the word "good" to describe Miami's gameplay during the football game that begins in less than a half hour.

and that makes three....

Friday. Thank goodness.

I'm headed out to meet some friends for dinner (sushi, in case you care).

Then, we're all seeing a movie: The Prestige. At a theater with all kinds of food -- always a favorite of ours.

Tomorrow, it's a day full of errands (cleaning, grocery shopping), with the "big" UM-VaTech game at 8pm. That... will be interesting. Or embarrassing.

oops...

I was checking out parts of my site a little while ago, and clicked on the Flash-powered map in the travel section. That's when I realized I haven't updated it in about a year. Oops. Some of the trips I've taken since then:
Miami (January)
Savannah (St. Patrick's Day)
upstate NY (DMB concerts in June)
Tampa and South Florida (more DMB concerts, in August)
upstate NY again (October)
Atlanta (October)

I'll get around to it one of these days.

let's do this thing...

It's November 1st. 11/1. That's a lot of ones. Well, not as many as 11/11. But you get the point.

I know I haven't posted in a while. Gonna try to change that.

I have to update a few things: the live music section, most notably. I also need to add a page for my latest music habit: taping.

And maybe I'll redesign. But how many times have we heard that one?