dead men tell no tales...

My blog is no longer here

2006-03-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

Please Update Your Bookmarks And Links

My blog can now be found at blog.stevepaulo.com. Please don't stick around here. I won't.

I want off of Blogger

2006-03-09T09:44:00.000-08:00

Non-validating XHTML code. That stupid Blogger Bar. And WordPress has all these nifty plugins!... I'd love to have that audio player plugin I used at Happiest Page the other day!

Grr. I have to see what it would take to transfer 400+ posts to WordPress...

This is for Russ...

2006-03-08T08:58:00.000-08:00

Just saw something on PSFK Trend that I think Russ might like...

The WinePod.

Dunno how different this would be than your last attempt to make your own alkeehol. Could be cool. The computer hookup part certainly is.

Although I couldn't find a price on their website, it's probably beaucoup bucks. But still cool.

just wanted to mention a few things

2006-03-06T00:46:00.000-08:00

First, I did a lot of work on the wedding site this Sunday, adding all the proper pages except the "Our Story" section... that will take some thoughtful writing.

Also, my Disney blog, The Happiest Page on Earth has survived its first week... unlike some political blogs... saaaaay, Metaliberal and Red, White, & Blog... that I've run. I love doing the Disney blog and I hope my regular readers here will take a look at Happiest Page as often as possible.

Oh, and I promise not to ignore this place. Which includes more PhoBlogs as well. And continuing to bore you with my non-Disney, non-wedding-related crap. Rawk.

Saw this on SNL last night...

2006-03-05T10:24:00.000-08:00

Seriously ridiculously awesome.

~~Natalie Portman. Gangsta rapper.~~

UPDATE 3/6 11:12am - NBC killed the YouTube links. You can see the video on their site instead.

Fatty Fatty 2 by 4

2006-03-02T18:46:00.000-08:00

14 months until the wedding. I weigh 270.4 pounds. Trying to get to 220 for the wedding. Let the games begin!

LAUNCH! TWO!

2006-03-02T10:34:00.000-08:00

HappiestPageOnEarth.com

LAUNCH!

2006-03-02T09:24:00.000-08:00

SteveAndHeatherWedding.com

I never intend this to happen!

2006-03-01T10:13:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged in for-ev-er again. Damn.

Red, White, & Blog was a mistake... apparently, I don't like writing about what I consider to be an incredible depressing political situation, both domestically and internationally. Oh well. I have the domain name, nothing says I can't try again some time.

I just realized that I stopped work on the wedding site with not much to go... you can still read Heather's musings at heatherandsteve.blogspot.com, but hopefully this weekend I will launch steveandheatherwedding.com that will include the blog, plus photo albums, gift registry info, information about the site of the ceremony and reception, links to vendors/etc. we're using, and so on.

Then, after that, I will try my hand at a different focused-topic blog... something significantly less depressing and, in many ways, easier to keep track of than politics... all I need is my blogroll and a couple Google News alerts, and I should be on top (or near the top) of breaking stories about Disney when I launch HappiestPageOnEarth.com... but the wedding site comes first. And then I have to talk to Alana about a site for her. And I think Adam still wants something.

Congrats to Monsieur Daryl on the recent engagement. Welcome to the club, my main man my bro!

Also, the coolest new Disney blog on the intarwebs is Re-Imagineering run by, apparently, a few former and current Imagineers (and Pixar employees?). Very cool. Check it.

I will try to blog more. Happy Ash Wednesday and start of Lent to all you Catholics out there! Woohoo! Yay for giving stuff up for the Lord!

Leemelone, it's early.

Quake

2006-02-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

this woke me up this morning

3.2 magnitude centered near the Las Trampas Regional Park (4mi SSE of Moraga) at 4:38am this morning. Woke me up but probably only because i live on the third floor.

Today's revelation...

2006-02-12T14:05:00.000-08:00

I'm watching Ten Things I Hate About You, which I love. Sitting here, thinking about health, and finances, and everything else in life, and I've had a revelation...

I'm giving up fast food.

Yeah, serious. But I felt like I had to write it down somewhere, somewhere public. Like, this way I will be reminded. So yeah, no more fast food. None. Cold turkey. Now... what do I consider fast food?

McDonald's
Burger King
Carl's Jr.
Jack in the Box
Wendy's
In-N-Out
Taco Bell
Del Taco
Chipotle
KFC
Subway
Quizno's
Casper's
Panda Express
Empress Express
All other "express" chinese joints
Arby's (if one was nearby)
Sonic (if one was nearby)
Long John Silver's (if one was nearby)
Other obviously fast food places I haven't listed

Things I don't consider fast food:

Togo's and other delis that aren't Subway or Quizno's
Baja Fresh
Quick-service restaurants like Chile's, Chevy's, TGI Friday's, etc
Ready-to-eat meals from supermarkets
Obviously, any full-on sit down restaurant
Pizza parlors, even Round Table and Domino's (others might consider these to be "fast food")

So that's it... cut down on my crappy eating out to save my wallet and my gut.

Wish me luck.

3...2...1... BLAST OFF!

2006-02-10T11:30:00.000-08:00

Red, White, & Blog

a beautiful day

2006-02-07T17:51:00.000-08:00

Freakin' beautiful day today.

Gorgeous.

So I haven't been blogging lately because my blogging time has been taken up trying to get Red, White, & Blog up off the ground. I'm pretty excited about it.

Even better is today, my buddy Greg has jumped on board. This should work out well... we have similar politics, both Democrats, agree on a lot, etc. But we'll also bring different things to the table... I'm Catholic, Greg isn't religious, and I plan on pushing the concept of the "religious left." Greg works for an eco-friendly shoe company down on the central coast, so he has his finger on the pulse of that whole thing better than I do. I'm pretty stoked, it should be great.

Know what else is great? Blogging from the lappy sitting in the big comfy chair watching my HDTV in my condo... much better than being at a desk. Definately.

I will of course make the announcement here when RW&B is ready to debut, and I hope to still do my personal blogging here once that is up. Stay tuned.

First quarter thoughts

2006-02-05T16:09:00.000-08:00

How many yards did Pittsburgh gain? 10? No first downs... heh.

D-Jack or Hasselbeck are frontrunners for MVP so far.

I am loving the Bud Light ads... especially the grizzly bear one. The Ameriquest ad was a fucking riot... but the Diet Pepsi stuff I'm just not getting.

Hmm...

2006-02-05T15:19:00.000-08:00

The National Anthem would have been better if they'd just let the choir sing. Damn

I never want to see that Pizza Hut popping-thing commercial or anything related to that Full Throttle energy drink ever again.

I like that "I'm going to Disney World" with Big Ben and Porter and Hasselbeck and Hines and Alexander, etc... very cool. Especially since it doesn't seem to be advertising anything in particular. Just Disney.

The Harrison Ford/Dr. Seuss opening bit was pretty cool.

Seahawks by 14. You heard it here first.

I like Stevie Wonder...

2006-02-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

but this pregame show sucks. We get it. Detroit. Motown. Now stop.

Interesting

2006-02-05T13:23:00.000-08:00

ABC is re-using the feel-good "Challenger league" segment that ESPN showed this morning. Nothing says "Don't bother watching all this" like showing stuff again...

watching the Super Bowl pregame

2006-02-05T13:17:00.000-08:00

How many times are we going to see that Jessica Simpson Pizza Hut commercial? I'm betting at least another dozen or so. Although the Miss Piggy version didn't suck too bad.

I'm at home for the game, watching on the HD. I'll chime in now and then.

Ohmigod

2006-02-05T07:33:00.000-08:00

Country Fried Steak = Heaven

My Day

2006-02-04T17:56:00.000-08:00

It's been a good day.

Woke up around 8:00am
Laid in bed until about 9:30. Checked my mail and Bloglines with the laptop, in bed (hooked up to the DSL mode by physical cable, unfortunately.
Comcast guy, who was supposed to show up between 10:00am and noon, arrived at about 9:55am. Within a half-hour or so, we had HDTV channels and our new cable modem hooked up.
Eric gets the wireless router all working and secured (120-something bit WEP key and all)
Cancelled SBC service. All of it. Will nevereverever deal with them again. Would rather get digital phone from Comcast, Astound, or Vonage if I really need a landline.
Lunch from Baja Fresh. Yummy fish tacos.
Got redwhiteandblog.net about 80% done. Even with the Super Bowl tomorrow, I may get it that last 20% done and launched, long before my "hopeful" deadline.
I watched five episodes of Entourage season 2. OnDemand rocks.

And now I'm watching Daffy Duck's QuackBusters and posting from the big comfy chair in the front room. Heather's on her way up here sometime in the very near future, and it sounds like we're going out on the town tonight... if only for a short while, as she has class again tomorrow morning... or, rather, all of tomorrow.

Anyway, pretty good day... one black mark on the day is my inability to get Printer and File Sharing working between my laptop and my desktop. Everything looks right. Both have internet access. On occasion, they seem to be able to see each other on the network, but I always get an error when I try to access the desktop's shared drive.

Anyone with any insight, feel free to help.

Still, a good day so far, with no downturn in sight. Haven't even seen Heather yet today, and my day ALWAYS gets better when I see her for the first time. So I got that going for me.

First post!

2006-02-01T18:06:00.000-08:00

(from the new laptop) WOOHOO!

A hint of things to come?

2006-01-31T10:34:00.000-08:00

Perhaps.

Every once in a while, I stumble on a very cool domain name. I couldn't get the .com, but the .net is the next best thing, and the site at the .com is a piece of crap it appears, so no worries... there is already a blog called "Red White and Blog" at notatool.com but he appears to be a GOoPer... so fuck 'im.

Things might get screwey...

2006-01-30T16:44:00.000-08:00

I've finally decided to take the plunge and get off my old webhost. Because of this, images and CSS (hosted on my webspace) may soon look weeeeeird. It may also mean I will be switching from Blogger to WordPress in the near future, as my new host ( HostGator ) inlcudes so too-easy-for-words WordPress support, and WordPress has an "Import Blogger" function so I don't have to ditch a year's worth of posts. We'll see what happens.

Also figured out how to get the wedding site to look right in IE. Not that I should have had to completely change the way the site is built in order to get IE to display it right... but dammit... I like the design. Not done with it, but working on it.

Why can't everyone use Firefox?

2006-01-27T17:19:00.000-08:00

I'm working on the wedding site. I'd probably be done if IE properly displayed PNG-24 Alpha Transparency. I may have to scrap my design because I'll never be happy with the way it looks in IE, and well, 75% of this blog's visitors use IE.

Shitty.

Get Firefox.

Addicted to Fantasy? So's Jeremy.

2006-01-27T10:57:00.000-08:00

Jeremy Clay is the jerk who won my fantasy baseball league last year. Netted himself just south of $300 for his astute waiver wire pickups, his solid initial draft, and his ability to immerse himself in baseball news, rumors and stats, while at work, and to not get fired for it.

Now he's entered the world of the sportswriter. Or, sportsblogger, I suppose, with the creation of his new blog, Addicted to Fantasy. He already has up a very good treatise on the mechanics of a fantasy baseball draft. If you're into this sort of thing (and you all know I am), check him out. He's already secured himself a spot in my Bloglines... hopefully the good content will churn out regularly.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Jeremy!

Awwww....

2006-01-26T17:06:00.000-08:00

Look at the little icons I got for the wedding website. Cute!

Yeah, I am actually working on the wedding site. More than a blog!

Big Hurt!

2006-01-25T15:33:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Oakland

Details.

Oh wow...

2006-01-25T11:26:00.000-08:00

Chris Penn died. Holy crap.

Dixar, Pisney?

2006-01-24T16:17:00.000-08:00

Yes hun, I know.

So Disney bought Pixar. 7-ish billion dollars ($59 per share), Jobs becomes the single largest shareholder of the WDC, eclipsing Roy E. Disney, and Mr. Macintosh gets a spot on the Disney Board of Directors. John Lasseter, the former Disney animator and creative lead behind all of Pixar's hit films, becomes the head of Feature Animation. Pixar, as a division, apparently will continue to be headquartered up here in Emeryville and not moved to Burbank or Glendale.

Hopefully, with Jobs and Lasseter sticking around and in positions of incredible power in the company, the vast bulk of Pixar's incredibly talented story and animation people won't be jumping ship to DWA or Fox any time soon.

Bloomberg has more.

Need to find a way to fill my day...

2006-01-23T08:29:00.000-08:00

For better or worse, the boss will be out all day today, and I have just one email due today (still waiting for client approval). I actually have two due tomorrow... but one is approved and ready to go, the other is out for client approval... so I guess I can prep the Wednesday email...

What I'm basically saying is I have like an hour, maybe ninety minutes worth of work to do today, and with the big man out, it's less likely I'll have some new project to tackle. This kind of sucks.

Used my new shaver this morning, got me a Braun Activator 8585. I think it's the same thing Eric has, but can't be sure... it's a foil shaver, not a rotary blade shaver, and has this charging/cleaning stand. Very neat. Used it for the first time last night, and Heather thought my face and neck felt smoother than she'd ever felt before! Rock on! And it was more comfortable, quicker, and less messy than use a manual blade razor. Very happy so far.

There is a pimper version of the Activator apparently, the 8590, but I'm not sure of the differences. And, I'm happy with the price I paid... a quick glance at Google shows the Activator 8585 available online for anywhere from about $125 to $185... and I'm sure all those places charge shipping. I bought at the Target Greatland in San Ramon for $133 and change. So yeah, very happy with the price.

I'll probably come up with something to actually say later. Might post something in a political vein, maybe something baseball-related if there's anything to discuss besides the Coco Crisp trade, maybe something Disney-related if the deal for Pixar goes through today.

A political, baseball, Disney blog? With crap about shavers and orange-flavored dental products thrown in? Could anybody possibly want to read this?

A few Saturday observations...

2006-01-21T17:39:00.000-08:00

Heather was right. Orange-flavored dental products are disgusting.
Listerine is good stuff. I have orange-flavored Listerine and it needs to be replaced with the old-school mint stuff, but even the orange junk makes my teeth feel oh-so-nice.
Even with an overtime win tonight, the Sharks are in deep. Deep as in 2 points ahead of dead last in their division, 10 points behind #2. Ouch.
The World Baseball Classic is going to be awesome. Everyone in the world... except people from the 14 other nations involved... should look forward to a star-studded USA vs. Dominican Republic final on Monday, March 20.
You should be drinking more water.

ESPN gives me the gift of The Catch

2006-01-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

We stayed out way too late last night. Got home a little before 1am I suppose. I've been sick and stuck inside so long I just relished being out and chatting with people and everything.

When I got home, I plopped into bed and turned on the tube, which was still set where I had it in the morning... on ESPN. What was on, you ask? Oh not much... just a half-hour special dedicated to The Catch. Hell yes!

Interviews with basically everyone involved, including Joe Montana, Dwight Clark, Randy Cross, Ronnie Lott, and Freddie Solomon, as well as crybaby whiners Danny White, Everson Walls, and other Cowgirls who were on the field that day.

I obviously don't remember watching The Catch live, though, like the Miracle On Ice two years earlier, and The Play 10 months later, I've been assured by my parents that my just-turned-3-years-old tush was planted on the couch next to them while we watched our Niners in the NFC title game that day. Nick, in utero at the time, was present but sadly missed the play.

58 seconds on the clock. Down by 6. 3rd and 3 on the Cowboys 6 yard line. Montana bootlegs to his right looking for Solomon, who's blanketed. Ed "Too Tall" Jones and cohorts are bearing down on Joe Cool, looking to sack him or knock him out of bounds, when The Greatest Quarterback Of All Time tosses a high pass to the back of the end zone, where, like magic, a leaping Dwight Clark appears out of seemingly nowhere, fingertips outstretched, and brings down the ball despite the wimping protest of a reaching Walls. Touchdown. The extra point is good, Niners lead 28-27, 51 seconds left.

Of course, the game didn't end there. There were 51 seconds left.

Cowgirls quarterback Danny White, hoping to lead his 'Girls to field goal range and the Super Bowl, completes a pass across the middle to what appears to be a wide-open receiver... until Eric Wright reaches out to horsecollar him and drop him down. Still out of field goal range, clock still ticking, the Cowgirls line up for another play.

A play on which White is pressured, hit, fumbles the ball, and with it, the dynasty of America's Team. It was the beginning of the greatness of the 49ers of the 1980s, and the end of the greatness of the Cowboys of the 1970s. A hell of a thing, it was.

There are times when people ask me why I like sports. Maybe some day I'll show them a tape of The Catch instead of trying to explain it. Now all I can hope for is that ESPN will show their tribute to The Play tonight. Sweet dreams, indeed.

Fox cleans house...

2006-01-19T10:23:00.000-08:00

So Fox today announced the formal cancellation of three sitcoms, Arrested Development, That 70's Show, and Malcolm in the Middle. I still can't decide whether this is news or not... basically everyone who's ever seen the show has seen this coming for Arrested for months now, including the show's creative team, who did a "Save Our Bluths" episode in which they "went to showtime" (i.e. put on a show) because The Bluth Company was in trouble. Showtime, of course, is one of the networks (along with ABC) interested in grabbing the Emmy Award-winning show and breathing new life into it.

The other two shows jumped the shark long ago. Eric Forman left Point Place, what, two seasons ago? And I didn't even realize Malcolm was still on with new episodes, it's become an ubiquitous part of almost every local station's syndicated lineup.

So really, no news, I supposed... to That 70's Show and Malcolm in the Middle, they'll get their series finales in May and will live on forever in syndication. And as for Arrested Development, they will go to a network that will hopefully know what to do with a show that is so funny, so topical, so self-aware as to be beyond description.

A fitting end in all three cases, then. Who needs Fox, anyway?

Dude, Daryl...

2006-01-19T09:56:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what other people see when they go to your blog, Daryl, but I get an all-white background with white or light-colored text. OMGWTF?

CLO needs updating?

2006-01-18T16:28:00.000-08:00

Daryl linked to the CLO blog today and so I visited. It looks like the footnote on item 2 needs updating... Perhaps the conference/summit/whathaveyou will occur in the summer?

The State of Suburban Sprawl...

2006-01-18T14:17:00.000-08:00

New homes make me sick some times.

I'm tired of the mentality of slamming homes together to squeeze one extra lot out of a development. It's sad, really... I grew up in a great house, built some time in the 1960s or 70s I think (my parents bought in 1985, sold in 1999), on a quarter-acre lot. Sure, it was bigger (by some) than many (but not all) of our neighbors. We had a big enough front yard for a tree (later ripped out and replaced with a flower bed), enough grass to be a bitch to cut, and the house was at least 50 feet off the street.

The back yard had a deck with a hot tub, a little half-court (okay, more like a third-court) with a basketball hoop, a small swing set I outgrew quickly, and enough lawn to play soccer or football on until I was about thirteen. I'm not saying this to brag.

I sent an email this morning for a client, for a new home development in Lincoln, CA. The email boasted of "Generous 6,000 square foot lots." Tomorrow I will send another, for a different client, for new homes in Sunnyvale, CA, that mentions, as a feature, "lots of up to nearly 4,000 square feet."

Up to? Nearly? Damn. For a quick comparison, here's an image for you... forgive me, it's as close as Google Maps gets and I had to blow it up to draw on it...

That's my old house. 2747 Marsh Drive in San Ramon. Where I grew up, and where until 7 years ago, my family had called home for a decade and a half. The red box is our quarter-acre lot. The blue box is what 4,000 square feet looks like. It's not quite enough for our house, includes about 1/3 of the front yard, and only the deck in the back yard.

It's just sad. I had so many great memories in that back yard... and in friends' back yards, as well... Greg had a big one, so did Russ, and Sean... ah well. I guess somewhere along the line, home builders decided kids don't need yards, and it must be more cost-efficient to squeeze homes close enough to get that single extra lot, and put in a greenbelt or community park, then it is to give everyone another couple thousand square feet.

I've been sick

2006-01-18T11:51:00.000-08:00

Which, I realize, is not the best excuse for not blogging. In some ways, I should have had more time... I took all of Monday off work and a chunk of yesterday, and I still don't feel 100%... but in reality, when I'm sick, the last place I want to be is on the intarwebs. Oh well.

Did the date headers for my posts going back to when I started doing them... and then did them for all of January. Now I just have to make sure I do February's headers before February actually arrives, and whatnot.

I'm wracking my brain trying to come up with something interesting to tell you all... outside, of course, of the fact that we've booked the location of the ceremony and reception for our wedding. The ceremony will be at the Lakeside Terrace, and the reception at the Lakeside Ballroom, at Blackhawk Country Club, Saturday, May 12, 2007. We're both extremely psyched, as are, I believe, our families. A great time shall be had by all, I assure you!

Baseball season, by the way, can't possibly start soon enough...

Now if I could just do those post date headers....

2006-01-12T17:01:00.000-08:00

::sigh::

That, and for some reason, I can't cover up the Blogger bar like I used to be able to... the RSS Feed "ribbon" graphic still goes over it, but I was mightily struggling with some z-index issues that may or may not get fixed...

Living the Dream!

2006-01-12T16:36:00.000-08:00

A 19-year-old entrepreneuer is spending $100,000 to go to Walt Disney World 6 days of every week this year, stay in their hotels, ride the rides, eat in the restuarants, buy stuff in the shops, etc.

He's living the dream. And documenting the hell out of it.

Follow Jupelo.

New music-type stuff

2006-01-12T13:53:00.000-08:00

I am totally behind the times when it comes to Pandora, that "tell us what you like, we'll play you other stuff you might like" free internet app/service/Web2.0 yummyness. But I finally joined the game. Got off the bench I did.

So I have made a radio station on Pandora called "KSRP." The artists I originally gave it to start the station were The Polyphonic Spree, Sufjan Stevens, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Iron & Wine, and, to mix it up a bit, The Go! Team. It has since played excellent songs from those artists and Now It's Overhead, Ben Folds, The Flaming Lips, Paul Simon, Too Much Joy and others.

It has also played complete and utter crap from Bryan Adams, Oingo Boingo, Wilson Phillips, and Dream Street. I am training it still, obviously.

Pandora will tell you why it plays certain songs. Here's an example:

For Ben Folds - "Landed": because it features acoustic rock instrumentation, mild rhythmic syncopation, acoustic rhythm piano, extensive vamping and meandering melodic phrasing.

And another:

For Sufjan Stevens - "In The Devil's Territory": because it features folk roots, a subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rhythmic syncopation, a vocal-centric aesthetic and acoustic rhythm guitars

So I guess that's the kind of stuff you might be able to expect on the station. Give it a try. Pandora is neat.

Today is nutty busy...

2006-01-11T12:44:00.000-08:00

Listening To: Tegan & Sara
Walking with the Ghost
&
The Lovemakers
Is It Alright?

Just how busy? Well, while this is kind of a sad way to come to the realization that I have been busybusybusy... here it is.

I haven't been to DailyKos today. Not once. Haven't even read the feed.

I'm going crazy not knowing what is happening with the Alito hearings! Dammit!

I think I should take lunch. Go home, grab a nap or something.

Soooo.... yeeeaahhh...

2006-01-11T09:06:00.000-08:00

Listening To: Sufjan Stevens
The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts

Apparently those "Blog-related resolutions" are going real well. Yeah.

Instead of posting every day, it's been days. Instead of getting those post date graphics done, I've not done that. So forth, and so on.

It has been busy at work... perhaps that has something to do with it. And, before last night, Heather and I had gone out on the town oh, we figure, about 16 days straight. Something like that. It's possible we hadn't stayed in since before Christmas (though I'm not sure of that). And of course, we stay in, and I have a huge project to finish up for work that... let's just say, wasn't quite the priority I was led to believe, but boy, Rob sure is glad to have something to "wave in front of the client today."

Yikes. There's five hours of home time down the drain.

Ok, good things... focus on the good things... the wedding planning is coming along. Heather has an appointment at 9am tomorrow to meet a coordinator at our favorite-venue-of-the-moment, and if it all works out, it sounds like we may book as early as next week (or this weekend, something like that). Booking would be great... it would lock the date in, and set a definite budget, and let us relax a little, for at least a few months, before we hit that 12-month mark and really have to bust ass.

Today marks the first anniversary of Heather and I dating. We're not doing anything huge... we have so much to do, really... but we are going out to a very nice dinner at Prima tonight. I was such a fan of the braised duck ravioli I had last time that I hope I enjoy whatever I get tonight. Then, tomorrow we're heading to Oliveto in Rockridge with Ian for some engagement-celebratin' type action. Actually, the main reason is he knows the chef and it will be awesome.

Then Friday I meet with Marsha to try to wrap up marshasforhair.com. After that, I'm not doing websites for anyone (well, besides friends) until I stop doing them at work all day. Lame.

More later, if the day doesn't drown me.

We've set the date

2006-01-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

May 12, 2007

Final Rose Bowl liveblog

2006-01-04T21:48:00.000-08:00

Texas 41, USC 38. One of the best football games I have ever seen, minus a couple terrible calls. Here's to next season

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T20:38:00.000-08:00

Texas gets away with another one... That was a catch!

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T20:32:00.000-08:00

I think Reggie read my last post... Everyone was just reminded why he's got the little bronze statue in his closet. 31-23 USC.

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

Was someone saying something about the Texas special teams? Good kicker there in Austin

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T20:05:00.000-08:00

LenDale White. Again. Reggie who?

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T19:49:00.000-08:00

And the Trojans take back the lead just as I finish dinner... LenDale White 4 yard run and a Mel's Graffiti Burger, respectively

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T19:08:00.000-08:00

USC FG to end the half, good momentum shift, but they need to TACKLE

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T18:53:00.000-08:00

If USC has decided to stop tackling, this game is over before the half ends. Terrible tackling, touchdown Texas

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T18:42:00.000-08:00

Texas just got away with murder on that VY pitch... Perhaps karma, and that missed PAT, will get them

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T18:35:00.000-08:00

Boy the momentum swings back to Texas with that excellent end zone interception. 6-ish minutes left in the half, no new scoring.

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

Good defense by the Trojans holds Texas to a FG

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T18:14:00.000-08:00

BONEHEAD attempt at a lateral by Bush results in a fumble and Texas ball, and that WILL come back to haunt USC.

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T18:09:00.000-08:00

End of the 1st quarter, 7-0 USC. And Texas doesn't look too hot yet. They'll heat up for sure...

Rose Bowl liveblogging

2006-01-04T17:45:00.000-08:00

UT fumbles a punt return, USC scores, then stuffs the'Horns on 4th and 1. Good start!

The Rose Bowl is tonight

2006-01-04T16:00:00.000-08:00

...and for the life of me, I can't come up with one statistical formula that separates the two teams, who are (if you've been living under a rock or just really don't give a crap) the University of Texas Longhorns and the University of Southern California Trojans. The game starts in about an hour, at which time the Men of Troy will be attempting to secure their third straight National Championship, and to do it, they're putting two Heisman Trophy winning teammates on the field.

Those last two things, they've never happened before.

My first stab was StatNorm, the College Football Statistical Normalizer, which, through a simple arithmetic formula, tries to get a picture of not just what a team's defense and offense has done, but what they've done compared with the other talent their opponents faced...

The Longhorn offense came out +169/+26, and the defense -89/-12... the Trojan offense was +202/+22, the defense -91/-11. The numbers themselves don't matter... what matters is that the average percentage of separation between the two teams in this system was something around 10% (when looking at just their defenses, this drops to 5%). That's essentially statistically irrelevant in this system, near as I can tell.

My second attempt, I've dubbed PLUMPS or the Plus-Minus Projection System. I admit, it's an extremely rudimentary system of "negatives" and "positives" in certain game situations, with results then averaged for a per-game number. I think I came up with it at lunch or something. Anyway, after running USC and Texas's seasons through PLUMPS, I came out with USC +6.92, Texas +6.75.

The numbers themselves don't mean anything, I know... but the difference is a measly 2.5%. What does this all mean?

I think it means that football is not as good a sport for stathounds like myself as baseball is.

Anyway, so what if I haven't found a statistically viable way to pick a winner in tonight's National Championship game? It's okay. I'll still be able to sleep at night. I think.

Oh, my prediction is USC 34 Texas 28. In OT.

Only 57 more days until Spring Training, thank god.

Blog-related New Year's Resolutions

2006-01-03T17:19:00.000-08:00

Post every day. Period. No exceptions, even weekends. If I have cell phone reception, I can blog. Stop dicking around!
Make the posts interesting. As in, much more interesting than this. For sheez.
Finish up the post date graphics... like, a-to-the-sap.
Find more good blogs to stick in the Blogroll. Clean out the ones I never visit. See if others who do not currently link to me, would.
Remind people to click on my Google ads. Smile nicely at anyone who does so.
PhoBlog more consistently, and with more content.
1. Get a new phone with better-than-0.3 megapixel camera?
Get the Heather and Steve Get Married Blog off the ground. After all, the big day's only (something around) 16 months away!
Find cool new shit to integrate into this design, like the "Latest PhoBlog" feature. Resist urge to redesign completely. Stick it out with this design. I'm serious, goddammit!
Blog either more or less at work... I'm not sure which yet. Probably more.

Happy New Year everyone!

UPDATE 01/04 @ 9:18am - Resolution #4 is underway, as I have removed a bunch of blogs/sites I don't read, and have added Andy and Candice (Sinister Zen) to the Blogroll. Yay for beginning to start trying to take my resolutions seriously! (now... where is that gym card....)

Meme of Four

2005-12-30T11:22:00.000-08:00

No, this wasn't "passed" to me, as the meme is supposedly supposed to be. I found it via VoteLaw (with a slightly different version appearing at Sadly, No!). It's the Meme of Four!

Four jobs you've had: Typesetter, Study Hall Instructor, Music Store Assistant Manager, Fish Gutter

Four movies you could watch over and over: Office Space, The Princess Bride, The American President, Casablanca

Four places you've lived: Ashland, OR; San Francisco, CA; Chico, CA; San Ramon, CA

Four TV shows you love to watch: The Daily Show, Arrested Development, Family Guy, Scrubs

Four places you've been on vacation: Orlando, FL; Newport Beach, CA; Florence, OR; The Bahamas

Four websites you visit daily: DailyKos, Lifehacker, Something Awful, Sadly, No!

Four of your favorite foods: yellow-tail sashimi, biscuits and gravy, filet mignon/new york strip/any really good steak, eggs benedict

Four places you'd rather be: Disneyland, Ireland, Hawaii, Belize

So now I'm supposed to pass this on to four people... okay, fine... Heather, Russ, Daryl, and Ben, you're up!

Ooooh I likey...

2005-12-23T13:05:00.000-08:00

I like that.

Of course, I will actually have to go back and do one for every date I posted in 2005 as well... but really, doing a whole year might take an hour... maybe, probably less... and I will sooo have time next week.

It looks so... pro and whatnot. Love it.

Testing out a new post date thing...

2005-12-23T12:48:00.000-08:00

So I got the idea of making images for the date of posts rather than the usual bland line of text... I'm still tweaking it, obviously, but I think it will be an interesting idea if I can do it... though it will mean making 365 images to cover 2006...

My journey into internet radio other than Disney stuff...

2005-12-22T15:58:00.000-08:00

I wanted to make a quick plug for a radio station I've been enjoying since returning from Disney World.

See, I need a little time off from the Disney Theme Park/Attraction Audio of Subsonic Radio, so I went to Live365.com where I discovered Radio One ( webpage | Live365 channel ). Touting itself as playing "Indie and Alternative," I have found it to be just that.

Kind of reminds me of the stuff I used to play on my KCSC radio show back in college.

Recently-played artists include: Radiohead, Beck, Coldplay, The Lovemakers, Bloc Party, Kasabian, The Go! Team, The Shins, Keane, Wheat, The Postal Service, Death Cab For Cutie, and Modest Mouse. Plus tons others. Very cool, give a listen.

The Proposal

2005-12-21T10:01:00.000-08:00

So really, I wanted to blog the whole trip, a big day-by-day report, but I just don't think I have it in me.

I can tell you that the flight over... a non-stop red-eye that left SFO at about 11pm pacific... was nerve-wracking as all hell. The flight attendant wouldn't let me put my bag in front of my feet (where there was no seat, we were in an exit row), and so took my bag and put it in one of the above compartments, across from us. My bag. Which not only contained thousands of dollars in assorted camera equipment, but a freakin' diamond ring. Let's just say I didn't sleep a wink and leave it at that. Luckily Song has little TVs. I watched ESPN Classic and listened to their MP3 playlist.

So we get in, and Disney's Magical Express whisks us away to the Port Orleans French Quarter resort, where, as it is about 7:30am EST, our room is not ready (check-in time isn't until 3pm).

So, we get our theme park tickets, check our carry-ons (Magical Express handled the checked luggage) at the Luggage Services desk (I transferred the ring box to my park-touring, Disney-pin-studded shoulder bag) and got on a bus... the first of what felt like thousands of buses for the week... and headed to Epcot.

Why Epcot? Well, it's my favorite. There are wide walkways and a ton of benches and I figured it would be a good place to start while we waited for our room to get all readyfied. So we're there at Epcot, and I figure it would be a good thing to ride one of my favorite edutainment-type rides there... Spaceship Earth. It's the big golfball.

At any rate the ride is slow and dark and narrated by Jeremy Irons... and Heather falls asleep (for just a little bit). But this ring is burning a hole in my pocket... or rather, in my shoulder bag... and I just can't imagine carrying it around for another day while hiding it from her and not freakin' worrying about it. Heather has to go use the, erm, facilities, which is good because it gives me a few seconds... a few exhausted, jet-lagged, haven't-slept-in-30-something-hours seconds... to think about what to do.

I notice the huge fountain that acts as kind of a centerpience for Epcot's Future World section. It's big, it's pretty... it's perfect, I think. So I get the ring box out of my bag and stick it in my jacket pocket, Heather returns and I tell her it's time for her surprise.

She's a little curious as to why the surprise has to be now, but I just tell her it does, and that's "over there," and we start walking towards the fountain.

She asks if the surprise is penguins... I tell her no.

She asks if the surprise is flamingos... I tell her no.

She asks if the surprise is llamas... I tell her no.

By this time we're walking up to the fountain and I notice this huge, ugly stage structure I hadn't noticed before... now the stage isn't nearly as pretty as I'd thought, and certainly, isn't perfect. But lo, what doth mine eyes behold just over yon?

The Epcot Christmas Tree. Perfect.

So we walk up to the tree, and I can tell she's wondering what's up, she asks how much farther it is. When we get in front of the tree, I stand behind her and tell her to close her eyes, and not to open them until I say so.

So she does so, and I take a step back, drop to one knee, get the ring box out, open it, and say, "Okay, open your eyes and turn around."

Then she hits me.

Not like a punch or anything, but she slaps my shoulder because I'm so damn sneaky. She says yes, we hug, some passersby applaud, and I put the ring on her finger, my hands still shaking from the whole episode.

Then, we spent eight whole days in Walt Disney World. I guess that will be a post for another time, if ever.

So I sold out...

2005-12-20T16:59:00.000-08:00

...but Russ did it first, and he's practically a Marxist!

So, umm, yeah. Google ads underneath the PhoBlog module and above the Archives, just to the left of the main post body. Click if you see something you like, random clicking won't make me money or anything... we'll just see how this goes, I guess.

Flickry Goodness!

2005-12-20T10:57:00.000-08:00

The photoset from our WDW vacation is now up on Flickr!

CLICK ME!

UPDATE: I just realized the stupid Flickr Uploadr resized all my images to 800x600... fucking retarded. I will have to re-do them, but I will upload the new ones before deleting the old ones, when I get around to it.

Coming later today...

2005-12-19T07:35:00.000-08:00

... a complete update of the grand Walt Disney World trip. I'm also processing the 675 pictures we took while there, here are a couple samples:

Disney World Moblogging, day 3, part 1

2005-12-13T12:12:00.000-08:00

Okay so I'm not on a good schedule as it is now day 4. Day 3, monday, was my birthday, and we had a great time. In the morning was Animal Kingdom where we saw the incredible Lion King stage show, as well as the safari ride (pictures aplenty). When we returned to the room, Heather had had a bottle of wine and glasses sent to the room, awesome, I know. More to come in part two...

Disney World Moblogging, day two

2005-12-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

I know, it's already Day 3, but yesterday was awesome. In the morning we went to Studios and had lunch at the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater, which was great. Then in the evening it was Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party! So much fun! We got our portrait taken, all 3 of us, me, Heather and the ring! More later...

Moblogging Disney World, day one

2005-12-11T06:38:00.000-08:00

I meant to do this last night, but, well, I'm sick. I know, shitty, right? Anyway, Day One of the big Disney World Vacation is behind us, and it rocked. After a long, long flight, we spent some time at Epcot and at the Studios, did some of my favorite rides (yay Maelstrom!) and I got that turkey sandwich with arugula and red pepper I like so much... Oh yeah... and we got engaged. More to come.

Updated weather forecast for our trip...

2005-12-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

Looking pretty good... temperature-wise. More potential showers than I'd like...

Sat 12/10: Intervals of clouds and sun, 72/53
Sun 12/11: Mostly cloudy, showers around, 68/45
Mon 12/12: Cool with sunshine, 65/44
Tue 12/13: Partly sunny, 69/49
Wed 12/14: An afternoon shower possible, 74/58
Thu 12/15: A shower possible, 74/56
Fri 12/16: Chance of a shower, 75/53
Sat 12/17: Rain, 71/51

We leave in 11 hours, 18 minutes and change. Rawk.

Might I be done?

2005-12-08T15:37:00.000-08:00

I might be done tweaking shit. Altered some link and headline colors and added an extra 25% line spacing and a 2px space between letters in paragraphs to make it easier to read. I think I may be done with this layout, though I can never be sure.

31 hours, 5 minutes, 40 seconds

New feature on this here blog

2005-12-07T16:53:00.000-08:00

To the left, above the monthly archive index, is the latest post to my phoblog, dead men blog no photos... Its existence as part of this site is thanks solely to the good folks at Feed2JS. Rock on.

Oh yeah, before I forget... 53 hours until Walt Disney World.

And yes, the moblogging/phoblogging will be occurring as often as I think to whilst we are gone. So keep a weather eye open, mates...

There be squalls ahead... and Davey Jones waitin' for them what don't obey...

We put the tree up last night...

2005-12-07T00:12:00.000-08:00

And I'm finally getting photos up. Enjoy.

The whole (small) set

Finally got our shit

2005-12-06T15:45:00.000-08:00

AAA finally sent Heather and I the paperwork for our trip, which is, y'know, 78 hours away. At any rate, there's some neat stuff in there, like the "AAA Diamond Card" or something, that gives us discounts on food and shopping at Downtown Disney (including 20% off non-alky stuff at House of Blues... too cool!)... plus our Magical Express luggage tags that will tell the Disneyites to pick up our bags at the airport and send'em on down to the French Quarter.

There was other stuff too, like a voucher for the hotel stay (I guess since a travel agent booked it, it helps identify us? not sure)... at any rate, I'm glad it all came, but they were cutting it pretty close, in my opinion. We saved a buttload of money going through AAA, but if that weren't the case, I may never use a travel agent again...

A little Photoshop fun...

2005-12-03T14:59:00.000-08:00

Reggie, that is. Not George W. I don't think George's stats are up to snuff. Not this season.

Current daytime weather forecast for our Walt Disney World trip:

2005-12-02T16:08:00.000-08:00

Day, Date: Outlook, High Temp/Low Temp

Sat, 12/10: Sunshine, 68/46
Sun, 12/11: Mostly Cloudy, 66/45
Mon, 12/12: Clouds giving way to some sun, 64/43
Tue, 12/13: Sunny, 64/44
Wed, 12/14: Sunny, 65/45
Thu, 12/15: Brilliant sunshine, 66/47
Fri, 12/16: A good deal of sun, 68/49

Courtesy AccuWeather.com. I will probably do this again next Thursday or Friday, right before we leave.

For Heather

2005-12-02T10:13:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Something Awful, it's a Llama-Kitty!

Things to do today...

2005-12-02T08:59:00.000-08:00

Fix the colors on this blog... the gray links don't show up well. Needs a little more variety, maybe use of some orange/red... not sure. Subtle.
Look more into evolving StatNorm into a web-based entity.
Tell Heather I love her. Lots.
Pee myself over the fact that we're off to Walt Disney World in just 7 short days
Try to remember, if I post any images to the blog, they should be under 400 pixels wide, so that they stay within the main column at 1024x768... closer to 300 is better.
Oh yeah... probably have actual work to do, too...

New layout!

2005-12-01T16:46:00.000-08:00

Love the four-column layout.

Love the hip, old school, pixellated header.

Love the background image intentionally saved at JPEG 10% quality.

Love it.

Still can't figure out how to get Blogger to play nice with XHMTL 1.1, but whatever. I like this layout a lot, right now... though I will probably mess with colors some more. Also... first time my blog has been tableless! Woohoo! Yay for semantic markup and CSS layout!

Sloooooooooow dooooooown...

2005-11-21T14:01:00.000-08:00

This blog needs me to post on it.

However, I've also decided it needs... yet another... facelift.

I think part of the reason is that I'm learning so much web crap at work week in and week out, that I look at this site now... especially the code (goddamn blogger)... and I want to make it niiiicer.

Maybe I'll start hosting this at stevepaulo.com instead of blogspot.com. Dunno.

Anyway, no posting for a while, I'll be re-examining the blog and what I want it to look like/how I want it to operate/etc.

Master of Rum-Fu

2005-11-12T19:38:00.000-08:00

My good buddy Greg sent me a hilarious image, depicting Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his many Kung-Fu stances... his own brand of Rum-Fu. Here are a few of my favorites:

For the whole magilla, click here.

Another C.L.O. image... a different direction...

2005-11-11T15:41:00.000-08:00

Ten months ago today, and four weeks from today...

2005-11-11T09:17:00.000-08:00

Ten months ago, Heather and I started dating. It's been an incredible 10 months. I'm more sure now than ever... and more sure by the day... that I have found the woman I am meant to spend the rest of my life with. I love her, she is my best friend, and a day without her is a day wasted.

And, four weeks from today, at 10:50pm pacific time, Heather and I will be sitting on a plane heading down a strip of tarmac at SFO, on our way to Walt Disney World for 8 wonderful days and 7 magical nights. While there, we will celebrate 11 months together, and my birthday, and the Christmas season. My excitement for that seems to grow by the hour.

Maybe this is what we'll look like:

A variation on a theme...

2005-11-10T15:23:00.000-08:00

In reference to Comrade Leader's recent post...

Getting excited now...

2005-11-10T08:54:00.000-08:00

It's now less than a month (29 days, 13 hours, 47 minutes, 34 seconds) until Heather and I leave for Walt Disney World. For the past 240-ish days I've had a ticker graphic in my signature at the DISBoards forum, counting down the time. It was on a month-by-month scale until two days ago...

Awww yeah... just days away now. We are totally stoked.

I have a phoblog.

2005-11-05T19:55:00.000-08:00

dead men blog no photos...

The current layout is, obviously, the same as this... it will get something unique next week.

How Republicans manipulate Christian "wackos"

2005-11-03T22:31:00.000-08:00

I know not many people read my blog. But those who do, please pass this on.

Yesterday, in a hearing in front of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, a memo was read into evidence from Mike Scanlon, an aide to criminally-indicted Republican and former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, outlining the mobilization efforts the Republican Party uses to manipulate the base that gives them their power... the religious right.

And I quote:

Simply put we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them. The wackos get their information from the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet, and telephone trees.

How could any self-respecting Christian side with the GOP? Ideology aside... these people obviously loathe the Christian faithful and see them only as tools and pawns.

As VirginiaDem, a diarist over at DailyKos, who broke and publicized this story, wrote:

Well, here's their plan finally in black and white. This should piss off the wackos. It should anger the public. We're already fuming. If this quote is run as a DNC ad in every district in the country, we win both chambers in a landslide.

Amen. Spread the word. If the Republican Party has such disdain for Christianity, how can Christians continue to support the Republican Party?

Ooooooooooh...

2005-11-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

Pretty colors.

Hooooleeeee Sheeeeeit!

2005-11-02T15:14:00.000-08:00

An Arkansas man heard crashing glass in his daughter's bedroom.

He went in there to see what it was.

It was a huge five-point whitetail buck, thrashing about.

Dude killed it with his bare hands.

Damn.

My favorite quote from the article:

Goldsberry intended to have the deer processed for its meat.

That just sounds fucking pimp. "I have bested ye in hand-to-hand combat, and now will have ye processed for thy meat." Word, Arkansas dude. Word.

Today starts NaNoWriMo

2005-11-01T12:11:00.000-08:00

I better get started.

Shit.

Cheer, Cheer for Old Notre Dame!

2005-10-31T11:21:00.000-08:00

YES!

The University of Notre Dame locked up head coach Charlie Weis through 2015.

This is great news for Irish Faithful the nation over. Weis may only be 7 games in to his career as a head coach, but the Irish are 5-2, with a big win over rival Michigan, and one of those losses coming in the final seconds... quite literally... against rival and undisputed national #1 USC. The Irish are 9th in the Coaches' and Harris polls and 8th in the AP poll, the highest-ranked 2-loss team in the nation, and are currently flirting with an at-large BCS bowl berth (14th on the BCS poll).

Welcome back to prominence, Notre Dame. We missed you.

Disney to buy Pixar?

2005-10-31T10:33:00.000-08:00

John over at The Disney Blog continues to impress me, keeping his eyes and ears open. It appears Steve Jobs might be willing to sell Pixar to Disney.

This is an interesting concept in and of itself... what makes Pixar so great is the talent there, including Jobs. What kind of guarantee would there be that those people in the Emeryville campus across the street from my old stomping grounds wouldn't just up and jump ship as soon as Jobs leaves the building? I'm no scholar of business law... I'm not sure just how you could legally require those artists, animators, and programmers to stay...

At any rate, if the asking price truly is in the neighborhood of 5 billion dollars, I have to echo John's plea that the numbers get crunched... and crunched... and crunched... and crunched again, because ABC Family is not exactly the triumph Eisner thought it would be when he paied Rupert Murdoch and Haim Saban something like 4 billion for it.

Of course, if it were to happen, then official Disney media (like the 2005 Walt Disney World Planning Guide DVD Heather and I watched... again... on Sunday) would be able to stop referring to Pixar movies as "A Walt Disney Pictures Presentation of a Pixar Animation Studios Film, Finding Nemo" (or A Bug's Life or Toy Story or etc...)

I also have to wonder if this has anything to do with the rumors... picking up steam... of Jobs considering a run for Sacramento? Leaving a public company like Apple would be easy enough if Jobs was serious about a political career, but first, he'd have to divest himself of his ownership in any major company.

Plus, $5 billion can buy a lot of campaign fliers...

Dan's Bar Halloween 2005 - Part One

2005-10-29T01:33:00.000-07:00

Pictures are up on Flickr of Friday night, the first part of Dan's Bar Halloween Bash 2005 in Walnut Creek. Very cool shit.

My girl Heather (as Mrs. Mia Wallace, post-O.D., complete with syringe in her breast) and our friend Q (as Lil' Jon) split the costume contest victory. While the prize was a pack of "Gummi Flies," the victory won them both the respect and admiration of dozens.

I love you hun! (and Q you're cool too)

P.S. If you can't tell, I'm the pirate with the rubber-banded goatee. Yes it hurt, no, not that bad.

Oh the things you'll find...

2005-10-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

Looking through my referral logs, sometimes I click on the random Blogger pages that are in there due to Blogger's "Next Blog" link at the top of ~~all~~ most blogs.

Check out what I found:

Is that a stretch Corvette? Unfortunately, the blog I found it on was written in Portugese so I have no context whatsoever.

I hope this phrase catches on...

2005-10-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

Indian people are funny when they're mad. Engrish rules.

Sentient has the money and muscle power to FUCK you in your back side so hard that your generations to come will be born defunct just the way you are mentally sick & defunct.

Numair Faraz: Indian Techie Flamewar

How much is your blog worth?

2005-10-25T16:52:00.000-07:00

My blog is worth $5,645.40.
How much is your blog worth?

Hey! Ho! We won't go! We're the fucking C.L.O.!

2005-10-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

The California Liberation Organization is a radical, revolutionary pro-California political party... and MySpace Group... dedicated to rending free the 5th largest economy in the world... and by far the coolest state in the Union... from the iron grip of the United State of America.

And thanks to charter member Daryl, we have a Frappr map. Frappr is cool.

VIVA LA CALIFORNACION!

The Empire Strikes Back...

2005-10-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

A sequel from yesterday's post, also via BoingBoing, is an animated GIF of Empire Strikes Back. Rock on.

Rosa Parks, 1913-2005

2005-10-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

Rosa Parks, whose act of civil disobedience in 1955 inspired the modern civil rights movement, died Monday in Detroit, Michigan. She was 92.

CNN.com - Civil rights icon Rosa Parks dies at 92 - Oct 25, 2005

If you don't know why she was important, you're not an American.