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June 26, 2007
Breaking The Limit
A few days back, when I was between reading material, Dawnise handed me her copy of Breaking the Limit given to her by a friend (hi, Dana!). I finished it on the boat to work this morning after a detour through Un Lun Dun.
It was a good read - and definitely inspired me to want to get out on the bike and see more of the beautiful countryside we're surrounded by. The first half was better than the second and her mostly neutral description of the Sturgis rally convinced me that I never, ever, need to see it personally, but what really stuck with me was how unprepared she was for the trip...
Continue reading "Breaking The Limit"
Posted by dberger at 9:08 PM | Comments (1)
June 25, 2007
Dr. Who
Dawnise and I started watching the first season of the new Dr. Who a while back - mostly catching episodes on plane flights, for whatever reason.
The other day the 3rd disk of Season 1 arrived from Netflix and - in something of an abnormality for us - we watched four episodes last night.
"Father's Day" and the two-part "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" were quite good. And for the record, Moffat should write more twilight-zoneish suspense. That was seriously creepy, and nothing at all like the gut busting comedy that Dawnise and I associate him with.
Posted by dberger at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)
June 21, 2007
Un Lun Dun
When I went to the library last weekend to pick up Un Lun Dun, I chuckled when they referred me to the children's section downstairs. Mieville, I thought, is not a children's author. And besides, the book was over 400 pages long. Surely not a read intended for kids.
My skepticism was confirmed when I read the acknowledgments, which listed Clive Barker - among others - as inspiration.
I mean, who in their right mind would let their kids read a book by Barker?
Continue reading "Un Lun Dun"
Posted by dberger at 9:27 PM | Comments (0)
Notable Covers
I admit it, I like the Buffy movie way more than the series.
I know that most (all?) "true" Buffy fans (including Joss, apparently) disagree, but just remember that Spielberg himself thinks that Han shooting first is a good thing - doesn't make it true.
All I can say in my defense is that Kristy Swanson was - and is - infinitely hotter than Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Anyway, I really like the cover of We Close Our Eyes that Susanna Hoffs performs on the movie soundtrack.
Posted by dberger at 3:46 PM | Comments (0)
Dead Like Me
Almost forgot to mention - Dawnise and I finished Season 2 of Dead Like Me the other night - moments before Amy and Beth rang our doorbell. The end wasn't completely satisfying, and left as many questions as it answered, but given it's cancellation, I suppose that's not surprising.
Yet again Hollywood proved, by canceling the show, that Nielsen boxes must all be in the hands of morons.
How else do you explain the success of "reality TV" shows and professional wrestling?
/me shakes head.
Posted by dberger at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
Life Marches On
It's been a bit of a busy week, with a bunch of mixed emotion, but it is, as my aunt Amy would say, "all good."
Continue reading "Life Marches On"
Posted by dberger at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)
June 15, 2007
Develops on Windows, in C++, for Windows: A Year In Review
A number of friends and former colleagues - who were surprised that I took a job developing on Windows (not as surprised as I was, I assure you) have asked, essentially, "well, what's it like?"
The executive summary is "not as bad as I feared, but I won't be giving up linux any time soon."
Read on for more.
Continue reading "Develops on Windows, in C++, for Windows: A Year In Review"
Posted by dberger at 8:59 AM | Comments (1)
June 13, 2007
Piles of "Stuff"
I spent a couple hours in my office last night, sorting through the boxes of random and sundry computer and computer-related parts that seem to accumulate in my closet.
I discovered a few things.
1. DSL Line filters must reproduce like rabits. I don't have DSL, haven't had DSL in years, and I had (have) a ton of those blasted things.
2. My former strategy of "keep one of each cable" seems increasingly silly. I mean, where am I even going to find a device that has a 25 pin serial port? And how 'bout a 50 pin Centronics SCSI port? They're all leaving.
3. Oh, Power and VGA cables - see observation #1.
4. If I ever want to, say, build a card house, I could probably build it out of 10/100Mb Ethernet cards.
So I went from three boxes down to one. Now I just need to find something to do with all the crap, er, stuff I'm done with.
Posted by dberger at 3:06 PM | Comments (1)
Clouds
I'm sitting in my office, waiting for a build to finish, looking out the window, and I realized that we didn't have nearly enough clouds in southern California.
There's something about white against a blue sky that makes both the white and the blue more brilliant and striking.
I like it.
Posted by dberger at 3:02 PM | Comments (0)
June 11, 2007
A Year - That Was Fast.
I realized tomorrow (June 12) is the one year anniversary of joining my current employer.
It's been a good year, all things be told, despite my initial reservations. The honeymoon is in full swing, and for the first time in longer than I'd care to admit, I have a job that consistently makes me want to go to work in the morning.
At some point in the near future I'm going to write up some thoughts - "A Year With Windows." Look for it when I get around to it.
Posted by dberger at 9:52 PM | Comments (0)
Can't. Keep. Up.
A couple of weeks ago, I clicked through a banner ad.
Shocking, I know.
I signed up for a trial subscription to The Economist. I've had two issues delivered so far, and that's my only complaint.
See, it's a weekly magazine - and I've only managed to read two thirds of the first delivered issue in the past two weeks. It's incredibly dense, and the articles fairly well written. But I'm canceling it - 'cause I can see already that it'll just end up in a pile next to my bed, with me falling ever further behind.
If only they'd make it biweekly.
Posted by dberger at 9:47 PM | Comments (0)
June 10, 2007
What the hell am I supposed to do with an empty case?
Bonus points to those who get the movie reference.
Six weeks or so back we ordered a motorized awning from Costco to put over the deck off the kitchen. It's 12 feet long, extends to 12 feet deep, and weighs just over a hundred pounds.
It arrived in a cardboard tube - 16" in diameter and 14 feet long. This isn't like corrugated paperboard - this is solid - a good half inch thick. The packaging itself probably weighs a good 40 lbs.
So now that I've installed the awning, I have this monster of a cardboard tube taking up residence in my garage.
It's longer than my car, and though the mental picture of tooling down the road with it sticking over the back with the top down is pretty amusing I'd never do it. If anyone needs to pour concrete footings, I've got just the stuff.
Posted by dberger at 6:29 PM | Comments (1)
June 9, 2007
Good Neighbors
Today was the annual homeowners association picnic and board elections. And as you'd expect, it was raining all day.
It was our turn to host this year, so we had at least representation from all but two or three households here for the meeting at 3 (I was elected secretary or two years, a role I've been filling for the past few months anyway) and the "picnic" immediately following.
Continue reading "Good Neighbors"
Posted by dberger at 8:45 PM | Comments (0)
June 6, 2007
Going on 40...
The Trophy is getting ready to roll fourty thousand miles sometime this week (39,940 and counting). It's doing pretty well, all in all, and I still get compliments on it occasionally. Not bad for a bike going on 8 years old.
Most of those miles were put on in the first few years, between commuting 100 miles a day into LA (and then to UCR) and road trips up the CA coast.
Speaking of road trips - I've been reading Dawnise's copy of Breaking The Limit and my wanderlust is in full force. Too much stuff going on for a long trip, but maybe we'll sqeeze a weekender in sometime soon.
(Book review to follow, but so far, good stuff.)
Posted by dberger at 8:17 PM | Comments (0)
Bullsh*t
We finished the third season of Penn & Tellers Bullsh*t last night.
Overall, it was disappointing - the only episode that really "did it" for me was the last (The Best) where they performed another setup ala the bottled water episode from Season 1.
I'll give Season 4 a shot, but if it's as lackluster as Season 3, I think that's all she wrote.
Posted by dberger at 3:58 PM | Comments (0)
June 1, 2007
Trouble Posting Comments?
I've heard from a couple folks that they've been unable to login using their live journal id - since nothing's changed on my side, I'm guessing that LJ has busted their OpenID server or something. If this happens, just post without signing in.
I've also heard that a couple folks have had MovableType tell them they've posted too many comments - this is a generic error that probably means you need to refresh the page and make sure you enter the CAPTCHA correctly.
Or, just email me.
Posted by dberger at 4:04 PM | Comments (1)
I Like My Version Better
I didn't look very hard, or I would have discovered who Major Dickason was.
I like my version better.
Posted by dberger at 1:38 PM | Comments (0)
Putting Pessimism Aside
I'm a pretty pessimistic person.
I know, you're shocked at this revelation.
I call it "realism," but I know that there's more than a shade of pessimism in the mix.
I'm good at breaking things - or predicting how they'll break.
Continue reading "Putting Pessimism Aside"
Posted by dberger at 8:43 AM | Comments (1)