Retro arcade gaming

If you're looking for old-school. Arcade gaming action near Tacoma, I know where you can go. :)

B&I Shopping Center at 8012 South Tacoma Way, Lakewood, WA has many classic games from the hayday of the video arcade as well as newer games. There's also an indoor carousel to meet your need for going in circles on a small, wooden horse.

This is a test.

Hi there,

I rarely write anything here but I thought I'd try out the Blog Editor feature of the Flock browser. It's a web browser that has built in support for a bunch of social networking and media accounts. When I first tried it out it was too slow on my 4 year old note book, but I'm giving it another shot.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

I need a job

Technically I'm self-employed but sometimes it feels like being unemployed. I've been slow with getting my name out here. I've increased my web presence and have gotten some work from that but most of the work I've been doing has been for people I know back East. I just ordered some large post cards to send out to businesses. It'll be a little while before they get here. I went to a job fair last week. There wasn't much that interested me. Of the companies that did interest me, they either told me (or other people near me) to go to the job section of their company website or, in the case of PT retail, apply at a store in person.

I do have some work for LU that I need to finish up. I may need to revisit the Pilgrim's Progress DVD again because there is at least one DVD player that doesn't like it. I'm still waiting to get paid for a couple of jobs. I've been putting graphics and footage up for sale on http://pond5.com. So far I've had one sale. I just uploaded a couple of clips this weekend. Hopefully someone will buy them. :)

I may just get some part-time work for now. Retail businesses are gearing up for the holidays so I should be able to find something.

Long time no update.

PHL men's room

Yesterday I found myself in the Philadelphia airport waiting for connecting flight. At more than one point in my multi-hour stay at said airport, I found myself needing to use the "facilities." I was quite surprised at the men's room's design and arrangement. You enter a long room with urinals on the right side, sinks on the left side and stalls in the back. The urinals are fairly standard. The thing that is odd is that there is a mirror along the whole wall over the urinals. This mean you can look yourself in the eye as you are doing your business. This also means you can look your neighbor in the eye without having to turn your head to do so. Not only that, but the sink wall (which is opposite from the urinal wall) also has a mirror running its full length. This means than not only can you look yourself in the eye, you can make eye contact with almost anyone in the room. I must say, the arrangement felt a little awkward. I'm a fairly private individual and a shoe-gazer by nature so don't much care for eye-contact in public rest rooms. I have thought it'd be amusing and awkward to make a public rest room where the urinals were mounted facing each other on a half wall... just to make things awkward. The bathrooms in PHL aren't quite that bad, but they gave me a feel for what it could be like.

Incidentally, one of the more interesting places I've urinated was at the Virginia Military Institute's football stadium. They didn't have urinals, they had a section of wall with a trough and drain at the bottom of it. They had water running down the wall and the gents can line up next to each other and pee on the wall. I was the only one in there at the time so I didn't have to stand shoulder to shoulder with a keydet and I was glad for that.

UFO TV Show Opening Sequence

campy tv show open. fun stuff.

An interesting day at work. (not mine)

Policeman hijacks payroll plane

A couple Australian pilots flying a small plane carrying a lot of payroll money had an interesting day at work. The two police guards flying with them pull out their guns and forced them to land the plane. The pilots are okay and the 2 million in cash has been recovered.

It's bad that one of the robbers was shot dead (tho maybe he deserved it) but it's good that the victims are okay. Hopefully they're psychologically sound after this. I imagine them laughing it off over a few drinks. Of course, I'm very very removed from the situation and I don't know these men so my imagination is ill-informed.

Gettysburg address powerpoint presentation

http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/

23AndMe Will Decode Your DNA for $1,000. Welcome to the Age of Genomics

An interesting article... well, I was interested for a while but I stopped reading on the fourth page.

I'd kind of like to know what is in my genetic makeup.

http://www.wired.com/medtech/genetics/magazine/15-12/ff_genomics?currentPage=1

cleans up nicely

evolution is an award winning short film that shows a model from no make-up to the final billboard picture to show what goes into idealized beauty.

there are two of me

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 2 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

The Man Who Saved the World by Doing ... Nothing

Thank God.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/09/dayintech_0926

Cool Wallet

Here's an article in wired about a Stewart/Stand wallet that I think would be cool to have. It's made of woven stainless steel thread. Of course, I'm not the kind of person to pay $80 - $125 for a wallet even if I think it's cool.

gored

The American Heart Association has a women's heart health campaign going on now. they call it "Go Red"

The web address is goredforwomen.com

I don't think I want to be gored for anyone.

Incidentally, I don't like the TV ad. They just show pictures of different women. The reds are really intense and the skin tones are pushed to yellow. I think they were trying to make it a graphical look. To me it just looks like they have the colors turned up too high... like above normal "broadcast legal" limits. I appreciate what they're trying to do, but I'd lower the saturation of the skin colors and, after pumping up the reds to where a lot of the detail is lost, pull the over all saturation down so it does look it was shot in a radiation leak.

I told you so.

According to this page:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcobweb.html

Cobwebs do come from spiders.

:p

The future of computer interfaces?

Click the title bar for the article that alerted me to these clips.

A guy named Jeff Hahn gave this talk at a conference last year.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zwGAKUForhM

Here's a more recent demo of the tech he developed.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ysEVYwa-vHM

It's very cool to watch and for some of the things I do... particularly video compositing and graphics work. would be a very cool way to work. Maybe someday it'll trickle down to something I can afford. :)

I have seen some video of this stuff before (maybe even blogged about it then) but it's still cool to see.

holographic posters

cool stuff.

Pay your artist

http://motionographer.com/2007/02/07/the-infamous-craigslist-post/

An interesting rant about artists/illustrators not getting paid.

enter to win a toilet

[image from http://www.rotorooter.com/]

Windows Vista... Not gonna do it... not for a while anyway.

I just read (most of) an article discussing how much joy Microsoft has released into the work in it's latest operating system's digital rights management (copy protection) features.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

Unfortunately, the recording industries zeal to protect their intellectual property (an understandable concern) will, most likely, prevent us from viewing and managing our media in the the way we're accustomed to. Sadly, the days of hooking up any audio/display device to any compatible port to watch/listen to our music or video may be coming to an end. The content will have to be able to determine whether or not our output devices are secure and if they aren't they'll refuse to play at full quality or perhaps at all.

I have a DVD player that can upconvert DVDs to HD resolution. If I want to watch a commercial DVD, I need to have a TV with an HDMI connector. An HDTV ready display with DVI or component inputs (both HD capable ports) won't work in this instance.

I suppose it's a good thing I didn't buy an HDTV ready TV before I knew all of this stuff.

It just not good for the consumers. I'll possibly be one of those people who'll do something to strip the DRM from the media so I can watch my legitimately purchased content on whatever device I choose.

I'm rambling... sorry.