It makes the flag useless and makes kittens cry.

Please stop. Think of the kittens.

Much love;
Scott

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Current Events

The first 1:45 of the clip before he starts in on the beginning of My Friend of Misery (also a beautiful bass piece) is an especially beautiful piece of music. Simple and sweet. Makes me want to learn bass too. Stuff like this probably should have been a clue that Jason wasn't really cut out for Metallica.

Update: I just read that last sentence and it sounded more negative than I meant it to be. He's a great bass player, don't get me wrong. It just seems that what Metallica does and what he did when he was able to do what he wanted are two completely different things. I enjoy both (well, I'm on the fence about Rockstar Supernova).

Technorati Tags: Music

Me being a gadget guy, I start thinking that it's a good reason to get one of those new disposals that can take a pineapple (the Insinkerator Evolution Excel). Sweet. Oops....lowest price I can find on it is $270 and highest was $500. Ouch.

I get back under the sink to see if maybe the problem is something other than the disposal. Running water isn't leaking out anywhere. When I turn the disposal on, water comes shooting out of a hole in its side. Great.

So I'm ordering a cheaper disposal tonight and when it comes in, I'm going to try to install it. I have a plumber ready to take care of it if I can't get it together. When I first bought this place, I never thought I'd have to learn plumbing.

Technorati Tags: Housekeeping, DIY

Tag cloud for all of the NIN albums (excluding EP's, singles, remixes, etc):

Here's the tag cloud for just the new Year Zero album:

Technorati Tags: Music, Politics

I've decided that there's really no good reason to keep the photos separate from the main blog here. They're as much a part of my online persona as the writing here is, so I might as well stop maintaining an artificial separation of the two.

Over the next few days I'll be moving the photo posts over. They'll be added with their original posting dates, so they shouldn't flood the RSS feed. The ones that are done so far haven't, so it should be OK. Anyone that gets a Google Images link here might not find what they're looking for until I get a reindex though.

It probably wasn't the intended take-away for episode 85 of the Cranky Middle Manager but sometimes you can't control your outcomes.

Technorati Tags: Blogging

This is a little old now but I've been focused on more tangible (i.e. offline) activities the last couple weeks.

I'm glad to see that someone at Starbucks is aware that something's not right.

It's easy and almost trendy now in some circles to bash Starbucks these days. They're literally everywhere (there are 28 within 10 miles of here) and it's hard not to get overloaded by that.

I got my start in good coffee at Starbucks so I'll always have a soft spot for them. I eventually graduated to better coffee that's better roasted and more skillfully prepared in locally owned shops (Jamie's General Bean is a favorite). In the last couple years I have been roasting my own coffee as well.

The more I learned about what makes good coffee, the less satisfied I was with what the local Starbucks' were putting out. It didn't help that they were getting rid of the La Marzocco machines and replacing them with those automatic machines. When it takes skill to pull an espresso shot, sometimes you get crap, but sometimes you get gold.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I hope this means that Starbucks is going to start focusing on making and serving great coffee and less on making an "experience" for people who don't like coffee. I think easily available, well-roasted, skillfully prepared coffee would be a wonderful thing regardless of what name's on the door.

Technorati Tags: Coffee, Food, Marketing

I need to figure out something to do here to get more people than spammers checking in on the site. Hmm.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Spam

So is this part of Starbucks' new strategy to re-find its soul?

Things like starting a label and signing Sir Paul take time so it's my guess that this is another way Starbucks us losing it instead. It kinda makes sense given that part of the "Starbucks Experience" is the music played in their shops. The Hear station has been on XM for a while...I even had it in my presets before I dropped my subscription.

I'm still waiting for a coffee-related change that shows they're serious about getting that lost soul back though,

Technorati Tags: Food, Marketing, Music

I learned this one at Mourayo in DC. I had a gift certificate for diner for two from Christmas that I used in February. Dinner was fantastic. Then the dessert was a fruit plate with honey covered yogurt. Simple and beautiful. Highly recommended....both the dessert and the restaurant.

Technorati Tags: Food

It just goes to show that there are a lot of messed up people out there and the internet can give them an audience where previously they would either just be ignored or locked up.

zabuni at Metafilter points out that it's more proof of Penny Arcades Internet Fuckwad Theory though.

I hate letting someone speak for me on my own site, but I'm making an exception today. Though in this case, I don't think the fuckwad in question started off as a normal person. I hope this issue gets resolved soon. I'd hate to see Ms. Sierra's current state continue because of some asshole out there somewhere.

Well, more unreliable than normal. You always have to filter and think about what you read but today, even people I trust start posting stupid crap. I'm better off just marking everything read when I do an RSS refresh tomorrow night.

Looks like a good guitar practice day.

Technorati Tags: Blogging

ASUS beat me to it by a month. The ASUS XG Station is exactly what I was looking for. An enclosure that houses a GPU and connects to the laptop via the Express Card slot.

Sweet. It's an interesting solution, since it doesn't require a custom connector to be built into the laptop. I wouldn't be able to use it with any new Mac laptop that I might have in the future. I might be able to pull off pairing it with a relatively cheap laptop.

It's a lot easier than lugging around a desktop and a 20" CRT. Blah.

via Engadget - Asustek's XG Station ripped apart

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Technology

The idea is to put your music library on shuffle, hit skip 3 times and then write down the songs that come up in order and then line them up with a set of life events. With my music collection, I thought it'd be an interesting thing to see, so here goes:

Opening Credits: Collide "Halo" from Chasing the Ghost
Waking Up: Cruciform Injection "Vacant Bodies" from Epilogue
First Day at School: Metallica "Prince Charming" from ReLoad
Falling in Love: Third Eye Blind "Thanks A Lot" from Third Eye Blind
Fight Song: Megadeth "Ecstasy" from Risk
Breaking Up: Korn "Freak on a Leash" from Follow the Leader
Prom: Metallica "Hero of the Day" from Load
Life: Kate Bush "Sunset" from Aerial
Mental Breakdown: Innocent Blood "Enter Sandman" from The Blackest Album 2
Driving: Marty Casey & Lovehammers "Clouds" from Marty Casey & Lovehammers
Flashback: Fatboy Slim "Santa Cruz" from Better Living Through Chemistry
Wedding: Buckethead "Machete Mirage" from Bucketheadland Vol 2
Final Battle: Prince "Sign O' The Times" from The Very Best of Prince
Death Scene: AC/DC "Hell or High Water" from from Fly on the Wall
Funeral Song: Gary Numan "I Can't Breathe" from Pure
End Credit: Marilyn Manson "Antichrist Superstar (Live)" from Remix & Repent

Um. Wow. That's weird.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Music

It was an unfamiliar application and at the time I had no idea what the intended users were meant to accomplish with it but I was willing to take up the challenge to see if I could break it...and I broke it. I got a repeatable Red Box of Death error and was able to explain exactly what I did to get it. The developers were able to fix the error and were spared an embarrassing post-lanch showstopper. I was launched into a new career as a Domino administrator.

I think I got a spot award from the department which was nice and always appreciated. The developers gave me the Lotus Notes mug pictured below which I thought was a really cool expression of appreciation. They picked this much specifically because of the tagline under the Notes logo:

"...because information has no value until it's shared.

I still frequently use this cup for my morning coffee. I also try to keep the tagline in mind as I go about my days. I think I'm a lot more valuable to the people around me if I share my knowledge rather than horde it.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Domino, Lotus, Technology

My sister was an engineering student at Tech until she graduated last year. She spent a lot of time in the room in Norris Hall where most of the killings happened. I don't know what I'd do if she was there today. A couple of her sorority sisters were shot but fortunately not killed.

We're praying for the improved condition of those that are injured in this incident, both physical and mental injuries. While I'm grateful that my sister wasn't caught up in this mess, there are 33 families out there that can't say that.

Technorati Tags: Current Events

Rescuers Dig for 2 Men After Mine-Wall Collapse - washingtonpost.com

Technorati Tags: Current Events

Here's a Gristmill posting on the subject. I agree with its author that we're better off patronizing small producers of high quality chocolate than sitting around and sucking it up as the mass produced chocolate gets worse and worse. It amazes me how much better even mass produced European chocolate is than most if what we have here.

Try an experiment sometime. Find a European version of the Kit Kat. Around the DC Metro area, there's a chain called World market that usually has them. Taste test the European version of the Kit Kat against the American version. Big difference, huh?

Oddly enough, when I noticed this issue I just got done picking up a couple different varieties of hot chocolate from a producer called Vosges. One is an Aztec-style hot chocolate with chipotle and the other is a Paris-style chocolate chaud. I've heard that they're both fantastic. I'll post a follow-up entry once I have a chance to try them out. I think I have a Swiss Miss packet around that I could do a head-to-head with.

Technorati Tags: Food

Someone put in more effort than I did and got the FDA page for the change and a link where you can send in your comments by April 25th.

I'm not up for turning this space into a political soapbox but I'm posting the links in case someone reading this stuff loves chocolate and doesn't read Slashdot.

Technorati Tags: Current Events, Food, Politics

Guittard set up a site called Don't Mess With Our Chocolate that takes it from the point of view of a maker of fine chocolate. There's a lot more information there on the issue.

Update: I caught a link to this site from Slashfood.

Updated Update: This is entry #200 on the current iteration of this site. Go me. I still have a backup of some of the older stuff that was lost in a previous cutover that I will get to adding this year. Nothing hugely interesting, but adding it for completeness.

Technorati Tags: Current Events, Food, Politics