bjstaab.com

Damn my weak will. I couldn't decide which of those new comic inspired threadless tees to get, so I bought all four. I disgust myself.

I'm also regularly dissapointing myself by continuing to watch the soap opera-esque schlockfest Sunao ni Narenakute. I was bored, and was wondering what Ueno Juri had been doing lately after really loving her turn as the titular Nodame in Nodame Cantable. Which is still worth watching. It's ridiculous. And the fact that Sunao... is "based" on Twitter ment it sounded too stupid for me to pass up. Turns out it's a pretty by the numbers rom-com that pretty much drops the whole twitter thing within the first few episodes. But I keep watching anyway. Uhgg.

Ueno is still far too cute though. And it's nice to see Eita in something again. Besides his frosted blond hair and wacky hijinks in Nodame, I saw him again a couple years ago in Suppli. Which was also a stupid romance that I hate myself for watching.

One thing I've noticed about my new little toy. If I upload the same set of GPS data to a-trip.com and mapmyrun.com, Mapmyrun seems to drop fewer datapoints. Since you can actually see the trails in the satellite images, it looks like I'm cutting my own trails much of the time at a-trip. Whereas mapmyrun shows me actually sticking to the trails. Which I do. Interesting...

I broke my fancy-pants rose-k lens this weeked while trying to clean it. That was $150 I didn't need to spend... Stupid fingers.

Good thing theres no race this week. I'd be temped to do it with only one contact in. And given my complete lack of dept-perception, bad things would most likely happen. I found out that the cruiser rides are back on though. I could probably hack that with one eye blind.

Also watched a few movies this weekend. Me, the *lands and John went to see Inception. I rather liked it. Reading reviews, I see more than a few people calling it confusing. I didn't think it was. But maybe I'm just a supar genious. 

The rest of those guys, and a couple more that left before I got there, also watched The Sorcer's Apprentice. A movie I have no desire to see, so I skipped that one.

But I did watch The Proposition. Which is a sort of western. Except that it's set in Australia. It also was quite good. The soundtrack by Nick Drake was suitably moody and creepy in places. I didn't find the violence over the top like some people apparently did. IMHO the violence was used to underscore the ... malise? ... desperation? of the characters. It wasn't really violence for it's own sake, and the movie wasn't really blood soaked or anything. It's like, when something violent did happen, it really made you sit up and take notice. I don't know. This made more sense in my head.

Lastly, I watched Linda Linda Linda last night. From the limited number (haha) I've watched, Japanese movies seem to be either completely over the top goofy. Or, shall we say, deliberately paced and quiet. LLL would be in the later category, and I was really having a hard time staying interested. The four main characters didn't really gel for me, and the main arc of the story didn't really grab me. Again, this made more sense in my head. I guess I'm not quite getting the critical acclaim the movie garnered.

Of course, I suppose there should be a third category for Samurai films. Yojimbo was pretty awesome. In a good way for once. But maybe that was mostly because Toshiro Mifune is pretty awesome. 

How COOL is google earth and the 3D!  It is indeed a neat little gadget!

Welp, looks like I'm not going to bother re-subscribing to Xbox Live next year. Those stupid sonsabitches. I've been thinking of getting a PS3 anyway for the blueray player, and I don't have to pay extra to stream Netflix on that.

I got that little GPS tracker just in time for the race tuesday. If you have the google earth plugin installed, and click the 3D view here, you can thrill to watching me race. And be amazed as I walk back and forth to the bathroom, and then back to my car because I forgot to stop logging. Since I wasn't feeling beat up enough after the race, I went up the next day an ran the course. I did bring the logger again, but aparently I need to double check the instructions or somethhing, because it didn't actually start loggin anything until almost half way through the race. It's a fun little toy though.

How did the race itself go? I'm not too thrilled about my riding this year. I think my lack of biking miles is really hurting me. I never feel like I'm going as fast as I could be. I've got plenty of heart and lungs left, but my legs just give up. I guess if I was serious about this I'd do something about it.

But I'm still really enjoying trail running as a change of pace from my usual pavement pounding.

The library never seems this fun for me.

Incase the link doesn't work:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOUGTKFpujQ

I'm sure you've all seen AT-AT day afternoon. But the making of video is just about as cool. Man, if only I had any creativity or skill or, well, a lack of lazyness, shall we say?

Also cool: wheelchair in a skate park. Seriously. Although, as a change from most skate videos, they put the blooper reel at the start of the video. He does eventually land some of those tricks.

With all the nerd-rage over the apparently terrible Avatar: The Last Airbender movie, I was curious about the repeated claims at the cartoon it based off of being pretty awesome. Lucky for me, all three seasons are available on Netflix Streaming. And you know what? It isn't bad. There's enough slapstick and silly face making that you can't forget this is primarily aimed at kids. But it's a much better show, with much better characters than my much-beloved-as-a-kid GI Joe or Transformers. Oh man, I watched that GI Joe "for adults" cartoon they released last year. It was awful. Just awful. Killing random characters and (animated) bloodshed doesn't necessarily make it for adults. Some of us also require real characters and a not completely non-sensical plot. It failed miserably on both counts. In contrast, Aang and the gang aren't 2D cutouts, and the "bad guys" aren't just stereotypical bad guys with no motivation other than the writers needing a conflict of some sort to sell toys. Plus, George Michael's girlfriend Egg Ann (...Her?) stars as Kitara. Anyway, I kind of lost my train of thought. Avatar: The Last Airbender is good. Good enough to sit through anyway. The other fun comparison would be Aang to Naruto. But I'm lazy, so I'm just going to say Aang is a much better, more interesting, and way more likeable, character.

Enough about cartoons. I've taken my new trail runners out a couple times so far. Dare i say, I really like it? I stuck to the LMBS #2 race course both times out, since I am obsessed with tracking my milage. The race courses are an approximately known distance, and I won't really be able to track my own milage until that GPS recorder I ordered comes next week. Anyway, I'm liking trail running enough, that I don't even feel too ridiculous driving ~20 miles to run 5. Yay?

Happy 4th o July Benjamin.  Enjoy the weekend, go watch some fire works and drink some beer.

Nice kicks.  I love my Keens, but buy them a 1/2 size too big to get the width.  I recently bought 2 pairs of Simple shoes (50% off at Gander Mt.) and had to do the same thing.

A couple notes before I disappear for a month or so again.

1. Yes, I am still alive
2. I was able to make some good progress on updating this site last week. But I've got a bit more work to do. But now I've got a few work related programming assignments that will be keeping me tied up for a while. So I'll probably not be able to get much done for another weeks.
3. I gots new shoes! I've been tired of wearing my retired running shoes, so I got a pair of Keen Coronados. I heard they were a little narrower than usual for a pair of Keens, so I got a half size larger than my old Austins. And they still feel a little tight. Not uncomfortably so, but I can certainly feel the sides pressing in. I also have been getting really tired of all my on-street running routes. So I got a cheap pair of trail runners. New Balance MT572s. I didn't want to spend too much, since I don't really know how much I'll use them. But it could ad some spice to my running schedule. And take some miles off my wearing out more rapidly than I'd expect them to brooks. Seriously, I'm only around 350 miles on them, and I'm already thinking it's near replacement time. The soles are going quick. BTW, zappos is pretty awesome. These are the 2nd and 3rd pairs of shoes I've bought from them. And their service is damn quick. I got this order a day ahead of time. Ordered saturday afternoon, and it was on my porch when I came home for lunch today.
4. This past weekend I finished Our Magnificent Bastard Tounge. That review pretty well sums up my thoughts on it, right down to having the same concerns about the author's un-evenhandedness. It covers a fairly different subject than The First Word, but it's immensly more readable if you're only casually interested in linguistics. Plus it's much smaller, in both dimensions and page count.

cloaking device on...

Congrats Ben on your good finish in race #1 of the Laramie Mt. Bike Series!

Sharing a page about as awesome as FailBlog

www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com

Are they planting trees on prexys pasture or is that more art work?  Please answer the phone when Sarah calls.

Thanks Ben.  Steamboat arrived today.

Two posts in one day? Unpossible!

But I had to share this p-far of the apocolypse

GREAT SUCCESS!

After nearly two months, and I don't know how many trips to the county courthouse, I finally got plates. The latest hold up is that I couldn't get the title transfered without a letter from the bank saying I know longer owed money on it. Fun fact: Amcore bank failed this spring. I almost didn't get it this time, because the lady at the plate office wanted a letter from mom saying she understood she was being removed from the title. Which was why I thought I had sent the old title itself back to wisconsin to have her sign it. But apparently that wasn't good enough. Until the lady from the county clerks office convinced her it should be. I mean come on. You're a government agency, and I'm trying to give you money. Shouldn't you be happy to take it? BTW, licensing this motorcycle in wyoming is nearly 4x as much as wisconsin. ~50 per year, rather than ~25 for two years. The road conditions certainly don't reflect that increase...

Those with a better memory than mine may remember me saying something about a new version of the website. Well, actual, I-get-paid-to-do-it work has still been kicking my ass, so I haven't had time to work on it. The good thing is, I'm getting familiar with some things I want to use on this page in the projects I'm working on. Which is the reverse of how things were when I started this page nigh on 10 years ago. Back then I was using this page to hone skills I was hoping to parlay into a job.

I had something to say about Scott Pilgrim, and how the newest trailer has me rethinking my pessimism about George Michael Cera playing him. But instead I'll just mention I very much enjoyed all 5 existing volumes, and am cautiously optimistic about the movie not completely sucking.

Also, read the damn book matt. Jeeze.

my book club is reading a book by Harold Bell
Wright http://www.hbw.addr.com/    He just seems like an author that might have stuff in the American Heritage Museum.

We must be related because I laughed too.  We are off to Watertown today to celebrate Margaret and Oscar's (alias Mac and Lefty) 90th birthdays.

So... work has been pretty nuts lately. Deployed 25-ish PC's last thursday and friday, spent the first couple days this week tying up loose ends (when I ask for a list of _all_ the software you want installed when I deploy a computer, I really mean _all_ the software you want. Not this, "oh, I forgot this incredibly stupid little utility that we must have or surely die" the day before deployment.) Then spent the rest of this week re-installing PCs on new office furniture (because plugging in color coded and impossible to plug in wrong cords requires a graduate degree apparently), fixing Luna's latest blow-up and trying to track down what's making the digital herbarium fail to update.

At least I like my job. I guess.

so here's a joke I feel terrible about myself for laughing at:

How many Klingons does it take to change a light bulb?

Only one, then he shall be executed for cowardice in the face of darkness!

I see the Gowdy Grinder has been postponed to May 22nd - 10 inches of snow!?  Yikes.  It's May.

Sure. A trip to london could be cool.

But this is possibly the coolest thing I've seen, um. all week I guess.

Yes, that's the story.  Aren't those "puppets" cool?  Are you up for a trip to London to go to the theatre?

I did not. I assume you mean this story?

Did you listen to the story about "war horses" on NPR this morning?  I usually don't enjoy war stories, but I would love to go see this theater!

The big news around town is about Bill Ayers finally giving his education talk or whatever it was last night. I didn't really care either way. But I did enjoy laughing at all the tea baggers/palin americans/REAL PATRIOTS® losing their shit about it. Idiots.

I went to the free Flowbots concert instead. Here's one of their videos:

Tomorrow I'll be headed down to Denver for a workshop on OS X Server administration. I hate to be cynical (no I don't) but I think the only way I got to go is because it's free. God forbid administration spend money on professional development for non-faculty. Imagine! Next they'll start thinking they're real people!