So much for my fancy-schmancy Palm Tungsten T. It’s hosed. i’m staring at a blank screen that just says ‘Reset’, but whenever I reset it, it brings me back to the blank screen.
>>sigh« this is me paying the stupid tax for buying a device I really didn’t need.
Today on the Netflix bandwagon: Chicago
Full disclosure: Whitney hates this movie, and has been very vocal about it, so that’s probably colored my view here.
What we have here is an opera/musical that centers around Roxie Hart, philandering wife of a lowly mechanic who figures to sleep her way to a shot at Vaudeville fame. When her lover comes clean about being a furniture salesman who fed her a line to bed her, she shoots him in a jealous rage. The plot describes her time in prison, the environment of 1920’s Chicago, and the role of media in justice (or, in this case, injustice).
Thanks to NetFlix I’ve seen one of the best films ever made: The Godfather
Words really don’t do justice to the mastery of this film. From the first moment at the Corleone wedding, Coppola presents us with dozens of interesting, round characters. He captures not only the story, but also several picturesque locations: 1946 New York, Sicily. Color, texture, and smell flow from the screen to your cortex.
The main thread of the story involves the Corleone family, most prominent of organized crime’s “5 Families”. As the story opens we see Brando as Don Corleone, aged patriarch, founder of the family. His three sons, hot-head Sonny (James Caan), simpleton Fredo, and college-kid-cum-war-hero Michael (Al Pachino) lead the magnificent cast of surrounding characters. Mainly, we see the story through Michael’s eye, his feelings of duty, honor, loss, rage. As he becomes first a pawn, then a killer, then a victim, then a calculating leader, we go through the changes with him. By then end, I was scheming with him.
I need to find a new apartment, or a house, or something. Paying my rent every month is KILLING ME.
Sat down tonight (yeah, Friday night, all by my lonesome »sigh«) and took a serious look at my finances, considering the extra expenses of gasoline and autocross every other (or every!) weekend. The short end of it, it’s not great. I really need to pare-down some spending or get some more income, which is patently absurd, because I feel I’m OVERPAID.
Well, wish me luck, guys. Big red is in the shop for its midlife crisis…er…service
Just dropped-it-off on 2nd Street at Auto Tech Service for every maintenance service known to mankind, short of an engine + transmission rebuild.
>>sigh« It’s only money, right? Heck, cheaper than buying a new truck. Or a 300C
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I haven’t said this in almost 3 years of working here: Today is looking pretty darn boring. I’ve got some documentation to work on, but until I get some questions answered via email, I’m kinda stuck on my big workitems. Breezed through two technical books in the past two days:
“For Some, the Blogging Never Stops”
That’s right, cyber-citizens! Put down that laptop with the wireless connection, stop recording your thoughts, and back away slowly with your hands in the air! The intelligensia are freaked-out by people expressing themselves en masse.
defining moment: going sideways down the entrance ramp onto New Circle Rd after I goosed the throttle in Big Red. I countersteered and got out of the throttle, and the rear-end came back into line, but that was a real pucker moment.
Lots of randomness today:
Learned that the reality TV phenomenon is likely to continue, as it’s sheer economics: Whereas scripted programs must be rerun in order to recoup production costs, networks can make a profit on a single showing of a reality program (no pesky writers or actors to pay…). I wonder how long it’ll take us to get to the “Jumping For Dollars” scene in The Running Man, where some hapless contestent grasps for $100 bills as Rotweilers nip at his heels.
autocrosstraining: n. (colloquial)
:-) Some neologisms are a little too good to pass-up.
I’m so spent I can barely hold my eyes open to write this.
but I WON! I WON! No voodoo, no tricks, no luck. I was up at Kentucky Speedway at Sparta, and I ran 5 clean runs without hitting a single cone, knocking .2-.6 of a second off each pass up until I won my class. The sense of accomplishment and satisfaction was enough to get me home alive.
“Horny?”
I LOVE THE ZOO!
It smells, it’s hot, it’s hilly, but it’s neat! Went to the zoo on Sunday (yes, after hanging-out with mom and dad after my long day buying susan’s Escape, below)
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Random: me and my father.
I went with Susan on Saturday to buy her new truck:
Susan…to put that in your blog, cut and paste the following into blogger:
What a day…I drove down to Jackson to talk to Steve and Susan about the Library’s needs for new server, and then Susan, her mom Flo (nee “Flo-Bess”), and I were going to go to Hazard to buy her an Escape. We left for Hazard a little after 11. She had her mind set on one with a moonroof, V6, 4WD, and the works.
Well, found a way to sign-up for google’s new Email Service. Instead of the paltry 2MB you get at hotmail or 4MB at yahoo, they give you a whole GIGABYTE of mail storage.
my new address: miniharryc1978@gmail.com
Ahh…the first evidence that the automotive driving public is coming to its senses.
The Hummer H2 is starting its long, welcome sales slide into oblivion. The 11mpg behemoth, the symbol of American largess seems soon to join the Ford Excursion, whose porcine mass would seem to preclude any sort of excursion whatsoever, in the automotive junkyard.
Perhaps, finally, America will wise-up and choose more efficient options for taking Timmy to soccer practice. Seventy-five dollars per bi-weekly fillup will do that to ya.
Scan of the Evolution School coursemap from last Friday.
It’s a bit confusing, from the map above, but let me esplain:
Start-out at the lower left, pointing towards the slalom. Enter the constant-distance slalom on the right and alternate until you get tothe 5th gate. Trip the timing light and that ends segment 1.
Take the 360 going clockwise first time. Exit heading towards the top of the map. As you exit, trip the light again, and this ends segment 2.
As the world has passed me by in the intervening days, I’ve sought some sort of response to its events. For some reason, it’s been like another 9/11 for me, my eyes dimmed, my heart sad. May God grant me just a moment to get out what burdens my heart:
I am no dove, understand. I believe war is a sad reality that will be with us until humanity’s life is snuffed out. As has been said, a person may be intelligent, empathic, and willing to compromise, but people on the whole are xenophobic, scared, and violent. People wish to acquire as many resources and as much power as they can, which is just peachy until encountering another such group. Thus, war is reality.
Well, an altogether disappointing last few hours.
I got home and hand a hankering for some atmosphere, coffee, and internet connection, so I decided to head for the Lock and Key. Got an extremely disappointing cup of Kenyan coffee for $2. Okay, consider: a whole POUND of the stuff might cost $10. That’s a pound of whole beans. I don’t mind paying for exceptional coffee, but $1 to $1.50 sounds more reasonable to me. On top of that, the coffee tasted under-strength, like they’re trying to stretch their profits a bit. »sigh«
Finally got some pics from Derby Breakfast in Frankfort on May 1st.
For some reason, this picture is autocross for me; it’s the anticipation, the course, the car, the man, the weather.
Well, I’ve finally (re)joined the information age at full speed:
Got my cable modem set-up last Tuesday and I waited a whole 6 hours after that to get my wireless router/firewall setup. Now, i’ve got both my powerbook and my dell running through it wirelessly on 1.5 Mbps connection to the internet. Nummy :D
Also, in the package I get 10mb of web hosting, so guess what’s going there? PICTURES! For the past few weeks I’ve had a trial .Mac account, but that’s proven to be cumbersome, considering I have all the photo storage/editing/upload stuff I need right here in my powerbook. So, i’m going to drop that when the 60 days runs out and migrate my pics over to my new adelphia hosting. don’t think I’ll bother with an actual site w/them. My blog keeps me busy enough as is.
