A Whole Lotta Nothing

Today's my Grandmother's birthday. Here's

Today's my Grandmother's birthday. Here's a pic of her and my mom from last xmas. She's 85, and I really wish I could see her more, because she's simply the greatest. Although she'll never see this: Happy Birthday Grandma.

Although I'm not totally happy

Although I'm not totally happy with how my work turned out (it's not you, it's me, I just don't think it has the "zing" of my more recent projects), the SXSW weblog is up with a design I did based on the Texas flag. It's a place to exchange thoughts and tips for people attending the South by Southwest conference in Austin, TX this March. I'm going to be attending and talking about weblogs there, and should be a lot of fun. If you're going, let me know and we can meet up.

It's official, weblog hype is

It's official, weblog hype is too much now. Everything is a blog now. I guess this page is a blog now. I set one up for my Dad last night. I'm setting one up for my brother later on today. And while I upgrade Metafilter, I'm staring at all these progress bars in WinNT, and decided to just blog it. I'm going to try and move this page away from that format though, and maybe do a journal area with expanded daily content, with pointers to new entries here.

I've been searching the web

I've been searching the web for ways to convert xml and rdf feeds into something I can parse with coldfusion as wddx files, and there's nothing out there. I can't remember the last time I went out looking for tech info and found pretty much nothing.

I just came back from

I just came back from seeing Girl Interrupted. I'd call it an emotional rollercoaster, but there were no "ups", just "downs." Actually, it was like walking into an elevator and cutting the cable. The performances were great all around, but it was so heavy that I was completely exhausted by the time it was over.

I've created a monster. MetaFilter

I've created a monster. MetaFilter continues to get crazy traffic, and with that, I get a crash course in interpersonal community dynamics. I never thought managing a community would be so hard. Hopefully, after I get some more idiot-proofing mechanisms in place, the place will mellow out and become a bit more self-policing.

A coworker made this movie

A coworker made this movie of the Krispy Kreme factory inside the Excalibur at Las Vegas. It's melodic and strangely addictive.

Sadly, I'm no longer cool.

Sadly, I'm no longer cool. Wait, I am again! Nope, I'm not.

When I first started checking

When I first started checking out ProjectCool a few years ago, I noticed Sightings, their daily award for top-notch sites on the web. I dreamed of someday designing something appealing/useful enough to make the cut. Today happens to be that day. MetaFilter was awarded the ProjectCool Sightings award. It's not that big of deal though, there wasn't any fanfare or anything. I found out I won it somewhat accidentally, when I noticed the traffic load suddenly go sky high at midnight.

Still, it's nice that my little dream from a few years ago came true today.

Scary marketing observation #4124. Last

Scary marketing observation #4124. Last week, my girlfriend bought some Campari, an alcoholic ingredient for mixed drinks, at the local Trader Joes, and today we get a huge promotional brochure from the Campari Corporation. We've never, ever gotten any advertising in the mail from this or any other drink company. So how'd they know? Well she used a credit card, and all we can gather is the Campari Corp. does some scary, aggresive marketing.

Crap. I came in to

Crap. I came in to work today to get some projects done, and I wanted to take an afternoon run around campus. After a few hours of coding, I put on my running shoes, walked outside, and it's raining. And it's cold. And I'm wearing shorts. And it will be dark soon. Crap.

UCLA was having a clothing

UCLA was having a clothing sale, so I bought a Mars Polar Lander t-shirt for $6. I hope my money goes to pay for the 165 million dollar loss. :)

Around 12:30am last night, one

Around 12:30am last night, one of my cats, Mozilla (picture), jumped up on the fridge (he jumped over a cereal box blockade), and knocked down an unopened bottle of balsamic vinegar. After falling 7 feet, the bottle exploded on the floor, instantly marinating the small kitchen's floors and cabinets. After about an hour of mopping, sweeping, and picking small bits of glass from our floor and carpets, it was clean. We left the windows open for a few hours, but the apartment still smells like a vinaigrette.

Last week, I ordered some

Last week, I ordered some posters from AllPosters.com and put them up on my office wall. They're my two favorite movies of 1999, Magnolia and Being John Malkovich.

Well 3 solid weeks of

Well 3 solid weeks of work have finally paid off, as a site I just finshed went online. I still have some minor changes to make to it, but I'm happy with how it turned out. (note: there may be problems accessing it, but I have no control over the server)

Last night, I had some

Last night, I had some downtime between projects, so I grabbed my digital camera, set it on a table and took some shots of myself. After getting them into photoshop, I decided to play around with some colors and interfaces, and what you see now is the result. I hope I don't look too suicidal. :) I'll be slowly converting the rest of the site to this new orange/black/white palatte.

I've been losing track of

I've been losing track of time lately, and having problems knowing what day it is. Then I realized I've been working 14+ hr. days off and on for the past couple weeks. I remember seeing a recent US News & World Report article that said the average american workweek was now around 47 hours. This weekend, I'm taking a tip from the restfest.org people and finally taking a couple days off to do something fun away from my computers.

This is kind of funny.

This is kind of funny. Ev and the gang at Pyra linked to a photo I took at Macworld of someone using blogger, and the person in the photo, Julie, sent me a nice note tonight. If you look the entry for January 6th on her weblog, you can see exactly what she was typing when I took the photo.

I forgot to mention that

I forgot to mention that I put some photos from Macworld online over the weekend.

Last month, I started using

Last month, I started using Spyonit to keep track of things on the web. It's been great, letting me know when important pages change, when stocks spike or fall, and when there's bad weather coming. I also put a couple watches on my favorite ski resorts. Today it snowed 14" at Jackson Hole, making their total over 5 and half feet of new snow since the new year. What am I doing behind this desk, sitting at a computer? To Do List Item #1: go snowboarding.

Saw Magnolia today, which was

Saw Magnolia today, which was amazing. The entire cast was great, including Phillip Hoffman (picture) who I consider to be one of the most under-rated actors today. He plays a completely different character in every movie, but he's always great. I posted some Magnolia-related links on MetaFilter, if you've seen it, check the links out.

Well, Macworld has been cool.

Well, Macworld has been cool. Tonight we had a weblogger get together, which was a lot of fun. I'll post pics when I get back. The highlight of the night was meeting big-time asian film star Evan.

Well, I'm off to Macworld,

Well, I'm off to Macworld, tomorrow is the keynote by Steve Jobs, which will be online. I'll probably be back Saturday. If you need to reach me, try sending a page to my cell phone.

Tonight, while showing my friends

Tonight, while showing my friends Magnus and Liz how I could actually surf the amazon.com site on my new PCS phone, I wanted to see what the buying process was like. With the small 3 line long, ~25 character display, I looked up the Shawshank Redemption DVD I've wanted for a while, hit a couple buttons and the next thing I know I actually bought it. The entire process took all of 90 seconds, including the time to transfer data. I guess the future is already here.

I've learned that my office

I've learned that my office is currently cursed by Murphy's Law, as an ethernet plug suddenly popped out of a network card, which made MetaFilter unreachable for about an hour today. Also, while I was talking on the phone with someone, the plug on the handset popped out, dropping the call. Perhaps someone greased all the ports in my office with Millennilube.

I might be redesigning this

I might be redesigning this page later this week. Somewhere I'd like to work in links to all my permanent projects and put links to my webcams. Here's a shot of my cam at work. I might post a link to my home cam as well.

I hereby nominate the Y2K

I hereby nominate the Y2K bug for the "biggest overblown non-event" of the millenium. Well, everything is fine with me. Hope your new years went well, and I wish everyone a good new year.

Instead of using my own software, I'm going to start posting new thoughts here using blogger, which should make the page load a lot faster. I'll continue posting links to things I'm working on, and with blogger, it should be even easier to do, so expect near-daily posts.