Category Archives: Idle Chit-Chat

Great Googly-Moogly!

Posted on by
6

I’d take a picture, but I’d have to get out of bed. Use your imagination.

Addendum:
OK, now it’s snowing pretty hard, and I’m out of bed. Your imagination is no longer required.
Additional Addendum:
The snow let up pretty quickly yesterday. the sun came out and the light dusting on everything quickly vanished. Still, it was pretty nice. This morning I slept a little later than usual, and when I opened my eyes to say good morning to lake and mountains, what did I see but several inches of snow covering everything. Well, that got me up in a hurry.

Winter Wonderland I grew up in the mountains, so I’ve seen snow in May before. Part of me is saying, “Jerry, what the heck’s the big deal?” But it is a big deal. The way the sun is shining off the snow-laden branches, the way the Internet is down so I can’t work, all these things make life special.

I think the best part about it is the surprise. Having lived in San Diego for so long, I pay no attention whatsoever to weather reports. So when I woke up this morning to discover I had been transported to a winter wonderland in my sleep, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I’m so stupid giddy over the snow I went out in my bare feet for some of the pictures (photos). The picture I’m featuring here doesn’t have the bright sunshine, but I like the composition.

My Internet connection here is relayed over the lake by a satellite dish (although I suppose it’s not a satellite dish if no satellite is involved), and apparently the connection is quite vulnerable to poor weather conditions. Unfortunately, now that you’re reading this, I’m back connected to the outside world and that means I’m currently struggling to concentrate on work when what I really want to do is go out and play.

Ironically, with the Internet down, I would be able to concentrate on work much better, but the tools I’m using have been specifically designed to not work when they can’t connect to the mother ship, for no reason other than corporate paranoia. Ironically, anyone with actual malicious intent could hack the tools pretty easily, but that’s not how I plan to spend my day.

I’m going on a walk.

Thanks!

I Need More Tunes!

Posted on by
3

Alas, the bulk if my music collection is in a box in someone else’s garage, waiting for me to ship it overseas. I have 564 tunes on my laptop, which seems like a lot at first blush, but it’s just over 31 hours. Given that a few of the tunes aren’t very good (Enuff Z’Nuff will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes – what the hell was I thinking?) and I listen to my tunes quite a lot, the selection is wearing thin.

I really like emusic.com, where I have found several bands I never would have heard otherwise, but it’s a monthly subscription and you only get so many downloads per month. The 22nd of each month is download day, the day my account refreshes, and I have come to look forward to that day with great anticipation. By now I have several months worth of tunes queued up for download.

My hosts have a bunch of CD’s but I’ve now become too lazy to get up and choose another CD when the one finishes playing. I’m ambivalent about copying music these days; it’s kind of an extension of my philosophy that as someone who is trying to make my living selling software and eventually novels that I shouldn’t be stealing other people’s software and artistic output.

So, any of you have favorite bands with downloadable demo tracks? I can’t order CD’s because I have no place for them to be shipped.

Thanks!

Taking the edge off

Posted on by
15

“All rightey!” I hear you say. “Jerry’s posted something at last!” [Right. just who do I think I’m fooling?] It’s as if the doorbell rang and you’re expecting your favorite mother-in-law. But when you open the door, what do you see? A burning paper bag. You weren’t born yesterday; you know what’s inside.

That’s how I feel about the last thing I posted. You came for Suicide Squirrel II, and got a serious, if muddled, discussion about the role of government. I stand by whatever I said (I’m sure it will make sense in the morning), and I really hope I get lots of comments that force me to develop my thesis more fully. For the occasional random visitor to this blog, though, it’s pretty heavy.

Hey! Occasional Random Guest! Yeah, you! Don’t you care about our country? Or yours? Don’t step on that bag!

In other news, we got a hit on “car passed over” today. Who the heck would search on that? Got another squirrel guts hit, but it was from an insider. Also got “elevator squirrel ocelot guts rutabaga death cult” a couple of days ago from someone in the Albuquerque public schools. Now who could that have been?

Thanks!

Web Search updates

Posted on by
7

Over the last couple of days there have been several search-engine-related hits, notably:

Google: indulgence hunky jesus contest pictures
aol: half baked idea
Google: squirrel guts
Google: Polkaholics

Lots of interesting things come up when you search on squirrel guts.

Just thought you might like to know.

Exciting Addendum!
This morning, got a second hit from a search on “squirrel guts”. This from a completely different domain. As a service to those who arrived at this entry because you were looking for squirrel guts, what you really want is Suicide Squirrel Death Cult.

Thanks!

Big Day in Blog-Town

Posted on by
5

I’d like to say ‘hello’ to anyone who is happening by here because of the very nice things said about me (or at least the idea of me he has formed) here.

Hello!

For my regulars (Yes, I have regulars too! That hit counter didn’t get over 300 all by itself!), Dr Pants is someone who checked “other” under Plan. We have a lot in common. Except the Norwegian girlfriend – I don’t have one of those. Damn you, Dr Pants! There I am thinking I’m scoring pretty high on the footloose-o-meter, spending my days pondering the American Road Myth, and then you happen by, and sure you’re footloose and everything, but on top of that you have me 1-0 in the Norwegian Girlfriend competition. Someday, buddy, when you least expect it…

You’re probably wondering who I am, but really, I’m the last one to answer that question. If you take my word for it, I’m exactly the right height, IQ in the 300+ range, ridiculously fit, raconteur, philanthropist, and poet. And modest. Modest like you woldn’t believe. You should probably ask someone else.

If you’re looking around, you’ll see that right now almost all the posts are about my homeless tour. It started April 2th, my 40th birthday (purely concidence – really. That’s the day the sale of my house became final. Absolutely coincidence. That you would doubt my word hurts me.) The starting point of the tour was San Diego, the end point is Prague. In between, it’s kind of hazy, but I’m doing a bit of work along the way, so I have to stay close to the Internet for the nonce.

Besides the homeless tour, there’s politics (I’m running for president), Get-Poor-Quick Schemes (if any of you know much about robotics, I’d love to get poor with you. I need a robot nuclear reactor on the moon.), and a bit here and there in the other categories. Once I’m in Prague, there’ll be more in the Writing category especially.

As a side note, I am approaching public beta with a word processor I created for writers (specifically novelists) who suffer from the same deficiencies I do. Currently just for mac. There’s a link over on the side there somewhere.

If any of you have more information on the explosive exposé Suicide Squirrel Death Cult please be sure to leave a note. The sooner this tragedy sees the light of day, the more innocent lives can be saved.

So that’s it. Welcome to Muddled Ramblings and Half-Baked Ideas. If you lose the link, you can always search for “elevator ocelot rutabaga” and you’ll come right here.

Thanks!

Tweaking the ‘ol blog today

Posted on by
3

So I just noticed that on my Windows machine the titles don’t have the cool shadows under them. How’s it working for you guys out there?

And hey, was that gap underneath the category icon always there in IE? *sigh*

Thanks!

Work Sucks

Posted on by
4

He has a point. There have been few posts lately because I have a release due Wednesday which is standing between me and the open road, adventure, and all that. Of course, getting paid is nice – if only LeapFrog had an address to send my checks to.

So unless you want to know what I had for breakfast yesterday, there’s not much to add. Now it’s Sunday morning and I’m sitting down in my command center trying to face fixing the last of the defects I have any control over, implement the latest design changes, etc. It’s not bad work, as work goes, it’s just that it’s work.

Thanks!

Now Playing

Posted on by
2

Kind of a slick little thing, if I do say so myself. Useless, but slick. I wrote a script to update the blog with the current song that is playing on my Powerbook.

There may still be some kinks to work out, and if I’m not on the Internet obviously it won’t update. If I remember to shut off the music first, an appropriate message should display.

Right now I’m just playing randomly through the small portion of my music that’s not in a box to be shipped to Prague. What are you listening to?

As long as I’m discussing the sidebar, I added the “Cool Robot of the Week” link over there only to realize that the weeks apparently ended last November. Get a good look at it while you can, I’ll be taking it back off soon.

Thanks!

Elevator Ocelot Rutabaga

Posted on by
6

As of this morning, I am at the top of the Google search for “elevator ocelot rutabaga”. It took somewhere between 3 and 4 days for Google to record that entry.

Just thought you might like to know.

Searching on just the word rutabaga didn’t bring up my blog anywhere near the top, but it did bring up this. Let’s hear it for National Rutabaga Month!

Thanks!

The Google Has Landed

Posted on by
2

Feel free to look around, leave a comment, or whatever. Leave your mark – who knows, it may be worth something someday.

Searches for the last couple of days have included:

“Half Baked Ideas” (came up 10th) was used twice today from two different ip addresses
“build motorcycle contest” (came up 2nd)
“iblog hit meter” (came in first!)
“La Dolce Vida” (came in first in an aol search) has been used more than once
“la dolce vida” (also came in first on Google)
“tomash czech” (came in fifth)

and it goes on. Misspelling vita certainly helped my rankings among similarly impaired searchers. Now, of course, since I have used all the key words again, google will send even more people here that really have no interest in what I have to say. I think variety is the key. If you put in enough unrelated topics, you’ll get some odd matches. And who knows? Maybe out there is someone who is really interested in building a hotel on the moon or a robot race vehicle.

In closing, I would just like to say, “elevator ocelot rutabaga”.

Exciting Addendum!
After talking about google so much, I did a search on the word “Google” and found this. Somebody’s stealing my ideas over there.

Thanks!

Tomorrow the adventure begins

Posted on by
3

First, the posts will (hopefully) be more interesting as I spin for you the story of life on the road, unfettered by good judgement. Second, the updates will be less frequent. I’ll keep writing stuff, but there may be periods with no updates then all of a sudden, wham, several days worth of fascinating drivel.

Keep the comments going! That way you’re giving the next viewer new things to read even when I’m not around. Remember, this isn’t just about me, it’s about community. (*sniff*)

On another note, moving sucks. Took the second truckload of crap to the dump today. Got a nostalgia twinge when I was throwing away some old dog toys, but I’m ready to be gone.

Thanks!

Panicing

Posted on by
Reply

But I have to kick back sometime, right?

Thanks!

A Note About Site Meter

Posted on by
10

I like it. I like it a little too much. Sometimes I reload the page to see if the number has gone up. As in golf, the rare success carries you over much disappointment.

I have it trained to not count me, which means it may not count other roadrunner customers either. So if you’re on roadrunner and you’ve hit the site fortyleven times in the last few days, My statistics are blown. Still, as of this writing, there are 24 confirmed visits to the blog by people who aren’t me.

The counter has a “traffic prediction” feature which I just know will come in handy. You know, so I can, uh, justify my advertising rates. Yeah, that’s it.

Interestingly, when you walk across the Internet, you are not walking in sand, your footprints to be washed away with the next tide. You are walking in plaster of paris; it’s soft and receptive but it doesn’t forget. I worry that this is going to be creepy for you guys, and if it is I’ll remove the counter, but for me it’s great fun. If you click on the number over there you will see the same statistics that I see. At least I think you will.

For instance, today someone who had his or her computer set to Western Australia Time dropped by because of a trackback link I left over at Haloscan. He looked at the main page, and didn’t click any links. Not that there was any reason for him to do so unless a category name caught his fancy.

The stats never show enough to pin down the exact person, but with a little knowledge (now, just who could it be at hearthnhome.com? And Bob, don’t you have better things to be doing while you’re at work?) you can make a pretty good guess.

So, like I said, if this bugs you I’ll stop, or if you don’t mind me seeing the stats but don’t want the whole damn world to know I can fix it that way as well. I just thought you would find it interesting to know just what THEY know about every page you load.

Damn! I didn’t want to end this on a paranoid angle. I like seeing who’s visited, and I have no current plans to use the information for nefarious purposes. But anyway, it’s you guy’s call.

Thanks!

Under Construction

Posted on by
Reply

Tweaking the appearance of the blog, so things will probably be ugly ugly ugly off and on today.

Well, not done tweaking yet, but I’m done for now. I think I need to improver the contrast of some parts.

I added a web counter to see how many people visit this blog. Not sure I’ll be able to take the disappointment.

Thanks!

Comments Enabled

Posted on by
2

Free is my favorite price.

Please take a moment to tell me how to say “two beers” below!

Thanks!