One concept2 later, I’m in debt but relieved

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This time of year has caused me to go a bit nuts both this year and last year. When I moved to NY I had to give up the fairly extensive home gym I had built. My cottage simply doesn’t have room for the equipment. This leaves me unable to workout though once the clocks change because of the cold and the dark – my weight bench is out in the barn. Last year I partially solved this problem by getting a dance pad and making an ass of myself playing dance video games, which are a decent cardiovascular workout even if they make you look ridiculous. No one was around to see so what did I care. Still, I crave something better. I did a good bit of research over the past few months and settled on a Concept 2 rowing machine which I ordered today. This winter instead of putting on a couple of pounds I’m committed to ending with that sixpack I’ve been working towards the last few years (as in, on my stomach, not as in, of Guinness). Meantime though I’m going crazy with a lack of activity and checking the scale every morning like a borderline anorexic teenager. Fortunately the ordering process was super quick – I ordered over breakfast this morning and they’ve already sent me my fedex shipping number.

With Soolin’s crate out in the barn now I’m also going to move the weight bench inside this weekend, the hell with open space, who needs it.

There’s one consequence of all this for the family – I am officially broke. We’ve talked of ending the insanity that is our normal Christmas. I’m flat out telling you all, I don’t have the $1,000-$1,500k I normally spend on Christmas to blow this year. We’ve talked over the past couple of years about either doing secret Santa or holding ourselves to a realistic budget. I’m casting my vote for either of those and am open to other suggestions, but if all of your xmas lists have a bunch of $300 gifts on them, you can count on a $50 gift certificate 😉

Last of the weblog design tests

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As most will note, I changed the templates for the weblog one last time. I’m not fond of the color scheme this time around but I do like the layout otherwise and the utilities on the top right (font size changes and whatnot). It’s down to a choice between this one and theme wuhan, the first one I experimented with. If you have an opinion drop it in the comments. Figure one way or another I’ll choose this week and then roll out the theme to most portions of the site. Also figure I’ll be playing with the color scheme of whichever one I choose, so if you’re going to comment, keep in mind that the colors are likely to change. For Andrew’s sake, I promise no lime green will be involved.

I also added the old ‘about’ and ‘contact’ pages back into the site – an old flame found me through google then had trouble figuring out how to get in touch with me. Embarrassing, that. Anyway the links to those pages run across the top and can be found to the right as well.

[edit]
Two more to consider:

Twilight
http://themes.star-shaped.org/2005/10/28/twilight-theme-for-wordpress/

Copperleaf (which looks nothing like what it sounds)
http://www.copperleaf.org/

Friday fun – puki

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It’s not what it sounds like. It’s friday so it’s time for a fun link, check out the flash-based puki, a simple, stylish little corridor shooter that runs nicely in your browser. Don’t blame me if your boss catches you goofing off. You’ll note mine won’t because I checked it out on my lunch break 😉

Enjoy!

Ajax libraries cataloged

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All this buzz about Web 2.0, ajax, webapps and so on, it’s the second coming of the web hype machine, and maybe a bit more. But if you’re interested in reviewing all the library options available to you, check out the Open Source Applications Foundation’s wiki page for Ajax Libraries. It’s not comprehensive but it covers the big ones and there are some useful comments about each of the libraries to help you judge which might be most appropriate for the project you’re working on. For what it’s worth I’ve played around with a couple of these now just to see what’s entailed in implementing this stuff and the biggest issue is not so much finding a library to work with, it’s finding one with enough documentation and examples that you can figure out how to handle implementation without tearing your hair out in frustration. The community seems to be well aware of the issue though so hopefully we’ll see better documentation emerge shortly. Meanwhile you can get a head start on most folks by starting to experiment now.

Home arcade cabinets make the mainstream

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Ok this is pretty cool. I’m longtime fan of M.A.M.E and occasionally daydream about building myself one of those excellent MAME cabinets you might have happened across, but time, money and other priorities have always kept it as mostly a pipe dream. This christmas might change all that for me as Target will be carrying a pre-built arcade cabinet for around $500 that has a large collection of Midway games on it. The cabinet also has a collection of AV inputs on it so that you can connect some of your other equipment – videogame consoles and so on – to it. No word on whether the controls built into the cabinet can be easily connected to any add-in equipment is my one concern with this unit. Hopefully my local Target will get one in stock so I can check it out in person. Siblings note: you all could also band together to get this for me for xmas 😉

Musings on absinthe

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For reasons that go back to my college days and my love of drink, I’ve developed a passing interest in Absinthe, and I’ve written about it here a few times. If you’re not familiar with it, it was a liquor that was very popular during the latter half of the 19th century. It was pretty much globally outlawed in the early 20th century because of fears that some of the compounds in it cause addiction, dementia and other ills. I was at a cocktail party this summer where the host brought out a bottle of it and this led to some controversy around the table – the host was under the impression he had purchased an actual bottle of it, whereas others (including myself) were convinced that what is sold as Absinthe in Europe these days bears little in common with the Absinthe of the 19th century beyond the name. Wired is running a pretty interesting article that sheds light on this – it turns out everyone was in fact partly right. Much of what is being sold as Absinthe is pretty much junk but you can actually buy some decent vintages, thanks in large part to the research of Ted Breaux, the subject of the wired article I linked to.

It’s still illegal to buy or consume Absinthe in the US, unfortunately. It’s also easy enough to find an importer willing to sell it to you though, a quick example being absintheonline.com, who happens to carry the vintage discussed in the wired article for ~$100.00 a bottle plus shipping. Their FAQ claims they’ve been shipping to the US for years with no legal problems. As before I am sorely tempted to order myself a bottle but I worry about the potential legal consequences, something the Wired article fails to cover. Any thoughts from my readers? Anyone interested in an Absinthe fueled New Year’s eve this year? $100 a bottle plus shipping sounds expensive but what price a unique experience? To me it seems pretty damned cheap when you think of it in that context. Any takers?

Crop that image online

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The scenario – you just walked into a public lab, coffee house, your friend’s house, wherever, and you need to crop some images from your digital camera or whatever. You can’t find an image editor to work with. Solution? Head to imagecrop.com and use their tools. Free, fast, simple as pie to use. My first reaction to this was …? Who needs that? All it can do is crop images? But in general the approach actually seems pretty viable in terms of single-purpose tools supported by adwords. No harm to the consumer, and easy to access tools for folks like my mom, who can’t figure out photoshop to save her life. Of course it really needs some additions to this toolset though, like gamma and other color correction tools, but this is a start to something potentially fairly useful.

Improved ebay search

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If you get frustrated with ebay’s clunky search tools you might like the-winning-bid.com’s approach. The site provides you with sliders and drop down menus that let you tune your search and it also provides keyword suggestions based on what you’re looking for that you may find helpful. Honestly there’s not much here that you won’t find in ebay’s advanced search tools aside from the decent keyword suggestions but the interface is much improved over ebay’s setup. There’s a small tradeoff in that they’re paying for this by adding google adwords on the right side, but chances are most folks have already learned to tune those out anyway if you spend any significant time browsing the web.