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Chris Has a Tough Lie
Originally uploaded by iChris.
We tried out the new minigolf out at Wilson's. It uses 'real grass' instead of the fake stuff that most minigolf places cheap out with. They also take 'real money', to the tune of $7/person per round instead of the lower quality $3-4 most mini golf places charge.
I had a tough game and finished in the bottom half. Strong winds on the back nine took me off my game and I couldn't keep up with my dad who took home the 'W'.
IMG_0343.JPG
Originally uploaded by Jamita.
I win the cutiest nephew contest.
Weblogs: 16
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Version: 3.2
I can guarantee most of those trackbacks are spam. And probably a good portion of the comments as well. They're the ones that we've inherited since upgrading from MT 2.xx, before MT had comment/trackback spam blocking.
Sixapart has released Movabletype 3.2. To any mennoboy/mennogirl/etc users I'll be upgrading sometime in the near future. It's Andrea's (my sister) wedding on Sunday and so there's lots of family/friends that we'll be hanging around with. Look for 2 bazillion pictures to be uploaded on Monday after all the dust clears. :)
[Update]: Nevermind. I decided to quickly do it while I was waiting for Sue to get home from work. Let me know if you see anything wierd in your travels.
Check out what was big in 1985 on engadget's 'special edition'.
And it's based on Jabber, an open source instant messenging service, which is good because iChat AV for Mac is also based on Jabber. Here's how to get set up if you have a gmail account already and a Jabber client:
Server: talk.google.com
Username: youremail@gmail.com
Password: yourpassword
Let me know if you want/need a gmail account.
Nothing too exciting here - they've got a client for Windows folks to use - but I know how tied most people are into using MSN. It's similair to how everyone used to (still does?) use Internet Explorer just because it came installed on Windows.
A Wired article with Jon Stewart and a producer from 'The Daily Show.' Still the only show I watch on a regular basis, besides Rock Star: INXS. :)
Not always appropriate for work (or home, or wherever you may be) - but interesting nonetheless: www.overheardinnewyork.com.
Neat. Since the CBC recently locked out it's employees in a labour dispute, a few of those employees have put together a website called cbcunplugged.com so you can still listen to them even though they're not 'on the air'.
I think I _need_ a set of these to protect my... uhm... something I'll think of later. Either way, it's frickin lazer beams.
10mph is a documentary about two guys who travel across Amercia on a segway.
In the grand scheme of things, a very useless and unimportant movie. But America definitely likes to look at itself and see itself on the big screen so I'm sure it'll do well and probably is an entertaining look at 'real' Americana at it's best and worst.
Dwayne Harms past away early this morning after a short battle with cancer. He was 37, a husband and father of 2. At present there are 30+ comments on the last entry on his blog by his wife announcing his passing.
From one of the comments, apparently a quote from Dwayne in response to someone else's passing, sums it up:
He finished his race, all the tasks God asked of him he completed and God called him home to experience his reward early, it is incredibly sad for us but they are not suffering with anything earthly anymore.
Blogger releases a plugin for Word that allows you to blog from Word.
I think there's a few Sarah Slean fans out there - a remix of her single, Mary, is on the iTunes Music store for those that might care.
Where do you find cheap flights these days? Expedia?
Our beach volleyball team took out the top team last night in our league. They were undefeated at 14-0 and we were 9 and 5. It took 3 games but we came out with the 'W'. I think it was really because our team came together and worked together as a team, gave 110%, worked it out in the trenches, disciplined ourselves by not taking unneccesary penalties, and kept our eyes on the prize.
I'm really proud of the way our guys hung in there. We were really on our game. We knew what we had to do and went out and did it. It's always tough to win in a hostile environment. This was a real confidence booster. We're going to use this win as a building block. You know, everyone counted us out before the season started. This team has overcome a lot of adversity, showed a lot of resiliency. Our fans were the 7th man today.
Give the other team a lot of credit, they're tough competitors. We beat a very good team today.
Speaking of beach volleyball, be sure to catch the Huntington Beach Open this weekend on NBC at 2:30 on Saturday and Sunday.
New Store - Wide View
Originally uploaded by iChris.
Here's a pic of the new store - more available here.
I'm trying out the beta of the next version of Movabletype, the program I use to blog here on Mennoboy. The blog is at beta.mennoboy.com.
If you'd like to check out movabletype 3.2 beta, send me an email and I'll set you up with a login.
Five Weeks of Free loops for Garageband, Logic, etc. Each week, a new set of loops are availabe here.
People are often debating the merits of a laptop vs desktop - so I thought I'd do a quick comparison in the Apple world of their power line up in either portable (Powerbook) and desktop (Powermac) computers.
As configured (using Canadian pricing, full retail, no tax):
Powerbook, $3,224
Powermac, $2,650, 20" Display, $999 - total $3,649
Nothing too surprising as the Powermac quite easily scores over double the Powerbook - it does have two G5 chips in it to the Powerbook's single G4. I was more interested in the hard drive scores where the Powermac's serial ata drive which also doubles the speed of the laptop's slower IDE hard drive.
It confirms what I tell people - unless you absolutely need portability, you'll get a lot more bang for your buck with a desktop computer.
William Gibson writes for 'Wired' as he follows U2 on their tour.
and the OS isn't even due until next year. Bear in mind that this report is from a Mac publication so it may be a little slanted in the Apple's favor.
There was a storm here a few days ago and ever since then my Shaw modem hasn't worked. I've been waiting to see if maybe it would wake up, but nothing has happened. I phoned Shaw and they said it's likely shot and that they'd just give me a new one to replace it. In the meantime I've noticed that there is at least two wireless networks that I can get access to from pretty much anywhere in my house so I haven't really missed the internet that we have right now.
Which begs the question: Why not freeload off of some other person who hasn't figured out how to lock down their network? Saves me $30/month and they probably won't notice much of a performance hit for the amount I use (except when I download torrents of 'The Daily Show').
My main issue, aside from the fact that I think it's probably in the grey area of stealing, is that potentially someone around me could actually know what they are doing and are leaving their network open in the hopes that someone will use it to access their banking/secure information and thereby leave a trail for them to try and 'hack' in. A bit far fetched to be sure, but entirely possible since everything I'm doing would be going over their network - including this entry.
As tempting as it might be, I think I'll just get our modem replaced and go back to using my own network. Maybe I'm just yella.
Apple finally came around and released a two button mouse. It's way too easy to make fun of this based on the fact that it took them 3+ years to get on the two button bandwagon. I haven't heard a single argument that really makes any sense as to why they stuck with the one button version for so long.
Educational pricing is at $58 which is a bit steep for a mouse - but because it's Apple I'm sure it will sell just fine. It's got some sort of built in speaker to account for the fact that there's no actual buttons to press - so when you click there's an audible 'click' sound that it makes.
I'm experimenting (again) with having some Google text ads on the blog. It's one 468x60px block right after the first entry so it's not really that intrusive. It's funny because it's really not that I care about generating money from clicks, it's more that I'm a statistics geek and love to know little things like how many people have clicked this, or how many times this image was viewed or who else is talking about things with this 'tag' on it. The temptation though is to start throwing ads everywhere if/when you see a few dollars start trickling in. The reality is that it does cost money to do hosting like this, but I made that choice and I shouldn't really pass that 'burden' on to the visitors of my site (or sites). But like I said, the stats geek in me can't help it sometimes.
This is where flickr is so great because they have data on everything. Most viewed, most 'favorited', most comments, and their new one, most interestingness (their word, not mine).
So far it seems the advertising works. The first ad that popped up was for a Limited Edition Settlers 3D box set that costs $349US. Both Phil and I clicked on it.
Settlers on the Deck
Originally uploaded by iChris.
I was saying to Troy that outside of sitting on the deck in Mazatlan, his parent's cabin at Christopher Lake is the nicest place to play Settlers.
Plus you don't have to worry about drinking the water. :)
Sitting on the Dock of Christopher Lake
Originally uploaded by iChris.
We went up north this weekend - stopping in at Christopher Lake for Friday night and then to Waskesiu for Saturday night. Lots of people out because of the warm weather - but we had a good, relaxing time hanging out with friends and family.