Chuggnutt!

Month: January 2003

  • Screech

    A couple of weekends ago we caught a marathon of “I Love the 80s” on VH1 and spent what seemed like a good portion of the day watching it and laughing at all the quintessential ’80s things we remember. And it had to happen.

    1989.

    The year that “Saved by the Bell” debuted on NBC.

    You’re wondering why that matters. You’re probably thinking of not visiting my site again.

    This is significant because of a certain theory I have about that show.

    And I’m not talking about “The New Class” or “The College Years,” no way. (Although “The College Years” did continue with Zack, Screech, Slater, and eventually Kelly.) No, the original series is where it’s at.

    It’s only with the original series, anyway, that my theory comes into play.

    Here it comes.

    Bear in mind, this is a phenomenon that I not only experienced firsthand, but have witnessed affecting others as well. Basically, it stems from this: whenever “Saved by the Bell” comes on, you can’t NOT watch it.

    Doesn’t matter if you were aimlessly channel surfing, or watching a different show: if for some reason “Saved by the Bell” appears on your TV, you are compelled to watch it until the end. Invariably. I’ve even had people that I didn’t know watched the show confirm this. My theory? At best, there’s a subliminal element to the original series of “Saved by the Bell” that compels you to watch.

    At worst? I shudder to think.

    Some links for your gratification:

  • Moving right along…

    A few random things.

    php|architect is offering a free issue of their new magazine. Anyone who’s into PHP should check this out.

    I found a neat site today called StoryMania. From their own description, they’re an “online community and marketplace for publishing, discovering, reviewing, buying and selling creative works — interact directly with authors and other viewers.” The site could use some technical improvements, but I like the idea a lot.

    So far I’ve got the first five chapters of Tom Sawyer done in Palm Reader format (.pml). It’s pretty plain, so I’ll be calling it version 1.0 and try to get my hands on the actual book to address additional formatting issues.

  • Orthanc and Barad-dur

    I went and saw The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers today.

    Oh. My. God.

    There were some deviations from the book— more so than in The Fellowship of the Ring— in order to fit the movie format, but it all worked extremely well. I couldn’t have asked for a better movie. Among other things, the Ents are simply astounding.

    Now, of course, I expect The Return of the King to even surpass The Two Towers. I’m counting the days.

  • Palm Reader eBooks

    I’ve been merrily playing with the Sony CLIÉ that I got for my birthday, installing apps and loading it up with data, and one of my bright ideas is to start playing around with eBooks. See, the CLIÉ runs the PalmOS, for which there is a really nifty free eBook Palm Reader available from Palm Digital Media. Palm Digital Media also offers a fairly extensive catalog of eBooks for sale (and a few for free); think Amazon of Palm eBooks.

    I downloaded two of the free eBooks, The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling, and The Coming Technological Singularity by Vernor Vinge, and I read the Vinge work while in Las Vegas.

    But the cool thing— the really cool thing— is that Palm Digital Media provides you with the software and the means to create your own eBooks for the Palm Reader.

    So what I’m thinking is that there’s a real dearth of free eBooks out there—aside from the two I mention above, about the only other free books I found are texts from the Bible. Yet with the software to make books, and the wealth of content available from sites like Project Gutenburg, I don’t see any reason why there shouldn’t be a lot more free eBooks for Palm.

    You can probably see where this is going.

    My bright idea relating to this is to start creating Palm Reader eBooks (from works in the public domain), and offering them for download from this site. And then distributing them accordingly. For free.

    Because it just seems like a neat thing to do.

    The first books I plan to convert, I think, will be Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (and then Huck Finn), and The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.

    But then, you know… the sky’s the limit. Any particular book you’d like to see? How many people out there are using Palm-compatible PDA’s, anyway? And how many would read eBooks on them? Email me with answers to these questions, or any other ideas for Palm books.

  • Happy New Beer

    My first beer of 2003 (yes, on January 1) was Sea Otter Amber Ale, from Rogue Brewing. It’s a 22-ounce special edition beer you can only get from the brewery itself in Newport, Oregon, and a portion of the proceeds are donated to the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

    On my 30th birthday (just over a week ago, alas), I enjoyed one of the last 2 bottles of a homemade barleywine. I think I made it about 3 years ago, and it had aged nicely. Now there’s only one left.

    This weekend will be either Terminator Stout from McMenamins, or Toad Spit Stout, homebrewed by my good friend Justin.

  • Recap 2002

    Back with the first posting of the New Year, looking back on 2002 and some of its key events for me.

    • 2 weddings; the first in January, of a close family friend. The second in Las Vegas just this last weekend between Christmas and New Years, of my brother.
    • I lost both my grandmothers in the first half of the year, fairly close to one another.
    • My youngest child celebrated his first birthday.
    • My oldest celebrated her third.
    • I myself celebrated my 30th.
    • I changed jobs, in a bit of a rollercoaster few months.
    • A tree fell on my house. (No damage, thankfully.)
    • Some memorable trips, including:
      • The trip to Portland for the first wedding;
      • An anniversary trip to Portland, away from the kids, on a dinner cruise and expensive hotel;
      • A week-long vacation traveling down the Oregon coast;
      • The trip to Las Vegas for my brother’s wedding.

    2002. Had to love it.