Mitch Hedberg - Wikiquote

I commonly return to the work of Mitch Hedberg. Man, I'm sad this guy is gone. After his death, one of my best friends said, "now I know how Catholics feel about the death of the Pope." (Mitch died the same weekend as that Pope guy).

Some Mitch quotes can be read at en.wikiquote.org/wiki/M...

If you haven't heard or seen Mitch perform before, his delivery is very reminiscent of Steven Wright. He has a pretty dry, monotone delivery of stream of consciousness non-sequitors. It feels like being lulled to sleep before *bam* Daddy is on his back laughing.

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Pacific City Vacation

Pacific City was a blast for both families. Bob and I enjoyed the spirits and ambience of The Pelican Pub immensely. The house that Bob rented was perfect, right on the beach! Using his powers of relation, Bob found an outstanding charter boat, Eagle Charters, to take us out on the Ocean for some fishing. I caught a 44 lb. halibut, Bob caught a 38 lb. one, amongst cod, sea bass, and other catch. Check out my photo album of the trip!

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I'm on vacation!

Ok, I'll effectively be away from computers for two weeks. The first week, I'll be with Carrick and cousins at Pacific City on the Oregon coast (again). The second week, I'll be at my parents for a mini family reunion.

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Pictures of me and my g/f

A friend took some pictures of me and my girlfriend:

first picture
second
third

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Resampling video for (S)Video CDs using mencoder

I found this difficult to find on the 'net so am sharing it below. This code will use mencoder (part of the mplayer project) to resample the file specified by the 1st command-line argument into a properly encoded (S)VCD file which will be given the name of the 2nd command-line argument.

#!/bin/sh



mencoder \

-oac lavc \

-ovc lavc \

-ofps 25 \

-of mpeg \

-lavcopts \

keyint=125:mbd=2:vcodec=mpeg1video:\

acodec=mp2:vbitrate=1150:abitrate=224:\

vrc_buf_size=327:vrc_maxrate=1150:\

aspect=4/3: \

-vf scale=352:288,dsize=4/3 \

-srate 44100 \

$1 -o $2

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mini-reunion complete!

This weekend, Carrick and I spent the weekend with my mother and mother's sister's families (all the cousins and such) at Lincoln City, OR. It was a crappy drive, about 6 hours one-way from here in Seattle but it was a delightful destination and celebration.

This time was noteable because I seemed to be able to be myself more of the time. Several times I had the group laughing. One cousin mentioned she couldn't remember laughing so hard in a long, long time. My fat seal impersonation at the pool seemed to be particularly pleasing to the family. Other onlookers evidently were scared off but, as I see it, it was their loss :)

More information about Lincoln City can be found at www.oregoncoast.org/hom...

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Matt Smith video for Seattle viaduct

"Nickels tries satire to drum up interest in waterfront tunnel" Matt Smith is an improv god. In this video he uses satire to support Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' plan to replace the viaduct with a park and stuff.

Read more at seattlepi.nwsource.com/...

and at Matt Smith's web site .

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alphabet evolution

This neat animation concisely shows the animation of the english alphabet: www.janpeters.net/pics/...

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AJAX Remote Desktop Viewer

It's rewarding when you have a fun idea that you don't act on but you know someone eventually will and they do. It's difficult not to be a bit smug about it, too :).About a year ago when I became aware of AJAX it seemed clear to me that an AJAX vnc client made too much sense not to become a reality. Here it is: www.peterdamen.com/ajax... I installed it and while it's more of a simple prototype at this point it clearly shows the potential.

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OSXubuntu

I just went through Lauri Taimila's step-by-step instructions for making ubuntu look similar to OS X. Since I'm running xubuntu the steps were slightly different but with basically the same result. I highly recommend this recipe. Read more at Lauri Taimila's website: users.utu.fi/ljtaim/ubu...

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Xubuntu Rocks

XUBUNTU!!! Pronounce 'xubuntu' with a deep, rich german accent for best results. This distribution has torn me away from Fedora Core/RedHat which I have been with all the way back to the original slackware and yggdrasil days.

Like Ubuntu, xubuntu live boots so you can make sure your hardware functions prior to committing to an installation--beautiful.

I have never been able to get a linux distribution functioning well on a laptop. I've always tended to have a laptop that is just a bit too new for the open source community to support. Also, linux distributions have tended to just suck for laptops. They have never seemed to get power management correct nor even have suspend or hibernate working. Not so with xubuntu. These features worked perfectly right out of the box.

Why Xubuntu? KDE is a great linux desktop platform and GNOME is alright but I always come back to XFCE4. It is quick quick quick. The think I get tired of in KDE and GNOME is the extra time it takes to switch virtual desktops. I require that switch to be QUICK! In XFCE4 it is quick. Also, in Linux, system memory seems to be the most important requirement for a good experience. XFCE4 simply uses less resources than KDE or GNOME while providing similar features.

Another fun thing to try with xubuntu was Xgl and Compiz. This was not trivial to setup but much simpler than compiling Xgl and compiz from source code. It actually worked reasonably well on my laptop but, because of my intel 915 video card, was just a tiny bit too slow for regular use. Super-sweet software that is, though. I'm considering upgrading my desktop video card in order to experience this joy.

I haven't been able to put Mom and Pop on Linux prior to this but now it is time. Linux is ready for the desktop.

Read more at wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu

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So sue me » SharpMusique

This is an excellent piece of software that let's you search, buy, and redownload DRM-free music from Apple's iTunes music store. While I can download music for free, I prefer to be guilt-free and pay (regardless of how little gets back to the artist). Works like a charm.

Read more at www.nanocrew.net/softwa...

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First Post!

Hey! This is my space for posting my thoughts and things I want to write down and share.

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