Off to Colorado...

I'm off to Colorado again with the whole family. We'll be up at the cabin for a few days of relaxing and skiing. Hopefully this year I'll return with all limbs attached and where they're supposed to be.

Hope you all had a great Christmas, and have a happy new year!

Merry Christmas!

Hope you have a great Christmas!

"Colombine Type Assault" Plotted at QHHS

LANCASTER, Calif. -- Two boys accused of seriously planning a "Columbine-" type attack on Feb. 14, Valentine's Day, at the 3,400-student Quartz Hill High School have been arrested, authorities said Friday.
An investigation began on Wednesday when a student contacted the vice-principal and said two former classmates were planning a "Columbine-type assault" on the campus, said Sgt. Darrel D. Brown, of the Lancaster Sheriff's Station. Read More...

Here's the frontpage story from the AV Press.

Pretty freaky stuff.

So Close...Yet So Far...

Welp, we lost Grand Champion by 1.6 points. Yes, 1.6. We beat 'em fare and square last week, so I guess we got what we wanted, but a Palmdale banner would have been nice. Oh well...there's always next year.

Finals next week. Grrr...don't remind me.

Three week winter break in one week! Yes! Remind me!

0% Christmas shopping completed. Compared with last years 0% at this time...we're right on schedule.

Only two weeks, then:

• Colorado!
• Cabin!
• Snow!
• Skiing!
• Christmas!
• Any other great thing I forgot!

Finally...somebody sat down and actually wrote out the difference between a Nerd and a Geek, and got it right. Maybe people will stop calling me a nerd, and get it right: I'm a Geek (and proud of it)!

Grand Champion...Almost

If a place known as Santa Monica didn't exist, we would have taken grand champion yesterday at the AV parade and field tournament. We did the best we've done in at AV in a long time...first in parade and second in the field. If we keep it up for next week, (and my rank learns how to flippin guide...but that's a rant for another time) we're looking at Palmdale grand champion, so hopefully I'll have the same title next week sans the 'almost'. It was a long, cold (make that extremely cold and windy) yet, as always, fun day.

Only two weeks of school left! That's the good news, the bad news is only one week before finals. Argh.

You know all those annoying Microsoft 'Send Error Report' windows? Well, you ever wondered what they do with them? Check it out...its pretty funny.

This site has all of the real games from the golden age of gaming. Tons of games from the 80s and early 90s. Lots of Nintendo and arcade games run right on the site... a great way to kill a few hours.

Tis all for now- see ya next week.

Black Friday

By far, one of my most favorite days of the year. This year was awesome. Karl and I got up at a quarter to four in the morning and waited in line at Best Buy for an hour. It was definitely worth the early morning wait; we both came out with a Sandisk Mp3 player and an external 160gig hard drive, together coming out to under $120. Pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Thanksgiving break was great...although I wouldn't complain it were just a wee bit longer. Hey...only 3 weeks until Christmas (oh...excuse me..."winter") break. You always know how a few days off are going to be by the first few hours. Tuesday afternoon I had a camera stuck up my nose and down my throat (laryngoscopy...always so fun), so you could tell it was gonna be a good one. My entire Mom's side of the family was here, plus my sisters and the guys that usually tag along with them. We had a good time, and it was a lot of fun.

The great mystery of why ketchup first will not come out, and then gushes out may be on the road to being solved. A very interesting read and examination of people with way too much time on their hands (sorta like me).

Welp, only 27 shopping days until Christmas...I better get to work.

Happy Thanksgiving

Have a happy turkey day!

Happy Button Day!

Yup...button day. Your guess is as good as mine. Too bad I missed National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day (Nov. 15). Hopefully this Saturday you won't have a bad Have a Bad Day Day.

Life trudges on as normal. Not too much new to report. This Friday will be loads of fun: Algebra II/Trig test, Spanish presentation, English quiz, and Chemistry test. Can't wait.

Apparently future Intel P4's will allow for multiple OS's to run simultaneously. Now that is just plain awesome. There's no other way to describe it. Do I see Vista, OS X, and Linux running simultaneously on one box in the future???

Check out the 200 gig Nano.

A province in central China has found a new way to get wanted criminals known in public: put their faces on playing cards.

Of course we can't forget the $130,000 truffle, the sparrow that knocked over 23,000 dominoes, and the first dog to get a prosthetic limb.

That should keep you busy a while.

1:43:03

One hour, forty three minutes. That was my official time on for the Santa Clarita Half Marathon that I ran on Sunday. I ran the 13 miles with Karl (my bro in law), and my dad. It was a lot of fun, and I think it may turn into a family annual event.

The night before (Sat.), band competed (well, maybe "played" is a better word) at the annual Heart Rampage at College of the Canyons. Although it was fun as it always is, we did pretty badly. Actually, we did really bad. Oh well, there's always next time.

I feel like ranting, so here goes:
I hate sitting in the front row. Not only is it in the front (which sucks for obvious reasons), but your right there where the teacher can see, breathe, spit, cough, sneeze, or whatever else they might do on you. Especially when they are sick. Thanks to a certain English teacher (who's really not all that bad as a teacher), I've been battling this cold for a week. Fun.

Happy 1st birthday, Firefox! May you live long, prosper, and continue to take back the web.

Just FYI- Clarkville is down for some odd reason. I'll get around to fixing whatever the problem is this weekend.

Well, off to prepare for my 15 hour day tomorrow. It's the last football game and everybody is riding the whole day out. Three day weekend coming up!

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

The fear of long words.

How ironic is that???

Overall, last week was a pretty decent week. No complaints besides the usual (school, hw, etc). A good weekend, too. Andi and Karl came up, and Karl and I ran (almost) 11 miles on Saturday. Oh the wonderful feeling of sore legs and crunching hips. Then my other sister had a pumpkin carving thing last night, so that was fun.

Next week is the Santa Clarita half! I'm running with Karl, so that's why I'll be a walking corpse on next Monday. That is, if I'm walking.

Dodger owner Frank McCourt decided to dump the guy responsible for purging practically the whole team last year providing for this year's pathetic close. That's right folks, Paul DePodesta is gone. It's about time.

In the spirit of Halloween, check out the Pumpkin PC. Some guy had way too much time on his hands.

Check out the first laptop ever. I gotta get a hold of one of those.

That's it for now.

100th Post

Yep, it's TCF number 100.
I think...I didn't actually count; I'm trusting blogger on this one.

We took 1st in our division the Apple Valley band competition yesterday, but no sweepstakes. Barstow was nice enough to take care of those for us. It was a very long (try 11 hours), yet fun, day.

Everything else in my life is pretty much the same, that is: busy. Very busy, but I'm still here, every Sunday and the occasional Wednesday. I'm really looking forward to a weekend...oh wait...we just had one. Oh well, there's always next week.

Mandriva Linux 2006 came out a few days ago. It's their latest big update to the OS since 10.0 came out a few years ago. I'll probably get around to installing it over Thanksgiving break.

For those you still in Redmond, check out the top ten reasons to switch to Linux.

On that note, happy 20th birthday, Windows! PC Mag had a special this month...it was really interesting (for some of us at least) to see how it all developed from Windows 1.0 to the upcoming release of Vista.

Well, that wraps up the 100th post.

The Video Ipod

It happened. Apple released a video ipod. Only 5 weeks after the nano, here comes the fifth generation ipod. Check out all of the new specs.

I went to Vegas last weekend to see Andi and Karl (my sister and bro in-law). It was a lot of fun...we went to a renaissance fair, Fremont Street, and of course, Fry's. I ran with Karl on Sunday and was actually able to keep up; we did 7 miles in under an hour, which is pretty cool.

Check out the 100 most requested/downloaded fonts. Pretty awesome.

I'm beat, so that's about it for now...while you run out to buy your $50 1gig flash drive, I think I'll take a nap.

Wednesday's Wanderings

Time for a quick Wednesday update/break in the middle of conjugating 50 verbs (in three tenses each, folks) for Spanish. Argh. It would have been nice to know it was due tomorrow.

Band played at homecoming last Friday. It was pretty fun, minus playing "When you wish upon a star" 20 times at half-time. Of course I was as close as you could get to the court thing, so I'm in the background of all the stupid pictures. Joy. I also got to loan my clarinet to some guy named Clark who graduated in 02 so he could play with pep band...so that was cool.

Is there a video ipod coming soon? According to Engadget and a BBC slip there is. I think it's sort of stupid for Apple to come out with a video ipod while the regular ipods still so successful. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

If anybody watched Tuesday's "My Name is Earl", did you catch the easter egg? Too bad if you like me and don't have HDTV. It's pretty cool/funny. Check it out.

MIT's $100 Laptop

This thing is absolutly amazing. Not only is this laptop insanely cheap, but its design is very well thought out. The battery doubles as a handle and the shoulder strap is the power supply and plug. When you run low on battery, you can even hand crank power. And that's not all...check out the article for more info. When these things come out in late 06, I'll be first in line.

The Zombies are Attacking...

Another uneventful week in the can. It actually rained on Tuesday to the great surprise and celebration of everybody. That was nice...I could go for more, but it doesn’t look like it too soon. Although, Thursday was the first official day of fall, so off we plunge into that time of year.

We had our field exhibition show last night at QHHS. It was pretty fun, and we actually did half-way decent. Only one more drill left to learn and a massive amount of cleanup and we might actually know the show.

Hope I didn't freak you out with the title, because it actually does tie in. A high school student was arrested Tuesday for plotting a scheme to "raise a zombie army and attack his high school." Wonderful.

If that wasn't enough Zombie news for you, here's a simulation of what would happen if the world was suddenly attacked by zombies. Shouldn't we be putting our recorces in to planning naturl disasters, instead 'zombie attacks'???

Even though it looks like it, apparently you can’t snap the new ipod nano in half, but you can apparently scratch the screen up pretty good. Check out the chronicles of the screen scratch truama.

Microsoft's goal with the upcoming Windows Vista is for the system to "start and shut down as quickly and reliably as a television, typically within 2 to 3 seconds." Wow. That's fast.

Talk Like a Pirate Day

Ayyy Matey

Avast, me hearties-
Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
Arrr...just letting you know early, so you can greet everyone correctly.
Avast- I'm off.

Driving School and 16 gig Flash Drives

Sounds like some sort of twisted horror movie.

Not too much new in my world. I had my first driving lesson last week. No casualties yet, so I guess I'm doing pretty good so far. My instructor guy was good ol' Bud at Adrian’s Driving School- the biggest dump on that side of Lancaster, but I'd never have it any other way. That place is pretty awesome (especially to a junk hoard like me).

School continues to play the wonderful part of Dante's Inferno on this rotating spherical habitat on which we reside. Homework arrives by the craploads, but it's all good. Not really, but oh well.

We had our first field show performance last week. "They" said it looked "good". There's room for improvement...trust me. I think our next performance is the exhibition show on the 24th.

16GB flash drives? Yup, Samsung is going to start shipping them next year.

The new i-pod nano is shipping. It's thinner than a pencil with 4GB of flash memory and a color screen. Not that I'm endorsing it or anything. Now with our 16GB flash drive (see above) we may see something every interesting in the future...

An 85 year old grandmother in Nebraska leapt out of a plane the other day. She kept her promise to sky dive on her 85th birthday. Wow. Let's just hope my grandma doesn’t get any ideas (those in my family are now cringing at the thought).

That's all for now folks.

I'm Street Legal

Well, folks, it's happened. I passed the written DMV test. I have a learner's permit. I can legally operate a motor vehicle (under supervision). If that's not a scary thought, I don't know what is.

The test had 46 questions, and you can miss up to 8. I was shooting for a perfect score (just to annoy everybody), but missed two. Darn those freeway exit lanes and marked extended cargo regulations.

I go for my first behind the wheel training thing on Sunday. Quite frankly, I'm dreading it.

A big happy birthday is in order for one of my best friends:
Google is 7 years old!!!
If Google were a person, they would have started elementary school late last summer (around August 19), and today would have just finished the first grade. Awesome indeed.

Give Katrina Victims $1 for Free

It might not be much, but I'm sure every little bit counts. Since I know a lot of us can't really do much, this is kind of neat. Click here, look in the lower right corner, check the box and click donate. Way to go, Clorox for sponsoring something like this. Spread the word!

Back to Reality...

School started last Monday.
Need I say more?
Back to annoying teachers, long days and homework. Joy.

We're making slow, painful progress on the show in band. It's a pretty hard show, but we've got some of it. I think the first game we play at is on the 9th.

The new Walmart Super-Center opened today. Louis and I had a plan: we were going to wait in line to get in opening day, run in, grab a stick of gum, buy it, and become their first customers ever. Too bad school started so early this year.

Ever wonder what happens when some guy with too much time on his hands buys a chunk of pure sodium off ebay and attempts to blow it up any way possible? Check it out.

Microsoft released beta 1 of Windows Vista (the next version of Windows). It looks to have some cool new features, but doesn't quite look like the original Longhorn was supposed to. You can watch a video review by Patrick Norton here, or read the PC Mag review here.

The Worlds Largest tomato fight started in Spain. Every year tens of thousands of people hurl thousands if tomatoes at each other. Sounds pretty fun.

Three day weekend coming up! I'll try to update then

The Dreaded Return to School

Not to depress you or anything, but only one (half by now) day of freedom left. I guess it’s back to it tomorrow. Oh well. Only 180 days of school left till summer again.

QHHS band camp was last week. Hot and hectic as usual, though it was nice seeing everybody again. This year we’re doing the Incredibles field show. The music is fun, sorry to say I can’t quite say that much for the actual show. I’m sure it will get better once we actually get it down (which, at the rate we’re going, will be a while yet).

Here’s a scary prospect for you: I could be driving in a few weeks. I’ve been taking an online driver’s ed class the past few weeks (not by choice, mind you) and just passed the final. I should get the certificate in a few days, and within a week or two take the DMV test. I find the whole idea very disturbing at this point.

Google Earth came out with a new version a few days ago. It has updated images and improved resolution for most major cities (and Area 51…go figure).

Obsure site for the week: Facts on Farts: “Everything you ever wanted to know about farting. From where the gas comes from to why it stinks. It is quite a technical explanation and is sure to answer almost every question you've ever had about flatulence.”

Great.

That’s all for now. If I’m not plagued with HW (argh), I’ll try to get on next week.

396306

http://counter.li.org/

I'm Still Alive...

Sorry folks, I didn't die. The starvation almost took me, but I survived the vegetarian diet. I just got back from a week at the Wildwood Music Institute thing. It was a lot of fun; I got to play in a bunch of ensembles, a woodwind quintet, and an orchestra among many other things (try 8 hours of playing each day). It was especially nice to be with others who were serious when playing, but geekishly dorky like me when they're not. It was a really cool experience, and I'm looking forward to going again. If I ever get around to it, I might post some mp3's.

Back here in reality, there's not much going on. LCLC Productions is announcing Re-Revolution coming soon. More details to come when we figure them out.

Just in case you were worried about the slowing of the earth's rotation, have no fear because an extra second will be added to 2005 to accommodate for that. I can just see the y2k mess starting all over again...

Depressed because there's not more Star Wars? Don't worry, not one, but two, Star Wars TV spin-offs are on the way.

This is the coolest pop-up you'll ever see. I'm still trying to figure how they made the window resize. You might have to do it in IE, and make sure you enable pop-ups temporarily if you have SP2 installed.

That's it for now...more shall come as soon as I'm bored enough to feel obligated to update.

Coming Soon...

Nice work, Mitsch
Check out the LCLC Blog

Google Earth

For those who haven't already found it, you have to try Google Earth. It's one of the coolest little apps I've ever seen. It is a satalite imagry program based off of Google Maps, but the images and interface are amazing. So, give it a try.

Of course with every new application comes hacks, too. Be sure to check out Google Earth Hacks, you can find almost anything from Donald Trump's house to in flight cruise missiles in the middle east. You can eaisly burn hours finding anything and everything.

In case you happen to be wondering, Google Moon exists also. Be sure to zoom in all the way to discover what the moon is really made out of.

I'm Back

We got back from Colorado a few days ago, and no, I did not go skiing. It was nice to relax, enjoy the sky and enjoy the music of the Aspen Music Festival. I got to hear Josh Bell play, and got him to sign a program, so that was pretty cool. Well, only 5 more months before more Colorado sky (and Grandma's food)...I can't wait.

Driving past Death Valley on the way home was a tad warm to say the least. Try 126° F. I have proof if you need it.

I picked up my copy of the 6th Harry Potter on Sunday and just finished reading it today. It was good, but definitely not my favorite. It was a little darker and had more "undesired fluff" than the previous five. I still can't believe what happened towards the end. For those yet to/still reading, prepare for some mourning. Overall I'd say it was pretty good.

On the LCLC front, we are, ah-hem, still working out some kinks. Stay tuned for more.

That’s it for now, but I'm dead bored so expect more soon.

Off to Colorado

We'll be starting off to Colorado later today for a week. I'll try to get online and maybe post some pics. See ya'll later.
`Clark

Happy 4th

New Movie Coming Soon

LCLC met at Barns & Noble on Saturday to organize our next movie. Production on our next film will begin on Tuesday. I'm not sure if I can relase too many details now, but stay tuned to the LCLC Blog for more to come.

LCLC Productions Update

From the LCLC Productions Blog:

I'm speaking on behalf of myself and Louis. All of the "witty" stuff that I could never come up with in here is...you guessed it: his.

We had previous arrangements for a cinematic mental collaboration at a much overrated coffeehouse earlier this week, but Louis had to pull out like a Sophomore nerd in a barf green woody station wagon going to prom pulling out of his driveway. He was apparently "forced" out of the house on a rendezvous to Primo, thus expending his one allotted public outing for the week (albeit unintentionally) as mandated by his mother.
To add to this lamentably deplorable situation, good 'ol Mitsch-wad (Casey) is leaving on vacation for a month. Sans our quiet Asian cameraguy, we can't film very much. Make that: we can't film at all. This is where you people come in. We need your help. Without Casey (and his camera, which btw, is going with him), we'll be forced to go a month with out making any progress. Although we sound like the novice rookie filmmakers we are, if anybody has a DV camera (Digital8 or MiniDV), we need to borrow it. If you can part with your fine piece of filming equipment (which, may I add, will be in very good hands), please email us at lclcproductions@gmail.com.

I thought I'd just give you a little update and plea for help. Thanks for your support.

`Clark

Interactive Buddy

This will keep you entertained for hours (at least it did for me). It takes a little while to figure out, but once you get it, it's a lot of fun. The goal is to terrorize your "buddy" as much as possible using the weapons and modes provided. The more damage you do the more items (flame thrower, missiles, stun gun, etc), people (George Bush, Teletubbies, etc) and modes (anti gravity, no ceiling, earthquake, blood and gore, etc) you can "buy" with your earned “money”. So if your bored (like me), give it a try.

Yup. I know...I'm a sick human being with way too much time on my hands.
Oh well.
`Clark

Dr. Seuss Explains Why Computers Crash

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted at a very last resort,
and the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash
and the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash;
and your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
then your situation's hopeless and your system's gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house
says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
but your packets want to tunnel to another protocol,
that's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,
and your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
til your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse;
then you may as well reboot and go out with a big bang,
'cuz sure as I'm a poet, the thing is gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy in the disk
and the macrocode instructions cause unnecessary risk,
then you'll have to flash the memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM,
quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your Mom!

1000 Hits

Clarkville reached 1000 hits a few days ago. Too bad it came at a time near the end. I think its days are numbered. Stay tuned for somthing new (and ad free) coming soon, or if you have any ideas just drop me an email: clarkcrane@gmail.com.

School's Out!

School finally let out on Friday. It was a real relief, but of course a little bittersweet at the same time. Finals weren't as bad as expected, and for The Smoot's sake, I'll try not to kill myself this summer.

Sorry for not posting in a while...I got pretty lazy. Last week piratically my whole family went down to the Dodgers-Twins game. My bro in law, Karl, is a big Twins fan, and his dad came out from Minnesota to go to the game. It was a lot of fun. The Dodgers won the series (or course), 2-1, winning Friday, stumbling on Saturday, and winning again on Sunday. Unfortunately at this point, that's the last game the Dodgers have won.

LCLC Productions is planning some activity this summer, so stay tuned to our new blog. Beware, it's still in beta.

I'll be sure to update more over the summer, and probably redo (or scrap) Clarkville (sorry for the ads). That's it for now.

Anti-Myspace

I'm still alive- just busy.
More tk...

Counting Down the Days...

Only 10 left to go. Wow, this year has gone really fast.
Not much new this week, just same old stuff.

I'm loving my new H10 20gig. I have about 1600 songs on it, for now. The feature set is really amazing; overall the player is great. I'd definitely recommend it to anybody.

Believe it or not, LCLC productions is still around, and there just might be some activity this is summer. Stay tuned.

I saw the first episode of Systm a few days ago, and needless to say, I was kind of amazed. It's actually really good; Kevin Rose did an excellent job.

Did you hear? Neil Armstrong wants his hair back. He's pretty POed at the barber who saved and sold it. I guess I would be too.

No good IM quotes this week, so desperate times call for Smarterchild:

(20:16:07) freqofnature1***: what do you think about bill gates?
(20:16:09) SmarterChild: I really don't like Bill Gates.
(20:16:17) freqofnature1***: why not?
(20:16:17) SmarterChild: Actually come to think of it, I can't think of too many reasons why not.

Yep, it twas a pretty boring week. Maybe next time.

I'm an Internet Junkie

Here are my internet addiction test results (I was completly honest, btw): Are you Addicted to the Internet? 63% Hardcore Junkie (61% - 80%) While you do get a bit of sleep every night and sometimes leave the house, you spend as much time as you can online. You usually have a browser, chat clients, server consoles, and your email on auto check open at all times. Phone? What's that? You plan your social events by contacting your friends online. Just be careful you don't get a chronic wrist injury... The Are you Addicted to the Internet?

H10 Picture

The iRiver H10 (20GB). Blogger has a problem
with formating text and photos, so to read about
it, click here or scroll down.

The iRiver H10 (20GB)

Well, I finally did it. I bought the iRiver H10 20 gig. It wasn't the cheapest in the world, but I couldn't be happier so far. I can't wait for it to charge up so I can start using it. I've been wanting a good player for a long time, and I think I made the right choice.

Eailer today, I finally saw Star Wars Episode III. It was pretty awesome...execpt for the front row seats. We were in theater 11 (the biggest of course) and got there kind of late, so we got stuck with front and center. I think I need a few more Tylonol for my neck.

Last Moday, Systm debueted. It is basically a weekly 10 minute tech show for hardcore geeks. Check it out.

This is great. The CEO of Intel, the largets chip company for Windows basted PCs says he spends an hour a week cleaning up spyware on his home computer. He was quoted recomending Macs. lol. Forget the Mac thing people, just install Linux.

And I know you all dieing for the IM convo of the week:

(14:32:36) Crayola0***: But she goes up to hug me (in her USC shirt) and SHE'S SHORTER THAN JAMIE.
(14:33:03) Crayola0***: So I sez to myself, "Self, WTF goes on here?"

So there you have it...I'm off to mess with my new gadget.

20 Days to Go

Another Sunday afternoon with nothing to do but dread the coming Monday. This week won't be to bad; Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we get out early. But there's still 20 more days of School left.

Star Wars Episode III came out Thursday at midnight. I haven't seen it yet, I'm probably going to wait a week or two for the hype to die down. After all, I'm not a huge fan. My bro in law, Karl saw it at midnight on DLP in Vegas, and Louis took part of Thrusday off to see it. Casey had front row seats down in LA on Friday.

I'm still on an Mp3 player hunt. I think I've actually decided which one I'm going to get: the iriver H320. I'm just waiting for a good deal, or ebay to come along.

This is the most awesome thing I've seen in a long time. It's a personalized Google homepage, you have to try it out (if you need a gmail invite, just let me know).

Yahoo has started offering unlimited Mp3 downloads for $5 a month. There are more freedoms than most services, but it is still a "rent" type thing. It 's a pretty good deal, I wonder how iTunes is going to react.

Ever feel confined by the limitations of web pages? Not here. You can finally get ultimate freedom.

That's all for now.

Creative Zen Touch

The last couple of months I've been looking at the Creative Zen Micro. When I saw that Best Buy had it on sale for $189 last week, I decided to go for it. Nothing is ever that easy. Apparently the online price and in-store price are two very different things. And you can't use gift cards online. So long, Best Buy.

Then it hit me. Why should I buy the 5GB, 12 hour Zen Micro for about $200 when I can get the 20 GB, 24 hour Zen Touch for $20 bucks more? So that's my latest thing. I'm now waiting for a decent one to come along on eBay. If you’re interested in buying a few Best Buy gift cards, I have a few $25's for sale.

Oh, and no, I am NOT going to buy an iPod.

Otherwise, life has been pretty normal lately. I doubled my Mp3 collection this weekend since Karl happened to bring along his gigs upon gigs of Mp3s.
Wow.
My life must be pretty boring if I'm sitting here bragging about Mp3s. I apologize; I'm in a sarcastic mood.

Since I have nothing else to talk about, I'm going to give TWIT another plug. thisWEEKinTECH- check it out.

Be sure to check out how nerdy you are. I'm nerdier (is that a word?) than 74% of people who have taken the test. Along with my "supergeek" rating, that’s pretty good.

And finally, the random quote of the week:
(18:12:35)farmerbob***: one time i yawned and spit went flying all over my keyboard and touchpad and it pissed me off

That's it for now- check back later.

Feliz Seis de Mayo

I'm a day late, but oh well. I finally have a spare moment (weekend) to actually sit down and write something. Today in Spanish we made salsa to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. It was really fun until my face and hands swelled up and turned red, not to mention the burning. I guess my skin has a little issue with jalapeños.

We got back from Vegas on Monday. It was a lot of fun. We did ok in the band stuff on Sat, and on Sunday and Monday we got a chance to check out the different hotels on the Strip. On Sunday night we went up the Stratosphere, an awesome view, and saw the show on Fremont Street. It was cool to see Andi and Karl there...as well as my whole family. It was a pretty awesome trip.

The Revenge of the Screen Savers (see last post) has changed their name to TWIT: thisWEEKinTECH. TWIT is a weekly tech (and other random stuff) podcast produced by the old Screen Savers. Check it out.

In case you’re interested, Pope Benedict XVI's six-year-old Volkswagen Golf sold on Ebay last Thursday. The winner spent about $305,000 for the Pope's old car.

That's it for now...enjoy the rest of you Seis de Mayo.

The Revenge of the Screen Savers

All of the old Screen Savers are back in a weekly podcast here. They don't have an official name yet, so they are going by the Revenge of the *bleep* (It's a copyrighted name). Tune in each week as the classic Screen Savers talk about tech or whatever. You can get more info on Leo's blog.

STAR testing started today. Not fun. It’s pretty easy, though. Tomorrow is a regular day, and there is more testing on Thursday :( But on Friday it's off to Vegas!

My brother in law, Karl, is getting into the eBay business, so if you have any need for running shoes, check out here and here.

The woman who found a finger in her chili at Wendy's in San Jose (see earlier post) was arrested a few days ago. She apparently planted it there and is being charged with Grand Theft. And get this, Wendy's is offering a $100,000 reward for the owner of the finger.

This is pretty funny. It's not really a prank call, but has to do a fast food guy repeating an order to another restaurant taking an order...just listen, it's pretty funny.

That’s it for now...hasta luego.

Modern Day Abbott and Costello

If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch,
"Who's on first?" might have turned out something like this:
COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking
about buying a computer.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.
ABBOTT: Your computer?
COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: I told you! , my name's Lou.
ABBOTT: What about Windows?
COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?
COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows?
ABBOTT: Wallpaper.
COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
ABBOTT: Software for Windows?
COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write
proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
ABBOTT: I just did.
COSTELLO: You just did what?
ABBOTT: Recommend something.
COSTELLO: You recommended something?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: For my office?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!
ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.
COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm
sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?
ABBOTT: Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: Word in Office.
COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?
ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue "W."
COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue "w" if you don't start with some
straight answers. OK, forget that. Can I watch movies on the Internet?
ABBOTT: Yes, you want Real One.
COSTELLO: Maybe a real one, maybe a cartoon. What I watch is none of
your business. Just tell me what I need!
ABBOTT: Real One.
COSTELLO: If it's a long movie, I also want to watch reels 2, 3 and 4.
Can I watch them?
ABBOTT: Of course.
COSTELLO: Great! With what?
ABBOTT: Real One.
COSTELLO: OK, I'm at my computer and I want to watch a movie. What do I do?
ABBOTT: You click the blue "1."
COSTELLO: I click the blue one what?
ABBOTT: The blue "1."
COSTELLO: Is that different from the blue w?
ABBOTT: The blue "1" is Real One and the blue "W" is Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: But there are three words in "office for windows"!
ABBOTT: No, just one. But it's the most popular Word in the world.
COSTELLO: It is?
ABBOTT: Yes, but to be fair, there aren't many other Words left. It
pretty much wiped out all the other Words out there.
COSTELLO: And that word is real one?
ABBOTT: Real One has nothing to do with Word. Real One isn't even part
of Office.
COSTELLO: STOP! Don't start that again. What about financial
bookkeeping? You have anyt! hing I can track my money with?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?
ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.
COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?
ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.
COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
ABBOTT: One copy.
COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?
ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?
ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!
(A few days later)
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?
ABBOTT: Click on "START"......
------------------------------------------------------------------------
lol...thanks to Tani for passing it along.

Back to School

It's back to school...spring break is over :(

I got back from Colorado last Saturday after staying overnight with Andi and Karl in Vegas. It was a lot of fun. Although here was no skiing, we went on a few mountainous bike rides, snow shoeing, and relaxed a lot. It was a nice Colorado getaway.

Before break I did my first full partition and install of Mandrake Linux 10.1 on my main notebook. I have it set up as a duel boot, so I can boot Linux or XP. Its pretty cool; I've messed around with Linux on my sister's old computer and some live-cd versions on this one, but this is my first duel boot, and it's running great!

PC magazine had there annual "100 best undiscovered sites" issue this month. My favorite new find is www.boreme.com. It will keep you entertained for hours.

There was an awesome finish to yesterday's Dodger game. Bottom of the 9th, 2 out with bases load and Bradley hits a single. It was bobbled by Giant left fielder Jason Ellison and brought in three runs to win the LA home opener.

Thats it for now...stay tuned for more.

Off to Colorado

Finally!!! Spring break at last.
Just FYI, I'll be in Colorado this next week, so don't expect too many updates.
Enjoy the break (if you have one)!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everybody. Hope you all enjoying your homemade Easter Peeps.

In the Easter spirit, check out the Easter Egg Archive. I haven’t mentioned it in a while, it’s a pretty cool site.

Only one more week to go until break...

To keep you busy in the meantime, here are some links:

• A woman in San Jose was eating Wendy's Chile and found a nice surprise. She bit right into a finger. Here's the story, and there's pics too!
• There’s still 4 days left to bid on your evil turkey on eBay. Be careful, the seller claims he scares kids.
• This is broken- A list of website bloopers and other weird stuff.
• Get this, Microsoft is claiming that Internet Explorer is safer than Firefox. LOL, wow that's great.
• On the subject of stupid Microsoft moves, they are offering funding for an article saying Windows is more secure than Linux. lol, that'll be the day.

More Rain

And we are once again plagued with rain. I don’t know about you, but I kind of like it for the first day or so, after that it gets kind of old.

I got contacts last week, and personally I hate them. I'm pretty ashamed to show myself in front of the geek community. I do have to admit, they are a bit easier. You just pop them in and forget them, but alas I'm still a bit ashamed to call myself a geek.

Spring break in one and a half weeks...I'm counting down. Can't wait to get up to Colorado and see the cabin again.

Happy birthday to my sisters and mom. Andi and Weeze are on the 24th and my mom’s is on the 28th.

Hi to Andi and Karl (my sis and bro in law) in Europe. It’s cool to hear your having a good time...I'm jealous!

Welp, that’s about it...I'll update someday in the future.

CP's and Atomic Watches

Yesterday (sat) was solo/ensemble at qhhs. I guess I nailed my solo and was able to pull a CP (command performance...a superior where you get to come back and play again), and our ensemble got a superior. So, it was a pretty good day for me. Julian got a superior on his solo, even though he thought he jacked it up pretty bad. Tani got stuck with a stupid judge and got an excellent when she obviously deserved a superior. But it was still a fun day.

Saturday morning I emptied my wallet and finally got an atomic watch. This thing will do anything. Check out the features, its awesome.

Last Monday I had my shoulder appointment, and learned that I dislocated my sternoclavicular joint (whatever that means) and there's nothing we can do about it. So, either this thing heals up or I'm stuck with a popping clavicle for life. It sucks.

First duel core, and now quad core Macs??? What’s next?

Link of the week- You know when you should disconnect when...

Until next week-

`C

Marathon XX

The twentieth LA Marathon was today. My sister and brother in law ran it. They completed the 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 38 minutes, good enough to qualify my sister for Boston.

Not much new exciting this past week. We went to band festival at Littlerock HS and pulled a superior in performance and an excellent in sight reading. Casey, Louis and I are doing an ensemble thing for solo/ensamble on Saturday. We're at 4:20 if you want to hear how bad we are. Btw, if you do come, it would be really handy if you could bring a pic of Sean Connery (don't ask).

I get to see my shoulder doc tomorrow. If Willie permits, I'll be back skiing soon.

And finally with our link of the week, provided by Karl, we have one of David Letterman's top ten lists with special guest Napoleon Dynamite.

Birthdays and Star Wars

Happy Friday everybody, and sorry for not posting for a while.

My birthday was the 22nd for those of you who didn't see me carrying around the giant Napoleon Dynamite poster that said "Happy Birthday!" on it from Louis. He never lets you down.
I raked in a nice pile of cash and Best Buy gift cards, not to mention the 200 or so Jolly Ranchers, so I'm set for a while.

My Dad's birthday was the 15th, my grandmas the 23rd, and my uncles the 21st so happy late b-day to them, too (sorry if I missed anyone). Yes, we are a February family.

Some Star Wars Episode III pictures were leaked a few days ago (either that or someone has a lot of photoshop talent). Heres the link, they look like some pretty heavy spoilers, so you might not want to check it out.

For some odd reason, I have about 50 gmail invites so if you want one, drop me an email: clarkcrane@gmail.com

Welp, I'm out to blow some birthday money on an atomic watch, I'll update later.

Rainy Friday

A Friday with no school and rain. What more could you ask for?

Disneyland Tuesday was a lot of fun. Almost no lines (longest wait was 20min for Indiana Jones) and we got to do everything we came for except Splash Mountain, which was closed. My shoulder is still in it's socket and the Clam Chowder was great.

This is the coolest thing I've seen in a while. Just click on 'Launch NameVoyager', wait, then type in your name (or any name) and it will come up with some awesome stats for the name.

This is a little late, but ...wow, that's a lot of money.

Got any movie plot ideas? Cause we need them! Drop me an email (clarkcrane@gmail.com) if you have any ideas and I'll give you a free Gmail invite whether we use your idea or not!

UPDATE: I just realized that Blogger changed the way that comments worked, so you can now leave them without having to sign up for a blogger account...check it out.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Phil has spoken: Six more weeks of winter.

The Mark Mathis Weather Report

LOL

This will leave you laughing for a while. A professional weather guy making a complete fool out of himself. I give you Mark Mathis:
Clip 1
Clip 2
Clip 3

At times its more painful than funny.

This guy was actually a pro for a while...a while being about two weeks before he was canned. If he's looking for work, I'm sure AV3 could use him.

Happy Friday!

Finally...finals are over. They weren’t as bad as I thought, and even Doc Smoot had a fairly easy test. Last Saturday my sister got married, she is now Louise Fitch. When they have a kid, I'm going to try to get them to name it Abercrombie (get it: Abercrombie Fitch!....I have way too much time on my hands). There is the pic on the post below and I'll get some up on their webiste by next week.

In a few hours, I'm off to Van Nuys to get an MRI of my shoulder. From there, I'm going to stay at my sister's place and head up to visit some relatives in the morning.

Click here and fill this out! It will help get some decent tech programming on TV in the US. CFH is a really cool show that's only in Canada, and it would be awesome to see it down here.

Happy birthday Tani, and happy (very) late birthday Aaron.
Gmail invites available just email me at clarkcrane@gmail.com
I'll update later, and have a happy Friday!

Louise and Jonathan

Louise & Jonathan
January 15, 2005

Let it Snow

It's been 4 years since we had a decent snow in the Valley...it's about time if you ask me.
It's been 8 years since school was called in the middle of the day due to snow. The sad thing is, I remember the first time.

My shoulder is hanging in there. Literally. It's still pretty sore, and I don't know for sure, but it looks like I have a 90% chance of re-dislocating it and a 95% chance of surgery later this year. Joy.

Well, not much is new. Go out and have some fun in the quickly melting snow (now rain), I’ll update later.