- First off, an addendum. Yesterday was easter, and as I didn't have anything better to do (insert Chinese restaurant joke here) I took advantage of the lull in traffic at the Elmwood & Marion intersection to snap a few photos for my project. Like the madman that I am, I rushed out into the middle of the street between traffic light changes and tried to get the best shots I could while not being run over. However, I didn't refer to the original photograph for reference like I should have, so after all my hard work and risk-taking, the distance was still all wrong and the overlay won't work. The small piece of Marion in the original isn't in the target. I really should use the stitching feature of my digital camera on the next pass.

Original:



Target:



- For some reason, Safari has been crashing on estrip for months. I think it has to do with a new userpic appearing when someone new logs in. At some point, I really should set up a packet sniffer or something and check it out further.

- BEGIN BORING PROGRAMMING PARAGRAPH (skip if bored by programming stuff)

Yesterday, I decided attempted to learn Ruby on Rails. After spending several hours trying to learn the stuff, I decided to pretty much give the technology a write-off, as I was about ready to throw my computer and the book I just bought clean out the window. A while ago, I started writing my own blogging application based on XML that I could have eventually rolled into a full-fledged MVC web application environment. I am seriously kicking myself now for having not finished it. I am so dissatisfied with everything out there. You know, come to think of it, I'll probably continue trying to learn Ruby, just so I'll know what's going on if I ever see any example code for anything general that uses it, and just because I'm so freakin' thorough and don't like to leave unfinished what I've started. I'm just a masochist like that.

END BORING PROGRAMMING PARAGRAPH

- I've also started looking at houses a little bit more. I'm really not sure whether I want to buy one, as I've considered moving back home to North Carolina near my family someday, or possibly moving somewhere else to a different job. But I keep thinking that I'm sinking 8k a year into rent that I could be putting into equity.

I really like the whole "Elmwood Village" area, and I'd like to stay within walking distance to Spot. I'd actually like a house on Richmond, but aside from being kinda pricey for someone in my income bracket, they would cost a bitch to heat (no insulation and high ceilings) and every house on the street is so huge because it's designed for tenants to live in the upper half. I really don't want to be a landlord or have large heating bills, and unfortunately most of the houses in the Elmwood-Richmond band (for lack of better terminology) require you to endure both if you own them.

So far, the best fit for me seems to be the northern buffalo/kenmore area, which is actually where I was driving around this weekend looking at the houses for sale. That area seems to have a decent number of homes that are small enough to keep sanely heated/cleaned by one person and would keep my mortgage somewhere near to what I'm currently paying for rent.

Another day or so, and I can eat regular bread again instead of matzoh. At least according to my religion. According to my triglycerides and my doctor, regular bread will always be chametz.

So I'm back from the Bedouin Soundclash show at the Icon. It was the first time that I've actually been to the Icon, and the building was far bigger than I had imagined it, though somehow I managed to pass it several times before realizing that it was the nondescript blue building on Ellicott.

The main act was really good, and had a lot of good energy going on. The audience was pretty enthusiastic, and there was a pretty good turnout (~200, maybe). The live show definitely lived up to what I heard on the CD. I can't wait for the next album.



I managed to snap one photo, with my mediocre new Nokia 6102i phone I got for $90 at the compusa clearance sale (had I gotten an nokia E62, there wouldn't be a picture at all, so the quality could have been worse--as in nonexistant).

I spent tonight going out and doing something instead of uselessly wasting my evenings in the idle pursuits I usually engage in. That's got to count for something.

Today Bedouin Soundclash comes to the Icon. I am so psyched about this because their CD is perhaps the most incredibly fucking good CD that I've bought in years. While I've never seen them live, I'd imagine they'd be pretty good in front of an audience. I will try my damnedest to make it to that show.

My last post, I mentioned something I didn't like about Buffalo (the pizza). This post I dedicate to something I do like about Buffalo--radio stations. NC doesn't have anything like 92.9 Jack or the 107.7 Lake (at least last time I was there), and back home is way too far south to get the Canadian radio that I'm finding myself more and more addicted to during my drives to work. I dig an environment rich in classic rock and interesting music with "new country" and religious stations few and far between, and I'm certainly getting that up here.

In a recap on yesterdays activities, I also went to a passover seder at Temple Beth Zion on Delaware with (e:museumchick). It was a lot of fun, though my long held ideas about what constitutes a traditional passover song have been thoroughly undermined.

Today, I hit up Casa di Pizza two get two slices of the last truly enjoyable bready thing I'll get to have for the next eight days. Once pesach starts, it'll be no more bread and eight days of a boring dry cracker that reminds me of the fact that my ancestors had to high-tail it out of Egypt.

To go off on a tangent, it's kinda of strange that in a city with so many pizza joints like Buffalo it's so hard to find a place where a single person can sit down and quickly get an individual slice of pizza with exactly what they want on it that hasn't been sitting in a warmer for 12 hours and do so without involving wait staff. It's like you're expected to buy an entire pie if you want it your way, and you're usually expected to bring it home. If I had a dime for every time I've gone into a place wanting a slice of plain-cheese non-pork pizza only to be told "sorry, there's only what we have in the warmer", I'd have a lot of dimes. It's actually one of my biggest gripes about living in Buffalo. There are a very few places I've found in Buffalo that meet all my criteria, but they're few and far between.

Back home in civilization North Carolina, we had lots of locally owned (i.e. not Sbarro) places that filled in the function of fast-food restaurants where you could reasonably go out on a lunch break and get a slice that had whatever you wanted on it, and it was always shoved into the oven and served piping hot.

As I can't get what I want up here, I don't eat pizza too often, save for the once a month at the Buffalo PHP meetup at Casa di Pizza. This is probably a good thing, given my family history of cholesterol problems. But it's ironic that when I visit back home, the thing that I want more than anything is not biscuits or sweet tea, but pizza.

After having driven a rental 2+ weeks after getting my car totalled in an accident, I now have another car, a Subaru Forester. I wanted something that handled well in snow and had AWD (like a SUV), had lots of space to put stuff in case I ever had to move (like a SUV), that wouldn't guzzle gas (unlike a SUV), and had thoughtful and intellgent design in its interior and lots of compartments to put stuff (unlike just about everyone else). This actually narrowed down my choices quite a bit. After I drove home from the dealership saturday, I christened the vehicle with the Bedouin Soundclash CD I've wanted to get for months (after hearing them over and over again on Canadian radio).

Me and the GF haven't spoken for 2 weeks after the falling out. I guess that the statute of limitations on my being in a relationship has passed. Strangely enough, you can only have enough cycles of break-up/get back together before you start to feel less and less sad and more and more like "jeez, this is really stupid".

I had a good time with (e:vincent) and his friends last night. It was the first time that I had ever been to Mohawk place, and I should say that it now is tied with Diablo in my "funnest bar" rankings. Lotta cool music, lotta cute and slightly offbeat girls. Nice place. While I didn't think that the "stupider room" was that terrible, I'd agree that the music wasn't that hot (it was a jukebox) and question the value of musical democracy in a watering hole.

And finally, I've gotten most of my passover shopping done. I have at least enough bread of afflication for 4-6 days worth of affliction.

I often have the habit of writing parodies of songs for no apparent reason. Several years ago, I started writing a parody of the Rodgers and Hammerstein's "do-re-mi" from the Sound of Music that mixed totally unrelated computer terminology together. I was stuck in a traffic jam and the idea just kind of hit me. When I set my own silly words to existing songs I tend to suffer from writer's block when I think them up, because I can't think of enough good stuff that rhymes; I usually end up revisiting what I've written several years later, when some idea about how to make things fit together hits me straight of the blue (usually from the same stupid place I got the idea to write the song in the first place). This particular parody was especially challenging, though, because in addition to stuff rhyming, I also had to think of computer terminology that fit well with the song. Well, last night I finished, and as I really don't have anywhere better to post this, I might as well post it to what I'm currently using as my diary.

(With apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein)

do, a loop, a do-while loop
ray, it is a thing you trace
me, an applescript reference
"fa", the first two characters of face
.so, a shared library object
-la, will link to a.so
tee, you pipe to grep and sed
And now we're looping back to do


And that is my silly little accomplishment for the week.

I had a great time at the party, and was cool to finally meet (e:museumchick) and (e:ingrid) in person. By some circumstance I didn't run into (e:james), but I hope to at the next event. (e:uncutsaniflush) and I probably didn't solve (e:vycious)'s FTP problem, but it was fun trying.
I also have a mild case of geek envy for (e:paul)'s nokia device, but I'm going to try and hold off buying one myself because I'm supposed to be buying an iPhone for work and my gtk skills are a little rusty.

Thanks to PMT for hosting another great party!

A week ago, I write about how much I love that my girlfriend is up here.

Tonight, we discuss on the phone that we're not right for each other and that maybe we should break up.

Life's kinda ironic that way.

I seem to be the latest victim in the round of car accidents happening to peeps. I got in one this afternoon after work. Everyone's still alive and breathing, though my car is pretty well smashed up and I may have to be shopping for a new one in the recent future.

I had imagined a more traditional first "honey I'm home" greeting for my currently visiting girlfriend (as opposed to "guess why I'm home so early and why I haven't returned with the car"). Well, I guess everyone can't be Ricky Ricardo.

Hell has frozen over and the woman is up from NC visiting me.