I decided to take an afternoon off to enjoy the last of summer before it end. I think I am slowly developing the same condition that ruined my life in high school. I hope some physical therapy works.

We had breakfast at mythos on elmwood. They have totally redone their restaurant and menu. Afterwards, we went to zoar valle where someone asked us if we were prostitutes. I quit that yeara ago-haha.

Althoughj I missed Helmut Lotti, we got to eat at Kunis for dinner with (e:theecarey) and (e:ladycroft). The paparazzi showed up so I'm sure you'll see pics lol.

Afterwards we chilled with (e:jason) and (e:joshua). Then dave stopped by and we headed over to Allen Street Hardware.

Helmut Lotti [inlink]paul,3860[/inlink] is going to be in Hamilton tomorrow night at 8PM. I have to go. It is $54 candian for Balcony and $64 Canadian for Orchestra and 1st Blacony seating. Is anyone else in on this?



I hung out with Katie today and ran around town hunting down Kenny Rogers. She told me about this site called menwholooklikekennyrogers.com We hunted down a Kenny look a like. On the hunt we followed him into the ice skating rink on the street after Hertel Avenue going uptown. We ended up walking around the empty ice skating rink when we saw a janitor and asked him how much skating was. He said that they have open ice skating on Friday and Saturday night for $3.







I got a rice cooker. Now (e:matthew) and I can get buff eating rice like sumo wrestlers. They are only $19 at target. I am sure we have spent that much on burnt rice in the past.



Leapfrog. Ya so I can't work with that commerical bullshit or anything like it. It is more like training children to recognize brand name characters.

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(23:14:52) paulsidekick: learning toy
(23:14:59) paulsidekick: and it was all corporate product placement
(23:15:05) paulsidekick: like teach little jimmy to want Disney
(23:15:21) paulsidekick: I hate stuff discuised as learning
(23:15:26) paulsidekick: especially when it is for kids
(23:15:35) paulsidekick: its so wrong to get them on that I need barbie, I need disney kick
(23:15:37) Danq750: let kids be kids, jesus
(23:15:40) paulsidekick: ya
(23:16:01) Danq750: get em hooked early
(23:16:14) paulsidekick: I would rather have my kid get anything other than a closed electronic toy
(23:16:26) paulsidekick: liek an electronics set
(23:16:33) paulsidekick: is better than a prmade electronic toy
(23:16:42) paulsidekick: that only feeds them the product placement
(23:17:16) paulsidekick: did you see those pics
(23:17:22) paulsidekick: each one is name brand crap
(23:17:34) paulsidekick: look at the learning titles
(23:18:25) paulsidekick: I love the video
(23:18:37) paulsidekick: its says "kids can plug in to the tv to take learnign to the max!"
(23:19:01) Danq750: fucking a, what is wrong with a book, or with pencil and paper
(23:19:08) paulsidekick: ya
(23:19:10) paulsidekick: exactly
(23:19:18) paulsidekick: I even like computers for kids
(23:19:19) Danq750: instead, learning has to become a game
(23:19:20) paulsidekick: but when I had one
(23:19:24) paulsidekick: I had to learn to use it
(23:19:29) Danq750: yea
(23:19:30) paulsidekick: and how to control it
(23:19:34) paulsidekick: liek my vic 20
(23:19:41) paulsidekick: this is liek a nintendo
(23:19:47) paulsidekick: for character recogition
(23:19:58) paulsidekick: I really wonder
(23:20:03) paulsidekick: how it happened in the board room
(23:20:14) paulsidekick: I wonder if the people who deisgned it had the intention of making a real leaning tool
(23:20:22) paulsidekick: and the some corporate nbig wigs took over
(23:20:24) paulsidekick: and were liek
(23:20:34) paulsidekick: this would be a great way to get kids to recognize our brands
(23:20:38) paulsidekick: identities
(23:20:52) Danq750: you're 100% correct I think
(23:21:14) Danq750: they say, oh well kids recognize sponge bob
(23:21:32) Danq750: let's make a "learning game" featuring sponge bob, the kids will eat it up
(23:21:44) Danq750: no, they are less interested in kids learning than selling products
(23:22:13) Danq750: if they were interested in kids learning they would donate money so buffalo school kids can have books

Last night I was overcome by an urge to buy cigarettes. This is weird because I quit smoking several weeks ago and had been really good about not having them. Something inside seriously wanted one - probably the sheer bordeom of my mind numbing job. There is just something about rolling and smoking cigarettes that I cannot consistantly say no to since I was about 13. I mean I don't smoke everyday or even every week or month but when I do I can't stop and then I quit for a long time again. I have no idea what controls this cycle.

Luckily, (e:matthew) was having a similar craving but for ice-cream - so the trip to the store got me a pack of samson.

I bought a package of edamame (soybeans) at Wegmans last night. I love them so much ut I think the wegmans ones come in too much packaging. It is similar to the ways that I love the Korean lunch food at UB but I usually don't get it because it is too much styrofoam when it's to go. The irony with the wegmans one is that now they stamp the inner plastic try with the words, "earth living". I don't get it. What on earth does eating this double plastic covered, cardboard sleeve enveloped soybean treat have to do with "earth living."

I mean I could see if it maybe said "healthy living." Perhaps it is a translation error.

I got out of work to discover that (e:mathew) had cut his finger open. We needed to go to the hospital so that he could get stitches. Seeing as we were at Canisius we decided that Sister's would be an ok choice plus (e:ladycroft) and I were born there.

I was wrong it was crazy crowded and just looked run down so we left for the burbs. Now we are at Kenmore Mercy. It seems a lot nicer here, I feel bad for the people stuck in the city.

Poor (e:matthew), he ended up being the test subject for someone learning how to stitch. Three separate ego driven doctors came to show the girl "how it's done." Ironically, they all different techniques. They seriously were all such cocky pricks.

I wonder how many hundreds of dollars this will cost. I think they should pay (e:matthew). Here is a link [inlink]matthew,633[/inlink] to his journal about the visit.

The rest of the day I was at UB working on stuff with Josephine. I really like her. Although she said she is not very social I find her fun to be around. I think the VR site is finished. Now I need to just punch it through the VPN. We also began plans on the Buffalo Memory Engine which will be my next major project. Don't worry (e:strip) I will never leave you behind.

Here are some pics of (e:matthew) from yesterday at the park.

I spent the evening helping Buffalo Rising get their website up and and running so that it would be ready for the official launch on Monday. Here you can see the counter on the front page that I put up.



I also created a custom WBFO NPR RSS feed parser for the site which is based on moveable type. I am not a big fan of moveable type which is perl based. Too bad Jesse wasn't there. I just fixed everything with PHP mods. I just don't understand why everyone uses prebuilt CMS systems. Especially other programmers. There is just way too much overhead and I would rather spend my time programming than reading through the million page manual of some else's API. I seriously would go nuts working on a project like that full-time. It was so frustrating to want to make a change to the underlying system but only having access to the very surface through some sort of gui web interface. I like more direct access to my stuff.

At one point zack had to read a 104 page manual to set up an ad server. I could make one in less time than it would take to read through that manual. Maybe I should focus my time on making a CMS system.

I also fixed the search tab javascript. It was a sucessful evening that will hopefully pay for my cell phone bill which is way over my budget thanks to the million and a half fees from cingular. they promised a bill of $44.99 but the first month it came to $111.00 with setup fees and service charges. What a ripoff.

Little did I know that I would be near a dog. For some reaosn even in its mega fluffiness this dog did not make me very allergic.



Here is George and Zack working hard on a plugin.



Here is one of my student's Mike looking very tired after a 16 hour day. I tried to tell him that was the life of a programmer.

The day started out with shaving.

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(e:lilho), (e:mike) and I went to fowler's and it wasn't very yummy, not to mention they were out of both chocolate icecream and rootbeer pop.





While we were sitting there eating we saw (e:drchlorine) on his way to buy cigarettes.

If you haven't seen the PBS special with Helmut Lotti, you are really missing the best in russian folk music. He is pretty freakin hot.



Luckily, he doesn't just do Russian music.

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He has a latin hits album, a pop song album and many others.

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His web site sings to you I wish I had the Helmut Lotti version of Kalinka. I think I might do a Helmut Lotti (e:radio) show.

If you don't know the Kalinka song, here is the midi version. It makes me want to play tetris. We played it at the party last night.

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