I got my second (e:40662) new mac keyboard today. They messed up the order. Originally, we ordered thought the developer store for the $4 discount but when there was a problem with the order, we canceled it. At least, they said we did but today the second one came. (e:mrdeadlier) will be using it for his mac when he gets one.

I can't believe the big box they ship in. It makes no sense because it is not filled with padding, just a big empty box with the keyboard inside.


The second one was even bigger.- which is totally ridiculous.


So I asked the cleaning lady about where I can recycle the cardboard and she say they just throw all the cardboard in the dumpster. She even offered to do it for me. I think I am going to have to look into this soon because I can't believe a place as big as Roswell Park would not recycle cardboard.

I got this very official looking letter offering to sell me a certified copy of the deed to my house. It came from New York Record Retrieval, Inc. For the low cost of $59.50 they offered my an official copy of my own deed. To bad it only costs like $5 to get one myself. I can imagine how a lot of people would get sucked into believe this was an official document.



I love how they add the
RE: ERIE COUNTY CLERK

as though it has anything to do with the Erie county clerk.

Surprisingly, there is very little information about it being a scam accept from this warning from the Westchester Country clerks office In fact, there is nothing about them and Erie county, maybe this is new here.

"No Westchester County homeowner needs to pay an excessive fee to obtain a certified copy of their deed," cautioned Idoni. "And homeowners should not be made to feel that they need a certified copy of a document which has been properly recorded in our office." Idoni continued, "Deeds are recorded by my staff and then returned to the party who has recorded them. In most cases, this is the attorney for the new homeowner."

Idoni and his staff became aware of these letters in recent days as the result of calls and emails from residents around the County. They urge Westchester residents to know the facts about obtaining a certified copy of their deed. "Westchester County homeowners can always obtain a certified copy of their deed from our office for the cost of only $5.00 for up to five pages, plus $1.00 for each additional page," stated Idoni. "And residents should know that if their deed was filed in this office, it has been recorded and remains valid whether or not the homeowner has a certified copy of that deed in their possession."

I got my new mac keyboard today. Its weird having such shallow keys , in fact it is too low for my wrist wrest so now I have it propped up on my trigonometry book. I can type very fast on it and it has a real forward delete key - the reason I ditched my old imac keyboard to begin with.

We made salad with dinner last night and (e:matthew) added some sorrel and some basil from the garden. I noticed there were some chew holes in the leaves so we removed that part but what we missed was a lonely japanese beatle that ended up getting mixed in the salad with the vinegrette without being notices.

20 minutes later he was draggign himself out of the salad and up the wooden spoon. We put him back outside but he was really vinegar coated.



On a side note (e:mike) got glasses, he can finally tell the difference between a log and a duck.


I have been working on this one project at work so much that I have about a weeks worth of overtime accrued. Hopefully, the week of sept 1 will be fun and free.

(E:matthew) and I were talking about the term megalopolis and trying to remember exactly what the deifntion was so we looked it up in wikipedia
(WIKIPEDIA - megalopolis)

A megalopolis is defined as an extensive metropolitan area or a long chain of roughly continuous metropolitan areas in the United States and Canada. The term was first used in the United States by Jean Gottmann in 1957, to describe the huge urban area along the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, D.C. ...A megalopolis is also frequently a megacity, or a metropolitan area with a total population in excess of 10 million people.

which lead me to the definition of a megacity (WIKIPEDIA - Megacity) where I learned

In 2000, there were 18 megacities - conurbations such as Tokyo, Mexico City, Bombay, Sao Paulo and New York City - that have populations in excess of 10 million inhabitants. Greater Tokyo already has 35 million, more than the entire population of Canada.

By 2025, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia alone will have at least 10 hypercities, those with 20 million or more, including Jakarta (24.9 million people), Dhaka (25 million), Karachi (26.5 million), Shanghai (27 million) and Bombay (with a staggering 33 million).[9] Lagos has grown from 300,000 in 1950 to an estimated 15 million today, and the Nigerian government estimates that city will have expanded to 25 million residents by 2015.[10] Chinese experts forecast that Chinese cities will contain 800 million people by 202

Buffalo
Which got me thinking about Buffalo's (WIKIPEDIA - Buffalo,_New_York) and it's population. I knew that it was somewhere around 300,000 but wasn't sure on actual figures. It was fantastic to see it as a chart. It is interesting to see we have returned to our late 1890's population level. Think about that. While people in Tokyo are living packed in at 35 million in their greater metropolitan area we only have around a million in Western New York.



Some people probably think that is depressing but think it great. Just think about how much more space we have.

On another note, I went for a walk down elmwood today while picking up a baby gift for (e:enknot) at Treehouse and noticed that all the stores have either shut down or changed into new stores. It is amazing how different it is. It makes me wonder if anything can really survive there, if the "village" is actually doing well, or if all of the new vilage talk is just hype.

I was amazed to see that Stache moved from that little downstairs store front near the elmwood village apartments between Highland and Lexington to the half timber storefront house near Lafayette and elmwood right by Shoe Fly, kind of across from the Coop. I think it is the first time someone survived that location and then moved on up. Good for them.

I went to estate sale this morning at 326 Starin. It was the house of a prominent doctor according to my mother's friend. I really was interested in seeing it but then I found it incredibly depressing seeing one persons stuff all displayed out for sale.

I know you can't bring stuff with you to the next life but it is so sad to be the last person in your friend and family line to the point where everything is just for sale. Like people were going through all of his most personal stuff, photos, diaries, etc. I felt so temporary for the moment.

I wondered if he was gay because of the lack of any feminine stuff in his bedroom or anywhere really and the thought that there must not be any children or they would want he stuff in his office, his christmas ornaments, etc.

I think if I were a doctor there was a lot of vintage medical stuff I would be interested in purchasing just for nostalgia sake. His house doubled as his office.

The basement really got to me - I thought, you know what, all those stupid nuts and bolts I placed carefully in jars the other day are probably just going to end up at my estate sale. I almost wanted to buy his jars just because I appreciated his hard work so much.



It all kind of made me feel sick.

Post two for today. I made some squid yummy. It is one of my favorite recipes. I kind of just cook it so there is no exact recipe but its something like fresh squid part, tomato paste, carrots, cinnamon, clove, olive oil and some garlic.

Put a bunch of olive oil in a pot with some tomato paste and a bit of water. Cook it a bit, then add the squid, some cinnamon and some chopped garlic. Throw in some chopped carrots and simmer for a while to reduce. Then eat it.

Here it is cooking


Serve it over a potato, weird but tasty.


Based on my grandmother's recipe for chicken gizzards.

(e:matthew) found this box of porn in the church recycle pile the other day. I have never seen so much porn in one place outside of a porn store. It is especially weird because they are all very recent and apparently there was more than one box this big, the other one was left for the recycle dudes who apparently enjoyed it.

Look at this pile


Spread wide. To bad its all the wrong kind of porn for any of us.


I went through a lot of trouble to censor this so be happy or unhappy about that.

The one had this acticle called "Chunky whisperer" in which a cowboy got with heavier set ladies in a barn. I think it was a parody of the "Horse Whisperer."



The text went on an on about him stuffing her with twinkies and hohos. But then it got really twisted and he cracked a raw egg on her. What does it take to let yourself be in a porn like that? Raw freakin' egg.


In their freakin' eyes?

The building on Main street that I reported about last week (e:paul,40420) continues to fall in on itself. Word on the street is that the roof collapsed and the floors below collapsed because of that. You can really see it all collapsed on the inside from the street. Now they have it blocked off. It is a DANGER! according to the police and probably according to everyone.


I wonder what is going to happen with it. It seems like gutting it would be really hard considering it is a pile of fallen debris and floors. Even the basement floor is missing. Apparently, this is what happens when you ignore roof repair and the weather gets in. Is there going to just be a big giant whole in main street across from the Amherst subway station?!



I suppose something has to be done soon.

I finally got my phone back but these pics are from before the phone came back. If you have a sprint Pocket PC 6700 and need a new operating system I got it. Lots of new features, same old phone. Its like getting a free upgrade. You never really realize how much software plays a role in the lifespan of hardware. I took them with as still shots of the mobile video cam on my nokia n800 so excuse the quality it was never meant for photography.

I was really sad to say goodbye to my first computer desk. It is amazing how long we stayed together. I had it since my first commodore vic 20 back in the mid 80s ;( It really just had no where to go anymore and laptops kind of made the desk obsolete. Plus it was ugly as hell.

I got a call at work today asking me if I was interested in a job at Yahoo. (e:twisted) seems to be sold on me taking it, but I find it hard to imagine I could live as fancy a life as I do here even if I was making a lot more money. Like I only have to get up twenty minutes before work here and there is a ~5min commute not to mention I live in a freakin' mansion.

They found me via my online resume

The ideal candidate will have a strong command of web standards and developing applications, CSS-driven/table-less HTML layouts, DHTML (JavaScript 1.0-1.5, CSS1 & CSS2, DOM Levels 0-2), PHP, Unix, HTTP (get/post, headers), Apache, cross-browser compatibility & browser degradation strategies, optimization techniques (both in file weight and perceived/actual rendering speed), object-oriented design, unit testing & debugging techniques, dynamic content retrieval, state management, accessibility techniques, and internationalization issues.

The candidate will be taking static mocks and flash prototypes from the designer and working with the team to produce a working prototype.

The environment is fast-paced with numerous user-centered iterative design & development cycles. You'll be responsible for building everything from proof-of-concepts and usability prototypes to deployment-quality code viewed by tens of millions of users.
If you're interested, please provide URLs and code samples of your work.
Location: Sunnyvale, CA

I guess it is something to think about. I mean it would be tremendously exciting to work on code that is used by millions of people and to work with people on the cutting edge of the industry and with the resources to make really exciting stuff happen. But what if Yahoo tanks and Microsoft bought it ;(