"Resolution and relationships" written by Paul on estrip.org

Category: life

11/25/07 10:05 - 40ºF - ID#42277

Resolution and relationships

The way the garden looks, is how I feel right now.

I guess at least the new phone is coming tomorrow, although at this point nothing can really make me happy. I think it is time to join the gym again. This time I am going to try Allentown Athletix, which is just around the corner form us.

I got into a huge fight with (e:matthew) yesterday about a random chimney shaft in our bedroom wall that connects to no mantel. Based on previous pictures I had taken with a web cam on a 6 ft USB chord, I thought that the tunnel went down and to the left but what I thought was a "floor" and a tunnel to the left turned out the be an odd brick of the side of the shaft wall.

I thought that brick or whatever it is was the bottom in the usb webcam view and that the hole on the end was a turn to the left.

When I switched to the 7MP camera with flash I got a much better view.

I wish I didn't get so angry about it at 2am last night. Sometimes, I can be a jerk. I am embarrassed for the way I acted but I was so sure I was right.

Anyways, the good news I think we can switch the Den and our bedroom and get a wood or gas burning insert similar to the one that (e:enknot) has at his house and have it be direct vent. This is a much better alternative to the next vented ones that make me ill.

You can see the chimney straight up and it looks easy enough to line it ourselves considering it is just a straight trip up.

I thought someone might find this amusing

Look at the clipart they used in this professional article about the iphone in Europe. It is a freakin' old white ipod on a slide phone, running windows mobile. Seems like no one fact checked that one.

I am switching from qmail to postfix and got my book in the mail today. I am not sure why. I just wanted to try something new and got sick of setting up qmail on the new server although I did it before on the old one.

There has been lots of progress on the new site, don't think I forgot! I just hurt my neck and it is slowing me down, argh.

Permalink: Resolution_and_relationships.html
Words: 428
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: buffalo

11/24/07 07:33 - 34ºF - ID#42273

Bored to death, christmas market

paul 18:51 I am so bored
imk2 18:52 i never hear you say that youre bored
paul 18:52 haha, i have never been bored unitl tonight i think
paul 18:53 I couldn't describe
paul 18:52 because there was some new feeling
paul 18:52 i thought I wanted to kill myself
paul 18:53 and then it hit me that I was bored

We went to the broadway market this afternoon. It was lame. Maybe we went at the wrong time but I will surely never go back to find out.

The way there was so pretty. I love traveling down sycamore. It is by far the most scenic view of Buffalo.

(e:terry) says they are developing som enew village here that he read baout on Buffalo rising.

No seriously, it makes me want to do a documentary about the history of advertising signs that rusted out.

While this pretty church is dead, every single other non-burned down, non-boarded up warehouse and crappy house is some other sect of freaky Christianity with blacked out windows.

This is what I expect in a Christmas Market.

Then we got there...

and this is what it was.

Back over to elmwood

We got new glasses today at Elmwood Specs. I had the same prescription. My only problem with the place was that the doctor brought her dog with her. I was very allergic to that kind of poodley dog so it wasn't so horrible but if it had been a cat, I think I might have died.

Why did stache or whoever owns this building paint the half timbering over? It seems really trashy.

I hope elmwood doesn't become sycamore ever.

Permalink: Bored_to_death_christmas_market.html
Words: 294
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: holiday

11/24/07 12:59 - 30ºF - ID#42269

Thanksgiving

This is a little late but I have been so busy setting up the new server. So here it goes.

There is finally snow everywhere, He is some on the front windshield of the car on the way to my mothers for thanksgiving.

I forgot to tak any pictures of all the amazing food for once. I was so hungry I forgot about tthe camera. After dinner my Dad got out al the liquor, considering they don't drink very much , a lot of it was quasi vintage.

Don't the instructions on the back of this bacadi bottle seem kind of redundant.

I discovered that Peach Snapps and Cointreau makes a slightly stronger fuzzy navel - minus orange orange juice. I think Cointreau is my new favorite liquor.

The whole family played games minus me and the kids. I don't really like games very much.

The kids played with their webkins

on the computer. WHy didn't I think of making something like that.

We made little turkey stickers.

I got all my old yearbooks which has plenty of blog fodder. As an example, this yearbook entry by (e:oda) formerly known as emily.

Permalink: Thanksgiving.html
Words: 214
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: buffalo

11/23/07 07:38 - 25ºF - ID#42264

New Tiajuana

(e:matthew) and I were talking about outside investors after reading (e:ajay,42263) and then thinking about Canadian consumers with more valuable currency and I couldn't help but think of Buffalo as the new tiajuana. Our bars are open till four, their money will be worth more in our Casinos.

Please don't ever let me have to resort to selling chicklets on the street.

mike writes at 12:11:04 11/26/09 - Comment #53148: you don't have to sell chicklets, just host the donkey show!

metalpeter writes at 11:47:04 11/23/07 - Comment #28409: There is only one problem with that in that in Mexico people go for drugs, the beach and Donkey Shows. But I do get the comparison really. The thing is that People from Canada have to use plasstic I'm sorry there are two things Americans can't stand Dollar Coins and Money with all kinds of Colors on it. Seriously though what I think will happen is that Canada has a strong dollar so they will shop over here a lot. The more they shop here the more money Buffalo will get. Eventuly that will cause use to have more money and our Dollar will get stronger again. That assumes that we ever get out of this war. What is killing our dollar is that no one has any moral responsiblity and are just greedy. Yeah the gas prices go up and up and then what I think happens is that it makes one unit of one item go up about say 10 cents. Well the company that sells that stuff now has an excuse so they raise it by 20 cents and raise there profit margin. But all this inflation does is devalue our Dollar. I will be the first to admit that over the past couple of years Elmwood has taken a real downturn. I think that is the real reason for the name change so people don't notice it they notice the singage and Christmas stuff. Hopefully all those vacant places can be filled with good business Ideas. I wish it wasn't just banks and we do need lots of local places but is a good chain store like pier 1 was better then some place that will close or move in a year. I will also admit I never went to Ex-cell but from what I understand one of his reasons for closing is that it is hard to be a small place like that and be competetive cause places that are big get breaks that he couldn't. I guess another example of that is true in the independent record store. As an example go to Target or maybe best buy and find a popular artists CD and compare prices New World is a lot more most of the time, of course it all depends (Target could also be best buy, circuit city or who ever). I just hope these out side investors wind up working out ok and hope they are here for the long hall. Sometimes it is just about the money and not the community so once they find out that panhandlers are costing them money or people piss in there lot, they may go screw this and resell the buildings since it isn't where they live they don't care it is just about cheap real estate. What is that saying "Pray for the best, but expect the worst" is it prey or hope I can't remember. In any event I will hope for the best and hope some more but know that Elmwood could go down the drain quickly.

uncutsaniflush writes at 11:18:24 11/23/07 - Comment #28408: Actually, the analogy works better with Niagara Falls and the suburbs than it does with the actual City of Buffalo, imho. Unless, of course, ln -s Niagara_Frontier Buffalo. <g>

Permalink: New_Tiajuana.html
Words: 64
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: food

11/22/07 01:33 - 31ºF - ID#42233

Paul's Cranbery Sauce

I cooked some cranberry sauce again this year but have a better camera so I am going to post the pics again. The search on the new site is so much better I used it to look up my old journals about cranberry. You will be happy when I finally release it.

This is a thanksgiving morning look at (e:terry)

Cranberry sauce
Grate some ginger

Zest some tangerine, orange, or grapefruit skin.

Wash the cranberries, I use two bags of ocean spray from wegmans but the ones form the coop are better. (e:terry) did the shopping, not me

Put two cups of orange juice in a sauce pan and turn the heat on.

Add the berries and boil then simmer until they all break. You might need to pop them with a wooden spoon a bit.
Add all the zest and some brown sugar.

Then it is done when it is thick

(e:terry) made some more bacon wrapped asparagus.

Permalink: Paul_s_Cranbery_Sauce.html
Words: 184
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: politics

11/21/07 09:43 - 39ºF - ID#42229

September Eleven

First off, Happy Thanksgiving

Rudy Guilliani
No matter how diverse our political feelings are here on estrip. I think that we can probably agree that no one likes Rudolph Guilliani, right? I just can't get over his inability to pronounce the "th" in eleventh.

Check out this mp3

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

I got it from the september 11th remix site.

The iphone in Germany

I would also like to point out today that German law triumphed in a way over Apple when tmobile in Germany was forced to sell the iphone unlocked (although very expensively).

T-Mobile's new unrestricted phone option will cost €999 ($1,477), versus €399 (US$590) for a locked phone purchased with a two-year T-Mobile contract.

However, what makes it even better is that anyone who already bought the iphone there is getting them unlocked for free. How, the Euro has gotten so expensive or the dollar has gotten so cheap.

Who looks at these advertisments?
I frankly cannot believe that web advertisments work. It seems like every site is having more and more of them, so are the ones they have less sucessful. I find it so easy to totally ignore the advertisments. Like who click on the Garnier advertisment way the frick down at the bottom of the christian science monitor of all place

Look how far down it is. It is even further down on the real non-zoomed out version of the site

Permalink: September_Eleven.html
Words: 252
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: mobile

11/20/07 11:14 - 46ºF - ID#42218

My New HTC Tilt phone

Is an ATT phone and it will have flash, streaming radio, instant messaging, a 3 megapixel camera, 3g/wifi/bluetooth, outlook email GPS, a keyboard, a terminal and tethering. All the requirements for my next phone. Here is a good review. It is normally $599 but amazon has them on sale for $174. You have to love the new customer deals.

Someone had told me that ATT didn't have 3G in buffalo. I guess that was wrong because according to their coverage maps it does.

I freakin can't wait till it comes and I can use the GPS so I stop getting lost on the way to and from work.

(e:terry) and (e:matthew) got sony ericson walkman phones. We will see how that goes.

Permalink: My_New_HTC_Tilt_phone.html
Words: 126
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: mobile

11/20/07 09:37 - 54ºF - ID#42210

Apple sniffing your stocks?

I was reading this article

about apple sending back your IMEI (phone ID number) with info requests when using the stocks and weather application on the iphone.

All I can say is wow. I can understand way they would want to track data but it seems like the stock data in particular could be a serious problem. Well, at least a seriously unfair advantage for apple when investing. If you combine that data somewhere you could easily mine important stock information. If you combined it with real name data, which they have, now that you are no longer allowed to buy an iphone with cash anyways and because ATT (spies) have all your data anyways, it seems like they could create a system that would help them identify hot stocks to buy and sell.

When you are using a wifi connection instead of the ATT connection there would normally be no identifying info for apple, except that they send the IMEI along.

<sarcasm>Luckily, it is not a business phone so the real wallstreet analyst types probably do not have one.</sarcasm> It's totally sketchy. Apple is really not what I once thought they were. Although I like the hardware, I am beginning to see that the company is essentially not much better than microosft.

jenks writes at 10:33:21 11/20/07 - Comment #28312: Gasp! Paul how dare you! Apple can do no wrong! Apple is god!

wouldn't apple have to disclose somewhere that they are doing that? somewhere in the fine print that no one reads of the contract or something?

jason writes at 08:59:19 11/20/07 - Comment #28309: Lol @ Paul. Stirring up the pot!

drew writes at 05:42:14 11/20/07 - Comment #28301: I know that Google tracks me, but here's the thing: They tell you that they are doing that, and they only use the info to sell non-intrusive ads.

I guess I feel better about google having my information (right now, at least) because I trust them. I don't trust the phone company (they've already collaborated with the governement in an illegal search) or the government (see above), but what has google done? It has shown me ads for TMBG tickets and Presbyterian books. It's advertising that I don't really mind.

Now, as soon as somebody gets arrested because google has given information, than I'll worry. But apparently AT&T has given the government access to the servers, to I don't have to worry about google giving it away.

paul writes at 05:28:24 11/20/07 - Comment #28300: Omg, I hope they don't give my data to the government and have me arrested as a dissident, oh wait, wrong company.

ajay writes at 01:23:35 11/20/07 - Comment #28295: Google just bought Doubleclick, the most obnoxious, spammy, privacy-infringing company around. The merger hasn't gone through yet because of concerns in EU and even in the FTC; but there you have it.

"Don't be Evil" is a great catchphrase.

Do you use GMail? Every link you click on GMail (even those inside email messages that someone sends to you) goes through Google's servers where they record that you clicked on it, when, etc.
And the ads on GMail? They are specifically targetted based on the contents of the message.
Somewhere, inside Google, there's a nice record of every email you've sent and received, every link you've clicked, etc.

drew writes at 11:00:34 11/20/07 - Comment #28290: :::link:::

My limited experience and analysis has led me to believe that they have lived up to this value of theirs. Now, I'm not saying they are perfect in the least bit, but they seem to be a corporation that makes the world better, in a world where too many make the world worse.

ajay writes at 10:18:01 11/20/07 - Comment #28287: "Is google the only good tech company?"

LOL ... that's funny.

Google's very good: but only at PR. They're great at acting like they are different, but they're not actually any different.

paul writes at 10:13:55 11/20/07 - Comment #28286: I am sure they will say it is a way of preventing other people from requesting data off their servers for free without an iphone.

paul writes at 09:57:32 11/20/07 - Comment #28285: Is google good?

drew writes at 09:52:40 11/20/07 - Comment #28284: Is google the only good and profitable tech company left?

Everybody is either one or the other, it seems.

Permalink: Apple_sniffing_your_stocks_.html
Words: 228
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: mobile

11/19/07 11:42 - 43ºF - ID#42207

The amazon kindle

The Amazon Kindle

is seriously a revolutionary device. I hope that it takes off and changes the way people read. Imagine all the paper it could save and how many trees.

I am fascinated by the fact that Amazon chose to go with free EVDO cell phone network in order to deliver the data to the device instead of wifi. Could this signal the beginning of the end of wifi. No monthy fees. I still can't get over that. It also has constant access to wikipedia.org and battery life is a whopping 30 hours of reading time and only 2 hours to charge thanks to the energy saving e-ink technology.

Too bad it costs $400 and I already bought an OLPC ;( Well thankfully, the children in africa will get something for my purchase where as Amazon would only get richer if I bought a kindle.

On another note I bought the AT&T tilt, so I have two more years of windows mobile 6 unless Android comes out before then and supports exchange server.

Permalink: The_amazon_kindle.html
Words: 179
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: mobile

11/19/07 08:59 - 33ºF - ID#42193

My soon to be, new phone

I think I found a replacement for my current phone. Finally, a 3G phne with gps. Too bad ATT doesn't have 3G here in Buffalo yet. At least the phone will be ready when it arrives and with ATT I can use multiple phones and just port my SIM card around. My nokia 7710 will once again have life.

It has a 500Mhz processor, tethers via bluetooth, has windows mobile 6 (for work stuff), 3G, GPS, 3MP camera, keyboard, video chat, instant messaging, push email with outlook sync. I also imagine it should be ready to run the new google OS android once it is officially out. My only complaints are flash player 7 (that's adobe's fault) and the fact that it does not have a standard headphone connector.

It is normally $599 but as a new ATT customer I can get it for $179 on amazon

You have to love cell phone subsidies. Poor iphone users who actually had to pay face value for their phones. Not only is it only $179 but you can choose two additional phones for 1 cent each on the family plan. The phones on that list are pretty good too, so (e:terry) and (e:matthew) will be happy.