Sorry about my lack of blogging. I promise to update more soon. I have slowly been working on estrip7 - yes estirp6 was finished and never released. In the new version your blog page has much more space. ALl your personal info and links to the different views of your blog are on the left. Your blog now around 600 pixels wide is in the middle allowing for larger pics.

At the right is going to be the latest entries list, chat and some new secret stuff not there yet. Not sure about which themes will move over or if I will allow people to mix custom themes for their own blogs. We will see. Anyways, don't give up hope - I have just been so busy with work and backend stuff.

It will also have a more more robust API for hosting your blog content elsewhere.

For those of you that missed it, you missed a great time. The best part was the appetizer of bacon wrapped crab claws and robert's mojito mix.

Phillis, if you read this, tell Robert I have his tupperware jug. Seriously, you should start a journal.

Bacon Wrapped Crab Claws
(e:mike) and I decided to just take bacon wrapped shrimp to the next most fancy level. They were so freakin' delicious. The form factor was very similar to bacon wrapped chicken wings There is only one link I could find for those which makes me think they are way under marketed.

Requires one package of bacon ($5) and one pound of crab claws (~$20) First defrost crab claws, cut yummy bacon in half strip sized, wrap around crab claw and broil on low for 10 minutes ish.

In their stages of cooking






Mikey likes it



I think for the first time, I actually got to spend some quality time talking with each guest. I specifically had a great time talking with (e:vincent) and (e:metalpeter) about "touring" niagara falls shady style.

Also, for once I am also not so mega hung over from the party which should make the parade today a little nice than usual.

And onto some totally unparty related items:

We turned Dave's room into a library.


Why do people add clay to give their hair a washed yesterday look when they could just not wash their hair today?


Seriously, the sign really does make a difference. One person actually bumped it.


At the end of the night (e:tinypliny) drank a some of this pretty tea and then I saw she published something at 5:30am which leads me to believe that it was very caffeinated, lol.

I taught digital media arts for a long time on macs at Canisius as some of you might remember I became so accustomed to saying, hold down the apple key and press ...

Today I was helping (e:matthew) learn some photoshop stuff on the mac and I said hold down apple plus shift. His response was, where is the apple key? At first I was thinking, just look but then it really hit me there is no freakin apple key on the new mac keyboard. I have no idea what would posses such a marketing and image driven company to produce new keyboards without their logo on it. It makes no sense. I mean they always had them and windows keyboards have a windows key. Its weird because it says command, and there is the traditional command symbol for mac, but why not just use the apple logo. I mean what does that command symbol really mean?



The iphone's missing text editing feature Give me my clipboard
While I am on the apple rant , I am totally excited about the new iphone and am sure I will buy one just to go back to 3G speed but have the safari mobile browser. The question still remains, why no freakin select, cut, copy, and paste functionality. It is the backbone of digital copy creation. I don't know how they are really going to say it is enterprise ready without that. So much of corporate email involves editing text heavily and cut , copy pasting parts of one email in to another, or parts of web text into an email or other web page. Same with blogging. I find it ridiculous to tye a long entry without using digital editing. That is why I went from having like 1000 mobile blog entries to have about 0 this and last month. PLEASE APPLE ADD CUT, COPY, AND PASTE to the iphone firmware?!

P.S. It is really hot out and I went to the gym three times this week, ya!

Sorry (e:imk2) and (e:jim) but this is a anti-smoking rant.

I get it, smoking is addictive. I smoked cigarettes before but cancer is deadly and smoking significantly raises your risk of cancer. Its a simple equation. Cancer is so in you face at Roswell that I would think it is almost impossible to not think about. I quit as soon as I started working there (e:paul,32381)



I makes me crazy that these Roswell workers smoke right in front of these no smoking/smoke free environment signs. The thing is those signs are for St. Jude's not Roswell. The Roswell people know not to smoke on Roswell property so they smoke at some other non-smoking property where they cannot get in trouble.

I made this to help myself quit. Maybe it will help someone else.

Eating is good. Eating alone is not.



However, I am sick of eating alone at a big table. It is really depressing. (e:matthew) doesn't eat very much and (e:terry) eats early so by the time I get home from work I eat by myself everyday.



I realized today that I have an affinity/necessity for blue boxed medicine. Is this just a coincidence?



We have some really pretty Irises in the garden. Here are purple, mixed and yellow. We have more varieties in the backyard.

Seriously, I do nothing that would qualify me as an athlete. Then I decided to join Allentown Athetix. On monday (e:terry), (e:matthew) and I went for the first time. Before we went I read their website that no one ever got athelte's foot there.

In more than nine years in business, no one has ever contracted athlete's foot. Okay, we wouldn't eat the pizza slice that fell on the floor, but we might think about doing that!

And as I mentioned in a previous blog the lockerroom is seriously the cleanest I ever saw, so one night when totally sweaty - I took a shower without sandals and now seriously I have Atheletes foot, which I definately did not have before. There is no where else my feet could have gone. I don't ever go barefoot outside. So there you have it - remember to always wear protection, bare footing is never safe, no matter how hot and sweaty you are.

Plus one
Bedroom, bathroom and kitchen/fridge space - the roommate is gone! Now visitor season can begin. While Dave was the best roommate we had, sorry Nameless Bitch but he didn't always steal my food, lol - it is going to be nice to have just us at home so that I can begin to exhibit the craziness I surely inherited from my dad, ;) like talking to myself and singing silly songs and so I don't have to put pants on to run down to the kitchen to grab water or whatever.

It is so weird to all of a sudden have so much more space. I never really got to explore that space because since we bought the house there has always been someone in it.





Minus One
Today I had such a bad crohn's day - if that is what's killing me. Usually, I am fine - in fact the whole last week I kept thinking maybe it was gone and then wham. I was sick all day so bad that it was like having the flu. I have gotten really good at dealing with being sick but it's kind of depressing. At one point it was so bad I wanted to just go home and sleep but then I got involved in some long term conference call about some crazy SQL drama.

I was so depressed about my life for a bit. Not like any emergency medical thing but I realized what the fuck would I be without my meds. Would I just be someone who died at age 30ish. My body is so fucking pathetic. I wish I could just buy a new one and export the good parts the way I transfer between computers that hold my code.

We went to Allentown Athletix for the first time after signing up over the weekend. It is really clean and the lockerroom/showers actually do not smell bad in any way like they do at the downtown BAC. The showers were really clean and the water pressure was like Hotel amazing.

We will see how motivated I am to keep going but it will help that it is only 2 blocks away. I miss the stomach twist machine from the BAC. Maybe they have one too. I kind of had a hard time finding my way around at first.

Don't forget to check out my previous post about Artist and Models. We went to Tandori on Transit for Indian Buffet today. The buffet costs $12 but is of a much higher quality than the Buffet on Elmwood at Taste of India. The rice was amazing as were all the food choices. I really enjoyed the curry goat.



They had this amazing pickled vegtable condiment. I love pickled anything. This one fruit, however, remained a total mystery. I am hoping maybe (e:tinypliny) can identify it for me. It had the consistency of a green, unripe plum but a totally different kind of pit. Anyone know what it is? It was just slightly smaller than a golf ball.






At the end they give you rose water to wash your hands I think. I hope it wasn't supposed to be some sort of dessert soup, because I washed my hands in it.



Also, here is a cute picture of (e:matthew) with jesus hair

On Saturday night we went to the Hallwalls Artists and Models fundraiser at the Central Terminal. (e:Terry), (e:matthew) and I went with (e:imk2) and (e:mike) went with (e:jill). We all met up there. Saw a bunch of other peeps there.

There were thousands of people. Check out these shots of the crowd. Here I am standing in the middle and took a pic facing each direction.




Most of the art was really lame. Some of it was pretty cool. One of the most interesting pieces in the show was the release of all these red, white and blue balloons onto the veiling. Each one had the name of a soldier that died in the war. They slowly descended to the ground over the night. People were hitting them around and playing with them till they realized what they were. It was interesting to see the number quantified in something other than digits.



I decided to take the picture to look him up afterwards. It is creepy weird that I could find his funeral on youtube. Are all the soldier's funerals on youtube?



(e:imk2) and I had fun in the asbestos closet that was not an actual event but a closet that was just gross. It had a label on the door that said Canadian Customs.





Then we had fun in the bi-polar room. (e:imk2) explains it well with her facial expression. I just like the way the other pic came out with the slow lens speed.



(e:holly) and her boyfriends Brian did a pretty sweet interactive, multimedia experience piece. I forgot to get a picture of (e:robin)'s video but it was great as always. Somehow, I realized as we left that I missed (e:liz)'s piece or at least I am not sure which one it was? Anyone know?


There was another interactive installation that involved nurses, I could never get close enough to figure out what they were doing.


The highlight was the burlesque show. It was at that point that I discovered how much better (e:imk2)'s camera was than mine. I am now going to get a new one. Her pics were crytal clear while mine were blurry and crappy. We were the same distance away, both with all auto on but her camera is like 2 years younger that mine.


I captured this amazing performance for (e:metalpeter), I thought he would enjoy it. They did a blond vs brunette dance to the tune of "Dueling Banjos"

::Download Flash Video::