I'm struggling to focus today, which gets me nervous because there is a lot of stuff to do. I have a headache and a bit of a runny nose, which I've determined isn't from my brother (thankfully) but from the change in temperatures we've had the past week. This delicious and hot cup of Timmy Ho Ho (2 creams 1 sugar, thaaaanks) is helping me keep my shit together this afternoon.

While I was eating my lunch in my office I was checking out Buffalo's entry in Wikipedia. There is a breakdown of the different neighborhoods in Buffalo - 32 in total. They also have a nice map of the breakdowns in the neighborhoods, which is nice because having lived here for over 10 years now I'm still not exactly sure what neighborhoods are where. Check it out - the map is a little too large to post here so link from here and zoom in. The strip is barely visible between what the map denotes as "west side" and "delaware district."

Personally, I've always felt that the greater "Elmwood Village" area borders are Forest to the north, Allen to the south, Richmond to the west and Delaware to the east... but thats just me, and that outline also would gobble up most of what is considered Allentown. Also, for voting purposes I believe they file me into Delaware District, which according to this map I am not a resident of.

Anyway, what spurred this post was that some neighborhoods have Wiki pages and others don't... including ours. Why don't we have a Wikipedia page yet? It may be only a matter of time, but I'd prefer to have residents create the page rather than people like those from Buffalo Rising.

Anyway, since we have some new and future residents plugging into this neighborhood site, you might find Buffalo's Wiki entry interesting, if you haven't checked it out already. There were some interesting factoids about our city in there that I had never known, such as Buffalo's ranking in Reader's Diagest as the nation's third environmentally cleanest city (I am skeptical, but whatever).

The new Reagan diary outsold the Goracle's book by a total of 5 copies in its first week! Man, that guy can't win squat, can he? I claim foul play and as a Buffalonian I sympathize with Mr. Gore's inability to win.

Seriously - with an "inconvenient" running start and worldwide popularity, his ideas couldn't outsell 25-year old private diary entries. Spin it however you like, but that is a pitiful state of affairs. Maybe over time Mr. Gore's book will eclipse the Reagan one. When it comes to book sales, I'm always rooting for the guy that is still alive to spend the proceeds.

The 750 house trail mix, although maybe (e:jason) thought I was stoned and not being serious when I said I wanted to make my own -

unsalted peanuts - 1/2 c
almonds - 1/2 c
yogurt covered raisins (or maybe regular ol' fashioned kind) - 1/2 c
dark chocolate chips - 1/4 c
dried pineapple - 1/4 c
dried cranberry - 1/4 c
yet to be determined (due to availability) 3rd dried fruit - 1/4 c

Any recommendations on the third dried fruit, or maybe a 1/4 c of a different item?

I need to manipulate PDF files (merge multiple PDFs into one, sort the pages, etc.) but my boss isn't about to pony up $300 for Acrobat for me. Any ideas on an open source alternative that works in XP? So far, the best candidate I've seen is PDFCreator.

I can't believe it - after listening to my short wave radio (well, ok.. to be more specific, a lot of static, China, Vietnam, Cuban, Russian radio) for the last few days I found my first "numbers station!" I was scanning different bands while waiting for my supplier to arrive when I tuned into 17,450 kHz and found 5-string numbers being repeated in Spanish. After doing some research this is more than likely the station commonly referred to as "Atencion" - Cuban based. It is true, however, that different clandestine agencies around the world broadcast in many languages and don't necessarily rely only on numbers. They use phonetic alphabets, strings of sounds, morse code, data burst transmissions as well as cartoon sounds. Its weird to know that somebody out there doing some highly dangerous and risky stuff on behalf of their government might be listening to this.