Cap'n John's Blog

Vegetarians and Carnivores (ok, Omnivores)
Thursday, July 29, 2004, 12:50 p.m.

Liz and I watched UPN's "Amish in the City" last night, and it was surprisingly good and not what I was expecting. We have a good discussion going on about it over in Xinh's blog.

One thing that really pissed me off in the show (was not that the City kids are complete jerks, I was expecting that) was Ariel the Vegan forcing her Vegan ways on the other 10 cast members. I have no problem with Vegans choosing to eat nothing but fruits, nuts, vegetables and grains and whatever other vegan stuff they eat. Chris stayed with me for a few days last week and we had a great time hanging out. He ate his vegetarian food, I ate my meat and two veg.

I do not like fanatical Vegans trying to tell me and other omnivores what we cannot eat, i.e. MEAT AND DAIRY FOODS!!!!

It's great that you're so enlightened you choose not to eat meat or dairy products, that's a fantastic choice you've made. However, I've made the choice to continue to consume the flesh of various and numerous dead animals.
So, stop trying to shove your choice of lifestyle down my throat, and I won't shove a hot dog down yours.

That may make me sound barbaric, but what did you expect from someone who EATS MEAT!!!

I'm getting down off my soap box now, and going to get a red beef burrito for lunch ;)

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Pinch the Magic Dragon
Tuesday, July 27, 2004, 07:06 a.m.

Right before I woke up this morning I was having a dream where Liz & I were staying in a beach house. We were getting ready for bed just as my alarm went off, so I woke up and hit snooze because it’s faster than fumbling for the alarm’s on/off switch. Then I promptly fell back to sleep and back into my dream. When I returned to the dream Liz & I were now in bed, then a voice shouted, "He’s back in the bed! Pinch is back!"

Then Liz rolled over and began pinching me, in my dream that is. It occurred to me that she had been possessed by a mischievous entity known as Pinch, for very obvious reasons. I tried to stop her pinching me, but my efforts were in vain. As I sat up I noticed that hanging over the bed was a ball of flame in the shape of a Dragon. Not a big ball of flame, mind you, it can’t have been much more than 2-feet in diameter. For some reason it still filled me with terror and I attempted to dispel it through prayer. I say attempted to because I was unable to call upon my God to kick this thing’s arse. I tried, but fear had me tongue-tied and I was not able to get the name of God out, which is extremely important when dealing with malevolent entities.

Finally I woke up and rather than pinching me, Liz was just pushing me, in real life that is. I’m guessing that just like the dream with the Snapping Turtle (see June Archive, "Holy Leaping Snapper Turtles!"), I was muttering in my sleep and Liz was shoving me to make me stop. All I can say is someone should be glad their hands didn’t get grabbed again :P

On a different note, the fact that I was unable to call upon my God to protect me from my dream opponent has me concerned. I have always been very strong in my faith. I may not have always saved the world when that task has fallen upon my shoulders (in my dreams that is, if it were IRL we'd be in big trouble :P) but when I've needed it, my faith has always been there in my dreams. When I've called to my God in my dreams he's always assisted me, and together we've kicked arse and vanquished demons. But this morning, in this dream, I was so bloody scared that I couldn't call to my God for help.

Of course I have been questioning my faith as of late. I've become disillusioned by the "Church" and its teachings. I know the real story behind Christmas and why we worship a Druidic symbol around the time of the Winter Solstice. I know why colorful eggs are used to celebrate Easter during the Spring Equinox, and it's not a symbol of new life despite what the Church may tell you.

Despite this, I still believe in the Lord Jehovah, or Yahweh, or whatever you wish to call him, and these were the names by which I attempted to call upon him in my dreams. I may have doubts that Jesus Christ really was the Messiah (and wasn't just a very naughty boy *joke*) but it wasn't Jesus I tried to call to, it was Jehovah.

Then again, there's a Powerpoint Presentation floating around, a bloody scary one too, I might add. It has neat photographs of ghosts captured on film, and it culminates with this tranquil forest scene, sun shining down through the leaves. One is looking intently for the ghosts of the three women hanged as witches (although I thought you always burned witches) when up pops a horrific picture which could be described as a grotesque parody of the character from Edvard Munch's "The Scream", complete with blood curdling scream. Liz and I were viewing this thing together, and I was sort of expecting something scary to pop up, but not something quite like that. Liz covered her eyes and told me to make it go away. I'm trying to tell her it's ok as I reach for the mouse to right-click and end the slidewhow, but I've got to look at the screen to do this, and I might have been a little more comforting if I were actually able to say in a deep manly voice "It's ok". But my deep manly voice had been replaced by a croaky, scared-as-all-hell, high-pitched, girly-man voice, and that kind of voice is not too reassuring when it tries, and fails, to be reassuring and say "It's ok".
So it could have just been that for whatever reason, this ball of flame/dragon/Pinch thingy simply scared the living hell out of me, and I was just not able to talk. Maybe it has nothing to do with losing my faith. It was more like having a Silence (15') spell cast upon you thus preventing you from talking and casting spells in return. Or falling victim to a monster's Fear effect and being unable to do nothing more than blubber meaninglessly while ineffectively flailing your sword/staff/mace/dagger/insert "weapon of choice" here. I think next time I'm in my dreams I need a Ring of Dispel Magic, or perhaps a Potion of Courage, or maybe even an Ethereal Staff of Thumpiness. You can do a lot of damage with an Ethereal Staff of Thumpiness :D
And in case you're wondering, no, I was not playing any RPGs last night before going to bed. I haven't played an RPG since Neverwinter Nights was shelved in favor of GTA3:Vice City. These are just my typical dreams.

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The weekend...
Monday, July 26, 2004, 03:56 p.m.

This weekend was interesting. It started on Friday (coz I had the day off) with a game of golf with Drew.
Drew was a little late getting to the course so I had a hit on the driving range to warm up then practiced on the putting green. Once Drew arrived and the game got under way, I got off to an early lead, beating Drew by 6 strokes on two holes, but by the end of the front nine he’d come back and was 1 stroke up on me. I figured this wasn’t too bad as Drew usually beats my score by at least 6 strokes. The back nine I played fairly well and I almost went around with straight 4s. Unfortunately I hit a few 5s, but I did sink some pretty long putts to prevent those 5s from becoming 6s :D
After the dust had settled Drew had once again gone around in six fewer strokes than me. I’ve actually played that same course considerably better than I did on Friday. Oddly enough I played it extremely well, shooting just 15 over Par, on my first game in damn close to 10 years. I’ve played quite a few more games since then and not only have I not improved, my game seems to have gotten worse. I suspect that in the 10 years I didn’t play I forgot all my bad habits, but now that I’m playing once more my body has remembered them again :P

Friday afternoon I had to wait for the UPS guy who was supposed to make a third delivery attempt, between 3pm & 5pm according to the delivery slip he’d left the day before. I spent the afternoon working out how to install the new faux wood blinds Liz bought for our bathroom and bedroom. As is the way of these things, installing or putting together the first one always takes a lot longer than installing or putting together the rest of the things. When it was time to go pick up John Edward and Liz, I had only managed to install one blind in our bathroom and taken down one (of three) blind in our bedroom. before I left I called UPS and told them that their driver had not delivered the parcel during the time he’d specified. They were pretty good and while I was en route to pick up Liz they called me back to say they’d been in touch with the driver and he would not come around until after 6pm. Fine with me, I usually pick up Liz around 5:40 then we’re home before 6pm. There was just one problem. While JE & I were waiting in the parking lot, Liz called to say her bus was running late. She got in just a few minutes before 6pm and while we were stopped at a red light on the way home, who should we see turning onto the street ahead of us but the UPS guy. We raced him home for a block or two before he turned down a side street, giving us plenty of time to get home and wait for him. Of course just like the couple of days before, he didn’t turn up until after 7pm and I’d almost finished installing the last blind by that time ;)

Saturday morning I had a blood test so I wasn’t allowed to eat breakfast on account of needing to fast for 12 hours before :( Fortunately Liz and JE both got up around 7am so I was able to sleep in until almost 8:30. The new blinds blocked out the light just beautifully, and while I can sleep anywhere, anytime, restricting ambeint light to a bedroom while trying to sleep is always a good thing.

JE has his swimming class at the local YMCA at 10am so Liz drove me to the lab for the blood test and left me there. I could not believe there was only one other guy in there ahead of me, and he was so far ahead of me that he was leaving as I was going in. The nurse took my blood and that was it. I was finished, in just five minutes. I called Liz to see where she was and she was at the Chinese Bakery in the Plaza across the street, luckily for me. I ran across the road and met her in the bakery where we bought lots of yummy Chinese breads and pastries. I bought 3 bacon, corn & cream cheese rolls, 2 of which were gone before we got to the YMCA. The 3rd mysteriously disappeared before we made it back home :P

After lunch Liz wanted JE to have a nap but he would only have a nap if we did too. I lay down but only long enough for Liz and JE to fall asleep, heh heh heh ;) It was also too bloody hot for me to sleep in the middle of the afternoon. Instead I decided to move our 2-seat sofa upstairs into the family room. No, there was no crashing and banging and mashing of fingers and gnashing of teeth and screaming and waking up of those napping. Everything went smoothly. I moved the sofa into the family room and placed it in the bay window area, and the two chairs which were there went downstairs in the sofa’s place. I also decided it was time to move my PC desk into the corner next to the sofa, rather than leave it against the wall adjacent to Liz’s PC. But before I was willing to do that I wanted a network cable at least a 20’ long, or I’d lose the ability to surf until I did get a 20’ network cable.

I sat down in the sofa and realized that the TV needed to be moved several inches to the left, otherwise the person sitting on the right side of the sofa would have the optimum viewing position, i.e., dead center. To do that I had to move the entertainment unit a couple of inches to the left, and also slide the TV to the other side of the table it’s resting upon. Moving the TV was easy, even if it is a 32" TV; it was moving the entertainment unit the couple of inches to the left in order to move the TV’s table that was difficult. But I did it, and now the TV is more centrally located with respect to the sofa. Why didn't I just move the sofa a few inches to the left? Because it was already centrally located with respect to the bay window, and because sitting on the outside bay window sills are the two stereo speakers which make up my El Cheapo Surround Sound system ;)

When Liz and JE finally woke up we took JE to his grandparents’ house and Liz & I went on to NoHo to pick up Xinh as we were planning to head into Burbank to see "The Bourne Supremacy". We got into downtown Burbank, bought our movie tickets, then had 3 hours to kill until the movie. First on the agenda was dinner, which I convinced Xinh and Liz should be at the Greek restaurant nearby. Not only was it surprisingly empty for a Saturday night in Burbank, so no waiting, the food was reasonably priced and bloody good too.

After dinner we popped into the Bargain Book Store, and just one look was enough to let us know it really was a Bargain Book Store. Most of the books were not in good condition, either creased or water-damaged, and most of them were not overly interesting either (I’m sad to say). What was interesting was the guy we saw outside, walking past with his friends and his pet python. Before Xinh could get her camera out of her bag and boot it up he was half-way down the street. Of course his python was around his neck, not walking on a leash or anything. We still had 45 minutes to go until 9:30, which was when the ticket seller recommended we return to the cinema to line up for our 10:30 movie, which was sold out, so Liz & I popped into Coldstone Icecreamery. We stood in line for about 20 minutes just to get a small White Chocolate with Milk Chocolate bits, which was pretty good, totally worth the wait ;)

Outside Xinh had been entertained by a group of guys hitting on every pretty girl who walked past, but you can read her Blog for that story ;) While eating our icecream I noticed the Snake Guy and his buddies were hanging out not too far from us, but with the opportunity at hand Xinh didn’t want to go up and ask them if she could take a photo. It was up to the Australian to save the day. Using my best Crocodile Dundee accent I approached the Snake Guy and asked if it was ok if my friend took his picture. He consented, because Aussies can get away with practically anything here in "The States", but I think he was disappointed my "friend" was not a cute Aussie "shiela"... that or looking at his picture now perhaps he was just a little wasted.

After that interlude we went and lined up behind the thirty or forty other people who had decided to watch The Bourne Supremacy and were willing to line up an hour early just to get good seats. It was pretty good, considering that I’d already decided the only thing it was going to borrow from the book was the title and the main character, and it pretty much didn’t disappoint me in either respect. A very enjoyable movie, although I think there could have been less use of handheld cameras, especially for a few indoor scenes where there’s no excuse not to use a mounted camera.

Before the movie started Liz wanted a bottle of water so it was off to the concession stand for a bottle of water.
When I returned...XINH HAD A BOYFRIEND!!! :D
Ok, ok, just kidding. Xinh, you can cancel that contract on me now, ok? Really...um...you don't want Liz's unborn child to grow up having never known her daddy...right? :)
Anyway, when we first sat down in the cinema we'd left just one seat between Xinh and the couple next to us. Lo & behold, a guy on his own came in and sat down next to Xinh, and they started talking. When I get back with Liz's water Xinh and this guy are having a pretty decent conversation. No idea about what, but the two of them were having a good old chat. When the movie had finished, he even hung around with us as we watched the credits, but as Xinh ignored him and I think he realized she was not going to give him her number, he finally stood up and said Good Night. Poor guy :(

We took Xinh home (on account of it being half-past-midnight) and made it home in one piece, not like some other poor unfortunate souls who totally messed their cars up on the 210 that night.

We got to sleep in on Sunday because JE was still with his Grandparents, and again, those new blinds sure help keep the light out of the bedroom :)
First on the agenda, after just bumming around for most of the morning, was a trip to Best Buy for a network cable. Now I'm one of the first to tout Customer Service, especially in the retail sector as it's where I came from, but I've got to tell you, this trip I experienced waaaaaaaay too much customer service. I was expecting the "Welcome to Best Buy" when I walked in the door, that's fairly standard, but while looking at the PC games in the middle of a Sunday afternoon I did not expect a clerk to approach me, introduce himself, ask if I was finding everything ok, then tell me if I needed anything to call him. Ok, I said, time to move on and look for network cables.

I found exactly what I was looking for in an aisle stand but thought I'd check out the other network cables they had to compare prices, etc. I wound up in the video card section and was looking at one card, debating whether or not it was worth buying it (I had to consider how much grief Liz would give me ;) when a second clerk stopped by and asked if I was finding everything ok. Yeah, yeah I am, thanks, I muttered. Every other time you visit Best Buy on a weekend, if you want to talk to a clerk you have to put your name on a clipboard, much like signing in at the doctor's office, yet I'd just had two clerks stop by and check on me. I really needed to find the networks section and complete my mission.

I made it to the networks section and was looking at a couple of other cables when sure enough, a third clerk comes up and starts talking to me. He makes the logical assumption that as I'm looking at network cables I probably know what I'm doing and he enquires about my home LAN and internet connection and who I'm with. I tell him Adelphia so he gives me the "Verizon" spiel, 1 month free, then /month after that, etc. Better than Adelphia, he tells me. I agree with him that it is a good deal but then I pull out my trump card ;) I tell him that we have both Digital Cable & Internet through Adelphia, so we get a package deal. He's nodding his head coz he knows he's not getting a sale, then just to rub it in, I hit him with my story about calling Adelphia once every three months and complaining about their prices, which is when they give me whatever Intro package is going at that time. For three months we once had Digital Cable, 3 HBO channels, 3 Showtime channels AND Hi-speed Internet, all for just /month ;)

Then it really was time to get the hell out of the store before any other clerks said hello to me :P

Back home I moved my PC desk into the corner adjacent to Liz's PC and I've got to say, with the sofa and the new arrangement to the family room, it has a totaly new look...something like this ;)

which looks fantastic I think...not my picture...our real family room :D
The PC on the right-hand side of the room is JE's PC. Yes, our 4 year-old son has his own PC. Nothing wrong with that. Most kids these days have grown up with computers everywhere and they can't imagine a world where PCs never existed. JE will be no different.

Anyway, we got the family room rearranged then it was off to Liz's parents to pick up JE. We took a detour via the mall where Liz did some more shopping, as did I ;) I bought two more Terry Pratchett books for me, and a compilation book for Liz featuring one Anita Blake short story and three stories by three other female authors. Liz thinks the Anita Blake story was not a short story, but an intro to Laurell Hamilton's next novel. Once again it was full of descriptions of clothing, and lots and lots of sex :P
We finally made it to Liz's parents' house and ended up having dinner with them before finally making it home to put another weekend (and our son) to bed.

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GTA3: Vice City
Saturday, July 24, 2004, 03:42 p.m.

I just saw the funniest thing playing GTA3:Vice City. I was driving down one street when one of Vice City's finest ran past chasing none other than one of Vice City's private security guards! This is even more amusing because Vice City's private security guards proudly wear the name of their security firm on the back of their uniforms, being Patrol Invest Group, or P.I.G. for short. The Cop beat the PIG up, then took off after another PIG on the other side of the street. Ok, perhaps not "laugh of the century" but it certainly amused me :D

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This entry brought to you by possessive nouns, apostrophes, and the letter S
Wednesday, July 21, 2004, 03:37 p.m.

Stemming from a conversation Xinh, Liz and I had not too long ago comes a discussion on the correct use of the apostrophe when making possessive nouns from singular nouns which end in S, such as John, Liz, Xinh, Chris, Boss, Ross, James, and Jesus.

When creating a possessive singular noun, traditionally both an apostrophe and an s are used. The singular noun John becomes the possessive noun John's, Liz becomes Liz's, and Xinh becomes Xinh's. I am arguing that Chris, Boss and Ross also have both the apostrophe and the s added to them. This is because when actually speaking a sentence which uses their possessive nouns, one typically adds the second s and it does not make the pronunciation of the possessive noun awkward, i.e.,

"That is Chris's leather jacket."
"That is the Boss's new car."
"Marceau is Ross's pet Spider Monkey."

If you said each of these sentences out loud you would typically pronounce the second S, thus when writing the exact same sentence you should also include both the apostrophe and the s, not just the apostrophe.

However, when making a possessive noun out of the last two names in my list, James and Jesus, you would not usually pronounce the second s, i.e.,
"That is James' fishing boat", and,
"That is Jesus' Crown of Thorns."
thus you would omit the second s when writing them down in their possessive form.
Conversely it does not sound awkward when you pronounce Chrises, Bosses, and Rosses, (at least not to me) thus each of these examples receive both apostrophe and s when forming their possessive noun.

I'm backing up my argument by referencing Kenneth G. Wilson The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, 1993, which can be found online right here. I find the first paragraph immediately following the listed examples to be rather pertinent, as it naturally supports my argument ;)

Additional evidence supporting my argument can also be found at this Toasted Cheese site under point 3 - When you need an APOSTROPHE, put it in the right place.

Xinh, Liz, and anyone else who wants to jump in, I await your comments, with supporting evidence of course. "That's how we were taught in high school or college" will not be accepted ;)

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Just the clips, ma'am. Just the clips.
Wednesday, July 21, 2004, 08:14 a.m.

This is probably going to reveal far more about who I really am than anything else posted here, coz if you know what makes someone laugh (or cringe) you get a good look into their psyche. The following clips are not of me, just amusing clips I found on the web which I thought I'd share with you. Now I have a broadband connection at home, so downloading them is not a problem for me, but if you have a dial-up connection be prepared for a short wait for each clip. I'll list the size of each clip and how long you can expect to wait for it to download using a 56k dial-up.

This first one comes from Australia and I believe is an act from "Hey! Hey! It's Saturday Night's" variety show "Red Faces". I once slammed an entire can of coke, and it burned like hell! To drink a can of coke nasally (yeah, you read that right) is just FREAKIN' NUTS!!! (420k - approx. 1 minute @ 56k)

This is an ad for Yop! (a Yoghurt breakfast drink of some sort) and it's just plain eyebrow-raising weird. It may have something to do with the sound being half-a-second off, but I don't think so...it's just frigging weird. Especially the mum at the end, that just creeps me out (3328k - approx. 8 minutes)

This one requires Quicktime and is a skateboard trick gone wrong Let's hope the sk8er's coccyx (*giggle* *snort*) didn't end up as broken as his board (1345k - 3m 15s)

Now this one is a commercial with an excellent, very clever "punchline". I'm not going to give anything away, just watch it (1284k - approx. 3m 7s)

All the way from Europe, it's that Swedish singing sensation Gunther with his latest hit "The Ding Dong Song". The U.S. rappers' videos have nothing on Gunther...not that Gunther is a rapper...just watch the clip.
(Size and dl time is unknown. Link points to a .wmv marker which, when opened, loads the clip into Media Player. Expect it to take around 10 minutes on dial-up)

WTF?!?!?! There is no freaking way This Clip is a real ad for the New York Times...is there???
(DL time unknown, clip loads within a webpage. Short clip which may load relatively quickly.)

Hey Prism, you out there? Does This One make you glad your less-than-competent assistant is not quite this incompetent? (2463k - approx. 6m 0s)

And finally, something to make you (or at least Xinh) go Eeeewww!!!
It's real mates giving each other a hand. Really good mates. Really, reeeeeeeeally good mates ;)
You've gotta love the guy on the right when he suddenly realizes he can just stand there and drink his beer. (4190k - approx. 10m 12s)

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Stupid Weather Pixie
Tuesday, July 20, 2004, 11:23 a.m.

I put a Weather Pixie on my site, just over there to the left. Stupid thing isn't updating, not even when I hit reload. Just sits there with his silly smiley face, claiming it's 10:47am, when I know damn well that it's actually 11:25am.

Stupid Weather Pixie.

I've got to head out into the field and won't be back in until later this afternoon. By the time I get back maybe my bored wife might have visited my blog, looked at the code, worked out why the stupid Weather Pixie isn't updating, and fixed it. She's so clever :)

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Calvin & Hobbes IRL
Monday, July 19, 2004, 06:34 a.m.

Although Liz has been a big Calvin & Hobbes fan for many years, it is only now, with a 4 year old son of our own, that she's finally appreciating the comic genius of Bill Watterson.

During the week, as I'm at work before Liz even contemplates getting out of bed, she has to get John Edward up and ready for school all on her own. He's cranky and irritable and doesn't want to get up and fusses and fights and crawls back into bed when she's not watching; he's a real little Calvin.

On the weekend of course it's a whole different story. He's up at the crack of dawn asking us to turn on the TV so he can watch Dora or Spongebob, or turn on his computer so he can play Clifford.

Aah, kids. Ya gotta love 'em...if ya didn't, they'd drive you even more insane ;)

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Work in Progress
Saturday, July 17, 2004, 04:06 p.m.

Harnessing the power of Paintshop Pro, I've edited the graphics at the top of my page AND I worked out how to increase the width of my "entries" column. My entire page is now very close to 800 pixels wide, which makes the entries a little easier to read. I would have gone wider, but I realize that not everyone has their screen size set at 1024x768 ;)

Of course I've also noticed that the graphics on the left of my page didn't line up properly after uploading the full sized biorhythm.gif. Perhaps having a new entry (without a graphic) at the top of my page will correct things. We'll see as soon as I hit done and refresh my page ;)

Yay! It did :D

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This explains it all...
Thursday, July 15, 2004, 10:06 a.m.

I'm not just feeling low because I'm here and my friends & family (not counting Liz, JE, etc) are all in Australia; I'm feeling low because my body's entire biorhythms are all at a low point.

Check how you're really feeling today ;)

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An old friend drops in
Tuesday, July 13, 2004, 04:45 p.m.

I had Friday off (that’s July 9th) and was planning to play a round of golf with Drew. I even had my clubs in the car; alas Liz called to remind me that I’d promised to clean the house that day, as my friend Chris was going to be visiting for a few days before flying on to Atlanta for a Microsoft conference. I guess there had to be some compromise; one day of house-work compared to a weekend of laying pavers in the backyard, I think I got off easy, even if I didn’t get in my game of golf :P

Saturday morning I picked up Chris from LAX and on the way home we stopped at a local “hole-in-the-wall” for some Cheese Tamales, but they only had pork. As Chris is a vegetarian he got a bean & cheese burrito instead. It might seem like a strange kind of breakfast, especially for someone who just got off a 15 hour flight, but Chris loves Mexican food and he thought it was fantastic. I got him home, showed him to the spare bedroom and demonstrated how the shower works. Here you usually have one faucet knob handling both water temperature and pressure, whereas practically all Australian bathrooms have one faucet for hot water & one for cold. We then left Chris to have a nap while Liz & I took John Edward to swimming practice.

JE at swimming practice, that was frigging amazing. It blew my mind how fast he’s advanced in just a few weeks. The instructor tied one of those long foam "pool noodles" around each of the kids chests and then, one at a time, towed each kiddie out into the pool away from their little safety platform and they would then swim back on their own. I was so proud to see my son kicking and paddling his way back to the platform. At times his face went halfway under, the water covering his mouth, but he kept at it and he didn’t freak out at all like he used to when his face got wet during bathtime. He was bloody brilliant.

After practice we headed back home. Chris was out like a light so I let him sleep until noon before waking him up for lunch, as we had tickets for the 1pm Dodgers vs Astros game. Before you say how inconsiderate I must be that I bought tickets for a game which started not even 6 hours after Chris completed a 15 hour flight, the game was originally scheduled for 7pm that evening but due to some balls-up on Fox’s behalf (that’s Fox the TV station) the game was moved forward 6 hours. It was a good game, we sat in the cheap outfield seats, where I personally think the real fans sit. In my opinion, buying a seat at a baseball game or a 0 seat at a basketball game does necessarily make you a real fan. For the first 6 or so innings we sat in Row W, practically at the back of the stadium. It would have taken a massive hit to get the ball to us but Paul Lo Duca gave it a shot, hitting a 100 yard homer with runners on second & third base. The ball still landed a good 20 rows from us. Noticing that there were quite a few empty seats down in front of us we moved forward during the 7th Innings, and it is amazing the difference that just 10 rows can make. Unfortunately this put us out in the sun but I figured we just had to tough it out for a couple more innings. As the view was so much better than our old seats we stayed put until the top of the 9th when the Dodgers closing pitcher struck out the Astros, giving the Dodgers a 3 to 1 victory. The next day Lo Duca hit a Grandslam homer and the Dodgers once again outscored the Astros, 7 to 4.

Arriving back home we woke up Liz & JE from their naps then took the little guy to the Liz’s parents’ house where he was staying the night. Chris, Liz & I then went out to dinner at a local Korean BBQ place in Arcadia. Why did we go to a BBQ place if Chris is a vegetarian? Coz Korean BBQ is not American-style BBQ; it has loads of tofu dishes, and spicy ones at that, which was just fine with Chris. After dinner we were leaving the parking lot when Chris saw a Baskin & Robbins sign and he just loves their Chocolate Peanut Butter ice-cream, so we got two tubs ;) We also stopped at a supermarket on the way home to get some supplies for the next couple of days and while we were in the checkout line Chris added two packets of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to our items. Chris is an Aussie (albeit a well traveled one), but he’s just nuts about chocolate & peanut butter ;)

When we got home we checked to see what time Round 11 of the Formula One Grand Prix was on; 4:30am according to Adelphia’s Digital Cable guide. I set the VCR to start at 4:25am, just in case the race started a few minutes early, but it didn’t actually start until almost 5am. The first 30 minutes was a recap of what went down in the preceeding week and discussed the dubious future of the British Grand Prix at the Silverstone Circuit. Chris liked that there was so much more coverage given to the race, a lot more than in Australia where if it’s not the Melbourne Grand Prix, you get to watch the race, the whole race, and nothing but the race; Saturday night we actually watched the qualifying laps before heading to bed.

I got up at 8am and was rewinding the tape when Chris emerged from the spare bedroom. We got breakfast and sat down to watch the race, which was when we discovered the race didn’t really start until 5am. I’d set the VCR to tape for 3 hours, which was half an hour more than scheduled for the race. What I didn’t realize was that I’d only used a 2 hour tape, not a problem if I’d set the VCR to tape on Extended Play...I hadn’t; it was on Standard Play.
Amazingly, immediately after the race had finished, before the drivers had even got out of their cars, while the winner was still driving his victory lap even, the tape ran out of tape. I know Chris was pleased to see the end of the race but he was also horrified (as was I) that I’d cut things so fine. If the race had started a minute or so later, if the pace car had stayed out for an extra lap after Jarno Trulli rolled his Renault (an awesome crash which he walked away from), if there had been one or two extra commercials, not extra commercial breaks, just an extra commercial or two, we might have missed the final lap and had to wait until 10pm Sunday night to catch the results. Sure, there’s the Official Formula 1 website but we were watching the race because we wanted to actually watch it; if we’d wanted to know who won we could have just visited the website when we got up at 8am.

After the race we left Liz at home, all by her lonesome, and headed for The Malibu Speedzone. It's not in Malibu but the City of Industry, where we got to race 3/4 scale open-wheel racers, not unlike Indy cars or the F1 cars we’d just been watching on the TV. Speedzone has two Grand Prix tracks, side-by-side, for head-to-head racing, but only one track was open when we arrived so we could only race against the clock. However our times were displayed on the large scoreboard next to the pit so we were still sort of able to race against each other. As we completed successive laps, got used to the car and the track, our times naturally improved. For the first few laps I posted faster times than Chris, then he pulled out a really fast lap, around 40.9 seconds. My next lap I managed to break 41 seconds as well but damned if Chris didn't nail a 40.5 I had one more shot at it but actually posted a slower lap time, just over 41 seconds. I don’t know the length of the track we were racing on, so I don’t know how fast we were going, but sitting just inches above the ground made these things seem like they were flying. It was intense.

We raced the regular go-karts after that but it just wasn’t the same, especially as two kids had considerably faster karts than Chris & I. They’d drive around like morons, sliding their karts all over the place and smash into the walls and each other, and still beat our lap times by 6 seconds. I narrowly avoided being hit by their buddy who had a slow kart like us. Either he mistook me for one of his faster buddies, or perhaps he just didn’t care who I was, but he attempted to ram into me as I overtook him on the outside of one corner. I tapped the brakes and watched him fly past in front me, looking backwards with a puzzled expression, surprised and bewildered that I’d avoided the collision; as if I were someone who didn’t have years of kart racing experience under my belt and hadn’t encountered his violent kind many times before. The loud crash as he hit the track wall behind me was almost enjoyable, and not in the least unexpected.

Driving home afterwards was a trip. Sure, my Ford Focus has a higher top end than the go-karts, but it just doesn’t match them for acceleration, especially when compared to the F1-style karts; those things rock!

Liz’s parents had dropped JE off while we were out, so the four of us headed out to lunch. We decided on the Souplantation in Arcadia. Fortunately for this meat-loving omnivore they don’t just have bunny-food; they also do a really kick-arse chili, which I always improve on by adding two scoops of bacon bits and a scoop of cheddar cheese :P

After lunch we hit the Santa Anita Mall to do some shopping, then Best Buy in Pasadena for more shopping. On the way home we stopped at CompUSA in Monrovia for even more shopping :) I got an 80Gig hard drive for Liz’s computer, on account of the 15Gig drive she currently has being damn near full. We got back home and it was practically time to head out again for one of Liz’s Aunty’s birthdays. At the restaurant JE played with his two cousins and discovered that when they both fall on top of him at the same time...IT HURTS!!! Especially when he smacks the back of his head on the floor and his cousins who, although barely a year older than him but together weigh close to 150lbs, are puzzled to find themselves sitting on top of a prone and screaming JE, make no effort to stand up and get off him.

We returned home and Chris and I started pulling Liz’s computer apart in order to install her huge new hard drive. We ghosted Liz’s old hard drive onto her new hard drive, which means we used a program called "Ghost" to copy everything on the old hard drive onto the new one. It’s the equivalent of using the old DOS command copy a:*.* b:*.* but instead of making a copy of a floppy, we were copying the entire contents of one hard drive onto another. After the ghosting we ran into a snag (of course we did. No PC upgrade can go painlessly) with Liz’s old CD refusing to work with the new hard drive. Oddly enough, with both hard drives installed the CD worked just fine, but we didn’t want a dual-drive system, we wanted one hard drive and one CD, and that's it. The old hard drive and CD worked together just fine. The CD worked just fine if the 80g hard drive wasn’t plugged in, and the new hard drive worked just fine w/o the CD, but plug both CD & new hard drive in and the CD refused to work. With midnight fast approaching...or perhaps it had already passed...Chris & I decided it was time for bed and that we’d look at the box in the morning after a good night’s sleep.

I got up early and remembered that I had an old computer, a Pentium II-400, downstairs in storage. I dragged it out, took it upstairs, woke JE & Liz up, took them to school and work respectively, but not in that order, and returned home around 9am. I figured Chris had had enough sleep by that time so I woke him up and showed him the old box, which had not a CD but a DVD player (cool!) as well as a CD-RW(also cool!) and I suggested that we replace the CD with the DVD and see if it would work with the 80Gig hard drive, if not, then we try the 80Gig hard drive in my newer computer. If the 80Gig would work in mine, then Liz could have my 40Gig hard drive, assuming that her CD would play nicely with my 40Gig hard drive. Unfortunately (for me) the DVD from the old box worked just fine with the 80Gig hard drive, so Liz got herself a huge new hard drive AND a DVD drive in her PC. Her 15Gig drive then went into the old PII-400 box, along with her old CD drive, which will shortly become JE’s new computer once we get it working. Then the little guy will be able to play all of his new games which don’t run under Win95 on his old Pentium 90, but then what does these days.

With our two computers up & running (we had problems with the network card on JE’s "new" box) we decided time was a wasting so it was off for more shopping. Chris had spotted a 4-Port Wireless Router in the Best Buy catalog for just (after a mail-in rebate) which would replace the Hub in our LAN at home and improve the web browsing capabilities of all our computers. With the Hub I can only surf on my PC if Liz’s PC is on; using a Router Liz’s PC does not need to be switched on at all. As I much prefer to surf on my PC this would mean that I no longer need to turn on two PCs just to surf the net. We hit the Best Buy in West Covina for the Routers (Chris got one too), then the Barnes & Noble next door, then the shoe warehouse the other side of the Best Buy.

Then it was time to head into "downtown L.A." and show Chris the dark underbelly of the City of Angels ;)

We parked under the Central Library, which is supposed to be the cheapest parking in town, at least after 1pm, but because we stayed in downtown for over 3 hours we started getting charged for every 15 minutes and we eventually had to shell out to leave the garage.

The Library in downtown Los Angeles is located across the road from the Citibank building at 5th & Flower, which is where the famous shoot-out scene from "Heat" between Val Kilmer's character and half of the LAPD occured. I pointed that out to Chris as we headed east along 5th into the real heart of downtown Los Angeles. We crossed through Pershing Square up to 6th St and continued east to Spring St. On the west side of Spring, halfway between 6th & 7th, you'll find a hole-in-the-wall called Mai's, which has real authentic mexican-style food. We picked up a couple of burritos in there and Chris was duly impressed with the ambience and just how damn good the food was.

After lunch we headed a couple more blocks east to 6th & Los Angeles St. On the way we passed Coles, one of the two establishments which claim to have introduced the French Dip sandwich to Los Angeles. Coles has appeared in quite a few films, and if you pop inside there are numerous framed & signed photographs lining the wall, showing the owner of Coles with various film stars. We didn't go inside and on retrospect we probably should have, but we were on a mission, a mission to shop!

At 6th & Los Angeles we entered a shopping plaza filled with stores where practically anything was available...and if you couldn't find it inside you could be guaranteed of getting it outside somewhere on the street. The DVD versions of Shrek 2, King Arthur, and Spiderman 2 could all be bought for just each from a nice mexican lady somewhere around 5th & Los Angeles. On the way back however, the nice mexican lady and her cheap DVDs were nowhere to be seen. We strolled down Los Angeles St., slipping into various shops along the way. Chris bought some delightfully tacky baseball caps with a colorful (LOUD!!!) rendition of the Virgin Mary on the front. He also picked up three caps with the names of Mexican Futbol Teams. That's Football or Soccer to the non-espanol speaker. I think the total cost for the 5 caps was around . The real nice find were the motorbike-style bandanas at three for just ; that's not each, that's for all three.

We ended up on 4th & Wall St, which is not a dangerous area, at least not while the sun is still shining >;) but it's not visually appealing and it's about as far east as I like to go in that neighborhood so we made our way back over to Los Angeles then headed up to 7th. We followed 7th west to the Macy's Plaza on Flower St, meaning Chris got a really good look at the two completely different sides of downtown Los Angeles.

We took a break in Macy's Plaza, grabbed a couple of Fruit Smoothies from Robek's Juice Bar (coz it was bloody hot outside) and checked out Macy's. I think Chris has heard of Macys through their Macy's Parade and wanted to know what they were like. Finally it was time to make our way back up to the Library and Liz's office. Liz works on a floor reasonably high up in the Citibank building (see the above reference to "Heat") so we were able to get a really nice bird's eye view of the city.

With Liz off work we bid downtown L.A. a fond adieu and headed east towards El Monte, where JE was waiting patiently for us at his preschool. He was reasonably happy to see mom & dad, but when he saw Chris was still with us his face lit up like the proverbial pinball machine. Chris has been fantastic with JE these last few days and I know he'll make a terrific dad one day.

After collecting JE, Liz decided she wanted to do some shopping of her own, and as Chris had expressed an interest in seeing what Wal-Mart was like, not to buy anything but because he's always hearing that Wal-Mart has banned this DVD, or is not carrying that CD, and he wanted to know what kind of a fascist company they are, it was off to Wal-Mart...where we actually did end up buying a couple of things. Yes, we're sorry, we financially supported a mega-corporation which hires & takes advantage of illegal immigrants.

After Wal-Mart it was dinner time and we decided to eat at BJ's, which is a funny name for a micro-brewery restaurant. More amusing is that our waitress had a badge with wording similar to "Ask about my Growler" printed upon it. Turns out that a "Growler" is the name for a half-gallon jug of beer which a patron can purchase if thirsty enough. A Growler is a name for something else in Australia, and it would be extremely unsanitary to have beer served in one, especially in a restaurant. I have a feeling BJ's (with their suggestive name) know what an Aussie growler is, especially considering they have a specialty dish with another very suggestive name. I'm unable to recollect exactly what the name of that dish was because Chris & I each ordered the BJ's Beer Sampler to go with our meals, which is Seven 5-ounce glasses of different beers. That's 35 ounces of beer in total which is not enough to get you smashed, but does ensure you have a nice beer buzz by the end of the meal.
Ok, I located BJ's website and discovered the dish I was looking for is their personal lunchtime pizza, "The Nooner". Nudge nudge, wink wink. Say no more!

When we finally got home we decided that because we were still a little buzzed we'd watch TV for a bit before installing the Router we purchased that morning...was it only that morning? It seems so long ago. But being the tech geeks that we are (Chris being an uber-tech geek with the MS Certificates to prove it) we couldn't just leave the Routers lying there and before too long we had them set up and were surfing on all three PCs. I must admit, it's extremely refreshing to not have the internet connection problems that we experienced with the combined use of the Hub and Zone-Alarm. Also with the Router I can now surf on my PC without having to first turn Liz's PC on! Yay! Although I think I've said that before ;)

That was Monday night, and as the night wore on, JE got crankier and crankier. He knew this was the last night Chris would spend with us (at least until the next U.S. convention) and it was heart-breaking to have him beg me not to go to work the next day. He knew that Chris was coming in to work with me before going to LAX and he obviously thought that if I didn't go to work, Chris would be able to stay with us. Fortunately we'll see Chris next week (for one night only) as he passes through on his way back home. I think JE will be ok, he was fine last time we met my Uncle Peter & Aunty Pat for breakfast on their stop over from Australia to Cleveland. It's me I'm worried about.

Chris picked up a bit of a cold on the plane and I think I caught it from him, and when I returned to work after dropping him at LAX, I was a bit sniffly and had a nasty sinus headache. My boss told me if I wasn't well I should go home, and boy did I want to, not coz I felt like crap but because I was already missing Chris and really didn't want to be around anyone. I just wanted to go home, curl up in bed and feel sorry for myself. Unfortunately a very important meeting with a client had been postponed from Monday night to tonight and it was crucial that I be there, so I knew I had to stay. I threw myself into my work and before I knew it the day was practically over...and damned if the client didn't call right at the end of the day apologizing that he couldn't come in tonight either. I could have gone home sick after all!!!

Liz's parents picked JE up from school and as I'd worked back later than usual waiting for the client, I ended up meeting Liz at Pershing Square and riding the bus home with her, which is a rare occurance but nice when it happens. We decided to have dinner at Red Lobster but I had to go and get all teary and spoil it. I'd been fine all day, but that was because I hadn't given myself time to stop and think. Now that work was over and I was sitting down with nothing to do, I was painfully aware of how much I missed not just Chris, but all of my friends and family that I left behind when I came to the States.
Nice one, John. Way to spoil a nice, romantic dinner-for-two.

So there's the last five days, all condensed in a nice, easy to read format...assuming, that is, you have no problem reading tan letters on a khaki background, or whatever color they are on your monitor ;)

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Damn, I'm good!
Friday, July 9, 2004, 08:43 p.m.

The color of my font on those light colored backgrounds look like crap. It might help for you to CTRL-A to "select all" which makes reading this a little easier.

Let's see what Liz has to say about these scores ;)

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Capn John - a pirate out of water
Thursday, July 8, 2004, 08:12 a.m.

On the weekend me mate Xinher snapped a couple of pics of me enjoying a dip in a friend's pool. It ain't the same as the ocean but it was still pretty good. Now these pics are pretty big, so I've not put them here in me Blog, coz they probably wouldn't fit or they'd screw everything up or they'd just take so long to load that if you've got a dial-up connection you might get pretty PO'd with me.
Instead, you can find them here and here.
If you're clicking on these links and getting a "not authorized to view this page" 403 error page, try hitting "reload". For some reason a reload seems to load the picture just fine.

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4th of July, looong weekend
Tuesday, July 6, 2004, 02:20 p.m.

I took Friday off to get a head start on the weekend’s To-Do list, which was pretty bloody big, I’m telling you. Never mind that this made it an extra looooong 4th of July weekend, this was not my weekend to kick back and relax.

I got the water switched off Friday morning so I could take care of some plumbing work, but when I started taking the shower/bath faucet apart I discovered that this was going to be a HUGE job. It’s still something I believe I can do myself, but I’m going to need a tool for cutting tile so I can get inside the bathroom wall. I’m thinking I could use my drill with a special Tile-Cutting Bit, of course I don’t have that Bit yet. I had to be content with repairing the faucet handle and cleaning the lime deposits off the bathroom fittings…or are they fixtures? I know the two represent different objects, but what is a fixture and what is a fitting? Liz wanted the faucet faceplate to be the new silver one, but that ain’t gonna happen yet; it’s still the old gold one, but it’s a clean & shiny gold one now ;)

With the water off, I was also able to rip out the antiquated automated sprinkler unit that Anzac destroyed after we moved in. Fortunately it froze in the off position so we didn’t wind up with a flooded backyard. This was also fortunate because the very back of the backyard does not drain well at all; coupled with the fact that it gets little to zero sun the ground back there just doesn’t dry out. Without water the grass died off leaving just bare earth which Anzac thinks is fantastic for digging holes, so the backyard has a nice lunar landscape thing going on…which is not Liz’s cup of tea so we have outside our yard 3,000 pounds of loose sand and 600 pavers.

Paving that area was on this weekend’s To-Do list, but it didn’t get done ;)

What I did do was build and install an 8x6 fence and gate. The fence originally started out as an 8x6 fence panel, which was cut into two 4’ sections. One of those was braced and hinged and became the gate. Before either fence or gate could be put up, however, I had to dig a 2-foot hole to sink an 8’ fence post. 18” down I hit the cement foundation for the stone wall; without a jackhammer or sledge hammer 18” was going to have to do. I also had to cut a 3” x 4” hole in the cement path to install a steel bracket for the second fence post; this would also be the post from which I would hang the gate. I picked up a masonry wheel for my circular saw but after making my four cuts I was not able to lift out a nice neat cube (relatively speaking) of concrete. The wheel got the hole started but I needed to finish it by hand, which required hammering the cube of concrete into submission and removing it from the hole, piece by piece.

Before the fence posts could be installed I needed to cut pieces out of them in which to fit the fence rails. You know those Lincoln Logs you used to play with as a kid (or perhaps have tucked away somewhere and still play with ;) which had grooves and slots cut into them so they could fit together neatly? I had to create life-sized 6’ & 8’ Lincoln Logs :P This meant that at the top, middle and bottom of the posts I had to make several 1.5” deep cuts, chisel out the pieces between the cuts, then sand smooth the cut-outs so the fence rails would fit in all nice and neat. It was only after I’d made those cut-outs in the 8’ post that I could drop it into the hole I'd dug and cement it in place; as I was mixing cement that also seemed like an appropriate time to cement the steel bracket for the second fence post into my nice neat 3" x 4" hole. 24 hours later, with the cement dry, it was time to fit the second fence post into the steel bracket and hang the fence and gate.

Finally the job was done, the fence encloses the back area of our yard and, combined with the 5 foot stone wall and the neighbor’s tall trees, gives a nice feeling of privacy. The gate swings open and closed just like a gate should, there’s just one small problem…I’d measured and built everything so exact, that there was no room between gate and house to install the latch to hold the gate closed, so off to Home Depot again on the day after July 4th, to return four brackets and buy a new latch, the sliding bolt kind…and a drill bit large enough to drill a hole in the stucco in which to slide the bolt to lock the gate :P

If all of this sounds like a lot of work, you’re right, it was. And while I’m as sore as all hell and glad to be back at work (really, I am ;) it was also very rewarding. We now have a 6’ fence & gate in our backyard which I built and installed all by myself, and which looks bloody good too.

Somewhere this weekend we also found time to attend two 4th of July BBQs, one of which was on the 3rd of July ;)
I managed to get to swim at both of them and despite what you might hear, it was not that cold, and trust me, I know cold. I once dove into an outdoor swimming pool at Coonabarrabran, NSW in the middle of winter!!! and when I dove into this pool I honest to God thought I was going to die. It was so cold I thought I was going to have to break ice on top of the pool if I wanted to get out. However, it was not so cold that I couldn’t perform a kick turn at the end and swim back to my entry point, where I got out of the pool and ran back to our cabin. Upon opening the door my sister, who was studying Nursing at college, took one look at me and ordered me into a warm shower. I was in the shower for 15 minutes before I could turn the water up to something remotely resembling warm, because even warm water was initially too hot for my frozen body. The pool at Susan & Dave’s was not cold. It was nice…once you were in :D

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Coincidence?
Wednesday, June 30, 2004, 10:32 p.m.

Zacarias Moussaoui is the only person the U.S. has publicly charged in connection with the September, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. It's interesting that a couple of years earlier, Moussaoui and his associates borrowed people's personal computers, along with their email accounts, to communicate with each other.

In 1999, one of Moussaoui's associates was on board a bus, somewhere in the middle of Oklahoma, when he noticed the young man sitting next to him had a laptop computer. Apparently not only was a request to use the laptop granted, but even more bizarre is that the password for the young man's email account was also provided, thus allowing Moussaoui's associate to transmit emails in the young man's name. The name of the unusually charitable passenger was Nick Berg.

Yeah, you read that correctly. Nick Berg, the same man who in May 2004 would allegedly be decapitated by terrorists in Iraq, sat next to an Al-queda terrorist on a bus in Okla-freaking-homa in 1999! and allowed this man, a complete stranger, to not only use his computer but use his email account as well.

Don't believe me? I trust CNN somewhat, so check out this article at CNN's website.

Now check out what a conspiracy theorist has to say about The Video.

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New Blog
Wednesday, June 30, 2004, 02:51 p.m.

My beautiful wife decided my Blog needed a new look, so she spent a couple of hours redoing it. She was really pissed with me coz a lot of that time was spent trying to align the columns & graphics, which wasn't happening like it was meant to.

Finally she archived all of June's entries, which you can find, oddly enough, by clicking on the June 2004 link under the Archives heading over there on the right. Guess what? After she did that, and those cool 3D Magic Eye pictures disappeared into the archive, everything lined up like it was supposed to :D

So, welcome to my new Blog :)

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