tagged by
meganten things that bring me joy.
. my dual-tuner HDTV DVR. let me count the ways.
.
How I Met Your Mother.
. PSP hackery/piracy.
. finding new things to do with my iPod (see below).
. steadily pulling up to the right of someone in the leftmost lane on a highway, seeing them get pissed and speed up all of a sudden so i can't cut in front of them... and then dropping it into 3rd and completely smoking them in my automatic transmission Accord.
. not being called on in class because i'm clearly the only one who knows what is going on.
. giving really good presents.
. cleaning up my room and remembering how freaking sweet my apartment is.
i hereby tag:
alissa +
brendan +
simon.:
i have made an effort in the past couple of days to further streamline my working experience.
yesterday, i discovered portable versions of:
FirefoxTrillianWinamp...and installed each onto my
portable hard drive iPod. so now i have absolutely nothing extra installed on my company laptop, yet i have a personalized browser, instant messenger and media player.
the Winamp thing is especially cool because iTunes generally demands an allocation of 30+ MB... so now i don't even have to have iTunes on the computer (which ALSO gets rid of those stupid background applets, "iPod Service" and "iTunes Helper", my ass), and i can use a much smaller program installed on the iPod to
play the iPod files... nothing gets transferred to the laptop except in RAM (+ swap file). and with the Media Library you don't lose that much (although i still prefer iTunes if it's my own computer and resources are no object).
that's all enough of a reason to bring in my iPod dock, so the (actual) desktop is looking pretty good.
:.
today i put together a customized
start.com page. i am instinctively wary of anything even remotely attached to Microsoft, but this is one of the best RSS feed aggregators i've seen in a web page. absolutely no clutter, very easy to set up and organize. a few bugs in Mozilla Firefox (just while setting up) but easy enough to get around.
so i have stocks, weather,
CNN,
Slate,
Autoblog,
Uncrate,
Slashdot,
Engadget,
Gizmodo,
Joystiq,
PSP Updates,
ESPN,
IMDb, and
ComingSoon.net headlines on one page. i still like creating a folder of bookmarks in Firefox ("fantasy football", for instance) and then opening all the pages in tabs, and i will probably continue to do that most of the time. but for a home page, this setup is pretty freaking good.
one annoying thing-- there doesn't seem to be a way to get a proper RSS feed of your livejournal friends page (w/ friends-only entries included).
you can get a friends page feed:
http://www.livejournal.com/customview.cgi?user=LJNAME&styleid=57252and you can get a friends-only version of a single journal feed:
http://LJNAME|PASSWORD@www.livejournal.com/users/WHATEVER/data/rss?auth=httpd...but not both. right?
.:
i've got good news-- i just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance.
seriously, i was recently found not liable for a blizzard-related accident that happened in 2003... that knocked about $400 off my premium for this year, and i will have retroactive savings for the entire period since the surcharge was first applied.
:.
this is the extent of my take on the Tedy Bruschi story right now.
every single person who is expressing doubt on national tv, or public radio, or whatever, about how he is not putting his family first... or that "growing old with his kids" is more important than a football game, etc. etc... a few things you should consider:
- as is often the case with these things, chances are Tedy Bruschi is an expert on his own medical condition by now.
- nontheless, he has access to the best medical advice in the world, and he has been cleared by everyone except for doctors calling WEEI and giving thirdhand opinions.
- the statistics about stroke victims' risk increasing exponentially after having the first attack are by and large
not relevant. the cause of Bruschi's stroke was not an abnormal clotting factor or dangerously high levels of artherosclerotic plaque. his stroke was caused by a preexisting heart condition, and this was successfully repaired. his risk of further strokes is only trivially higher than any athlete whose career involves smashing headfirst into other huge people around 70+ times in an afternoon (which, in general, is higher).
- every single time you talk about how football is just a game, and life is more important, etc, you just make yourself sound like an idiot for the other 95% of the time you are arguing with someone about whether a team will win by 3 or 5 points on any given Sunday. it also ignores the larger reality that most football players are unnecessarily endangering their lives to a certain degree every time they step on the field.
- if you wanted to make a convincing argument about how athletes are putting themselves in danger by taking unnecessary risks, please direct your attention to how the average weight of linemen in the NFL has increased to ridiculous proportions averaging in the past couple of decades (around 265 twenty years ago... offensive linemen average 320 pounds today). there's almost no public debate about this, but it's pretty much guaranteed that
these athletes' lifespans will be dramatically shortened. you will gasp every time Bruschi dives headfirst into a pile, but you won't bat an eye when the guy across from him regularly has quadruple-cheeseburgers for lunch just to keep his 'playing weight'. give me a break.
Tedy Bruschi is still in the prime of his life, and i'm just happy his health has been restored to the point where he can choose to engage in sports at such a high level. it is idiotic how local and national commentators are seeing no problem with passing out honorary neurology degrees amongst themselves. Bruschi is not being selfish,
you are being an idiot for assuming even for a second that you know his family or his situation.
Michael Irvin was nearly in tears on NFL Primetime the other night, recounting on how he sat down with his wife years ago while she tearfully pleaded him not to return to football after
SUFFERING A SEVERE NECK INJURY BY GETTING HIT IN A FOOTBALL GAME. um.
To his credit, Bruschi responded to the fans' concerns at a press conference yesterday in an incredibly noble fashion... first off saying he wanted to thank those who were bringing up the issue, because obviously they cared about him. but he made it clear that they had triple- and quadruple-checked with everyone they could get their hands on, and the decision to let him play was unanimous. from listening to him, i don't see how you could have any doubt that he always
does put his family first. people need to realize that getting on with his life is not going to prevent that. or whatever, leaving him alone works too.
.:
The Colbert Report - so fucking funny. i don't know if they can keep it up, but the Stone Phillips' interview/gravitas showdown is going to stay on the DVR for a little while.
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lauren bacall
wazoozy
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