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A little mid-week shuffle

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If your a frequent visitor here you’ll notice that I made some changes to the site layout. It doesn’t seem like much out front, but It’s actually a total gutting of the back end code. There still plenty of broken things, so don’t worry too much if any links you click are broken. I’m still working on it.

**
Rather then making a whole new post, I thought I’d just continue here. I think I’ve worked out the bulk of the problems that I created by ripping up the back end. There is still a few more features that I want to build in, but they will have to wait for a few more days. It’s about 1:00AM now… and I’m just beat!

Reviews, Technology

SLVR Mmmmmm

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I have a fantastic new toy that arrived yesterday. I trudged through the monsoonal downpour to my local FedEx facility to get my hands on the new Moto SLVR L8.

SLVR

So far I don’t have much to say about it. I’ve just started what will be it’s first day in full rotation. I’m pretty convinced that if it just gets me through one phone call without having to re-dial I will be happy. That would be leaps and bounds more then my last phone would allow.

Anyway… I’ll keep you posted on how our relationship develops. 🙂

Humor, My Life

I got a reply from Pianodude

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Piano RoseAwesome! It didn’t take long to add to yesterday’s little story. I got a reply this morning, and at 6:21 AM no less. He must have been pretty fired up about all this. Check it out:

LOL! Dude your funny. Janey said she didn’t send the message. I jumped to conclusion and I apologize. I was just stressing at the moment. I don’t know who wrote the message. But Like I said, only janey knows about me and my cousin. Well besides my cousin. But I don’t think she will want anybody to know that. Did you know a little secret about janey and her cousin paola. why don’t you ask her. When you want to make fun of my past, lets talk about janeys past. Of course she’ll deny anything. And I’m not trying to mess things up between you guys. You guys seem like a nice couple. I saw all your pictures on findmimi.com. I’m really happy she found someone to love her. Cause at one point in my life I loved her very much. I prayed to God that she would find someone special and for her to be happy. And she did. Did you know I was with her when she got the job at disneyland. I was so happy for her. I prayed and prayed the night before the auditions. The first time she didn’t get it. But they offered her a 2nd audition. She didn’t want to do it cause she was discouraged the 1st time. But I told her go for it. I’ll pray double this time and you’ll get it. And guess what, the rest is history. A week later she left me. LOL! I was a terrible boyfriend. She was a terrible girlfriend. But I loved her anyhow. almost 2 years we were together. I’ll never forget her. Just keep her happy and always be there for her like you have been. You seem like a cool guy. I love disneyland. 6 year annual pass holder. I miss fantasmic. you should know my cousin, works in alladin. she used to work at abc bistro before they closed it down.
Anyway bro sorry for the mix up. I didn’t mean to cause any problems between you and your lady. I’m sure it didn’t faze you guys at all. You seem to have a strong love for each other. Please forgive my intrusion in your guy’s life.
I’m just trying to figure out who wrote that damn email.

Sincerely,
Fabian.

Now I don’t want to go too far in deconstructing this little gem, but I at least want to point out a few fun things.

First he laughs out loud (“LOL!”). This I imagine is to show me how affable he is. After the chuckle he throws a pseudo-compliment my way. (“Dude your funny”) At this point I’m sure he’s feeling like we’re old pals, but the pleasantries are over… it’s time to get down to business.

The next passage has got to be nominated for the bi-polar hall of fame:

I jumped to conclusion and I apologize. I was just stressing at the moment. I don’t know who wrote the message. But Like I said, only janey knows about me and my cousin. Well besides my cousin. But I don’t think she will want anybody to know that. Did you know a little secret about janey and her cousin paola. why don’t you ask her. When you want to make fun of my past, lets talk about janeys past. Of course she’ll deny anything. And I’m not trying to mess things up between you guys. You guys seem like a nice couple. I saw all your pictures on findmimi.com. I’m really happy she found someone to love her. Cause at one point in my life I loved her very much. I prayed to God that she would find someone special and for her to be happy. And she did.

Holy crap my head is going to explode. Here is what I read, try to match your list up with mine (in chronological order):

  • An apology
  • His distressed mental state
  • A quick note about his ignorance
  • His apparent embarrassment about whatever he did with his cousin, and his desire to keep it quiet
  • A backhanded dig at my girlfriend
  • Defensiveness about the stranger making fun of him (me)
  • A subtle hint that he would like to mess things up between Janey and I
  • A compliment about how nice we look
  • An earnest plea for divine intervention in his
    ex-girlfriends life.

It seems that once again Pianodude has mistakenly gotten the impression that I give a damn about anything related to him or his relationships. It may come as a hard realization, but I don’t.

That’s really as far as I want to take this little game. I hope the next time he’s tempted to write me a note, he will remember that he is nothing more then that little bug that bothers me for a few minutes while I’m mowing the lawn. It’s gone with a wave of my hand, and I never think about it again.

Pianodude,
If you ever read this, I encourage you to go out and try to find yourself someone (preferably not blood related) to share the wonderful things in life. Do your best to form a bond that can’t be broken by a note from some anonymous MySpacer. If you do something your embarrassed about, own it, don’t hide it. If someone else knows about it, they get to do with that information what they please. You, unfortunately, don’t get any input in the matter.

So go find your special someone. I have, and it’s a great thing. Janey is fantastic, and you should feel like an absolute tool for being anything but wonderful to her.

So once again, stay strong Señor Pianodude. You’ll find your someone.

Humor, My Life

Stay strong Pianodude

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Piano RoseSo something funny happened tonight. I’m not sure how to explain it… so I’ll just start typing and hope it all makes sense.

Before I really start the story I have to reveal something that is quite embarrassing. It’s something I try not to tell many people, and those who do know have only found out despite my best efforts to hide it. What is this little secret you ask? It’s simply that I do have an active account on a nasty little website called MySpace.

Before jumping to conclusions please understand that anytime I do direct my browser to said site I immediately take a piping hot shower to scald off the stench. If you don’t know what MySpace is, then please skip past this paragraph, and be happy that you have no clue. I am not going to even explain how myspace works in fear of sparking your interest. To use the catch-phrase of the year; myspace is a “social networking site”.

I heard it best described this way:
“If the internet was a bar, then Myspace.com would be the bathroom wall!”

All you really need to know is that MySpace is a website that allows people to send messages to one another.

With that out of the way… let me get to the story of tonight.

I was just minding my own business, surfing around the super high technofangled inter-web. I was reading my news, and returning a bit of email when my wonderful girlfriend said something to the effect of “have you checked your MySpace in a while”?

I, of course, cringed and said “no”.

She then said to me with mild trepidation “…you should check it”.

She spent a short time explaining what had happened/not happened, and what could possibly be waiting for me should I decide to log into MySpace. After her explanation I just couldn’t resist the temptation.

Once logging in I found a message waiting for me in bold red letters “You have a new message!”. A quick click to the inbox presents me with a subject line that nearly made my Diet Coke explode through my nasal cavity. Are you ready for this?!?

“This is what your girlfriend sent to my girlfriend.”

I was instantly thrown back to third grade when boys would often tout the strength of dads or big brothers to get them out of sticky situations. Anyway… moving on with the actual message:

From: Pianodude
Date: Feb 26, 2006 8:28 PM

(click on the link below then look at the comments, and pay close attention to the dates. Did you know he was engaged, and cheating? And one other thing, before considering this guy as a potential ‘mate’ ask him what kind of relationship he’s had with his cousin… just thought i’d help before he breaks your heart. Take it for what it is or don’t.)

My girlfriend broke up with me. Thanks be to Janey!
Why would after all these years janey would do something like this to me?

I don’t understand.

To those who haven’t connected the dots yet, this message was from Janey’s former boyfriend. He is under the impression that Janey sent this message to his, now former, girlfriend via MySpace. He’s also under the impression that I give a damn.

Now I’m not one to let such a heartfelt message go un-answered. I promptly replied with the following (of course keeping with the standard of grammatical excellence set by the original sender):

Hey Man,
Sorry to hear your Gf broke up with you. I don’t know why would after all these years janey do any sort of bad to you. Who are you?

I don’t understand either.

If I had to guess, I’d say this was the killer line:
“Did you know he was engaged, and cheating?”
Most girls would call it quits after that.

If your lonely you could always check this out [ http://kissingcousins.bardsofulysses.co.uk/ ] . This particular group is based in the UK, but I’m sure they could hook you up with a support group or something closer to home.

Your pal,
R.

I haven’t formed any conclusions about the human race after tonights events. It was just something that happened that made me laugh. If Señor Pianodude decided to send a reply, I will be sure to post it here.

Disney, My Life, Reviews

A great day in a new place…

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I know I’m a little late for this update, but sometimes I have a hard time buckling down and just getting stuff written. If you read Janey’s blog you already know about the trip we took last friday, but I’m gonna tell it anyway.

Lets start with a little back-story (I’ll try and keep it short)… Quite some time ago Janey and I planned a little trip down to Chinatown in LA. We got some directions from Janey’s roommate that turned out to be terrible, and we were lost in LA. We decided to ditch the chinatown idea and ended up driving just a little further to see the cool movie mecca that is Hollywood Blvd. When we got there hunger struck and tempers ran high, so we just bagged the whole deal and drove home. Ever since that day I’ve wanted to go back and really see what’s around (I’m pretty sure that Janey always felt the same).

Now some things you need to know for the rest of the story:

  • Janey loves Disney’s “Lady and the Tramp”
  • I majorly messed up her birthday this year so I really needed to redeem myself with Valentines Day

Many ideas crossed my mind while trying to figure out what I was going to do for Valentines day. I consulted several people for feedback on my ideas and each one seemed to be a winner, but none of them quite felt right to me. So I kept looking and I ran across what I thought would be the perfect activity for us. I’ll try and spare you the nitty gritty details of my discovery. I’ll just say that in late January I found this:

Lady and the Tramp

What could be better! Her favorite Disney movie in all it’s re-mastered big screen glory, in one of the most wonderful theaters in the country! I contemplated it for a few days and just couldn’t think of anything that was going to top it (also taking into account my post-christmas, post-travel, pre-wealthy budget). So I called and found one of her days off and got the tickets! Granted, it actually was a few days before the REAL Valentines day… but I’m hoping that won’t be an issue.

So since we were already getting out of Anaheim I thought it would be cool to just make a whole day-date sort of thing out of it. So we added a stop in Long Beach to the itinerary. A stop to Roscoe’s Chick & Waffles. Don’t ask too many questions about this one… it’s just something Janey has wanted to do for a long time, and this day was all hers.

So after a few hurdles in the morning, we finally got on the road!

Our stop for chicken and waffles was great. It’s a good restaurant with a funny menu. Everything tasted great, and I’m sure we’ll go back sometime. Now ON TO LOS ANGELES!

The air was hazy, and the traffic was bad, but we finally arrived on Hollywood Blvd. and the world famous Walk of Fame. There was so much to see that I’m not event sure where to start. Our show tickets weren’t until 7:15 PM and we arrived at a little after 2:00 PM. We had plenty of time to wander and just hang out.

We saw so much cool stuff. Here… I’ll just link to pictures of some of the highlights:

To see the whole lot of photos from this trip (click here)

So as dusk settled over Los Angeles, the neon shined bright and our showtime creeped ever closer. We decided that before the movie we needed to stop in the Disney Soda Fountain & Studio store. It had been recommended to me by several folks. It was really fantastic and I could really tell that I was on Disney property from the second I walked through the door. We were greeted by a smiling fellow in a chef’s costume. We wandered for a few minutes through the store portion of the place, then sat down for some wonderful treats. I got a huge banana split and Janey got a coke float. It was really really good, and the place was just really nice.

Now it was finally time to head for the theater (not difficult at all since it’s right next door). So exited the soda fountain crossing over the Walk of Fame stars of Donald Duck and Disneyland. And in just a hop, skip and jump we were very first in the VIP line with tickets in hand. We weren’t waiting too long when in one choreographed movement two costumed ushers opened the large front glass doors. An older gentleman walked up to Janey and I with a very kind welcome and dropped the ropes in front of us so we could enter the theater.

Once we got into the lobby another very nice person directed us to the VIP counter for our free soda and popcorn. It all happened so fast that we hardly had to think. It was in the door, got the treats, and we were into our seats inside of one minute. Every face we saw was smiling. Every person who spoke to us was kind and very welcoming, and this was on the last show of the day! I’m sure they were all on the end of their shifts and excited to get home, but we felt like we were the first guests of the day. The El Capitan cast really does Disney proud. We had nothing but wonderful things to say about every person we encountered.

El Cap StageOK so lets talk for a second about the theater! This place really is a palace. It lives up to every bit of marketing hype I heard. Its big and beautifully restored to a condition that looks brand new. The colors are vibrant and the fabrics are plush. And as icing on the cake, the background music that you hear as you enter the theater is coming from an organist on stage playing a fantastic restored Wurlizer organ that must have just under a million keys.

This sort of preshow entertainment is just simply a lost art but it makes all the difference in the world. It puts everyone in a good mood. I really could go on for pages about the preshow alone… but lets get moving along.

When showtime rolled around, the organ on stage floated gracefully into a trap door as the theater manager took a mic just off the stage right apron. He extended a big thank you to the organist and welcomed the audience to the theater. Again, this is such a simple thing that makes all the difference in an entertainment experience. He made a very simple but effective announcement about keeping phones and such quiet and then kicked off the show.

The lights went down, and the trailers began. After 3 trailers for other disney movies that will be at the El Cap later this month the main drape closed on the stage. I was a little confused at this point since I’m so used to going from trailers right into the movie. The drape had only been down a fraction of a second when it started on it’s way back up. As it raised we could see that it was revealing something new, it wasn’t a full sized movie screen, but a smaller 4:3 aspect ratio screen that was probably only 10′ across and bordered by a beveled trim. Very small by todays movie screen standards and clearly not made for a feature film. The proscenium lighting dropped and the screen came to life with an all to familiar title screen for “A Walt Disney Mickey Mouse Cartoon… Puppy Love”. In honor of valentines day they were playing one of the cutest vintage Disney shorts featuring Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, and FiFi.

There really is nothing that compares to seeing these original Disney shorts in the theater as they were intended. Simply wonderful.

As the short came to a close the drape flew up to reveal Mickey and Minnie live on stage dancing to a wonderful orchestral waltz. It was a cute little moment that I enjoyed quite a bit.

And finally when Mickey and Minnie were finished another curtain opened up to reveal a full movie screen and Lady and the Tramp began in it’s fully restored, digital projected splendor.

What a great day this was… Memories made to last a lifetime.

My Life

Top 10 Advantages of ADD in a High Tech Career

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So I found this article about the “Top Ten ADD Advantages in a Hi Tech Career”, and to be honest, every one of the items on the list describe me perfectly. ADD for me was a major hurdle in high school, but since moving out into the real world many of the traits that come with the ‘disorder’ can be quite a plus.

I would venture to say that all the items this author calls out as a plus for a high tech career I call upon every day in my career in show business.

Read on…

Adult ADD Strengths » Top 10 Advantages of ADD in a High Tech Career

Top Ten ADD Advantages in a Hi Tech Career.

1. The Ability to Hyperfocus.

Hours of full engagement and concentration in a task, IF you find it interesting. You can get into the zone and be totally immersed in what you’re doing while the outside world disappears. When I went on the net for the first time in 1993 at an Internet cafe I got on the machine at 8 pm and around 4 am decided it was time to go home.

2. Rapid Fire Mind.

Your brain processes information at hyperspeed. You can do things in 30 minutes on a computer that might take other people hours. Downside if you’re stuck with an old machine and not enough RAM you’ll be frustrated cause it can’t keep up with the speed of your brain.

3. Multitasking at Will.

Able to run 14 apps at a time and effortlessly switch between each without breaking a sweat. Able to do several projects at a time with ease.

4. High Energy Level.

You’re able to keep going on a project (if it’s interesting, ADDers are more into creative and entrepreneurial activities than clerical and repetitive ones). 14-hour days? No problem. Adrenaline is my fuel source:)

5. Highly Creative.

Able to think beyond the idea of a box. This comes naturally for ADDers, while others pay thousands of dollars to try and learn this. Since you take in more information than the average person, and you’re easily distractible, you’re more likely to view a problem from many different angles than vanilla people (non ADDers), and therefore come up with more possible solutions to a problem. Need an idea generator? Find an ADDer.

6. Quick Learner.

IF it’s something you’re interested in. ADD is mainly a condition of boredom; you have no trouble paying attention to something if it’s interesting. Most people find it difficult to do boring or repetitive things but these can often totally shut an ADDer down. Your rapid fire brain highly creative mind the ability to hyperfocus equals fast absorption of new information quickly. Dr Ed Hallowell, who has ADD and has written several Delivered from Distraction : Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder, said he stopped teaching Psychiatry at Harvard University because the non-ADDers brains were just to slow and they took so long to get it. He got tired of being continually frustrated waiting for them to catch up to the ADD students.

7. Stimulus Seeking Brain.

A perfect match for the wired world, an under stimulated brain and an over stimulated virtual environment. Being an info junkie can be a good thing. Well, not always:)

8. Constantly Scanning your Environment.

Allows you to notice more and find information and resource that others miss. Also allows you to see possible problems before they arise, and opportunities that others may not see because they have tunnel vision vs. multiplex vision. An ADDer invented the electronic ticket.

9. Great in a Crisis.

High energy intense situation? Lots of chaos and change? Sign me up; I thrive on stimulation, change and chaos. We can create order from chaos effortlessly. We can also create such an environment as well if needed.

10. Risk Taker.

Impulsivity means you’re more willing to take risks and have a bias for action, act now while the opportunity is hot instead of getting into analysis paralysis. Many entrepreneurs have ADD i.e. Paul Orfalea who founded Kinko’s, JetBlue Founder and CEO David Neeleman who attributes his creativity to ADD. Both are Billionaires. Imagine how successful a high tech CEO would be if they didn’t take many risks.

These are just a start of the advantages of ADD, for more go to the list of 151 positive characteristics of people with ADD at my ADD Resource website.

This is not to say there are no disadvantages or real problems associated with ADDers in a high tech career, there most certainly are, and if you don’t learn to manage them, they can a great deal of trouble and grief to your life (and those around you), but that’s another article.

© Pete Quily 2006

Reviews

I love new toys

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For christmas I got this fantastic new fangled gadget, known amongst the interweb geeks as an iPod 5th gen (w/video). It’s been such a cool toy, and I’ve taken it for show-and-tell several times. The only problem is that this version of Apple’s media player has a tendancy to scratch. The face is made of plastic that I deem entirely too soft. I’ve heard horror stories about how easily they have scratched.

To make a long story short, I stressed and stressed that my new little friend was going to get a scratch and finally did something about it. I bought a fantastic new companion for my iPod from the folks at Xtreme Mac. I will try and forgive them for using the “X” in place of the correct english spelling of Extreme. There is few things in the world that annoy me more (even though my own company is guilty of it so much eg:Xgames Xperience BLAH!) but I’m willing to let it slide for now.

Everyone say hello to the wonderful new soft leather protective covering for my iPod: MicroFolio

Now let me tell you how much I love this product!

First and foremost, the build quality is absolutely fantastic. They’ve used very high quality leather for the exterior that has that great buttery warn feel, and a baby-skin soft felt type material for the inside. It’s all held together with thick thread stitching that really compliments the “weathered” look of the whole thing. On the inside there is a little pocket that’s just the right size for a credit card/ID/folded cash, and a classy embossed XtremeMac logo. The whole package is very stylish and very well built.

There is elastic contact point at the top and bottom to keep the iPod snug behind the screen protector while leaving all the ports and Hold switch easily accessible.

Altogether it’s just a simple, well made product that created one very satisfied customer out of me.

now if only there was a good way to carry those damned headphones without tangling them.

Update:

I love this case so much, but there was one bit of the transaction that was a little rocky. When I ordered the product I recieved a standard “We got your order” auto-response but didn’t hear anything else for another week. No shipping info, tracking number or anything. I finally called the customer service number about 10 days after my purchase to see what was up. It turns out the product was on backorder but there was no mechenism in place to tell customers about that. They had just gotten some new ones in and promised shipping the next day. True to their word, I recived a tracking number the next day.

Once I got my case I decided to leave some feedback on the XtremeMac website. I have to admit that I figured my feedback would just end up in the great customer service database in they sky, but Wil (the customer service manager) actually responded to my email himself. I really thought this was damn cool.

My Life

unfinished

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ok OK… so I know it’s been forever since I posted anything real to this blog. Believe me folks… it’s not for lack of trying. I’m actually sitting here looking at no less then six unfinished blog entries. I start ’em, but I just can’t seem to hold on to a thought long enough to finish them.

so I’m going to try.

For a start, I’ve just updated my events section on our photo album. This should give you a little eye candy till more info gets posted here.

Talk to you soon.

My Life

Why Computers Crash.

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So I know this is a totally stupid way to come back from such a long blogging break… but it made me laugh out loud while sitting at my desk.

Thanks for the mid-day comedy Jac! 🙂

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, and the bus is interrupted at a very last resort, and the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort, then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, and the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash, and your data is corrupted cause the index doesn’t hash, then your situation’s hopeless and your system’s gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house, says the network is connected to the button on your mouse, but your packets want to tunnel to another protocol, that’s repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall.

And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss, so your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse; then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang, ‘cuz sure as I’m a poet, the sucker’s gonna hang

When the copy on your floppy’s getting sloppy in the disk, and the macro code instructions are causing unnecessary risk, then you’ll have to flash the memory and you’ll want to RAM your ROM, and then quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your Mom!

This might only be funny to computer people. It made me laugh anyway.