More as something I can look back on than anything else, I checked with the parking office today and I’m #135 on the list to get a decal for the gated parking garage. I could have sworn I had been on the list close to 10 years, but the lady swears I signed up for the list in 2003. Still, that’s 5 years on the list and I believe #135 is the highest I’ve been on the list over the years of calling in and asking about my status. I’m tired of getting bumped up on the list and never seeming to make my way closer to getting a decal.
Video: Kevin Smith Interviews Bruce Willis About Die Hard 4
More of a reminder post for myself to watch this than anything. I love Kevin Smith and the idea of him turning to interview Bruce Willis is intriguing.
Lessons learned at an experimental basketball game where the rims were 11 feet high. “Perhaps the biggest impact was on the interior players. No longer could centers like Billbe catch the ball on the low block, turn and simply extend their arms and lay the ball over the rim.” (via kottke)
For the always nagging mother, this year’s Christmas list.
Pop-Up Hotdog Cooker at Hammacher Schlemmer
World of Warcraft: The Card Game - starter packs, booster packs, etc.
Logitech Harmony 880 Advanced Universal Remote
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for Nintendo Wii
If none of this stuff fancies you, my amazon.com wishlist is where all the books, CDs, DVDs and other miscellaneous items are.
Is there anyone out there? Ah, who cares. ecto 2.0 for Windows was just released so maybe I’ll do some of this at home. I’ve gotten so spoiled with ecto on my Mac at work that I rebelled against blogging at home. I’m not going to promise myself or anything, but just a note to myself that I’m still thinking about this site.
*edit* to say that sadly enough, the book list on the right still hasn’t changed. I really would like to read the DaVinci Code before I see the movie. We’ll see if that happens.
Podcasting seems to be the next big thing (if you don’t already think of it like that). Here’s what I’m currently subscribed to via iTunes:
This Week in Tech - www.thisweekintech.com
This is a weekly show from the old Screensavers guys from the TechTV days. It’s hosted by Leo Laporte and he’s joined by Patrick Norton and Kevin Rose along with a rotating cast that includes Roger Chang, John C. Dvorak, Robert Heron, Yoshi DeHerrera, David Prager and others. Most recently, they’ve also been joined by Steve Gibson of grc.com fame.
Diggnation - www.diggnation.com
Another podcast from former Screensavers guys, this time from Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht who were the hosts of The Screensavers after the show was bought by G4 and moved to LA. Then they got canned and needed something else to do. So, this podcast is about digg.com, a “social bookmarking” web site. Basically, you go to digg.com and you can “dig” stories based on your interests. The more popular a link becomes, the more digs it gets. The podcast highlights the most dug stories of the week. Although most stories lean towards technology related news, there are some gems like a giant octopus snaring and eating a shark. Definitely worth checking out.
Systm - www.systm.org
This is a Kevin Rose and Dan Huard (who was also, you guessed it, a Screensavers alum) creation that is an internet-only TV show which features video of different technology projects. There’s only been three episodes so far, but Kevin promises more smaller content to fill in between the bigger shows.
The Official Tampa Bay Buccaneers Multimedia Network - www.buccaneers.com
The only non-technology podcast I have in the list at the moment. This features interviews and press conference clips from the Bucs. It’s all training camp, preseason stuff now, of course, but I expect it to continue through the season with post-game interviews and such.
That’s all I’ve got for now. As soon as I straighten my iPod situation up at home - I have this feeling of disorganization and incompleteness as far as that’s concerned - I’ll probably add more and figure out a way to conveniently get them onto my iPod. I mean, I know how to get them on my iPod, I just need to figure out how to make it so that I can remember to do it when the podcasts come out, etc. I think if iTunes weren’t such a frickin RAM hog, I’d have it running more often on my WinXP machine at home. But that’s for another post.
Wow, I look back at two posts ago and am boasting about how Magmadar was giving us troubles and we finally took him down. How quickly things evolve when you’re not paying attention.
Fun optical illusion: This is just too cool to pass up. Kinda makes you wonder a bit just how our eyes work. I mean like… really. How do they work?
On MTD’s gazillionth attempt, we finally took down Magmadar, Molten Core’s second boss. In the past, we seemingly always had trouble keeping the main tank (Sommsy) alive. We even had three dwarf priests once and it didn’t seem to help. We tried many different things over the past couple of weeks, including tanking with a Doomguard!
I think what sealed the deal for us this time was using a tiered healing strategy for the main tank. Group 1 healers had an 80% threshold, Group 2 was at 60%, Group 3 was at 45%, or a setup similar to that. I didn’t hear our exact numbers. Over the course of the fight, we lost maybe 8 people, but were resurrected pretty quickly by an out-of-combat paladin. We had two hunters with the tranquilizing shot who communicated quite well over teamspeak as to their success in hitting each time Mag went frenzy. We also had a script running that would yell out 5-second warnings for the fear so those that were able could run away first.
In the end, as he fell, one of the first thoughts that ran through my head were, “That was *so* easy.” Here’s to hoping Magmadar is now MTD fodder next time so we can move on to the other bosses.