Hear that?
That’s the sound of my head imploding. I’m not going to have much time to update this between now and the middle of February. Grad school preperation, The Serpent Woman, and work stress have my plate about as full as it can be.
Now, if I keep focused I think I can make sure it doesn’t stop spinning…
Over the MLK weekend I had a friend in town. Most of my friends seem to be allergic to visiting *cough Donnie * *cough Madelynne* so I took this rare occasion to really paint the town. We ate out every meal, we went shopping, we saw a show, we did it all… but the highlight of the weekend (other than the good company of course) was dinner at Heat.
The first three courses were unimaginably delicious sushi (two courses Nigiri and one hand-rolled Maki). I’m serious, you can’t imagine how good it was so don’t bother trying– you might strain something. Course four was the traditional miso soup followed by a melon and ginger salad with truffle oil infused raspberries as course five. Course six was a pan seared salmon steak with a mango and miso sauce topped with a super-fine shredded basil. and a delectable gelato for dessert. Of course everything goes better with booze so we split a bottle of Hoyo Kura No Hana Junmai Daiginyo (translated) Sake which was excellent. The waiters were all wearing black suits with white shirts and black ties (not bow-ties) and they gave us the lowdown on each item as it was served.
It was altogether a really excellent dining experience. Heat is able to maintain an extremely high level of food quality without making the gourmet sushi novice (like me) feel like a schmuck. Kudos to them.
Of course all good things must come to and end. Now there’s nothing left of the meal, or the weekend, but a fond memory and a dent in the checkbook. It’s the nature of such things– They’re always fun while they last.
In the mad dash to get everything in order for Grad schools I realized I have no head shots that look anything like me, so I bought a 20 dollar tripod and walked over to the lake to take some pictures.
This was the result:
It’s not professional or anything but I like it quite a bit. I’m now off to the photo lab to see how well it prints.
(If you’re curious you can click on the one above and download the whopping 2mb version I’m going to try to get printed.)
Update: I just go back from CVS and I have to say I’m really impressed. The prints turned out simply fantastic. The only way you can tell the picture was digital is a little spot where I cut the mask wrong to fake the depth of field right around my ear. Anyone who says 1.2 Megapixels isn’t enough for an 8×10 is a dirty liar!
Thanks to pOps for the hints on how to set things up in photoshop.
Things only my geeky friends will care about:
1. I’ve updated this blog to WordPress 2.0. I’ve always been a HUGE fan of tiny MCE and the good folks at WP have now built it into the latest version. I’ve been meaning to do it myself for a while but I never got around to it. Yeah for them for having more time and initiative than I do.
2. Unfortunately there were two causalities of the upgrade. Live+Press, which synced my blog to Livejournal and Kitten’s Spaminator, which kept me free of comment spam. These have been replaced by Livejournal Cross poster and Akismet respectively. My impressions are good, although Livejournal Cross poster is clearly pretty beta at this point, but it gets the job done.
3. BSG (Battlestar Galactica for those not in-the-know) season 2 resumes tonight! Woooohoooo!
4. I had to do a complete format and re-install on my work machine. I didn’t heed my own advice and turn it off over X-mas break. A domain administrator’s password was compromised (not mine I might add) and when I got back to the office on Jan 3rd my machine was happily serving up warez and midget porn to the l33t community at large.
The silver lining is I’ve really gone to town with the latest and greatest release candidates of all of my favorite software. It took some fudging about to find the proper plugins and extensions that would work with Firefox 1.5 but now that it’s all happy I’m quite pleased.
Long live the free software movement and to hell with Microsoft (they don’t even get a link)!
This is not in my usual vein of blogging (blame the pot of strong coffee if you wish). Indulge me.
I’ve spent the last few hours in my head. As I think over the last year I realize there is one very important thing I have failed to do all year, so here goes.
Thank you.
Thank you to my family.
Thank you to my friends.
Thank you to the city I have chosen to make my home for the last three years.
Thank you to the gods, spirits, or whatever pulls the ethereal puppet strings– You’ve been kinder than you needed to, maybe kinder than I deserved.
Thank you all for being there for me, for listening and caring.
Thank you all for entrusting me with what you have to say, I value your words and feelings.
Thank you all for a wonderful holiday season with many wonderful (and some entirely unexpected) gifts.
Thank you all for a year I won’t soon forget.
It’s funny, the encapsulation of time into a lump we call a year. It doesn’t really serve much of a purpose except to make us pause and evaluate what we’ve done for the last 365.25 days.
Last year on New Years Eve I called my own voice mail and left a message. It consisted of a drunken laundry list of what was wrong with me and exactly what I really ought to do next year to make my life better. I wasn’t kind. In retrospect it’s pretty funny but if I hadn’t been really intoxicated it would have been pretty depressing.
This year if I get drunken dialing syndrome I hope the message says something like this:
“Hey Ian. It’s you… er… me… whichever. Good job man. I liked 2005. Keep up the good work.”
Take care everyone. Be safe tomorrow night, and once again– Thank you.
Apparently the NIH is going to be sponsoring a huge genetic research project (a-la the human genome project) to map out every single type of genetic defect that causes cancer.
It’s all pretty fascinating but this is actually what caught my eye from a Washington Post article:
“The planets have aligned to tackle cancer in a comprehensive way that we’ve never had the tools to do before,” said Francis S. Collins, director of the NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute.
Wait.
Did he just refer to astrology in the same sentence as one of the most scientifically complex research programs ever conceived?
Yes, yes he did.
I may have to see this movie, and this is why.
(thanks Ross)
Oh poor Samuel L.– You do know you CAN turn down roles don’t you?
Note: This is the same intro as last year I know– It was cute then and it’s cute now dangit!
There’s nothing quite as wonderfully indulgent as spending a few hours on a long lunch break writing a christmas list for all the goodies you imagine somehow will make your life a little better.
In this electronic age I figure Santa probably has internet access– I mean, all those kids and gifts, thats just begging for a database to keep track of them all right?
So Santa, if you or any of your elves happen to find my web site this is what you can stuff my stocking with. I’ve been a good boy, I promise.
In no particular order:
This is a perfect example why I shouldn’t be allowed to do things on computers after 3am. I actually wrote this post last friday but I accidentally deleted it after a midnight showing of Aeon Flux. I was trying to delete a comment and go the whole post instead. Whoops!
Sooo…
—————————————————-
OK people in Chicago (or who I might see in NC between the 25th and the 28th) there are way too many movies out (or soon to be out) that I really want to see.
Lets get watching!
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe ✔
Memoirs of a Geisha
Rent ✔
Jarhead
Aeon flux ✔
The Producers
King Kong
The Weatherman
Oliver Twist
A History of Violence
If you have an interest in seeing any of these let me know!
—————————————————-
A University can be a strange place to work.
At any university there are a myriad of little communities that appear seemingly out of the ether. I’m not sure why this happens so readily at a university (vs. private companies)– Maybe it’s that people at universities are naturally collaborative and social, maybe they feel put-upon and confused enough by the unnecessarily complex series of systems and groupings that govern the workplace that they band together out of necessity, maybe both.
Regardless I find these little social and professional circles to be pretty interesting and useful, in fact some days they’re the saving grace of what can otherwise become a pretty dull and uninspired job.
About two months ago when I realized that there were quite a number of music fans in my office so one of those little communities was born. Last night was the second meeting of RAWK (Which stands for the rockin at work krew– not my idea). Once a month the five of us meet and each person brings four copies of a favorite obscure album to share with the rest, then we talk about the previous months selections. It’s just like a book club, but it’s four albums a month and we meet at a bar and talk music for hours while drinking sangria. So far, it’s been a resounding success.
Oh and on a semi-related side note This came in from one of those university microcommunities (click on the Relax link). It’s a truly amazing piece of music, download it and give a listen if you have the time. Of course I can never leave well enough alone. That link led to the writer of said song, which led me to songfight.org, a really cool website where each week a group of composers duke it out for audiance approval by writing and recording a song based on a common theme. I know a few song writers who might reallt have some fun with this.
*cough* *Steve* *cough* *Luke*