1. Do you enjoy the cold weather and snow for the holidays? Absolutely. I can’t even begin to fathom what Christmas would be like without the cold at a minimum (preferrably snow).
2. What is your ideal holiday celebration? How, where, with whom would you celebrate to make things perfect? Everyone I love in one place, listening to good music, relaxing and enjoying each other’s company.
3. Do you do have any holiday traditions? Watching movies Christmas Eve, Opening Gifts Christmas Morning, The famous “Cold Cut” lunch with the Grandparents.
4. Do you do anything to help the needy? I’m pretty needy these days.
5. What one gift would you like for yourself? A job.

I looked out a window onto the back yard today and noticed that what once was a set of stone steps magically transformed into a GIANT FUCKING CRATER. Jury is still out as to what caused this collapse, or what actually collapsed. Some phone conversation with my father, who hasn’t seen the crater yet, seemed to indicate that the septic tank is not below the collapsed area, so it must be some old structure under ground that is now history.

I’ve got a sore throat, but I still haven’t decided if this cold is just starting or on it’s way out. I’m hoping the latter is the case.

I did a bunch of chores around the house today, as well as helped out some friends with christmas gifts. I also began putting up the exterior christmas lights, although some logistical problems got in the way of that. Regardless, I got the light-up christmas bear lit, and will put the rest of the exterior lights up tomorrow.

My parents wanted some wood pallets for when the new kitchen cabinets arrive next week. Our basement isn’t exactly “water tight”, so the pallets will keep the cabinets from being damaged by any water which finds its way into the garage. I went down to this distribution place that always has a sign up that says “free wood pallets”. They were apparently out of pallets today, but I will take a trip back tomorrow.

I am leaving for a trip to Boston on Friday morning, and will probably stay for Poker on Tuesday. Get in touch with me if you want to chill.

I need to play some poker. I’m in widthdrawal.

Larissa: I’m really pissed. This book really I want is out of print.

Me: Is this a fun book or a knowledge book?

Larissa: A little of both. It’s titled “Psychopathia Sexualis”

One of the features of Netscape (and later Mozilla) that I missed in Safari were bookmark keywords. I had a bunch of custom bookmarks with keywords so I could type ‘i King Kong’ into the address bar and Netscape would search IMDB for the phrase “King Kong”. I hacked the binary for Safari so instead of it’s google search bar searching google by default, It instead accessed a CGI I had on localhost that would replicate this functionality (and search google if I didn’t provide any keywords). But out of habit I would type the keywords into the address bar instead of the search bar half the time, and hacking the binary always felt so dirty.

Enter Sogudi, a plugin for Safari that provides exactly what I was looking for in a much less dirty way. Definitely check it out if you use Safari on a regular basis.

So I have been creating these Poker DVDs so I can go back and watch some hands and improve my game whenever I want. I was making them for myself, and I figured that and would be interested as well, so I extended the invitation to them. Adam ordered some blank DVD-R media and had it sent to me. He found a 10-pack of Optodisc brand 4x DVD-R media for about \$20 online, so it seemed like a decent deal for such a small quantity.

When I got the discs I started making copies of the discs I already had made. Everything seemed solid, so when I ran out of the bulk Ritek 4x discs I had been using, I ordered another 10-pack for myself. Things seemed to be going along swimmingly, enough so that Adam ordered me another 10-pack. One day, when copying the latest disc, I got distracted by something in the other room and when Toast said it was done, I wasn’t around. When it finishes, it gives you the options to eject or verify the disc, and since I had never had any troubles with DVD-Rs verifying at some point I stopped doing it. Well, that dialog defaults to verify after 10 seconds or so. When I got back to my computer I saw that the verify had failed. I tossed that disc and tried another one, and it too failed on the verify. I kept this up, decreasing the burn speed to 2x, and finally at 1x things seemed to be working. But it turns out that at 1x it was just less likely to fail, because yesterday in burning some discs it took me like 7 or 8 discs to get 3 working ones. I started to suspect that maybe my drive was on the fritz.

This morning, I drove over to Best Buy and got a 10 pack of Memorex 4x discs. I burned three in a row at 4x and all 3 of them verified cleanly. So I guess those Optodisc blanks are just complete shit. I am now going back through the 5 discs I had burned for Adam before realizing the problem. I have found one bad one and one good one out of the two I have tested so far.

The moral of this story: Don’t buy Optodisc media. If you are looking for cheap media, I recommend the 4x Ritek media. I have gone through 75 of them and not coastered one yet. And my friend James also uses them and hasn’t had a single problem with any of them. I have bought my Ritek media from shop4tech.com and they have never given me any trouble (and offer free shipping to boot).

1. Do you like to shop? Why or why not? Not really. About the only time I go into a store and just browse around is when I am shopping for media (CDs, DVDs, Books, Games, etc.) I enjoy that quite a bit. But I avoid pretty much any other kinds of shopping.
2. What was the last thing you purchased? A 10-Pack of 4x Memorex DVD-Rs (story on that to come later).
3. Do you prefer shopping online or at an actual store? Why? Oh, when it isn’t for media, I prefer shopping online if I can. I just feel like I can research my purchases a bit more when I am shopping online. When you are in a store you are limited to what information the manufacturer and retailer give you.
4. Did you get an allowance as a child? How much was it? I watched my kid sisters for an hour and a half or so on weekdays, and got some money for that, but I’m not sure how much it was. Maybe 5 bucks a day, maybe less? It’s been a long time.
5. What was the last thing you regret purchasing? The Optodisc “4x” DVD-Rs (again, more on that later).

Foie Gras Ganache

My copy of Zelda sold this morning too! Unfortunately for the buyer the snow prevented me from getting it out in the mail today, so I will have to get it out on Monday. I guess there isn’t much I can do about that, eh? :)