This was a crazy weekend… Friday night I went over ’s place to watch the first World Cup games (Tivo delayed, of course). There was chili to be eaten, booze to be dranked, and friends to scream and yell with. Before lots of people got over we played some pass-around Worms. We had to play passaround because people had to wait until Sunday to get their DS Lites… Anyway, that was tons of fun and I didn’t get home until like 1am.
Saturday morning I had to wake up extra-extra early to take to South Station, as she was headed to NYC for the weekend to visit with some college friends.. When I got back to the apartment I couldn’t sleep, so I watched some TV and geeked out until noon. At noon I returned to Matt’s for grilling, DS-in, and more soccer. At night we headed out to Saugus for some delicious Kelly’s Roast Beef, but on the way noticed that the Krispy Kreme in Medford (which has been closed for months) will soon be replaced by ANOTHER KELLY’S! Kelly’s delicious roast beef only half as far away? Sign me the fuck up!
Sunday was more of the same, except Pat and Matt both had their DS’ finally, so we were able to play wireless Worms instead, which was way more fun… Saw Raiders of the Lost Ark with the film club last night, which was awesome on the big screen, and Corinna returned, exhausted, from her weekend trip.
This morning we met with the contractor who will be renovating our bathroom in the next few weeks, which took way longer than expected, but he answered alot of important questions for us and made us feel generally better about the whole process.
The CFO approved my purchase order for a new air conditioner for the living room a few weeks ago. This weekend I was sitting on the couch like a vegetable this weekend when it turned itself on. I mustered up the energy to get up off the couch and see what was going on. I stared at the thing for about 5 minutes, unable to figure out what was going on and fearing that I’d have to remove it from the window and return it to Target. Finally, I figured out that the stupid remote control that came with the A/C was using the same signal for “Power” as the “Select” button on the Tivo remote. I laughed for about 10 minutes straight, and eventually covered the IR receiver on the A/C with some electrical tape.
Who actually needs a remote on their A/C? I have never had to adjust my A/C so much that I felt a remote was in order. As Ron Popeil says, Just set it, and forget it!
Headed out to Maynard yesterday for BarCampBoston. I had the dubious distinction of being the first person to show up (other than the volunteers putting it together), but fortunately some others were quickly behind me. Hung around for about an hour or so before the first session… At first, it looked like it was going to be slim selection, but the schedule filled up quickly. The first session I went to was on “Neo-Cartography”, but it was pretty lame because the guys running spent about 15 of their 30 minutes on going around the room … I was worried that the “ad-hoc” nature of the event would cause all the sessions to be kinda chaucey, but I think people just needed a bit of time to figure out how short 30 minutes actually is.
Went to several great sessions, and I even took notes for several of the sessions I attended.. I used SubEthaEdit for the first time, and while nobody else contributed to my documents, a few people requested copies of the notes by adding their address to the bottom of the docs.
I didn’t go back for day two of the conference because I woke up early to take to the airport and when I got back I took a nap that ran “a little long”. I was going to do my talk today on “Why working on classified software sucks”, but oh well.. The deal with BarCamp is that every attendee is supposed to give a talk, so I’m a leech, but the whole grid was pretty much full yesterday, so whatever.. I’ll be more prepared next time around…
The first CD from Mike Patton’s new project, Peeping Tom, his the streets this Tuesday. I got my hands on the CD a little early and it is awesome… The first really accessible-by-the-masses album from him in a long time. It’s probably about as close as you’ll see him get to pop… Anyway, the band (featuring Dan The Automator, Rahzel, Dub Trio, Rob Swift (X-Ecutioners), and Imani Coppola) were on Conan O’Brien on Friday… Check it out. Also, an interview over at Suicide Girls
In other Patton news, Rhino finally released the two classic Faith No More videos, “You Fat Bastards: Live at the Brixton Academy” and “Who Cares a Lot: The Greatest Videos” (a.k.a. “Video Croissant”) on DVD last week.
Brainwashed is celebrating it’s 10th anniversary with a weekend festival in November. Brainwaves is going to be held at the Regent Theatre in Arlington, MA. The lineup so far is pretty out of control, you should totally check it out!
I’ve been killing myself trying to finish this design document at work and I finally was able to send it out for review on Friday afternoon. Hopefully people won’t have too many comments about it, because I’d really like to write some code sometime this year.
Got my Powerbook back on Friday, it was shipped out, fixed, and back in the apple store in less than 72 hours. Seems to be working great now, I had forgotten how nice the keyboard backlight was after going without it for a few months. If I had known how fast the turnaround would be on the repair I would have had it fixed ages ago.
Pretty laid back weekend, saw The DaVinci Code with the film club last night. As I expected it was way better than the book, which is a worthless steaming pile of shit. That said, it isn’t a GREAT movie, just a good, entertaining flick. It was pretty much exactly what I was expecting, and I’m not entirely sure why the critics have been so harsh on it… Maybe they are all in the pockets of Opus Dei.
Looks like quite a few CSHers are going to be attending BarCamp Boston (which is actually in the wilds of Maynard). I think I am going to present the ideas I’ve been kicking around for a new web application…