"Beauty is the moment at which proportion, shape, pattern come together and spirit comes into the thing you are making."

i think this review about sums up the game. although, we couldn't even figure out how to play it. 10:37 am

btw, don't buy King's Field for the ps2. it's completely unplayable. that's what we get for buying a game without checking it out online first. sigh. 10:32 am

whee. my wish has been granted. Icewind Dale II was shipped a few days ago. there aren't many reviews out yet, but it got a good review over at gamespy. 10:22 am

i finished wizardry yesterday. it was truly an excellent game. now the long wait for another game. 10:07 am

Shop Till Eggs, Diapers, Toothpaste Drop. a convenience store vending machine. i love the idea. via daypop. 10:02 am

i love being able to buy stamps online. i got them within 4 days of ordering, just in time to send off my credit card bill. 09:49 am

i just realized why i hate review/rating systems so much. it's depressing to know that people think your weblog is bad. 09:44 am

i finally caught my cat yesterday. she'd been outside for almost 2 weeks. the trick was a can of cat food rather than dry food. either that or she was finally hungry enough to come close. now the trick will be keeping her inside. 09:34 am

the portal is today's coolstop 09:21 am

i'm not sure why i find it so irritating, but when i see posts like this i am astounded that people don't mention my portal as a resource. is it really so unknown or so useless? 01:45 pm

ok, i want a Treo. never mind that i don't use my palm or my cell phone, i still want one. 01:30 pm

Jamie Lee Curtis has nothing to hide. wow. go jaime lee curtis. thanks andrea. 01:26 pm

The SF Site: Best Read of the Year in Science Fiction and Fantasy has just dug a deeper hole in my pocket. how can i *not* order the "best read" of the year? and don't get me started on the "fat fantasy" books that i just ordered. bad brigitte. bad. 04:45 pm

i think i've found a rather nice new weblog, The SF Site: News. in case bi-monthly just isn't enough for you. 03:55 pm

sigh. dori's link to ConJose made me realize that there were new books out that i needed to buy. some are actually not so new. so now i've had to indulge in an amazon spree. bad. bad. bad. 03:19 pm

congratulations to bridget and marc, Emma Margaret Warwick Cooper was born 2 days ago. 09:32 am

have you taken the Google Quiz yet? 09:57 am

ah. a link to LifeGem. the company that makes diamonds out of loved ones. via daypop. 09:56 am

i saw a few parts of the Penis Puppetry Show on tv. probably on real sex. i just wish they were coming up to san francisco. 09:54 am

too bad ikea didn't do much more than scan in their catalog. sigh. 02:20 pm

oooh. Your 2003 ONLINE IKEA catalog has arrived! 02:12 pm

i just had to take away a tennis ball from the dog. last time maddie chewed up a tennis ball, junga ate the pieces. cleaning up tennis ball puke for the next week was *not* fun. 11:08 am

i saw this snippet on cnn yesterday morning about turning loved one's ashes into diamonds. i think it's a wonderful idea. but the cost is a bit excessive. thanks to bottom quark for the reminder and the link. 11:01 am

i don't think i mentioned that i bought a corset. i ordered this one off ebay. considering a pre-made one would cost about $150, i thought getting a custom for $200 was pretty good. looking at this picture, i realized that what bothered me the most was my posture. hopefully, when the corset arrives in mid-september, my constant slouch will improve. 10:45 am

apparently, today is a day to talk about personal stuff instead of news. i've been on the atkins diet for 6 weeks now and i've lost 10lbs, 3 in. off my waist, and 3 in. off my hips. only 12lbs more to go... 10:40 am

my stupid cat won't come home. she doesn't answer when i call her and when i do see her she won't come over to me. i occasionally see her outside, but she ignores me. this is the second cat i've had that decided to go feral and not come home anymore. i'd really like to know what i'm doing wrong. maybe it's because i tend to pick the sorry looking one's who are shy or crazy. sigh. now i've got one cat who's living in the woods up in bonny doon and one cat living on the streets in santa cruz. at least sammy is good and comes home everyday. but then again, all he cares about is food and being cuddled. so it's not all that surprising. i've decided that i will not replace any pets once they die. although, that may be 15 years from now. they're too frustrating. of course, i'll see a cute puppy or kitten and forget about how much of a pain in the ass they are... 10:24 am

i am extremely happy with MailWasher. i've discovered that 90% of my mail is spam and it's very nice to get rid of it *before* it hits my mailbox. if you don't have it, get it. 10:11 am

yesterday i placed an order at Schwan's. they sell lots and lots of frozen food which they then deliver to your house for free. jason says they're good. they're also very cheap. 6 5-oz filets for $25. i only hope that everything fits in the freezer.

speaking of which, i bought an ice cream maker. it's very loud, but the sorbet i made was quite good. unfortunately, since i'd used all my eggs making custards, i couldn't actually make any ice cream. sigh. i really have to go grocery shopping today. 10:03 am

unsurprisingly, since i'm hooked on Wizardry, nothing much is going on here. i'm finding it very hard to do errands and the house is filthy. video games are bad. 09:57 am

our austin trip has been scheduled. we'll be going down there the weekend of sept. 28. scarily, it's mostly booked already.

i also talked to my dad about having 2 houses. he doesn't think it'll be a problem as long as we rent out our current house and show an income stream before buying the second. sounds easy enough. lol. 09:55 am

now that's an interesting twist. Segway isn't really Ginger. via dane carlson. 09:58 am

jason played hooky on friday and we went down to carmel for the concorso italiano. it was fun to drool over all the beautiful italian cars. although after a while the red ferrari's got really boring. of course, jason took pictures. please skip the first picture. it's quite horrible. 09:51 am

i've been playig Wizardry: The Forsaken Land for the past couple of days. if you've been playing rpg's for the last 10 years, it'll make you feel nostalgic. very enjoyable. 09:39 am

why is it that you mention that you're thinking about something and people assume that the decision is made and happening? 09:36 am

we're sort of seriously considering moving to austin. jason's work has an office there and assuming they're ok with him transferring, and there's no reason why they shouldn't be, it wouldn't be a difficult move. i like austin. but i am worried about the summer heat. i think no. cal. has made me soft when it comes to extreme weather. (i.e. greater than 80F or less than 45F.) the biggest draw is the low cost of housing/living. for $300k you can buy a mansion down there.

the hardest part tho will be trying to keep both houses. we'd really like to keep the house in santa cruz since california real estate is such a good investment. but the mechanics/logistics of owning 2 houses and renting one of them out is daunting to say the least. we're going to visit austin sometime in september. jason has never been and we might get to experience some heat. we'll see. 09:39 am

farrago has calculated some interesting stats on the portal. i had no idea that after english, portugese is the most used language. 12:55 pm

i know this has been around for a while, but i finally feel the need to comment. why exactly would people want to send money to someone who racked up their credit cards and will provide nothing in return? lots of people have credit problems. most people don't help them out. lots of people provide great web services. most people don't send them money even if they use the services regularly. seriously, i don't beg everyone to send me $1000/mo so that i can live without working on anything but the portal and my weblog. sigh. i just don't get it. via guardian. 10:30 am

this week seems to be a fascination with textiles and clothing. which is why i ended up at the MARIANO FORTUNY site. i'm surprised that no one has come up with good reproductions. and that they haven't caught on in our retro era. you'd think that i'd be able to say "i want a fortuny dress" and then have a choice between the $10,000 vintage one or a nice few hundred dollar reproduction. 09:11 pm

i seem to have a very haphazard programming learning curve. i learn the basics, then as i go along i learn new things that i *really* need to use. then one day i'll discover a function that opens up whole new vistas of coding potential. fopen() really is a function i should have learned a long long time ago. 05:43 pm

can someone explain to me why, despite my complete avowal to stop doing anything to the portal, i have spent my entire daying working on it? 03:51 pm

now this island i could probably get. too bad i couldn't afford to fly there each year. 12:32 pm

i would *really* like to own an island. especially one in australia. unfortunately, the only islands i could even consider being able to afford are all in canada. 12:15 pm

thanks to scott for pointing out that i can look forward to another 2-players ps2 rpg. Dungeons & DragonsŪ Heroes wll be coming out ~q4 of this year. i wish they'd release games throughout the summer instead of saving them up for the holidays :( 11:11 am

Gamers to forfeit identities to sell video game. i think that's going a little too far especially considering the small amount of money they're paying for a huge amount of headaches. via backup brain. 11:05 am

i believe that i fixed the portal database overload problem, since dave linked to me this morning and i can still access it. although, i'll have to wait until lunch time to be sure. i guess i can always add another mirror if it's still overloaded. 10:53 am

just trying to help dave out and push the Recently Changed Weblogs over the 1000 mark. 10:45 am

"Corseting the Human Body" 06:42 pm

that odd pics site led me to spook's Corset Page which led me to the long island staylace association. have i mentioned that i'm interested in corseting? 05:54 pm

i really wish there were more 2-player ps2 games. rpg/adventure games that is. jason and i just got done playing baldur's gate and it was a lot of fun playing together. why don't they do this more often? 04:41 pm

The HisTory of Michael Jackson's face. he definitely should have quit back in '85. some of those pictures are pretty scary. while you're there, take a look at some of the other odd pics. 04:00 pm

i've always been fascinated by "earthships". i find it hard to believe that the interiors of these were actually as inexpensive as the actual structure. then again, maybe i've just been living in california too long. 03:13 pm

i'm impressed with the number of ways soybeans can be put to good use. this weekend i was watching a show which talked about soy candles. today Farmers to Expand Soy Use with Edible Crayons. maybe i'm biased right now tho. i made a very yummy chili last night using soybeans instead of regular beans and over the weekend i used soy flour to make a crust for a strawberry flan. 02:22 pm

i will be extremely disappointed if stem cell research gets squashed. everytime i turn around i hear about another use for them in helping people with diseases, lost organs and other medical problems. as someone with soft english teeth, i'm looking forward to growing some new ones. via bottom quark. 02:00 pm

At the Coffee Shop, It's Always a Tall Order (washingtonpost.com). interesting. via rebecca. 01:48 pm

i'm done. that's it. no more. i will not add anything else to the portal for at least 6 months. unless someone decides to write me a decent search engine. i'll make an exception for that. and bug fixes too. but no new features. today i got a geneaology tree, ala blogtree up and automated the whole password process. i've also kicked off the edit your weblog listing drive. something which is more corny that i usually let myself be, but i'm sick of so many listings that have no information. 04:35 pm

while i don't have time to thoroughly explore right now, i must not forget about SauteWednesday. found via meg's so so article on Blogging for Dollars. 01:34 pm

for andrea:
goit, goyt n. person with teeth like a beaver. found here

although that's not exactly the way i use it, i think of it more like git. (n 1. a fool. Origin: British. ("You silly git!").) i actually started using it after watching too much red dwarf. this definition of smeg explains it. sort of.

"Smeg is short for smegma, which is defined with delicacy as 'a sebaceous seretion, especially that under the prepuce'. It is from the Greek for soap, which is worrying in its own way, and it is also known as 'knobcheese'.

'Smeg', 'smegging' and 'smeg-head' were popularised by the tv show Red Dwarf, where it was intended to suggest obscenity while still being broadcast by the BBC.

Creating new obscenities is difficult, and the writers of Red Dwarf also tried to use the word 'goit' (as in 'you stupid goit') as another swear word. They are said to have dropped it because it sounded too medical."

and that's my contribution for today since it's too smegging hot here and i can't think. 02:39 pm

this article on replication has *hopefully* helped me solve my database connection problems. unfortunately, there's no way to test it. 10:54 am

why do people still use netscape4.x? there's a bug in the submit a weblog page in netscape4.x/mac but i'm not going to fix it and was tempted to do the most horrible thing and email the person telling him he should upgrade his browser. then i realized what a goit i was being and managed to refrain. 06:16 pm

ratings and reviews are *finally* here. and the bugs are slowly getting weeded out. how can you resist one of these?

i booted up my ibook today, trying to debug a mac/ns problem. while trying to fix my network settings, i realized that the cached page for eatonweb was from feb 2001. which means, i haven't used the mac in 18 months. 01:17 pm

yuck. the only way to solve my database connection problem (too many people hitting it) i'd need to upgrade to Dedicated Hosting. 02:18 pm

it's funny, whenever the portal database slows to a crawl, the first thing i check is whether dave has linked to me. 11:56 am

i finally got a chance to sit down with essentials of cooking this weekend. just the part about how to tell if meat was done made it worth while. i sauted some steaks last night and they came out very well. 11:07 am

it's rather irritating that the textads.biz ads expire and are deleted from your account. there's no way for me to look at the stats etc. once it's done. 10:39 am

for once an interesting Personality Test. i'm rather surprised that i'm not anti-social, but then again, give the definitions, i'd say schizoid is a much better description. i am:

paranoid: moderate
schizoid: high
schizotypal: low
antisocial: low
borderline: low
histrionic: low
narcissistic: moderate
avoidant: low
dependent: low
obsessive-compulsive: low
10:12 am

ugh. this was way too much work. i had to cut out a lot of the stuff i was planning on implementing just because of the sheer volume of basic stuff i needed to change. although, at least now it's just a matter of coding the stuff, the database supports everything i want to do. i believe, from my minimal testing, that the portal as a whole is much faster. 01:27 pm

i'm not sure why/when i missed this, but i need to play with TouchGraph... just as soon as i get done with the portal upgrade. 11:10 am