HerdingChaos

I am such a nerd. I just had a random thought that I should have named the kids using names with spellings where every other letter was on a different hand when typing into a QWERTY keyboard. It would have made it easier to type their names.

The internet has been buzzing with anticipation for the new movie Snakes on a Plane. I have seen the FARK comments and other internet references related to Snakes on a Plane so I knew about the movie. I was not really planning on attending the flick. But something really fun did happen a couple of days ago. I got a call from Sam L. Jackson. He started with “Mike! This is Samuel L. Jackson…” He proceeded to tell me to go to the movie with one of my friends who he also named. Mr. Jackson also had details about my life that he used in the conversation like “stop playing around with your computers at work, and stop obsessing about your kids and go see this movie”. Turns out all of this is one of the best executed marketing campaigns I have seen. The guys at varitalk have setup a site where you can send a partially personalized message to a friend via Sam Jackson’s voice. In order to customize the message you provide market information like what type of job, what type of hobbies, and the email or phone number of the receiver. But to offset all of this marketing-big-brother-type-stuff they made something that is fun and really quite cool.

Sequels and formulaic crap is all we seem to get out of Hollywood lately. We have not had a really compelling original story in quite some time (remember I am talking about Hollywood and not the indie scene). Recently the best story/character based movies have been adaptations of books or a remake of a classic film. Of all of them I have only really been pleased by the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Therefore I spend most of my entertainment time buried in books or at the one of the local theater companies or reading interesting blogs online.

One of the blogs that I have always found very entertaining is Jessica Stover’s blog at JSDC. Jessica is a screenwriter/actress/performer living in LA. I originally was sent a link to her blog entry describing her visit with the Star Wars nerds. Many hours later I am sitting up in front of my computer when I should be in bed and I realize that I have read all of JSDC.

So why I am going on like a little fanboy about Jessica? Well she is different.. the good different. She self published a book called Aidmheil that is a collection of short stories, poems, and entries from her blog. Of course I bought the book and I loved every page. I read a ton and I love a good story. I read Greyfeather in Aidmheil and badly wanted more. Usually that type of reaction only happens when I read well established authors that are considered “one of the greats”. Normally I go to the local bookstore and buy the rest of everything they have written and read it all. But with Jessica I have to patiently wait to see what type of awesome she is going to do next. This time is different. This time she needs me to help make the awesome happen. This time she needs you.

Jessica has completed a screenplay codenamed TSL. The story is an original fantasy feature trilogy that has already garnered good feedback from Hollywood. But not enough good feedback for taking a chance on something that is not American Pie 5. The story is not well suited for a small independent production so Jessica is taking another approach. A new website called Eventful allows fans to request a performance in their town. One of her fans made a demand on Eventful and it has slowly been building. The Hollywood types pay attention to numbers. Jess was told that is she could show interest from 100,000 people she would have a good chance of making this movie. So all two of you that read my blog have to go right now and demand a screening of Jessica’s movie. Instructions are provided on JSDC, or you can just click the demand button below. With the power of all those tubes that make up the internet I am sure we can get the demands to 100,000.

This is free and will only take 30 seconds (or 4 min if you are still on dialup). So get clicking!!!!

I am not sure how long it has been but I am sure it is well over a year since we moved the office to the front room and left the downstairs master bedroom open for the kids playroom. When I moved all my computers I had this grand plan of everything having a place and everything looking neat (the wires mostly). I bought a spool of Velcro to tie up the wires and installed some new shelves in the new office. Well, tonight I finally cleaned the stack of crap that I never really found a place in the new office. I threw most of it out. I found the spool of Velcro and I am contemplating actually cleaning up the wires now that I can see them again.

I feel a nice sense of accomplishment for getting all the crap cleaned up. It only took me a few hours and now I wish I had spent the time to do it a year or more ago.

I have not talked with my friend Greg on the phone in quite a long time. We keep up with email and just don’t usually call each other. So today I wanted to talk to Greg so I started calling all the numbers I had for him in my palm. I got some girl’s answering machine. Her name was Mindy. Mindy != Greg. I hung up. Fast forward 10 min and my mobile is ringing during my drive home. I answer the phone.

Girl: “Who is this?”

Me: “You called me Mindy. Don’t you know who you are calling?”

Girl: “You just called me from this number.”

Me: “Are you Greg?”

Girl: “No. I am Mindy you already called me by name. Who is this?”

Me: “I am a person looking for a Greg. He used to have your number. I called, got your machine and figured out that you were not a Greg so I hung up. Now why did you call me?”

Girl: “I just wanted to see who called me.”

Me: “Okay.”

Awkward silence that last for 10 seconds but seem longer.

Girl: “Bye” Click

This is not my first run in with the “I must know everyone that calls me” people. Although this time was a bit more fun than most.

About a year ago, my main linux machine was sent to be the backup hardware for the server that runs this blog and several other sites. We have at last figured out what the problem was with the server hardware. My old linux box is now back in my office. I set it up tonight. I gave it a fresh upgrade to Fedora Core 4 so I could try it out.

Only one thing is wrong. While the machine was away I must have stolen the mouse. I had to dig in my stash of old equipment and find an old one to use. I don’t know if you will remember this, but there used to be mice that had a little ball in them. The ball would move when you moved the mouse. The ball would them cause a cylinder that has lint caked on it to move in erratic ways. These erratic movements would then drive the mouse cursor around the screen.

I must make a Fry’s run tomorrow to get a replacement. This mouse refuses to move to the right unless it moves around 200 pixels at a time. Hitting it on the table is not helping and has frightened my cat.

is getting up and not stopping. Have been sick since about a week ago. I went to the Doc since I was having labored breathing and was a little worried it might be something really nasty. He said I had bronchitis and gave me some drugs. He also told me to lay around and take it really easy.

I have not been getting much better. Today I got a bit tired of the "lay around and take it easy" stuff and really started to push myself. I figured I would either get alot worse or stay the same but either way I would not feel like a really big lazy bum. Strange thing happened. I feel better. I had two really horrible coughing fits and spit up some stuff that I would rather not describe.

I worked on: cleaning the house, mowing and edging the backyard, fixing the edger that I broke while working on the back yard, cleaning the gutters, blowing off the deck (required after the gutter cleaning), and getting ready for a little party.

Right now I feel better than I have in a week. I still get a little short of breath, but I think getting up off my ass and getting something done has kicked something into gear and my body is now working on getting better.

I have another doctor’s appointment tomorrow at 10:30. If I feel this good I am going to cancel it. 

I went to meet the teacher day at Andrew’s school. When I parked there was not a dark cloud in the sky and it has not rained in days. I leave the top down and go inside to meet Andrew’s teacher for 20 min. Some squall blows through and I end up with standing water in the seats of the car.

Oh mighty rain gods! What I have I done to offend thee?

Bleh. Just as I am starting to get caught up I am now sick. The sickness is weird. I feel strange and not like I have in the past. I went to the doc today and all the vital stats looked okay. I guess I just need to take it easy for a while and hope all the drugs they prescribed kick in and kick this funk.

When you have been traveling for two weeks and don’t have a feeling for how the weather has been acting at home it is a bad idea to leave your car window down with a one inch gap to keep it from getting too hot. The thunderstorm blew through and I didn’t even think about the window. And yes, the window that was open was on the upwind side of the car. The cup holders in the center console had standing water in them.