December 2001 Archives

Oooooh, look at those beautiful roses. I scanned them in with a very sweet Canoscan n670U that I got for Christmas this year. It's a full-size, very thin scanner weighing less than a pound. It scans quickly too, even on my old computer. You will see lots of new pictures and things up on taraland now!

Odd Todd, creator of Laid off: A No Nothing Production, has issued a new holiday greeting. Check it out - I like his voice and his drawing style.

The Seven Wonders of the Web If we could add our own nominees for web sites that changed the way we do things, I would add:

8. Kozmo.com Let's call it a Wonder of the Ancient Web. To be able to have ice cream, batteries, Krispy Kremes, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off delivered to your door in less than an hour is a wonderous thing. If any venture capitalists out there are looking to resurrect a really awesome service, I vote that we bring back Kozmo now.

9. Online Learning From Fathom to the University of Phoenix Online, The idea of being able to pick up a skill or a degree without having to relocate or significantly rearrange your life is a revoloutionary thing.

Happy Holidays!

Ebert's Glossary of Movie Terms - Explains those phenomena that only seem to happen in movies. The original site doesn't seem to be up so I've included the google cache here.

I'd grown accustomed to it's (inter)face: For the past five years I have relied so much on my excite start page to know what's going on in the world. I didn't realize this until last week when the home page portal completely changed under the new ownership of EMC2. The news and the features are generally the same in that most all are still offered, except now I can't seem to keep a running tally of how my stocks are doing. The interface is such that you have less presentation flexibility and everything is one layer deep - I can't get all the information i want right in my face the way I want it when i want it.

So now I'm using Yahoo's Start Page and it's just not the same! (pout pout pout pout)

I love Yahoo instant messenger, but it hasn't been working right lately. Whenever I have yahoo on my ZoneAlarm gives me a bazillion icmp unreachable error messages. Also, today I tried to publish my yahoo status here on taraland, but the feature indicates that I'm offline when I'm online. No information is better than wrong information right?

It's been over three months now since everything changed in New York City, and Here is New York offers some very poignant images from that time. Also, go visit 201 buildings for a look at some other buildings that make up New York's skyline.

I visited anil dash's website the other day and he mentions a new service by blogdex called social networks explorer. The service lists those who are linked to your site, who you link to, and those considered friends. Undoubtedly impressed with this new feature, I tested out my own social network. Not only does my site not show up, but it appears I have no friends! Hmmph.....I wish my mom had a website, then I would surely have some web social network.

The Colorgenics web site tests your mood by giving you a color preference test. I must have been in a foul mood the day I took it, for my results indicate that "You feel that everything is going against you and you are worn out and exhausted by all the conflict . . . You are not be feeling so good at this time. Everything seems to be getting on top of you ... "

<forgive me, for I am still in November journal catch up mode.>

Some friends and I went to see Waking Life last month. It was an incredible movie both visually and conceptually. The movie addresses dreaming, waking, and human cognitive potential.

George Harrison passed away at age 58. It is very sad. The Beatles have been my favorite rock group since I was 12 years old. I'm listening to my George Harrison favorites, including "i me mine," "Give me love," "What is my life," and "All things must pass". He had a beautiful, gentle, tenuous voice and his lead guitar was great too. There's tributes to him all over the web today, including his official website and metafilter. My niece and I went to Strawberry Fields the day after his death. There were many candles, flowers, and people from all different age groups. Two sing-alongs were going on which was somewhat distracting and the singers were singing any beatles song they could think of. Besides that, I really enjoyed visiting and saying goodbye to the quietest Beatle.

Done any mind-bending lately? (fork-bending, I mean)

If you are a fan of the blues you should visit the blue highway. This site gives a complete history of the blues from missippi to chicago.

If I were a work of art, I would be Pablo Picasso's Three Musicians. I am colourful and provoking, always looking to break out of the mould and to pioneer new ways of doing things. I have a jaunty outlook and although I am a bit weird, most people have some idea what I'm about. Which work of art would you be? The Art Test

Rather than using your computer to track UFO's in outer space, you may want to help someone a little closer to home by donating your computer's cpu downtime to the Intel-UD Cancer Project. The project entails downloading a small program which will use your computer to process molecular research being done and the University of Oxford.

I've been kidnapped by some tigers who live in central park . . . they have used me as ransom to get good cuts of steak. I am in the process of writing my memoirs about this and other great adventures of the past month. Check back soon for more updates