Thursday, January 31, 2002

Pass the Hostie on the Left Hand Side

Last night I was bored, so I decided to log into an MSN Chat Room called Jesus Is Lord just to see what kind of stuff they talk about online.

It turns out the conversation was dominated by alot of Amens, Let's Lift the Lord on High, and Praise be to Jesus--My Lord and Saviour. After about 30 minutes in that room, I suddenly had a hankering for cheap whiskey, to ride shotgun, and fire my pistols into the air.

And when the people in the chat room realized of my religious leanings, well... let's just say that the conversation became a little more directed.

Wednesday, January 30, 2002

Baffle then run!

I'm trying to institute a response-trend and I'd like your help. This is something I came up with at work last year when I had a person who always preceeded every question with "Can I ask you a question". Sometimes these little conversational fail-safes annoy me and I try to come up with ways to defuse them.

Here's what you do:

When someone comes up to you and says something like "Can I ask you a question?" or "I'd like to ask you something...", you must say the following loudly and quickly before they can ask their question:

"THE ANSWER IS YES!!! YES!! NOW MORE THAN EVER!"

If you're lucky, this will completely stun them for a second and they might forget their question.

I've already got my friend Maia using it and she reports great success with it. With a testimonial like that, how can you go wrong?

Try it and report back here to tell me your story.
'Tis Evil, it is! Muahahahahaha

Someone emailed me the following comic strip, which I not only thought was really funny, but I also loved the artwork.

The artist turned out to be Stephanie Lostimolo, a concept artist, character designer, and illustrator. For a time, she had a online comic strip called Brimstone and Schoolbooks, but it looks like she's dropped it. It's a shame really, because the artwork and the storyline looked really good.

You can still look through the archive and her portfolio. It's definitely worth perusing.

If I ever finish teaching myself how to draw, this is the type of stuff I'd love to do.

Tuesday, January 29, 2002

Who loves ya, baby?

Are you a master charmer or do you wait to be charmed by others? Find out by taking the Are You A Good Flirt? quiz.

Amazingly, my score was 28 which rates as Yes, you are a natural born flirt!.

*gasp* I had no idea!
Follow the bouncing ball

Thanks to Dominique for finding this little ditty. Now I've got the darned tune stuck in my head (your fault!). Any blogger here should be able to relate.

Playing the associated midi definitely enhances the experience, along with bobbing your head, tapping your feet, and occasionally shouting "Hey" at appropriate moments.

And don't worry about what your cow-orkers may think of you. They never really understood your genius, the plebes!
Huunnnnnggghhhhh... *pant* *pant*
or
Flabio gets in shape, Part IV

I was supposed to go work out at the YMCA last night, like I've been doing every Monday night for the past month or so, but I forgot my gym clothes at home.

So I went home, got my gym clothes, and went to the YMCA in NDG instead. With my membership at the Y downtown, I can still go to the YMCA in NDG for free. Go me!

The facilities are a bit older, but everything works fine (albeit the room is a bit more cramped). The weird thing I noticed was that everything seemed heavier.

I set the weights at the same level as I set them at the Y in town, but I had a harder time lifting them. Even the 45 lb discs that I put on the leg press seemed heavier.

I don't understand how this can be... If I select 75 lbs for the Lat Pulldown machine at the downtown Y, shouldn't it weigh the same as the 75 lbs I select at the NDG Y?

Weird.

Monday, January 28, 2002

Wubba Wubba

This past Saturday night, I got a nasty case of the heebie-jeebies.

Normally, I go out for a pint with friends, but since I didn't have anything really set for Saturday night, I decided to settle in behind the Tube of Boob. After an episode of Buffy, I got hooked into a set of shows specializing in ghosts and hauntings (surprisingly, it was on YTV). Everyone knows that I'm facinated by this stuff, but it still freaks me out.

So I was watching a show called The Scariest Places on Earth where they had a family of five people spend a night in Chillingham Castle in Scotland, the home of some of the worst torturers history has ever known. For 850 years, God looked the other way as people met cruel and terrifying ends behind these stone walls. The centuries of anguish dished out in this place has scarred the castle and the grounds around it, making it a terrifying place to be after dark.

Each person in the crew was equipped with video cams, audio recorders, and infra-red cameras. Many of the rooms themselves has night-vision cams so you could see the people entering the rooms. As the people moved from room to room, you could hear the bizarre sounds that echoed off the walls and see objects move on their own. Assuming it wasn't the TV crew that was simulating these things (I don't think it was), it was really scary stuff. I couldn't get to sleep for hours!

As terrified as I would be, I would like to experience something like that. My old apartment in Old Montreal was haunted as well, but the spirit was benevolent, so it wasn't a problem. Actually... I kind of miss the odd sounds, smells, and events that the spirit would cause. It sure made living there an adventure!
May be Hazardous to Children

I espcially liked the Occupational Hazards and Domestic Incidents sections of the LEG0DEATH Museum of Horrors.

Personally, I hold Bill responsible. See Bill be responsible. Run responsibly Bill, run!
Fontastic!

Oh fer godsakes... I can't resist. It's Susan's fault.





Wowie! You are Lumos! You're a lot of fun and pretty damn cool, and you do things your own way. You may often be in a fantasy world, but that's just fine with you! Most likely you're also a big Harry Potter fan (who isn't, right?).

Saturday, January 26, 2002

My first attempt at The Friday Five

The Smattering weblog seems to ask five questions every Friday, so I'm going to give it a go.

1. What cologne or perfume do you wear? I have a pack of oils that I'll use, depending on who I'm seeing that night (rose, rosemary, lilly of the valley, sandelwood). There's a cologne from Yves Rocher called Avanti that I like too.

2. What cologne or perfume do you like best on the opposite sex? You mean they don't smell like that naturally? Drat... I'll have to make a point of asking next time.

3. What one smell can you not stomach? Fresh tobacco, the kind you use to roll cigarettes. Ick!

4. What smell do you like that others might consider weird? The smell of Napalm in the morning? When I was a kid, there was a machine called a Mimiograph that made cheap photocopies using purple ink. I loved the way the pages smelled when they first came out of the machine.

5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? Cleaning, laundry, reading, and having a pint or four at the pub.

Friday, January 25, 2002

Satan gets a Get Out Of Jail Free card

Remember the mayor of the town of Inglis I mentioned a few months back that declared her town a Satan-Free Zone?

Well... it turns out that even Satan can't be discriminated against! Banning Satan from her town could earn her a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU (the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida).

Nice to see that even old Pointy-Horns has a town he vacation in when Ottawa just gets too heavy.
Canadian Sorrow

I must say that 2002 is taking more than it's giving back.

First it was Frank Shuster, then Peggy Lee, and now Peter Gzowski has shrugged off his mortal coil to do that final big interview with Pierre Trudeau (who regularly paddles his canoe around the rings of Saturn, just 'cause he can).

Anyone who has heard Gzowski (the man with the last name that phoneticians love to hate) will remember that deep gravelly voice that asked all the hard questions and laughed at the bizarre answers.

But my favorite memory of Gzowski is seeing him languishing in an American jail with Rick Mercer who rattled the bars of his cage yelling "Don't you know who this is? This is Peter Gzowski! He won the Order of Canada, fer God's sake!"

Au revoir Peter. The airwaves will tingle with your voice for years to come.
Babes at Pooh Corner

Thanks to a facinating discussion started at Blork's Blog, the topic of Babosity is being discussed at various blogs (like Bill's and Dominique's) near you (ain't the Global Village great?).

So without further ado, here's the
Poohbah Field Guide to Spotting a Babe.

First of all, here's a definition:

A babe is a girl (or guy) who is a bevy of contradictions, and yet embodies all of these things with grace, style, and elegance. Babes defy definition. They do not sit comfortably in labels. They are always surprising, always changing, ever in flux.

Babes are strong, yet gentle. Their intellect is highly developed, but never flaunted. They can turn heads in any room, but they never let other people's impressions define them. Babes fear no one, yet they know how and when to be discreet and diplomatic. Babes rise to any occasion and take life head-on, making their lives happen rather than letting life happen to them.

To achieve true babeness, a person's beauty must transcend the limits of the skin. They need to have the soulstuff to support the masks of appearance. I've always found that I find people I *like* to always be very attractive. I can look at a girl and drool over how she looks, but unless I get to know her a little bit, the jury's still out on whether she's a babe or not.

She can be a hottie, but he Babosity needs to be proven.


Types of Babes:

I'm specifying women here just 'cause they're the types of babes that I'm enamoured with, but these types of babes can easily apply to men too:
  • Women who display a finely-crafted talent for writing (Editorial Babes)
  • Women who express themselves through art (Lofty Babes)
  • Women who can sing (Warbling Babes)
  • Women who wonder about their spirituality (Magical Babes)
  • Babes in Toyland (Toys 'R Us Babes)
  • Women who find me strangely attractive (Off-the-Beaten-Track Babes)
  • Women clad in leather (Sensual Babes)
  • Women clad in leather holding a whip (Babes in Command)
  • Women with drills (Black and Decker Babes)
  • Women who can wax poetic about the pros and cons of beer, wine, scotch, and whisky (Finely-brewed Babes)
  • Women who can find the humour in any situation (Tongue-in-cheek Babes)
  • Women who can play an instrument (Babes of Note)
  • Women who can appreciate cultural forms of expression (Worldly Babes)
  • Women who live for sushi (Tempura Babes)
  • Women who exude class, elegance, and style in jeans and T-shirt (Comfortable Babes)
  • Women who know how to dress to impress (Babes on Parade)
  • Women armed with charm, wit, and social grace (Pool Party Babes)
  • Women who are impressed by my list and Pooh Logs in general (Babes who click here)
  • Women who leave me comments in my Pooh Logs (Opinionated Babes)
  • You... just 'cause you grace me with your presence.


(aprés-thought: I wonder if this list will snag a few hits from the various seach engines?)
Cheese on the Internet, Gromit!

I have always been a fan of animation, in all its forms.

"Nick Park has set into production 12 exciting new Wallace and Gromit films all to be released later this year, free of charge with the help of the internet. Each film features one of Wallace's unique new inventions and runs for approximately 1 minute."

Woohoo!

Thursday, January 24, 2002

Vroom Vroom

I'm in love again.

Ever since I was a kid and I rode around in my Aunt Betty's Mini-Austin, I've had a mad-on for extremely small cars.

In 2002, there's a new breed of the Small Car phenomenon. The Mini-Cooper.

Oooh la la.
My Dingkom Part II

That being said, whenever I try to scribble down the entire conversation later on, the memory of it sifts away from me like smoke. Damn this scatterbrained mind of mine!

When I try to be witty on my own, I can't do it. I need a wall upon which I can bounce my ideas off and react to.

Although there are times when I can write something half-decently smart and I know how it feels when I am writing something goodly.

It's just a question of learning how to get into that state on command and write what comes out that is the tricky part.

Wednesday, January 23, 2002

A stage! My DingKom for a stage!

I'm a gregarious-type and I meet the most interesting people all the time. If only I could record the conversations I have with these people, these dialogues would be the stuff of award-winning plays, I tell you. Sometimes the stuff we'll come up with in off-the-cuff conversation is so bizarre, it cries out to be written down, developed, and performed on a stage. I have no doubt that playwrights are secretly vying to sit in the seats behind me to record every fifth word.

Unfortunately, I can't be jotting down every morsel in a notepad in my jeans (right next to the sling-shot). Sometimes I won't realize how brilliant a snippet of conversation is until long after I've gone to bed to sleep it off. And by then, my head hurts so much, I'm lucky I don't brush my teeth with Ben-Gay by accident.

Maybe what I need to do is, after the moment of brilliance has just past, I'll excuse myself politely, go to the men's room, and write it all out.

I'll just betcha that's what all the best-selling novelists and playwrights do all the time!

You think I'm making this up, don't you?
You're not thinking of actually tossing that dwarf, are you?

Cassandra has a new diary entry! Read up on the true thoughts of that taciturn dwarf in The Very Secret Diary of Gimli, Son of Gloin at Cassandra Claire's LiveJournal.

Exerpt: DAY SEVEN

Suspect Aragorn son of Arathorn of being pervy hobbit-fancier. Completely ignoring hottie elf fiancèe in favor of barging about with hairy-footed gnomes in leather breeches. Fortunately I, Gimli son of Gloin, am here to take care of her loneliness.

Later.

Elf women just the right height to keep my ears warm. Go me!
Music and Film

I was restless last night and I didn't feel like going home right away. I swung by (HMV and used an old coupon to pick up a couple of CDs from my ToBuy list (k.d. lang: Live By Request and Prozzak: Hot Show).

I stopped in at Brutopia to have a pint and chatted up a couple of old friends and then went to see Tom Cruise's new movie: VANILLA SKY.

I know the reviews are mixed on this movie, but it left me breathless. It was a real mindbender like Fight Club, The Matrix, and The Usual Suspects. The dialogue was a bit staid and the music selection seemed a bit out of place at times, but the concept and cinematography was awesome. This movie kept me interested from start to finish (even without the Penelope Cruz element and despite the Cameron Diaz interruptions). There were odd visual cues that I had picked up on that were recalled later in the movie (I love it when they do that).

Vanilla Sky is a finely-crafted film and definitely deserves a look!

Tuesday, January 22, 2002

A Pooh Loggian Story at Last

Although this does remind me of an Ally McBeal episode that involved porcelain, remote controls, and firemen, this lady had none of these things (except the embarassment).

Although, if she had Ally's butt (or lack thereof), she might has been sucked right into-- Never mind... It's best not to think about it.
The Dating Game and Blogs

Sometimes I like the stuff I post on other people's blogs more than my own.

If the date was bad, would she still feel the need to mention that he was cute?

"Dated a cute, cleaver-wielding, grinning lunatic with a penchant for buggery. Had coffee. Ducked blows to the head while plugging Bazima blog.

Coffee bland, switched to tea, took bullet in shoulder, talked about sports.

Wait for bail-hearing before broaching 2nd date proposal. Cute butt, though."
A Lady of Distinction

We've lost another treasure to the cycle of life: Peggy Lee passed away yesterday in her home in California.

As soon as she'll walk into the pearly-gated joint, they'll know she's a lady of distinction...

Monday, January 21, 2002

Tick... scritch... Tock... scratch...

Whooof! I'm getting a hand-cramp just looking at this site.

Pooh People... I give you... the Industorious Clock! (yes, this is how it's spelled). This site should show you how precious time is and maybe even how much work you can actually accomplish in one day.

Which is probably somewhere between nothing and everything, but the pendulum has a tendency to swing quite erratically from day to day.

(snagged from davezilla)

Sunday, January 20, 2002

Ugh... even my drawings look fat!

So I've taken another stab at teaching myself how to draw half-decently. Last year, I bought the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (by Betty Edwards) and I think this is the third time I've done the first exercise.

I've always wanted to be able to draw effectively. I've made a few half-assed attempts in the past, but I just can't see to train my eye-hand coordination thing so that it produces either 1) a realistic effect or 2) a drawing that doesn't look like it was created by a 7 year old child riding in the back of a apple truck.

So here's the result of my third attempt at the first exercise. I've committed myself to doing an exercise every couple of days (there's a fair amount of reading to do as well). Maybe I can eventually draw something half-decent, although like every good artist, I'll never be completely satisfied with my work.

Friday, January 18, 2002

Delish... Hand me a leg, wouldya?

To help his digestion, there's one day a week I won't feed Newton (my kitty). On those days, he gets *really* affectionate, hoping I'll take pity on him and feed him a little morsel. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

Sometimes, Newton will nibble on my toes while I'm sleeping. After reading this article, now I'm wondering if he's testing the waters for a potential feast.

Thursday, January 17, 2002

Aragorn still hasn’t washed his hair

Ever wonder what the Hobbits were really thinking? Check out their diary entries at: Cassandra Claire's LiveJournal.

Exerpt:
DAY FOURTEEN

Gandalf dead. Everyone morose. In attempt to cheer up Fellowship, Legolas took off all his clothes and performed scenes from Silmarillion: The Musical. Everyone still morose. Legolas ponced off to have 3,000-year-old elf prince sulk.

Wednesday, January 16, 2002

Drive me home, baby...

The North American International Auto Show has got all their new cars online and hoooooo doggies! They're purty!

Check out their Multimedia Section for videos and 360 degree views of the new concept vehicles. Most of the videos are a bit bland on the creative side except for The Army Smart Truck.

This video looks like a cross-breeding of Knight Rider and the A-Team, complete with a chase scene that destroys a fruit vendor's shop (fruit vendor shops ALWAYS get knocked over in any chase scene).

At the end of the video, I was half-expecting to see David Hasselhoff and Mr. T making-out in the back seat ("Hey boy! You look mighty cute in those red beach shorts!").
Die Snow Goons! Die! Ha! Ha!

When I get a rainy day and there's nothing to do, sometimes I like to just unwind and remember the best parts of being a kid. The best way I can think of doing that is to curl up in my comfy chair (sideways with my legs hanging off the arm rest), drink tea, and read my Calvin and Hobbes collections.

I have most of the collections, but there's one that I lost. It was lost somewhere between Sherbrooke and Ottawa. Has anyone seen it? It was called Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons. These were the days when I was moving back and forth between Sherbrooke and Ottawa, going from four months of work-term to four months of study. That madness went on for almost 2 years.

It's no wonder that I hate the thought of changing address now. Especially on July 1st (thanks to the PQ government).

Anyhoo... One of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes storylines starts with this strip.

If you go to the UComics website, you can follow the whole storyline by going back to December 31st, 1990 and click Next until you get to January 17th, 1991. Enjoy!

Tuesday, January 15, 2002

Fame! Fortune! Fame!

miss b noticed my little corner of the web (in her Jan 12 post)! Finally... recognition for lovers of Pooh Logs everywhere.

Actually... I think I've got this niche all mapped out. Still... I've been listed in Steve's (the prez), David's (when are you coming back to us?), and Bill (link sluttage) blogs sections, so have I mentionned how much I appreciate such recognition?

No? Then here goes.... thanks fellers. Yer the greatest... (gawrsh).

And thanks for the shout out to the Pooh Logs miss b!

Monday, January 14, 2002

Smelling the White Pasty stuff

Ever wonder how to stick one thing to another so that it holds? Get that gluegun out of your nose and check out This to That for the best in Glue advice.

Don't ask me how I find this stuff. I really don't know.
Geek with 2d8 damage attack

So after 10 years, I've finally started playing Dungeons & Dragons again.

I know, I know... It makes me a Geek Extraordinaire, but it can be a fun game as long as it doesn't take over your life. It encourages problem-solving, acting, team work, and even some rudimentary math skills!

Oh frag it... I don't need to go looking for reasons for it. It's just plain fun, as long as you have a good group. I used to play fairly regularly from late high school (1984) to the beginning of university (1990), but I decided to ditch the geeks and do other things with my time.

I think 10 years is long enough on a moratorium on it, don't you? Anything to keep me out of trouble, relatively.
Flabio Gets in Shape, Part III

I know I need to get to the gym at the YMCA more than once a week, but my schedule just fills up so quickly.

I went to the gym last Monday (and I'll be going tonight with my friend Isabelle), and the second attempt at working out wasn't as bad as the first. The major difference this time was that the gym was packed with people. I guess the New Year's Resolution crowd has returned.

I managed to get 15 minutes on the stationary cycle as a warm-up and I did a more thorough round on the weight machines (3 sets of 12 reps on each machine).

The only machine I didn't try was the Leg Press and that's because you need to place the weight discs on the lifting bars. I can actually lift quite a bit with my legs, but I was afraid of trying to lift the discs to put them on the machine. Getting pinned under one of those things is more humiliation than I can bear.

I still feel dumb and out-of-place when I'm lifting the weights. Actually, what I feel is clumsy, dumb, and fat. But when I get too self-conscious, I just focus on what I'm doing and what I'm trying to achieve. Fnyeh... it almost works.

When I look at myself in those full-length mirrors (don't you hate those), all I feel is despair and incredulity. That can't be me, can it? That's someone else's body, isn't it?

Ultimately, I would like to lose 40 pounds, but right now I'm just focussing on going to the gym and sticking to my diet.

Friday, January 11, 2002

T&A on Line 2

Helsinki, Finland (SatireWire.com) — According to a Reuters report issued Wednesday, a company partnering with Playboy.com says mobile phone users will be able to download pictures of Playboy playmates to their wireless handsets by next year.

As a result, sales of hands-free cell phone devices are expected to soar.

I giggled like a schoolgirl when I found this at SatireWire.com
I wanna rock...

I've been trying to learn how to play the tin whistle, but the latest instrument I've discovered is the Thumb Piano (also known as an m'bira or kalimba).

I saw a woman play one while telling a story and it has a beautiful, magickal sound.

Thursday, January 10, 2002

Sweet, sweet justice

So four of us were at the Second Cup yesterday, sipping our Chai Lattés and coffees, when some very rude chick pops in to the entrance way armed with a cellphone and a cigarette. I don't know where she came from, but she was not dressed for the weather.

The Second Cup we were in was a non-smoking café with a large Non-Smoking sign on the front door (through which this girl sauntered).

Taras (the one in the centre) looked up past my shoulder and fixed her with a steely gaze, growling "I want to take that cigarette she's smoking and throw it out the door."

So Ceri replied "I'd enjoy watching you do that."

In classic Taras style, he got up and approached the cell smoker. He tried to make a grab for the cigarette, but she yanked it away (not missing a beat in her wireless yakk-fest, mind you). So he promptly swung the door open and pushed her outside saying "This is a non-smoking area."

Uproarious laughter filled the café as Taras returned to his seat, followed by much clapping. The last we saw of this girl was her walking up the street trying to stare Taras down through the window. Taras responded by a gleeful grin and vigorous waving.

Taras... you are (and always have been) my hero.

Wednesday, January 09, 2002

Blogger Brown-outs

Blogger's going through some tough server times (they are just too damn popular), so the updates to the Pooh Logs may be a bit intermittent. Stay with us!

Tuesday, January 08, 2002

Hobbit Image Consultant

Do you suppose that Lord of the Rings fever will 'cause fanatical parents to name their children after the characters in the story?

Although the Quebec government would never allow it (since they seem to think they have the right to decide what your child's name will be), I would love to meet up with some guy proclaiming:

"Tabarnac! Mah name is Jacques Jean-Paul Emile Bilbo Baggins and I demand that you take me serieusement!"

I can understand why some people just can't get into the Lord of the Rings. How can you have a hero with a name like Frodo or Bilbo Baggins? It would be fine if they were dogs (maybe one could have one leg or six-eyes or something), but it can be tough feeling good about a hero with a name that sounds like a vibratory device.

"Fetch the ring Frodo! Fetch it! Good boy, good little Frodo... Give the ring to Gandalf like a good little puppy... Would you like to have your feet scratched? You're cutesy little feet scratched? Here you go... [scritch, scritch] Good Frodo! Whose your Grand Wizard, Frodo?"

Monday, January 07, 2002

Seigneur des Agneaux?

I went to see the Lord of the Rings last week and, like everyone else, I was blown away by it. Mind you, three hours is a long time to sit through anything, and I know I nodded off a couple of times during the film. Not that it wasn't a fantastic film, but it does tend to drag in bits, and being sedentary for that long in a comfortable seat will certainly have some kind of impact.

But like any film, there were a few booboos made. You can read all about it at Movie Mistakes. My favorite mistake is in the scene where Sam and Frodo are in the field with the scarecrow, you can plainly see a car cruising past in the distance, from right to left.

I'll be keeping an eye out for others like that one when I go see it again!

Friday, January 04, 2002

Obscure Musical Taste?

Out here in Montreal (and elsewhere too, I'm guessing), Sam the Record Man seems to be going out of business.

If you have eclectic musical tastes, but are pissed at having to pay full-price for your eclectic CDs because they don't benefit from mainstream prices, pop on by to Sam's for their bankruptcy sale. Everything is half-off the full price.

I picked up some old B-52s and the new Bran Van 3000 album for $15 each and I saw a few others that I may pick up next week (when I get paid again). There's not much left in the mainstream music selection, but if you like the bands that don't get alot of media attention, this might be a good time to stock-up on them.

Give yourself a merry little holiday giftie!
The Woes of Technology

So I got the DVD player I wanted last night from Centre Hi-Fi and I also picked The Emperor's New Groove DVD (Boom Baby!). I plugged the whole thing together, pressed Play, and waited to be amazed.

Everything seems to work well except for one thing: the video image fluctuates. It alternates between 10 seconds of clear picture, slowly degrades to 15 seconds of shaky darker picture, and back again. Crap.

I'm suspecting that the problem resides in the fact that I had to wire the DVD player through the VCR 'cause the TV doesn't have the modern video/audio plugs (it only has the one entry plug for the cable). I'm going to visit Panasonic's website to see if they have any troubleshooting suggestions. But if you have any insights, please email me.

This degradation only happens when I play video DVDs; there's no degradation to the default DVD image when I play audio CDs or MP3s. So the problem is either with the DVD itself (easy to fix), the player (easy to fix), or with my DVD/VCR configuration (harder to fix).

Dagnabbit!

Thursday, January 03, 2002

Not a good sign, is it?

There are days when it's not even worth chewing through the ropes in the morning.

This morning, as I was making myself presentable in the bathroom, I tried to open the medicine cabinet when the mirror on the front of it came loose, banged me in the head, and shattered on the floor.

Crap. And just to start the next seven years of bad luck with a bang, a glass shard slid into the heel of my foot. I spent the next 45 minutes trying to dig it out, which then made me late for work.

And now I'm at work and there's almost no one here, which makes it all the harder to get my work done.

At least I get to go out and get the DVD player I wanted for Yule. That'll be something to look forward to! Boom Baby!