10/6

So I spent from last wednesday to this monday morning in seattle visiting my brother, eric, in seattle. The trip was a blast, got to eat lots of good food, hang out with his fun friends, etc. My brother now lives in a warehouse, which is about as strange and amazing as you can imagine. The bathroom has certified urinals (which I told eric i wouldn’t post pictures of, but it’s too tempting):

the main space has a lab (which was built by my brother and friends and is still under construction):

and outside in the hallway is a ‘payphone’ built by my brother which is free to make local and long distance calls, and is powered by VoIP:

While I was there, my brother purchased a set of wireless speakers. Upon openning the box, we discovered that they actually used bluetooth, but no matter how much poking was done, we were unable to actually access the bluetooth other than using the USB dongle provided with the speakers. When plugged into a windows laptop, the device merely shows up as a USB audio device, and a HID device for the buttons:

I did some kernel hacking, and after poking for quite a while, and eventually only needing about 10 changed lines of code, got both the USB audio (minus the mixer for some reason) and the HID device working under linux. Audio, and the play/pause, next, previous buttons all just jived. Sadly, I no longer have access to the device, so i’m not sure when I might find time to clean up the patches and submit them.

Played a few 9×9 games of Go with my brother’s friend di5ide (pronounced ‘divide’) while I was up there, which made me realized how much I missed playing the game. Gotta find some folks down here in SoCal to have some games with. This may be one of the harder things to accomplish out here. Anybody in the LA area and down for a game?

Before you jump on me with the “But you just b*tched about xmas coming early two posts ago!!!!” comment, just hear me out.

This weekend I put together a xmas package to send to my step brother who’s currently doing his 2nd stint in Iraq. Now, I tend to stay away from politics, but it’s no surprise (i am a hippy after all) that I’m not at all happy with the current administrations BS wars, etc, etc. The fact is politics be d*mned, the reality is there’s a *lot* of guys over there right now that won’t get to see family for the holidays.

So as a random plea to anyone reading, get off the couch and send someone you know who’s over there a xmas package. It doesn’t have to be a relative; the odds are you know a friend, a relative of a friend, whoever, that is in the military and serving in either Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

Here’s what I’m mailing out tomorrow:

• 2x cans of good soup
• 2x boxes of rigatoni - my step brother has a small stove he can cook on.
• 2x good leather gloves - Apparently they go through gloves at an insane rate.
• 2x black licorice chews - Gotta appease the sweet tooth.
• 1x box of coffee singles - Great easy way to get a pickup.

The general requirements my step mother gave me were: non-perishable and stuff that won’t melt. No chocolate chip cookies, sadly. USPS has a ‘flat rate’ box you can get that something like $7 to ship priority mail to anywhere, which apparently includes FPO addresses. The box is roughly 14″x4″x13″ and holds a decent amount of stuff. You’ll have to fill out a customs slip, but a little more paperwork can’t kill ya.

DO IT.

Update: Oh, and I’m posting/mailing this *now*, because the average time to get a package there is about 3 weeks, and is probably more around the holidays.

This is the t-shirt i’m planning on making (rough draft):

You scored as Maximus. After his family was murdered by the evil emperor Commodus, the great Roman general Maximus went into hiding to avoid Commodus’s assassins. He became a gladiator, hoping to dominate the colosseum in order to one day get the chance of killing Commodus. Maximus is valiant, courageous, and dedicated. He wants nothing more than the chance to avenge his family, but his temper often gets the better of him. Maximus 71% Batman, the Dark Knight 63% Captain Jack Sparrow 54% El Zorro 54% Neo, the "One" 54% Indiana Jones 50% The Amazing Spider-Man 46% William Wallace 46% James Bond, Agent 007 42% Lara Croft 42% The Terminator 38%

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

The title comes from a banner that was being marched around in the wonderful move, Brazil by Terry Gilliam. I quoted that recently in a comment on Noah’s blog, and it must have been some wierd premonition on my part.

Lo and behold, what do I find when walking into the starbucks this morning to buy the NY Times (the only reason I can justify starbucks’ existance is the fact that they give me my crossword puzzle fix when all else fails)? XMAS DECORATIONS. And not just one or two things, I”m talking about every employee in red and green outfits, big red bows everywhere, xmas CDs on the counter, everything.

FFS, IT’S TWO WEEKS BEFORE THANKSGIVING!

Looks like it’s time to go hide in a cave for 2 months til this mass, glorified consumerism subsides for another 10 months before the buy-machine kicks in again.

Gratuitous pimping of someone else’s blog: Long time upstate friend noah massimo now has a blog up at http://www.powderedham.com/. Funny sh*t served up in powdered form.

I’m now the proud owner of an dark blue ‘02 VW Jetta. Paid a bit more than I wanted to for a car, but at least it’s dealt with and out of the way. Now i just need to get my ipod (which bit the dust recently) fixed so i can listen to something other than orange county radio on my way to and from work.

Having a ping pong table in the dining room is a glorious thing. I can’t say as I’ve won a majority of the games (or even 1/4 of the games), but it’s still an amazing things to play a few games at either midnight, or 10 AM. Talk about clinging onto one’s childhood.

I’m visiting my brother Eric in Seattle for Thanksgiving. Should be good times, I’ve not seen him since early summer.

Going to the gym is really rewarding (if only psychologically). The past few weeks I’ve been running on the ellipticals at the gym in my apartment complex, and I’ve been moderately enjoying it. The ellipticals are definitely a big plus, as the perpetual problems I have with my knees (thanks to ultimate) and my back (thanks to heritage, bailing snowboarding last season, and only recently consistenly stretching it) makes running less than pleasant.

I’m looking forward to rolling around in the snow when i come east for xmas time. I dig the weather out here on the west coast, but my swedish blood demands snow!

NP: Magnetic Fields - Epitaph For My Heart