Apple Turns 30

Apple computer will be turning 30 today, April 1, 2006. I switched over faithfully a few years back after my dear friend Phil Barash purchased a redesigned iBook G3 in 2001. Weeks later, I purchased a 17" iMac G4 and a month or so after that, I picked up a clamshell iBook G3 from a student who desperately needed money before a holiday break.

Since then, I've picked up a number of Mac related products... so many that my friend Ted has kiddingly said that I take them in like stray cats.

Here's to you Apple. Happy Birthday.

.rolliefromhispowerbook.

Ivan

It's 10 till 11:00PM, March 30th... my parents have just walked out the front door in hopes of finding our pet dog (of 11 years), Ivan, before the house breaks for bed.

The day, as one could imagine... has been incredibly stressful, for me and especially my parents. While away in Detroit (the past 10 years), Ivan became a very important part of my immediate family. My parents spent many an afternoon, speaking with the dog when they weren't able to spend time with me because of the distance...

When I got word this morning that the dog was missing from the back yard, I assumed that he had run down the block in search of local dog in season.

Morning turned to lunch... lunch time into afternoon... afternoon until now. An hour or so before midnight.

We've done all the imaginable things we could do... contact local dog pound and humane societies in hopes of hearing of his capture. We've spoke to a number of neighbors in hopes of clues to his whereabouts.

My father spoke to a neighbor (several houses down) about her dog (a female, Husky like Ivan) that too is missing...

At the moment, I hope that he'll return by morning.
He's never been away this long...

My only wish is that he's safe where ever he may be.

Red Mosquito

Have to quickly plug a guilty pleasure of mine this afternoon... while looking for some information on the soon to be released Pearl Jam album (self-titled Pearl Jam),...I noticed a forum area on the Sky I Scrape website called "Red Mosquito".


For anyone who hasn't bothered with picking up a Pearl Jam album since Vitalogy (the cd that's likely sticking out of your music collection like a sore thumb), "Red Mosquito" is the name of a strange track on my favorite Pearl Jam album, No Code.

The forum (message board) isn't all that different from a number of other boards I frequent... It's however become one of my hourly *must-visit* web staples in the past 72 hours. I guess I'm still a pretty hardcore Pearl Jam fan deep down inside.

Leaked artwork for the upcoming Pearl Jam, album Pearl Jam

Evil Me?

Had a funny picture of myself surface at the office today... a few weeks ago, a photographer at the paper was tying to work on a remote-flash-device before he covered a local sporting event. I was asked to stand in a dimly lit news with a remote flash in a empty lunch box.

Here's me in all my evilness.

Kathie's Birthday

Want to send birthday wishes to the love of my life, Katheryn in San Antonio this morning... I'm currently 4 hours south from her at work, but I'll be up there in 2 days to spoil her with gifts & kindness for being the greatest thing to ever happen to me.

A year ago, Kathie and I were worlds apart, with me still in Detroit... I don't know how we managed to get through the distance then. I can assure you that it was her love and paitence to tolerate the circumstances.

This one is for you my love. I hope you know how much I cherish you. I'll see you in 2 days.

Love,
Rollie

Art Brut

While securing several cd's in anticipation of Katheryn's birthday (March 29th), I splurged a bit on me'self and ordered an import copy of Art Brut'shype-heavy, debut effort "Bang Bang Rock & Roll"...

As luck would have it, 2 days after receiving the album in the mail, Pitchforkmedia has announced that they've agreed to have their album released stateside and those interested can wait a month or so and not vest 20+ dollars on said album.


With that suggestion out of the way... The Art Brut album is an interesting spin... I've avoided a lot of the reviews for the album, fearing that it would shape a sound in my head before my initial listen. The album reminds me a bit of Wire, the Stranglers, the Libertines and nuck-nuck delivery of Weezer. While that's great company to be in... I'm not sure where the album sits with me. There's moments on it that I know are really admirable.... It's a punk record that delivers on the promise of the first cut of the album... "we've formed a band", a quirky song about the band, deciding to form-a-band.

There's a great lyric in the first song that reads something to the effect of..

"we're gonna be the band
that writes the song
that makes Israel and
Palestine get along..."

My recommendation to anyone reading this entry, is to wait for the album to drop stateside.... a must-pick-up if you can score a copy for under 10 bucks. Keep in mind, I'm having a bit of a hard time these days trying to get used to music in my new environment.

In Detroit, I spent the Winters and early spring listening to specific genre's of music that felt a lot like the weather outside. The weather in South Texas has tipped into the 90's a few times this (i hesitate to say the word) Spring, and I don't know if I'm ready for up-beat-music just yet...

I have a strange feeling tho' that this record will get played quite a bit over the Summer tho'.

.RollieinSouthTexas.

Soprano's talk

Tony's officially out of his coma... a welcomed relief after the strange story arch that began in last week (episode 67)... While out, Silvio had a brief moment as acting-skipper... he completely freaked under the circumstances and had to also check into a hospital. For a very brief moment, the family began to wonder what would happen if Tony and Silvio were both to expire... Vito (whom I have getting clipped in 3 episodes or less) makes another strange plea on camera to try and get support to move up the ranks to Boss. Like anyone else wouldn't shoot Vito for a nickel.

I don't know how (or when) the demise of Vito will come... but I think he's going to get outed by Medow's boyfriend for his homosuspicious ways.


Best part of Sunday's episode was the Slasher/Godfather movie pitch, where the assembled family members waxed on nuances of "horror".

Classic.

.rCr.

Ticonderoga

While cleaning up my desktop at home today, ran across a photo that I meant to blog about a few weeks ago... Had to use a pencil at work the other day. Went back to the Office supply closet and check out what I scored.

This is a Dixon Ticonderoga pencil.



You're probably saying to yourself. Big fucking whoop. Check out the font used for "BLACK"

Is that totally the same font used in...



Or pretty damn close?

I think so.

.damaged.

Mum turns 46

Father, Sister and I assembled early this morning to celebrate my Mother's 46th birthday... Made it a point to procure a funny birthday card and a fist full of my mothers favorite *scratch-lotto-tickets* to tear into over breakfast. Of the 5 tickets I purchased her this morning, she made out with a $104.00 in winnings. While the gesture sounds a tad tasteless, my mother gets an energetic thrill when scratching up tickets. Of the $104, she withdrew $102 of back in cash and requested another scratch ticket before we broke for an early brunch. While at the pub, the extra ticket drew in an extra $9 dollars. Lady luck appears to be on her side today...

My sister made quite splash this morning with her "flower cake" bouquet. I've never seen anything quite like it before... Called Kathie minutes after I saw it, but she gave me the impression that the idea was anything but new.



Mother was anything but amused.



If all goes well, the 4 of us will head down to Brownsville for dinner and drinks this evening.

.rCr.

Voxtrot: March 31st

If all goes well, Kathie and I will get a chance to check out my latest band crushes...
At the Sanctuary, in San Antonio Texas on March 31st. There's a couple of loose ends that both Kathie and I will have to tie down before we assure our attendence, but I feel fairly certain that we'll make it up to the show.

I don't know how long it's been since Kathie's had a chanec to catch a live act, but it feels like EONS since I've had a chance to catch a band the size of Voxtrot live... Don't know very much about the Venue, nor do I know very much about the sceenster sceen in S.A., but I'll have a full report on the evening and pics up no later than the 1st of April.

werd,
.rCr.
"is this the start of something really beautiful?" - Voxtrot

Down Goes Duke

When I was about 8 years of age, I had a friend who lived 4 houses down my street have a Blue and White miniature Duke Blue Devil basketball... I didn't really understand who let me basketball all that much back then. My father had seemed to have a rooting interest for Georgetown back then, but I think that had more to do for his support for John Thompson Jr. and his style of basketball. My rooting interest in Duke then had more to do with them having a "Blue Devil" for a mascot and their use of Blue, my favorite color.

It didn't take very long for my favorite team to reach the Final Four... they lost the title game to Louisville in 1986... only to get back to the Four in 88, 89 and again the title game in 1990, but loosing viciously to UNLV.

Things changed however in 1991... Duke went back to the Final Four - Defeated the then Undefeated UNLV (defending champs), in route to smashing the Fab Five from Michigan for their first NCAA championship. A second banner followed the following year...

Since then, Duke has been compared to "the Yankees" in basketball... a claim that I don't particularly agree with... Both UConn and North Carolina have had comparable success since 2001, but if there's one team to hate in College Basketball, it's Duke.

For the most part... the shit doesn't bother me. I'm not a bandwagon fan. I followed the team foolishly when they couldn't get over the hump in the 1980's and I've supported them without fail for 20 years.

My love for them is so blind that I foolishly choose them to go all the way when brackets come out every March, but that's because I truly believe that they could get the job done. This year wasn't any different and I really felt good about their chances to get to the title game in Indianapolis.
Unfortunately for me, Duke and J.J. Reddick (possibly the finest Duke player I've seen play since Grant Hill) LSU had different plans and eliminated my Duke Blue Devils from the 2006 NCAA Tourney.

Unprovoked mind you. Sure... I mentioned to several people around the news desk thatIf that wasn't rough enough... Your's truly got to come to work and have his desk decorated with AP photo's of the Duke team in tears and LSU garb on my terminal. All of this is I was a unapologetic Duke fan and that I thought they could go all the way... but if my Blue Devils beat the Longhorns on the way to the Final Four, would I have decorated everyone desk with pictures of Duke clipping down the nets in Atlanta?

Unlikely.

Anyhoo... I had Duke, UCLA, UConn and Boston College in the Final Four this year with Duke beating UCon in the Final.

I'll be cheering on George Mason or the lowest seed in the tourney from here on out.

LSU sucks,
RollieinSouthTejas

Rollie VS the Cats

In recent weeks... I've had a few problems with some local alley cats in my neighborhood. They've taken a liking to hanging around my car at night... specifically the tires. I don't really know why they've come to like my car so much. Kathie suggested that they leave their scent on the tires for procreation...

edit
Katheryn got around to reading my blog this morning and she informed me that it was MY IDEA about cats, tires and procreation and not her...

This still doesn't explain why the cats don't like their owners cars (tires, whatnot) more than they do mine, but I can accept this as an occurrence in the circle of life.

What I'm not willing to accept is the recent behavior of the alley cats when I walk out to my car in the mornings. As I walk out to the driveway, the cats seem to sit around with their backs faced at my front door until I appear in the morning. They then for some strange reason feel the need to dart (at full sprint) towards me (my ankles) and bush/bump up against me!

It's really fucking weird and no one I talk to ever seems to believe me. This morning I walked out to the car and I had my camera handy to take a photo of the freakish occurrence. Seconds after taking this first photo, the cat opted to run in the opposite direction.

I'll capture it on film tho'. Needn't you worry about that.

.rollie 0.
.cat 1.

Rain?

Rained yesterday for the first time since October 2005, here in South Texas... Below is a photo taken by Christy Espinosa/Valley Morning Star



I managed to miss most of the rainfall... I was inside for a good part of the day and I don't have any accessible windows to day dream out of.

.sigh.

Getting serious about Sirius

Took my car over to "D-Tronics" yesterday in hopes of having Sirius radio installed on my "XM Ready" factory stereo... I wasn't too optimistic, seeing that Honda and XM probably installed a number of proprietary problems for me to do the desired instillation. A tech-guy at D-Tronics confirmed my fears and informed me that there weren't any in-dash install kits for the Civic '06 just yet...

I'm quite fond of the interior of my car. I'm not sure if I want to gut out the factory stereo to install a stereo/cd player/with Sirius radio at the expense of losing it's cosmetic appeal. At this point I think I really want to sit back and see what Apline does with iPod Video integration... On one extreme, the idea of installing a Mac mini with Front Row capabilities on 7" touch screen - is a MUST. I read about someone doing this very instillation a year or so ago in a GTi VW.

This is one extreme thought... but I don't know if my vehicle deserves that type of tech heavy geekery...

I ran the idea of installing a Mac Mini in the Civic by Kathie last night on my drive back from D-Tronics... and I got the idea that the money used for said instillation would be better spent on things such as our upcoming 2 year anniversary.

Oh well... I guess Stern will have to wait for a few more months.

... rollie in south texas.

"Tony in a Coma. i know, i know... its serious"

Caught the second episode of the new Soprano season on Tivo last night after having dinner with my family last night... Sorta glad that I made arrangements to catch a taping of the show... with the exception of Carmela's performance in the show, it was 60 minutes of the Sopranos tying to be "Twin Peaks"...

While having a pint with my dear friend Donald last Friday, he pitched the idea that viewers saw the last episode of the Soprano's on week one. He proposed that the show was 12 or so months after the conclusion of Season 5 and that we would see what happened in between those months in reverse order... That theory got blown out of the water, 5 seconds into the second episode of Season 6, with Tony Soprano laid out in a hospital bed.

Don't really know where the story arch will go from here... Doctors were very cold to Carmella and Medow when they asked about their father's chances. In an interesting turn, A.J. swore to shoot Uncle Junior for doing this to his father... A rather strange decision from a character who seems to embody generation "Y" and little else.
Whats up with Vito Spatafore? A minor character who climbed the ranks to captain because of strange circumstances... is pissing everyone (specifically viewers) off because of his on camera antics and off page secrets. I wonder what the over/under is on Vito's life right now... I'd put it at 4 episodes right now and I'd like to eagerly take the under. If there's any justice, they'll rub him out in the next episode as the family begins to jockey for control of the family.

.rCr.

St. Patrick's Day

Woke up this morning with a fierce case of Detroit home sickness... something that doesn't occur all that much, but there's really nothing like being in Detroit for St. Patrick's Day.

Unlike South Texas, there's really no watering hole to visit on March 17th. In Detroit, I had a short list of 6 bars that I absolutely had to vist before making it over to the Gaelic League to meet up with friends I wouldn't normally get together with throughout the year.

Just checked out the wonderful Detroit Blog to get some St. Patty updates in Motown. Like always, the site never fails... hopefully he'll take some photos of people getting together downtown for drinks and the occasional car tipping.

Couple of other things I look hella-forward to on St. Patrick's day:

The Boston Red Sox in their green uniforms... I forget whom they're playing today, with day 2 of March Madness and all... below is a photo of Schill getting it done a few years back.

The other thing I look hella forward to is ABC Warehouse's St. Patrick's day commercial! I haven't been able to find a copy of it on the net... If all goes well, someone will realize that it's not up at You Tube and get it up there with the quickness...

.rollieinsouthTejas.

RSS ready

Just got word that RSS functionality is now up and running properly for September29th.com

Rock it if you're into getting the updates that way...

Sycho

So... I'm one of 40 possible people whom made it a point to watch the second episode of Top Chef on Tuesday night and I gotta tell you... If there's any reason to tune in to Top Chef, it's to catch Stephen's psycho reactions when he isn't selected as the overall winner in the weekly competitions.

If you see it on Bravo over the weekend, tune in and check out his facial expressions when Madam S. gets into his "personal space".

-rCr-

Jaime to the resuce...

Good friend and old roommate Jaime S. of Matapop came to the rescue this evening and took care of my picture upload issue that I was having with Blogger. Visit his site and buy a few records.

.rCr.

PhotoUploads

So... Blogger took a bit of a dump on me this week. What I thought was a little glitch on my FTP, turns out that many people using blogger - are having problems with Photo Uploads this week.

Don't know when (or if) this will get resolved... I have a ton of photos and little stories that I hoped to put up this week. Figures. This stuff never happens when I stay away from this thing for weeks.

- Rollie

Phoenix Wright

Secured a copy of Phoenix Wright yesterday... after months and months of tireless EBGame vists, NCSX.com had a few in stock which are slated for European release next month.

Marshall Grill?

While cropping photos of my grill this morning… I got around to thinking about what I should nickname her… While this practice may seem really strange to people, I go out of my way to nickname my belong-ings. In recent years I've gone out of my way to nickname items (specifically gadgets) after characters or places in Wes Anderson movies.

Some quick examples:

Apple eMate: "Pagoda" (Kumar Pallana's character in The Royal Tenenbaums)
2006 Honda Civic: "Margot" (Gwyneth Paltrow's character also in the Royal Tenenbaums)
My wireless network at home is "375 St. YMCA" (fictional local in Royal T's)

The nicknames aren't all restricted to the Royal T's…

I nicknamed Kathie's new iMac "Belafonte" after the ship in The Life Aquatic
I nicknamed my USB Jumpdrive "MisterLittleJeans" (Kumar Pallana's character in Rushmore)
My printer is nicknamed "Max Fisher" (Jason Schwartzman's character in Rushmore)

Anyhoo… I nickname everything. I nicknamed the acoustic guitar I learned to play on "Patas" ("feet" in Spanish"), I call one of my bowling balls "Grover" after the Muppet because of its blue shell… I could go on and on… but I think you get the point.

While cropping the photos of my grill this morning I thought about cool things I could call her… Nothing quickly came to mind… I thought about crossing out Jacqueline on the back of the grill and painting "DEEP SEARCH" or "DEEP GRILL" on the back as a nod to The Life Aquatic… but it would only feel right if I went to the trouble of painting my new grill school bus yellow.

I then thought about how cool it would be if I could remove the "Char Broil" logo from the front of the grill and replace it with the Marshall amp logo on it… Something about the Marshall script font on the bottom right of my grill seemed appropriate in my head… The biggest problems at hand:



1: Marshall name plates, at least the ones I've touched, are made of white plastic. This will be problematic on a hot grill.

2. I have to secure a logo-plate in an appropriate size so that it's proportional to the size of the grill.



I instantly thought about Badge Maker a company in Canada that makes metal plates for Scoot-ers… but I may have to pay a bit of a premium for the desired work I have in mind.



I approached a co-worker/musician in hopes of finding a metal Marshall nameplate this afternoon… He informed me that Marshall logo plates were made of brass metal circa 1972 and could possibly secure one from a local music shop!

This however leads me to problem number 3.

If I can secure a metal Marshall plate for my grill… I have to figure out a way to put a volume knob on it that goes to 11.


.rCr.

Greatest Monday... Ever

There's very few Monday's I look forward to in the work year… but the Monday following "Selection Sunday" is the very Monday I look forward to. In years past, I've spent these days trying to hide my bracket from others in the work place while trying to map out my pool picks. One of the many perks about working for a newspaper is getting to openly look at brackets within our paper and others throughout the country. Just when I thought today couldn't get any cooler… I just realized that we get to see all of the Day 1 and 2 action from the workplace, thanks to having televisions set to the games throughout the workplace.

Making this Monday hella-cooler, last night the Sopranos began their 6th season with one of the best epi-sodes in recent memory. The beginning of the episode was a little weird… but once the show got some traction it really began to take off. Especially towards the end when Uncle Junior shoots Tony in the stomach.

As luck would have it… the work-mates who enjoy Bracket Monday and the Soprano's as much as I do, are out until 4:00PM today. Shouldn't complain tho'… while sitting here mulling over my picks and last night's Soprano developments, I've had a chance to watch the World Baseball Classic on TV.

This could possibly be the greatest Monday @ Work… ever.

.rCr.

Weekend Wrap Up

It's a little after 10:00 AM CST in South Texas… The last 4 days have been very dizzying. Left Friday morning for San Antonio in hopes of getting some rest Friday night before I got around to some much needed lawn care at Kathie's house on Saturday (more on that later).

Kathie and I woke up Saturday in hopes of finding a decent washing machine for her new place… We've had some nightmarish luck with a variety of appliances in recent weeks, but none of it can touch the hell that we've encountered with the washer and dryers at our new place…. The "old washer" officially crapped out on us and we decided to purchase a new one Saturday morning. I know a precious fuck-all about said appliances. If washers came with a flat screen TV's on them, I would have been a bit more help, so we went to a local Home Depot to get some information and lucked out by finding a great deal on a Washer we both thought would be an ideal purchase… It occurred to us both however that we didn't have a truck (or a friend with the afternoon off to help us out) to take it home so I made arrangements with Home Depot to rent one from them to take our new washer home.

Because of the fabulous savings on the washer… Kathie was kind enough to purchase me a lovely grill for our upcoming 2-year anniversary. The grill fits just about every possible need that Katheryn and I need for summer cook outs. I spent a solid hour and a half on Saturday treating the steel with corn oil before I got around to using it Saturday night…

After unloading the washer and grill at the new place… returning the truck… securing lunch and setting up an old iBook at Kathie's for wireless access in the Kitchen/Living Room… I took a few hours on Saturday to catch up on some much needed yard work. I started the afternoon by taking care of a few WASP colonies that formed inside of our backyard work shed. I purchased a kick-ass can of eat-shit-bee's spray that could get the job done from 30ft away. The can worked as advertised… anyone with said problem should pick up Raid's offering for killing bees.

After killing the troublesome wasps, I raked the back yard for zanny shit that the previous owners left behind… bottle caps, destroyed toys, cotton balls that I think previous pets spread around when they got a hold of a comforter… Also got around to raking up many pieces of dog dookie that the previous dogs dropped throughout the back yard. Once that was done… I hoped to fertilize the back yard… but I got around to spraying the perimeter of house with Ant/Flea/and 14 other bug - poison so that Abbie, our dog, would feel a little more comfortable in the back yard.

All in all… I think it worked out OK. Kathie and I went to a local meat-market, picked out some choice meat(s) on Saturday for a small cook out at home. I won't get a chance to head back to San Antonio till April 1st to celebrate her belated birthday… but it will give us some time to figure out what we'll grill up next. If all goes well, we may even get to host my good friend Nano that day too.

.rCr.

Top Chef

Got a chance to watch the new Bravo show TopChef last night after watching the botched season finale of Project Runway last night...

Don't really know how well the show is going to do... They managed to get rid of the character that could have made the season a bit more interesting to watch in the first episode. There's also the limitation of not being able to sample any of the dishes that are being judged on... I don' know why this seemed to be such a stretch for me last night. I've seen countless episodes of Iron Chef and this never seemed to bother me... I guess it's upsetting because flavor was discussed a lot in the first episode.

Don't really know what to make of the Cast just yet... the most memorable character (to me at least) was Stephen Asprino... an ass-clown with a penchant for Japanese knives, fat ties and splashes of wine when ever awake. If there's any justice, he'll be sporting an ascot by the 4th episode.

-RollieInSouthTexas-

March 8th

Currently sitting at home... multitasking in some ways, trying to sort through some papers that I need to fill out before I break for San Antonio on Friday.... while streaming a Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah show on NPR.com... while I TIVO Project Runway.

I'm feeling really out of it at the moment... Last night I didn't get out of the newsroom until 1:40AM. We had local primaries... so I got to see first hand what election nites at Newspapers were like.

Admittedly, it was one of the best work sessions that I've ever put in at the Valley Star. I'm feeling a little off today because of the little sleep I got last night.

Left the newsroom a little early to catch the US baseball team drop a "sure win" to the Canadian baseball team. The game got a little interesting when one of my favorite Red Sox players (Tek) hit a grandslam in the 6th (i think?) to close a 6 run gap to an eventual 2 run loss...

Since then, I've been moping around house... looking up silly information like the cost benefits of getting DirectTV over my current TimeWarner headlock.

The ClapYourHands stream hasn't started just yet... Project Runway is about to begin shortly. If there's any justice, the silly judges will cut "Santino" at his miserable knees this evening. I don't know why I'm so obsessed with the show... I spent a lazy Sunday a few weeks back watching 7 back-to-back episodes of a show that my g/f begged me to watch on Wednesday nites but I couldn't find myself submitting...

agh.. the concert and show have both begun!

.rollietask.