I Like…

August 27, 2008

I like big houses in fancy neighborhoods.

Thinking About Another Redesign

August 24, 2008

I’ve been pretty happy with the current state of cleverswine.net, but I think it’s time for a redesign. I would like to de-emphasize the blogging portion of the site and instead create something more like a portal. I use quite a few web sites that provide activity feeds (Facebook, Delicious, Amazon, Netflix, Last.fm, and Flickr to name a few). Since I rarely blog anything of interest, I’m thinking that the main content on cleverswine.net should be a summary of my online activity (a la FriendFeed). That way, it’s constantly being updated and it gives more insight into me than my shallow blog entries. To take it even further, I’d like to be able to annotate my activity (I may be able to utilize FriendFeed for that). I still want to have a traditional blog, it just wouldn’t be the main focus.

Some other things I’d like to incorporate:
*An image gallery, rather than just linking to Flickr.
*A better “Project” page, where I can more easily showcase code and projects.
*A better “Music” page, where I can post songs with annotations.
*Be able to tag different elements on the site (not just blogs) and have a nice tag cloud.

So many ideas… None of this will happen in the near future, as I have enough on plate at the moment, but I will be doing some research on the matter. I’d like to stick with Wordpress, and I think that will work out.

Posted in Hacking, WebSite No Comments »

Batting Stance Guy

August 12, 2008

Being a web developer and active browser of the web for many years now, I see a lot of wasted web space (including this web site). I would venture to say that 90% of web sites out there are useless and/or uninteresting, or just a rehash of other web sites that are slightly more interesting.

And then there’s Batting Stance Guy, which is the best use of the web that I’ve seen lately. This guy posts videos of himself imitating the batting stances of MLB players. He is right on with all of them, and it’s sometimes hilarious. I’m also really impressed with design of his web site. It’s simple, eye pleasing, and user friendly.

Speaking of baseball, the Houston Astros are at .500 on the season as of yesterday! They still have almost no chance of making the playoffs, but at least the season isn’t a complete disaster.

Posted in Humor, Sports No Comments »

Wedding Web Site

August 12, 2008

If anyone is wondering why they can’t find our wedding web site via this page, it’s because I purposely do not link to it from this page. If I were to put a link to that web site from here, the search engines would crawl and index it, which means that anyone in the world could easily find and visit our private wedding site. As a result, spammers would start posting comments, evil people would know all of our personal details, etc.

If you got an invitation, the web address is enclosed. You can also email us, or use the contact form on this site to ask where it is. Our gift registry is detailed on the wedding web site.

Gracias!

Posted in Wedding No Comments »

Weight Loss Truths

August 11, 2008

The truth hurts. I’ve been trying to lose weight for 8 months now, and I’ve lost nothing. None of these truths are surprising, yet I’ve ignored almost all of them. I will be pleasantly plump for my wedding.

1. You have to exercise more than you think. [I have to do what!?]
2. A half-hour walk doesn’t equal a brownie. [Doh!]

See the rest here.

Posted in Humor, Personal, Wedding No Comments »

2 Million People Like Me!

August 11, 2008

Good to know…

Posted in Humor, Politics No Comments »

Portland Beavers

August 3, 2008

We just got back from watching the Round Rock Express vs. the Portland Beavers. It was a good game! It was tied in the bottom of the 9th, and one of the Beavers hit a home run (almost) and the Express center fielder made an amazing catch over the wall to save the game. Then Reggie Abercombie hit a 3 run homer for the Express in the 11th and Fernando Nieve saved the game in the bottom of the 11th. Towles was catching, and he still can’t hit, but he made a great diving catch on a foul pop up.

Posted in Sports No Comments »

More Buying News

July 30, 2008

I’ve put my big buys on hold for now. I can’t decide what kind of car I want. I test drove the MINI Cooper and did not like it. It was too small, too noisy, and although the interior was pretty fancy, it felt cheap. As for the BMW and Audi, I can’t see spending $40k on a car when I can get one that works just as well for $20k. Needless to say, I have a lot of research left to do before I buy anything. The Honda Fit is now on my list.

Speaking of buying things, I just read about a new Dell mini PC (Dell Studio Hybrid), which would be great as a nice looking media PC connected to a television. It starts at $499, but by the time I added what I deemed to be necessary options, it was $1600. Anyway, I’ve already got a good media PC, but I’m always prepared to upgrade.

Posted in Gadgets, MiscTech 1 Comment »

Bystander Culture

July 29, 2008

I know it’s lame to duplicate a blog post from someone else, but I must quote what I saw on Jason Kottke’s web site today. I guess I’m one of the 5k at the moment.

Some days, the web feels like 5 people trying to make something; 5k people turning it into a list; and 500MM people saying, “FAIL.”

Posted in WebStuff No Comments »

Big Buys

July 22, 2008

I’ve got a couple of expensive items in my mental shopping cart.

My car is 8+ years old now, so I’m thinking it’s time for a new one. Since Bren has an SUV, I’m thinking small. Mini, in fact. Among the list of potential cars, the MINI Cooper S is currently at the top of the list. Also on the list is the Toyota Prius, Audi TT, and BMW 135i. The Audi and BMW are probably out because I can’t stand the thought of spending that much on an automobile.

The other thing is a new, larger TV. This one seems like a good deal. I’ve got to do a bit more research, but I think this is quite a good price for a 52″ LCD television.

Posted in Personal No Comments »

Bridal Veil

July 5, 2008

Went mailed off our wedding invitations from Bridal Veil, Oregon today. They have a tiny post office that has come to cater to the postal needs of wedding parties. After dropping off the invitations, we took a small hike around the Bridal Veil waterfall. Photos on flickr.

Posted in Personal, Wedding No Comments »

Baseball Defects

July 3, 2008

Since my favorite MLB baseball team is doing so badly this year, I’ve started to lose interest in watching professional baseball. It’s not fun to watch your team lose. As a result, I’ve brainstormed some ideas to make the game better.

The season is too long! 162 regular season games per team is just too much. Sure, it makes for better statistics, but modern man/woman doesn’t have the attention span for it anymore.

Get rid of inter-league play. This is debatable because I like inter-league play, but it seems unnecessary. Let each league fight it out against each other and then the best team from each league can play for the championship.
Have one 3 game series against each team in your league per season. That reduces the number of games to 45 (for the NL) and the best teams will still float to the top.
Shorten the playoffs. There are up to 19 games played per team in the playoffs (including the World Series). Why not let a 3 game series determine each playoff round? That seems sufficient enough to me to determine who should move on.
Shorten the World Series to 3 games, or maybe 5. The Superbowl is so popular because it’s one game on one specific day each year. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s ridiculous that a champion is determined by a single game, but a 7 game series drags on and you don’t know what day the winner will be determined.

How about if we stray from tradition to make the game more interesting?

NL: Either teach pitchers how to hit or use the DH. I tend to fast forward when a pitcher bats.
Change up the pitching rotation. What’s so great about having 5 starters, 3-4 middle relievers, and a closer? Why not have 10 pitchers who throw 2-3 innings each when appropriate?
Change up the batting order. I don’t have a suggestion here, but the batting order across all teams seems set in stone. Power hitters at the 3-4-5 spot, weak hitters in the 7-8 spot, pitcher in the 9 spot, etc. I’m not convinced that this is always the best way.
Don’t even think about instant replay. The human factor is one thing that baseball has going for it. There are bad calls here and there, but it all works out in the end. Who doesn’t enjoy watching a manager get ejected over a bad call?
Promote the players more. Why wasn’t Lance Berkman or Chipper Jones all over the front page during their amazing hitting streaks? Bret Favre is a superstar because he’s a good quarterback. Everyday people should be excited about the prospect of seeing Chase Utley or Hanley Ramirez play baseball.

That’s all I’ve got. Baseball is still the greatest sport on earth, but I fear that non-hardcore fans will eventually lose interest in the new, fast moving world.

Posted in Sports No Comments »

My Thoughts Exactly

July 2, 2008

From Portland Metblogs:

Why do people feel compelled to take a summer vacation - when everyone else is doing so - prices are higher - it’s hot and sticky and gross outside?
Read more here

Posted in Personal, Portland, Weather, WebStuff No Comments »

Real Interesting Stuff

June 28, 2008

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here, but I can’t say that I have anything real interesting to write about…

It’s 98 degrees in Gresham right now.

My contracting job is almost up, and we banged out this web site in 6 weeks: http://www.xrankcelebrity5.com/. There’s a good chance that I will stay and work full time for this company (Avenue A | Razorfish).

Bren is having her wedding dress altered today, or something like that. I’m staying inside the air-conditioned house.

We just finished watching “The Wire” seasons 1-4, and now we’re watching “Dexter“. The Wire was great, and so is Dexter so far.

I installed a plugin for Windows Media Center to watch Netflix Watch Now movies via the WMC interface. It’s nice.

The Astros are awful. They will be playing the BoSox again today. The Kansas City Royals are doing as well as the ‘Stros.

Posted in Humor, Personal, WebStuff, Wedding No Comments »