Another song from the same shoot…

The British invasion is starting to reach their 70’s. Today is Cream/Blind Faith drummer Ginger Baker’s 70th birthday.

Happy Birthday Ginger!

Today is one of those weird days when I have nothing to talk about. Nothing to bitch about, nothing to complain about, nothing to whine about. It’s really weird.

All this week I have been going into work an hour early and getting out at 4:30 instead of 5:30. It’s a little one-week-per-summer-benefit they give us. On top of that, yesterday I had a dentist appointment at 4:45 so I took a half day and left work at noon.

The dentist canceled the appointment. I went to Home Depot and bought a couple of new metal garbage barrels to replace our half eaten plastic one. (the squirrels did a number on it. Hopefully they aren’t genetically superior squirrels, like the black squirrels in my parent’s yard, who can eat through metal.) I need to get some bungee chords to hold the covers down and some spray paint to paint our address on them. Two things I could have done yesterday but just plain forgot.

Since I was home without a dentist appointment I was able to get the kids at day care and bring them to karate class. There was almost an hour of free time in the middle so we went to a play ground in Salem and they had a good time climbing all over stuff while Robbie stressed over the thousands of ways they could have gotten hurt. Of course they didn’t get hurt at all.

I got a treat at karate too. We were under the impression that now that the kids are in the big kids karate class parents are not allowed to sit and watch like they could at the little kid’s class. I had planned to drop them off and drive across the street to dunkin donuts and grab a soda and a table and read a book for half an hour before going to pick them up. Instead they asked the teacher if I could stay and he said yes… which now makes sense seeing as there were 4-5 other grown ups watching the class as well.

When we got home mom had made us dinner. A dinner from my past, as it were. When I was younger my mother used to make us something she called Toutins. Here’s what you do. Put some oil in a pan and put it on the stove. Take a big ball of pizza dough and rip off a few hand fulls and drop them into the oil. Flip ’em a few times and when they are brown on both sides you eat them. How that is different from fried dough I don’t know. What I do know is that they are yummy and the kids really liked them.

What do you know, Toutins are a Newfie thing! From wikipedia:

Toutin (or Tiffin or Touton) is a Newfoundland term for a dough cake fried in fat and made from fresh bread dough which was normally in excess of the amount needed to fill loaf pans. It has many terms and spelling depending on the community in which people of Newfoundland were from. Some of the more common spellings of toutin is toutan, touten, touton, and towtent.[1] It also had some colorful names such as damper dogs or damper devils which was in direct reference to how the toutin was cooked, on the damper of a stove fueled by natural combustible materials such as firewood and coals.

Depending on where one is in the province, there are many other colorful names including fantails, gandies, posies etc.

Tonight Jen and I are going to my parent’s house to play the ol’ car swap game again. We had Jen’s Saturn in the shop for problems with the wheels last week. This week it is going back in to have the breaks done. My folk’s will let us borrow one of their cars until we get our car back. That is a sweet deal and I can’t thank my parents enough for it. Thanks!

What else, what else… This weekend is a kid weekend so we won’t be cleaning up the playroom or the office. I might try to move their computer desk from point A to point B anyway. Next weekend is a kids weekend too due to their taking a trip to Pennsylvania with their dad last weekend. They saw the Liberty Bell, and the bridge of the USS Enterprise D, which apparently lives in Philly.

Do you see what happened here? Why is it that when I clearly have nothing to complain about I just write something in order to have something and it ends up being a pretty long post? Funny how that happens, isn’t it?

Mashable reported today that the iPhone is about to become the most used camera on Flickr.

People are able to use their iPhone, or other smart phone, to take a picture and immediately upload it to the site. No wires or computer middlemen needed, just take it and post it.

It also means that the overall quality of pictures on Flickr is dropping fast. The 3G has a two megapixel camera, the 3GS has a 3 megapixel camera. The soon-to-be-supplanted-#1-camera, the Canon Digital Rebel series, start at about 10 megapixels and have ass kicking lenses and unreal features that would allow even a hack like me to take really good pictures now and then. The iPhone? Not so much. So the result is Flickr will host many many more pictures that are of a much crappier quality.

I’ll take the blame for this one. Look at all these crappy pictures I’ve uploaded off of my iPhone. I have a whole set!

And because I am a picture whore, here are a few hi(low)lights.

I started a group called iPhone Astrophotography which proves I’m the only twit in the universe who takes cheesy astronomy themed pictures with his iPhone.

I’m working a half day today due to a Dentist appointment (grrrrrrrr). I have a shit load of errands to run too, but I am hoping I will be able to spare a few minutes to take my camera to the Spicket River waterfall in Methuen and grab a shot or two. Keep your fingers crossed.

I’m a little confused… and I think I might be way out of date with my info…

So… A bunch of people from Mystery Science Theater 3000 have a new Internet mail order DVD project called Cinematic Titanic which basically is MST3K under a different name. I knew that, I’ve seen a few of the DVDs, it’s awesome and you should love it.

What I did not know, is that three other former cast members/writers from MST3K have a separate project doing exactly the same thing called RiffTrax. RiffTrax apparently shows less mercy upon the Hollywood elite by destroying big budget block busters instead of mostly forgotten B movies. In fact, I just watched a clip of them hammering away brilliantly on Star Wars Episode III.

What brought this second slice of brilliance pie to my attention? @BadAstronomer on twitter posted that there was going to be a RiffTrax movie event. Here is the link to the announcement.

In short, you will be able to go to a cinema near you to see a simulcast of the guys riffing on none other than the worst movie ever made, Plan 9 from Outer Space. This is incredibly cool, although not as cool as the Cinematic Titanic group going on tour about a year ago… that was cooler… I wonder if there is animosity between the two groups. Lawsuits and name calling and what not.

Still, as coolness goes, this ranks exceptionally high. Especially when the target film is the atrociously horrible Plan 9. On the awesome scale from 1-10 this clocks in at about a 2,000.

We won’t be going, but if you can get there you should. Here is a link to the list of participating theaters. For those of you who live near me, the best bet looks like the AMC in Burlington, MA.

Good luck getting tickets and laugh your ass off.

It’s here. Turn by turn directions from a name brand for the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The new TomTom GPS application is now available.

It’s expensive. The US version is selling for $99.99. It’s also huge. At 1.21 gigs it would eat up over 15% of my phone’s memory. Hopefully by the time I need to upgrade my phone they’ll be selling 120 gig models. That’s what I call drool worthy.

Here’s a video of the app in use… sort of. At least you’ll get to see what it looks like, even if you don’t really see it in action.

I’m not getting it because we already have a GPS system for any trips we might go on. (we named it Dorothy, as in click your heels three times to get home) If, however, you are in the market for one it looks like it’s cheaper than a stand alone model, and it’s on your iPhone which gives it 50 times the coolness points.

Should I put adds on this page?

Should I?

I can do it real easy with Google. In fact there is a link on the dashboard for Blogger that is called Monetize.

I have held off doing it because I’m a hippie rocker, not a sell out corporate stooge. I have also held off doing it because only four people (including me) actually read this. (Hi Jen, Hi Mary, Hi Chris)

What to do, what to do.

7:00am… it already feels like it’s 120 degrees in the house.

Is there an additional air conditioner purchase in our future?

Could be.

A couple of years ago my friend Larry started some huge renovations on his house. He completely rebuilt the second floor, moving everything he could to the first floor. He didn’t quite have enough room downstairs though and asked for some help in storing stuff.

He asked me to hold onto his very swanky Korg SP-100 electric piano. I agreed and took it to my house and put it into the computer room. I never played it, but I held onto it, and it’s cool so it was nice to look at.

Shortly after that I moved out into Chez ‘Plex and the piano stayed where it was. Jen’s kids however had begun taking piano lessons. They had a keyboard to practice on at their father’s house, but not at our house.

Over the last few weeks their teacher has been getting on us about making them practice. Well, one plus one equals two and now Larry’s piano is in our office so the kids can play piano when their here too.

Very swanky.