Please excuse our mess

Glenn may assume that this is all his doing, but really I've been contemplating it for a while. I'm going to move this mother off Blogger and use my own database / installation of WordPress. They also offer a fully hosted option but why bother when I can pull the database, php and content together myself on 1 host?

You can see the new blog at http://catspit.net/blog which is where you should also grab the new RSS / XML feed from. Please update your bookmarks!

I won't be posting back to the root directory of catspit.net any more, unless for some reason I find after using WordPress that I hate it and want to revert. At this time I'm not sure if there's a way I can pull all of the old archives in or not, but hope there is a way. Cheers.

Skills

I reckon I would give this a pretty good effort, but be about 4x slower than these guys. Very impressive police training from Japan. The slow speed / low radius turns are incredibly difficult. Except they're managing to do them with speed scraping metal all the way around. Excellent demonstration of bike control. Hooray for the Viffer!

Christmas

Hope everyone had a great break spent with the people who matter most to you. We had a fantastic time together and it was very lovely not to have to bother with all that travel malarkey for once.

Reasons to be cheerful

Today is the first day in a week I've felt at full force. While Kim is still under the weather we did nonetheless manage to have a very lovely relaxing weekend and revel in our new basement complete with new paint, carpet and much improved feel. This is where Adam asks for photos and I haven't got them off the memory stick yet :( I can't tell you how nice it is to sneak down there early in the morning with a cup of tea, turn the lights down low and fire up a game with the cats fast asleep warming your feet.

I spent a good chunk of the weekend either watching football (English) or football (American) and you remember me joking about how they managed to con a Brit into playing Fantasy football league at work? Well, I won. Quite amusing but I have to say I was drawn into it and, well, I _get it_ now. More than anything else I enjoy the banter, learning about players and the game's strategies from my (very) knowledgeable friends. Now I can almost hold my own in a random football conversation until you get into stats land. Good fun. The winning money is all going to a bar tab for the group to imbibe and enjoy. I look forward to next year when I get to turn the tables a little bit and have everyone take part in a "Soccer" fantasy league.

The other chunk of the weekend was spent finishing Fable 2 which is an excellent romp with wonderful humour. Shout out to Headgamer who through the power of the internets provided me with a weapon which I can only describe as Apocalyptic, and enough money to buy a small army. Hopefully I can return the favour one day, thanks Sean.

Fable got traded for the new Prince of Persia. 25 bucks for trade in on a 40 buck game means PoP was 15 bucks, hooray! The game is definitely more fast-paced than previous versions but is still just really good fun. I hear the more hardcore gamers screaming that they dumbed it down and made it too easy but since when was there a premium on having fun? Never have I had more grins on my face than when bouncing around caves, wall-running and sliding down rock faces. As always, ignore all dialog and you'll be fine. Mark you can have this when I'm done with it if you want, it will look phenomenal on your shiny new high definition experience.

After a few hours and more falls to my death than you can shake a stick at, I also managed to break the shrink wrap for Fallout 3.

Crumbs, chief.
That is some game.

I am not very far into it yet (just got to Megaton, exploring around) but I'm far enough in to know that Bethesda software has really done the business on this one. I'm happy to see that it tends more towards the RPG-element than the run-and-gun crowd, although you can play it how you like. The atmosphere is distinctly reminiscent of the awesome [*worship*] Bioshock, and the attention to detail / textures / depth / production values on this game are absolutely sodding ridiculous. It's going to take me a long time to finish as I spend most of my time with jaw on floor just admiring the game (as I did with Bethesda's last, Oblivion), but that's just fine with me. The long winter nights will, indeed, fly by.

Christmas shopping is done, all the food is bought, two day work week. Sound the bells! Let all rejoice and be merry it is Christmas time! Hope everyone has a great time with their families.

Buy our books!

Let's see what happens. All prices reasonable or the lowest out there! Calling all designers! Calling all designers! Buy our stuff!

http://www.amazon.com/shops/AS0TRAR8N57I

Interestingly many amazon.com booksellers seem to sell books at 1 cent a pop. Clearly there isn't any money to be made there so they must make it on special shipping deals and high volume. What a painful way to make money. Can I interest you in some snake oil?

Sell my ish

Have any of you had experience selling your second hand books on Amazon.com? After recent home cleanouts Kim and I have a quantity of books in really good condition but that we just don't need any more. I was thinking of trying to recoup some of their cost via the Amazon Marketplace but wanted to make sure that it would be a worthwhile endeavour. Share your experiences!

Germtastic

Ruh-roh. I just finally turned the corner out of my nyquil coma last night and it appears I've infected the missus. Now I need to provide the same kind of excellent care I've received over the past few days! Looks like it will probably be a down tempo weekend but the weather doesn't look up to much anyway so bring on the football! Quite remarkably I made it to the final in our fantasy league which is quite a turn up for the books and no mistake. I may now be due a hammering but we'll see. Either way the kitty all goes to some happy hour so we all win. Cheers!

Mucoid

Sneezing: abated
Bones: aching
Nose: flowing
Guts: bizarro
Sleeping: desired
Working: late
Mood: argh

Bloggus Interruptus

I was going to write a nice entry about how fun it has been to get a head-start on Christmas with my parents and relax for a nice 4 days straight but unfortunately I can't see past the torrent of glucoprotein exiting my nose and spraying all around the living room thanks to constant sneezing. Woe betide any who come near me today.

Holidays

My parents arrive this week for a pre-Christmas visit. I'm really looking forward to seeing them and it's fantastic not to be the ones traveling for the holidays this year. I think Kim and I are negotiating to be on the 3-year rotation schedule. One for her parents, one for mine, and one for ourselves.

It's been great just to relax, enjoy Thanksgiving, throw decorations up (well, I threw them up and swore a lot, Kim placed with design and a sense of purpose) and generally enjoy the place we spend a cartload of money on. So I'm working hard and putting in some extra house to make sure the couple of days off.

Then it's time for some post-Turkey, pre-Turkey, Turkey!

A short letter to Plaxico Burress

You're a fucking moron.

You are seemingly unable to grasp the very simple concept of how incredibly good you have life. You are being paid millions to run around a football pitch adored by fans worldwide.

You think you have it tough?
Really?

Go and talk to someone in Darfur. Visit a sweatshop where people try to scrap together an existence on less than $1 a day. See the mess that is Rwanda. Observe someone who has lost everything in the New Orleans hurricane. Spend a week sunbathing in Chechnya. Perhaps a nice eco-safari in Zimbabwe. A shopping expedition in Gaza. Embark upon a 2 week sightseeing tour of Iraq. Round it off with a relaxing long weekend in Myanmar.

I cannot believe the talking heads are trying to make this about Plex 'the person' who 'has issues he needs to deal with'. Sorry fellas, that's automatic fail. It's not like Plaxico got into a fist fight after a night of drinking. He had a loaded weapon on him while out an about. The simple fact is he cannot grasp the fact he's living the dream in one of the greatest countries in the world with everything laid at his feet. He's not thankful for any of it. He's not self-aware. He's so far up his own arse he's coming out of his own mouth.

It makes me sick to even hear him describe his 'difficulties'. What do I want? I want people to know when they have it good and be goddamn thankful. I want the Giants to drop him and take away all of his money. I want to hear Plaxico stop talking about himself in the third person, recognise everything that he has going for him, admit that he's a complete fuck up, take the accountability and resolve to be a decent fucking human being in the future.

Deadlift

by Eric Dodd

My legs sprawled out from the bench where I sit
While I soak in my sweat and tongue out the grit
From my molars and savor each second of rest
Before I return for a personal best
I imagine each subsequent part of my set-up
Chalk my torn palms before stooping to get up
Trudge back toward the bar across the gym floor
A dejected ex-lover who's come back for more
I step to the weight as if starting a fight
My body resilient, my fists clenched tight
Lower myself in a humble bow
To a weight never moved-at least until now

I push back the caution and doubt that I've felt
Unleashing Hell as I fasten my belt
Seizing the bar with resolute hands
Eschewing stares from those who don't understand
Look up and tense through my heels to the ground
Pulling with madness, head up and butt down
The bar flexes upward then cracks off the floor
The weight lumbers, slumbers, encumbers me more

And as I strain through the physical strife
I loose sight of time and the bland bs of life
For this is my passion, though extreme in degree
And yes most wouldn't guess, as the bar clears my knees,
That I'm feeling such joy by God's own grace
Behind this beet-red frown on my face

And with every inch the bar crawls up my thighs
With every groan and pain-laden cry
With every moment the iron yields to me
Without a doubt, I am truly free.

House update

It has certainly been a busy couple of weeks. Thanks to Kim's contractual project management we have been able to finish our kitchen remodel which we are thrilled with. The new counter tops, swanky massive silgranite sink, new faucet, new oven and low profile cook top look fantastic! We still plan to do one of those fancy rock-tile back-splash things as we're totally smitten with how cool tiles are these days but that may be for another paycheck. We have also finished (re?)painting the basement and it looks like we wanted it to the last time we did it :) The new carpet is on order and once that arrives we're shutting down the remodel shop for the winter and just enjoying it. I simply can't wait to dive back into the basement to watch movies, play video games once it's all put back together. We also have the Christmas tree up and general Christmas decorations in preparation for my parents coming out here in a couple of weeks. It's a lovely place to come back to after another hard slog at work. W00t!

-- Smith family, driving America's economy since 1996.

So good

Dice rollin'

Urgh. The new cook top doesn't fit right on top of the old oven. Rather than hack our cabinets apart we decided to take the plunge and splurge even more on a new oven that works hand-in-hand with the new stove top. One would figure all of this stuff is plug and play but apparently there's a lot of proprietary configurations and we needed more clearance below the cook top. Would have been nice for someone to have told us this right back at the start so we wouldn't be sitting all pretty.. except for the big hole in the granite where the cook top should be.

New oven arrives Saturday, so as we'll be completely out of cooking devices, we're taking dinner party offers for Sat, Sun, Mon now! Brandon send dinosaur ribs urgently. Dallas grill us a chicken post-haste. Fabian get that Naanscambler in the mail. Mark I'll take a lovely cook pot of your chilli. Jgo send Boddies. Brian tear apart and grill cows. Vizlit nachooooooos!

We're both trying to be patient with all of this and approach with good humour. All I have to say is fitting HID's in a motorbike is a lot easier.

Do..while [ Andy's too lazy to blog ]

My apologies for the lack of posts recently. Our lives have been something of a whirlwind culminating in 2 hours of sleep on the red-eye back to DC from San Francisco -> arriving at 6am -> straight into work for a full day -> meetings @ 5pm for me -> project managing our kitchen counter top installation and plumbing for Kim. -> We both didn't get to sleep until 11pm DC time that night -> The last few days have been something of a blur.

Today I feel a bit more like myself. Let's play catch-up.

Learning: CSS and HTML
I've been somewhat slack with my lessons with everything else that's been going on. I'm going to try and get back into the habit of doing some every day after work to make sure I keep learning. Right now I feel like I have the toolkit at my disposal to make any site, but where I always seem to stumble the most is when deciding how best to slice up a comp before writing the markup. I keep making pretty basic mistakes but I think that over time with more real world projects these will diminish.

Reading: System of the World by Neal Stephenson
Yes, STILL. Shut up. I'm breaking into the last 50 pages of this saga and am still blown away by the depth of research, the complexity of the plot(s), and Neal's ability to describe the inside of a matchbox in no less than 400 pages.

Modifying: Kitchen, Basement, Hall, Landing
FJ Bruiser Project is on hold for a bit while we make the changes we wanted to do to the house going into 2009. Seeing as how we'll probably be holding onto it for a while, we may as well get a chance to enjoy some mods ourselves as opposed to just using them to sell the house.

So! We have new black steel granite counter tops, new undermounted silgranite sink, new faucet (almost Geiger-esque, like something out of Alien), and new low profile stove top. We're also in the process of re-painting the basement a lighter colour as it gets well murky down there. This time we're doing the ceiling too (my shoulders still kind of ache) and going to follow it up all the way through the hall to the top landing (but not half as much as they are going to ache).

Playing: Gears of War 2
Xbox time is at a premium with everything else going on. Adam and I manage 2-3 hours every Wednesday evening so at this rate GOW2, Fallout 3, and Fable 2 will last me until 2012. No problem there; I don't seem to be half as much into gaming as I used to be.

FJ Bruiser Stage 3

Along with a few guys from the forums I went in on the group buy for the Springtail MPAC storage solution for the rear door on the FJ. As the vision I have for my build at the end of the day is a beach cruiser / explorer I want to have enough storage to bring stuff with me or for self-rescue should I need it. The price on the group by was too good to pass up.

The quality of the goods from Springtail was top notch and the MOLLE bags are almost indestructible. I did the install in a lazy couple of hours this morning and took my time. The task was approached with a little bit of trepidation (first time I had pulled panels off the car) but with a little care everything was just fine. Nothing broken, and all my drilled holes were in the perfect spots. Measure thrice, drill once. Boom.

Super happy with how everything turned out. Especially the bag-onna-bag :) Now, to fill it full of camping supplies, emergency rescue stuff and dynamite.

From FJ Stage 3

JackoSmith

Proof!

Rad

So we had a pumpkin carving contest at work. The winning Jack-o-Lantern? Me! I had no idea about it and was kept in the dark but seriously, is this not the best carved pumpkin that you ever did see? Look at my beautiful visage! Nice work fellas. Beers are on me!