Simon is Not So Bad

posted on august 29, 2002, tags: entertainment

After tonight's episode of American Idol, I finally feel that Kelly will actually win. She deserves to. She's fantastic, a talent (the only talent) I actually still enjoy seeing every time. Her voice is great, and she tends to pull out all the stops when singing, often starting a whole new set of long and perfect notes well after she's clearly out of breath. Each song she sings sounds unique—not as thought she's simply covering someone else's work—and fantastic. If Justin wins, I will literally call FOX and tell them to go fuck themselves.

Kevin, a friend from Seattle, told me this evening:

I'm looking at your personal website... noticed you watched American Idol. I went to the live taping just a few hours ago... I chatted with Simon for a few minutes before the show. A nice gentleman... he just plays it up on TV.

This makes sense, but at the same time is somewhat depressing. I hoped, in my heart of hearts, that Simon was actually 100% the man he portrayed on the show—cruel but just, mean but truthful—and the idea of him actually being a nice guy doesn't settle. No matter, I still love him. He (other than Kelly) is the best part of the show. There's talk of not having him be a part of the next version, and I think that would be a terrible mistake.

Dentists Scare Me

posted on august 29, 2002, tags: me

Ever since I was a child, I've always hated the dentist. I thought I had gotten past that, until this morning when I sat on an uncomfortable chair, leaned back and opened my mouth.

There's an inherent fear of the dentist in me. Frankly, I think it's in everyone. Nearly every person I spoke to about my tooth problem had the same reaction when I told them I was going to visit a DDS. Most people say, "I don't want to hear it," or, "Oh, God... I hate the dentist." Also common is a gasping reaction when talking about sharp tools or drills.

This morning the dentist told me that he'd need to crown my tooth, a process which involves removing all of the root canal stuff, putting a metal post into one of the canals, and then attaching a crown made of gold (inside) and porcelain (outside). Luckily, he'll be able to match it to the rest of my yellow-ish teeth. I wouldn't want a clean-looking tooth standing out like that, in the back of my mouth.

So I made another appointment, in the beginning of September, to start the process. In the meantime, he put some silly-putty-looking stuff in the area missing (from the tooth breaking) and although it's not as smooth as real teeth, at least it feels like I have a full tooth there.

The only pain from the day was when the dentist, extremely excited to prove to me that the rest of my tooth wasn't that fragile, put all this weight on the damn thing and tried to break it. Yeah, sure, he proved it—but it was quite uncomfortable. Also, he had to remove "junk" that had gotten into the broken tooth, which wasn't all that comfortable either.

I can't wait for this whole thing to be over. I've had problems with this tooth going about five years now. In a few weeks, I'll never have to worry about it again. Thankfully, because I was considering just smashing out all of my teeth and getting dentures.

Tooth Go Break Now

posted on august 20, 2002, tags: me

I just chewed on my own tooth. What kind of an ironic world is this?

Flash back to this story, about my root canal adventure a few years ago. Then, flash back to this update in the forums about a hole appearing in that tooth (a few months back). Over time, the tooth has gotten worse. Today, while I was eating something (I only chew on the left side of my mouth, to avoid that tooth, and have been for almost a year now), I bit down on something very hard. I instantly ran my tongue across the tooth in question, and it was missing a big piece. I found that piece, broken in two, in my mouth.

So now as I type this, two bits of tooth sit to my left, accompanying a few other items on my desk. Lovely.

Weirdest Result

posted on august 18, 2002, tags: site

This has got to be the strangest thing I have ever seen. Someone got to my website via AltaVista, by searching for:

ululant OR rabanna OR taunting OR proctoelytroplastic OR pharyngoglossus

What the fuck? Something about that really frightens me, and I don't understand it at all. Why was I listed in that search? What in the hell does any of that have to do with me?

ASP Error[s]

posted on august 18, 2002, tags: web

This morning whilst working on a client site, I came across an ASP error that was frustrating me. Because ASP's errors are usually almost completely useless, I often search for the exact error message on Google to find a solution.

I damn near laughed my balls off when I searched for today's error: "Operation is not allowed when the object is closed." Sure, there were 3 or 4 hits from ASP discussion boards, etcetera, and one of those hits did give me a hint as to solving my problem. But aside from that, nearly all of the hits were the actual error on websites. How embarassing must this be for Microsoft? Check it out.

A Love/Hate Relationship

posted on august 13, 2002, tags: entertainment

I've been watching American Idol since the start, and I've even talked about it here once. I really enjoyed watching idiots make fools of themselves, and Simon Cowell is a terrific guy when it comes to dishing out insults.

But lately, I've begun to hate the fact that I love the show. This is mainly due to the fact that there are only 5 people left, as of tonight, yet each episode is still an hour long. That means, after singing a song of approximately 3 minutes, there are still 45 minutes to be filled. And that's usually accomplished with too many commercials, and lots of little segments on stuff I could care less about.

And it's going to get worse. Next week there will only be 4 people. And after that, only 3. Oh, dear God, that's too many commercials. I hate that I love this show.

Prenatal

posted on august 12, 2002, tags: web

See, I'm not the only person who had it rough in the womb. Apparently others also wanted to commit prenatal suicide. Perhaps it's time to start a club?

Winamp and [Not] Driving

posted on august 12, 2002, tags: plugin

As of this moment, CurrentlyHearing has been downloaded 43 times. That's not exactly world domination, but it's a start. CH is still pending at winamp.com, and will be for quite a while. They FAQs say it takes them (on average) 4 to 8 weeks to approve a plugin or skin, but that they almost always approve them. That seems useless to me. If they're just going to approve it anyway, why not do it a little faster?

Now that Winamp3 has been released, I've been looking into the new Maki scripting language and documentation. I plan to write a version of CH for WA3, but not because I'll be using it. I don't really like WA3 that much, and I plan to stick with 2 for the time being. But I know plenty of people will switch over, so I've got to keep CH up to date. I hope to have something going soon.

Not having a car is getting frustrating. For a while it was alright, because every day I was going to work, and there were things nearby, etcetera. If I needed to get something from the grocery store, that was fine, because our offices were on the same block as a store. But now, with no car and working from home, I'm beginning to feel the effects. Other than when we go to client meetings, or when/if we go out with friends on a Friday night, I'm usually at home 24 hours a day every day of the week. It's beginning to get annoying. Hopefully soon I can rectify this situation. Must get a car eventually.

No Job? Movie Time!

posted on august 6, 2002, tags: entertainment

So, then. Busy, busy, busy. Well, sort of. I resigned from my job a bit ago. Couldn't be there anymore. Things weren't going at all the way I had hoped they would. Oh, well. I've moved on, and have a few things going. Hopefully some of them will continue the way they are and be successful. Sorry, cyptic opening paragraph, I know.

We saw Signs opening night. I enjoyed it. I felt there were a few things that could have been done differently, and a there were numerous things that bothered me. But, in the end, I really did like it a lot. Besides, I'm a huge M. Night Shyamalan fan—definitely worth seeing, even if you're not.

On the subject of films: I watched Mission: Impossible the other night (partly because I was bored and partly because I haven't seen it in a long while), and was really surprised by how well the ending of that film has stood up to the test of time. I'm not talking about the story or acting, I'm talking about the special effects. The train sequence. The film was made 6 years ago, and those effects still look terrific. I remember the first time I saw the film in a theater—how blown away I was by that last sequence. I still am.

I had to get a new soundcard, but the problems I spoke of before have now been fixed. Apparently this is a known problem between Creative soundcards and motherboards with VIA chipsets. I wish I had known that before I bought the motherboard, but in the end I'd rather get a new soundcard (cheaper) than a new mobo.