drewmckinney.net

I’m not sure how long ago it was, but Google recently released Google Earth for the Mac (about time!) and I’ve been playing around with it. Damn. What a technological marvel. I can’t get over how much information is available and the interface is…dreamy.

Today I finally upgraded to Tiger (OS 10.4 for those of you that aren’t aware) so I’m playing around with that as well (hey, only a year late…). I’ve gotten used to using Quicksilver so Spotlight doesn’t really do that much for me but it’s pretty slick all the same. Dashboard is fine I guess but I need to find some cool widgets if I’m going to use it at all. I’m not really sure what else there is to Tiger so I’ll be poking around for a couple of days. There’s a fantastic program called Carbon Copy Cloner that I used to clone my hard drive onto an external drive (in case something went terribly wrong with the Tiger upgrade) and it’s free to boot. If you’re going to be doing some heavy duty hard drive work I highly recommend you get yourself a copy, Mac-only though…I guess there’s something similar out there for the PC world somewhere.

I’m still ripping my CD collection (probably for a few more days…soooo many CD’s) and I have a deadline coming up on Thursday for an article that I’m working on. I’ve got to admit that the last few days have been great for me, I feel productive and am actually writing again. In addition to the article I’m working on a story, don’t know what the length of it will be, most likely it will be a short but it’s hard to tell in the beginning.

OK, back to work for me.

Today was spent ripping my cd’s into mp3’s on an external hard drive of mine. I’m only about half done at this point but I’m calling it a night as far as these damned cd’s are concerned.

Things have been quiet on DMDN because I’ve been working on a freelance writing gig that I got. Just a li’l article, I may put a link up to it at some point…

For your viewing pleasure, I present myself and local weatherman-legend traffic reporter legend Sal Castaneda:

You can read Sal’s bio at the KTVU web site here.

There is a new service that I just signed up for, TextPayMe. Think of it as a PayPal for text-messaging. Yes, I do have a PayPal account. No, I’m not always at my computer. Here’s the beauty of this service: people almost always have their mobile phones with them. With this service you can send money to your buddy instantly, no need to stop off at a cash machine or find a computer to log into your PayPal account. For a limited time, open an account with them and get 5 free bucks. Sign up with textpayme now, I think this one is going to be big.

6:45 in the morning and I haven’t been to sleep yet. I’m not sure what the problem is but it doesn’t especially bother me. It’s a little on the chilly side but a robe and a pair of socks seems to work pretty well. The garbagemen came on time, 5:45, making all kinds of noise with the containers and talking loudly to themselves. The odd car or bus drives by but it’s pretty quiet.

Today I’m going to ride the cable cars and I’ll probably freeze my ass off but I’ve already decided so it must be done. Tonight the Edinburgh Castle is hosting a “swearing festival” or perhaps it’s The Swearing Festival, I’m not really sure, and I may go to it. Five hours of swearing and a basket of fish and chips sounds pretty good to me.

One of the great things about living in San Francisco is all of the family-friendly entertainment. Take, for instance, the annual x-rated animal sex tour that happens at the San Francisco Zoo. Every year for the past seventeen years a woman by the name of Jane Tollini takes visitors on a three-hour tour of humping hippos, copulating cats, and masturbating monkeys. When talking about a tapir that had damaged his tallywhacker, she says, “We soaked it in a tub of betadine for a couple of weeks,” Tollini said. “It turned purple, then black, then it atrophied. Then it fell off, and he ate it.”

I can’t think of anything clever to say to that. Read the rest of the article at SF Gate.

I’m sure everyone has read about our VP pumping his buddy full of lead. Good thing he was using bird shot and not something like, say, .50 calibur armor-penetrating rounds.

The San Francisco independant film jubilee/carnival/gala is happening right now. Last night the lady and I went and saw “Subject Two.” It’s the story of a young man that hooks up with a doctor to perform unorthodox medical experiments. The director was there and conducted a Q & A afterwards. I liked the movie, a bit of a thriller with elements of horror mixed in. Think “The Shining” mixed with “Frankenstein” with some funny elements ala “Fargo.” The director said he wrote the movie in about a month which was pretty impressive (I forgot to mention that he just came from Sundance with this film, snagging himself a “midnight movie” position at the festival) considering how well-written and acted the movie turned out to be. I don’t know if it will be The Next Big Thing or not but it’s enjoyable nonetheless.

In other news, I am now dabbling in chocolateering. That’s probably not a real word but it’s the word that I’m going to use. I guess you lay-people would say that I’m making chocolate treats. Thanks to a good friend and a web site with a good recipe I am able to make chocolate truffles. Soft on the inside and, er, harder on the outside.

See my comment in the post below to see what I thought of the game. I didn’t think to answer Harry’s comment as it’s own post until too late. Eh, whaddya gonna do about it?

Super Sunday, one of my favorite days of the entire year. The excitement is visible in the faces of passersby. As the hour draws near (and it’s about fifteen minutes to game time as I write this) the once smooth and relaxed movements of people becomes tense and agitated, like sharks circling a lame seal.

Blood is in the water and the Steelers can smell it. They’ve been smelling it for three months and now that they have come to the source of the stink they are hungry. They aren’t listening to Stevie Wonder during the pre-game, no, they are behind cold, grey concrete walls and they are sharpening their claws and filing their fangs.

At the end of the day there’s going to be a bloody carcass floating on top of a pool of scum and that carcass will be wearing a Seattle jersey. We’ll see bits of bone and brain and perhaps an odd knuckle or two but it’s going to be one hell of a fight.

Damn I love the Super Bowl. Let’s get it on.

Ha! This blurb on RollCall made me laugh. Look, it doesn’t take much brain power to stuff a ballot box but fer fuck’s sake at least make sure you don’t overdo it and put in more ballots than people who voted. What the fuck is going on with the Republicans?

Dammit, it seems that I will never get the number one spot for ultimate panty remover. I always hover between second and something else, fifth maybe. I just checked again (because I’m obssesive about stupid things) and I see that there’s a damn forum that has taken my number two spot. Oh Google, how you mock me! I guess I’ll go and get a drink.