Fried chicken, chocolate cake, and chicken tikka masala.

During my recent trip to Japan, I found out that many Japanese people celebrate Christmas by eating KFC and a Christmas cake, which I think is quite hilarious. So I suggested to my mother that for Christmas dinner (yes, we have Christmas dinner even though none of us is really Christian) this year we should have fried chicken and chocolate cake. She more than obliged. The dinner consisted of a fancy salad, fried chicken, rice, shrimp scampi, chicken tikka masala, beans, cakes (one variety, one chocolate), and pie (apple and pumpkin). I'm normally a fan of the standard ham dinner, but this might have topped it.

Asia travelogue.

I have started my travelogue for my trip to Asia. You can find it here.

Yes we can.

Two years ago I predicted that the U.S. would not be ready for Barack Obama to be president in 2008, and that 2012 would be his year. It's a good thing that nobody pays attention to my political predictions.

So where was I when I found out that he was officially projected to win? Well, I had been following the race all day yesterday, and saw that he had a healthy lead before I left my mom's house for my indoor soccer game. I didn't find out that he was the winner until I returned home around 20:20, 20 minutes after he was declared the victor. I did have a suspicion, though, when on my way home I received a text message from my friend Robert which simply said "Yes!"

But what about Missouri? This is only the second time my state has been "wrong" about the president in over 100 years...and the margin was tiny - less than 6000 votes (49.4% to 49.2%). How did the Democrat Jay Nixon manage to win the gubernatorial race so handily (58.4% to 39.5%) if the presidential race was so close? I'm guessing due to a combination of a few factors:

1. Nixon, having served as the attorney general for 16 years, was already very popular in Missouri.
2. Hulshof, his opponent, was not the ideal Republican candidate.
   
3. Obama is (at least perceived as) too liberal for Missourians.
4. St. Charles County had the highest voter turnout by percentage in the state.
5. Missouri may have more pro-white racists than pro-black racists.
   

As an aside, I am also happy that Proposition C (which mandates investor-owned electric companies provide certain percentages of power from renewable sources, with a target of 15% by 2021) was passed. I'm not exactly thrilled that all the other state-wide amendments and propositions passed, though.

In any case, my enthusiasm for politics, which always peaks at election time, has already begun to wane. I hope that Obama does well in his first term as president, but it's time for me to return to being mostly apathetic.

Can I die from eating blue cheese?

Thanks to Wikipedia I just found out that blue cheese is made by adding Penicillium spores. I am allergic to Penicillin. I've been eating blue cheese for a while with no ill effects, so I assume I'm good to go. I hope I can't get sick from eating it because it is near the top of my list of favorite cheeses. Apparently (from a quick Internet search), there are people with Penicillin allergies that are affected by blue cheese, but it appears that this is pretty rare.

How 'bout that Blu-ray?

It's been a while since Blu-ray emerged as the winner of the next generation high definition video disc format. I had long maintaned that as soon as a Blu-ray drive went under $100 in price I would snatch it up, and to that end set up a couple of price alerts on Newegg (my main source for computer parts and all things tech). When I received the alert e-mail a couple of months ago, I was quick to buy this baby. Despite the exclusion of the advertised PowerDVD CD and SATA cable (the Newegg people say that OEM models don't come with that extra stuff, though I guess retail versions do), I was able to successfully install and set up the drive in my media center PC using an extra cable that came with my motherboard and the wonderful BitTorrent protocol. So far, I've only watched a couple of (bad) Blu-ray movies (The Forbidden Kingdom, 88 Minutes, Baby Mama), but I'm pleased with my purchase. Now if only a good Blu-ray movie could come out so I can have some people over to check it out...

Climate Time Machine, Proposition C.

This is an interesting little site with some quick interactive climate change demos: http://climate.jpl.nasa.gov/ClimateTimeMachine/climateTimeMachine.cfm.

By the way, I support Proposition C in the upcoming Missouri election, and I think you should too. While I'm typically not a big fan of mandates, I feel like this ballot measure (if passed) shows the power companies that the consumers want renewable energy. I will admit that Ameren offers a program called Pure Power that allows one to buy the equivalent of her/his energy consumption from renewable sources for an extra 1.5 cents per kWh (or approximately a 25% increase). Although the price increase seems a little ridiculous, I just signed up for the program as an act of proverbially putting my money where my mouth is.

The Mac is finally on the network.

Until tonight, my Mac Mini had not been connected to the Internet since I bought it when I moved into my house 16 months ago. This can be attributed to a few factors:

1. I actually tried to connect it to the Internet several times without success.
   
2. I'm lazy and give up easily.
   
3. I have 3 other computers I could use instead.

I finally figured out today (technically yesterday) that the version of OS X that shipped with my computer last year still included the "old" Airport software which doesn't support WPA wireless encryption, which I use on my network. I temporarily disabled the encryption, connected to Software Update to acquire the new software, and then was able to connect after re-enabling WPA. I'm not sure why I never even tried connecting unencrypted or with WEP (which the old software supported). In any case, all is now well.

And then there was Chrome...

Not more than a few days after my last post about upcoming upgrades to Microsoft and Mozilla web browsers, Google surprised us all with a beta release of their own browser: Chrome. Features include a novel tab organization scheme, Incognito browsing (like IE8's InPrivate), domain highlighting in the URL (also available in IE8), an "Omnibox" address bar (mixes history and search), a novel "new tab" page, a simpler interface, and a slew of interesting "about:" pages. While the new browser is fairly sleek, it is not as full-featured as the big boys. Also, even though the project is open source, it does not (yet) seem like developers can write extensions like Firefox allows.

Getting more done on the web.

Mozilla Labs is introducing Ubiquity, which I think is one of the coolest ideas in a while when it comes to browsing the Internet. It enables users to create "mash-ups" with web applications, allowing them to get more done within the same browsing session. The implementation is quite immature right now (alpha status, if you will), but this definitely has some potential.

At the same time Microsoft is releasing the second beta for IE8. There are actually a few things that are pretty exciting about this version. One is Accelerators, which provides functionality that has a similar concept as Ubiquity. Some of the other features (e.g., Web Slices, Search Suggestions) are similar to things that Firefox has already offered for a while, whether in the base package or by extensions, though some of the features improve on the Firefox implementations. The most original new feature is probably InPrivate browsing, which allows the user to browse without leaving tracks on a computer. Some people refer to this as "porn mode".

Hilarious headline

Nigeria 2-1 U.S.: Obinna winner dooms U.S.

The best part: another goal was set up by Chinedu.

DEFCON 16

It's been a while, so I figured I should post on here just to prove that I'm alive. Anyway, this past weekend was the second of four consecutive weekends out of town, and I spent pretty much all of Friday through Sunday at DEFCON 16 in Las Vegas.

I arrived at the Riviera early Friday morning (~9:30 Vegas time) and didn't leave the hotel until I caught a shuttle to the airport Sunday evening (~18:00). Note that this made for a very early Friday (flight left St. Louis 7:00) and a very late Sunday (flight arrived in St. Louis 1:00 Monday morning). The conference itself was pretty good. The DEFCON badges are pretty cool, and they supposedly turn TVs off, but I haven't tested this yet. There were many interesting talks, including one on hacking social networks (especially MySpace), one on hacking Internet kiosks, one about the security of e-voting, and one about hijacking internet traffic using BGP. Of course Dan Kaminsky's DNS vulnerability was also big news (from Black Hat a few days earlier), but I did not brave the large crowd that turned out for his talk. Another significant development was the restraining order that prevented one group of presenters from giving their talk on hacking the Boston subway payment system...too bad their presentation had already been given to all the DEFCON attendees on CD. See the DEFCON site for more info on these and other interesting happenings. Also, here's my new favorite t-shirt (that I don't own...yet):



The weekend before I was in Chicago for Lollapalooza. This weekend it's off to Toronto for my fourth Radiohead concert this summer before a roadtrip to Bloomington (wedding) and Indianapolis (air show featuring F-22) the following weekend.

Google Street View comes to St. Louis

Sweet.

Coolest remix EVER

This dude did a remix of Radiohead's "Nude" using electronic hardware in a novel way. Check it out on Vimeo or on Youtube. Note that the proper song starts about 1 minute in.

Some people are more fanatic than I am...

...and I'm happy about that fact. Take, for example, the creator of this site. It tracks all the setlists for Radiohead's shows on their current tour and compiles some ridiculous statistics about the songs played (and not played). I'm glad people like him exist.

Another reason to love Google.

The Google home page has gone black today to help raise awareness of Earth Hour. See below...

The concept is that in cities all over the planet people will turn off their lights tonight from 20:00 to 21:00 local time as a sign of recognition of the human impact to climate change. Kind of a neat idea.

Too bad at that time tonight I'll be at a rock concert. Doubtful, but perhaps they'll forego a light show for the opening band...

I wanna see this in person.

The F/A-22 Demo Team is making the rounds at air shows this year, including a stop in Chicago. Check out this sweet video:

The crib stands out in Google Maps, for now.

I was surprised yesterday to find out that Google Maps recently updated their satellite photograph of St. Louis. The noteworthy aspect of this is that the picture was taken last summer, when my house was the only one on the block that had been completed.

I had originally intended to post a direct link to a close-up of it on here, but a friend cautioned me that letting the whole wide world know where I lived might not be the best idea. No, I am not deluded enough to think that more than 5 different people ever look at my blog...but still. Thanks, Jules.

So if you do happen to know my address and are curious, look it up on Google Maps. I'll be the only one on the street with a lawn. Ignore the brown, dying patches in the back...I didn't take good care of it initially...or now...

60 minutes sees it my way.

Ever since I returned from Australia and New Zealand, both countries that no longer have pennies, I have joked about creating a petition to abolish the U.S. penny. While I don't think that's actually going to happen, I came across a 60 Minutes segment which discusses the fact that pennies cost way more to make than they are worth, an argument that I use (in addition to the fact that pennies are worthless wastes of space). You can check out the segment here. They mention that nickels, my second least favorite coin, are also unsustainable to produce.

On a related note, my buddy Greg has decided to champion the cause of the $1 coin, a notion which I second...except for the fact that I lose so much change from my pockets that I would probably lose a fortune under my car seat. This was also inspired from our travels abroad, where coins seem to actually have value.

Call it a comeback!

Despite a couple of early projections that Hillary would win Missouri (see here and here), our boy Barack has pulled of the victory. If only the rest of those states would follow suit...

Missouri...black and white.

As the results come in for the Missouri Democratic presidential primary on Super Tuesday, I can't help but note a sharp contrast between the voting patterns in metropolitan areas versus rural ones. Currently, Hillary Clinton is leading Barack Obama by a slimming margin of 49% to 48%.

However, Hillary has carried every single county in MO except for 6: Boone County (where Columbia is located), Cole County (Jefferson City), Jackson County (Kansas City), Nodaway County (WTF?!), St. Louis City, and St. Louis County. Barack ran away or is running away with those 6, many of which have a significant population in relation to the rest of the state. He also came close in St. Charles County (48% to 50%), but apparently it is sufficiently far enough from St. Louis City for rednecks and hicks to inhabit.

Even with 90+% of precincts reporting, the race still appears too close to call because the remaining precincts are mostly in metropolitan areas. In any case, whoever wins the Democratic nomination will make history (you know...cuz one's a woman and one's black), so this is huge.

Do I look that old?

I took my youngest brother, Nedu, to get a suit at Men's Wearhouse earlier today. When I informed the salesman of our intentions, he asked if I was Nedu's father. This is not the first time this has happened. Do I really look like I'm old enough to be the father of a 20-year-old?

Back from Oz.

http://www.obezma.com/excursions/downunder2007

Rose Bowl!

The 9-3 Fighting Illini football team are the fortunate beneficiaries of the BCS turmoil this season, and will be headed to the Rose Bowl game on New Year's Day. There, they will face those pesky Trojans of USC (boo...hiss...).

My major complaint about the BCS selections this year is the absence of Mizzou (it's a friendly rivarly...for me at least). The Tigers beat two teams who will be playing in BCS bowl games (Illinois and Kansas) and their only two losses were to another BCS-bound team (Oklahoma). They should be playing in the Orange Bowl instead of Kansas.

Green building comes to Missouri.

On my way to my buddy's house for the annual Army-Navy football game yesterday, I drove by a housing development with a sign which claimed that it was the first "GREEN" development in Missouri. Being the tree-hugger that I've turned into, I had to stop by the sales office on my way home after the game. I picked up some information about the place, and it seems pretty nice. Obviously, I'm all about the sustainable and energy-efficient aspects of the development. The cons are that they are only multi-unit buildings (4 and 12) and that it's out in St. Peters/O'Fallon. It's definitely worth checking out if you're looking to move out into those parts: Highland Park.

There's also a "green" high-rise condo development being built in downtown St. Louis called Roberts Tower. This place looks pretty cool as well.

Considering that I've only been in my new house for about half a year, don't expect me to move out into one of these places any time soon. However, it's definitely nice to see that environmentally friendly developments are sprouting up in the area.

This week's fortune.

You will receive unexpected support over the next week. Accept it graciously.

Test the speed of your Internet connection.

While there are many sites that offer this service, my favorite has to be Speedtest.net. They have a great user interface which allows you to perform the test using one of a multitude of servers around the world (the default is the closest to your geographic location). They also maintain a history of all your tests so you can go back and look at past results. You can also get statistics for internet connections all over the world. Pretty neat if you're a huge Internet nerd like I am.

Maybe I'm a grinch.

Isn't it a little early to have Christmas lights up? After all, November just started today. I saw two separate display of lights on the drive home today. Perhaps in this commercial society that we live in it is appropriate to start the holiday season as soon as we can get away with it. I guess most Christians don't even celebrate the true meaning of Christmas anyway.

In need of MP3 advice.

I have a $50 gift certificate that I could use at a bunch of places, including Amazon.com, Best Buy, and Circuit City.

I want a new MP3 player with the following features:

1. Color display
2. Video playback
3. Good, if not spectacular, battery life
4. At least 30 GB of storage
5. Black case
   

I've narrowed my choices down to the following, in order of preference (prices are shown before gift certificate deduction):

1. Creative Zen Vision:M - 30 GB
   
   • $289 @ Amazon
     
2. Microsoft Zune (2nd generation) - 80 GB
   
   • ~$250 @ Amazon or Best Buy or Circuit City
     
3. Microsoft Zune (1st generation) - 30 GB
   
   • $140 @ Amazon
4. Apple iPod Classic (5th generation) - 80 GB
   
   • ~$250 @ Best Buy or Circuit City

If you have a glowing recommendation or just some simple advice, please feel free to share.

Although slowly, the wheels of justice do turn.

Updating a previous posting, our boy Genarlow Wilson has been freed. Wright Thompson, author of the original E-ticket article that caught my attention, weighs in on it here. Good luck in the future, young man, and may your decisions be made with more care.

This week's fortune.

When the flowers bloom, so will great joy in your life.

This week's fortune.

Tomorrow is a good day for trying something new.

Here's a good idea...

Kiva allows "ordinary" people to help make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate around the world. Through them, you can loan money with minimal interest to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Yes, loan...not donate. The idea is that this isn't just a free handout, but a way to provide people some help through opportunities that may not ordinarily be afforded them. You can find out more by checking out their website: kiva.org.

This week's fortune.

Someone thinks you are wonderfully mysterious.

New Radiohead in 10 days!!!

The new album, In Rainbows, will be released on October 10. Interestingly, it is initially only available for download from their website:
www.inrainbows.com
or
www.radiohead.com

Even more interestingly, YOU decide how much to pay for the download (WTF?!?!), excluding a potential 90 cent surcharge. Of course if you're a fanboy like me, you'll skip that option and buy the discbox (which includes, in addition to the aforementioned download, a CD of the album, an extra CD of new music, vinyl copies of both CDs, a booklet of lyrics, and some artwork) for $80 because it makes absolutely no sense.

Joy!!!

This week's fortune.

When in doubt, let your instincts guide you.

This week's fortune.

A pleasant surprise is in store for you soon.

This week's fortunes.

(another lucky double-fortune cookie)

You will receive unexpected support over the next week. Accept it graciously.

You have a charming way with words. Write a letter this week.

This week's fortunes.

(courtesy of the lucky double-fortune cookie)

You will soon receive an usual [sic] gift freely given. Accept!

You should enhance your feminine side at this time.

Vegetarian Week recap.

I did it! A week without meat. And I don't even have the shakes, either. I feel like this is something I could do for longer, though I don't really have a desire to. After this past week, I have realized that the reasons I couldn't make vegetarianism permanent are twofold:

1. I'd be missing out on too many appetizing dishes. There are a plethora of perfectly good meals with meat out there that are just screaming my name, beckoning me to consume them. I can't let their calls go unanswered, can I?
   
2. It's sometimes hard (though not as hard as I thought) to find a substantial meal that does not have meat in it. I think this is mostly a product of the society that we live in, though. You can't go to a fast-food joint and expect to find something good without meat...usually the best you can hope for is that they can prepare something without the meat, which is a significant portion of the meal. It's definitely easier at sit-down restaurants or when you do your own grocery shopping, though.

I would like to thank and congratulate my fellow temporary vegetarian Tom Musick for his support and inspiration. Without him this experiment would never have been conceived, much less successful.

Vegetarian Week

For the next week, I will (attempt to) be a vegetarian.

Tommy Musick and I were inspired by the lack of meat at our friend Nishant's wedding a couple of weeks ago, and vowed to have a vegetarian week in the near future. The future is now.

From 0:00 on 4 August 2007 to 24:00 on 10 August 2007 we are not allowed to eat meat. I assume we don't have to go completely vegan or anything, though. My personal goal is to last at least 2 days. We'll see how that goes...

This week's fortune.

Linger over dinner discussions this week for needed advice.

This week's fortune.

Listen these next few days to your friends to get answers you seek.

This week's fortune.

You will always be surrounded by true friends.

This week's fortune.

You may end up saving the day.

NYC travelogue is up.

Check it out here.

This week's fortune.

You tend to be contemplative and analytical by nature.

7 West moved to 7 East?!

Vanessa and I dropped by St. Louis Children's Hospital last night to pay my mom, who is a nurse there, a surprise visit. When we finally found her floor, we were greeted by a sign which said "7 West has moved to 7 East." My mom works in 7 West. We thought this was so hilarious that we took a picture of it with my phone. The picture didn't turn out all that great because my phone doesn't have a very good camera, but you get the idea. Funny sign + surprising and hugging momma + ice cream = BEST ADVENTURE EVER.

This week's fortune.

Good things come in invisible packages. You will be delighted.

Crib update.

Happy Earth Day!

I celebrated by buying a bunch of compact fluorescent bulbs from The Home Depot, in addition to getting one for free. OK, so maybe I actually forgot that it was Earth Day until I got in the store and got my free bulb...

28 seconds too slow.

This past Saturday, I fell short of my goal to run the Spirit of St. Louis 5K in under 25 minutes. However, I did post a time that was good enough for 60th place overall. Check out the full results here.

Technology for the good of mankind.

CNET is running a series on technologists who are helping the the world's poor people. One of their stories is about a guy who is involved in the One Laptop Per Child project, which is something in which I have been interested for a while. You can read their story at this link. Another interesting note is that the first deployment of these laptops is in Nigeria.

Crib update.

This week's fortune.

Good things come in invisible packages. You will be delighted.

Crib update.

This week's fortune.

Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.

Editor's note: I try to live by this principle.

This week's fortune.

You have the ability to channel your energies into constructive activities.

Crib update.

Illinois athletes are emulating the Cincinnati Bengals.

This is probably not a good thing. Two football players have joined their basketball counterparts in a competition to determine who can get in the most trouble with the law. Read the story here.

A couple of tidbits.

I just returned from a snowboarding trip to Cascade Mountain in Wisconsin. I had a lot of fun and didn't injure anything. I can't quite say the same for our bus, though, which was hit head-on by a car which skidded out of control. Thankfully, nobody was hurt.

Also, I am apparently giving up soda for Lent, as decided by one Greg Wilcox. Don't worry...I'm not turning religious anytime soon.

This week's fortune.

Actions speak louder than words.

Crib update.

U of I has lost the fiscal support of one alumnus.

I have always maintained that the day University of Illinois gets rid of Chief Illiniwek is the day that I stop donating money to them. Well, that day has come. I'm sure they will not miss my annual gift of $50 ($100 after Boeing match). At least they kept the Fighting Illini name. Go here for more information.

My newest toy.

Despite my previous musings, I didn't get the Black Carbon or the iPhone. Instead, I purchased an NEC N908, which could almost be the offspring of the other two. You can check out CNET's review of the phone here.

This week's fortune.

Others are attracted to your endearing warmth.

Crib update.

This week's fortune.

You are compassionate and understanding.

$100 for doing almost nothing.

Well, not exactly.

Remember when my luggage was lost in Italy? If not, see here. Well, I faxed in a claim to cover expenses incurred by not having my luggage for a few days to Alitalia when I returned home. When they sent me a letter asking for more information, I gave up the cause, as I either had not kept or did not get receipts from those purchases...plus I was too lazy to be bothered with filling out all the paperwork.

Anyway, they sent me a letter today saying that they're going to send me a check for $100. I never expected to see any money from them, as I thought there was no further action regarding my claim...especially since it's been a few months. Assuming I actually receive the check, THREE CHEERS FOR ALITALIA!

Fitness update.

I've long espoused the belief that the age of 25 years is when an athlete, or a man in general, is at his prime. As that is my current age, I feel that it's time for me to get in the best shape of my life...or at least since high school wrestling.

To that end, I began training for the Spirit of St. Louis 5K run in April last week. I guess a few months of playing soccer once or twice a week has gotten me on the right path, as it seems to be going fairly well so far. I ran a 7:05 mile a couple of days ago, which is faster than I can ever remember running a timed mile (but still over a minute above one of my life goals). The race is still over 10 weeks away, so I'm thinking about upgrading my target from sub-29:00 to sub-25:00. This would take some work, as it would shatter my personal best by over 4 minutes, but I still have plenty of time to prepare. Hopefully I don't burn out.

I've also seemed to have lost some weight, as I weighed in under 160 pounds earlier tonight. To be fair, this was after a soccer game followed by a 1.5 mile run, and before I ate dinner. However, it would still seem that I'm somewhere around 165, which is a weight I haven't seen in a while. This isn't too surprising considering I haven't lifted weights (I gain the most weight while I'm lifting) in almost 1.5 years. Too bad this also means that my once-threatening guns are fairly puny these days.

A grave injustince.

I often argue that people who get in trouble with the law must at least partly blame themselves for being in the situation. While I think this is probably true in this case, I still think that Genarlow Wilson has suffered a grave injustice. You can read more about his story here.

You may now call me Master Kenobe.

Earlier today I picked up a diploma which certifies that I earned a Masters degree in Computer Science. So I guess it's official now.

This week's fortune.

Ask advice from everyone, but act with your own mind.

Things I missed most about this last power outage.

1. Warmth
2. The Internet
3. DVD player
   
4. Light

Things I did NOT miss after the storm and aftermath was over...falling trees. Our electricity was out over 3 days, but at least half of that was due to the fact that one of our neighbor's trees fell on the power lines (the folks across the street had power restored a couple of days before our side did). Another tree fell onto our driveway, causing a little damage to the front edge of our roof, and missing Tina by millimeters.

Revamped music page...sort of...

I removed the Song of the Week sections, which I have neglected for a while, and added some charts from Last.fm which should update automatically as I listen to music. Check out the new page here.

Which phone?

I am in the market for a new cell phone to replace my antiquated little egg. I was pretty sure that I was going to get the Samsung SGH D900, a.k.a Black Carbon. That is, until Apple rocked my world, and the rest of the cell phone industry, with the iPhone. I'm pretty sure it's the best thing since sliced bread. So my quandary is: do I get the Black Carbon now, or wait until June for the iPhone? If you scroll down (unfortunately, my template is too narrow and changing its size messes up some previous posts...plus Blogger doesn't do the best job of HTML generation), you can see a head-to-head comparison of the two:

Category	Black Carbon	iPhone	Winner
Cool factor			iPhone
Cellular Networks	Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), EDGE	Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz), EDGE	Push
Other Connectivity	Bluetooth	Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), Bluetooth 2.0, USB	iPhone
Display	2.1 in 240x320, 262K color TFT	3.5 in 320x480, 160 ppi	iPhone
Camera	3.0 megapixels	2.0 megapixels	Black Carbon
Music playback	AAC, MP3	AAC, MP3, Audible, Apple Lossless	Push
Video playback	?	H.264, MPEG-4	iPhone
Input	9 dedicated buttons, 2 soft buttons, flat number pad	1 hard button, touch screen	iPhone
Other features	Standard cell phone fare + document viewer, TV out	OS X	iPhone
Battery life	6.5 hrs talk	5 hrs talk/video/browsing, 16 hrs audio playback	Black Carbon
Size, weight	4.1 x 2.0 x 0.51 in/106 x 51 x 12.9 mm, 3.3 oz/85 g	4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 in/115 x 61 x 11.6 mm, 4.8 oz/135 g	Black Carbon
Storage	60 MB internal, microSD	4 GB or 8 GB internal	iPhone
Price	$400 (phone) + $75 (2 GB microSD card) = $475	$499 (4 GB) or $599 (8 GB)	Push
Availability	Now	June 2007	Black Carbon

Let me preface this by saying that I like Rex Grossman...

...but this picture is HILLARIOUS!



Thanks to Tommy Musick for forwarding that to me.

Proof that Christmas is actually Halloween.

Being the übernerd that I am, I found the following proof which I saw on a board at work humorous. The crux of the proof is that 25 in decimal numerals is equal to 31 in octal numerals (see the Wikipedia article on octals if you don't understand this). Since DEC(25) = OCT(31), one could argue that December 25 is October 31. Therefore, Christmas is Halloween.

This week's fortune.

Your enthusiasm inspires people.

The future crib.

Updates to follow...

So I just googled myself...

...which I do from time to time, and I found an entry in a transportation related blog called Trans-Talk which references a paper that I wrote for a graduate class at Wash U this past spring. Even though it's just a blog and not a real publication, it's still kinda exciting. You can check out the blog entry here.

On a related note, earlier in the summer a co-worker was looking up a topic for work on the internet and came across the same paper. It almost makes me feel like I'm making a contribution to society.

I officially had an "Oh, sh*t!" moment driving home today...

By the time I left work for home tonight there were 3+ inches of ice on the ground from the steady sleet all day. I did alright for most of the drive, though there was some slippin' and slidin' on 270.

Things took a dramatic turn for the worse after I exited onto Page. In order to maneuver from the semi-clear far left "lane" to the not-as-clear far right, to take the Westport exit, I had to go through a mess of piled-up as with stray tire tracks cut through it. As I did this, I went into a skid and totally lost it. I ended up facing the wrong way in the middle of the road (mind you, this was a highway-like road) and had to pull a u-turn while avoiding one oncoming car. Luckily, this was the only car anywhere nearby at the time. I made it home safely, with the only other trouble occurring while trying to get up the driveway (I had to dig myself a path up).

All in all, I came out unscathed, though a bit rattled.

We're goin' to the 'ship!

Cardinals!

This week's fortune.

Soon you will receive a letter from a loved one.

Cool picture.

Space Shuttle Atlantis landing in Florida this morning.

After killing 2 hours on Wikipedia and Google...

...I found a "famous" Nigerian professor whose name is the same as my brother's name and my name (or nickname)...Chike Obi. Here are some web pages with content about him:
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/PEEPS/obi-chike-fermat.html
http://www.supernaturalminds.com/ChikeObe.html
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/PEEPS/obi_chike.html

It all started with me looking up a place that I visited during my recent Eurotrip on Google Maps. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they now have detailed maps of many major world cities. Pretty soon I was mapping the world, including Nigeria. A few Wikipedia searches and links later, I saw our names in an article. I googled the guy, and came up with the pages above. I'm a dork.

Seems a little ridiculous if you ask me...

This domain, obezma.com, was set to expire in November. It is currently registered with GoDaddy, but I wanted to transfer it to 1&1, who currently provide my hosting, as they have cheaper rates. When I tried to do this, I got a message which said that the domain could not be transferred. I eventually figured out that this was because I had a lock on the domain at GoDaddy, so I removed the lock.

After a couple of weeks I tried again to transfer the domain, but got the same message. I called GoDaddy and a technician informed me that ICANN does not allow transfers within 60 days of domain expiration. This seems a little ridiculous to me. The reason I'm transferring is because my registration is about to expire and I want to go with a better deal. In the end, I had to renew with GoDaddy at a higher price than I would be paying 1&1. When I switch, I'll then have to register for additional years with 1&1 to be able to transfer. I guess that's not so bad since I plan on owning this domain for the foreseeable future, but it just doesn't make sense to me.

Curse you, USCIS.

I bought tickets to see Massive Attack, one of my favorite bands, in Chicago on their first tour of the U.S. in 8 years. The show, originally scheduled for September 13, has been postponed to September 27, a date I can't make, because they could not get visas from the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service in time. The band released the following statement:

In spite of timely and coordinated efforts, the essential U.S. immigration visas were not issued in time for the beginning of the Massive Attack North American Tour.

Subsequently, the band has been forced to cancel the first four shows (Toronto (September 10), Montreal (11), Detroit (12) and Chicago (13)).

Currently, the rest of the tour remains intact. The band hopes to reschedule the cancelled shows as soon as possible.

You can read a little more here.

The Eurotrip 2006 travelogue is finally up.

Check it out here.

Just arrived in Athens.

Italy was great, despite not getting my luggage until yesterday. About 300 pictures taken so far. More to come soon.

This week's fortune.

You should strike the iron while it's hot.

Zizou international.

Here are a few interpretations of how the headbutt by Zinedine Zidane was seen in different countries around the world:

In Germany:











In France:











In Italy:











In the U.S.A.:











In Hong Kong:











Thanks to Robert for the e-mail.

I must be a lot older than I thought...

...or the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) is recruiting a little early. Here are some snippets from a letter I received from them:


Dear Obinna C. Orjih,

Our records show that you haven't yet registered for the benefits of AARP membership, even though you are fully eligible.
...
You need only return the form above. Please remove and keep the card below as your record of enrollment. You will receive a new card and Membership Kit, with full details on your benefits.

As a member, you'll have the resources and information you need to get the most out of life over 50.
...
I look forward to your joining us. I think you'll agree with our other members: AARP is one of America's very best values.

Sincerly,
[signed]
William D. Novelli
Executive Director


Whaaaaa?!!!

My hippie thought for the day.

Go see An Inconvenient Truth.

And/or go to climatecrisis.net and stopglobalwarming.org.

Promoted.

Finally.

This week's fortune.

A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.

Yahoo! Mail Beta...holler.

Yahoo! is giving Google a run for the money, this time in the webmail category. I was recently able to try out Yahoo! Mail Beta, which is based on AJAX technology similar to what GMail uses. YMB one-ups GMail, as it provides an interface similar to what is seen in desktop mail apps such as Thunderbrid and Outlook. Plus it looks like they're doing away with the annoying advertisement at the bottom of e-mail messages from free account holders. Now if they could do something to match Google Calendar...

This week's fortune.

A dark haired woman will soon be giving you a gift.

Editor's note: Holler! If you're a dark-haired woman I know, I'm lookin' at you right now.

This week's fortune.

You will find happiness in mind and heart.

In the phase.

With the first of the Radiohead shows in Chicago 37 days away, I have already begun my obsession phase. This is where I start listening to all their old albums as well as downloading bootlegs of all the new stuff. This phase usually ends about a week prior to the show so I don't burn out on them. It starts back up again a couple of days before the concert.

Anyway, I'm liking quite a few of the new songs. My current favorite is 15 Step, which has an amusing clap beat and a killer guitar riff. Through the magic of YouTube (one of my new favorite sites...mostly because of the RH videos posted on there), I will share a video of it with you:

This week's fortune.

You are independent both politically and socially.

Editor's note: Holler that.