I use FaceBook, but seldom put pics on it, as when I started on FaceBook it required the person viewing to be a member as well, and made sharing a pain in the arse.  Instead, I put all my pics on Picasa, owned by Google, which I generally like except for very poor iPhoto syncing.

The idea of Flikr has crossed my mind several times in the past, and the new features of iPhoto make it even more appealing, except for one issue: Yahoo! owns Flikr.  Since about a 18 months ago, I have been rather anti Yahoo!, and am actually closing in very near deleting my Yahoo! account, as it currently is used only for a spam email box, which I can obviosly do without.

I understand why Apple made the choice of Flikr though, and it’s related to a release from the day earlier (Monday).  Picasa is a 2-part operation, the downloadable program as well as the web-albums.  On Monday, finally, Google released Picasa (the App) for Mac.  This program, for storing, sorting, categorizing, and sharing your pics to the web sounds incredibly similar to iPhoto, and is its newest competitor.

So, despite the fact that one of Google’s founders is on Apples board of directors, and that Apple uses Google maps and search as the default in over 20 apps on both Macs and the iPhone/iPod touch, there is no support in iPhoto for Picasa Web Albums, because it is a competing product.

So, I have 3 options:

1. Keep iPhoto and live with poor Picasa Web support.
2. Keep iPhoto and switch to Flikr
3. Switch to Picasa (the App) and keep Picasa Web Albums.

None of these are ideal, but I will most likely end up with #1.  I like iPhoto, and I generally like Picasa Web Albums.  Maybe I will give Flikr at least a try, before I end my Yahoo! account.

Anyway, moving along…

I went to Bay City today, was gone about 12 hours.  Nothing real big, visit  with Mom and Dad, fix Grandma’s computer, come home.  Roads weren’t bad, but other drivers seemed to think differently.  One guy was actually going 30 on the freeway at one point.

Watched several movies: “Zombie Strippers”, “HellBoy II”, “The Dark Knight”, as well as the entire series of “Clone High”.  All were pretty good.  I must recommend “The Dark Knight” to all, and “Clone High” as well.  ”Zombie Strippers” was pretty much just as fucked up of a movie as it sounds.

Bought my books for school yesterday, $208 and change for 3 books.  Good nes is, thats the last time I have to by text books (until grad school, 3 – 5 years maybe), yay!  School begins on Monday.

By my count, there were 45 posts in 2008, averaging to a post every 8 days or so, so not even once a week.  I think I can beat that this year, but who knows.  It is already the 8th, and I am only making my first post.

OK, thats enough for now.

nick

It continues…
Number 38 -

Hot Shots
Hot Shots, Part Deux
Die Hard
Die Harder
Die Hard with a Vengeance
Live Free or Die Hard
Brewsters Millions
the Toxic Avenger

I got two new discs last week.  I actually do quite a bit better with them.  We were out discing one night and decided to play highland games with some logs, and ended up quite filthy from them.  Greg and I ended up tying though.  Neither of us could get the log to flip, just land and plop.

This weekend we are going up to East Jordan for Jenn’s Aunt’s wedding, and reception near Gaylord.

Uhm, think that is it.

More some other time.

nick

Check this out.

Neil Patrick Harris in a musical about a mad scientist!

This is a list of movies that I feel everyone should see.
This is NOT a list of the best movies made, or even necessarily good movies.
This is NOT an ordered list.
This is NOT a comprehensive list. There are many movies I have not seen that probably would be on this list had I seen them.

Some of these movies are really good, some are very quotable, some are really funny, some are incredibly stupid, some are just classics that everyone needs to see for no other reason than everyone else has.

That said, here are the first 20 of about 100.

Down Periscope
McHale’s Navy
The Stupids
Super Mario Bros.
The Sandlot
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
Hackers
WarGames
The NeverEnding Story I
The NeverEnding Story II
All 6 Star Wars movie
All 23 James Bond movies (24 come November 2008)
All 10 Star Trek Movies (11 come May 2009)
All 3 X-Men Movies
all 3 Spiderman Movies
Clerks
Clerks 2
Mall Rats
Chasing Amy
Dogma
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
History of the World Part I
Robin Hood: Men in Tights
Blazing Saddles
Space Balls
Judge Dredd
the Jerk
Natural Born Killers
the Usual Suspects
Dirty Harry
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Dr. Strangelove
RoboCop
the Terminator, 2, and 3
House on Haunted Hill
Lord of the Rings 1, 2, and 3

OK, thats 82, not 20 (84 within 12 months). I am counting it as 37 though.

Regarding the movie series, if you had seen some, and didn’t care for them, don’t bother with the rest. If you have seen some and didn’t mind them, see more. If you have never seen any of them, at least watch the first one or two.

Second note, research to movies. If there are moves by the same producer, see them in order: ie. Mallrats, Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Clerks 2 (note that they were made with Clerks first, but Mallrats does take place the day before).

More to come later, not necessarily next time.

nick

Anyway, the five second rule, what the hell? Does it really matter if food lays on the floor for 3, 5, 30 seconds? Even several minutes? If a gummy work falls on your kitchen floor, and lays there for 30 minutes, is it really any dirtier than it was the instant it contacted? As I see it, there are only 3 circumstances where time actually matters, and in at least 1, it still doesn’t.

1. The food/surface is wet or moist.
   In this scenario, wet ground will cause a soggyness in the food, or a wet food will increase dirt adhesion to the food. In theory, a wet surface, with time, could cause the food to become inedible due to becoming too soggy. To be honest though, if you drop your food in a puddle, does in matter how long it was in the puddle? No, not really.
2. The food becomes stale.
   If you drop a chip lets say, and don’t find it for at least an hour, and it has become stale, then the time did matter. To e honest though, who eats day old food off the floor?
3. Insects
   If you are out camping, and ants invade your food that was nicely nested on some grass, then time mattered. You have to beat those bugs to your food, or just forget about it.

As I see it, those are it. Granted, anything over about a minute is still a little weird. Although, there was this one time at Meijer in Saginaw, I ate a skittle off a cash register. It a have only been there 5 minutes, or a month, I don’t know. Jenn giggled ad her parents looked at us wondering why, but obviously we didn’t say.

Anyway, the past week…

Last Saturday my grandma was taken to Bay Med because she started coughing up blood. Apparently she has a lung and liver tumor. They are both inoperable so she is coming home today or tomorrow. They are starting her on chemo and hoping that will do the trick. She is my last grandparent, so losing her would be a major suck. Don’t think it has hit me yet though.

Thursday I spent 13+ hours at school. Left home 9 am, got home at 12 am. Class, McDonald’s (walked), class, Project X. Thank god we finished it. I actually spent until about 2 am doing finishing touches.

I am beginning to wonder if I should accept a weekly update schedule, but don’t really want to. It’s not like I am that busy, just forget mostly I think. Would help if someone other than Jenn read. May have a kind of fix for that soon though, more later.

Jenn worked last week, knee seems to be 99%. She spent the weekend in Traverse City with her mom, sister, and niece and nephew. Did some shopping and such. I had almost as much fun being alone. Not that I don’t like spending tie with her, but after 2 weeks of her always home kind of needed it.

Tomorrow Jenn and I go to Bay City for the day/evening. See family and friends and such. Will probably spend day tomorrow with family, then Hooligans at 8.

Hmm, what else…

This is why I can’t accept once a week, because I know I am forgetting stuff that I wanted to post. Need to just post it when I think of it.

Next blog, I will begin a new feature: Must see movies. I started thinking about for Jenn, but mind as well post them. I want to post 100, though it may be spread over 5 or more posts. Will shoot for at least 20 on the first 2 installments, then a little less as I run low.

I think, maybe, thats it.

Yeah, thank so.

Ooh, Qdoba brownies are AWESOME!

Blog was down for a few hours yesterday due to issues with the severs apparently. Not a problem of my hosts, but the building owners they lease from apparently. They went down just as I went to updater the time offsets for DST too, luckily I remembered to try again this morning so I don’t need to edit the time of several posts and comments like I did 2 years ago.

Uhm…

Yeah, later.

nick

One is late at night at my parents apartment on Farragut. I was up for some unknown reason and Johnny Carson was on. Thats really all I remember. My mom and dad were there, but I don’t remember any conversation. I actually remember a few things about the apartment, but none of them from that memory. I remember this step stool that looked like 2 huge blue shoes that was in front of the window so I could watch my grandma leave. I also remember this really weird green outdoor carpet that was in my play room. I remember my brothers crib and the light switch near it, but that may just be a created memory form people telling me that it was near the light switch. As I said though, those are separate memories than the Johnny Carson one.

The other possibility is being in my Grandma’s backyard on my swing-set singing “the weed whacker song” (more on that later). I had peanuts form St. Laurent Bros. that I was eating and would throw for the squirrels now and then. I remember hearing news about my brother in the hospital, but am not 100% sure what for. I think it was the day he was born, or have for a few years. Truth is though, he could have been getting tubes in his ears or his tonsils out though. I am rather sure that I did not live at my grandma’s though. The bad part is the only person who was there that could have confirmed what was going on would be my Grandma. Honestly, even if it was his birth, I wouldn’t be able to say if it was before the Johnny Carson memory or not.

As for “the weed whacker song”, I would sing it when I was on the swing, and it consisted solely of the word “weedwhacker” over and over again. OK, so I wasn’t real creative musically as a child, I’m still not.

Anyway, those are my earliest memories, I think. If it was my brothers birth, I was not quite 3 (2 years 10 months 1 day, 1035 days old). If not, I was still under five. If I remember to ask my mom when we moved, that will give me a better idea maybe.

Ok, that’s all for now.

nick

stuff I forgot to post last year.

In the past couple weeks, with TV utterly shit-tacular, we have been renting more movies. Spiderman 3, Superman Returns, SuperBad, and Balls of Fury just to name a few. They were all pretty good. Superbad actually surprised me, I thought it was going to be incredibly stupid but managed to be pretty good.

Since Jenn bought me the Lego set for Christmas, I have been kind of obsessed with them. I found a few good sites online including BrickSet that list pretty much every set since the 60′s and PICSL that has original instructions for most all sets. With that information, I picked up all my old Lego sets from home and am trying to reassemble as many as I can find the parts for. I will try and post pictures of them all when I get a few done.

Of course, a New Years post wouldn’t be complete without resolutions. I survived to move, didn’t freak out too much, and am doing rather well at Ferris, so last year’s are good. I didn’t bike much though.

For 2008, I want to try and get in contact with a few more people that I used to talk to but haven’t in years. Facebook is helping alot with that already. I still want to bike more, but we will see. It won’t be too hard to do more than this year though. I want to blog more regularly too. I’m not saying back to every 3rd day, but more than once a week. Maybe will think of more for next post.

And finally, I am considering a new theme. Depends how much time I have in the next two weeks. I am just getting sick of these, and I am technically plagiarizing the pics I use at the top of the page. Besides, it’s me, I am amazed I made it over a year with this set.

You may have noted that there are ads again on the right. I decided anything is something, and if the site can actually pay for itself I should at least try. I only need to make like 2 or 3¢ a day after all.

OK, that’s all for today.

nick