Nathan's Occasional Blog

Evidently today has been dubbed “funny video day” here at The Grind.  Thanks for this one Sean!

Last year, my neighbor had a massive christmas light setup on his house, something only him, Clark W. Griswold, and this guy knows how to do. Last year, my other neighbor and I installed remote control switches into his chains allowing us to turn portions of his lights off and on at whim. This one is even funnier.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5409947201428088801&q=harry+potter+dance

Alicea just sent that to me.  I don’t understand how the audience wasn’t laughing their asses off.  The music selections alone are enough to make me bust a gut.

From BoingBoing last night…

Amateur band performs Super Mario theme on marimba
Monterrey sez, “In what seems to be a college/high school show, three guys (Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach) play various famous Mario Bro’s tunes with a marimba. Geeky fun!” This is hilarious — the band really gets into it, horsing around, doing all kinds of great physical comedy to the obvious delight of the audience. Link

Hey Alicea, I know what I’m getting the family for Christmas next year … an HD CableCard tuner for our Media Center Edition computer in the living room!  Microsoft and CableLabs, the consortium run by the cable TV industry to approve new hardware, announced a couple days ago that they’ll have HDTV CableCard support for MCE computers by next holiday season.

This new hardware support means you’ll be able to plug your cable feed directly into your computer, and get access to all the HDTV programming (and everything else) that’s on the cable network (in our case Comcast).  With that you can ditch your cable box and use just one platform for regular and HD-DVR.  I’ve got a way bigger hard drive in our MCE computer than the cable box does (300GB vs 120GB) which means 3x the recording capacity.  Well, only 3x until I go out and get an external USB2 hard drive to store even more video on.

Because the CableCard format is currently just a one-way communication stream (down to your TV) you’d probably give up the ability to use Video on Demand and Pay Per View, but the increased quality (the cable box sucks for non-HD feeds), recording capacity, and “one-stop” for all your media wins in my mind.  Heck, we hardly use VoD (and NEVER use PPV) anyhow.  Besides, they’ve got a year to figure out how to sign up for that stuff via a web page … maybe even an MCE plugin!

I can’t wait!  Woohoo!

Yeah, Scott Adams is a must subscribe for those of you who haven’t yet.  His latest post deals with the murderer who escaped from a prison the other day.

I hate to take sides, but if I made a fake ID using nothing but a pack of Marlboros and a spoon, and made a set of civilian clothes out of pillowcases, then walked out of jail, I’d be feeling pretty good about myself too. I know for sure that I’d feel superior to the idiot who let me out. And that’s not even counting the part about getting away with murder.

I’m on the phone with my folks now and I’ve just learned that my dad has prostate cancer. Not sure how I feel right now … just kind of putting on a clinical face. I hate having this skill (becoming clinical), but it’s a coping mechanism. Anyway, I am sure I’ll process this in the days and weeks to come, but for now … hmmmm. Sayin’ a prayer.

Update [90 minutes later] – I’ve found another outlet. Drinking 18 year old single malt scotch. Hey, it works. Thanks to my beautiful bride Alicea for the refill she just dropped off. Sure I have to be at church tomorrow morning at 6:30a to set up, rehearse, and play a service … but this helps now. Gee, aren’t I the healthy one?

How to cause corporate financial loss
This article was previously posted under Q20051102 [Scott’s Place]

Applies to: Google (GOOG)

SUMMARY
This article outlines how to hypothetically cause corporate financial losses during the most recent financial quarter for Google using license plate borders available from the Google store.
Note: Past financial performance is no guarantee of future performance.  “Your mileage may vary.”

MORE INFORMATION
Please see the original article for further details.

Keywords: kbhowto kbgoogle kbplates KB123456

Ni!  [sorry for the Monty Python Holy Grail reference]

Check out Chris Pirillo’s posting from today about being sick.  As I mentioned in his comments, he’s almost exactly describing my 7 month old daughter!  🙂

I really hate the taste of coffee … I get a hot chocolate.  Guest that’s not an option here.  The description is spot on though!  🙂

You Are a Frappacino

At your best, you are: fun loving, sweet, and modern At your worst, you are: childish and over indulgent You drink coffee when: you’re craving something sweet Your caffeine addiction level: low

Yes, that’s right kids – the brains behind Dilbert (Scott Adams) is now blogging his personal life experiences in Dilbert.Blog.  It’s priceless, and one you MUST subscribe to in your favorite RSS reader.

“The best part of the story is the face he made when it became clear I wasn’t going to change my mind. It looked like someone had taken his dog and shoved it up his grandmother’s ass, put them both on his driveway, borrowed his SUV and used his gas to run over them repeatedly in front of the kids.”