Growing up in NZ, there were no Jews or Chinese in my rural town. But on TV, Jews were doctors and lawyers, and Chinese were wise and all-knowing. That began my fascination. To me they seemed to be an elite group with much in common.
So here's a cool non-Christian option for 12/25: Share your disbelief with others by listening to Jewish comedy in a Chinese restaurant!
Before there was podcasting I subscribed to Audible. But because there's so much free audio content I canceled Audible, and this is what I'm listening to:
It's been raining hard today, so we've stayed inside watching TV, and I've been playing with the cats and making my first mini movie with my new camcorder. With this short movie I was able to practice overlapping each clip and have the music fade in at the start and out at the end.
I used QuickTime to create a smaller file size, and then posted the movie to Ourmedia. Click on the image to view.
Great idea! Convert a long URL to something more manageable. The small URL is permanent, but it unfolds to the full URL when your browser opens.
http://www.brightroom.com/view_user_photo.asp?EVENTID=7803&PWD=&ID=18749274&
FROM%3Cbr%20/%3E=photos&BIB=F3218#order
becomes:
http://tinyurl.com/dwtxj
ahhh, that's better.
When I was a child my father bought a live potted tree for the holidays, and then planted it in the garden in January. That tree thrived and grew to be over 20 feet high. It's still there. I think it's a Douglas Fur.
Now most of us urban dwellers don't have anywhere to legally plant a tree, but Friends of the Urban Forest will provide the tree and then plant it for you in SF after the holidays.
FUF will also come to your neighbourhood and line your street with trees. They did this here on Hugo St a few years ago. I don't know how a tree can grow in sand, but they're growing.
Lani bought me a Samsung SC-D453 digital camcorder, and it arrived in yesterdays mail. I'm delighted with it!
So today I took the streetcar downtown to the Apple store for a class on iMovie and iDVD (From the Powell St. Station you can walk up the stairs straight into the store).
I am in awe of iMovie and iDVD! These applications have all the power most of us will ever need to edit our movies and create DVDs with custom menus. If you're thinking of using iMovie or if you already use it, take this free class to accelerate your learning. If I hadn't taken this class I wouldn't know what iMovie was capable of.
Amazing Fantasy comic book shop around the corner gets 2000AD 4 weeks after it comes out in the UK, so I picked up Prog 1463, 1464 and the Winter Special. $4 a pop.
I haven't read it since I was a kid, and not much has changed. "Rogue Trooper" and "Judge Dredd" are still in the magazine, but "Strontium Dog" is sadly missing. There's different art and script, but I notice Tom Frame still does the DD lettering.
DD has been called the Dirty Harry of comic books. Cop/Judge/Executioner in one. He gets things done!
Twelve years ago I drove my Mazda 323 at an open track event at Sears Point Raceway sanctioned by the Daly City Capri Club. This was my first time on a race track, but I'd done a lot of AutoX events so I felt confident. Back then the only safety equipment we needed was a helmet!
My car had .125 inch toe-out front and rear, so I was careful not to let-up on the gas through the corners. The Yokahama 008R tyres were very forgiving and and I learned a lot about my car's handling. Each session was limited to 20 minutes, so I got through the day without any trouble from overheating brakes.
How things change; now that sanctioning body is called NASA, and they're getting to be as big as SCCA. So I was delighted to see
Track Masters has filled the gap. Go here to drive your street car at a race track.
The Christian God used his slaves to build some impressive buildings over the last 2000 years. And now due to His increasing unpopularity these buildings are for sale to the public. The only catch is you have to like open plan living, and know how to instal a kitchen and bathroom. My favorite churches are those non-threatening ye olde stone Anglican/CofE/Episcopalian buildings.
They have that charming English village look. Like this home conversion in Australia:
The challenge will be to landscape the front yard to dissuade visitors on Sunday.
Thanks Cool Hunter and Idea Awards
I've put off buying a camcorder because it's the kind of expensive gizmo I might use once then store in the back of the closet. And I'm hard on my gadgets, and a camcorder is a bit delicate for my rough ways.
But now I have a cheap (but good) DV camcorder on the way. It was on sale at buy.com for $200 after rebate. This will be perfect to mount on my bicycle to make travel logs of the city.
I use http://www.ourmedia.org/ to host my movies.
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