June 26th, 2008
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few days, you’ve likely heard the news that comedian George Carlin has died. Sad news. I’ve been a fan of his since I was a kid. I can actually remember the first time I heard some of Carlin’s work. I was eleven, maybe twelve years old. I was just at that point in my life where my parents felt comfortable leaving me home alone. And during one of those times where I happened to be the only one in the house, the phone rang. I answered it. From the other end of the line, I heard this:
“I had an interesting morning. I got into an argument with my Rice Krispies. I distinctly heard, ‘Snap, crackle, Fuck you!’”
Keep in mind, this was before the days of Caller ID or *69. I figured it was a prank call, but I was only half right. It turned out to be my friend Ronnie from down the street. He was also home alone, and was having some fun with his parents’ record collection. Once the initial surprise of the phone call wore off, I realized that that bit about the Rice Krispies was pretty funny. Ronnie eventually managed to dub all of his parents’ Carlin records onto cassettes. He and I spent many hours listening to those tapes on my crappy Montgomery Ward stereo. I followed Carlin’s career ever since. I watched many of his cable specials, read one of his books, and I even tuned into the fairly mediocre TV show that was based around him. Jen and I got to see him live here in San Luis Obispo on his last tour. He was preparing for his latest special, which was to be taped in Santa Cruz. He pretty much had his set down, but he was still working from multiple pages of notes which he held while on stage. It was a great show. Here’s a couple really bad photos I took during the performance:
And here’s a fitting video tribute to the “Rice Krispies” bit mentioned above.
So long, George.
Tags: Flickr, George Carlin, YouTube
Posted in photo, text, video | No Comments »
June 21st, 2008
San Luis Obispo has experienced record high temperatures over the last few days. It’s been so bad, that our house is literally falling apart. For example, we had a ceiling tile lose its adhesive hold:
A similar thing happened to the ceiling in the back of the house, as well.
Read the rest of this page »
Tags: California, cockatiel, San Luis Obispo
Posted in photo, text | 7 Comments »
June 15th, 2008
This video was made from footage I shot at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The video features sharks, prawns, rays, a flounder and some other fish. Music is by The Gorskys.
Podcast: Download (10.7MB)
Tags: California, Monterey, podcast, The Gorskys, YouTube
Posted in video | No Comments »
June 14th, 2008
Clearly, someone at SLO Transit needs some help with their grammar.
Two slugbugs in a row in front of us as we were pulling into the Marsh Street garage. Originally, I thought the white one was Geek Squad, but now I’m not so sure. (No door logo on the right-hand side.)
Read the rest of this page »
Tags: California, car, Flickr, San Luis Obispo
Posted in photo | No Comments »
June 8th, 2008
On the train ride home from last week’s trip to Monterey, I noticed some problems with my headphones. Specifically, the right earphone would cut out unless the in-line volume control was turned all the way up. No big deal, I figured. I had purchased a two-year replacement plan for the headphones. I’d just take ‘em back to Radio Shack and make an exchange. Then, after going through the rather tedious process of getting the exchange all ready to go (I won’t bore you with all of the details, but it had to be done through the mail, not in-store), the headphones began working again. They’re not perfect. There’s still a little cutting in/out, but it’s not major. I decided to cancel the return. I figured if the Radio Shack people tested ‘em, and disproved my original claim, they’d just send ‘em back to me as-is. Besides, I still have the warranty and can arrange for another exchange if they really do die in the future.
Read the rest of this page »
Tags: Hyper Nonsense, M-Audio, podcasting
Posted in text | No Comments »
June 4th, 2008
In this video blog, I talk about my new drug, Prozac. I actually recorded the video a couple weeks ago, but everything’s still pretty relevant. This is the second video I’ve edited using Final Cut Pro 5. I’m starting to get the hang of the software, and i think you’ll see the results here.
(Music in this video is by Darcy Fray.)
Podcast: Download (35.7MB)
Tags: Darcy Fray, health, podcast, YouTube
Posted in video | No Comments »
June 3rd, 2008
Last week, the Hyper Nonsense website disappeared. Not sure for how long. Don’t think it was any longer than a day. But, somehow, the entire site had been deleted from the server. I didn’t do it. Jen didn’t do it. And we’re the only ones who have FTP access to the site. I checked with tech support at my web hosting company. But tech support didn’t have an explanation for the deletion. Tech support did restore the site rather quickly from the company’s backups, which was nice. Aside from one minor addition to the blogroll, the entire site returned just as it was. Regardless, this incident makes me wonder if the site could’ve been hacked. There’s been plenty of news lately about WordPress sites getting hacked. But those hack jobs were usually done by spammers. In this case, the site was simply nuked into non-existence. It’s always possible too that it was some random fluke caused by the server that made the site vanish. I’ll probably never know for sure. And considering how easy it was to get the site back to its former state, I’m not that worried about it happening again. I guess the lesson to be learned here is, MAKE BACKUPS. Or make sure someone is doing it for you!
Tags: Hyper Nonsense
Posted in text | No Comments »
June 1st, 2008
Last Friday was Jen’s 35th birthday. To celebrate, we took the train up to Monterey, CA. We visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, walked along the shoreline, did a little shopping and had some great food. Here’s a few photos from the trip:
Jen, standing in front of a jellyfish tank at the aquarium.
Otters, part of an exhibit at the aquarium.
We picked up a HUGE piece of Oreo cake at the great Rosine’s Restaurant in downtown Monterey, Took both of us a couple days to finish it off.
See the rest of the set here. We took more video than photos, so look for that in the future. We’ll also be discussing the trip in-depth during the next episode of Hyper Nonsense.
Tags: California, fish, Flickr, jellyfish, Monterey, Rosine's
Posted in photo | No Comments »
