Smug Puppies will stay around for a while in its current form, and then probably archive to a subfolder under the new one, if I can figure out how to resolve all the domain name & export/import issues.

Thanks!

He’s back with his littermates now, having dinner in a kittypile.

Thanks, Janiece, a lift was much needed this afternoon and these were a wonderful surprise.

• Is anyone else completely surprised that Bush didn’t pardon Uncle Ted in his final days in office?
• If I were Michelle Obama, I’d wear jeans and sweatshirts as a protest until the media gets off the ridiculous (and traditional) fashion coverage kick and starts focusing on what’s really important.
• Why did the powers-that-be choose Microsoft Silverlight for streaming the inauguration festivities – which is inaccessible to the 15+% (and growing) of users that are on the Mac platform?
• I should probably write something profound and reflective about the the inauguration, the new era, but I’m just not feeling very profound lately.
• Since Facebook’s most recent upgrade, I’ve been unable to get the Wordbook plugin, which sends my blog posts to my Facebook news updates, working. I deleted and reinstalled – and now it won’t even activate on my blog. Argh.
• I really need to upgrade my MBP to OSX 10.5, and clean up my hard drive. Again.
• I spent MLK day – I took a floating holiday – puttering about my newly cleaned up workshop finishing up several metalsmithing projects and starting a new one.
• Why do they set the demo ladies at Costco up on the most crowded days so that they block the aisles? This does not make sense. And why are there no demo men?
• My doggie is much improved after her visit to the vet – the antibiotics and pain pill helped a lot.
• My nephew just had his pet hamster die, which is very sad. Still, I don’t understand wanting to keep a rodent as a pet. The work-vs-reward equation doesn’t make sense to me. My condolences, though, to him.
• We just saw the movie Defiance which was quite good – I recommend it, and not just because it stars Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber.
• My ideal movie cast would be Clive Owen, Daniel Craig and Liam Neeson. It would probably not be a period piece or a chick flick.
• We had roast pork loin for dinner. (yum) Why do the folks that make roasting racks make then enamel-over-steel, which always peels and gets gross, rather than stainless steel?
• Chocolate chocolate chip ice cream sounds really good right now. It’s a good thing I have none.

It sure beats a gold watch or a signed desk set!

The GIPOD 200 Foreman Grill with Ipod/MP3 attachment not only grills, but it can also provide music to help set the mood, whether romantic or fun and festive during a party. (After all, nothing says romance like George Foreman.) For music capabilities, the unit comes equipped with a 10-watt speaker and the ability to be used with an iPod or MP3 player. Other highlights include an adjustable temperature-control probe, 200 sq inch cooking surface, and exclusive George Tough scratch resistant coating.

I personally feel that my steaks are happier when they get to listen to classic rock while they grill, although I’m always worried about mixing up my temperature control probe and my MP3 connector cable.

Crystal’s challenge, as I paraphrase it, is to come up with a modern day version of a locker door pinup collage, depicting our goals, hopes, obsessions.

Since I never can do an assignment exactly as requested, I twisted it to suit my current focus. My ‘locker door’ is my NaNoWriMo novel in progress, and my graphic representation is a cover mockup for the book. In best cover art tradition, it’s mildly cheesy and is only tangentially related to the actual content of the book.

I have no title yet, but it’s a volcano disaster novel so I used the tongue-in-cheek working title “It Blowed Up Real Good”. (The other working title option was “We Ran Out of Virgins”, but I thought that might be a bit obscure.)

The dream it represents? That someday – in the near future – I’ll get this book or another novel edited into shape and published.

Happy Monday.

This week, her challenge was to come up with a creative representation of your own ghost.

My first thought was to screen print my computer’s routing table. That would be all too poetic – my daily existence as represented by IP addresses sent wirelessly through the ether. There are probably security issues there, plus it’s not a very visually compelling picture.

So I got out the Photoshop and played, and voila – my ghost, haunting Yellowstone.

Image notes: I cut an image of myself out of a picture using the polygon select tool, feathered 5px. I inverted it, added a 30px outside glow, and reduced the layer to 60% opacity.

I then layered the waterfall image behind, selected solarize on that layer, set lighting to ‘difference’ for dark and contrasty but not too busy.

Happy Halloween!

Presidential Debate on Energy
On Monday, October 6, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will welcome representatives of both presidential campaigns to discuss their respective energy plans in a presidential-style debate. I think this geeky discussion may well be more interesting than the more prosaic candidate debate scheduled for Tuesday.

The Project that Tracks Big Projects
Tracking the projects labeled project is a project in itself. Here is Wired magazine’s fave five. I wouldn’t want to be PM on any of ‘em!

The Vertical Bed: Power nap in the middle of the street
The vertical bed comes with light-blocking sunglasses, noise-canceling headphones, a neck-pillow for comfort, and an umbrella to keep you dry. It stays upright thanks to hooks that will lock into subway grates, and braces and concealed harnesses that keep your legs and back supported.

Mad Cow Sound Check
For Janiece. Did her illustrious employer participate in any of the engineering? Surely there’s some potential for contact center technology here.

Top Ten Emerging Technologies for 2008
Technology Review presents 10 emerging technologies that they think are most likely to change the way we live – and I think they might give NaNoWriMo writers a few ideas as well.

Enjoy these – and let me know if you’ve seen any cool stuff yourself!

It’s mid-August, 90 degrees, and I’m at the game. No, not baseball – the Seahawks are playing their first home preseason football game. I’m seeing far more skin on my fellow fans than I’m used to – and the concessionaires are selling an awful lot of beer. Scary combination!

First play of the game – if you don’t count the kickoff.

Update 1: The Hawks are ahead, 6-0, as we near the end of the first quarter. Since both teams are playing backup players, the score is no big deal, still, a win would be great.

Update 2: 9-5, Seahawks, at the half.

Update 3: 19-9 Bears, at the end of the 3rd quarter. We lost 40 yards because of a brutal penalty, threw an interception which the Bears promptly ran into the end zone for a touchdown, then failed to block a punt return for a 75 yard touchdown. This is painful.

Update 4: 29-26 Seahawks in OT. Go Seahawks! I guess this means our third string is better than the Bears’ third string.

Note: please pardon the small, blurry pictures. They’re taken on my BlackBerry at 5x digital zoom so I can upload them from the game. I think in the future I’ll use my regular camera and wait until after the game to upload for the sake of decent image quality.