Tenacious

The sky is falling

leenathan — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:43:52 +0000

The sky is falling

Lots of excitement/terror on the =
internets today… something about the great depression. =
Whatev.

I collected some laughs.

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site36/2008/09=
23/20080923__82875236AW011_SENATE_HOLDS_fail~p1.jpg

http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2008/09/your-urgent-help-nee=
ded.html

Olympics!

leenathan — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:29:35 +0000

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. The Olympics are only
held every 4 years, because any more often and it it would just be too
much awesome to handle. I’ve forgotten how much I love all of it.
The global unity, the national pride, the purity of sport, it’s all
there. I swear when I hear the NBC Olympic theme I get goosebumps.

The opening ceremony was immense! 2008 people doing Tai Chi, dancers
running around a giant globe, the parade of nations, fireworks in the
place where they were invented, and the incredible torchlighting. How
awesome was that?

I watched swimming prelims last night – races that really meant
nothing, but it was so easy to get behind whatever American swimmer
was in the water. U-S-A! NBColympics.com has pretty much every
second of every event on video; I’ve been watching rowing prelims, air
pistol, fencing, and now a little handball streaming live. The whole
not having cable TV really isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

The US men’s soccer team has already played two games – beating Japan
1-0 and an agonizing tie to Holland 2-2. With a good performance
against Nigeria and some luck, we’ll be through to the quarter finals.
I expect all of you to be watching on Wednesday morning – catch it
live online at 2 am Pacific!

Now excuse me, I need to go watch Michael Phelps dominate the pool.

New Ride

leenathan — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:47:34 +0000

A few weeks ago, after talking about bikes at work, a coworker said
he’d give me his old cycle. It had been involved in a tragic crash
rendering it just out of service, and rather than repairing it back to
a ridable state, my friend splurged on a nice new bike. So, one day
after work, we made the handoff and the vintage late 80s Schwinn model
564 was officially mine. As I mentioned, it needed some repair work.
The rear derailleur, normally attached to the frame at a threaded hole
in a tab of the frame (‘hanger’), had stripped out and was easily
removable. To make matters worse, the hanger was bent out of vertical
at a fairly significant angle. After some research, I found that this
wasn’t as uncommon as I thought it might have been; there are many
different repair options waiting for me to buy online. The most
common method was a simple threaded insert, easily installed by boring
out the existing hole in the frame. Like a helicoil, the insert
provides a new set of threads, and a shoulder on one end keeps it in
place after tightening down the derailleur. The bent hanger worried
me, though. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to handle that part of the
repair with my limited tools.

I finally remembered to load the bike in the car one morning and after
work that day, I went to the local cycle shop, where the owner (much
to my surprise) dropped what he was doing, carefully bent the hanger
back with a specialized tool, and sold me an insert to repair the
hole. He wasn’t sure about the bending job; since it was fairly out
of line, he worried that he might break the thin aluminum. I think my
words of encouragement went something like, “well, right now I have a
broken bike. If this doesn’t work, I’ll still have a broken bike.” My
lack of a potential loss being established, the metal cooperated and
the hanger bent right back into place. Let’s not think about what
might happen to other parts of a ductile aluminum frame should I run
into any mailboxes or the like.

Armed with the insert, I borrowed a drill from my bike benefactor and
set out to finish the repair job. I worked in my ‘backyard,’ the
green space outside my back porch that has a spectacular view of the
street and the new apartment unit being built. Using a newspaper to
catch the aluminum chips, I bored the new hole, eyeballing the drill
straight. I suspect the insert wasn’t made with the tightest
tolerances, as the finish was not smooth and it took quite a bit of
‘detail’ work with the drill to enlarge the hole. I’d force the
insert in a bit, note where the most interference was, and use the
drill to remove some material near there. After what seemed like an
hour doing this, I finally was able to shove the insert all the way
through. I tightened the derailleur on, unravelled the chain from an
odd series of bends, and placed it on the sprockets. Ecstatic at this
point, I started cautiously riding it in the parking lot, slowly
increasing speed as I ensured I wouldn’t get tossed, reassuring myself
about the quality of the repair. I think I rode about four miles that
day, in Carhartt pants covered in bike grease.

I decided I would hold off on riding until I got a helmet. I found
one for cheap on Amazon and ordered it the next day. I should have
done more research; I ordered from West Virginia and the shipping took
forever. Finally this Monday it came in. I rode another four miles
that afternoon, midway through making the discovery of how to make the
speedometer work – the pickup on the frame, moved an eighth inch
closer to the magnet on the spokes, made the difference from no
readout to ‘I can see how fast I’m going!’ When I first got the bike,
my friend had mentioned ‘Oh, and I don’t know what’s wrong with the
speedometer, either. It used to work’

So now, the possiblities are endless. I feel like I’m about 7 years
old to be this excited about a bike. On Tuesday I rode to the park
with all my soccer gear in a bag on my back. Albertson’s, Wal-Mart,
and Safeway are all within biking distance. Eventually, I’ll get a
small repair kit to be confident in making longer rides, like to work
and back. This is really exciting. Let’s go ride bikes.

Fun with robots

leenathan — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:41:13 +0000

Do people really fall for this? I mean honestly.

(7:35:55 PM) Marylou (?): Hi
(7:36:08 PM) Leeee: pardon me for asking
(7:36:12 PM) Leeee: but who is this?
(7:36:44 PM) Marylou (?): hey, Age/Sex/Location?
(7:37:15 PM) Leeee: I asked first
(7:37:43 PM) Marylou (?): hey whats up babe, U got a webcam? finally
someone adds me, I am soo fuckin horny today for some reason lol
(7:39:01 PM) Leeee: what the hell is the point of you robots, anyways?
are you going to send me viruses disguised as hawt pix?
(7:39:45 PM) Marylou (?): listen hun, I am just about to start my
webcam show with jen, come chat me there in my chat room? We can
cyber, I will get naked if u do..lol!
(7:40:44 PM) Leeee: you even have some wait time scripted into you
after I type something. How cute.
(7:40:56 PM) Marylou (?): I can show u how to watch if u promise not
to tell anyone else how to do it???PLEASE:-$
(7:43:28 PM) Leeee: I can’t deny it. I do love me some sexy robots.

A small prediction

leenathan — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:34:09 +0000

A small prediction

Despite the importance of Earth Day and =
the Pennsylvania primary, by far the most important event in the world =
happening today is the first leg of the Champions League =
semi-final. Chelsea face Liverpool at Anfield starting in about 15 =
minutes. These two teams have met several times in the past few =
years at this stage of the competition and have developed quite the =
rivalry. It has to be devastating to be so close to European =
glory, only to be eliminated in the semi-finals. So without =
further ado,

Liverpool 2 -1 Chelsea

Gerrard will be immense.

An away goal will leave Chelsea with a =
hope to salvage the tie, but Liverpool will have the momentum into the =
second leg.

The great thing is that while this game =
is huge, tomorrow’s will be exponentially more exciting. (!)

What’s this over here?

leenathan — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:56:44 +0000

I’m trapped inside. Winter doesn’t want to leave without one last cold spell. I think the temperature is supposed to hit the balmy mid 40s today, but still, there is snow in the forecast. Silly Pacific weather.

The good news is that sitting at a computer on a Saturday morning makes for great soccer watching. The match of the minute is Blackburn – Manchester United. I almost feel sorry for some of the Red Devils’ opponents when they are denied points just at the death of a game. Friedel and company made a great effort at stifling the ridiculous attacking talent for 80 minutes, but Tevez and company finally found a way through. Great game to watch, though, especially the last 20 minutes or so. Now it’s time for my boys in blue and crimson, the Blaugrana, FC Barcelona. Incidentally, today’s match is the first meeting of FCB and their crosstown rivals Espanyol in the Nou Camp since I was there in June. You’ve got to love derby matches. Too bad this American commentator is piss poor.

My GPS unit has been laying on the floor, unloved, for several weeks now. I need to wrap up some unfinished business from Spring Break. Without further ado, here are several GPS+Google Maps love children, from the 2007 and 2008 Spring Breaks. In 2007 I was able to track the entire road trip, hogging an inverter power socket. The 2008 version only has a few marked points. Fun to explore, no doubt.

2007 to Goblin Valley and Canyonlands

2008 in Organ Pipe and Cabeza Prieta

~~Those iframes are not cooperating at all. Pardon my html crappiness as I try to fix them.~~ I win.

I would probably entertain some COD4 on the XBox this afternoon, but my love affair for that game has suffered an irreparable breakup. Last week my stats were reset and the custom classes went crazy. I played a few more games trying to resurrect my lost stats, but it was to no avail. Even now, I can’t choose basic weapons and perks (M16, Stopping Power, etc) for my custom classes. Customer support has told me ‘there’s usually not much we can do”. You mean you can’t just find my gamertag in the database and delete it? That just seems fishy to me. So, I’m done with it. More time for FIFA.

Indoor game tonight at 6. What time is it? Time to go play yet? Hurry up!

Post by email

leenathan — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:18:17 +0000

This is bloody brilliant. Thanks to the magic of the interwebnets, I
can post via e-mail! One would think this would inspire more activity
here…

Have fun with this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=mHXBL6bzAR4

Dinner time.

Is this thing still on?

leenathan — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 05:02:58 +0000

Hello world. It’s been a while. Life is good here. I always say that I’d like to keep this thing updated, and then don’t really follow up on it – so here’s the newest iteration of that.

Summer is finally peeking its way out from the clouds, and we’ve had a few nice days in the past weeks, with more forecast ahead (yes!). When the gorgeous days are more infrequent, you tend to take advantage of the gorgeous-ness more often. Besides, I need to reinforce my tan/burn from the desert. On a horse with no name.

I’m in the middle of watching Garden State. I don’t know why I haven’t watched it before. I think Zach Braff is hilarious in Scrubs and Natalie Portman is amazing, which makes this movie very watchable for me. I need to go finish it.

Here’s a random question – what’s the deal with media players and their visualizations? I can understand the need for programmers to cater to users that may be in the middle of an acid trip, but I can’t imagine that this is a large majority of the total users. I use Windows Media Player at work, and it’s astounding how that giant window is about 80% full of stupid psychedelic craziness whenever you just play a song. /rant

leenathan — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 05:40:57 +0000

Why the fuck is there so much importance placed on public polls of how the war is going in Iraq? It’s not like Americans can get any kind of real insight into the situation. It seems that those polls are just tools to see how well the media outlets are pitching their crap. Seriously.

I want to be on a soccer team that has $500 billion. How sick would that be?

Mission Accomplished

leenathan — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 20:39:10 +0000

Instead of invading Iraq, we should have given the half-trillion dollars we’ve spent (wasted) on the war to their soccer team. Iraq’s underdog mens national team just beat Saudi Arabia to win the Asian Cup, a tournament held every 4 years. The country went nuts, despite being surrounded by the horrors of war. I love this game.

Read it here