Arizona Hoochness

Adoption Works! Ask Angelina

2007-01-22T00:19:00.000-07:00

Ok.. let's see if this works.. I adopted a gatito (now that we only have 1 left at home!)

Heh.. Hooch Boy would probably like this. (you have to click "MORE" in order to play with it, hee).

Look Mami! No Cavities

2006-11-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

Hooch is in the "No Cavities" Club, which is great news.. yet why oh why does he get accosted by people bearing CANDY???

I'm not exaggerating: Hooch has been offered:

1. GUM from a viejita at Mervyn's (to be fair to her, he was saying, "I want chicle! I want chicle!" and she was only too happy to oblige)
2. TWO candy bars from a Pinoy grandma (it's the same as saying "hi!"). I wouldn't have minded as much except that she offered these to him at the same time I was peeling an orange for him to snack on.
3. THREE candies which were on the buffet line (next to the chicken adobo and the biko)
4. BIG BAG of candy from my hooch co-worker who claims we she gives him candy because we don't... (oh and because we punish him by giving him soy milk and organic snacks!)

**Sigh**

La teoria del cordón

2006-07-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here watching/not watching a NOVA special about "string theory".. This is fascinating! But I really want to discuss a comment made by one of the scientists, who were trying to "pull the string" on the theory.

This particular academic was stating that string theory could not be proven, since these are subatomic particles, and that there was no way that it could be tested, or proven.

All I'm thinking is, hey, atom smashers are live and well.. ya never knoooow! It's a little irresponsible to discredit something just because you don't see it. Hmm...a theory is just that, a theory, and can lead one towards another theory, etc. etc. until one is proven.

*Sigh*... Anything just so I don't have to do homework...drat! The lengths I go to.

¿Piedra, Papel o Tijeras?

2006-06-17T12:06:00.000-07:00

OK....so it's Saturday, and Stack0 asked me to change the channel.. to the USA RPM, rock paper scissors, ah, championship?? Allrighty... I'd never, ever have imagined this.

Sound bites from the event:

"The tension is so thick you could cut it with scissors."
"Women start off with scissors 53% of the time... If the woman has short hair, that number shoots up to 68%."
"Rock paper sissors are immaulate. It's the game of the people."

So if you think this is a joke, the $50,000 prize is not. Hey it's never to late to start training a Hooch Boy...

So Long, Gatita!! Te Extrañaremos

2006-06-13T21:45:00.000-07:00

Gatita has been lost for more than two weeks now... I guess I've finally come to the realization that she is gone. OK, I pretty much figured that after the guy from the Animal Control said, "You live by the mountains? Oh yeah, un Coyote!"

Gatita was given to us as a kitty by some friends of ours. She lacked a name, and nothing befitted her more than the name "gatita." She was with us when my sister left the door open and lost "Gato", our siamese, and welcomed "Bucky" our new siamese, into the family. He quickly became her best friend.

Gatita loved to mew. She also loved to pee in the most inopportune places. Nonetheless, we loved her.

Ay Gatita... hope you had a happy life, as much happiness as you gave to us.

A new baby! Well..not really

2006-03-29T00:48:00.000-07:00

I know, I know... we haven't posted for a while - But we have a good reason! Stack0 and I were working on our Favorite Congressman's Campaign Website, which is now officially finished!!

I don't think I've ever slept this little (maybe when Hooch was born), but now it's (alas!) finished.

So... please keep reminding me to post, as I promise to do so as soon as I have time (ok, maybe when I have a Little Time).

The Colorful World According to Hooch...

2006-03-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

It's no surprise that Mexilina's and my latests posts are about Hooch boy. It almost seems like he's becoming smarter exponentially. This also means he is more demanding of our time, and it's more difficult to keep him preoccupied with things that don't require our complete attention -- not that we try to, but sometimes we need a break, even from Hoochness.

Anyway, anyone who has children knows that coloring in brief doses is an activity that is always fun. Being the digitally addicted parent that I am, I, of course, found numerous sites that allow you to print illustrations for the Hooch.

Here are some of our favorite finds:

Crayola Creativity Central: Duh! But, you have to register to print the coloring activities

"Coloring Books" website: This site has a good number of coloring illustrations, but I'm waiting for Disney or Warner Bros to slap them with a law suit.

Kid Explorers Coloring Pages: No, I'm not a religious person, but the site has some interesting coloring pages. With the recent Intelligent Design debate, I think it's a hoot that they have dinosaur pages :)

Disaster Activity Books (by the Red Cross): Yes, you too can teach your kids about disaster... using a crayon! Oh yeah, you can download the coloring activity books in English, Spanish, and one other language. Can you guess it? If you guessed the the 9th most common language in the United States and the 20th in the world, you would be right: Vietnamese. I guess the Red Cross must know some statistic about the Vietnamese and disasters that the rest of us dont know. Right? As for filipinos, we don't need no stinkin' disaster coloring book. For one, we'd find some enterprising way to make a quick return from the resulting chaos (no, I'm not hating), and for another, the filipinos as a whole are patient survivalists, meaning we'd just as well wait out a disaster if it suits us -- as long as we have enough rice, fish and adobo.

Where's the Car?

2006-03-01T23:42:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to do a quick post.. there's so much going on around the country, but heck, it's all bad news! So I will enlighten you with a story of a Hoochie Boy:

When Hoochie's bedtime rolls by, we brush his teeth, put him to bed, and read him a story. His latest books are the "colors" and the "shapes" mini books that Stack0 bought online. Lately, though, after we say "good night," he is getting up and begs for "agua!" or "caca" (yes, it's potty training time). A couple days ago, he added a new one: "Where's the caaar?" he asks. Stack0 then goes to the living room and picks out a hotwheels, and proceeds to give it to Hoochie. Yes, Hoochie, in lieu of a teddy bear, sleeps with a hotwheels car.

I swear we are raising him with gender neutral toys; I even (I confess!) bought him a tea set (hey! what if he wants to be a chef when he grows up). Yet, I think there's a C gene that just makes him love cars.

We have already determined the H gene, by the way. And I think it's transferrable through the Y chromosome.

Stewie to replace Jay Leno

2006-01-25T16:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, not quite. But, Mexilina will still be salivating over the fact that Stewie's saucy mouth can be heard in another medium. She was probably one of two people who downloaded the Stewie widget from Yahoo so that you can hear a Stewie quote at your clickable pleasure. The other person is, of course, is the programmer who made the insane and annoying Stewie widget.

Thank goodness it'll only start out as an internet show for now. Hahaha! Anyone who's ever watched Space Ghost or Alf for more than 5 minutes in their own talk shows knows that the internet will probably the only place Stewie will ever host his own show -- unless Stewie gets scheduled next to MXC or Maximum Exposure, my two favorite shows on Spike TV :).

Firefox 1.5 AVI Plugin Fix (using Quicktime)

2006-01-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

This hack has to do with the plaguing Firefox problem of viewing embedding AVI files on webpages. If you try to view an embedded AVI file in Firefox, you'll get a screen similar to this:

Well, if you're observant, you'll see an option at the top of the webpage to install the missing plugin... yeah!

But, wait! If you're bold enough to continue:

WTF? So, someone's pulling your tail, and it isn't your toddler son who likes pulling on animals' tails until they yelp for someone to save them from misery :). So, what do you do? That's obvious, do a Google search! If you're like me, you found that there are hints or promises of a fix for this problem, but alas, you will be left unsatisfied. Bastards! If you know what you're doing and you like viewing the movies in a separate application, there's a extension to edit firefox's mime types store. I don't know about you, but if a web page has an embedded video, I like to view it in its natural environment. So, what do you do? Scream at the mozilla developers for not allowing users to edit their own mime types/plugins/actions directly within firefox? Sure, that help eases the pain and the frustration of a firefox existence. Or, you can hold on to your knickers folks, and follow the instructions below. It requires a bit of editing in notepad, but it shouldn't be too bad. Here are the steps for Windows XP:

Close all instances of Firefox. Very important.
Make a copy of the Firefox's pluginreg.dat. Put it somewhere in case of a royal fubar. This file is usually found in the user's "Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox." So, for example, if your username is HobBope, then you would make a backup copy of the file "C:\Documents and Settings\HobBope\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\pluginreg.dat".
In notepad (or in your favorite text editor), open the same pluginreg.dat

Find the first reference to quicktime. You can just use the simple search in notepad under "Edit->Find..." or CTRL-F. The text region of interest should look like this or something simimlar:


C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins\npqtplugin.dll|$
|$
1136402728877|1|1|$
The QuickTime Plugin allows you to view a wide variety of multimedia content in Web pages. For more information, visit the QuickTime Web site.|$
QuickTime Plug-in 7.0.3|$
7
0|application/sdp|SDP stream descriptor|sdp|$
1|application/x-sdp|SDP stream descriptor|sdp|$
2|application/x-rtsp|RTSP stream descriptor|rtsp,rts|$
3|video/quicktime|QuickTime Movie|mov,qt,mqv|$
4|video/flc|AutoDesk Animator (FLC)|flc,fli,cel|$
5|audio/x-wav|WAVE audio|wav,bwf|$
6|audio/wav|WAVE audio|wav,bwf|$

Increment the number as shown in red by one. In this example, change the "7" to an "8".
Add a line after the last element with the following line (note: the number on this new line is one less than the number you increment with in step 5):
```
7|video/x-msvideo|Windows AVI File|avi|$
```

Your changes should look like this with the changed/added text in green:


C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins\npqtplugin.dll|$
|$
1136402728877|1|1|$
The QuickTime Plugin allows you to view a wide variety of multimedia content in Web pages. For more information, visit the QuickTime Web site.|$
QuickTime Plug-in 7.0.3|$
8
0|application/sdp|SDP stream descriptor|sdp|$
1|application/x-sdp|SDP stream descriptor|sdp|$
2|application/x-rtsp|RTSP stream descriptor|rtsp,rts|$
3|video/quicktime|QuickTime Movie|mov,qt,mqv|$
4|video/flc|AutoDesk Animator (FLC)|flc,fli,cel|$
5|audio/x-wav|WAVE audio|wav,bwf|$
6|audio/wav|WAVE audio|wav,bwf|$
7|video/x-msvideo|Windows AVI File|avi|$

Save and close the file. And, you can now view embedded AVI files in Quicktime.

I chose Quicktime as the player for AVIs because I prefer quicktime, but you should be able to use any application that can view AVI files. Of course, you might need to add additional lines, depending on whether your player of choice is already included in the pluginreg.dat file or not.

Googleness - How Dreamy... ?

2005-12-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

It seems like everyone is going to Google. A couple of days ago, googleblog posted an entry mentioning an old co-worker (he's the guy in the white shirt in the second and third picture from the top). And, yesterday, I found out that a friend, named K Krishnan, just got accepted at the Mountain View office as a project manager. Of course, she's debating whether to go to Deloitte and Touche or to take the Google offer. Personally, I think it's a no brainer. Who wants to work for a company whose name is one phonetic transpose from two very unsanitary implements? (in American English, that is) :)

Well, last night I dreamt about being hired at the big G. Needless to say, it was quite a stressful dream, probably because I recently applied to the Google Phoenix office, and I have a personal statement to write, and I'm debating on whether to apply for the CS masters degree (which means I have to take the GRE soon -- real soon), and I don't know where my position might be after the summer when my grant expires, and I'm working on a someone's campaign site, and I'm committed to write a small program to dump schedule data from a database for a doctor's office, and well, the beginning of a semester begins another month of chaos for me. The sad part is that Mexilina is just as busy. It's probably true that 1) I am a self-diagnosed ADD or 2) I am a card-carrying member of the multitasking/"continuous partial attention" generation or 3) both. It's obviously choice 3. I wonder if humans will ever get to the point where our brains will explode from reaching information overload :).

Anywho, back to my Google dream: They first sat me down in an area where all the software engineers were working while I was waiting for someone to interview me. Then, this rude engineer (someone with a vendetta to fulfill) came up to me and handed me several pages of economics questions as part of my interview. The best part was that all the questions were handwritten and illegible. I went back to the guy and asked him very nicely to clarify the questions, trying my best to hint to this virtual interviewer that it might be better if the questions were typed. As most of my dreams are (e.g. ironic), he returns with the handwritten questions SCANNED with the addition of pictures (not graphs, just some pictures), all of which made even less sense to me.

So, while I tried my best to answer/decipher the questions, I overheard this interviewer talking to another engineer about his great idea to create a new search engine for people's email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, and other personal information much like one can do with celebrity information on Google. Of course, I had to speak up and say, "Why don't you use Google's existing search?" As everyone knows, one treads carefully when trying to contradict an interviewer, but heck, it's my dream :). So, we debated about whether his search could be done with Google's existing search or not. In the end, I won because I told him that above all he had legal and privacy issues when applying this search to the general population.

There are other details to my dream that I won't elaborate on. No, no nudity, sex or anything exciting like that, but the other details were relatively unimportant (like the software engineers being teenagers, none of them actually working at computers, etc.). Anyway, I'm one of those people who likes to find a deeper meaning to dreams than just being a function of electrochemical reset button for the human brain. One can't beat a real dream interpreter, but since I don't have one around me, here's the results of some keywords searched at one dream interpretation site, one that is probably just as hokey as the next dream interpretation site.

INTERVIEW: "To dream that you are at an interview, denotes your anxiety over being judged by others."

FIGHT (since I couldn't find DEBATE, ARGUE, etc): "To dream that you participate in a fight, indicates inner turmoil. Some aspect of yourself is in conflict with another aspect of yourself. Perhaps an unresolved or unacknowledged part is fighting for its right to be heard. It may also parallel a fight or struggle that you are going through in your waking life."

EXAM: "To dream that you are taking an exam, signifies insecurities, fear of not meeting others' expectations, and fear of failure."

Ok, so the interpretation wasn't earth-shattering, but it's interesting. If I'm reading this right, I have a fear of being judged by others, meeting others' expectations, and fear of failure. I also have some inner turmoil that is unresolved and unacknowledged. Fine. But, the question that still bothers me is this: Why economics? Economics was actually fun, even though I don't remember a lick of it. Organic Chemistry, now that was the worst...

Chinese Yahoo IM Audible Translations

2005-12-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

So, here's my second installment of the Yahoo IM Audible Translations -- this time for the Chinese audibles. The first installment can be found here. I want to thank Harry W. for his help. The translations might be a little awkward since Harry is a Chinese native, but you can get the gist.

You can get the Chinese audible in Yahoo Messenger by going to "See all audibles"->International->China or by going to "Audibles from other countries"->Emotion... that's right, Emotion. Your guess is as good as mine why the Chinese audibles are called "Emotion." If someone knows the answer to this one, please enlighten me. Of course, one wonders why Yahoo decided to include 3 "I miss you" Chinese audibles....

As before, you can play each audible by right-clicking on the picture and select play.

Chinese: 强！实在是强！
English: Really, Really awesome!

Chinese: 过来..近点...再近点...Kiss！
English: Come closer, closer!

Chinese: 最近真的好想你哦！
English: I really miss you lately!

Chinese: 真真的么？我要晕了！
English: Really, is that true?!

Chinese: 你不要这样嘛
English: Don't do that, come on

Chinese: 真的好感激你啊
English: I really, really appreciate you

Chinese: 你简直太让我感动了！
English: I'm so moved by you! (though it's probably safe to say it's closer to "You melt me" or something similar...)

Chinese: 一定要幸福喔！
English: Please, be happy!

Chinese: 你好可愛耶！
English: You're so adorable!

Chinese: 加油喔！
English: Come on/Work harder!

Chinese: 我好想你喔 ~
English: I miss you so much

Chinese: 真郁闷啊...
English: I'm so depressed...

Chinese: Only You~
English: Only You (an easy translation :)... it's actually from a famous Chinese movie in which the main actor sings this song)

Chinese: 嗨，亲爱的，看见你真好
English: Hi Jenna, nice to meet you

Chinese: 我想你了，特别想
English: I grew to miss you, and now really really miss you

Chinese: 酷不酷啊哥哥
English: Am I cool, my boyfriend? (Yes, that frog on your head makes you really cool)

Merry Xmas! And...Happy Watering...

2005-12-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

In honor of the recent holiday, here's a list of gifts one would never think to buy for me (and apparently didn't think to buy this year):

1. Randy Travis CD compilation ("The Very Best"). I should explain Randy was my high school star crush, one that would never materialize for oh, so many reasons..

2. A Vintage Paper slicer/trimmer. Yes, it's true. I fantasize about owning one, but only the wooden heavy kind. Unfortunately, we have a hooch boy that is too inquisitive, hence no slicer for me.

3. MTV's Pimp My Ride: The Complete First Season. Daammn right.

The only reason I'm talking about unconventional gifts is because of a recent one we (yes, we! even if stack0 refuses to admit his name was also on the gift) gave our young nephew. OK, so it was the 24th, and we already had 2 gifts for him, but wanted to give him one more. So. I went to Target with my sister (his mom) to help me find a gift for him.

Needless to say, the toy section had slim pickin's, there were no mini-basketballs, and we were unsure which "Sponge Bob" videos he didn't own. Then my sister had a bright idea (that's right, I'm blaming Her!). She said, "Hey, he always wants this one thing when we come to the store, and I always say no.. I think you should give him that for Xmas!"

So... we bought it, wrapped it (very creative wrapping), and put it under the tree.

Imagine his surprise when he opened it! His face went from puzzled, to suspicious, then red, then to thinking he was on Punk'd. He was afraid to open any more gifts after that...I think we have traumatized this child for many xmases to come.

And, Stack0 won't let me live it down. I kept trying to explain how he had always asked for one, how he loves the water, how... er... um.. anywho, he kept interrupting me by saying "STOP!" and "Don't Want to Hear It" and "STOP" yet again. Hooch boy, apparently, was also upset at the gift, because he surprised us that night by saying "STOP IT!" while doing the "talk to the hand" motion. It's quite hoochy.

Oh! Oh! This story is so good, it must be fattening!

2005-12-15T22:32:00.000-07:00

I know...we've been slacking off for a while, and YES, busy posting in other blogs (ahem! so much for anonymity! Hooches, HOOCHES, I say!) Today, I'm going to put on Stack0's Tech-y hat on and talk about Yahoo Widgets (not to be confused with Wikis, which are...um, ah, ok I don't know what they are, but they are definitely not Widgets).You can go to http://widgets.yahoo.com/ and download the Widget Engine. It's the BEST! I got it because I wanted my day planner on my desktop, as well as to be able to write quick notes. It can also post a little fish on your screen, or hey hey heey! Get Stewie Griffin w/random quotes!

Btw, Stack0 recommends that you unclick everything but the wizard when installing..it's just the thing to do.

Diebold - where capitalism meets politics

2005-12-15T10:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am a technology-phile. I honestly believe that one day there will be androids walking among us; that our MP3 player, XM Radio, cell phone, and camera will integrated into one device and worn on our heads, like headbands, throughout the day, much like a headband or as a wireless earpiece; that one day, we will be able to use RFID chips to find that missing sock or our house keys by querying the house-wide computer system; and maybe one day we'll have a chip embedded in our heads that will stream media directly into our optic and auditory nerves. Yes, I do love technology.

However, all technology must be balanced with wisdom and some with more scrutiny. As much as technology improves our lives and makes us more lazy, there are ways in which it can be abused as well. One such example is the Diebold voting machine.

Actually, Diebold hasn't seen sunny days lately. In November the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (a digital age vanguard) challenged Diebold's request to waive North Carolina's transparency laws for voting machines as well as any criminal and civil liabilities for non-compliance (EFF press release). Later, Diebold tried to circumvent both the judge's ruling and the NC laws all together by "persuading" the NC board of elections to certify the Diebold's voting machines. Of course, it would be illegal if the board of elections did this without verifying all the necessary requirements, including reviewing source code (EFF announcement). There must be a reason for this irregularity, right?

Later this month, Scott+Scott LLC (no a typo) filed a securities fraud class action against Diebold. Then, a Diebold whistleblower, nicely named Dieb-Throat, came forward and revealed just how diligent Diebold is with its software and security. Earlier this week, CEO O'Dell announced his resignation for "personal" reasons. But, my favorite announcement came on Tuesday when a security expert demonstrated in Leon County, Florida how to actually hack a Diebold voting machine in front of a live studio audience (ok, not in a studio, but definitely in front of witnesses, and it was video taped). In today's USA Today article:

The voting system maker, Diebold Inc., sent a letter in response that questioned the test results and said the test was "a very foolish and irresponsible act" that may violated licensing agreements.

Right. As Dieb-throat said, "Diebold System One of Greatest Threats Democracy Has Ever Known."

Images borrowed from Rand Careaga/salamander.eps.

Wal-Mart...Lo Barato Puede Salirte Caro!

2005-11-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

Last night, Stack0, Hooch Boy and I went to the Loft to watch the Wal-Mart movie. Can I just say, it was PACKED! There were more people in line there than at the StarWars premiere (and trust me, I was there).

This movie was great..I shed a tear (or two) because of the lives ruined by this corporate giant. Ugh! We are so buying this film and playing it on Thanksgiving night!

At any rate, props to the guy sitting to the left of me at the theater.. he had lots of comments throughout the movie, but hey, I couldn't help but laugh. Next time you see the Bull, ask him about the phrase, "Back Out~ Back Out!!"

Oh yeah.. important to note: This was the FIRST time we took a Hooch to the movies...and may I add, the LAST. Popcorn was just not enough to placate him. He started getting fidgety and cried for about 5-6 seconds, but it seemed like 5-6 minutes to us. Ugh. Very embarrassing, to become the parents whom we criticize when we ourselves are at the theater. Doh.

VOTO LATINO! (para la igualdad de raza)

2005-11-09T21:55:00.000-07:00

Yeay!! Yesterday was so awesome, I'm still sleepy from all the celebrating!

But seriously, I wanted to share one of the big reasons Leal, Ulich and Trasoff won: People like this very dedicated volunteer, who was wiling to don a mask and provide continuous "visibility."

By the way, Stack0verflow and I saw her at the Hotel Congress celebration, and we both so eloquently praised her "monkey" mask. ARGH! Both of us! She kept correcting us, and then explained to us that the donkey is the animal symbol for the democratic party. Lord! All I could feebly respond was, "Oh, we know, we're just drunk!" Never mind Stack0 had only 1/2 a drink, and I just had, er, a couple of margaritas at our own personal VerdeForce "war room."

Halloween at the Fred Archer Center

2005-10-31T22:16:00.000-07:00

This was hooch boy's first Halloween experience where he was able to enjoy a bit of candy, and let me tell you -- it was not a pretty sight. In fact, it was downright horrific. Cotton candy on his face, carmel on his hands, and chocolate aaaaallll ooooovvvvveeeeerrr. I thought it was inevitable that hooch would be convulsing with too much sugar in his system :).

Anyway, Mexilina, Hooch, and I spent most of the evening at the Fred Archer Center, where they were having a nice Halloween party for the neighborhood kids complete with a haunted house, games, food and drink, and even a Halloween contest.Our favorite contest was the "scariest" costumes category. It wasn't so much that the costumes were scary, but that the last person to swagger into the judging line was a slouching chubby darth vader. Hilarious... I could almost imagine a parody movie being made with such a character... something like Spaceballs II....

If you're wondering who the winner was, he was the middle boy with the white mask and the big red grin. Yeah, not THAT scary. Anyone who has watched the "Halloween" series with Michael Myers (related to Harriet???) knows that it's the quiet, expressionless ones with the short kitchen knives that are the scariest. Ok, maybe it's just me...

Political Humor

2005-10-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, I rarely write about political humor, and I rarely come across two pieces of political humor in the same day that are just exceptional. The first one is Schwarzenegger Street, which was given to me by Mexilina who got it from G. The second one is a hilarious blog by "Harriet Miers." No wonder she didn't get the nomination! Just read it from the start :).

Yahoo coolness ... ?

2005-10-26T16:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, everyone who knows me knows that I am a Google-lite. I said Google-lite, not Google-obsessed :). Anywho, Yahoo came out with a product that totally caught me off guard. Usually, I chalk up many of Yahoo's latest antics to following the the big G, but this time score one for the little y with their new travel planner.

It's cool because you can switch between planner and map mode, make plans for different locations, and better yet, you can even see other people's trip plans (I presume if users authorize them to be public). However, to search other people's trip plans, you need to go through a search page. It would be really nice if you could just click on some link right off of your own travel plan -- it would have saved a couple of clicks, select boxes, and possibly some typing, but hey, that would have made the product really, really cool ... something Google would have done, if it would have thought of this idea first :).

By Special Request: The Propositions

2005-10-24T23:31:00.000-07:00

Ooooh... and you thought politics weren't sexy..

Actually, a dear friend asked me about the current propositions on the upcoming city election on Tuesday, November 8th.

PROPOSITION 100 -- "Would you like a Raise?"
This Proposition would increase the annual salary for the mayor ($10,080 raise) and councilmembers ($5,760).

Seriously, these folks don't make much money as it is (mayor makes 42k right now, council makes 24k). Since they make such a small amount, we end up having the "independently rich" (aka "vendidos") run in order to increase their already big coffers. It's time to make it possible for people to run for the good of the city and not for their own personal gain. Therefore, Yes, of Course.

PROPOSITION 400 -- "Would you like a Bigger Budget?"
This Proposition would let the City spend tax money it already has, but can't spend because of state-imposed caps.

If the money is already there, why can't we spend it?? Also, it's not like we're spending all of our revenue, we're still going to have a budget and some for a rainy day. And, I should mention, it's NO NEW TAXES. I say a big Yes.

----Regarding the city council elections.. my friend VerdeForce has submitted his prediction. I disagree, and say,

VOTE UHLICH!!!
VOTE TRASOFF!!!
VOTE LEAL!!!
VOTE UHLICH!!!

Mp3s are a Girl's Best Friend

2005-10-22T23:56:00.000-07:00

I just became aware of various MP3 players that one can wear!! It's a little scary, how small these are, and how soon other gadgets will soon become obsolete.

This is the first one, I admit it peaked my interest to find more.

Here's the second one: Can you believe it plays 10 hours of music?? Though for some reason, the girl reminds me of Star Wars..

There's no doubt about it... next year we'll probably see mp3 players that are placed behind the ear, maybe as an earring back for some nice diamond earrings? That would be amazing! (yet I can totally see it!)

Btw, thanks to my hooch husband for finding all these lovely pictures.. as for me, I'll stick to my Sony Clié w/MP3 capacity..

Interrupts are a fact of life

2005-10-18T21:52:00.000-07:00

I was catching up on my New York Times, and I came across this article about "life hacking," which is a new term for trying to organize a busy, continually interrupted digital life. Gone is the day when a person only needed to worry about phone calls at work. Today's world is all about being connected in a pervasive network of emails, IMs, text messages, and websites -- information overload to the max. It's amazing our brains don't do the "blue screen of death." Anyway, the article was a very fascinating read especially about our every decreasing attention spans and about a few people and technologies that are attempting to make our world less ove. This quote sums up the article: "Information is no longer a scarce resource - attention is... we are so busy keeping tabs on everything that we never focus on anything."

Everyone should play with toys

2005-10-17T08:48:00.000-07:00

I think everyone should play with toys -- they induce imagination, fantasy, and can give meaning to the real world. Ok, so what if I have a two year old son -- I get him toys, too :). My personal favorite is legos since you can do so much with them. Anyway, I digress. Apparently, Playmobil has come out with a new "airline security" playset. Cool. Look what this privacy and security author and professor did with his first set. He gave me ideas on what to do with my midterm :).

What's in a tag anyway?

2005-10-07T09:47:00.000-07:00

Social tagging/social classification/"folksonomy" has been an very facinating social phenomenon lately. Flickr ,delicio.us, 43 things, and many others have made it an integral part of their products. On one hand, social tagging can be a means to discover new or related things. On the other hand, social classifications should be taken with a grain of salt since its very definition means that folksonomies can be influenced by social trends, mind sets, and even prejudices of the people doing the tagging.

Anyway, here's a new social tagging site, called Consumating, for dating or meeting new people. Right now, it has a very small set of users, some of which don't yet grasp the concept of tagging (keywords, not descriptions, people!). But, if more people use it, it could conceiveably be a good way of finding and making friends with salad. :)