Linkstew

I finally got the pictures and videos of day 15 (April 4th) from Mike. Since I didn't get to go snowboarding today, I ended up playing with the videos instead. They're all in this gallery, but here are some highlights:

• A picture of all four of us riding on Cornice.
• Someone else had the same model of snowboard as me, and it was reassuring to see that it's not just mine that's chipping around the edges.
• As I said before, I got somewhat frustrated that my better attempts didn't get filmed. Here's me saying "I want to see myself on filmmm. I'm tempted to hike up there once." while tyler does the mini-park in the background. (274 k)
• And hike up there I did. Unfortunately, I didn't go high enough, so I didn't have a lot of speed. You can hear me say "lame" as I pass by. (509 k)
• The title "Mike jumps far and dies" is fairly self descriptive. (315 k)
• This is me more stepping/falling over the lip to the (skiers) right of Cornice than jumping over it. (189 k)
• And here's a fairly boring video of me taking a few turns under the wall. If it weren't for the fact that that's the only other decent video of me I ended up with, I probably wouldn't even have posted this one. (532 k)
• And there are 9 more videos (mostly of tyler and mike) and a couple more pictures in the gallery.

I definitely want to get one of those cameras before next season. Of course, it's somewhere on my list right after "getting a job" and "getting a new place to live."

Heh, when templates go wrong:

If you're curious, that's from the new computer store that just opened on the corner of Haste and Shattuck, across from the Used Computer Store.

Well, I'm not out partying the night away tonight -- I'm a lot exhausted after today's sprint midterm composition, and I find parties more stressful than relaxing -- but I was at a party on Saturday, and I wore a costume! Check it out, I was A Guy with Short Hair:

Heh, as much as that qualifies as a Halloween costume all by itself, I actually had a costume in addition to that. I was Oz, from Buffy:

Of course, as Mark pointed out, I kind of dropped the ball, as I had an opportunity for an even more meta costume that I overlooked. If I'd really been on top of things, I could have worn the same Halloween costume as Oz wore in Fear, Itself: A name tag that said "Hello, my name is: God." That episode had a lot of good moments, not the least of which was the "Actual size" punchline at the end.

(And on the synchronicity side of things, when I was getting my haircut, Lonnie said "Y'know, it's funny -- I have another client named Ben who had all of his hair cut off just last Saturday." Funny how that works.)

It's a good thing I already live here, because if I had just seen the For Rent sign and wanted to live here, I'm not really sure how I'd interpret it them.

Have I mentioned how much I love the management of my apartment building lately?

So apparently my mom got her own camera, which means that she sent me a lot of new pictures of her dog. If you're so inclined, check out these pictures of the cute little shit.

Anyway, these pictures actually reminded me that I really need to get my dad set up with iPhoto, since he's still doing all of his organization by hand.

And on the subject of iPhoto, I found this Better Html Export iPhoto plugin the other day, and because of it I found a feature of iPhoto I'd never noticed before.

The main reason I haven't played much with iPhoto is because as far as I could tell, its HTML capabilities only interfaced with mac.com (via the Share/Homepage button). I never noticed the option under Share/Export for Export Web Page to export an album to be uploaded wherever.

And with Better Html Export, I'm not considering switching from my current train wreck of a photo album to an iPhoto based album. There'd be more manual work involved on my part, but at the same time, I'd get clean URLs and more customization options for my albums. Of course, it's nothing I'm going to worry about right now, or even until I start taking more pictures again. I haven't been taking very many pictures just because my damn camera is so huge that it's just impossible to carry around regularly. I want a smaller camera.

Yes, I'm really stretching to find things to pre-blog about at this point. I'm sure I'm enjoying Canada, if it makes you feel any better. ;-)

So, last weekend, I bought a Snowboard. And boots and bindings, of course, but isn't that assumed?

We only made two two stops: First we went to REI, where I started by trying on several pairs of boots without finding anything that was fantastic... None of the clearance stuff fit me very well, and even the non-clearance things that did fit me reasonably (Notably, the Salomon Synapse and the Salomon Dialogue (I'd love to give you links, but the Salomon idiots used flash, so I'm not going to bother)) still pinched my heals. And while those Salomon boots were on sale, they were still moderately expensive.

So we left REI and headed a block down to Destination 1440, which had a much better selection of things snowboard. In addition to their better selection, all of their boots, boards, and bindings were also 40% off.

Basically, we got there at about 6pm on a Saturday night. The store wasn't very busy, so Tom the clerk proceeded to help us for two hours until we departed as the store was closing at about 8:10. So with Tom's help, I picked out a pair of boots, and then a board, and then some bindings.

When I realized that I was going to be buying things there, I realized that I should probably make sure that would they took a check, since I knew my debit card had a spending limit on it. When Tom said that they would take a check, I stopped worrying about it. But then, when I tried to write a check, their system wouldn't accept it. When they called their "merchant verification company," they were told that I couldn't write a check for that amount. So I tried writing a check for half the amount, which triggered the same process, with the same result.

D'oh.

So on a whim, I had them try to use my debit card, and bam, it worked! Rock!

But damn if it didn't suck that by writing a check I caused the exact problem I was trying to avoid. A later call to my bank revealed that my bank account is fine, and it was just Destination 1440's merchant verification system that didn't like me. The Destination 1440 staff, though, was patient with me through this whole mess. It was really horrible. When they had to call in my checks, I was just left standing there feeling like a crook, after they'd spent so long to help me. I was afraid I was going to have to leave without buying anything. But everything worked out okay.

Basically, I highly recommend Destination 1440 if you're ever in the market for a snowboard. Just don't write a check.

Oh, what'd I buy? Well...

• Boots: Burton Driver. These were so much more comfortable than anything else I tried on that it was just kind of obvious. The next Burton model down wasn't as soft, while the next Burton model up was a little too stiff for my tastes. Basically, this boot hit the balance I was looking for. (Um, size 9.5, if you're wondering. Though I can't imagine why you would be.)
• Board: Burton Custom 156. Basically, I deferred to the knowledge of the clerks on this one. Well, one notable point is that this board is bigger than the ones I've been renting -- I've been riding a 152 or 153, so this board is a little larger. Tom suggested that I might have a little trouble turning initially, but said it would probably be better in the long run. I'll have to let you know how it works once I ride it.
• Bindings: Burton Mission. Basically, at this point, the decision was basically made by brand. Well, that and bindings were what they apparently had less selection of. But doesn't it make sense to link a Burton board with Burton boots with Burton bindings?

Basically, I'm a Burton poster boy. Well, below the ankles, at least. It's not like all of my clothing is also Burton. But between everything being 40% off, and them giving me more off the board because of a ding in the base, the price was right, and I'm very excited to try it all out.

Oh, here are some pictures of the stuff I bought, too.

I like sleeping in the office, because there someone can wake me up before I really start hibernating. Once I'm asleep, I really like to stay that way. But sometimes, sleeping in the office isn't such a good idea:

And worse, that picture was posted to our internal website for all of my coworkers to see before I even woke up. Oops. I'm actually rather amused by it, though, so no worries.

Here is a page of pictures someone took at the TMBG concert I was at on Wednesday. I'd like to point out that damn this girl was in a horrible position, though it looks like she inched her way closer as the show wore on. For the record, I was pretty much directly in front of the Linnell's microphones (the ones to the left of the keyboard) and three people back. Pretty dang good spot, I thought.

Well, except for the weird guy next to me who had gestures for every verse of every song. I'm not joking. He was like... acting out the songs. All of them. It scared me, and also irritated me when his gesture hit me.

Also, look at this list of recent San Francisco concerts, and note 1. all the diversity in those set lists (sarcasm) and 2. that those last three concerts in San Francisco have all been on Wednesday. What kind of weird pattern is that?

"What does he get if he gets them all right?"
"An iced mocha."
-- two of my co-workers

And with that began the "Iced Mocha tour of Berkeley" in the office today. Six of us went forth and each acquired an Iced Mochas from a local coffee house. This endeaver was inspired by the fact that R., our resident Iced Mocha expert, was leaving for Grad School at the end of the week.

Iced Mocha expert? Yeah, you see, R. averages about three Iced Mochas a day, and even owns iced-mocha.net. When he travels, he always comes back with a report about the availability of Iced Mochas. Really, R. and Iced Mocha are pretty much synonymous.

So the purpose of the Iced Mocha tour was actually two-fold. First, it was an attempt to spread around some of R.'s knowledge of local coffee shops in general, and Iced Mochas in particular. And Second, it was an opportunity to see how well R. knows his Iced Mochas in a little blind taste test.

So we gathered our Iced Mochas, returned to the office, poured each Iced Mocha into an anonymous cup, and let R. try his mouth at the cups. R., unfortunately, only went 1/2 for 6. The Iced Mochas were:

A. International House
B. Strada
C. Coffee Source
D. Wall Berlin
E. Sufficient Grounds
G. Intermezzo (R. picked the first five, and this last one was chosen as a "mystery mocha" to stump the expert)

It's important to note that random anomalies frequently occur with coffee, and sometimes you just get a bad mocha. R. most frequently gets his Iced Mochas from Strada, Coffee Source, and Wall Berlin, and amazingly, our samples from both Strada and Coffee Source were sufficiently bad to throw off R.'s taste buds. (I drink Iced Mochas pretty regularly, and I agree that they were both ... abnormal)

This, unfortunately, totally threw off R.'s ability to pidgeonhole which mocha was which, because he couldn't identify the mochas he drinks most often. So in the end, the only mocha he (half) identified was the Mystery Mocha, though he guessed that it was from Espresso Experience rather than Intermezzo. R.'s first, and pretty much only, comment on that Intermezzo Mocha before declaring it "bad" was "Ilch!"

In the end, the assembled tasted ranked our Iced Mochas in the following order:

1. Sufficient Grounds - This is one of my favorites even on a normal day, but today's sample was unusually milky and sweet, which made for an especially pleasing experience for all the non-regular mocha drinkers in the office.
2. Wall Berlin - They tend towards sweeter, but very strong, Mochas. Todays was actually a little less strong than usual, which I didn't personally mind.
3. International House - I'd never had an Iced Mocha from here, but it was pretty typical for what I expect from an Iced Mocha.
4. Coffee Source/Strada - Once again, I note that these were both "bad blends," and should not be discounted just based on this one bad experience.
5. Intermezzo - Christo this one was bad. Ilch indeed. But Intermezzo is more of a salad/sandwich place than a coffee house, so I can't complain too much.

For reference, my favorite three Mochas on a normal day are Sufficient Grounds, Coffee Source, and Wall Berlin. I don't get up to Strada very often to drink there enough to develop a taste for it. From todays taste tests, though, I realized that I actually like my Iced Mochas slightly watered down (or less strong, if you prefer looking at it that way), but definitely Iced. Cold cold cold is a must.

Lessons learned? If we do this again, we should get two samples from each coffee shop, remove the ice and add it back right before tasting (to keep them from getting watered down until the samples are poured), and mix vigourously before the taste tests begin.

The final verdict on the Iced Mocha Tour?

"I think drinking iced mochas like this is like drinking several different kinds of hard liquor."
-- R., on "that funny feeling in our stomachs"

Oh, and here are a couple pictures.

While this makes me long for my still out of comission PowerBook, these X-Rays of a PowerBook G4 are still incredibly neat. What really caught my eye was the batteries.

(Because I'm waiting here for some mp3s to import before I leave for the weekend (more on that later), and don't have anything better to write about)

1. My Apple PowerBook G3, importing Roger Miller's Golden Hits. My extra battery is sitting to one side, because I had to remove it to put in my CD drive. Additionally, three They Might Be Giants CD's I just imported are here somewhere, including "Apollo 18", "John Henry", and "Factory Showroom".
2. All the things I usually carry in my pockets, including my Cell Phone, my wallet, my medicine, my keys, my chap stick, my Palm Vx, two pens and a pencil, three dimes, and my Knife.
3. Twp slinkies: One standard metal, and a small yellow plastic one from Outpost.com.
4. Computer accessories, including An Apple AirPort and Epson Stylus 860 Printer.
5. Some Star Wars Lego, including a Technic Destroyer Droid and a Snow Speeder.
6. A sewing kit.
7. Some old Keyboard Keys taped to a piece of cardboard spelling out LINKSTEW.

And because I can, here are pictures of each of these things in an all new gallery.

This morning, I again woke up with the desire to get my hair cut. And before I had a chance to lose my motivation to actually get my hair cut, I called and made an appointment. And at the appointed time, I got my hair cut.

It'd been a year since my last cut, so it'd gotten pretty long. Here are Before and After pictures. Since I was just getting a trim, and since it'll just grow out again anyway, I wasn't overly concerned with the quality, or even the style of the cut. I just wanted it shorter, and that's what I got.