chuggnutt.com

I'm really digging Food Network's new Iron Chef America series. It's just a lot of fun to watch, and at a more accessible time than the original Iron Chef (9pm versus 11pm).

Yeah, I know, but I just haven't felt the need to blog much of anything lately. My ambition to post has waned, and the empty stretches between entries grow larger... It won't last forever, though. I know this much.

Meanwhile, Central Oregon has been experiencing unseasonably warm weather, and they're saying it's going to be a drought year because there's been no snow. Not that I mind the springlike weather overly much, but could we at least wait until it's spring? I like having seasons, and it seems vaguely ridiculous to be washing the car by hand in January (which I did last weekend).

Damn global warming. :)

(Thanks, Jake!)

Since about the first of the year I've been dieting (with much prodding from my wife). It's nothing formal, mostly I've just been cutting way back on portions, avoiding junk food entirely and balancing what I eat much better. Even with going to Portland last weekend, I've somehow managed to lose 11 pounds already(!). To put it in perspective, I started at an unhealthy 228 pounds (six feet tall), so either I'm doing something right, or I have cancer.

Kidding!

The other day I picked up the book Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating from the library to go along with this change in eating habits. It's quite a good book, I'd highly recommend it to, well, everyone. It lays out a scientific, common-sense approach to healthy eating that I think lacks from most "formal" and fad diets I've seen. Check it out.

In the meantime, I'll post occasional weight loss updates. I'm curious to see if the rate I'm losing weight will maintain, or if it will slow down. And in case anyone worries that I'm on the bleach and fiberglass diet, rest assured that my daily intake looks something like: 2-3 starches, 2-3 fruits, 2 protein, 4+ vegetables. Some dairy, too. So it's all good.

Found on ORBlogs: The Grumpy Forester, a new Bend blog. Well, Lapine, I guess, but that's okay. And "new" is relative, the archive go back to January 22 of last year. But it's new to me! Welcome!

Speaking of the ice storm, what's up with this story out of Portland? Woman dies after jumping out of taxi:

And a taxi passenger died Saturday after she jumped from the vehicle as it approached her home on Mount Scott.

The victim, Nancy Johnson, 61, was returning to her home on Southeast Johns Court from Portland International Airport when the Green Transportation Co. cab started sliding down the steep street.

She was pinned beneath the cab's rear axle as it slid more than 100 feet. The cab driver called 9-1-1 to report the incident at 10:34 p.m.

Johnson "just flat panicked. I think she was worried that (the vehicle) would go out of control," said Capt. Jamie Karn, Clackamas County Fire District 1 spokesman. "This was just a freak accident."

I mean, who the hell jumps out of a moving car at all? Especially when it's sliding out of control and you don't know where it's going? I'm sorry, but people need more common sense. I wouldn't be surprised to see this show up as a Darwin Award.

Our little trip to Portland over the weekend went well, except for the ice storm that hit Saturday. We stayed indoors the whole day with our friends (who we were staying with, fortunately, otherwise we'd have really worn out our welcome), and pretty much any other plans we'd had were shot.

On the other hand, our friends introduced me to the BBC comedy The Office, which is insane but entirely plausible—I've known people (and offices) that are exactly the same way. It's hilarious, check it out. Amazon has it for about 42 bucks.

Our drive back Sunday was uneventful; the ice was already breaking up in Portland and the farther out of town we went, the better it got—even over the mountains. Back in Bend, you wouldn't even know anything had happened. All's well that ends well, they say.

Seems like we just can't get enough of Portland; we're heading there tomorrow (Friday). It's part follow-up to our son's eye surgery, part vacation-y trip. Always fun. I'd like to get in a trip to Powell's Bookstore, but I don't think we'll have the time unfortunately.

Via Boing Boing this evening comes the mildy disturbing story that Shakespeare may have been afflicted with one or more venereal diseases.

Mentions of the "pox," the "malady of France," the "infinite malady," and the "hoar leprosy" in his writings seem to indicate that the Bard knew—perhaps from personal experience—how torturous venereal disease could be. "Shakespeare's knowledge of syphilis is clinically precise," said John Ross, MD, author of the study. A line in Sonnet 154, "Love's fire heats water," apparently refers to an STD causing burning urination.

In Shakespeare's time, one of the treatments for syphilis, inhalation of mercury vapor, was worse than the disease. Dr. Ross suggests that Shakespeare's tremulous signature on his will, his social withdrawal in later years, and even his baldness might all be due to a mild degree of mercury vapor poisoning.

Well, they do say to write what you know.

Gah, there's nothing worse than sitting here trying to think of something to write, and getting nothing. I have some ideas for things, but nothing that seems particularly illuminating while I'm sitting here tonight. I just got tired of seeing too many days going by on that calendar there on the right and felt like I should write something down.

Interesting; look at my post from January 9th of last year. It's very nearly the same.

I stopped in at The Book Barn in downtown Bend today, looking for a particular book or two, and I have to say, I was a little disappointed. They have a nice space (formerly occupied by the Chelsea Lane wine shop), but it just seemed, I don't know, sparse. I can't really quantify it more than that, but it's not the Book Barn I remember of yesteryear, when they were across the street (Minnesota street), occupying two stories, and were about three times as big.

At least they're one of the "old time" businesses that are hanging on downtown, though.

This is interesting: Sims 2 hacks spread like viruses, where hacks that people have made to their Sims 2 game has unintentionally spread among unsuspecting users. In-game virus?

Entire neighborhoods of Sims are being mysteriously graced with eternal youth, while some characters are finding all their needs fulfilled by a single shot of magic espresso. Others no longer need to empty the toilet after potty training their toddler. Some Sims are being abducted by aliens when they glance through their telescope — every time, instead of just occasionally, which is normal.

All this mayhem is the work of a community of experimenters wielding hex editors, custom programs and reverse-engineering skills who began mastering their own Sims 2 worlds immediately after the game's release last September. The hackers share their weird science with one another through public websites and forums.

The article also goes on about how the hackers have created a type of antivirus software to scan for and remove the hacks. That's cool.

An odd thought struck me as I was reading about this: it must seem to people getting these hacks that their games (their Sims more specifically) are starting to exhibit emergent behavior. (You know, emergence. New patterns or behaviors from complex systems...) How spooky would that be? Just wait til the first hacked Sims figure out they're merely simulations in someone's computer...

Jury duty was interesting—I skirted being on a DUI trial by that much. How it works is about 30 people show up for the jury summons. Of those, 12 are randomly selected and interviewed. I was one of the 12. Several potential jurors were excused, and after an hour of jury interviews they finally selected the final six.

Two things stand out. First, the courtroom was cold, like air conditioning was on or something. (Hello, it's like 20 degrees outside!) Second, the defense attorney was just a kid, a young guy who looked like he'd just graduated from law school. He spent a good 45 minutes interviewing us, and asking the randomest, strangest questions. Total newbie.

I don't have to go tomorrow, and I don't know yet about Friday. After that, I'm done for whenever I get summoned again. Mark off another milestone in life.

Yup, that's what I got tomorrow. Never been summoned for jury duty before, so I'm anxious to see what it's like, but I hope I don't end up on some big trial or a sequestered jury or anything like that.

Happy birthday to Bend! Today is the 100th anniversary of Bend, Oregon, marking the beginning of the year-long Bend Centennial celebration. Just a quick post while I'm thinking about it; I might have more to say later.

Also, check out Bend.com's article from November.

A couple of things related to ebooks. First, Palm Digital Media—the main ebookstore for the Palm Reader format ebooks, and the one that offers (offered?) up the tool for making your own ebooks for free—is now apparently eReader.com. What's the difference? Well, eReader.com is entirely commercial, it seems; they offer their "eBook Studio" for a nominal price; also, I don't know if these ebooks are compatible with the Palm Reader software.

The Palm Digital Media site is still up albeit sporadically. I can't tell if the software and pages for making ebooks is still there, and if it's free; what a shame if it isn't. If that's the case, I may offer the appropriate software to download here.

Also, I wanted to thank everyone who filled out the request form on my free Palm ebooks page over the past year. I got a lot of hits, and I didn't respond to most of them just because I didn't have the time to get to each one. Rest assured, I put all requested books that I can convert on my list. And, to everyone who requests current books (like Harry Potter books, Dan Brown's books, Tolkien, etc. etc.), sorry, but I can't legally get them for you. Anything that was published in or after 1923, unless released by the author, is still under copyright and only available via legal means (read: commercial means). Yes, I have to cover my ass.

Basically, I'm converting books from Project Gutenberg, and looking for current books that authors like Cory Doctorow have released online for free. So, a good bet if you're requesting something is to check and see if it's on Gutenberg first, and let me know.

And, I've just tonight released James Fenimore Cooper's The Deerslayer in ebook format. Go to my ebooks page and check it out!

In the spirit of the Google Zeitgeist, I've pulled together some interesting stats from chuggnutt.com for the year 2004. On to it!

• Number of blog entries: 306
• Approximate total number of words: 45,537
• Average words per blog entry: 148.8
• Total visitors: 242,433 (includes bots, spiders, aggregators, all that junk)
• Average visitors per day: 687
• April was the most active month, as LiveJournalers found my Matrix Name page; April 1 alone showed 6,122 visitors
• Most popular phrases people searched this site for:
  • matrix name
  • matrix
  • mysql
  • html2text
  • ebooks
  • php
  • amazon
  • kermit
  • netoffice
  • black butte porter
  • sony
  • spokane
  • beer
• Most popular phrases people entered on search engines to get here:
  • free palm ebooks (and tons of variants on this and "palm reader," "pdb reader," "palm ebooks," etc.)
  • boba fett
  • matrix name
  • scary picture
  • darth maul
  • kermit the frog
  • what's in a name
  • name generator
  • html to text conversion
  • a-team movie
  • zach braff blog
• Internet Explorer accounts for about 62% of all traffic. Mozilla/Netscape, about 14%. Blog- and RSS-related "browsers" are running at about 17-20%.
• People made 566 comments on this site (not counting comment spam I deleted).

Interesting year! Can't wait to see how 2005 will shape up.

Happy New Year everyone. So far 2005 is turning out uneventful: we cleaned the office, watched some movies. What to expect for this new year? I don't know, maybe for it not to go by so quickly. My grandma was right, the older you get, the quicker time passes.

At any rate, I'm not making any 2005 predictions, it seems like everybody else on the internet is and I'm pretty sure anything I could come up with is already covered somewhere.

I will do some stats, though. Those are always fun. :)