Sayang Central

Off to Tahoe

Whee... off to Tahoe this weekend!

Time to spend my money in a fashion that is foolish and does not contribute to society!

-PV

posted by Paul @ 2/27/2004 05:42:17 PM

Dowries? My Ass.

I overhead a couple of young women having a conversation about their dowries today. They talked long and hard about what was in their dowry (apparently the dowry is made up of items and cash, so you get jewelry and stuff in the dowry), how *big* their dowries were, and… how *big* their dowries were.

Someone kill me already. In this grand old day and age, in this wonderfully developed country, folks who still cling to such absurd practices still exist. Better yet, these folks could still gleefully compare the size of respective dowries! So much for the young being more enlightened than the old – this is a case of tradition gone wrong.

Of course, it really didn’t help that the conversation was going on at full volume when I was trying to concentrate on something else. The conversation would probably have made a much lesser impact on me if I wasn’t feeling as pissy. =)

-ML

posted by ML @ 2/27/2004 01:37:57 AM

World's biggest pig

You know, when I saw Spirited Away, I felt those pigs were just way too big. Of course, the talking, human-sized frogs and snails, or the massive-headed witch lady, weren't particularly realistic, but the pigs were supposed to be a touch of real life in this fantasy world.

Anyway, apparently they do grow to be that large!

The pig, which was 8 feet 3 inches long, is already the heaviest ever reported in China ... The beast had a girth of 7 feet 3 inches and its tusks were 5 3/4 inches long when it died

-PV

posted by Paul @ 2/26/2004 04:31:26 PM

More of the same?

(CNN) -- Democratic presidential contenders on Wednesday condemned Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's warning that future cuts in Social Security and Medicare spending will be necessary.

"If I'm president, we're simply not going to do it," Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, said during a campaign stop in Ohio, one of 10 states holding Democratic presidential contests next week.

Uh guys, I think Mr. Greenspan knows what he's talking about. Damn politicians!

-PV

posted by Paul @ 2/25/2004 05:15:36 PM

Neil Boortz Commencement Speech

[link]
Very interesting. Libertarian vs. Liberal. Can one be both?
-PV

posted by Paul @ 2/24/2004 04:08:28 PM

RSS Feed

Okay, okay...

After continued harassment, I finally added an RSS feed for Sayang Central.

It's not like I update this blog all that often... hey, maybe that's why themfolks want the feed?

Anyway here it is http://www.virdone.com/blog/atom.xml.

Or on LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/~paulvirdone.

posted by Paul @ 2/23/2004 04:55:50 PM

Sayang Service

As a little bit of Sayang service, look what I found!

Pictures of Primates!

Yay!

posted by Paul @ 2/20/2004 09:31:52 AM

Shark attack

D'oh!

Man in Australia walks for help with shark attached to leg.

I seriously doubt that I would have had the presence of mind to do anything but shout for help over and over again, until someone called an ambulance. How the hell does one drive a car with a shark chewing on your leg??

posted by Paul @ 2/13/2004 09:23:08 AM

Chromatic Aberration

I've long complained about how my glasses shift colors. If you look at a black object, the right side glows either blue or red, depending at which angle you look through the glasses. This effect is a royal pain when programming, and the different colors of text shift relative to each other depending on whether you're looking through the center of my glasses or closer to one of the edges.

Anyway I mentioned this to a coworker and he pointed me to a website that takes advantage of this effect, creating 3D pictures, knowing that red shifts more than blue, so red objects are in the foreground and blue are in the background. Apparently you can buy these "high-definition glasses" to view the effect, but I've got a pair sitting right here on my head, and the pictures on this website are really, really neat.

An example:


First off, just looking directly at the picture, the red stars appear to be closer than the background. And if I look through the very edge of my glasses, the red stars shift left or right what appears to be at least 2 mm relative to the blue background, and the other colors shifting smaller amounts.

Wheee...

.... oh I have a headache now.

posted by Paul @ 2/11/2004 05:59:37 PM

Social Meter >>>>>

I've discovered a new way to lure friends over to my house: TiVo.

Now all I have to do is call up my friends and they come on over. You see, they don't have TiVo, and they're fans of really weird shows that play at really weird times. I just tell my TiVo to record these odd shows and they come a-hoppin over!

Thankfully, I can make sure that they've eaten before they come over, so I don't have to worry about feeding them. Though Minli just bought me a really neat cooking textbook, so I can study and increase my cooking skill.

posted by Paul @ 2/10/2004 04:03:49 PM

A girlfriend's best friend

So as you all know, I bought Minli a dog when I last visited her.
He is charged with keeping an eye on her, and keeping her company.
It would appear that he's been doing his job well.

Keeping an eye on her:




And keeping her company:



Good boy, Skew!
Keep up the good work!

posted by Paul @ 2/08/2004 08:25:46 PM

iTunes?

Have any of you out there tried out iTunes yet?

I've been wanting to try it for quite some time, but I've been worried about issues like hard-drive crashes and moving songs from one of my computers to another.

What also renewed my interest in the program is CNet's article about iTunes' fine selection of Silence.

posted by Paul @ 2/05/2004 02:29:39 PM

v2.0 and Nutball?

Strangely enough, I saw an article on the exact same topic (v2.0) in the newspaper this morning. I'm still laughing. =) Did anyone else notice that the guy's name is Jon Cusack?

In other news, went for my first netball training in eight years yesterday. The sequence sort of went like this: run, jump, catch, fall, fumble, curse, slap head, apologize to group, repeat last 8 steps again to chagrin of entire troupe of high-energy, netball-loving folks. *sigh* This lack of hand-eye-feet co-ordination can't be a good gene to pass down to future progeny, whether they're called v2.0 or not.

Now have a bruised back and bruised ego. And to think I'm going to have to do this all again on Friday (FRIDAY!!!!) What kind of mad people decide on Friday as a training day?! Years back, the reason why I decided to drop out of netball training (besides my super unco-ordination, of course) was because training was held on Friday, and come hell or high water, there was no way I was going to stay in school late on a Friday.

Oh well, have committed, will carry on through, and besides, have perverse desire to see myself through this traumatic experience. Good thing is that the netball folks are very kind and strangely forgiving of fumble-handed lack of co-ordination. Or maybe they just feel sorry for my obviously painful struggle to keep up.

posted by ML @ 2/03/2004 05:03:10 PM

New Toys

This past weekend, I discovered that the geeky new toy effect not only applies to newly acquired electronic devices, but also applies to mundane, relatively-low tech essentials, like say, vacuum cleaners.

Some of you may know that the weekend before last, I finally finished unpacking my stuff from my recent (June) move into my apartment. The next step in the slow evolution towards a clean room was to vacuum the floor. It turns out that the cheap vacuum that served me well for a year not only collects dirt very poorly, but also spits the harder, sharper bits out the sides at your legs. Adam insisted all you need to do is wear long pants while vacuuming, but I had issues with expending all this effort to simply evenly distribute dirt across the floor.

So I bought a new vacuum, had a bit of fun playing with all the attachments, then proceeded to vacuum the entire apartment. It's amazing how much fun vacuuming can be when you're picking up significant volumes of crap. The bin in the vacuum cleaner had to be emptied twice, due to how much it picked up. I'm quite stunned at the volume of hair that the cat was able to shed in the brief half-year of no vacuuming (that's not quite true, we ran over the carpets once or twice with the crappy broken vacuum).

So anyway, I've now discovered that vacuuming is fun... at least when done with a new vacuum cleaner, or when done in a very dirty apartment.

posted by Paul @ 2/03/2004 11:56:31 AM

Sayanglets v2.0

First off, I came across what I believe is a fine way to name your children.

"Meet my son, Paul Andrew Virdone, 2.0"


Anyway, so Adam & my Superbowl party was a success. The ribs we made, however, were not. We had all our guests each make a dish, potluck-style, and we gathered, played video games and watched Superbowl commercials. I think there was a football game at the same time, but we didn't pay much attention to that.

Back to the food. Lori & Evan made yummy potato salad, a very tasty chicken salad (I didn't have any of the salad, but I heard it was quite good), and a fantastic chocolate torte-brownie thing. Fuson made delectable gingerbread cookies, and Emily whipped up her wonderful homemade cheesecake. Adam and I, on the other hand, whipped up three racks of baby-back pork ribs, with an aggressively seasoned marinade. I while skeptical of a recipe that involved over a half-cup each of paprika, chili powder, cumin, garlic & shallots, we were swayed by its easy preparation and the inclusion of 2 bottles of Guinness beer in the marinade. The ribs really weren't all that bad, coated with a very thick layer of spices, not particularly tender, but definitely edible. However, after consuming a significant quantity of lite salami, decent Brie, and a lot of chips and salsa, the ribs weren't quite what my palate was seeking. Oh well, the ribs ended up significantly more edible than they were when purchased raw, but I'm quite sure that next time the occasion presents itself, I'll spend my $40 on take-out from Tony Roma's (the best ribs on earth, dammit -- yah, I know, it's like saying Taco Bell is the best Mexican food, but hey, I love them Gorditas and Chalupas with Fire sauce).

My initial conclusion that I magically inherited my Dad's gourmet chef genes is clearly not true -- despite significant successes with anything that he directly taught me to prepare.

posted by Paul @ 2/02/2004 01:03:58 AM