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Picasa photo album for Sam

6 months later, I've finally gotten around to creating a web gallery of pics of Sam. There's no organization to the album, I've just thrown all the pics I have on this machine into it. Maybe I'll get it organized later.

As of Friday, Sam is 92 lbs, and stands about 29" at the shoulder.

Samaldanach

Off to Denver

Wii Have a Winner

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After watching this YouTube video, I was finally sold on the Wii concept.

Found one at WalMart this (well, yesterday) morning.

While I love my XBox360 for sit-in-the-dark high tension gameplay, I have to admit that the Wii is pure fun.

Nintendo got this one dead-on right. If I were to gripe about anything, it would be the graphics. Now, Nintendo purposely stayedout of the next-gen graphic wars, which is fine. Honestly, this system will look fine on just about any imaginable, reasonable T.V.

Unfortunately, I don't exactly have what you would call a 'reasonable' T.V.; my screen is a 12 *foot* 1080 p hi-def projector. At this size, the Wii graphics do suffer. It should be a little better though, once I find component cables for the game.

Frustrations, major and minor

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First for some history...

I recently purchased a new compy (a TabletPC, natch ;) ). So it needed all the goodies installed.

I decided to install Office 2007, since I have a legal copy (no, no Vista on this box. Yet). I've got to say that Office 2k7 is pretty bad-assed. It's a total redesign, and they really did an awesome job, especially in regards to designing a simple yet powerful GUI.

Praises having been sung (okay, hummed), time for my first *major* frustration...

Outlook broke on me and I can't figure out how to fix it :( For the first few days it worked *perfectly*. All of a sudden, however, it no longer wants to send mail!

I have a whole stack of mails sitting in my Outbox. No matter what I do, they just sit there. I've tried changing which mail account they should be sending through, killing and recreating account info, rebooting, clearing the mails, and starting over, *everything*.

Normally I would look forward to something like this as a research and troubleshooting challenge. Right now, however, I have a few *very* important mailings stacking up in there (arrangements with my Irish Wolfhound breeder, for instance.).

Another annoyance, though it's not actually an Office issue, is the new "Post to Blog" feature. Yes, you can now blog *directly* from Word (or, more importantly and excitingly for me as a TabletPC user, blog directly from OneNote). Unless, that is, your blog is on Blogger.

The Office team worked fairly closely with Google (who now owns Blogger) in getting this feature working [with] Blogger 2 Beta. Well, between then and the official release of Blogger2, *Google* broke the functionality.

So, yes... you can now edit and post blog entries straight from Word (or OneNote). Sadly, *I* can't, and there's nothing I can do about it. Which leaves me stuck posting the way I'm doing now. which is a *major* pain in the a$$.

--le sigh--

Family += 1

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Woohoo!! I just got email from my breeder... I've been approved to adopt! I can finally have an Irish Wolfhound!

The pups will be ready in March, so that allows me some time to
get ready for this HUGE (in so many ways) change in my life.

Even though the pups my pup will be ready in March, I will likely run
off to Colorado for a day or two next week. You know… meet the
breeder, connect with the pup, get pictures, put down the deposit, etc.

I'm not really looking forward to the expense of visiting, considering the costs of adoption, vet, AKC registration, FEEDING THIS HORSE OF A DOG!, etc. I just have to remind myself, though, that Colorado _is_ at the top of my "places to live next" list. Plus it's simply good form to meet the breeder face-to-face, since this really is the start of a life-long relationship (Irish Wolfhound breeders are especially into keeping tabs on their kids, to the point of my needing permission from them in order to breed my IW to another bloodline. I think this is a good thing, considering that the breed was all but extinct 50 years ago)

SO EXCITED!!


TTFN

Lochen ("Loki"'), the proud mother (shown here 'studying' a squirrel):

(22 months at time of picture)

Here's Stormy, the dad, at 14 months old:

A New Kind of S(l)ick

A Quick Clue...

... as to what I've been up to

lately. Lot's, really, but this is a

clue to part of it h

More, much more, later.

In Memoriam

1933 - 2006

Sick sucks

Ugh. Shoot me, please.

Busted Gut-shot

Aaaaaaaalrighty....



So, I just started to watch the new-ish James Bond 007 flick, Casino Royale.



Forgive me if this pseudo-review is disjointed... I'm about 15 Grolsch's into the night ;)



Anyhoo...if I remember correctly, 007 is/was a suave, debonaire, ladies man, acheiving his goals more through social hacking than through action (although never one to turn down a good scrap or gunfight). At least, this was how Ian Fleming originally wrote the character. IIRC.



This new Daniel Craig (?)-driven flick, however, caused me physical pain. Honest truth, I couldn't get past the first 15 minutes of it. Staging, acting, everything, is *terrible*. Dialogue delivery is unbelievable, scene cuts disoncerting and confusing, initial story line incomprehensible.



If there's one saving grace within the first 15 minutes, it's that Chris Cornell (Sound Garden, Radiohead) performs the new main theme; unfortunatley even that falls flat.



Outside of all my (no details required) editing, storyline, directing, blah, blah, blah issues with the film (as much as I could bear to watch of it, of course) is the casting.



I'm sure by now that everyone has heard of the title actors statement of wanting to do a gay scene in the next Bond film. Big whoop-de-doo, who cares. As anyone who knows me in real life can attest, I give a rat's ass about anyone's sexuality. James Bond, in my opinion, is no different; as a spy of his calibre, I assume he would use whatever techniques which are at his disposal, including mano-y-mano trysts. I have no real prolem with that, in concept.



The problem for me, from the outset, is that the actor portraying bond *scream*, not gay, not homo, not any of the non-pejoritives, but flaming, queer, queen, etc. From the opening action, there can be little doubt as to 'Bond''s preference.



Okay, I really hate to end on that note, and make it seem as though my biggest issue(S) with this film is it's subvertly overt homosexuality (did that make any sense), but, guys and gals, I'm completely fucked-drunk, and have no idea what I was trying to say.



What it comes down to is, if you are a Bond fan, don't even bother renting; it will give you the plague, cause your children (even those already born) acute elephantitis and Downs, and spread leprosy throughout your neighborhood. If you are *not* an Ian Fleming's James Bond fan, you will experience rapid onset of IBS (irratable bowel syndrome), hepatitis, and acute dandruff.



I really wish I could have gotten through the whole movie, so as to give a fair review covering the whole story, effects, etc. It pains me that I have to give such a snap judgement upon seeing so little; believe me when I say that even waht little I saw cause me to contemplate hari-kari, seppuku, whatever form of ritualized suicide you choose.



AVOID THIS MOVIE LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!

Blog-jumping...

Gonna try blogging over here at Google's BlogSpot for the moment. While I like some
of the function MySpace blogs has, its (lack of a) blogging API makes
it a pain to update blogs.



I'm not sure BlogSpot is where I want to stay, but it works with my tools for now, so there I hang my hat.



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