Land of the Raven

beep

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:51:00 +0000

still alive...

Anime Detour 2009 Demo

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 03:32:00 +0000

the dojo (twin cities budokan) did a demonstration today, as we do every year, and it was fun. new hotel is hosting the Anime Detour convention and it's interesting how everying feels the same, yet all mixed up.

i'll be cutting during tomorrows demonstration and i'm hoping i do well cutting two tatami mats. i'm feeling good about it, but have typically done a single mat. so this is like an upgrade that will be more awesome. tomorrow will be the test. with me accident free luck. :)

went to the holy land to get some food afterwards (indian food) and it was most excellent. good food for a good price. Mmmmmm.

(picture does not include me as i'm not cutting until tomorrow.)

1.5 years = ? level

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:02:00 +0000

it's surprising how quickly time passes. it came up last night how long i've been practicing kenjutsu and thanks to blog posts i figured out it's been a year and a half. i guess i feel i still have so much to learn that i shouldn't be six months away from training for two years.

just a tuesday...

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:23:00 +0000

winter
lately the weather has been nice enough to melt the snow then it will get cold again and snow. now i'll have to shovel tonight as it's snowing, but there isn't a layer of ice under all the snow. i shall declare that a win.

reading
it's not going as good as i'd expected, but i am back to reading again. i'll do better once i finish the castlevania game for my ds. oh, how i love castlevania!

need vs. want
there's a difference? (yes!) maybe the want bubble has just grown too large and needs to be shrunk down. how many houses and cars do we have that are just too much house and car for what we need. a lot i'm expecting.

stupid cars...

conclusion
sometimes (mostly) a blog post isn't worth the .... (end transmission)

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 02:50:00 +0000

things can be reduced and further reduced until you get to the basic idea. i've found a basic idea in getting some things accomplished. so i'll be doing some reading for a while. i'm curious to see how much i am able to read in a month.

reading.... attack!

ereader blurb

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:33:00 +0000

Something I posted to http://dvice.com/archives/2009/02/product_compari.php

I find the sony prs-505 useful for carrying around large books. It's just impractical to carry around a couple of computer books that are very thick. With an ereader I'm able to carry four books with me and it doesn't kill my back or crush my laptop (happened with my old ibook).

The books are cheaper in ebook format from amazon and sony. If I pay more for a paper copy of a book and loan it out to two friends who also loan me books it's much cheaper and I get to read more books. Much like CD's and letting people borrow them publishers are trying to get into a everyone pays to enjoy model. More money for them.

Adobe pdf files are great for books. I can read them on any computer and don't have to worry about if I'll be able to still see this file in a couple years. What does someone do to get access to all these books you are purchasing if your ereader dies? Get another one for hundreds of dollars? DRM means no ability to just view and read them on my computer if I need to wait till I can afford to replace my reader.

so much computing time

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:43:00 +0000

i find it strange sometimes how much our computers are used in everything we do. especially when it wasn't that long ago when computers were hardly anywhere.

friday the 13th

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 01:45:00 +0000

i am so going to see friday the 13th the movie. i'm not hoping for much, but going to see it anyway.

it is saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 19:04:00 +0000

vegas was a lot of fun and pen and teller and blue man group were amazing to see. last night pen and teller were on some television show guessing the lyrics in songs to win money for a charity.

there is a bunch of cleaning i am working on getting done today. i'll stop avoiding the cleaning and get back to it.

Las Vegas

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 04:39:00 +0000

arrived in las vegas last night around 6pm local time. there was an old couple behind us that was a riot to listen to. she just kept talking about random topics and seemed to know everything. well, everything except technology. i also watched as she attempted to turn on the reading light with a pen a couple times before being successful. there was some complaints during the attempts.

haven't left the hotel yet as there are a ton of shops connected to the hotel. i managed to find a first edition copy of philip k dick's the man in the high castle. it was a bit out of my budget at $2000. there were quite a few other books there some very old and prices would go up to $85,000+ for some books.

tomorrow it'll be time to venture out into the wild and hopefully make it to ces and a show.

Truck is in the shop

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:50:00 +0000

my truck is in the shop. it has lost the ability to keep antifreeze. it's like my truck has some sort of nasty flu. the leak has been located and it's right at the lower manifold gasket. so friday someone gets to take bunch of it apart and put a new one in.

the antifreeze issue started on my way home from a late night at the office. yesterday morning was spent waiting for a locksmith to let me back into my running truck. during the wait i realized my muffler was not attached like it should be. there was also a lot of rust. like cancer of my exhaust system.

so i had that replaced. it's pretty darn quiet now.

i'll be hanging out at the house for a few days. time to get some stuff done. maybe...

the axe is a falling

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 06:05:00 +0000

I am currently in a strange limbo with my job. It's like that moment when someone takes a breath and holds it before saying what they need to. It's pretty much known what they are going to say. It's all in the details that I wait. The details that will shape the weeks and months to come.

I hope I'll still have a job, but I'm already planning my next move. When they get rid of employee's it's not hard to know where us contractors go.

someone has notebook?

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:34:00 +0000

And a friend gets an upgraded notebook computer today. I expect a report tomorrow about it's amazing awesomeness.

I should have something more exciting to write about, but I'm tired and ready to get some sleep tonight. So ... Good night.

yep i'm still alive

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:03:00 +0000

and the updates slow down and i get a bit more busy with things lately. it's gotten cold outside, lots of cool games are being released (that i'm not getting or have time for) and things are going pretty good.

back to the busy of life...

money runs away

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:55:00 +0000

there is something about the get and spend cycle that is difficult to break fully. if i stop paying attention for long enough i end up saying to myself "where the heck did me money go?"

apple releasing a shiny new notebook that i find to be a very sexy machine isn't helping. the cost does help since i'm not mentally ready to spend $2500+ on a notebook when that same amount of money could do so much more. besides my currently computer situation isn't all that bad.

twitter leads to lack of blog posts

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:08:00 +0000

i am going to blam twitter on my lack of posts lately.

the new macbook is tempting me, but it's a lot of money for what you get. there are a fair number of windows laptops (that could run linux as well) that would cost less. so i'll put that spiffy macbook on the back burner and get some stuff donw around the house instead.

minnesota radio

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:06:00 +0000

minnesota public radio had the doctor who wrote the anticancer on this morning[1]. pretty interesting stuff to listen to as he spoke on food, stress and extercise and it's ability to help fight off cancer.

he also mentioned cell phone usage and how most studies are for 10 years of usage and even with smoking you won't see lung cancer that soon. what will we do when everyone starts getting the effects of so much cell phone usage? basically using a bluetooth headset or a wired headset and keeping the phone away from your body during a call is the way to go.

cell phone make your ear warm if you hold it there long enough. microwaves make stuff warm. why are we so afraid of one, but not the other. CONSPIRACY! :)

on another note. i'm totally losing my battle to have inbox zero. [1, google video on inbox zero]

missing time

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 05:34:00 +0000

it is late and i am tired. spent a few hours getting my mac mini (older one with a ppc processor) up and running with a fresh copy of os x on a 250 gig hard drive. it currently shares the printer and its storage to the rest of the network. good place to stash my music and pictures.

new job has been keeping me extremely busy. quite a bit has been going on and some of my projects require me to learn some new skills. some require a more in depth understanding of some topics i have a general knowledge of.

i'm amazed at how much stuff gets accumulated in a year of being in a house. it always sounds so good to just clear out all this stuff i'm not using all the time, but it's not an easy thing to do. i like a lot of my stuff. :)

it is time for some sleep. need to do a charity walk in the morning.

distract... ohh shiny

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:28:00 +0000

my mind is a wee bit distracted of late. nothing in peticular, just in a distracted hard to focus kinda state.

things i have been doing:
listening to the new slipknot
work
buying stuff online (spore, terry brooks novel)
trying to finish songs on guitar hero 3 (hard)

things i haven't been doing:
uploading pax pictures to flickr
cleaning my pit of a basement
and other stuff i'm sure is really important

pax is soon

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:47:00 +0000

pax is comming up in a couple days. i'll be flying out there on thursday and am excited to be visiting seattle again. i had such a good visit last year.

cleaning in the past

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:28:00 +0000

currently working on cleaning the kitchen. listening to pandora (tool mix, which is apparently my high school cd collection).

all paperwork seems to stop about five feet into its travel into the house and deposits in the kitchen. not the best place for it.

metallica - for whom the bells tolls is playing now and i'm going to get back to my cleaning.

anitvirus eats its own.

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 03:54:00 +0000

i had to add an exception to my antivirus software so it wouldn't remove a program i'm running. it really is an odd thing to do.

i'm brushing up on some skills for troubleshooting bad network devices.

ds games

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:55:00 +0000

i've picked up a few ds games lately. final fantasy iii and iv, etrian odyssey ii and the world ends with you. i'm happy with all the games and need to find lots more time to play them all.

there will be lots of ds playing at pax later this month.

2008 magic the gathering nationals weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:46:00 +0000

last week i attended the magic the gathering nationals tournament in chicago, il. my brother qualified in a regionals tournament and i went to see how he did and play in the many public events that were open to all players.

it was so much fun. i played so many matches against players better than i was and with better decks and learned so much from each game. a really nice player after me losing helped me out in making my deck better and gave me two free cards. one of them was "doomgape" which is a rare card and was much appreciated addition to my deck and collection.

my brother didn't win nationals and after losing a few matches early on ended up dropping out the second day. a lot of people dropped out by the second day. pretty rough in the nationals area.

sporadic tendancies

noreply@blogger.com (Jason) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:42:00 +0000

wow. it's been a while since i've posted.

job is switching so it's keeping my mind occupied with all the little details leading up to the switch next week.

once everything settles down i may return to a more normally sporadic posting schedule.