Best. Invention. Ever.

kittytree.jpg Mike and Mindy....THANK YOU! Ok, a little background. We went over to Mike and Mindy's on Saturday night, and their cat Nigel was showing us his new cat tree. It was a really neat structure with a "house" and various platforms. The whole thing was carpeted, giving him a great texture to scratch on. Deanne and I mentioned that we were having real problems with our cats scratching the furniture and carpet. They said that the cat tree had almost completely eliminated Nigel's scratching.Well, I had the day off today and decided that it was about time to put an end to our little scratching problem. I went down to the local PetCo which recently opened and after some brief searching, I found the right tree for our cats. It has two platforms with edges which is perfect because our cats seem to have a box fetish - they LOVE sitting in boxes. So I bring it home, and one tip Mike gave me was to douse the thing in catnip, so I did....what a reaction! All three of the cats were on it in no time, and they started freaking out like it was Christmas morning. They have yet to come down. So kudos to Mike and Mindy for an EXCELLENT tip; this one is going to save our poor couch from any more abuse.

4000?! That's Ludacris!

cribs_adventures-L-11.jpg I've started watching Cribs on MTV, not because it's a particularly good show or anything but because it inspires me. How? Because I look at all these dumbasses who can get these homes, and I think to myself "If they can do it, I can do it."Anyway, I was watching it this evening and it was a special "Cribs Adventures" show where they followed these pseudo-celebrities on vacation. I took particular interest in this episode because Ludacris went to Cape Town. They showed him doing the usual tourist things, going up Table Mountain, the beach etc. But one scene showed him stopping to buy a carved statue from one of the roadside stalls. The narrator said he "dropped 4 G's on it" HA! Four G's!! He got skanked! Ok if it was 4000 US Dollars, the man needs to be slapped to death by midgets. You can get those things for about $80. Even if it was 4000 South African Rand, that's still over $600 - he still needs to be slapped by slightly less agressive midgets. See he made a HUGE mistake, he went up the guy and pulled out a wad of American bills (like a fistful of $100 bills) and asked how much it was. Fool! When people asked me how South Africa was, I always said "the people are all smiles, but they will f*ck you over in a heartbeat." Ludacris....you got F*CKED over. Now, I could conclude the story there, but that wouldn't be fair. After that embarassing sequence, he went to one of the shanty towns in Cape Town and spent the day there talking to the kids, going to a youth center, listening to a talk on AIDS. I have to admit he showed a lot of insight and appreciation of the situation, and talked eloquently about his impressions. At the end of it, he made a sizeable donation to the center. Good on him. Anyway, looks like he made two "donations" to South African society, but I think he was only aware of one.

Walk a mile

As I drove into work this morning, I pondered out loud how downtrodden I was. How unfair it was I had to be at work on such a beautiful day, how the traffic was so awful, and how I had another mundane eight hours ahead of me. I was really feeling sorry for myself. Until I hear this:"Ten terrorist bombs tore through trains and stations along a commuter line at the height of Madrid's morning rush hour, killing more than 190 people and wounding 900." These people were all on their way to work, too. Or going to see friends, family, spouses. They probably don't even know what happened. They wouldn't have had time to react. For those who weren't killed but injured, their lives have changed forever. I need to stop whining and appreciate the relative security in which I live.

No more blog spam!

At last, I have found a solution to the blog spam problem. Aside from upgrading to the latest version of movabletype, I stumbled across a plugin called MT-Blacklist that someone mentioned over on Mike Pusateri's site.MT-Blacklist is a powerful filtering tool that works off a huge list of known spammers. However instead of trying to focus on moving or mutable targets (e.g. IP addresss, keywords, SMTP relays, etc), MT-Blacklist works because it focuses on one that is far more difficult to change and is in fact, the most important part of the spam: the spamvertised URL. That coupled with a centralized database that is constantly updated, and you have a solid defense against spam, both in comments and in trackbacks. It's CAKE to install. I had it up and running in about five minutes. Take a look at some of the features:

  • Content-based comment/trackback spam blocking.
  • Search & De-spam mode provides one-step de-spamming of all of your blogs.
  • Extremely easy installation and upgrades. Works right out of the "box" with No modifications to your templates or the MT source code.
  • Web interface for all plugin administration functions
  • Protection is configurable on a weblog-by-weblog basis
  • Default blacklist contains over 450 known spam strings for immediate protection on install.
  • Uses MT's native user permission model for administrative functions
  • MT Activity log record of configuration and blacklist changes as well as optional logging of denied comments/trackbacks
  • Optional automatic web publishing of blacklist
  • Blacklist importing supported
  • Seamless support for Perl regular expressions in blacklist
  • Individual annotations supported for each blacklist entry

So I'm hoping this is the end of my spam problem. In the meantime, I encourage you to check it out, and let me know how it works for you. Tricia, Deanne, and Andrew, your blogs should now be spam free!

Behold my domain!

Woo hoo! I finally got alexhunter.org!That domain has been taken for the longest time - so long, in fact, that I had pretty much given up all hope ever getting a domain that beared any resemblance to my name. See, alexhunter.com is taken by another person called Alex Hunter. Now this I don't mind. But the only problem is...he's an "exotic photographer." So anyone from my past (or present for that matter) who decides to google me, is going to be greeted with photos of ladies in their altogether. Oh and links to the Jon Benet Ramsay case, because the District Attorney that presided over that case for several years was called Alex Hunter, too. So with alexhunter.com out of the question, I looked at the more generic hunter.com - nope, that was registered by Browning Hunting equipment several years ago. As Mike said, it's hard when your surname is an integral part of the English language. But, finally I have triumphed. I now own alexhunter.org and I can do with it whatever I please. Right now it just points at my blog but I think I will make it my primary domain for this site. Heck, I may even start a new site with it! Who knows?! I'm just pleased to have my intellectual property back ;)

The fine art of focussing

jal.jpgA couple of weeks ago during a spell of nice weather here in the Bay Area I wanted to head out to San Francisco airport to take some photos. Well one thing lead to another and I ended up not having time. So when I had to take Deanne to work yesterday I decided that since it was such a nice day, I would carry on over the San Mateo bridge and head out to SFO. I took about 70 shots out there, only a handful of which are any good. I really need to take some digital photography lessons! There were a bunch of folks out there taking shots with amazing digital SLR cameras. There were all saying it's almost impossible to take bad photos with them. I'm happy with my camera, I think it's mainly "operator error" that causes most of my lousy photos. The one thing that really spoiled a bunch of photos was the heat coming off the engines and off the tarmac. Not sure how one avoids that. Anyway, take a look in the gallery and let me know what you think.

Left turn ahead

monitoranimation.gifAfter much wrangling with various ebay merchants, everything I needed to install my new system in my car arrived on Thursday and Friday last week. I had arranged with Ken earlier in the week that we (ha we...HE) would install it on Saturday, as he had the day pretty much free. Well I decided that I would try and chronicle the install. This is going to make for a long post so here's a photo of the final install, and if you want to read the rest of the entry and see all the install photos, follow the link below... monitorsimpsons.jpg

I arrived at Ken's shop at about 10am on Saturday morning, my car filled with boxes. We pulled the car into the bay and went through all the equipment just to make sure we had everything that was needed. We didn't. So off to Radio Shack I went to get some RCA cables. By the time I returned, Ken had laid out all the wires needed for the install. I really should have taken a photo of that because it was quite a sight. Talk about a TON of wire! Most of it would be hacked up and discarded but it made for an impressive site nonetheless. After everything was planned out, the fun part began. First thing was to take the back seat out. backseat.jpg Since the XM and the MP3 jukebox were going to be in the trunk, a significant amount of wire needed to be run from the front to the back of the car; removing the back seat made this process much easier. Next chore was to remove the driver's seat. frontstripped.jpg Again, this was done to aid in the running of the wire from the rear to the front of the car. backviewstripped.jpg I already had the XM receiver stored in the trunk of the car. But since we were adding the mp3 jukebox and also changing the way the xm interfaced with the headunit (change from fm modulation to IP-BUS) we needed to remove the xm unit and strip out the makeshift amp rack. amprackstripped.jpg Then, whilst we were in the trunk, we removed the trunk lining and carpet. trunkstripped.jpg Again, this helps conceal the mass of wire that needed to be run to each of the units. Now that everything was stripped down, the fun began. This is also the part where my involvement ends and I become a mere bystander. Ken dove and and began to work his magic. He first removed my existing headunit and CD player. dashstripped.jpg Then all the wiring was run from the back of the car to the front of the car and behind the dash, where the new headunit would eventually go. The rear components were connected to their respective interface cables and then given power. Then to the front. Ken quickly created a new wiring harness for the monitor and nav unit which were going to fit in the double din opening. Once that was complete, out came the gauge cluster. The reason for this is to allow the nav unit to tap into the Vehicle Speed Sensor cable, so it can accurately represent distance travelled on the map. keninstall.jpg One the VSS cable was tapped and the gauge cluster was replaced, it was time to test fit the components. This is also when we tested to make sure that everything came on properly and functioned properly. I'm told the last thing you want is to get everything wired up and put securely in place, only to find something doesn't work properly. So everything was set loosely in place and powered up. testfit.jpg With the testing complete and successful, we were pretty much done. Just a matter of putting the car back together, and securing the new components in place. completeinstall.jpg amprackfinished.jpg And of course, the ultimate test...can it play the Simpsons? monitorsimpsons.jpg Of course! So how does it work? It seems to work really well. The XM is seamless, the AM/FM works as it should, as does the CD player. The MP3 player is quirky but works, it'll just take some getting used to. The nav is great, contrary to what my wife thinks. We had to leave pretty much as soon as the install was done to arrive on time to a dinner engagement. I didn't have time to play with the nav settings or anything so trying to use it and learn it while driving in the rain was hard. But now I have it figured out and have already found it very, very useful. A worthwhile exercise I would say. Kudos to Ken for his excellent and expeditious install.

Triple Seven, seven seven seven, seven seventy seven

cxmodel.jpg My cube finally has a touch of aviation to it. That is a model of a Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-200.The 777 is probably my favorite airplane of all time. It's not the most exciting or spectacular but it really is an impressive piece of machinery. It has engines that are the same diameter as the fuselage of a 737-300, it can take off with a full load using just one of those engines, it was the first airliner designed completely on computer, and the ER version has flown for over 6 hours on one engine. Amazing. In fact, Mike and I have actually flown AND landed one of these amazing machines. Well not the real thing but in 1998 we were able to fly the actual simulators used to train pilots. These are full motion, highly immersive simulation environments that are 100% accurate in both look and feel. Mike and I both managed to land them at the legendary Kai Tak approach. So why the model? Well my dad got me one for my birthday when I was working in Hong Kong and it followed me around the world, no matter where I went but in a recent move it disappeared and I was pissed. So I hunted online and eventually managed to find one. It arrived on Tuesday and now has pride of place in my cube.

They said it couldn't be done

Dscn1196.jpgI have reached hitherto unreached levels of dorkdom. Last night, at around 11:30pm, I was tinkering (I've always wanted to use that word) in my office. I had a 10.4" LCD monitor left over from the x-dash and a broken desk lamp. I had "you know what would be cool..." moment and decided to combine the two in a sor of 1980's sci-fi movie set kind of way. The monitor doesn't have a bezel - it never did, we didn't need it for the x-dash so it's current uses are somewhat limited as it doesn't stand upright without considerable propping up. The lamp was jerry rigged as it was, having failed to retain all of its pieces during our move from Livermore two years ago. I lost the clamp which attaches it to the desk so I drilled a hole in my desk and simply anchored the lamp thusly. It worked up until recently when the switch completely died. You couldn't turn it on at all. So I took off the shade and the bulb housing and the socket, and removed the power wire. Then I attached the monitor to the arm of the lamp using a small nut and bolt (yes, singular.) The weight of the monitor kept dragging the whole apparatus down so I ziptied the two upper arms together, preventing them from drooping. Behold the result! A completely useless, semi-articulating monitor stand! This is of course a temporary solution as for what to with the monitor but it means I can make use of it for the time being. HA! Take that Will Wheaton! P.S. I just noticed...yes, Mike that is your blog on my laptop screen :) threemons.jpg

The art of diplomacy

Marriage is all about compromise, or so I'm told. So when the subject of a new car came up, there was the need for compromise....or negotiations.A little backstory: my car, that I thought was the greatest piece of mechanical ingenuity ever conceived, is a pile. OK, that's a little harsh. It's frustratingly buggy. I have owned it for about 6 months (one of which I didn't drive it because I was overseas) and it's already had some irritating problems....like not starting in the morning. I NEED reliability in a car. I guess I was spoiled with the Honda. Then the blinkers crapped out. Not crapped out like stopped working altogether, crapped out like they had Tourette's syndrome. Sometimes they will work, sometimes they won't, sometimes they will blink so arthymically and spastically that it's embarassing to even use them. I posted my problem to one of the passat message boards and the prognosis that came back was faulty hazard relay. I vented my frustration about this and the response I got was "What do you expect, you drive a Volkswagen." That irked me no end. So I began to discuss the possibility of getting rid of the Passat while we still had the upper hand on the equity. Deanne and I talked about it and in the end we just didn't see eye to eye on a replacement that we'd both be happy with. However I proposed a compromise. I said I would keep the Passat IF she let me put a navigation system in it. She didn't even have to think twice about it. It actually makes more sense to be honest. The Passat over all is not a bad car. It's fast, looks good, and is pretty comfortable. My friend Brian, who is a Volkswagen mechanic says they're just over-engineered. That's absolutely right. There's no point in ditching it just to get into another car that might have the same problems. So I keep the Passat but I get to put a navigation unit in it. I got a taste of navigation when I had the x-dash in the CRV. It was so useful, I used it all the time. Now my car is littered with mapquest printouts. But the PC based GPS software never quite got it right. It took forever to get a satellite lock, the interface was designed to be used with a mouse, not fat fingers while you're driving, the destination was not contextual (i.e. it didn't know where you were) and it was a pain to use sometimes. But not the units MADE for cars. The few times I've driven Ken's car, I was impressed by the navigation. When you entered a destination, it knew where you were and would filter out the possible destinations on the fly. Not only that you can ask it directions while you're driving and it will calculate your route from where you are. Impressive. Even though I had the blessing from the missus, I didn't want to spend a lot of money. There's nav systems out there which are $3000 but I just can't justify spending that kind of money unless it actually drives the car. So I did some research and found out that it would make sense to get a Pioneer screen for the nav because I have a Pioneer XM unit which means I could remove the XM controller I currently have and control it through the screen. I consulted with Ken some more and he said that even though I could use an another companies (potentially cheaper) nav unit with a Pioneer screen, I would lose some functionality, plus the Pioneer nav unit is the best on the market. So I went from trying to avoid Pioneer on a cost basis to making the entire system Pioneer based. You with me so far? Ok good. So I looked online at the prices....ouch. Ok, I am so not paying that. Ahh my old friend ebay, what can you offer me? Treasures galore! I opted for a screen that has recently been discontinued by Pioneer and as such the price has dropped signficantly. I had the chance to play with the newer model and I have to say it was amazing. The most noticeable feature was the addition of a touchscreen interface. But even after playing with it, I decided to stay with the older model for two reasons; price and also I've been told by several sources that the folding mechanism on touchscreen monitors tends to crap out after a while because of constant "jabbing" by fat fingers. Now, I've settled on a screen....what about a nav unit. This one was much easier. Pioneer's newest nav unit is incredible. It's DVD based so it can store the entire US and Canada data including 2 million points of interest, and the DVD-ROM doubles as a standard DVD player if I get bored. You can view your route from 5 different angles. It also accepts voice commands, e.g. you can tell it

Browsers - what a great word

I have finally been convinced to try a new browser out. I have been using CrazyBrowser for quite a while now and I liked it for several reasons:- tabbed windows - built in popup blocker - groups of favorites - P3P privacy policy and zone-based security assignments Crazy Browser is not IE plug-in or add-on, it just uses the IE API to render pages. However the guy that develops it has not released an update for it in well over a year. My colleague Dan has been touting the virtues of Avant Browser for ages and I have been duly ignoring him. Well today his nagging finally won me over and I installed Avant Browser. I'm now a convert. It has some great features: - Built-in Pop-up Stopper - Flash Animation Filter - Multi-Window Browsing - Blocks AD banners/buttons - Records Cleaner - Mouse Gestures Very impressive. Fast, clean interface - I like it. Now, to address those who might want to know why I don't use Mozilla or Firebird, the open source browsers. Well, I do. Sometimes. The thing is, I'm a webmaster and I have to design sites that are compatible with the standard web experience, and, like it or not, that experience is overwhelmingly driven by IE. Therefore, when we build a page or site, we have to test it in IE to ensure that the ~80% of users that use IE are going to see the site the way we intended. That said, we as an organization, support IE AND Netscape so we must test it on both. Do I extol the virtues of IE? No, no I don't. That's why I don't use the browser, I use an extension thereof. And that "extension" cures many of the ills once associated with IE. Not all...many. Anyway, for my day to day browsing needs, I think I'll be using a combination of Avant Browser and Firebird (Mozilla is waaaaay to slow to be considered for casual browsing.) As for the browser war? Microsoft have got to get their shit together if they want to keep up with the tide of better browsers that are appearing. For further reading, check out Mike's take on the recent IE phishing problems, he has some good points about Microsoft's reluctance to address potential security problems in a timely manner.

...and the oscar goes to.

Noel and I have decided to write, produce, direct and star in our own Blaxploitation movie called "The Adventures of Peabody Jones, Country Pimp." We've come up with some initial character names:Moses Mayberry Willie Buttery Billy Jones Aintie Ezra Mae Watts Reverend Evander Soul Commander Peebo Flytower Sir Smoove B Fresh Mr Dantannerific Sista Soul Jeans Armando Sweetness Isaac Hightop Mayes Fennister C. Groovesoul Lil Milton Mabeline McFadden "Fly" Hammonds Fatima "SugaLip" Jones Johnny Afrika

My new favorite view

Whilst Deanne was in Georgia during a recent business trip, one the events she attended took place in an aviation museum. One of the permanent displays was a gallery of aviation art by Keith Ferris, a renowned aviation artist whose work includes a 25 foot high, by 75 foot wide B-17 mural in the National Air and Space Museum.His primary focus is military aircraft but his subjects occassionally include commercial aircraft. When Deanne saw the picture above entitled "21st Century Transports" she knew it is a piece I would have absolutely adored. Unlike most aviation enthusiasts, I enjoy commercial aviation more than military aviation. When she returned from her trip she told me about the painting and how much she thought I would like it. Then about a week later a package arrived in the mail. In it was a limited edition print of the very painting she had talked so much about. It was stunning. I absolutely love it and I had it immediately framed and put up in pride of place in our living room. The picture above doesn't do it justice, you really need to see it in person.

It just keeps getting better

Alexi Lalas is the new GM of the Earthquakes. A guy that was a Galaxy player a few months ago is our new GM. I really hope this is some highly elaborate practical joke. I feel sick.http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/soccer/7806386.htm U.S. soccer icon Alexi Lalas will be named general manager of the Earthquakes at a news conference today in San Jose, according to sources. Lalas, 33, was a defender on the United States' 1994 World Cup team and among the most popular players in the country when Major League Soccer launched in 1996. Lalas' move into the front office will be a quick transition: He was a player on the Los Angeles Galaxy until he was released earlier this month.

...and boy are my arms tired.

weightbench.jpg So as you may have read from Deanne's blog, we've both embarked on a new fitness routine. We aimed to start January 1st but we both got sick and although the dieting started close to January 1st, the exercising has only been going on for a week for me. The diet part is going well; I've reduced my calorie intake dramatically. Deanne put together a binder with nutritional information for many of the restaurants I (used to) frequent. Some of the data is downright disturbing: Double Whopper w/ Cheese, large fries and a coke = 1900 calories, 95grams of fat! 6 Dollar Burger, large fries and a coke = 1950 calories, 91 grams of fat! That's your entire day's calorie intake in one meal. I used to eat that stuff all the time, no wonder I was getting fat.I have reduced my calorie intake to about 1600 calories per day. Deanne pointed me to a stat called your Basal Metabolic Rate which is the number of calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day. So theoretically, I should lose weight by just sitting on my ass all day...but it would take time. If you add some exercise into the mix, you're going to increase the rate at which you burn calories, and as Deanne said on her blog "After elevating your heart rate for an extended period of time, your body will continue to burn calories for hours sometimes days at high rates." Encouraging. We got an eliptical trainer and weight bench for Christmas. I had used the eliptical trainer a few times and found it to be a very efficient but altogether exhausting piece of equipment - evidently doing it's job. I really appreciate the fact that it's zero impact because running even for a short period of time results in excruciating knee pain (damn British medical system.) Last night I used our weight bench for the first time (I think I burned several hundred calories just putting the damn thing together.) I did a lot of weight training when I was at school so I knew the basics but I refreshed my memory, if only to avoid knocking myself unconcious with a barbell. Now this may sound weird but for what it is, weight lifting is a lot of fun. I did it for 35 minutes, which is what was recommended for a beginner, and by the end of each rep, my muscles were burning, which is apparently the target sensation as it indicates the muscle will need to rebuild, adding strength and tolerance. By the end of the 35 minutes I felt great. I had worked my entire upper body and felt very satisfied. So I went to bed, a little sore but looking forward to my next session. My alarm clock went off at the usual time this morning and I said to myself "Ok, should probably get up n......SWEET MOTHER OF GOD I'M PARALYZED!" Turns out I was just in searing pain in my elbows from one particular exercise I was doing. Silly me. I a) hadn't stretched properly for it and b) hadn't even executed the exercise properly. Consequently while the rest of my muscles ached as they should after a work out, the tendon that attaches the tricep to the elbow felt like someone was holding a lighter under it. I couldn't even get a spoon to my mouth to eat my oatmeal...pathetic! Anyway a little tiger balm and some light stretching and it felt a little better. Still hurts a bit but at least tonight is cardio! ;-)