• Web Site Story – thanks Mel
• So That’s Where That Condom Went – thanks jenijen
• Robo-geisha – thanks Mel
• Dead Gnome
• DO NOT PUSH THE BIG RED SHINY BUTTON!
• xkcd : Extrapolation
• Like Human Fly Paper
• 8 Awesome Cases of Internet Vigilantism

Links for my geeky homies…

• LRO’s First Moon Images

I finished the first group of fixes for Sageth.com yesterday, finished a few more pages for Climate Skateboards, made a few small updates for the Battleship New Jersey, did a blog post on Sore Thumbs Blog, and ran into a problem with Facebook Connect code (a permissions issue and I just didn’t feel like bothering my host) for my blog (and ultimately read how much easier the Google Friend Connector is and went with that).

One of my good friends is a porn site owner. Well, sort of a porn site, celebrity nudes really – NitroVideo.com. I’ve been working for Terry for nearly two years now – doing lots of PHP, MySQL, but mostly PERL coding. Pornsite Terry has been encouraging me to stay at home and really give my own business a real run. He gave me some advice for working out of my home that I finally followed yesterday.

1. Get up at the same time every day
2. Take a shower every morning
3. Run
4. Get out of the house at least once a day

And yesterday I didn’t get a chance to do the run, but I did everything else. I took Viv with me to the Pinelands Library and worked on my laptop while she played on the library computers and read to herself. I think Viv liked seeing her Daddy in a different spot than camped on the couch with a laptop in front of him. People might frown on his business, but the fact of the matter is, he has given me work and been supportive of me during the entire time we have worked together. I got phone calls from him just to check on me during the darkest times when my kids moved away and I was at the nadir of my depression. Say what you will, but Terry is a good dude. Here is A chat with Pornsite Terry…

The kids and I have been reading some good books at bedtime from the ‘brary lately… 006 and a Half, Skippyjon Jones, and Cabbage Moon.

• My First Dictionary – thanks Mel
• Happy Wars
• Black Spock Dances to the Jacksons
• Shirtless Biden Washes Trans Am in White House Driveway – thanks Karen
• The Meat Ship
• Let’s Be Friends

My ultra-awesome cousin, Justin, will be traveling with Van and Viv (he’s listed as the primary relative for my Aunt who works for the airline), and to say I’m grateful to Justin is the understatement of the century. Say hi to Justin on Twitter, he rocks and hopefully, he’ll teach me to snowboard sometime soon.

I got some work done on NitroVideo (fixed some formatting from a PERL script) and also built out the search tag cloud admin area for zeropercentcards.com. Just need to work on the YUI menu flyouts and then I will be very close to completion on the ZPC site, which will be awesome.

Movie reviews…

Man On Wire – this movie is so great. The different characters that helped Philippe Petit accomplish his tight rope walk between the World Trade Center towers are such demonstrative story tellers (especially Petit himself), you almost don’t need the footage of Petit practicing his walk and then ultimately cross the gap.

Quarantine – I didn’t have high hopes and I’ll say I was mildly surprised. I’m curious to see [Rec], which was the original Spanish film. If you like horror, you’ll probably dig this film.

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari – this movie, like Nosferatu conveys an otherworldly eerieness. The silence and the jerky motion on the screen parlay into a really great scare. I thought the tinting that was used on various acts was really interesting and was also impressed at how avante garde the sets were.

• Weatherman with a green tie – thanks Mel
• WTF Blanket – thanks Alex
• The Jesus Christ Sponge – thanks Alex
• Fearless Baby Ducks – thanks Mel
• Real books that look like they have been photoshopped
• Family Guy Yelled at By Christian Bale – thanks Carly
• Tampon Flash Drive – thanks Chris

I know what you’re saying, “hey Van why are you blogging if you’re so busy, huh?” First off, fuck you, and secondly, this took me 10 minutes, so suck it.

Here some changes I’d love to see on Facebook… they’ve added the “Like” feature, so you can tell your friends that you like what they’re doing or posting… I also think there needs to be an “I Really Don’t Give a Shit” option as well.

And then there’s the appaholic friends that send you non-stop flair, super pokes, and other inane bullshit… there’s the Ignore button, but that doesn’t really send the clear message that is truly needed… that’s why the Cut the Shit button is needed… this is an app that myself and the other developers at last week’s hackathon think is sorely needed…

My co-workers love my desk…

• QWERTY drums
• White Wedding Literal Version, RHCP Under the Bridge Literal Version

“This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization
It’s the sound of the unlocking and the lift away
Your love will be
Safe with me”
Bon Iver ~ re: Stacks

This is a clear example of why you don’t want to ever be my therapist or probably my friend either… below is an undoctored picture of my good friend Franki listening intently at an artist talk featuring Michael Gross… she has a thoughtful look on her face… harmless right?

And then I decided to do this… hope someone gets the Family Ties joke…

• What a Wonderful World – thanks Carla, is it just me, or am I so jaded as a YouTube junkie that I was waiting for a tiger to come maul the cute little pair?
• Winne the Pooh worships Satan – thanks jenijen
• Jumbohostel
• The Finest Elmo Rap Ever – thanks jenijen
• xkcd : Base System
• Hamburger Bed! – oh man

Birds by Neil Young…

Me reading Night in the Country…

Last night I had a guitar lesson with Carolyn, recorded a story for the next volume of Daddy Reads for the kiddos, had some take-out from PJs with Abbe, talked to the kids (read a story to a sick lil’ Viv), and spent the majority of the night being frustrated with UTF-8 characters being rendered via a PERL script that created HTML pages (I think this is all due to either an Apache or MySQL setting).

More shots from the visit to Abbe’s family… if you can’t see the slideshow, click here…

Texting fun with Abbe…

How many times do I have to learn
All the love I have is in my mind?
The Verve ~ Lucky Man

• 867-5309 Up For Auction – thanks Mel
• Alec Baldwim Calls Dora the Explorer – thanks jenijen
  
• A Month of Bacon
• White Wedding via Songsmith
• rolcats
• Melon Mouth
  
• Magical Animated Deer – why do I love this so much?
• The Life of Christ in Cats
• Zombies Have Left Texas, Now in Illinois

Here’s me reading a story to the kids (and wearing one of Lime’s tie dyes too!)…

• Gummi Bear Chandelier – this one is for Marty
• Ruben & Lullaby, an iPhone love story
• Get It On! : The Outtakes – I posted this yesterday, but damn it the outtakes rule, thanks Mel
• xkcd – the Jurassic Park Plan of Parenting
• Things to say during sex, a chart
• Japanese Breast Pillow – thanks Chris

Gift from Rach… blank CD-Rs and DVD-Rs, a pile of Zoobooks for the kids, my mom’s copy of Picnic, Lightning (I had lent this to Rach, whom is a fine purveyor of all things poetic), and note…

And Tie Dyes from Lime!… love the inscription on the collar… “lime dyed 4 van”… Lime asked that I take a picture of me wearing one soon… hmm, these seem like the perfect thing to wear on my next guitar lesson video… yep

I worked late last night working on zeropercentcards.com and the database clean-up of nitrovideo.com. I found a really useful php script for importing large MySQL databases, the wonderfully named, bigdump.

I also put in a fleeting-thought bid on an Austin Ice Bats jersey. The auction was ending at 3 in the morning, there was little chance I was going to stay up and try to snipe it in the waning seconds of the auction. But the Ice Bats were my son’s first hockey game and it really meant something to me. Turns out I won the jersey for only $15! Look at this shot of my little guy from that game… he’s pressing his face to the glass to watch the zamboni… mah boy loved that zamboni…

So yeah, sometimes the worm turns in good ways too. Thanks out there, life, The Great Gazoo, whomever tilted the pinball machine in my favor. I needed it. It’s called gratitude… and that’s right.

• The Quest for Every Beard Type – thanks Cynnie
• Get it on! – the funniest condom ad ever
• Indecent Haiku
• Star Wars Retold (by someone who hasn’t seen it)

Movie review (see I just told your ass right in the last sentence)…

The Agony and the Ecstasy – OK, here’s the plot… tell me if you get my point here… this movie is 138 minutes detailing Pope Julius II commissioning Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel… I know, seriously. Why stop looking at internet porn or whatever reality celebrity cock fighting special you’re watching to check THIS one out? Well, it turns out there’s some really great acting. And I fucking hate Charlton Heston (btw, for those of you that I have been waiting to pry that gun out of his cold dead fingers – now’s your chance), but he doesn’t Shatner his lines into overacted crap (in my opinion, as he did in Ben Hur). About an hour into this film, I kind of had this “look at me… liking this movie… how about that?”

More fun with Abbe…

• xkcd : Windows 7
• Clever and Creative Billboards
• Super Broker – oh. dear. jeebus. Charlie Carson broke it doooooooowwwwn
• Electric Bath Ducky – one use only
• 3rd Race at the Honeymoon is Over Downs – haha, thanks Franki

Get me on the court and Im trouble
Last week fucked around and got a triple double
Freaking brothers everyway like M.J.
I cant believe, today was a good day

OK, so I really didn’t fuck around and get a triple double, but I did fix the recurring movie template issue in the PERL script for one of my clients – turns out there were some incorrectly templated records in the MySQL table …that’s the way M.J. would have done it too. Also, I didn’t have to use my AK. Ergo, a good day.

Both my OT and PT are both ready to discharge me next week. This is great news, I’ve worked hard on changing my habits to keep my forearm tendonitis in check (which contributes to the carpal tunnel) and lots of extra work on my core in PT to get my back and neck in better shape. That’s the thing about PT that I like so much (in most cases), you work hard – you are rewarded with feeling better.

I talked to Viv for a long time last night and that was nice. We practiced whistling songs, I would play something on the piano over the phone to her and she would whistle the melody back to me.

I had a bunch of visitors last night – Jan came over for a guitar lesson, Rach stopped by to hang out (and a long talk about Kerouac’s Big Sur), Doug came over with a 12 pack of Stellas (God bless ya counselor), and Abbe stopped by too.

What an incredible Phillies game last night! The Fightins took back first place from the Muts in a 13 inning thriller last night. Chris Coste went 4-4 and didn’t even enter the game until the 8th inning. J-Roll looks to be back (just at the right time) going 5-7, with one bomb. One thing that’s enjoyable on the Phils broadcasts are the millions of shots of sad Mets fans in the crowd…

• Things to Say During Sex – (thanks Mel)
• Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip Look For The X-Factor and dan le sac VS scroobius pip “Thou Shalt always Kill” – thanks to Rach for introducing me to this guy
• Teddy Bear USB Drive – I love how it looks like a headless bear when docked
• Photos That Changed the World
• Sexy People
• Bush-McCain Tijuana Bibles