April 12, 2004

QotD: Launcher

Question: LaunchBar or QuickSilver?

My Answer: I had been using Launchbar and was very pleased, but then I read several glowing reviews of QuickSilver and made the switch. Mainly because QuickSilver is free, looks cooler, and has more features. I love the Email to… and IM To… features. Overall it’s just a lot more powerful than Launchbar. Of course I haven’t tried the new version 4 beta of Launchbar, and from reading the feature list it looks like they caught up to QuickSilver as far as features go. But it’s still not free.

March 26, 2004

QotD: Flying

Question: What’s the most unusual thing in which you’ve ever flown?

My Answer: I’ve flown in jets, a prop plane through the grand canyon, a helicopter, and one time I flew inside of a big round room with a huge fan in the floor. It was Indoor Skydiving in Gatlinburg, TN and was quite a bit of fun! Spend 30 minutes or so being trained on how to position yourself in order to lift-off, and getting all your gear on. Then you enter the room with a few other people and throw yourself onto the padded mats around the edges in order to get comfortable with falling. The instructor then takes you to the center of the room, and has you lay down on the wire that is between you and the gigantic, deadly spinning blades of the fan. Once you get yourself positioned, they turn up the speed of the fan, and as long as you are positioned for optimum “flyability”, you will begin to ascend to the top of the room. I did pretty well, and took off immediately, but my instructor pulled me back down before I got out of his reach. I guess he didn’t want me to get 30 feet in the air and then lose my position and fall to my doom. You’re only in the room for a few minutes, but it’s a lot of fun and worth the money to at least try it once.

March 22, 2004

QotD: Comments

Question: What are your thoughts on comment registration, TypeKey, etc.?

My Answer: I’ll probably enable it on my blog… Not that many people post comments on my blog, and I get quite a bit of comment spam so it would be worth it to have people register just to stop the spam I get. Which is almost more than the real comments I get.

March 18, 2004

QotD: Counterfeit

Question: Have you ever knowingly used counterfeit money?

My Answer: No, but one time on a train in Germany we met a guy that had a fake German bill. His hobby was identifying counterfeits or something. He handed me two identical bills, one a counterfeit and one a real one. I couldn’t tell the difference. He must have been really good. That or I was 11 and not familiar with the currency…

March 15, 2004

QotD: HBO

Question: Do you have HBO?

My Answer: No, we just get super basic cable. The broadcast stations and TBS, WGN, etc. We have Netflix though, so we have all the movies we can watch anyway.

March 14, 2004

QotD: Full-time OS

Question: When did you begin using what you now consider your full time OS?

My Answer: I started using OSX 10.3 (Panther) about 5 months ago when I got my eMac. And I just sold my Windows machine today, meaning I am now 100% Mac based. Hooray!

March 13, 2004

QotD: Products

Question: Have you ever sold anything you’ve created?

My Answer: Yes, lots of stuff. When I was very small, (I never remember my age in these types of stories) I made Granola with my mom, and my dad sold it to people at the hospital where he worked for $10 or $20 a bag. We even had labels on the bags that said Derek’s Gourmet Granola. When I was a little older I bred my Black Labrador retriever to other black labrador retrievers around the neighborhood for $200 a pop. I also sold kittens for $50 each. One of them had six toes and I called him bigfoot. Somewhere in my grandma’s house there is a touching picture of me holding the kitten for the last time before he is taken away, with a tear streaming down my cheek, and a twenty dollar bill sticking out of my pocket. Now I sell web sites.

March 12, 2004

QotD: R/C

Question: Have you ever owned a remote control toy/thing?

My Answer: Yes, I had several of the little remote control race cars, monster trucks, bulldozers as a kid. I even had one that we built from parts. It was fun, but the battery didn’t last long and it broke down all the time. But I was really “into it” for a while, we even got R/C magazines and took the car to R/C race tracks around town.

March 11, 2004

QotD: Bathrobe

Question: Do you have and use a bathrobe? When?

My Answer: No I don’t have one. I just use a towel. Then get dressed in regular clothes or comfortable scrubs or something, depending on what time of day I take a shower. My wife has one with little angels on it, but she doesn’t use it much either.

March 10, 2004

QotD: Concert Tickets

Question: What’s the most you’ve ever paid for concert tickets?

My Answer: Probably $45 for Red Hot Chili Peppers / Foo Fighters tickets at AmSouth Amphitheater in Nashville.

March 09, 2004

QotD: Games

Question: Do you play games? If so, what kind?

My Answer: Yes, I certainly do. Though I haven’t much lately for lack of time, and probably won’t for quite a while for the same reason. I play games on the Mac, GameBoy Advance games, GameCube games, etc. I like most genres; action, role-playing, puzzle, adventure, first person (not on consoles though), platformer, etc. I don’t like sports games though, that’s just about the only type of game I don’t play.

March 08, 2004

QotD: Returns

Question: Do you abuse or ignore return policies?

My Answer: Not that I know of. I assume abusing them would be buying a $1,000 digital camera, using it for 29 days, and returning it to the store to get a refund before your time limit is up, then buying another camera at another store and doing the same. No, I don’t do that. I only return stuff if it sucks or doesn’t work. And even then sometimes I don’t return it because I’m afraid of causing trouble! (With small items where it’s not worth the money to return… If it’s a big item that doesn’t work I will obviously return it)

March 07, 2004

QotD: Invest

Question: Do you invest in the stock market?

My Answer: No. I hardly ever have enough money to pay the bills and buy cool stuff, let alone invest my money in some silly stock market. :)

March 06, 2004

QotD: .Mac

Question: Do you have a .Mac account? Do you use it? For how long have you had it? Will you renew?

My Answer: Yes I do have one. Yes I use the bookmark and address book syncing all the time, as well as the easy iPhoto galleries. I’ve had it since I got my first Mac, the eMac. Yes I will definitely renew. It’s worth every penny, even though I already have web hosting and email from somewhere else.

March 05, 2004

QotD: Chat

Question: What’s your chat client of choice?

My Answer: I use iChat to talk with iChat/AIM users, and MSN Messenger to talk with MSN people. I’ve tried a couple of the multi-network chatting programs, but they aren’t as cool as iChat, and there is no point in using one of them just to use MSN, so I just run two chat programs instead.

March 04, 2004

QotD: Fonts

Question: How many fonts do you have?

My Answer: On the Mac I only have 98 fonts. All but 3 or 4 of those are the standard fonts that come with the OS. And they are all really nice fonts, much better than the pitiful default selection on Windows. On the Windows machine at work we have about 1,600 fonts. It’s used for laying out trophies and nametags, and sometimes people want a particular font, so it’s a good idea to have as many as possible. Even though it makes finding any particular font a pain in the butt. And makes all the programs start really really slowly.

March 03, 2004

QotD: Haircutting

Question: How much do you pay for a haircut?

My Answer: Around $10 every couple of years. I just buy a cheap pair of clippers and buzz my own head once a month or so. Then I buy another pair of clippers in a couple of years when the current pair gets dull and starts ripping out more hair than it cuts. It’s pretty nice. Don’t have to pay insane prices for cuts at a barber, and I never have to comb my hair in the mornings. Don’t have to buy gel, fancy shampoos, or waste time “getting ready” in the mornings. Who knows how much money it has saved me in the past two years!

March 02, 2004

QotD: Cable

Question: Do you steal cable (or satellite service, etc.)? Have you ever?

My Answer: No I don’t, No I haven’t. We just get the super basic package along with our cable internet. All the broadcast channels, and TBS, WGN, and some shopping channel. I do miss the discovery channel and Animal Planet though. :(

February 29, 2004

QotD: Camera Phones

Question: Does your phone have a camera?

My Answer: No, our phone is 2 years old. And it has been chewed up by the dog, dropped dozens of times, and run over by a car, so it might be time for a new one when we can afford it. We can get a free one when we renew our contract with SprintPCS, but we have to pay full price up front and wait for a rebate to come in a few weeks. And we don’t have the money to pay full price for a phone right now. Ours still works though… The screen is cracked and ruined though, so we can’t see our numbers or anything else. Just dial out blindly and answer it.

QotD: Recent Movies

Question: What’s the best movie you’ve seen in the past week?

My Answer: Probably The Man Who Wasn’t There with Billy Bob Thornton. It was a black and white film noir type thing. I liked his character a lot because he’s very similar to me… Very quiet and laid back in person. He referred to everyone else as “gabbers” because they talked too much and about pointless things. That’s exactly how I feel. :)

February 27, 2004

QotD: Devil’s Advocate

Question: How often do you play Devil’s Advocate?

My Answer: Not very often that I know of. I have enough trouble defending my own opinion at times, let alone one I don’t really have!

February 26, 2004

QotD: Fish

Question: What’s your favorite fish to eat, if any?

My Answer: None. I’m a vegetarian. Never tasted fish in my life, never will.

February 25, 2004

QotD: Obesity

Question: Is obesity a disease?

Answer: No, it’s being lazy and having no willpower. I’m about 25 - 30 pounds overweight for my height, but I sure as hell don’t go around telling people it’s because of some pretend disease I have. It’s because I’m lazy and don’t eat right or exercise… It’s not a very complicated concept. I do drink about 90 - 100oz. (3 litres) of water a day though, so at least I do that right. :)

February 24, 2004

QotD: Cook

Question: How often do you cook dinner for yourself or others?

Answer: I generally don’t cook much of anything. My lovely wife will usually make something simple like pasta or some sandwiches. If I’m on my own I make macaroni and cheese and hot dogs and cereal most of the time. Occasionally we’ll cook together if we are planning a spectacular meal like a pizza twist and salad. (Pizza twist is a twisted up pizza… You use french bread dough and wrap it around cheese, olives, mushrooms, whatever you put on pizza. Then twist it up, bake it, and pour pizza/spaghetti sauce on it. It’s awesome)

Question of the Day

I’m going to start answering Erik’s Question of the Day on here because I’d like to post more, but don’t always have anything to say. So this way I’ll always have at least one post per day, and maybe that will help me find other things to talk about as well.