I am the ghost of groovymother.com. Woooooo!

God Says: Please Do Not Go to Hell

Tucked under my windscreen wiper on Landsdowne St. As I approached my car, I thought I'd got a parking ticket. Instead, I just got redemption. Phew!

Vote Dig

The badges being handed out at the Weekly Dig "Dig This" awards party.

With Love, From Carnegie Deli

My birthday present from my wee sister? 2.5lbs of cheesecake, overnighted from the Carnegie Deli in New York.

Joy’s Moo Cards

I treated Joy to a box of Moo Cards for herself -- each illustrated with a photo of the dogs. Here are two, resting in some dog photo holders I picked up for her at Philadelphia Airport.

The word ‘unblowupable’ is thrown around a lot these days.

This is the pressure-gauge on the outside of our central heating furnace that gave up the ghost over the weekend. You might note that the clear protective plastic shield on it has turned brown, melted and buckled.

This is because the furnace apparently decided that merely heating water into steam and pushing it around our radiators was, shall we say, passé, and instead dived head-first into a mission of heating itself up to a frighteningly hot temperature and dripping boiling water onto the basement floor.

Remind me again why home-ownership is a good idea?

Home, Wednesday 5:53 pm 10/18/06 Somerville, Massachusetts

Berkeley Street, Wednesday 5:52 pm 10/18/06 Somerville, Massachusetts

Dunkin Donuts, Union Square Wednesday 5:49 pm 10/18/06 Somerville, Massachusetts

Used Car lot, Prospect St Wednesday 5:48 pm 10/18/06 Somerville, Massachusetts

Corner of Prospect & Hampshire, Wednesday 5:42 pm 10/18/06 Cambridge, Massachusetts

KFC Windows, Wednesday 5:42 pm 10/18/06 Cambridge, Massachusetts

Back of a bus, Wednesday 5:34 pm 10/18/06 Boston, Massachusetts

Pike Exit 18, Wednesday 5:32 pm 10/18/06 Boston, Massachusetts

Newton Sheraton, Wednesday 5:29 pm 10/18/06 Newton, Massachusetts

Shaws, Wednesday 5:26 pm 10/18/06 Newton, Massachusetts

Fast Lane, Weston Tolls, Wednesday 5:23 pm 10/18/06 Weston, Town Of, Massachusetts

Weston Tolls, Wednesday 5:23 pm 10/18/06 Weston, Town Of, Massachusetts

Pike Exit 14, Wednesday 5:22 pm 10/18/06 Weston, Town Of, Massachusetts

ZoneTag Photo Wednesday 5:21 pm 10/18/06 Weston, Town Of, Massachusetts

ZoneTag Photo Wednesday 5:21 pm 10/18/06 Weston, Town Of, Massachusetts

2 miles from Exit 14, Wednesday 5:21 pm 10/18/06 Weston, Town Of, Massachusetts

ZoneTag Photo Wednesday 5:20 pm 10/18/06 Weston, Town Of, Massachusetts

Eastbound Services, Wednesday 5:18 pm 10/18/06 Wayland, Town Of, Massachusetts

ZoneTag Photo Wednesday 5:17 pm 10/18/06 Framingham, Town Of, Massachusetts

ZoneTag Photo Wednesday 5:17 pm 10/18/06 Framingham, Town Of, Massachusetts

Westbound Services, Wednesday 5:16 pm 10/18/06 Framingham, Town Of, Massachusetts

ZoneTag Photo Wednesday 5:15 pm 10/18/06 Framingham, Town Of, Massachusetts

ZoneTag Photo Wednesday 5:14 pm 10/18/06 Framingham, Town Of, Massachusetts

ZoneTag Photo Wednesday 5:14 pm 10/18/06 Framingham, Town Of, Massachusetts

ZoneTag Photo Wednesday 5:13 pm 10/18/06 Framingham, Town Of, Massachusetts

Deval Patrick Supporters. Wednesday 5:11 pm 10/18/06 Framingham, Town Of, Massachusetts

ZoneTag Photo Wednesday 5:10 pm 10/18/06 Framingham, Town Of, Massachusetts

My Flickr Moo Cards

A mixture of Boston, Bassets and a Bunch of other stuff. They look great, especially considering most of the photos were taken with crappy cameraphones!

Sadly, two of the twenty images I uploaded got printed as "Unavailable photo:" Not sure what caused that, but I'm gonna ping Moo and see what happened.

Decorated Trunks

Someone's been decorating the tree trunks around Union Square.

‘Best’ of Boston?

This is odd. Dunkin Donuts cups currently proclaim that they were awarded a "Best of Boston" award by Boston Magazine this year. However, a search of the Best of Boston site finds no such win.

In fact, it appears that the "award" was merely a corporate agreement to use the cup on the magazine cover.

I love DD as much as the next New Englander, but since the "Best of Boston" usually _means_ something (unlike some other awards, which just rank which business did the best job getting their customers to ballot-stuff), it seems massively lame to whore the title this way.

Jon Stewart, The Wang Center, Friday 10:50 pm 10/6/06

For our third wedding anniversary, I treated meself and the missus to tickets to see Jon Stewart do standup. He was splendidly entertaining, though it seemed like he hadn't updated his standup act much over the last few years (jokes about Y2K, the Million Man March and Rodney King!)

Massive Attack, Boston Orpheum, Sunday 9:14 pm 10/1/06

The light show was really quite stunning, but of course, looks like ass on my cameraphone. Their use of scrolling ticker displays reminded me somewhat of the Blue Man Group!

Clyde’s Nest

Clyde isn't spritely enough to hop onto the bed like Bacon, so he's made himself a little nest in the corner of the bedroom.

Blue Screened

Clearly the presenter from Traineo had not performed sufficient sacrifices to the god of demos before getting up at the Web Innovators Group. Within 10 seconds of starting, his laptop bluescreened.

And all the Mac fanboys in the crowd smiled to themselves.

Pyrotechnics Wednesday 10:59 pm 9/20/06

The grand finale for the Stones gig, ending at 11pm precisely.

Truly rock'n'roll at its most punctual.

The Rolling Stones, Gillette Stadium. Wednesday 9:36 pm 9/20/06

I managed to nab some free tickets to tonight's Stones gig in Foxborough. We were up in the nosebleediest of nosebleeds, but for free, we weren't complaining.

Well that’s something you don’t see everyday

Open-top Double Decker Routemaster London bus driving round the streets of Cambridge, MA.

Remy & Orsillo bobbleheads

Bobbleheads of the Red Sox commentators.

The Tobin Bridge Tuesday 2:26 pm 9/12/06 Charlestown, Massachusetts

Taken during the Bose Cruise (It's like a Booze Cruise, but with less alcohol, and greater noise reduction).

Boattuggery Tuesday 2:11 pm 9/12/06 Boston, Massachusetts

A tanker navigating Boston Harbor with a few tugboats guiding it.

The Zakim Bridge Tuesday 1:57 pm 9/12/06 Boston, Massachusetts

My favourite new piece of architecture in Boston.

Skyline Tuesday 1:48 pm 9/12/06 Boston, Massachusetts

Airyplane Tuesday 12:50 pm 9/12/06 Boston, Massachusetts

Descending to Logan.

Exit 25MPH

Just discovered that when I use ZoneTag with my GPS whilst driving, it not only tags the photo with "driving", but also the speed at which I was going.

Which was 65mph when I took the photo of this road sign, apparently.

‘New Hampshire Boring’

Refreshingly honest, but it really feels like the New Hampshire tourist board isn't even trying anymore.

Snakes which are neither on a plane, nor in a movie theater

AMC apparently has a policy that you are not allowed to take rubber snakes into movie theaters showing Snakes on a Plane. These were the contraband snakes confiscated prior to this evening's showing.

Corn-Gratulations!

What a corny pun.

Yellow Brick Road

The final bridge before victory.

Fabio!

Fabio is on the right. Peter is on the left.

View from the bridge *over* the Victory Bridge

The red carpet bridge was right below us, but we took another thirty minutes to find our way there.

Christine and Pete

This was my team.

The Davis Mega-Maze Thursday 1:31 pm 8/17/06 South Lancaster, Massachusetts

This afternoon, our team at work took a group outing (under the auspices of "team building exercise") to the Davis Mega-Maze, a massive maze through 10-foot-tall corn. It took us an hour to find our way out!

Scooby Snacks

When I got home from work, there was an unexpected package on the doorstep from Petco.com.

"Crap!", thinks I. "Clearly Bacon has got himself a credit card, and entered the murky world of e-commerce."

Luckily, it turned out to be a gift from the lovely folks at Reddit, as thanks to Bacon for appearing in banner ads for them!

As a precaution, though, I've taken away Bacon's pre-authorized credit-card application forms. You can't be too careful.

FIVE!

One of my pet peeves is when I'm trying to find a friend's house, but can't read any of the house numbers on the street.

I just installed this number on our house this week. It's a nifty design -- It's solar-powered, so it charges its battery during the day, then when it gets dark, lights up using a couple of white LEDs.

The things I do to help out our friends. (OK, I'll be honest: Most visitors to our front door are Chinese and Pizza delivery guys).

$20 from ThinkGeek.

Arrogant Bastard Ale Saturday 9:55 pm 7/29/06 Somerville, Massachusetts

My chum Noel and I sample Arrogant Bastard Ale. The bottle warned us "You probably won't like this," and it was right.

Baldy!

Having woken up to a particularly stonking case of bedhead this morning, I inwardly-dialogued "fuck it!" and asked Joy to help me take my beardtrimmer to my head.

Lesson learned? Next time, use a longer setting on the trimmer, cause my blond hair is nearly transparent this short.

Gigantor Remote

Ah, I love the crap they sell at Brookstone. The overpriced junk that gives the air of being vaguely useful, but is too cheap and shoddy to actually solve a problem well.

My favourite one that I saw yesterday was this $50 massive universal remote. Pretend to be a Lilliputian from the comfort of your couch!

Steee-rike!

Joy bowling at King's. For a crappy cameraphone shot, I think this turned out pretty good!

Basset Hounds! Sunday 12:41 pm 7/16/06 Bristol, Rhode Island

Some of the bassets relaxing in the shade at the Colonial Basset Hound Rescue Basset Bash.

Maggie May, Sunday 11:23 am 7/16/06 Bristol, Rhode Island

This adorable little puppy stole everyone's hearts at the Basset Bash.

Women drivers!

Joy attacks me on the dodgems at Canobie Lake.

Puffy AmiYumi, Wednesday 10:10 pm 7/12/06 Boston, Massachusetts

The Puffy AmiYumi Splurge! Splurge! Splurge! tour. They read their on-stage banter off of notebooks. "Thank you. You guys... are.. the.. best?" It only sounded 5% more scripted than when native English-speaking bands do it..

Hitched

A (year-and-a-half) belated first wedding anniversary gift from our smashing chum, Cheryl: A signed Garry Trudeau print of Mike & JJ from Doonesbury.

Hopefully, our marriage will turn out happier than theirs!

Aimee Mann with the Boston Pops, Wednesday 9:40 pm 6/28/06

Morningwood, Sunday 11:08 pm 6/25/06 Boston, Massachusetts

The lead singer, Chantel, has a helluva lot of energy in her. Especially considering they've cancelled the next four dates in the tour because she's sprained her leg.

Morningwood Sunday 10:56 pm 6/25/06 Boston, Massachusetts

Chantel getting the crowd to crouch during "nth Degree". As I took this photo, she was admonishing the Axis security, and telling them to crouch too.

View from the State Street Pavillion

Managed to get a pair of "Standing Room" tickets in the "State Street Pavillion" at Fenway. Since it was a pretty grey day, not everyone had shown up, so we had seats for the whole game. Result!

Joy trains her brain

I bought the DS Lite that I've been craving for so long this morning. Joy's been quite taken with Brain Age.

I'm hoping to get it back off her soon so that I can indulge in a little more Super Mario.

Ingredients for Web 2.0 Success

"Pierre Francois from Underscore_ Consulting" (who looked alarmingly similar to Alexis from Reddit) did a great presentation, somewhat reminiscent of Stephen Colbert's "The Word" segment. The video should be up soon.

Panel: Startup 2.0 - The New Landscape

Building Scalable Web Infrastructure

Carbohydrates A Go-Go

Geekfood

Goatse Stickers

Spotted on Brian's laptop. Purchasable from GoatseSticker.com

How Technology is Changing the Music Industry

Shimon & the Schedule Board

This was right at the start of BarCamp, before it got completely filled for the day.

My Laptopstickers

My olde, busted-up, nicked-from-three-jobs-ago laptop. Now barely-functional (the powercord doesn't quite stay in, the battery lasts about 4 seconds, and the lid hinges won't keep the screen open), but I wanted to document its coverage before I bin it.

XM Inno

I'm playing with a loaned XM Inno radio at the moment. It's considerably shinier than my olde Roady -- Nice colour screen, the ability to save tracks you like, and a reasonably decent UI for browsing stations (better than the one on the competing Sirius player.)

And hey! If they're getting sued by the RIAA, they've got to be doing _something_ right!

No running, shouting or piddling in the shallow end.

Our basement, with the delightful addition of a couple of inches of floodwater. Every hardware store in the area is sold out of pumps, so we're waiting for the fire department to pop round and help us out. Oh, the joys of homeownership.

EL(?)OO

Do Stop & Shop lie? Is this really "Extra Light" enough for Shangri-La?

The Radio Knives, P.A.’s Lounge, Somerville

My Brother-(in-law)^2's band. Fine garage-rawk tunes can be found at their MySpace page.

Crated Bacon

Bacon suffered a back injury this week -- A slipped disc or a pinched nerve, reckons the vet. Poor little bugger has the be kept in his crate (except for "short leashed walks") for two weeks.

Since he's caged and being fed steroids, Keith suggested we should rename him "Veal".

Licky Tongue

Monster Joy

Joy on the Green Monster. As opposed to next to the green monster.

A Six-Foot Latte

You know, I often dream about getting this much caffeine.

View from the Monster

We had Green Monster tickets for tonight's Sox game. Since our normal seats are way back in right field, this was quite a different view!

Somerville has a Dog Park

Until very recently, there was not a single place in the City of Somerville (population ~77,000) where you could let your dog off-leash. Thankfully this has now changed, with the just-opened dog run on Nunziato Field. Here's some of the cheerful dogs that were gallavanting round there when we took Bacon down this evening.

A ‘smooth, creamy coffeehouse classic’, apparently

Or, alternatively, half-a-mug of piss-weak, nastily artifically-sweetened, CoffeeMate-crammed brownwater. The rather disappointing result of trying a HomeCafe "frothy cappuccino" pod.

I got the coffee machine for free from BzzAgent, but I still feel ripped-off. I'll stick with my Senseo, thanks.

Apple Powerbook 5300cs

Intel is for wussies. The 100Mhz PowerPC 603e is where it's at.

This laptop was unceremoniously dumped in the random-crap-pile outside my cube. It's ten years old, running System 7.5, has a staggering 24Mb of RAM, and a whopping 500Mb hard drive. Anyone got suggestions for what I can use it for?

Three Roombas enter, One Roomba leaves

Hardcore Three-way Roomba-on-Roomba Action.

Roomba Rumble

Two remote-control Roombas battle it out at Makefest.

My main thought from day one of ETech…

"Branded Lanyard" would be a great name for a rock band.

Another Zonetag test

Bacon's tail: Too fast for the LED flash on the camphone.

Belle & Sebastian, Avalon, Boston

ZoneTagged Mon Feb 27, 2006 19:03:29 PST

Dicking around with the new cellphone

ZoneTagged Mon Feb 27, 2006 15:50:02 PST