/home/willcore

Sweet Gravelly Jeebus

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:47:01 GMT

I just stumbled upon this, and it is too cool to not share:

Tom Waits and Kool Keith (aka Dr. Octagon, aka Dr. Dooom). The music is incredible, and the visuals certainly do not disappoint. I’ve done the hard work – you owe it to yourself to hit play.

An mp4 is available for download from BoingBoing.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Save the Date!

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:28:18 GMT

The most difficult part of wedding planning has to be the guest list. Unfortunately, we can’t invite the whole world. And if you haven’t received the following in the mail yet, you probably won’t. Sorry.

We joked that we should say underneath the Sherri & Will some text like “But don’t tell Bea!“, as most people don’t know that Bea’s real name is Sherri. I thought it was funny.

I am working on something for post-reception festivities that everyone (well, minus kids) can go to. It should be fun, and I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s the current state of “the family”:

That’s kinda weird to think about.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

On Tagging, etc.

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:42:14 GMT

I hate taggers. Speaking in broad generalizations, I think taggers just a group of people who, unable to make their mark on the world, decide the next best step is to write their pseudonym in permanent marker on other people’s property. It’s juvenile and immature, and shows a distinct lack of respect for others. I’m sure I know some people who do this, and that’s unfortunate. Maybe even someone who reads this little blog thingy.

Just grow up.

I was no fan of taggers as a renter in this city, and now as a property owner, I am even less of a fan.

Fred Radtke, New Orleans’ own “Gray Ghost”, is no better. In fact, what he does in some cases is worse – he primers over these tags. It doesn’t matter if it’s on brick, glass, marble, cement, or traffic signs. Glass? Marble? Why on Earth would you put primer on these surfaces?

Since Sept. 24, I’ve been going back and forth with the Sewerage and Water Board. They decided to dig up a large part of the sidewalk and street directly in front of the house.

I don’t know why, I just know they took it upon themselves to do it. Well, early this week, they finally dug up the temporary gravel and actually re-cemented the sidewalk. Street is still unfinished, but eh, it’s progress and I’ll take it. Actually, as we speak, there’s a crew working on the street. I must have some sort of unrealized super power. Excuse me while I go get a lottery ticket.

Anyways, some jackass inevitably wrote his name is the wet cement. It wasn’t on the sidewalk, but on the edge of the street. I don’t know if it’ll be re-surfaced, and if it’s not, I’ll have to re-cement that strip strip to cover his name.

I guess I should be grateful. At least he didn’t write in something like “fuck” or draw some tits or something.

I just don’t get it.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

The Price of Modern Communications

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:03:27 GMT

I took a quick jaunt uptown today to help my friend, a (quasi-?) retired lawyer, hook his cable internet line up to his shiny new wireless router.

About 15 minutes after arriving at his house, his two laptops and his wife’s desktop (who was up until today connecting via dial-up – *the horror*) were hooked up to his new wireless connection, and he was showing me his few prized pieces of artwork by our mutual friend, Maggie.

I wasn’t planning on taking any payment, but he made me an offer I couldn’t possibly refuse; a bottle of Jameson’s 18 year old Limited Reserve.

Needless to say, I was floored. This is on average an $80 bottle of whiskey, and in no way is this “payment” remotely close to the value of the time I spent. Then again, his wife is no longer on dial-up – I’d say he won the day.

I am unfortunately not enjoying a glass of it this evening, as I didn’t want to bike home with it – I opted instead to leave in the jostle-free environment of my office. I’ll collect it tomorrow, and probably won’t have a good chance to enjoy it until Saturday.

Oh, how I look forward to Saturday. And no, you can’t come over just yet.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Spooks, Spirits, and Saints

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:54:07 GMT

I’m getting old. Well, not old in the numbers sense as I just passed the 29½ mark, but more in the “I’d rather stay in” sense. And I must admit, it’s not a bad thing.

For me, Halloween started on Thursday, with a VooDoo hash where I ended up running circle in a cemetery and talking with a newly-returned-home-Jason. I wish I could have run trail, but it wasn’t too likely due to the recent perpetration of hate upon my “bad” knee:

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just can’t have nice things. This happened after the Saints victory over the Dolphins the other week – I guess that since they’re doing so well, I have to compensate by hurting myself.

I fear to think of what might happen towards the end of the season and beyond.

Anyways, Halloween started out pretty awesome: a nice two hour, 2 bottle of wine lunch at the Bistro with Bea and my folks, which turned into an extra beer or two with them at Molly’s.

We got some downtime (not saying that the morning at that point was particularly tedious), and Bea whipped up her costume, while I shaved mine:

That first photo isn’t the best of me – even considering just how overwhelmingly handsome and über photogenic I naturally am – the photographer is all of 5 foot negative 3. Always take pics from above (when you can). For my costume, I went with the path of least resistance – Earl of My Name is Earl. Bea’s costume was whipped together in about an hour – vines from the backyard, a top I bought at a thrift store for me for a drag queen hash the other week, and my sister’s old debutant dress. We rock.

We headed back over to Molly’s to meet up with hashers and “regular friends” alike for the parade, and opted to just hang out there for the duration of the parade – just take it easy. Next thing we know, the parade is back, and we’re wandering around with friends. We walked down Frenchmen St. and next thing we knew, it was 11:30 and we were at home, calling it a night.

I know, exciting.

The real drag here is that I picked up some bug, and by Sunday afternoon when I had to hare the Black Dress Run, I wasn’t feeling so hot, and five days later, I still don’t. Witness last night’s Guy Fawkes Hash:

So, to those of you who came in town this weekend, I’m sorry and I suck.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Smartphones are dumb.

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:58:58 GMT

While upgrading the system software on the crackberry this morning, it decided to wipe out all my contacts.

So if you are so inclined, please send you phone number along to dubtea@gmail.com. Thanks.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

L4D2: New Orleans

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:01:17 GMT

Possible alternate titles: ZOMGBIES! or Zombies? In my New Orleans? It’s more likely than you think.

So, the demo for Left 4 Dead 2 became available today for those who pre-ordered it.
HOLY KATRINA FLASHBACKS, BATMAN!
The short of L4D: it’s a first-person shooter set in a zombie apocalypse, and 4 people have survived – you have to work together to survive. It’s pretty awesome.

That said, I took a few screenshots, and it seems they really nailed the feel of New Orleans.

That last one is clearly that amphitheater-style area on Decatur St. across from the St. Louis Cathedral / Jackson Square.

I can’t wait to play all the way through.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Downtime and EXT3 undelete

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:00:29 GMT

The other day, the server I share with the other bicycle/computer nerd Will (yes, there are two of us) went down.

I called my friend Paul who basically runs the datacenter the box lives in to give him a heads up I’d be heading over. Paul was already having a rough work day, but still carved out a little time to help me out – thanks again P.

Anyways, we hooked up a crash cart, and here’s what we saw:

Ruh-roh. We could discern that it was asking for the root password for maintenance, and that was about all we could glean from the garbled screen. Unfortunately neither Paul nor Will knew the password, and if you tried to skip it, it would just reboot. This meant I had to pull it and work on it elsewhere.

I went to boot from a cd, but the server had none, so I tried the next step – putting a bootable disc image onto a USB thumb drive. That didn’t work as the hardware is old enough to not be able to detect bootable USB devices.

I hadn’t yet opened up the case (which I should have done earlier), so I went the only route that I had available to me at the moment: floppy boot disks.

Holy crap y’all, I made linux boot floppies. I know, I know, I as stunned as you are. I was not only surprised to find that I still had some floppies, but that they were still good! As it turned out, it too was all for naught – when booted up, I couldn’t really do anything for one reason or another.

I finally opened the damn case, and to my exultant joy, I spied an IDE port. I plugged in a CD-ROM and booted up a Gentoo install disc. After fixing the screen garble (which was due to a splashimage being loaded by Grub), I was able to see and address the actual problem: somehow the EXT2/3/4 fsck had gone missing.

Before I actually fixed the issue, I figured it would be a good time to back some stuff, and due to an unfortunate timing of keystrokes, I managed to delete the entire home directory, residing on its own partition. Dumb.

After immediately unmounting the partition and some serious googlation of various terms including EXT3 undelete, EXT3 restore, oh holy hell what did I just do, linux undelete, etc… I had pretty much lost all hope of restoring this data. Luckily, at the bottom of some forum thread, someone had posted a link to an app called ext3grep. This page and application, considering how completely amazing it is, has an extremely poor google listing. Hopefully this may help. I doubt it, but you never know.

Anyways, after crapping myself, here’s all it took to restore the deleted files:

umount /home
cd /usr/src
wget http://ext3grep.googlecode.com/files/ext3grep-0.10.1.tar.gz
tar -zxvf ext3grep-0.10.1.tar.gz
cd ext3grep-0.10.1
./configure; make; make install
ext3grep /dev/sda8 –restore-all -after=1252972801

There’s actually a bit more, but that’s superfluous things like changing to a directory with enough free disk space. But the pure simplicity of this app is that once downloaded / compiled / etc, is that with a single command, you can restore files deleted after a certain timestamp.

If for no other reason that finding a working, powerful, and simple ext3 undelete utiliy, the headache was all worth it.

Here’s a quick photo of the server on my desk at work:

I still can’t believe I deleted the /home directory – sometimes you just hit that Enter key a mere moment before you actually hit the tab key a second time. At least I learned from this mistake.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

The Joys of Home Ownership

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:34:45 GMT

I know most people say the phrase “Ah, the joys of home ownership” in a sarcastic tone, but I really enjoy it. I work in computers, and for the most part, don’t get to literally get my hands dirty. There’s just something enjoyable about working with and building/fixing tangible items when the bulk of what you build and work with is software.

There have been house projects that I quite honestly haven’t been a fan of, and some I have. One of them, more recently, has been the middle roof. When I say middle, I mean that from the front to the back, there are three different pitches. The front is the highest (covering the master bedroom/bathroom and office), the middle pitch covers the kitchen, den, and part of the back room, and the third and lowest/least steep pitch covers the remainder of the back room and the back porch.

To help facilitate, I spend some time geeking out this afternoon and built a basic 3D model of my house – it’s actually pretty damn close to actual measurements* – maybe off by an inch here, an inch there. Here’s the view from the rear:

And a photo where the perspective does the length of roof no justice:

That dark / wet looking section is actually about 11′ long – the entire middle pitch is about 32′ long. The rear is 25′, and the front is almost 47′ long.

What aggravates me is the design of the middle. It doesn’t extend the entire width of the house, so there is a flat area. Usually, I guess that wouldn’t be a big deal, except there’s a little wall there! What the hell is it doing there?

As far as I can tell, it’s a water-retention “feature”. And by feature, I mean SNAFU. What happens is that water just builds and as the level rises, it goes underneath the singles, back into the house. Great job there, whoever you are.

So, I’ve been “sealing” the base of the shingles with roofing cement (basically tar). I don’t really mind doing it, I just wish I didn’t have to do this patch.

*If you said “hey, the roof peaks aren’t centered – they don’t line up. You messed up!”, then you’re wrong. The roof peaks aren’t centered. Again, I don’t know why. It’s not really a big deal.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

1,460 Days and Counting

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:00:33 GMT

Well, the web (or at least my little corner of it) is all a-flutter with Katrina posts, as it made landfall 4 years ago.

It’s an important event in our lives – not just as New Orleanians or Louisianians specifically, but for Americans and people as a whole.

I’m not going to get into a re-cap of my experience. I’m not going to rant about various levels of government, or about our citizens that behaved badly both here and wherever it was they ended up. I also won’t talk about the people who acted in the exact opposite of that.

I will just say this: I’ll spend today and the next few days or so as I did last night and as I did four years ago: with people I care about.

And as a bonus, there’s a Saints game today. It’s not a home game, but I’ll take it nonetheless.

Who Dat.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Slurvivor Week

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:50:05 GMT

*phew* Red Dress week is over! It’s been a long week, and as much fun as it’s been, I’m glad it’s over.

For me, it started on Thursday. The VooDoo hosted a Red Dress Run, hared/led by myself and Fill Me Up (fellow VooDooer) through the Marigny. It was really more of a crawl, but still fun – about 50 people showed up – much more than our usual of high 20’s / low 30’s.

From the start at Royal and Frenchmen, we led them on a less-than-straight-line to the Friendly Bar on Chartres and Marigny, then to Markey’s in the Bywater, Marie’s on St. Roch and Burgundy, and finally back to the beer coolers in the Elysian Fields neutral ground by Royal St.

Friday was the official Red Dress Pre-Lube run, an event for hashers only. We started at Lucy’s, made our way over to the ferry (that was surreal) to the Crown and Anchor, had a food stop on Decatur, and made our way back. Despite the full belly, yours truly even managed to claim the title of “FRB” – also known as Front Running Bastard.

There are a bunch of pics on hashspace, which is unfortunately a private community so I’m unable to upload any pics. But, like most people, I downloaded my favorites (of me, duh), and put them up on flickr:

My best man ( Pistolette’s hubby, “Q”) and myself:

Q, my co-hare from the previous day, me, Bea:

Synchronized Jello shots w/ Neil at the ferry landing:

Neil and I, leaving the ferry, back on the Eastbank:

Needless to say, it was fun. And sweaty, which is a perfect prep for the mania that is the Red Dress Run.

This was my 4th RDR. Over these short years, I have almost seen it double. Each year. This year the estimate was that there were over 5,500 attendees. I’m guess that 1/11th of the participants were actually hashers.

While walking there (I had a huge-ass VooDoo banner, couldn’t ride), we passed a Mom and her presumable ‘tween daughter and likely friend, who asked for a picture. We obliged. We should have gotten a copy for ourselves – alas, no such luck.

When Bea and I had finally arrived, we were soaked – the skies opened up and rained in a way that can only really happen here. I wasn’t too concerned though – I knew we’d dry, it would help cool off the area, and my dress had been washed enough that I knew it wouldn’t run.

Words cannot describe the crowd that had amassed – the only thing I could compare it to are those photos of blood-red waters when whales/sharks are being slaughtered. I was so glad to be a hasher – we got balcony access – no lines for bathrooms or beer.

The crowds from there spread in all directions, a solid mass of red. The day progressed as one might expect – a huge, roaming mass of confusion. People assumed that I knew where to go – I did not, and eventually stopped trying to explain that finding the trail is all part of the game.

I carried that monstrous banner all day, and was glad to do it; everywhere I went I not only had shade, but also served as a beacon to other friends who knew what to look for.

The day proceeded as one might expect, as we consumed copious amounts of beer and liquor-infused watermelon-flavored jello. The later it got, the thinner the crowd became – we lost people all along the way – many stayed put on various bars on Bourbon St., I reckon.

I do remember that on the “final stretch”, a number of us decided to run. This is supposed to be a hash, right? Someone on South Peters yelled to us as we passed “Hey! This isn’t a race!”, to which I could only reply “And you’re not a hasher!” The sonner you get there, the more beer there is – it’s as simple as that.

After inhaling food on the balcony of the Ernst Cafe (and carrying Neil 1/2 a block and up a flight of stairs over my shoulders), 8 of us split for greener pastures. And by greener pastures, I mean bluer pools.

Bea and I picked up an extra 12 pack of Abita Amber, and in the pool, the imbibing may have even accelerated. The beer evaporated and was replaced by tequila, vodka, wine, and chartreuse. Q and I even managed to play a game of shot-glass chess (red vs. white wine) before the night was called.

After dropping off some others, I ‘d say we got home at about 1am. And believe it or not, I was in good shape the next day – a mere hint of a headache.

For more photos and further reading, I’ll point you to Pistolette’s blog post and flickr photos.

Man, I almost can’t wait till next year. Wait, no. Yes, I indeed can wait – I need a break.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Why Referees and Skaters shouldn’t date

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:56:00 GMT

Yesterday, I proposed to Bea. She said “yes”.

That’s all for now.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Yo Momma’s so fugly Voldemort won’t speak her name

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:27:39 GMT

So, despite having picked up a horrid summer cold, I am still determined to go to the 12:01AM showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince tonight.

In honor of that, twitter had a “yo mama” style contest, and here are the honorable mentions in all their wizardly glory:

JanetVarney: Yo momma so fat the Sorting Hat put her in all four houses
chris8675309: Your momma so fat, she looked in the mirror of Erised and saw a ham
PeterVRules: Your momma’s so old she gave Nicholas Flamel his first handjob
chris8675309: Yo mamma so nasty, the order of the phoenix was “stay away from that bitch”
chris8675309: Yo mamma so stupid, she thinks Sirius Black is the soul station on satellite radio
sarazafar: Yo mama so fat she tried to eat Cornelius Fudge
dino_rider: Yo mama’s so ugly the Dementor’s Kiss was swapped out for a hearty handshake and a promise to give her a call sometime.
reppocs: Yo momma so black, she’d probably get sorted in to Ravenclaw and would be a minor character at best
bradheintz: Yo mama so nasty, Dobby wouldn’t take her sock
Burnaway: Yo momma so skanky, even her patronus got knocked up
chompychomp: Yo mama so stupid, she drowned in a pensieve
Dick_M: yo momma so dumb she thought that she could talk to snakes if she put parsley on her tongue
dtejano: Yo mama’s so masculine, she makes Dumbledore go, “DAAAYYYUMM!”
habcous: yo mamma so nasty, every pair of her panties has the Dark Mark
HakSolo: your mom is so fat if she confronted a boggart it would morph into a treadmill
finnigan37: Your mama’s so nasty she got naked and turned @The_Real_Shaq into @The_Shrieking_Shack
dantelfer: Yo mamma so fat, she has to enchant her panties into a portkey to get out of a chair
dantelfer: Yo mamma’s cooch is so nasty it has its own house elf
dirk_funk: Yo mama so fat it takes two boggarts to shape-shift into her
Kingdaddy1773: Your family is so poor you have to bus in from Narnia every morning
MarioEGarcia: yo mama so poor she went to Honeydukes and put a chocolate frog on layaway
melgotserved: Yo momma’s so fat she got stuck in the Floo Network
melgotserved: Yo momma’s so fat her wand is a Slim Jim
MikeDrucker: Yo’ Momma so fat she joined the Death Eaters ’cause she was hungry
MikeDrucker: After she’s done being skanky, yo’ momma hides her tramp stamp by saying “Mischief Managed”
MsJG: Yo Momma’s so fugly that even Voldemort won’t speak her name
nicofopolous: Yo Momma’s so muggles she gave my hog warts
nthornton: Your momma’s ass is so saggy, she’s being sued for copyright infringement by Neville Longbottom
paulscheer: Yo Mamma is so fat that even the Dementors can’t suck out her soul in one sitting
phirm: Mama so nasty, everybody call her “She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Naked”
phirm: Yo mama so fat you couldn’t find her pu**y with the Room of Requirement
PinheadX: Yo mamma coochie so hairy it look like she ridin’ a Nimbus 2000 backwards
TheonetrueCams: your mum’s P#$$y is like the Slytherin common room, it smells foul and its always full of snakes
TheonetrueCams: Yo Mum is just like a Dementor, always looking for some “Serious” Black
Taborifica: Yo momma so fat even her Quidditch robes have stretch marks
randbot: yo mama so fat, when your parents have sex yo daddy gotta cast “accio vagina”

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Good News Everyone!

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 04:33:56 GMT

Good news everyone!
I’ve invented a device which makes you read this in your head, in my voice!

I know this is old, but it popped in my head and is pretty funny. If you don’t know the reference, click here.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

On The Road, Again

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:50:02 GMT

After my previous post about Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, my friend Matt directed me to the trailer for the upcoming film adaptation:

Holy Simultaneously Grim and Necro, Batman.

That aside, a certain shot caught my eye:

That’s actual Katrina footage, dirtied up a bit to fit the über-post-apocalyptic setting of The Road. You can see the New Orleans skyline in the background, and that clump of boats behind the two larger ones are boats my company insures. I’m not exactly sure just where in Plaquemines Parish that picture was taken, but it’s definitely here. I’m inclined to think it’s the south side of the Gen DeGaulle bridge, but I’m not sure.

These boats, the Sea Wolf and the Sea Falcon, are part of the Menhaden fleet and I found a number of pictures of them on the NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Collection Catalog of Images. Here’s a shot of them, from a slightly different angle:

Small world.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

The Road is a be-a-itch my friend

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:14:28 GMT

For my birthday, Bea’s Mom got me a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

It had been recommended to me, but with the caveat that it was quite dark, and could very well leave one depressed. Knowing my tastes and penchant for post-apocalyptic fiction (can we go ahead and just call it speculative fiction? ;) ), they felt that it was nonetheless a solid suggestion. I have to say, they were partially right.

The basic gist of the story is that a man and his son are survivors of what we can assume is something akin to a nuclear winter. It is indeed dark and dreary, and I will freely admit that I enjoyed going outside and enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face. Later, I talked to Jeremy and gave him my thoughts on the unfortunately short (~250 pg) book. I see where he might have been depressed, but I think I extracted a wholly different sentiment. For me, while the scenario and ordeals were horrible, it was the absolute and unending dedication of the man to his son’s well-being that affected me the most. It is the man’s sheer unwillingness to accept defeat in order to protect another and “keep the light” that I find uplifting.

This book is at times sad, harsh, and utterly bleak, and it is in these situations that the absolute best and worst of man is brought to light. The resounding message for me is that there are those that when faced with it, will keep putting one foot in front of the other because it’s just what has to be done.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Tennis ist Krieg!

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:18:04 GMT

Well, I lied. Tennis is decidedly not metal, but that didn’t stop me yesterday.

My friend Alice (aka Diamondgrrl – rollerderby, aka Comissioner Gordon – kickball) and Anne (aka All the Way May – kickball) took me out to City Park, and we tennied. Tennised. Tenniserated. Yeah, tenniserated. I like that – it’s got a certain ring to it. It’s like regular tennis, but with a heat index of 103°.

Anyways, outside of the Wii Sports package or a table-top, I’ve never really played tennis. Much like baseball, something was off with that brand of hand-eye coordination when I was a kid – I just didn’t play because I couldn’t. Besides, I had soccer.

I have to say, it was pretty fun, and I didn’t even wear silly clothes, despite the musings of the twitterati. And when I say twitterati, I mean just Neal.

We showed up early, and hung out for a bit before our court time of 7:30. Alice gave me fore- and back-hand grip basics, and we just kinda launched into it. One of the ladies was always on my side of the court and they rotated – giving the person across from me a good workout. Being on the smaller side of 2 vs. 1 isn’t all that fair. With the heat, I did work up a bit of a sweat – mostly due to the quick back and forth movements one makes on their feet. And nicely enough, my arm and back are pain-free.

All in all, I only hit 3 or 4 balls over the fence in the 1 1/4 hours we played, which I consider to be an achievement – I thought we’d have to throw the towel in early due to a lack of fuzzy yellow projectiles. Alice thought I did pretty well for someone who’s never played. Part of that hand-eye coordination problem crept back, but really only on the slow speed balls. It just messed with my head – too much time to think about where to stand, when to swing, what angle to hit it at, the exact timing, etc. To remedy, I just decided to move quickly towards the ball. This reduced the amount of time I had to over-think the situation, like Ramius turning into Tupolev’s torpedo. (I’m guessing only Pistolette got that one)

All in all, it was fun and worked out a different, rusty, part of my athletic side. Hooray for leveling up. :)

And who knows, maybe next time I’ll have to either sport one of my kilts, or even emulate this guy:

If I only still had my long hair. If I do end up picking up a cheap racket, I think I’d have to name it the Anvil of Crom™. Just for the metalness of it.

*EDIT* Thanks to Todd for the awesome Kids in the Hall Clip – ERADICATOR! (skip to 1:50):

Perhaps I should transfer my bicycle polo nom de guerre of The Laser Viking™ to tennis as well.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Julius: The Green Bondage Monkey

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:13:13 GMT

I recently did some laptop repair for an employee of Bicycle Michael’s, and in return, he worked on track bike. Working on my bikes is something I rarely feel like doing these days, and those wheels were in need of a truing.

Well, Jon did some great work - even went so far as to install a new chain and replace my handlebar tape.

Unfortunately, a resident prankster (let’s call him Centurian™ to protect the less-than-innocent) was caught while in the process of, uh, “accessorizing” Molly (the bike).

This bike has two “Guardian Angels” let’s call them. The most prominent is a green monkey that came with my most-awesome green tuxedo jacket (it has green velvet lapels!) named Julius. Julius has been affixed to this bike for a few years now, and it’s a wonder he has yet to be defaced or kidnapped.

Until now, that is.

Apparently Centurian™ (say that as Michael Palin in Life of Brian as you can) has a tendency to bring out people’s inner gimp:

He came back gagged, covered in electrical tape, and a 9v battery hooked up to his nipples.

Sadness. Perhaps I shall stwike the centuwian. Stwike him vewy woughwy. And fwow him to the gwound.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Gas Money Records

Thu, 21 May 2009 19:48:36 GMT

If you follow me on Twitter ( @dubtea ), you would have seen that yesterday that Bea had completed her first bike commute from our house in the Marigny to her office in Harahan. As you may or may not remember, she had quite a bit of trouble the last time she made the attempt last August. Considering the wreck and the confidence it seemed to destroy, I’m super proud of this big step.

The trip by car rolls in at about 21 miles, and is slightly longer by bike ( about 24 miles ) and bicycles are not allowed on the interstate. She basically rides through the Marigny/Quarter/CBD down Royal St./St. Charles Avenue, and cuts to Magazine at Lee Circle, taking that all the way down to Audubon Park and the Mississippi River levee path, which is free of cars.

She’s still using a Scattante Zonal road bike on load from a co-worker, but has her eyes on, nay, lusts for a 2008 Bianchi Dama Bianca Elena. Behold:

It’s not super-girly, it’s purple (heellllooooooo, she loves that purp), is a pretty decent bike, and perhaps most important of all, would be hers.

The problem is the budgets here at La Iglesia are a little tighter, and shelling out ~$1,500 for a new bike isn’t super fiscally responsible. Now I’ve been told by my friends at Bicycle Michael’s that if I were to provide them with the bike size, they’d hold one for her, which is great.

I’ve decided that as an incentive, I’d make some sort of log to help visualize her goal, and her status on earning the $1500 in blood (hopefully not), sweat (summer is upon us), and tears (again, hopefully not). I built a little system I’ve named “Gas Money Records“.

Sometimes I’m too clever for my own good.

Anyways, every day she rides to / from work, she enters the data and it calculates how much she’s saved. The part that I found most interesting was the breakdown of gas vs. maintenance. You end up sending about 10¢/mile on gas, and over 30¢/mile on oil, tires, maintenance, etc. I used commute solutions as a reference, and left out much of the expenses associated with driving: insurance, tax, parking, tolls, travel time, accidents, finance charges, etc. We don’t have tolls (except for the lousy West Bank), and if your car was parked at home you’d still have to pay taxes, insurance, etc.

Surprisingly, it costs her about $9 per day commute! This adds up to over $2,300 per work year! At that $9/day rate, Bea could pay for the bike in about 8 months (if she commuted by bike every day).

If you check it out, you can do your own calculations - leaving out the savings goal will show you what you’d spend in a work year commuting, or you can set a savings goal and see how long it would take you. It’s truly surprising how much can save by even commuting by bike once or twice a week. I don’t think I even need to touch on the health benefits of bicycle commuting.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Hasher’s Knee

Wed, 13 May 2009 20:58:07 GMT

Well, I think the trail I laid was pretty good, and got a lot of good feedback from it. If you want to read my write-up, you can at VooDooHash.com. The first hash I hared was a while ago with a friend of mine, and was a sheer and utter disaster for various reasons and as punishment, we each had our own bag of ice to sit on, bare-assed.

I think I’ve learned my lesson.

I have learned recently that I “suffer” from Runner’s Knee. Since I’ve started hashing, I’ve noticed that sometimes part-way through the run, often the day after, my right knee and hip have given me grief. It usually amounts to stiffness/soreness and a sharp pinching-like sensation in my knee and hip. It’s hard to describe, but it only happens on the right side.

I decided to ask Herr Google™ about these symptoms, and based on its description and recommended therapy/stretching, I have come to believe that it is indeed Runner’s Knee.

Before last week’s hash, I did the recommended stretch once or twice during the day, and also right before I took off to lay trail. I’m glad to say that neither during the run, or the day after, did I have any problems in either my hip or my knee.

And there was much rejoicing. Yaaaaaaay.

Well, I plan on attending this Thursday’s hash in Metry Brah, and the day after is the 2009 Tchoupitoulas Bar-A-Thon. 6 bars, 6 beers, 6 miles.

I guess I better start stretching.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Ruuunn for your liiiiiiife!

Thu, 07 May 2009 20:10:44 GMT

Ok chickens, I’m haring tonight’s VooDoo Hash. It’s in the Marigny - at Elysian Fields and Decatur.

What? Hashers? What’s the deal? I hear you say. Familiar with the Red Dress Run? That’s us on a weekly basis (sans red dresses). We’re a drinking club with a running problem, and if you ‘re interested in working up a thirst by hunting down a guy in a kilt running around leaving a trail of flower, and quenching said thirst with beer, then this is for you.

What to bring: (required)

Sense of humor
$1
6-pack of your beer of choice

What to bring: (recommended)

whistle
flashlight

We meet at 6:30, and I take off at 7:00. Come catch me!

View Larger Map

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

I almost shit myself.

Tue, 05 May 2009 02:17:05 GMT

If you were to take the polar opposite of how I feel about, say, The Silence of the Lambs, and apply it to the animal kingdom, you’d still wouldn’t have enough ill-will towards spiders.

Oh, how do they revile me? Let the count the ways…

Anyways, when it comes to these nasty little hellions, I on par don’t do so well. I have improved much since that fateful night in ‘96 when I watched Arachnophobia and then didn’t sleep for three days. It’s something I’ve been actively working on, as much as one can.

Well, just a bit ago, I was in this little room behind the entertainment center. The entrance is so narrow that one has to squeeze through it sideways, as the water heater blocks most of the entrance.

Well, I was in there, in that dark, hot, confined space, screwing a small bit of hardie board to more or less seal off a sizable hole in the wall. I take a step back and rotate to the left. At this point, I had wall directly on my right, a water heater right behind me, and had brushed up against some sort of spiderweb with me left arm. Up until that point with that contact with the web, I had totally sucked it up and manned it out.

Everything changed the moment I saw the beast. Needless to say, I got the hell out of there, and somehow without created a Will-shaped hole in the water heater and/or wall.

I tried and have partial success in soothing my nerves with whiskey, but let’s face it - I’m as jangled as a little girl. I’m still at the point where even the slight changes in air movement by the ceiling fan against my leg hairs are freaking me out. I wonder, can one get oneself hermetically sealed? Assuming there aren’t any in there?

Okay, I just freaked myself out more. I’ve dutifully applied whiskey to the mental injuries to help clean them.

I’ve sent an email in to Whats That Bug for a positive ID, and hope to have a name and information (and therefore power over) for this hellion.

Until then, here’s some photos I managed to snap, after the requisite swig or few of whiskey. For my own sake, I’m just going to link them instead of embed them, as I don’t even like looking at pictures of spiders.

I posted these up at a pretty high res, so enjoy/punish yourself:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/willcore/3503102998/
http://www.flickr.com/phtos/willcore/3503101272/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/willcore/3503099684/

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Hey there, Fancy Pants

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:52:40 GMT

A bit ago, I received word that Todd’s awesome and affordable Hong Kong Tailor™ would be making his way on his U.S. Tour, and would be adding New Orleans to his list of destinations.

I figured why not, and dropped him a visit when he came though - a scant 28 days ago! After all, my black suit jacket didn’t quite match the pants, my blue dress shirt has a hole, and my white dress shirt has a weird thing happening with the collar. I was also very interested in obtaining an overcoat, as I had just been in Chicago in February for a funeral, and ’bout damn near froze my ass off.

Getting shirts, and especially jackets that fit me is a bit of a pain in the ass. I invariably have to get my jackets adjusted because shoulders are proportionally much wider than my waist.

Well, I just tried everything on (the overcoat has not yet arrived), and the fit is just great. I’m a happy customer.

Bea’s female co-worker Christy says I need a haircut, and her male co-worker Evan says I need to grow it out. I like Evan, but Christy’s probably right.

Click to embiggen:

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

The gayest thing I’ve ever put in my mouth

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:01:14 GMT

This past Friday, Bea and I laced up our skates and headed over to Airline Skate Center, for her Dad’s birthday party.

I haven’t laced up my skates since the last roller derby bout I reffed since I retired (they were in a bind, so I helped on one bout), which was in late May or early June last year. My legs felt good (both while skating and I had zero soreness the next day), and I only fell once, due to just not skating in a long time.

To digress a bit further, Bea practically grew up in a skating rink. Her folks skated a whole lot (I think that’s how they met), and while her mom no longer skates, her dad certainly does. His daughter from his second marriage, now 4, is a natural. I guess it’s in the blood. Now let’s see if her little half-sister will grow up to be a rollergirl, just like sister.

So, the birthday party was at the skating ring, and it was fun. I’m not even going to touch on the odd cross-section of people who hang out at a skating rink on a Friday night, but will instead address the title of this post. Bea baked her dad a cake, and it was light, fluffy, and delicious. And gay. Very, very gay. Behold:

I feel that unicorn candles or something would have been a perfect touch. And while unicorns are pretty cool, I think we can all agree that polycorns are far, far superior.

So there you go. That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever consumed, and it was scrumptious.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.

Done is the Engine of More.

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:18:39 GMT

A while ago, I was introduced to the Cult of Done. For me, it is quite simple, quite obvious, and I identify with it on a number of levels.

In the spirit of the manifesto set forth and in combination with a generally needed re-ordering of my day-to-day schedule and goals, I’ve figured out a calendar, or should I say guideline, to help me get the things done I want to get done.

This mostly means setting aside time for working on the house, and light yoga/exercise - something I wanted to more of this year, but have since lapsed.

I run (er, hash) ~5-6 miles every Thursday night, and bike pretty much everywhere, but need to do just a little more. And the housework I want done can be attacked in hour or sub-hour increments, and will probably be done faster in this manner than I had be doing before.

To help kick my ass, here is my rough daytime schedule for the work week (click to embiggen):

I start on Monday. Let’s see how things go.

Originally published at Prosthetically Hip. Please leave any comments there.