I just realized that I forgot my friend Michael's graduation from acupuncture school today! Crap crap crap!! I thought it was tomorrow for some reason but it was this afternoon. Argh. I'm a bad friend {hangs head}.

Update: I just called over to congratulate and ZOINKS! there wasn't a party today as they had their first child yesterday!! Whoa. I can barely realize this amazing event. I feel all excited and fuzzy and loving in reaction to the news and I had nothing to do with it, but still... I feel so elated. Crazy cool. A new child and a graduation in the same 24-hours. The baby is a boy, about 8 lbs, and his name is Cole. Awesome. Double Congrats!

Wow. I've been reading a few other blogs, when I find the time, and there are a lot of pretty good things to view out there. I find the sites I'm most impressed with are the ones that have a very distinctive voice -- personal sites with personality. Perhaps a bit unlike this current site as I haven't been doing too much personal posting. There are a ton of blogs out there that link up to the cool new things each day and provide great links and witty little comments but that is not this site. They do it better and have more time to do so (I'm surmising). I guess what I'm trying to think/say is that I've been so dang busy lately that I haven't had time to have "a life" and I have always intended to write much more here in The Kingdom. Not that any of my 14 visitors have complained, mind you, but of course I do intend much better.
(this has been a public prodding to myself to live more/post more, not a bit of whining or fishing for sympathy/comments. thank you. we now return you... blah blah blah)

Maybe this seems like the hot new fad/trend, whatever, but you really should get yourself some Boba Tea (also commonly known as Bubble Tea, Pearl Tea, QQ, etc). It is so refreshing! Kinda chewy... but I like chewy! Make sure to try a Lychee cooler (I don't think this really counts as a bubble tea since it lacks tea) with the tapioca pearls in it. Ohmigosh is that nice. Looks odd, but tastes great.

Hopefully you've seen the Apple "Switch" ad campaign where real PC users switch over to Mac. This guy made some spoofs that are cute: macboy.com: Switch

The newest version of MovableType is now out and features something called Trackback (TrackBack Demo), which allows websites to interlink/communicate. You will understand when you read more about it and see it in action. This is, as Dave Winer says, a "mind bomb."

Like many others today, I got the long-awaited email (I emailed them 3 times in the past year, the last time over 5 weeks ago) regarding OS X support for their scanners. I have a fairly new Astra 4000U and bought it due to its size and USB interface.
"Umax currently has made no commitment to supporting older professional models under OS X at this time. Also, no consumer-level (Astra models, or older consumer-level) scanners will be targeted for support under OS X."
Well, UMAX, go screw yourselves... wait, it looks like you already are... I'd like to say it's been fun, but, I don't think it has been. In fact, it sucks. Do not go out and buy a UMAX scanner. Their support sucks worse than their software. Buy Epson or Canon or something else. No Umax!

Ok, if you have OS X and a computer with a microphone, you have to go download the newest OmniWeb. Turn on its speech preference then turn on speech in the System preferences. Sit back (literally) and surf the web via the sound of your voice.
This is so cool -- I surfed around for an hour or so the other night and it really does work pretty well. They still haven't got full CSS support, but hey!, you can tell you computer what to do. See a link you want to visit? Just say the link and whoosh! you are there. Say "go back" and it does. Say "move page down" and it does. etc. Now go impress your friends.
Oh, and the display in OmniWeb is always smooth like butter, even if you don't have 10.1.5 or Silk.

Ok, I could have lost both my parents over Father's Day weekend. On Saturday my mom was broadsided in her PT Cruiser. Thankfully everyone was relatively OK. She was very banged up and taken to the emergency room for tests, but she mostly very bruised and scraped up.
Last night I got a call from my sister that on Father's Day my dad was in a motorcycle accident while on vacation out in Wyoming and points west. Nobody called to tell us until last night! An elk or something came onto the road and they slowed down to pull over and hit loose gravel and wiped out. My dad has a broken collar bone, two broken ribs and a separated shoulder. His girlfriend (my parents separated many many years ago) was on back and she got very scraped up but no broken bones. He also went to the emergency room -- but then continued with his vacation in a van! Stubborn, I'd say.
I am relieved everyone is relatively OK. I have to call Dad now and see how he's doing...

Yes, I (and when I say "I" I mean "we") made a movie for the 5x24 movie event this past weekend. Whew. Tough but fun thing to do. Bill, Michelle, Jack and I got the sentence, brainstormed Friday night, shot Saturday morn and afternoon, rushed together an edit and ran off to the showing only to find that the website had an incorrect start time listed. Curses! We would have had at least another hour to edit (and could have used it)!

Our piece, "The Hat," was a sort of "Where's Waldo?" take on the Rilke poem from which the sentence was taken. I don't know if people got it. Perhaps because it was too short and a tad too serious. Or maybe it was the 150-degree heat in the gallery. (Cripes, it was oppressive in there. Everyone had big wet sweaty spots on their clothes. Nobody cared, though). Ideally, we would have had another couple of edits in the piece and it would have been much stronger.
The pieces overall seemed to be better than the first time we participated and a couple stood out as particularly well done. I personally enjoyed the "Fly on the Wall" piece which was very well thought-out and well executed. I also liked the final piece which had one of the better sex scenes I've viewed -- very nice without being too explicit. From "amateurs" no less. Take that, Hollywood!

Cool. I found a link to thrown askew featuring some great shots from Banff. I love Banff. Haven't been there for about 2 years and need to go back soon!

Tonight it started -- the sentence was released via web and answering machine and now many unknown movie-making folks are brainstorming, shooting, maybe even editing already!
What is it? The 5x24 movie event. Get a sentence, make a 5 minute or less movie about it in less than 24 hours and then show up Saturday night and enjoy the display of everybody's creative vision. A real entertaining show of creativity (and goofiness).
This time the sentence is "There is no place that does not see you" from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke.

...still a mystery. Dean was supposed to identify the mysterious "Deep Throat" informant from the Nixon White House days, but he only reveals a a small group of possible candidates. A let down, but I guess it heads in the right direction.

An elephant walked through Menomonie Wisconsin the other day. Wow. Guess that global warming thing might be true? Do they migrate? Seeking new grazing grounds? (Just kidding - it got loose from a visiting circus)

I went down to my parents' place today and was shocked to find out that my mom was in a car accident yesterday. She got broadsided on the way home from St. Cloud and she and her friends got pretty banged up. No serious injuries, but they did take my mom to the emergency room in an ambulance. I was gone all day yesterday and didn't have my cell phone on and when I got home I was so tired I went straight to bed. Guess I better check my messages more regularly. She's home and is stiff and bruised, but she's otherwise OK. Whew.

In my universe people sleep in on the weekends (most every day, actually) and do not mow their flippin' lawns at 6:30am on Saturday morning. Someone found a way to violate my universal laws through some ripple in the space-time continuum, no doubt aided by Evil. This person has been added to the "Point of Evil" (I can't make an axis with only one coordinate) and is hereby publicly denounced. I plan on mowing the rest of my lawn at about midnight Sunday night as punishment. That'll learn him.

The Kingdom of Squirrels is fast becoming the kingdom of rabbits -- they are everywhere I look lately. I almost got a wee little one in the lawn mower today - eek! Certainly we have had the lush plants they crave and I'm glad I don't have a garden going as I'm sure they would be munchin' it away.

This morning Apple released a QuickTime 6 Public Preview. Zowie! I can barely wait to install it -- but I will let others rush in and report on any glitches. This is only a "preview" release, after all.

Went to my little cousin's graduation last night (the one that was in the bad car accident and made a recovery nothing short of miraculous a few years ago). It was fun seeing everyone and everybody has stories to tell of things done or things other people have done. The hot topic this year is that most of my relatives are really getting into motorcycles, the big cruising kind. Cool. Oh, also weddings are popular (two in two months).
I also heard a few negative stories (ie: troubles) and it got me to wondering while I was driving home. Why does it seem that rural towns have more troubles?

People get messed up, do stupid things, get in trouble. Now, I'm talking about the population in general of small-town rural Minnesota, not my specific relatives. Does it just seem like more troubles because the population is smaller and everybody knows everybody else? Or does more shit happen out there away from the city? Being a city boy (even though I grew up in the rural areas) my perception may be skewed, but it seems to me that there just isn't enough to do, not enough challenges, not enough diversity/variety of things available and this leads to boredom and/or apathy. Thinking back to my high school days, this was certainly the case. Nothing to do except drive around, drink beer, repeat. Ugh. Yet I think if queried, many people would say they hate the big city and/or love the rural areas. If that is the case, why so much unhappiness and trouble? Perhaps they love the idea of rural communities more so than the actual reality.
I don't know the answers, but it seems to me that perhaps people yearn for something they don't have or they yearn for something they aren't even aware they don't have... it may have nothing to do whatsoever with locality. It may just be that I feel uncomfortable away from the city and I am subconsciously looking for imperfect things... yet I don't seek that out, I just get told of this thing or that thing or the other thing ... and I cringe and feel stifled and maybe even sad... and then at the end of the day I am very happy to go back to my little house in the big city...