Jay McGavren’s Journal

But that was me, Diana, and two other people… Diana’s friend and her boyfriend racked up a similar tab all by themselves, and most of that went to the boyfriend. I had to stand guard to ensure nothing turned violent while Diana’s mom stood outside trying to talk him out driving off in a drunken, sobbing stupor over a domestic spat. I was freezing my ass off the whole time. Fun.

Had a dream this morning that I was attending school, studying network hacking and Japanese culture, with the goal of becoming a surgeon. Odd part was (as if there weren’t enough odd parts already), I was going to be a surgeon with my new department at my current employer. At one point all my co-workers were dressed in scrubs, ready to go witness a surgery. (These people are programmers in real life.)

As you Slashdot readers may already know, Google bought the Keyhole 3D mapping service that, for example, the NBC Nightly News uses in its Iraq coverage. No big changes yet, except for the reduction of an annual subscription from $60 to $30, and the introduction of a 7-day free trial.

The 3D features aren’t that impressive (at least on my hardware), but the satellite imagery is amazing. I typed in addresses for my family and friends, and voila - I was flying over their houses within seconds. (, I’m pretty sure I could pick out your car in your parking lot.) Even if I didn’t know the exact address, I’d just type in a nearby intersection and then navigate by landmarks (buildings, trees, whatever).

Then Diana and I went on a world tour - the Eiffel Tower, the Luxor Hotel in Vegas, the Statue of Liberty. Attempts to visit Venice, Osaka, and the Great Wall of China were unsuccessful, unfortunately, as the available satellite images weren’t sufficiently hi-res. Keyhole promises to keep adding detailed shots of new locations, though, so it won’t be too long.

Keyhole’s special client software is much easier to use than their major competitor’s Website, and flying from location to location is visually spectacular. (Imagine being on a pogo stick that can jump from continent to continent.) Simply amazing.

LiveJournal never brought out that “find people based on common interests” search they were talking about, much to my disappointment. So I did a Google to see if anyone had taken matters into their own hands.

Looks like wrote this Perl script that screen scrapes your interests and then runs queries for them. It’s an unreadable mushpile, but I was able to get it running on Windows with only one change.

I can see why LJ never made it a standard feature; a single search took five minutes. Anyway, here’s what I got…

User ‘‘ has 16 common interests:
azumanga+daioh, dance+dance+revolution, dreamcast, elf+princess+rane, hayao+m
iyazaki, iron+chef, japanese, king+of+fighters, kodomo+no+omocha, mirandites, na
usicaa, osaka, sake, samurai+shodown, serial+experiments+lain, snk

User ‘‘ has 15 common interests:
anime, aphex+twin, atheism, coldplay, cowboy+bebop, dj+shadow, dreamcast, ele
ctronica, fight+club, ghost+in+the+shell, java, south+park, trip+hop, video+game
s, xbox

User ‘‘ has 12 common interests:
aphex+twin, artificial+intelligence, dreamcast, electronica, japan, japanese,
movies, mp3s, quake, sex, the+simpsons, video+games

User ‘‘ has 12 common interests:
amon+tobin, aphex+twin, arovane, artificial+intelligence, boards+of+canada, d
owntempo, drum+and+bass, electronic+music, electronica, idm, orbital, warp

User ‘‘ has 11 common interests:
absurdism, animaniacs, aphex+twin, cowboy+bebop, darren+aronofsky, depeche+mo
de, drum+and+bass, fight+club, hayao+miyazaki, monty+python, orbital

User ‘‘ has 11 common interests:
anime, cowboy+bebop, electronica, fight+club, kodomo+no+omocha, monty+python,
movies, the+matrix, the+simpsons, video+games, writing

User ‘‘ has 11 common interests:
anime, computer+science, iron+chef, java, monty+python, movies, mp3s, perl, s
outh+park, the+simpsons, video+games

User ‘‘ has 11 common interests:
amon+tobin, boards+of+canada, dj+shadow, edward+norton, hayao+miyazaki, idm,
nausicaa, quake, serial+experiments+lain, studio+ghibli, trip+hop

User ‘‘ has 11 common interests:
aphex+twin, bloom+county, coldplay, electronica, fight+club, mp3s, reservoir+
dogs, sex, south+park, video+games, writing

User ‘‘ has 11 common interests:
anime, artificial+intelligence, atheism, cowboy+bebop, depeche+mode, electron
ic+music, manga, monty+python, movies, mp3s, writing

probably tops the list because I copied most of my interests from his, and, well, because we have a lot of common interests. (That’s probably the only reason we’ve been able to stand each other this long. :) I don’t recognize anyone else on this list, though. Maybe it’s time to make some new contacts.

If any of you non-Perl users would like me to run it for your username, let me know.

Each new campaign level of Halo 2 we play features something totally over the top. God I love this game.

Do we have a plan for November 9th? I can be on just after 7:00 PM Arizona time (which I think will be 8:00 PM Omaha time).

Lenny bit me on the shoulder a couple days ago, then smiled as if it was a joke. A quick butt swat promptly informed him otherwise. When he was done wailing, I sat him down to talk about why biting was bad.

I guess it didn’t work. We got an incident report from the daycare last night that he bit another kid “while blowing bubbles”. And then in the evening, impatient because his grandmother couldn’t get a videotape playing, he smacked her in the hand.

Changes in staff at the daycare have left them short-handed, and Lenny also recently moved from the 1-year-olds’ room to the two-year-olds’. We figure both these things are causing stress. But I also have to wonder what those kids in the 2’s are teaching him.

My last theory is that it’s all a cry for attention; we’re simply not getting to spend much time with him at home. So after things were settled down last night, we turned the TV off, went to his room, and just played with his toys for a while. I intend to do more of the same whenever I can. We’ll see if that makes any improvment.

Finding middle ground is an important part of any relationship…

Diana has lost 60 pounds since I met her, and is now down to 210. And I have *gained* 30 pounds since I met her, and am now *up* to 210. :P

A Reuters poll released Monday shows Kerry with a three-point lead on Bush (finally). May the gap continue to widen!

Diana started clinicals today. She was up at 4:45 A.M, and out the door at 5:30. (After playing Fable until 11:30 last night, and then reading a novel until midnight. She’s a creature of habit.) Judy was afraid Diana would oversleep, so she got up as well, just in case.

All this blundering about woke Lenny up, of course. So although I’d been planning to sleep until the luxuriously late time of 6:15 AM, I instead had to rush through a shower while Judy kept an eye on him, then take over babysitting. He was in a good enough mood this morning, but I’m sure he’ll be a fussy wreck tonight from a lack of sleep. So will Diana and I. :(

Diana was off school this week, so I took a couple days off as well, and we headed back to Sedona. We got some pretty good photos, and I experimented more with PT Assembler (the panorama software).

Most of them didn’t turn out so well (too many exposure differences), but this one’s nice:
http://spook.myserver.org/images/jay_mcgavren/2004/sedona/sedona_1.jpg

Here’s the whole batch:
http://spook.myserver.org/images/jay_mcgavren/2004/sedona