Geekery

Whatever I’m geeking out about at the time.

On This Day: Jan 26

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past. Here are my past posts for January 26…

There are 23 posts previously published on January 26th

  • 2025
  • 2024
  • 2023
    • Updating My Computing History TL;DR: Apple II, Commodore 64, BASIC, Osborne 1, a Mac Classic, Hermes and BBSs, a VAX and the Internet, pine, ftp, Usenet, IRC, and gopher, the WWW, blogging, and many more Mac computers. ➡
  • 2021
    • Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction: “This work-in-progress is a comprehensive quotation-based dictionary of the language of science fiction. The HD/SF is an offshoot of a project begun by the Oxford English Dictionary (though it is no longer formally affiliated with it).” ➡
  • 2020
    • 📚 seven of 2020: The Rosewater Insurrection by Tade Thompson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ As fascinating as the first book, this tale of invasion broadens the scope, giving more detail on the alien invaders and moving to a multiple viewpoint narrative. Really enjoying this series. ➡
    • On This Day: Jan 26 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from January 26 ➡
  • 2019
    • Book eight of 2019: The Body Library, by Jeff Noon. #PKDickAward nominee. ⭐️⭐️ 📚 Much like the first in this series, there are a lot of interesting ideas, in this case about stories, narratives, and our relationships with them…yet it simply didn’t resonate with me at all. ➡
  • 2016
    • Watching Anthony Bourdain drink frightening amounts of Guinness in Dublin. I can’t stand the stuff, though both my mom and brother enjoy beers so dark they’re served with a knife and fork. (26/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • We had some crazy, proverbial pea soup, Exorcist poster levels of fog in the ‘Burg tonight. Creepy, but pretty! ➡
  • 2014
    • Couldn’t quite tell if the hole in this rock was natural or artificial. ➡
    • Found someone’s project. ➡
    • Off for another morning beach walk. ➡
  • 2010
    • Microsoft Excel .xls and .xlsx weirdness I've been attempting to troubleshoot some issues with sending Excel files back and forth between my Mac at home and a professor who uses a Mac at home and a Windows PC at school. Even though we're both using current versions of Excel, and though the files opened fine on her Mac, she was having consistent problems on the Windows machine. ➡
    • Links for January 20th through January 26th Sometime between January 20th and January 26th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • Here comes the new cell phone etiquette • Menifee school officials remove dictionary over term 'oral sex' • The Cost of Care • The Science & the Fiction • Christopher Hitchens on "Like" ➡
  • 2009
    • Links for January 21st through January 26th Sometime between January 21st and January 26th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • Improved Del.Icio.Us Posting Bookmarklet (With Gruber’s Title Case Goodness) • Time Machine backups on network shares in Leopard • Obama signs order to close Guantanamo in a year • The Obameter: Tracking Barack Obama's Campaign Promises • US Democracy Server: Patch Day ➡
  • 2007
    • No More West Wing For a guy who doesn't much like TV, I'm sure enjoying some of the shows. Quite a bit after the fact, but it's _so_ much nicer this way! ➡
  • 2006
    • Ultraviolet Or, to put it another way: Milla Jovovich + tight outfits + promising effects + promising action = my ass is in the theatre. ;) ➡
    • iTunes Ratings Following in the footsteps of jwz, Tim Bray, AKMA, and Paul, here's the rating system I use in iTunes. ➡
    • Lost s02e11: Fire + Water Scribbled notes while watching last night's episode of Lost. Spoilers, obviously, so only read further if you want to... ➡
  • 2005
    • I hate it when I’m stupid So now I've got a TypePad account that I'm not using that's all paid up and useable until next December. What in the world do I do with that? ➡
  • 2004
    • Pedometer pedometer measures how many children you touch inappropriately...? ➡
  • 2003
    • I want Trinity for my birthday Anyway, one of the big deals about the Superbowl is always the various commercials and trailers that are shown during the game, since it's always got such a huge audience. The majority of these generally wouldn't concern me any more than the Superbowl itself would, but I did find out that the latest trailer for the next two Matrix films was released, and is already available on the net. ➡
    • This is a test Just testing to see if I've sucessfully enabled MT's built-in image processing capabilities. ➡

On This Day: Jan 25

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past. Here are my past posts for January 25…

There are 25 posts previously published on January 25th

  • 2025
    • Star Trek: Section 31 🎥: ⭐️⭐️⭐️: As a Trek film…well, it's a generic space spy movie with Trek references. ➡
  • 2024
    • Year 50 Day 268 It should work just fine, we're just amused at how tiny and cute it is! ➡
  • 2023
    • Coming Back to Norwescon! I'll be popping up again in public for the first time in a few years at Norwescon 45 for the Thursday night dance! ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Star Trek Doesn’t Exist Within Star Trek As Star Trek doesn’t include itself, historical displays on the Enterprise shouldn’t show the first space shuttle. ➡
    • Displays of prior ships named Enterprise in Star Trek shouldn’t include the original space shuttle, as it was only named such due to support from fans of the show, which wouldn’t exist within the Star Trek universe. 🖖 ➡
  • 2016
    • Nice foggy night tonight. Cold…but looks neat. (25/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Authentic Southern California take-out burrito from a cute little hole-in-the-wall joint for dinner. So good! ➡
    • Why we’re in California: Paying our respects to Prairie’s grandfather. Very nice service and reception today. ➡
    • Prairie’s treasures. ➡
    • Beautiful morning here. ➡
    • A nice morning walk along the beach, watching the surfers. ➡
    • My newest niece has the most adorable purple monster feetie socks! ➡
  • 2009
    • Pacific Science Center’s Lucy Exhibit Stumbling Lucy's second stop on the tour is at Seattle's Pacific Science Center, where her exhibit is running from October through March 8th. Unfortunately, that could very well be her _last_ stop before heading home to Ethiopia. Apparently, not enough people are bothering to see the exhibit. ➡
  • 2006
    • An’ that’s the truth! If those bible-thumpers really want a conundrum, how about this? If you take the word 'presbyterians' and rearrange the letters...it spells 'Britney Spears'. ➡
    • Dad’s on Flickr After having some recurring problems with the Gallery software that we'd been using for the Hanscom Family Gallery, I decided to throw in the towel and talked dad into putting his Flickr account to use. I'm so glad I did. ➡
    • Lost s02e11: The Hunting Party Scribbled notes while watching last Wednesday night's episode of Lost (I actually watched it a few days ago, but just realized that I'd forgotten to post this. Oops!). Spoilers, obviously, so only read further if you want to... ➡
  • 2005
    • Consequences of an Overactive Imagination People passing me on the streets at night never know of the creatures stalking them. Wingless batlike creatures the size of large dogs, walking on their forelegs, hind legs slung up and over their shoulders and terminating in wicked-looking claws. ➡
  • 2004
    • Living my dreams Tonight, as I left the dance floor and stood against the wall, I had to smile. Years ago, things like this were nothing more than a fantasy, something I'd seen and knew that I wanted to be a part of, but didn't have the opportunities to take advantage of. Now, though, it's a fantasy no longer, but a world that I'm part of. ➡
    • You have to wonder about the gift shop… Something for a list of places to go should I ever visit Los Angeles: the brand spanking (ahem) new sex museum. ➡
    • R.I.P. Captain Kangaroo Bob Keeshan, more popularly known as Captain Kangaroo, has died. ➡
    • The Joys of McDonalds His mission: To eat three meals a day for 30 days at McDonald's and document the impact on his health. Within a few days of beginning his drive-through diet, Spurlock, 33, was vomiting out the window of his car, and doctors who examined him were shocked at how rapidly Spurlock's entire body deteriorated. ➡
  • 2003
    • Lizette& A while back, while digging through my friend Kory's mp3.com page, I stumbled across a remix he did of a song called 'Breathe,' by an artist going by Lizette&. I downloaded his mix and liked it a lot. Curious by that point, I decided to see if I could track down the original version to see what Kory had started with. ➡
    • Reminder – DJ Wüdi mixes Just a quick reminder for those of you who may be new to my site, and might not have bounced around some of the rest of what I have up here. Over on my DJ Wüdi propaganda page, I have eleven mix sessions available for download as .mp3 files. They range from 22 minutes to an hour and seventeen minutes in length, and from 26 Mb to 88 Mb in file size, so you'll probably want to have a broadband connection (or a lot of patience) to download them. ➡
    • MT upgrades I've just added a new plug-in to MovableType — SmartyPants. It's a relatively minor thing, but one that's nice to have — it automatically converts common characters into their typographically-correct versions. I've also hacked into the code to build TrackBack pings as they happen, speeding up individual page requests. ➡

Difficult Listening Hour 2020.01.23

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Unplanned, unrehearsed, seat-of-the-pants goofing around. As a way of getting back into practice and doing something regularly, I’ve started doing (hopefully) regular Twitch broadcasts on Thursday nights. These are the results. Anything goes.

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On This Day: Jan 24

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past. Here are my past posts for January 24…

There are 32 posts previously published on January 24th

  • 2024
    • Year 50 Day 267 Yes, it's a cheesy touristy t-shirt, but… ➡
    • My First Mac To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apple Macintosh, lots of people on Mastodon are posting their #MyFirstMac stories. Of course this is something I'm going to join in on! ➡
  • 2021
  • 2020
    • Well…If you’re going to steal, steal from the best, right? Or, in the words of Oscar Wilde: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness. ➡
    • Samsung Galaxy Fold review: The future is an ugly disappointment: “Should you buy a Galaxy Fold? NO! God no. Are you crazy? The sky-high price, durability issues, nascent form factor, and new screen technology should rule the phone out for just about everyone.” ➡
    • Star Trek: Picard: Why Trekkies are the greatest fans of all: “So much sci-fi and fantasy is ugly and dystopian; Star Trek places great faith in humanity. As the film and TV academic Gerry Canavan has observed, ‘The idea of Star Trek is that the future might be good; we might be good; we might ... Read more ➡
    • Difficult Listening Hour 2020.01.23 As a way of getting back into practice and doing something regularly, I've started doing (hopefully) regular Twitch broadcasts on Thursday nights. These are the results. Anything goes. ➡
    • On This Day: Jan 24 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from January 24 ➡
  • 2019
    • Star Trek: Discovery S02E02: 👍 I really liked the extrapolation of Clarke’s Third Law; it was new to me, but WikiPedia says that particular variation is also known as Shermer’s Last Law. Michael assuring Pike she wouldn’t make him laugh was the best line of the episode. 🖖 ➡
    • Book seven of 2019: The Way to the Stars, by Una McCormack. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 📚 🖖 16-year-old Tilly must deal with an overbearing mother, boarding school ups and downs, and choosing between what’s expected of her and what actually interests her. A fun, light Trek YA novel. ➡
  • 2018
    • Book five of 2018: Freeware, by Rudy Rucker. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2017
    • Book ten of 2017: Were-, edited by Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
    • Prairie and I printed out a small stack of #womensmarch postcards to start sending to our representatives. Taking action doesn’t stop once the rally is done. This is a start. ➡
    • My #PKDickAward books are in! I’ve got until April 14 to get through this stack. No problem! ➡
  • 2016
    • Sunday is apparently feeling sepia-ish. An uneventful day today. (24/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • A different and more honest shot of the great Ellensburg whirlpool I posed earlier. Not nearly as impressive when you can tell it’s just an overloaded culvert! ;) ➡
    • So…Ellensburg. About the giant whirlpool that’s about to suck us all down into a watery vortex of doom…. It’s of some concern. ➡
    • “You’ll never catch me, copper!” #lego ➡
  • 2014
    • Today’s socks: Space Invaders! It’s harder to find fun socks for guys, but we’ve found a few for me here and there. ➡
    • Our room has a view of the swimming pool…and I-5. ;) ➡
    • Good morning! About half an hour to boarding. Still too early to be up and at ’em, but less grumpy now that we’ve found breakfast. ➡
  • 2011
    • Last Den of Sin Here are a few shots from Friday night. Everything was shot without flash -- I had my flash with me, but never got around to putting it on the camera. I haven't been able to go completely flash-free at the club in _years_...no matter how I pushed my D70s, it just couldn't quite handle the low light of a goth club. The D7000, though, doesn't even pause. This is fun. ➡
  • 2009
  • 2006
    • Pimp my A95 In the end, much amusement was had, and my little A95 went through a lot of quite silly experiments. This is the kind of stuff that happens on a slow day in a camera shop. Can't say that I'm complaining. ➡
  • 2005
    • Weird 'I' before 'E', except after 'C'. And unless the word is 'weird'. Why is that? I constantly get it wrong, and it drives me up the wall. ➡
    • Happy Birthday Macintosh! I'm a bit late to the party on this one, unfortunately, but the Macintosh turned 21 years old today. Even better, there's one heck of a birthday present to the Mac community out on the 'net now: the long-lost video of the original introduction of the Mac by Steve Jobs. ➡
  • 2004
    • Orkut Much of the buzz this past week that I utterly and completely ignored has been about Orkut, Google's entry into the social networking trend. I've never been too hot about these things — they seem kind of silly, reducing friendships and acquaintances to the level of Pokemon characters (collect the whole set!). ➡
  • 2003
    • Happy B-day Mac On this day in 1984, the first Mac went on sale. ➡
    • Over my head I'm having a hell of a time getting Image::Magick (a command-line set of Unix tools for manipulating graphics) installed and working on my system so that MovableType can see it. Been banging my head against this for most of the last two days, without much success so far. ➡
  • 2002
    • Enterprise: Dear Doctor Never having watched Quantum Leap very often, I'm not overly familiar with Scott Bakula's acting, and this was one of the first times I really thought I got to see more than a variation of the 'excited kid out playing in the universe' that Archer has been so far (something I chalk up a bit more to the writers than to Bakula's performances as yet). ➡
    • Flaming down Broadway I hadn't known this before, never having seen the Torch relay before, but it's not done with one runner from start to finish through each town. Rather, they have multiple runners, each one carrying a torch for a short distance, at the end of which the flame is passed on to the next runner with their own torch for the next leg. ➡
    • Karl got fat! Er…phat? Um… This is one of those things that mom would kill me for admitting, but I've occasionally thought that getting a motorcycle would be a lot of fun. ➡

Star Trek: Picard S01E01 Remembrance

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Star Trek: Picard S01E01: As wonderful as it is to see Jean-Luc on screen again, and as gorgeous as the episode was, I do have some slight reservations. But this is just episode one, and they had a lot of groundwork to get in place. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the start. 🖖

Spoilers after the jump…

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On This Day: Jan 23

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past. Here are my past posts for January 23…

There are 22 posts previously published on January 23rd

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2020
    • Star Trek: Picard S01E01 Remembrance As wonderful as it is to see Jean-Luc on screen again, and as gorgeous as the episode was, I do have some slight reservations. But this is just episode one, and they had a lot of groundwork to get in place. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the start. ➡
    • On This Day: Jan 23 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from January 23 ➡
  • 2019
    • Linkdump for January 11th through January 23rd An automatically generated list of links that caught my eye between January 11th and January 23rd. • A meteor hit the moon during the lunar eclipse. Here’s what we know. • DuckDuckGo Taps Apple Maps to Power Private Search Results • To save the sound of a Stradivarius, a whole city must keep quiet • An Idea for Electoral College Reform That Both Parties Might Actually Like • he oral history of the Hampsterdance: The twisted true story of one of the world's first memes ➡
  • 2018
    • A full set of 2018 #pkdickaward nominees to read before the award ceremony at #nwc41. Better get started! ➡
  • 2016
    • Book four of 2016: Nexus, by Ramez Naam. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #rameznaam #PKDickAward pre-nominee. (23/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • I wore my dinosaur socks today. Raaaaawwrrrrr!!! ➡
    • Ahhh, the SeaTac DoubleTree – our home away from home! ➡
  • 2007
    • Drama and Disappointment As I mentioned Xebeth and her situation a few times on this site, I've gotten a few inquiries as to her current situation, as it's been a while since I've mentioned her. This is why. She's not dying -- but, I'm sad to say, it appears that she's not well, either. ➡
  • 2006
    • Attention Tomato Scouts! Not only is Jason gracing us with a free song every week (starting this week), but the old, mostly broken, overrun-by-spam guestbook has been replaced with a new, not at all broken forum. And there was much rejoicing. ➡
  • 2005
    • Note: Contains Nudity This is one of the funniest things I've seen today: Netflix' summary for a movie titled 'Sexmission'... ➡
    • Stop! The Windows Error Message Generator allowed me to recreate (to the best of my ability) the single funniest and most exasperating error messages I've ever seen on a Windows machine. ➡
  • 2004
    • Read this. Any attempt at an introduction or pullquote wouldn't do this justice, so just go read it. ➡
    • Most-blogged books of 2003 Another list post, this time, All Consuming's list of the most-blogged books of 2003. As before, books in bold and prefaced with » I've read. ➡
    • The real State of the Union I found this link purporting to be a remix of this year's State of the Union address (much like one from last year), but given the content of the snippets used, I think that it's just another take on last year's speech. It's still bizarre and often laugh-out-loud funny, though. ➡
    • AOL Presidential Match Lane pointed out the AOL presidential selector today, so I wandered over to take a look. It's quite similar to the Presidential Candidate Selector that I pointed out last July, though the results were a bit different (of course, the possible candidates are different now, and there has been more time for all of them to fine-tune their policies and messages). ➡
    • iTMS RSS feeds For any of you RSS/Newsreader junkies out there: you can now create customized RSS feeds from the iTunes Music Store. New releases, just added, top sellers, just the categories and information you want. Quite nifty. ➡
    • Lizette& album available I've mentioned the band Lizette& before. When I got up this morning, I found a comment from their drummer, Alex, letting me know that their album is (finally) now available for order through their website! I've been waiting for this one for a while. ➡
    • Plot vs. Monster of the Week The more I watch of Buffy, I'm starting to notice one definite similarity between my enjoyment of that show and my enjoyment of the X-Files. ➡
  • 2003
    • If it feels good, do it. I am committed to defeating, not only the good work of charities, but the values that will bring lasting peace. And we have a great opportunity during this time of war to lead the world towards suicide, and murder. ➡
  • 1997
    • [From Usenet: 1.23.97 0000] I am curious as to how well it presents the principles of taoism. What I read I liked, and have kept with me since then, and I'm becoming more interested in exploring this further. ➡
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📚 six of 2020: Rosewater, by Tade Thompson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Really neat blend of alien invasion, psychic abilities, and the Nigerian setting. As with 2017 #PKDickAward nominee After the Flare by Deji Bryce Olukotun, I really enjoy the non-Western setting and influences.

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It’s this year’s Philip K. Dick Award nominees (plus two, as one nominee was the third book in a trilogy)! 📚

Ada Hoffman, The Outside
Megan E. O’Keefe, Velocity Weapon
Susan Palwick, All Worlds Are Real
Sarah Pinsker, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea
Tade Thompson, The Rosewater Redemption
Sarah Tolmie, The Little Animals

On This Day: Jan 22

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past. Here are my past posts for January 22…

There are 33 posts previously published on January 22nd

  • 2024
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • The Complete List of Trump’s Twitter Insults (2015-2021): “This list documents the verbal attacks Mr. Trump posted on Twitter, from when he declared his candidacy in June 2015 to Jan. 8, when Twitter permanently barred him.” ➡
  • 2020
    • 📚 six of 2020: Rosewater, by Tade Thompson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really neat blend of alien invasion, psychic abilities, and the Nigerian setting. As with 2017 #PKDickAward nominee After the Flare by Deji Bryce Olukotun, I really enjoy the non-Western setting and influences. ➡
    • It’s this year’s Philip K. Dick Award nominees (plus two, as one nominee was the third book in a trilogy)! 📚 Ada Hoffman, The Outside Megan E. O’Keefe, Velocity Weapon Susan Palwick, All Worlds Are Real Sarah Pinsker, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea Tade Thompson, The Rosewater Redemption Sarah Tolmie, The Little ... Read more ➡
    • On This Day: Jan 22 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from January 22 ➡
  • 2019
    • Edgar Lots of people on Twitter and Facebook getting all excited about Edgar, and every time, the first picture I have in my head is from Men in Black. (I think they’re actually talking about sports. Glad they’re excited, it’s just not a fandom I’m a part of, and it’s been making me laugh this afternoon.) ➡
    • Book six of 2019: A Man of Shadows, by Jeff Noon. ⭐️⭐️ 📚 An odd book, with elements that reminded me of other media I’ve enjoyed (the film Dark City, Michael Ende’s Momo), but which ultimately didn’t satisfy me. Hoping I’ll like the #PKDickAward nominated sequel more. ➡
  • 2016
    • This is how this newspaper proof of life thing works, right? Right? #doingitwrong #neverescaping (22/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Ack! Getting sucked in to the computer! Ooh, maybe I’ll get to meet Tron. See you on the Grid! ➡
  • 2009
    • Why 1984 Won’t Be Like ‘1984’ Twenty-five years ago today, Apple's '1984' commercial broadcast. ➡
    • The New Me Last week sometime, I was brainstorming with ways to personalize the design of my site a bit while still working within my limited artistic and design sensibilities. On a whim, I emailed Shari to see if she might be willing to sketch a version of me that I'd be able to work into the design somehow. ➡
    • Obama and Open Government It's reports like this one from the EFF that go a long way towards boosting my confidence in the next four (eight!) years. I think I'm going to like this guy. ➡
  • 2006
  • 2005
  • 2004
  • 2003
    • Jobs for everyone I doubt this is very serious (or likely), but apparently someone has set up a grassroots movement to elect Apple CEO Steve Jobs president! ➡
    • State of the Union Some people think it's more important to give a big campaign contribution than to vote…that it's "the American way" to buy access and influence with big money…that it's OK if public policy is sold to the highest bidder. Some even think that the only real democracy is in the marketplace, where we all supposedly vote with our dollars. ➡
    • Small World Back when I worked at TimeFrame, I worked with a 'gentleman' by the name of J.C. Truly a piece of work, this guy was — I mean, I hate to call the guy a prick, but the only reason he'd ever wear a tie would be to keep the foreskin from snapping up over his face. ➡
    • Singing my own song I've always tried to do my best to sing my own song. Some days I do better than others, of course, and it's easy to get lost in the chorus, but at least I can always keep trying. ➡
  • 2002
    • That’s a big cockroach! I swear, that cockroach is going to pick up my stereo, put it on his shoulders and just crawl right out of there one of these days... ➡
  • 2001
    • Why I collect movies Every so often I get people expressing amazement, wonder, or just shaking their heads in confusion when they see my DVD collection, either by checking the listing here on my site, or coming by my house and seeing the bookcase full of discs. ➡
    • Apt Ringers? Dead Pupil? Two new ones today -- one of which I've never seen, and the other I've only seen part of. Yes, I do this on occasion...luckily, very rarely come up with a real dud. ➡