Blog

Updated my iOS “Blog This” shortcut (for sending selected text from Safari to Ulysses in Markdown format) to add two fixes: slightly adjusting the output if no text is selected, and expanding relative URLs (my thanks to Memory Alpha for inspiring this fix).

A few months ago, I backed the Jelli M1 mask project on Kickstarter. The mask itself showed up today, so I put together this video unboxing and quick review.

Links:

• Jelli M1 website
• Original Kickstarter campaign page
• CNAS certification report
• Mask It or Casket shirt by Oakthorn Studios
• DJ Wüdi on Twitch
• Background music track: Deep Image (Releveled) by UBE (no link available)

Since I 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.

There are 31 posts previously published on December 31st

• 2024
  • 2024 Reading Round-Up Every year, I set myself a goal of reading at least 52 books over the course of the year; this year I read 76. Here's a quick (?) overview… ➡
• 2023
  • Year 50 Day 243 Happy New Year, everyone. I even dressed up for the occasion. ➡
  • 2023 Reading Round-Up 📚 Every year, I set myself a goal of reading at least 52 books over the course of the year; this year I read 74. Here’s a quick (?) overview… ➡
• 2022
  • 2022 Reading Round-Up 📚 Every year, I set myself a goal of reading at least 52 books over the course of the year — an average of one a week. This year I made it to 68. Here’s a quick (?) overview… ➡
  • 📚 Sacrifices of War by Kevin Ryan Wraps up all the threads quite nicely, in a way that I didn’t expect when I started the first book. ➡
  • 📚 Demands of Honor by Kevin Ryan The series doing a really neat job of exploring the state of affairs with the Klingon empire from both Starfleet and Klingon viewpoints. ➡
• 2021
  • 2021 Reading Round-Up 📚 My annual look back at what I've read over the past year. ➡
• 2020
  • 2020 Reading Round-Up 📚 My annual look back at what I've read over the past year. ➡
  • On This Day: Dec 31 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from December 31 ➡
• 2019
  • 📚 sixty-two of 2019: Enterprise, by Vonda N. McIntyre. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ An earlier look at Kirk’s first mission after talking command of the Enterprise. Very different characterizations of the crew—and the Klingons—than what we now know…but then, it was 1986. 🖖 ➡
  • No Comparison: Remembering “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” on its 40th Anniversary: “For those of us who get it, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a spectacular swing for the fences. And for those of you who don’t get it, it’s your frakkin’ loss.” 🖖 ➡
  • Cyberdyne Systems | Speculative Identities: A deep dive into the Terminator universe’s Cyberdyne Systems from a graphic design/branding/iconography point of view. ➡
  • 2019 Reading Round-Up 📚 A look back at the books I've read this year ➡
  • Ramones Time 2020, 24 hours to go ➡
• 2018
  • 2018 Reading Round-Up Every year, I set myself a goal of reading at least 52 books over the course of the year — an average of one a week. This year I made it to 60 (plus getting started on what will be my first book of 2019). Here's a quick overview… ➡
  • I’m not closing my account, and will likely keep checking in on occasion to see what my friends post. But I think it’s time for me to stop uploading to Instagram. ➡
• 2016
  • Good Riddance, 2016 2016 is done. 2017 is here. Let's make it ours. ➡
  • My #2016bestnine – very #Lego-centric! Let’s see…me in my #geek #coexist shirt, me in my little #goth Lego boy costume, my Lego goth couple, my @cardsagainsthumanity Trump bug-out bag (which was funnier pre-election), Lego minifigs, the Lego #StarWars carbon freezing chamber, another shot of my costume, my mother-in-law using a real paper map, and the ... Read more ➡
  • Book sixty of 2016: Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (366/366) This also marks the culmination of my silly little selfie-a-day project for the year! I considered trying to come up with something particularly creative or silly for the final photo, but in the end, decided that just another of the usual photos would be ... Read more ➡
• 2015
  • It got cold last night – depending on which source we check, Eburg is somewhere between 5° and -3° this morning. The hoarfrost on everything is really pretty, though. ➡
• 2014
  • The Interview Thanks to the world's weirdest advertising campaign, we watched a dumb comedy that we'd otherwise have had no interest in. And in the end? Yes, dumb, but we've definitely seen far worse, and there were some laughs to be had. ➡
  • MLK on “inconvenient” protests I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice… ➡
• 2012
  • End of 2012 Well, a fair amount went on in my life this year...not that you'd know from this blog. ➡
• 2008
  • Happy New Year! However you are celebrating (or have celebrated) the new year, enjoy it, and here's hoping we all have a good 2009! ➡
• 2007
  • Wrapping up 2007 A little under eight hours left to go in the year, and as I look back, most of what stands out in my mind is just how incredibly _busy_ this past year has been, for Prairie and for myself. That's not to say it's been a bad year, but we just _never_ seemed to stop moving. ➡
• 2005
  • Happy New Years Eve Looks like the plan is for Prairie and I to have dinner and rest for a bit, grab showers, and then head downtown to hit the Noc No along with gracesine, rainfromheaven...and whoever else may show up. ➡
• 2003
  • eWeek best and worst of 2003 Forget about all this selling your soul to the devil crap -- he's so incompetent, he couldn't even get a wish to be 'famous' right, and I ended up with 'infamous' instead. Can I get a refund on this deal? ➡
  • Trouble in Georgetown As I got off the bus and started walking down the street, I heard a little commotion in one of the alleyways to my left. Looking over, I saw a young lady frantically running down the alleyway, coat open, trying to keep her footing in the fresh snow. ➡
• 2002
  • Exhausted Ugh...this sucks. I was supposed to be at work early today, so I could leave early (all that New Years stuff), so I set my alarm for 8:30am and went to bed. ➡
  • Oh yeah All in all, a very enjoyable trip. Except for the 15 degree below zero weather. Ugh. I am so not moving back to Alaska. Ever. ➡
  • Weblog publishing systems Just a quick test here — the new beta version of NetNewsWire Pro has a weblog editor built in. Not bad, seems to handle things alright, and it is handy having the weblog editor built into the newsreader. ➡

Since I 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.

There are 21 posts previously published on December 30th

• 2024
  • Winterfair Gifts by Lois McMaster Bujold 📚: ⭐️⭐️⭐️: A fun, quick read, as two of Miles’ current and former staff uncover a plot to foil Miles’ wedding. ➡
• 2023
  • Year 50 Day 242 Wearing my PPIM shirt on project day 242 seemed appropriate (if you know, you know...). ➡
  • 📚 Fool Moon by Jim Butcher About the same as the first in the series; not mindblowing, but entertaining enough. ➡
• 2022
  • 📚 Seeds of Rage by Kevin Ryan This continues to be a strong series. ➡
  • Blogging CMS Wishlist Basically, what I want is mid-2000s MovableType, only with some modern updates. ➡
• 2020
  • On This Day: Dec 30 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from December 30 ➡
• 2019
  • The Rise of Skywalker In the end, as I noted just after seeing it, it is an entertaining film, and an acceptable, though not incredible, end to the Skywalker saga. But it's definitely the weakest of the three new films (with _The Last Jedi_ being the strongest). ➡
• 2016
  • A bath and a book…not a bad way to spend some time in the afternoon. Trying to see if I can get one more book finished by the end of the year! (365/366) ➡
• 2013
  • Sounds From the Lost Abbey 11 Back in February, I took up a challenge from one of my friends to create a mix based around songs that I'd have played at the Lost Abbey, during the mid- to late-1990s. Here's the eleventh (and, at this point, last) in the series! ➡
• 2010
  • We’re Moving to Ellensburg! So, that's the big news that I've been itching to tell all of you for the past week. Wish us luck! ➡
• 2009
  • Two Items Regarding Airplane Safety The odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. ➡
• 2008
  • Minor Weblog Redesign A new year is (almost) here, and along with that, it was time for a bit of a refresh to the design. It's not a huge change -- generally speaking, all the bits are in the same basic places -- just a little fine-tuned and tweaked. ➡
• 2007
  • The Ratings Game #1 Every so often, I'll post the MPAA rating and rationalization. _Your_ goal is to try to guess the film, based solely on the MPAA's rating and their description of its faults. I'll post the answer either after someone guesses it correctly, or later on if it has remained a mystery. ➡
• 2006
  • We’re Back! We're loopy as all get-outs, due to a delayed connecting flight pushing our arrival back in Seattle from 5:00am to 6:30am and sending both of us _far_ into the realms of sleep deprivation, plus having to battle the head cold that I picked up midway through the week...but we're back. ➡
• 2005
  • Tag Intersections A little bit more work on improving the tags.app implementation here: tag intersection searches from the search results page. ➡
  • This is a test… ...this is only a test. Even better, it's a test that worked -- there's now a tag search field available. ➡
• 2004
  • Gallimaufry 2 Same as before, ten songs that iTunes chooses at random. Not quite as interesting a selection as I got last week. Maybe we'll do better next time… ➡
• 2003
  • Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Oh. My. God. Have you seen the trailer for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow yet? If not, run, do not walk, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, over and watch it now. ➡
• 2002
  • Neighbors That's what you get when you do a 'related' Google search to find which sites Google considers to be similar to mine. Definitely makes me wish I knew the criteria. ➡
  • Nightclubbing, we’re nightclubbing… So this guy wants to go into a nightclub, but the bouncer says, 'Sorry, bud, you need a tie for this place.' He goes back to his car and rummages around, but there's no necktie to be found. ➡
• 2000
  • New Year’s weekend Hope everyone's having a good New Years weekend. ➡

Since I 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.

There are 26 posts previously published on December 29th

• 2024
  • Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold 📚: ⭐️⭐️⭐️: Not quite as good as later Vorkosigan books, but also one of the earliest written, and still very enjoyable. ➡
• 2023
  • Year 50 Day 241 After a whirlwind three days of visiting family, we made it home this afternoon. ➡
• 2021
  • Non-Amazon Book Tracking and Buying Little things, perhaps, but they make me feel better about how I choose to spend my money. ➡
  • _Serpents in the Garden_ by Jeff Mariotte ➡
• 2020
  • 📚 fifty-four of 2020: Star Trek: The Motion Picture: Inside the Art and Special Effects by Jeff Bond and Gene Kozicki ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A gorgeous look at the visuals of Trek’s ambitious first film, and a great companion to Return to Tomorrow. Highly recommended for TMP fans. 🖖 ➡
  • On This Day: Dec 29 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from December 29 ➡
• 2019
  • From last night, when we took Mom out for her holiday lobster dinner. Was a good weekend of family visits, but right now we’re happy to be home and out of I-5 holiday traffic. ➡
• 2018
  • Book sixty of 2018: Explorers, by George Gipe. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
• 2017
  • Book fifty-two of 2017: Shadow, by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. 🌟🌟🌟 I made my book-a-week average (52 books in a year goal) for 2017 (thanks to this quick push through a few easy, quick, and enjoyable bits of Trek fluff at the end)! #startrek #voy #section31 🖖 ➡
• 2016
  • Though the original plan was to work through the Alien/Predator films, we decided that was a bit bleak for this week. Instead, we’ve been binging on classic comedies and classic and modern musicals. Chicago, How to Steal A Million, Royal Wedding, Hairspray, How to Marry A Millionaire, and others. Much easier to deal with right ... Read more ➡
• 2014
  • The current post-Christmas state of my “to read” bookcase. Even in the midst of working on a master’s degree, somehow I can’t stop picking up more books. ➡
• 2013
  • Sounds From the Lost Abbey 10 Back in February, I took up a challenge from one of my friends to create a mix based around songs that I'd have played at the Lost Abbey, during the mid- to late-1990s. Here's the tenth in the series! ➡
• 2007
  • Kynt and Vyxsin While sure, I'll admit that part of the 'drama' of reality programming is the relationships (good and bad, but often bad) between the contestants, it's been nice to see that at least two of the final five teams in this race actually treat each other like people should be treated -- and it's more than a little thrilling that it's the two 'counter-culture' teams that have the best relationships. ➡
• 2005
  • Distorted Tunes Test According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders' Distorted Tunes Test, I have a fine sense of pitch. ➡
  • TypeKey broken? I'm not sure how I've managed to do this, but while disabling the OpenID Comment plugin, I've managed to break the ability to log in via TypeKey for authentication. ➡
  • Ten Years (roughly) Going by my earliest archived entry, I've been blogging in one form or another for _ten years_ as of 3:13am (Alaska time), December 29, 2005. Here's to the next ten years. ➡
• 2004
  • Goodbye, Grandpa I just got word from my dad that my mom's father, Harold Ward, died peacefully in his sleep last night, at the age of 88. ➡
  • Seattle Rep: Noises Off Prairie and I just returned from using her dad's Christmas present to her, which while it originally appeared in the form of cash, was soon converted into two tickets to the Seattle Rep's performance of Noises Off. ➡
  • Santa’s Flight Exam Santa Claus, like all pilots, gets regular visits from the Federal Aviation Administration, and it was shortly before Christmas when the FAA examiner arrived. ➡
  • My Netflix I've just added a new page to the site (and linked it in the header navigation of every page): my Netflix queues. ➡
• 2003
  • Truth in advertising An ad for FHM: 'We're not sure why we bother with the words.' ➡
  • Peter Pan…soon! I've been looking forward to the new film version of Peter Pan ever since I stumbled across the trailer in mid-November. Kalyx just got to see it, and her writeup just makes me want to see it more… ➡
  • Don't feed the trolls troll: v.,n. To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself. ➡
  • M&M's go goth M&M's will be available in only black and white for the next few months instead of the standard six colors as part of a promotional campaign. ➡
  • This shouldn't be a surprise I should be used to this kind of thing by now, but it still catches me off guard when I notice little things like being the second primary Google result for 'apple g5'. ➡
• 1995
  • [From the archives: 12.29.95 0313] Well, Christmas has come and gone. Didn't get much on my wish list, but then, that was expected...especially when the first item was a $2700 computer. (grin) Hey, I can dream. ➡

Since I 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.

There are 30 posts previously published on December 28th

• 2023
  • Year 50 Day 240 Our last day of visiting was with my wife’s mom, sister, brother-in-law, and niblings. ➡
• 2020
  • Difficult Listening Hour 2020.12.26: Acapella? Really? How else would a primarily ebm/goth/industrial/electronica DJ wrap up the year than with…beatmatched acapella. ➡
  • On This Day: Dec 28 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from December 28 ➡
• 2019
  • Well, now. That was definitely a movie! Spoiler-free mini-review: It’ll do as an acceptable end to the Skywalker saga (and rather amusingly, you really don’t need the prequels at all; this could easily be a six-movie story), but also the weakest of the latter three films. 🎬 ➡
  • Time to finish off the Skywalker saga! 🎬 ➡
• 2017
  • Day six! #cah #cardsagainsthumanity ➡
  • My manly man feet have the most masculine socks ever. Look at your socks. Now look at my socks. My socks are manlier than your socks. #hesonahorse #oldspice ➡
• 2016
  • Book fifty-nine of 2016: Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (363/366) ➡
• 2013
  • Sounds From the Lost Abbey 09 Back in February, I took up a challenge from one of my friends to create a mix based around songs that I'd have played at the Lost Abbey, during the mid- to late-1990s. Here's the ninth of quite a few to come! ➡
• 2009
  • Best Movies of the Decade Three best of the decade lists follow, all yoinked from Slashfilm. For each list, I've marked the films I've seen and the films we have in our movie collection at home. ➡
• 2005
  • Lens Lust followup My Lens Lust post of a week or so ago has touched off a slight Nikon d70s vs. Canon Rebel XT debate in the comments. For the curious photo buff, here's why I'm lusting after the d70s instead of the Rebel XT. ➡
  • All paid up Around $1000 poorer and after approximately 4.34 miles of walking, I should be all set to start school in a few days. ➡
  • Reboot Yourself I've known far too many people who would do well to heed this advice. ➡
  • Mad Max Prairie and I spent three nights last week watching the entire Mad Max trilogy. When all's said and done, I'm not a big fan of Mad Max as a trilogy -- but you can _definitely_ count me as a fan of Beyond Thunderdome. ➡
  • High School A meme, courtesy of ctakahara. ➡
  • The stuff of nightmares Oh my lord. It'd bad enough reading about an airplane accident -- thankfully, one that didn't end in tragedy -- in the steady, calm voice of newspaper reporting. But then comes the report of the incident from passenger Jeremy Hermanns. ➡
  • Best TV of 2005 Of Time's list of the best TV shows of 2005, I've only seen one -- but I'm not going to argue at all with their assessment. Number one on the list... ➡
• 2004
  • Christianity and the ACLU John Scalzi is looking for Christian lawyers who work for the ACLU. The ensuing comment thread on his post is getting very interesting, too. Worth checking out (though it keeps getting longer, so give yourself a few minutes). ➡
  • Quick Review: Quills Really, really good. Admittedly, they had a couple things going for them to start with — interesting subject matter and a powerhouse cast — but that's not always a guaranteed success. 'Well worth the dig!' ➡
  • My next ISP GET YOUR ONLINES WITH MAXIMUM INTERNETS - iDigital CyberCom - NOW INTERNETTING AT MEGASPEEDS! ➡
  • Legend Years ago, my brother and I found a cassette tape on the floor of the family van. Neither of us knew where it came from or who had left it there. Upon first glance, it didn't seem all that special — Bob Marley and the Wailers 'Legend' album. It turned out that this tape instead had early 80s-era dance remixes of all of the songs. ➡
  • Tsunami My lord — I hadn't even heard about the disaster around the Indian Ocean until I started browsing through headlines this morning, and now they're putting the death toll at somewhere over 33,000 people. Scary stuff. ➡
  • Christmas Weekend Good Christmas weekend this year. As usual, I've got a selection of photos posted to Flickr. Now I'm back at work, and Prairie's doing her best to fend off a cold before the New Year's weekend rolls around. Life returns to normal…for a few days at least. ➡
• 2003
  • LotR:TRotK EE DVD – 4h50m+? Apparently, Peter Jackson recently revealed that the DVD Extended Edition of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 'will be longer than 4 hours and 50 min' long! ➡
  • 2003 Pictures of the Year The Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest magazine has released their 2003 Pictures of the Year special issue, and all the shots have been posted on their website. ➡
  • Nobody's tried this yet? Frankly, I'd be more than a little surprised if nobody had attempted zero-g sex yet, no matter how strenuously NASA denies it. Still, if you're looking to be the 'official' first couple to give it a shot (and happen to be absolutely filthy rich), just give the Russian space agency a call! ➡
  • Books, sir…books. What did we do for endless and disheartening time-sinks before computers? I never lost twenty hours trying to make a fridge work properly, or to make a chair I'd accidentally upgraded turn itself back into something you could sit on. ➡
• 2001
  • Ion Drive in operation Apparently NASA's Deep Space 1 probe has just been officially decommissioned, slightly over two years after its planned End of Mission date. ➡
  • It’s just a movie, folks One for the Darwin Awards -- the first item on this page is a story of a Japanese tourist who died in the middle of a snowy field outside of Fargo, North Dakota...while trying to dig up the stolen money left there in the movie Fargo. The fictional movie. ➡
  • Kevin Smith directs Lord of the Rings The Council of Elrond from Lord of the Rings (as directed by Kevin Smith), and The Mines of Moria from Lord of the Rings (as directed by Michael Bay). Too funny not to share. ➡

Since I 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.

There are 18 posts previously published on December 27th

• 2023
  • Year 50 Day 239 Visiting mom, and her first holiday lobster since 2019. ➡
• 2022
  • 📚 River of Blood by Kevin Ryan A strong conclusion to the trilogy, which as a whole is definitely above average for Trek novels. ➡
  • 🎥 Glass Onion It's a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought for speaking the truth. ➡
• 2020
  • I always appreciate it when a publisher pays attention to the design of the hardback binding under the dust cover. The design for this book is particularly nice. 🖖 ➡
  • 📚 fifty-three of 2020: The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson ⭐️⭐️⭐️ A little journalism and a lot of alcohol in late ‘50s Puerto Rico. You can definitely see the seeds of the later Fear and Loathing in this. ➡
  • On This Day: Dec 27 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from December 27 ➡
• 2019
  • In Portland (well, just outside of Portland, in Happy Valley) for a holiday visit with Mom. Tomorrow I get to see the newest Star Wars film and finally get to stop trying to avoid spoilers (which I think I’ve done fairly well at, only heard two minor ones so far). ➡
• 2017
  • Book fifty-one of 2017: Abyss, by David Weddle and Jeffrey Lang. 🌟🌟🌟 #startrek #ds9 #section31 🖖 ➡
• 2016
  • Still processing, but have been staying in touch with mom and my brother, and Prairie and I have our travel plans made. Thanks to everyone for your kind words and messages over the past day. (362/366) ➡
• 2013
  • I’m quite curious as to what pattern they suggest for funerals. They do say every occasion… ➡
  • “Helping” Prairie choose embroidery thread colors. Not 50 shades of grey, but we found four or five. ➡
• 2008
  • Been A Good Christmas This Year I keep hearing and seeing people grumble about this Holiday season. Between the economy sucking everyone's spare change away and Snowpocalypse 2008 burying the entire Northwest coast under more snow than has been seen in a decade (or more), it seems like _nobody's_ happy. Well, just to buck the trend, we're not doing too badly here. ➡
• 2005
  • Silktide Sitescore From what I can tell, my site gets a fairly good score from Silktide, a web development firm based out of England. Some of the areas I got marked down on aren't a surprise at all, but I did get a laugh out of the one section that I was rated as 'Very Poor'. ➡
• 2003
  • Top Word Lists of 2003 YourDictionary.com has released their Top Word Lists of 2003. Did you know where 'ok' came from? ➡
  • I need a new router I've got $75 of gift certificates to Best Buy thanks to a promotion through work, and I need to get a new router — but I don't know quite which one to go for. Anyone have any suggestions? ➡
  • Still digging (This post is mostly me whining. Feel free to ignore it.) ➡
• 2001
  • Christmas in Alaska It was a lot of fun, and seeing friends and family again was great...but I've gotta say, I'm so glad I'm living down here now. Seattle is definitely much more 'me' than Anchorage ever was. ➡
  • I’m in the wrong business! Microphage Lumber and LSD -- Your Source! If only I'd thought of this first! ➡