zemlet.com news
Thursday, January 30, 2003
Alameda Window Displays
On my way back to my car (which I flipped the top down on while at a red light- go me) from Tomodachi (which has the most awesome sushi lunch special for 8.95) I spotted a totally cool window display. It had old washboards and antique water heaters, kooky pipes and strange toys, such as a Margaret Thatcher punching puppet and metal mice. Now this was no retail or antique store, mind you, it was plumbing supply. Who knew Alameda plumbers were so hip and edgy. Wonder if they tattoo their cracks? The photos are taken by my Clié through the window, so it doesn't do the subject matter justice, but hopefully you can make out two vintage potty trainers with a Bin Laden doll (in the frilly pink dress) and bondage ken (holding whip) with his latest sub. Kind of makes you want to do a scavenger hunt there.
  
.: posted by Zemlet 1:21 PM
dude wheres my kart
waa haa
.: posted by Rappin 10:54 AM
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
And now its time for what all blogs have
All blogs seem to have links to quiz type things where you can find out what 80's film character you most resemble, what cocktail you should drink, or what type of puppy you might be were you, in fact, a puppy. I was curious to see where I fit on the politcal compass since I feel I am seriously migrating in light of recent developments. Migrating away from what the majority of Americans are too afraid to oppose. Migrating away from what I used to be registered as and proud of (Republican) into something more concerned with long term well-being for everyone instead of profitability and correctness. Aparently it is:
Economic Left/Right: -3.00
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -5.64
Which puts me 30 percent left of center and halfway down the path to being a Libertarian.
And now comes the hallowed tradition of everyone visiting the site and posting their respective results.
.: posted by Zemlet 1:47 PM
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
The ring must be destroyed.
Oh! Also, we finally finished up the 3d 'ring' demo we've been working for. Because of the hassle I had with the Microsoft Screensaver API in preview mode, we decided to just make it a fun little app you could run on your desktop to enjoy. Check it out at the top of the downloads page.
.: posted by Rappin 12:31 AM
Top o the hits
This month so far ( and its almost over ) We got 912 unique visitors, which is about 50 percent better than our best month ever. Here are some stats I'd like to share.
unique visitors : 921
top search term : "museum mechanique"
top entry url: /opinions/movies.php
total hits/click: 28095
biggest horking link by KB : /photos/dec25pics/dec25 127.avi
creepiest/coolest hit : 184 hits from crawl4.googlebot.com
Thanks all readers for coming and reading whats new! Ellie was just asked permission to use her 'popcorn anti-theater' photos, so hopefully that means more folks looking at the boring ins and outs of our personal lives. Drama. Boats. Drama. Games. etc... Blah Blah Blah.
.: posted by Rappin 12:19 AM
Saturday, January 25, 2003
Okay, that last post was spam, but we almost ATE spam.
We decided to go to some place different for breakfast, and instead of going to Mama's Royal Cafe we went to Sergios which is now open for breakfast. We failed to realize that now open for breakfast meant new ownership! Well first thing we did was sit down and I ordered coffee. We got two free mimosas which used something that was like tanger-orange for orange juice, and a magnum of champagne, just kidding a magnum pi more like it. I asked for coffee and our waitress walked off without asking Z what she wanted. She came back with a cup of coffee we both could smell was flavored. NON NONO. Didn't ask for flavored!
"Excuse me is this flavored coffee?"
"Oh.. right... I didn't realize! I'll get you another cup"
So she came back with another cup OF FLAVORED COFFEE, which I left untouched the rest of the meal. We ordered our food, I ordered an Italian omlette with brown eggs and chopped hot dogs with a ton of diced green peppers and Ellie ordered French toast filled with egg fluid and runny scrambled eggs. She got a latte with yes flavored coffee. Shocking. Sergios was a once great outside dining italian restaurant, it's now great atmosphere with 7-11 food. Without ado we asked for the check and ran away. I left them a generous tip based on the quality of food and service. --===73 cents==--- =(
.: posted by Rappin 12:10 PM
Thursday, January 23, 2003
show me your spam
Yes! I finally arrived at the apex of spam when I received this:
Dear Friend,
This contact has become imperative based on the recent tribulation in Zimbabwe which has led to my present predicament. I am therefore using this medium to appeal to your good conscience to come to my rescue and the rescue of my family. I am Mr. Julia Howard a widow to a white commercial farmer from Zimbabwe and I got your contact from one of our business directories. I was born and bred in Zimbabwe to the best of my knowledge,my parents and grandparents lived all their lives in Zimbabwe africa.I have also lived all my life in Zimbabwe and so has all members of my family, therefore it is right to call me a Zimbabwean though white, I am by law a Zimbabwean. I have little or no knowledge of my roots save for the fact that my forefathers as I was told,hailed from Australia,which I have never visited all my life.It is pertinent that I tell you all this so that you can come to a full comprehension of the ill treatment that we have received from the Zimbabwean government of late.
The government of Robert Mugabe,president of Zimbabwe,in the year 2000 promulgated an abbysmal land law,the fast tract land resettlement program,aimed at taking land from the rich white commercial farmers in Zimbabwe and given it to the so called poor natural inhabitants of Zimbabwe,the black Zimbabweans,who as the president claimed are the rightful owners of these land.To this effects,our lands, including the lands where our personal houses where built on have been taking from us,rendering us homeless.In pursuance to this law,the so called natural inhabitants, the black Zimbabweans, have committed serious human rights violations in the process of forcefully taking our ands from us.Many of our white brothers were maimed, killed and rendered homeless.Those of us that are alive now live in fear.
As the victim of this inhuman treatment,I have been rendered homeless,that I now live in a village in the far north of Manica land,Zimbabwe,where I have to travel 100 kilometers to send this mail to you.We were hoping that the international community will come to our rescue,but this hope has been dashed since all we hear is that the international community is still appealing to the Zimbabwean government to reconsider the law,which clearly has fallen on deaf ears,since most of us have been relegated to abject poverty and homelessness while living in fear.All our properties have been confiscated including our bank accounts which have been frozen.The rest of us who managed to flee Zimbabwe at the inception of this law are now the lucky ones.
My dear friend,I have lost all I worked for all my life. As a tobacco farmer I have lost both my farm land and all my financial resources in Zimbabwe.I only have one hope left,which is to leave Zimbabwe alive.
I am using this medium to appeal to you to come to my rescue and that of my family by helping us get out of Zimbabwe to a safe abode,where we can start life afresh again.We have some money deposited with a courier firm in Amsterdam from an affiliate office in south africa enable us float an export and import company to facilitate the transportation of my farm produce which was costing us alot.I cannot reach the money because of my present isolation,moreover I do not have a bank account anymore in Zimbabwe to facilitate bank to bank transfer.I need your help to withdraw this money as all the documents neccessary for this withdrawal is still in my possession so that I can leave Zimbabwe as soon as possible and settle down with my family in your country.Please endeavour to try and help me as you will be greatly rewarded for your effort.
I thank you for your anticipated cooperation as I await your response to this mail.
Regards,
Julia Howard
.: posted by Zemlet 10:16 AM
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
Tell me where did you come from
give me your code
.: posted by Rappin 12:00 AM
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
The claws of fate
This is a still from one of my favorite black and white horror movies- The Brain That Wouldn't Die. If my brother Michael reads this he'll remember its one of those Creature Features we watched together on Saturday when we were supposed to be doing chores. I'm still like a madman at work, trying to keep up, working late and working weekends and all sorts of hours, this has been a real big opportunity, and I don't want to give anybody the chance to come and take away from me what I've fought so hard to get. My boss said you practically have to be 'endorsed' or sponsored to get anywhere at the company and shes completely right. The buzz seems to be good, which is GREAT, so not that got people feeling good I just need to maintain this altitude... I feel pretty fortunate to have gotten this break though.
.: posted by Rappin 11:26 PM
Thursday, January 16, 2003
A tale of coffee and deception
One of the many high tech jobs ive had found me at a place called 'C-Cube' in Milpitas. C-Cube was one of many corporations with a 3d looking cube as a logo in the once bustling Silicon Valley. The coffee area at work had two urns which you'd fill with filters and grounds just like a coffee pot, but that served 20 or so cups. I started noticing that the coffee got turkish, and if i poured a cup it disintegrated my tongue. I'd have to wait till the urn got empty ( took forever ) and make my own batch. One day i checked and realized that somebody was 'double portioning' the coffee grounds to make super strong elephant stun coffee, but i didn't know who it was. I was determined to find out.
So I waited and waited and finally I found him. One dorky looking guy with coarse brown hair and thick glasses.
"IT WAS YOU!" i pointed.
He looked shocked and amazed. Didn't everybody love black throat cancer death coffee? His face seemed to say. He was speechless.
"Maybe other people dont like it THAT strong." I looked at him sternly. He really didn't have much of a reaction. He looked at his shoes, mumbled and wandered off.
I just realized I don't have a good ending.
.: posted by Rappin 1:44 PM
Record of Our Deal
L: darks, tai
G: night
.: posted by Zemlet 1:13 PM
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
I have a new pet peeve
People who send you an email, then give you no chance to read it before they come over to your cube to talk about it. This, of course, means that to any questions you have they can answer, “That is in the e-mail”. When you realize they really have nothing to say that isn’t covered in this still-unread email (and won't divulge anything because, again, it is in the e-mail) you signal the end of the conversation with: “Oh good, I’ll read that e-mail then!” They reply, “No, no! It is good to talk about this- it is interactive.” INTERACTIVE
.: posted by Zemlet 12:44 PM
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
this is a test to see if blogTHIS works
.: posted by Zemlet 7:26 PM
Monday, January 13, 2003
Toilet Baby
There's an interesting discussion about babies, and how they tend to hang out in toilets on oaklog
.: posted by Rappin 6:24 PM
A Personal Journal Entry
I've been thinking a lot about journals, what they mean, etc. I commiserated with Lara about how sometimes the only time I write in mine is when I am frustrated and mad, and that is how I get it out. When I re-read them, I seem totally bitter and angry, because those are the only moments I've collected. I also tend to go ON AND ON (who me?) and get sidetracked on tangents easily, so one of the things I am trying to work on is to stay focused. So I've started on this kick, where I write a haiku per day, to capture the essence of the day in a short, structured format. The point is to stay focused on one thing while making sure that something goes into my journals on nice days too, so they are not all bitchy rants. Anyway, I wrote one the other day I keeping reading over again. Not sure why it particularly calls to me, but I thought it warranted re-publishing here:
it's all about work
he lives in lines of numbers
me in lines of boats
Last weekend, all George and I did, basically, was work… he is a programmer and I mostly help build marinas. Two totally different jobs and yet we are both consumed by them to the point that we work and think about work even on weekends. Not a bad thing, since we both have relatively fulfilling careers, just interesting how they contrast and how he and I contrast, and yet are similar.
Haikus are special to me, as attendees to our housewarming party may have guessed, and easy for me to compose. My other favorite poetry form is “boggle poetry”. I am planning on starting a thread on it soon to introduce a new generation to this poetry format (I think) I invented.
.: posted by Zemlet 1:52 PM
Saturday, January 11, 2003
no time to post but...
Both been terribly busy lately, lots of plans to meet with lots of people and lots of work on lots of weekends. Work doesnt look like its going to get any slower, unless for some reason my hands are eaten off by a wild boar. And speaking of that, I just got a brand new book - "Eaten Alive - Italian Cannibal and Zombie Movies", a gift I got for myself. Boy, it's truly right up my alley. I also started a new hobby. With the portable DVD player that I luckily won at the company party, and camera ellie bought me, I've been snapping photos of movie stills for a visual component of the B movie database im working on. Nobody but me likes these movies, it seems like, but they make me happy and remind me of when i was 12 years old, and KBHK would occiasionally play rated R uncut movies for the late show, usually of low caliber.
Anyway, I don't feel like updating my movie reviews right now, but I did take one photo I wanted to share, this one I like the best out of the lot that I took, for some reason its got a color saturation and phosphorous glow that are eerie and have a creepy horror feel to it. More pics and personal notes later...
.: posted by Rappin 11:59 PM
Wednesday, January 08, 2003
Maxis Coffee
is really india writing ink. A drop spilled and it ate through the formica counter in the kitchen.
.: posted by Rappin 3:44 PM
The N Word
I did a search for space nugs (no, I don't need a reason) and found this:
GEORGE: Or maybe it'll come up through the can and grab you by
the nugs.
MULDER: Someone's already got him by the nugs.
here This is a translation of an x-files epiode. Bizarre
.: posted by Zemlet 12:49 AM
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
the parking lot
Here is why I hate the parking lot at work:
 
Now clearly the red truck isn't even in a real space, he's created his own space because he's special and wants to create a magic buffer zone between his and other cars. The white sedan has decided to teach the truck a lesson by parking as close to him as possible, thereby eliminating said zone. I guess he's special too, so he's allowed to only park half in a space with the back end of his car blocking traffic. When you note how much of the parking space my little black car leaves behind it, I wonder if I am in danger of being parked behind next.
.: posted by Zemlet 2:38 PM
Monday, January 06, 2003
my dream
I had a dream I was being chased in a hospital by a 20ft tall orangutan and then I wound up in prison. Seemed like a normal dream at the time. It all started when i was watching a godzilla movie on TV, and this person said-- "you know there is a real one right? "
"really?" said I
"yeah." the person said
"Like Godzilla." I said.
"No like an ape" the person said.
"oh like king kong" I said.
"no like an orangutan" the person said.
and just then we started hearing thunderous shocks like mini earthquakes and the windows were breaking, i ran outside and started to run, into a crowd of hundreds of people, screaming, panicking and running in all directions. I found my way into a hospital and started to run up floor by floor, while the rumbling came closer and faded... that was the only way we could tell where the orangutan was.
big... orange... evil. I followed a secret passage out of the hospital and wound up with prison blues on, in a solitary cell upstairs in a maxium alcatraz like security prison.
.: posted by Rappin 1:47 PM
Sunday, January 05, 2003
tons of site improvements
We are all fired up about working on the web site for some reason- perhaps it is the new year. The biggest addition to the site is the new screen saver which will go up on the downloads page any minute now. I made a desktop theme to match it and posted one of the sounds and the wallpaper in my gallery. It has a calendar for this month which I think is handy but you might think is annoying. Wait, is that true? Please let me know in the comments below how you feel about the calendar. It can be anonymous and you won't hurt my feelings. Also rappinrobot has been coding on the opinions section again and added a cool new feature: most recent movie reviews. We changed the front page to list the ten latest additions to the site for folks who like to keep up on the latest happenings. Weve got a really cool project lined up to do next and some photos to post (ha what is new?) of Moss Man, etc. I made an AIM icon to announce the coming of the screen saver, click here to use it:
.: posted by Zemlet 2:03 PM
Thursday, January 02, 2003
Eternity
there is a small, but poignant conversation about eternity going on over at oaklog where Mitch says “eternity is how long it takes for the new mario kart game to come out”
.: posted by Zemlet 2:18 PM
Sludge City
It was like playing pipeworks. This pipe connects to that terminal connects to the 4 way, connects to the kitchen?
I had just run the garbage disposal and ellie said - "Did you hear that?"
"Yeah its just the water running through the pipes", George said smugly.
"No, LOOK!" Ellie pointed over to the laundry area where an inconspicous looking drainpipe was splashing out spaghetti water.
"AGHHHHHHHHHHHH" They both said and grabbed sponges and towels.
That was dec 31. We managed to mop up and throw a good party anyway. On Jan 1 we read our ' sunset
home manual' which actually explained pretty well what was happening to our plumbing. The main drain
was clogged. A few dad calls later, we assesed we'd need to call a roto rooter to come and unclog the main drain.
Lots of fun. Biggest roto-rooting part came at the end when 'robert' ( or so his name patch says ) gave me the price!
.: posted by Rappin 11:44 AM
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