The Oracle of Apollo Snippets from the life of Apollo Lee

Posts Tagged Miscellaneous

Hard Drive Meltdown

Right on the heels of my new gear, I began experiencing intermittent kernel panics, which led my operating system to stop booting. Pissed beyond all conceivable description, I headed to the Genius bar at my local Apple store to ask for an assist.
We scanned my hard drive, determined that it was okay, but realized [...]


RIP Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch succumbed today to complications from pancreatic cancer. This is really sad. He was an inspiration to everyone who knew him, even if we only knew him through his Last Lecture.
If you haven’t seen it, you must.

Rest in peace, Dr. Pausch.


Interesting Car Grumbles

After haggling with some local dealers about the 2009 Pontiac Vibe, the ultimate finalist for “Apollo’s Next Car”, I found that it was nearly impossible to find one with the Preferred Package (Power Windows, Power Door Locks, Cruise Control) and the AC in a car with a manual transmission. After I located one in [...]


Car Shopping Saturday

I’m in the market for a new car. Well, not necessarily a brand new car, but a good late-model used car to replace my current purple car. I drive a 1994 Chevy Cavalier Z-24, which I bought in 1996. I’ve put 145,000 miles on it in the 12 years I’ve had it [...]


Goodbye, Consumating

A little while ago, Ben Brown, the founder of Consumating (my favorite social network ever), mentioned in twitter that CNET is shutting the old girl down.
According to Waxy.org, the last day is March 15.
“Though there hasn’t been an official statement from CNET on the matter, sources close to the company confirmed that the shutdown date [...]


Earthquake

Oooh, did you feel that? It shook my entire house. I had just finished making my ravioli, carrying it to my coffee table, and starting a movie when the rumble started. It looks like the USGS has the earthquake information. 5.6 on the Richter Scale.
That’ll get the blood pumping.
No damage at [...]


D-Day +23,011

On this day 63 years ago, my grandfather and nearly three million Allied soldiers invaded France in the largest seaborne invasion of all time. He came ashore on Omaha Beach in his tank, after the infantry had cleared the way for the armored divisions.
After this invasion, Grandpa stayed in Europe for almost three more [...]


CBS buys Last.fm

CBS Corporation has purchased Last.fm. $280 million? Wow. (<nod target=”Metafilter” />).
I’m a last.fm subscriber and have been for quite some time. Many of my friends are there, but I don’t interact much with last.fm. I primarily just listen to music in my local iTunes Library and check out my charts [...]


Memorial Day

Group, attenTION.
Present ARMS.
<salute><music song=”Taps” /> Order ARMS.</salute>
Dismissed.
(In memory of American soldiers, past and present, who fought, bled, and died.)


Feeling Cory’s Pain

Cory Doctorow tells of his experience with Fox Rent-A-Car in Oakland. I’ve had pretty good luck with Fox. It’s generally the only rental car place at the San Jose airport that will take my debit card (I also don’t carry a major non-debit credit card). That must have changed recently.
But, when I [...]


Confused Yelpers

Ozreiuosn came by this evening to hang out, play video games, and eat some food. After snooping around on Yelp (on which I am behind on my reviews from a road trip and the time since), we found an Italian joint called Luigi’s Pizza and Pasta, which has 4½ stars. So, off we [...]


Tragedy in Vandal Country

Yesterday, a gunman killed three and wounded two in my college town of Moscow, Idaho. The gunman killed a Moscow Police Department officer, Lee Newbill, and an elderly church caretaker, Paul Bauer, before turning the gun on himself.
Having lived on the Palouse while attending the University of Idaho from 1992 until 1999, a tragedy [...]


Maker Faire 2007

Today, I went to Maker Faire at the San Mateo Exhibition Center in San Mateo. After walking around the sprawling event for over three hours, I was quite exhausted. There were a huge number of activities, from arts and crafts to robots to flame throwers to smart cars, there. As I entered [...]


New SlackMistress Project

My friend, SlackMistress is starting a podcast which will prove very insightful to us all (and quite useful to all of us who are single), entitled The Geek’s Guide to Dating. She needs your help, though. If you have questions about dating and relationships, particularly if you’re a fan of geeks, get in [...]


Serenity DVD

Well, the day finally came. I bought Serenity after work today. First, I went to Fry’s, who sold out of it. Then, I headed to the Borders near my house. Borders has 50 of them or so. $19.99 with a coupon on it for $10 off Battlestar Galactica series DVDs.

There [...]


Serenity

Oh, my goodness, that was a phenomenal movie. Joss Whedon brings back Firefly back to the big screen in a two hour romp that kept my eyes wide open the whole time.

After my ride this afternoon, I picked up Daniel and his buddy (Casey?). We headed over to Shoreline Century Cinema 16 in [...]


It’s Almost Here

There’s no place I can be,
since I found Serenity –
But, you can’t take the sky from me.

Serenity opens nation-wide on September 30, which is the Friday approaching. My friends, Daniel and Michelle, and I are going to see it at Century Cinemas 16 on Shoreline in Mountain View at 10:30 pm Friday night. [...]


Say It Ain’t So

Yesterday, Kepler’s, the incredible bookstore in downtown Menlo Park, shut its doors forever. It’s a really sad turn of events, because I really loved Kepler’s. I currently live about three blocks away and over the last couple of years, I’ve gone quite often. It’s probably the greatest independent bookstore in the Bay [...]


Goodbye, Knowspam

On July 22, 2004, I ordered a year of service from KnowSpam, a web-based spam killing solution, involving approvals, denials, good senders, and bad senders. I have been ecstatically satisfied with the service I have received. As of this moment, almost forty thousand spams have been blocked.

Today, I received a rather [...]


Sin City

Tonight, I went to see Sin City (2005) with Daniel in San José. He brought me a €5 note from his recent trip to Italy and bought the tickets. Thanks, Daniel, next time it’s all on me, baby.

This movie kicks ass. It’s based on the graphic novels of Frank Miller. Most [...]


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