05.14.06
Posted in Geekdom, Personal, Humor at 7:56 am by Leopoldo
The People With A Sense Of Humor (PWASOH) mailing list was started in 1991 when I sent a joke to a set of co-workers and got cheers from some and jeers from others who did not want their message boxes (this was before email) filled up with crap. I let people know that they could be added to the ‘People with a sense of humor’ list if they wanted to get more jokes and that anyone could be added or dropped at any time. Over time the list grew to friends, their friends, their friends’ relatives, people who they happened to chat with at a coffee shop.
Sometime around 1997 a picture I posted of an airport hangar filled with fire-retardant foam got passed around aviation web sites and my web server (running out of a closet in my home) was brought down to it’s knees as traffic increased 200 fold overnight. The following hundreds of requests to be added to the list forced a move from personal email management to a Yahoo Group where people could sign up and drop off as they wished.
I knew the list had ‘made it’ when, during a vacation in Hawaii, a perfect stranger stopped me on a street corner to ask if I was ‘that joke guy’. Honest engine, it really happened. The encounter left me a bit dumfounded but was neither the first nor the last. Then in 2001 disaster struck. Read the rest of this entry »
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02.22.06
Posted in Personal at 8:33 am by Leopoldo
Edward Gorey was born on February 22, 1925. Thank you Edward for all the wonderful drawings and poems. And thank you Allie for the Gorey Calendar. I enjoy it daily.
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09.15.05
Posted in Geekdom, Personal, Movie Making at 1:16 pm by Leopoldo
Premiere
I just got the latest issue of Premiere Magazine in the mail and found myself smiling like a kid in a candy store. At one point Wired was the magazine I used to happily read cover to cover, but I have found that is no longer so. I take this as a symptom of my gradual evolution from techno-geek with a side of film to film-geek with a side of techno. It feels good.
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08.22.05
Posted in Personal, Movie Making at 9:27 pm by Leopoldo
For the first time in years I managed to get sunburned today. If I know I will be out on the sun I (almost) always apply sun-block but today I found myself on a location-shoot with no sun-block in the car. I somehow thought the partial overcast together with the tan I got over summer would protect me but obviously I was wrong. The pain is a good reminder.
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08.12.05
Posted in Geekdom, Personal at 1:50 pm by Leopoldo
Yes, today is my birthday and I am two to the fifth. That may seem insignificant to most, but hey I’m a geek here and we are kind of trained to think in Binary. Pretty cool, wont happen again for another 32 years either.
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08.05.05
Posted in Personal at 5:37 pm by Leopoldo
On Tuesday 8/2 I was laid off my job at Xerox. The layoff caught me partially by surprise, I knew they were planning on cutting 2,600 jobs, I even knew there was going to be a re-org on Tuesday morning, I just did not know mine was one of the heads up for the axe. I spent Tuesday morning in a bit of disbelief (mixed with some disgust at how they handled the affair) and the rest of the day in quiet repose and reflection. By Thursday morning the feeling of unease had turned to one of contentment and ease. At first I thought I was in some state of denial, but the more time went by and the more I think about it, the more I realize this could actually be a very good thing. Let’s take stock:
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06.14.05
Posted in Personal at 11:02 am by Leopoldo
I am accepting the smell meme from Victor:
Total Volume of Smells:
My volume of smells is probably best split into different books. There are group of smells that are distinct and seldom interact, some books are seldom opened. A fascinating occurrence that has taken place a few times is when I suddenly find a smell I have not experienced for years and my mind races to identify the item and where I know it from. This occurs with the most frequency when I am traveling, for example on my recent trips to France and to Colombia both I found scents I had not smelled from my childhood.
The last smell I bought:
Lavender soap bars from a village near Rochester UK. This is a gift for Briana.
Smell I am Smelling right now:
This week I am not smelling much of anything since my allergies are raging. I can however smell the fresh coffee brewed by Elaine who sits in the cube next to me. It is a good smell and kind of gives me a bit of a caffeine fix without having to actually drink any of the stuff.
Five smells I smell a lot that mean a lot to me:
1. Lavender: It can calm me down like nothing else around. I have a lot of lavender scented items at home
2. Nectarines / Cherries / Raspberries / Apples : I love fruit, specially fresh berries. I love summer because I know I get to buy local fresh berries by the pound and enjoy the hell out of them.
3. Hops: I enjoy going to microbreweries and tasting the fresh crisp beers. A lot of my favorite places brew on the spot which makes for a good association with hops.
4. Fresh bread: When I was a little kid I used to always keep a nickel in my pocket (actually a Colombian 10 cent coin, but you get the idea). If I ever felt hungry I would smell the air and follow my nose to the local bakery (every neighborhood has a local bakery) and get a hot bun.
5. The smell of my girl: I can tell when she enters the room or is nearby. I can smell when she has been in the room. Sometimes smelling her appear short circuits my brain and makes me loose attention of whatever I am doing and concentrate on her.
Two smells I hate:
1. Fish: I am allergic to fish and it smells like poison to me. I have had to walk out of fishy restaurants.
2. Unknown flower: There is some flower local to Portland that smells kind of like a Lily and I find repugnant. I don’t know what it is called but it is small white and grows all over a mid to large sized flowering bush. There was one of these on the corner of the block I lived in my first two years in Portland and I had to either hold my breath or walk four blocks around to avoid it. Other people seem to like it.
Three People I am passing the meme baton to:
Sven who is in touch with his senses
Mari who digs these kind of things and who has moved me to answer many a quiz before
Michael to see if he will bother with this triffle.
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10.03.04
Posted in Personal at 8:05 pm by Leopoldo
Evil Willow is hot.
…
But then, we knew that already.
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09.10.04
Posted in Personal at 9:16 am by Leopoldo
I found myself giggling with excitement as Carl sent me the message that he had finished viewing season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I picked up the package on Tuesday night with express intent to NOT delve into it but finish the movies I was in mid-watching and wait for a free weekend to re-acquaint myself with the Whedonverse… oh foolish, foolish heart. I had to peek… I had to know… I had to see how the season started. I quickly realized that I needed to re-watch the end of season five before starting on season six. Many hours later I found I had re-watched the season 5 end, both episodes that make up the start of season six and did not find sleep until I had consumed the last episode on the disc. I now take a rest and wait to acquire Angel season 3 so I may again start the process of alternating a disc of Buffy with a disc of Angel in order to enjoy the occasional cross-over moments. I unfortunately know some of the surprises that await in Season Six, even with rigorous attempts at maintaining naiveté, one sometimes reads a line realizing too late it is laden with spoilers. I look forward to them and beg my friends who have completed the series continue to guard my tainted innocence by restricting buffyversation to whispered conversations and uttered sentences behind my back… I will catch up yet. I promise.
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06.01.04
Posted in Personal at 7:49 pm by Leopoldo
I enjoyed reading Mari’s answers to these questions and thought I would try it out as well.
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