Archive for August, 2008

  • 24 Aug

    Posted by
    mizidy


    Category

    Thinking of Hera

    6

    They say that writing helps people through difficult times, I thought I would give it a go. Many of you know that Rebekah and I have three cats, Purrball, Star and Hera. In the last week, Hera had a major change in personality for reasons yet unknown to us. The long and the short of it is, she now attacks the other two cats as if she does not know them with little to no provocation. She did this first Monday night and then again on Friday.  We have to keep her isolated, which causes her to cry throughout the night.  Because of this, we are boarding her until we can get into the vet this Tuesday. All of this information is purely factual, and some of you may say that all of this work is not worth it for a cat. I won't argue that she is "just a cat, " but the fact of the matter is, she is part of our family, and as our family will grow in March, it is difficult to possibly lose a member of that family now.

    I want to describe Hera a little now to share with you some of what makes Rebekah and I happy every day.  Hera has more personality that Purrball and Star put together.  We love both Purrball and Star just as much as Hera, but I know that Rebekah and I could not handle three cats with as much personality as Hera.  In the morning when Rebekah eats breakfast, Hera hops up next to her to say and to try and sneak a bit of breakfast.  Hera doesn't even like what Rebekah is having, she is just so curious to see what it is.  And that is Hera's defining trait, curiousity, sometimes to the point of annoyance, but always to the smile of Rebekah or myself.  She has this amazing ability to make either of us smile, even in difficult times.  That is what makes not having her here so tough, she brings a joy to our lives that cannot be replaced easily.

    We still don't know what will happen with Hera.  Rebekah and I are hoping and praying she will be able to come home and go back to normal, that it is some goofy physical thing that can be fixed and next weekend I can write about how great it is.  If that isn't the case though, I hope that others can think of Rebekah and me and of Hera too, that we call can find life just as joyous as we did two weeks ago.

    Hera in the Fridge

    Hera in the Fridge

    You can click on the picture above to find all of the pictures on Flickr of Hera.

    P.S. Sorry if this makes you cry Rebekah :(

  • 22 Aug

    Posted by
    mizidy


    Category

    Photosynth

    0

    I hate to put something that is Windows only as my pick, but Photosynth is too damn cool to avoid.  Microsoft is allowing people to upload pictures of locations and spaces and then using magic technology, creating 3D experiences for them.  You do have to have a MS Passport account to sign up, but after you do, you can create your own experiences as well on there using your own photos.  It is still buggy at times and requires IE, but it is worth a look just to see what can be done.

  • 16 Aug

    Posted by
    mizidy


    Category

    Pandora

    0

    I couldn't believe I hadn't made this a pick yet, so I figured I had to throw it out there.  Pandora is a internet radio service that learns what you like and don't like in an effort to introduce you to new music.  You start off by giving it an artist you like, then plays a song by them.  After that first song, it makes a guess about another song you might like.  You can then give it a thumbs up or thumbs down to help Pandora learn.  This keeps going as long as you like, occasionally going back to songs you marked with a thumbs up.  The best part, it is all free, with the limitation that it only is available in the US and UK.  If you are a music person and havn't taken a look at Pandora, give it a whirl.

  • 11 Aug

    Posted by
    mizidy


    Category

    Song of the Summer

    1

    Every summer there seems to be one song that becomes unexpectedly popular, and is typically a one-hit wonder.  For example, in 2006 we had Hey There Delilah.  You couldn't turn on the radio without hearing it that summer.  It is a good song, but I bet you can't stand hearing it.  All of those are defining traits for the Song of the Summer.  Since it is August already and I have been listening to some radio on our travels over the last three weeks, I spent sometime trying to think what this summer's song is. After some pondering, I have decided on Time to Pretend by MGMT.  Not to say that the rest of their album isn't decent, but it won't catch on like Time to Pretend and could prove to be a one-hit wonder.  Now I realize my music world is a bit different than others, so feel free to throw out other songs as your Song of the Summer

  • 11 Aug

    Posted by
    mizidy


    Category

    DVDPedia

    2

    Rebekah and I have been tossing around a shared movie database where we could keep track of the movies we have, what we have watched, and an easy way to pick a movie to watch.  After some planning, it was going to be an elaborate web database project.  Thinking that would take a fair amount of time, I investigated a program that might be able to handle this already and stumbled upon DVDPedia from Bruji.  For 18 bucks, you get searching and importing data from the web, a customizable interface and smart folders to make that list of romance movies under 90 minutes.  As a bonus, Bruji also released a free app for the iPhone called PocketPedia that does the same stuff and can sync with the desktop application.  If you are trying to organize stuff and maxed out the usefulness of the Amazon Media Collection, I would recommend checking this out.