Website Updates

In a violent outbreak of free time caused by staying home for spring break, I have made some additions/changes to the website.

The Pictures section is now powered by the Coppermine Photo Gallery. This will make it easier for me to add new pictures/images, which I plan to do in the next spurt of free time that decides to come my way. So, probably, summer.

I am also proud to say that The Lazy Cookbook has quintupled in size since its inception. And, a whole 20% of the recipes have been contributed by other people!!! In addition, the Heart Attack Bacon Sandwich, being the first Lazy Cookbook recipe to reach 69 views, has been placed in the X Rated category.

Finally, I have started my work on the Motion Analysis and Visualization Engine. Click on it to find out more, basically it is a collection of things I am working on for work/school.


AJ called me today from San Francisco, and spoke of crazy times, going out, getting drunk, and transvestites. In retrospect, I think it would have been a better choice to go to San Francisco with her and send all the things I've been able to get done by staying home for spring break to hell.

Podlings speak Croatian

I just got done watching Jim Henson's movie "Dark Crystal", and am very astonished to say that the Podling creatures from the movie speak Croatian (or Bosnian, or Serbian). They use a heavily accented version of the language, but not accented enough not to be noticed.

I am also amazed that I couldn't find any information on the internet that would comment on how and why this happened to be. Which is why I'm writing this post now, in hopes that someone else that noticed the same thing sees it and tells me I'm not crazy. Well, at least not crazy in thinking that Podlings speak Croatian.

As an example, the first time Kira (who speaks Podling) sees Jen, she says "Odakle?", which means "Where from?". Also, the world "Dole", which means "Down", is used liberally throughout the movie to say "Stay down", "Let me down"... The cool thing here is that some guy (a Mr. Curt Markham) figured out from the movie that "Dole" in Podling means "Down", and posted that information on a Dark Crystal trivia page. I have to say that is pretty impressive! A few more words and he can go vacation in Croatia and talk to the locals.

Going back to the Podling-Croatian word list, when Podlings find Kira and Jen, they are happy and they shout "Gozba!" which means party or feast. Of course, they then throw a party. At the party, someone says to Jen, "Lijepa Kira?", and all the other podlings laugh. "Lijepa Kira?" means "Pretty Kira?". Also, when Jen asks how to say "Thank you", he is told "Hvala Vam", which indeed means thank you.

When Jen calls for the Landstriders, she says "Stani tamo" (stop over there) and "Dobar" (good/ good boy). Another example comes at the end of the movie, when a Podling being carried to have his essence removed shouts struggling "Pusti!" which means "Let go!". He adds, "Dole!". Let me down, eh...

There were more words that seemed to potentially have Croatian origin, but I'll have to take a better look to decipher them. If anyone else caught any, please let me know!

I should have been a detective

Last friday night I did something extremely stupid. I left my keys hanging in the lock of the door to my apartment. On the outside. Where the community balcony/walkway is.

Of course, I didn't immediately realize I did that. The next morning, when I needed to get ready to go to Sedona, I couldn't find my keys. This is a fairly common occurence for me, so after a while I gave up looking, assembled a set of spares and left. When I came back, I still couldn't find the keys. At this point, I started considering the possibility that this time, I really managed to lose them.

On Sunday I convinced myself of this even further, when I assembled a feasable explanation in support of the fact. It went something like this.

One of my neighbors is a really nice lady that I often see smoking outside her door on the balcony. We always say hi to each other and exchange a few words every once in a while. Friday afternoon, when I came home after school, I heard the very annoying sound of adolescents talking much too loudly. To my surprise, they were with my neighbor. OK, so I assumed that they were her children that haven't been living with her, and are hopefully here to visit and not to permanently move in. I said hi, went inside, left for my performance, went shopping, came back home, and went to bed.

Soon afterwards, I heard the annoying sound of adolescents talking much too loudly before going out, followed in a few hours by the sound of adolescents talking much too loudly after going out, followed by the sound of adolescents talking much too loudly before deciding to finally go back inside and shut up. At the end of all that loudness, which I understand is unavoidable since I have failed to avoid causing much of myself over the years, I heard a very disturbing sound - what I thought to be the sound of my doorknob turning. I jumped up and glared at my door but nothing happened. I attributed the messing with my doorknob to kids being drunk and stupid, and went back to sleep. When I woke up, I found that my lock was sort of half open, which I thought was weird, but didn't think anything of it immediately.

When I later realized my keys were missing, I considered the possibility of having left them hanging in the lock. Using the spare key, I played with the scenario of unlocking the lock from the outside, then locking it from the inside, and then taking the key out from the outside. I found that it was possible to do it in a way that caused the lock to remain half open, and I also found that the process created sounds much like the "doorknob turning" sound I heard that night.

I finally decided that I did, in fact, leave keys hanging in the door, probably because I was tired, and I had to bring in groceries, and I have far too many brain cells missing. I also decided that the sound I heard in the night was the sound of my keys being taken out of the lock. Or, as I thought of it metaphorically later, the sound of my life getting unlocked. I also decided that the kids that took the key were probably the same kids I saw with my neighbor that day. Of course, I didn't really trust my judgement all that much so I wasn't about to go confront her about it.

Damn it. I had lost my apartment keys, my car keys, and my work keys. Whoever took them knew exactly where I lived, and even more stupidly, my car keys say "For Hyundai" on them. And that's exactly what I drive, and there aren't too many of them in the surrounding parking lot. I was somewhat amazed by the fact that by Sunday, my apartment still had all my stuff in it, and that no one had stolen my car.

I immediatelly had my apartment lock changed, and that made me feel much better. I took a very nice and relaxing nap after that. I also contemplated having my car locks changed, and feared telling people at work that I had lost keys to two of our spaces.

Then, as I was leaving my apartment to go to work, I saw my neighbor. We said hi. I paused for a second. "Did you happen to see a set of keys out here by any chance?"... She looked at me. "Oh, those are your keys?" She went back inside and came out with my keys in her hand. "My son said he found them lying around here somewhere the other night at like 2AM".

Well, it was more like 3AM, and he found them lying around in my lock, but, whatever. At least I had my keys back. And I the "deduction of events based on evidence" part of my ego got a nice little stroking. I should have been a detective :).