moving day

I have now moved this site to it's new home where I have some more controll over the layout and styling. You can now find my blog at http://brad.bradandkarin.com

Is this thing on? tap.. tap..

www.bradandkarin.com has gone live. I can take a breather now. It was my very first site to use CSS, I think it came out alright for a first pass. Still need to add the photo gallery, that will be soon. In other news im back to work, a commercial at that, nothing to hard but decent work. Let's see, since I last posted Karin and I went crazy with the whole Registering thing. You think it would be fun and easy? It was at home depot, at Macy's however they seemed to want to make it as fustrating as possible. They have the cool laser scanner's there where you just point it at the barcode of what you want and you are good to go. In theory. The interface on this gadget was designed by someone who ... I can't come up with the words, it's horrid, it sucked, It's just so bad it made my brain hurt trying to use it. If you never used a computer for g-d forbid an Ipod this thing could seem very logical but If you have ever used something that used batterys before it's just pain. Check out this logic, you scan a piece of china (dishs) and it pops up with a message saying it's part of a set, do you want service for 12. The logical thing to think is, yes I do. Turns out that was a bad move on my part. While it did add service for 12, not a one of sku numbers matched up with that set they had on the floor. In order to remove them you have to go back to there Registry manager and they have to clear it from there end. Want to list all the items you have scanned? too bad, you have to scroll back and forth one item at a time with back and next. Did I mention the crashes? The thing is a dedicated device (running windows mobile) It has one function, and like a totaly of 5 functions, how hard can that be to debug? (add, delete, next item, last item, change amount). LOL it was maddness!! :D
So after 5 1/2 hours at Macy's (not kidding) we went to home depot. Turns out at HD they have no scanners, no terminals, nothing at the store itself. It's all done via HomeDepot.com, so we wrote down the part numbers for all the stuff we wanted to add to the registry, (Air Tools!) wen't home, keyed them in, and it was done. Slick interface they have on there website to, once you create an account and log in there normal shoping site adds a button below add to card, "add to registry" and that's all there was to it. Next up on the Registry list Sur La Table, Amazon.com, mabye even froogle.com

In other news I am listening to the Greenskeepers "Lotion", that song never gets old, also listening to Black Betty by Spiderbait. As heard in Need 4 Speed Underground on the PSP and the Dukes of Hazzard Trailer.

Oh and google went and released one of my favorite software products for free, (I have had it for 4 years at $70 a year) Earthviewer. Now called Google Earth, yea they read snowcrash too.

life

I am back to work after a nice vacation, I am busy getting ready for a toyota commerical we are doing and working on Karin and I's new website. Coming soon, no realy!

Life is good, Sabbat Shalom!!

Life without Stress

Life without Stress is good, oh so good. While I do have some stress, it's nothing compared to while the film was being worked on. Now I am busy getting examples of our work ready for Siggraph. Looks like I will get my first paper published and be part of a group giving a talk there. Karin and I are heading out East this weekend, we have a week chock full of stuff to do in Philly and NJ. It will be nice being home. I have heard reports of thunderstorms. I miss thunderstorms out here. I really do. My Mom was never a big fan of them but I could never get enough, I would stand in the garage and look out at the clouds and rain waiting for the lighting. I guess my head was always in the clouds. Now 1/2 the people who sit near me get paid to make clouds that look just like that. Life is cool. By friend Erik posted that he is going to England with his GF. Ass. How the heck to you get to tour the MINI plant before me? Never a jet pack around when you need one. I finally broke down and bought a PS2, yea I am not kidding, I avoided it this long. I mostly got it for two games I played at E3. We (heart) Katamari and Destroy all Humans. I played each one on the show floor for over an hour. Few games hold me for more than a few minutes these days, except CoH, yea still addicted, damn you NCsoft with your fun plot lines and near perfect creativity outlet of a Superhero Creator. Anyway back to the rambling, Katamari is the sequel to Katamari Damacy, This game is too hard to explain, it's simple and fun but VERY visual. You are a 3" creature rolling around a giant sticky ball that can grab anything smaller than it, the ball gets bigger and it can get bigger things, get it over 2m and you can stick people to it. It even shows there names when you roll over them. Karin thinks these are the names of people the game developers didn't like. Imortalized as a person yelling on the side of a giant ball. It's just pure fun. Destroy all Humans on the other side is a deep story driven 3rd person perspective run and gun hybrid with a flying game. You start off as some random minion of an invasion force coming to earth, you have Psy abilities and cool ray guns. You also have a UFO with a death ray and tractor beam. The game is funny, fun, silly, and down right cool, very smooth gameplay. A big plus to any game where you can lift up a cow with your mind and throw it at a farmer. I mean come on, that's awesome. Katamari is PS2 only, Destroy is PS2 and Xbox.

Ok now separate from that whole rant, On Monday night I had the privilege to hear a Shoah survivor speak at our temple. I have to say that if you have never heard someone who personally survived the holocaust speak then you need too, and soon. There generation is dying out. While the Shoah Foundation and recorded over 50,000 survivors, hearing it in person is better. She and her Sister managed to make it through together, They later found there younger brother. She lost both her parents and there youngest sister. So I urge you, if you have not, to go and listen to there story in person.

Blog's of Old

Check this one out, Karin, I, the Rav, and the rest of our torah study group where going over the Psalms. So it accured to me reading Psalms 41 that these things read like blog posts. I am not kidding, read them for yourself. They are 3000 year old blog posts. The first line is always a title or who it's about, It's like the subject line in a blog.
Ok tell me if this seems like something you may have read on blogspot or live journal?

As for me, I said: G-d, be gracious to me and heal my soul for I have sinned.
My enemies speak evil of me, they say 'When will he die and his name perish?'
If one come to see me, he lies to me, says nice things; when he leaves, he speaks evil of me.
All of them hate me and whisper together against me, they are all ploting against me:
'I hope he stays sick, and dies, and stays dead.'
Yet, mine own friends, in whom I trust, who did ate at my house, now that I am down they kick me.
But G-d, be gracious unto me, and raise me up, that I may repay them.
By this I know that you delightest in me, that my enemy does not triumph over me.
And as for me, You uphold me because of mine integrity, and settest me before Thy face for ever.

I edited it a bit, tried to go closer to the hebrew. the JPS version is here. So look at the other 149 Psalms, It's like the best of craigslist, ok it's more like blogger but I liked the idea.