Blog Master G

If you haven’t read yesterday’s Doonesbury strip, check it out. It’s pure genius.

Some asshole with no life on a street corner is going to cost me $173.

I almost went to Brand X Antiques to look at wedding rings after my haircut in the Castro this afternoon; I decided against it. Feeling my enthusiastic energy from this morning slowing down a bit, I almost went home; I decided against it. Instead, I pressed on with my afternoon plan to visit Best Buy to look at digital camcorders.

Had I looked at rings or went home, I could have saved $173. On my way from the Castro to the much seedier SOMA district of San Francisco, I rounded a dark corner under the freeway — made darker still by my sunglasses and the overcast day — to be greeted by a bastard throwing shit toward my car. It was all a blur. It happened so fast I didn’t realize what was even happening. I still can’t be sure, but from what I can gather, the bum threw a handful of scrap metal, glass shards, and nails at my car.

Fuming with anger, I proceeded to the Best Buy parking lot to inspect for damage, fearing the worse. What I found was not a scraped or dented fender (thank God), but a big-ass nail shoved through the side of my right rear tire. I was pissed.

It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Some asshole once dented the quarter panel of the Achieva as I drove past him on Market Street.

I proceeded to Mark Morris Tires for an assessment of the damage. The nail was too deep to patch the tire, so I’ll need to buy a new one. But my RE92 205/55 16″ V-rated Potenzas are apparently pretty rare — and expensive — so I’ll be driving with nail-in-tire until Monday, when I’ll have to fork out $173 thanks to something I could have possibly prevented. (They go for $127 at TireRack, but then there’s shipping fees and having to pay a shop to mount and balance it.)

But alas, the universe had something else in store for me today.

(For the record, the same tire in a faster Z-rated model is actually less expensive — it’s $103. I almost got it, and I’m sure it would’ve been fine, but I’m pretty anal about my WRX and didn’t want tires with mismatched treads. My other three tires are still practically new, or I would’ve opted for Zs all the way around. This was almost an excuse to invest in 17s or 18s and low-profile tires, but $173 isn’t quite the couple grand a doper setup would cost.)

Random WRX link to cheer me up: Car and Driver long-term WRX road test.

My beautiful Jen is on a plane on her way to New York. She’s leveraging Memorial Day weekend to attend her bridal shower and take care of other wedding tasks. So it’s just me and the dogs through Wednesday. I miss her already. Good thing absence makes the heart grow fonder.

After dropping off Jen at the Oakland Airport bright ‘n early on this damp, overcast day (why is it that every time I wash my car it rains mere days later?), the dogs and I headed to Point Isabel for some dog action. They ran around and, thankfully, didn’t start any fights with other dogs, though they came close a couple times. Stella went for a swim in the canal and Happy, running along a diagonal concrete structure to keep an eye on his sister, slipped into the water, which he hates. So now they’re both calmly resting, which I hope lasts for a good part of the day.

It’s just before 10am on Saturday morning. To sit on the cusp of a three-day weekend and have it wide open is a great feeling of freedom and anticipation. I often fear wasting time — not taking advantage of each precious day to have fun whilst charging through that endless to do list. And do this weekend I will. Despite having woken up at 6:30 this morning, I feel energetic, ready to dive into the aggressive list I’ve already prepared (which I’m documenting here as incentive to get through as much of it as I can):

1. Call in & pick up new prescription
2. Schedule & get haircut
3. Mail wedding invitations (complete as of last night!)
4. Go to Best Buy to shop for digital camcorder
5. Go to Black Oak Books to buy real estate investing books
6. Begin to read real estate books
7. Hang out with Dad
8. Fax FBN statement to newspaper
9. Create Web-based contact management system for Marin Breast Cancer Watch (or, if it turns out to be too complicated, inform them I don’t have the time)
10. Work on 100 Faces Productions Web site
11. Put allergy lotion on dogs
12. Research dance lessons for the wedding
13. Follow-up with limousine company re: contract
14. Give Stella her evening medication while Jen’s away
15. Go to open houses on Sunday
16. Go to Farouk’s Memorial Day BBQ in the park (if it’s not raining)
17. Remember to eat three meals per day
18. Clean house
19. Party

Phew. Think I have enough to keep busy for the next phew (I couldn’t resist) days?

GeoURL is just the beginning. Mikel Maron has taken the concept of geo-blogging to the extreme with his incredible, real-time application, the World as a Blog. Leveraging a Flash-based world map — complete with light-dark indication — combined with Weblogs.com, geocoding, and RSS, the map shows a pop-up display of blog name and corresponding geographic indicator within a minute or two of when the blog is updated. Click on the notice and you’re whisked off to the just-updated blog.

You can even “sign in” to the map with your geocoded blog to see who else is watching the map.

(Thanks, Mikel, for bringing your kick-ass application to my attention.)

Update: Below is a screenshot of the World as a Blog in action just after I posted Home Alone (it works!):

I just posted the following message on craigslist and would appreciate input from anyone who may read it here, too. Please post a comment or contact me directly.

My fiancee and I want to buy property in SF – hopefully in early 2004. We currently live in the Inner Sunset and love the neighborhood. I’m not a realtor and don’t know a whole lot about real estate investing, but am very interested in it.

What’s the best approach to getting into the real estate investment business? For our first home, should we focus on getting a single-family house or look into a multi-unit building? It seems to make a lot of sense for a number of reasons to go the multi-unit building approach (greater equity with a tenant or two who pay for a portion of the mortgage; tax write-offs; etc.).

From what I understand, we could likely be approved for a larger loan if we’re buying a multi-unit building, since the rental income is factored into the equation. Given that, I’m estimating that we could afford somewhere in the $500k range for a single-residence home or upwards of $750k for a multi-unit building.

I’d greatly appreciate any pointers or guidance.

Thanks,
Gabe

GeoURL ICBM Address Server: Creating a virtual map of the Web based on the author’s physical location. Find out who in your neighborhood has a Web presence. Very cool concept. Here’s the listing of San Francisco sites.

[via Scripting News]

In college a friend and I were known around campus as the Mac Macks. It was 1995/1996 and I worked in the on-campus (Apple) Computer Store (this links to the site I built at the time, not the current, “official” site). Dan and I made it our duty to visit all the freshman girls with our suite of Mac extensions and requisite campus software, such as Broadcast (BC), in hand. Of course, we had our customized version of BC that we installed on every girl’s computer, along with a special audio extension we had hacked via ResEdit to promote ourselves upon startup.

My favorite Mac extension, though, was one that created a walkie-talkie like feature between two Macs on the network (anyone remember what this was called?). Once, after working on a hallmate’s Mac, we covertly installed this extension on her Mac, returned to our room, and proceeded to speak to her in a deep, “This is the Mac God” style voice. We spied on her and the others in her room from down the hall and watched everyone freak out. The looks on their faces were priceless.

[NSLog(); – QotD: Old Extensions]

This is hilarious: Bush & Blair at the Gay Bar. Be sure to watch it all the through, even after the pause. I love it.

[via bit.ch]

I received a notice last night that TypePad is getting closer to launching its much-anticipated service. There’s an FAQ and a bunch of screenshots. Looks good to me. I’m excited to see the beta once available.

This just in…the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, has appointed Jeb Bush to rule Iraq. That kind of luck must run in the family.

“The new Iraqi President gave credit for his selection to ChoicePoint, the US Corporation he hired to ensure his brother’s victory in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. Using their surefire “Florida Formula,” ChoicePoint “scrubbed” tens of thousands votes for Bush’s opponents to ensure democracy in Iraq.”

(Thanks, Jen, for the link.)