Archive for July 2006

Who is Tex Murphy?

You may have seen the title of this post scratched in any number of places around the web, on the side of your local highway, or on a friendly donkey walking down the sidewalk.

Chances are you haven’t. It’s the start of a grass roots campaign by a very small but dedicated group of Tex Murphy fans. Introduced to the world in 1989, Tex is a down-on-his-luck 1930’s style private investigator living a hundred years too late in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco. There were five video games and a one-hour radio play produced.

A huge fan of Tex Murphy, I am doing my part by creating a wiki dedicated to the collection and preservation of information about Tex. You can check it out at www.texopedia.com (pops), although there’s nothing there yet but a bare-bones install of MediaWiki. I, along with some other people, plan to add content to it in the coming weeks.

Peanut Butter Mayhem Part 3

High time for a peanut butter update I says.

So the peanut butter is starting to pull away from the jar even more, but I realized there’s a fairly substantial ridge of the stuff helping buttress the mountain. My project for the next week or so is to dig away at that ridge until the mountain is no longer supported. Will it topple? Or will it simply sink? Only time will tell.

How the Other 0.5 Lives

It was a banner weekend. My cousin got married, our cat got a (temporary) roommate, and a couple of family members had birthdays. Most people would be satisfied with that. But not me. I had to go further, learn more, and give 110%. This weekend I lived large. I found what it is like on the other side; how the other half lives.

That’s right. I went through the Tim’s Horton’s drive thru with a minivan.

I’m used to driving through with any number of small cars (1 actually), and not being able to see in. But with the minivan I could tell exactly what was going on. People were scurrying fro and to, coffee was being poured, and donuts were going stale before my very eyes.

So anyway, the moral of the story is that I could have guessed what was going on inside based on the what came through the window. Next weekend I’m crossing a chicken with a centipede and getting trapped in the middle of the ethical debate on genetic engineering that will surely ensue. The End.

And we’re back!

It feels good to be home. My other URL www.earljw.com is now being retired, and earlwoodman.com is the official URL of my blog. It’s been a painful few weeks, but things are finally straightened out. I have a new host, a new look, and a bunch of new posts.

However, you’re probably wondering what happened to my old posts. Well don’t worry. I’ll be gradually bringing them over to this site, upgrading where necessary, cutting the crap (which is 90% of them), and starting a ‘Classic Posts’ series to gloss over the fact that I’m too damn lazy to figure out how to import them properly.

Peanut Butter Mayhem Part 2

Today’s peanut butter update: I have dug further into the peanut butter valley while the mountain has stayed ‘flat-topped’. Pools of oil are coalescing in the valleys, while the mountain is starting to peel away from the walls of the container. The walls of the peanut butter mountain are so vertical that I’m thinking of calling the valleys ‘canyons’ instead.

It’s a great time to be alive.

Temporary Home

So this is just a temporary home. Don't worry, the URL won't change, but I will be moving to a new provider and be sporting a new look in the coming days. It's been too long. And boy do I have stories for you. (Actually, I don't. Hence this worthless, say-nothing post.)

The Ultimate Portable Device

No, I’m not referring to a Port-a-potty, although that’s pretty essential too in some circumstances. I’m referring to the Nokia N-93, coming out later this month.

All my life (well for the past few years) I have been waiting for the ultimate handheld portable device. It has to be a PDA, cell phone, camera, game machine, and MP3 player. Those were my five basic requirements. Lately I have added WiFi support as a must, and at least a 320×240 screen. The PSP has served me well, but it is too bulky and is far from the ultimate device.

Now finally, it’s almost here. The Nokia N-93 looks to fit the bill. Check out these specs:

  • GSM cell phone
  • 3.2MPixel camera with optical zoom
  • VGA Digital camcorder
  • PDA functionality
  • Java games
  • WiFi 802.11g
  • TV-out
  • 320×240 screen
  • USB 2.0
  • Uses miniSD card

What else can you ask for? Sure it’s a bit big, but with all those ass-kicking features, that’s a small price to pay.

Peanut Butter Mayhem

I was peanut-buttering my sandwich the other day when I realized that even after opening the jar days before it was so big that the peanut butter was still perfectly smooth and untouched on one side of the jar. The following is the conversation I had with myself:

Personality 0: I wonder how deep I can go before this topples over.

Personality 1: It’s not gonna topple you idiot! It’s peanut butter!

Personality 0: Well it can’t stay perfectly smooth forever. It’s going to eventually give way.

Personality 1: How so?! There’s no water in there to cause a mudslide.

Personality 0: Well there’s oil in peanut butter.

Personality 2: Will you guys shut up?! I am trying to get some sleep over here.

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