web-goddess

Month: March 2010

  • GGG for Runners

    Peter Sagal (of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me fame) has a column in Runner’s World this month and has blogged his “Three G’s for Runners”. It’s got some nice pointers for anybody starting out in running.

  • Clarification on the tiebreaker

    Since someone emailed to ask, I did not include John Hughes in the tiebreaker count for the Oscar Contest. Jenny and I debated it during his tribute, and we hoped the producers would make it easy by including him in the “In Memoriam” reel as well. But they didn’t. However, the actual wording on the entry page was: “How many dead people will be featured in the annual Hollywood obituary tribute reel?” I think it’s pretty clear that the question is not how many dead people will be honoured at the show, but rather how many people are in the specific tribute montage. So on that basis, we went with the count of 34. Of course, it really sucks for Tom Cassutt, because if they had included Hughes (or Farrah Fawcett! or Bea Arthur!) he would’ve won the whole shebang. Sorry, Tom!

  • Shared today on Twitter

    11am and I am heading into my 3rd meeting of the day. GRAR.

    Don’t forget to count dead people for me, Tweeps! I have a feeling I’m going to need the tiebreaker this year…

    @_brigita_ I am not a fan of the mop top. No, sir.

    I’ve seen loads of pics of Diane Kruger, but WHERE IS PACEY? With Clooney’s mop top, I need some stabilizing Pacey hotness.

    @kevincmurphy You’re still in there… http://bit.ly/dAxpzc

    Snook: “I reverse engineered your Oscars site to create a histogram of user success.” Then dumped me a bunch of code. I love him.

    RT @miftik: http://twitpic.com/17agub – Trying to stay awake for @web_goddess but it is going to be tough. // YOU ARE THE BEST. THE BEST!

    I will need a backup dead person count, as I think @imdominating is crying too hard.

    @miftik That matches what @imdominating got. Thanks to the both of you! You are awesome. 🙂

    @Opheli8 You’re a cheater head! I don’t see no James Taylor on your monitor… 🙂

    @traveller0112 Huh. Not seeing much commentary on that, other than from Ebert and you!

    Whoa! @realtimshady has a real chance here…

    @thisismywww Mine is working, over on William Street…

    @thisismywww 3G. I got Twitter and everything.

    And it’s over! A 14-way tie for 1st place in the W-G Oscar Contest… and then a 2-way tie after tiebreaker… comes down to order of entry.

    The W-G Oscar Contest winner of the Sparkly Emo Vampire Sockmonkey Playset is Jonathan Wells. Way to go, Jonathan!

    RT @mayorofnewtown: Extended bus zones on King St Newtown in preparation for bendy busses (Metrobus 30) (pdf) http://bit.ly/bFm0Sl

    @witty_knitter Judging by the email address, I don’t think so. 🙂

    2nd go at Magic Pudding face: much better! Nearly got it. Just need to finetune the nose placement.

    @carbolicious I think in most places in the world, every day is Men’s Day.

    First hot cross bun of the year. Yum.

    @carbolicious The question was stupid, like asking why there’s no Int’l White Person’s Day. Because they’re not an oppressed minority!

    @carbolicious Actually, apologies. There is one, and 2 seconds worth of Googling found it: http://bit.ly/PP0nj

  • And the winner is… Jonathan Wells!

    Thanks to everybody (392 of you!) who entered this year’s Oscar Contest. We ended up with a 14-way tie for first place, all of whom got 12 out of 13 answers correct. It then went to the tiebreaker, which was 34 dead people in the tribute reel. Jonathan Wells guessed 33, and Tom Cassutt guessed 35. So to break the tie between them, I had to go to order of entry. Sorry Tim, Jonathan put in his entry about twenty hours before you did… so Jonathan is the big winner! Congratulations to him, and condolences to all of you who missed out.

    The Snook thinks I should offer a “wooden spoon” prize to last place. “Send them a werewolf merkin so they can pet it when they feel sad about their lack of prescience.” Hm. I bet I could sell those on Etsy.

    Edited to add: I’ve just checked the history and this was the fifth time Jonathan has entered the contest. (Actually, it may be more than that; I only saved the entries going back to 2006.) So well done to a long-time reader!

  • Oscar Contest 2010… Only 90 minutes to go!

    You’ve got til the show starts to get your predictions in for the big contest. We’re closing in on 400 entries! Throughout the day, I’ll be updating the winners and you’ll be able to see your scores update.

    As usual, if any of you will be watching the show with a DVR, can you please count the number of dead people in the obituary tribute for me? I have a feeling that we could end up with quite a big tie for first place this year (unless there’s a surprise upset).

    And just a note: I had a couple people put more than one entry into the contest, and the extras have been deleted. I’m serious; you only get one shot. Your first entry is the one that I saved, so if you changed your mind later, too bad!

    Update: And the contest is closed! Here we go…

    Update later: Have gotten three independent counts of the dead people montage and all said 34. So that’s what we’re going with! (Thanks to Jenny, Miftik, and Kel.)

  • Moomin Cake!

    The fifth cake is a Moomin cake! Sweet.

  • Shared today on Twitter

    First long run in ages. Did 4:1 run/walk ratio. Foot felt sore towards the end, but manageable. Just had a well-earned ice bath.

    We sold our heater to Rodd’s Korean co-worker, and his wife brought us a present: homemade kimbap! http://twitpic.com/173b6u VERY good…

    @bellsknits Nice. Three Sheets? That’s my favorite. Snook prefers the Nelson’s Blood.

    @drkknits I love that movie. I own the DVD. My dad instilled a love of disaster movies in me. Plus OJ and Bobby Brady! What’s not to love?

    @redambition I have been on a mission to try poutine for years. Is bocconcini an acceptable curd substitute??

    The sewing-up of St. Brigid has begun. http://twitpic.com/173f1s

    Hey, it’s a shoulder! With a saddle! http://twitpic.com/174c6i

    @venks79 So weird. I haven’t had any bad GPS since I deleted and reinstalled. Is your route, like, in a parking garage? 😛

    Albert the Knitted Magic Pudding is only 1/3 done and it’s already CRACKING ME UP. Funniest thing I’ve knitted, ever.

    @venks79 Weird! Good run tho – but you need to start increasing the distance if you’re gonna do the Half…

    Less than 3 hours to get your picks in for the 8th Annual w-g Oscar Contest: http://bit.ly/dvL5BE. Win sparkly emo vampire sockmonkeys!

    @ebertchicago I think my Oscar contest prize is one of a kind: handmade sparkly vampire sockmonkeys. You should enter! http://bit.ly/dvL5BE

    I have officially signed up for the Sydney Half Marathon: http://bit.ly/cxXfd5. Bring it on!

  • Shared today on Twitter

    Apologies for radio silence re: #kgagm. We were forbidden to tweet. Yes, really. Time for special speaker.

    Everybody welcome @miss_reecie to Twitter and follow her! She’s enjoying her first #kgagm.

    We survived. Many folks now having a well-deserved beer. http://twitpic.com/16v9gv

    Told Snook that Standards convenor accused me of sowing discord. “There goes your ribbon at the Show.” BUGGER! Didn’t think of that. 🙂

    @janiematts MISS JANE! Welcome aboard. 🙂

    @drkknits @randomknits I sent through a report via email. Kylie, are you on it?

    @justjussi Noooooo, not at all. That was just Rodd’s conjecture, and it kinda cracked me up. I doubt she’s even judging.

    Should clarify that the quote was from Snook, speculating. No threats were made. Just random bitching.

    After more than a year, my iMac G5 is back from the dead. Massive huge THANK YOU to @stufromoz for his advice! http://bit.ly/1buB0O

    @stufromoz It’s brilliant. I’ve missed having a desktop! If you want anything knitted this winter, just let me know. I owe you one. 🙂

    @miss_reecie I was planning to donate my Sweater Design in Plain English to IC Group, so you can borrow if you want!

    @bellsknits except they don’t open til 10am on Sunday…

  • More on This Too Shall Pass

    Q&A session with some of the craftsmen involved in that Rube Goldbert video for OK Go. I’m totally in awe.

  • Boudicca: Back from the dead!

    As you may recall – or not – my iMac G5 “Boudicca” died just over a year ago. She was one of the very first unibody iMacs, and she was nothing but trouble from the start. (The one I’m talking about was actually a replacement for the original one that self-destructed within six months of purchase.) When she died the last time, we were given a ridiculous quote from the Apple Store to have her fixed. The logic board was riddled with blown and leaking capacitors. She was out of warranty, out of AppleCare, and out of luck. I found out that there had been a Repair Extension Program for this specific issue – and my serial number was even covered! – but alas, it had expired in December 2008 (about two months before mine died). I bought a new laptop and set her aside, hoping that maybe she’d be worth some money on eBay. One of my resolutions for the New Year was to deal with the issue, so I started calling Apple repair shops to see if they were interested in her for parts. Nobody was interested. In desperation, I tweeted that she was for sale if anybody wanted her. A friend-of-a-friend (who happens to work in Apple tech support) wrote back, suggesting that I call Apple Support again. He said that he still regularly saw machines come in with my issue, and that several of them had been granted “exceptions” to the Repair Program and fixed free-of-charge. It seemed too good to be true. I called up the number and spent half an hour talking to a nice guy, who eventually transferred me up to the manager. They put me on hold for a bit… then the magic words: “You’re approved!” He put it into the system and I took the machine to NextByte the next day. They told me there’d probably be some wait before they could get to it, but I didn’t care. Hey, at this point it’s a free computer, right? Six weeks later, I finally called Nextbyte to see what the heck was happening… and was told that my machine had been fixed for weeks. They just had never called me! (Idiots.) This morning we picked her up. I deliberately didn’t plug her in before heading to the Guild AGM, knowing that if she was still broken I’d just stress about it all day. So when I finally got home tonight, I plugged her in and hit the power button. BONGGGGGG! Success. I was up and running on the network within minutes. It’s so nice to have a desktop machine again! And now DeskCam will actually be from my actual desk again! So huge, huge thank yous to Stu for advising me how to fix it up. I owe him one!