Monkinetic Weblog

Dan Gillmor:

NY Times: G.O.P. Can Challenge Voters at Ohio Polls, Court Rules. In a day of see-sawing court rulings, a federal appeals court ruled early today that the Republican Party could place thousands of people inside polling places to challenge the eligibility of voters, a blow to Democrats who had argued that those challengers would intimidate minority voters.> So it comes down, again, to judges who were appointed by Republicans. This is not a good start to Election Day.

More from Dan Gilmor -- A Report From Columbus:

|Jodi| shares the good news!

Adoption Document Specialists (or Cheri as we know her :-) ) got a new (if temporary) website up! And they have a link to |Jodi|'s weblog at the bottom of their references page! Cool! We would heartily recommend Cheri and ADS to anyone considering adopting from Ukraine.

|Jodi| is still blogging our adoption process, and she's turning into quite the blogger!! I know I'm biased, but Jodi is quite a good writer, and she's finding her "blog voice" over time. You go girl!

Working from home today, and listening to some nice european trance in the background... through my entertainment system. How?

Hi, I'm working from the Stonegrounds coffee shop around the corner from my house. Free wireless. Macintosh. Decaf mocha latte. Heaven.

Dave links to a Dowbrigade story about a journalism student killed by police riot-control activity last night in Boston. The line Dave quotes from the story:

MrBarrett.com: Mr. Barrett: >Now my advice is the same, but for some additional and obvious reasons. No viruses. No spyware. No popups. Take back control of your computer and browsing experience. Get a Mac.

I'm trying to get our TiVo setup so that we can successfully switch between TiVo, the VCR, the DVD player, and be able to watch TV on one channel while TiVo-ing another. I've made a diagram of my proposed setup:

d8uv improved my TiVo layout - I told him I wanted my home entertainment center to be on my network... Haha :D

Sorry folks, not been posting much lately. I've been heads down on a large project at work, and we've been doing lots of "getting-ready-for-adoption" stuff. Have a great day, more later.

Jodi and I want a TiVo for Christmas.

Now here's something I want. Combine Froogle and [Google][http://google.com) Local so I can find out what stores in my local area have a product, and which has the cheapest price.

Our kitten Jake has been on a destructive tear lately. Tonight he managed to eat the "" key on Jodi's TiBook. Bad Kitty!

On the morning drive:

Jodi and I found a small antique dresser that needs a bunch of work done on it. I've already started stripping and sanding the old finish off, and we'll be painting it up to go with the (as yet to be determined) color scheme for LT's room. I'm enjoying it too, as it gives me something special I can create/restore for my future son!

Ok, so this is the part where Jodi starts rolling her eyes in dramatic fashion, but I've succumbed to the temptation of responding in audio to Dave Slusher's latest Evil Genius Chronicles audio post. So of course I couldn't just record it, I had to give it a name:

Just Keep Talking - Sept 27, 2004

I may try and figure out how to get that into an <enclosure> thingy, but for now I'll just throw it out there and see if it sticks.

P.S. Another link mentioned in the post: Hugo Schotmann's instructions for recording an audio post on OS X.

I had a dental appointment today, and (despite it's very low battery) decided to take the 'pod along to give me something to listen to behind the whine and grand of the drill. Shudder.

Surprisingly, the battery lasted all the way through the hour+ appointment, and I got to listen to some backlogged Gilmor Gang from IT Conversations. Cool!

Despite the occasional requests and comments from the dentist, and the inevitable experiments in bone-conduction, I found that I was able to follow the show and it really made the time go by faster.

I figured out a better solution for doing the audio blog thing. It's based somewhat on the system that Hugo Schotmann got going, and works pretty well. Dave Slusher is using the same system now for EGC, and notes in his latest audio post that there is some echoey stuff going on in the headphones. I had the same thing, but I think I got distracted by it, where Dave seems to have done just fine.

The trouble I'm having right now is that the drive makes too much noise when chewing through audio data, and without a proper external mic, I get all kinds of whiney noise in the recording. Grr.