Lame Twitter “event” of the day/week: #moonfruit spam. Not only do I not care about how long you sat on the toilet this morning, and yes, in fact, I did hear that Michael Jackson is dead, I really don’t care to hear about some website builder over and over… and over… and over again. This type of stuff keeps up and I’m just going to abandon Twitter altogether… I already question its worth. Don’t be such ad gimmick whores, people!

Speaking of selling out, I may put Google AdSense ads on Owiber.com just to play around with it. I don’t expect to make any money, but I’m curious how the whole system works. Yeah yeah, go #moonfruit yourself.

“Say how’s the weather, so I look out the window
To brighten my soul, but I can’t control the rain
That keeps falling
Smile on the outside that never comes in
A comedy, mystery, irony, tragedy
So I scream ‘let the show begin” - Jars of Clay

I finally got around to setting up a personal subversion repository on my Slicehost box. I’ve been meaning to do that for a while, but never got around to it. I’m currently in the process of checking in 600MBish of files from OliverWEB… I’m not entirely sure what takes up all that much space, but I guess I’ve accumulated a decent chunk of stuff over the 10ish years I’ve had it around. =) I really wish I still had a copy of my old Geocities account.

I’m going with coworkers to the Video Games Live & Blizzard Live concerts in Houston on the 18th. Anyone else want to come? To prepare for it, Tiff has convinced me to host a Diablo II (I’ve never played) LAN party at my place on the 11th. Should be fun! =)

I can’t make another post without putting up a photo to make use of my flickr code, so here’re some old ones:

Oh, and these are dedicated to my lovely littlest sister who will love me even more after this…

:-)

Oh yeah, and on a work related note, it’s cool to see Bazaarvoice mentioned in articles alongside Twitter, Facebook, and/or other much hyped sites:

• AdAge


• MSN/Forbes

… there also seems to be a trend developing with people getting creative trying to get hired at BV:

• HireMeBazaarvoice.com


• YouTube video

“We’re talking away
I don’t know what
I’m to say I’ll say it anyway
Today’s another day to find you
Shying away
I’ll be coming for your love, OK?

Take on me, take me on
I’ll be gone
In a day or two” - A Ha

I was planning on sleeping 30 or so minutes ago, but my brain is still a bit too active, so I’m going to do a bit of brain dumping to the good ‘ole blog and see how that goes.

I think of myself as somewhat of a memory pack-rat as I often times will dig through old files, photos, blog entries, websites, etc. and “relive” emotions. I’m not entirely sure what to make of it, but it’s something I like to do every so often and I’m happy I’ve had OliverWEB and the like for so many years. It’s cool to go back and look at yourself from years past and think “boy was I even nerdier then” (I know that may be hard to believe… coughAnne-Mariecough). I even have a handful of chat logs around from the AIM days which are hilarious, embarrassing, and generally entertaining.

I sometimes pause and think to myself if I’ll remember this exact moment a year or so from now and it’s interesting what that will do to you. I usually end up taking much more note of my surroundings, etc. The details of the couch I’m sitting on, music I’m listening to, lighting etc. I’ve probably had this thought at least a few dozen times or so in the past and I can’t say I really remember many of them, but it’s a cool exercise anyways. =) Will I remember writing this exact blog post? Maybe I will once I finish reading this…

Speaking of going back and looking at old stuff, give MrTechHappy (link is to the very first comic) a complete read. That’s some pretty awesome stuff there… and I like the About page as well. Remember for next year, February 21st is Dress Up Viraj Day!!

“Billie Holiday on the radio
my sluggish heart is beating seven beats too slow
another sad song and another shot of blue
cold and unconcerned are anything but new
He said “Love endures all things”
and it hurts to think He’s right
If I mark the span of failure
is his burden just as light?

I am, Spartan
close my heart so tight
Jesus
Save me
from myself tonight” - Five Iron Frenzy

Oh how I love JQuery… it’s made it so easy to do such nifty things! I’ve added a new feature to Owiber.com. Now whenever I link to a flickr image in my posts, there will be a little up arrow to the right of it. If you click on it, the page will scroll to the top and load the larger image, and also show a down arrow to go back to where you were (you can actually click almost anywhere in the big image to go back down). I haven’t tested in IE yet (cross fingers) but it seems to work fine in Safari and Firefox. Here’s a sample image of Oink for you to play with it… have fun!

“I walked along the avenue.
I never thought I’d meet a girl like you;
Meet a girl like you.
With auburn hair and tawny eyes;
The kind of eyes that hypnotize me through;
Hypnotize me through.

And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldn’t get away.” - A Flock Of Seagulls

I think I’m going to start titling all my weekend posts with “The ____ one.” Sounds like a TV series episode naming scheme. :-)

This weekend was very much dominated by me listening to music at my house, sleeping, waking up with random website ideas, and then throwing together what you see here now. I’d call that a productive weekend. On Sunday night, Chad, Nancy, Ochs, Sam and I watched the first few episodes of season two of Weeds. I also managed to make my way to Town Lake and ran and kayaked a mile-ish.

I bought a water hose and stuff to give my lawn some loving, but never actually put it to use… well… maybe tomorrow…

I also printed out a bunch of photos and put them on my wall with magnetic photo rope I purchased from Photojojo:

“Maybe I’m wrong, won’t you tell me if I’m coming on too strong
This heart of mine has been hurt before, this time I wanna be sure

I’ve been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life
I’ve been waiting for a girl like you, your loving will survive
I’ve been waiting for someone new to make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you to come into my life” - Foreigner

Well, I finally updated the layout, and switched over to owiber.com! There’s still some work to do, but it should hopefully be functional. I’ve tested in a few browsers and made a conscious decision to NOT support IE6, so if you come here with that poor excuse for a browser, prepare for some ugliness and a JavaScript pop-up telling you so. I haven’t tested in IE7 yet, but I hope that works okay… let me know if you find any issues!

The coolest little feature is if you hover over the flickr images at the top/left, it’ll change the main image at the very top. I broke a big website “rule” by not having my content above the fold, but I think the photo switch thingy makes up for it a bit, and heck, I don’t sell anything here, so I don’t really care. =) I plan on enhancing my flickr integration a bit so you can do the hover over thing with more than just the five most recent photos in my stream, but… that’ll be later. Have fun!

…oh yeah, and if you happen to look at my code, you probably won’t be very happy. It’s likely very horrible and messy. I just wanted to throw that out there… :-)

“Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain
Telling me just what a fool I’ve been
I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain
And let me be alone again

The only girl I care about has gone away
Looking for a brand new start
But little does she know
That when she left that day
Along with her she took my heart” - The Cascades

So what I had thought was the fault of the lens at the end of this post was actually more the body from my very rough testing of shooting 5D MkII vs 50D in my backyard. The 5D2 just has a lot better contrast and color vibrance straight from the camera, which I would guess is attributed to its larger full-frame sensor.

This is a bit disappointing to me as now I’m less inclined to bring my 50D around, but it’s still a pretty good backup body and I can still use it for its reach. Oh wellllll….

Just finished running and kayaking a bit, so I’m just chilling at my place listening to music and messing around with Python/Django a bit so I can contribute to Bazaarvoice’s open sourced “TwitterVoice“ app. I think I’ve made it apparent I’m not a huge Twitter fan, but it’s a good chance to scratch my code monkey itch and gain some more experience with frameworks. If it goes well, I may use it for some future personal projects like… Friends 09 maybe (for historical reference, here are 99, 00, 01, and 04). =p

Been in a somewhat mellow introspective mood lately… but I don’t really have anything to blog about regarding that, other than to state it. :-)

I stopped by a flooring store today to look at tile and I can’t decide what I want! Arrgh!

“I close my eyes when I get too sad
I think thoughts that I know are bad
Close my eyes and I count to ten
Hope it’s over when I open them

I want the things that I had before
Like a Star Wars poster on my bedroom door
I wish I could count to ten
Make everything be wonderful again” - Everclear

Ochs and Sam thought I made a commitment to post what I did every weekend in this post, but I don’t think I did. Regardless, I suppose it’s a decent idea, so here it is:

• Friday: Went to Home Depot with Nancy to look at tile for my house. Needed to get a replacement light bulb and water-filter, but forgot to take note of which on both accounts.


• Friday: Went to see Up by my lonesome. Left feeling a little post-Amelie… like I wanted to hug someone, but less “romantic” like after Amelie.


• Saturday: Got contract work at my house (tiling, knocking out a wall, etc.) estimated


• Saturday: Peter moved out, so I vacuumed the room after he left… I then went to clean up some other parts of the house since I was already in the mode.


• Saturday: Watched season one of Weeds with Chad and Nancy after bumming around listening to music at my place, getting not very satisfactory burgers at Fuddruckers and a now almost customary weekend double iced alamocha at Texpresso.


• Sunday: Went to Lowes and picked up the light bulb and water filter I needed. Took a quick glance at tile.


• Sunday: Went home and got a hair cut (thanks, Mom!). My doggy Orbit is getting old. =(


• Sunday: Hung out with Ochs & Sam at Burnet Sonic for a while at night.

No pictures this week, though. Adios!

Mum mum mum mah
Mum mum mum mah

I wanna hold em’ like they do in Texas plays,
Fold em’ let em’ hit me, raise it, baby stay with me, (I love it)
Luck and intuition play the cards with spades to start,
And after he’s been hooked I’ll play the one that’s on his heart - Lady GaGa

So it’s been a while since I redesigned OliverWEB and it’s long overdue. I used to do it ever year, but… well, I’ve been busy. I’m starting to think of new ideas now though, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m also very much considering retiring oliverweb.com and moving to owiber.com…

By the way, has anyone gotten wind of any new Andrew Approved items? ;-)

“And even as I wander
I’m keeping you in sight
You’re a candle in the window
On a cold, dark winter’s night
And I’m getting closer than I ever thought I might

And I can’t fight this feeling anymore
I’ve forgotten what I started fighting for
It’s time to bring this ship into the shore
And throw away the oars, forever” - Reo Speedwagon