Tvindy

Protopage & Writely

Everyone knows the future is in online apps. Yesterday I was listening to the This Week in Tech podcast in which Leo and Amber interviewed the creator of a free service called Protopage. According to them it's the most effective implementation of Ajax so far. I've been using My Yahoo! as a portal since 1999, because nothing else was ever as good. But I think Protopage may have it beat. It's certainly easier to change around and is much more flexible. I could even see using it as a blogging service. If you go here, you can see the personal portal I whipped up for myself.

Also of note is Writely which is a powerful online word-processing program. I haven't had a chance to play with it yet, but it looks as though it lets you store and organize documents online, collaborate with other users, and publish to your blog.

I was also excited to read this. Then I realized that the author had made the whole thing up.

Christmas Shopping

I pride myself on being a pretty good gift buyer, but this year was a little more challenging than usual. As always, I'll be spending Christmas with family. Here's what I got everyone:

• For the third year in a row, my parents and brother will each receive a Shutterfly calendar. The previous two years were filled with pics of family members I had taken over the year. This year's calendars will be different. Over the past several weeks I've been raiding my father's old seldom-seen family photos. He keeps them in a filing cabinet in his study (as opposed to an album). There are images in there that he himself probably doesn't even know he has. I picked out the best 13 for the calendars.
• My aunt will be spending Christmas with us too. What does one buy for an aunt? Well, I know for a fact that she has an enormous sweet tooth. I once brought home an enormous quantity of candy, and she ate nearly all of it. After reading this entry from Bakerina, I knew just where to shop. My aunt will be receiving a Santa Tier Set.
• A calendar, of course, is not enough, but my brother is hard to shop for. Last year I gave him my old iPod Mini, which he has yet to even use. And by that, I mean he's never even turned it on, let alone install iTunes on his computer. So no more electronic gadgets for him. He's getting a bag o' buds.
• But that's still not enough, so I'm getting him this DVD based on the fact that he once e-mailed me this link but has never seen the film. (As far as I know, he's also never operated a DVD player, despite having one in his computer, so this gift may turn out to be another dud.)
• Parents also need more than just a calendar. My father likes eggs, so I've ordered him a big honking ostrich egg on eBay. That should make for a pretty large omelet. If he's willing to share, maybe the rest of the family can use a portion of it to make ostrich eggnog.
• A calendar and an ostrich egg are not enough, so my father will also be receiving a deed for property on the moon.
• My mother will be getting a porch swing. She's been planning to buy one ever since she moved to my neighborhood but has never gotten around to it. My original plan was to pick one up for her at my local Lowe's. I forgot that despite the enormity of the store, they believe in being seasonal rather than comprehensive. They don't carry porch swings in winter! (This is even worse than the time I tried to buy space heaters from them in July.) Fortunately, there's this thing called the internet which lets you order just about everything (even chihuahuas). So I went over to PorchSwings.com and got her this, paying well over twice as much as I would have at Lowe's. Anyway, the plan is to set it up at three in the morning on Christmas (early enough so my parents are still in bed but late enough so there's no danger of my being awake when Santa comes through). If the stupid Muncie police try to fark with me, I'll give them something to fark about. Anywho, I was originally planning to snap a photo of the installed porch swing, print it out, wrap the print and place it under the tree with the other gifts, but now I see that there is a window looking right out onto the porch where it will go, so I'm sure it will instantly be noticed. A calendar and a $200 porch swing are more than enough, so no more presents for my mom.
• Now we come to the cats. As usual, they'll be getting their annual bowl of catnip, so they can entertain us while we open presents. But that's not nearly enough. They need actual presents. Fortunately, I read Kimberly's blog, so I've known since April exactly what to get them.
• But that may not be enough. I believe Kimberly has also spoken of the Crazy Circle, although I can't seem to find her entry on it. Anyway, that's what the cats are getting.
• But just in case that's not enough, the cats will also be getting one of these. Back in my day, a cat would be grateful just to have a flashlight beam to play with, but these modern felines want everything to be hi-tech. (It's all fun and games until kitty fries an eye.)

Whew!

That's a relief.

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 7 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

(from James)

My Grandparents 2

A couple of years ago just before I headed off to Eugene, Oregon for the first time, I published this entry with an old photo of my grandparents in Eugene. They met at the U of O and married while they were still undergraduates there. The only problem with that picture is that it doesn't seem possible to identify the actual location.

Today while going through old family photos, I came across another picture. I think just about anyone from Eugene will have no trouble identifying the spot. Amazingly, both the statue and the building in the background are still there and look exactly the same. Also of note, my grandmother is wearing the same outfit as in the other picture. I don't know who the other person is, but I'm pretty sure it's not my grandfather (unless there's something about him I don't know).

Wishlist

I used to be very critical of bloggers who published their Amazon wishlists. That seemed kind of tacky to me. But then I started reading some of them and found it  fascinating to see what people wanted. You can learn a lot about an individual by perusing her wishlist.

After the birthday vacuum cleaner fiasco, I decided to whip up a list to help my parents out this Christmas. I've been fairly good this year, so I'm hoping Santa brings me everything on it (quite unlikely, what with him being on a budget and everything).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/30PNC1QPRC8EC