UT Campus - Dorr Street corridor

Dorr street by campus has been looking cleaner since Corpus Christi has bought and torn down a couple of old commercial buildings. Also, Jimmy Johns and Papa Johns (any relation?) have moved side by side a bit closer to campus. With the student population greatly shifting to the south side of campus...that whole strip needs redeveloped into something cool.

I walked through the new Ottawa House East/West dorms for the first time this week. I'm really impressed, they put a trendy looking new coffee shop in as well, open to the wee hours of the night.

In any case, UT/MUO administration is thinking of a new name for main campus. Go here to give your input.

Shout out for Death Cab for Cutie

I heard Transatlanticism from Death Cab for Cutie a few years back, and although I liked it, I'm fully addicted to Plans. I know they opened up for Pearl Jam at the sports arena in 2004; now I really regret missing that show.

New toys

My new Mpeg1/2/4 video capture board came yesterday from NewEgg, as well as a dual layer DVD recorder (up to 8.5 GB per disk). I was very pleased that the price of the two...about $70 combined, will let me convert some old VHS home movies as well as other things to digital formats. My tool-less Silverstone case made it so simple, both things were unboxed, installed, and working in about 20 minutes. The part that took the longest was digging out some extra AV cables for the VCR!

weekend log

The remodeled family room is finally complete... it is 21 by 11ft. It used to be very dark with orange knotty pine shelving. I removed all the gingerbread trim, primed the whole thing, ditched the rickety ceiling fans, installed new closet doors, patched some drywall holes, new baseboard trim, and installed carpet tiles. Overall the project took me about a year, but I had many starts and stops.






...onward to the upstairs bath.

Frank Morgan

I took a colleague visiting from overseas to hear a great jazz quartet staring Frank Morgan down at Murphy's tonight. Its been a long time since I've been down to that place, brings back some nice memories.

46645

I've been toying around with Google SMS, its so kewl!

Try this one: w 43697

4 day forecast of beautiful Toledo weather...

(*****) Tag

My friend sent me a link for a new laser tag game in the UK. Even though I'm not a paintball fan, I couldn't really get excited about this high end laser tag either. There was all that work of hunting and shooting without the exhilarating feeling of knowing you inflicted pain on someone. I retorted that what the world really needs is paintball/laser tag "kicked up a notch"...taser tag.

After googling we found this and laughed our arses off.

Weekend log

Saturday we ventured to the zoo for a puppet show in the Czechoslovakian style. The kids were a little scared when all the lights went out and the music came on, but when the story started coming together they really loved it. All of the puppeteers wore all black, and the puppets were lit with black lights. It really is something to see!

Saturday night I watched Japon by Carlos Reygadas. If you are looking for thoughtful movie WAY out on the fringes, give it a shot. I really couldn't relate in any way to this movie, but I can say it was unlike anything else I've seen. It won special mention at Cannes 2002. The main branch Toledo library has a copy.

Other than that I spent the rest of the weekend painting in our new family room. I bit more cutting in with trim and it will be ready for the carpet.

Downtown Toledo pics

Today for my walk I made two laps around the Lucas County Courthouse and something struck me as odd. The Ten Commandments is displayed prominently from the corner of Adams and Erie. The monument is about 5 feet high and has a couple Stars of David and the all seeing eye, like on the dollar bill.



Further down Erie and less prominently displayed is the Bill of Rights.


Religious establishment, or just that the Eagles had the idea of sponsoring their donation before the ACLU? Probably the latter.

ok, I'll play along...

Jason tagged me, so I'll take the opportunity to talk about myself, this is my blog after all.

Four jobs I've Had...

1. Paper delivery for the Defiance Crescent
   
2. Field worker for Dekalb
   
3. Short order cook for Frisch's Big Boy
   
4. Warehouse grunt for Hardees

Four movies I can watch over and over...

1. The Princess Bride
   
2. Reservoir Dogs
   
3. Dune (original)
   
4. Forest Gump

Four TV shows I love to watch...

1. In a Fix
   
2. Charlie Rose
   
3. BBC
   
4. Project Runway?

Four places I've been on vacation...

1. Cleveland, OH
   
2. Ann Arbor, MI
   
3. Dayton, OH
   
4. Fort Wayne, IN

Pretty exotic huh? Yes, I've gone other places too.


Four favorite dishes...

1. Anything my wife cooks (safe answer)
   
2. Indian/British hot currie (not a narrow topic I know, terrible with names)
3. pizza
   
4. Sushi

Four websites I visit daily...

1. news.google.com
   
2. maps.goole.com
   
3. mail.google.com
   
4. theonion.com

Four places I'd rather be...

1. Everywhere
   
2. nowhere
   
3. somewhere
   
4. underwear? (whoa! where did that come from?)

Four bloggers I'm tagging...

1. Jim
   
2. I've always sucked at tag...

If this were a scored test I'd barely pass, what a slacker!