Recently in Web Related Category

I am currently mid-upgrade of my infrastructure for the Club Josh Daily Update. I went with the fresh install of the software, but it seems to be having some difficulties with the template system. I am upgrading from MT 3.2 to 4.12 which is a HUGE jump, so it looks like there is some massaging of the templates that need to be done.

Until then, the content in the archives is all there, it just looks all messed up. The big problem is the individual pages are not formatting correctly, and the main index page is not auto-building to the new templates.

At least the front page is still fine.

Oh and a shout out to Scott who identified the mystery Doctor Who episode as "The Invasion of Time" with Tom Baker. The good news is that it gets released on DVD on September 2, so I have already put it into my Netflix queue.

This trip is driving me crazy!

The other day I practically had a nervous breakdown with trying to find a place to stay in Paris. Every place that I looked at was missing a day in the block of time that I am going to be staying there. I finally decided to stay at a hotel Mom, Gary, and I stayed at 10 years ago! Apparently it has changed hands and has been completely made over so it will be nice to see it for the first time again. I love staying in the Rue Cler district of Paris (that is the 7th) for those of you keeping score of the Paris districts). Jonathan will be visiting us in Paris, but will be staying elsewhere. I wanted to get this groovy apartment that we found on a web site, but in the end it proved too expensive and you have to pay in advance. It was over 1400 bucks for 7 nights - no thanks to the lousy mileage the dollar is getting vs the euro.

At any rate, I am looking forward to our time in Paris - I will get to reconnect with some friends I made from Disneyland Paris when they were visiting California as well as getting to see Jonathan for the first time since 2004 in Japan. As an added bonus, I found out they have tickets to the new Most Haunted Live special that will be airing in the UK over the 5 nights we will be in London and in Cardiff. Hopefully, we will get selected for tickets to the show. It is one of the things that Daniel and I wanted to do while we were overseas.

Added to everything else, it is my birthday next week and I am actually celebrating this year! It is not the fancy parties of a decade ago, but it will be a nice dinner at the Magic Castle in Hollywood thanks to my friend Lev. I do wish Susie, Mark, Alex, Matt, Wendy/Mice,.Cooper, Kibble, Nathan, and Jonathan were around locally so they could be part of the fun. I miss the good old days when we were all in the same area.

Completely unrelated - I have signed up for the USGS Earthquake Notification Service. I know it is super geeky, but I love the fact you can set what magnitude quake will result in a text message to my cell phone. I can also get a HTML email, but I like getting the text messages. I have it set for 4.0 for the US and 6.0 for the World. It seems to be the right balance so I get interesting quakes and yet do not exceed my texting allowance for the month.

If I made the video for Thriller, I am sure it would look something like this:

Well it has been a week since I have been back from Australia. It hardly seems like only a week, it feels like a month! Returning home to an empty house is never fun after spending 24-7 with travel companions. I jet lagged the first few days and was glad to get back to work - just so I could have something to do. I will admit to it being strange to be back at work as if nothing happened at all. I guess I always hope that something will have fundamentally changed since I have been gone, but in reality nothing does.

There are some changes while I was gone and not all of them good. Some of the problems I can't go into details on such a public forum, but rest assured they don't have to do with me. However, they are a bit of a downer to me, since I had gotten my hopes up that certain things would fall into place for people and they haven't. Also at work, things are up in the air since they have not settled our union contract and we are working on a day-to-day basis with the old one. I guess no one in the union cares about us since there is no communications or updates that are easily accessible to the rank and file. Just a random flyer that says a federal mediator is involved. I don't think we will go as far as a strike, and in reality it is just a bit of a pain for everyone involved.

One thing that has happened in Australia since I left is that Cyclone Larry hit 50km south of Cairns and basically leveled the place. I don't think damage was extensive in Cairns, but I think of people like Hans-Jorg as well as the lady who sold us the Quicksilver tickets and all the rest of the residents we came in contact with and I hope they are all OK and managed to weather the storm just fine.

On the home front, I was glad to come home to a clean-for-me house, which I promptly messed up. I have had a lot of free time these days. Seems most of my friends have been busy or otherwise working opposite schedules so I have been being a bad boy staying up to all hours of the night. One of the bonuses of staying up is that I get to chat with Chris from Brisbane. He is usually coming home from work at the same time I come home when I close at Disneyland late. We usually chat online, and he's actually called me as well with his phone card. I need to get a phone card to return the favor because lord knows how much it would cost if I called him direct. It sucks that we live so far apart - I think we would have a lot of fun if we got to hang out.

I think the important thing I need to do with my free time is to not waste it by just vegging out or sleeping in to all hours of the day (Ok, I am still working on the sleeping in thing haha). It is difficult because of the hours that I work. This time of the year I open early on the weekends and then close late on Monday thru Wednesday, which doesn't leave much time to get projects done. It is almost like I should take an extra day off sometime and work around the house - assuming I don't just sleep in and be lazy.

On the Club Josh front, I have found a new hosting service Text Drive. They have a package called Mixed Grill where you can get 2GB of hosting space plus a 9GB storage area, and a hosted application suite called Joynet. All for the low price of $499 lifetime! That means in two years or so it will have paid for itself - and it will allow me to move stuff like Charo and Doingworld to their own domains.

In this day and age of faster home computers, people are churning out more and more movie quality spoofs. Two that I really like are the remixed trailers for Sleepless in Seattle and the Shining.

Oh then there is the amateurish ones like the music video for William Shatner's Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds

Links from kottke.org. Makes me wish I had a new compuer and get in on the fun!

I am experimenting with posting someone else's photos....

Man, why can't my photos of Mont Saint Michel look this good...

The Gorn photos from my recent trip to New England can be found here.

My last day in Boston I had visions of going to Harvard or down to Boston Common again to see the outside of the Cheers Bar, but alas, I decided instead to sleep in and be a bump on a log. It actually turned out to be a good thing since it helped keep my system on West Coast time.

The flight back was OK, but again I vowed never to fly a 737 cross country. It is hilarious when people have to pass in the dinky aisles. I should have watched the movie, but I was too busy with the Gorn photos to pay any attention.

I am glad that I have Thursday and Friday off again as my normal days off. It will give me a chance to catch up on everything around the house.

One of the things that Nathan finally convinced me to do was sign up for a free-trial of Netflix. Honestly, I should have tried it years ago, but I really don't rent a lot of movies. Recently, my movie-going has really slowed down and there have been a lot of movies that I have wanted to see but haven't. I figure if I keep it, I will need to watch 6 movies a month for it to pay for itself. Depending on how I get through the movies I selected, I might go down to 2 movies at a time instead of the three.

I finally bit the bullet and ordered a laptop. I decided that if I really wanted a laptop that I shouldn't just get what I could afford at the local Big Box outlet and be happy with that. I decided to take that price range and scour online to see if I could get something better. Sure enough I did - although it is refurbished. It is through the Dell Outlet. Some of my friends have had good luck through them so here is hoping! Once it arrives, I will go into great detail about specs et. al.

This morning I got fed up. I think it was from trying to remember some password to some online site somewhere. So this morning, I have been going through them all and deleting profiles and usernames. Some of the sites, I don't even go to anymore, and others I waste way too much time on. I think this will force me to work on my own site. Or then again, I might just regress and create all new accounts. So at least for the time being it is buh-bye to all the non-Club Josh web sites.

More technology news: GoDaddy has some really good rates for a Virtual Dedicated Server. Me thinks that I will be going that route once a) I backup Club Josh locally, and b) Get everything re-done, organized and ready-to-go. I have said it many times before, but I am really not looking forward to re-doing all the photo galleries.

Work has been really good lately. Hard to believe we are on the home stretch. For me the big test is this coming weekend. I have great confidence in my abilities, but I just hate it when someone points out something obvious within five minutes. I always feel like a dork, oh well I guess its ok to feel like what you are.

I finally received my service update and can now enjoy the wonders of TiVo to go. This nifty feature allows me to transfer my TiVo'ed shows to my computer and then using Sonic's MyDVD software, transfer the shows to DVD. Only problem? The version of MyDVD that came with my computer doesn't support the files. I already bought Nero and think I might have found a solution. What really gets me is that TiVo really wanted people to only use one software. They should have developed plugins for all the different softwares out there. Personally, I fully support encryption on the programs, but I'd like to choose which software suite works best for me.

I guess that is one of the problems with Piracy. Poor honest users like me (who don't go posting their programs on the Internet, and just want an archive a la old VHS tapes, want to be able to record random shows (like ones where Charo is a guest star). These shows will never be out on DVD and I am not eating into anyones profits. But alas, there are hoodlums out there who sell TV series on DVD for cheap. Oh well. I am sure that I can find some software to help me. (Note: I have, now just need to try it out!)

At any rate, even if I end up only backing the files up as data, I am glad to be able to clear off some programs from 2003 from my TiVo. Also, I can archive episodes of Kath and Kim until they are available on DVD in the US.

I have been working on a web site for Haim for a while now. It is slow going, but I think the light at the end of the tunnel is approaching. Something unexpected that has come out of this is that I found an awesome tool for finding fonts.

I was trying to recreate a logo that the company had used, and I had searched through all of my fonts and hadn't found a match. A quick google later and viola! What the Font! All you need to do is upload a graphic that you have scanned or downloaded, make sure it is big enough and orientated properly, and they give you a list of fonts that match it. Better yet, some of the fonts you can download. Turns out, I had the font I needed all the time, I just needed to italicize it.

Man I wish I had one of these years ago!

Scouring the support groups I found out the Outlook-Thunderbird conversion sucks, but the Outlook Express-Thunderbird conversion is good. So a quick conversion and I'm off in Thunderbird. It does some great things like auto filtering out junk mail (though it is not perfect). Just in case, I still have Outlook installed and have made backups of all the data.

I'm loving Firefox still - no major issues and the tab browsing that Cooper and Andy have pointed out is super cool. Now I can have all of my sites I need to close fast in one spot. Not that I need to minimize anything, but if I did, it is there.

Today there was a site to behold in the cast member parking lot. Two people in Merchant Sailor outfits changing a tire. It appears that the new road construction on the street that I take to work claimed my tire. So my lead Kris helped me change the tire (I owe you a dinner - either that or a rubberized mallet). I think now might be a good idea to take Dad up on his offer for some new tires. Whatever I end up doing, I need to get the spare tire back on the back of my car cuz it looks just plane silly.

Today I declared my independence from Internet Explorer. I'm fed up with all of the problems that it has and security risks. The problem is since the demise of Netscape circa 1999, there really hasn't been a good reliable alternative. Then I ran across something that mentioned the new Mozilla Browser Firefox. I gave it a whirl and immediately loved it. Simple, elegant, not bloated. Just like the old Netscape Browsers. It also has Pop Up blockers and extensions you can install to read RSS feeds. Of course I haven't quite got the hang of that yet, but I'm working on it.

I then decided to try the Mozilla mail program Thunderbird. It seemed to be working until I decided to try and import my old Outlook stuff. About 90% into the conversion, it bombed out. So I was stuck with folder after folder of useless data. Worse yet, I tried to delete the folders and try again and it just kept bombing out. I then uninstalled the program only to find out that when I re-installed it, it still had all of my email information and yes, the corrupted folders. Ugh.

So I've scoured my registry for every last reference to Thunderbird and will try one more time. If it doesn't work, then it looks like its back to Outlook for me. Doesn't anyone make a good Windows compatible email reader? Andy has set up his GMail account so that all of his server mail gets sent there. I was thinking of doing the same, but I am a bit uneasy with Google having access to all of my emails. Nothing is ever 100% safe.

It reminded me of working that one Tom Sawyer Island Guest Control shift way back many moons ago. I was nervous at first - not remembering when to hit the spiels or when to stop the boat while the Columbia was docked, but thankfully I took notes during training and asked the CMs at the attraction lots of questions. All in all I managed not to make a fool out of myself and had a great time hosting groups up in the wheelhouse. A couple of them had to get some tips on whistle blowing so that they could get the right length down. The most rewarding thing? On my last trip around as the pilot, I got to do the ol' shave and a haircut bit with the train.

I have a Columbia shift coming up this week and I can't wait for it - just need to get through a couple of lead shifts. On the new schedule I just need to get through the 4th of July weekend before I get back into a nice stretch of Big Boats.

It is amazing how much room was created by eliminating the table and chairs. I am still trying to optimize my space, but I might be moving the box o' posters into its spot freeing up egress from the bathroom.

Oh and one other tidbit - Andy sent me an invite to try out GMail. I really haven't had a chance to take it out for a test drive - I hope to in the next day or so.

I just wanted to include a couple of links that I found on Presurfer that I wanted to be able to refer others to:

Best. Toilet. Ever.

Angry Alien productions make 30 second versions of movies. With Bunnies.

I'm now a daily Presurfer reader thanks to me discovering his link to me last year.

I made it out to see the Stepford Wives - review shortly. I'm also pretty happy - I have a Mark Twain and a Columbia shift on the new schedule.

Yesterday, I was rummaging through the web stats on the site and discovered a huge boost in traffic to the Gorn Page as of October 15. I was really baffled as to the cause. I know that Google has posted The Gorn Page as the No. 2 site when you do a web search for 'gorn'. Every now and then I see a spike due to Google placement, but this one was way off of the charts. It reminded me of the spike in the Charo traffic in August of 2001, so I decided to look around in my directories. I stumbled on an old log file program that I thought I had deleted from all of my pages, but I inadvertently left it on of all pages - The Gorn Page!

Turns out, the Gorn Page was posted to a couple of high-profile link sites namely Presurfer, Milk and Cookies, and Web Junkie (for the links to the posts about the Gorn Page visit here. All three sites are cool sites that I have added to my daily surfing around the web. It is amazing that the Gorn Page has been around since 1995 (one of the original sections of Club Josh) and 8 years later it has returned to the top of the traffic heap. Originally, the Gorn Page was the top, then Disneyland Paris, then Charo, and now back to The Gorn Page - tho Charo and DLP (thanks to updates and expansion) are still up there.

While surfing on Web Junkie, I found a like to a site where you can make your own personalized action figure. It looks expensive, but wouldn't it be neat to see the Gorn AND Josh travel the world?

I have always liked Beef Ravioli, and lately it has replaced mostaccioli as my favorite pasta. They are serving some good Raviolis at the Disney cafeteria lately and it's cheap. Add to that the good pasta sauce from Redd Rocket's Pizza Port, and you have a classic in the making. It's been awhile since I've cooked pasta at the house, mainly because I get it at work. Man is it good.

To help educate the loyal Club Josh users, I found out some interesting tidbits from Fresh Ravioli:
Highly controversial as to its origins. Ravioli were described in a 13th century Italian 'recipe book'. Boccaccio mentions ravioli in 'The Decameron'. The idea of a filling, wrapped in a dough is to be found in all cultures, and ravioli are simply the Italian version.

Fresh Ravioli is a great site with lots of recipes and helpful hints on how to make the best Raviolis.

In web news, Mom sent me a link to Television Without Pity, It seems to be the modern day version of the good old Survivorsucks.com web site that I used to enjoy many moons ago. TWP does have some great recaps of episodes of some of your favorite series. I'm actually amazed at how many shows they have written about. One of my personal favorite articles was a recent one of the classic Trek episode "Space Seed". Warning: the site features lots of moving, annoying ads, and if you don't keep track of time, you will be there for hours.

My first and last grad night of the year is in the book. Quite a bit different experience of working the Matterhorn instead of the routes. Definitely busier, though easier as a cast member. Most people listened to what they were told and we only had to kick a few people out of line for smoking or trying to be cool and put their feet up in the sleds. It's all mostly a blur - like I forgot to go home after a long shift and the next thing I know it's 7am.

I really don't know what to say about this link, other than I think it's fun for the whole family. You decide.

I purchased Charo's "Bailando con Charo" album off of eBay to complete my Charo record collection. Still need to get some of the singles, and of course now I need to get a record player so I can transfer the files to MP3 and make CD's out of them. I also can creat nice 30 second sound clips for the Charo section.

Brad Edwards and I go way back to January 14, 1995. It was a dark and stormy night in Davis. I had just moved back there after a brief stint at Cal State Chico in graduate school. My grandfather had died just a month earlier. For the first time in awhile I was alone and without a job. A group of us set out that night filling out applications for the Park Service - specifically to work as park rangers in Denali National Park. Our friend Steven had done it before and extolled how much fun it was to sit in a little kiosk selling park admission passes every now and then and enjoying all the scenery.

So there we were that night filling out the applications and watching "The Weather Channel". Brad was on that night doing another outstanding job. Then IT happened. We all looked at each other in amazement. We called The Weather Channel. Years went by, and we never knew if we really saw what we did. We still laugh about it.

Flash forward to 2003. On a random thought, I decided to look up and see if I could find Brad. Turns out, he is the chief meteorologist at a station in Des Moines, Iowa.

The following is the e-mail I sent him and below you will find his reply:

"Hi Brad,

You California fans,
Josh, Susie, Wendy, and Matt"

Here was his response:
Hi Josh, Susie, Wendy and Matt!

Brad Edwards
The Clumsy One!"

To Brad, with Love. You will always have a special place in our hearts.

So after the second person e-mailed me and told me I had to join, I finally went and registered with Friendster. Apparently I am now connected to over 5,000 people all over the world. One thing I have noticed is that the service is a bit slow, then again they do advertise the fact that it is still a beta. Me wonders when they finally go release if they won't start charging people. It looks interesting and It will provide me even more time wasting fodder on the net.

Been kind of lazy about posting on the site. I wish I was working on web design but I haven't. I have been working every day since last Tuesday and I have two more days to go until I'm off. I have worked four eight hour shifts in a row, with tonight being a nice 5 hour jobbie at the Matterhorn to relax. Tomorrow night, I work my first grad night in over a year. It is an 11:30pm to 7am shift. Me thinks I am gonna be a bit loopy on Friday.

A couple of interesting tidbits: Went to Buca de Beppos for Tara and Melissa's birthdays on Saturday. The highlight of the evening was when Leslie pinned a "Cake Waster" sign on Daniel's back and he had to be paraded around the restaurant. I also had a chance to check out some vintage Corvettes at Downtown Disney. Tidbit #2: Monday night, I fell asleep at 7pm and didn't wake up until the next morning. Boy did it feel good. Another reminder of the olden days back in Davis.

This morning I received a notice from the folks over at Tell Me that effective April 9th, they are shuttering the Extensions service. So hop on over while you still can and listen to the Club Josh Daily Update. I remember it was almost exactly two years ago that I first put up the Tell Me site and for a good chunk of time it was broken. So I finally get around to fixing it a few months ago and here is my reward.

Gone are the days on the web when you could get really cool services and information for free. Nowadays, you even have to pay to see streaming video on CNN. I realize that the money isn't there anymore for people with big ideas to develop them and give them away. This trend started with the big collapse of 2000, and given the fact the economy is still in the pits two years later, it is still going strong.

I hope when the economy turns around a renaissance will occur on the web and we'll get back to the days when technologies are developed at a fast pace, and regular people like you and me can share. Heck, maybe then I'll even get a real job again.

Has been a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants week. Out of the blue, I get a call from a company that wants to interview me. The phone interview was scheduled for 1pm today was called off at the last minute when the HR person called me and let me know that one of the interviewers was called out of town. Shades of another interview from last year. Thankfully, I actually got a rescheduled phone interview for next week and hopefully it turns out well.

In web news, I have made a few updates to the Charo site, mainly reporting all the latest news, including ticket prices for her new show Bravo 2003. Thanks to the registrar that Haim pointed me to, godaddy.com, I finally broke down and registered charo.info. You can now access my charo site from that simple URL.

Next week, I make the move over to Winne the Pooh fulltime. I think I will still have the occasional Matterhorn or Classics shift since I don't work on Friday mornings. Once the ride opens in April, I will be over at Pooh full time. So far, the crew looks like its going to be a good one and some of my friends will be there as well. Of course, how long I will be there will depend on what happens in the next few weeks.

Why does everything happen at the same time? Pace yourself life, pace yourself!

For the past week I have noticed that my left front tire has been losing air faster than a Winnie the Pooh ride vehicle trying to be pushed by a few Imagineers, some Attractions operators, and someone from custodial. I had suspected something was not quite right, but it wasn't until I was coming out of Daniel's house that I noticed the guilty nail. So off to Pep Boys to have it fixed. To amuse ourselves, Daniel and I headed over to the Big Lots! (nee Pic and Save) store and Baskin-Robbins for some sundae action.

Today, after working at HP Core, I headed over to Santa Monica to check the SeaGranite mail. It has been more than a few months since the last time I was over there (I think there was a flyer in the box for special hours for Labor Day), but I was glad I went in there when I did. Verisign has sent me some account information to help me manage my domain names that I needed to pick up soon since some of them are coming up for renewal. Also, I found out that my mailbox has a new owner and that I needed to sign some forms. Getting that out of the way, I think it might be time to relocate my box closer to home, especially if the ever-present, but never happened yet move to Orange County takes place.

It made me think of my old Edmunds days since Dave and I split the cost of the box and it made me think of my old Tellme site which I haven't been able to fix for a long time. I have always wanted to automate it, and thanks to an epiphany and no help from the net, I finally created a Movable Type template to publish the latest entry update (the one on the homepage and available on Cell Phones) . This means you can now get the latest update via the Tell Me network all without me worrying about updating. God, I love the 21st century. To access the site dial 1-800-555-T-E-L-L and then 1-12138. I am going to change the extension number to something like 1-JOSH1 or something like that.

Ahem and apparently the cat is out of the bag, but I can't tell specifics of it just yet. Let's just say I was right about my interview going well and that I will be spending a lot of time playing with Mr. Sanders and his friends. Full details when permitted next week.

It's been non-stop around here the last few days. the big story is the heat. It's January right? Last time I checked the thermometer it was 85 degrees and I was wearing shorts and rolling up my sleeves at the park. All of my fellow cast members have been lulled into a zombie like state. After the cold-for-LA past couple of weeks and the record crowds (one day over 110,000 resort-wide!), we were all a bit worn out. Now we are getting 18,000 on a good day in the park and the nice warm weather just adds to the feeling that we are all on a little vacation. Soon enough, the crowds will return, but I for one, am going to enjoy it.

I also had the chance to interview for a new position at the park on a new soon-to-be-premiering attraction based on a lovable bear with a honey fetish. If all goes well, I will have some good news to report soon and those of you wanting to see me in the park might have to veer left when entering the park instead of trudging straight ahead. **Fingers crossed**

The rest of my life has been a whirlwind these past few days, leaving little time for entry updates or other web design work. However, I finally registered my Dad's domain name for his work - hpcore.com (I just registered it today so give it some time). Hopefully, I will get a chance to build something nice there soon.

Far be it for me to pass up the latest and greatest internet fad. I was sent the link to YMDb by several people, but first by Cooper. Basically, you post and rank your top 20 movies and see how you rank according to other users of the site. It was very difficult for me to come up with only 20 movies, and even harder to rank them.

Here is the link to my list. Why not join up and create your own list and see how much affinity we have for each other? (Cooper and I have a 15.59% affinity for each other - I suspect I will have a hard time finding anyone close to 30% like he has.)

If you are too lazy to click the link, here is my list posted for fun:

Aladdin
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
The Sound of Music
Dr. Strangelove
Fantasia
Gone With The Wind
2001: A Space Odyssey
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Mary Poppins
Amelie
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Poseidon Adventure
Goldfinger
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
Mulholland Drive
Driving Miss Daisy
Earthquake
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
The Lion King

Now, I know I will get some heat for it, but as I said ranking was the most difficult part.

Ah yes and Happy Birthday Walt Disney and Gary!

After some Googling around the web, I found a few press releases about Michael Palin's Sahara series and found out that the U.S. rights to the show were awarded to the Bravo network. Bravo is well known for their "Inside the Actor's Studio" program as well as being the current owners of broadcast rights to one of my all-time favorites, "Twin Peaks".

On the Bravo web site, I could find no reference to Sahara or anything Palin. I was worried since the press release also mentioned that Bravo bought the rights to some of the older travel offerings (including my fav Pole to Pole). Scouring their web site, I found an 800 number which offered "immediate answers to many of their inquiries". So I phoned them up and was a bit discouraged to get a recorded message. However, there was the opportunity to leave a message and they promised a call within 24 hours. I phoned them last Thursday, and first thing Monday morning I received a call. It might have been 48 hours instead of 24, but hey for a major cable network that isn't bad.

So for all of you U.S. Michael Palin fans here is the news: Bravo has tentatively scheduled the U.S. premiere of "Michael Palin's Sahara" for April 2003. They have not set an actual date, but keep checking the site as the month approaches. Woo Hoo! I wonder if the U.S. DVD will come out around the same time. I wish the U.K. version was region 0 and NTSC compatible...

My hero and inspiration for my Trip Diaries, Michael Palin has launched a new web site dedicated to his travel programs "Around the World in 80 Days", "Pole to Pole", "Full Circle", "Hemingway Adventure", and the forthcoming (at least to the US) "Sahara". Just like my Swedish trip in 1999, I was able to pick up Michael's book at the book store in the UK way before his show debuted in the states. I'm currently reading Sahara and I'm sure the program that will follow will be great.

Looking over his site has also inspired me to do a little more work into my own Trip Diaries site. I have always wanted to produce a more robust version of the site but have never found a good inspiration until now. I am not sure how long or what form it will ultimately take or if it will include many of the old City Musings Ideas but hopefully it won't take me forever and a day.

What does it mean for you, my loyal reader? It means that the photos of the journey will probably be up way before the journal. Hopefully not too long. I have squandered the last two days which I promised myself I would spend on writing the journal out, but it gives me an extra reason to get up a bit early (or stay up into all hours of the night). Let's just hope it doesn't take two years like the Europe '98 diaries did.

Two years later, we headed out to West Hollywood again. This year, we avoided the Pacific Design Center's horrible garage and opted to park at a friend's house several blocks away. A good time was had by all and I even ran into Mandel in one of his rare WeHo appearances.

Along for the ride was Daniel who came dressed as a pilot. He was happy that we didn't see another pilot the entire night (ok, we saw a co-pilot and a lot of stewardesses, but no pilot as good as Daniel). I was equally happy to not see any other guys dressed in a Hawaiian shirt wth beads around their head and a groovy straw hat.

There are only a few days left before the trip, and Cooper was kind enough to point me in the direction of a cool new web gallery program. By just uploading some photos, the software automatically creates thumbnails and galleries. You can preview two new Gorn galleries I created in about 30 minutes.

Gorn in Europe 1997
Gorn in Europe 1998

I am going to try and get the new photo galleries from the forthcoming trip in this format and if all goes well, I will convert a lot of the old galleries to this format. It has a nice management system and comment capabilities that I think will be very cool over the long run.

I downloaded Trillian thanks to Cooper's suggestion. I am way behind on this trend, but for those of you even further behind me, Trillian is a program that allows users to connect to AOL IM, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN, IRC, and ICQ all in one convenient interface. It also features cool customizable skins a la Winamp. So far I am still figuring it out, but I actually like it better than the new release of AIM messenger. I only use the program for AOL and Yahoo. I used to use ICQ back in the UCD days, but I have no idea what my old account was and since I don't know many who only have ICQ and not AOL, I probably won't re-sign up.

I turn 30 next month, and in preparation I'm working on a 30th Anniversary page for Club Josh. Stay tuned for more info!

My favorite source of news, CNN has once again redesigned their site. The last time was on July 16, 2001 and as I noted then, I think it is a subtle improvement. I like redesigns that don't go whole-hog, that way you don't alienate your users. I think my redesigned Daily Update archives were a big change, but the structure essentially stayed the same while adding cool new features.

I like the way CNN has moved the sub section stories up on their web site, eliminating the special promo boxes that used to separate top stories from the other articles. Some of their font choices are a bit off (i.e. where they have links to the entire page of technology news, etc.). The final change? I would have added a black border to the main image (something I want to do with the image on the Club Josh homepage). Of course that is more work for the page updater since they have to manually add it if the photo links.

Since fall is redesign season, I suspect more popular sites to go under the knife in the next few months.

It's the first Jarre webcast since the failed one New Year's eve 2000/2001. This is the Aero concert from a windmill park in Denmark. The concert feed is working slightly better than the Vizitors concert, but still not as good as the one at the Pyramids in Egypt titled "The Twelve Dreams of the Sun". I can hear the live audio stream and I can watch the one camera angle, but I can not see the live feed for TV2. Oh well something is better than nothing. Right now, they are playing a new version of one of my all time favorites, "Chronologie 6".

As with the Twelve Dreams concert, I hope someone comes up with some MP3s or a capture of the video from TV so that I can enjoy it on CD.

You can see the official Aero concert site here

UPDATE: That's more like it. Around Oxygene 2, they finally started the broadcast of the real concert footage. The Windows Media feed is slower and lagging behind the far superior Real Media feed which hasn't skipped or timed out yet. The audio only feed is still better quality, but I'm sticking with the Real Media for the overall experience (and it's in stereo too).

The car saga continues....It will happen this month, just not sure when. I am still shopping around, plus there are a few contacts up the sleeve that might get me a better deal. Plus, the longer I wait, I am sure the less markup and competition for the car there will be. The only drawback is that I want to reduce my expenses ASAP, but thankfully, everything has leveled off and it wont hurt to wait a bit.


I really like what the Star Wars people are doing with their website. I like how when you reload it is basically the same site, yet with a different color scheme. If I get some free time, I want to try it here at Club Josh.


Free time might be a bit hard to come by since next week I have this wonderful Grad Night shift at the Park: 23:15 to 5:15, and Star Wars opens and I plan to see the midnight showing. By the following weekend, my internal clock will be all messed up.

Try as I did, I was thwarted last night from seeing Spider-Man with Roger, Alex, Michael and Ian. We managed to get out of bed this morning to go see the movie at 10am (well all but Ian since he went with some friends last night to try and see it at Downtown Disney - I'll have to check and see if he was able to get tickets). Even the 10am showing was almost sold out - at least it was the bargain matinee.


The movie itself was pretty good for the most part. Solid acting and a decent story line. The movie did have a feel of massive computer generation to it, especially in the scenes when Toby is flying through the city. You fans of the original Spiderman cartoon need to watch the closing credits for a special surprise. I was ready to bolt, but someone told me to stick around and I was pleasantly rewarded.


I got to thinking that this year looks to be pretty promising in terms of the number of movies I am interested in seeing. The last few years have been pretty ick. So far the movies I want to see are: Star Wars Episode II, The Sum of All Fears, Lilo and Stitch, Minority Report, Goldmember, Men in Black 2, Die Another Day, Star Trek Nemesis. On the back burner, but definitely on my radar: Signs and Scooby Doo.


I am so over those flash ads that come up on the screen when I am on certain web sites. Yahoo and Movies.com are two that were particularly annoying. Especially when I am trying to type in something into a web form and it gets interrupted by an ad for Pop Secret popcorn. When I am on my laptop, those ads ground my processor to a halt so that I can't do anything else. Remember when the web use to be user friendly?

Well I never did make it over to Internet World. Haim gave me the scoop, and I ran out of time to get over to the convention center. I have been out-of-sorts since Friday. I hate working at two different jobs in one day. It feels like two full days on one nights sleep. Going out on Saturday night didn't help. Well, it did help in that it was the most fun I have had going out in awhile. I was not really in the mood to go out, but after some prodding I had a great time. It was a good combination of company and music. The worst part about club music is sometimes you hear a really groovy (yes I said groovy) song, and there is no way you will ever know what it is. It took me almost two years to track down the last club song I really liked.


I had Sunday and Monday off of work and it was nice to relax. We did make it out to Timothy's 16th Birthday Bash and the rib joint in Glendora. For his birthday, I gave him a copy of L.A. Bizarro, a book that all people in LA should own. I figured it was a bit more interesting guide to LA than most, and since he will be out and about exploring on his own, he might as well find some weird and bizarre stuff.


I have had some issues with my DSL over the last few days. When I want it the most, it just isn't working. Then I have to sit around for an hour or so and hope it comes back. Last night, I even tried to bypass the DSL and use my wonderful Pac Bell dialup account (free for DSL customers!), and yup, it was not working either. Me suspects they have larger network issues than just DSL problems. Hopefully, I can get some answers soon, and it doesn't turn into another Earthlink fiasco.

It seems that I saw Charo just in time at the Venetian. Her show closed on April 16. I just happened to find out what happened by doing my usual Google search for Charo. One of the Las Vegas Ticket sites list her as performing at the Sahara Hotel and Casino. One quick phone call to a rather sleepy operator at the Sahara confirmed the news. I called the Venetian to double check and get the closing date of Charo's show and the lady told me that it was only a rumor that she was moving to the Sahara, and that the Sahara hadn't confirmed anything. Stay tuned!


Today, I am off to Spring Internet World at the Los Angeles Convention Center. I have been to the show the last two years, and it boggles the mind thinking of all the changes that have happened to the Internet in general, and in my own life. Needless to say, I will be heading down there with a fist full of resumes. I only have a few hours to schmooze before it is off to Disneyland.

I made a trip over to the DL casting center to pick up some forms to apply for some full time jobs at Disney. Apparently, there is a rule which states you have to be gainfully employed with Disney for a year before you can transfer between divisions (a la Disneyland to Walt Disney Studios, etc.). If you transfer within divisions, the rules are a bit different and set by the division. Hopefully, Disneyland's rules are a bit more lax.

Good news in the mail yesterday, I have finally made CR-25 status at Disneyland which allows me to get some benefits and other good things. We are gearing up at the park in anticipation of next week's crush. Most of the rides will reopen tomorrow (save Splash Mtn and the Carrousel). According to the higher ups, the nice quiet days are gone until September.

Sadly other job news is elusive in coming. I am still waiting on an interview I had almost two weeks ago. I just keep thinking happy positive thoughts, and hopefully something will come up soon.

Cafe Press which operates the Club Josh Galleria, has sent out an e-mail that Men's Golf shirts are coming in April. Check back in April to see what they look like.

Jason had a link to Singlefile, which looks really cool for book collections. Is there something out there like that for video collections? It would be a great successor to the old Movie Guide I used to have on the site a few years back.

As I was surfing around the web, I came across Andy's site greyledge.net for the first time in awhile. Andy started a blog not too long ago and I am glad to see that he's still going strong. Of course, Andy's site is 1 billion times more dynamic than clubjosh, but then again he is 1 billion times the programmer that I am. He has pointed me in the right direction to learn PHP and between him and Dave I can always get my mondo-complicated programming questions answered.


My other friend Mandel has also started a blog recently on his newly revamped and relaunched mandelweb.com site. When he was relaunching his site he asked his friends opinions on several domain names. I was bummed when he didn't go for my favorite, "mandelicious.com". It is a groovy site so check it out.


Andy and Mandel are two people that I don't see nearly often enough and I am glad I at least get a peek into their lives now and then.

Have you taken a look at ESPN.com lately? Seems Disney signed a cross promotion deal with MSN. As a result, the top banner and right banner are now promo areas for MSN. On my laptop, you can't even see the right banner and all that the top one does is push content way down on the page. Oh yes, and of course the MSN stuff is visible while the rest of the page struggles to load.


In my frustration, I went over to FoxSports.com to check their site out. While I give them kudos for having a visually appealing site, it just isn't very usable. One must click to see the headlines (something that any good news site has displayed on their homepage). If you click on a story and go back to the homepage, the headlines are gone again. At least they have a link back to the old Fox Sports site which is actually better.


I also checked out CNN/Sports Illustrated's site. It was very usable with easy access to stories and benefits from its ties to one of my favorite news sites, CNN. However, it was plagued by pop-up banners for the magazine and also a massive advertisement header that bumps everything else down on the page. Another interesting note is that most of the stories on all three sites are by AP, and therefore the content is nearly identical on the sites. So in the end I guess I will still end up on ESPN, but mostly because none of the other sites were that much better.


In entertainment news, I enjoyed the movie Rat Race this weekend. It's an over-the-top comedy by David Zucker. Performances were great across the board (though I was a bit surprised his mom didn't make a cameo as she does in most of his films) and the story was good with the exception of the ending. I think it is tough to end movies that are so huge and over the top throughout. No matter what you come up with, it always seems to be short of expectations.

Well I am off to Northern California to follow a dream. I'll let you all know how it turns out on Monday. Other good news is that I actually have something to do next week. Thanks to my former employer, I have three days of career counselling free of charge. Whee. I also should be getting my resume back soon.


The redesign trend continues. Today, Hotmail redesigned their site look and feel. Anyone with an account want to give me a review? Let me know.

This weekend I went roller skating for the first time in Aeons. I think the last time I went any type of skating was Valentine's Day 1991. It was a bizarre night that culminated in the car we were driving in coming to a halt on the Yolo Causeway. This was in the days before call boxes, and after sending people looking for a phone, the rest of us ended up on that freeway for about 7 hours.


Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln gets re-dedicated tomorrow at 7:45am on Main Street. I was thinking about going to see it, but I think I'll sleep in a tad and go apply for a part time job at the resort tomorrow instead. Its the 46th anniversary of Disneyland tomorrow and they always give away something cool.


Two recent site redesigns of note: CNN.com and The Los Angeles Times. Both redesigns were subtle, but improved the site usability immensely. Special kudos goes to the LA Times which actually made the site as readable as their paper.


On this morning's TPIR, Kenneth from the University of Saskatchewan won the showcase, but he didn't have anyone come up and celebrate with him afterwards. Did he go by himself or were his friends just camera shy?

I am just getting settled into my new life. I had a few extra days to tie up loose ends, but as of tonight, I will be a free man. As one can expect, my mind has been working overdrive on what to do and second guessing what I have done, but I still believe it was the right decision. I describe it as this: Usually in my life there are signs that I should do something. Sometimes I miss them completely (i.e. UCSB) and sometimes I get it. This time around the signs were Las Vegas style so I have confidence that things are going to work out.


Slowly I am getting back into the swing of things so my updates will get back to their normal schedule. Since tomorrow is my first day off, I will try (but not promise) that the trip diaries will go up then. Sorry again for the delay.


ESPN redesigned their homepage today. I kind of like it, however I despise the huge flash ad on the top right and I think it was a big mistake to frame the site for the bottom line scoreboard. It is also interesting to read their message board and note that the tone is very similar to the message board on Edmunds.com when they redesigned their site. Don't take it personally, sometimes people just need to vent their spleen.

The US Government is the largest E-Commerce site out there according to MSNBC. My personal favorite is their site at bid4assets.com which sells everything from property to copyrights. I'm disappointed I missed out on some choice Grand Canyon-adjacent property.


I am sooooooooooooo ready for vacation.

My new favorite website is http://www.menwholooklikekennyrogers.com/. A quick view of their hitbox stats (the same company that I use) shows that since they launched the site on May 9th, their projected monthly traffic is about 220,000 users. That's pretty impressive considering my almost six year old website attracts roughly 5,000 hits a month.


Today I also found out that according to the MTA schedule, it would only take me 1 hour 8 minutes to take the bus to my work. It takes me 30 minutes to an hour depending on traffic. On a particularly nasty traffic day it would be worth it. However, I get the feeling that if its bad in a car, it is probably much worse in a bus. We just need a nice light rail train.


Alex is 29 today! I missed his shindig at Chevy's on Saturday, but have promised to spoil him at Chevy's the next time we get together.

<rant>

I am completely over websites that are run by people who have think they have something to prove by going out of their way to rag on something. It is bad enough when the forum on a particular site is dominated by people whose idea of constructive criticism and opinion is "Man (fill in name of media company/site/person/etc.) Sucks." I remember when Usenet degenerated many moons ago for the same reason. I guess it has finally saturated on the web as more people "learn" html. I now find myself turning to official sites more rather than fan sites. I might not get spoilers as fast as before, but at least I can get information without all the bull. I know some fan sites see themselves as "guardians" of some strange ideal that they think exists for a show or theme park or whatever, but in reality, they are fans. They don't create the show or even have a clue as to what goes on to make a show, including the BS that comes from companies who set unrealistic expectations (hint: its just like any job no matter where you work). So memo to fans: If you are really ticked off about something, don't watch it. Don't buy that annual pass, don't buy that collectible CD, don't go see the movie and for pete's sake DON'T make a fan page. You are just wasting my time. I will make my voice heard not by getting into a heated board discussion, but by going somewhere else.

</rant>


I feel much better now. Did I mention there is a song in India about me? Listen

I found out that I am worshipped by a billion people in India. Ok, maybe not a billion. Here is the story: Apparently Ford Motor Company calls its new Ford IKON 'the josh machine'. It has even set up a website for the josh machine at www.thejoshclub.com. You can get screensavers and desktop wallpapers galore. It gets even weirder. To celebrate the one year anniversary of the car, Ford commissioned a song called Aao Josh Mein by Shankar Mahadevan and Javed Akhtar.


Read lyrics and listen to a clip

Watch the video


Cartoday.com and Business Standard also have articles about the josh phenomenon.


So I'm thinking that I should try and get one.


Meanwhile, back in reality, Mandel lent me his way cool "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" CD from the UK. It contains all the music and effects from the show (that are identical to the US ones). I wish they would release something like this for The Price Is Right. Now whenever someone comes into my office to ask me a question, I have the appropriate music cue ready to go.

I really need to get around to a better system of doing the daily updates. I need a more automated system like Blogger so I can post to all the versions at the same time. I realized this because in order to make a Tellme application work dynamically, I need something that can output VXML on a regular basis. I think if I hone my programmer skills I might be able to figure something out. The flip side is that I do not want to be dependent on a third party software to get my update posted.


In the meantime, I have posted for your approval, a Beta of the Tellme version of the Daily update.


1. Dial 1-800-555-TELL (1-800-555-8355)

2. At the Tellme Menu prompt, dial 1-12138

3. Enjoy.


Mondo thanks to Hit or Miss.org. I promise to read the tutorials and do it for real soon. Really. I promise.

I finally have begun working on a new version of jarrepalooza. I'm still playing with the colors and stuffs, but I am well on my way. I was inspired because today I found some more MP3's online for my collection that I didn't have before. Also, I found new versions of some that I did have before but were not of good quality.


Fresh from that internet find, I was also shocked that I actually came up with a topic that I could not get any good results from any search engine. I had lunch at Wienerschnitzel which begged the question: "Who invented Corn Dogs? I tried and the best I could get is quoted below. Now I don't know if this is legit or not, but its the best I can find.


From State Fair Foods website:

Legend has it that two brothers, Carl and Neil Fletcher, were responsible for the first corn dogs. In 1938, the Fletchers were offered a booth at the Texas State Fair in Dallas and needed a product to sell.


The brothers had seen a Dallas street vendor selling hot dogs coated in cornmeal batter that were baked in molds shaped like ears of corn. This generated the idea to put the hot dogs on sticks, dip them in batter, and deep fry them a much faster process and far more convenient to eat. At this point a legend was born corn dogs on a stick!


If anyone has more info, let me know!

From the Xterra log, I have noticed that gas prices in my neighborhood have risen 40 cents since April 5th. That's pretty darn steep considering the previous 10 months saw gas fluctuate between $1.41 and 1.61. I certainly hope in the next few years that some more hybrid vehicles start hitting the scene.


I now have a new favorite band: Icy Hot Stuntaz.

A hissyfit/brouhaha has erupted in the online Jarre community over Jarre's lack of updates/responsiveness to people running his official site. It really makes no sense to me. Jarre has never been one to have ready communication with the fans. He has always said he wants to improve the relationship, but it has never worked out so far. On the other hand, I think fans have an unrealistic expectation that just because an artist has a website that they will give regular information. Sometimes there just isn't anything to report. I never have this problem. Even when there is nothing interesting to say, I'll at least mention something. :)


Tonight is the finale of Survivor 2: Electric Boogaloo. My money's on Tina. I also am pleased that my gut instincts (see Jan 29 Update) were right from the beginning.

In my wanderings around the Internet, I have found a couple of relic theme parks that have websites. It is interesting to think that there is not much separating these pages from my Doingworld pages. I guess I should work on an attractions list and then no one will know the difference.


Check out:

Freedomland USA

Pleasure Island

The last couple of days have really been a roller coaster ride. Tuesday night I was up until 2am approving pages at work. Yesterday we all sat around QA'ing and waiting. The result? At 5am this morning, two years of hard work finally paid off.


It is all somewhat anti-climatic. The waiting, the frantic coding and recoding, and the general lack of a social life all take their toll while building up a sense of expectation. Then it all happens and despite a few bumps here and there, it works well. You are left with a sense of what's next. Fear not, I am taking tomorrow off to unwind and return to a somewhat normal life.


In the meantime, enjoy the fruits of labor of a bunch of really great people.


Completely unrelated, but really amusing: KFWB a local all-news radio station I listen to during the commute has added hourly power updates. What is this world coming to? "At the top of the hour here is the latest power update - No Power Alerts issued as yet - stay tuned".

StarWars.com had a really good April Fool's joke up on their site. They converted it to April 1, 1979 - complete with reports from the set of Episode V, why George Lucas hadn't released Episode IV on Betamax, and the screen was nice a monochrome green like the good old days.


Baseball season is upon us. This season, the Brewers and the Pirates open new stadiums. I remember a time a little more than 10 years ago when Toronto opened the first new stadium in 10 years and everyone else's stadium looked long in the tooth. I do remember being excitied as the Giants built their new stadium and hope to someday get to see a game there. Here are the stadiums that I have been to:


Dodger Stadium

Candlestick Park

Oakland Coliseum

Bank One Ballpark

Coors Field

Astrodome

Anaheim Stadium



Here are the ones I have been by, but not inside during a game:

The Ballpark at Arlington

Pac Bell Park

Wrigley Field

Comisky Park


I don't think I'd ever spend the moolah to go on one of those escorted MLB staduim tours, but I wouldn't mind visiting as many as I could on my own.

A look into the spread of Foot-and-Mouth disease. The CDC has some interesting insights. Sorta.


Oszie passes along this guide to dancing that apparently is very popular on the web.


And finally Survivorsucks.com has a link to: Survivior Monster Island! I'm betting on Godzilla to forge a strong alliance.

I have completed a first crack at a newly redesigned Gorn page. I am not 100% satisfied with it, and will probably tweak it a bit more in the coming days. If (and that's a big if folks) it goes up, it would be the first significant upgrade to the Gorn page since 1998.


Amazon has a new honor system where people can donate money to their favorite website. Somehow, I doubt Club Josh would earn enough for me to quit my day job.


Still no DSL. Last night, I sent a large-ish photo (approx. 300k) to work and it took forever. I hate being in the stone age. I feel like those monkeys on the Pac Bell DSL commercial.


Those folks at Jack In The Box are at it again. Jack has bought a new football team called the Carnivores and has set up a web site. The best part? The Meaty Cheesy Boys are going to perform at the halftime show. Look carefully at the roster of players. You will notice some great names and even the name of the technical contact on the whois record.

Everyone's favorite crack site, AmIHotorNot.com has added a new feature. Now you can meet selected people. After you vote on someone, their picture shows up on the next person's page. In the same box, there is a link to "Click here to meet this person". this takes you to the "Meet me at Am I hot or Not" section of the site. If both parties click "Yes", then information is sent to both people. I think it an excellent extension of the site. I wonder if Are they hot or not is going to do an alternative interface for that section as well.


El Pollo Loco would do well to not only care Foster Freeze ice cream, but also their food.

I finally got around to reading a magazine that Haim left on my desk. It's called Web Techniques and it has some interesting articles in it. The January 2001 issue that was on my desk had an interesting article on the building of your web team that is right on target.


In a related note, some recruiter called me and asked if I was interested in changing jobs for an obscene amount of money. I think it is the first time that I have been contacted by a recruiter. Quite an