Category: reminisce

Thoughts about the good old days… memories.

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the list


A real hodgepodge today, folks.

When Sharaun and Keaton and I were home in Florida the past couple weeks, I had some time to hang out with my stalwart buddies Andy and Kyle. These are guys who I’ve known since my initial days in Florida after moving from California, give or take. You can get a bit of history on them here on my now-defunct and no-longer-linked anywhere “cast of characters” page (the page got too outdated and I always felt I was slighting someone with their “bio,” so I scrapped the whole idea). Anyway, one night we were sitting outside at a little brewpub on the beach, amassed around a table enjoying beers and conversation, and the topic turned to the shenanigans of our past (it often does). Andy mentioned that, at some point when he and I were in college (at arch-rival institutions), we’d bounced an e-mail back and forth between us called “the list,” in which we tried to document some of the funnier and more memorable events from our “wilder” youth. What’s more, he said he still had “the list.”

Well, here we are just two days back from Florida and Andy lived up to a promise he made to me when I heard he still had the list – he scanned it in and mailed it to me. Seems like he printed it on an old dot-matrix printer way back then, and reading it now I was surprised to find how many things I actually remembered quite well. In fact, I’ve even written about some of them here on the blog. My long-term goal, though, is to write a paragraph about each line item on the list (at least the ones I can remember). Anyway… you can check out the list in it’s entirety here: page1, page2, and page3. There are some hilarious stories hidden behind those little one-liners. (Actually, I just looked again at Andy’s scan, and the dates show we did it in June of 1996 – a mere year after graduating high school. So, at that point I was still in junior college and not true university, as I stated above (just trying to be factual here, folks)).

Got turned onto the newish “Tapers Section” feature of the Grateful Dead’s massive meandering website from a music forum the other day. Every Monday, a new bloglike entry is posted, and each post is chock full of MP3s representing snippets of shows played during that week in Dead history. A stellar concept if you ask me, but I’m not surprised the Dead are, even posthumously (as a group, at least), on the cutting edge as far as digital music – I’ve written about my respect for their progressive distribution ideas before. Anyway, if you’re a Dead fan, or just want to get an idea of what the whole Dead “thing” is about, the “liner notes” style of the posts accompanying the music lend a lot of contextual goodness to the aural experience. So go ahead, feed your head.

Over Christmas I mentioned to my brother-in-law that our digital camera hasn’t been working right ever since Sharaun dropped it into the cat’s water dish at 2006’s Halloween Bash. He asked what kind we had, and when I said Canon, he mentioned that when he called Canon customer support when his camera’s flash crapped out after the warranty period expired they offered him a “upgrade.” Turns out that Canon runs something like a loyalty program where owners of older model digital cameras can get cut-rate prices on newer models as part of an official “upgrade program.” There’s scant information on this program on the web and it’s not to be found at all (at least by me) on Canon’s official website, but if you call 1-800-828-4040 (in the US) and tell them you’re current make and model they’ll let you know if it’s upgradeable and to what. In my case, my S400 is upgradeable to an SD450 for $159. Not bad compared to the Amazon price of $317. Another buddy called about his A30 and they offered to upgrade him to an SD550 for $189. A better deal for him, to be sure, but the $159 price for a working, newer camera sure is enticing to me. Haven’t jumped on it yet, but likely will soon.

Goodnight.

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when i was bulletproof


Work today was another one of those sprints to five o’clock. Meeting after meeting, rushing to get one thing done before it was too late to do the next one. I don’t mind so much, but I hate the fact that, when I get home, I’m often so beat down that I’d just rather collapse than do something ultimately more enjoyable like feed my daughter dinner. Tonight, though, I powered through it – and went immediately from dropping my keys to spooning pureed chicken and apples into her perfect little mouth as she bopped around and babbled. At the time, I may have wished I was splayed out on the couch instead – but I think I made the right call.

Little by little these past few weeks, I’ve been working on my “best of” list for the music of 2006. I guess I’ll let it fly sometime in December, I’m imagining posting it while in Florida for the holidays. As part of the process, I go back and listen to each album I shortlisted throughout the year, and try to write something about it while it’s on the cans. Today I wrote a little bit for one album that I liked so much, I’m going to put it here – but without listing what album it was for. I justify this because a) I’m running low on material and I liked it, and b) I figure people don’t really read all the “best of” text anyway (who wants to read some dude’s gushing over rock ‘n’ roll, anyway?):

One night back in highschool, I found myself at one of many parties in the woods. Sharaun could never accompany me to these things, so I was flying solo. At some point, an upperclassmen girl I knew fairly well sauntered over and, her face lit furtively by the flickering bonfire, whispered close that she wanted to try some of what I was smoking, but that she was with her “straight” friends and needed to be discreet.

So that’s how this girl and I, our relationship already clearly established to me, her, and apparently others as being flirty enough to raise eyebrows, found ourselves quietly slipping off into the trees to get high together. I’m convinced I could’ve made anything happen under the shelter of those trees that night, but I didn’t. We smoked, laughed, enjoying our teenage moment, and walked out together into the crowd some five minutes later.

I guess our disappearance into, and subsequent reappearance from, darkness got folks talking though – and by Monday morning at school it was said that we’d bedded in the pine needles. I had a time explaining to Sharaun, but everything worked out in the end.

Ahhh yes, those sacred years… nothing like highschool when I was bulletproof.

Oh my, the “new” Beatles record has leaked and I’m 24hrs late to the party… gotta catch up… goodnight.

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ghost writing


For today, something different. A random selection of entries from my highschool/college “blog.” It was a lot like this place, ‘cept I called it a “journal” instead of a “blog,” it wasn’t for public consumption and accordingly not dressed up as much, and the writing is terribly juvenile (I know, I’ll be similarly ashamed of this tripe later in life). Anyway, here follows some entries, dated for easy reference, cut verbatim from the first organized canon of writing I have (I have scraps and notebooks back to ~’93). Cue smoke and those tinkling bell things.

8/23/95

So much for writing frequently. Jeremy lives with me now, has for a while too. I love having him here, it’s great. I’ve seen some great friends leave lately. And it’s always that handshake and the “good luck man” that gets me in the end. Mikey left, Bostrom left, Danny left, Rob leaves soon, Keli and Robin left. Just me Niz and Sharaun left here, owell that’ll do for now I suppose. Sharaun says I don’t act the same as I did two years ago when we first started going out, well, that was two years ago and all. I dunno, I just can’t figure out how to feel. I would miss her if I lost her, I know that. But if I did lose her I could gain friends again, whatever. Hate thinking about that. I’m ordering a bunch of Beatles bootleg cd’s from Germany, I sent some guy I never met a check for $200, pretty smart huh? All I can say is that I hope I get some music. Niz and I went to the Bahamas, man what a blast. I especially like Natalie, she’s a great girl to talk to. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Sharaun. Well, don’t feel like writing much more today, talk later perhaps.

11/15/95

Sharaun told me today that she basically wanted to sever all contact with me, I guess since people have been telling me that’s what I’ve needed – then I should be happy. Owell, we had a good two years and I’ll have lots of memories to tell my grandchildren. I was under the mistaken impression that our friendship meant something to her, yeah right. I have been experimenting with my voice and the computer and recorded one of my poems from above and some backwards speech that I thought might be interesting in the future, I plan to fill up and entire tape with odds like that eventually. I mailed the letter and tape I made to Kyle today, pretty neat sending something to an Air Force Base to one of your ex-best friends who still really figures in your life. Jeremy is working, but he should be home soon. It is very cold tonight in Florida, and I don’t have any clovers to enjoy with the cold, maybe I’ll borrow a Pote. Vanilla Fudge is an excellent band ya know? They have great songs and stuff.

2/18/96

I always write in this thing like I am writing to someone, I guess I kinda sit here and imagine some future person reading it. Kinda like someone will one day be interested in what I was thinking while I was growing up or something. Anyway, if I get down to it – I doubt anyone will ever read this, and if I do save it on disk, I’m sure by the time I’m old and someone wants to look at it all for posterity sake, this disk will be so outdated and unusable they’ll probably just throw it away instead of going to the trouble of finding and old Packard Bell that has Microsoft Works on it. Anyway – I will not let those thoughts daunt me – I will continue to write as if someone is reading this, or will be reading it. I makes no sense to write it thinking I’m just writing – that’s retarded. So, hereafter this and afore it all – these paragraphs, lyrics, poems, muses, commentaries and thoughts are laid bare before you to interest, disgust, inform, enlighten, reform, influence and delight you. Hopefully you’ll respect them, if for nothing else but for the fact that my thoughts are recorded here and that no matter how meaningless they are to you – they are my thoughts, and I guess man is lonely without his thoughts. But then again, loneliness is nothing anyway.

6/3/96

Early in the morning and I just woke up. Don’t have to be at work till 5. I have The Breeders “Divine Hammer” on the set – making me smile. Kyle came back for graduation and his mom’s wedding. I went to graduation, and had a good time. Kyle, Andy, Drew, Joey, and I have been doing a lot together. We had Chris’ B-day party over at Rob’s, his parents are in the Bahamas. I’ve been there.

And with his best serious-face in place, he lied to her out loud and in the middle of a crowd. They embraced and he felt so cheap, but she was happy and he got to go on feeling good about himself. “For some reason,” he thought, “They just don’t comprehend as much as we do. It’s so easy, it’s almost a shame.” But then he messed up, and it all got out. And he was tarnished. For some reason, no matter how much better they are, they always seem to mess up.

This thing is now 30 pages long. And this month will mark its first full year. With entries for almost every one of the past twelve months (save one or two) it makes a nice companion to remember my thoughts and feelings.

12/4/97

Woke up late today and had to rush out to class. Only come to find out that we have some quiz that I didn’t even know about. Needless to say, I didn’t do very well. This Physics class is really bringing me down – I just can’t get it. I just pray that I get at least a C in there so I don’t have to take the whole Godforsaken class over again next semester, that could screw everything up.

I am going home tomorrow again to work for Frank the funnel cake man. Wheee! I love work in the food business. Owell, it’s $100 and boy do I need it. I wish I could win the lottery, I’d keep going to school for the education sake of it, but I wouldn’t be as pressured. My finances would be set for life, no more worry. The whole money thing really sucks. I mean, I know there’s no other way to do it. You have to have some sort of economy, but I don’t understand how it works. How can our money be backed by gold, why is gold so special anyway? What makes it so valuable. I guess it’s the same unknown force that can make some words “bad.” Arbitrary choice is what I call it. Okay, maybe the scarcity of gold plays a role, but still – who cares. Dinosaur eggs are pretty rare too – why not back our money with those?

I mean, whose to say that this money is actually worth something? It’s all just paper. If someone who had no concept of money was offered a $500 bill, they’d say “What do I want with paper?” “But, it’s backed up with valuable gold sir.” “What’s gold, I don’t care, give me food or shelter or love, something I can really use you know? What do I want with a shiny metal or green paper, they won’t sustain my life.” Ahhh, but without them you can’t get shelter or food. That’s the catch.

So, I can understand the need for money and economy – I just wish it didn’t govern my life so much. I mean, why am I really in college right now? Because I have a passion for learning and love to go to school, not really – although I do like to learn. But the reality is that I am in college because I need a degree to get a job, I need a job to get money, which I need to live. I guess it’s a valid argument to say that you really don’t need money to live, you can always live without money, there’s plenty of ways. But those are the ways of a man in the mountains who traps and makes all his own food, has no electricity, and lives like a pioneer.

Maybe that’s why I am drawn to that lifestyle, not the full-on pioneer life, but a happy mix of mine and theirs. You know, a mountain cabin, but with electricity so I can have lights, television, and computer. Just enough amenities to live comfortably. I wish that I could just be retired but not old. Have some money to live off of that I never worked for. Man, the lottery would be great. Almost time to head back to school.

6/22/00

It’s a Thursday. Summer A is over tomorrow. However, I am done already. Not just done with this semester, but done with it all. 23 years old and finally out of school. I can’t believe it’s really over. I haven’t really figured it all out yet, so much will be happening to me in the next month, I still haven’t been able to grasp it all. All I know is that I am ready. Ready to take on whatever it all turns out to be. In fact, I want it to get here even quicker than it has been. I am leaving Gainesville on Saturday, leaving for good – save the one day we come to pick up our goods and pack the truck for California. Three years in this town and at this school, I finally made it. A graduate, a working class American husband, living in the California foothills.

Goodnight.

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whither hast thou gone?


Another Monday and I’m just sitting here downloading some music.

Wow, wrote those words and passed out snoring for 30min, some kind of magic dust has settled over me and I simply lost consciousness for a bit. No problem, dinner was Sharaun’s fantastic potato chowder (one of my favorite meals of all-time), and cleanup is a snap, and I’ve got the writing itch tonight – so I should be able to make up for the unexpected slumber.

This morning on the way to work, I saw a high-school couple waiting to cross the street. The young buck had has arm flung around his quarry, making a public display of their union. Seeing them fondle and peck at each other as they waited to cross reminded me of my own high school relationships. Rushing to pre-appointed spots in the scant 5min between classes to touch tongues. High school in Florida was hot, so midday between-class kisses were underscored with a heady scent that was combination of morning soap, teenage perfume, and summer sweat. To a boy of fifteen, those minute-long makeout breaks were something to be looked forward to – as well as a public flaunting of virility for all to see: that guy is workin’ it. Looking back now, those unbridled hormones and PDA seem “gross” and inappropriate – but thankfully youth blinds one to such social stigmas and leaves you free to grope and groan before the world without shame. Ahhh… youth… you fickle bitch, whither hast thou gone?

If I won the lottery, one of the amenities I would allow myself would be clothing myself exclusively in hand-tailored clothes. Nothing fancy, mind you, but tailored specifically to me nonetheless. I hate the way most clothes fit me, and, yes, I realize I can change this with a diet and exercise regime – but tailored clothes just seem so much more regal. I could stop my jeans from binding up near the top of my thighs when I walk, get shirts that don’t pull to one side leaving one sleeve sitting further up my arm than the other, put pockets where I want them for what I need them, and maybe get a suitjacket that isn’t more like a straightjacket in the shoulders. I think I have this thought every year upon the return of jean season, I hate 90% of the long pants I have – and the three pair I enjoy are about worn out. Curses.

I toy all the time with changing my WordPress theme, updating it to the newer more modular-type themes that more recent versions of WP use. Mine is lovingly hand-crafted (read: spaghetti-code CSS) and built on the old legacy style theme templates. Sometimes I just browse through themes seeing if there’s anything that I could see myself simply going hard-over to, but I never find anything as simple or clean as what you currently see. Besides, I’ve kind of grown fond of the boxy greenness, despite its shortcomings. So, for now, I’ll leave it. Who knows, as the years continue to go by and if I continue to write through them, I’ll likely be forced to update and move along. But until then, Sounds Familiar finna keep it real.

Goodnight my friends.

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run over by the spinning wheel


Friends, I told you it would happen… eventually. I just didn’t think it would be so soon. Within two days of putting up all my lovingly crafted Halloween decorations and props, I got jacked. The thieves made of with my best homemade headstone, a 4ft tall one with the nondescript “R.I.P.” carved into it, as well as the $10 “skeleton” thing which was jutting from the earth at its foot. They also tried to steal last year’s crown jewel, the not-cheap-at-all to make “coffin popper.” In their efforts, they detached all the various air hoses and AC wiring to the coffin, and I’m assuming only left it when they realized it weighs well over 100lbs.

Let me just take this time to emphasize just how much I hate getting things stolen from me. For reasons (explained here in detail), being the victim of a pilferer evokes a deep-seeded feeling of violation in me. I get altogether furious and nervous as my brain starts instantly wishing I’d caught the sticky-fingered bastards in the act, I get put off thinking of these ill-willed punks slinking around my house touching my things and all right under my nose as I sleep. I curse the gonads these bandits must have to take the time to step onto my porch and unhook my air hoses, to trace wiring with their fingers to find a plug in the dark and unplug it (if only my extremely unsafe for outdoors 120V wiring would’ve shocked the dicks). I hate the brazenness I imagine them having, and a good bit of that hates stems from the fact that I know for a fact I once possessed the exact same brazenness when committing my teenage deeds.

In fact, this morning I found myself nearly simultaneously thinking, “What gives kids the idea that they can do this kinda thing?” and, “Oh… that’s right, I know exactly what gives them that idea…” Stupid me, getting karmic repayment for the evils of my own youth. And the worst part is, if I was the God of Paybacks sitting up on my cloud on high, stealing a tombstone would only be the tip of the iceberg for me. Sharaun suggested I make a list, like Earl, and start making right the transgressions of my past – and perhaps I’d be spared any more vandalism or theft. Yeah, I doubt it…

Anyway, as if I haven’t written enough about it now… I’m not going to lie, I wrote the preceding paragraphs in the early morning hours just after discovering I’d been jacked. Writing is my catharsis. I was so angry, even angrier at the thought of them actually making good on their attempts to liberate me of the coffin prop. Had I woken up to that missing, I think I may have cried – so much time and effort (not to mention money) went into it. Losing that coffin may have drained my Halloween spirit, I have so much pride wrapped up in those silly props… I’m not sure I’d even be motivated to finish this year’s… sick in my belly, sick in my belly…

Let’s move on though, I guy can only fester so long.

When I saw an article linked on MeFi the other day about “the death of cursive” (apparently, only 15% of kids wrote their 2006 SAT essays in cursive) and noticed it had a whopping 90 comments, I clicked to see what other people were saying. Before I read the comments, I took mental not of my own opinion: who cares, cursive is dumb anyway. Right then, turns out I wasn’t the only one who sees little need to defend cursive as an art. I was just talking about this the other day with friends, how I haven’t written in cursive since gradeshcool when I was actually learning to write in cursive. I print everything, even my signature is some flowing block print rather than script. Cursive… please… that’s what fonts are for.

Know who’s pretty? Girls.

Goodnight.

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the mojo is totally genetic


Friday, eff that noise they call the “week,” it’s time for the girls to pull the bottoms of their shirts up through the necks and tie them off in sexy 5th-grade playground faux-bikini knots. It’s time for boys to gingerly unbutton buttons that are on an alien side of the shirt to them. Time for the smell of Malibu Musk lingering on my lips, time to have to change my JC Penny boxers because we held hands on the way home. It’s the weekend and it’s gonna be massive. Me and the guys are going to hide in those bushes at the front of the subdivision and blindly shoot BB guns at the road when we hear the whine of passing cars. After that we’re gonna try and score some beer and on Sunday I swear I’m gonna fuck Tina… no, I swear guys – I am totally, totally, fucking her this time. Shut up; just wait.

I have this amazing Hold Steady album to thank for that 1st paragraph (well, that and the Steel Reserve I’ll get into below). Listening to this album and its sordid tales of drinking, drugging, and general teenaging… the words are like poems about the very debauchery I once embraced. You call it glorifying irresponsibility, I call it conjuring memories with style.

Bear with me folks, Pat and I hung out tonight and he bought two Steel Reserve tallboys for us to drink. And at 8.1% alcohol by terrible-tasting volume, one Steel Reserve tallboy is enough for anyone on a weeknight. All that malt liquor has had a couple effects on me which will be noticeable to you, my blog readership. 1. I don’t care so much about sentence structure and that kinda crap. 2. I’m going to write about some neato stuff that normally be hard to explain (i.e. I’d have to write a lot to get the idea across) because I won’t care that I’ve not established proper background. Here goes.

When I was a kid, I always thought my parents’ bed smelled odd. More specifically, my dad’s side of the bed. It’s not a smell I can describe, but it’s something unique and immediately recognizable. Also, I would not, then, have classified it as particularly pleasant. Now, however, that I’ve aged into a man myself – I know what this smell was. It is the patented family sleep-induced pheromones. That’s right, we’ve got our own special blend of aromatic excretions. Let me elaborate…

I first realized I had the family pheromones sometime in college. During these years, I slept on a waterbed. Every so often, when I’d wash my sheets, I’d notice an interesting “mark” on vinyl waterbed mattress directly under the area where I normally slept. Perhaps “mark” is a misnomer… a more accurate description might be “stain.” I’d always known that I “slept hot,” being prone to nighttime sweating and overheating – but this “stain” appeared to be more than just sweat. The defining moment came, however, late one night around 3am when I was up late coding a VHDL project with my lab group. As we pulled our all-nighter, I was the coder who happened to be manning the computer, while the other members of my group huddled behind me watching. One of the guys in our group, an outspoken Cuban who’s bluntness I respected, said, as he hovered close to my head, something like, “Dude, has anyone ever told you that you emit a ‘funk’ late at night?” “No,” I replied, “I’ve never head that… but now that you mention it, I think you might be right.”

It took a few more years (and an equally outspoken but much less Cuban wife) for me to realize that this was not some random observation. I not only emit some olfactory “funk,” but also some palpable one. An intoxicating mix of sweat, oils, and raw, raw man-scent. So strong is this “funk” that Sharaun actually complains about me ruining sheets. Apparently, I ruin pillows, sheets, and even mattresses with this incredible genetic advantage. I maintain that these “juices,” as they are, are the secret to my stunning success with women. Sure, I’m fat and balding… but one whiff of me at night and the ladies are reduced to quivering masses of “do me.” Sharaun gets mad at me because I call this my “mojo.” I have nothing else meaningful to say in this paragraph.

And guess what folks? Know how I can tell regular old fussy Keaton from “I’m dead-tired put me to bed” fussy Keaton? If she’s “I’m dead-tired put me to bed” fussy Keaton, her head will have a thin sheen of oil and sweat on it. I’m not joking, she’s got the mojo too… the mojo is totally genetic.

I told you I wasn’t going to care about structure or grammar… this thing is going up just like I wrote it, only spellcheck – no proofread for flow or even sense-making.

Damn… that Steel Reserve gave me the most awful headache. Goodnight.

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at least i got the blog


Wednesday night and I’m sitting here trying to be anything but unimpressed with the new Dears leak, so far it ain’t workin’. I’m also fast at work grabbing the new Decemberists LP, which I learned also leaked a couple days ago while searching for some new song about “ghostriding the whip” for Sharaun. Speaking of workin’, I put in a good effort today – felt like I dug around and made some stuff happen… I like that feeling. Now Sharaun’s watching some eight-hour dancing-show extravaganza and I want to tear my eyes out – but at least I got the blog to keep me busy.

Got my unopened box of 15th series Garbage Pail Kids the other day, and promptly violated the collector’s code by tearing open each and every still-sealed pack. When it was all over, I had one complete set, one nearly complete set (lacking two cards) and one complete ‘B’ set, not to mention a pile of wax pack wrappers and a neatly stacked tower of twenty year old gum. I’ll sell the extra sets on Ebay to make back my outlay. Then there’s the gum… what do you do with twenty year old gum? You wonder about how it tastes, that’s what you do. You wonder and wonder and wonder until, finally, you just pick up one of the brittle pink sticks and poke it into your cheek. It won’t chew like regular gum though, it’s more accurate to say that it shatters like peanut brittle. Moreover, it’s age has made it impervious to saliva, and it never quite “gels” into one mass – remaining, rather, as a thousand tiny shards. Then you taste the bleu cheese, and you know it’s not right. Something in this gum has got the mold, and it’s like a fragrant fungus just bloomed on my tongue. Ick. Don’t eat twenty year old gum.

Some time ago, I realized that my pneumatic PVC-frame scarecrow prop I had planned for this Halloween was unrealistic. It’s not that the idea isn’t good, because it is, it’s that using air to power a prop that simple is just overkill. I guess I just wanted to do something more with pneumatics this year, but running a hose and buying a push/pull cylinder and solenoid seems like too much investment for an effect that could that could be realized with a small electric motor. All that needs to be done is to jiggle the joint strings to get the desired “electrocuted” effect, and I could do that with a windshield wiper or washing machine motor… something really easy. I mean, if I have to run power to the prop to trip the pneumatic solenoid anyway, why not just run power to a motor? The thought was that I was making the prop unnecessarily complicated just so I could use pneumatics.

Then… I stared researching it some more… and I’ve almost flip-flopped again. Air’s more reliable, and all I have to do is power a dead simple solenoid – no relays, no gear motors, etc. Still though, I run up against my long-time Halloween prop nemesis: timing/automation. I can buy a solenoid, I can get sound to come out of a speaker, but how do I make them happen on-cue or in sequence? This year, I debated buying a professional prop controller/timer – and I’m still undecided on that, although they are pretty affordable. Something else I stumbled on the other day, a Windows application that you can use on cheap PC-controlled timer/relay board. $50 for the software and $30 for the hardware (not counting the PC which will control the timer board) and you’ve got an extremely flexible complex prop automator.

At first I was excited, when I saw that the DIY jobs can support five inputs instead of the PicoBoo, where one PicoBoo = one input. This means that one PicoBoo could likely trigger only one prop (maybe two if you’re creative), while the Haunt Controller PC board could potentially power up to five. But, all is not as sweet as the first impressions, as those relays seem kinda weak… 12V and max out at 3-5 amps, and the PicoBoos have two straight up AC outlets on them (albeit offering only 8 amps combined). For my money, then, the AC-outlet F105 PicoBoo controllers are more versatile for amateur-type haunt automation.

Whew, glad that’s over, I was getting bored.

Before I go, here’s an interesting note written by a chemistry nerd on the plausibility of the London plane terrorists mixing and detonating TATP on a commercial airliner. Regardless of the plausibility of using this particular explosive, there’s always something that’ll work. I don’t remember who I heard say it but, if we can’t keep weapons out of prisons – how can we expect to keep them off airplanes?

Goodnight.