Category Archives: random thoughts

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Green Day

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Not long ago, a cow-orker asked me what “green” things I do. I told him that I hiked, and he said that didn’t count. Since then, i’ve been thinking about all the things that we do, and have done. In the wake of yet another Earth Day that no one pays attention to, here’s as complete a list I can think of on a Thursday morning:

  • Pay for a share to an organic, Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm.
  • Reuse paper, especially the backs of documentation drafts I print out
  • Take mass transit to work
  • Recycle everything – bottles, papers, cardboard, plastics with 1 or 2 in the recycling triangle
  • Give away stuff we don’t need to our local freecycle.
  • Reuse beer bottles for my homebrew 🙂
  • Wash and reuse plastic flatware at work
  • Use only natural cleaning products at home – vinegar, borax, washing soda.
  • Make our own laundry detergent
  • Pay into NJ’s Clean Energy program; part of our bill goes to wind power.
random thoughts

song and temperature

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When you come out of the World Trade Center PATH station, the Century 21 clothing store is across the street. Perhaps as a remnant of the bank which owned the building, there is a clock on the outside of the building that also displays the temperature.

this morning, as i emerged from underground, Dave Matthews Band’s “#41” (best. song. ever.) was playing, and as i looked over at the clock, it was 41 degrees.

ah, parallelism.

random thoughts, Technology

New HDTV!

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i bought the pioneer 50″ plasma i wanted – pdp-5080hd. there was a price drop, and i’ve been wanting to buy it, but was kinda waiting for S. to look at furniture for it.

on wednesday i went to j&r’s site, which has had the lowest price on it, and it was no longer listed.

fuuuuuuuuck.

so after work yesterday, i trudged up there (it’s only a few blocks from here), saw the TV (again), then went to the sales guy. there’s one left in the warehouse. price was $500 more expensive than on the web site. he didn’t know why the price went back up. but, he could talk to his manager…

comes back with a price that was $100 more than the price i saw on their site. i’m still not sure, but i tell him it was a no-brainer at the web site price. so he matches the price. delivery’s like $150, and no tax on the sale.

i looked at the comparably rated samsung and panasonics while i was waiting for the guy to work his deal, and they just weren’t the same. plus, the samsung was more expensive. they had america’s test kitchen on when i was there, which is most likely what we’ll be watching most of the time…
so i’m going to have this huge freakin’ tv delivered next saturday. it’s going to look really out of place in our apartment, but once we upgrade it will be awesome. or so i’m hoping.

it’s only a 720p set (768p, actually), but as i was waiting at the cashier with the sales guy, i asked him about the 1080p vs 720p thing. he told me that he and a colleague actually set up two blu-ray DVDs next to each other – one on a 720p and one on a 1080p. said that unless you were like 6 inches from the tv, you’d never notice a difference.

random thoughts, Technology

edmarsh… .com?

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so edmarsh.com was up less than an hour and a half after i changed the nameservers.

i played with wordpress all day (and now looking at drupal again). i’m surprised the ease with which everything is configured; although i have uninstalled and reinstalled both wordpress and drupal a few times already, and broke the themes folder in WP once. i modified the template, and had a little fun. and the cpanel is a whole lot nicer than the windows-based helm.

i find it amazing that a few years ago, i would’ve hand-coded a whole new site. now i simply don’t have the time or inclination. getting this new site up has given me an interest in mysql, so that’s something i’ll learn enough of to just get me in trouble. or disinterested.

my problem, as always, is that i’m diving right in. i need to plan this site out and figure out just what i need it to do. i’m sure i’ll fuck up wordpress again, and i will never be completely satisified of the outcome. and then, after awhile, i’ll lose interest, and move on to something else.