I just wanted to mention that Jennifer Connelly, the lead girl in Labyrinth, one of my all-time favorite movies, is back on the screen this season in A Beautiful Mind. She stars opposite Russell Crowe and is already getting attention for her acting. The Golden Globes has already slated her onto its list of Best Supporting Actress nominess. Very nice considering the Golden Globes is the general precursor to the Oscars!

I just finished up a project I had planned about six months ago. I always wanted a small, unobtrusive wallpaper changing program that would just open, select one of my wallpapers at random, and quickly close. Well, last night I was bored so I tackled the project and finished it this morning after less time than I thought it would take. It does exactly what I want. I'd post it here, but I hardcoded the directory where my wallpapers are stored (I wanted it unobtrustive remember?). I may eventually add in a textfile that it can read and get the directory, but who knows. At any rate, my latest Visual Basic project is done.

Two nights ago it was sleeting around midnight when I was coming home. Last night, I went out around 9:30 and it was just starting to snow. Some stuck to the trees and ground and cars, only a trace, enough to make things look pretty. Trace or no, it's the first snow. :)

I am not usually a fan of Christmas music. In fact, while most music basically comes into popularity and then fades, never to be heard again except by the diehards and oldies stations, Christmas music gets unearthed again and again every single year. If you did not like a song one year, likely you never will. It would be like hearing New Kids on the Block every two years, or Hansen.

Ahh well, there are some gems of Christmas songs though. I heard Tori Amos' version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas a number of times over the past many years, but only a few summers ago did it really hit me how beautiful the song is. Every time I hear it now, I could almost weep at how beautiful her voice is in this song, with the light piano and extremely touching lyrics, if you let them touch you.

So, with the coming holidays, I've switched my song from A Groovy Kind of Love, to Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

Today is such a beautiful day. I walked outside to pick up my pants from the dry cleaners to hear the birds exuberantly telling each other how great the weather is for December. The sky is a pure blue with clouds only on the fringes of the horizon. The wind shifts the air, which is about 50 degrees, in no real direction. It is the kind of wind that seems to come from nowhere, but simply move the air slightly around you no matter which direction you walk; just enough to let you feel the sun warmed areas and the cool, late autumn air. Quite nice.

Well, I completed a 30 minute project on displaying streaming media on web pages. Actually, most of that time was spent choosing which song and which video clip I would put up for my examples. I ended up choosing one of my favorite love songs ever, Phil Collins' A Groovy Kind of Love and a short funny video clip of two cats mock-fighting. The neat thing about this implementation of media is that you don't have to download anything (I hope) and it should work on all browsers 4.0 and above. The only downside is just internet connections. Slower connections may have to wait for the file to download a bit before playing, so it is not a true streaming media presentation, but a pretty seamless one otherwise.

The tutorial for this media presentation can be found on Webmonkey.com.

My roommates, Rachel and Lisa, make awesome pies. I could die eating one and be totally happy.

It has not snowed yet, but winter coldness is definently here. Not much has been happening otherwise. Apartmentwise, we decided to host a party this past weekend for about 25-30 people I would guess. Everything went great. Only Rachel and Amber got sick and went to bed early. The police showed up, but pretty much just for the music and to see a few people leave, which was no big deal as it was about 2:30 or 3 at the time.

Personally, nothing much is new with me. I am happy to have found a new anonymous email address to use with some email lists that include some "dangerous" computer persons. I had been looking for some time for a free service that would have POP3 and SMTP (incoming and outgoing mail from my own mail client) that was not web-based like Hotmail or MSN. I found what I was looking for in flashmail.com. Now I just have to find a reliable web browsing proxy. I have tried out one in Amsterdam and another in the Czech republic, but neither was terribly speedy at all times of the day.

I just finished what is probably, easily, the saddest book I have ever read. Long ago in middle school or before, I got a book called On The Beach by Nevil Shute through some book club. It is a short little book, and honestly, the only book I know of that I started and did not finish because it was so boring. The book is about post-apocalyptic life in Australia as the wave of radiation covering the earth moves in, set to kill everyone. It follows a number of the people in the area and how they deal with the impending doom. Well, I finished it now, and...well...it's so sad.