Hostel

The only Internet cafe I could find in Hilo is the Youth Hostel, really the cheapest bargain in town. Bunk beds for $18 – what more could you ask for. Interestingly, the advantage of the place is not necessarily the computers (although those are huge), but the people watching. Interesting folks march around here. People that could use a lot of showering, people that are on the lookout for a cheap deal, people that have nothing to do in this crazy but cheap town. Continue reading

Gone

I’ll be out to visit the construction site for the next few days. daily cat sitting is organized. I will be courageous and sleep in a tent under my roof. A challenge, given that I will land at around 8p and there will be no light to pitch a tent. An adventure, one might say, given that the only shower I will have is that of the waterfalls. A foolhardy proposition, seen that I have no keys to the locks. Continue reading

Personal Finance Software under Linux

Amazing how many people (= geeks) say the only reason they still use Windows is because of Quicken™. The ease of use and the power of that little application that could defy even the Grand Master of software powerhouses ends up being a good paragon of things to strive for. Linux enthusiasts have been resorting to using Quicken on their favorite OS by virtue of emulation software like Wine. Indeed, the Wine site lists 21 different versions of Quicken and their users’ ability to run the software or not. Continue reading

Closed

{moszoomimglink:House under construction}Finally, after a three-month ordeal that left both the seller and myself wondering if anyone in the process actually wanted to make this work, the escrow company confirmed the property has been recorded in my name. The beautiful terrain slopes gently down from Mauna Kea to the sea, with uninterruptible 180 degree views of the ocean, a stream on one side that boast 20 waterfalls and one of the rainiest climates on this planet. Continue reading

Added support for Zoom in Sitemap module

Easy – peasy! Well, I had enough experience with the Zoom internals when I attempted this. The Mambomap module is an easy to use module for the display of a sitemap. It takes a series of options (which I ignored) and allows you to display all content on your site in an easy-to-use tree. The only changes required are to the mambomap.html.php file. There, you register a function to handle Zoom (here you would add a hook for an option to display or not the galleries) and one to retrieve and display all galleries. Continue reading

Sleep

I had no sleep in the last two nights, mostly because of my preoccupation with closing the house. Now that’s over (closing date is tomorrow) and I could finally sleep. I took off early from work, went home and slept. And slept. And slept. After 8 hours, Mondo, my faithful cat woke me up to play with me, and I still could have strangled him. Oh, sleep is such a relief! Continue reading

Minor Bug in ZooM Ecards fixed

I noticed that when I sent an ecard from this site, it always ended up showing the master size of an image instead of the view size. Easy enough to fix! Just go to line 138 and change it to read: _dir."/viewsize/".$zoom->_ecard<br></br> where it reads: _dir."/".$zoom->_ecard<br></br> right now. Do the same on line 188.

Letter from a Mother in Vermont

The following is a very strong and moving letter written by the mother of a gay boy in Vermont… “Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people. I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. Continue reading

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Tag line: Tim Burton back at his best. Subtitle: Why people who love a movie should never watch the remake. Why do we all love Tim Burton? I don’t know about you, but I have always loved his absurd humor, his digging deep into the human soul to find out there is levity in there, to an extent that other people can’t seem to find. No matter which of his movies you go to, you’ll see something magic happen, usually something pleasant and pleasing. Continue reading

M (1931)

Fritz Lang’s first talkie – that’s how Netflix presented the movie to me. It’s amazing to see how quickly movies changed from the days of no sound and their pathos, to the current way of shooting movies. Seems like the jump from silent to sound was much more dramatic than that from black and white to color. M is billed as one of the first thrillers ever shot. A young, quite effemminate man turns out to be a child killer out on the loose. Continue reading