inbetween

Out of bed by eleven in the am. BBye Ben, see you tonight.
Stupid bank, you lost my cheque. Thank you bank, glad you found it.
I hate paying taxes, 'specially property taxes. Short line though.
Camera! Tried three models with the laptop and picked one. Paid for it.
I am digitally camera-enhanced!
Jerk at Canadian Tire. His boss helped me find Transmission Fluid.

I like my hair. This is a self portrait.

Yam balls are great. They sort of melt in your mouth with their gingery-goodness. Yam Balls are a great hit with the gay boys, but so are most balls.

The Goodness of the yam. The dark side of the yam. May the yam be with you.

"Luke, I am your yam."
"Talking like Yamda I am!"

Yamma-Lamma-Ding-Dong.

Would it be a dilyam or a yamdo?

Yams are often mistakenly called sweet potatoes, and vice versa, but they are two different vegetables. The true yam is the tuber of a tropical vine, and is not even distantly related to the sweet potato. Rarely found in US markets, the yam is a popular vegetable in Latin American and Caribbean markets. Generally sweeter than than the sweet potato, this tuber can grow over seven feet in length.

I was born in Yamloops. Not many people know that.

If you find them, they will most likely be sold in chunks sealed in plastic wrap, since they grow up to 7 feet in length and weigh up to 150 pounds.

That's a lotta yammy goodness.

A Book that should never be written: Your Yam and You, a Mothers Guide.

Uncle Yam Wants You! Join the Army.

If I were a Rich Yam

There are over 150 varieties available worldwide. Although you may find canned vegetables labeled as yams, they are most likely not true yams.

This yam has been brought to you by the letter Yammy and the number yamteen.

Yam facts from http://homecooking.about.com/cs/productreviews/p/yam_pro.htm

That explains the $900 missing from my account. To quote his email directly:

It appears that you put in both the June 15th and June 30th cheques a few days ago.....

Without me looking back too well, I thought that the 15th cheque had cleared
long ago and thus had maintained only a certain balance in the account. The
extra unexpected cheque done at the same time caused the 15th one to bounce
back to you.

I will re-issue you another one this weekend along with your Record of
Employment. Do you want them mailed or do you want to pick it up at the
office is sent there Monday or Tuesday?

Sorry for the inconvenience, but again, I thought that the 15th one had
cleared long ago along with everyone else's.

Is it really any wonder that I quit that stupid job?

Georgia Nicols Daily Horoscope: July 9, 2004

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

This is a mildly accident-prone day. Be careful driving and walking. In fact, you'd better be careful talking as well. Frogs and toads can pop out of your mouth before you know it. Be extra patient with siblings. Avoid arguments. Don't take the bait if someone taunts you.

I just realized that this is entry number 200! Woo! I am so great!

Oh look, a toad...

1. Propositions are bad things to end sentences with.
2. Assignage is the act of assigning to something. If you just add "-age" to a word, its meanage might not coincide with your thinkage.
3. Any amount is considerable.
4. The word amount applies to continuous things like water. You have a large amount of water. You have a number of discrete records.
5. If your sentence sounds awkward, it is. Rewrite it.
6. "This means that" is extraneous. This means that you can remove it.
7. "And" is much simpler than "as well as", as well as being easier to read.
8. Section Headings: Section headings need not be repeated in the first sentence of a section.
9. "Exist" does not exist to be used in every existing sentence, even ones that have not been written. Not all existing persons reading the existing documentation need to be reminded of their existence.

What does everybody think of the new look for the site?

I quite like it, but I haven't been able to test it with windows. or internet explorer.

Technobabble. You probably want to ignore this.

Matlab doesn't know how to subtract uint8 integers. It probably doesn't know how to do anything with uint8 numbers.

imread() returns a 2d array of uint8s.

dct2() and idct2() both return double 2d arrays, instead of uint8s. They work on uint8s though. Confusing.

I=imread(filename);
imshow(I)
J=dct2(I); -- compute the discrete cosine transform of I
imshow(log(abs(J))); -- display it with logarithm scale
K=J(abs(J) < THRESHOLD) = 0; -- threshold, essentially a compression amount
L=idct2(K)/255; -- inverse dct
imshow(L); -- show the result
M=double(I) - L*255; -- calculate the difference between the images
imshow(M); -- and then show it.

The Avengers, from 1966. You want it. Steed and Mrs. Peel. Dripping, oozing, pouring sexual tension and sexuality.

I need a sherry now.

I've finally finished the material for the image compression presentation. You can read the files, and you can come to the presentation.

• Slides for the Presentation
• Text that I'll be delivering

It is really dry. I'll add some humour to it later if I can. The actual announcement follows.

Introduction to digi-photo-techies: Panoramas and JPG vs TIFF

Place: EOW 430
Date: Tuesday Jul 20, 2004
Time: 5:30 PM

ABSTRACT

The Digi-Photo-Techies Club is going to have its first "session" this
coming Tuesday July 20. The plan is to have 3 'mini'
presentations. The program is:

* Introduction to the Photo-Techies club, by Daniel German. I will
talk about the motivations of the club, and the plans for it.

* A historical perspective of photography and digital photography. I
want to compare the new "digital photo" revolution to the
35mm. revolution and how history seems to repeat itself.

* Panoramas, by Daniel Romila. Daniel will introduce us to the art of
creating panoramas and mosaics, describing software tools and a
hands on demonstration.

* JPG vs. TIFF. Michael Joyce will describe the differences between
these formats concentrating in the advantages and disadvantages of
each for the photographer.

Everybody is welcome, film, digital photographers and lurkers.

The presentation on Tuesday was good, but I really need to work on my public speaking skills.

Wednesday and Thursday were kinda boring. I don't really remember what I did.

Tuesday, I hired two people to work in the Pride office. I'm going to hire one more this week.

Friday was Sushi, then drinks at Swans, $4.64 martinis.

Wednesday and Thursday I moved furniture. I remember now.

Saturday was making fun of Troy, a stupid movie that never should have been made, and the Bent Mast. The service and food at the Bent mast is atrocious.

Today was part two of "Me and Ben" time. Yesterday was part one.

I know some days got mentioned twice.

My mother seems to have dislocated her shoulder. Nobody's quite sure when it happened.

She hasn't had the use of either of her arms for, perhaps, a year. Multiple Sclerosis is a very slow, degenerative disease. She's slowly becoming less and less able to function, move, or (sometimes) think. Eventually her respiratory functions will just cease.

According to National Multiple Sclerosis Society - What is MS
MS degrades a person's central nervous system, by slowly removing a fatty tissue around the nerve fibers called myelin. Scars are left in place of the myelin, hence the name. The scars are similar to lesions that a person with HIV might have on her skin. Myelin protects the nerve fibers and helps conduct electrical impulses between individual nerves.

My mother's MS started in her spinal cord. Moving her legs gradually became more and more difficult, until she could no longer stand or walk. Without any active use, her muscles atrophied. She has no muscle tone in her body, and often falls to the side of her chair.

Not being able to move means that she can't go to the bathroom. She's been catheterized for several years, and is prone to infections. At the moment, she has at least two. I count more than twenty bottles of varying antibiotics, antivirals, anticonvulsants, antinauseants, and other medications. One is strong enough to treat anthrax!

A doctor will be by the house later today to check on her shoulder, and maybe put the joint back together.

I have a wonderfully bad lazy streak.

Every time an email pours into my inbox, I read it and decide if it's important enough to respond imediately. Most emails aren't terribly important (like, "Hey how are you? Long time no see...") and get left in the inbox for a while.

Sometimes a very long while.

Months.

Even a year.

Sorry Elizabeth. I just found your email from last year, along with about twenty other emails that I've been ignoring. I think I'll be spending the next few hours in a coffee shop writing email.