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How @purplehayz tweets

Introduction This post was started because I get asked regularly if I ever sleep. I do, typically from 10P Pacific time til about 4:30A eac...

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> How @purplehayz tweets
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We bought a house

We finally bought a house in SoCal – its not as close to Los Angeles as we wanted (its in Woodland Hills), but its big and its ours; ...

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> We bought a house
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ComicCon 2009, Thursday: Pictures

My son Nathan and I attended the Thursday opening of ComicCon 2009; we had a great time, we walked the whole exhibit hall floor. I got a c...

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> ComicCon 2009, Thursday: Pictures
>

A bunch of pictures taken on my Blackberry phone

Just a bunch of pictures I took with my Blackberry over the last month or so; no one category deserved a separate post, so here’s a g...

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> A bunch of pictures taken on my Blackberry phone
>

Visit to Palm Springs, Wayne Thiebaud retrospective

We visited the Palm Springs Art Museum to see the retrospective of Wayne Thiebaud titled “70 Years of Painting.”  Thiebaud be...

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> Visit to Palm Springs, Wayne Thiebaud retrospective
>

Make your very own IC earring

My geekiest fashion accessory is my IC earring; I’ve made several because friends have asked (sometimes demanded!) them.  I’v...

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> Make your very own IC earring
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Paper model of Chartres Cathedral – IT’S DONE!

I bought a model to assemble of the famous Chartres Cathedral in the Cathedral gift shop, and this entry will track how I put it together. ...

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> Paper model of Chartres Cathedral – IT’S DONE!
>

March 29th, 2009 by alephnaught

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China Underground

Title: China Underground
Author: Zachary Mexico
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Soft Skull Press (March 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1593762232
ISBN-13: 978-1593762230

I bought this book for our trip to Italy from an independent LA bookstore.
And I loved it!  I want to go to China more now than ever before.
There are 16 stories, each about one or more underground players that [...]

March 27th, 2009 by alephnaught

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The Taqwacores

Title: The Taqwacores
Author: Michael Muhammad Knight
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Soft Skull Press; Revised Edition edition (January 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1593762291
ISBN-13: 978-1593762292

This book claims to be about Muslim punks, but in reality its a coming of age, and coming to his personal understanding of Islam, story of a Muslim young man.  Yusef’s family is from Pakistan, [...]

March 22nd, 2009 by alephnaught

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Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

Title: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
Author: Seth Godin
Hardcover: 160 pages
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover; 1 edition (October 16, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591842336
ISBN-13: 978-1591842330

I’ve read a few of Seth Godin’s books before and always learned something from them.  So, I decided to bring this along on my vacation to Italy.
The book begins with “A tribe is a [...]

March 7th, 2009 by alephnaught

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Uzumaki, Volume 2 (2nd Edition)

Title: Uzumaki, Volume 2 (2nd Edition)
Author: Junji Ito (Illustrator), Annette Roman (Editor)
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC; 2 edition (December 18, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1421513900
ISBN-13: 978-1421513904

I recently finished the first volume of the Uzumaki series and just had to continue the story of the spirals.
The main characters, Kirie, a school girl, and Shuichi, her recluse [...]

March 6th, 2009 by alephnaught

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Mac software: DropBox, Googaby, and Things

Thanks to Twitter, I found three tools that are now a critical part of my computing life.

The first tool is Things.  Things is a task list manager that implements the important parts of the personal task management system created by author David Allen called Getting Things Done.  Tasks can have tags and notes; notes can [...]

March 5th, 2009 by alephnaught

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MAKE YOUR POINT!: SPEAK CLEARLY AND CONCISELY ANYPLACE, ANYTIME

Title: MAKE YOUR POINT!: SPEAK CLEARLY AND CONCISELY ANYPLACE, ANYTIME
Author: Bob Elliott (Author), Kevin Carroll (Author)
Paperback: 132 pages
Publisher: AuthorHouse (February 8, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1420804391
ISBN-13: 978-1420804393

Our Toastmasters club, Navigators Toastmasters, hands this book each week to the second place speaking finisher.  I don’t like competition and don’t like awards for club activities, probably because I [...]

March 2nd, 2009 by alephnaught

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Witchblade Volume 1: Witch Hunt (v. 1)

Title: Witchblade Volume 1: Witch Hunt (v. 1)
Author: Ron Marz (Author), Mike Choi (Author)
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Top Cow Productions/Image Comics (February 13, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1582409064
ISBN-13: 978-1582409061

I’ve been on a graphic novel kick lately, so when I saw this in a store (probably a Borders or a Barnes and Noble around here), I decided to give [...]

March 1st, 2009 by alephnaught

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Uzumaki, Volume 1

Title: Uzumaki, Volume 1
Author: Junji Ito (Illustrator), Annette Roman (Editor)
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC; 2 edition (October 16, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1421513897
ISBN-13: 978-1421513898

I saw this book at my favorite Japanese bookstore in Los Angeles (and in New York City too), Kinokuniya, and thought I’d give it a shot.
I enjoyed this book so much I’ve [...]

March 1st, 2009 by alephnaught

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The meaning of life – the 42 Firefox extensions I use

I thought it was time to share my own list of Firefox extensions that I use (I constructed this list using the Extension List Dumper, which I used to help me move from Firefox 2 to Firefox 3 by identifying the extensions I needed to update or replace).  I currently have 42 extensions installed.

Aardvark 2.97
http://karmatics.com/aardvark/
Firefox [...]

February 28th, 2009 by alephnaught

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Glasses, books and Formosa Cafe

We headed out late after doing some cleaning around the apartment.
First stop was Retrospecs, a nice glasses shop on Melrose in West Hollywood.  Aviva ordered a new pair of glasses there, and I found some nice circular frames.
The Bodhi Tree book store was nearby so we walked over.  I got a book on creativity and [...]