My coworker Jim just went online with his new weblog. He’s exploring the relationship between his two loves: cookery and geekery. His latest article, for example, is on hacking hamburgers.
Go check out The Kitchen Geek: Cooking as hacking. Dinner is 0wnz0red.
I bought a Gmail invite on eBay last week. I was disappointed, but not surprised, to discover that rsteele(at)gmail(dot)com* was already taken. It is due to the popularity of the “rsteele” login that I am rsteele19(at)yahoo(dot)com, ryangarysteele(at)hotmail(dot)com and now, rgsteele(at)gmail(dot)com. And undoubtedly some poor sap is trying to sign up for Gmail right now, cursing “Someone took rgsteele!”
I do hold the coveted “rsteele” login in a few places, however. For example, I am rsteele(at)telus(dot)net. I was not the first, however. When I acquired the address way back in ’99, I signed in for the first time only to find the account full of email already. Stuff about medical conferences and cancer treatment methods. Turns out the account had recently been surrendered by its former owner, a doctor. I tracked down her new address and dutifully forwarded all messages intended for her as they trickled in over the following year.
Even though I no longer receive internet access from Telus, I have opted to retain my email address (and pay $5.30 a month for the privilege.) Why? Well, for one thing, I’ve been too lazy to change all my mailing list subscriptions and update all my accounts on various web sites that have this address on file. But more important than that, I’m afraid of someone else acquiring my old email address and reading mail that was intended for me.
Not that I receive much important mail at this address. Over 95% of the incoming mail is spam. Most of the remaining 5% is from mailing lists, with the occasional personal message. (Most of my personal communications on the Internet take place on instant messenger.) But there’s always a chance that someone could send an email to this address after someone else has taken it over, and that worries me. It’s kinda like moving out of your house and not being able to leave a forwarding address. And while the new tenant is probably an honest guy who wouldn’t ordinarily open someone else’s mail, everything is written on a postcard. He’s already started reading it before he realizes that it was not meant for him.
My email address in college was rsteele(at)uvic(dot)ca. I had to abandon that address after I graduated. I made an effort to update everyone with my new address, but it is likely I missed some people. Has the address been reassigned to someone else? Has someone else received an email that was meant for me? Why don’t email providers tell you how soon they will reassign an email address after you abandon it?
Am I being paranoid? Should I cancel my telus.net address? Am I asking too many rhetorical questions?
If there’s any lesson in this, I guess it’s to realize that there are some email addresses you can’t keep forever, and there are some that you don’t want to. And if you think you might not be keeping an address for long, you might want to make it one that someone else is unlikely to choose.
I’m optimistic that I will have my Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail addresses until I die. Feel free to email me at any of them.
* Email addresses in this post have been munged to thwart the nasty spammers.
Had a great weekend. G-Rob had been here since Wednesday, and then on Friday Reeg came into town. In what is quickly becoming a grand tradition, Regan and I rented a movie only to end up doing something else entirely. This time, that something was karaoke at Soprano’s with Graham and a bunch of his crew. I got up and sang No Rain by Blind Melon and Billie Jean by… well, you know who it’s by. Graham and I also did a stunning duet of Venus by Bananarama.
One of Graham’s friends sang Let’s Stay Together by Al Green, which inspired me to download buy Al Green’s Greatest Hits. So I’m officially on a classic soul kick. Any suggestions for other great classic soul music I should be downloading buying?
On Saturday I headed up to Comox. Played some pool and listened to a great blues/rockabilly band called The Twisters at the Edge Pub with Demos and Tracy.
Then on Sunday I went golfing at Longlands with Dad (Mom came too, just for the walk). My folks have the house up for sale again, so if anyone’s looking for a 4 bedroom house on an acreage with ocean views in the Comox area…
Like a moron, I left my camera at home the whole time, so you’ll just have to trust me that all this happened.
If you vote for the Conservatives, STEPHEN HARPER WILL SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE.
I am no longer in a band. Jay called on Thursday, the night after our last show, to say he wanted to stop making music for awhile. So now I’m in a weird state of limbo where I don’t know quite what I am anymore.
Maybe waffles will help.
On a recent visit to my parents I picked up the old Super Nintendo and brought it back to Victoria with me. One of the games we have is Super Mario All-Stars, which has the first three Super Mario games on it. Last night, I finally finished Super Mario 2.
You know, that game has a lesson for anyone aspiring to be an evil-doer: if your sole vulnerability is being hit in the head with vegetables, it would be unwise to make your hideout a room with A MACHINE THAT SPITS OUT VEGETABLES AT REGULAR INTERVALS.
Had a good long weekend. Went back to the ‘mox to visit the ‘rents and the ‘riends. Helped dredge the well, whack the weeds, and move the TV. Had a mocha at the Komoux Grind and got beaten at scrabble by Tara. (I demand a rematch!) I’m jealous of Reeg and Tara and Tracy. They’re such regulars at the Grind the clerk knows what they want before they even order. I want to be a regular somewhere. I’d love to walk into a bar and have the bartender pour me a drink without even having to ask. That would be cool.
Also had a bonfire at the beach. Boy did *that* bring back memories.
Pictures.
The plan for this week: finish the album cover, produce some sort of press package for Jay, and play my new guitar. It’s a Simon and Patrick satin series electric acoustic with a spruce top and a cutaway. Now I can be a real guitarist.
I am FORCING myself to write in my blog. It is stagnating. People won’t want to come here if there’s never anything to read. Not that many would want to come here anyways. All that I write about is boring stuff. Like, how I hurt my foot jogging on Wednesday and had a tensor bandage on it for a few days and that helped, but now it does a weird creaking thing when I move it in a certain way, and it’s not like I twisted it or anything, I was just jogging and it started to hurt! Am I a feeb, or do I need new shoes?
“But Ryan,” you shout, “that’s what you’re supposed to write about!”
Well, you may be right. But these days the blogs I find myself reading the most are blogs about web design and technology and stuff. I want to have one of those blogs. An informative blog. Maybe I should start a new blog. An informative one.
The problem is, that would be a lot of work.
Well no, it wouldn’t be a lot of work. It would be some work, to be sure. In fact, with the time and effort it’s taken to write this post, I could be well on the way to having an informative blog.
Ok, this post isn’t going so well. Maybe I should start again.
Then again, this is just to keep my blog from stagnating, right? Quantity over quality! Look at all the words I’ve written!
Ok, I’m going to say something informative. Right now, right here, in this very blog post.
*clears throat*
OK, here goes.
If you find yourself being electrocuted by your bass amp, be sure to take apart the electrical plug. You may find that the ground wire has become disconnected. You might even discover that the hot and neutral wires on the amplifier plug have been reversed all along, which can’t help.
Thank you for your attention.
Last night I went to Nanaimo with my bandmates in Jay Dunphy and the Religion to play a show at The Cambie. The relevant photographic evidence is here.
Some highlights from the evening:
Joy was the evening’s chronicler. You can read her account of the evening’s events is on her blog.
Another gig poster. This one’s for the show at the Cambie in Nanaimo. Note the evolution of the logo from the previous version. I accomplished the chrome effect using this method. As always, comments and constructive criticism are welcome.
