chewykolchuk.com

I could do without aggregator sites that don’t link DIRECTLY to the item in question.  I go to Popurls.com a lot to see what the kids are looking at on teh internets these days.  Sites like Digg and Reddit provide links to internet memes, and popurls.com provides links to the most popular links from all the various sites out there like Digg and Reddit.

The problem that you sometimes run into is that some sites will display a headline that is sure to suck you in.  For example, if I see a headline or a link that says “Naked Sword-wielding Goddess on Bike Bakes Cookies in Her Own Brewery While Playing Guitar[NSFW]“, uhhhh, well, I think I’d like to see pictures of that.  But when you click the link, you get routed to a site that has a bunch of other links on it (including said link) and you have to click again.  Or maybe it takes you to a site that is basically a forum with everybody’s responses and then you have to sift through all those responses to find the link you were looking for.

Folks, one rule of website design, ESPECIALLY if you are selling a product, dictates that nothing should be more than 3 clicks deep into a site.  The reason I’m going to an aggregating site in the first place, is that I’m too lazy and I want all of the internets’s's’ss awesome to be right in front of my stupid face!  RIGHT STUPID NOW!

Funny thing about the links above is that Teh Internets has been saying that Reddit is causing the demise of Digg.  I don’t know why, because Reddit is one of those forum-type sites that you have to go searching for the link in question, and I find it to be a little tedious.  I know that part of the appeal is the comment section, because there are some hilarious comments left by funny people, but if I want that as an entertainment stye, I’ll go to Fark.com, as they seem to be the king of that style.

Okay, I’m done.

Popularity: 18% [?]

“get together your shit, and move your ass to a proper toilet”

- Fishbone

Now that I’ve decided to get my shit together vis a vis this very neglected blog, I’m trying to make sure that everything that is important will look completely awesome and all that shit.  The thing that sucks is that the feature that enabled one to click on my pics and have them enlarge with a cool animation…that seems to be broke.

DAMMIT, JIM!

So now I’m all pissed.  Gonna have to go into all the code and figure out what the hell is going wrong and why can’t the particular plugin work right n shit.

More later…

Popularity: 14% [?]

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.”

So here goes…

If you can think for yourself, this post ain’t for you, and you can move right along and go Create Things and Be An Individual.  But if you’re an MTV viewer, then please keep reading.

For those of you who don’t know me, you will find that I’m definitely a function-over-form kinda guy.  However, I do realize that we each develop a certain aesthetic that we adhere to in our lives, which is what gives us each our own style and makes each of us a little bit different.  And as we all know, variety is the spice of life, right?  And I’m okay with the pre-teen who is trying to dress themselves rather than just wear what Mom put out for them.  We all have to spend some time finding what we like, and that route invariably takes us through the realm of All The Same Old Cookie Cutter Clothes That Everybody Else Is Wearing, hopefully to another realm.  Some make it through this treacherous forest, and some don’t.

Folks… I’m talking about Uggs.  Have you seen these things?  They look like you shoved your foot up a tauntaun‘s butt and then cut the rest of the tauntaun off with a lightsaber.  Yeah, go running around with these things on your feet and act like Couture Barbie.  Now I realize that they were originally designed as an apres-ski boot, and as such, they’re probably highly effective, but nobody wears them for that purpose.  They are worn as a desirable piece of fashion, and you know what?  That’s not even what pisses me off about them.

What pisses me off about Uggs is that you first saw them (years after they were actually used for apres-ski purposes on the ski hill) on brainless L.A. types with those Paris Hilton cum-blocker shades, walking down the street in 90-degree weather!  Now I don’t automatically hate on peeps from the SoCal, or the OC or whatever…but if you prove to me that you are hard of thinking AND you’re from The Land of Plastic as well, well then I think we have a winner, folks!  Or, a…whatever.

So if your feet have been mercilessly incarcerated inside a pair of ill-fitting ski boots for 8+ hours, then by all means, you go wear you some Uggs.  But if you don’t know the difference between red and green wax, then the following formula will apply to you.  It goes  a little like this:

Males in our society look at women and rate them on the 10-scale, with 10 being the highest.  Swimsuit models, Italian actresses and Kevin’s Mom all qualify as 10s.  By way of comparison, nuns, Croatian powerlifters and Zeno all qualify as zeroes.  Now here’s where Uggs come into the equation.  If you are wearing Uggs as a fashionable article of clothing, then you lose 4 points right off the bat.  (If you wear Uggs, I’d guess you’d lose points for saying things like “like” and “totally” all the time as well, but that’s another post.)  If you are above average in looks and might score a 7, but you’re wearing Uggs then you’re now a 3.  If you’re completely surface-of-the-Sun hot and capable of causing hair to grow on mens’ palms from 100yds away, guess what?  If you are wearing Uggs, you will never be a 10.  It’s that simple.

“Sweetie, you may have walked into the shoe shop a 10, but you left a 6.”

Popularity: 4% [?]

Hey there crimestoppers!

I was eating a schnitzel sandwich last Thursday when I heard a firecracker go off, or maybe it was the ice cracking under my feet.  Funny thing is, I wasn’t hiking on a glacier, nor was I playing with explosives.  No, I was eating my dinner.  So when I heard the noise, my brain said to me something like, “Hey, there’s that noise you hear in your dreams sometimes, but I think this time it’s for real.”

It was for real.

Of course, my first course of action was to get the Denial Machinery up and running.  “OH NO YOU DINT!”  But after sending my tongue out to do some intel gathering, I found out that, “OH SNAP!  YOU DID!”

I had cracked one of my molars such that about 1/3 of it had calved off into my mouth.  Oh goody.  I say that because I am one the many Americans who are going to be affected one way or another by the current health care debate going on around us.  Mainly because I don’t have any insurance.

The next day I made some phone calls and found that the University of Washington School of Dentistry takes patients and, since you essentially end up being a walking training session for some post-grad wannabe dentist, the rates are cheaper than going to a private practitioner.  Hey, I live right by the UW, let’s go!  It’ll be fun!  Especially when I found out that they were going to have to install a crown.  Me?  A CROWN!?  I know my name is a kingly name (not Chewy, my real one), but this is AWESOME!!!  When I’m king, I’m going to make everybody ride a bike for a year before getting a driver’s license and I’m going to make Rainier available to every – what?  Different crown?  What the hell?

No, this sucks.  I don’t want them to cut into my mouth and chop my gumline down to install a cap on my toof and…it’s going to cost money too!?  Oh jesus…

What’s the moral of the story?  Chuck E Cheese pizza is terrible, don’t eat it.  I realize that it doesn’t relate at all to this post, but it’s a good maxim to live by.

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Here I am, surfing the iPhone app store. I recently switched to AT&T so that I could start getting used to the iPhone, cuz Dave wants to write apps for it. So every day I try to think of what might make for a good app and then I search the app store at iTunes.

Recently I was looking for bicycle-related apps since I’m a bike dude, so I was searching terms like “cycling”, “bicycling”, “bikes”, “bicycles”, and when I typed in “cycle”, I found a bunch of apps concerning the ‘menstrual cycle’. WHOA!!! I mean, I guess that just makes sense, cuz that’s kind of a big deal for a number of reasons, all pertaining to one BIG thing that most young people want to avoid, so okay…there’s a bunch of apps for it. But you know…I got curious. So I downloaded one of them.

I feel like I just read my girlfriend’s diary or something! I opened some sort of Pandora’s box and it can never be closed again! This app is CRAZY!!! Okay, sure, you can type in the start and finish dates of your last period, as well as how long in between cycles it usually is, and then as time passes, it will become more predictive for you as to when your friend will next show up. That would seem to be standard fare. But delve a little further and it starts to make one (if male, like myself) feel a little crunchy, like I furnished a false password and am now in some place that I shouldn’t be. AND I’m about to be found out at any moment!

When you open the app, it asks you to furnish when you had your last period, and when you choose any specific date, there’s an option to choose whether you had intercourse or if your period started on that date. I chose intercourse. It then asked me if it was protected or unprotected! WHAT!!! Who are the dirty whores downloading this app?

Well, me, for one. But I digress.

When I went back into the setup portion (always start with a new program by setting up your preferences, it helps one understand just what the program in question is capable of) to adjust parameters, it asked me to input my Luteal Phase. Off to Google I went and found out what that shit meant. Then I was asked if I wanted my Fertile Days to be displayed. Uh, no.

So that was interesting to say the least. However, I was still doing research for the brilliant app that I have in mind and so I went back to the app store. I typed in more search terms and saw many apps that made differing levels of sense in my mind, from the idiotic-but-I-suppose-that-matters-to-some kind of apps to the (like the above-mentioned app) holy-crap-I-had-no-idea-because-I-don’t-live-there kind of apps. At one point though, and I suppose it just makes sense, I did stumble upon a couple of apps that were based on the sex-offender registry idea. Holy shit! If I know ONE thing, it’s Never Look Up Sex Offenders Online. Why? Because you’ll find out where they are! And they are in your neighborhood! Now…I don’t have children, so I don’t worry as much about this as some, but I don’t wanna know that shit! I’d like to think that the nice person walking their Akita at night in our neighborhood simply has that dog because it’s a beautiful animal, and not because they are fiercely loyal to ONE person and will fight to the death for them…and that maybe this person is a sex offender and they need that kind of protection. No thanks, I’d like to think otherwise as the dog (who is as big as a fucking horse) looks me right in the eye and silently challenges me every time I walk by. I’m stupid enough too, to fall for that shit…and I stare right back and the owner has to physically pull him along, cuz this dog ALWAYS wants a piece of me. Funny thing is…I KNOW that dog would rip me a new one too, but I can’t stop letting him know that I’m still higher on the food chain, or totem pole or pecking order. Whatever…try to light a lighter, pal. Try to hitch-hike. Not so easy with paws is it? Fuck you, I’m going to the bar!

Anyway, I learned something new today at the ol’ app store. There is always something out there for you, no matter what your taste.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Today I’ve been doing laundry and setting up my audio recording station.  The audio recording setup dictates that it’s better to have an external HD to write/save files to so that you’re only using one hard drive for actually running the program and using another for the write/save function.  That makes it easier and faster for the whole process and is less taxing on system resources.

Got that?  Awesome.

To that end, I noticed that the hard drive I want to use for file saving is being goofy and won’t let me write to it.  No problem, I’ll just copy the files to another location and re-format the drive.  So I did.  Except that I was on autopilot and I accidentally erased the other partition in the same drive.  What did I erase?

60GB of MP3s.  CECIL CHRIST!!!!

Well, that sucks, but it’s done and I guess that makes things easier because now I don’t have to do quite as much work with the other project that I’d been thinking of.  That project is making sense of the various MP3 files that reside on the external HD, the desktop computer and the laptop.  Now instead of reconciling/consolidating 3 file locations, I only have to do that with 2.

Oh boy.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I don’t know what the deal is, but the past 9-12 months have not been happy ones for Chewy’s ribcage.  Let me elaborate…

To be honest, I’m not sure if I’m going to be starting with Incident #1 or #2, but sometime in November of ’08, I did something to crack a rib.  It’s been a while now, and I don’t remember the specific incident, but I don’t think it happened due to a bike crash.  In fact I think I tripped on something in the dark here in my room, and hit the deck, my chest-cavity bouncing off of something on the way down.  The point here being that when I went up to AK for the month of December, I clearly remember having some decent rib pains for the first week or so.  I’ve cracked ribs before, so I know what it’s like and I also know that they don’t really do anything about it…you just have to hope you don’t cough, sneeze or hiccup until it heals.  So that was my Winter ’09 Juneau trip.  Kinda…

The last night that I was up there, Zeno and Aaron and I tore it up pretty good.  When we got here to my place, I realized that I’d done something awesome to some ribs in a different spot.  Imagine how excited I was to know that it would a couple more weeks of hoping I wouldn’t cough, sneeze or hiccup while a different rib, or ribs, healed up in its/their own sweet time.

Fast forward to the past!  Specifically, in fact, one week ago, roughly.  Thursday evening.  Not last Thursday, but a week prior.  WHATEVER!!!  RECENTLY…I had reason to be riding my bike home from a buddy’s house.  I’d decided to take a different route to get there and so I was returning along the same route, as it took me through more residential neighborhoods, and less along motor vehicle arterials.  In other words, I deemed it to be a safer route.  Along the way I came into a cul-de-sac that had recently been re-surfaced with chip-seal.  As I turned into the cul-de-sac from the sidewalk, I was leaned into the corner, and having been freshly-applied, the surface was not unlike a basketball court covered with marbles.  Marbles that turned into jacks once I went horizontal and hit the deck full-force on my side.  Normally when you hit the deck on pavement, you slide.  That sliding action actually deflects some of the impact of hitting the deck.  I didn’t slide very far.  And it hurt when I went down.  Okay, so there’s that.  Now I have a bruise on my side and scabs on my leg, and my forearm looks like I tried to pick a fight with Wolverine.  My upper arm, however, looks kinda cool.  All the little pebbles scratched me up in multiple deep, short slashes that look like I got a tattoo of a meteor shower.  YIPPEE!!!

But the point of this long-winded post is that guess what?  Yep, the ribs on the right side have been on a slow burn ever since then.  And guess what else?  Yep, I sneezed today.  But this wasn’t just a normal sneeze, this one was one of those ones where the entire system was sealed up airtight, so my lungs, and therefore my chest (i.e., my ribs) took the full force of the blast.

DAMMIT, that hurt!

I’ll just end by saying that injuring your ribs sucks.

Toodles!

Popularity: 7% [?]

Sometimes you gotta just say “what the fuck”.  Here’s a couple for ya…

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8140/leftvsconservatards.png

http://ivotedforsarah.com/

http://www.amazon.com/review/RRKV0ADMBILR5/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

That’s all.  Nothing important, just saw these online today and thought “what the fuck…” and went back to my coffee.

Popularity: 3% [?]

It just keeps getting better.  Check this out.

http://alaskareport.com/news39/x71283_divorce_palins.htm

Maybe that explains some things, but it would seem like she’s a big ol’ trainwreck, and as we all know…a trainwreck is pretty difficult NOT to stop and gawk at.

When I was in Juneau last month, every single day, it seemed, there would be multiple stories on the front page of the paper about new ethics complaints being brought against her.  Of course, she’ll point out that they all get dropped, but it seems to me that if none of them were true, then she wouldn’t have ANY complaints being brought against her in the first place, but what do I know?

It’s also kind of funny that she acts like she’s a proud Alaskan and how beautiful her home state is and all that, but when it comes time to settle down, she moves to Montana.  WTF?

Whatever…this show surely isn’t over yet, so I guess we all should stay tuned and see what the next chapter is for her.  I highly doubt that she’s had enough of fame just yet.  There should be a little left yet of her 15 minutes.

Well, dang.  Looks like it has been proven to be false out there on the internets, but then again you never know.  We’ll have to wait a few days/weeks to see how it all plays out in the end, I guess.  I hope it’s true…you can’t make this silly shit up.

- Chewy

Popularity: 3% [?]

I just deleted my MySpace account.  I don’t know why that felt so good to do, but it did.  With the advent of Facebook and the fact that I don’t live my entire life on the internet, I had stopped logging in to MySpace long ago.  Good bye, internet-ical tether.

Of course, I still have a Facebook account and there’s THIS page as well, but it’s funny how perspective changes with environment.  None of my friends in AK have ever heard of the internet, and they get along just fine.  They also go hiking, and play in boats on the water, and enjoy nature.  Which is not to say that my friends in SEA don’t do the same, but it’s slower here.  It’s like when I worked and lived on Vashon Island.  It’s just slower in some parts.

I could go out to the glacier (see previous post for photos) and sit down without a book, or a walkman, or anything around me at all, and be content to just sit back and watch the glacier just sit there.  And I have.

That’s all.  Digital vs analog.  Cyberspace vs innerspace.  Ones and zeroes vs earth and fire and water and air.  Virtual vs physical.

Carry on.

Popularity: 3% [?]