Douglas L Stewart

Uncle Phillip Visits

2011-11-22T21:09:00.001-06:00

My brother is back in town to visit for Thanksgiving. Connor got to hang out with him all day and play. Tonight we're continuing our George Lucas movie tour. Connor's already seen all the Star Wars movies and is now working his way through Indiana Jones.

Eclipse On My iMac

2009-07-10T23:00:00.004-05:00

My new iMac has renewed my interest in doing a little programming in my free time. It's not hard to understand - a slick new computer with a 24" screen and UNIX underneath - what's not to love?

I downloaded Eclipse and it seems to work very well. I thought I would try a little application programming in Java. I've dabbled with Java over the years and I figured it was time to re-visit it. I found a library called Chesspresso that is LPGL. I've got a little to show for it so far - although obviously I don't have it picking up piece images very well just yet and the pieces aren't moveable.

I'm working on downloading the iPhone SDK so I can play with that. Meanwhile I'm listening to "The Stage Names" and "The Stand Ins" from Okkervil River.

Coke va Pepsi, Facebook

2009-03-01T12:31:00.003-06:00

Coke drinking in te Obama administration -

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1882167,00.html

I would say Facebook is winning the battle over Twitter to get people to use it to post their status updates. if there was a tool that pushed Facebook updates to Twitter I would use it.

I figured out how to push pictures taken on my iPhone to Facebook. the Facebook app is awesome. Flickr better get something similar set up.

Updates

2009-02-22T10:08:00.002-06:00

I am now the proud owner of an iPhone. The SIM in my Motorola RAZR 3 died a few weeks back. Rather than replace my SIM for $6, I decided to buy a $300 iPhone that has 16g of memory and supports 3G. I've really been enjoying it - listening to a lot of podcasts and watching video podcasts.

Connor has totally given up on Thomas and Friends and now is a huge Transformers fan. I remember liking Transformers and owning all of the Constructicons. I really I bought them slowly over a long period of time, probably when I was around 12. I might have owned one other Transformers - that's about all I could afford. On the other hand Connor is 5 and has 4 models of just Optimus Prime and a host of other Transformers. Times have changed ...

Yesterday we had our first soccer game of the new season. The previous weekend we had a washout. Our coach was gone, so as assistant coach I had to get the game managed. We play on two different fields at this age group as 3 on 3, but one of the other parents helped out with the other field. We were short handed most of the game but we held our own welll even playing 2 on 3 part of the time. Connor is still not playing very aggressive and is a little awkward in his running, but I think the lack of aggressiveness comes from not having a sibling to fight over toys with. The awkward running probably comes straight from me.

Back right before New Year's I splurged on a new living room setup. I got a 46" TV, a BlueRay player, and a new computer that outputs HD. I must say I'm a bit dissapointed with the result. The TV is probably not as big as it needs to be (people - pay better attention to those distance versus TV size charts - they are not just trying to sell you a bigger TV) and as a result the computer is a bit hard to read from most parts of the living room. Things have also been slow on remodeling the living room to better fit it all in - one of Sarah's brother started that but hasn't finished it. I think I'm going to have to roll up my sleeves and work on it.

Subway Lounge Page on Wikipedia

2008-12-27T17:54:00.003-06:00

I was going through some old pictures I'd taken on my camera phone and ran across a couple I'd taken when visting the former site of the Summers Hotel and Subway Lounge. I noticed there was no Wikipedia page for it, so the link is to the page I created. First time I tried creating a Wikipedia page, although I made an edit to the U-Verse page once that has since been removed after seeing an article in the Clarion Ledger that the service was coming to Jackson.

I actually only went to the Subway Lounge once. Jeff showed me the place back probably sometime in the 1998-2000 timeframe.

I remember back when they were wanting to tear it down there was an effort to save it, ultimately unsuccessful that made the papers.

I found a blog entry of someone from back in 2005 that said Subway Lounge would be re-opening as part of the Farish Street Entertainment District, which was the first time I'd heard that. I've also heard that a B.B. King Blues Bar would be there, and I doubt both would ever come to fruition. Heck, I'm not sure if anything will ever happen on Farish Street. You never know though, since the King Edward is actually being renovated now.

Playing David Kernell, the Sarah Palin Email Hacker

2008-10-08T23:31:00.003-05:00

I've played David Kernell in several chess tournaments over the years. According to my database of games we've played 6 times with an even record of 2 wins, 2 losses, and 2 draws.

[Event "Oxford Open"]
[Site "Oxford, MS"]
[Date "2004.11.20"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Stewart, Douglas L"]
[Black "Kernell, David"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B12"]
[WhiteElo "1854"]
[BlackElo "1781"]
[Annotator "Stewart, Douglas"]
[PlyCount "42"]
[EventDate "2004.11.20"]
[EventType "swiss"]
[EventRounds "4"]
[EventCountry "USA"]

{B12: Caro-Kann: Advance Variation} 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. dxc5 Nc6 5.
Nf3 ({in our meeting the following month in the Mid-South Open I tried} 5. Bb5
e6 6. Be3 Nge7 7. c3 Bd7 8. Bxc6 Nxc6 {instead}) 5... Bg4 6. Bf4 e6 7. Bb5 Bxc5
8. O-O Nge7 9. h3 Bxf3 10. Qxf3 O-O $6 11. Bxc6 (11. Qg3) 11... Nxc6 12. Nd2 $6
(12. Qg3) 12... Bd4 13. Qe2 Qc7 14. Nf3 Bxb2 15. Rab1 Nd4 16. Nxd4 Bxd4 17.
Rfd1 Bb6 18. Rb3 {I thought I had some good play here and I was semi-happy
with my position, but Black is really in control} f5 (18... Rac8 19. Rd2 $17)
19. Rg3 $6 (19. Rc1 $17) ({I spent a long time looking at sacrificing by
Bishop but I couldn't figure out how to make it work} 19. exf6 $2 Qxf4 20.
Qxe6+ Rf7 (20... Kh8 21. fxg7+ Kxg7 22. Rf3 Qe4 23. Qd7+ Kh8 24. Qxb7 Rae8 $19)
21. Rf3 Qe4 $19 {and White has run out of ideas}) 19... Rac8 $19 20. c3 Qc4 21.
Qh5 $4 {a simple oversight, although Black was in control} (21. Qd2 $142 $19)
21... Qxf4 {White resigned} 0-1

Sunshine

2008-07-27T11:34:00.002-05:00

I saw a movie called Sunshine yesterday that I had rented from NetFlix. It's a Sci-Fi movie from the director of Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, both of which are movies I am a fan of. I'd rented it after seeing a trailer of it on another DVD - I think it was Stormbreaker. I don't remember hearing about it when it came out, but it only did about $5.3 million in the US and didn't seem to have gone in wide release.

I really enjoyed the film, although it did move a little too much in a slasher direction for the last 1/3 of the movie. It's an ensemble cast, and I recognized virtually everyone from some piece of previous work. I'm rarely disappointed with UK films or TV.

Doctor Who on YouTube

2008-03-08T09:40:00.004-06:00

I was in a Doctor Who mood this morning, and I saw a couple of awesome videos on YouTube. Here is a spoof:

Here is a trailer from Season 4 Doctor Who taken in a movie theatre:

Boys Club

2008-02-10T10:19:00.000-06:00

Sarah went down to New Orleans Saturday for some kind of Mom's Club event. Connor and I dropped her off at the new Union Station in downtown Jackson. The station was very nice, although the surrounding area still looks pretty run down. I can't seem to find a website for the station, and the signs to help you navigate it were lacking.

After dropping her off Connor and I hung around downtown for a while. We visited a free gallery at the Mississippi Museum of Art.
That was okay for me, but not so enjoyable for a 4 year old.

We tried to go to the Russell C Davis Planetarium, but they seem to have some work to do. I couldn't find an independent web site, just one of the City web site. There were no hours posted outside the building. When I went to the City web site and called they number they had to get show times, it referred me to another number which just rung forever.

Connor and I went to Kiefer's downtown and had an enjoyable lunch, although it would have been nice if we'd gotten a seat in the sun. It was just the right temperature for that.

After that we made a lot of stops - SAM's Club, BankPlus, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and then home.

Vacation Day 2

2007-10-15T10:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I woke up after 7 AM, a little later than the day before. On the scale I was 235, a pound less than the day before. I tend to eat more sensible when I'm home rather than during the work week, because I usually just eat out at lunch during the week, or on the way home after work.

I had Eggo Special K Waffles for breakfast with Smuckers Sugar Free Syrup. Sarah has some non-healthy butter coming up for expiration in November, so I splurged and used some of that.

My first chore of the day was to work in the garage. I sorted through materials I have from Gordon Scott, a chess player who passed away in 2004. Gordon had copies of Chess Life magazine going back to the 70's. I contacted the US Chess Federation via email to find out if a collection that old is considered rare or not. I'd like to find a good home for the magazines - something better than my garage.

Gordon has a variety of older chess books, all in descriptive notation. I could eBay them and put the money in the Mississippi Chess Association bank account, but I'm not sure if they are worth much. I think I'll offer them to Steve. He likes old chess books and I know his brother has expressed interest in some of them.

I threw away a few things in the garage and put some more on the dining room table for Sarah to sort through. I started working on putting together a dining room chair that had fallen to pieces once when someone (not me!) sat on it. There was a piece to be glued so I did that. It'll be a multi-step process.

Sometime during this time Sarah and Connor woke up. They went and had breakfast with Sarah's family and Sarah's mom kept Connor most of the day.

After finishing up in the garage I started catching up on media. I catch up enough DVR material to get everything to 3 days or more until expiration. Then I watched a Doctor Who serial The Sontaran Expirement, which is one of the earlier Tom Baker serials. It made me remember what wonderful companions Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan were. They had great chemistry, both with the doctor and with each other.

Later in the day I started working on another project that has gone on for a while. My fence is 20+ years old and I've been replacing it in sections. The posts are in good shape, so I'm replacing 2x4's and the fence boards. I finished up the last two sections of the original fence line in the side yard. I'd estimate that all together the last few years I've replaced about 30-35% of the fence, and the rest still needs to be replaced. I ended up using 23 boards for the sections I worked on yesterday. I had to use a single screw in them in last night, because it was getting dark.

Vacation Day 1

2007-10-14T09:54:00.000-05:00

I've got all next week off, but next weekend is the chess state championship. So I really have Saturday through Friday free. I'm going to try to be productive during that time, at least part of the time. There is definitely plenty to watch on the DVR.

Yesterday I woke up before 7. On the scale I was 236, which is tied for a recent low. I made homemade french toast with some eggs that Sarah had bought and had met the 'Sell By' date. I threw away the yolk on all but one egg, which makes them considerably healthier. About the time I finished Connor woke up and I made him Eggo Eggo French Toaster Sticks.

After breakfast Connor wanted to go for a walk around the neightborhood and I happened to be in the mood for that, too. It was still pre-8 AM. It was around 52 degrees at the time, so I had to find Connor some warm clothes. We broke out a new jacket (had to remove the tags). I got out some jeans that were too small (will go to Goodwill), and then I found a pair that was new (again had to remove the tags).

First we replaced my license plate with a new one that had arrived in the mail last week. The new plate, which is talked about in this article, features the Biloxi lighthouse that survived Hurricane Katrina. I'm not a big fan of it, because to me "lighthouse" screams Maine rather than Mississippi. The Wikipedia page about Mississippi license plates actually isn't up to date yet, so if I feel industrious later in the week maybe I can make my first contribution to Wikipedia.

After finishing up with the old license plate, we went around the neighborhood with our dog Tucker and had a good time. Connor saw at least 3 other dogs along the way that he got to pet and we saw 3 squirrels.

After we got back to the house we started raking leaves in the front yard. Most years
I am terrible about leaf control (usually a nice storm with high winds will take care of the problem), but this year I've been more proactive. This was actually the second weekend in a row I raked leaves, although it needed it again.

After that (which probably took 90 minutes and Connor lost interest about 15 minutes in and started doing various things - like jumping in the leaf piles), we removed Sarah's van from the garage and swept her half.

I put Connor in the backyard with Tucker so I could mow the side yard and a little of the front yard. The grass is a little uneven because of the time of year and the lack of rain this summer.

After that we went to cleaning out Sarah's van, which really hasn't happened since we bought it a about three years ago. We basically took everything out of it (Connor was actually pretty helpful with that). Around that time Sarah woke up. Connor and I took the van to get washed and vacuumed while Sarah sorted through the former contents of her van. I thought about going for the deluxe option at the car wash, where they do everything for you for something like $26. In the end I cheaped out and went for the $5 automatic car wash and the free vacuums. It still needs the Red Arrow treatment, but first I think I'll see how clean it stays before investing that kind of money in it.

After that the rest of the day was catching up on NetFlix/DVR and playing with Connor. I finished up the Tom Baker Doctor Who debut Robot, which I think stands up well from the point of keeping your attention, even if the special effects are dated. I think the BBC does an amazing job with bonus materials on Doctor Who DVD's. I also watched The Last Kiss, which was a flick that Brian recommended to me. I have to say, I don't think I've ever watched anything captured so well the way that people my age think and feel.

I really hope KVille doesn't get cancelled, but I fear it will. I think it's an excellent show. I rarely watch "cop" shows, but I love this one.

The Next President of Russia?

2007-10-07T12:06:00.000-05:00

If you haven't heard yet, Gary Kasparov is running to be the next President of Russia.

That made me remember the one time I met him in person. In 1992 I played in the National High School Chess Championship in Lexington, Kentucky. I finished tied for 3rd through 10th, but I finished 5th on tie break. The crosstable is based on rating, not tie break order. For finishing 5th I got to have my picture taken with then World Chess Champion Kasparov. He had been invited as a special guest. This was definitely an unique opportunity to meet Kasparov, as the USSR had just collapsed the previous year.

Here's an article about his entry into the Russian presidential race:

ESPN.com - "Former chess world champ Kasparov enters Russian presidential race"

International Checker Hall of Fame Destroyed

2007-10-06T11:25:00.000-05:00

On September 29 the International Checker Hall of Fame was devastated by a fire. Most people may not be aware, including myself until a year or so ago, but the International Checker Hall of Fame is actually located in Petal, Mississippi. That's in the Hattiesburg area. We actually were planning on having a chess tournament there in November, but obviously those plans were canceled.

Here is an article:

"Former Checker Hall of Fame destroyed by fire" - Hattiesburg American

Chess Lesson on YouTube

2007-09-23T15:35:00.000-05:00

I had kind of an interesting position come up in an endgame yesterday, so I decided to make a YouTube video about it. I used my ancient Logitech QuickCam to record myself, and I used some free software called CamStudio to make screen capture from Fritz 10.

YouTube

2007-09-23T10:46:00.000-05:00

Today I started uploading videos to YouTube. I decided to upload some videos from Hurricane Katrina.

Here's one that is a composite of some video footage I took at Heath's house the day Katrina rolled into town:

Weeping Angels

2007-09-15T09:34:00.001-05:00

Last night I saw what today feels like the best episode ever of Doctor Who. The episode was Blink. It actually doesn't feature a lot of the regular cast, as they were filming two episodes at the same time.

I saw a poll the other day that said that the villains from this episode, the Weeping Angels, were voted to be the best Doctor Who villain ever, surpassing the Master and the Daleks. I was confused at the time because I'd never heard of the Weeping Angels, but now I understand.

Here is a YouTube video. (Sorry - they had embedding turned off.)

Steve Fossett and Osama bin Laden

2007-09-15T09:18:00.000-05:00

Is it any surprise we can't find Osama bin Laden when we can't find Steve Fossett? After all Steve Fossett is presumably near an airplane wreck, in the western United States, and isn't hiding. Over 50,000 thousand (!) volunteers have been examining high resolution satellite imagery online trying to find him.

While researching this I found out from his Wikipedia entry that Steve Fossett is from the nearby state of Tennessee. He also was an Eagle Scout, which I guess shouldn't be surprising.

My Expert Rating Survived

2007-09-08T11:03:00.000-05:00

Despite a pretty mediocre chess tournament in Alabama, my Expert rating survived. My post rating was 2002, which falls into the the top of the 2000 +/- 2 range I figured I would be in. Last night I made a list of openings that tend to appear in my games, and I tried to prioritize what to work on. I made a percentage between 0-100 of how likely tournaments were to appear in upcoming games and another percentage 0-100 that was my comfort factor with the opening. I then took (100 - comfort factor) + (likehood of appearance in my games), and I'll use the resulting values to prioritize my studies. I'm thinking I'll put it all in a spreadsheet and update it as I study things, since the comfort factor will go up as I spend time on various openings or it may go up or down depending on my results when playing those openings.

Netflix Movie Viewer

2007-08-30T23:12:00.000-05:00

Netflix has had an online viewing service for a while, but I hadn't checked it out until tonight. I think before they had some kind of weird system where it subtracted from your regular rentals, but now they give it to you as a free add-on. You get an hour of viewing for each $1 per month that you pay.

You have to install an ActiveX control to use it, and it only supports Internet Explorer, but it was pretty easy to get going. The cool thing is I noticed they had Sliders Seasons 4 and 5, which are not currently available on DVD. I thought I would never get to see them (not that they're Emmy worthy anyway).

Tea Time

2007-08-26T11:19:00.000-05:00

Sarah picked me up a new tea maker yesterday. This one is definitely an improvement over my previous model. It has 3-quart capacity (instead of 2), fewer parts, and a lever that lets you pick the strength of the brew (high please!). My old model's pitcher had a number of cracks in it, that made it quite a messy exercise to pour tea.

My tea maker is very important to me, because I use it so much! I pretty much brew a new pitcher every day. Since I've stopped drinking soft drinks (and dropped 30 lbs), I've got to get my caffeine from somewhere! I mix in Splenda into my tea to give it a sugar-like taste. Splenda has 62% of the sweetener market now, according to the Wikipedia entry on it.

World Enough and Time

2007-08-25T14:09:00.001-05:00

There is a cool web site out there called Star Trek New Voyages. It's basically a fan fiction site, except they produce full length episodes set in the original Star Trek universe, but with far better special effects and sets than you'd see back then. They just had a new episode come out called "World Enough and Time" that I watched today. It was quite pleasant to watch, and really matched the emotional level I thought of what they were shooting for - "The City on the Edge of Forever".

The only thing they lack that I'd really like to see is a feed. They publish magazines and episodes on a sporadic basis, so it'd be nice to get ticklers via a feed when new content is available.

Clerks II

2007-08-24T07:20:00.000-05:00

Last night I watched Clerks II, and then I watched it again with the actor/director/producer commentary track. I was quite pleased. Of course I'm a Kevin Smith fan so I was the target audience!

It was interesting that Rosario Dawson wasn't the first or second choice for her role (although they take pains on the commentary to explain that it's not really not a preference list when you ask people in a certain order ... and they're not convincing). I really think they got lucky they asked her, since now it's hard to imagine anyone else being in the role.

One side affect of watching the movie is that I found out about a Jeff Anderson movie called Now You Know. I didn't even know Jeff had made a movie, but I've added it to my Netflix queue. I'm guessing Brian has already seen it, but I couldn't figure out how on Netflix to tell that.

Photos from the Camera Phone

2007-08-19T21:52:00.000-05:00

I got the Motorola Phone Tools package in the mail the other day. I had some problems with it. First the CD wouldn't read in my computer. I ended up putting it in Sarah's laptop and copying it over to the Shared Documents folder on my computer. After that the tools didn't recognize my phone because it was too new, but after an update or two that was fixed. Apparently the software manufacturer wasn't interested in forking over money to Microsoft, because I got a lot of warnings during the install that it hadn't been signed by Microsoft.

Anyway, here is the picture of Connor that I've had as the background on my phone for a while. That's our dog Tucker next to him. I'm guessing I'll be taking a lot more pictures with my phone now that I can do something useful with them.

I went and got my brother set up as a contact on Flickr. If anyone else out there has a Flickr account just let me know. I also set up new photos from my Flickr feed to be a new subscription on Google Reader.

Summer TV Burn Off

2007-08-19T10:26:00.001-05:00

I've never really tried to understand why TV shows get cancelled. I assume it's some mixture of audience vs costs vs demographics.

It seems like to me that this has been a particularly brutal year for shows. There are a ton of them that I watched that didn't make it ... Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Nine, Drive, Veronica Mars, Thank God You're Here, Twenty Good Years, Andy Barker P.I., Jericho, and Grease: You're The One That I Want.

Sometimes it wasn't so bad. At least Grease ran to conclusion (and I didn't really consider it a multi-season show). Veronica Mars and Studio 60 got tied up nicely with final episodes that realized they were final episodes. Jericho was given a reprieve for 7 new episodes to come in 2008 after a rare successful fan campaign. Twenty Good Years still has a number of un-aired episodes that to this point haven't been on TV, online, or DVD. I'm sure they'll eventually come out.

It's been weird with "The Nine" and "Drive". Both shows were series. Both were put on hiatus or cancelled. "Drive" repeatedly shows up on my DVR as being scheduled to air (I remember July 4 was one of the days that was going to be the burn off the last two episodes), but were never shown. "The Nine" was brought back on Wednesday nights but cancelled again after two episodes.

Thank goodness for the Internet. I watched the last two episodes of "Drive" this weekend on Fox's web site. It didn't provide closure, but it was nice to see Amy Acker at the end. It was also nice seeing Tim Minear (producer on "Angel" bring in other people from the Buffy-verse such as Lindsay Crouse (Professor Maggie Walsh). I also watched two more episodes of "The Nine". It also won't have closure, but there are still a couple of episodes to go according to this article. I've added it to my bookmarks to remind me to check back later.

Wednesday Night Church

2007-08-15T19:34:00.001-05:00

Tonight was the first Wednesday night supper at church for the fall. We don't have it during the summer and then start back up in August.

Sarah and I went there along with my parents. Connor wasn't there - he was at the grandparents house on Sarah's side of the family. Sarah is doing some temping at White Construction this week, so Sarah's parents are keeping Connor for a couple of days. It's hard to find decent drop in daycare sites.

We saw one of our sets of next door neighbors tonight at church. We have only met them a couple of times over the years and we found out they'll probably be moving soon. They have 3 children, but they are all several years older than Connor. We actually have 4 sets of "next door neighbors", as our house is on a corner lot. Here's an old satellite picture:

Ours is the green circle, and the red circles are the "neighbors". Looking at the satellite I see one more house that I don't really think of as a neighbor, but maybe I should (the uncircled house at the intersection of Huntington Drive and Mockingbird Lane). Note that it's not our house that has the swimming pool!

Motorola Phone Tools 4

2007-08-15T19:28:00.001-05:00

Tonight I bought Motorola Phone Tools 4 off of eBay. Here's the item.

I was thinking it would be good to post more photos to my Flickr site. My digital camera is a decent Sony one, but it's starting to flake out. So I figured I would use the camera on my RAZR to take pictures.

I'm not thrilled that Motorola doesn't offer software for free to do basic functions like copy a picture from a phone to a computer, but that's the way it is. At least the software was only around $10 on eBay. Interestingly enough, on a lot of web sites (like Motorola's) the software is around $40. It pays to shop around.

Good Night at the Chess Club

2007-08-14T22:13:00.001-05:00

I had a good night at the Jackson Chess Club tonight. I played games against a Class A player and won most of them. Despite the fact that we played 5 minute games, time really never was much of a factor most of the night. My games did feature a number of interesting queen sacrifices, both planned and unplanned.

This Saturday is the Brandon Open. My current rating is 2006 (5 tournaments in a row over 2000, which means I am in 'Expert' territory) and I'll be hoping to give myself some cushion. We've already had one other Expert from California (!??) pre-register for the tournament, so there will definitely be strong competition for me.

Dead Like Me

2007-08-14T22:02:00.000-05:00

I discovered Dead Like Me on the SciFi channel, even though I think it actually originated on Showtime. They showed almost all of the episodes on SciFi, and I DVR'd them. The last few I've been renting from Netflix. Today I got in the last DVD of season two.

A new direct to DVD movie based on the show is coming. I saw they are going to have a different actress playing Daisy Adair, which seems unthinkable. Laura Harris put an amazing stamp on that character that is going to be hard to overcome.

Google Gears

2007-08-14T07:48:00.000-05:00

Today I installed Google Gears. I've read about it in magazines, but I haven't ever played with it before. It's a component that allows web pages to have offline functionality, including the ability to store information locally in a "fully-searchable relational database".

It's definitely something I would like to spend a few hours getting my hands around.

Switching Back to Blogger

2007-08-13T20:15:00.000-05:00

I decided I would switch back to using Blogger to manage my web log. First I figured I would just embed Blogger in my own web site. That proved to be quite a time sink. I spent several hours trying to implement a JavaScript solution to convert a RSS feed to JavaScript. Then I discovered that Blogger now uses a competing option called Atom. Apparently they also do RSS through just a HTTP get option, but I couldn't get it to work with the script I had. I spent a little time trying to figure out how to convert Atom to HTML, but I decided to give up for the night. A lot of the solutions are fairly problematic, since they aren't browser independent.

Over the weekend my brother Phillip introduced me to RSS and Google Reader. I was quite impressed. I'd heard about RSS over the years, but until this weekend I never tried to understand it. I've been thinking of all of the possible applications ever since!