The madness that is interior decor

Lately I've been utterly consumed with moving, & trying to set up house now that I'm finally over here. This has been consuming my every waking thought (all my will is bent on it) - and I didn't even realize just how much until like 25 out of 30 of the tabs I have open in firefox are home-deco related. 0_0

I have stumbled upon some utterly astonishing stuff in my wanderings, some more useful than others -

Apartment Therapy has a ton of photo tours of people's apartments, some of it is just jaw dropping:

This apartment has some really insane stuff in it, like the cityscape relief cut into panels as art in the dining room! And a crazy awesome chandalier that I want an excuse to try and make myself.


This loft/apartment has some things I would never do for sure, but so many amazing elements - like the icechest/cabinet with the vases, and the crazy rounded (reverse?) column shelves designed for climbing on! I'm very intrigued by the clear chairs, I looked them up and dang, are they pricey, but a cool idea. Also the fireplace is just jaw-dropping, although I do wonder a tiny bit about its fire-safety... plus I would probably want it to be more of a faux-slate type effect.

I like from a different apartment the use of this way more awesome clear chair much better... also the textures and stencils in this apartment are insane!

And this apartment is just HELLA cool.

On a more practical front, this blog is all IKEA hacks, which I am so totally down with. In fact out of all the many IKEA things I have, I can think of maybe one that I have used 100% as is intended by the manufacturer : )

My favorite "hack" by far - I would so do this in a second. Too bad I don't really have any doors that I can do up bat-cave-entrance style.

The other thing I found today was Rollerwall.com. Which, knowing well the evils of wallpaper, I think I have actually thought up before :)

Flavored Vodka

Pandora keeps advertising vodka at me, which is my alcohol of choice. (Creepy, or coincidental?) A couple months ago, Absolut came out with a pear flavored vodka which is not really good for cranberry juice, but quite wonderful in Sprite. Now, Smirnoff has a black cherry vodka, which they're suggesting be mixed with Coke. I'd very much like to try this.
I used to be not a big fan of flavored vodka's, but I've learned that it's neigh impossible to get a decent cosmopolitan these days, and the Poor Man's Cosmo, cranberry with citrus vodka is the next best thing. Plus, you really can't argue with a great tasting drink that can be made by pouring two things together in a glass with ice.

My New Favorite Caffeine Source

So, I never found Bawls on sale in Pennsylvania, but they have it in Publix down here in Florida (one more reason to like Florida). I love this stuff, it's tasty, has an awesome blue bottle, and gives me just the perk I need in the morning. Especially when I need to pore through startup logs of huge unwieldy java applications. Also, since I don't drink coffee, and coke is just too harsh before lunch.

Infinite Loops

Ooh! Infinite loops are so cute! I almost forgot about these things, just ran into one and it made me smile. There's definitely something wrong with me. :)

When syntax highlighting affects coding practices

In eclipse, using the php extension, both 'and' and 'or' get colored in a bold dark purple, but && and || don't. Normally, the symbols are interchangeable in my head, I've coded for long enough by now, but I find myself preferring 'and' and 'or', just because it makes my code look more readable to me due to the syntax highlighting. Unfortunately, there's a difference in meaning, the operator precedence goes like:

||, &&, ... =, ... and, or

which could be a problem for me if I'm not paying attention some time in the future, and expect the wrong behavior. (And is also kinda goofy, this is why we use parenthesis)

o.O

Geek Laws

I love this stuff:

• Hofstadter's Law:

  It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

• Godwin's Law:

  As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

• Benford's law of controversy:

  Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.

• O'Toole's Corollary of Finagle's Law:

  The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum.

• Hanlon's razor:

  Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

(You can find more here)

Weekend of Fun!

So, this was a fantastic weekend. Friday, I watched an ep of Band of Brothers with some of my friends. I've discovered people that like WWII films, but haven't seen it yet, and I'm determined to right this wrong. If you're reading this, like WWII films, and haven't seen Band of Brothers, please go do it now. Really, it is that fantastic. The style is unbeatable, and really pulls you into the moment, and probably the best parts are the interview bits before and after each episode with actual surviving members of the 101st Airborne. It just doesn't get any more real than that. We made yummy burritos for dinner.

After that, I went to Blues Dance, a party held by my good friend Bill, which starts at 1am, and goes until early in the morning. This was a very successful party, even though I didn't dance much, I had a fantastic time talking all night with another geek. (Look, I found another person I can geek out with. Awesome.)

Saturday was consumed by sleep and going to the Tropical Heatwave concert in Ybor city, Tampa. We got there early to get a good parking spot for the mobile home, and walked around a bit. If you ever go to Ybor city, and you like crepes, you must try out Le Creperia Cafe. Not only is the atmosphere delightful, but our waiter was definitely one of a kind, and the food was amazingly fantastic. I would love to go there again with someone for a relaxing meal. Ybor, by day, is a really neat place to walk around. They have a great motif going, the brick, tile, and iron wrought architecture has a lot of character. There's even a trolley that goes through it. Tropical Heatwave was also very good. I really liked Poetry n' Lotion, though most of the bands we saw were quality. The only issue I had was the loudness of the sound system in the Cantina. For crying out loud, it was actually painful to stand in there towards the end of the night. Saturday night, we went to a friend's house and played Katamari Damacy, Guitar Hero, and watched FLCL. FLCL is funny, strange in a crazy way, and has a good soundtrack, but the best part is the graphics. Some of the artistic style is truly unique, all of it is very well done.

After a little sleep, I went to North Shore to play Beach Volleyball. Again, the crew I play volleyball with is full of great people. Nothing beats hanging out on the beach and playing some good games of co-ed doubles. I went home, got dressed, and went to Swing Dancing in Tampa with Bill. Most of the swing dancers I've met are pretty cool, and all of them are nice. It's an interesting crowd to hang out with.

Well, that brings me to now. Quite a good time, but I have to get to sleep and go to work in the morning. Cheers.

Rasterbation Part 1

Bedroom
Originally uploaded by Kusmeroglu.

Here's the first poster I made. I got white wrapping paper, and used lots of spray on glue, so that I can take it up and down pretty easily. If anyone else wants to do this, I *highly* recommend spray glue, just be careful not to spray it on too thick to wet the paper, and you're golden. Catwoman is by far my favorite comic book character. I hope that they make a new batman movie with her in it. I would die so, so happy.

Rasterbator

Funny name aside, Rachel pointed this out to me in an email, and it's freaking awesome. So cool, that I was obsessed until I found the perfect pictures to rasterbate. (My house needs some decor, haven't had a chance since I moved in to really do anything) My pictures? Batman for the living room, Catwoman for the bedroom. Both Bruce Timm (of course.. remember this?)

Spiderman in the Rain

So, I've been telling people about this piece for years, I saw it a long time ago and it's stuck with me all this time as my favorite Spiderman picture, but never found it again. Apparently I hit the right Google terms this time, and I've finally found it. Too bad it's so expensive. Anyways, done by John Romita. There was a scene in Spiderman 3 that reminded me of it, which is why I brought it up again.

Kentucky Derby: Street Sense

So, it looks like Street Sense is already a favorite, but I'm going to have to agree. He's a great looking horse. Plus, he's part Irish, and who can argue with that?

[Edit: I win!]

Snowy Lotus Elise 8

Snowy Lotus Elise 8, originally uploaded by Fleur-Design.

With an Apple sticker! Dude, you are my hero. *drool*

python.struct

I've been doing a lot of work on translating data spit out by various sensors recently, so I now know intimately what bit-twiddling means. At one time in my life, when I was more impatient, I swore I would never enjoy this sort of thing. Python's struct module sure does make it easy, if not enjoyable(ish). If only bit-twiddling in C was this quick..