win a date!

ha ha - this is my friend jimmy.

>> win a date

gas prices

this is for thechak.
thechak loves maps.
though, thechak probably already saw these.

oh well... its a good thing i like maps too.

>> map of gas prices around the country by county

>> chart of gas prices

san fran is the 3rd most pricey gas city, at least of the major ones listed.

alas.

accident

conor and i walked down to the scene last night around midnight to check out the aftermath of this, and it was very spooky.

>> Article about Castro accident (and pictures)

the castro district, for those who don't know, is a very lively, very colorful, predominantly gay neighborhood. it's always festive and packed with people. it's only about 5 or 6 blocks from where we live, and we like walking over there on the weekends... i can't imagine this scene in its height happening in such a normally-upbeat 'hood.

apparently a buick ran a red light at market while heading south on castro, then swerved into the northbound lane. they slammed into a BMW that was turning right to go into a parking lot for the castro theater, and both cars burst into flames.

the BMW was knocked into a parked car, while the buick careened into at least three more cars. gas poured down the street, and the fire spread down the line of unoccupied vehicles and motorcycles.

a homeless man jumped into the BMW to try to pull the driver out, but the driver apparently died on the scene. the driver who caused the accident is in very critical condition.

i heard about this on the news when i got home from my run last night, so we took a walk when conor got off work to check it out. even at midnight there was still a pileup of at least 4 car carcasses sitting along the road or jammed into parking meters up on the sidewalk.

there were several cleanup crews trying to scrub the streets, though no one seemed to know what to do with the remaining vehicles. maybe they left them there for shock value? or detective work (though the area wasn't roped off)?

there were also a few un-burnt cars completely covered in ashes and i got the feeling the owners of those 2 didn't even know yet that their cars had been so close to their demise.

the awning on Clifts Variety Store was totally charred, and the paint on the buildings all along that side of the block had bubbled up and was starting to chip off. it was a spooky scene, particulary knowing someone was killed. i don't think i've ever seen the results of a bad fire so close up and immediate, before. it felt very "hollywood" since that's all i have to compare it to...

and yet... the thursday night castro festivities carried on around it!
fascinating.

hot off the press!

eureka! the day of reckoning is upon me!

so -- i told you a while back that i'd announce the second big project at work that has been keeping me completely swamped, as soon as it was live.

well, today we officially entered our public BETA - in a few hours, select users will hopefully get their emails and come check it out. and hopefully they will have hours of fun and nothing will break.

nervously biting nails. gulp.

so -- are YOU ready? are you excited?

welcome "JigsawParty" into the world!

>> collaborative, multiplayer jigsaw puzzles!

yay!

"windows vista"? Or "wicked pissah"?

yikes.

this article talks about why most of our existing computers won't run the new version of windows that is coming out later this year/early next year.

>> Will Vista Run on Your Computer?

first, my measly 384 MB of RAM won't cut it - you need at least 800 MB to get the OS started up! and 2 GB if i want to play games!

and i can't upgrade my graphics card, which surely isn't supported, so add that to the list.

in fact, to sum it up... the article says it best:

let's tally up the components you need. You'll need to buy more RAM, a new video card, a new monitor, and a new motherboard. And then as if that weren't bad enough, you'll have to buy Vista itself.

i know i need a new computer, but i wanted it to be my mac-that-runs-windows, not another pc to run windows. i hate pc's.

(ok, except my old ibm thinkpad from the media lab, but i can't afford another one on my own)

and why do they really need to make 20 different versions? who the hell wants to test their products out on so many copies of an OS? its bad enough trying to support windows 98/NT/2000/XP right now...

Windows Vista Starter
Windows Vista Home Basic
Windows Vista Home Premium
Windows Vista Ultimate
Windows Vista Pro Standard/SB
Longhorn Enterprise Server (ADS)
Longhorn Enterprise Server - IA64
Longhorn Standard Server
Longhorn Datacenter Server
Windows Vista Pro Std/SB/Ent - VL Binding Service
Windows Vista Pro Std/SB/Ent - VLGeneric
Windows Vista Pro Std/SB/Ent - DMAK
Windows Vista Starter Digital Boost - OEM
Windows Vista Home Basic - OEM
Windows Vista Home Premium - OEM
Windows Vista Ultimate - OEM
Windows Vista Pro Standard/SB - OEM
Longhorn Enterprise Server - OEM
Windows Vista Home Basic N
Windows Vista Pro Standard N

wimp

inside sweater

in addition to being an orchid, i've decided that i'm also channeling the personality traits of another mysterious entity: mister rogers.

case in point:

i get to work today and instantly change from my "outside" rain shoes to my "inside" flipflop shoes.

and then i change my sweater. outside to inside.

now... if i could just get a cool little red train to choo choo around my desk, i'd be all set!

anyone wanna volunteer to dress up like the mailman and stop by to say hi?

wilting

Why do I always kill cacti?

A dear friend/ex boyfriend gave me a cactus many moons ago, and I killed it. Another dear friend of mine at work recently gave me a cactus, and after we moved to our new office, it's withering away too!

But, get this: I have revived thefoo's orchid, which is quite an undertaking (or so I'm told). Aren't they supposed to be harder to tend to than a cactus? What does that say about my personality? Am I like the plants I can keep alive? Because why else would I kill such simple plants, but succesfully nurture the difficult ones?

Lets compare:

Hypothesis 1: Megan is a cactus.

Can I withhold lots of water? Hell no, not with my bladder.
Do I have a spiny exterior? Nope! Though my sisters might argue otherwise.
Can I be ignored for weeks on end, and thrive more than when I get constant attention? Definitely 100% not.

Theory: False

Hypothesis 2: Megan is an orchid.

Do I like even sun and lots of watering? Hmm. I guess if coffee = water, then that's true!
Do I make pretty flowers? To be determined.
Can you can bestow tasty treats on me, to make me flourish, ie fertilizer = chocolate? Mmm. Of course!
Am I complex and scary to the average gardener? Probably.
Am I mysterious? I like to think so.
Would thefoo's mom give me as a gift to her daughters? Well, lets hope not. But she does seem to like me, in the scale of mommy-foo's ability to like people.

Theory: Must be true!

I hope this means my kids will be fuschia colored!

hell froze over

oh my gosh. its like apple reads my blog!

CUPERTINO, California—April 5, 2006—Apple® today introduced Boot Camp, public beta software that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP.

>> http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/apr/05bootcamp.html

hi! i do exist still. oh & i'm older now.

man what a couple of weeks its been! i feel like i just moved through the last 14 days in a complete trance, putting everything going on in my life on hold temporarily.

why? ugh. the usual complaints -- job, travel/conference, sickness -- you name it. those silly things that wear you out and beat you down!

but, i had a birthday somewhere in the midst of the haze of my illness... i think i turned 27 or something. it was rather uneventful. conor and i delayed our celebratory dinner until this past weekend, which was worth the wait since it took a good 7 days for us to get most of our sense of taste back.

one of the few bright spots about my birthday was coming home from my exhausting conference in san jose, after driving an hour in the rain and past a bad accident, to find about 5 huge bouquets of flowers scattered around our apartment. gorgeous lilys, irises, tulips... it was so colorful and fresh and beautiful and lovely and it was the best thing in my entire dreary day.

other bright spots in my birthday weekend were the little thoughtful gifts and emails and cards i recieved from people who love me.

its nice to know people love you when you're sick.