tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79776572011-11-27T19:04:07.232-06:00la fin du monde est...not as dismal as it sounds, just a friendly warningMatthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.comBlogger1691100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-29401747701746169782011-04-18T01:03:00.002-05:002011-04-18T01:08:28.757-05:00

If you are having a problem with your Nexus One draining battery too faster after Gingerbread OS updated, take a look at the wifi settings. Navigate to:wireless & networkswifi settingsadvancedwifi sleep policy Setting Wi-Fi to "never sleep" or "sleep when screen turns off" should solve the problem. This forum thread has further explanations:http://www.nexusoneforum.net/forum/

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-84072822615690373572011-03-08T17:44:00.003-06:002011-03-08T17:48:31.954-06:00

I wanted to just write a quick post about the beer podcast I have been co-hosting for the past year. We started doing the podcast in January 2010, and as of now we have put out a new episode for 59 straight weeks (if you count episode 0). The whole idea is that we are doing a 256 beer tournament, where each week we take 2 beers and drink them and decide which one is better. Eventually we will

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-64236439914258381232010-02-10T14:53:00.002-06:002010-02-10T14:57:24.476-06:00

I guess I don't look like John Ritter anymore - at least not like I did in late 2006.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-41749415663456083342010-01-25T09:40:00.004-06:002010-01-25T10:01:14.434-06:00

The 12th Annual Chicagoland Brewpub & Microbrewery Shootout was held on Saturday January 23, 2010 at the newly renovated Erin room at the Irish-American Heritage Center in Chicago, Illinois. Nobody ever seems to post the results, so I took the liberty. Personally I feel that while Rock Bottom North & South took away 1st place plaques for both food and pairing, they always win something, so really

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-35502655262570555332010-01-24T13:46:00.001-06:002010-01-24T13:48:42.785-06:00

Alyssa borrowed Melissa's Cuddl Duds back before Christmas to try out and also wear while we were skiing in Switzerland. She loves them so much she had to get a set for herself. Why don't they make Cuddl Duds for guys?

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-5353291150735305802010-01-20T14:31:00.002-06:002010-01-20T14:33:39.838-06:00

Back in April of 2009 I wrote about the crap system the CTA uses to "improve" payment/boarding of their trains and busses.I have an addendum that I need to add:If you are a student, and your college participates in the program, you can get a discounted unlimited ride pass called u-pass. However, the u-pass comes in the format of the "disposable plastic magnetic swipe card" instead of the "credit

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-75615176920456613462010-01-20T12:38:00.004-06:002010-01-20T13:10:14.145-06:00

I think I need to go into the textbook publishing business. For two classes it is going to run me about $300 and that is with used books and Amazon discounts. Ugh.Here are my classes for Spring QuarterStatistical Techniques in Business and Economics with Student CDService Management: Operations, Strategy, Information Technology w/Student CDAlso - I am stupid for not remembering to create these

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-30686049812581074862009-12-08T10:58:00.004-06:002009-12-08T11:14:45.118-06:00

The Civil and Environmental Engineering department at the University of Illinois made a video about how cool it is to be a student at UIUC. They used a bunch of pictures of my friends in the video. As you can see, I have a racially diverse group of friends, and pictures of this racially diverse group make for good promotional material!Video was temporarily removed from their site, so I have

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-65677434534234092812009-12-01T11:09:00.002-06:002009-12-01T11:25:05.816-06:00

Thanks to Evan for pointing out a tip to make Trillian load faster. Removal of the a/v plugin does indeed help speed the load time of the program.A mention here about disabling the show loading screen also helped speed startup.Those two tweaks helped, but Trillian still seems to have a problem in startup with Vista. Perhaps (well, for sure) Vista is the problem.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-69104096453661163832009-10-07T15:36:00.001-05:002009-10-07T15:37:42.516-05:00

Today I am ordering Toner for the office. Anyone else need 42A toner for an HP printer?HP® Q5942A - Q5942A (HP42A) Laser Cartridge, Black

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-37917830665631085712009-09-23T15:25:00.002-05:002009-09-23T15:28:33.653-05:00

I wonder how many people buy stuff through their own amazon affiliates account? I will bet a lot. Then again, Amazon doesn't really have incentive to to kill those accounts because they help with SEO for their products. Win win for everyone I guess.Master Lock 178D Set-Your-Own Combination Padlock, Die-Cast, Blackhehe...

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-28827167620272102312009-08-13T21:07:00.001-05:002010-06-14T09:54:07.909-05:00

I spent a few minutes looking for this list, without any good results. So here it is in full, with extra info.Family Guy Episode 115 Ocean's Three and a Half - Video ClipIn this episode, Stewie falls in love with Joe and Bonnie's beautiful baby girl named Susie. Stewie decides to write a song about her and calls it "Susie." Brian says the song is horrible and calls him out for writing a song

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-18272240521087443622009-07-27T12:50:00.003-05:002009-07-27T12:52:57.850-05:00

Ever received an AIM from some random screen name ending with "Coho?" I started getting this SPIM about a year ago and didn't think there was any way to stop it. Google to the rescue. I found Morouxshi's blog post detailing how to stop the Coho SPIM. It is pretty simple, and seems to have worked for me. Time will tell if I get any more of this crap.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-78927950158286467312009-06-17T14:01:00.003-05:002009-06-17T14:13:51.778-05:00

I wrote back in March about the last show I worked on called All My Love. At the time of that post, the show had been Jeff recommended. The Joseph Jefferson awards are the equivalent of New York's Tonys, though obviously on a much smaller scale. The way you win an award is a bit complicated but basically:1. Judges come to see opening night. If they think some part of the show (or the whole show)

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-17137879927892199312009-05-25T16:55:00.002-05:002009-05-25T16:59:05.883-05:00

I wanted to give a quick shout out to KA9FOX who runs a pretty great free ham radio classified site over at QTH.com. It is free to place an ad and you can keep renewing the add forever, or until the item is sold. I helped my father sell his 40' US Tower a few weeks ago. The site really has a lot of people on it looking for the gear you are trying to get rid of.Anyway. Thanks for running the site!

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-29104527288802686222009-04-28T14:52:00.002-05:002009-04-28T17:51:43.132-05:00

Apparently Ron Huberman, Chicago Transit Authority's previous president, decided nothing more could be done to fix the CTA and moved on to bigger and better things, like screwing up the Chicago Public Schools. His short tenure at CTA certainly didn't help the situation with the CTA fare structure or electronic fare media, rather he made it worse. He left the CTA with a complete disaster in it's

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-9754674986577378592009-03-23T12:23:00.012-05:002009-09-22T09:59:44.506-05:00

I just opened my latest play for which I served as Lighting Designer. It is called All My Love and was produced by my longtime friend Tony Fiorentino with his company Diamante Productions in Chicago. The show is running at the Theatre Building Chicago (TBC) through May 10th, 2009. (Get your tickets now!)Synopsis: "When a middle-aged divorcée decides to explore the world of polyamory, she must

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-13197233830500688202008-10-24T10:23:00.005-05:002008-10-24T10:44:20.466-05:00

I have been having problems setting the default browser in Vista. Originally, I had problems setting Firefox as the default browser for all functions computer wide, eventually, through some trickery and a tip found on CNET I fixed that problem. Recently I installed Google Chrome browser...which I like a lot in some ways. But again, I had problmes getting it to be the default browser. I searched

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-49897148340532540292008-09-18T11:08:00.004-05:002008-09-18T11:11:14.687-05:00

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....  * If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."  * Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers,  a quintessential American story.  * If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.  * Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.  * Graduate from Harvard law School and you

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-51401045898045789892008-09-10T10:14:00.006-05:002008-09-10T20:09:48.281-05:00

I have been using Chrome for a few days now, actively, at work. Here is my review:Thinks I like about Chrome:-Ability to pull a tab out of the window into its own window.-Individual tab processesThings I don't like about Chrome: -The way it handles multiple logins for a single page in the "remember me" functionality. It tries to suggest the login you want to use, rather than allow me to select

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-46947234380775078662008-07-28T17:08:00.002-05:002008-07-28T17:11:05.510-05:00

I found my Amateur Radio License listed on the FCC website. Neat.What is weird, though, is that I found it using a new search website called Cuil.com (pronounced "Cool")See it here: KB9IVG - Matthew Arata

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-75541472449167978942008-07-24T15:35:00.003-05:002008-07-24T15:42:15.414-05:00

I was having major problems with slowness while using Microsoft Outlook 2007 with my company exchange server. I searched for some tips on how to speed things up and found this article. The article describes several different things you can do, but the one that clearly worked was using the archiving function. This option can be found in Tools->Options->Other tab->AutoArchive. I set mine to archive

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-3809695860645009392008-07-21T10:18:00.007-05:002008-08-27T12:08:05.966-05:00

Joe Wishnoff, my colleague and friend, passed away on 7/14/08 from a disease called IPF. He was very passionate about things like SEO, pagerank, inbound links, etc... So in an attempt to ensure searches for his name reach pages that are related to him, I am collecting links about him in this post.Save JoeW - The site Joe Wishnoff started to coordinate his fundraising and chronicle his

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-56171215100048681302008-07-17T17:33:00.003-05:002008-07-17T17:44:05.331-05:00

Kim blogged about this guy, probably after seeing it on digg, who is going to win a Kansas congressional seat simply because of the internet. All he needs is 3000 people to donate $8.34 a piece. I think he will do it, NO PROBLEM. He summed up his initial foray into politics with a great cartoon. I gave him my $8.34, and I don't even live in Kansas!

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-2462857449029206972008-07-11T13:27:00.003-05:002008-07-11T13:40:38.939-05:00

Craigslist has made it possible for anyone to place a classified ad, and have it seen by hundreds of thousands of people at a cost of $0. This has lead to a new breed of internet troll - those that both search and post on the classifieds in an attempt to wreck general havoc and amuse oneself.A co-worker of mine has recently made it his mission to destroy this little part of the internet by

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-88742807472119324442008-07-03T09:54:00.002-05:002008-07-03T10:04:23.622-05:00

Local Eating Concept = Eat only foods grown or produced within 100 miles of where you live.My sister-in-law's family started on this adventure about 2 weeks ago.They are chronicling their adventure on a blog called Eat Near Rockford, pretty interesting read. Some of the ways they are going about sourcing their food are much more easily done in a community situated in the midst of rural farmland.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-33881988075041575632008-06-30T17:25:00.004-05:002008-06-30T17:48:47.310-05:00

Once again, I am forced to guide google to the correct Matthew Arata. This profile at Facebook belongs to yours truly: http://www.facebook.com/people/Matthew_Arata/1234667788.And while I am at it, this is the correct Matthew Arata on Linkedin.And finally, this PR from one of the companies I work for about nLayer's Partnership with Juniper.Any others out there, trying to creep up on my search

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-14342518906666782412008-06-17T15:48:00.002-05:002008-06-17T15:49:40.518-05:00

I highly recommend the movie SLC Punk. A simple story of 2 punks living in Salt Lake City in the 80s. Great story telling and an outstanding performance by Matthew Lillard.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-18355637828986638942008-04-27T16:55:00.004-05:002008-04-27T17:58:23.851-05:00

Dark Lord Day 2008 was yesterday April 26th, 2008 at the Three Floyds Brewery in Muster, IN. The event centers around the brewery's release of their Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout, which is generally thought to be a top rated, award winning beer. The beer is made in a small batch and only available at the brewery on the release day. They have been making it an event for several years now, and

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-6218448566031026642008-04-24T14:41:00.002-05:002008-04-24T14:42:35.250-05:00

The Great Fart Sandwich, documented heavily on this blog, also has a BoingBoing account.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-11233720219994673202008-04-24T14:32:00.001-05:002008-04-24T14:33:30.982-05:00

Ordering my copy of Grand Theft Auto 4 today. But I am not as excited as some other people in my office. I don't want to have any high expectations so that when I decide the game sucks, then I can tell other people...I told you so!

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-54456232791631843352008-04-17T16:20:00.003-05:002008-04-17T16:22:45.793-05:00

I can't believe I am finding myself at this point, but I am considering grad school. I swore that I never wanted to ever never ever go back to school after I was done with college. But here I find myself considering the idea.Time to buy the Kaplan Gmat Book.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-44411648533341871662008-04-08T13:40:00.005-05:002008-12-09T12:05:42.429-06:00

I have watched the show Dirty Jobs on Discovery Channel many times. The show's host, Mike Rowe, who does voice over and hosting work for several discover channel shows. Anyway, I was looking at the blog Post Secret, and came across this picture, I thought it was awesome.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-15726130540724480452008-04-03T16:03:00.002-05:002008-04-03T16:20:53.357-05:00

My SEO quest to get searches for "Fart Sandwich" to successfully display results for my friend, the great Fart Sandwich, was a success! Google searches for "Fart Sandwich" now list content relating to my friend as the 3rd through 5th, and 7th, 11th and 12th results. This is very good news indeed.As a recap, Fart Sandwich is probably most well known for his amazing skills at Lumines Time Attack,

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-57439931047429522482008-04-01T21:10:00.005-05:002008-04-01T22:29:15.888-05:00

Banks are greedy, that is how they make money. But JP Morgan Chase Bank is VERY greedy. I paid my United Mileage Plus Credit Card (division of Chase) last month on March 9th about 5 days before it was due. I paid it online by logging into Chase.com, clicking on pay credit card link in the credit card box. (I also have Chase bank accounts). Using this feature initiates an ACH pull by the credit

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-89301225987900609542008-03-27T21:34:00.003-05:002008-03-28T00:18:35.547-05:00

Adobe launches free version of photoshop called Photoshop Express. My first impression?Loading, saving, startup, etc... are all really slow.Lacking any useful that any previous user of photoshop would want to use.However, one good thing, it appears to save your edit history...forever. Well the reason it can save your edit history for ever, is that your edits are not really edits, rather they are

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-49189613320417536982008-03-19T18:05:00.003-05:002008-03-19T18:12:25.063-05:00

I just installed Firefox 3 Beta 4 and I am certainly impressed.When they released Firefox 2, I thought all my memory leak problems would be solved...but sadly, they were not. After installing F3B4 I noticed an immediate difference in several areas.Overall memory usage is probably cut by 50%Closing a tab, reduces memory usage (shocking, I know.)Restarting Firefox is OMG fast.General web surfing is

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-19171209348916737802008-03-18T12:53:00.003-05:002008-03-18T12:55:09.170-05:00

Update to my post from yesterday, my comment now has 376 diggs, vs 328 for the next most dugg comment.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-81861665675412758792008-03-17T17:08:00.004-05:002008-03-18T12:51:56.702-05:00

While browsing Digg today, I noticed an upcoming story about where spam is coming from these days. The story focused on which botnets were responsible for the most spam. Interesting story, and I thought worthy of a digg, not that I really care which botnet sends the most spam. Since the story only had 40-50 digs at the time, it had only one comment, which wasn't very funny. I decided to comment

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-88622788406598819002008-03-16T17:18:00.002-05:002008-03-16T17:38:27.887-05:00

I have blogged before about the Messerschmitt t-shirt that I created on Zazzle. Well, I just sold another one! That nets me another $2.15!Of course I am not getting rich of these...but I still think the concept is good. A little better than Cafepress, because the site is geared toward individual artists instead of "stores." It is also better than Threadless, because the designs you create are

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-21076157390390644022008-03-10T10:21:00.003-05:002008-03-10T10:29:25.920-05:00

Stumbled upon this great new game called Crayon Physics. The original version is pretty simple to understand and play, however after the first few levels, it becomes really difficult (at least it was for me.) He is apparently releasing a much more developed version sometime in the future...

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-15914584928362832232008-03-07T10:18:00.002-06:002008-03-07T10:47:49.759-06:00

I have been trying to restore information from a backup CD made with the Windows 9x backup utility. Unfortunately Microsoft changed their software so you cannot use anything after Windows 98 to restore that backup. Since I don't have any old Windows 9x machines, I was stuck.I eventually found Will Kranz and his MSBackup Restoration Utilitys. The QIC utility seems to have been written well and

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-7767045363274610712008-03-06T22:52:00.002-06:002008-03-06T23:13:14.111-06:00

A few months back I added Google Adsense to this blog. A few weeks ago I wrote a post about replacing the battery in my ipod mini. Apparently this post got some good google placement or something. About a week ago I was checking my adsense reports to see if anyone at all clicks on my ads. The ipod battery post seems to have triggered at least a small handful of people to click those ads.If you

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-80485100557615494482008-02-27T16:31:00.002-06:002008-02-27T16:34:37.410-06:00

As reported by many outlets today, Barack Obama's Campaign has amassed over 1 Million individual donors, many of whom have given as little as $25. Congratulations!Hopefully, the March 4th Ohio and Texas primaries will cement Barack's nomination and finally give a crushing blow to Hillary.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-24202645503532645292008-02-27T12:15:00.003-06:002008-02-27T12:23:58.977-06:00

Xobni is a Outlook add-in that allows you to view data about your email in new ways. When you are viewing an email, the sidebar inside the outlook window shows you all kinds of useful information such as:-all email sent to/received from that person-all files exchanged with that person via email-a graph of the time of day that you get email from that person-people linked to that person (cc'd in an

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-75173239200020943142008-02-13T14:25:00.002-06:002008-02-13T14:37:53.425-06:00

About 3.7 million people have seen the will.i.am video supporting Barack Obama. I appreciate that video, I do. It's pretty good.But a group of comedians got together to make a parody video, which in my opinion is MUCH better than the original, as parodies usually go. This video guest stars Kevin Douglas, whom I have worked with a few times on productions in Chicago. Kevin is part of the team

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-972492823483853822008-02-08T10:46:00.000-06:002008-02-08T10:57:41.125-06:00

The first run on the new iPod battery from ipodjuice.com yeilded upwards of 18 hours of run time on a various mix of music and podcasts at an average volume of about 50-60%. This...is...awesome. MUCH better than the old battery. I can't believe I lasted so long on the old battery.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-491650617462081072008-02-05T18:40:00.000-06:002008-02-08T10:56:45.853-06:00

I am going to 100% recommend ipodjuice.com as the best place to get a replacement battery kit for your ipod mini. Here is the story:I got my iPod mini in October of 2005. At the time I wasn't ready to dive into a full scale iPod but I wanted to try it out and see if I could deal with iTunes and everything that goes with it. Plus this was a 6gb iPod mini, which were harder to find and more

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-49662487867746751272008-01-17T19:43:00.001-06:002008-02-06T12:40:18.019-06:00

A guy on the Chicago Beer Society mailing list asked:I am considering growing a couple of hop vines this year on the back deck ofmy condo using a couple of planters and some wood lattice up the brickwall. I've got the fiancee in on it for the "look", but I want a good cropcome August/September as well.Has anyone tried to grow their own, particularly in a more confined spacelike a patio with

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-17126779692248585452008-01-15T12:43:00.000-06:002008-01-15T14:32:33.710-06:00

Mitt Romney was recently at the Detroit Auto show where he gave some comments regarding the state of the auto industry in the US. While he was more or less correct in one aspect, that the auto industry in Michigan is an economic indicator for industry in the rest of the country, he was WAY off in another of his comments.Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, Romney also blasted a new energy bill that raised

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-54309469813498735132007-11-14T09:35:00.000-06:002007-11-14T09:38:18.743-06:00

A few days ago I blogged about the Soulja Boy dancing phenomenon. The videos I posted there were topped by Bo Ryan, Wisconsin's basketball coach, contributing his dancing skills to the world.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-7734390310744618202007-11-14T09:31:00.000-06:002008-01-15T17:08:10.967-06:00

My friend Fart Sandwich also blogs! Well, his xbox blogs automatically it would seem. It keeps a running tally of when he plays, what he plays and such. Written as if the xbox itself was alive and keeping a verbal record of how often he plays.The real Fart Sandwich does in fact have a blog, but it is really too serious to have a link from this post I think...

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-22791309319443389202007-11-13T18:45:00.000-06:002007-11-14T10:16:58.750-06:00

I blogged before about some of the accomplishments of the great Fart Sandwich. Well now he has voicemail! You can leave him a message by using his SayNow service below or on his newly created blog. SayNow is free, but your cell phone carrier may charge you for receiving text messages.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-73533229146529232007-11-06T13:54:00.000-06:002007-11-06T13:58:33.578-06:00

I was blown away again today at the sport known as.... "Sport Stacking." Yes, this does in fact exist. This kid is the best at this:Apparently this is an actual sport...want to learn how to do it? Watch some training videos here. Or buy a stacking kit at Target!

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-4491075355476579852007-11-06T13:30:00.000-06:002007-11-06T13:39:03.298-06:00

I think the song pretty much sucks, but just like the Macarena and the dance that went with that, 2007 has its very own. Crank That by Soulja BoyHere are 4 video's that capture the phenomenon fairly well. The original video for "Crank That"Texas longhorns football dancing before a game.Little black kids dancing at home. Little white kids in ballet class. (by far the best one I have seen so far)

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-59443089603833859552007-11-05T17:47:00.000-06:002007-11-06T08:57:55.146-06:00

The whole idea of flash is pretty cool. You combine elements of animation, multi-track layouts, scripting language, vector objects all into an amazing multimedia design environment. The possibilities are endless really. Here I have assembled my Top 10 list of the best flash Videos/Animations/Sites I have run across so far.#1 - Animator vs. Animation by *alanbecker on deviantART A fun take on the

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-80671636926862923392007-10-30T09:38:00.000-05:002007-10-30T09:49:09.475-05:00

On Saturday I attended a forum at the University of Chicago presented by The Triple Helix club. The speaker was Columbia Law Professor Timothy Wu, who works in the area of copyright and telecommunications policy, and is currently writing a book about the current state of affairs on the internet related to net neutrality. He spent most of the talk discussing aspects of his book, which basically

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-75664054913599663382007-10-25T21:19:00.000-05:002007-10-25T21:27:53.062-05:00

Upon quarterly review of my companies accounting, I have noticed that out of all higher dollar spending customers, nobody uses the Discover credit card to pay us. The last time a customer used Discover card was back in January 2007. And that was a $250 monthly recurring charge. That customer was the ONLY one paying with Discover card out of the XXXXX number of customers we have. In fact, even in

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-68413303098535369452007-10-23T16:29:00.000-05:002008-01-15T17:11:08.747-06:00

More than 3 years ago I blogged about an awesome new practice that Caterpillar was instituting. It is somewhat complicated, so just read that post to understand more about what why this sucks. This week, I received notices from Caterpillar via email. These notices basically said the following:---Dear everyone who pays us money for things we buy from you,We will now be screwing you in yet another

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-45579094472535854132007-10-10T13:29:00.000-05:002007-10-10T13:36:13.454-05:00

I just downloaded the new Radiohead album "In Rainbows." A few days ago i "pre-ordered" it, and then today they sent me a link to download it. The best part about this process, was I paid $1 USD for it. (.01+.45GBP). I could have paid $10 or $100 or $1000 or whatever I wanted to pay. I tried to pay 0, but I couldn't seem to get that to work. As ARS Technica points out...this is the future of

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-80922391644311518852007-10-09T16:52:00.000-05:002007-10-09T16:59:58.783-05:00

Google maps just updated its Street View system for the Chicago downtown area. So of course the first thing everyone at the office did was look to see if anyone got 'caught on film.' Turns out, one of my co-works was spotted riding his bike to work early on a weekday morning. I, on the other hand, do not appear (at least not that I found). My bicycle, though, was parked in front of my office

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-75360523769433514412007-09-24T21:41:00.000-05:002007-10-23T17:10:49.268-05:00

I just made my second donation to Barack Obama's primary campaign. They are getting really creative in the way they are getting people to donate. Since I had already donated several months ago, I have been getting messages once a week or so with different political statements from Obama or his campaign manager. Most of these emails contain some kind of plea to donate money. This week's email

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-74729046911819186822007-09-18T10:51:00.001-05:002007-09-18T11:13:46.758-05:00

Going along with the theme of my last post, this is my short story about getting Vista to recognize Firefox as the default browser for all applications. When I upgraded to a workstation with Vista, I had several problems with getting things to run smoothly. I previously blogged about my problems using Trillian. But I could never figure out why Vista would not recognize Firefox as the default

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-63504234525580395222007-09-17T18:40:00.000-05:002007-09-18T10:26:39.565-05:00

I have been having a hard time attempting to make a credit card authorization document for use internally to my company. The main problem is that I want to display our company logo inside the document. This is easy enough for a word file, but I want to turn the word file into a PDF. Here comes the hard part. How do I make the logo appear in sufficiently high quality on the PDF? I tried exporting

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-44336724107555594252007-06-20T17:15:00.000-05:002007-06-20T17:29:55.456-05:00

So a guy who sent me an email from yahoo had their standard advertising link at the bottom. For some reason, I noticed it and saw that it was an add to download an updated version of Monopoly to play on the computer. Turns out it was an add for RealArcade. Regardless, I downloaded and started playing the game, only to get about 3 minutes in and have the game stop the free trial...please fork over

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-35180057538433514442007-05-31T18:53:00.001-05:002007-05-31T18:53:56.105-05:00

Do I really look like any of these people?

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-80258880968397334832007-05-31T16:36:00.001-05:002007-05-31T16:54:15.349-05:00

I have been having a lot of problems with Trillian on my new Vista machine. Basically it refuses to retain a lot of my preferences and history and stuff when I restart my computer or restart the program.Reason?: From the start I believed it to be some kind of permissions problems or something related to Vista's OMG SOMEBODY IS HAXXORING YOUR COMPUTERZ security features. Reason 32703944 why Vista

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-17871871417902215992007-05-22T17:03:00.000-05:002007-05-22T17:07:07.419-05:00

I got distracted about a bazillion times today for one reason or another...mostly because I was covering for Sales, who had nobody in the office today (lucky me.)One of the things I found was this image of what Wikipedia looks like....I think it is probablyh fairly accurate, though you could substitute the yellow circle for Star Wars certainly, or WoW or something similarly enthralling that geeks

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-80149076836934633552007-05-09T21:36:00.000-05:002008-01-15T17:20:27.486-06:00

I want to talk a brief minute about Ultrasonic Cleaning Technology. Companies make ultrasonic cleaning systems and generators for precision cleaning applications. How does it work? Well think of high frequency sound waves that shoot through water to create bubbles between particles of dirt and the surface of the part. The bubble forms and collapses creation a detergent action and cleaning the

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-27957302511705934812007-04-25T17:31:00.000-05:002007-04-25T17:33:19.792-05:00

Today I donated to Barack Obama's campaign. It is the first time I have ever donated to a political campaign. I hope that Obama can bring change to America and lead the country into a prosperous future.I think that everyone should check out his campaign and be a part of an experience like no other.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-80528361514844379962007-03-28T15:11:00.000-05:002007-03-28T15:29:51.456-05:00

Most people don't care for it too much, but I feel South Park, The Movie was the best animated movie of all time. For these reasons (and probably more):1. Lines like these:"Mr. Garrison: Eric, did you just say the F-word?Cartman: Jew?Kyle: No, he's talking about "f(beep)k". You can't say "f(beep)k" in school, you f(beep)king fat-ass!Cartman: Why the f(beep)k not?Mr. Garrison: Eric!Stan: Dude, you

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-79766648033193273892007-03-27T11:00:00.000-05:002007-03-27T11:03:10.681-05:00

Jarrett writes about how he became a music pirate, but at least he tried. A clip"...But alas, my suspicion is that anyone who would have been cool enough to work at Rhino in their heyday some twenty years ago would never be so callous, foolish or shallow to allow these kind of absurdities to occur. Since I've resigned myself not to waste any more time with the music business, I suppose I'll

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-73606607955950845542007-03-22T16:29:00.000-05:002007-03-22T16:36:38.072-05:00

A "Need-to-Know" bit of informaiton included on the latest Verizon Wireless bill states: "Your check authorizes us either to make a one-time electronic funds transfer (EFT) from your account or process as a check. An EFT may be withdrawn from your account the same day you make your payment and your check is not returned to you. ...If payment is returned unpaid you authorized us to collect an

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-57665423091053315102007-03-15T17:54:00.000-05:002007-03-15T18:11:46.865-05:00

I used to call this blog, La fin du monde est..., which basically means "the end of the world is..." Well I guess we are more closer to the end than I really thought.Nick Monahan writes (almost 5 years ago!) a very moving story about a horrible experience in dealing with airport security. He relates the events that he believes led to the breech birth of his son. His most profound comments show

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-16783141675238945512007-03-12T22:52:00.000-05:002007-03-12T23:30:46.016-05:00

Stupid Internet Explorer and their strange interpretation of certain code. Had a slight formatting problem with a site I manage using Drupal. IE was reading a cell spacing tag in the CSS file and inserting a tab at the first line of the page. Firefox had no such problem. So removing the spacing in the css eliminated the problem...for now. Thanks to brenda003 and archivschachtel both drupal forum

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-19043263029602913862007-02-27T15:59:00.000-06:002007-11-14T17:10:06.543-06:00

I previously posted about the Lumines competition in which my friend was competing. It took them the better part of 60 days to finally post the results. Though they have not yet contact my friend or sent him his prize.All hail the LEGENDARY FART SANDWICH!

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-31162640859966999262007-02-23T16:57:00.000-06:002007-02-23T18:32:51.948-06:00

Last year I blogged about the first day of ticket sales for the Cubs. By 3:45pm last year, 21 games were sold out. Of course "sold-out" doesn't really mean all tickets int he 40k+ stadium are gone, just most the general seating. They reserve blocks for group sales, and the remaining "close to the field" seats that aren't season tickets go on sale at a later date to kind of even out the rush I

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-70065298468120606572007-02-22T17:44:00.000-06:002007-02-22T17:51:08.538-06:00

I previously talked about Zazzle.com. Zazzle is a site where you can create merchandise like t-shirts and hats and stuff, with your artwork printed on it (similar to a lot of other sites like threadless). Zazzle lets you earn a commission on every item you sell. Well a total of 4 people bought my t-shirt and Zazzle sent me a check for about $10. I was going to make the t-shirt anyway, so now I

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-61286878759988174082007-02-22T10:41:00.000-06:002007-02-23T15:53:38.785-06:00

Last night was the final halftime performance of Chief Illiniwek at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.The NCAA has decided to discard its stated mission of "governing competition in a fair, safe, equitable and sportsmanlike manner, and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount." Instead it has

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-87991485904246070252007-02-20T12:09:00.000-06:002007-02-20T12:11:31.638-06:00

Chris wanted these books, so I decided to get them for him! (Please file under professional dev :)MySQL and Perl for the WebandCGI Programming with PerlEnjoy Chris!

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1168532065804264692007-01-11T10:05:00.000-06:002007-01-11T12:36:19.653-06:00

I seem to have a problem with commuting in the morning.This is the second time that I have not paid attention while riding the CTA trains in the morning and suffered a commuting mishap. Probably due to being tired.The first time I got on the right train, but didn't pay attention when the conductor said the train would be going the wrong way due to problems with switching. I was counting the

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1167954217057824312007-01-04T17:24:00.000-06:002007-01-04T17:43:37.066-06:00

Knuttz has an interesting graphical history about the evolution of the video game console. My first video game console was the Gemini system (pictured right), which played Atari cartridges. It was fun and provided entertainment for years when I was growing up.I later purchased my very own Nintendo Entertainment system (pictured left). I saved a lot of loose change and did loads of odd jobs

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1166724633282119222006-12-21T11:54:00.000-06:002007-11-14T17:12:58.456-06:00

My friend, aka Fart Sandwich on XBox live, is currently in contention in the Lumines competition. He normally sites at 1st place in the weekly rankings, but this week they are doing a contest where 1st place gets a 42" plasma tv. As luck would have it, he is currently riding 3rd place, with 2 unbelievable scores above him. He did beat his person best last night by 4 points, but that still leaves

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1166296454632102342006-12-16T13:05:00.000-06:002006-12-21T12:15:48.043-06:00

I have had my new Blackberry Pearl for about a week now and I am really starting to get the hang of it. I am getting better at shuretype and typing long sentences is starting to come naturally. I just spent a few minutes looking on amazon through the phone's browser. It was pretty easy to search for what I was looking for but unfortunately they did not have the exact item. So I will have to open

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1165852926654839992006-12-11T09:58:00.000-06:002006-12-11T10:06:23.993-06:00

Got my first BlackBerry Pearl on Friday. Don't quite have it fully working yet, as I have to wait for the work email server to get upgraded. But in the meantime I guess I will have to Accessorize! Including a 1gb MicroSD Card, some Screen Guards, and a Case

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1163476949851134132006-11-13T21:50:00.000-06:002006-11-13T22:02:29.866-06:00

It is a sad day in Chicago and all of Illinois really. Bell's Brewery, after a falling out between the brewery and distributors, is pulling out of the Illinois market. I have often chosen a fine Bell's draft over many macro-brews simply because they taste good and I enjoy drinking them. Oberon, one of the most beloved summer choices, will now just be a faint memory. The choices expected to fill

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1162257459989305712006-10-30T19:17:00.000-06:002006-10-30T19:17:40.433-06:00

I have a big problem with Cnn.com's streaming news videos. They always play a 15-30 second commercial before the news clip, which is annoying itself. Honestly I don't want to be forced to watch a stupid commercial for a 1.5 minute long news clip. Though the commercial itself is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that often the commercial loads and plays fine, then when you get to the

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1162192420833301792006-10-30T01:09:00.000-06:002007-01-11T12:39:05.200-06:00

I rode with Critical Mass for the first time on Friday. I joined Fred, as he has gone several times and is much more hardcore of a biker than I. I thought of this first time as an experiment more than anything else. I might do it again, but this time was just to see what it was all about.The wikipedia article on critical mass is good and fairly accurate from my knowledge of the event.I was once

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1160770541190416652006-10-13T15:15:00.000-05:002006-10-13T15:16:04.070-05:00

These are some of the best anti-DRM stuff I have ever seen. http://freeculture.org/blog/2006/10/13/contestwinners/

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1160065122946325582006-10-05T10:59:00.000-05:002006-10-05T11:29:39.193-05:00

You probably heard the anthem of the summer of 2006, Crazy, by Gnarls Barkley (Cee-Lo/Danger Mouse). British musician Ray LaMontagne recorded a much better version.Courtesy of Village Indian you can download the MP3 of CrazyI also scooped up Ray's album Till The Sun Turns Black

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1159478675507873202006-09-28T16:21:00.000-05:002006-09-28T16:24:35.520-05:00

Lets see, last 8 years recap: -Attended and graduated from UIUC with a degree in Theatre Lighting +/- lots of beer and general shenanigans. -Worked on probably 25-30 or so shows during college. -Worked professionally in Chicago on about 6 shows with 2 different companies. -Met Alyssa in 2000 and married in 05 (she is now in her 2nd year at University of Chicago studying Diabetes) -Met a

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1159199151659336332006-09-25T10:38:00.000-05:002006-09-25T10:47:12.206-05:00

Bruce Schnider writes about a way to better ensure your luggage is not lost during air travel. He says to simply pack a starter pistol along with your luggage, declare it, show it and then tsa/airline will better hold on to your bag so as to not LOSE a GUN. I think this is a fantastic idea, people always say, i have flown tons of times and they never lose my bag. etc etc...well the fact is that

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1158939947971566422006-09-22T10:25:00.000-05:002006-09-22T10:45:47.980-05:00

I recently bought a condo and I have completed moving. I have learned a few things through the process.*Clothing inside the washer does not mean that the washer works. Remove clothes and test.*Always look behind furniture during inspection.*Aim high when asking for credits for repairs, painting, etc...*Retention of a good lawyer is awesome.*Movers want to be tipped, but it is hard to tip them if

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1158005856960936082006-09-11T14:58:00.000-05:002006-10-05T11:33:37.166-05:00

Jansport doesn't make the nicest or best quality backpacks in the world, but at least they stand by their lifetime guarantee. They promise to repair or replace any pack or part of a bag or pack that has failed before the bag had generally worn out from use.Well I had a backpack that I got back in highschool - probably around 1994 or 1995. It served me well for a few years but eventually the

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1155650714187097912006-08-15T09:03:00.000-05:002006-08-15T09:06:07.876-05:00

Google is showing 8 out of 10 of the top results to be my own for searches for buba69. Good news I guess in that someone is not parading around the internet as me. Though this does not bode well for any of the places I that I try to use buba69 anonymously.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1155583639411298832006-08-14T14:24:00.000-05:002006-08-14T14:27:19.423-05:00

What the fuck happened to this guy. Joe Liberman saying his oppents call for phased withdraw from Iraq gives the edge to the terrorists!!!!! WTF? I thought you were a democrat Joe. I thought you were generally against the war? Yes i know that since we are there we have to ensure stability, but that doesnt mean that pulling out gives the terrorists the win. This is going to make it very hard for

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1155563134322467772006-08-14T08:41:00.001-05:002008-04-04T11:22:42.843-05:00

Buy My t-shirt!I created this t-shirt on zazzle.com. Zazzle is a website where you can design custom t-shirts. You can even take your designs and let other people purchase them. If someone buys your design, they pay you a small amount. They also have an affiliate program so you can get paid even more.I found this logo while running through pages on wikipedia and I thought that this logo would

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1155261386992104762006-08-10T20:40:00.000-05:002006-08-10T20:56:27.003-05:00

God fucking damnit. Just when it couldn't get any worse for air travel, some fucking asstards decided to blow up water bottles filled with alcohol or something... and because of a handful of terrorist assholes, the rest of the world, the millions of people who fly every day, will have to deal with an even more unpleasant experience. Flying already sucks...so what if you can get across the entire

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1155248418694170412006-08-10T17:13:00.000-05:002006-08-10T17:20:18.726-05:00

A few years back Alyssa found a website called Novica. It is sponsored by National Geographic and is a great place to find one of a kind gifts. The company finds artists from around the world, usually those that could not get exposure on their own, and sells their artwork through the website. You see who the artist is and often the artwork listed on the site is one of a kind...AND most of the

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7977657.post-1153746212850982732006-07-25T17:54:00.000-05:002006-07-25T18:05:54.343-05:00

It would seem that at least several people liked the shirt design that I came up with. I would suspect that much of the reason they liked it was due to the good illustration, by Holly Gindlesperger The original idea is shown first The final version is second.

Matthew Aratahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08407588198534806683noreply@blogger.com0