2001-07-31 20:50:46 * One of the coolest eBay auctions you've ever seen: 1260770276. One green programming punch card. We have (literally) several million of these at work, so Kyle and I listed it to see if it sells and how high it gets. (I am "elhefejr", the seller.) [Bob Dylan:�Live 1966-Bootleg Series Vol. 4] 00:53:18 * Got this email from my mom a while ago, and it actually is somewhat humorous. Imagine that: My mom. Actual humor. Sometimes, things really surprise me... The top ten ways the Bible would have been different if it had been written by college students: The Last Supper would have been eaten the next morning...cold. The Ten Commandments are actually only five, double-spaced, and written in a large font. New edition every two years in order to limit reselling. Forbidden fruit would have been eaten because it wasn't cafeteria food. Paul's letter to the Romans becomes Paul's e-mail to abuse@romans.gov. Reason Cain killed Abel: They were roommates. The place where the end of the world occurs: Finals, not Armageddon. Out go the mules, in come the mountain bikes. Reason why Moses and followers walked in the desert for 40 years: They didn't want to ask directions and look like freshmen. Instead of God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh, He would have put it off until the night before it was due and then pulled an all-nighter. [Bob Dylan:�Live 1966-Bootleg Series Vol. 4] 2001-07-30 23:59:31 * So, I'm sitting in church on Sunday, and it occurs to me how great life is. In my Palm, I have a note where I jot down ideas to blog about. So, at about 10:30 I wrote "I'm thankful for much, discontented with little" in aforementioned note. By 13:30 I was walking northbound on a rural highway after my car died. Just goes to show, when you get too comfy, life throws you a (often expensive) curveball to stir things up. In other news, I'd like to welcome the return of the "What's Travis currently listening to?" line of each entry. Enjoy: [Bob Dylan:�Live 1966-Bootleg Series Vol. 4] 01:36:03 * Alexa at The Weblog Review reviewed fiddle2 on Friday. She gave me 4.5/5 stars, with which I'm quite satisfied. Read it here. 00:08:08 * I'm too tired to write it all now, so I'll just re-publish the email I sent out on the ACM listserv to explain why I wasn't coming in to work tonight: From: Travis Kroh Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2001 3:50 PM To: ACMCO LISTSERV Subject: Keepin' it real on Highway 83 Greetings. It is my understanding that Kate was to work from 6-9pm in the Service Center this evening. It is also my understanding that she was going to be unable to make it, and I was going to cover said shift. In other news, it's my understanding that my car is not operational, and I'm currently 237 miles away from the NDSU campus. If we accept the fact that the shift exists and that my car is failing to carry me to it, we can establish that the shift is again without someone to fill it. This message was brought to you by the number 3 (as in, miles I had to walk to the nearest town, Wilton) and the letter B (for Broken radiator hose). Enjoy. Travis 2001-07-27 16:52:09 * As many of you know, I'm very conservative when it comes to stating my superlatives--I don't throw the terms best, coolest, favorite, etc. around passively. That said, this has replaced Mac OSX as the coolest technology I've ever used. You point it in the air, and the cursor moves on screen. You can also use it on a tabletop as a normal mouse. There are so many cool things about this mouse that I can't begin to talk about all of them here... all for a hundred bucks. Whoa. 10:52:42 * The American Solar Challenge is over now. Sunsetters did really well, pulling down 4th place in our class, 21st place overall, and was the #1 rookie team. The safety award and one of the two "Spirit of ASC" awards went to us as well. Congratulations to all the guys who went on the race, and to everyone who helped get them there. They kept a diary on the road, so you can read that, along with some other things that were written up: Forum, Forum, and Slashdot. 00:09:49 * Lately, I've been noticing how accepted it has become in our culture to have bad grammar. Yesterday while watching Steve Jobs' keynote from the 2001 MacWorld Expo at work, and today, when I was the tech for an IVN meeting of lawyers talking about ethics, I realized that these respected, wealthy, intelligent people had horrible grammar. How does this happen? Furthremore, Steve uses the word 'stunning' waaaay too much. Then again, there are few better words to describe the wonder that is Macintosh. I will have one... Oh, yes, I will. 2001-07-25 23:02:09 * From: "Len" <lencollins@suscom.net> To: <my_email_address> Subject: Math100A Attendance MWF date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 10:15:08 -0400 Hi! How are you? I send you this file in order to have your advice See you later. Thanks Did I open it? Hell, no. Did my friends? Uh-huh. Some guy came to the Service Center about it, and I sent him to the Help Desk. Just this evening I cleaned my friend's computer of it. I predict I'll clean about four or so more before it blows over... I love working in the tech field. 17:03:59 * So, the title graphic no longer moves, but the rest of the page does float around quite a bit. I can see my server logs tripling in size now, due to all four of my readers constantly hammering on the "Refresh" button. The coolest thing about this design? It still works in Netscape 1.22. 01:42:56 * Note the title graphic, and the location thereof. Now reload the page. Note the title graphic again. Repeat, unless you're using < N6. Just a taste of the redesign to come. 2001-07-24 17:20:59 * So I was looking at this list of what people in Fargo are buying from amazon.com and I'm thinkin' "Ooo, I'm so proud of Fargoans: we got The Beatles, David Gray, B.B. King, U2... Oh, I'm so proud..." Then? BAM. Britney Spears. How do these things happen? 11:40:53 * Dental-Hygiene Tips Avoid visiting dentists who received their degrees from the University Of Berlin Dental School between 1932 and 1945. Remember those red tablets they used to pass out at school that, when chewed, revealed the invisible plaque on your teeth? Those were so cool. An electric toothbrush is an excellent choice if you are such a lazy fuck that you can't even move a toothbrush up and down. Oh, The Onion, how I love thee. 01:11:23 * How nice it is to win. I swear, Bob Dylan is the voice of God. 00:03:06 * Date of oldest email still in my inbox not dealt with: 2001-03-20. Date of newest email in my inbox (sans spam): 2001-07-24. That's a span of just over four months of email, a total of 69 undealtwith messages. Now, no one is allowed to bitch at me anymore about not sending them email. Unless your message specifically requires a reply, it will be read, digested, and sent to the bit bucket. Jenny gets it right... she threatens me with bodily harm upon failure to respond. That seems to work most of the time. 2001-07-23 18:54:06 * My sister is now working for Cat Country 107.3 (this has to be one of the worst corporate websites I've ever seen) in Atlantic City. She's da' bomb, yo. Listen to her station now. For Nic: they have two albums. 2001-07-22 15:43:29 * I've been reading Fran and Natasha obsessively lately. (Maybe I have a subconscious obsession with bisexuals, who knows?) I know now why Nic and Melissa rant, rave, and love Fran so much.In other news, I've given some thought to giving fiddle2 a comments system, but I'm not really finding the initiative to do it. Furthermore, life without buttfish updates is stinky, and Meg keeps rambling about the moon. 02:51:56 * When Jeff gets back from Florida, he can suck on some brand spankin' new Quoteboard design. Melissa and Nic both make their debut in this update. 2001-07-21 21:54:27 * So, a long time ago, back when /. was my homepage, I said to myself, "You know, Trav, you go to the exact same series of websites pretty much every time you fire up IE, it'd be nice if there was a site somewhere that would let you specify said sites, and make a custom homepage for you." Then it occurred to me, I'm a web designer... This is my homepage, and the sites herein are top quality reading. Might I suggest that you enter http://travis.kroh.net/home.html as your own homepage, and enjoy this gathering of fine hypertext yourself, each time your browser appears. 01:32:48 * In all fairness, I wasn't home. I was at Kate's. 2001-07-19 23:36:23 * I was coming back from Barnes & Noble, where I went to buy the new 2600 and look at a book I'm going to buy (but certainly not for fifty bucks), and when I came back, the Eric Clapton concert was done, and everybody was leaving. Now, at the time, I was unaware of the event, and there's just something very ID4-esque about driving deeper into a city that every other car on the road is trying to escape, especially if you're not sure why. I was kind of concerned while I was scanning my memory for recent mentions of anyone going to any concerts or anything. Fortunately I was able to put two and two together when I recalled Aaron (my RA) boasting about his front row tickets to said show. Hope he had a good time. 18:52:45 * I think Jeff is in a conspiracy to live the life I want, just to make me jealous to the point of choking. First he redesigns his site to give me a good starter shellacking, then goes to an amazing DMB show only to tell me that it was the best he'd ever seen the guys play, NOW he's going to fucking Florida. All I have to say is that I hope he's happy when he finds his best friend dead from asphyxiation. 2001-07-18 08:57:36 * Jeff went to see DMB last night. Oh, how I would have liked to have gone. He picked me up a 2001 DMB tour Tshirt there. Is this kid cool as the other side of the pillow or what? 2001-07-17 05:13:56 * I have a meeting to attend in less than four hours, and I have yet to go to bed. Ah, life is like that when you're a computer geek. 02:50:34 * Emode has determined that I'm mocha. "Intense, rich, and a little complex, you're as tasty as they come."My Keirsey Temperament is: Guardian. Peachy. 2001-07-16 23:34:24 * After much discussion with Jeff, a new title was decided for the blog: "fiddle two". Songs of praise are encouraged. Bitching and moaning can be gracefully sent to /dev/null. 10:14:14 * I just came in to work, and was overjoyed to discover the air conditioning was out. For those of you not in-the-know at NDSU, I work in the IACC. Imagine a building with a couple hundred computers in it (little heat-generating machines) all of them with big monitors. Now take away any sort of heat reduction service. In July.And I have two, count 'em, TWO classes to give today, so I'll be here until about 9:00. Isn't life swell? 2001-07-15 16:13:08 * First and foremost, I hate how damn good Jeff is at design. Now I have to redesign some part of my site to try to compete with him. The Quoteboard is due anyway. Damn that kid and his endless well of talent.Secondly, if Nic doesn't stop making me feel good about myself, I might have to go out and buy that private jet I keep talking about so I can bee-bop on down to Florida and... um, How 'bout them Mets? 2001-07-14 22:47:39 * I think I'm going to cry. Lauren Laverne's record label, Deceptive Records is closing up shop. It's hard enough to love her from here, and now they go and make it even harder for me to track her down. I'm about ready to whip some bloody Brit ass. 21:14:33 * I watched Benny & Joon today, because I hadn't watched it for a very, very long time. You know what one of my fantasies is? I want to wake up some day to find some talented, beautiful girl secretly doing charcoal drawings of me sleeping. I also want one of those bamboo canes like the one Sam has. Which do you think is more likely to happen? 01:00:48 * Updates have been a bit lax lately, but I think you'll find that the wait was well worth it. The creative juices started flowin' Thursday, and today I'm proud to announce the official launch of "Travis In A Nutshell". As many of you know, I'm a big fan of the Foo In A Nutshell books from O'Reilly Publishing, so I decided to make a nutshell book for myelf, to kind of help out the non-natives who read my blog. Henceforth, if there's something you don't understand, look at Nutshell. If it's not there, submit an issue report, and I'll add an entry for it. Enjoy. 2001-07-11 21:59:42 * You know, I was talking to Laurian (NDSU Ass. Prof. of Military Science) the other day, and he was trying to get me to join ROTC, as usual, and he had a little video about how our "soldiers are fighting for American freedom!" And it occurred to me: the major threats to our freedom aren't the Russians, the Germans, or the Chinese. (Well, maybe the Russians. I don't think anyone ever really conviced me of it when the Cold War ended.) No, the current active battlefield for our freedom is the courts, the internet, and the pages of 2600 magazine. The constitution isn't threatened by invading forces, it's threatened by our own people in congress chipping away at the Bill of Rights, bit by bit. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad those boys are out there keeping all the third-world shitholes **cough - Iraq - cough** out of my backyard, but for now, most of what we do is protecting everyone else's ass, and by doing that, we protect our own future. However, the immediate need is here at home, protecting our freedom of speech, assembly, privacy and religion. Glad I can help. 2001-07-09 23:38:24 * I think I deserve a mid-level job with the New York Philharmonic -- you know, being I've been playing second fiddle so often and for so long... 22:19:01 * "...don't hit me with them negative waves so early in the morning. Think that bridge'll be there, and it'll be there. It's a mother-beautiful bridge, and it's gonna' be there, okay?"      - Sgt. Oddball 2001-07-07 16:49:05 * Anyone perfect must be lying. Anything easy has its cost. Anyone plain can be lovely. Anyone loved can be lost.      - Ed 2001-07-06 18:30:56 * Sort of a greatest hits album for the events of the past few days. Kate is going through a 80's glam-rock drummer phase. No, really, we went to Wal-Mart and bought wrist sweat bands (which was followed by the purchase of bandanas), and she's going to buy drums. (She already has a pair of 5B sticks.) I successfully talked her out of spending $50 on Poison albums at Media Play, and she only walked out with two. I try to protect her from such things, but one of the great things about Kate is her outgoing personality and enthusiasm, and ain't nothing anyone can say to push her from her set path. Go Kate. I feel like such a stalker. During my free time in the last month (which, my friends, has been more than abundant) I've read ALL of Melissa's archives. And in a possibly uncomfortable comment from a guy she doesn't know: I dig her eyebrows. Seriously, those are some damn well-shaped bits of hair. I've been talking with Nic about espresso lately, and I'd like to re-iterate how much I hate it when people call it "expresso". Congratulations to her for not doing so, otherwise I'd have to come to Florida and beat her skank ass. And finally, while listening to the Beatles last night, I commented to my dad that I really like the Beatles, but mostly only after 1965. Everything before that you really have to be in sort of a bubble-gum mood to dig. 2001-07-05 23:50:13 * Prepare thyself, because this is the best damn video you've ever seen on the internet. Ever.I'm surprised it's taken me this long to finally link to it publicly. Ryan and I have been enjoying it for months. Real Video Right-click > Save As... MP3, baby 15:49:18 * Today we discuss handwriting. Nic has amazing handwriting, as does Mindi. My handwriting, as many of you know, is somewhat less than optimal. You can download it anyway, and enjoy. 2001-07-04 22:49:21 * And happy anniversary to my parents. 21 years and they still talk dirty. 21:54:57 * I was watching ABC's July 4th special, and it reminded me of my opinion that Keven Spacey and Edward Norton are some of the best actors this country has ever seen. Required viewing for all 'something completely different' readers: American History X, The Negotiator, Outbreak, Rounders, and American Beauty. 18:57:16 * I've slept an aweful lot today. Being I had to get up at 7am on Monday to tech a meeting that didn't exist. Only after I realized people weren't showing up did I learn that the meeting was Tuesday. So, I got to get up at 7am Tuesday, too, and sit for four hours playing Solitaire and listening to UND bitch and moan about NDSU's plans to offer a Ph. D. program in Criminal Justice. So today I made up for it--I slept until 1:30, ate lunch, then took a four hour nap. Of course, this means I probably won't be able to sleep tonight, but oh, let me count the ways that it was worth it. 2001-07-03 12:21:35 * Ever wanted to run a Mac, but never had the money for the hardware? A free, web-based install of Mac OS8 for your enjoyment. [Barenaked Ladies : Maroon] 2001-07-02 23:41:25 * All the previous entries were test entries for the beginning of greymatter. Now begins the point where my weblog is no longer powered by me, because I needed a better way to manage the archive and the permalinks. Until further notice, "And Now For Something Completely Different" is in beta mode. Feedback and bug reports are encouraged. The old archives are avaliable here. Enjoy the improved somthing different. [Counting Crows : Across A Wire-Live In New York] 18:34:33 * When I was a poor, black child growin' up in da' ghetto... 12:48:22 * Oh, my God! There's an axe in my head! 02:02:24 * Take off every 'Zig' for great justice. 01:59:15 * All your base are belong to us.

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�2001, Travis Kroh.
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