While in Australia last year, discovered, and soon became addicted to, Vegemite. This is neither here nor there except that when I ripped through the small amount I brought back with me, I needed a place to score some more!

Although it’s made by Kraft, it never caught on in the US and thus, is hard to find. I find this odd, especially here in Wisconsin, where the fact that it is a byproduct of the beer making process would ensure it’s popularity. Not so. Cheese curds yes. Yeast extract no.

Anyway, I was able to get some online but it’s expensive and the shipping is murder! I tried calling all the gorcery stores in town… no go (though some do cary Marmite (Vegemite’s sweeter cousin)). Then lo and behold… my friend Gina produced two 150g jars of the delicous brown ooze… from World Market no less. As the folks from OZ would say: “Good on ya’ World Market”!

Addiction pacified.

Attendees at this year’s Sugar Maple Festival were treated to a Bluegrass Boy Reunion show featuring Mike Compton on mandolin. Bluegrass Boys Bob Black, Tom Ewing, Mark Hembree were joined by Mike Compton on mandolin, Paul Kienitz on fiddle and Seth Forester on guitar/vocals. Their show was the highlight of the festival and was a fantastic performance by the boys. The tent was rockin’!

It’s absolutely tragic that this isn’t #1 on the Best of Craigslist…

The pictures of this former kitty are funny enough but the post itself makes this one truly special… Enjoy.

Today was the first time this year that I wasn’t excited to get out the Toro and do some light Torroing. I’ve had enough of snow this year thanks! Could we make with the sun and warm already!?!

I was totally shocked today to learn that a former co-worker, Mr. Tom Dowdy, passed away this past Saturday.

If you’re a Mac user, you know Tom’s work. When I joined the QuickTime group at Apple Computer, I remember being blown away to learn that Tom had written SimpleText. The dude wrote SimpleText! If this isn’t impressive to you, then perhaps you can appreciate that every time you light up a joint, get good and baked, throw on some tunes in iTunes, and zone out to the iTunes Visualizer, you can thank Tom for that.

He was a great coder, chef, loved wearing black (and subsequently walking the line) and listened to the worst music on the planet. This is for you Tom…

I have been at least 90% sure I would vote for my fellow FIB in the coming Wisconsin Presidential Primary. I was really just waiting to see how he’d react to the campaign process… would he go super negative? Would he crack up? As it turns out, Barack Obama has proven to me, that he’s sincere in his word and therefore deserving of my vote.

Side-note: It was while watching back-to-back speeches from the candidate’s “wives” on CSPAN the other day, when I realized Barack will go the distance and be our next President. Here was Michelle Obama going up against former President Bill Clinton… no easy task. She totally kicked his ass (badly)! It must be nice to have a wife that’s a better orator than Slick Willie. Though in Bill’s defense, speeches are much easier to present when they’re full of truths, rather than veiled attacks.

And lastly, being that Barack is only a few years older than myself, I am of the mind that it is my generation’s turn to fuck up the country! The rest of you have either had your chance or can wait for it.

In the news this week is that Microsoft is offering to buy Yahoo for $44.6 Billion. If this deal goes through, two things will happen. 1. It totally won’t matter. 2. Microsoft will have just bought their own defeat to Google in the “online wars” (for the sake of the argument, please just pretend there is an online war). Here’s the bare-bones story…

Yahoo limps along and stays afloat because they have folks over there making pretty good decisions on what to do. They have their bases covered: search; mail; chat; news; calendar; groups; etc…. Yahoo’s problem is they totally suck at execution. Everything they’ve built or revamped in the last few years has sucked big time. They are fragile and teetering on their own demise.

Now along comes Microsoft with their secret-bunkers full of cash, looking to buy themselves some online big-boy pants. Luckily (and by luckily, I mean unfortunately), they suck at both decisions and execution, and they have proven they understand the internets about as well as George Bush understands… well… seemingly anything. Slightly long story, slightly longer… when Microsoft starts making and executing decisions for Yahoo, Yahoo will die.

Of course everyone gets it… this deal makes a TON of sense for Microsoft, especially if they were competent. Which they are not. So while we’ll have a ton of marginally interesting stories, detailing the changes (and ensuing failures) Microsoft will be making to Yahoo. And allowing folks the opportunity to pick apart each decision ad nauseum. We will all yawn and click for the sports page.

Final score, Google: Win; Microsoft: Not-Win.

Bluegrass is known for it’s hot pickers, playing faster than ears can hear. It can make learning tunes a bit difficult. Luckily, we no longer have to ruin our records and needles, or stretch out our cassette tapes with endless rewinds. If you have iTunes on your computer, then you already have a great tool for slowing down music… AND video! It’s a little known fact… but Apple’s free QuickTime Player (installed along with iTunes) is great for slowing down your favorite audio and/or video clips. It even allows you to change the pitch so you don’t have to retune your instrument! Here’s how to do it:

1. Choose an audio or video file and open it in QuickTime Player (mp3s, wav, aif, mov, mp4, etc…)
2. In QuickTime, choose cmd-k (Mac) or ctrl-k (PC) to open the A/V Controls (or from the Windows menu)
3. Adjust the speed and/or pitch to your liking

If you don’t already have QuickTime, you can download it for free for your Mac or PC from Apple’s website. In addition, QuickTime Pro ($30 upgrade) allows you to easily set in and out points, loop edit files and more.

Also, if you have Windows Media files, download and install the free Flip4Mac’s WMP Plugin for QuickTime which then allows QuickTime to playback and slow down WMP files. And if you want to be able to open almost anything (AVI, DIVX, FLV, etc…), install Parian too!

My Bears did not make it as far as I’d have liked (though there were at least two glorious games this season). But when they’re not playing the Bears, I am a Pac fan… and we all hate the Vikings :) So with that, I say GO PAC! and pass on this fine Packers/Bears joke…

A man goes to the Chicago Bear ticket office and inquires about purchasing play-off tickets. The ticket teller replies that there weren’t any tickets for sale because the Bears did not make it to the play-offs.

The following day the same man goes to the Chicago Bear ticket office and inquires about purchasing Bear play-off tickets. The ticket teller politely replies that there weren’t any tickets for sale because the Bears did not make it to the play-offs.

This goes on for an entire week. The man goes to the Bear ticket office inquiring about play-off tickets and the teller says none are for sale because the Bears did not make it to the play-offs.

Another week of this goes by and the man still is asking the ticket teller about Bear play-off tickets. Finally the ticket teller in a loud voice says, I’VE TOLD YOU FOR THE LAST 2 WEEKS THERE WERE NOT ANY TICKETS
AVAILABLE BECAUSE THE THE BEARS DID NOT MAKE THE PLAY-OFFS!

The man replied, ‘I know.’ I drive all the way from Green Bay just to hear you say that!

Goodnight 2007, wherever you are. You’ve been a fine year and you will be missed. Your replacement has at least one thing going for it… it will witness the end of George Bush’s mortifying presidency. That in itself will make it worthwhile…