Ups and Downs of the week.

Texas Rangers – Did I say it would take a miracle? Well, miracles happen. They sent the Yankmees packin’ and they did it at home in Arlington. I’m glad the fans there got to enjoy it. Looked like a great party.

Dosas – My new favorite Indian meal. Very tasty indeed.

Bozo drivers – I’ve seen way more than my share this week. How people can drive in such a clueless state of mind and survive is a mystery.

Willie – We rescued a little male kitten from starving this week. Now he’s quite happy and lots of fun to watch.

Filter Forge Freepacks – Very cool freeware for creating image variations through outstanding filters. This is a modern picture of Rothenburg, Germany made to look like it was taken in the 1930’s.

Ups and Downs of the week.

New Shoes – Finally dumped the run-flats in favor of real tires on the Z4. What an amazing difference. It feels like a totally different car. Smoother, quieter, and it handles much better. Why BMW ever switched to using run-flats is beyond me. Worst tires ever made.

Texas Rangers – How do you blow a 5-0 8th inning lead and not be the Red Sox? They’ve really set themselves back now. It’ll be a miracle if they take this series.

More Photoshop fun – My Z4 doesn’t get to travel much, at least not in the real world. But it gets around in Photoshop.

Ups and Downs of the week.

Sarah – Her review of Ken Follett’s Fall of Giants is in today’s The Globe and Mail, which is the largest newspaper in Canada.

Formula One in HD – Very nice indeed. Except for the graphics which are still placed on the screen so non-HD viewers can see them. For someone with a 16:9 HD screen, the graphics are near the center and in the way.

Texas Rangers – Held the Tampa Bay Rays to just one run in two games in their own stadium. I love it. I hope they sweep and win the series at home. Go Rangers!!

Ups and Downs of the week.

New Toys Week – Finally moved into the 21st century and got an HDTV. I’m amazed at the picture quality. Movies are very cool on the new TV. I’ve been watching Netflix through the Roku box. Still haven’t been able to watch a Sox game, though. Maybe tomorrow night.

DVPRemote – My Roku box remote has been acting up. It seems to freeze or go to sleep and is useless, so I downloaded an iPod Touch app called DVPRemote which mimics the Roku remote. It works very well indeed. I love good programming. Well done to the developer.

New (to me) X5 – My trusty ’03 X5 has hit 150k miles. I sense a disastrous mechanical failure in the near future, so I’ve traded it in on an ’05 X5. It has 100k fewer miles and few new bells and whistles. I pick it up tomorrow. Can’t wait.

Red Sox – I was hoping they’d go out with a bang with a 20th win for Lester and winning 90 games. Well Lester blew his chance and unless the Sox sweep the Yankmees this weekend, the 90 game season won’t happen either. Still, they’ve done well and I’ve enjoyed watching them this year.

Ups and Downs of the week.

Mike Lowell – Long one of my favorite players, he’ll be retiring after this season. Lowell is one of those rare pro sports players with no major ego issues and a burning desire to excel all the time even when the bozos in the front office treat him like dirt. The Sox are going to miss him next year.

Politics – Nothing but attack ads tonight during the news. Going to be a long couple of months.

Patriots – They looked like amateurs against the Jets. So one good game and one lousy. Not the best start to the season.

Congress – If they’re stupid enough to have Colbert “testify” in front of them and make them look like jackasses, God help us when something really crucial comes up.

Ups and Downs of the week.

Weather – I’ve been waiting a year for these glorious days. I could take this weather year ’round.

Politics – Has it always been this bad? I don’t recall it being in my face all the time in the past. Getting seriously sick of it.

Patriots – So far, so good.

Ups and Downs of the Week

Red Sox – They’re clearly thinking about the off-season and not playing their best. But the rookies they’re fielding are doing well. And Coco Crisp, now playing for the A’s, is just as incredible in center field as he was with the Red Sox. I wish they had him back.

Photoshop CS5 – At the risk of boring everyone, I thought I’d show what more can be done with Photoshop CS5. The first pic is Amelia Island Plantation in Florida. Just a normal pic on a partly cloudy day. The second is what you can do with a decent sky image like the one I used before, combined with Photoshop’s HDR Toning feature. Pretty dramatic difference.

Formula One – It’s Monza weekend.

Ups and Downs of the Week

Red Sox – Ok, the season is just about over. Barring a complete collapse by the Yankmees and the Rays, the Sox won’t be playing October baseball. But they’ve done well considering the appalling number of injuries to their starting players. The folks brought in to fill the gaps have done well for the most part. And in any other division, the Sox would be in the hunt. Hats off to them.

Photoshop CS5 – This is really getting to be fun. Here we have a couple of pics that have nice skies. The first is Amelia Island, FL at sunrise. The second is Cadillac Lake, MI. Then we have a dull gray day in Roth, Germany. By merging the skies with the dull pic of Roth, we can have a nice sunset in Roth or a sunny day. Good fun. And goodbye to bad pictures.

Weather – Very cool days and nights this weekend. And no humidity. Again, I love this time of year.

Ups and Downs of the week.

Red Sox – They beat the Rays tonight and the Yankmees lost, so they gained a game on both teams. Good stuff. But it looks like Pedroia is gone for the season, which is very bad news indeed.

Dumb luck – I badly gashed my right index finger today. Now it’s all bandaged up and it makes typing difficult. Right when I need to be finishing up my paper for school. Argh.

Weather – Finally, some tolerable daytime temps and cool nights. I love this time of year.

Ups and Downs of the week.

Stelllarium – I’ve talked about it before, but it keeps getting better. We were trying to figure out what the bright object in the western sky was. We thought it had to be a planet. A quick check of Stellarium showed it was the star Arcturus. One of these nights I’ll go outside with the laptop, binos, and a camera and try to grab some decent night sky pics.

Red Sox – Embarrassing game tonight. 16-2. Lester’s mind was somewhere else and the offense was pathetic. Time is running out and the Sox keep falling behind. Looks like 2006 all over again.

New England Patriots – So far, so good. It is still pre-season, though.