I’ve finished my panel, which was entirely too entertaining. With luck there will be an online version of it for everyone to see.

In the meantime, here is a bingo card for anyone who is actually at ROFLCon and wants a way to pass the time during panels.

[tags]roflcon, panels are often annoying[/tags]

That’s right, there’s an entire convention about internet memes, and I’m going to be there this Friday on a lolcat panel talking about loltrek. An entire convention about Tron Guy and Leeroy Jenkins taking place at MIT, and I’m one of the invited guests!

You know, I used to do serious science and dream of giving an invited talk at a conference. This is just like that, only about pictures of cats with pasted-on captions written in Impact.

I spent far too long getting this to work again because I forgot to transfer the script from one computer to another, and all of the web references to this technique are, shall we say, broken like a character on Battlestar Galactica. So for anyone else who might need this, I give you a Sony Vegas script to change the pixel aspect ratio of all images in your media pool, written in C#.

/**
 * This script sets the Pixel Aspect Ratio of all images to be 0.9091.
 *
 * Author: Stephen Granade      Date: 21 April 2008
 **/

using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using Sony.Vegas;

public class EntryPoint {
  public void FromVegas(Vegas vegas) {
    foreach (Media media in vegas.Project.MediaPool) {
      Match m = Regex.Match(media.FilePath, "(jpe?g|png|gif)");
      if (m.Success) {
        VideoStream vs = media.GetVideoStreamByIndex(0);
        vs.PixelAspectRatio = 0.9091;
      }
    }
  }
}

I spotted this picture on Etsy and I want it so bad I can’t hardly stand it. Anyone want to contribute to the Tea and Oranges Picture Fund?

A couple of weeks ago, Stephen and I hit the Blue Plate Cafe in Huntsville. We went with the specific intention of a review. It’s a pretty good place to eat if you dig the “meat and three” kind of lunch.

We went early because we’d heard it’s always busy. It’s a good thing because it was already hopping when we got there and they have a super tiny parking lot. Stephen parked the Fit in a median that is obviously not meant for cars and yet his roller skate fit there fine. We went in and were given a seating number that conveniently had the menu printed on the back.

And here’s where I tell you about my blond moment.

I was shocked that there were only three choices listed under each day of the week.

I told you it was a blond moment.

I wanted more choices! Where was the actual menu? Maybe these were only the specials listed here? But no, that was pretty much the menu minus the breakfast items, which weren’t being served at lunch. I read my list of three more carefully. I’m not a picky eater by any means but I still wanted the option of choosing something from a big menu. Then I calmed down and remembered the name. OK, I thought, this is part of the shtick, I get it now.

Stephen and I were chatting about our mornings, waiting to be seated, when a friend from church and one of his coworkers walked in. We talked with them until our number was called and we went to our table. When we got there it was a table for four so we invited the guys to sit with us and frankly, the company was the best part of the lunch.

I had chicken and dressing, corn cooked to mush — i.e. Southern style, mashed potatoes, corn bread and, in a turn that can only be Southern, bread pudding that counted as a vegetable. Stephen ordered pretty much the same plate as I did. Afterwards, I vowed to check with him the next time we go to eat, so that we can get different foods and can try more of what the restaurant has to offer. Matthew, you are totally going to have to give me some reviewer tips!

The food was hot and filling and not bad by any means. The service was ultra fast and the company was fun. Would I go there again? Meh. Ten years ago, I would have thought it was a fabulous restaurant. But now? I like vegetables to actually be a bit closer to their raw state, with a whole lot less boiling action. Stephen and I tend to eat spicier foods than we used to, so while the food wasn’t bad, it’s just not to my taste any more. But the atmosphere of an upscale diner was pleasant. The accidental company was the bright spot and for that, I don’t regret the lunch.

Andy Baio has a long post describing Infocom’s efforts to make Restaurant at the End of the Universe as a text adventure. It would have been the sequel to their version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (which you can play online) that’s mentioned at the end of the game. Andy has internal Infocom emails discussing the game and stub versions of the game-in-progress available to play.

Some time ago I showed Eli the Flash game You Have to Burn the Rope. He immediately wanted to play it again.

At this point I estimate we’ve played it twenty times.

It got to where he would tell everyone who came to our house about the game. And that’s when I wondered, what would happen if I asked him to review it?

[tags]You Have to Burn the Rope, video game, review, so simple even a four year old can play it[/tags]

Wednesday, Wendy lured us on a small hike with a picnic in the middle and then a hike back.

Pause for a moment and think about:

1) me on a hike
2) with Eli the Whiny (when things aren’t going his way),
3) Liza the Deaf Maker (when things aren’t going her way), and
4) all of our stuff!

Wendy has no idea that I nearly called her 14 times before we left to say we weren’t coming. Well, I guess she knows now if she’s reading this post. But I got my act together and only forgot Liza’s hat and a spoon with which to feed her. Now you know why she is wearing her sweet potato stained hoodie in most of the photos.

We had a great time and Eli produced almost zero whine until we got in the car to go home when I made the mistake of telling him about ticks. Bad mom!

Click the photo for more pictures from the hike.
Special thanks to Mike Self for helping make up captions for the photos.

It’s been a while since we’ve let you hear Eli singing. He sings all the time, making up songs about whatever is going on in his life, like eating breakfast and playing Zack and Wiki. In this case, he’s singing about friends.

April 15, 1955: The first McDonald’s franchise opens.
April 15, 1984: Tommy Cooper has a heart attack on live TV and dies.
April 15, 1865: Abraham Lincoln dies.
April 15, 1989: 96 Liverpool FC fans die in a crush of people exiting Hillsborough Stadium.
April 15, 1912: The RMS Titanic sinks.
April 15, 1941: The Luftwaffe’s Belfast Blitz kills one thousand people.

Enjoy the day!