Fuzzy Couch

The blog what speaks for Guido, Troy, Ryan, Brett and Matt

Guido Strotheide | Troy Lowe | Ryan Seggelke | Brett Thomson | Matt Janet

Thursday, April 29, 2004

Buns on fire

Posted by guido @ 10:24 AM

URGENT SAFETY NOTICE Regarding Ice Box Rolls Recipe in the April Issue of Southern Living Magazine: Potential fire and safety hazard. Do not use the Icebox Rolls recipe. Combining the water and shortening as described in the recipe may cause the mixture to ignite.

Eyes are no go

Posted by Troy @ 9:29 AM

Sad news ... Jantina went to Miami this week to see an eye specialist. We were investigating Lasik surgery because her eyes have gotten progressively worse over the years. We found out today that she cannot do the procedure because 1) she had arthritis as a child (and continues today) and 2) she doesn't heal well in general. So we are really, really disappointed in that. But we are glad we didn't go to some mall joint that would have done it regardless... and the possibility of then going blind.

I am flying home tonight and then traveling to Miami on Friday to meet Jantina and our friends that are there. We plan on spending the weekend down there. I've never been before, so should be new and fun!

Fun with Web stats

Posted by guido @ 7:55 AM

New stats thingy shows that some people came to this site by way of search engines. Here's some of the strings that led them here:
Ebert Fest blog
Darin Wilmert
Ryan house for sale
kenny blankenship mxc
Kenny Blankenship and Vic Romano
crazy drill (image search)
joe rogan unofficial website (which I assure you we are not)
google images of cushions
couch cushions
mxc orlando show credits
evil fuzzy monkeys
photoshop artwork
beckham dogging texts (huh?)
fuzzy couch
airborne fecal flushing toilet
kids fuzzy pink couch
new cushions for wooden couch
Spongebob Squarepants jpegs
couch cushions
i feel great .movie
good but cheap patio cushions
fuzzy kids couch

And while I was looking, I found that Bill Dennis (up in Peoria) added FuzzyCouch.com to his Central Illinois Blogs list at PEORIAPUNDIT.COM Ah, and also on BLOG PEORIA, for which we have a little button which describes us as "Guido and Troy's group blog."

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

uh ... timber

Posted by guido @ 10:43 PM

My friend Worm was sitting on his back step when this huge tree decided to fall on his house. And he got to watch.

Watching:
"Smallville,"
"Angel,"
"Law & Order,"
"Daily Show,"
"South Park"

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Ultimate recap

Posted by guido @ 8:08 PM

A couple people, both who have played before, came out to my J'ville Ultimate thing today. They each have some leads on more players, so that seems good. I'll keep trying and see where we get.

kiss it, kiiiiiiisssssss it

Posted by Matt @ 11:53 AM

Fine, I'm posting. I don't have too much to say. I can't be grouped with Ryan and Brett.

So, I'm home brewing now. I know what you are all saying, more of that disgusting junk. No, I have a real capital investment and kegging capacity. It is easy to do, but the initial investment is high. I have yet to accomplish something in the "light" variety but that is next. My current menu includes a porter and a soon to hatch IPA.

Spring has sprung in St. Paul. The beer gardens are bustling and the grass has returned to a spotty green carpet. I have begun to ride my bike everywhere I can and hope to get the Kyak out soon on the lakes. The back patio is complete ( I believe I left it there last post) and I'm trying to enjoy that. So being outside as much as possible, working with wood and such should keep me busy.

In the stacks

Posted by guido @ 11:49 AM

Student spent several months living in library STORY HERE and HERE
until the school found out by way of HIS BLOG.

Ultimate today

Posted by guido @ 9:34 AM

Ultimate (Frisbee) at 5:30 p.m. today, Community Park, Jacksonville, Illinois. Come try it out whether you know how to play or not.

Some people have called Ultimate by the name "Frisbee football" or "Ultimate Frisbee." "Ultimate Frisbee" is not the best name because Frisbee is a trademarked name, like Kleenex, and we don't actually use a Frisbee brand flying disc, but it is the best one I can think of when trying to explain quickly what Ultimate is. The official disc of the Ultimate Players Association was the 175-gram Discraft Ultrastar. But then again, just "Ultimate" or "Ultimate disc" don't really give an idea of what you're talking about, like "Ultimate Frisbee" does.

"Frisbee Football" is not the best name, because there is no contact, as the football might lead you to believe. I understand Ultimate was actually adapted from the rules of Frisbee football, so that is actually a different game.

Ultimate is played in 42 countries, with programs in Sweden, Norway, and Japan receiving government funding. It is estimated that at least 100,000 people play the sport worldwide, about half in the United States.

Monday, April 26, 2004

Project watch

Posted by guido @ 2:43 PM

I stopped by Josh's class. They have a big public art project that is supposed to be done soon and displayed on campus. One of the groups had run into some problems getting their sculpture to come together as they had envisioned. The materials weren't working like they had hoped -- plaster was too heavy for the structure underneath -- and they were trying to come up with a quick solution. I was feeling bad for them. They had put in a good deal of work.

Before I left they did come up with some ideas. I hope it works out for them. I think I'm going to stop by in a bit and see how it is going. Update: They scrapped the huge sculpture and reimagined a smaller version with a concept along the same lines. I'm glad they didn't totally give up and do nothing.

I also stopped by Crappo's house to see how his home-improvement stuff is going. He's having almost the entire foundation tuckpointed and the windows and window sills replaced while they were at it. It looks like they are making a good dent. Crappo's lawn is getting long and he has yet to get a mower. He says he's got one scoped out and might be buying it tonight and mowing tomorrow.

Multiples of 120

Posted by guido @ 1:16 AM

I'm staying up late to look through my old tapes of "120 Minutes" to see if I can add anything to the 120 MINUTES PLAYLIST ARCHIVE. I didn't have cable TV most of the time I lived with my parents, so I got my neighbors to record "120 Minutes" and "Liquid Television" and "Ren and Stimpy" for me. The shows I've found so far are:
-- Sept. 20, 1992
-- Sept. 27, 1992
-- Oct. 04, 1992
-- One other show:
Date: Sometime between 6-6-92 show and 7-23-92 show?
Host: Dave Kendall
Guest-host: Johnny Rotten
on location in Tijuana, Mexico
"120 Minutes time change. 120 Minutes now kicks off at Midnight, 11 p.m. Central" scrolls across screen a few times during this episode.

Public Image Ltd. "Disappointed"
Teenage Fanclub "The Concept"
Big Audio Dynamite II "The Globe"
Nine Inch Nails "Head Like A Hole"
Ned's Atomic Dustbin "Kill Your Television" (World Premier video)
Lush "For Love"
Lou Reed "What's Good"
Slow Dive "Catch Te Breeze"
They Might Be Giants "Don't Let's Start"
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy "Television The Drug of A Nation"
Public Image Ltd. "Public Image Ltd."
Concrete Blonde "Ghost Of A Texas Ladies' Man"
Afghan Whigs "Turn On The Water"
Saint Etienne "Only Love Can Break Your Heart"
Robyn Hitchcock And The Egyptians "So You Think You're In Love"
Reverend Horton Heat "Psychobilly Freakout"
Red Hot Chilli Peppers "Under The Bridge"
Blur "There's No Other Way"
Revenge "Deadbeat"
Ministry featuring Gibby Haynes "Jesus Built My Hotrod"
My Bloody Valentine "Only Shallow"
Public Image Ltd. "Don't Ask Me"

Saturday, April 24, 2004

Glass breaks

Posted by guido @ 5:03 PM

"Shattered Glass" was good, sad and interestingly told. Christianson makes the character easy to feel sympathy for despite how he played his friends, not to mention what he did to the industry and "The New Republic's" readers.

Peeve: An ad in the paper today has "2002 Neon's" and "2003 Grand Caravan Se's" listed for sale. Hrumph.

Julie bought the first two seasons of the BBC show "The Office" the other day. We started watching it today. The boss is so dispicable that I'm having trouble with it. Some good, solid funny, though.

My friends were doing it

Posted by Troy @ 2:01 PM

I got to sky dive today! It was really fun, and I had a blast! I had always wanted to, and it was every bit as fun as I had imagined. My friends Scott and Jamie were going today to celebrate her birthday and invited us along. Jantina just went to watch though, she had no interest in jumping out of a perfectly good plane. It was a gorgeous day. It couldn't have been more perfect.

Update: A lot of people are asking for some more specifics so here they are: Jumped from 13,500 ft. Free-fall was ~60 seconds, and after the canopy was deployed there was another 5-6 minutes floating down. Though I thought this was a "once-in-a-lifetime" thing originally, I am now considering the certification classes because I enjoyed it so much.

Friday, April 23, 2004

iTunes Art

Posted by Troy @ 12:50 PM

I have a lot of CDs that I ripped myself to my iTunes collection. I miss out on the cool artwork that you get when purchasing from the Apple Music Store or pulling out the actual CD case from storage. That is, until I found this cool site: ART4ITUNES.COM
It allows you to upload your iTunes play list and it then retrieves album images from Amazon. Then it is as easy as dragging the images to the tracks in iTunes! The only problem is compilation disks, where it then relies on the artists' names and gets confusing results. Still pretty functional though.

Painted into a corner

Posted by Troy @ 10:55 AM

Today the apartment complex I live in is continuing its "constant beautification" process by painting our breezeway. Painting is taking place all day and takes 2-3 hours to dry. I don't normally leave during the day, but knowing I can't walk outside because they painted the floor makes me want to do just that.

G wiz

Posted by guido @ 7:28 AM

Oooh. I just got a GMAIL ACCOUNT. I told a coworker, all excited like, and he looked at me like I was an idiot. Then he called me an idiot. I told him how much storage it offers -- 1 Gig -- and his eyes got really big. I was bummed to find that your user names has to be at least six letters -- one letter more than "guido," so I went with "utinni."

Ultimate last night -- only two others showed up thought it was nice out. Grrr. We threw around for an hour and 15 anyway.

We're planning to see "Shattered Glass" tonight at the film series (-- fingers crossed).

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Mmm, spicy

Posted by guido @ 11:39 AM

Munching: Ginger Altoids -- Mmm, spicy
Sipping: Coffee with a cannon ball (that's more than a splash) of hazelnut creamer ... say, why doesn't anyone call it filbert creamer? Aren't they the same thing?
Listening to: Turin Brakes, "Ether Song" and Air, "Moon Safari"
Comics thinking of ordering: "The Grey Area," "Ex Machina," "The Goon" No. 7 featuring Hellboy, "The Ride," plus the Star Wars Bossk minibust.

I think I put off getting tickets to EBERT FEST as it starts tonight. Julie and I went for a couple of the films last year and enjoyed it. I knew about it ahead of time this year, but I guess I just procrasitated a little bit and then it crept up on me. The show I wanted to see most was the restored 70mm "Lawrence of Arabia," with restoration expert Robert Harris among the guests. It will be shown tonight at 7:30. Bummer.

Sunday, April 18, 2004

File under handy

Posted by guido @ 11:24 PM

Neat, free little service for when you need to send a largish file (up to 50MB) to someone and you're afraid they may not be able to accept large attachments. The name is a little unfortunate -- Dropload -- but it could come in handy. LINK HERE

Hot dog

Posted by guido @ 12:09 PM

Utini couldn't sleep well last night. Apparently, he was having trouble with the heat -- he kept getting up and jumping off the bed, laying on the floor for a while and being generally restless. Hope he acclimates soon, poor guy.

My sister says her dog has "become a woman" and is now wearing a little diaper just for the occasion. Too bad she can't get her fixed.

There's me in the middle, back to the camera. Ultimate went on for several hours, so I'm beat. Ten people showed up, so that was nice. We'll be losing all the UIS folks in a couple weeks, though, so I hope the college kids coming home for the summer show up soon and are ready to play. The fence went up at the park, so I'm looking for a new place to play.

Coincidence?

Posted by guido @ 12:01 PM

So I understand both Troy and Prince walked out in the middle of "Jersey Girl." Coincidence?

Sandwich veggies

Posted by guido @ 11:28 AM

Julie just got me going on my usual rant. ((rant)) The amount of lettuce put on fast-food sandwiches is NOTHING like the amount of lettuce shown in the pictures on the menus. All I want is the pictured amount ... not double lettuce or extra lettuce. Do I have to ask for the promised amount of lettuce every time I order or wait until I get my sandwich and then point out how little lettuce they have given me? Both seem like unnecessary hastle. Plus, half the time I ask ahead of time, I get charged for extra. And I don't want extra. I just want my sandwich veggies. I don't think it is too much to ask. ((end rant))

Grindstone

Posted by Troy @ 8:14 AM

I've been in a routine for the last 4 weeks... I've been working in Philadelphia every Monday-Thursday so time has been flying by. I take a taxi from the airport to the hotel downtown, and then walk the block to work everyday. I had to buy a light jacket and umbrella in Philadelphia this week because it rained all week. One nice thing about the travel though is that I've had a lot of time in airports/planes, and in evenings, to read. I've started a Bible-in-a-year reading plan in addition to reading "Experiencing God".. both of which which I'm enjoying.

We hosted Easter dinner at our place for our friends from church. Jantina put a lot of work into it making homemade noodles and bunny shaped rolls in addition to turkey, sweet potatoes, and chicken. We had a great time visiting with everyone. This Saturday was gorgeous, we grabbed a bite to eat at Crispers and then had gelato (I decided on coffee flavored with espresso poured on it) at a little cafe that I had not been to before, very yummy.

My employer announced lay-offs a week ago, but I won't know if I'm affected for a few more weeks. We saw "Second Hand Lions" last night, that was really good. Much better than the last thing I saw (Jersey Girl) where we walked out of the theatre after the first half. Well I gotta run, had to get a post out though, its been a while.

Saturday, April 17, 2004

Shouldn't bend that way

Posted by guido @ 12:07 AM

I added numbers 11-13 on MY MOVIE LIST. I liked "Dirty Pretty Things" a lot. The fight choreography in "The Rundown" was pretty amazing.

I got J.D. to go to Ultimate with me Thursday night. Figures that he would dislocate his finger the first time out. Luckily, he says he'll still come out and play again. If he liked playing in heavy winds with a finger that bends the wrong way, he's sure to love it when things go better ... how's that for looking on the bright side.

Thanks to Jess for encouraging words today while I was trying to get my scanners to work. -- The final outcome: I can get the SCSI ScanMaker 4 to work with OSX Panther with a third-party program that I'd have to buy. I also got the Firewire ScanMaker 8700 to work with Panther. I can't use the photoshop plug-in for either, but at least I can scan.

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Compu-drama

Posted by guido @ 11:32 PM

The computers seem to be staging a secret revolt. This is all probably very boring, so feel free to skim.

On my machine, I haven't been able to print from Quark. All my "quick keys" and "smart keys" are gone and I keep hitting them reflexively. Photoshop is tediously slow-responding to the mouse. There are no drivers for my scanner in OSX, so my ScanMaker 4 is currently a big paperweight. My e-mail program (Thunderbird) refuses to use any sound file except the system sound, which doesn't really alert me to new mail very well.

One machine was running far too slow for the G4 that it is, so I ran disk doctor and speed disk. It wouldn't restart after disk doctor and refused to run speed disk at all. So now that it has a new system folder, I can't get the fonts installed right. They are in the folder but won't display. And it hangs inbetween tasks (like printing). I want to nuke it, but I don't want to spend the time to do it.

I can't seem to index the story archive from any machine running OSX. The menu item is just grayed out.

The wire manager machine just decided to turn off one day. Not sure why, but no wire feed while it was out. Nice.

It's all stressing me out, I tell you.

All last week and this week I've been messing with computer upgrades, shifting machines around the office, helping people set things up and trying to get my machine working. The computer stuff isn't even really part of my job ... but when it isn't too time consuming it is fun. So now we have a couple new servers up and running and a couple people have some faster machines and some have new operating systems. The conflicts, though, are running rampant.

I'm glad I ended up setting up one of the servers during the week last week instead of over the weekend. I had to end up calling support and I doubt they would have been around. The fix wasn't all that tough, but I never would have known that was the way to fix it.

P.S. Happy Birthday to Bre.

Around

Posted by guido @ 11:11 PM

The spider was doing laps around the inside of my windshield tonight. Round and round. Counterclockwise almost exclusively. Sometimes right across the middle. Sometimes all the way around. His pace would be quick, then quite slow and deliberate. Was he just trying to get a good workout or trying to get somewhere? Eventually we both got home to my house, but as far as I know, he's still going round and round the inside of my windshield out there in the driveway.

Monday, April 12, 2004

Easter weekend doings

Posted by guido @ 5:54 PM

We drove up to visit grandma Strotheide on Sunday. Mom made a ton of food -- ham, sweet potatoes, party potatoes, and Julie put the desert and salad together -- and we took it up to Flanagan. Then back in Lincoln, dad showed me his new lawnmower and gave me one of his extra hacksaws which I was wanting to use on a downspout or two. We played some board games (me, mom, Julie and Stephanie) last night till around midnight. Games played: "Wit's End," "Fact or Crap," "Cranium," "Remote Possibilities" and "Trivial Pursuit."

Today, Julie and I did some shopping in Bloomington. Wish we could have visited Josie, but I didn't plan that out ahead of time. Got some strange "orange blossom" ale and ginger Altoids at World Market that sounded interesting and picked up a few good chocolate bars. Julie and I tried Blimpie for the first time for lunch -- rather good. Nice sourdough, toasted with lots of fixings and some good spices. Yum. It's a tad more expensive than Subway, but not as much as Quiznos, I think. I told the woman working there that we'd never been before and she gave us some good suggestions.

We're going to see "Hellboy" in a few minutes, gotta go.

Thursday, April 08, 2004

Monkey see?

Posted by guido @ 10:37 AM

EYEBALL JEWELRY! Ug!

The procedure involves inserting a 0.13 inch wide piece of specially developed jewelry -- the range includes a glittering half-moon or heart -- into the eye's mucous membrane under local anesthetic at a cost of $610 to $1,232.

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

Need reboot

Posted by guido @ 10:41 PM

It took all day -- 8 a.m.-8:15 p.m. -- today for me to install OSX Jaguar. I installed it over 9.2.2, then my hard drive was making this nasty err-err-err sound, so I thought "It would make me feel much better if I could run out and buy a new hard drive ... maybe even a nice big one." A coworker asked my boss and he OK'd it ... but I didn't do it. Instead, I copied almost all the stuff I wouldn't want to lose onto an external drive and did a clean install of OSX. I got it up to Jaguar again and the hard drive err-err-err sound was gone. But then I realized that you're supposed to installed OS 9.2.2 at the beginning. Probably one of those things you learn by reading the instructions.

I figured out a "workaround" for that problem -- whew -- and started reinstalling programs. I think I'm pretty close except for the scanner driver and one other non-pressing program. I got Quark, Photoshop, e-mail, browsers, even a new IM program (though I haven't set it up yet) all running. Oh, and I had a mid-morning meeting, too. I'm hoping to get this system backed up on DVD, so I don't have to do this again anytime soon.

And while I was doing all that, I attempted to set up a new server that we are patching in tomorrow morning with the system-wide upgrade of one of our main software systems. And I was working on the food page, too. I think I said I'd be at work at 6 a.m. tomorrow, so I'm hitting the sack ASAP.

Monday, April 05, 2004

Mow, mow, mow the lawn

Posted by guido @ 10:33 AM

I ran down to the gas station and filled up the gas can. Then I got the mower started for the first time this season. I keep thinking that it's not running as well as it used to and that it won't start the next time I use it. Am I'm hearing something or imagining things? Am I being a grown-up again? Darn.

Saturday, April 03, 2004

In and out of the gutter

Posted by guido @ 6:33 PM

I finally found time and help enough to clean that pesky clogged gutter near the front of the house. I got a friend to help with the ladder, which isn't quite tall enough (the ladder, not my friend). I reached up and over the edge of the gutter to find the gutter totally filled. It was pretty much just water, not tons of gunk as I had feared. So I moved down to where the downspout is and found a crust of gunk covering the hole. I poked through that and the water gushed down and out. It turned out to be pretty easy. The ladder was the toughest part. Whew.

Must remember to spring foward tonight. Off to Lincoln late tonight for Mom's concert tomorrow. Food and games will likely follow. I will have to miss Ultimate practice though -- which pains me so.

IV-V-VI

Posted by guido @ 2:56 PM

Star Wars DVD set is available for pre-order. HERE.

What could it mean?

Posted by Troy @ 9:04 AM

So first I some how win an Island, but it was at the edge of the world. The world was like a sandbox with sand pressed up against the wall at it's boundary. I took my hand and scraped the sand away from the wall, deeper and deeper, until I came to a green layer. It was like felt, and I continued to clean the sand off until blue felt was revealed. I did this to the length of the wall. and when I finished I had a strip of land, right against the wall on one side, and the ocean on the other.

I'm living on this island in a type of cave. I am supposed to be the only one on it. But one morning, as I leave the cave (to enjoy the view) I find about 30 or so tourists on the beach in lawn chairs, on blankets, playing in the surf. 2 ride up to me on horses. I ask them what they're doing here. and they seem just as surprised to see me on the island. They seem to act as if they own the place. I ask them what they are doing on my island, that it is supposed to be only for me. They immediately deny that it could be my island, and they start to explain an "urban legend" where a really old and rich man bought the island out of his excessive wealth, but never even visits it because of all of his other possessions. I interrupt him explaining that is nothing more than an urban legend, a myth, that this is my place.

I'm walking on a wooden road that is some sort of very long pier or a "boardwalk" that seems to extend through the water for ever. A station wagon type car is in front of me with one driver and one passenger. Waves come up over the boardwalk periodically, and I see that this is filling the car with water. I tell the people in the car that they should get out and walk like me, because the water rushes off of the road taking the piranha with it, but in the car when the water gets held so do the piranha with it, and they might get bitten. the car continues to drive off to the horizon.

I 'm still walking on the "boardwalk" and I see land in front of me. I see a Coast Guard boat zoom past me on my left and my eyes follow it as it speeds toward the land. I'm now walking on this boardwalk over the beach (I've made it to an Island) and I pass a different parked Coast Guard boat with 2 people on it's deck sun bathing. I notice that they are very bright red, very burned yet they seem unaware of it and continue soaking up the rays. I pass them and I hear behind me the first Coast Guard Boat pull up to this parked one. I turn back around and walk up to them and overhear them talking about changing shifts (the newly arrived crew of 2 was relieving the well burned crew of 2). I notice that the burned crew are the same people that were in the car that I warned about the piranha earlier, and I'm a bit off guard, I didn't think I would see them again. I ask the new crew (which are both healthy and in very good shape) how they got the job, and they explain that it was a 4 year commitment they had to study in Illinois before they could be sent to Australia, and that at first it was really exciting, but everyone who was in their class is already burned out and wants to get out. Then the other crew leaves, zooming off to the horizon.

Then I wake up.

Thursday, April 01, 2004

Familiar cartograph

Posted by guido @ 10:26 PM

The "The Daily Show" just used the same map that I used for the Troy Spotting map. Kewl.

Post-op pup

Posted by guido @ 9:38 AM

ZIPPER made it through surgery ... maybe it wasn't exactly surgery, but we've been avoiding having him put on anesthetic for fear that he wouldn't survive it. Last week we found he had an impacted tooth and it was bad -- and nasty. I didn't see it myself but it sounded nasty -- I won't go into detail. I just heard through the grapevine that he's have a rough time, but he made it though and is doing better. He's very grumpy but getting some pampering and rest. I'll get to see him this weekend.

I guess I didn't mention it before, but not too long ago Zip started wearing a diaper. Poor guy. He doesn't seem to be able to control his bladder anymore, even with his meds.

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other credits

Green pattern by Travis Beckham. Pink and blue patterns by (now defunct) Pixel Adventures.

LCHS song

"Lincoln, Lincoln, we are proud of you. Lincoln, Lincoln, we will e'er be true. Following the bright Golden Rule, we get things done without much ado. We're happy, we're snappy when we send our call. Lend your voices one and all. If dear old Abe were here I know just what he'd do; He'd say Lincoln, we're proud of you!"

Jacksonville, IL, 62650

Lincoln, IL, 62656