clock — watching time, the only true currency

A journal from John B. Roberts

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Entries from December 2006

Taking advantage of the time zone

December 31st, 2006 · No Comments

Happy New Year, approximately one hour early.
I spent the last week in Colorado, on Mountain Time, so I’ll use that as my excuse.
Not that I’d be staying up to midnight anyway.

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Tags: Everything · Time

Movie: The Good Shepherd

December 31st, 2006 · No Comments

Our Christmas evening movie this year was The Good Shepherd. This dark look at the CIA and its founding, through the fictional story of the director responsible for planning the Bay of Pigs invasion, is generally strong, and worth the nearly 2.5 hours it asks of the audience. Still, I didn’t enjoy it as much [...]

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Tags: Everything · Movies

Book: Sick Puppy

December 31st, 2006 · No Comments

2006 is coming to a close, and before I head up to bed (no late evening for me), I must note another fun Carl Hiaasen read: Sick Puppy. Take a trust-fund enviromentalist with anger-management issues… and that’s your hero. I finished this one just before Christmas, and passed it on to other family members. Wasn’t [...]

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Tags: Books · Everything

CacheCheck is a nifty present

December 19th, 2006 · No Comments

OK, I’m biased. But I think OpenDNS CacheCheck is remarkable. Very simple, sure: you can see what address OpenDNS has for a domain, and ask OpenDNS to refresh that address if it’s not correct. Nothing more. Read what I wrote on the OpenDNS blog for more.
But if it’s so simple, how come no one has [...]

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Tags: Blog management · DNS · Domains · Everything · OpenDNS

Movie: Gosford Park

December 19th, 2006 · No Comments

Gosford Park won out over football on Sunday night. Metacritic gave this film a 90. User ratings, though, are down at 59. I’m more with the users. There are sparkling characters, but the interactions are uneven. The scenery and setting are fantastic: 1932 England, at a divine country estate. Yet the dialogue was like West [...]

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Tags: Everything · Movies

Death of a hard drive

December 19th, 2006 · No Comments

On Sunday December 10th, after I had backed up about half of the 250GB internal drive on the iMac, things went wrong.
I’m not sure what exactly finally brought the drive to its knees, but some sectors were problematic as far back as January 2006 when I first tried to get serious about backups. (And failed.)
I [...]

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Tags: Backups · Everything · Mac · Tech

Christmas Classis, 1 mile and 5K

December 17th, 2006 · No Comments

Been a light training period since racing three weeks ago, so I was tentative going into this morning’s Christmas Classic races, another 1 mile race followed by a 5K a half hour later. Both races are in Golden Gate Park.
The mile is blessedly downhill most of the way — just a gentle slope up in [...]

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Tags: Everything · Racing · Running

Movie: Kill Bill, Volume 2

December 10th, 2006 · No Comments

Kill Bill, Volume 2 didn’t match my opinion of Volume 1, but just as well to see them in rapid succession. I did enjoy the “chapter” form of telling the story, and the back-and-forth between the current killing spree and the history between/among the characters which broughts events to these extremes. Yes, it’s all a [...]

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Tags: Everything · Movies

Movie: Casino Royale

December 10th, 2006 · No Comments

Been looking forward to seeing Casino Royale, and Friday’s viewing did not disappoint. The most stunning scene is the one right after the opening titles. I had noticed the credit for “free running stunts” and wondered why that kind of stunt, especially, earned beginning of the film mention. Then I saw the scene and wondered [...]

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Tags: Everything · Movies

Why can’t we all just get along? (bicycles and cars edition)

December 10th, 2006 · 1 Comment

Magnetic Yellow Card is a semi-polite way to make the point that the road is for sharing. Still, despite the non-invasive, non-marking nature of this method of spreading the gospel of good manners, I’m quite sure that attaching these magnets to offending vehicles will not improve relations between drivers and bicyclists. Politeness only dulls the [...]

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Tags: Bicycling · Everything · San Francisco