Ms. Jay

A Steller’s Jay is nesting about five feet from my back porch. I think it’s probably a mated pair, as I had noticed a vocal and aggressive (even for these blue meanies) jay yelling at me for the past couple of weeks every time I walked around that side of the house, but tonight after taking my fair share of abuse I glanced over and saw a quiet jay in a nest clearly thinking “you can’t see me.” That’s very different behavior, so I think Ms. Jay and Loudmouth Jay are prolly distinct boidies.

Server repair news: I was able to clone the server and upgrade the OS, but am still working on the LAMP upgrades. I am booked for the next four weeks (making a movie!) over the weekend, though, so it’s kind of a race to see if I get the work done before SIFF or not.

Jorge?

Over the past week, I have heard a radio spot for the Washington State Lottery in which an insecure male attempts to impress a female with his collection of medals, one of which she spots as a phoney.

The male voice actor is amusing and disconcertingly familiar-sounding. I’m certain it’s either Jorge Garcia or a voice-actor deliberately emulating the rotund comedian’s inflection and delivery.

Who is Jorge Garcia, you say? Why, he plays the cheerful sad sack Hurley on ABC’s Lost! What the hell is blogworthy about this?

Well, Garcia’s character is a lottery winner believes that life was totally and completely ruined through his encounter with ‘the numbers,’ which he played to win the lottery.

So, somewhere out there in adland, someone made the bright decision to feature as the spokesperson for the Washington State Lottery an actor who defines a character with a view of his lottery experience as a profound and fatal blight.

It’s sorta like hiring Travis Bickle to produce comedic spots for the NRA!

Baby steps

Progress on the new server; I can now start and stop Apache as desired with php5 in place. MySQL is next up. Unfortunately I still need to think through how to set the new server up to do proper testing on the extant content, but, hey, get the basics laid in first, right?

Passing

A dear friend’s beloved father passed away this morning. I can’t believe we’re here already.