Dave Mancuso dot Com

So what am I up to? Getting ready for parties? Making up some cool snacks and dishes for tonight?

Nope. In typical Dave fashion, I was troubleshooting my broken vehicle and replacing the alternator.

Maybe someday I should buy a car that has less than 98,000 miles.

If you’re thinking of starting a business, look no further than the IRS.

Seriously. Here’s the link for all you need, the “One Stop Shop.”

By the way, this was from a Particle Tree post by Chris Campbell. Good Stuff.

Yes, use BitTorrents legally, to download these gems that no one cared enough about to keep out of the public domain…

Note that the quality of entertainment may vary among the selections. (grin)

Although, I recognized a bunch of movies from Dr. Shock’s Saturday afternoon horror shows in Philly in the ’70s (I can’t remember the names of the shows, but I bet Kevin can). Hey, Kevin, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe is there, every episode of the serial. Cool.

(here’s the site)

If you need a Torrent client, the one I’ve found to be good on Windows and Mac is Azureus. I took a fling at the beginning with downloading a few TV shows (shame on me), but I only use it with legal downloads, and the number of them seem to be growing. I use it for the video of the TWIT shows, for instance. Interesting technology.

OK, here goes…

A Elbereth, Gilthoniel!
Silivren penna miriel.
O menel aglar pelennath!

Hm. Nope, you can’t write Elvish without feeling, um, fairylike.

Besides, I’m not really angry about the last year. It’s more of a paradigm shift. Once you realize how things really work in your environment, you simply take the steps you need to in order to change the situation. You plan your life and live the plan.

I’d be more specific, but there’s really no need to. It’s just that if you aren’t happy with the way things are, then you take responsibility for your part in it (you always have some responsibility for your environment, because you always have the choice to stay with it or walk away–or anything in between). Then, if you want things to change, you just change them, including changing yourself if your personality is at fault. By that I mean that if you’re, for instance, always getting yourself into situations where you’ve overcommitted yourself, then change the part of you that keeps getting you into hot water. Learn a new groove for your behavior, and stick to it.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

🙂

And we listened to Dark Side of the Moon in 5.1 surround sound.

It was. So. Freaking. Awesome.

And I didn’t even have a chance to tune the system properly yet. That’ll wait a few weeks until I’m in the new house.

I’ve heard it said before, but it really was like listening to the album for the first time again. I know that SACDs seem to be fading in popularity, but DualDiscs (with the CD on one side and (usually) DVD-Audio 5.1 surroung on the other side) are growing in sales.

I know that the Talking Heads are redoing their entire catalogue in surround. I know that the Foo Fighters’ In Your Honor came out in DualDisc format. I wonder how soon REM or the Beatles albums come out in 5.1?

So, yes, I took a personality profile on the Internet last month. You can take it here if you’d like. Superficial as always, but interesting to note my score.

(Here it is).

Is it a surprise to anyone that my Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Openness are almost off the charts, while we ignore the fact that my Conscientious percentiles are, shall we say, somewhat lower?

My wife’s scores are almost the opposite of mine. Maybe that’s how we complement each other. In fact, I’d say that’s how we avoid (mostly) driving each other crazy.

Or maybe she’s just a saint.

(grin)

For your viewing and downloading enjoyment, click here. Thanks to blogsip. Nice.

One of my favorite podcasts, Cinecast, runs through various marathons where they examine a genre of films with five representative samples. It’s a bit fun, because they listen a lot to viewer feedback, and their chosen samples are always subject to some listener controversy.

I liked their marathon on Westerns (although Kevin recommended The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly over their choice A Fistful of Dollars–thanks to him, I’ve got the DVD now). Right now, they’re doing Hitchcock. An obvious choice of film study, but these guys make it fresh. I’ve always wanted to see Notorious, but I tend to find North By Northwest on TV instead (one of my favorites, at least).

At any rate, if you ever want to look at the marathons and “play along at home,” here’s the Cinecast marathon link. And here’s the link to the podcast, if you have iTunes (it’s all free, so why not?).

It’s been an interesting year for me, the fall particularly so. As I look to the end of the week (and the end of the year), things changed in a number of ways. In fact, I’ve not posted to this weblog in over a month intentionally. I couldn’t trust what I might write once my fingers got going on the keys.

At any rate, I guess what I’m saying is that you’ll see more postings from me now, but I’m not sure what form they’ll take. Not to sound trite, but I’ve spent a lot of time in the past few years trying to be the best this or that at work, and fulfilling various roles elsewhere (including how I write this blog). That’s become a wearying dead end, especially at work. I was always very worried about boundaries, and edges, and how things looked, how people would react, you know the drill. I think now I’ll just be the best me I can, and if things don’t fit for me, maybe it’s the situation that I need to change instead of form-fitting myself into every niche in my life. If I’m not making sense, don’t worry. Things will become clearer gradually.

After all, 2006 is a brand new year for all of us.

And Happy Chanukah. I hope you have a stress-free and cheerful season. Or regardless, that the new year brings you new paths and quests to follow.

After all, things are happening–Aslan is on the move.

😉