Kwali Videos

The latest youtube videos for that puppy we've all come to know and love:


Kwali Off Leash



Kwali and the Blizzard of 2008

Kwali in March

I had a custom calendar made for 2008 - I used pictures of my dog Kwali for every month. Here's the March photo. This is back when Kwali was a baby - the dog he's laying on is his play cousin Cassius.

--sent from mobile phone--

A bored boxer

I've been working at my computer all morning. Kwali has already twice this morning walked up to me and plopped his head on my arm as if to say, "I am so bored...". The 2nd time I was able to snap a pic of him with my phone. Poor puppy... :)

--sent from mobile phone--

Soulja vs Scott

I was in my office when my wife called me and said to come in the living room. I walked in, and she told me to turn my attention to the new video playing on BET. I looked, and there was the new ridiculous song from Soulja Boy. Can't remember the hook - it was something ignorant with some yelling involved or something.

I just shook my head, like she knew I would. She laughed. This was her little joke because she knows that I'm not fond of the little kids' music that I'm forced to play when I DJ the middle-school parties. How ironic - being a DJ and not liking the music that you play. (that's why my most favorite gigs are the 30-something crowds)

Anyway, I shook my head, went back into my office, and continued listening to Jill Scott's Live in Paris album.

Grown folks music.

Ain't gon' hurt nobody...We're just dancin' baby!

Hey! I didn't know Kid 'N Play had their own little 9-issue comic book series! Awww, ain't that cute. Makes me think about one of my all time favorite movies... House Party! (We gon' get what? Get funky!) I think I got every line in that movie memorized.

"Oooh! You're wrinkling my school clothes! Oooooh!" HAHAHAHA

RSS feed for Rix Matrix

In case you didn't know, on the right-hand side of this webpage, a little ways down, there's a link that says Subscribe to Posts. That will allow you to read my blog via your favorite RSS reader, and that way you'll always have the latest and greatest Rix Matrix updates. And ain't that what it's all about anyway? :- )

My new mug

I went to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center this weekend in Cincy. Got me a souvenir. Ain't it nice? :)

--sent from mobile phone--

Mac needs "stability fixes"????????

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Well, there certainly are a whoooole lot of tweaks and fixes included in the latest Leopard OS update. I even see a few STABILITY fixes in there.

Now that I'm a Mac owner, I'm privy to these updates and what-not. Prior to, I never would have known that Mac's required software updates. In fact, it seems like everytime I turn on this Mini in the couple of months that I've had it, seems like I always see that little Update icon bouncing around. When I go see what the big to-do is, I see a list of some hefty-sized updates it wants me to download.

Hmmm - they're certainly not putting THAT little factoid in the commercials... :- )

Macbook air hands-on

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Got a hands-on introduction to the Air laptop today. It felt a lot more sturdy than I thought it would be for its size. Also seemed like it was handling heat dissipation pretty well. If it wasn't for the outrageous price it might make for a pretty good compliment to a moofing lifestyle.

--sent from mobile phone--

Vista ain't so bad

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I read an interesting article talking about the upcoming service pack for Vista and XP. Some of the folks commenting on the article started the standard debate among Windows OS users about how XP is better than Vista (aka "Vista sucks").

I actually upgraded to Vista on my main machine a few months ago. I did it for a few reasons. One, I was doing my personal bi-annual "build myown monster machine" routine, and so I figured I might as well put the latest and greatest on this new machine, especially since I knew my hardware was beefy enough to handle it. Also, I know that Vista will ultimately become the OS of choice, despite what the critics say, and I made the decision that I was ready to deal with the standard headaches of the early-adopter until Vista got nice & stable & popular.

Anyway, I thought some of the comments in the article were both quite ignorant and quite eloquent. Check it out:

• "if XP can perform 5% better than Vista...it means Vista is crap..."
  - I would say it a different way - "Vista has a ton of new features, has a fully-overhauled and visually pleasing graphic interface, and with all that it only performs 5% slower than XP..."
  
• "XP can perform better on older computers and Vista requires some pretty heavy hardware to be useful..."
  - I think it's funny how people still want to be able to use their grandmother's hand-me-down computer for the next 20 years, and if something new comes out that doesn't work well with their hamster-driven machine, they have a problem. Nevertheless, as someone pointed out, if you actually go price a new machine these days, you'll see that you can buy a new machine that is fully Vista-capable, plus some extra memory, for as little as $400 if you shop right. If your money is too funny for that expense right now, then sure, stick with your Hyundai without making fun of our Escalade.
  
• "Notice how few folks are around saying that XP's an abortion and Microsoft should have stopped with Windows 98? The trend is already starting to turn around in exactly that way for Vista versus XP..."
  - Amen, brother.

It's true that we as consumers basically tell folks like Microsoft, thru our behavior, that we want NEW NEW NEW and we want it NOW NOW NOW. So when they speed-push the new stuff to market, it's funny how we then complain when a few bugs got thru in that hurried process. Oh well, I guess we'll all have to wait and see how this new generation of OS's turns out. Tho I have a suspicion that I already know..... ;- )

Say what??

How many sayings do I have that could pretty much be considered Ohio ebonics? Does anybody else talk like this?:

I was driving down the street and noticed a lady waiting to pull out into traffic. In my opinion there was plenty of time to pull out and merge, but she kept waiting.

I turned to my wife and said, "You see her? She coulda been done gone!"

..."coulda been done" ??? Am I the only one who says that??

--sent from mobile phone--

Read a Book - classic

This was worth posting. I hope this can make a change in the life of some wayward youth. :)

I won

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I went to a microsoft event tonite (yes, that's how I spend my evenings) and won this tshirt in the door prize giveaway. Had to take a picture to capture the unique packaging - figured that posting it here was the best way to document it. :) in case you're wondering that symbol is for Visual Studio, a Microsoft product.

--sent from mobile phone--

One Device to Rule Them All...

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I think I've found a good analogy that describes my experience thus far with the Mac:


Let's say this remote is my Mac. Obviously, very simple. Some might say even stylish in it's simplicity. This remote probably has about 10 features, and each one of those features it probably does flawlessly. Everything's laid out intuitively and you never have to worry about getting lost. You don't have to worry about it accidentally turning on/off any of your other devices, because it only works specifically with the TV that it came with. It's not a universal remote - you can't put codes in it to operate your other entertainment systems. And not much thought is required about "how" to use it - you use it the way it's designed. If you had some other ideas about how a remote should work, you should forget them.

Now, in my house, I own a universal remote called the MX-500. It's a fully-programmable universal remote. You can map actions to the hardware buttons. You can program macros commands (I have a macro that turns on/off the tv, cable, audio receiver, and DVD with one button. I have macros that change the tv and audio receiver configurations for, say, DVD-viewing vs. VCR-viewing, etc.) The buttons illuminate. The remote can "clone" another remote by pointing the IR sensors together. It can even be programmed to remote control light dimmers should I be adventurous enough to install them.


Nevertheless, as a result of all these features, I will admit that this remote is not very "friendly" to the casual user, including my wife. (over the years, she has grown to live with it and learn just enough of its features to get by) You would not be able to just look at this remote and figure out how to use it the way I do. (You wouldn't know to press "Main", then hold down one of the panel buttons to run a macro). And if you pressed the wrong sequences of buttons, you might find yourself stuck in some state that you would not easily be able to recover from, thus making the remote useless [for you] until I came over and helped you out.


But - and ay, here's the rub - I wouldn't trade this 1 remote for any of the 6 stylish and simple remotes that it replaced in my house. I gladly give up simplicity and even stability for the God-like power to control and interface with any and everything, and to do things with this remote that perhaps the manufacturer hadn't even thought about. Many times, I do experience limitations. It happens when my TV's manufacturer, for instance, doesn't give my remote the proper access or code authorization to access all of it's features. So, every now and then there's some sublte, hidden feature of my DVD, for example, that I can only access by getting up off the couch and doing by hand, or (heaven forbid) grabbing that DVD player's remote to access the feature.


But do I fault my remote control for this? No, I give it a pat on the back for doing a 85% good job of interfacing and playing nicely with all these other components. My remote has made a decision to bravely enter and play in the world of other electronics. It has not required me to make my home on an island called Basic Remote - an island with one TV, and one set of rules, and one way of thinking.


Rather than being the ruler of that island, a small kingdom though tightly controlled, I'd rather rule the world. Yes, I may have only loose control: a few riots every now and then, a recession or two, a stock market crash maybe, a war here and there. But still - I rule. Ask your boy GW Bush - he'll tell you the same... :)

Deceptive (aka bold-face lie) commercials

{this post moved to http://rixbits.blogspot.com}

I was reflecting on Apple's commercial where they were making fun of Vista for its new security feature, which asks for your permission everytime it wants to do something that could be potentially dangerous.

Well here I am on my MacMini, and lo and behold they have the same thing - every now and then when I try to do something, the Mac confirms that I want to do it. To do that, it asks for my user password (on Vista, you can just hit Continue). I found this very interesting.

Well, let me get back to troubleshooting my printer installation - the very process that one of my friends went on and on about in terms of simplicity. Perhaps I'll blog later on the details of my printer woes, but the short story is that I installed from disk the drivers to a Mac-compatible Canon printer, but yet now I find it hard to find anything related to the printer driver i just installed. Perhaps the Mac is hiding the details of the installation from me in an attempt to "keep things simple". Yeah, that's working out real well...