I was doing a search for some old ebooks online yesterday, when I came across Blackmask.com, which has a bunch of old ebooks available for free download, or you can buy a CD set of them for $20 US. Lots of interesting reading there, by the looks of things.

While browsing that site though, I came across Distributed Proofreaders, which is a really cool project to help out Project Gutenberg. The way it works is, people send in scans of books that are eligible for inclusion in Project Gutenberg, plus the OCR text of it. Then, you can sign in and proofread a page or two at a time, while other people are also proofreading other pages. End result is that books can get to Project Gutenberg pretty quickly. I signed up and did a couple of pages already, it’s not that hard, and it’s for a really cool cause.

I don’t know what else there is to say today, I think I’m going to go proofread some more pages.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Now, now, this is not a lending library. Put down that magazine or I’ll blow your heads off!” - Apu

I for one am looking quite forward to it. The Habs play on Thursday night in their first exhibition game! I don’t know if it’s on RDS or not, but I’m going to check to see if it is.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Excellent all the pieces of my plan are falling into place.” - Mr. Burns

As is documented on Jason’s site we were in a slo-pitch tournament this weekend, and got beaten quite badly. I managed to go 2-5 with 2 walks, both of the two base variety (walks where 4 straight balls were thrown were worth two bases.) It’s not all bad though, I managed to pull off my favorite play in all of [baseball|softball|slo-pitch] - the outfield assist. The first game was tied up in the bottom of the fifth, none out, runners at second and third, when the batter hit a relatively shallow popup towards right field. I charged it, managed to track it down, and fired a strike to home plate (well, maybe it was a bit high, but it was right to the catcher) and caught the runner who tagged up at third. At that point, it was looking like we might be able to send it to “extra innings.” I’m not bitter about the rule issues that Jason mentioned on his site, since we played the game under the rules that we thought were valid at the time - and both teams had agreed on them before the game started. We had fun anyway though.

End result of the weekend was that I didn’t get enough sleep though, since Saturday morning we took the car in to get the oil changed, and a few minor things looked at on the car (a slight rattle, and the brakes squealing, which was a known issue with the older brake pads, and the trunk not always latching properly) Anyway, then we went to Jason and Amy’s for the ball tournament in the loaner. After the second game was done, we had to go pick the car up, and drop off the loaner, which left us with just enough time for me to shower, then get supper, and head over to Al and Becca’s for desert + beer + games, and to meet the Fenskes.

Anyway, I think I got to bed at around 1:30, then had to be up at some ungodly hour to make it across town for a 10:00 ballgame (I was shooting for getting up at 8:00, but I slept until 9:00 apparently) After the ball game, we listened to the Riders whomp the Argos, but I had to leave at halftime because I had to get groceries and stuff before the stores closed. Basically I just gave you more insight into what I did this weekend than you really wanted, didn’t I?

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I mean, we love you and Dad too, but God knows we don’t need to see you every day.” - Bart

This weekend I’m in a ball tournament. I haven’t played ball in a very long time - the last game I played in was probably 5 years ago, but the last time I was on a “team” was probably more like 15 years ago (ie when I was still in elementary school) Should be fun though, I’ve just got to make sure that I stretch out and stuff so that I don’t get all injured. That wouldn’t do at all. When I was at the batting cages a while back, I still had decent success hitting the ball, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

I’m working on excel spreadsheets lately - improving the interface to the user and stuff like that. It’s still pretty clunky, but it’s pretty much process related, and I can’t really overhaul the process, just some of the steps (as if that makes any sense.) Anyway, with that, I should get back to it.

Simpsons’s quote of the day: “Yeah right lady. An elephant ran through your front yard. Ok sure Mister, an elephant just knocked over your mailbox. Yeah right buddy. Liquor store robbery, officer down. And I’m Edward G. Robinson.” - Chief Wiggum

Now that the livingroom is painted (well, mostly) I’m getting impatient to get the new furniture. I know that it isn’t expected for another couple of months, but you never know.

Speaking of new furniture, I went over to Rob’s place on the weekend, to play some board games and check out his new barstools. Much more comfortable than his old ones. We played a game called “Vinci” in which you start up a civilization, ride it until it’s dying, then jump ship and start a new one up, then repeat the cycle. It’s an interesting game, in that at various points in the game, different people will be a very different stages of their empire, so who’s going to win isn’t always easy to tell - in a game that goes to 120 points, the leader was 20 points in front of his nearest competitor at one point (something like 80 to 60), and wound up coming in last place, based on some serious swings in momentum.

We also played a card game called “Landlord” which is simple fun. Plans are to bring out Civilization the board game (which I bought several years ago, and have never played) - looks complicated, but hopefully we can figure it out.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I’m somewhere where I don’t know where I am!” - Homer

As I said yesterday, the Casio PDA came in yesterday, so I spent some quality time last night playing with it, figuring it out, and more playing with it. My first impression was that it wouldn’t work that well for it’s intended purpose - as a book-reader. Fortunately my first impression was incorrect. I was trying to read text on it in the dark, with the backlight on, and I found it a little hard on the eyes. After giving it a try in normal light, without the backlight, I’ve got to say that I’m impressed.

I have been reading The Lord of the Rings over the past while, so I managed to snag some text files of them, and uploaded them to the PDA. This morning I read while on the bus, and was pleasantly surprised at how readable it was without the backlight on. I don’t know if my reading speed is higher or lower with it, but it feels like I’m reading faster than with a paperback. The advantage of not having to turn the page adds some speed, but also the ability to select the font makes a difference - every LOTR edition that I’ve ever seen has too small a font for my liking. I guess I’ll play with it some more, and see if I still like it as much as I think I do.

I’m sure that Erin will read with the backlight on, and appreciate it - especially when we’re on long road trips.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Do you see a light? Move into the light, my son…” - Reverend Lovejoy

That’s where I’ll be most of today and tomorrow, so I don’t have a lot of time for posting stuff.

I think the PDA (Casio PV-S460) came in today, though I can’t get ahold of Erin to be sure. Should be fun to play with. I was initially thinking that I’d like to write Galactic Empires for it, but then I realized that with the lack of colour, it really wouldn’t work at all - unless I can think of a way to work around it. Any other suggestions for stuff that I could develop on a PDA sized device (with a 160×160 screen) to learn more about it? I’m very open to suggestions, though I’m looking for a simple project that I can fire off in a couple of days of coding (after a bit of design work of course…)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Why did this have to happen during prime time, when TV brightest stars come out to shine!” - Homer