It's the second week of fairly active posting and once again, it's time for some random points-of-interest. If you have not done so, you can visit the sites exhibited last week by scrolling down and seeking the past post or by simply clicking on the 5th on calendar to your left.

Exhibit 3: Federal Research Division
Talk about random. As the title suggests, the site leads you to the Federal Research Division, a sub-site of The US Library of Congress providing researchers (and the US Government) customised research and analytical services. I honestly forget how I arrived at the FRD website — I must have been googling summat that would warrant that site a top spot on the Google results.

Exhibit 4: ASCII Art Collection
Ah… The days of ASCII art. Before the advent of HTML emails, we would get these lovely “pictures” in text. You have probably seen this link before but it's always nice to reminisce. If you're keen on making ASCII art yourself, try this. I wonder where that ASCII Star Wars animated gif could be….

Today is my church's patroness' feast day (say that thrice with sweets in your mouth!) Later tonight, I'll be at the feast day mass with… mariachis! Although the mass is technically bilingual (English and Spanish), the bulk of the music will be in the traditional Spanish language (me no hablo espanol, though). It should be a better turn out than last year, too, especially with the mariachis “headlining” the celebration.

T minus 7 days and counting.

That's how much time I have to get back in shape for my snowboard trip. This time last year, I would've already visited the slopes and would've been fine. This year, however, running has become a bit pass

It took me about three hours plus some “miscellaneous” minutes to put together my elliptical/exercise bike. It's not because I'm wetaded and I haven't a clue where things go — it's because I lacked the elbow grease to freakin' tighten this one nut… Actually, my sister and I worked together for the first 2 hours and she had to leave me to it cos she needed to get ready for church last night.

Looking back, I think it took us that long because:

1: I didn't go through all the parts (which I normally do when putting something together like this) and didn't notice that the included a freakin' multi-purpose wrench for *all* the nuts and bolts. I ended up using the mechanic socket set my younger brother gave to me last Christmas. That would've been a LOT easier to reach those darn bolts;

2: I didn't really eat lunch, nor did I quench my thirst at any point in those two hours as I was practically embroiled with this elliptical that hunger and thirst were not even considered; I only realised it was so when I arrived at church (and missed choir practise) with a throbbing headache and a growling empty stomach. I suppose my blood glucose level hadn't dropped that low, though, as I wasn't having my usual spells of vertigo when truly starving.

Anyway, the bliddy thing is fixed and after supper last night, I went on a short and slow 'run'… just testing the thing out in case I didn't tighten something enough and it might as well be me that breaks the darn thing before someone else gets hurt! It's all secure, though; I mean, the bike's fine. Perfect for running/riding indoors cos it started to rain!

HURRAY for the rain! This means, the local mountains must be getting some snoooooooow! ^_^

Yay.

p.s.,
To my Catholic friends (you know who you are), it's a Holy Day of Obligation. ^_^

Today and perhaps every week, I thought that I'd post a random site or sites, depending on my mood, and tell you why I like it (at least for that week). Of course, not everyone will find what I find amusing/interesting/worthy-of-mentioning, so take it with a grain of salt; afterall, I'm saving up to be eccentric.

Exhibit 1: Life in Plastic Pants
Warning: Site is not safe for work (NSFW) as it contains vulgar language.
The site, as the URI and title suggests, revolves around the life of those little LEGO men — not just any LEGO men, though; they're Knights (and other medieval characters). The dialogue, albeit vulgar, is hilarious (most of the time), geeky and silly. I just like the whole LEGO + Medieval + Comic-strip-ish combo. ^_^

Exhibit 2: USBPaint
This site is more of a “gallery” of sorts for drawrings of the USB device sign… Each quaint picture (and I mean this in a positive sense) evokes summat out of pop culture. It's neat cos the artist used MS Paint to create them in their rough-pixelated-glory.

Have fun out there!