./janella.com

Not much happening this weekend. I think we’re still recovering from the holiday season. I’ve still got a little cough/congestion going. What is that now, a month? I think it’s going away, but very slowly.

We’ve been spending a lot of time catching up on the Tivo’d shows as well as movies we haven’t watched. Farrah’s been a little ahead of mean watching movies so her more recent movie knowledge is better than mine! We have almost even picked books we have to read (e.g. The Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Life of Pi, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, etc.) from our bookshelf. May be today we’ll do it.

One of the things I’ve been doing the last two days is rating artists at [launch.yahoo.com]. If you use Launch to listen to music - which you can either through the website or through Yahoo! Messenger - rating artists helps in serving up those songs and similar songs into your radio station. Right now - at this moment - I think that’s pretty cool. I think what will make it better is when Launch’s catalog becomes bigger, allowing for a wider range of music. But for now it will do.

Oh well this is it for now. Farrah has made breakfast (wow, I know) so it’s time to eat.

Wait, isn’t it January 2005? Well, I haven’t posted a song mix for a while. This mix I made for November broke some rules I usually set myself like
(1) no more than one song from the same person or group, and
(2) no older songs on the mix.

I guess in November I was just trying to fill up the disc! Here was the list of songs for November 2004’s CD:

• Drink the Water – Jack Johnson
• My Place (featuring Jaheim) – Nelly
• Even After All – Finley Quaye
• Hanging Around – Counting Crows
• Drops of Jupiter – Train
• The Reason – Hoobastank
• Caramel – Suzanne Vega
• The Blower’s Daughter – Damien Rice
• Yellow – Coldplay
• Call and Answer – Barenaked Ladies
• Vertigo (Single Version) – U2
• Beautiful (featuring Pharrell Williams) – Snoop Dogg
• My Boo – Usher & Alicia Keys
• Drop It Like It’s Hot – Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams
• Senorita – Justin Timberlake
• Ordinary – Train
• Lean Back – Terror Squad, Fat Joe, and Remy
• Mosh – Eminem

Rating:**** out of 5

Quick Shot: Vince Vaughn plays the underdog/hero gym owner trying to save his gym from the evil (and hilarious) Ben Stiller.  So how can Vince save the gym?  By entering a dodgeball tournament!

What I liked about the movie: Ben Stiller, who’s in about every other movie made right now, is just funny as hell!  Way better than his turn in Starsky and Hutch.

What I didn’t like: Nothing. It was the perfect DVD to pop in and just laugh away.  Ok, maybe the bit with the pizza was too much but…nah, it was a very funny movie.

Ugh, this cold is still hanging on. It’s coming up on the worst part: the running nose and coughing. It supposed to be a good sign - a clearing of the system. It just feels annoying and uncomfortable to go through.

The only plan on the board is to watch the big football game on Sunday - the Colts at the Patriots - and to watch the Golden Globes later that night. Like I said, no big plans this weekend. Rest and recovery.

Ok, maybe I’ll put some time to getting some more older pictures up on the site.

I got a little stuffy nose action happening these last couple of days. I think I’m sick again! I was sick Christmas week. I managed to take three days off during that week - getting better the Sunday after Christmas. But that didn’t last long.

The next week, the last week of December going into New Year’s Eve, one of my lymph nodes decided to work overtime. It got a little large on the side of my neck and felt uncomfortable for two days. And now these sniffles.

I think the first two were related instances are related but this new round may be something else. Either way I’m grumpy and tired but can’t fall asleep at the moment. It’s just not fun feeling sick.

And so I surf. I see the new pictures of the [iPod Shuffle] on Apple’s site. It’s a sweet little music player smaller than a stick of gum. The difference between the Shuffle and full blown iPod is (1) size/amount of songs it can hold, and (2) it has no display to see what song is playing. It’s a cool little gadget. But I’m a little more interested in the [Mini Mac].

The Mini Mac is basically a Mac box without monitor, keyboard and mouse. You need to buy those items yourself. But the Mini Mac looks cool and comes with a lot of essential software for editing video, photos and music. I’m sure Apple will do well in grabbing some desktop users with that Mini Mac because of its looks and pricing.

Today’s addition in the albums:

• The Christensens Visiting California [2001] (under Family)

Just got the Christmas photos back from the lab. They are now posted in the Holidays section. Tried using Longs Drugs this time to see how they are. Eh, there ok. Also posted some older photos (Halloween stuff). Slowly getting more photos online just to have them all there. So what was added?

• Christmas Albums [2004], [2003], [2001], and [1999] (under Holidays)
• Halloween [2001] and [2000] (under Holidays)
• Rex's Birthday [2004], [2002], and [2001] (under Birthdays)

Note: above links only work if you are already logged into the photos page.

Also albums were changed to be 3 columns by 10 rows (maximum) to keep with the width of the page. As more albums are posted, I’ll post what albums were updated on this page.

Catching up on some movie trailers since we haven’t been to the theater in a while. If you view these trailers, most require Apple’s QuickTime to view. Check these out:

• [Batman Begins] - The Dark Knight's tale goes back to Year One. Christian Bale plays a serious Batman. Hopefully this will erase the Schumacher Batman movies from memory.
• [Bride and Prejudice] - From the director of Bend It Like Beckham.
• [Charlie and the Chocolate Factory] - The Tim Burton/Johnny Depp remake of the Gene Wilder classic. I'm sure it's not going to be the same ride.
• [The Longest Yard] - Another remake, this one featuring Adam Sandler.
• [Sin City] - I am looking forward to this adaptation of Frank Miller's noir comic book. Directed by Miller and Robert Rodriguez.

Happy New Year!!!!! Have a happy 2005!

The photos section is now set to use [Gallery]. So much for the weblog portion and photo pages looking the same. At least the color scheme is close. I know that the folks at Gallery are working on trying to make [Wordpress] and Gallery work together, so perhaps sometime in the future navigation will be smoother.

Email requests have been sent to users who have had an account, requesting they sign up for a new password. Also: [project] is no longer a valid directory at this time.

Yes, I moved the weblog from [http://weblog.janella.com] to the main site [janella.com]  And the layout has also changed.  The photo header above rotates photos Farrah and I have taken.  Photos included in the header right now are:

A new photo may not load if you’re browser caches the photo, but know that it does work.  I’m not sure how many I’ll put up for the header, but a new image should load here or there.  If you really want to force an image to load, hold down the shift key on your keyboard, then press the Reload button on your web browser.  Your  web browser will do a ‘hard reload’,  asking for new information from the server.

I’ve given up on the whole [geeklog.net] layout.  Just wasn’t happy with the way it was looking and how entries are made into the blog.  I am going forward with using [Gallery] as the photo engine, the same one used on [nothingcouldbefina] .  What I like about Gallery is the way it displays images.  What I like about 4images is the information it can store information in a database.  So right now: style over handling of information.

Merry Christmas to all!!!