I have to give some people credit for the creativity they display and the willingness to put out the amount of effort to make this stuff up.

Hello from ant1mat3rie on Vimeo.

Argh, how frustrating. I got my first (and last, I hope) Newark ticket. I wasn’t driving either. In Newark, there is a light rail service that takes you around various parts of Newark. Generally, I would walk in the mornings, but I’ve found it convenient if I’m running late to catch an evening express train. I used it during my first week when I had a weekly pass. If you have a NJ Transit weekly or monthly pass, it is cross-honored. I was slightly unclear about daily passes however, which was ultimately my undoing today.

I was running late to catch my train this evening, and I was confused by the ticket validation stamp machine. I had asked a Newark police officer patrolling the station yesterday if my daily pass was valid or not, and said yes. Tonight, I wasn’t quite sure, so I had my NJ Transit daily one-way ticket stamped. While I debated getting an additional light rail ticket to be safe, the next train arrived.

You guessed it — I jumped on. Waiting at Penn Station were two officers checking everyone for valid tickets. I stopped and asked one if I was okay with the stamped daily ticket, and he said no. Then we argues about the purpose of the ticket validation machine, the police officer who said it was acceptable fare, etc. In the end, e gave me a summons for failure to pay fare, which comes with a $74 fine.

Ouch.

Did you ever notice that GPS / Google Maps can behave a little strange sometimes? Most of the time, it can be accurate, and I wouldn’t want to go without it. However, other times, you gotta wonder what the hell is wrong. Case in point:

Today, I had to run to a local CVS during church to get a picture developed, then get some coffee for my wife. While I was standing in line at the single CVS cashier line, I checked Yelp for nearby coffeehouses or coffee shops. In luck, there was a yelp.com entry for a nearby coffeeshop called Rockin’ Joe’s Coffeehouse and Bistro, and it’s right on Rt. 27 where I was, maybe 0.1 miles away. Nice!

I look closer at the map, and I get befuddled. See below. I’m supposedly at the red dot, but also at both blue dots. The coffeehouse is at the green dot, or is it closer than that? I ask the slightly-flaky CVS cashier if she knows where this Rockin’ Joe’s might be, but not holding up much hope that she knows. Luckily, she does know where the coffeehouse is. In fact, it’s in the same strip mall — I just have to walk to the left a few stores.

Nice job, Google Maps.

Google Maps can act a little bizarre

After nine years of servitude, it was now time to retire the old apartment-era microwave, and move on up to a bigger model that matches our current kitchen appliances. So far, it works as expected. I mean, seriously, what more can I say? It’s a microwave. ;)

I love a good cat centerpiece. It can really bring a room together.

I was standing in the supermarket checkout lane, and couldn’t resist checking out what ridiculous headlines were featured in the gossip rags. I saw this magazine cover below, and still can’t believe people read this trash. Somebody threw out their wedding cake — trouble? Who the Hell cares? I suppose some people do, since these publications stay in business, but it just seems so…. immature.

Nothing like a few hours to get your website up-to-date. I’ve been remiss here and there to update my website, due to my work schedule and family life. I’ve finally caught up with missing postings from January and February, so do yourself a favor, stop working for a few mins, and go back to read those new posts. They’re chock full of photos too. Go ahead, I don’t mind. I’ll wait.

I also caught up on photos — I sorted and published January 2011 and February 2011 photos.

Sigh. Back to the salt mine tomorrow.

When the new carpet was installed, we had to move everything out of the living room. Now that the carpet is installed, we’re figuring out how stuff should be arranged and how to best use the space. I think we’ve finally found a place for Joshua.

Organizing Joshua

Homemade pizza

I made my first homemade pizza, using simple ingredients from the supermarket. Not as difficult as I thought, and rather tasty.

I’m shopping for replacement refrigerator water filters for our Whirlpool fridge, and found the correct type on Amazon.com. My question is who would want to buy USED water filters? I suppose you can get anything on Amazon, but the question is why?

Used water filters