Visceraman1 - Joshua Lopez

With recent changes to our policies within the Willed Body Program, I will be making changes to the website. Part of me is thinking, what the hell, go forth with a redesign while you're at it (sure it would be the third one in the past year), but while the site is extremely simple, it's also more frustrating to revamp than this one. It's actually the simplicity that makes it difficult.Most of the potential viewers are going to be of an older generation, with (stereotyping here okay>), less patience to wait for pages to load, slower connection speeds, slower computers in general, and most likely, haven't updated application/browsers in quite some time (if ever). Add the need for larger typeface, lower screen resolutions and you can start to see the dilemma. It's a fairly boring site. And not much room to stretch the walls around it either.Rather than approach the potential redesign with an air of negativity about the simplicity, I should relish it, and enjoy it. Expect an update when it's been modified. (I won't be including any photos of the Dermestid activity. If the anatomical drawings were "too much", I can't imagine what sort of reaction I'd get with those)

Posted by Joshua at 09:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

(Sometimes it's better to not say anything at all.) I congratulate Mr. Ty Pessin and his family for the production of Ty Pessin,Version 3.0

Posted by Joshua at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm still moving things back onto the server, uploaded the photos
from the New York Trip last month again:(Of course, it's a .swf file so
it's going to break my xhtml validation temporarily.)

Posted by Joshua at 11:54 PM | Permalink

As seen while using Stumble:

• Scribbler : Simple line drawings morph. Fairly distracting
• An Interesting Look at the War : Regardless of your opinions for or against it.
• Similar to the Hewlitt Packard commercial, a bit more distracting though
• Buddhist Internet Radio : Can't get more specific than that
• Flash Zoom : Interesting Flash zoom project

Posted by Joshua at 11:57 PM | Permalink

A few weeks ago, Jeri forwarded an link she had gotten from her mom.
As soon as I saw the word "Catster" I of course became immediately
queasy with the thoughts of millions of wonderful people, killing time
between bingo matches by dressing their cats up and forcing them to
perform tricks.. So Sunday morning, while Jeri was ignoring me working on her artwork, I flipped open the computer and set up an account at Catster.
This was really just intended to be a bit of punishiment, in the vein
of "you ignore me, I do something to shame the family". So without
further ado, here are our kids and their respective pages:

Dante
Frida
Georgia
Diego

Now if it didn't already seem odd, that one would actually take the time to post a picture and information about their cat, that's just the beginning. It seems you can also have some sort of blog (written by your cat of course), and now our cats are getting fan mail from other cat owners across the country. Diego is apparently viewed as a sexy guy, I'm guessing in the "Bad Boy" way.

Posted by Joshua at 12:01 AM | Permalink

Of course, this should have been signed a long time ago, and should be signed by everyone. Well, I suppose not everyone would want to sign it...there a great number of Pro-Bush/Anti-America/Anti-Democracy/Anti-Equality for all Americans/Anti-Womens Rights/ fanatics out there. There's nothing I can
say that will ever get them to open their minds and see what's really
going on. At any rate, these little animations are quite amusing:

Bush 1

Bush 2

Posted by Joshua at 12:02 AM | Permalink

According to the Death Clock,
I'm going to live to be the ripe old age of 82. Sure, that's up from the 78 it quoted me yesterday....evidently the amount of Lycopene ingested last night has improved matters greatly.

Posted by Joshua at 12:21 AM | Permalink

This weekend, Jeri and I went to a few antique shops here in town, partly to provide inspiration and to get items for her new artwork, and well, ok that was really the only reason. It's been decades since I had really spent time in an antique shop, which made it decades since my brother and I were required to walk behind my dad, hands in his back pockets - this was a sort of disciplinary tactic designed by my dad in an attempt to keep my brother and I from touching anything in the store. I've never met anyone else who endured the same, much less could imagine this sort of tactic but such is life. (The tactic was more barbaric and cruel when you took into consideration my dad's propensity for great and horrid flatulence.) During this time, my brother and I would generally wave a peace flag, and endure this together, as brothers. It never lasted too long, though my dad was of that athletic sort, he would soon tire of carting around 150lbs of sweaty child behind him (yes, I was quite the fat one.)

Antique stores always have that familiar smell, though never the same as that A & A Hardware my dad would take us to, perhaps it was just the Boston Baked Beans that had me enamored with that store (again, I was fat), but I'll save that for another time.

So that smell, and oy christ, the heat. It's as though the items would perish if the propietors lowered the temperature below 85. As always, I spent most of the time wiping my brow on aged doilies, and coats with mock fur necks. Looking at rows and rows of empty Coke bottles made me thirsty, and though I had polished off a Sicilian Omellette just minutes before, the rusted Hostess tins made my stomach growl (I said I was fat ok?). I had a pretty good time, though I'm not sure I would consider Def Leppard's "Pyromania" a true antique, nor the Petra albums. One of the stores had quite the selection of religious artwork that I found most intriguing, but alas, far beyond reach of my wallet.

I didn't buy anything, Jeri came away with a single die and a cigar box, and then it was off for raspados con nieve (for fuckssakes, I said I was fat!).

Posted by Joshua at 12:23 AM | Permalink

I'm really quite enamored with my new web hosting company, MediaTemple. While I never had any trouble with Affinity, my new server is so, so much faster, more responsive. Of course, MT isn't hurting anything either, makes it feel like I'm designing on the fly, rather than waiting for connections, rebuilds and timeouts. I've yet to use any of the email availibility though. I have enough addresses strewn about the internet, and really don't want another. True, I could consolidate, it's not like I use the Yahoo address for anything except catching spam, never touch the gmail, or the lame webmail offered by my ISP. I'll think about it, but don't plan on doing anything for quite some time.

Posted by Joshua at 09:33 AM | Permalink

It's nice to have a bit of a break here at work. There didn't seem to be an end to last week, labs scheduled, blood here, splattered there. While I do enjoy that sort of pace at times, I must remember not to tell the Universe that I am bored. Nope.

Today has been spent busily working on my lung project. A much better specimen this time around, good drying occurred over the weekend and after a couple coats of shellac, I can take it to my brother's goodbye family dinner on Wednesday. The lungs used this time are pretty interesting, pulmonary fibrosis had inflicted the donor; this makes for interesting texture and bubbling of the lung tissue. It should probably serve as a reminder that I should quit smoking (again and for good)....I'll think about that whilst out on the dock.

Posted by Joshua at 09:39 AM | Permalink

Ah yes, Manhunt. Jeri suggested this one actually, and of course at first glance, I sneered at it, thinking it would be a lame spinoff of Postal meets GTA meets Fight Club. And how wrong I was.



Perhaps I am alone in this thought, but this game actually created a sense of anxiety while playing it. I'm not sure what caused that, could have been the medication, could have been the beer. More likely it was the American Goverenment that created that fear, and it bled over into my gaming life.

Posted by Joshua at 10:30 AM | Permalink

Audio Stream is up and running, located over there on the right, and will conveniently open in a separate window unlike the last player. A bit faster to change the playlist, since this one utilizes xml rather than simple load. I'm not overly pleased with the load time, should be a bit quicker. I'm not sure how often I should be swapping out the playlist. Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Annually? Currently it holds 8 tracks, almost all are DJ BC, (those were the only tracks that caught my dutiful assistant's attention while working), and a Fear Factory track - oh yeah, that's a shocker.

Posted by Joshua at 09:42 AM | Permalink

In regards to Cranium Oxide's posting about top 5 albums, I couldn't really narrow it down to just 5. If it were up to me, I would be compiling a favourite list for months to come. At any rate, here's my top album ist:

The almost made it list is excruciatingly long, of course anything from Fear Factory, Death (RIP Chuck!)Sepultura (Roots and older), Machine Head, Meshuggah, Slayer, Metallica (Justice and older only), Pantera, Frontline Assembly, Ministry, Johnny Winter, James Brown, Frank Sinatra, Run DMC, Agnostic Front (pre-reuion era), Malevolent Creation, Arch Enemy and Soilwork round out that list. That of course is just the "A" list.

Posted by Joshua at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hooked



Donkey



Cannery


Mummified



Instrumental

Posted by Joshua at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sometimes I lean towards attention defiency when it comes to gaming. A game has to really hook me for there to be any semblence of repeated playing. The Hitman series has provided that, and much more.

Replay is definitely rewarding, with numerous ways to complete the missions, from killing everyone in sight (which is always great fun), to completing it by killing only the assigned target(s)...horribly challenging. I look forward to the upcoming release of Blood Money to further the challenge.

Posted by Joshua at 10:17 AM | Permalink

Sure Jeri thought it was a bit funny when the clerk said "You know this is last years edition?"; as she knew full well I never followed professional football...well any football really. However, I have now embraced the sport, and my Eagles are continuously outperforming the other teams.



The only area my team seems to really be sucking in, is regards to the financial stability of the team. As I am over 18 million in the hole, I've jacked up all pricing...so far this hasn't affected attendance.

Posted by Joshua at 10:09 AM | Permalink