Jason Bock's Weblog

Unbreakable 2?

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:50:52 GMT

"Unbreakable" is the only Shyamalan movie I've enjoyed. In fact, I love the movie. I know some people hate it, but for some reason it really resonated with me. Sounds like there's rumors that a second one might be in the works. Maybe that would be the movie that gets Night out of his terrible slump. Or not. Still, I'd be interested to see a second one.

Ryan Conversations

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:05:07 GMT

Is it me, or is it odd for a kid who's not 2 yet to say a sentence like, "I open it too."

Ryan is starting to really freak me out in a good way :).

TCCC5 Speaker Slot is Open, Take 2

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:25:12 GMT

UPDATE: The slot has been filled, thanks Robert!

We've had yet another speaker drop out, so if you want to speak at TCCC5, send me a title, 1-paragraph abstract, and bio to me ASAP. First come, first serve!

Make It Obvious in Code

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:18:24 GMT

Eric concludes (continues?) his series on preventing inheritance. Great stuff - I totally forgot about InheritanceDemand.

Great Versions of A-Ha's "Take On Me"

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:07:50 GMT

Most of us hated the band, but growing up in the 80s you saw the video and you know it. Here's two great takes on the video:

(Hat tip: Cynical-C)

Chippewa Falls Code Camp

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:59:13 GMT

There's a new Code Camp kicking off in the Eau Claire area - visit the site for more details. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend the inagural event because I'm speaking at Iowa Code Camp that day, but hopefully future events won't collide and I can attend this one too.

User Group Meetings This Week, and TCCC5 This Weekend

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:36:01 GMT

It's late notice, but there is a DevGuild meeting going on tomorrow night. Jeff Brand is speaking on MVC and ASP.NET. I'm looking forward to Jeff's talk as I haven't spent any time looking at this new framework.

Kurt Christiansen is speaking on the Arc programming language at TCLangUG on Thursday. I've known Kurt for years and this is the first time I'm going to see him present - I'm really looking forward to his presentation.

Oh, and TCCC5 is taking place this Saturday. I am most definitely looking forward to this!

Annoying Cats

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:31:29 GMT

Lately our cats have taken up the annoying habit of banging on the kid's doors with their front paws when we go to sleep. They wait until Liz and/or I go to bed, and then they start up. This just started a week or two ago. We don't want them to wake the kids up, so we've resorted to putting them downstairs in the unfurnished area for the evening. However, we really don't like this solution either as we like it when the cats sleep with us. We shut their doors at night and while Hayden probably wouldn't get up if the door was open a bit, we don't want the cats to run around in Ryan's room - he's not as deep of a sleeper as Hayden is.

So...any ideas on how to thwart them from batting at the doors? I've thought of spraying them (the doors, not the cats) with apple bitter, but that may backfire in numerous ways. I also thought of putting some aluminum foil on the doors but the kids would probably want to play with it and it would look rather odd. I'm open to suggestions. Oh, and getting rid of the cats is not an option :).