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Question: How do you celebrate your Independence Day?

My Answer: Carey and I are having both families over for a cookout (hamburger, hot dog). Calling it a dry run for our reception/housewarming/party would be overdoing it, as it's much smaller, but it sure beats just hanging around and doing nothing, which is what I normally do. I'm not much into fireworks, so it's unlikely we'll even go to see any later.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: Do you believe in magic?

My Answer: Not really. I believe that magic in the traditional sense - card tricks and bunnies from hats - is all just illusion, and that's fine. It's still entertainment. Magic in the mystical sense - casting spells and voodoo and enchanted forests - are also great entertainment, but really the purview of children. I can still pretend - any time we read fiction or a movie we're engrossing ourselves in a bit of make-believe, magic, and pretend. So, I "believe" in magic in that I'm willing to allow myself to be entertained now and then, but I don't think magic is "real."

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Question: What's the largest home improvement project you've ever undergone?

My Answer: I installed a shower door. Was pretty easy, though I needed to buy a hacksaw and a 32-tooth blade to saw the bottom rail. The only real mistake we made was putting in one of the rails (the rail that holds the separate magnet rail) backwards. That resulted in an extra hole, but as it's behind that same rail, I don't imagine it matters.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Does anyone care that MovableType is going to, presumably in about 29 more days or so, be at version 3.2? They're counting down the days (again, presumably) over here, and some of the features look nice.

Just this past weekend I was once again burned by what I would consider a massive bug. I deleted four categories that had about 100 articles, in total, assigned. I looked at the Entries list and tried to display only the entries without any categories assigned to them. Not possible.

Instead, I had to go through and find every one of the 100 articles, re-assign them, and rebuild them. One at a time. Heaven forbid I be asked to re-assign entries when deleting a category.

Here's to hoping that MovableType 3.2 does some nice things. The spam features may - or may not - put MT-Blacklist and SpamLookup in the dustbin. I'll try 3.2 here on NSLog(); before I try it on The Sand Trap - that's for sure.

P.S. I hope ecto support for MovableType 3.2 is either present already or coming very soon.

Question: At what age were you potty trained?

My Answer: I, like many boys, waited until I was nearly 3½ years old before I was potty trained. I remember once when my paternal grandparents were here, and I peed in the potty (from a step stool) and filled the whole bowl up with bubbles. I made my grandma come and look. I was so proud.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

I've just been informed by my wife that I'm never to write anything bad about Erin and John on my blog, because "they know where it is now." I can say one nice thing, though: they have a home theater setup with a projector, little theater type seats, a popcorn maker, and a bar. I hope to have a similar room some day.

Question: What's the nearest you've ever come to your own death?

My Answer: I've never tried to kill myself, so that rules that out. I've been in one car accident, but the guy who was driving avoided the oncoming car well enough that nobody was hurt at all. I once fell through some ice, but only up to my armpits. I split my head wide open when I was 6, but 18 (very big) stitches later I was fine. I've never been in a natural disaster… I can't say that I've ever been very close to death. If I had to choose, I'd go with the car accident, because if Matt hadn't steered hard to the left, the car would have smacked directly into my side of the truck.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Now that I'm a homeowner, I'm very interested in getting to know my neighbors. One of the ways in which I thought to do this was by setting up a "neighborhood blog." The area in which we live is actually quite big, and there aren't any clear delineations, so I thought perhaps the street name would serve as a good "location-specific" delineator. Of course, we'd not exclude people who lived on connecting streets…

Anyway, such a "neighborhood blog" could serve as a generic "postboard" - people could apologize for traffic in advance (a graduation party, for example), post "I'm available to babysit" type messages, and, in general, communicate with more than the two or three people who share a property line with them but still live quite close. Neighbors could organize calls about potholes or talk about which cell phone companies offer good reception - whatever.

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Question: What do you do with all of your coin change?

My Answer: Carey and I are putting our change in a piggy bank. We take them to Wegman's or some grocery store and cash them in. We call it our "Outback Fund" - when we save up enough for a meal at the Outback, we go. Of course, I've already caught Carey stuffing dollar bills (and even fives) in the piggy bank, which is in clear violation of the "coin-only" policy!

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Ben Roethlisberger's grandfather died recently, and I read about it on his blog. I'll overlook a few of the grammatical mistakes and simply wish Ben the best this year. I have - and always will be - a Steelers fan.

I love that an athlete has a blog and that I found out about the news of his grandfather dying there instead of in a writeup in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette or something, but the cynic in me wonders how long Ben will be able to leave comments open before he's bombarded with "Steelerz suk!" comments. Too many Internet-using football fans have no shame or honor.

Carey and I bought furniture a few weeks back and took delivery of our bedroom set a few days later. A few days after that we shuffled the furniture around and put the pieces - bed, two nightstands, chest, and dresser - where they'll likely remain for many years to come.

The positions we chose put the dresser, which featured a large mirror, right next to the bathroom door. On the other side of the door, a 4' x 8' mirror. Needless to say, the mirror was a bit redundant. The ceiling is vaulted and the bathroom has a skylight - more mirrors weren't necessary to "lighten up" or "widen" the room. So we took the mirror off.

Of course, we'd paid for it, so we wanted to use it somewhere. It ended up in the foyer. We bought a 50-pound hanging kit for $7.98 from Home Depot. I drilled holes and attached two clips to the back of the mirror. I attached metal wire to each clip. I nailed two hangers to the wall, hung the mirror, and voilà! A house hack!

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Question: What podcasts (from the iTMS) do you recommend?

My Answer: The only one I've subscribed to thus far is New Music Tuesdays. Perhaps it'll expose me to some new music. There aren't any golf-specific feeds that I can see yet.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

And hey, this shows up prior to Apple's announcement:

With iTunes 4.9, you can now browse and subscribe to podcasts from within the iTunes Music Store. Podcasts are frequently updated radio-style shows downloadable over the Internet. You can also transfer podcasts to iPod, for listening on the go.

I don't really care if there's more to the announcement or not. I'm guessing there probably will be… there are rumors of a big "pairing" of some kind, an alignment of companies. We'll see. XM? Sirius? Motorola (yawn)?

P.S. Currently the version # doesn't show up in Software Update. Kinda kinky.

I previously wrote about the Nintendo Revolution not supporting HD, but now there's a new fan site that will attempt to change Nintendo's mind. You can find it at http://www.1080up.org/. Go. Read. Learn. Speak.

Question: Do you use Synergy? If not, how do you typically control iTunes?

My Answer: Yep. I don't use any of the menu bar functions, but I do use keys to change the volume, pause/stop/play, ffwd/rewind, rate songs, and hide/show the floater.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.