NSLog();

I went to the local (well, 35 minutes away) Bass Pro super-store today to pick up some tippet and leader material for the flyrod and a cheap rod and reel for the sharks. I settled on an Abu Garcia 6500C4 (the reel) and some Bass Pro collapsing (only the butt section collapses a foot) 7'6" Heavy rod. I spooled it with 65-lb (16lb diameter) PowerPro, and I'll tip it with some 100lb leader material.

What's awesome about fishing for sharks from a kayak, I'm quite sure, is that there's very little reason for a shark to ever "spool" you (take out all of your line). I can "only" fit about 175 yards of PowerPro on that reel, but that should be okay. If the shark makes some runs, I'll thumb the reel and let it pull me around. My kayak floating on the water is its own drag, and it's got pretty good give!

I'm looking forward to getting out there and hitting up some sharks again. José and I are going to play on Lake Ida tomorrow, me with my flyrod, and so maybe next week I'll get after some sharks. Or the week after that, or… well, we'll see.

Every month (since February) I post my site's referral search terms (not what people search for on my site). It's an interesting peek that illustrates "how people are finding me." Here's October's…

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Question: What's the email you most regret sending?

My Answer: My previous post details one of mine (I shouldn't write email past 2am, I suppose), but it's not the "worst." The worst was one I wrote to blow off steam and accidentally sent to an employee a few years ago. Needless to say, on emails in which I blow off steam now, I address them to myself in case I accidentally hit "send."

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

I declined a job offer yesterday. A job offer made by a friend at my insistence. Early on in the proceedings, I was very eager to join up, but as details became evident - including the state of their offices, their pay structure, the hours they wished me to work, and so on, it became exceedingly clear that moving from my current job to the offered one would be a mistake. I sent this letter yesterday evening (the name John is fictitious):

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Some useful scripts for XCoders can be found by following this method courtesy of my friend Brad:

Copy the contents of /Library/Application Support/Apple/Developer Tools/ExampleScripts/ to ~/Library/Application Support/Apple/Developer Tools/. The startup item builds the User Scripts menu and then the scripts in the scripts folder get added.

If you want more info on scripting and the menu, the docs on it are here: Help -> Xcode help, select the tools group, click on Customizing Xcode, click on Using Scripts To Customize Xcode. That's where I ended up finding the info on how to enable the menu.

This creates a "User Scripts" menu in XCode with some very useful time-saving scripts.

Question: What's the earliest date that companies should be allowed to play Christmas music?

My Answer: The day after Thanksgiving. I was on hold today with company XYZ listening to Christmas music. The day after Halloween.

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

Developing software has its ups and downs. Today, Freshly Squeezed Software got a call from a woman regarding a trademark on which we'd supposedly infringed. I reworded the language on a page or two, and all should be well in the world. The wording wasn't particularly important, and the product was our cheapest, so I really didn't care. The lawyer with whom I spoke said that the company recently changed its policy, anyway, and only recently was I in violation due to the changes. Ah, well, at least we're moving up in the world: this is Freshly Squeezed Software's first C&D! Woo!

Oh, wait, it's actually our second. We had to change the name of Booklet from its original name "Bookie" because some other app that already had the name.

Question: What's the best costume you ever wore for Halloween?

My Answer: I was Kermit the Frog for many years, and won many, many awards.

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

Question: Have you ever eaten food off of someone else's body? If so, what was it?

My Answer: I must admit that I have, in fact, consumed small quantities of chocolate syrup and whipped cream from the bodice of another. I don't even particularly like chocolate syrup.

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

This is freaking awesome! R.E.M. is streaming hours and hours of video - interviews, live concerts, music videos, behind-the-scenes, radio talk show appearances, the works! Free! 24/7! The music just keeps playing and playing. FREE!!!

The only thing I can't do is save the videos, which would be awesome. I've got a lot of them on DVD anyway, but… still: awesome!!!*

* I'm really not one who's prone to three-exclamation-point statements.

Back when Jamie and I were dating, she told me that I was a bit of a metrosexual. I think she'd take that back if she saw my hands right now (cut up a little bit from fishing hooks, line, paddling 25 miles a week, etc.), my tan (a bit uneven, due to, y'know, clothing), my hair (needs a cut - no time for that when you can fish instead!). Yeah, that's me, a regular Grizzly Adams in the making. Ha!

Really, though, I'm just cleaning out the 50 or so web clippings that were cluttering my normally pristine desktop. Fall cleaning.

Last week I purchased a fly rod, some line, and whatnot. The down and dirty:

Flyrod: St. Croix Legend Ultra, 9', 8wt.
Reel: A Bass Pro Gold Cup III (it has a solid disc drag, and no link)
Backing: standard 20lb micro backing
Line: Cortland 444 Tropic Plus Lazer Line, rocket taper (weight-forward), 8wt., floating, sand coloring.
Tippet/leader: not yet purchased. I won't be tying my own, though.

I "fly fished" if you could call it that as a kid in the streams of PA with my dad. Heavy tree cover meant we mostly just flipped the fly out there, or occasionally roll cast it. It's damn exciting to work a fly towards yourself and see it disappear into the mouth of a fish. Fighting a fish on a flyrod is interesting, and some saltwater species get pretty darn big as it is! I bet the bass in Lake Ida will love some little poppers and things, too, and every fish is more fun on a fly than on a spinning outfit.

Question: What percentage of your MP3s (or AACs, or whatever) have their metadata (album, artist, year, etc.) completed? Partially completed?

My Answer: 100%. Except for some album art I've yet to get, of course, because that involves the tedious process of using wal-mart.com to get the images, selecting all the songs in that album, dragging the image over, and so on.

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

Shall we simply label this person a neophyte, or a curmudgeon, and move on?

People seem to be making a big deal about this new file system [WinFS, for Longhorn], as if having file metadata were going to be a giant leaping advancement for storing my files. I say "Bullshit!" I don't need or want these "enhancements". Hell, most of my MP3s are untagged. That's why I have naming conventions and folder hierarchies. I know exactly where everything on my computer is and no search feature will ever be more efficient than that. [Link]

Every single one of my MP3s is tagged, and slowly but surely, I'm adding the album art to them. The quick search thing in iTunes easily makes that worthwhile. If there were a good lyrics database, they'd eventually all have lyrics too! That makes for a good QotD….

So, Pioneer has DVD-R TiVo receivers now, and they cost $1200 or $1800. They fail to allow you to add your own menus and whatnot as iDVD will, and they don't have DirecTV receivers built in. I think I'll keep my current solution for awhile…