window | Croncast - From Cool to Cul De Sac

busted half of'em

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:31:15 -0500

baseballs, rocks, jarts or slamming them, i broke half of our neighbors carriage house windows growing up. they look pretty good now.

Tags: half house carriage windows growing

in need

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:02:18 -0500

this bear, in some other shots also, drew me to it.

it was positioned in the window to be child height for those walking by the window on the way in.

Tags: window child walking height positioned

baby general

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:55:49 -0500

the nutcrackers take orders from this creepy toddler doll that appears to be in charge of all other elements in the window.

Tags: appears charge elements window doll

you really need me

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:53:42 -0500

buy this bear or else.

i really dug the way that the weathered store window was subtly caught in this shot for an under the glass hue.

Tags: shot caught under glass hue

the clown sees all

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:49:30 -0500

the whole experience of glaring through the store windows with betsy was tinged with a feeling that time had stopped. that, and this glittering petulant clown was the life source for the mannequins in the window.

Tags: clown glittering stopped petulant life

Season 20 Ep 19: San Francisco Part 2, The Meetup

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:25:08 -0500

Croncast - 2008-06-04.mp3
Show: #494
Length: 41:59
Size: 28.8 mb
Format: mp3

Show us some love and leave us a review at iTunes

We're back for part two of San Francisco
The pre pre-school baby is in a kissing phase
She kissed a diseased baby
Then she kissed me and now I am infected
Other than daddy just do
I can blame it on her cuz I got the documentation
Her encrusted nostril in photos
I could track back the vector of my illness
Yes, you are the carriers
Listen to Croncast, "They argue with one another in their basement"
We rank with NPR shows in the post
How are we different than any other shows?
Funnier
Let the woman talk
No love for this man
I didn't get a party when I was there
Heading to the meetup at House of Shields
What if no one shows up?
People were bound to show up
Four people showed up
I am so glad that I disappointed you in a positive way
David, Sam, Russ and Katherine

The Meetup: Left to Right: Russ, Sam, Katherine (in back), David, Betsy (in blue), Jeanie

David has been listening for a long time
A very long time
He was in college, birthday, marriage to attorney
Look back at things that have happened while we have been doing the show
Schlomo gave us the space
It was dark, with a kicked over chair
That is HoS
Russ got a pre-smoking ban chair with an ashtray built into it
This is where we made the mistake
We started drinking right away, heavily
Jeanie kept up with me drink for drink
Mind you she is one third my size
We left the meetup to go dancing
More drinks
Then Jeanie starts dancing with a bearded Marylin Monroe
Having a great time and we stiffed them on the cab
Just drunk bitches we were
We gotta get to sleep
We have things to do the next day
We surface at 10 am
Jeanie didn't get out of bed till 3
I see a pattern with your Jeanie vacations
Remember Chef Jeff?
Back in my skinny days
Now I'm chubby
There's a food shortage I'm good for 8 weeks
At 8pm Mrs. and Mrs Smith are going to hop on a romantic cruise
They should have named it, "The Good Ship Jagermeister"
A little romantic music for you
If I tried to do that with my friends Evan or Mike
So the next day we rent a car
And we end up dumped in a pile of homeless people
They're like day of the dead zombies
Here comes the scariest wican beast i have ever seen in my life
This weather beaten hag pops up in the window
Shit happens, some people aren't what you expect
Are we on the road to Guerneville?
You can't do that with a kind vegan sister
A big coin receptacle
"I'm saving up to clone my cat, donations welcome"

Tags: San Francisco Guerneville Betsy Smith Jeanie Bowen meetup

the toad sees all. well, maybe just me.

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:08:44 -0500

we've lived here for four years and i've never had anything fall in this window well before.

today it has been a bunny and now two toads.

next shot i hope to post is stacks of $100's that fell from the sky into the window well. fingers crossed.

Tags: window stacks post fell sky

i've fallen and i can't get out

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:17:13 -0500

the banging on my escape route window-well plexiglass went on too long not to be a bird or strong wind . . . i thought.

pull back the curtain and i see this little bunny sitting right there. i suppose that is good because if it was anything else that might bite me i would just have to leave it in there.

boxed him up and sent him to the rabbit sausage factory. ok, i might have released him back in the yard and outside the fence to give him a fighting chance versus the dogs.

cute little bunny, be smart and hop far from this house before little deaf dog snags you with her one good tooth.

Tags: little bunny might window back

Season 20 Ep 7: Koi Pond of Death, Kipp, Horticulture Authority

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:01:19 -0500

Croncast - 2008-04-18.mp3
Show: #482
Length: 26:40
Size: 18.3 mb
Format: mp3

Show us some love and leave us a review at iTunes

Special note: Betsy and Jeanie are having a meetup in San Francisco May 21, 2007 at House of Shields 39 New Montgomery St., Time: 6:30 p.m., stop and have a drink or two!

Kris is all business all the time
I am business baby even when I sleep
You're on Twitter 24/7
I was dreaming about API's
That is why I slept through the earthquake
Why you should be like me
Fifth graders would listen
It is like dreaming about math
What parent wouldn't say, "I would like my kid dreaming about math"
You can't negative criticism
The survey we ran for one year
The likes and dislikes are finally available
It's not that
"He laughs at nothing"
The laugh is used to fill in the gaps
Go back and listen to the first few shows with gaps
No one is addicted to your laugh
I say addicted to laughing in general
It is good for you
Adam Curry released some demographic data
So with that I will release all survey that we did later today
STICKERS - first 10 people to send me their address from the contact page
GET - a sticker
Swearing was a thing we did a lot of
We've gone through iterations
Your mom draining her tub
My options were here or next to the sump pump
The outdoor work began around here
Anything I try to do never works
We know this Betsy
The neighbor's chemically altered grass
The grass is smart it knows not even to cross property line
Raised timber bed
Longtime listeners might remember the coi pond
The koi pond of death
I hire them to clean up the yard, remove some timbers and edge my mulch
People that run their own business have psychological problems
They do it because they can't get a normal job
Anybody can be a landscaper
Kipp's Lawn Repair
Kipp is name of death
Just says drug habit
I ask him for a quote
He's a horticulture authority
You could sell his rotten lumber
ReplacementDeckParts.com
That should be your next business
Green has become a scam in many ways
AAA1 Steve
Are you bonded?
Yes, I've posted bond before
Oh, no
That sort of happened with the Comcast guy
He'd done time
Or as he said, "I did a bit"
He hadn't seen his kids in years
That TV would fit right out that window
I got my eye on them
I don't trust them ever
Betsy is soo like Daniel Day-Louis in There Will Be Blood
Upton Sinclair wrote the book just for you
Would you quit junking for $1 million?
I couldn't do it
That would only last you 3-4 months, Kris
Right, 50ould go to the divorce
Banking where you used to live
You mail stuff to your bank?
Well, it's an hour long drive

Tags: Koi Fish croncast stickers horticulture authority Upton Sinclair Daniel Day-Louis

Season 19 Ep 15: KGB Training, Easy Women, The Long Haul

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:07:51 -0600

Croncast - 2008-02-11.mp3
Show: #461
Length: 33:28
Size: 22.9mb
Format: mp3

Show us some love and leave us a review at iTunes

Pick post any post
Tell me what kind of man I am
What kind of dirty man
What kind of wife walks around slovenly
You've fixed it
You look like Theo on The Cosby Show
The shirt is crazy
Right and I love it
My mom bought it from home shopping network
It is designed for a pin
It looks like a bank secretary
When these comments come in
Yeah, they come from new listeners
Do you remember the Lincoln?
Having to slide out of it shotgun style
It was always falling apart
Passing money out the door at McDonald's because window is broken
There was a lot of tension in the house early on
Years worth of tension
But the shows got better
Our lives got better
I am surprised anyone listened
I love you but my friend hates you guys
You gotta work with me people
We've gotten a lot better at telling stories
We like to deliver a good show
Hence, the word 'show'
I don't sparkle when I move
On that tip, we've been cranking out the Resale Queen
Catch up now
It's a show about topics
Not nothingness
Buy it used on eBay NIP
My improv show this week
This is your big shot
A career option
Some might call me gifted
I don't know who those people are
At a party with Betsy
She shares this all the time, "yes, I skipped a grade"
That is one of the first things people tell you
Technically what we are doing here is illegal
No money changed hands
Thank for easy women
I wouldn't have been married if it weren't for easy women
You wouldn't have been born if it weren't for easy women
There is a woman at the class who REALLY likes me
She tried to undress me during a scene
Does it make you feel good?
So we got Bar Louie and now this woman
What are you learning at improv?
First rule is to be supportive
Second is don't undress anybody
Maybe it is you
Are you sending the vibe?
No, no, no, no, noooooooo
She pulled my shirt up in front of a room of people
Audience was like ewww
Nobody wants to see my baby tummy
It looks like I was attacked by a bear
80 members?
That is not a home owner's association
I respectfully decline to go down this road
I battled with the Russian chick again
Shopping with the kids is like having a wild raccoon duct taped to your back
You get to see everyone's ankle bracelets
She took my plates
It's her KGB training
You crossed the line and should have never done it

The Resale Queen Podcast is now here! Every Saturday by 9 a.m. CST

View Kris's resume or download it

Tags: Homer Simpson Bar Louie Russian women Resale Queen wild raccoon

Mother-in-law on Linux? Yep.

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:35:15 -0600

Am I crazy? Nope. It's show time for Linux.

Some of the the Linux flavors have matured enough to be great solutions for keeping family members safe from viruses and giving them the tools, graphically, that they need. So much so that Dell is now offering computers with it as an alternative to Windows.

However, it's not just family members that benefit, it saves the "son-in-law tech support company" a ton of time and headaches.

And now there is a great tool available called Automatix that is a great asset for installing new apps quickly. Sure, I am comfortable with command line work but if there is a gui available that can make installing software simpler than finding a package, decompressing, cd to directory and then running . . . well, I am all for it.

You can see from the photo above that I chose Xubuntu for the install, a smaller footprint of Ubuntu. It's designed to run on low RAM machines.

It's perfect for a mother-in-law prone to installing software from every popup ad that she encounters. Which is the reason that her Toshiba laptop has a desktop that looks like this:

So far so good.

Tags: Ubuntu Xubuntu Toshiba Dell laptop Linux

New Flickr Uploadr makes me want to upload

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 09:08:51 -0600

I caught this blog post this morning about the Flickr release of an updated version of their desktop uploader.

It is a much needed upgrade and . . . and . . . for those of you, like me, that use Flickr for backing up your photos will love that the new version doesn't force you to resize large images. Being able to archive my original images to Flickr just made the service even more useful.

It's available for Windows and Mac. However, at Flickr the links for the download are still pointing to the old version.

Get version 3.0 in the original post.

Thanks, DI and Yahoo!

Tags: Flickr Uploadr desktop upload Flickr uploader 3.0 archive flickr

chit chat kitty cat

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 13:53:34 -0600

this is my favorite shot from the trip downtown naperville today.

living a few miles away helps make trips more frequent but i saw something different in the downtown today. for some reason i chose to focus on the window graphics/art and the reflections of other downtown elements.

also was a good time with elliot.

the 11 photo set is here.

Tags: downtown focus window chose reason

Zuner or later

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:58:51 -0600

Well, the new Zune Marketplace launched yesterday. For now I will hold my opinions to myself as I see the project mature a bit.

I'm excited about the podcast section of the software, since it is Windows based and comes from Microsoft. Both things mean a new reach for podcasting.

However, when I went into the store, Croncast is not in their directory. So for now, no links to Zune Marketplace. I will add some and sing some praises, maybe, when we are added to the store.

If you get a chance to use the software, go to the podcast marketplace and "suggest a podcast". Namely, Croncast with this link http://www.croncast.com/shows.rss, but also add any others that you listen to and can't find by searching.

Tags: Zune podcast Microsoft Zune Marketplace Croncast Apple iTunes

Smartphone absurdity, I want just one

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 12:23:33 -0500

I didn't realize how absurd this smartphone crap was until the day before yesterday. We have a potential client using Blackberries as podcast players. Which was no big deal since I worked on a solution a few years ago at my day job but I needed to get the same version as the client. Hence a new radiation hot spot for my palm.

Now in the house:

1 Treo 700 (mine, Verizon)
1 xv6700 (Betsy, Verizon)
1 iPhone (work, AT&T)
1 Blackberry 8703e (work, Sprint)

Two of them are for work, like I marked them above, but it is ridiculous. They all do like one thing better than the others, one carrier's plan is better priced or the network makes all the difference. What do I mean?

Best sounding as a phone:
1. Treo
2. iPhone
3. Blackberry
4. xv6700 (horrible)

Ease of use as a phone:
1. iPhone (my mother-in-law could use it)
2. Treo
3. Blackberry
4. xv6700 (need 3 hands to make a call)

Ease of use overall:
1. iPhone
2. Blackberry
3. Treo
4. xv6700

Best OS:
1. xv6700 (windows mobile 5.0, too bad everything else about it sucks)
2. iPhone
3. Treo
4. Blackberry

Best media playback:
1. iPhone (wonder why?)
2. xv6700
3. Treo
4. Blackberry

Best keypad:
1. Blackberry (update: thanks Garrick for pointing out I misspelled it the first time -LOL)
2. Treo
3. xv6700
4. iPhone (it's pretty . . . hard to use quickly)

Best sms device:
1. Treo
2. Blackberry
3. xv6700
4. iPhone

Best email device:
1. Blackberry
2. Treo (would be third if AT&T edge were faster)
3. iPhone (on wifi this is second)
4. xv6700

Best web device (network):
1. Treo (doubles as EV-DO modem, love it)
2. xv6700 (doubles as EV-DO modem, never used it)
3. iPhone
4. Blackberry (locked into a special start page, blah and doubles as EVDO modem but Sprint rates are insane)

Best web device (wifi):
1. iPhone (experience much like real browsing
2. xv6700 (fast but reformats pages)
The other two are AWOL with no wifi capability

Best camera:
1. iPhone
2. Treo
3. xv6700
Blackberry is without

Best network:
1. Verizon
2. Sprint
3. AT&T

Best overall:
1. iPhone
2. Treo
3. Blackberry
4. xv6700

Taking all of this into consideration and my experience with all four operating systems and form factors, I have decided that my ultimate phone and carrier combo would look something like this:

An iPhone on Verizon's network, use as EV-DO modem, with an add on keypad and GPS onboard. That would get an 'ooh la la' and an amen.

Tags: iPhone xv6700 Treo 700 Blackberry 8703e Verizon EVDO Sprint GPS

Betsy and her husband Kris Aug 17, 2007

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:45:47 -0500

Croncast - 2007-08-17.mp3
Show: #398
Length: 29:56
Size: 20.5mb
Format: mp3

Betsy and her husband Kris Aug 17, 2007

Join Croncast Cronies . . . thanks to all those signed up already!.

I'm losing my voice again
Thanks to your children
Serves you right!
Mr. "In a minute"
Hitting refresh is not a job
Doing who is queries all day
The fact that you know what a who is query is . . . time for love love
The pitter patter of Gigi upstairs
Don't spray that in your eye
Maggie locked me in the basement
Every woman in this house locks me in the basement
Once she realizes I am on one side and she is on the other she freaks out
Daddy, daddy dadddy
I begin to stress because I hear the crying
It activates that parental thing in me
There is one way out other than crawling out
A big man in a small window
Yeah, it is like fat women and little dogs
I begin yelling for the other one to come and unlock the door
The dogs start barking
I'm screaming at the top of my lungs
I start yelling up the vents hoping Elliot would hear me
Why didn't you just stick one man titty at a time out the window and ease out
You need to get out of the house Mr. B
I really wish we could spend time together at things like the Great American Yard Sale
You could be my wing man Mr. B
Anyways, I got you
Who wants to play with plushies with you
Betsy does improv class night two
It will make me a better listener, Kris
It has brought insight into your life
I have learned what it is like to be a man
Someone will redirect you in the moment and you can move on
I just think you've got a brain like golden retriever
I don't have to be a tree at home
We should have a family game night with improv games
Oh, wait I have an idea . . . how about family HTML programming night right before dessert
The new dude walks in to class and he is a programmer
I thought you were a coder
I can smell it on your breath
What does it smell like?
Your mother's basement
It was super fun
I had a near death experience Mr. B
How does that happen when all you do is go and get coffee and hit up Goodwill
I put down the mocha latta
I'm parked next to a big shiny Lexus
Maggie freaks and I open my car door into the car
Then I see that the car is occupied
Fuck you and your fucking small car
The woman gets out of her car very slowly
I don't know what you are supposed to do in that situation
It's a Volvo, it's bullet proof, don't touch me
It gets worse
I did what any self respecting mommy would do
I lick my shirt and rub the mark off her car
She makes eye contact and says, "Stop licking my car"
My ass was grass
Get your lips off my Lexus
I had successfully removed the scratch with my magic eraser finger
I hit your car but I successfully slimed off the mark
The dust of Elk Mountain
I would get arrested for that
I know what I am going to do
I ran
I ran away from her
I picked up Maggie and ran
If she hits my car, well, it is insured
I wasn't going to wait until she popped out my eye teeth
Betsy will minimize anyone else's shit
Just because you don't care about your car doesn't mean other people don't
The Dust of Montrose
Was my greatest vacation ever
Your not helping me out Mr. B
The Great American Yard Sale has moved to a mall parking lot
Westfield shopping center won't know what hit
Welcome to camp Junk Ass
One legged box races
There are some one legged people that can gallop
I need you to help me out
I'll get there at four in the morning and it will give me a 10 minute head start
They stole my Jaguar off my hood
What it the whole point of owning the Jaguar is the stupid little shiny thing
Yeah, now it is next to some kids tee ball trophy
Dealership says none in stock
Ornament $211, labor $78 and with tax it will be about $330
Didn't you have any markings on it?
Thanks to Bernadette for this review and write up!

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Tags: Black Lexus Great American Yard Sale improv class Dust of Montrose Jaguar hood ornament