Friday, March 27, 2009

Cooling Your Mac

For a little extra control over controlling the temperature inside your mac, check out Fan Control.

It gives you a window in System Preferences in which you can control at what temperatures the various internal fans "turn on" and you can control the speed at which they spin.

I think that the software works for all intel based macs, so go for it. If you want to mess with it. Which obviously I couldn't leave alone.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Two parts

First:
You could live like a hobbit!



This guy, I think in England, built this place, and even though it conjures up odd (read enticing) images of Lord of the Rings, it is pretty cool.

Second:
How did I find this? Was I just googling for "build your own hobbit hovel?" No... I stumbled upon it. Stumble is awesome, and maybe the most interactive time waster I've ever found. You should try it. It'd be very web 2.0 of you.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Where'd we'd only go if you paid for it

My brothers got us a gift certificate to Mario Batalli's restaurant, Babbo, in NYC. We made a reservation a month ago and went tonight for their pasta tasting menu with paired wines (which is an enormous amount of amazing food).

Needless to say, we are both stuffed, happy, and tired. Living in NY does have its perks...

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Where we'd go, if you came to visit

Recently, Lila's cousin invited us out to Queens to get some Chinese food. We took the 7 out to Flushing and went to Golden Mall.

The food is great, cheap, and fast. Today, Lila and I ate for about 12 bucks. And we are full! Here are some shots of the interior.



So, potential visitors, you could be as happy as these people!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Photo Blog

Although I post most of the same photos, I also have a photo blog at http://picasaweb.google.com/davemortimer/. You should check it out as I occasionally post different things there.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Trip to Rome

Obviously another update is long overdue... And no. This isn't a video update. Although there might be one in the near future. These are some photos from our trip to rome. We had a great time as I hope the pictures should show!
The Spanish Steps

The obelisk at Piazza de Popolo, there are obelisks all over rome, this one is great condition.

Lila in front of the Pantheon. The Pantheon is over 2000 years old and pretty much the best preserved structure from "the ancient world."

Lila in front of the Fountain of Neptune in Piazza Navona, a large piazza built on the site of ancient stadium. We stayed like 2 minutes from here.

Looking at across the Tiber River towards Hadrian's Tomb.

The view over the Vatican Museum from the top of St. Peter's Basilica.

The altar inside St. Peter's.

The Pantheon at night. We were staying about 5 minutes from here, so if we had a little time to kill we'd just wander over. It is a giant building right in the thick of the city.

The Trevi Fountain by night. Apparently the Trevi fountain was commissioned to commerate the completion of an aqueduct, which terminates at the fountain.

This is the inside of this italian bakery/pizzeria that we went to a lot of times. The pizza was amazing. It was easily the best pizza I've ever had, well maybe the best besides scarlet begonias. The baked goods were also great. They cut the pizzas with these 14-16" long knives with one big chop!

Lila standing in front of the Colosseum. The Colosseum is pretty impressive but there isn't actually much to see on the side. You wander around and imagine thousands of animals and people being slaughtered inside. I've read that the ancient Romans used to flood the inside of the Colosseum and stage mock sea battles!

This is the view from the Palantine hill, one of the seven hills of Rome, looking down over the Forum. The Forum is right by the Colosseum and walking around you can really get a feel for what ancient Roman life.

This is the Temple of Saturn, inside the Forum.

This is an evening shot of one of the 4 Santa Maria churches in Rome. Technically, when you enter this church you leave Italy and enter into the Vatican Sea, even though this church isn't really near St. Peters and the rest of the Vatican.

Lila is walking up the inside of the Dome inside St. Peter's Basilica. She is actually standing perpendicular to the floor and it is the dome that is curving.

This is a view taken from one of the many bridges in Rome looking out across the Tiber River towards the Vatican.

When we visited the Vatican we arrived really really early and so we were rewarded with about 20 minutes of crowd free viewing. Later in the day, it was literally shoulder to shoulder through much of the space.

This is Piazza Navona, looking towards the Four Rivers Fountain, sculpted by Bernini. When I was a child we visited Rome as a family and stayed nearby Piazza Navona, that's how I picked it as the location for our hotel for this visit.

This is a statue of a guy who's name I forget. He was a contemporary of Copernicus and was burned at the stake for challenging the Church's sun centered solar system model. The statue stands in Campo di Fiori, a great square that 6 days a week is covered with stands selling foods and vegetables and chickens and pork and all sorts of other stuff. During ancient times the city wasn't really built up much out here, mostly fields. Pompey, a roman general and later consul, built a theater right near here which is were Julius Caesar was stabbed. None of those original buildings still stand.

All in all we had a great trip - Rome is really fun city to visit and well worth a weeks visit. We were able to see the sights, eat enormous amounts of really good food, and have a relaxing time.