wikked thoughts by Waqas Ahmed

Site comments have been enabled for a while now, and so far life is good. Had some spam attempts but MT Blacklist did its job.

Now waiting for the trackback spam to hit.

January 5th, 2005 | | | Comments Off

Saw this over at McGee’s blog today. This piece of art by Alexis Rockman makes me want to visit the Brooklyn Museum next time I’m in NY.

Some more artwork here.

January 4th, 2005 | | | Comments Off

The site design may not be the most polished I’ve seen, but content is king in this case. MyBus.org has real-time metro transit updates for buses in the Seattle / King County region.

There are even interfaces for WAP and SMS. Here’s an example for the 545 Express that runs between Redmond and Seattle.

January 3rd, 2005 | | | Comments Off

Two days after I’d fixed comments on the site, it got hit with comment spam. Searching for solutions to the movable type comment spam problem turned up recommendations to upgrade to Movable Type 3.14 first. That’s done now and comments are back on.

A nice bonus… the management UI incompatibilites with Firefox seem to have been fixed. One less reason to keep IE around on my machine.

December 23rd, 2004 | | | Comments Off

Ebert has put up his best films of 2004 list. Overall it was a weak year for great movies. Maybe I feel that way since I haven’t as many of the “top 20″ as I usually have had by this time.

Movies I agree with:
- Kill Bill, Volume 2. Without a doubt!
- House of Flying Daggers. Does’t say as much about the movie as it does about the competition.

Movies I disagree with:
- Spider-Man 2. Pure teenage drivel.

Movies I want to watch:
- Hotel Rwanda
- Bad Education
- Million Dollar Baby

Movies that should have been on the list:
- The Incredibles. Beats the pants off the slimy Shrek sequel.
- Maria Full of Grace. An amazing performance by Catalina Sandino Moreno.
- Before Sunset. Some sequels can be just as good.

December 22nd, 2004 | | | Comments Off

So Suprnova.org is officially dead. This is a pain in the short term. But according to Mark Pesce it’s a great thing for the long term.

I don’t agree with everything he says, but he does provide a great explanation of bittorrent and what the future may hold for P2P.

December 21st, 2004 | | | Comments Off

While it doesn’t even begin to compete with my love for Pizza or spicy Pakistani food, I do like a crispy batch of fried chicken once in a while. The best I’ve ever had was at: Mary McCrank’s Restaurant in Chehalis, WA.

Unfortunately it’s almost 2 hours south of Seattle. Maybe I’ll stop there on my way to Portland or Mount Saint Helens.

December 20th, 2004 | | | Comments Off

Go watch it. Even the critics like it.

It’s not quite Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (though it comes close), but who can resist watching Ziyi Zhang in yet another beautifully shot movie?

December 19th, 2004 | | | Comments Off

“Although often pink and pretty, Mark Ryden’s paintings are not for the faint of heart. In his dazzling Mixmaster universe, symbols of truth and innocence intermingle with signs of adulteration and dark mystery.”

I saw this painting exhibition at the Frye today. It was superb. The very first painting you see as you enter the hall arrests you.

Every piece of art exhibited seemed to be from someone’s private collection. I saw a bunch of hollywood names in there including Courtney Cox and David Arquette.

December 18th, 2004 | | | Comments Off

Despite the rain Seattle is a good looking city. I’ve finally put up some of my pictures from October (only two months late).

See the Seattle album here.

December 17th, 2004 | | | Comments Off

Tom Scanlon of The Seattle Times has an up to date listing of night spots in Belltown, Seattle.

December 17th, 2004 | | | Comments Off