Perpetually snow-covered cars (5) Feb 3, 2009
On my travels to and from work and to the playground where I spend most of my days (please understand this reference, internet), I often see cars covered with snow.  This wouldn't be unusual if it had just snowed.  But often times, I see these cars many days after the last snowfall.  And that gets me thinking.  Either
  1. You're out of town, though I highly doubt that many people in that many different areas are all traveling the same days, or
  2. You don't need your car, in which case why are you wasting money for gas and maintenance and insurance when you can obviously live without it, or
  3. You've been getting a ride from someone, in which case why are you wasting time and effort and money on owning your own car, or
  4. You haven't left your house in eleven days, which is disturbing.
My neighbor, who I'm almost convinced is a stripper, once left her car in the driveway for two completely separate snow storms without cleaning it off or using it.  And then suddenly, one morning, there she was scraping off three weeks of snow and ice.  Weird.  Oh, and I think she's a stripper.  Also weird. #nature
Picture Renamer Feb 3, 2009
This is a Visual Basic Script that renames all the picture and video files in a directory to the format "MMDDhhmmss" where MM is the two-digit month, DD is the two-digit day, hh is the two-digit hour, mm is the two-digit minute, and ss is the two-digit second. 

From there, you can easily organize pictures in directories based on year, where the files are sorted by name and, in effect, date.  This is useful in the case of owning more than one camera, especially if each camera has its own file naming structure.  One structure might be DSC_1234, where the other might be P1234567.  When pictures from both cameras are placed in the same directory, it's hard to view the pictures in date order, because Windows isn't good at reading the proper date from picture files.  So instead of manually renaming pictures by date, the script does it automatically. 

The script creates a log file so that, in the case of some unforeseen mistake or accident, you can see what your pictures were originally named.  Regardless, I would suggest creating a copy of your original pictures to try things out, just in case something goes horribly wrong. 

One thing to remember is that the script hinges on the fact that you have your camera's date and time set properly.  If not, your pictures will be renamed the wrong thing, which doesn't help you much. 

Some links that helped me create this are here and here. 

Version History:
v. 0.9 - better date search; MP4 handling
v. 0.8 - regex date search instead of camera-specific offsets; duplicate file check

Download #page
Than (2) Feb 3, 2009
One time I lost a spelling bee with the word "than".  The moderator said the word, and he used it in a sentence like, "The sun is bigger than the earth."  I spelled it T-H-E-N.  And I lost.  I walked to my seat and tearfully sat down next to my mom, who explained the difference between "then" and "than".  I'll never forget that fateful day, nor will I ever get the two words confused again.  Public education success?  I guess you could call it that.  You could also call it compulsory public humiliation by way of meaningless nerve-filled competition.  Either one, I suppose. #language
The Creation of Dave (1) Feb 3, 2009


Explanation. #entertainment