Nobody else at work has blogged on planet about this yet, so I figure I’ll go ahead and post it. Medsphere has just made the first release of Medsphere Widgets under LGPL 2.0. This includes CPaned, FBox (a “flow” container), GridView (managed Excel-like grid widget), and Graph (managed 2d graph widget using Cairo).

George Durham, the cellist from my quartet in school, is apparently in the middle of a bet with his roommate Mike to see who can last the longest by eating on $2/day. If they both last until December 16 then it’s a draw. The last post was on December 1 and it was marked “day 7″. I’m not sure if it’s still going on right now. Interesting stuff!

I think George is also a professional poker player these days, so it seems that he likes to bet. Good luck, George! I hope you don’t die of starvation in order to win your bet!

Mark and Ute told me this weekend that the Dallas Peace Center is sponsoring a video presentation and a panel discussion about the imminent threat of U.S. military aggression against Iran. If any hackers out there live in the Dallas area and are concerned with this, please join. It will take place tomorrow at the Walnut Hill Library at 9495 Marsh Lane in Dallas between 7:00p and 8:30p.

Last night I committed the patch for #164537 that I believe will finally solve the remaining transient and modal window problems that have been affecting GTK on Windows for years. I think this was the last really critical blocker for GTK being usable on Windows, at least that I’m aware of.

I just got back from Austin City Limits Festival, and it was really awesome! I couldn’t make it on Saturday because of Plano Symphony, but it ended up working out in my favor anyway. The main reason to go Saturday would have been for The White Stripes, but they ended up bailing because Meg got sick or something. So I met my friend Gerry in Austin on Sunday morning and we stayed all day. Donna said Sunday was the best day overall.

We heard The National, and they were pretty good. Then we went over to hear STS9 and they were cool. They seem to be all instrumental electronic, which was cool. They also seem to attract all the crazy Xers who were clearly enjoying the show with some additional chemical assistance. Then we went to hear Ben Kweller, but it was really boring so we stopped by Robert Earl Keen for a few minutes but were not into it either, so we took a break to get water and rest for a bit. Then headed over to hear Common. I’m not really into hip-hop at all, but it was still a pretty fun show. Then it was off to hear Bloc Party. They were definitely the best show up to this point. They sounded really good, even though they kind of apologized a couple times and mentioned how they were not really used to the heat of Texas. It was only around 90F, but as they said they’re used to a cold rainy island. Apparently last year it got up to around 108F! Bloc Party sounded really, really close to their CDs I thought. After they finished we tried to see Regina Spektor, but it was too hard to hear her. She was just singing with piano, and her music was too soft and at the nearest other stage was a band called Rose Hill Drive, and they were very loud and seemed to drown out Regina Spektor from where we were standing. But the crowd around Regina Spektor’s stage was enormous.

So we took a really long break at this point and skipped the next concert block so we’d be well-rested and ready for The Decemberists. I’m really glad we did, too, because it was a fantastic show. We got a really good place kind of near the front and could see really well. Looking out behind us there were obviously tens of thousands of people there. Donna said she couldn’t get anywhere near the Decemberists stage, she and her friends were stuck way off to the right. But the show was incredible, and was very easily the best show of the day. The audience was really into it; you can tell the Decemberists are really loved in Austin. In fact before we went to ACL we stopped for lunch at Hula Hut for lunch and we heard them play a Decemberists song. That was pretty cool. I never hear good music anywhere around Dallas it seems.

The day ended with Bob Dylan, so we stayed to hear him play a couple songs. But he was just so unbelievably terrible that we left almost immediately. He really sounded like he could barely sing. I’m not really sure what happened to his voice.

I saw the interview with Michael Moore on CNN. It was great that he had so much airtime, although this is probably the last time that happens. He had great things to say, and he was right on with everything. Sadly, he’s not very good at making those points in a way that is really going to rally anyone to his side. He’s just not very good at interviews, and his personality will unfortunately end up pushing people on the fence away from good causes than pulling them in.

I went out to California last week for work. We had a good time hacking, watching movies, eating, and hearing music. Cesar, Anthony, Amber (Anthony’s girlfriend), and I all went to hear LA Phil play on Thursday. They played Brahms 3 and Brahms 1, which seemed like a little bit of a strange concert.. but it was really good. Whoever was sitting principal viola was playing on an Iizuka viola like mine, which was sort of cool. Walt Disney Concert Hall was fantastic. On Tuesday we went to see The Departed at the dollar theater. Very cool movie.

I saw Gerry and Shannon the other day, and had a nice visit with them. They have a new dog now, Louie. Very cute dog. We talked about a lot of interesting things, went out for pizza, watched some rock DVDs. It was very fun. I wish I could see them more often.

I hope everyone had a fun and safe New Year! I went over to Valerie’s house and hung out with people from Dallas Symphony and other friends of theirs. It was fun, and I got to taste many delicious wines. Pam’s son was playing Destroy All Humans! on Ralph’s PS2. It’s pretty amusing, but when Pam saw that it involved anal probes she took it away and made him switch games.

I went over to Megan’s parents’ house tonight to visit for a small wedding reception. I got a call from Megan on Thursday telling me that she was getting married on Friday, which was kind of a surprise since she had never even mentioned that she was dating anyone before. But it turned out she is pregnant, so I guess it sort of makes sense. So I went over today and hung out for a bit and met her new husband, Scott. He seems like a good guy. He works as a web designer somewhere in Dallas, so we chatted briefly about that kind of stuff.