all weblog entries (short text)

Raking leaves for Obama
2008-11-03 14:20:48
I've often heard church-going friends of mine say that they were reluctant to put any overtly religious symbol (e.g., Jesus Fish) on their car, because it would add all this extra pressure to be a kind & courteous driver, to best represent their grou...
Snow in October
2008-10-28 13:12:33
It's October 28. It's snowing. Something ain't right.
Welcome back Kim!
2008-09-19 06:47:06
Speaking of people who recently resumed their blogs, it looks like Kim is back too. Cool...
Kathy for Obama
2008-09-17 21:58:06
Kathy has a new special blog all about the current presidential campaign. You can find it at http://obama.kathichelle.com/. So far she's covered war, religion, abortion, health care... you know, just some little stuff. Check it out.
Hawaii 2008 - a few photos
2008-06-10 07:47:25
Back in May, Kathy & I took a trip to Hawaii, this time visiting the Big Island. It was somewhat quieter than Maui, and somewhat less lush & green than Kauai, but there was a lot to see, especially with wildlife and volcanoes. There were several ex...
Tuesday Night Raptor Club
2008-04-30 16:18:47
On the way home from work last Tuesday, I noticed one of our local red-tailed hawks was perched in its usual spot on top of a cellular phone antenna tower. I had been looking for another opportunity to try out the new telephoto extension on the came...
Losing the lower-left corner
2008-04-23 07:24:51
To celebrate primary election day in PA yesterday, I went back and took the Political Compass test again. It was so sad. Apparently, a year and a half of home ownership must be taking its toll on my "lower-left" principles - instead of being negati...
The secret to rock-hard abs
2008-04-16 09:54:11
Here's what you do. Catch a respiratory virus that gives you a persistent cough for 10 days (so far). And I mean persistent - I cannot overstate this point. Even after a full dose of NyQuil (or more), you should lie awake in bed for hours, unab...
Anniversary Plagues, round 3
2008-04-11 08:30:25
This is getting ridiculous. On our first anniversary, Kathy & I took a trip to Jamaica. We both got really sick, and had a miserable journey back home. Then last year for our second anniversary, we stayed home in Philly. We had snow (in mid A...
Flickr video!
2008-04-09 21:30:34
I just found out tonight that Flickr now supports video clips as part of a photo set. I'm starting with posting a video of the bald eagles, which I had originally posted on my own web server. I'm sure I'll have more soon.
Trying Atom again
2008-03-06 18:36:52
Almost exactly a year ago, I did some experiments with using Atom to replace the old RSS feed from this site, but I didn't actually put that into production until now. Behold the new Atom feed, with all the delightful images, links, & formatting: ...
More Australia - Walkabout at You Yangs & Serendip
2008-03-03 06:43:21
As promised last week, I've now posted the wildlife photos from our Walkabout tour at You Yangs Regional Park & Serendip Sanctuary, two wildlife parks outside Melbourne. This set includes all the koalas and kangaroos, as well as lots and lots of Australian birds.
YABEPS
2008-02-23 13:25:02
Yet another bald eagle photo shoot. I went to Conowingo Dam again last Monday (my 3rd visit so far). The weather was supposed to be Mostly Cloudy, but we ended up with blue skies for most of the day. A fog had just lifted when I arrived, and rai...
More Australia - Melbourne
2008-02-23 13:05:21
I've finally gotten around to sorting through more of the Australia photos, so we now have the set from Melbourne. This includes a game of Australian Rules Football, a van tour around the city, a visit to the Immigration Museum, and some general wan...
Iggles 2.0
2008-02-08 14:02:39
A couple of weeks ago, I went back to Conowingo Dam for more bald eagle photos. This time it was pretty darn cold, and there wasn't much activity until the electric company turned on the generator at 4:30pm (thus churning out the free fish). By t...
Trying to give my poor wife a heart attack.
2008-01-20 22:25:18
Kathy's Giants are going to the Super Bowl. They tried to mess it up a few times (mostly fumbles and missed field goals), but finally managed to pull out the win. Of course, this just means we can schedule additional heart attacks for the big game...
Congratulations, Jo!
2007-12-27 16:03:32
My sister-in-law is an incredible chef, and I found out today that the restaurant where she works, Momofuku, was rated #1 Best New Restaurant in NYC by the New York Times. Hard to get better than that. And here I thought the coolest thing about J...
Iggles!
2007-11-05 07:10:21
I mentioned in my earlier post about Hawk Mountain that we got to see a bunch of migrating birds of prey that day, but no eagles. That omission has since been rectified. We were talking to Dan, one of the volunteers at Hawk Mountain, about what...
Hawks etc.
2007-10-18 06:43:11
I've added two new sets of hawk photos on my Flickr account. First, a couple of weeks ago, I went to pick Kathy up after work, and a huge red-tailed hawk swooped right over my head, carrying its dinner. I (along with a very patient Kathy) ended u...
Back from Upsidedownland
2007-10-02 10:28:32
Kathy & I are recently back from a 3-week trip to Australia. We had a great time, and we have tons of pictures, but it'll probably take us a while to sort through the pictures & put them online. For now, we have a quick photo preview from the fir...
Speaking of inside jokes...
2007-07-09 21:38:06
Early last year, Ice Breakers mints had a TV commercial featuring various people exclaiming "Whoa!" upon experiencing their "Ice Cubes" gum, in response to one actress's mocking question, "'Whoa'? Who says 'whoa'?" The key to the gag was the final ...
Looks like Steven Soderbergh is reading my blog again...
2007-06-25 21:08:16
In Ocean's Thirteen, did anyone else notice Al Pacino's character quoting the Paul Anka "The Guys Get Shirts" rant? "I move quick and when I do, I slice like a hammer."
Fantasticks at Mum
2007-05-04 12:35:24
It's that time once again. Time for me to exhort people to go and see a theatre production in Philadelphia that's about to close this weekend. Last night Kathy & I went to see The Fantasticks at Mum Puppettheatre. It's an excellent show with a s...
"It looked like the flames of hell."
2007-04-30 16:41:44
The plagues just keep on comin'... Apparently this was a bad weekend for fires. First, early Sunday morning, near my sister's house in Oakland, a fuel tanker truck crashed & exploded into flames under an elevated highway, causing the roadway supp...
Anniversary, plagues, etc.
2007-04-27 07:14:42
Last week Kathy & I had our anniversary. For our anniversary last year we took a trip to Jamaica, where we both got deathly ill, and Kathy had the worst part of it during the trip home, making for a thoroughly miserable bus ride, airport visit, an...
Eclipsing is *not* what I do best.
2007-03-03 21:21:53
I wasn't sure whether to go with the Matt O'Donnell reference or the Bonnie Tyler reference. I guess history will decide whether I made the right choice. In any case, I've determined that I haven't yet figured out how to work all the manual contr...
Trying Atom
2007-03-02 13:55:07
A couple of years ago I hastily threw together an RSS feed for this web site, but I kept the format very sparse so that I wouldn't run into errors (no links, no text formatting tags). I'm now in the process of updating this from loosely-defined RSS ...
Just another morning with Matt O'Donnell
2007-02-28 17:28:18
On the local morning news here, Matt O'Donnell is one of the anchors. His sense of humor seems to have been honed at a fraternity or an all-boys high school, always full of snarky comments and especially innuendo for the blonde traffic/weather lady,...
Nerds!
2007-02-16 12:11:44
Last night Kathy & I went to see "Nerds://A Musical Software Satire" at the Philadelphia Theatre Company. It was awesome. We haven't laughed that hard since "Little Miss Sunshine". It's only playing at this theater until next weekend (Feb 25), a...
It's called the worst news-teaser segue in recent memory.
2007-02-12 12:47:50
Last night Kathy happened to turn on the TV right when ABC was doing a teaser for the upcoming news broadcast. It's a 10-second segment, and I would assume they tape these things at least a few minutes in advance, and yet this apparently got through...
Slice like a hammer
2007-02-10 08:08:38
Everything I need to know about surreal musical collisions I learned from mall food-court background music. Last night I was at the mall, sitting by the Sbarro's, when something caught my attention in the midst of the bland jazzy ballad that was p...
Books! Bookcases!
2007-02-05 17:03:48
It was a long time coming. After 4 months in our new house, Kathy & I finally have books on bookcases. And there was much rejoicing. The plan from the beginning (last fall) was to set up our 3 big bookcases on the sun porch at the front entrance...
Piqued
2007-01-19 12:49:47
The other day, I got an email message from someone who uses Yahoo Mail. Messages sent from Yahoo always have a little footer advertising something about their services, usually in about 15-20 words. Just 15-20 words, carefully chosen by marketing p...
Holy responsiveness, Batman.
2007-01-05 10:43:48
At about 9:00am yesterday I broke a tiny piece of my Dell laptop. I knocked off the tiny plastic pin that tells the computer when the lid is closed, so that it will shut off the backlight for the screen. I contacted Dell tech support using the on...
New year
2007-01-03 10:21:22
Yikes. Almost 3 months since that last post. Here's the quick version of what's been going on the last few months: * August-September: We bought the house, which has been great. * October-November: We had our niece & nephew staying with us fo...
Someone in the club tonight has stolen my ideas.
2006-10-06 11:38:25
We saw this car on the highway yesterday with a scrolling LED text bar built into the license-plate frame. Apparently it's this "License Plate Flash Frame", with programmable messages for the person behind you. This one was advertising to get recru...
Science wants my* bugs
2006-09-19 11:00:04
Not the cave crickets from my previous post. This time it's Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs, which recently invaded our soon-to-be-former apartment. We regularly have 1 or 2 of these showing up (crawling in through a window screen that's not properly s...
Shop Vac 1, cave crickets 0
2006-09-18 16:41:31
If you've never encountered a cave cricket (a.k.a. "camel cricket"), you might not know how to react when you first see one up close. You'd probably be a bit grossed out. The big ones have peanut-sized (or even cashew-sized) bodies, with lanky legs...
House
2006-09-18 11:19:06
I feel like I've been way behind on blogging, so here's the main news: Kathy & I bought a house. We had our closing in late August, and we're officially moving in next week - there was a lot to do in between. The house is just in the next town ov...
Needs more cowbell, but otherwise cool
2006-07-05 16:52:34
What could be cooler than a rock band with three cellos? How about a rock band with three cellos and a song named "Trogdor"? Meet Break of Reality. Oh, and speaking of Trogdor, his nemesis Kerik was in the news this week too: "Kerik now a crim...
Rhymes with "driven"
2006-06-30 15:25:23
I don't know quite how or when the controversy first arose, but a couple of friends & I have long been uncertain about the correct pronunciation of Jeremy Piven's last name. We knew him mostly as the sidekick in a bunch of John Cusack movies, and so...
Killing a good thing?
2006-06-21 11:54:06
Is it just my imagination, or did Dell just take the best laptop I've ever seen (Inspiron 700m/710m) off the market? I don't see it on their product list anymore, and it looks like they might be replacing it with the heavier, fatter, more expensive XPS M1210... :(
Florida wildlife photos
2006-06-09 11:18:02
A couple of weeks ago, Kathy & I took a weekend trip to visit her parents in Florida. As usual, I came back with a whole bunch of pictures, but no people in any of them. :) Got some good pictures of some creepy-crawlies around the outside of the...
A small public service
2006-06-02 16:48:58
This is not a spoiler or anything, but... If you're going to see X-Men 3 in the theater (as many of you apparently have done), please make sure you stay through the end of the closing credits. There's a bit at the end that you'll want to see. ...
How to know when you've been friends for too long
2006-05-17 21:06:43
You & your friend went to high school together. You currently work together. You worked together at your previous company too. You have an extensive music collection stored on your laptop hard drive. This morning your friend asks you if you hav...
Two For The Road, indeed
2006-05-11 17:45:49
Kathy & I just got around to watching last week's episode of "Lost" ("Two For The Road", from May 3) last night. Holy crap. People weren't kidding when they said there's a surprising twist in the last 5 minutes. If you haven't seen it yourself, ...
Shakes
2006-05-11 15:27:22
This morning, upon encountering the phrase "two shakes of a lamb's tail" for the umpteenth time, two thoughts occurred to me: 1) Somewhere on the great, all-knowing Intarwebs, surely somebody has taken measurements of the tail movements of actual ...
Econ for Exxon
2006-05-10 15:11:59
One of my co-workers mentioned that some people he knew "aren't buying gas from Exxon anymore, you know, because of that email that's going around, to make prices come down." The logic was that if everybody shuns a particular supplier, that compan...
Bed
2006-05-09 16:54:03
Sorry, I've already used my favorite mattress-related subject line twice before. I'm all out of cleverness. Just had to jot a little note about the new bed we recently got. It's a good one, but I'm not here to talk about what brand it is, or how...
Saved by MacDrive
2006-04-28 18:16:54
A few weeks ago, I was trying to copy some very large files (video source files larger than 6 GB) from my friend's Mac to my Windows XP laptop. This sounds uncomplicated, but it was a big mess. 1) His files were on an external hard drive (Maxtor ...
Rewriting vacation?
2006-04-26 13:10:23
Hypothetically, if one takes a week off for vacation, and then gets seriously ill for part of that vacation, is it possible to reclaim one of those vacation days as a sick day? In this hypothetical question, let's say the illness was a stomach ailme...
Scooped by The Owl
2006-04-26 11:15:14
I love it when the AP can't get an interview with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, so they have to base their reporting on what they read in my high school newspapaper. The shocking revelations about enjoying hiking and Seinfeld may not soun...
Free Cone Day
2006-04-25 13:36:38
Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day is today, in case you hadn't heard. Go.
Second verse, same as the first...
2006-03-10 17:48:51
Atrios today has an interesting chronicle of a recurring pattern: ----------------------- 5/25/2004: "Bush Seeks to Reassure Nation on Iraq" 8/22/2005: "Bush plans bid to rally Iraq support" 12/1/2005: "Bush Presents Plan to Win Iraq War" ...
Jon Stewart + iTunes video
2006-03-09 12:17:48
...equals the mini-cherry on top of the regular cherry on top of the sundae of awesomeness that is my life. (credit to Barney, as you might have guessed) See, it all started when Kathy & I recently stopped having cable TV. More precisely, we use...
Move over, Jake Gyllenhaal.
2006-03-03 15:21:48
With all due respect to the original name-that's-fun-to-pronounce, the new co-champions are Chiwetel Ejiofor (who starred in the recent Serenity movie) and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (currently starring on "Lost"). Oh, and speaking of "Lost" - one o...
If at first you don't succeed...
2006-02-17 14:45:19
Jamie alerted me to this headline currently listed in Top Stories on Yahoo News: "Man Shot by Cheney Leaving Hospital" Certainly makes it sound like the VP has a new hobby. Of course, we've had hints of this before. Has anybody spotted Mr. ...
They thought Jules Verne was crazy too.
2006-02-16 16:47:43
(via Josh Marshall) On January 6, 2004, David Brooks wrote a NY Times column ("The Era of Distortion") dismissing various critics of the current administration as conspiracy theorists. He looked all over trying to find the most absurd example, an...
Moved laptop to Ebay
2006-02-12 12:26:50
Jamie suggested that I'd probably have better luck selling the laptop at Ebay instead of Craigslist, so I've moved it there. Here's the new Ebay listing for the laptop, and also a separate one for a wireless G router.
Throttling
2006-02-10 17:13:32
Maybe I just wasn't paying attention. But when I wrote this last year about Netflix withholding DVDs from me, I thought that I might just be imagining it (or that it might just be an accident on their part). Then today I spotted this article abou...
Anybody wanna buy a laptop?
2006-02-07 16:55:06
I just got a new one, so I'm selling my Inspiron 1100, along with all the accessories that went with it (wireless adapter, DVD burner drive, carrying case, etc). Details at Craigslist. -------------- Update (2/12/2006): Moved this to Ebay instead of Craigslist.
Rut
2006-02-07 13:36:05
A couple of weeks ago, I got the impression that my lunch at Baja Fresh had become a matter of routine, because before I could state my order, the guy at the register already knew what I was going to ask for. But then today it got to a new level. ...
Fine Corinthian Leather
2006-01-24 15:41:12
I was just looking at the Wikipedia page for Ricardo Montalbán, and I noticed that the page didn't mention his "five stages of the actor". This is a glaring omission. Then I decided to look around on Google to get the exact text, and I was...
Place beyond the pine plains
2006-01-19 16:07:40
Next time Kathy & I move, I hope we'll move to Schenectady. And not just because it's fun to say "Schenectady". They also have the ZIP code "12345". I bet Jake Gyllenhaal lives in Schenectady...
Barney
2006-01-18 16:05:05
Several people (including Kim and José) have commented that the main reason for watching the show "How I Met Your Mother" is for the Neil Patrick Harris character, Barney. He's a brilliantly obnoxious bastard, but I also like the fact that he's inte...
Postal Service & Iron & Wine & chickens & eggs
2006-01-17 14:56:49
Last week Kathy & I went to the wedding of our friends Robin & Matt. The song "Such Great Heights" was featured twice at the wedding, in two different forms: the peppy electronic version by The Postal Service was the exit music for the ceremony, and...
Gragitation
2006-01-09 17:52:33
Regarding Jamie's recent dream-interpretation blog post: "I'm back in high school, 'cept I've graduated..." (January 5, 2006) Don't you mean "I've been graduated"? "Saying that someone graduated high school makes the speaker sound dumb. Grad...
Promoted?
2006-01-06 00:44:42
OK, seriously, how long is it going to take for the AP to realize that the headline "Gen. Pace Criticizes Sen. Murtha Remark" is a misstatement of Representative Murtha's job title? They had it wrong in the original release at 4:58pm Thursday, but i...
Where are his handlers?
2006-01-05 14:35:04
I haven't seen an official transcript yet, but if Pat Robertson really said this about Ariel Sharon's recent stroke: "He was dividing God's land. And I would say, Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the E.U....
All in the headline
2005-12-18 18:25:35
As of about 2pm today, the top story on Yahoo News had this headline: "Cheney Visits Iraq; Attacks Kill 19". Sorta reminds me of this election-year classic from The Onion: "Cheney Vows To Attack U.S. If Kerry Elected" In the later afternoon, the ...
Evolution of a story
2005-10-13 17:27:53
I have a habit of linking to Yahoo News stories, either on my blog or in my del.icio.us bookmarks. It always bugs me when they later change the article and/or the headline, with no link back to the original text that was there when I first found it ...
Cannon fodder
2005-10-13 11:25:27
I keep forgetting to mention this, but I'm wondering if anybody besides me heard it. On Monday Night Football a few weeks ago (I'm pretty sure it was Sept 26 in Denver), there was a whole big pyrotechnics display before the game. One of the comment...
Logarithms, decibels, etc.
2005-09-26 11:07:19
Fiid's blog linked to this article about leafblowers. I found the article interesting, but I took issue with this sentence: "Decibels are measured on a logarithmic scale, so a move from 78 to 64 is several orders of magnitude quieter." Actually, ...
Permalinks and RSS
2005-09-26 10:29:50
In case anybody out there was looking for a permanent link for one of my blog posts, yes, the links are there - just click on the title of that individual post. Oh, and I also have an RSS feed from the blog - I just haven't got around to linking i...
Proof is [almost] here
2005-09-15 20:25:48
Speaking of movies I've been looking forward to, the movie of "Proof" that I mentioned 2 years ago is finally opening tomorrow (Sept 16). I had almost forgotten about that. Guess I know where I'll be tomorrow night... -------------- Update (9...
Life imitates satire
2005-09-15 11:27:51
About a year and a half ago, The Onion ran a ridiculous joke news story about Gillette marketing a razor with 5 blades. Then just yesterday: "Gillette Announces Five-Blade Razor". That's the problem with a really good joke. Sometimes the person you're mocking actually embraces the absurdity.
Two weeks to Serenity
2005-09-15 09:04:59
Well, 15 days to be precise, but you get the idea. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the movie Serenity for real, after that preview a few months ago. Speaking of the preview, thanks to José I finally got my hands on a transcript of that...
The biscotti test
2005-08-25 17:42:23
Gotta love my new bionic teeth. They just survived a seriously crunchy biscotto from Trader Joe's, with NO sharp shooting pains, and NO pieces of teeth falling off! Incredible.
Important clarification
2005-08-24 14:53:00
I'm sure this Pat Robertson/Hugo Chavez stuff is old news by now, but this "misinterpreted" defense still sounds kinda silly. Original statement (video clip included): "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thin...
Chipping in for Wikipedia
2005-08-24 12:03:58
Since it appears that I can't help referring to Wikipedia all the time, I figured it's only right that I kick in a few bucks for their current fundraising drive. Go have a look.
It's Baja, and it's Fresh.
2005-08-23 13:59:07
I just noticed today that the new Baja Fresh location near our office complex has finally opened up. They've been teasing us for months with "coming soon" on the sign out front. If I hadn't already had Baja Fresh fajitas (from the one near home) ...
Now it's OK, except for...
2005-08-22 18:47:55
My little old Beetle, "Christine", continues to be an educational, character-building exercise. I got a bunch of stuff fixed this spring, most notably the whole floor that was rusting out. We used it in the wedding, although the turn signals were...
Paired diaper repaid
2005-08-17 15:21:11
Whatever it is I think I see, becomes a Text Twist word to me. A few weeks ago I picked up this game card for my Dell Axim PDA. It's an MMC memory card that has a few different word games from Merriam-Webster. The headline game is a collection o...
Alternate
2005-08-17 09:45:40
When I was driving last night, there were a few times when I noticed the seatbelt warning light lit up in my dashboard display. On each occasion, both people in the front seat had seatbelts on. I didn't think much of it. Later, out of the corner...
May ours be the noble heart...
2005-07-20 11:54:32
I've been following this story about the CIA leak investigation for a while now, but didn't know until yesterday (when Pax told me) that the guy spearheading the investigation, US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, went to our high school (class of 1978). Let's hope he does us proud.
Heaven-sent, ill-kempt, nice lunch.
2005-06-27 17:57:15
(aka "Kill nuke me", though I prefer "Inclement evil elephant chunks") The Anagram Genius web site is my new favorite way to kill a half-hour or so. Enter a name or other phrase, and it will rearrange the letters to something much more interestin...
NewEgg is my friend.
2005-06-23 17:22:52
There's a good reason why I've ordered computer stuff from NewEgg.com 4 times in the past 3 weeks. They're that good. Earlier this week, Kathy decided she wanted a SecureDigital memory card for her PDA. We ordered this 1 GB card by SanDisk, whic...
Burning for Chicken Tikka Masala
2005-06-03 17:52:09
For dinner last night, Kathy & I reheated some leftovers from our favorite Indian restaurant. Khajuraho makes this Chicken Tikka Masala that's simply amazing. Just how amazing? Ask my subconscious. So, there I was, doing my usual musical-chairs...
Serenity now*
2005-05-27 15:04:37
(* "now" = in four months) Last night I went with José and Pax to see the special secret super advance pre-release sneak preview of the Firefly movie "Serenity" (official release is set for September). I'll leave it to the other guys to give...
Outsmarted by a piece of plastic
2005-05-18 16:51:20
The online product review for this network adapter begins, "This thing spells Convienence." Really? Can you?
Some wedding photos
2005-05-05 12:57:35
We don't yet have the pictures from the official wedding photographer, but I've collected some from friends & family who were taking pictures that week. I've put them in a gallery here. The official ones should be coming soon too...
Unnecessary zoom!
2005-05-04 10:12:55
It's still the same Hawaii pictures I had up yesterday, but now I've moved things from the old Adobe Photoshop gallery to the new Gallery software (from SourceForge). Among other things, the new system will be a lot easier for me to maintain, and ...
First batch of Hawaii photos
2005-05-03 17:43:08
Kathy & I are now back from the honeymoon trip to Hawaii. Just before we left, my parents gave us a very cool new camera as a wedding present, and it got a heck of a lot of use in those first 2 weeks. I'm still working on sifting through the pictur...
The Day After Tomorrow
2005-04-14 13:21:22
This post is just in case anybody comes to salubrio looking for a link to the wedding web site (you'll still have to remember the password though).
T minus 9...
2005-04-07 17:34:43
Heh - I meant to post this yesterday, when we hit 10 days left to the wedding, but it looks like Kathy already wrote basically the same thing. To paraphrase from a great "Coupling" episode: [in English] "Sorry, that was a bit redundant, wasn't it...
He won't get far on foot.
2005-03-24 16:01:44
Until today, I hadn't really thought of my apartment as being on a hill. The ground immediately surrounding the building is pretty level, but if you go a mile or two in any direction, it's almost all downhill. I made this discovery this morning w...
Only a crown
2005-03-23 13:43:50
"Other than that one, your teeth look fine." Those are words I don't often hear from the dentist. Even when I was properly going to the dentist twice a year, I usually needed some work done (fillings or bigger) every time. Then, while my denti...
An open letter to Netflix
2005-03-16 14:52:25
Emailed a few minutes ago to my former love, Netflix.com... -------------- I've been a Netflix member since December 2003, and I've recently (since January, it seems) noticed a steep decline in turnaround performance. It used to be that I co...
Chickens unhatched
2005-02-01 10:39:37
Let's just hope this "resounding success" doesn't end up like this other one (followed by 8 more years of war).
In good hands
2005-01-30 13:47:10
As some of you already know, my beloved Beetle, "Christine", has been off the road for about 2-1/2 years, because of a rather serious rust problem. Originally, it seemed to be in need of some new floor pans, and my brother-in-law offered to take on ...
Don't mess with Jay Leno
2005-01-23 19:15:06
Four days ago, CNN.com had this story: "Letterman's secret writer: Johnny Carson", which featured this line: "...Carson has always felt privately that Letterman, not Leno, was his rightful successor, Lassally said." Then the front-page headline on...
Got enough, thanks.
2005-01-04 10:32:34
For obvious reasons (besides the opportunity to use the exotic word "tsunami"), the tsunami disaster in southern Asia has been the dominant news story for a couple of weeks straight. Lots of aid groups are doing lots of work there, and are taking do...
Sympathetic
2004-12-22 15:03:13
The other day I found out that a friend of mine had gotten engaged. Since I'm engaged myself, that apparently puts me into a club of engaged/married couples who are expected to send out cards for every possible occasion. So I was out shopping for a...
No quarters required.
2004-12-22 12:47:03
Kathy & I have been looking forward to buying ourselves a washer/dryer set for the new apartment. It would be the first time that either of us was not doing laundry in someone else's machines (owned by the landlord, or the laundromat, or parents). ...
Visa incognito
2004-12-09 02:34:07
Weird things to obsess about late at night, #24,837: I want to buy things at Micro Center, but I hate having all my purchase info at their marketing fingertips. They're very agressive about asking for name & address information on every purchase, ...
Burnination
2004-12-03 18:05:06
Another installment in my fascinating series on Cabinet nominations... Bush has nominated Bernard Kerik for Secretary of Homeland Security. Let's just hope Al Qaeda doesn't have a Trogdor (background info on Strong Bad reference here, here, here, and here).
Starting to catch up...
2004-12-02 16:58:42
I've been kinda busy the past month or so - work's been hectic enough on its own, but then there were also all the preparations for the Interfamily Thanksgiving Extravaganza that came off without a hitch last week (thanks again to all the Fishers & K...
Nope, it's A.G. for A.G.
2004-11-10 16:19:36
Apparently I was wrong about Rudy Giuliani for Attorney General. This morning's rumor has been confirmed, that Bush is nominating Alberto Gonzales for the job. As White House counsel in recent years, Gonzales was probably most famous for writing up...
Rudy for AG?
2004-11-04 12:04:19
1) Before getting elected mayor of NYC, Rudy Giuliani was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. That's where he got his name in the papers for prosecuting a bunch of Wall Street crooks. 2) Rudy's face has been all over the post...
In the morning of the mourning...
2004-11-03 23:48:38
...I hear mourning of the deepest kind. I was surprised and disappointed by the election results this morning. I realize that different people have different priorities for what issues will sway their vote, but to my mind, this election was prima...
Won't somebody think of the children?
2004-11-02 18:25:10
Just a little nonpartisan patriotism on election day, courtesy of my niece Morgan.
Get there early.
2004-11-02 08:38:38
The polling places are crowded today, as everyone has been predicting. I showed up within 15 minutes of their opening this morning, and I still waited in line for over a half-hour to get my turn. Go vote. Set aside a couple of hours in case you'...
Voting for Kerry
2004-11-02 00:18:27
(or "Smarter than I am, part II") Tuesday morning, at about 7:00am, I'll be casting my vote for John Kerry for President of the United States. Over the past year or so, my position on this election has evolved from merely "anti-Bush" to firmly ...
Nonpartisan Bin Laden
2004-10-29 17:18:55
There's a line from the movie "Cold Mountain" (about the American Civil War), where Inman says "I imagine God is weary of being called down on both sides of an argument." Well, apparently the same can be said of Osama Bin Laden. Today Al-Jazeera ...
Know where to vote
2004-10-29 16:02:59
If you're not registered to vote, it may be too late to fix that. If you are registered, but (like me a few minutes ago) don't know where your polling place is, make sure you find out before Tuesday rolls around. Otherwise it'll be just another e...
Leave off the last S from "savings"
2004-10-29 14:37:08
(sorry for recycling the subject line) Twice a year I find myself politely correcting the radio announcers who keep talking about the beginning or the end of "Daylight Savings Time". It's officially "Daylight Saving Time" (the word in the middle ...
Calling in the big guns
2004-10-20 09:18:31
Many of us have been wondering whether Bill Clinton would be feeling well enough after his heart surgery to get back out on the campaign trail for Kerry. Apparently the answer is yes, and right here in Philly... ------ Update (as of 10/26/2004...
Keyboard shortcuts
2004-10-19 15:07:29
A while ago, in my encomium about Mozilla & Adblock, I mentioned something about my fondness for keyboard shortcuts that help me to avoid reaching for the mouse. How is it, then, that I didn't know (until today) how easy it is to create your own key...
Lost in plagiarism
2004-10-15 17:05:42
Last night I was watching the recent episode of "Lost", entitled "Walkabout" (aired on Wednesday night). The show is about a bunch of people who crash-land on an unpopulated tropical island when their airplane breaks apart. From the first episode...
More from LargerEgo
2004-10-12 17:57:14
Greg's Tuesday mission continues. This week's installment is a "defense of marriage", but likely not the kind you're thinking of.
What a difference "dot-com" makes
2004-10-06 08:34:07
As Josh Marshall noted late last night, Cheney slipped on mentioning the name of a fact-checking web site. In his 30-second follow-up for question #8 about sanctions on Iran, Cheney said: ------------ Well, the reason they keep mentioning Hallib...
Wikipedia on stem cells
2004-10-04 18:37:00
As a person following the current presidential race, and even more so as a person with a college degree in biology, I've felt like I was behind the curve whenever the topic of stem cell research came up. I mean, I could've told you that stem cells...
New link - Roy Edroso's "Alicublog"
2004-10-04 09:27:00
With the presidential election coming up, and with Wil Wheaton recently focusing almost entirely on Vegas and poker, it seemed like a good time to swap in a new political blog on my links. Welcome Alicublog, by Roy Edroso.
Good stuff, cheap, and it rhymes in Italian
2004-09-30 14:12:45
NewEgg.com is my new favorite place to get computer supplies. For a while, I've been wishing my laptop had a bigger hard drive (came with 20 gig), but the prices were always fairly prohibitive, and I was under the delusion that a *Dell* notebook h...
Abusing the headline
2004-09-26 23:48:20
This really bothers me. CNN.com currently (as of Sunday night) has a story link on its front page with the title "Bush questions Kerry's credibility". It links to an article bearing the same headline: "Bush questions Kerry's credibility". So...
The time value of information
2004-09-23 23:19:19
Today, Bush II said something with which I completely agree: "...if we fail in Iraq, it's the beginning of a long struggle. We will not have done our duty to our children and our grandchildren." That statement, in a vacuum, is completely true. ...
Extractions
2004-09-22 11:54:29
Two of my friends from college (both of them fellow veterans of Nomadic Theatre) have been doing some writing lately, and they're both worth checking out. Brady Richards (alias "L.B. Richards") has just published his first novel, entitled "The Adv...
I scream, you scream...
2004-09-21 14:01:53
A few years ago, when I was visiting a friend in Pittsburgh, he introduced me to Bruster's ice cream. It's a chain of roadside ice-cream stands, about the size of your average Dairy Queen, Carvel, etc. The ice cream is really good (better and fre...
Do You Remember Rock & Roll Radio?
2004-09-16 08:53:51
Johnny Ramone died yesterday at age 55, after fighting prostate cancer for several years. It's been about 3 years since his fellow founding member of the Ramones, Joey Ramone, died of lymphoma at age 49, and only about 2 years since co-founder Dee D...
Have I told you how excited I am about my phone bill?
2004-09-15 23:48:23
Back in June, I mentioned that I was happy about my new long-distance company. In July, another small phone bill, and I was happy again. In August, I actually had *no* phone bill, because I hadn't made any long-distance calls that month, and they h...
HP computer trade-in program
2004-09-07 17:32:37
The free computer recycling at Office Depot expired yesterday, but there's a new place to get rid of your old computer, *if* you're in the market for a new HP machine. HP is offering a trade-in of $250 (plus the fair market value of your old machine...
One down, achtundneunzig to go.
2004-09-07 16:27:08
"Hast Du etwas Zeit fuer mich..." For my birthday last week, Kathy took me on a surprise hot-air balloon ride early Saturday morning. It was a surprise that she had been planning for a while, and I'm impressed that she managed to keep it a secret...
Compassionate
2004-09-03 15:45:11
"Bush did nothing to stop them." ------------- Update (as of 9/6/2004): Apparently, the AP report linked above (focused on people booing when Bush wished Clinton well) has been retracted. I found that link on Talking Points Memo, where Josh...
Why do the Olympics hate America?
2004-08-26 12:35:24
(thanks to Tom Tomorrow for the title riff) Notwithstanding the other "factual point[s]" claimed in the ad, what part of "may not promote the candidacy of an individual seeking public office" did this candidate not understand? You can see the c...
Bait & Switch averted
2004-08-23 12:16:19
As I've previously said many times, I have a strong distaste for sales pitches. I don't like the pitch, but I often take morbid pleasure in deconstructing the salesperson to his/her face. So when Kathy told me she wanted me to make a phone call t...
Morgan baby pictures
2004-08-22 11:32:59
I now have the first pictures of Morgan, my much-touted new niece.
Halcyon Chocodiles of youth
2004-08-21 17:15:14
Kathy is absolutely the coolest. Last week, she sent me a surprise package at my office. It was intended as a thank-you present for helping her with some work. Inside the box were two 8-packs of the most fondly-remembered snack of my youth: Choc...
BugMeNot, back with a vengeance
2004-08-20 15:12:30
So, perhaps I was getting all worked up unnecessarily. As of Friday afternoon, the BugMeNot web site is back in action. And I'm not sure if this is new or I just didn't notice it before, but I'd recommend scrolling to the bottom of their Terms Of...
Want less? We'll bring you more.
2004-08-20 14:09:38
Last night, Kathy & I were sitting in the local pizza place, which happened to have a TV tuned to CNN in the background. I couldn't help but notice when they did a meta-meta-fluff piece the likes of which have never been heard. They were doing wh...
Top Gun/Hamlet
2004-08-19 23:53:37
That title for my previous post got me thinking... In a world full of lazy students trying to get by on college papers by writing silly comparisons about pop culture, has anyone ever done a good comparative study between the movie Top Gun (1986) a...
Alas, poor BugMeNot...
2004-08-19 22:31:49
Apart from some users of the BugMeNot extension for Mozilla, nobody seems to be talking about the fact that the BugMeNot web site has been down all week. What's going on? Why haven't the usual geeks been talking about it? Who could have done thi...
100k
2004-08-18 23:56:15
Today my little Neon hit 100,000 miles on the odometer (incidentally, Kathy's Civic hit the 100k mark about a week ago - we've had a little race going these past few months). I bought the Neon with about 30,000 miles on there, but the 70k that I p...
Stay outta my way
2004-08-18 14:38:25
As I've previously mentioned, I usually know what I want when I go shopping, and I don't need salespeople, advertisements, or invasive questions(*) getting in my way. So it was good of Pax to show me this article. I can only echo the sentiment of...
Clever use of slanting
2004-08-17 17:01:02
I was just looking at Wil Wheaton's blog, and noticed that he had a link to a tourist trap named The Oregon Vortex. It's billed as "an area of naturally occurring visual and perceptual phenomena", which will provide "a challenge to all your accepted...
Uncle Mike!
2004-08-16 12:58:13
For about 4 hours now, I've been an uncle. My little niece Morgan was born about 8:45 this morning, weighing in at... um... whoops. I'm a bad uncle. Rick gave me all the details when he called this morning, but I wasn't writing them down. Hmm, I'...
Smash & Grab job
2004-08-04 17:57:26
According to CNN, 3 separate banks in Davenport, Iowa, were robbed today, the same day when both Bush II and Kerry were campaigning in that town. The CNN headline is "Banks robbed during campaign visits", but it doesn't take J. Jonah Jameson to come...
iTunes is pretty dandy
2004-08-03 15:28:51
Along with Netflix and Mozilla Firefox and Adblock, there's a new thing I love: iTunes. I've long objected to the notion of buying a whole $15 CD just to get the 1 or 2 tracks I like, and anytime I *do* like the music enough to buy the CD, I just ...
Would you spell that "Told ya so" or "Toldja so"?
2004-08-02 10:34:54
Last Thursday, John Kerry gave his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for president. But that wasn't the top headline that evening. A few hours earlier, there was an announcement out of Pakistan that a "most wanted" member of al Qaed...
Bengies Drive-In still clinging to life
2004-07-30 18:00:07
In the near future, I might have my old Beetle back on the road (more on that later), and once I do, I'm hoping to get back to the Bengies Drive-In Theatre in Baltimore. I can't believe that place is still running. I haven't checked in with them fo...
Bourne motion sickness
2004-07-29 17:03:11
The other night, Kathy & I went with some friends to see The Bourne Supremacy. We got there right before showtime, so the only place to find 4 seats together was in the 3rd row from the front. It's a smallish theater, so I figured no big deal; it s...
Weird little thing
2004-07-21 00:35:20
(with all due respect to Dan Bern) A few weeks ago, I was going on and on about some electrical projects, and I mentioned how this Black & Decker book was a big help. Is anybody else bothered by the fact that the photo on the front cover is bac...
Geek pheromones
2004-07-15 14:56:56
There are 6 days left: $349 for a Dell Dimension 2400, 256MB RAM, 80GB (7200rpm) HD, built-in 10/100 Ethernet port... For a low-end computer, it just sounds way too good. Please, somebody, give me a reason not to do this. I mean, other than the ...
Exempli gratia
2004-07-14 11:13:05
Maybe what we need to do is to nominate this guy. :)
Smarter than I am
2004-07-14 01:41:29
I don't know where all these political posts lately are coming from. I don't usually do that. Before I stop, there's at least one more I wanted to get out: A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to a Fresh Air interview with Bill Clinton, part o...
Wacky, to its logical conclusion
2004-07-13 17:41:47
Homestar Runner + They Might Be Giants = "Experimental Film". Thanks to Pax (and in turn to Wil Wheaton) for the link.
Computer recycling, revisited
2004-07-13 10:36:39
Last year, the big news in computer recycling was that Dell and Gateway were starting programs where you can mail your old computers back to them, and you pay a fee (~$15), which covers shipping, processing, etc. That was a good start, but it some...
BugMeNot
2004-07-11 18:45:52
It's not quite at the level of love I have for Adblock, but I've become a fan of BugMeNot. Especially when people are quoting NY Times articles that require a (free) login.
That $#!* ain't free
2004-07-11 18:27:13
I'm not actually in the market for a new computer, but every once in a while, I go to the Dell web site just to see what's available. Often, they'll have several different promotional deals going on, and choosing one special deal may make you inel...
Whoops
2004-07-11 18:18:25
To quote Jeff Spicoli, "Well, something must have happened to them." (link courtesy of Josh Marshall) And this part: "The disclosure that the payroll records had been destroyed came in a letter signed by C. Y. Talbott, chief of the Pentagon's Fre...
Clintonism and the art of automobile maintenance
2004-07-09 16:38:53
Today I went to Amazon.com, and noticed something in the recommendations they have on the front page. There was a picture of the front cover of Bill Clinton's recent book, accompanied by the following message: "My Life was released today; We thought...
Taking a (keg) stand
2004-07-09 11:34:57
Some news stories make the mistake of over-explaining something that should be common knowledge, but hey, you can't blame them for trying to make sure their story will make sense to a diverse audience. In that context, it was amusing to see this w...
Freelance national embarrassment
2004-07-09 09:41:24
Some people thought the official jails run by US troops in Afghanistan & Iraq had enough scandals with unjust capture & improper treatment of prisoners. Apparently these 3 Americans thought we needed something worse. So they went to Afghanistan, ...
Yelling "Terror" in a crowded theatre
2004-07-09 00:37:02
When stuff like this comes out during the election season, I can't help but think of this Tom Tomorrow cartoon. First off, according to my dictionary, the primary meaning of "terror" is "a state of intense fear". Therefore, someone who causes a s...
Have I told you how much I love Adblock?
2004-07-08 16:22:58
"Important: If the link above is flashing, you have been selected as a Winner Loser!" If you sat near me at work, you would have heard me (both yesterday and today) constantly exclaiming, "Wow, Adblock is *so* cool!" It lets me select certain URL...
Balanced ticket
2004-07-06 18:56:43
So, it looks like John Kerry (a 60-ish heterosexual married white male Christian Democrat U.S. senator named John from the northern east coast) has achieved a balanced ticket by choosing John Edwards (a *50*-ish heterosexual married white male Christ...
Gem
2004-07-02 14:46:39
If you're anything like me (and God help you if you are), you occasionally stare into the office supply cabinet, wondering "Why in the world does the box of paper clips say 'Gem clips' instead of 'paper clips'?" But in the time it takes to walk back...
More on ring/reign
2004-07-01 15:35:20
I was looking at a discussion on Plastic today, and I was pleased to find someone else who shared my concern about the "Let Freedom Reign" thing I mentioned the other day. Of course, as Kathy pointed out, there are possible legitimate sources for ...
Speaking of spelling
2004-06-28 18:51:43
I was trying to find a clever way to work in a reference to the word "autochthonous" in my previous post. Then I stumbled upon this odd coincidence regarding the recent spelling bee. Funny stuff. But I still think the story of how I cheated at c...
So it shouldn't "ring", then?
2004-06-28 18:17:40
CNN has a story about the "ahead of schedule" transfer of "sovereignty" in Iraq from the transitional government headed by an American citizen to the transitional government headed by an Iraqi citizen. Accompanying the headline is a photo of a handw...
Hot side hot, cool side cool
2004-06-28 18:01:35
...and grounded side grounded. I went to see my parents over the weekend, and I convinced them (almost too easily - I was expecting some resistance) to let me try the electrical receptacle project. Even better than that, I tried it, and it worked...
The better part of valor
2004-06-24 14:07:51
Last night, I attempted the electrical upgrade for Kathy's apartment that I had mentioned here. Unfortunately, it didn't work as planned. Not because of any shortcomings in *me*, mind you, but because of shortcomings in the electrical box. Namel...
O give me a home...
2004-06-22 21:28:03
I've decided that I need a house. The wiring system in my apartment just isn't bad enough. :) On recent visits to my parents' house, I've been not-so-subtly hinting at how cool it would be if they had more 3-prong electrical outlets in their hou...
A child of Justice
2004-06-16 10:07:12
I just found out that yesterday my father was elected Village Justice in Shoreham, NY. Congratulations, Dad! Now, if only his jurisdiction extended down here to Pennsylvania, I'd have to start bribing him to overlook some traffic tickets... :)
Dr. Zimmerman
2004-06-16 09:53:34
Bob Dylan is apparently getting an honorary doctorate from The University of St. Andrews, in Scotland. He's been a hugely influential figure in music for over 40 years, but he hasn't had (or at least hasn't *accepted*) an honorary degree since 197...
As easy as $1.23
2004-06-15 23:52:46
I just got my long-distance phone bill, and I'm excited. :) Since I've been living in Philly, I've been mostly making local calls and mostly using my cell phone for out-of-state calls, so my typical long-distance bill of $6-$7 per month was alrea...
Space & Time
2004-06-14 13:47:33
Over the weekend, Kathy & I got over one of the major early hurdles in the wedding planning: we've picked a date and reserved the locations for both ceremony & reception. It's one of the first things you have to do (because the popular places get bo...
My kingdom for a... whatever's in stock
2004-06-07 15:31:21
This is not the greatest horse in the world. This is a tribute. I was hoping to get this posted on Friday night when I first saw it (and before the race was decided), but I was way too busy this weekend. Oh well. Anyway, here's the story. ...
Giving banks a bad name
2004-05-28 11:04:16
I've already ranted about poorly chosen names for people, but sometimes banks and other companies (which presumably have big important board meetings before choosing their names) are often just as bad. Am I the only one who reads this bank's name ...
Behind the Curtain of the Great & Powerful Oz
2004-05-26 18:35:20
Just in case anybody out there is in the same situation in which I found myself a month or two ago (you're looking for an engagement ring, but you don't know anything about them, and you don't want to set foot in an actual jewelry store EVER in your ...
Pop goes the question
2004-05-23 23:03:00
Yes, after just 4 short years together, Kathy & I are engaged! It's been about a week since we made this official (on Thursday, May 13), but we didn't want to put it on our web sites until we had a chance to tell some friends & family in person. ...
Such a simple thing
2004-05-12 00:15:27
I love my new fan. My apartment came with two very old air conditioners built into the walls (they look like regular window AC units, but not removable). They're crap. They're worse than crap. They churn out dust, eat up electricity, and still ...
Nickels
2004-05-11 02:45:27
Just a little wisdom from Strong Bad: "Man, if I had a nickel for every email I get... I would throw them at people in the food court. From that railing, like, up above."
No Angels yet
2004-05-10 16:48:12
Augh. The miniseries TV version of "Angels In America" aired on HBO last fall, and it was awesome. It was a really good presentation of a really good play, and I was looking forward to watching it again. My home-videotaped copy of it is out on l...
One of us
2004-05-10 16:32:35
Bruce finally started a blog. And he's apparently trying to jump-start it, with 5 entries already in the past hour. We accept him, we accept him, one of us, one of us...
Portable audiovisual squad, part deux
2004-05-04 22:20:59
Technically speaking it's a small piece of equipment, but for my recent quest this is huge: I finally got an adapter that will take the S-video output from my Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop and convert it to composite video (the yellow part of those stand...
Unproductive screaming
2004-05-04 18:38:53
No luck with the screaming. :( I called up the BankOne customer service line to see if they could answer the questions I had about the account that's supposedly opened in my name, but unavailable to me. The guy on the phone was able to tell me t...
The difference between "instant" and "in two weeks"
2004-05-04 17:23:01
The credit card shuffle continues. My main credit card with the 0% rate is expiring soon, so I decided this week that I could benefit from having a new card with a 0% interest rate. After much deliberating on the current dearth of credit card off...
Leave off the last S for "soaring"
2004-04-30 14:48:27
I'm having another one of those days. Sorta like that day when I saw two different drivers with things hanging from their cars just waiting to catch in the wheel or something. This time they were poorly-attached mattresses on car roofs that were ...
One Small Step behind
2004-04-29 23:43:43
How did I not know this new collection (book 3) of "Y: The Last Man" comics was coming out? I mean, I loved the first two, and just went on and on about them, so I should have just known somehow that the next one was due. Oh well, never mind the ...
Lick 'em if you got 'em
2004-04-27 00:22:23
Tuesday (April 27) is Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's.
Checkless streak still going strong
2004-04-26 23:30:13
I mentioned before that I've been working on getting out of debt, and part of the process was to use my debit card all the time instead of using credit cards (which build up debt) or cash (which is harder to track). One of my more unusual goals wa...
File under "Mister"
2004-04-23 19:22:37
Wandering around near my old office wasn't the only thing I did in Arlington last week. Since I don't get to visit too often, I did what any normal person would do. I didn't visit my old college, or look up lots of old friends, but I set aside a ...
Regimen change
2004-04-22 12:18:16
This week I'm trying to get back into some healthier habits that I used to have. In the past year or so I've pretty much been eating junk most of the time, and not exercising at all. So this week I'm back on a healthier diet, exercising in the morn...
But what about Good Taaaste?
2004-04-20 22:12:07
Last week, I happened to be in DC for the first time in a while. I moved out of town in late 2001, and have only had a couple of brief visits since then. So anyway, while I was in the area, I decided to check out the neighborhood in north Arlingt...
Inside out
2004-04-20 14:38:18
This has nothing to do with anything, but I just noticed that today's date is kinda fun: 20040420. In European format, it would be 20/04/2004. Not quite as cool as October 2, 2001 (20011002) or February 20, 2002 (20020220, or 20/02/2002 in European...
I am the most efficient Elvis impersonator who ever lived!
2004-04-19 19:15:19
(just trying to show I can do one better than a "trust me, I know what I'm doing" reference) Today, Pax informed me that the short-lived TV series "Sledge Hammer!" is being released on DVD in a few months, going on sale July 27. (Hmm, do you get ...
Door hinge
2004-04-09 11:31:56
All I'm saying is, I disagree with the popular claim that nothing rhymes with "orange".
Something about a straight razor
2004-04-08 16:04:28
Yesterday I got a haircut, and I did it right. I went to the Italian barber around the corner, and sat in the chair of the guy whose name is on the door. From about birth to age 18, I got my hair cut by a guy named Antonio, or one of his colleagu...
What is it about supernatural impregnation?
2004-04-07 16:59:09
When I joined Netflix a few months ago, I quickly amassed a long list of movies in my rental queue. How to decide which to see first? I noticed that a couple of movies I hadn't seen had the pattern "X's Y" (e.g., "Rosemary's Baby") in the title. S...
Krautmeyer?
2004-04-07 16:02:20
Dan Bern has a song entitled "Krautmeyer". The second line in the song is "Charles Manson's real name was Charles Krautmeyer." The rest of the song questions whether Charles' life would have been profoundly different if other people had known his r...
Convergence
2004-04-07 15:49:26
[I actually started this entry a couple of weeks ago, but I'm just getting around to posting it now. Pax also commented on this show (entry "Nonviolent Sociopath"), but I figure I should get my two cents in too.] Arguably my favorite live musical...
Probably something about Mexico, tequila, women, and celebrating life
2004-04-07 14:31:23
Last night I went with Pax to see Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers in concert. This is the band formerly known as The Refreshments, who had a couple of decent radio hits around 1996 with "Banditos" ("Everybody knows, the world is full of stupid people,...
All the small things
2004-04-07 14:06:44
Anybody who regularly checks my site may have noticed my relative silence of late. Basically, I keep having little inspirations, but then I put all this pressure on myself to build an interesting, detailed story around each one (especially when some...
Pleased to meet you, Kurt Cobain
2004-04-05 17:54:49
What better way to mark the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide, than to listen to Mary Prankster's "Punk Rock Heaven"? There's also Wil Wheaton's take on this anniversary.
Dishwasher epiphany
2004-03-19 10:14:47
I just ran my dishwasher. 29 cups/glasses/mugs (all used by me, and not more than one at a time), 4 bowls (suitable size for catching a freshly microwaved chicken pot pie), 5 forks, 4 spoons, 1 oven pan (for heating up frozen garlic bread), 1 sauc...
"something that is fungible"
2004-03-18 16:06:24
Mostly, I'm just in a hurry to post this before Pax posts the same thing... :) Pax mentioned something about a colleague who made show-offish use of the word "fungible" in a business email. Rather than pretend to know what a spline is, I decided...
Flaw in the Netflix plan
2004-02-29 11:24:39
Hmm. A while back, I theorized about the ideal plan for Netflix throughput, assuming that Monday through Saturday were the available business days for the Postal Service and Netflix. But then I started to notice something. The movies I was putti...
Don't ever sell me anything, ever.
2004-02-28 15:02:39
Ever. I mean it. (Warning: this is gonna be a long one...) I don't mean that nobody is ever allowed to exchange goods & services for my money, but rather that nobody will ever score any points with me by doing a sales pitch. The instant that ...
That child? What child?
2004-02-24 12:54:54
It's been over a month since I posted anything, so beware, I may let loose the backlog of random musings over the next few days. Anyway, as for the current random thought: On various occasions, I've seen trucks with the message "HELP THAT CHILD" ...
Shutterfly effects
2004-01-22 09:31:27
The good news keeps getting better... In response to yesterday's post about Shutterfly, a friend of mine emailed me to ask if the online services could fix cropping problems that he previously had when he got digital photos printed at a store. Th...
Shutterfly wins
2004-01-21 15:55:42
Lots of people are shy about using digital cameras because they'd prefer a permanent, shiny photo print in their hands. Personally, I strongly prefer a digital image file stored on a computer somewhere, safely backed up somewhere else, that doesn't ...