drinknerd

weepy

2008-01-28T20:49:00.000-08:00

I just watched Barack Obama's reply to the state of the union (link) and got weepy at the end. A few seconds into the weepies I thought "please don't kill him". And then wept some more.

I wonder. Are things still that fucked-up? Are the forces of right-wing heinousness still as crapularly heinous as they were when JFK, RFK, and MLK were gunned down? (Though I now wonder about the biographies of those who killed R-F, and M-L. ) (I doubly wonder about the identity of whomever shot J-F. Damn sure wasn't Oswald.)

connect the DOOOTS

2007-07-30T18:29:00.000-07:00

Greg Palast: "Catch Greg Palast on PBS’ top current affairs program.

WATCH THE REPORT HERE

‘NOW’ furthers the story Palast first busted open for Britain’s BBC Newsnight, the scheme to attack voters of color - the ‘Blue’ ones.

For Bill Moyers’ capable successor, David Brancaccio, Palast lays out the latest evidence never before televised."

the dots:

use of choicePoint data to drive the 2000 and 2004 voter purges
firing of US attorneys for not being with the purge program
MORE surveillance and data mining you know "for kids" .. I mean, to protect us from the bad people who hate us for our freedom.

so on the "who cares about surveillance if you have noting to hide" front, a perfectly cromulent answer is

mine the data to find out if you hate america
mine the data to find out when you're on vacation
send a registered letter while yr gone
go to a hand-picked-and installed-under-patriot-act-rules judge and take away yr bleeding-heart commie-scum vote

How to install Airport Utility 5

2007-07-28T11:06:00.000-07:00

apple guy was over and says "you know... you should update the software on your airport express" .. turns out that apple fucked up and made it so that software update doesn't work .. .unless you have the current version of "Airport Utility" (which replaces "Airport Admin Utility") , but they give no direct download for it.

long story short, here's a link to the remedy:

How to install Airport Utility 5

this is a fucking manta ray

2007-07-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

it's fucking giant. and has a very distinctive shape.

for whatever reason
(a) the wife calls skates and regular rays "manta ray"
(b) she gets upset if I say anything about that
(c) when she gets upset she leaves

this upsets me. she has approximately no coping skills. I mean, jesus fuck, what happens if anything genuinely bad is happening and we have to deal with it?

hardware store moment

2007-05-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

I'm having a bit of a "hardware store moment" .. I know there's something that I was supposed to look up, but I can't remember what the heck it was.

related: something or other that I was going to write about.

though I could write about household temperatue....

AHA! it was not-just-figuratively a hardware store moment. The item I was supposed to be looking for was a dimmer socket. Now to see if I can find one for a not-outrageous price.

spynocular update

2007-03-02T17:32:00.000-08:00

oh, it is nice to have good binoculars. even the jump to the low-end Nikon Action 7x35 was fantastic.

it made me want MORE. so I went to try and trade up to the Nikon Monarch 10x42, but found out that ritzCamera wanted too much money for them. now, recapping, I find out that, yes, that is what they cost.

*sigh*

asshattery confirmed

2007-03-02T17:11:00.000-08:00

hartfourd courant has an update on my best-buy asshattery story.

"As a company, everything we do revolves around our customers' needs and desires. It is never our intent to mislead them as their loyalty is incredibly important to us," the statement said.

Then they threw in this interesting line: "Although we have an intra-store web site in place to support store operations (including products and pricing), we are reminding our employees how to access the external BestBuy.com web site to ensure customers are receiving the best possible product price.

their "secret internal website".

dickweeds.

it's time for spynoculars

2007-01-31T09:08:00.000-08:00

Binocular Advisor, by Michael and Diane Porter
time for the wifeykins and me to get at least one nonshitty pair of binoculars. 'cause we're gonna go be nerdy and look at birds and whales. Hoot!

items to consider:

Eagle Optics Triumph 8x25reasonably priced, but not waterproof

Eagle Optics Ranger SRT 8x42waterproof, pricey

Celestron Noble 8x32 waterproof, slightly less pricey

Nikon Monarch Binocular 8x36

Vortex Spitfire 8.5x32 Binocularwaterproof, reasonably priced

Audubon Equinox 8x42 Binocularwaterproof, mid-priced

Audubon Equinox HP 8x42 Binocular(better optics)

the labels bee

2006-12-30T14:13:00.000-08:00

here's the field we want to use...


<category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='gripe'></category>

and here's how we use it...
GData: updating an entry

should be pretty easy from here. Maybe a nice little flex app.

the rope

2006-12-30T13:57:00.000-08:00

Lenin said "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." Wouldn't the socialists try to get it free as it was for the common good and all?

maybe if I get a bee in my bonnet

2006-12-29T22:58:00.000-08:00

project: make blogger API app to make it super-easy to apply tags t..er 'labels' to your old posts

bonus points for integration with yr other blogs, flickr, and/or del.icio.us tags

the applescript method

2006-12-29T22:13:00.000-08:00

(*
get the name and artist of each track in the current playlist
and put the whole danged list onto yr clipboard

to make it super-handy, turn on script menu and drop this script into your itunes scripts folder
<username>/Library/Applications/iTunes

use at your own risk, disclaim, etc.

CC noncommercial sharealike attribution
drinknerd 12/29/2007
*)


tell application "iTunes"
 set myresult to ""
 activate
 repeat with myTrack in tracks of view of first browser window
  set myresult to myresult & name of myTrack & tab & artist of myTrack & return
 end repeat
end tell

set the clipboard to myresult
say "done"

how to process an exported playlist

2006-12-29T21:16:00.001-08:00

this is the no XML, no AppleScript method

select the playlist
menu: [File][Export...]

(system will open a dialog titled "Save: iTunes")
set the 'save as' filename to "myPlaylist.txt" (optional-- but it makes the example easier)
set format to "Plain Text"
press [Save]
open the terminal
cd to the directory where it was saved (I think default is Documents)
here's the magic: (enter it all on one line)
awk 'BEGIN {RS="\r"; FS="\t"; OFS="\t"} {print $1, $2 }' myPlaylist.txt
or
awk 'BEGIN {RS="\r"; FS="\t"; OFS="\t"} {print $1, $2 }' myPlaylist.txt > cleanedPlaylist.txt

GOP scandal rundown

2006-10-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

(election is done... googlebomb deleted)

BestBuy.com Contact Us Form

2006-10-17T16:40:00.000-07:00

four things, related:
1) it is unclear from the web-site that the web-site prices / 'shopping cart prices' may not be available in the store
2) the in-store web terminals do not have 'shopping cart' prices for items
3) the employees at the Emeryville store do not know this, or won't admit it to customers.
4) As a result, a clerk at the Emeryville store pretty much called me a lair. I went to Circuit City, where they were able look-up and give me their web-only price.

arm fell off

2006-10-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

my arm fell off. it's all due to the damn tetanus shot they gave me on monday.

problem is, when I stretch. the old "let me just give a good stretch and then I'll get up and accomplish something" -- and the shoulder says "nah". so then I'm back to sitting at the damned computer waiting for bugs to fix.

le sigh.

lamont

2006-10-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

Ned Lamont for Senate: "The fact that Joe Lieberman says calling for Hastert's resignation is too 'partisan' demonstrates that he's been in Washington so long that he can't recognize the difference between what%u2019s right and what's partisan."

Perspective Time

2006-10-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

Rice More Sordid Than Foley: "Call me old school, but I am still more concerned with the Republicans molesting Lady Liberty while pretending to be guarding the nation's security, an assignment which they have totally botched. The news about the Foley coverup, while important as yet another example of extreme hypocrisy on the part of the Republican virtues police, should not be allowed to obscure the latest evidence of administration deceit as to its egregious ineptness in protecting the nation."

oh my god... how could you ignore the plight of privileged white american children?

if I were a regular contributor, I would call this an installment of perspective time.

I will not deny the icky grossness of the Foley situation. But... its perspective time, and I'm going to point out that the US government and its proxies forcibly detain, sexually abuse, torture, and kill innocent people, some of them children, all over the world. But I guess that doesn't fucking matter, because the victims are not privileged white american children.

itunes 7 yay! boo! almost

2006-09-23T10:16:00.000-07:00

yay:
I am oddly obsessed with the cover art flipper in the new itunes. I spend far too much time gathering artwork for the items that it fails to automatically grab.

yay:
new, useful, metadata added: skip count, last skipped

boo!:
asshats! 'skip' does not reliably get set. as far as I can tell, it gets set SOMETIMES if you skip to next between 3 and 10 seconds into the fucking song. SOMETIMES? dickweeds. it's not a hard field to implement. if you want to be wussy about "ooh I don't want to sully a song by marking it skipped" then give a fucking preference ignore skips before N seconds or after N seconds, so I can set it to "all skips count as skips".

though it would be useful (hmm.. maybe I'll write a script to squirrel it into the comments field) to know just how much I hate a song, based on the mean time at which I skipped from it. heck -- numbers are cheap, particularly if they're hidden -- I want to know not just the mean, but also the deviation -- that way scuds can be ID'd (wow. I really fucking hate that song -- not only that, but it takes me 10 full seconds to realize it) (or... wow. I really need to trim that stupid 60 second artsy blank tail off that song)

duh! sweet!

2006-08-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

Sony GPS-CS1: Tags Photos With Location - Gizmodo: "This little GPS clips onto your digital camera to tag your photos with latitude and longitude. How? By synching the clock in the GPS with the timestamp on your photos, on your PC. "

sweet! how astoundingly simple. wonder how much this puppy costs. (and how long it'll take for someone to write the near-trivial code to make it work on the mac / with flickr / etc. ) (that is, unless the sony folks were asshats and made the data hard to get to.)

TPMmuckraker: caffienated vindiacation

2006-07-26T17:10:00.000-07:00

TPMmuckraker: "No Foam: Just what it means. (I should note that some traditionalists believe (rightly, I posit) that a latte should have no foam at all, making this qualifier redundant. Starbucks baristas, however, are ordered to include a 'quarter-inch' of foam on their latte creations 'to create a delicate first impression,' according to the company Web site.)"

asshats. back when I was on the bean, if I forgot to ask for "no foam", I'd get a 20 ounce cup with 12 ounces of coffee/milk mix and 8 ounces of foam.

tomorrow: why they always screw you at the drive thorough.

Energywise Recycled Glass

2006-07-13T14:09:00.000-07:00

Energywise Recycled Glass: "suitable for mulches, landscaping, aquariums, graves and craft uses."

Thom Hartmann Review: Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg

2006-07-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

Thom Hartmann Review: Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg: "I say 'pseudo Christian' (although Goldberg does not - she doesn't engage in theological debate in her book) because for most people like myself who were raised as Christians, the Christian Nationalists propound a form of church/state merger, and an essential theology, that is completely at odds with the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 25 ('feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, heal the sick,' etc.)."

soggy fries and hope for the future

2006-07-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

Rudd Sound Bites: Spinach, I'm Looking at You: "The children refuse to eat the food, despite their mother's prodding. Faith proves herself to be especially innocent, interpreting the famed Golden Arches as soggy French fries—a repellant, rather than attractive, image. "

zoomr?

2006-07-11T20:53:00.000-07:00

sunscreen

2006-06-05T14:13:00.000-07:00

AlterNet: Stephen Colbert's Address to the Graduates: "Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying 'yes' begins things. "

delicious library

2006-05-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

now supports the built-in camera on my iMac.

the computer may now help us obsessively catalog our books and movies (and to a lesser extent, our CDs)

Mahar Drygoods :: Blue and Red High Top Baby Booties

2006-05-22T14:51:00.000-07:00

Mahar Drygoods :: Blue and Red High Top Baby Booties Nerdcore baby fever

breakfast rant

2006-05-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

this story prompted this
morning's arrgh. read that the oil companies were running astoundingly stupid ads to defend against "An Inconvenent Truth" and thought at first "ha! let them" but then it occured to me that the oil companies have infiniate amounts of money because of the dickweeds in the bush administration.

What's next?

when the CIA breaks into your house just to look around, they get to poop on your chest.

the rationale is that the public was upset about these "sneak and peek" searches, so now they "leave a message", stinky as it may be.

goodness over dominance

2006-05-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

ow. the cheese! maybe I should eat breakfast.

it occured to me that the classic prayer postures --- head down, palms together, elbows resting on some surface --- that bowing towards Mecca bowing looks (to my eye trained not at all in the Islamic traditions) very much like child's pose.

that, along with remembering something from The Screwtape Letters-- about posture (and prostration?) being important in prayer.

That said, my back's acting up again, and the desktop devotions came to me.

a few side notes:
1) I'm not sure if Bush is the antichrist, but, if you're the least bit familiar with the antichrist mythos, 21st century american imperialist christianity sure has the smell of it.
2) on spirittuality vs religion -- one screams over-soft and passive-aggressive -- the other screams outwardliy manipulative, directly controlling, and has enough knee-jerk connotations to cripple a centipede. Despite that, I think I'll go with "Personal Religion" over "spirituality"
3) Go check out Penn Jilette's very well thought essay on "This I Believe" about athiesm. It makes me all weepy-eyed recollecting it. It shows that Athiesm can make a damn fine cup of co^h^h^h personal religion.
4) Todo: go back and replace my ctrl-h's with strikeouts.

starting the religion

2006-05-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

or maybe just a subcult. anarchists for christ, or something like that. The basic teaching of this here jesus type is "I am the son of god, and so are you, and by the way you're really god, too."

as part of this new 21st century "religion" for wage-slaves (but not exclusively for wage-slaves) we have the first set of activit^h^h^h devotions: the "feel alive at your desk cycle": one: love the floor. two: bask in god's love, or the glow of the interweb, whichever floats your dingy. three: bow to your screensaver.

in my next missive, I will describe these stret^h^h^h devotions.

posford rocks

2006-04-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

didn't last until the Shpongle set, but the Hallucinogen set was so outrageously fucking awesome. The man it the fucking greatest uberdork showman ever.

He'd start with some sample, then tweak it out and run with it as long as the fish would stay on the line.. .then he'd ease off for a second, give another punchline, and then away we go.

As wifeykins was wilting at being up way past her bedtime, I left her up in the flobbering zone for a while. Went back to pick her up and described it to her: It's madness down there. Really, really, good madness.

even better in pencil

2006-04-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

cg0314hipster_rough
Originally uploaded by _dorothy_.

daddy, where'd the world come from?

2006-04-25T22:04:00.000-07:00

I made it. Just last weekend.
No you didn't. Last weekend we went to the beach.
I got up early.
You slept in. Besides, the world was here two weeks ago.
Hmm.. That's right. I don't know where it came from. Are you sure you didn't make it?
You won't even let me weld.
Are you trying to change the subject?
What?
Did you or did you not create the world? And if so, where did you get the parts?
Mom! Dad's not answering my questions! He's turning them all into questions for me!

blah blah blah blah

2006-04-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

gospel of Judas? rock on.
I'm impressed with the coverage I've seen, but that might be a matter of my limiting my media diet. Points scored for mention of the selection of a small handful of books to be the "Christian Cannon" or the bible, as it would be.
Guess my money is on the Gnostics in the long run.

Related thought: if an organism is an emergent property of a bunch of cells, and consciosness is an emergent property of a bunch of neurons....

fuck it. todays' take:

fuck that even. I somehow cant' bring myself to make observations about the fucktards that are bent on destruction because they believe that the voices in their head represent God.

Maybe I'll cash this one in and start a dad-blog.

love gouzous

2006-04-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

love gouzous
Originally uploaded by Bastien!.

r.mayhem and robocrib!

2006-04-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

from shiny shiny via gizmondo

fuck that noise

2006-04-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

Up With Grups - The Ascendant Breed of Grown-Ups Who Are Redefining Adulthood -- New York Magazine: "(e) spend $250 on a pair of jeans that are artfully shredded to look like they just fell through a wheat thresher and are designed, eventually, to artfully fall totally apart; "

fuuuck no $250 jeans? fashoin statement?

The joy of getting old is that I no longer (had I ever?) been compelled to spend an assload of money on clothes.

(p) take pride in never shaving while spending $200 on a bedhead haircut and $600 on a messenger bag

WTF? are these just dirty lies to cover their drug habits? or yanking the press? does that $200 haircut come with release

reminds me... the other day I was talking with some cow-orkers, former teammates, about my move to the new San Francisco office. They said something about spending that extra money and time buying fashionable clothes so I could fit in there. And it all fit together--they bought the lie. Somehow its okay to wear a t-shirt and jeans if you claim that they're expensive. I now confidently report that these special expensive t-shirts come from threadless

key difference: "wear a different pair of $250 designer jeans every day" vs "wear the same pair of $50 (labels cut off) work pants every day" ?

next installment: my response to section two "The Grup Children, or Daddy, Please Turn That Music Down"

Brain Hack!

2006-04-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

makes me want to do some reading about NLP.. here's a one-pager on how to clean up the background loops: How to Squash Negative Thought Patterns

the thing in the crib

2006-04-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

from Tom Smith Online: " I edged open the door of the darkened chamber with trepidation. The stench of human effluvia was overpowering. The light from the portal fell upon a raised cage of ancient wood, not quite square, and decorated with icons of some lost tribe that worshipped beasts. The sigils celebrated the gluttony of the bear, the wild and uncontrollable fury of the tiger, the fatalism and endurance of the donkey, the inscrutable yet impractical wisdom of the owl, the smug quickness of the rabbit. The metallic rim of the construct glinted as if angered that illumination had touched it."

for Ruth Mayhem Kidnerd

2006-04-07T11:45:00.000-07:00

dino
Originally uploaded by stilleben.

Never Forget

2006-04-07T09:23:00.000-07:00

Never Forget
Originally uploaded by nantel.

one (minor) downside of having dashr and the blogger widget on my dashboard... when I go to write something I see some out-fucking-rageously cute graffiti that I am doomed to repost.

so... cute...

p.s.: the wife and I are developing a case of "baby fever". this morning she asks me if it would be bad to give the middle name "Mayhem". I'm not so sure... it'll take more research. Besides, I'd been thinking something like Frea Umenko Cayenne Kdrinknerd

Til jord skal du blive..

2006-04-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

Til jord skal du blive..
Originally uploaded by Anes.

no... really. my daily dose of high quality street art.

p.s: I heart dashr

2006-04-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

STREETADLERS FINEST PARTY `06
Originally uploaded by Wbs 70.

fur burka and robot birds

2006-04-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

oh.. wait... a fur burka robot. knee length fur burka. more at we make money not art

(late post) what I did this weekend: nothing.

2006-04-04T18:01:00.000-07:00

I slept.
slept slept slept.

more than I would have had I not been ill.

no vomiting or other gastrointestinal distress. no excess coughing. just stuffy and exceedingly sore/tired in a germily influenced manner.

how's the weather?

2006-04-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

the weather sucks.

work? meh.

aikido? looking forward to it.

I love my rice cooker

2006-03-24T10:16:00.000-08:00

oh, the joy of the Sanyo 1 liter neuro-fuzzy rice cooker. It is now cooking steel cut oats for my tasty work at home breakfast.
(yes, yes, the zojurishi induction cooker is apparently the shit, but they only sell a gigantic 1-liter model in the states and the thing costs too much.)

Genious!

2006-03-23T10:54:00.000-08:00

contemporary gallery and surroundings 025
Originally uploaded by ryapapaya.

oh I so love the Dashr widget.

house arrest ... er WFH

2006-03-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

WFH again. though I was planning on going in today. I am sore sore sore from Aikido. Fortunately, I was able to borrow a cup of ibuprofin from the neighbor.

she's off squeezing birds

2006-03-22T21:19:00.000-08:00

wifeykins is at the SPCA feeding baby birds or somesuch.

I cooked dinner for her. and she is not home.

sigh.

chicken hats!

2006-03-18T17:25:00.000-08:00

PMP
Originally uploaded by trfcnte.

porch couch day

2006-03-18T17:23:00.001-08:00

nice sunny day. fantastic fried-chicken-coleslaw sandwich from Bakesale Betty.

now, time for DBG

1984

2006-03-18T17:23:00.000-08:00

1984
Originally uploaded by you_only_live_twice.

sigh

time to make the donuts

2006-03-17T12:57:00.000-08:00

..er I mean update the spec.

and wait for other people to do their work.

*sigh*

(completely forgetting some bit of deeply insightful vitriol occurred to me yesterday.)

ugh. monday.

2006-03-16T21:56:00.000-08:00

monday?

it's fucking thursday night.

oof. what a week.

productive!

2006-03-13T22:28:00.000-08:00

this weekned:
* painted over stripe on wall
* moved silver cabinet
* new shelf layout in kitchen
* broke settler's losing streak
* lamps upstairs
* L's sock drawer dresser
* lots of spackling

sarcastic vs sardonic

2006-03-12T16:24:00.000-08:00

apparently quite similar.. most usages of sarcastic would be improved by using 'sardonic' instead. according to this sarcasm is more about the meanness, while sardonic is more about the humor.

origins: sarcasmos from sarkazien 'tear flesh'
of Sardinia--used by Homer to describe bitter or scornful laughter.

summary:
sardonic: wry++
sarcastic: insulting -- an insult wrapped in a lie hidden within a joke

accidental sniglet

2006-03-12T16:09:00.000-08:00

anachronym: a historically innacurate word formed from the initial letters of other words

television keeps you down

2006-03-10T12:21:00.000-08:00

Eugene Young, the producer and schill for "American Inventor" was just on NPR's Science Friday. The asshat says "for most of the contestants, this show is their one chance to do something with their inventions". Auugh.

Welcome to modern america. They will tell you that you have no chance, but through them.

Assmonkeys.

reiTopic -- outfitters for the collapse of civilization?

2006-03-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

wifeykins wrote about a dream with a store that was half hot topic half rei. that could either utterly suck or be utterly genious, depending on who you are on which half of which they take.

Some REIs look like sears, but with more expensive clothes. Or I guess, what sears used to look like when they had everything--in particular, sporting goods.

Bad version: cheap crap that references the outdoors. cars in lot: mom's brand new saab.

Good version: like REI but without the muted earth tones. cars in lot: old, rusted out trucks with winches in front, converted to un on biodiesel, and BMW offroad motorcycles.

squall-y

2006-03-09T17:09:00.000-08:00

ten seconds ago it was raining like all heck.
now, no rain, but lots of wind.

the AccuWeather.com weather-widget says 54°, partly couldy. Ha!

5PM

2006-03-09T17:07:00.000-08:00

joyous WFH day, today's tasks: localized strings, memory leaks, plugin architectures. joy.

it goes well, just not quickly.

the real reason nolley had to leave

2006-03-09T14:07:00.000-08:00

the pressure of being glared at every time she says 'Cali' finally got to her.

withSpiritGuide

2006-03-09T13:36:00.000-08:00

withSpiritGuide
Originally uploaded by drink nerd.

wifeykins has been posting composed images of herself and random animals.

here's my first.

china in sun

2006-03-08T20:26:00.000-08:00

china in sun
Originally uploaded by drink nerd.

after looking at 'this is not my cat' for a few days, I realized that I had to put up a good picture of my kitty.

updates:
work: okay, though there is wierdness on the horizon
aikido: good. dojo workshop is saturday 10-2
home: messy, but will get better.

obligatory update

2006-03-07T20:47:00.000-08:00

about to go next door for one, maybe two games

this is not my cat

2006-03-05T11:30:00.000-08:00

Bruno
Originally uploaded by Häufchen.

in some ways the world is very large. there's _another_ cat that is cute like china.

oh.. and here's one that's FAT

fire clouds

2006-03-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

damn, I need to get some shop space. and time. I've got the jonesin' to get these babys up and running again.

they always swim to the left

2006-03-05T09:52:00.000-08:00

picked up some swedish fish from the checkout maze at the emeryvile 'best buy' -- wifeykins won't touch them, but they're the real deal.
Oh, the anguish and disappointment of eating even a single fish shaped item of incorrect texture or flavors. Oh, the memories of the candy counter at the exceedingly lowbrow sears of my childhood in middle-middle-class (lower-middle-middle-class?) near-suburban detroit.

Oh, the not quite natural, not-quite-raspberry flavor, slightly lemony, possibly lingonberry?

And the texture -- how to describe it? somewhere between a quality gumdrop and a gummi bear, with a very thin, almost waxy surface.

These, which I personally vouch for:
* actually say 'swedish' on the side of the fish. I never noticed that before.
* packaged in a yellow bag saying the original Swedish Fish, with a printed scaly (scales running sieways, as if on a fish swimming to the left) texture
* ® Registered trademark of MalacoLeaf, AB, Sweden
* manufactured (under license) in Canada
* distributed in USA by Jaret International (CS) Inc., of Iselin NJ

update: many photos at flickr

hit the wall

2006-03-05T09:32:00.000-08:00

too much settler's. and too much drinking while playing settlers. that said, last night we wifeykin's night.

the tally:
T: one
S: one
L: one zillion

aikido this morning

2006-03-04T12:27:00.000-08:00

lemon bar obtained for wife
ginger pear scone for myself

eggs obtained

wifeykins got eggs also

but neither of us got TP

pseudorgonized

2006-03-03T23:37:00.000-08:00

when your attempts at organization cause things to be missing.

the numbers

2006-03-03T23:29:00.000-08:00

1) laura
2) scott
3) alysoun

stuff that checkCard firmly up your ass, thank you.

2006-03-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

for whatever reason (I supect co-marketing and kickbacks) banks send out "Visa CheckCard"s or "Gold MasterMoney" cards instead of regular ATM cards.

this is a bad thing. as in This is a giant fucking security risk. so if someone gets your card info, they can use it like a regular credit card, but you don't get any of the protections of a regular credit card. Instead, your account immediately getd debited. It is then up to you to (a) cover the disputed amount, and (b) sufficiently dispute the amount.

Wifeykins is currently experiencing this discomfort with Smells Margo (okay. Wells Fargo. if someone wants to google for Wells Fargo, they deserve the chance to see my rant on the 500th page of google results.)

energy crisis averted

2006-03-03T10:40:00.000-08:00

we will provide the world with limitless power by attaching a generator to orwell's spinning corpse.

sectarian violence isn't quite newspeak for civil war, but you'll notice that the closer Iraq gets to civil war, the more the media uses the term. wifeykins claims to have not heard the term until this week.

today's remedial term: Salvadoran Option, which (imo) is the root of this.

coffee on empty stomach = bad

2006-03-03T10:11:00.000-08:00

oof. not enjoying the feeling of whatever-it-is-that-coffe-does-to-an-empty-stomach. Felt okay for a while, but now I'm queasy and lightheaded.

Toast to the rescue!

Testify!

2006-03-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

supporting the replacement-shoe-hypothesis:
I have about 15 pairs of black shoes alone. I think the majority of mine are "dress" shoes I never wear. Some acquired for work. Others acquired to replace the uncomfortable shoes acquired for work. -- zombiegrrl

WFH day

2006-03-03T09:17:00.000-08:00

werkin from home.
I will accomplish many good things codewise today. And then I will run errands. And then I will once again code frantically.

what? you want insight? ranting? oh. it will happen. just not yet.

p.s: Spin has resurfaced. I will write him an email soon.

yahoo dashboard sucks

2006-03-01T20:52:00.000-08:00

I understand that it's closer to the 'original' confabulator... but it's so not quite as cool as Apple's dashboard.

For whatever reason, the widgets for Apple's dashboard are "better" -- or rather, the official Google/Blogger widget just isn't available on yahoo dashboard.

*sigh*

puttered out

2006-02-26T15:35:00.000-08:00

*sigh*

momentum has been lost. hunger has set in.

puttering will cease until .. whenever. or something or other.

last night's settler's binge results

2006-02-26T09:44:00.000-08:00

scott: 1laura: 2
tim: 2
barbara: 0

+ I'm guessing 2 or 3 hangovers

off on the mission!

2006-02-25T12:51:00.000-08:00

wifeykins says: it's the beginning of the end!

he's telling his blog things.

(hey.. .this does look a bit like ichat with this fancy widget and shit)

today: smog, bank, tap-plastics

43 things --> 43 places

2006-02-25T11:29:00.000-08:00

while looking for a good list widget, I wound up on 43 things. oh. it rocks. but from there, I wound up on 43 places. ooh. it's like crack.

lazy saturday

2006-02-25T10:41:00.000-08:00

brought to you by an unhappy knee and the supercool google-blogger dashboard widget.

oh yes. hit f13, and then spew directly onto free storage and hosting. woot.

between being tired and having the excuse of a knee that's still unhappy from hiking wednesday, I am skipping my usual saturday morning Aikido class to putter and prepare for the running of errands.

for the 'home stuff' list -- one notch above the 'kinda want' list: good tripod, flat file

fuck fedex

2006-02-24T15:14:00.000-08:00

today is a WFH day for me. It's been reasonably productive work-wise... well, aside from waiting for the build. finding the build didn't work. doing a full build, doing a full sync, start a build... rinse repeat.

but the big disappointment of the day is that fedex is supposed to come today. I was expecting them around 10 am. That's what time they'd show up if I tried to run an errand in the morning. but NOOO, I had to stay home today so that I wouldn't miss them, and it is now 3:15 on a friday fucking afternoon, far too late to effectively run any errands without getting stuck in heineious traffic.

fuck fedex.

extra organic milk

2006-02-24T10:55:00.000-08:00

the milk went bad. that's not news.
What's funky is that organic milk seems to go bad in a different way than chemical milk does. Oh. It is so much worse. Not sour as much as unacceptably savory.
One part of my tiny mind asks how that could be. But, if I accept that "organic milk tastes like milk used to taste when you were a kid", which I do, then I can also accept that when it goes bad, it goes bad differently.
Oh. And the KitchenAid™ garbage disposal is stuck and full of Cheerios™ and spoiled Organics™(by Safeway™) milk.

orwell hates mixologists

2006-02-24T09:37:00.000-08:00

cosmetologist : barber :: mixologist : bartender ?

or is it more like

cosmopolitan : gin & tonic :: mixologist : person with liquor cabinet

yes. the second is more apt, as the first would be disparaging of those who make their living by working with hair and skin

the big shoe collection hypothesis

2006-02-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

(if this gets crossposted by anyone I know, they will pay)

------ the big women's shoes hypothesis ----

(narrative omitted to protect unnamed co-conspirators)

Why do they buy so many damned shoes?

Revised: Why do people (clearly not all women, and clearly not 100% of women) that buy a lot of shoes do so?

The inspiration was when the question was paraphrased to: Why do they need so many shoes, while we have maybe four pair?

We (those without a shoe habit) have maybe one pair for each utilitarian category (N shoes). They (gender-neutral but with a monkey on their back, or foot, or each foot) have shoes for each style (M styles) , possibly duplicated for each utilitarian category (N uses) --> (M times N shoes).

But wait, there's more. Why have four pair of seemingly identical shoes?

1) Because they're the best shoe ever, but was discontinued.

2) Because I needed a pair of shoes that looked like this, but they aren't comfy, so I had to buy this other pair because they look almost the same but I can actually wear them.

3) They're not the same. You just don't get the difference.

----
*sigh* I have the fear. the fear of catching flack . the fear of coming across as inarticulate. the fear of being crushed under a mountain of seemingly identical shoes.

maybe its time for breakfast.

company and product names

2006-02-24T08:41:00.000-08:00

why is it that blogger types l33t-sp33k all the product names?

what? they don't want someone accidentally finding out that they're talking about flickr, amazon, and clerasil?

woot -- widgets

2006-02-24T08:34:00.000-08:00

oh yes. I now have the google widget, which will hopefully fucking work. to spew directly onto the interweb.

not gonna do it

2006-01-20T17:11:00.000-08:00

nope. I'm not going to rant about mythbusters being a bunch of wankers who devise their experiments so that they clearly fail.

nope. gonna take a bath instead.

I'll gift your ass with my foot.

2005-12-06T11:20:00.000-08:00

The next person I hear use 'gift' as a verb, I will personally give a swift kick in the ass.

perpetual motion

2005-10-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

or something of the sort... the perennial conspiracy-DIY project: recharging alkaline batteries. (Wasn't there a company selling _special_ rechargeable alkalines about 5 years ago?)

Afrotech: battery recharge. "The experience was about as life threatening as a squirrel urinating on my lawn."

knots -- double fisherman or filthy sanchez?

2005-09-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

all along I thought the _sheet bend_ was the way to go ... but thanks to Lifehacker I have been corrected" Tie two ropes together...properly.

Holy shit. there's a lot of info on knots out on that interweb. I'm particularly thrilled with AnimatedKnots.com check out their picture index.

2005-09-14T07:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the reference to 70's TV, but... Bastard child of Frank Burns and Archie Bunker?

2005-09-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

Southwest corner of 3rd & Harrison, Oakland.

2005-08-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

Breakfast at work

2005-08-29T17:48:00.000-07:00

I heart the train. Oh...And the convenient convenience store.
?

2005-08-29T08:15:00.000-07:00

Aah, morning on the marshlike expanses of my morning commute.