Intellectual Poison

So I've come up with a pretty interesting way to get an idea of my overall strength, to create a baseline and then be able to get back and check it from time to time. And I am inviting anyone who reads this and wants to try it to take part.

The benchmark consists of two basic exercises that are done to failure, that is, you do as many of them as you possibly can. If you are working with free weights then you absolutely must have a spotter for the bench press or you can, quite literally, kill yourself. Also, make sure to thoroughly warm up before doing any max-effort exercises.

How many times can you bench press your body weight?
How many times can you leg press your body weight?

Test it now and then again in six months.

Since I've been sick for a little while, I'm going to set my benchmark day for halfway through February. And, because I like to make bets against myself, I'm going to say that I'll be able to bench press my body weight, which is 170 pounds, 25 times before failure. Leg presses, I think I'll pretty safely be able to hit 40 or 50 presses.

Want to play? Leave a comment and let's get it on!

Note, this isn't a test of fitness, its a test of strength.

Tags: exercise, bench press, leg press, strength, benchmark

Labels: exercise, strength, test

Time for a little

1. What are your numbers?
I'm partial to 3's but I also still like 9 and 11 because that's my birthday.

2. What are your words?
I've got lots of words, ones that I made up (like secrutiny and or urbal) and words someone else got to first, like nictitating, malodorous and chunder.

3. What are your names?
For boys - Alexander, Davis, Graydon and Sullivan (of course)
For girls - Cassandra, Nina, Michelle and Chastity (but only if she's got really loose morals because I like irony!)

4. What are your days?
Easy, Saturday and Sunday.

5. What are your colors?
Greens are good.

6. What are your flavors?
Cinnamon, basil, garlic, teriyaki, pineapple grilled on top of marinated skirt steak.

7. What are your scents?
Basil, sweat (my own, thanks), campfires, lime and mint mashed together (as in mixing up some mojitos), freshly cut grass and freshly cut wood.

8. What are your sounds?
Children's laughter, my motorcycle at 10,000 rpm, dead silence at 10 pm (nothing like sleeping kids!), the hum of bike tires during a high speed descent and the crack of a baseball bat when one of the Giants crushes the ball!

Tags: cheddar x, questions, meme

Labels: cheddar x, meme, questions

Today's new word comes from the story about the woman who was raped and then arrested and jailed for a four year old bench warrant and denied her second dosage of an emergency contraceptive which has exposed the police and nurse involved to a huge and expensive and totally avoidable lawsuit.

Stupiduty - when doing your job (or doing your duty if that contradicts with your employment) means you have to behave in an incredibly stupid manner.

Guess where the rest of the new words are hiding? That's right, in the Fictionarium and over its Wordpress quasi-twin IP Fictionarium.

Tags: stupiduty, fictionarium, new words, inventing language, NWotD

Labels: fictionarium, nwotd

Paradegoer Reports Rape, Jailed On Warrant:

"Police are reviewing their policies after the arrest, which one victim's advocate said could have 'a chilling effect' on the rape investigation, the woman's well-being and the desire of future victims to contact police."

Gee, ya think? You think people might be less likely to report a crime they've been a victim of if they're going to get thrown in jail for a bench warrant?

And the denial of the second required dosage of contraceptive is just going to open the police, the nurse and anyone else involved in a great big, ugly and expensive lawsuit. Which they will lose as there is little doubt that her rights were trampled all-the-fuck on.

You'll have to pardon my vitriol this morning, I slept very, very badly last night and am fighting yet another goddamned cold.

Tags: rape, victim, victimized, contraceptive, lawsuit

Labels: lawsuit, police

Warning, do not click this link or read this post if you do not want to know who won the second season of Top Chef.




Why? Because the Top Chef Finale Spoiled AGAIN by the winner giving an interview.

Is this because Bravo's a cable channel or something? I think I'm going to blame Tom Colicchio (the Simon Cowell judge on the show) since he annoys the hell out of me.

As for me, I'm glad the winner who won, won. The other guy was a total asshole with freakish hair and a real need to get kicked in the nuts a few times. Sure, he was a good chef and had some decent tricks. But being the best chef isn't about foams (oops, did that give it away), its about making great meals with anything.

My wishlist for the next season is to get rid of Tom Colicchio because he's an asshole. Maybe they should just clone Padma Lakshmi and be done with it. That's what this world needs, a Padma (note, some images are NSFW) in every living room. Oh yeah!

Anyway, how's about I wrap this up with a spoiler? Marcel doesn't win. Ilan does. Hahahaha. Sorry, that wasn't nice of me.

Tags: Top Chef, reality tv, Bravo, Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio is an asshole

Labels: reality tv, top chef

So, I still cannot upgrade my blogs to the new Blogger. The reason for this is because I actually blog quite a lot on this one. At last check we had broken 4300 posts and that's a lot too big of a pill for the upgrade process to try and swallow. For now.

The annoying thing is that, if I sign into Blogger in FireFox to get access to my blogs, I get signed out of my Google homepage and vice versa. Because Google is Blogger, there are some authentication issues.

And what I end up having to do is either run my Google homepage in Safari or run my Blogger in Safari. Neither of which is all that great. Safari is nice and all but it lacks some features, doesn't retain sign ins and feels like playing in the kiddy pool of the internet as a result.

I'm sure this will all be resolved before too long but, for now, its a bit of a hassle. Especially when I want to quick-blog at work, hard to do the sign-out, sign-in, blog, sign-out and resign-in to Google all that quickly.

Its just kind of a pain and I will be happier when Google gets around to allowing me to finally upgrade all my blogs.

[Update: Funny, the day I bitch about not being able to upgrade, they finally upgrade me. Coincidence or conspiracy?]

Tags: Blogger, upgrade, Google, annoying

Today's new word is appropriate for how I've been feeling lately.

Fauxmentum - false or untrue momentum. I.e. putting on a happy face for clients while feeling like you're standing on the deck of Titanic and the last lifeboat just cast off.

Guess where the rest of the new words are hiding? That's right, in the Fictionarium and over its Wordpress quasi-twin IP Fictionarium.

Tags: fauxmentum, fictionarium, new words, inventing language, NWotD

Uncle Sam spoils dream trip to space

Brian Emmett's childhood fantasy came true when he won a free trip to outer space.

But the 31-year-old was crushed when he had to cancel his reservation because of Uncle Sam.

After some number-crunching, Emmett realized he would have to report the $138,000 galactic joy ride as income and owe $25,000 in taxes.

Oracle should pick up the tax tab on this deal. Otherwise, what's the point of a contest to give away a free trip into space? Its not a free trip. Just like Oprah giving away a bunch of cars and then the recipients getting slammed with taxes that they couldn't afford to pay.

The article also talks about other free space trip contests where the winner also gets a cash reward to be used to help cover the tax liability.

Tags: free, space tourist, $25,000 tax, major suckage

There's a back story to share here but the skinny news version is that we are now happy cat owners again (though it is definitely arguable that nobody "owns" a cat, they're just borrowing them).

Her name, right now, is Tabitha, and she's fitting in pretty well. Nande has, as might be expected, an intense interest in her. But that intensity is diminishing as she becomes more familiar and less "exotic".

I like having a cat again, they carry a different energy than dogs and are alot less needy but they're extraordinarily needy in other ways. Luckily those ways often help make humans feel better too.

I only wish my mild allergy to cats had gone away in the intervening years since we've had a cat. But its managable and the payoff outweighs the hassles, for now.

Tags: cat, family

Life with toddlers. If you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. Life with toddlers and babies requires a pretty sharp shift of lifestyle and habits. And you might as well pack up your humility and put it on the shelf for next 18 years.

Case in point, I was in the bathroom a little while ago draining off some excess liquids, when Grady turned it into an impromptu potty-training field trip. I didn't really have a choice in the matter since closed doors mean nothing to Grady and I hadn't bothered to put up the gate across the bathroom.

So, there I am, peeing and coming under intense scrutiny from my son. He was so interested in the process that he switched sides and got a look from the other side as well.

Yes, peeing in front of your children, just one of the myriad joys of becoming a parent. Along with the full and unconditional surrender of any other private moments you used to enjoy before these little creatures took over your reality.

That and becoming concerned about the price of diapers, having enough wipes (running out is a serious, serious drag) and, most importantly, not running out of formula because there is nothing like a baby who wants his bottle and there isn't any formula in the house to make one for him.

But I still wouldn't trade a single moment of it for anything. Except on those mornings when I get woken up by cold feet in the small of my back at 3:30 am. And the exploding poop filled diapers, yeah, I could do without those too.

And then the Fruit Dance comes on Sesame Street and Grady gets his groove on and all that not so fun stuff is forgotten

Tags: children, humility, potty-training, scrutiny

I always hated having to drink a cup of coffee with my donuts to get all buzzy in the morning. Thankfully, science has come to the rescue with Doughnuts Laced with Caffeine.

I wonder if they come in a coffee flavor?

And if they offer a decaf version?
Tags: caffeine donut, convergence, cop nosh, coffee

Check out the Full size image and its pretty amazing. Look at the shockwave on the water's surface. I read that when a destroyer fires off all cannons broadside at once, the entire ship will move a few inches in the other direction (or maybe more than a few inches). Think about the kind of pressures involved in pushing a destroyer sideways in the water. Now imagine being on the recieving end of a 2700 pound shell. For about a nanosecond before you and everything around you gets vaporized.
More shots of the Iowa in action. Me likee the boom, boom, boom!

via Digg
Tags: cannon, USS Iowa, firing, shockwave

Ga. Teens Admit to Killing Dog in Oven and not only that but torturing the puppy and then showing the dead body to children and threatening to kill them if they told anyone.

Nice scumbag teens.

Please send them away forever. Or why not allow them the choice of life in prison or to suffer the same torture they meted out on the defenseless dog? Duct tape them up and shove them in an oven.

Stories like this make me sick to my stomach.

Jogger Stabbed on West Cliff but didn't end up getting hurt for two reasons. One, she was wearing a big puffy jacket. Two, the switchblade used in the attack snapped in two. Still, we're talking about an extremely high traffic area at 7:30 in the evening.

Are there are as many knife attacks everywhere else and they don't even make the papers? I keep having images from the movie Gangs of New York (fight, Leo, fight!)

It seems like there is a new attack everyday, a random stupidity that makes no sense unless you take into account the attackers malaise and lack of direction. Once kids graduate from high school and they have no interest in college and they come from families that cashed in when land went from dirt cheap to outrageously expensive, you get idiot kids with nothing to do but "rebel". Some rebel by smoking dope and some rebel by drinking, alot. Some rebel by getting angry, getting some pals and going to find someone to stab. No, I don't understand it either.

Tags: attack, stabbing, insane

I've been watching some of this season's Top Chef on Bravo and have, overall, enjoyed the show. Its less about drama than it is about making amazing food fast.

And the second season's finale was last night. I watched the first hour and the first ten minutes of the second since it was after 11 and I needed to get some sleep.

One of the chef's, Marcel, is pretty well reviled by all of the other chefs. His bulletproof hair aside, the guy is an asshole and a jerk to the other chefs. But in a really weasely way, he moves their stuff off the burners on the stove, he does other little things that he claims are mistakes but there is a pattern of monkey-wrenching others that makes it hard to believe its really a mistake.

Anyway, last night's first half of the finale involved the final four preparing an entree and a dessert in a Hawaiian style for a birthday party. Two of the four were being eliminated and it was a very, very tough decision.

One of the judges, Tom Colicchio whom I've referred to as Baldy in my head because I never bothered to pay attention to his name, said something that really struck me and pretty well killed my interest in the show. Just one little statement because it perfectly sums up every asshole chef I've ever worked for.

One of the soon to be eliminated chefs brought up the issue of Marcell messing with other people's food in the kitchen during the competition. Basically she accussed him of not respecting the kitchen. And Baldy said, point blank, that he didn't care, they weren't being judged on their ability to get along but on their ability to cook.

And I think he got it very, very wrong. Being a "Top Chef" is more than being able to cook, its being able to manage a kitchen, its treating your staff well, its the whole package, it is NOT just the ability to cook and present food well. That one little statement really, really pisses me off and demonstrates quite capably that he is the absolute worst kind of judge there is, he cares not at all about how, he just cares about the what and how it looks. As a result, I will likely avoid the show in the future, just as I will not eat at a restaurant that mistreats its employees, I won't watch a show that perpetuates crappy, assholish behavior.

Of course, things were not going to go well in any case when the people's favorite was eliminated. But that was part of the "game" of the show, the comment about not giving a damn what happens in the kitchen is just really, really wrong.

Nice job, Bravo, it was a good show (made better by the stunning Padma Lakshmi) and the guest judges. But the overall product is ruined by having Tom Colicchio as the head judge. I'm sure he overcharges for food at his place of business too, because he can and it helps keep the "rabble" out. I am also sure that he's a total asshole to work for.

Tags: Top Chef, Marcel, respect, Tom Colicchio

The combination of the cold weather and the flu cold/allergies I've been struggling to overcome has resigned me to driving in to work for the last several weeks.

But today, I'm taking the motorcycle. And I am looking forward to it!

I'm also working on creating a list of things I need to do to keep myself happier and saner. Its been too easy to get caught up in the moment and the stress of it all and I really need to keep an eye on the bigger picture. Writing down those things that make me happy and then making sure to do some of them every day or week should help to keep me a little happier and alot more sane.

But its going to be a grinder of a day at work, lots of phone calls out to set some meetings.

Tags: motorcycle, commute, work, sanity

I hope that I'm not the only one who does this. When you go shopping, you see the product you want, you pick up the product and put it in your basket and get home only to find that you grabbed a mistocked item that looks almost exactly like the one you wanted. Only its not.

I hate when I do this and I seem to do it with some regularity. I think I will call it product dyslexia.

Tags: shopping, dyslexia, wrong item, annoying

No wait, here's the whole thing, and no, I did not add Donald J Trump or Rosie O'Donnell to the headline, it was there. Shameless? Yes. Probably effective? Yeah. E! News - Miss USA Out of Rehab - Donald J Trump | Rosie O'Donnell

Anyway, good to Tara Conner (hmm, Tara, Sara, Tara, Sara, maybe this is all a Terminator themed bad dream?) for convincing Teh Donald to let her keep her crown and maybe pose for Playboy. What a great role model Teh Donald is. Suck lemons for ten years, be an amoral buggernaut and come up with an annoying catchphrase and you are there.

But back to the headline. Its a total keeper, clear, succinct, deeply ironic and funny. Maybe even a little melancholic and nostalgic for the good ol' days when people with problems just had lobotomies. I might print out a copy and paste in the wall. Miss USA Out of Rehab. And Lindsay's in. Coincidence? Probably. Should I not be joking about people getting treated for serious conditions? Yeah, maybe.

Tags: Miss USA, Tara Conner, rehab, buggernaut

The day that Gerald Ford's body was displayed for oglers (I think the technical term is lie in state but mine's more accurate) was also the day that I had to get my license renewal postmarked by or I'd get assessed with a late fee.

Well, on the day that Gerald Ford lay in state in the capital, the post office closed in mourning or whatever you call it when a business shuts down.

As a result, my license renewal just came back with a $14 late fee owed on it. Of course, I could contest it but it'd cost me more than $14 in time to contest so I'll probably just pay it.

But I wouldn't mind a check from Gerald Ford's estate for $14 to cover my inconvenience. I mean, its not like all the postal employees went for a looksee at his body on display.

Tags: Gerald Ford, license renewal, late fee, you owe me

The AFC/NFC Championship Game Weekend signals a big party for friends and folks that all play in our local football pool. Because everyone goes everywhere for the Super Bowl, we have our season party this last weekend to celebrate and have a good time. And chow down on ribs, steaks, burgers, let the dogs play together, let the kids get rambunctious and to catch up since we've all mostly moved out of the old neighborhood and its hard to stay in touch.

Congratulations to the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts. The Bears beatdown on the Saints was a decent game until it got out of reach and then it was just watching to see if I could win a quarter or the final game score off the sheet. I didn't end up winning anything but that's alright. Nande had a blast playing with the other dogs, Grady had a blast being the kid of the party and everyone loved holding Sully because he's such a sweet and good natured kid.

The Colts and Pats game ended up being much better than I anticipated and we actually had to leave the party midway through that game to get the kids home for some downtime before they melted down.

Grady was so tired he was asleep in the car before we'd even pulled away from the curb. And he would have slept straight through the night if we'd let him. But we let him sleep for a couple of hours before getting him up for some dinner and so he'd sleep through the night. And Sully was ready to nap as well, he didn't crash so quickly or so heavily but he was down too. And I was ready to crash but I had to pilot the family home first. And then I got to rest. And it was good.

As always, Monday morning got here too soon and I'm not ready to go back to work just yet but that's not really my choice. This will be a very big week ahead but it should be a good week and I'm looking forward to coming up to speed with another new client. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I wouldn't mind a full day to do nothing but lay in bed and rest up.

The Super Bowl looks to be a good one with Defense against Offense in Bears vs. Colts. If good Rex shows up then the Bears will roll right over the Colts. But if bad Rex shows up then it'll be a shootout that'll be decided by turnovers.

Either way, it'll be a good game and we had a great time at the football pool party.

Tags: football, party, Bears, Colts

I happened to watch a few minutes of American Idol last night, not by choice. My wife was watching it and I needed to talk with her about a few things so I was inadvertently exposed to the show. I happened to see the long segment where they interviewed the overweight girl with bad teeth, bad hair and a fashion sense set to brown and baggy. She was talking about how she was going to do well by selling "sexy" to the judges. They even brought in her mother, who was her double, just with darker hair.

And then they let her sing a few bars of that song with the chorus of "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me" when Simon stopped her by saying "No."

American Idol is a curious show. From the pretenders who really can't sing and are just looking for a little exposure to the people with voices that they muck all the hell with "gimmicky" singing (overuse of melismas usually, just because it works for Mariah Carey does NOT mean it will work for you).

Alot of the attraction of the show in these early stages is the same attraction that people have for Nascar. People like to see wrecks. They like to see people go down in flames, they like to see Simon roll his eyes, put his hand up to stop them and then tell them just how awful they really are and that they should concentrate on perfecting their french fry cooking technique.

I will admit that I kind of enjoy watching the smackdown being brought on people who really have no business singing to themselves alone in the shower. But I think the formula is wearing thin, the music they sing isn't very good and I think its time to refresh the show with some new judges who aren't quite so tired of the whole thing.

Not that it would make me watch the show but it might make it just a little bit less irritating when they set someone up for a big ol' smackdown.

Tags: American Idol, Simon Cowell, spectacle, staged, cruelty

The hardest thing about being sick is not knowing what all is going to be waiting for you when you go back to the office. I had an inkling and it gave me nightmares. I was out sick yesterday with fever blisters (or cold sores if you don't want to be as dramatic) that made my face hurt and the idea of conducting business laughable. I ended up sleeping most of the day which helped quite a bit.

And my dear wife got me some Abreva to help cut down on the sick time which is good. Less sick is more better.

But it feels like projects at work got kicked into overdrive and that my one day out sick was really like three weeks out. In the course of the single day, I now have a new client (and one that I'm thoroughly excited about working with) and alot of developments with another client. And a whole bunch of follow up with another client and some heavy grunt work in process for a fourth.

Its hard to know where to start digging in and grinding. Especially because my head feels like a helium filled balloon bobbing around in the breeze so far this morning.

But I've got my meds, I've got my box of tissues and my notepads to try and keep my lists up to date so I don't overlook or just plain forget anything. Wish me luck and that I don't implode before the day is out.

Tags: sick, turbo, work, acceleration

I am not a happy camper this morning. I am a grumpy and grouchy and mostly pissy blogger this morning. Last night I felt the first tingles of some fever blisters and started loading up on Lysine to try and head them off before they turned my mouth into a firepit of pain and unhappiness.

I'm sure the Lysine helped some but not enough to thwart the attack and now one side of my face is painfully swollen and I feel disfigured. And the dull throbbing doesn't help my mood too much either.

I had a dentist appointment scheduled for this afternoon but that's been cancelled because there's just no chance of any work being done on my face now. Not unless I'm unconscious and that seems like a little overkill to take care of some fillings.

So I'll be spending today feeling hideous and pissy. Oh boy!

Tags: fever blister, cold sore, pain, hideous

Ashley Olsen's ghost arrives at the Golden Globes, resplendent in her death eye makeup and sunken chest. Her look is somewhat evocative of a 40's or 50's style outfit but the eye makeup, whiter than white skin and totally bare chest just make her look creepy and ghostly.

I suppose I should feel bad for the Olsen twins except for the fact of their hundreds of millions of dollars they'd be bag ladies living on the street. They so very often seem completely out of place. But at least she left the huge face goggles at home. And the dress makes it harder to see her bony hips and possible eating disorders.

Contrast her doe-in-the-headlights look with Alyssa Milano's or Ivanka Trump (hard to believe someone so pretty has any of Teh Donald's DNA in her at all). Why is it so hard for the Olsen's to look human, much less glamorous?

Am I being unkind? Blame it on the fever blisters. Oh wait, I haven't posted about those yet. They're next up on the list.

[Update: Because it doesn't warrant its own post and this one was already wallowing in celebrity muck, how's about some more celebrity news? How about the news from The Superficial that Lindsay Lohan can still sink lower and lower. This time there's news that she's dating Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild infamy (and the various and never-ending stream of lawsuits resulting from his terribly exploitive videos). Nice work, Lindsay. I thought you'd bottomed out with the AA announcement and the partying the next week but you have, once again, proved me wrong. And now you're just a creepy skank hanger-on with the king of soft core exploitive pron. Well done. And by well done, I mean Ewwwww!]

Tags: Olsen Twins, Ashley Olsen, Golden Globes, fashion, ghost

Got some time to waste? Check out the Web Kaleidoscope and see what pretty patterns you can make. Its not useful at all but it is kind of neat.

Not all of the 23 Tips to Turbocharge Your DVR will be totally useful or even usable. But there are some really good tips in the mix that make the list incredibly useful overall.

I am looking forward to #23 Getting rid of the Tivo background screen so I can keep watching a show while queueing up the next.

And I like the idea of greater interconnectivity between our computers and our Tivo. I'd love to offload some Sesame Street and Oprah and regain some real estate on the hard drive for stuff I might actually be interested in watching (no offense to Teh Killar Whale).

Now if only Charter would get HD in our area so we can take advantage of the HD capabilities of the tv and bask in the sweet unpixelated glory. Actually, I read an interesting article in Popular Science about HD antennas picking up broadbast HD signals for free. Which would be sweeter than sweet to get a better picture AND to stop paying cable bills. Oooh yeah! I'll have to dig up the link and post it (AntennaWeb lets you figure out which channels are broadcasting in your area that you stand the best chance of picking up with an HD Antenna for free). Or I could just build my own.

Instructables has some easy instructions for making a Budget Photographic Lighting "Tent" that will markedly improve the quality of your table top small photography.

Basically, get a white (or near white) bucket. Cut a u-shape out of it, flip it over and light it from behind with a strong light. No light should shine directly into the bucket.

And.... done. Pretty easy, eh?

I will be getting a bucket tomorrow and playing around with this over the weekend. I will, of course, post results on IP Photography.

[Update: Choose your bucket carefully. The bucket I chose is too thick to let the light through well enough and it has ribs on the inside. Not useful for what I was trying to do. Also, the bucket had two bumps where the handle was attached which made it more of a hassle to prep for photowork since the bucket wouldn't lay flat with them there. The scorecard reads: Buckets 1, Erik 0. I will start my bucket hunt anew! But I think I will also give a try to seed's link where they build a lightbox out of a cardboard box and some tracing paper. Also, I need a bigger office.]

Tags: instructables, photography, lighting tent, improvement

The Big Picture points us to an interesting representation of GDP as applied to US states GDP. Interesting that California generates as much revenue as all of France. And that Vermont is matched up with the Dominican Republic. And that Mexico generates as much as Illinois.

What this graphic really does is illlustrate just how much damned money the US really does make since the combined GDP for the US is the combined GDP for all of the countries represented.

Tags: GDP, country, representation, visualization

You know the old rule when you're in high school and the teacher doesn't show up for 15 minutes that you get to go free? We almost had to invoke the business version of that this morning. When I got into the office, there was no power in all of Scotts Valley. And it was nice and dark in the office with people unsure of what to do. Some made calls home on cells, some tried to keep working on the battery power from the UPS systems, some went out to hunt for some breakfast food.

Me? I went and got my remote control plane out of the car and played with that after snapping a few pics of the icicles out on the pond. Yes, it is that cold in California this morning. Not weensy little icicles either, the thickest was nearly an inch across at its biggest. And sure, that's nothing compared to places that get "real winter" but its as close as we're coming here.

Anyway, no power means no computers means no internet means not much chance to do any work. And the power was out waaaaay longer than the previously required 15 minutes. And yet, here I am, sitting at my desk and typing out this quick blog post. Oh well.

I kind of miss snow days. I don't miss the actual snow or the pain in the ass that snow days represents for parents but I miss the unscheduled day off from work to frolic and play. I think the world needs more unscheduled days off.

That and alot more sleep-in mornings. How about snow days and sleep-in days for everyone?

Tags: power outage, school, snow day, sleep-in

From Geraldo "I Used to be Relevant" Rivera's: I'll Beat Keith (Olbermann) to Pizza and the seemingly never-ending feud between Teh Donald "Teh Lemonsucker" Trump and Rosie "BBW and Proud of IT" O'Donnell (with a possible Madge on the side), this year looks to be a banner year for celebrity boxing. Maybe we can bring back Dustin Diamond so he can beat the snot out of Horshack again.

But, I think the organizers of these events need to get with the times and realize that boxing is out, its all about MMA (that's mixed martial arts) and the UFC's octagon.

Would I pay $10 to watch Geraldo Rivera get the snot pounded out of him? Yep.

What about watching Rosie O'Donnell beat the shit out of Donald Trump? Oh hell yeah.

Who else needs to get in the ring or just shut the hell up?

I don't doubt that there is some real animosity amongst these "stars" but I also feel that, in Trump's case, he's also trying to drum up some viewers for his stupid show. I think Rivera's just trying to get some attention period though. Who's next, Andy Dick taking on Michael Richards for the "All Racist" championship? By the way, Richards would pummel Andy Dick into a puddle. He's got the anger, you see. Just like Dustin Diamond's got that D-List fury ready to unleash.

I updated my IP Quotes last week and one of the ones I added was this superb quote by Mark Twain

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

A good lesson in persespective, no?

Tags: perspective, quote, Mark Twain

If you live anywhere in northern California then you know just how flippin' cold its been. Here's the local forecast for Watsonville, CA and this isn't the bottom of the chill. It was damned cold this weekend. So bad that I walked around the back yard yesterday morning taking temperature readings with my infrared thermometer (why yes, I am a geek, why do you ask?). The coldest reading I got was 22 degrees Fahrenheit off a metal bucket we try to use for Nande's water but Graydon just dumps it out most of the time.

It was cold enough to warrant pulling the space heater that drives the electric meter into overdrive. But with floors at a rather chilly 58 degrees, it was necessary to maintain any level of comfort in the house.

I know I shouldn't complain because the Midwest was getting crushed with another nasty winter storm and all we were having was a cold snap. But its hard to not complain when its all you know, ya know? I mean, I can't complain about what its like in Chicago because I'm not there so I have to complain about what its like here since this is where I am. Did that make sense?

And, as it seems like it happens everyday now, another day, another stabbing. This time two people have been hospitalized by more of Watsonville's idiot youth brigade. I may have to start counting all of the stabbings they report in the paper. Its mind boggling how many there are, really. Last week, five teenagers in a Lexus drove up to Santa Cruz to go find some new meat to stab. They asked some guy out walking with his girlfriend where "the party" was and he said he didn't know, so they got out and stabbed in the neck. Nice, eh?

Of course, most of the stabbing is gang related but not always. Sometimes its just some bored teenagers with nothing better to do than to go out and look for trouble. I was thinking about this the other day and I've got a theory. You see, the town where I live is very agricultural, its the strawberry capital of the universe and there are five or six other fruit/vegetable capitals within a half hour's drive. A very fertile area. Twenty years ago, there were alot more farms and the land wasn't worth even a tenth as much as it is today.

Alot of people had a lot of acres back then and they've suddenly found themselves rather wealthy. These newly rich families generally have kids and, though they have the cash, they don't generally end up going on to college after completing high school. Since they have money, they don't have to work and they end up wasting their time looking for stuff to do. And gangs are something to do and they make you feel tough and cool and important even though a gang is really just a bunch of kids trying to show each other how tough and crazy they are.

Combine no need to work with the generalized angst of being a teen and you end up with idiot stabbers in expensive cars. Its a great mix. It also helps explain the complete lack of manners and the generalized attitude of "fuck off and die" that I feel most of the time I'm there.

Have I mentioned recently how much I dislike the current town I live in? Probably won't be the last time until we are able to sell and relocate to a neighborhood where people aren't quite so openly rude and abrasive to one another.

And the cold really doesn't help people be nicer at all.

But at least we had some good football all weekend, that helps to make everything better.

Some people really don't understand the internet at all.

Witness this screen capture of an email some moron sent to a website owner, Don't Make Me Sic My Lawyer on You.

If you can't click it or it gets removed, the email demands the site owner restore their photos to their proper place so the email writer can continue to deeplink to his content without permission. This person wants to keep stealing bandwidth and content from someone else and isn't afraid to invoke the legal system to do so.

Um yeah. Good luck forcing someone to continue allowing you to steal from them.

Tags: deeplink, lawyers, not getting it, stealing

Pittsburg man shot dead in home invasion / Police say editor at PC World was involved in illegal narcotics trade.

Rex Farrance was an editor at PC World and someone I've been in touch with over the last couple of months. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy and I'm truly just shocked about his murder.

I don't know anything about drugs but I do know that very few people deserve to have their home invaded and to be beaten and then murdered and Rex didn't ever strike me as being even remotely close to one of those people.

I am sitting here, stunned and freaked out.

[Update: The drugs angle has been explained by the fact that Rex's son, Sterling, has a prescription for medical marijuana and was growing and storing his meds at his parent's house. Another aspect of the story that has come to light is that Rex was an avid hunter and the intruders may have been after his guns as well as the weed. Sad story and its getting sadder. The initial coverage of this and the narcotics angle was really, really poorly done and I would not be surprised in the least if there's a lawsuit that comes out of it all.]

From the Santa Cruz Sentinel's Cops and Courts - - - January 11, 2007

Andre William Furtado, a 19-year-old Watsonville man accused of pimping out young women and, more recently, urging one teen to prostitute herself to raise his bail money, will be back in court next week after a Santa Cruz Count Superior Court judge ruled there was enough evidence for a trial, prosecutor Ross Taylor said.

That's right, he wanted one of his girls to work the street to get his bail money together. Funny how the judge found enough evidence to go to trial.

The guy doesn't seem like the brightest bulb in the bunch though since he wrote letters instructing the woman to go out and hook for his bail money. Nothing like a paper trail from a prison to make it easy on the cops.

Do a little exercise for me this morning, alright?

Hover your mouse over any link on the page and it should bring up a preview box to see what's on the other side of the link. Pretty cool, huh?

I came across Snap Preview Anywhere yesterday and their live preview feature. It was incredibly easy to sign up and install. And its really cool. Try it over the photo links down below, like The Best I Can Do.

Tags: preview, snap, cool

Today's new word is...

Valindication - vindication by validation. For example, when you're having an argument about some point of fact and you know you're right, you look it up on the Wiki and prove your rightness and you have been valindicated.

New words (and the old new words) are available at both the Fictionarium and The IP Fictionarium.

Tags: valindication, fictionarium, new words, inventing language, NWotD

I don't think there's anyone that enjoys going to visit the dentist (barring crushes or other non-dental motivations) and I am certainly no exception.

I went in to get some repair work done and came out feeling betrayed by my mouth because of all the work that I now have pending. We're talking multiple cavities, cracked teeth and a need for multiple crowns. Not fun, not quick and not cheap at all. Not by a long shot.

To top it off, after being socked with a massive pending bill, I was told that I have no dental insurance. They said my insurance expired back in September. Which sucked because it made me feel like I was going to be on the tab for a rather huge load of dental expenses.

And I still am but not as much as originally thought since they'd accidentally replaced the 8 in my SSN with a 0 and whoever has that SSN doesn't have any dental coverage. I, however, do.

But I'm heading in for a cleaning today and to schedule the major work which will take about half a day and suck like all the sucking in China.

Tags: dentist, dental, insurance, stress

The Hall call arrives for Gwynn, Ripken but not for Mark McGwire. Which makes sense in alot of ways. One, Big Mac had two outstanding years and a bunch of good ones. Two, he's gone underground since his "testimony" at the congressional hearings. Three, Maris isn't in with his 61, why would 70 guarantee a Hall of Fame induction?

I'm happy for Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn though, both were and are superb ambassadors of the game. Both put up amazing numbers. The very idea that someone could surpass Ripken's streak of consecutive games is laughable. But then, it was insane to think anyone would catch Gehrig either.

What blows my mind is that six sports writers think Jose Canseco should get into the hall of fame. I'm sorry, aren't they supposed to do the voting sober?

I just finished catching up on Steve Jobs' MacWorld keynote in which he introduces the Apple iPhone and, like every other geek in the universe, I WANT ONE (maybe two).

This new convergence tech is simply astounding and puts Apple far out in front again on portable technology. Zune? HA! The Zune is obsolete.

What does the iPhone do that makes it so friggin' awesome?

Touch controls, for one, no buttons means it can be easily reconfigured for landscape use or vertically. It is an iPod which means music and video in your pocket. Its an Apple so it looks beautiful and works beautifully and integrates perfectly with the Mac OS.

It may seem like it costs a ton at $500 and $600 for the 4gig and 8gig versions but think about it. The iPhone replaces an iPod (and is the first widescreen iPod at that), a phone, widget support (which will make alot more sense on a portable), a camera (sure its only 2 mp but it'll work) and it runs OS X which means it is completely extendible with apps and addons. It is a wireless device with a full browser built-in, Safari, and Google search and Maps as well as Yahoo. The monthly data charges might be crazy expensive but the phone itself is a pretty good deal, I think.

Oh yeah, I want one. Bad!

Maybe this condition should be called iPhever?

Tags: Apple, iphone, iphever, MacWorld, keynote, Steve Jobs

Today's new word is one to avoid.

Camerass - (pronounced camer-ass) someone who behaves like an asshole just to get "the shot". The photographer at my brother's wedding a number of years ago was a camerass, he elbowed me in the stomach more than once and I was the best friggin' man.

New words (and the old new words) are available at both the Fictionarium and The IP Fictionarium.

Tags: camerass, fictionarium, new words, inventing language, NWotD

I was reading an article on SFGate about a NY man arrested after for selling stolen property on eBay. And that's well and good, but the final paragraph of the post has this bit...

Catherine England, a spokeswoman for San Jose, Calif.-based eBay, said those suspected of illegal activity have their account canceled immediately. His site was still offering items Monday, and England said it was possible police had yet to notify her company about the arrest.

Read that again slowly and realize that eBay will immediately cancel your account if you are suspected of illegal activity. Nothing like jumping to conclusions based on, potentially, baseless allegations.

The next time someone doesn't give me the deal I want, I'm going to accuse them of selling stolen goods and have their account deleted.

Seriously, WTF? eBay. Maybe you should wait until they're actually found guilty of a crime before punishing them for it. Just a thought.

And, in the meantime, you can suspend their accounts just as easily and alot less irrevocably if they happen to be innocent (perish the thought).

eBay continues to slide off the relevance scale. How many stories like this before they disappear altogether?

This isn't the best way to start the week. I was eating a Special K bar for breakfast when it crunched a little more than it was supposed to. And now I have a pretty severely Cracked tooth on the bottom right side of my mouth. Such fun, its all but impossible to keep one's tongue from continuing to head over there to explore the new surfaces and it doesn't help that those surfaces have sharp edges.

The good news is that I have dental insurance and that I was able to get an appointment at my old dentist for tomorrow morning. This was a place I used to go to when I had the insurance I've got now. I couldn't go there when I worked at EgoCo because the coverage was lousy.

The bad news is that I get to spend the next 23 hours and counting trying not to chew on that side of my face and hoping it doesn't get worse and break apart more to expose the nerve or something painful and really un-fun. Oh yeah, the other bad news part is that I'll get to spend a good portion of tomorrow morning with at least one hand in my mouth, usually attached to a power drill. Man, I hate the flippin' dentist and I am soooo taking them up on the standing offer of nitrous. Hell yeah, nitrous and an iPod make the dentist bearable.

The other bad news is that these repairs are still going to cost a pretty good chunk of money.

But the good news is that my tetanus shoulder is almost back to not being sore at all. Now it feels like someone slugged me an hour or two ago, instead of a second ago.

News via Wired News: TiVoToGo Comes to Mac only 2 years after it was released for the PC. Oh yeah, it also costs $100 to take the content off your Tivo, put it on your Mac and then be able to burn it to DVD or reformat it for wee screen viewing on an iPod. Which is somewhat lame as the PC version is free.

How many people who have video iPods actually do end up watching content on them?

In any case, this is a good step forward for Tivo and Apple. It'll be nice when I can snarf up all those episodes of Sesame Street and burn them to disk so I can recover some lost hours. I still need to get my Wireless-G adapter functioning with my Tivo so it can access info waaaay faster than the Wireless-B USB adapter its running with now.

I wonder if the software lets me edit out commercials?

The Periodic Table of Visualization (posted on MeFi) is an amazing and useful resource to get a better understanding of making sense of information. The chart is broken into six areas, data, information, concept, strategy, metaphor and compound. Mouse over any "element" and a window will give you a means to understand it, usually. While the table is amazing and cool, it could use a little tweak in usability. As in, it'd be nice to print some of these out.

Still, really a nice resource to add to the kit bag.

Tags: periodic table, visualization, chart, MeFi

Part of the joys of having and raising children is watching how they learn to interact with their environment and fellow creatures.

Graydon is, as most toddlers are, occasionally fairly aggressive with Nande, our big mix hound dog. He will grab and hold her tail and play a dangerous version of "snap the whip" which will sometimes end with Grady taking a good digger. Sometimes he will try to lay on top of her while she's on her bed. We do our best to discipline him to try and get him to treat her more gently.

And then there's the other end of the spectrum where he's learned a behavior that is both funny and kind of gross. He's learned to get Nande to give him kisses.

He sticks his tongue out and then in again and again and, for some reason, Nande starts licking his face. It works everytime and is kind of funny but I don't really want to encourage it, ya know? Its funny now when he's 2 1/2 years old, it'll be less entertaining when he's 15.

Tags: kids, children, dog, behavior

I went to the doctor's the other day, to get a physical to make sure I wasn't about to break down and fall apart or anything. I'm 37 now, wow, that seems so old. Funny. I don't feel old. Anyway, the doctor says I'm a good healthy specimen without any of the behaviors that would make him think about doing further tests.

Which is nice. Keep up the exercise, watch the weight, look over there and cough. And then I got a tetanus booster (does this mean its safe for me to start biting people again?) which was interesting in two ways. The first is that I barely felt the needle much less felt it hurt, it was pretty amazing. The doctor said it was a 24 gauge needle and I'd probably grown up getting shots with a 20 or 21, much bigger "bore". The reason they could use the smaller needles now is because the meds were suspended in different solutions, before they'd been delivered in an oil-based solution and that demanded a larger tube for delivery, hence the bigger needle.

The second way the shot was interesting is that my shoulder has become progressively more "dead" since the shot.

Combine that with two little boys who need to get picked up all the time, one of which is in his "grippy" phase where he grabs ahold of everything, even very tender shoulders and you have some idea of what the last day or two has been like. Not terrible but interspersed with sharp, stabbing pains. Lovely, eh?

But I'm healthy and that's the important part. I do need to get some blood drawn to make sure my cholesterol isn't headed to the moon or anything. And I need to make sure that I'm actually riding my bike instead of just looking at it. But, overall, I'm in a pretty good place, just with a sore shoulder and, right now, a crying baby.

Tags: checkup, physical, tetanus, health

Armored truck crash creates havoc for Highway 17 commuters but only if their commute started on the other side of the hill. My commute, which starts several miles downstream from where this accident happened (and there was another roll over on the other side of the hill, a telephone repair truck!). So my drive home last night was fast, fast, FAST!

But it would have been cool to roll up on a street covered in money, even if it was just change mostly. Reminds me of when I was a coin teller at a bank. One day I had something like $40,000 in quarters in bags all over the floor. Do you know how much $1000 in quarters weighs? There would be no sprinting for the exits with those sacks!

This is a fairly short little video I shot during our recent bike ride/run and it makes me laugh so I thought I'd share. I love her expression at the end and how she just walks away.



Tags: dog, hound, rock, water

Man's in-laws slash his nose and ears because he comes from a lower caste and had the audacity to marry the woman he loved without the permission of the woman's male relatives. Which would be quaint if the story didn't involve a man being assaulted by a group of 30 men that ended up putting him in the hospital.

But the 30 male relatives didn't stop with a beating, some slashing and a few whacks with an axe to the legs, nope, they also shot the man's mother in the leg. Nice. And they also slit the man's brother's ears for, ostensibly, having the gall to be the brother of a man with the gall to marry their sister/niece/daughter.

Do you know what they call a murder of a woman who marries without the consent of her male relatives? An honor killing, as in, they kill her to restore the family's honor. And that, my friends, is some seriously fucked up cultural insanity right there.

I think eBay gets jealous of the Post Office or something. They are addicted to raising their prices on a pretty regular basis. Which is fine, I guess, I stopped using eBay to sell things a while ago. Its a hassle and expensive and the "sales" I've made in the last year have been losses.

So, keep raising your prices, eBay, raise them high enough for some better company to come in and deliver better service at a lower price. Here's how the email from Bill Cobb begins, I love the tone of we're-doing-this-for-you when its obvious they're doing it to make more on the bottom line for themselves and their investors.

"Today, I'm here to tell you about fee adjustments for eBay.com and eBay Motors which go into effect on January 30, 2007.

Let me say that, while we believe these changes are modest, we consider any changes that may impact our sellers with great care. These adjustments are the result of careful analysis and we believe they're the right thing to do to keep the marketplace strong for our eBay.com and eBay Motors sellers."

The right thing to do? The right thing to do is to provide more bang for the bucks people are spending on your site. Raising insertion fees from $.35 to $.40 and the final eBay selling fee from 3% of the selling price to 3.25% isn't a huge jump but I'm sure the projected added income is greater than the projected attrition from disgruntled ex-users.

Bah!

I'll just keep using Craigslist anyway.

Tags: eBay, prices, higher prices, craigslist

I like memes and this one is a good one since its a cut & paste meme and not so much a come up with genius meme (which is hard to do late at night when you're supposed to be sleeping). Anyway, I found this over at the Midvale School for the Gifted Alumni Association: 2006 in Review. The game is played thusly, Go through your archives for the year, and post the first sentence from the first post that month. A little fortune telling, perhaps, some patterns revealed? At any rate, here's my year in 12 succinct sentences. The month is a link to the original entry.

January: So far this new whippersnapper year looks an awful lot like its outgoing predecessor, 2005.
February: Bureaucrazy - government run by crazy people.
March: So, there's brand new news that George W. Bush, the most vacant president of our time, was fully briefed about the looming disaster of Katrina.
April: Jeff Fucking Passan is the new head baseball writer for Yahoo! Sports and makes not even the slightest nod to any pretense of editorial objectivity in his slash and slander columns.
May: I don't get some online companies.
June: Barry Bonds has taken over sole possession of the #2 spot on the all-time home run list after crushing a ball against the Rockies.
July: Drunk and Jacking Off is No Way to Drive but it is apparently acceptable if you happen to also be an NBA star driving your Escalade drunk, jacking off to a porn being played on your dash video system and plowing into some dude's Suburban.
August: That's right, kids, you too can be a stripper who fights crime!
September: Some atmospheric good news to share, Images: NASA says ozone layer is healing.
October: Foley's Exchange With Underage Page wherein the creep-factor goes clean off the scale.
November: Uninformed - I have this thing in my brain that refuses to see the uniformed as someone wearing a uniform, I almost always read it as un-informed.
December: Have you noticed a radical upswing in the volume of spam lately?

Tags: meme, retrospective, first post, month

Joel Stein says Have something to say? I don't care. He doesn't want your email or phone calls because he doesn't want an interaction with his readers, he wants them to read, nod and then tell other people what an amazing, life-changing experience it was to suck at the literary and worldly teat that is Joel Stein's Op-Ed drivel.

Hey Joel, your ploy worked! Your angry bleating has gotten a tremendous amount of coverage across the internets. The only problem? Pretty much everyone thinks you're a grumpy old goat who should bleat a little more quietly. (oh, any by "pretty much everyone" I mean me).

I didn't read you before your rant about not wanting contact and I highly doubt I'll ever read you again after your rant. You didn't win or lose except now I think you're kind of an asshole so maybe that's a lean towards the loss side?

PS. If you feel like giving ol' Joel a poke with the email stick, drop him a note.

One way I know Christmas will be here soon is when Nande, my big dog, has a birthday. She was born by emergency surgery on the 23rd of December three years ago. One of a litter of twelve that were a gradient scale between Catahoula and Rottie. Some had the two toned eye thing going, some had the exact coloring of the full sized Rotts. And all were pretty funny and sweet.

Anyway, that was three years ago now. She's a full grown and fully in her prime hound dog and its easy to forget that she really is in the best shape of her life. Its easier to remember when you go out for a few miles of trail riding.

On her third birthday, we spent a good chunk of the day riding around in the mud, crossing streams and tearing along trails. I got to see her in action, she's amazingly fast on a trail, easily able to outrun me on a flat and even on a downhill. The ride was fun too, intersparsed with ample opportunity for her to pal around with Brady, my pal's big black lab.

I'm looking forward to my next opportunity to go out and ride with her. If the weather would stop with the rain for a day or two then I might get another ride in before going back to work.

Sadly we did not have a chance to get out and bike and run again. We did get out to the dog park a bunch of days in a row. Oh how I cannot wait to move back to town.

Tags: birthday, dog, trail riding, fun, ATB, mountain bike

Mob burns house of village thug. He was an ass who used a gun or knife to threaten people, took whatever he wanted from shops and basically made everyone's life suck. So, one guy beat the crap out of him, he came back with buddies and burnt the bar down (maybe the bar was owned by the guy who kicked his ass or maybe the ass kicking just happened there). He was arrested for that and, while he was held in police custody, the townspeople burnt Bernui's home, garage, two cars, a van, two quad bikes and a motorbike and blocked the path of firefighters so they couldn't salvage anything.

I bet he wasn't treated very nicely at the police station either.

Not that he really deserved the kid glove treatment or anything.

Tags: thug, revolt, revenge, burn

Bent Corner went shopping at Wal-Mart (something I try not to hold against people) and found shirts for sale with the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf emblazoned upon them.

Someone should maybe do a little research on their iconography before the put it up for sale, no?

Or is just a shirt? What if they started selling shirts that had the word JEW crossed out? What if they started selling shirts that had the word GAY crossed out? Would that still be just a shirt?

The combination of the new environment and seeing his favoritest cousin in the whole world propelled Graydon hours and hours past his regularly scheduled 8 pm bedtime last night. Combined with the new place and new kids he'd been playing with, Graydon was so charged up last night that he probably ran close to two miles in short loops through the kitchen, into the living room and then down the hallway to the kitchen again.

We were spending the last night of 2006 and first morning of 2007 at the Pigeon Point Hostel. For a pretty reasonable deal, we shared one bedroom with three bunkbeds in it and also shared common space with the occupants of the other two rooms. And the lighthouse was literally right above us, it was neat. The ocean cooperated last night too and was thrashing the shoreline.

Drinking is verbotten though so we had to hide our wine and forties. One couple in room #1 seemed nice enough, the guy reminded me of my step-dad only with a brown beard. The couple in the other room had two kids, Medina and Jammal. Very nice and sweet children who asked us to return and spend tonight with them there again. Not sure about us though, we did stay up until after midnight. Grady didn't quite make it though, finally crashing out at a couple minutes past 11:30.

He and I got to share a bunk while my lovely wife curled up with Sully when we went to bed a while after midnight.

And it was beautiful this morning. Clear and cold but with beautiful reds, oranges and yellows. And the nice thing is that the drive home was only about an hour.

Tags: hostel, Pigeon Point, New Year's Eve, holiday