Intellectual Poison

I swear I'm not making this one up. It came up while I was defining words on FreeRice.com.

Flense means to strip blubber from.

How lovely. I wonder if there's an odd word for seal clubbing?

Labels: words

Why do sites feel compelled to spawn a new tab or window for every link you click on? Its a pain in the ass to have to keep shutting down previous tabs when they do this. Is this some way to game advertising or do they do it because they are just so very, very proud of their homepages that they want to keep them loaded up on your browser forever and ever.

This spawning problem is less annoying then the sites that hijack browsers altogether and then see fit to make them as large as possible, difficult to close and overload processors with garbage media embedded in the page. Actually, those sites are waaaay more annoying.

But window and tab spawning is stupid too.

I guess I'm on a stupid and pointless kick these days.

[Update: To clarify my point of annoyance! Sites that open a new window with each click annoy me. Either a new window or a tab. What this means is that, if you go four pages deep into the site, you've got five windows or new tabs. Unlike most sites where the clicked link opens up in the same window or you can right click and choose to open one in a new tab or window.]

Labels: advertising, internets

Doubledygook - (pronounced double-de-gook) repeating back whatever you say when you resort to nonsense words.

This is a fun game I play with my little boys all the time. Sully is just starting to speak and I'll parrot him to see if I can get him to repeat what he said.

For an 18 month old he's got a pretty decent vocabulary. So far my favorite saying of his is when he gets very proud of himself and proclaims "Big Boy!".

Labels: nwotd, raising children

Totally and shamelessly taken from the Midvale School for Gifted Alumni. I think I'm going to try and do this from memory just for fun, guesses will be in italics.

How many total songs?
6096 but this may be low since I'm still recovering from the hard drive failure earlier this summer.

Sort by song title - first and last...
A-Plus by Hieroglyphics
30,000 Pounds of Bananas by Harry Chapin

Sort by time - shortest and longest...
Chico Boy by Scapegoat Wax at 14 seconds
Blues for Y2K by Robert Walter's 20th Congress

Sort by Album - first and last...
Billie Holliday's The A - Z Encyclopedia
Deltron 3030's 3030 Instrumentals

Sort by Artist - first and last...
Woke Up This Morning by A3
I Need a Hot Girl by 504 Boys

Top five played songs...
Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone by Bill Withers (84 plays)
Take Your Mama Out by The Scissor Sisters (76 plays)
Your Latest Trick by Dire Straits (72 plays)
Dibi Dibi Rek by Ismael Lo (67 plays)
A Love From Outer Space by Tahiti 80 (67 plays)

Find the following words. How many songs show up?
Sex: 37
Death: 13
Love: 313
You: 545
Home: 53
Boy: 162
Girl: 112

First five songs that come up on Party Shuffle...
You Shook Me All Night Long by AC/DC
No Particular Place to Go by Chuck Berry
Think by James Brown
The House of Love by The Beatles
Removable Tattoo (rare jungle remix #1) by Sade

Labels: itunes, meme, music

How about a gastronomic Cheddar X for a little change?

1. What do you make sure you keep in your fridge at all times?
For me? Mustard, in about six or seven different varieties. For my two boys, milk and lots of it!

2. What is the oddest thing in your fridge?
The severed goat's head comes to mind but its worth it for when guests visit. Actually, the oddest thing is a shelf organizer that came with the fridge, takes up a ton of space and has nothing in it.

3. What is the oddest thing in your freezer?
Frozen baby teethers for when Sully's teeth start to really bug him.

4. What is your go to comfort food?
An organic Cheetoh's knock off.

5. What food reminds you of your childhood?
Peanut butter fluff sandwiches (or Fluffernutters if you're cool enough) for good memories. Split Pea Soup for the bad memories (sorry, Mom, the stuff is nasty!).

6. How often do you eat out?
Not very often, maybe once or twice a week for lunch. We will get take out every so often when neither of us feels like cooking.

7. What are you most likely to get at a drive thru?
A cheeseburger with bacon these days.

8. What's your favorite fast food?
In-n-Out Burger, the fries are fantastic and the burgers are consistently excellent, I just wish we had one closer to where we live.

Labels: cheddar x, food

One Laptop Per Child sued for patent infringement because they dared to include multiple shift keys to support multiple languages to help keep the cost of these machines to a minimum.

Lancor wants to be paid for their allegedly stolen technology.

Sorry but my BS detector went off when I found out that Lancor is based in Nigeria, the home of the email scam.

If OLPC did illegally steal the design then they should be punished for it but I'm going to go out on a limb and file this lawsuit with all of the other patent infringement lawsuits that have been used as a substitute for a real business plan and/or sellable products.

Gifts for Every Geek: Shutterbugs, Empty Nesters, Foodies and Urban Commandos

Which include some pretty darned awesome goodies depending on what makes you salivate. I'm a foodie, motorhead, urban commando, modernist, shutterbug and mediaphile. I tend to think that I'm the easiest person in the world to shop for and not just because I have an Amazon wishlist.

If its new, has flashing lights, flies, makes sweet noises or takes pictures or all of the above then I'm pretty sure to want it and have a great time playing with it.

Which reminds me, I should go and update my wishlist. With some new cool schwag like the new Leatherman Skeletool or the remarkably practical and very coolly named Cube Jigger (though I'd have to say that Unica's web site ranks among the worst I've ever been to, too much information-itis) and, of course, I'd love me an iPhone.

But I think this Christmas will be pretty low key given I was off work for 8 months this last year. It will be better than a Christmas with me still looking for work though, that's for sure.

I'm off to update my Amazon Wish List! Woot!

Labels: cool, gadget, geek, gifts

Universal Music's CEO Gleefully Explains How Clueless He Is

Nothing like someone making millions of dollars who has absolutely no clue how to capitalize on the changing landscape of digital music and revenue streams.

Not only that but Universal Music CEO Doug Morris appears to be a business moron as well. He'd rather make a dime off you today then a dollar down the line. That's not just short sighted, that's bad and stupid business.

Redskins' Taylor Dies Day After Shooting after having his home invaded by robbers, now murderers.

What a waste of a life, of someone with great talent and, apparently, a pretty decent human being.

"This is the worst imaginable tragedy," Redskins owner Daniel Snyder said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with Sean's family."

Redskins teammate Clinton Portis also played with Taylor at the University of Miami. He had sensed a new maturity in his close friend.

"It's hard to expect a man to grow up overnight," Portis said. "But ever since he had his child, it was like a new Sean, and everybody around here knew it. He was always smiling, always happy, always talking about his child."

Okay, two thoughts, one, Daniel, if the single death of a single player is the worst thing you can imagine then I truly feel sorry for how tiny your little brain is. Why the first part of his quote was included in the article is beyond me. Second, Clinton Portis' quote is much more heartfelt and real.

I'm sorry for Sean Taylor's death, it didn't have to happen. Nobody should die because some scumbags decided to invade his home. You should be able to feel safe in your own home.

Labels: death, home invasion, NFL

Nope, not yet another post about how wonderful my two little boys are, though they are.

This one is about putting thought into action by taking those first little steps to start a project. You see, we've been talking about yard work for a long time, plans to move a whole pile of dirt from the end of the yard up closer to the main yard, to make some space near the fence and to keep Nande from scaring the bejezeesus out of people by sticking her head over the fence to bark at them as they walk up the hill.

And all it had been was talk because it always felt like it was too much to try and do without powertools.

But we put the shovel out near the fence with the intention of just doing a little bit when we were outside to get it underway. Well, both boys love to play in the dirt, of course and it gives me something tangible to get into at the end of the day.

The funny thing about starting projects is that they tend to get done. In the span of a few short days, I've relocated a reasonably good sized pile of dirt from near the fence to up under the bushes. The job isn't done but it is substantially far enough along to all but guarantee completion.

And it serves as an excellent lesson that projects that never get started will never get done. And it feels pretty damned awesome to make headway on projects that have been awaiting attention for so long.

Soon we'll be able to start putting in the retaining wall to protect the slope a bit, recapture some lost yard space and prevent the dog from scaring walkers. All good things. And we'll also have learned that projects that don't get started are very unlikely to ever get finished.

Labels: house projects, life lessons

IBM to shove ads onto DVDs regardless of whether you want them there or not.

Which is just like most other failed or failing advertising schemes that equate forced viewing with more sales.

Overtly advertising to me while I watch a movie is a pretty solid way to permanently turn me off to your product. Please do not do this, please do not purchase this advertising and do not purchase DVDs that are known to have this garbage on them.

More advertising is not the answer.

Beauty queen overcomes spiked makeup for crown

Spiked makeup and a gown soaked in pepper spray which caused her to swell up and break out in hives. And there's almost nothing worse than a beauty queen all uglied up by hives and swelling.

Seriously, this being called a prank when it was pretty clearly an attempt to derail Ingrid Marie Rivera's ascent to competing in the Miss Universe pageant.

Of course, the majority of interest in the story is because she's absolutely drop dead gorgeous and everyone loves a story with a smoking hot central character. But the intrigue of the monkey wrenching the show is pretty ripe stuff too.

I. Thou shalt ensure the inclusion of an off switch on noisy toys.
II. Thou shalt ensure a mute or quiet switch on noisy toys.
III. Thou shalt include an extra set of batteries.
IV. Thou deliverest loud instrument type toys only unto parents you do not like.
V. Thou shalt bequeath age appropriate toys, too young and boredom cometh, too old and frustration cometh.
VI.Thou shalt consider the size of the toy.
VII. Thou shalt seek permission before offering toys of war.
VIII. Knoweth that a toy that imparts annoyance in short order in the store will absolutely drive the parents crazy.
IX. Thou shalt consider younger siblings and refrain from purchasing toys with many small parts.
X. Thou shalt try to gift durable, useful and educational toys above others but books are good too.

Labels: commandments, rules

Here are a couple of new words that have been sitting in my drafts for a little while. Two scatological ones and a cute one about dogs, oh boy!

Suppositorily - a theorem pulled from one's ass or, perhaps, inserted into one's ass

Sloppository - um, when you miss the first time?

Fluppy - floppy puppy

Labels: nwotd

I'm not worried that my dog is going to hurt someone, intentionally. I'm not worried that she's going to be a mean animal or a menace, except in the pesty term and not the vicious, snarling way.

My fear is that she'll get out and will charge someone who has a fear of dogs and, in retreat, accidentally hurts themselves. Nande gets labeled as vicious and is either put down or gets a one strike and put down rating.

The solution, of course, is to never let her off leash, ever. Which blows. But it certainly beats having to deal with my dog being put down for an accidental scaring.

One nice thing is that there are several places in the county where off-leash dogs are expected and accepted, if not explicitly legal. We're lucky enough to have a great dog park with a big enclosure that she can really run in. It also has a half mile perimeter path that dogs are supposed to be on leash for but most people let the dogs roam free. I take the opportunity to run her by pretending to throw rocks into the tall brush (and yes, I rub her down afterwards to make sure she doesn't pick up and foxtails or ticks).

She's a good dog but she's also a big dog and I worry that her size and vivaciousness will someday be her undoing.

I'm almost used to good manners being a complete afterthought in Watsonville, where I currently live. Almost because its still a pain in the ass when some fat cracker knocks into you and then looks at you like you got in their way on purpose. Or that there's absolutely no manners from people on the road.

It is annoying but there's really not much that can be done about it. Not without taking a tire iron to people's heads all the time and I'm not sure the message would come across anyway. And I'd just end up getting arrested.

But when someone is in a crosswalk, with a dog, it is the rare occasion when a car slows down and almost unheard of for them to stop and allow you to cross the street.

Today, when I took Nande down for a short run in the slough, one car approaching stopped for me, which was nice. The car on the other side stopped as well, which was amazing. And the car behind that one laid on his horn because he was so inconvenienced by having to move his big fat foot to the brake pedal. And, I know I shouldn't have, but I could resist shouting a little bit at him about crosswalks and traffic laws.

It galls the hell out of me that people are such overt assholes on the road. It makes pretty sad to know that my children already have better manners than most of the adults in my town. Poor manners are a sign of poor parenting and I'd have to say that most of the parents in my town failed, badly.

Labels: manners

Apparently some websites haven't gotten the memo that pop under advertisements do not work and are just an annoyance to surfers. Pop ups are worthless too but are slightly less annoying since you actually see them and can just close them.

But both pop ups and pop unders are just stupid wastes of money. Yes, I'm looking at your Classmates.com.

I was under the understanding that FireFox was supposed to block these stupid and pointless ads and yet they seem to keep popping under my browser window.

Its time for some new ad models, preferably ones that don't rely on hiding themselves and being annoying but I'm not holding my breath.

Labels: advertising, dumb marketing

It was about time to put up a new Cheddar X (and hey, I upgraded the blog as well!) so here it is.

1. What are your top 5 political annoyances?
Rudy Guiliani - he looks like a goblin when he grins
John McCain - never met a jowl he didn't like and that whole pandering thing
ShrubCo - he's a leader only he's led us down a dark and very dangerous path
Dick Cheney - he's just a mean and vindictive old bastard
The bile that passes for debate spewed by jackasses like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and others. They are poisonous to real debate about the real issues facing our country.

2. What are your top 4 entertainment annoyances?
Paris Hilton, the show Friends, Simon Cowell and Dr. Phil.

3. What are your top 3 family annoyances?
Not having enough money move, having to work when I'd rather be with my kids and feeling like the mess and clutter are neverending. Sorry, going for #4, the screeching contests my two boys engage in, they make me feel like my ears are bleeding.

4. What are your top 2 SO (that's signicant other) annoyances?
Um, I'll respectfully pass on this one. Oh what the hell, she doesn't turn things off (tv's, computers, lights, etc.) and she doesn't put things away in a reasonable period of time.

5. What is your single greatest annoyance right now?
Not being able to sell this damned house and move somewhere with more space, more privacy and a bigger yard for Nande to roam (and poop) in.

Labels: cheddar x

Saudi gang rape sentence 'unjust'

Which seems like the rapists were complaining about their punishment. But you'd be wrong, the victim of a gang rape by 7 men has been sentenced to 200 lashes and 6 months in prison because she violated some laws on the segregation of the sexes by being in an unrelated man's car at the time of the attack.

In other words, she was at fault so the gang rape she suffered through wasn't enough punishment and now she gets to go to prison and be beaten with a whip.

Yes, the rapists were punished as well with under a year to five years in prison.

What in the name of all that is right is wrong with these freaking people? Beating a rape victim and putting her in prison for being in a man's car? How deeply, deeply wrong this "justice" system is. To say I am disgusted is extreme understatement.

Target: Sportbikes

Expounded on in greater detail at NorCal Bikers

Army Desertion Rate Highest Since 1980

Army Suicides Highest in 26 Years

US Military Deaths in Iraq at 3,864

Casualties of the Iraq War

And the Bushies have the gall to pretend that everything is going well in Iraq?

Barry Bonds indicted on 4 perjury counts, obstruction of justice

Okay, I've been reading and hearing about this since it broke yesterday afternoon. Here are some thoughts that I'm sure the Bonds bashers will have a field day rejecting.

- If Bonds is being indicted then where is the indictment against Rafael Palmiero who swore during a televised interview in front of a grand jury that he's never used steroids and then got booted out of the game a few months later for failing a steroids test?

- How much money has been wasted on this stupid witch hunt and to what end?

- If Bonds is found not guilty then more money is going to be wasted as he'll undoubtedly sue for lost wages since he's unsignable now.

- Ronnie Lott on KNBR this morning made an interesting comparison between Pat Tillman's death and shameful coverup and this witch hunt against Bonds. If the government could so completely botch Tillman's death then why in the hell should they be trusted to handle this properly?

- I find it rather shady that Greg Anderson, Bonds' trainer, was released the same day the indictments came down. Not that I expect he talked but that I think they want the Bonds camp to think he did in order to create divisions and try to turn him.

- Bud Selig and other complicit owners that looked the other way while steroid use was tacitly condoned needs to be held accountable as well. The singling out of Bonds and the attempt to whitewash the other players, owners, managers and coaches from any suspicion is shameful and deeply wrong.

- Victor Conte, the head of BALCO, made some good points about chain of custody and the reality of what was available over the counter in 2005.

- I've heard that he might be facing 30 years for perjury. Thirty years when Scooter Libby outed a CIA operative and destroyed decades of intelligence work and was in prison for less than 6 months is just so incredibly out of whack and wrong. Scooter Libby (and Rove and the other traitors pretending to be patriots) exposed our country and our people to terrorist attacks and death. Bonds allegedly used drugs to hit a baseball further, what's wrong with the scope of crime here?

The end result of all of this will be a huge amount of wasted money to no good purpose. Even if Bonds does jail time, does that absolve MLB from the steroid and PED problem? Does it solve any real problems in cheating in sports? Or does it just punish one player for the "crimes" of a whole sport?

I am all for holding cheaters accountable but I'm for holding ALL cheaters accountable, not just a couple of high profile people who happen to be jerks.

This is beautiful, hilarious and so neatly displays the mental hoops one must have bound to themselves to actually buy into Creationism as a belief system. By the way, I'm now calling Creationists, Contradictionists because its more accurate and more fun that way.

Check out the entire photoset, A Visit to the Creation Museum, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder just how dense someone has to be to really buy into this load of garbage.

Found via Intellectual Properties.

Labels: bad logic, creationism

Here are some interesting facts about gold that you may not have known.

- The Aztec word for gold is teocuitlatl which translates to "excrement of the gods."

- Conrad Reed found a 17 pound lump of gold on his father's farm in North Carolina in 1799, the first documented discovery of gold in the US. The family used it for a doorstop for three years before a local jeweler identified it. Said local jeweler bought the rock for $3.50, less than one thousandth of its value.

- A one ounce piece of gold can be beaten into a translucent sheet five-millionths of an inch thick or drawn out into 50 miles (MILES!) of wire five micrometeres thick - one tenth the diameter of a human hair.

- Gold is virtually indestructible and has been highly valued throughout history. Upwards of 85 of all gold ever found is still being used today.

- The largest reservoirs of gold on the surface of the earth, an estimated 10 billion tons, are the oceans. There is no practical way to extract it though.

- In 1999, the NEAR spacecraft showed that a single asteroid, Eros, contains more gold than has ever been mined on Earth. There's no way to retrieve that gold, yet.

Labels: facts, gold

Taipei diner attracts clients with toilet humor

That is ice cream in a miniature toilet shaped to look like poop. And you're supposed to eat it. No really. Apparently there are a whole bunch of wanna-be poop eaters in Taipei. Taipei, incidentally, has just been crossed off of my list of places I want to visit. Coincidence? No.

Modern Toilet draws on people ages 15 to 35, especially students from the three universities near Yang's facilities because they're "easily excited," Yang said. He said older people just wouldn't get it.

Wouldn't get it? Or are smart enough to know that eating poop or simulating the eating of excrement is gross, wrong and a sign of mental illness.

Now, if you wanted to go there as a joke then I could see it being pretty funny. But there's a limit to any humor I'm finding in it. I'm sure Ryan will find it he-larry-us.

By the way, here's a lovely term for an eater of excrement, coprophage. Copro for crap, phage for eat. The more you know!

Labels: coprophagia, gross, potty humor, TMI

Otherwise known as the link dump.

Morford's latest: Outrage Fatique hits home, its too easy (and plays directly in their gameplan) to just tune out the scandals, hypocrisy and stupidity of our government leaders.

The zeroHouse is very green, off-the-grid and cool looking too. No electrical hook ups, no sewage hookups. I want one.

Next up is a video of Time-lapse photography at Vikings-Packers game. Pretty cool to watch a day in the life of Lambeau Field.

And here we can learn how to
Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800 which doesn't include the hours of work to get this Frankenputer working.

Here are some cool Ipod skins to Steampunk-ify it.
Gelaskins: Steampunk because everyone knows if its cool it becomes cooler when it gets Steampunk'd.

Labels: greentech, ipod, links, macintosh, politics

So alot of the shows on tv have gone into hiding with their writers on strike, including Saturday Night Live and, I'm guessing they have writers, MadTV.

Because the world needs a good laugh and sometimes even a pitying chuckle will do, I thought I'd offer what help I can.

So here's my idea for a couple of skits:
Dog the Bounty Whisperer - an N word spewing Cesar Millan uses passive dominance techniques to control the targets of his operations. He would have a flak jacket, tattoos and a mullet as well as a couple of tough looking leashes hanging from his utility belt. And, once he'd coerced the bail skippers into custody, he'd sit down and have a heart to heart with them about finding Dog.

The Britney Alert - Expanding on the Amber Alert, child abduction notification system, California is planning on implementing the Britney Alert, a system to alert drivers that Britney Spears is driving on public roads and your toes are not safe.

[Update: Another new skit.
Steampunk'd - A new show where people get tricked into thinking something they value has been lost or stolen and it gets a steampunking treatment. And no, Ashton Kutcher will not be hosting. For more Steampunk goodness, swing by the Steampunk Workshop]

Labels: satire, skit, steampunk, writer's strike

Cruise Ship Built at Home

It took him 11 years to make but this gentleman designed (well, copied) and then built his own cruise ship. And now he's sailing the seven seas.

If you work at something hard enough and long enough, you can achieve your goals. A good lesson to keep in mind.

An interesting comparison in this month's Discover magazine.

To produce 115,400 Btu, the amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline, it'll cost you:
Gasoline: $3.35
Nuclear: $3.75
Solar: $14.44
Hydropower: $0.91
Wind: $1.66
Geothermal: $1.69
Biofuel: $2.70
Natural Gas: $5.37

Nuclear, Solar, Hydro and Natural Gas are based on high average price per kilowatt-hour according to the California Energy Commission.

Solar will continue to get less expensive as the technology develops. Wind is already a great deal and I've love to get a residential wind turbine going. Heck, I'd love a farm of them. But Hydropower trumps them all and by a decent margin.

Just some energy food for thought.

Labels: energy

We had a fun holiday today and took advantage of the amazing fall weather we get in Santa Cruz. It took some effort but we loaded up the car with two bikes, the Wee Ride and the Trail-a-Bike.

We parked outside of Natural Bridges on the northern end of town and pedaled down to West Cliff, followed it all the way down to the lighthouse (with the wind) and then back out to Natural Bridges.

Due to technical difficulties, both Sully and Grady rode with me. Sully in his perch on the Wee Ride with a great view and well protected inside my arms. Grady trailing behind me on his one-wheeled Trail-a-Bike. His legs aren't long enough to pedal but he's trying. And he gets to learn how to hang on and lean and get comfortable on two wheels. But he is alot closer to needing his own bike to learn on his own.

But we'll cross that bridge when we have to. For now, it is alot easier to keep us all moving in the same direction together.

We had a nice snack break in the crow's nest above the beach and both the boys were ready to go riding some more. Which makes this two wheeling poppa very happy! I shot some video of the ride but it doesn't get us with on the bike, just the path in front of us.

A quick thought about walkers, they seem to tend to expand all the way across a path if they can. And single walkers will almost invariably walk down the middle of the path regardless of oncoming or overtaking traffic. Kind of odd but it was alright. No close calls at all is a good ride (and no scratches to allow the skin eating bacteria in to eat me alive, Su).

Really a perfect way to spend a day off for Veteran's Day.

Labels: bike ride, family, santa cruz

Lifted from Lujza.

1. Do you like cheese?
Heck yeah. When I was a kid I used to get a container of parmesean as a joke gift. Favorite these days is Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar.

2. Have you ever smoked heroin?
Um no, not to my knowledge.

3. Do you own a gun?
Yep. Its kept locked up.

4. Your favorite song?
Hard to say as it depends on my mood. I've been enjoying Don Tiki's "The Natives are Restless" alot. Favorite song of all time is probably something classic by The Beatles or Led Zeppelin.

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
Depends if the exam includes a prostate check.

6. What do you think of hot dogs?
They're gross since they're made of leftover meats and dyed to look uniform but the Miller's hot dogs are pretty damned tasty too.

7. Favorite Christmas song?
Mela Kamiki by Jimmy Buffett. Or Christmas in Capetown by Randy Newman.

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Coffee and I try to follow it up with the same amount of water.

9. Can you do push ups?
Yeah, a few. I once did 15 one armed pushups.

10. What do you think about your job?
I love it. Kids are almost always a hoot. And, since I'm an unabashed geek, I like messing around with computers all day and resolving other people's problems with them. Its also a totally sweet commute.

11. What’s your favorite piece of jewelry?
The only jewelry I have is a gold wedding band.

12. Favorite hobby?
Going out for long bike rides with my dog through the redwoods. I also love photography but not sure if that counts as a hobby since I've been earning some money by doing it.

13. Bedtime?
I shoot for 11 but usually end up going to bed closer to midnight.

14. Do you have A.D.D.?
No but I am highly distractable.

15. What one trait do you hate about yourself?
I wish I could focus more and see individual tasks through to completion more quickly.

16. Middle Name?
Carl, after my father and his father before him and his father before him. I'm the 13th Carl in the line and Grady is the 14th.

17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment…
Need to go use the bathroom.
Is my lip healing or getting worse.
Not looking forward to a couple of hours of driving tomorrow even though I'm very much looking forward to the party on the other end.

18. Name 3 things you bought yesterday.
Sake, beer and cheesecake.

19. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink.
Coffee, diet Coke and Ovaltine (and water, of course).

20. Current worry right now?
Not getting my first paycheck until the 10th of December.

21. Current hate?
People who behave like they are the only people that exist. A pretty prevalent attitude in my town unfortunately.

22. Favorite place to be?
On the beach with my wife, kids and dog.

23. How did you bring in the New Year?
At Pigeon Point up on the coast with my family and my wife's brother and his family. It was a ton of fun.

24. Where would you like to go?
Back to South Africa.

25. Name three people who will complete this.
I can name three people I'd like to read their responses to this since I don't know for sure who will pick it up.
I'd like to read Amy, Ryan and seed.

26. Do you own slippers?
Yes, but I rarely wear them.

27. What shirt are you wearing?
My black OP long sleeve pique.

28. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets?
No, not really, too much like a slip n'slide.

29. Can you whistle?
Yep, quite well. I can whistle without pausing for breath because I can whistle while inhaling as well as exhaling. And Grady has learned how to whistle already as well.

30. Favorite color?
Green

31. Would you be a pirate?
No, they smell, they have awful teeth and they live by making other people miserable. I do like rum, swords and firearms though.

32. What songs do you sing in the shower?
Where'd you go? by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

33. Favorite girl’s name?
Alexandra.

34. Favorite boy’s name?
Draco, just kidding. I guess I'm partial to Graydon and Sullivan but I've also been a fan of Nicholas for a long time too.

35. What’s in your pocket right now?
My wallet and I had some Super Immunity Boosters from Trader Joe's but I already took them as I'm fighting off a cold (working around so many kids will do that).

36. Last thing that made you laugh?
Gotta be my boys, they are pretty damned funny when they aren't being pretty damned annoying.

37. Best bed sheets as a child?
My Star Wars sheets stand out.

38. Worst injury you’ve ever had?
Blowing my right ankle all to hell and requiring surgery three times including plates and screws. Yeah, that was a tough way to start my sophomore year of college.

39. What happened to 39?
Ten months from now.

40. How many TVs do you have in your house?
Three.

41. Who is your loudest friend?
My wife can get loud when she gets worked up. But both of my boys can be excrutiatingly loud with their screeching contests.

42. This was missing from Lujza's 50 so I'll make one up: Favorite gadget?
Probably my Clie UX50 because my Rebel XTi isn't a gadget, its a full on camera.

43. Does someone have a crush on you?
Probably, I'm a pretty nice guy.

44. What’s your favorite quote?
"Winners never quit and quitters never win."

45. What is your favorite book?
A Mantis Carol by Sir Laurens van der Post.

46. What is your favorite candy?
Skor or Watchamacallit or Butterfingers.

47. Favorite Sports Team?
Probably the San Francisco Giants.

48. What song do you want played at your funeral?
Where'd You Go by the Bosstones.

49. What were you doing 12 AM last night?
Sleeping, like a good boy!

50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up?
"What's that noise?" my wife asked me if someone was going through our garbage.

Labels: 50 odd things, q and a

Tivo rocks, there is no question about it. It has completely changed how we watch and enjoy television. But, as with anything, there is always room for improvement. Here's my list of "Wants" for my Tivo.

1. If it has three thumbs down on it (i.e. shows I hate) then change the channel off of it.
2. If it has three thumbs up and I'm watching it then don't change the channel to a suggested recording, ever.
3. Figure out the difference between previous season reruns and new episodes.
4. If I've deleted a suggested recording three times without viewing it then stop recording it as a suggestion.
5. Stop recording channels that no longer broadcast.
6. A channel lock so that I can watch a show without having to keep telling it not to change to a suggested recording (sometimes I don't want to record it but still want to watch it).

I'm sure I'll come up with more but this is a pretty good list of feature requests for now. Tivo-techs, why don't you get started on these and I'll update this post as I come up with more.

Labels: feature request, improvement, tivo

I was just watching Pimp My Ride where they took a piece of shit Subaru and turned it into a rally car with a couple of other special things. Overall I thought the job they did was pretty mediocre. Some of the cars they redo are pretty good, most are gaudy and cheesy as hell looking. And I expect that the cars get beat to hell pretty quickly since most of the owners are irresponsible or their car's wouldn't be so beat to hell in the first place.

But what I wanted to write about was the name of the car owner's friend which is the official tipping point for stupid names.

Her name was Loinette. Loin-ette. Like a small loin. A loin is a human or an animal's crotch.

What kind of crack were her parents smoking to come up with that freakin' name?

Also, there's an announcer on Disney, a black girl named Simmi, as in simian. Awful and wrong.

Almost as bad are the people with standard names just spelled in the most annoying way they could come up with. I saw a photographer named Airic which was stupid and pretentious. But not the absolutely most annoying way to spell Erik. No, that would be Aeryique. Makes you want to puke and then punch me in the face, doesn't it?

Oh yeah, I know a little boy who's name is, no joke, Draco. Luckily he's going to be a big boy when he grows up so he'll be able to kick the hell out of people who make fun of him.

Parents, name your dog or cat those stupid, stupid names and try to name your children something reasonably normal. Or, if you're going to go unique, then keep in mind that your kid is going to have to live with it until they're old enough to change it legally themselves. Or make it a name that lends itself to a shorter and less "out there" name. Please, for all our sakes.

Labels: names, unique

I saw this on Amy's blog last week and had some fun working out my vocabulary. The site is called FreeRice and purports to donate 10 grains of rice for each word you get right. Granted, ten grains of doesn't sound like too much but the site says they donated 48 million grains yesterday and that ain't chickenfeed.

They will also score your vocab level to make you feel good (or bad) about how smart you are.

[Update: The program has proven to be a huge success and has already generated enough rice to feed 50,000 people! Not to mention the positive effect of word play on the people clicking on FreeRice!]

Labels: donation, vocabulary

Meet Britney, the Pop Star

On Planet Britney, her status as a pop star mean she's too busy to follow court ordered drug testing and basically try to prove that she's a good parent. Instead, she has her lawyer issue statements about how her life is so busy and she's out so late doing "pop star" stuff, which I take to mean partying and drinking, that she can't be bothered to make her appointments to be drug tested.

I'm sure the judge and legal system will understand.

The last of the preliminary bouts on The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) took place and Tommy "Farmboy" Speer pretty well pounded the crap out of Warmachine. Warmachine landed an early blow between Tommy's eyes that made him bleed alot and nearly choked him out early in the first but that was all he was able to do. Tommy dominated him and really pounded him good. Hard enough to make Warmachine not be able to get back to his corner under his own power and then he fell off his stool.

A good, if bloody, fight.

And Jean-Robert, the fat, greasy slimeball poker player on Survivor finally got rejected by the rest of the survivors and booted. The guy is my second least favorite player of all time, behind the most annoying reality wanker of all time who won't even be named here because it probably gives him a stiffy to know how much people still hate him. But he's the scraggly dink that Danny Bonaduce tossed off of him and sent him in for a whole bunch of facial surgery after he used his face as a landing pad a few weeks or a month ago.

I still dislike Matt Serra on TUF but his day of reckoning is coming and it'll be hard for him to talk while he's getting his ass kicked.

Now all I need is for my lip to heal up and I'll be a much happier camper again.

Labels: reality tv, survivor, the ultimate fighter

My wife told me about her trip to a local park yesterday with the boys. She noticed a mother and her son who arrived after she had and that they were keeping to themselves, away from a gaggle of other mothers.

Nothing too unusual about that since not all parents want to be pals with every other parent they see.

But after the other group had left and it was just my wife and the boys she drifted closer. And it was hard to miss her big black eye.

Without prying it seemed pretty obvious what was happening and that she was a victim of domestic violence. Having lived through her own sister going through the same thing, my wife was still unsure of what to do. Wife beaters do not, all of a sudden, see the light and stop being abusive assholes. Generally what happens is there's an incident or episode that results in a violent reaction, there's an apology period, a honeymoon period and then a slow build up to another, sometimes escalated, violent episode.

They are rarely one time events, just like infidelity and pedophilia.

We talked about it and what she might have been able to do. We know that confronting her would not work, that offering help would likely result in more trouble for her and so, in the end, my wife didn't do anything.

I'd like to come up with some course of action should something like this repeat itself in our future. What would you have done?

And yes, a part of me wanted to find out where she lived and go take a baseball bat to the asshole but violence begets more violence and it wouldn't have solved anything anyway. I would have liked to have been able to give her the number of a women's shelter but I wasn't there and it could have caused more trouble too if her husband/boyfriend found it.

What would you have done if you'd been my wife? And why? And how?

Labels: abuse, violence

In this month's Popular Science there's a story about a very interesting and potentially world changing stove being developed called SCORE (Stove for Cooking, Refrigeration and Electricity).

By using thermoacoustics, the stove heats pressurized air on one side of a pipe, water keeps the other side cool and the collision of the two different temperature air masses produces sound that drives a wire coil in and out, kind of like a loudspeaker but in reverse, that creates electricity. Water running over the coldest part of the tube freezes into ice which can be used to keep a fridge cold.

How wacky is that? Make a fire to keep something cold. Who says science doesn't have a sense of humor.

The potential applications for this technology are almost limitless and could deliver safer food storage, cleaner air, more efficient resource usage and better lives for a rather insanely large portion of the world's population. And that, my friends, would really and truly make the world a better place.

Read more about it at Huliq

Labels: technology, thermoacoustic

Mom: Chemical-laced toy made son 'drunk'

Another day, another Chinese-made toy recall. This time its about Aquadots, a toy that gets arranged, sprayed with water and then sticks together. The only problem is that the beads are coated with a chemical that the body metabolizes into gamma hydroxy butyrate or GHB which can cause unconsciousness, seizures, sleepiness, coma and even death.

Wow, nice product R&D, fellas. Of course, now the sick fools that use date rape drugs to find victims will be snapping these toys up like candy.

I think the safest mantra these days is avoid the Made in China label, it basically means it will either poison you or send you into a delirious state. They'll need to prove they are harmless before I let my boys play with them.

Study: 1 Out of 4 Homeless Are Veterans

This is how we treat our heroes? We allow them to fall through the cracks and live on the street?

The problem of homelessness is shameful but that a quarter of them are our military vets is just incredibly and shamefully wrong.

I'm sure some of them are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and other ailments generated during their service and that just makes it all the worse. These men and women were used and then discarded and left to fend for themselves.

Someone once said that you can tell an awful lot about a society from how they treat their prisoners, well you can also tell an awful lot by how they treat their heroes too. And I don't like what I can tell about our country.

Labels: homeless, shame, veterans

Ill. student gets detention for hugging her friends. This isn't a teacher making unwarranted physical contact or running away to Mexico with her 13 year old lover. This is a 13 year old girl giving her friend a hug at the end of a week when she wouldn't see them until the next week.

That the district superintendent thinks the two day suspension is reasonable and fair is freaking bizarre.

What's next? Expulsion for blowing a kiss to your SO across the schoolyard? Execution for giving a high five to your teammate for scoring a goal?

Methinks some administrators need to exercise a little bit of commonsense and less bureaucratic rule pushing.

Some odd and interesting stories in the news, the first is Cow plunges off cliff onto moving minivan. Nothing like a 600 pound cow falling 200 feet and crushing your car. Except maybe an 800 pound cow crushing your car. The people in the minivan were unhurt but rather shaken, the cow had to be euthanized.

And the second is the story of Lakshmi, a little girl born in rural India with four arms and four legs. She's undergone successful surgery to remove the extra limbs and has an excellent prognosis for the future. Of course, she could have had an amazing life in the circus but I'm all for giving her an amazing life without the spotlight on her deformities.

Labels: news, odd news

Dog: I've Learned I'm Not Black at All

Okay, I'll preface this by saying that I absolutely cannot stand Dog the Bounty Hunter, not the show and not the man. Secondly, dude should try using some sunscreen, he's got leatherface up the ying-yang. Thirdly, the mullet and beads thing is probably the worst fashion statement since legwarmers. Fourthly, all the God talk to captured bail jumpers is incredibly condescending and just plain wrong.

With that out of the way, the guy uses the N word like its going out of style during a private conversation with his kid who happens to have a black girlfriend. What a great role model. The guy told his son to break up with his girlfriend because he didn't want to have to censor himself from using the N word around her and she might get offended and someone might sell the story to the Enquirer and ruin his life and all his hard work.

The reality is that Dog is a blatantly racist asshole who would rather think his son has a drug habit and needed the money byb outing him instead of realizing that maybe, just maybe, the kid loves his girlfriend and chose her over him. But who knows?

I'm just glad that awful show with him and his ridiculously huge chested wife are off the air. I hated hearing him talk about coming to God with people who broke the law because there's nothing like a sermon in handcuffs.

Good riddance to a bad and annoying Dog.

I've been having a devil of a time getting my posts to post properly lately. The connection times out and I have to redo it again and again until it finally decides to play nicely. Posts I wrote and tried to put up this morning didn't go live until tonight when I was able to babysit them for twenty minutes or so.

I don't think its Blogger (this time) so the culprit is most likely my hosting provider but I just don't have the energy to deal with a customer service call tonight. I barely have enough left in the tank to hope it works better tomorrow.

Oh and the picture? I just posted it with this one because I like it alot.

Labels: blogging, technical difficulties

You know today will be a slog when it isn't even 9 am and you're already ready to take a nap. I don't know what's going on with me. I am going to bed earlier but I am waking up more tired than when I went to bed. Its a bit frustrating and I'm sure the fever blisters aren't helping.

On a slightly positive note, I didn't have bizarre dreams last night, just odd. So that's improvement.

And, for some reason or another, Blogger isn't playing well with my hosting space so I am having massive troubles publishing my blog these days. It is taking a couple of hours and a ridiculous amount of patience to get things to post. Just what I need, more frustration.

Labels: tired

After almost averting a pumpkin seed induced fever blister attack last week, I have awoken today to another attack. This one likely brought on by a lack of (decent) sleep and some stress but probably exacerbated by the long motorcycle ride with the windy conditions.

I've been heavily dosing on lysine and Abreva and a new treatment, colloidal or nano silver. If the treatments are helping then I can't imagine how awful the full blown blisters would have been because it looks and feels like I put a lit cigarette out on my lip.

Did that make you cringe? Good. I like sharing my pain. Be glad I'm nit feeling nasty enough to take a picture.

I had better be feeling and looking better in the morning or there will be trouble.

Labels: cold sore, fever blister

We had an all family outing the dog park on Friday afternoon. A good chance to get Nande a good long run, some socialization and for everyone to spend a little quality time together without the confining walls (and mess) of the house.

We usually do a couple of loops around the perimeter to give Nande a chance to get her major ya-yas out. Its about a half mile and I make sure she runs at least two or three times that by hucking rocks for her to chase.

The boys have a good time inside the fenced in area, Grady likes to use the chuck-it like a shovel and throw scoops of wood chips and dirt. Sully just like to motor around and chase the little dogs. Occasionally, a bigger dog will deck one of the boys but they generally don't seem to care too much. And the dog owners are almost ashamed of their dog's behaviour. But we do our best to let them know that it happens, they are tough little boys and are used to big dogs with our big girl.

Anyway, one of the aspects of the park that's nice is that its a chance to chat with other dog owners, usually about dog stuff but occasionally about other things. One lady and I got to talking about kids and what a handful teenage boys were and how different her second boy is from her first. The first is 21 now and the second is, I think, 16. She said the first boy was incapable of deception and lying but she's just not quite so sure about the second boy.

I explained my perspective as being a younger brother and having to deal with the "tender mercies" of a bigger brother. Little brothers have to be tougher, smarter and, to some degree, wilier and more deceptive than the bigger brother. My brother and I are separated by three years and he's just a larger guy than I would ever be. So I had to toughen up and figure out other ways to win when we fought, either physically or verbally.

I remember playing tackle football with him and his friends as a kid and being one of the better tacklers because I went balls out after them. I didn't care about getting kicked in the face, I didn't care about getting dirty or banged up, I cared about showing them that I was every bit as tough and as good at the game as they were.

I am who I am because of my relationship to my brother as much as any other aspect of my childhood. Both good and bad.

Anyway, this lady and I were chatting and she asked how old my boys were and remarked that it might be a good thing that we started so early with our children. I asked her what she meant and she said, "Well, you can't be that old, maybe 28?" and I smiled and said, "Actually, I just turned 38 a couple of months ago".

I know I'm young at heart but its nice to know that I still look pretty young on the outside as well.

I'll have to write more about the effect of growing up in my brother's shadow sometime. Its something I think about quite often. Usually it ends up being in the negative sense but sometimes it has its positive aspects as well.

Thanks for the compliment, strange lady. I hope your younger son proves you wrong and "flies right".

Labels: compliment, life with a dog

View Larger MapSometimes you've just gotta spin your wheels to get somewhere, even if that new place is just within your own head. Instead of watching the undefeated Colts take on the undefeated Patriots, I went out for a good, long motorcycle ride. Just under a hundred and fifty miles good and long.

I'll post the route map when Google Maps decides to cooperate again.

I got to ride up through beautiful sun and back home along the coast in thick pea-soup fog that chilled me to the bones after a couple of dozen miles.

I knew there would be a lot of bikes out today and I was definitely right. Dozens if not hundreds of bikers passed me going back down towards town. I expected La Honda to be packed full but it was only about half full and I definitely didn't expect to see Mr. Popo Charley in his cruiser just up the hill from the crossroads. I guess the locals get a little tired of people buzzing down to the stop signs at high speed.

I also got a chance to see exactly what happens when a Harley with poor clearance tries to take a hairpin turn too quickly. Hint, the gent riding knows what a guardrail tastes like now. He wasn't hurt and his bike wasn't too badly messed up but he did get it wedged under there pretty well. It was a pretty good example of why I love my V-Strom, it handles beautifully, can lean way, way over and has pretty solid get-up-and-go. It isn't a Hayabusa but I don't need or want the speed and crouched style, I love my bike and just about everything about it.

And the one thing I don't like will be getting attended to this week by shaving a little off the kickstand rest so it is more solid on its stand.

I miss riding when I don't get out and chew up some miles, there's something powerful and affirming about twisting the throttle and feeling your bike leap forward. And then powering down to carve a corner before hucking the bike back over to carve a corner the other way. Its hard to not grin like a stupid monkey! And that's exactly what I needed today.

My only regret is that I didn't stop and take some photos from some of the vista points as the views were pretty stunning! Oh and I could have avoided the 156 crossover to Half Moon Bay, it was a crawl for about a six miles and no fun whatsoever!

Labels: motorcycle, ride

While I get the reasoning behind Daylight Savings Time, the practical reality of it is that it totally knocks me out of whack.

It is barely 7:30 here right now and I'm almost unable to keep my eyes open. Granted, I went on a long motorcycle ride today (I'll try to finish the write up before crashing) but the early rising combined with the time change has about done me for the day.

Of course, the two wild boys in my house are amped and literally jumping around their room and screeching like its the end of the world. I expect they will sleep in tomorrow morning, which is just fine.

I hope I can get a decent night of sleep without the freaky dreams I've been having. I know the alarm will be going off before I know it and the working man's week will start right back up again. Have I mentioned that I love my hours? I've never had a job that gets out at 3:30 in the afternoon, its quite nice!

Labels: time change, tired

My favorite not-too-subtley-biased baseball writer, Jeff Passan, has penned the Top 10 A-Rod destinations.

I call him not-too-subtley-biased because of his quite outspoken dislike, distrust and condemnation of Barry Bonds in spite of never having failed a drug test. That's fine though, he's demonstrated a capable and strong understanding of the sport outside of this particular arena and I can respect his perspective even if I did rip him a freshie when he first came to Yahoo Sports. He actually wrote me an email and thanked me for my creative nicknaming convention! Gotta love a journalist who can take it as well as dish it out.

And I like his columns, especially the ones that focus on speculating where the biggest free agent in the history of the game is going to end up. No, not Barry Bonds, we're talking about Alex Rodriguez.

Now that the Red Sox are resting on their laurels in the wake of World Series Championship #2, the baseball universe turns its eyes to the off season free agent market movers.

I hope my Giants are a real contender in landing the big fish. I think he'd love San Francisco, would love hitting in AT&T Park and would instantly make the team a real contender. It will make the offseason bearable and what a great way to start the 2008 season if they do land him!

[Update: There is a rumor that A-Rod's agent, Scott Boras (the worst thing to ever happen to the game of baseball), is seeking $350 million to sign A-Rod. To which I say, let him sign anywhere else. No player is worth that much and Scott Boras is a douchebag for continuing to wreck the game.]

Labels: baseball

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I absolutely love pumpkin seeds. The salty crunchiness of them just does it for me.

And it is always one of the highlights of the Halloween season for me. Carve your pumpkin, save and clean those seeds, dry them out a bit and get them ready for some oiling up and seasoning.

I tried something new tonight and ran four different flavors. Regular salt, jamaican seasoned salt, garlic and salt and, finally, cumin with a tiny bit of salt. I haven't had cumin too often and didn't really know what to expect but damned if they aren't fantastic. Its a complex kind of flavor that's hard to describe aside from good.

I'm eating some right now and its hard to stop eating them to type. If you've got a pile of seeds that you aren't sure what to do with, make yourself a batch and try some of them with cumin and salt and you'll be amazed how tasty and addictive they are.

Oh yeah, quick recipe? Melt some butter or use canola oil to lube up them seeds, season them and spread them out on a baking sheet (I covered mine in foil to make clean up way easier) and put them in a 300 degree oven for about 45 minutes. Mine ended up going until almost 55 minutes but I likes them crispy.

Dig in and enjoy them warm or let them cool off and enjoy them with a cold beer and some of that American football.

PS. Grady was a pirate and Sully was a football player for Halloween, the cuteness was beyond fathoming. Don't believe me? Check them out. Halloween was fun, once it got going. Nande was a serious pain in the ass, of course. But we got a good crowd, had a good time overall and I'm glad its behind us for another year.

[Update: I always seem to forget this until its almost too late. Pumpkin seeds are fairly high in an amino acid called Arginine. Arginine causes me to get fever blisters. Only heavy dosing of Lysine, another amino acid, can counteract the Arginine. That and Abreva and I'm battling to keep the angry little blisters from taking over the right side of my lip. So far the battle is going my way but the war isn't over yet. Abreva, by the way, kicks all kinds of ass!]

Labels: halloween, pumpkin seed