January 2002 Archives

How to RTFM. Courtesy of our friends at Microsoft. Apparently they need instructions over there.

Thanks to Partygirl for the fun.

The conversation at dinner last night at the Mothership:

Key: LB = Little Brother; M = Mom; D = Dad; PF = myself.

The conversation had turned somehow to sumo wrestlers:

LB: You never see any body hair on sumo wrestlers.

PF: That's because they're Japanese.

LB: But some Japanese are hairy.

M: Maybe they shave?

PF: Or more likely have someone shave for them? I don't think that many sumo wrestlers could reach that far.

M: Probably.

PF: That's a job that I really wouldn't want. On my list of undesirable jobs, "Sumo Wrestler Shaver" is probably right below "Rectal Thermometer Tester".

D: That'd be an office where you really couldn't sit down on the job.

[General hilarity ensues.]

D: But you'd have to watch out for the ass ceiling.

[More general hilarity.]

Informed of this, Mr. Harvey said that he did not think the Canadians would want to brainwash us. (NYT link, free registration required) There are so many reasons to love New York. And singing subway cars are only the latest.

. . .

Existential Pud. The intersection of philosophy and stale bubble-gum.

Flow. I'm not entirely sure how to classify this. I can only say that it works with Flash.

If you use OS X, this is just such an incredibly cool thing. It really is. It's the sort of thing that can change the way you use a computer.

I'm not going to claim that this will change your life, make you lose weight, fix your hair, and get a great new girl(boy)friend, but it's definitely very high on the pretty damn cool scale.

Try it, try it, you will see, you will like it in a tree.

I suppose that I just could have added this entry to yesterday's, seeing as it's still the 24th in most of the US, and it's only been the 25th here for about 24 minutes. But since I'm going out to see The Donkey Show (A Midsummer Night's Dream meets Studio 54) tonight (tomorrow night? whatever) I don't think that I'd have time to add an entry later today (or tomorrow), and so there would be no entry for the 25th. So I'm making it now.

I was going to spend the evening finishing up my months-overdue WTC page. (this weekend, maybe...)

Instead, I spent the evening over at The 2002 Bloggies, checking out a lot of stuff that I've more-or-less wilfully ignored. There are actually some pretty darn interesting sites out there devoted to the fine art of navel-gazing.

Nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with that at all.

Of course, I'm actually going to have to go back at some point this weekend and actually bookmark the sites I found to be interesting. Because bookmarking them on the first time through is, just like, so, like, totally, like, wrong, you know?

One thing that is amusing is how quickly blogging developed an A-list and so on down the line. Quite frankly, this is a Z-list log with lots of missing features. But then again, I rolled it myself. One day all the entries will live in a magical database somewhere and everything will be shiny and nice. I don't know when I'll find the time to do that, but it's great motivation to actually get back into programming after more than a decade away from rolling any code more substantial than "Hello World."

And speaking of missing things, I updated the FAQ and fixed the non-intentional typos.

This girl (or should I say woman?; she is 34, and I don't know how any particular woman of 34 would feel about being called a "girl" -- I've met women who like it and I've met women who don't, so perhaps I shouldn't be making such quick calls about folks I've never ever met before) should probably meet this guy. After all, they both have similar goals and have chosen similar means to further those goals.

I mean, it worked for this other guy, and he had somewhat more specific requirements. I think.

And in other news... this guy seems to have a problem with New York. Dunno. Maybe he's being sarcastic.

Hmm... need footnote style. Second and last links shamelessly stolen from Wildsoda and UltraSparky, respectively. Give them some lurve.

I’ve been officially linked to by another blog. Ooo, I feel so special. My first time. ;-)

Um, I was going to put something here, but I just like totally blanked out.

Oh yeah, now I remember:

I’ve got 7 (that’s right, seven) days of vacation left over from last year. I have to use them by the end of March. So, people, what do I do and where do I go?

(Have I mentioned recently that BBEdit is really, really cool? Particularly now that it supports Emacs key-bindings (well, some of them at least)?

1. Every weekend should be a three-day weekend.
2. The NFL is going to change the so-called "tuck" rule during the offseason. It's going to be called the "Tom Brady" rule.
3. BBEdit is really cool.
4. The last time I saw anyone throw six interceptions in a game was during a game of Madden 2000.

New York saw its first snow fall of the season on Saturday. I got up late and looked outside and didn't really see any reason to actually go outside. The day after a snowfall is when the city's at it's prettiest (well, at least during the winter). Everything's blanketed with a layer of white, and it all looks so fresh and clean.

Of course, then comes the day after the day after a snowfall (which would be today), and then it starts to get slushy and grungy and all that yucky stuff. It rained this morning so hopefully much of that was washed away....

Three updates in a single day... must be some sort of record (well, for me at least).

But while I'm in the process of putting together some chili for tomorrow night (what, you don't make your chili the night before and let it simmer all night and day in the crockpot?), I thought that I'd point out Nil By Mouth, which, aside from being an interesting blog to read, also has the extra cool feature of changing its design everytime you load it. Paul sez: check it out.

It also has the advantage of being written by an American in Paris, which is not only a great Gershwin tune but a pretty darn good movie. Paris itself is a wonderful city and something of a uncredited co-star in the wonderful movie Amelie (the original title was Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain, which literally translates as "The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain", but since Americans prefer movies with short titles [did you know that The Madness of George III a movie about the troubled George III, was renamed The Madness of King George for America so that viewers wouldn't wonder why they missed Madness I and Madness II], the title got cut down). Highly recommended. I'm not sure that it's the 15th best movie of all time (as the IMDB ranking indicates), but it is definitely the most charming movie I've seen in a really long time.

I just hope that the star, the luminous Audrey Tautou, doesn't get typecast as the next Audrey Hepburn...

iLuxo Jr.

The s of September 11

As it turns out, September 11 hasn't brought people closer together; at least it hasn't if you're going by divorce and crime rates.

My favorite line is "hounds are twice as likely as husbands to get wifely attention."

So it's taking me a little while to get back into the swing of things.

Monday's fortune cookie read

You will soon be crossing the great waters.

Personally I think that it could be interpreted many ways, but the most obvious isn't exactly comforting.

And then yesterday's fortune cookie said

Make an extra effort to prioritize your tasks.

Which could simply be another way of saying "Get yer affairs in order, pal."

Hmm.

Maybe I should stop eating Chinese takeout for a while.

Sorry about the delay. There was a hang-up at my provider.

In the meantime, please feel free to investigate the archive.