June 2006 Archives

But For The Grace of God Go I

| 1 Comment

Won of the moist exciting knew features in Microsoft Office 12 is contextual spell-check in Word. In other words, Microsoft’s engineers and programmers took the technology in they’re grammar czech and applied it too the problem of homonyms. Word will now czech not only four poor grammar, but also four incorrect word choice. No more confusing “their” and “they’re” (or “cant” and “can’t”)!

While this won’t bee a substitute for actually knowing proper English, eye think it’ll cut way down on the number of brane farts that will make they’re whey in too print.

This is a grate leap forward (at leased in my opinion); won can only hope that it will help fix the problem of people knot knowing the write word to use. You can reed more about it—and sea sum screenshots—hear: Contextual spelling in the 2007 Microsoft Office system

As a side note, won wonders how long it’ll bee before spelling czech migrates from the Office sweet to Windows proper; after all, the McIntosh already has system-wide spell-czech, do too the fact that its built-in too the Cocoa API.

To Thine Own Self Be True

| 2 Comments

Great photographers, as critiqued by the Internets.

The Japanese Mad Scientist Gene Strikes Again

For A Hot Thursday Afternoon

| 1 Comment

Loose ends:

The Times puts together a cute article about fan-created Trek.

The article, though, gets it a bit wrong about some of the motivations behind creating these bits of fandom; it suggests that the motivating factor is the recent cancellation of the late (and in some quarters, not-so-lamented) Enterprise and the subsequent lack of new, available Trek; this is, however, not really right, since many of the longer-running fan-based productions predate the demise of Enterprise; in fact, if memory serves, some of them actually have their genesis in the Voyager era. It seems to me that these fan-produced episodes are really much more of an extension of fan fiction, rather than a reaction to the lack of officially-sanctioned Trek.

As a side note, it must have been a really slow Saturday in the newsroom, because the article ran on the front page of the Sunday Times.

The Discreet Charm of the Slightly Late Bourgeoisie

Frank Bruni tries to change a restaurant reservation from 8 to 8:30:

I remember vividly a conversation with a certain trendy meatpacking district place during which I tried to change an 8 p.m. reservation to 8:30. The voice on the phone said this was simply impossible.

However, the voice said, my reservation could be moved back to 8:15.

And a notation could be made that I’d be arriving 15 minutes late.

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

| 1 TrackBack

(Alternate titles: Don’t forget to go and listen to the radio today; A new kind of Jocyean humor)

Mad Lit Professor Puts Finishing Touches On Bloomsday Device, reports The Onion.

Now everyone go out for a long wander through your city of choice.

The Perfect Book For Guys

| 1 Comment

In the middle of a very entertaining Father’s Day Gift List, Guy Kawasaki pauses to describe what he includes in his carry-one bag, including perfect reading material:

and one book which typically involves a retired Navy Seal who kills terrorists after they kill his family.

I think I’ve read that one.

Or, really, you can find everything on YouTube: the original video for Dead Or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round”, which, if memory serves, was played at my junior high graduation dance (the song, not the video—if they’d played the video, I think that we youngins would have been scarred for life, not that growing up in Reagan’s America wasn’t bad enough to begin with).

Even I Think That's A Little Over-The-Top

So this girl is trying to spend an entire week inside the Apple Store on 5th Avenue (yeah, it’s the one that’s open 24/7). Quite frankly, it seems a bit untenable to me (see sleep, need for), but if she can pull it off, more power to her…

No, Seriously, What Will They Think of Next?

Two words say it all: Fractal Pizza.

On The Problem of the General-Purpose Magazine

| 1 Comment

James Wolcott tackles The Complete New Yorker, an eight-DVD, one hundred dollar spectacular. It’s not entirely inappropriate that his fascinating review—half review, half history of the magazine institution—clocks in at a hefty four-and-a-half thousand words, a piece of the kind of bulk that would be appreciated at the New Yorker itself.

Is Anyone Out There Really Surprised By This?

In the latest entirely unsurprising news to come out of Iraq, the Washington Post is reporting that there is currently no functional legal system in Iraq:

Iraq’s legal system, once one of the most secular in the Middle East, is a shambles. If a “Law and Order” spinoff were set in Baghdad, it would feature police who are afraid to investigate sectarian murders (or are complicit in them, many say), lawyers afraid to take either side of a case and risk the wrath of powerful militias or well-armed gangs, judges assassinated for the decisions they have handed down, and the occasional car bombing at the courthouse.

Two such bombings killed at least 17 people in May alone.

No prizes for guessing who destroyed what was called “an impressive overall legal system, as long as we did not get into the political sphere.”

Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!

| 1 TrackBack

This one started off short but then kinda grew.

It Was Like It Was Yesterday

| 4 Comments

On June 6, 1996, I walked off an airplane at John F. Kennedy International Airport and began the next stage of my life. It is like it was yesterday and it is like it was another lifetime ago.

Ring Ring

My DVR’s synopsis for the original version of The Postman Always Rings Twice reads, in its entirety, “A drifter stops at a Greek diner and helps the owner’s lusty wife become a widow.”

That’s quite concise.

Has It Really Been 17 Years?

Let's Play (a soggy) Two!

I spent nine (9) hours at Shea Stadium yesterday, the first three of which were spent staring at a tarp in the rain. The first game was a fairly straight-forward affair that the Metropolitans couldn’t put away, though it did feature some nifty plays in the field (Endy Chavez doubling up a gimpy Bonds at first in the first, ending the inning; Lastings Millage taking away a double with a nifty two-handed diving catch).

The second game, which was played almost entirely in a cold, swirling, wind-driven mist, was notable for its speed. Entering the sixth, Tom Glavine had been averaging 10 pitches an inning (he finished with 85 in 7 pitched, which is still a impressive 12 pitches per inning), and Jamey Wright, his Giants counterpart, matched his efficiency. I admit that we did not stay for the climatic 11th-inning victory, having left after watching Barry Bonds pinch-hit in the top of the 10th, going up against a 99-miles-per-hour-throwing Billy Wagner (I still think that Wagner’s entrance music should not be Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” but rather the Prelude to Tristan and Isolde).

And of Barry Lamar Bonds? Say what you will, but the guy has awe-inspiring (as in Old Testament awe, i.e. “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear”) bat speed and he hits the ball harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. In the ninth inning of the first game (amidst chants of “Let’s go ster-roids”), he spanked a rocket down the first-base-line that got to the corner so fast that he was limited to a single.

Note that despite the lusty boos directed towards the Giants’ left fielder, the crowd boo’d just as lustily when Bonds was intentionally walked.

Enough About Me...

| 1 Comment

As some of you know (and, I guess, the rest of you know now), I have an audition for a syndicated television quiz show coming up on Monday. As part of the application form, there are a series of questions that I’m inviting you—yes, you, my loyal readers—to help me answer (in the comments, of course).

  1. What is the first thing you would do with $1 million?
  2. What would [game show host] find most interesting about you?
  3. What are the three things you want to do before you die?
  4. Complete this sentence – You’d never believe it but I…
  5. What is your most embarrassing moment?
  6. I could be in the Guinness Book of World Records for…?
  7. Do you have any bad habits or habits you know annoy other people?
  8. If you had three wishes what would they be?

While it’s trivial to figure out what show exactly I’m aiming for, I’m not naming the show (nor the host) for the same reason I’ve never mentioned the name of my school here.

Three I Missed

A few links that managed to not get into yesterday’s massive roundup:

A Little Something For Everyone

I should really just get del.icio.us working properly…

On the other hand, this is kinda fun…