The site is slow to load today because two of the external sites from which I pull content seem to be down. The moblog block on the right is pulling from Flickr and the block below it pulls from AllConsuming. If they don’t return in the next couple of days, I’ll yank the blocks.
I can’t believe that this is a news item that CNN deems worthy of posting. At the risk of sounding like a Mallard Fillmore strip, what the hell is wrong with education and kids today?
“Copy the list from the last person in the chain, delete the names of the authors you don’t have on your home library shelves and replace them with names of authors you do have. Bold the replacements.”
from Sean Bonner.
1. Charles Bukowski
2. Dorothy Parker
3. Kurt Vonnegut
4. J.R.R. Tolkien
5. Mark Twain
6. J.D. Salinger
7. Stephen King
8. Nick Hornby
9. William Shakespeare
10. Jon Stewart and the writers of the Daily Show
Prentiss is hosting Vilse of Weaseltrek this week.
This is the first that I’ve heard of this, but it’s pretty damn funny. I have to admit that I tend to enjoy saying “weasel” myself from time to time. It’s typically used in this context: “Some sales weasel just cold called me in an attempt to sell me some sort of software that I don’t need. I hung up on him.”
Click it and move on:
I was going to stop with two quick links, but something funny happened whilst I was doing so. I was trying to find something on Shrub’s campaign site about the “defense of marriage” or “moral values”, but his campaign site now redirects to the GOP site. Searching through that site, I can’t seem to find a damn thing about it. Hmmmm…could it be that he raised the issue to motivate a particular part of his base and then dropped it upon re-election so as not to alienate another larger portion of the population? If it was so important, why don’t I find it on The Agenda?
I conceded defeat and then disappeared for a couple of weeks.
We did quite a lot while I was absent. We lost ourselves in gift mania (including an incredibly kick-ass gift from my sister which also included every single currently available release other than the two I can already get here transported with her in a carry-on). We travelled to Dallas. We attended New Year’s parties. We saw some movies. We counted ourselves very lucky for our continued health and prosperity and decided to share it with those who weren’t so lucky.
I’ve got a ton of stuff that I want to post about, but don’t have time at the moment. My New Year wish is to have more hours in the day to get shit done, but talk is cheap and sitting here listing stuff doesn’t get me any closer to finishing it.
Onward.
I officially and somewhat belatedly accept defeat in my attempt to participate in Holidailies this year. I’ve fallen too far behind to try to catch up at this point. Perhaps next year.
My project list continues to grow. I’ve got two websites and a pet film-related project slated for this site bearing down on me in addition to the annual holiday card that may become an e-card this year due to my dead hard drive and lost contact list. Many of you are about to get a mass e-mail requesting address/phone/e-mail updates so I can get back up-to-date. My geek ego is still reeling from the fact that I didn’t back the damn thing up. I technically have most things duplicated on my work pc and on my phone, but there were quite a few addresses that were only used at Christmas time residing only on the dead hard drive.
We managed to hit Trail of Lights on Monday night. Our tradition of going to Green Mesquite beforehand was thwarted. They were closed for their own holiday party. Our alternate choice was the newly-opened Austin Java in Pizza Nizza’s old digs. If the crowd that I saw Monday night and Sunday afternoon is any indication, they’ve made a wise decision in moving to that location. The old location in Barton Creek mall never seemed to get much traffic for some reason.
I was innocently checking out BBC News’s Day in Pictures when I came across this. The caption reads:
“Makoto Igarashi, inventor of the ‘lap pillow’, a top selling Japanese product, demonstrates his creation in Tokyo.”
A little searching reveals a few posts about the lap pillow before it was released. Apparently, it’s a follow-up to the boyfriend arm pillow, which I somehow missed the first time around.
Insert pithy cliché making fun of a culture different from your own here.–> Damn those Japanese are weird.
Time for a little geek-out. If you haven’t tried Google’s new Suggest feature, you should. It’s pretty cool in that it does a search as you type. It’s already made the rounds on Slashdot and other geek sites. Somebody went through and tried each letter in the alphabet to get the alphabet according to Google:
A is for Amazon
B is for Best Buy
C is for CNN
D is for Dictionary
E is for Ebay
F is for Firefox
G is for Games
H is for Hotmail
I is for Ikea
J is for Jokes
K is for Kazaa
L is for Lyrics
M is for Mapquest
N is for News
O is for Online dictionary
P is for Paris Hilton
Q is for Quotes
R is for Recipes
S is for Spybot
T is for Tara Reid
U is for Ups
V is for Verizon
W is for Weather
X is for Xbox
Y is for Yahoo
Z is for Zip Codes
The ABC results remind me of another little Google feature: Zeitgeist. Somebody figured out that typing porn, xxx, or sex into Suggest gets you nothing. The combination of that and P being for Paris Hilton proves that most of Teh IntarWeb is still preoccupied with one thing. Other than dictionaries, that is.
Between Suggest and Gmail, Google is doing some really cool stuff with JavaScript. They’re introducing some really cool interfaces for Web applications that jolts me out of the mindset that it’s just for form validation, swapping images and popping windows. Of course, you’re also supposed to be able to customize a good portion if not all of Firefox via JavaScript as well. I guess it’s time to take another look.
One last note, last week, our CTO, who definitely falls into the geek category (I’m sure he won’t mind), introduced his geek co-workers to Keyhole, now owned by Google. The application is pretty amazing. One look at it and the mind boggles that the possibilites of marrying that sort of location information with the stuff that they’re already storing. Of course, I’m struggling not to go and shell out the $30 for a year subscription.
Ok, so I said I wouldn’t slip up and then the weekend goes by without a peep. I’m like Tim Meadows as Ike Turner humiliating Kevin Nealon on Weekend Update.
Illness still hangs over our house. The Boy seems to have recovered back to his bouncing off the walls self. There’s nothing sadder than a sick almost 6-year-old. When I came home Friday night, he was nested into his Buzz Lightyear comforter on the living room floor, looking particularly lethargic and pathetic as I asked him how he felt. He had a few sips of ginger ale at dinner and put his head on the table while the rest of us ate. I couldn’t take it anymore and brought him upstairs where he promptly fell asleep for the rest of the night.
The Wife and I both have some sort of congestion/cough thing going on that neither of us have managed to shake yet. I slept really late (i.e. 10 or 11) both Saturday and Sunday morning. The La seems to have escaped the germs swirling around the household. If it is affecting her, she doesn’t seem too much crankier than usual. It hasn’t stopped her from walking around the house with her shoes on the wrong feet wearing a zipped up pink hoodie with the hood over her head and her hands stuffed in the pockets. We’ve decided that we need to have her name embroidered on the back of the jacket gangland-style. The La, an alien gang of one.
Ok. I missed a day. I’m truly sorry. It’ll never happen again. Can you forgive me? No, wait. Don’t turn your back on me. I thought we had something… something special. And now you just want to throw it all away? Please. Stay. I’ll change.
I do have a good excuse. I’ve been under the weather most of the week. The Wife isn’t feeling so hot either and this morning, The Boy yakked all over the living room. We expect this on a semi-regular basis from The La, but The Boy hasn’t puked in quite some time. In fact, I was commenting to a bandmate last night about how long it had been since The Boy was sick. I guess I should’ve knocked on wood or something.
While checking up on the other Holidailies participants, I came across this post. The insurance industry has to be the most evil industry on earth. Bill Hicks constantly railed against marketing and advertising, but he should’ve included insurance.
A couple of months ago, my mother-in-law got into an accident in our minivan (with an off duty cop, I might add). She was the only one in the car and it was ruled her fault, so our insurance company had to pay for both cars. Almost exactly a year ago, some old guy hit me on the way home from the grocery store with the whole family in the car. It was clearly his fault and he admitted it. Despite the fact that those were the only two incidents in the last 8 or 9 years, we got a letter from our insurance company right after Thanksgiving informing us that they wouldn’t be renewing our policy. So, two accidents in a year, neither of which were my fault, and they dumped us. I’m about to go off on an incoherent rant here, so fair warning.
Isn’t it the insurance companies that are really the problem with our healthcare system? I know the patients aren’t the ones benefitting. Who do we have to fight to get the healthcare that we deserve? Who have I had to call multiple times and remain on hold for what must amount to hours of my life to get decent service? The insurance companies. Who’s responsible for making my father, a surgeon of thirty years, work more years than he intended for his retirement because he’s getting paid less and less for the same work and because he has to shell out insane amounts of money for malpractice? The insurance companies. We recently passed malpractice lawsuit reform here in Texas. Do you know who’s going to keep the money saved from the lowered damages instead of lowering the costs for doctors or patients? The insurance companies. I know doctors aren’t perfect. In fact, I’m as well aware as anyone that some of them are arrogant assholes, but WTF? We’ve somehow let these huge corporations come between the patient and the doctor.
Why the hell am I paying money to an auto insurance company if they’re just going to drop me the minute that I try and collect what I’ve been paying for? I should just set up a savings account and sock away the insurance payments to cover any accident costs, but I can’t do that because we’ve legislated a liability requirement. I can’t drop collision because my loan company requires it. There’s got to be a better way. I had my both my home and auto insurance with the same company. As soon as I find a better deal, I’m fucking dropping them and paying the absolute minimum that I can. So, here’s a big FUCK YOU to Texas Farmers Mutual Insurance Company. If you’ve got to get insurance, stay the fuck away from them. They suck, suck, suck. Did I mention that they suck? Damn.
And don’t even get me started on PMI.
