World of Cynicor

R.I.P. Jon Swift

2010-03-05T23:38:00.003-05:00

I'm still getting over the untimely passing of Steve Gilliard... Found out today that Jon Swift recently died as well. And yet, Dick Cheney's shriveled little heart keeps, improbably, pumping away.

Separated at birther?

2009-11-11T23:59:00.002-05:00

Musical sensation Lady Gaga...

...and sensationally deluded lawyer Orly Taitz.

Palin's resignation speech, alphabetized

2009-07-28T16:38:00.002-04:00

Sure, it made no sense when you first heard it. But it makes a lot more sense when you roughly alphabetize the entire thing. Full transcript from The Mudflats:

At indicating ‘em ’bout Alaska all care-taking How North We 2005, 50 50% 58-1 85% a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a able about.

About absolutely abundance, abundant, abuse accepting accepting accomplished accountable, ACES act, additional adopting advance advancing advantage advocate after again agenda, AGIA AGIA, ago, ago, air Alaska Alaska Alaska Alaska Alaska Alaska Alaska Alaska Alaska Alaska Alaska Alaska, Alaska, Alaska’s Alaska’s Alaskan Alaskan Alaskan Alaskan Alaskans Alaskans Alaskans Alaskans Alaskans Alaskans Alaskans Alaskans, Alaskans, all.

All all all all all all All all all all all all all allowance allowance allowed allows alone, alone along along along along, always always am am amazing amendment amendment America America America America America, America America America’s America’s American American an an an an an an an an and And and and
and and And And And and and and and and and And and and and and and and And and and and and and and And and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and And And and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and And and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and And and and and and and and and and and And And and and and and And and and and and and and and and and another answer.

Anti-hunting, anti-second anti-second apologetics, appraisal are are are are are are are are area arms arms, army as as as as as as as as as as as asked asked, assisting at At At at attain avoid away base basins be be be be be be Be be be be be be be be be be be, bear beautiful beautiful beautiful beauty, because because because because because because because because been been beg beg believed believing beloved benefit benefit bent best best best better between big big big billions bipartisan blatant bless bless blessed blessed blooming boldest, both brave, break bring Bristol, build build built bumper burden bureaucracy businesses, But but but but but but by by by by by call, calling came Campbell.

Can can can can can can can can? can’t carve carving causes celebrity central challenge challenges championed championing changing chapel, character charge chart chart Cheechakos cherished choosing circuses clean clean, climate climb, coffers cold Cole, come come commercializing commissioners, community competing competition conditions conscientious constitution constitution, constitution, continent continue contributes contributor cornerstone could could
could country country? course course course, Craig crushes cubs, cycle Dad, Darn day day day, Day, day days debt, debt decades December decision decision defend degrees delicate, Democracy democracy Denali, dependency depends deserved desired destiny develop develop develop developing development, did did did did…we die different.

Diligently discussions discussions, diverse dizzying do do do do Do Do do do document does does doesn’t doesn’t doggedly dollars don’t Don’t don’t don’t Don’t done down down down dreaming drill drilling drive duck due duty earmark earmark Earth easy eat, economy education, efforts electorate, electricity elevate encouraging energy energy energy energy energy energy energy energy energy energy energy, enjoy enslavement ensures enthusiastically environment equitable era especially especially, ethically ethics even ever every everyone everything everything except excess exercise exerting exploration exploration extreme extremes facing facts.

Fair Fairbanks Fairbanks families families family family family, far federal feel feel felt fifty fifty fight finally finally finally finest fireweed first first first, first, fiscal fish Flein, fogged follow for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for for, forever forget formula forward forward founded founders free free free, free, free freedom freedom freedom, freedoms, frigid from from from from from from frontier frontier frontier frost frozen Ft fulfill fulfill full fun funding fundraising further future future future, future, future future future Future.
Game-changer gas gas gas gas gas gas gate-keeper gave generated generations generous get get get gets getting Give globe God God God’s God’s God-given going going good good good good good got got govern government government government government government government government government, governor governor grace grace, grateful gratitude great great great great great great greatest greatest greatness, grizzly ground groups growing growth guaranteed, guard guard guards guards guide guided had hand hands happier happy hard harder hardest-working hardy has has has have have have have have have have have have have have have have have have, have, healthy hear heard heaves heckler heckler Hell help helping her her here here here here here here here, here, here, here’s high his history hold hold Hollywood Hollywood home, home honest honor honor honor honor hope hope hope hoping hotter how how how How how How hundred hundreds hunt.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I, I’d I’m I’ve.

Ice immorally important impossible improve in in In in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in incentive incentivizes including independence independence, independence, individual individuals, inducement industrious influence informing inherent inherent innovative insist instance instituted interest interests into Ironically, is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is, issue it it it it it It it it it it It it it it it It it it it It it it It It it It it It It it It it it it it it, it, it it it it it’s It’s it’s it’s it’s it’s jobs just just just just just just just just just just just keep keep kid kids knew knew knew, know know know know know know, known known.

Kris Kris Kris Kristan lame land largess largest last last last last last last later, law, law lawmakers lawmakers lead lead lead lead leadership leadership… leases leave legislature less Let let’s let’s let’s life lifetime like like line line link little live live live living living, living, location longer look lose love love loves made made made make make make make makin’ man man manage many many market maximum may may maybe me me, meaning media media, Meg melting men merciless midnight military military millions minds, Mom money months months monumental more more most Mother mother motto mounts, move much much much much much, must must must must must my my my my nation nation, nation nation national natural natural natural naturally Nature nature’s need need need needed needs needs needs never never new new new new new new new nice no no no No, north north north not not not not not nothing nothing.

Now Now now now now now now now now, Now, Now, now, oath oath obvious of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of of Office office often, oil oil oil oil OK, old on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on on one one one one one, one one’s only only opens operatives, opportunities opportunity opportunity optimistic or or or originates other other other others, our our our our our our our our our our our our our our our Our our our our our our our our our our our Our our our our our our our our our our our our our our our our Our our ourselves out out outpost outside outside Outside? outstanding Oversight own own owned owners package package paid par parents Parnell Parnell.

Partisan partner patriotic patriots peaceful, pension people people people people people people people people people, people people people people’s per perhaps periphery perpetuating Perry persistent pessimism pessimism, Petroleum pioneering pioneers pipeline Piper, plan please Point political political politics power power powerful press press, pressing pressure prices prices, pride pride principles, private private-sector pro-development produce producers pro-environment, profession project project.

Promise promise promised promised promised promised promised promised promised promised promised, promised…remember promises promised.

Proof prosperity prosperous protect protect protect protect protected protecting protection proud proud prove providing prudent putting quite raised rate reach really reap, rebate reform reform, reform reform remarkably remember Remember remember remember remember remember remember remember remind reminding renewable reporting represent requests resist resisted resisted resource resources resources resources resources resources, respected responsible responsible responsibly rest restraint, return Rich ride, right right right right right right right, right-hand right-hand rivers road road road road road road road, roll roll rugged rugged rushing.

Sacrifice safely said, saved say schools Sean Sean Sean sector secure securer securing security, security, see see see see See, See, See, seeing seeming self-determined self-sufficient, sent serve served serving serving session shared sharpest, She should should should should show Since sir slashing sleeves.
Slowed smacked small smaller smarter so so so so so so So so So so so so So So, So, So, soared soaring soaring soldier, soldiers solutions some some some some some some some some some, sounding Sourdoughs? sow speak special special speech spend spend spine spirit split sported stability staff staff, stand Stand stand Stapleton star starlets, start.

State state state state state state state, state state statehood statehood statehood’s States states steadfast steadfastly steadying stepped stick sticker stiffen stifling, still still still stimulus stimulus stop store straight strategic strength strong strong, students study sub-cabinet succeeded success success, succinct such such.
Suck.

Suggesting suggesting summertime summertime sun support support support swear swelled, system, table, taken takes talented talk talk, talking Taps team, tearing technology teeming tell terms than than than than than thank thank thank Thank thank thankful thanks.
That that that that that that that that That that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that, that that that that? that’s that’s The the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the.

Their their Their their their their their their their their them them, themselves, then then then then, there there there there there there, therefore these they they they They they they They they They they they thing thing things think this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this, this Thompson those those those though though, three through throughout time time time, tiny, title.

To to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to to.

Today today today today Todd Todd’s Together Together together together
together, Tom too!
Too took took tool tough Track, training transparency Trig…I trip Tripp, troops troops truth typical, um, under underestimate underway uniform United unproductive, unstable unsustainable up up up up up up up up up up uphold upon us us us us us us us us, us use use usher usual, value Van vehicle very very very very very very very very.

Vetoed victory, view vision voluntary volunteers volunteers vo-tech.

Vow vow wary was was was was Washington, Washington’s water water, way, way we we we we we we we we We we We We we we we we We we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we we We we we we we we We we we we We we we we We we we We we we we’d We’d we’re we’re we’re.
We’re wealth wealthy.

Week were were What what what what What What what what what’s when when when when when wherever Wherever which, while who who who who who who who who whole whole whom why why why why, wild wilderness wildlife wildlife will will will will will will will will will will will will will will will willing Willow, wins winter wisdom wisdom wise wise with with with with with with with with with with with with with with with without witness women words work worked, worked working world’s would would would would would would would written wrote with ya year year years years years Yes, yesterdays.

You you you you you You you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you, you, you, you, you, you you you you you? you’re young your your your your you’re your.

Memorial Day 2009

2009-05-26T21:43:00.003-04:00

Monday was Memorial Day. Of course, we all take the day off to honor those who fought for our nation and gave the ultimate sacrifice. It truly is humbling to think of where we are as a country today, and all that has happened to bring us here.

As many towns across our country do, Bay Shore has a traditional Memorial Day parade down Main Street. A while before the parade started, the side roads were blocked off, and people started to scout out prime positions along the curb to honor our men and women in uniform. I wanted a bagel.

I went into a local deli/bagelry in Bay Shore, where the parade traffic had swelled the line to about a dozen people. I waited a few minutes as the line crept forward and people behind me chatted. Then, a sort of reverent hush fell across the line behind me.

A uniformed figure made her way through the door, past the long line of customers, and right up to the front. As a tribute to her service, all those waiting stood aside for her. She proudly marched right up to the register and paid for her grape Snapple. She was a school crossing guard.

Yes, a dozen people at the bagel place just showed Memorial Day reverence to a school crossing guard in her school crossing guard uniform, as she yammered away on her cell phone and cut everyone to get a Snapple. Indeed, she had made the ultimate sacrifice for her nation. She spent 20 minutes a day waving kids across the street while wearing a day-glo orange pinnie. God bless.

-----

UPDATE: It turns out that school crossing guards have a long, proud history. They, and their families, are all considered honorary members of the 3d Royal Crosswalk Regiment, and are entitled to wear the Day-Glo Orange Watch tartan.

The dangers of staying near Oakland

2009-05-06T09:23:00.002-04:00

There's always the chance that you'll wake up in your hotel in the morning, only to find that gang members have tagged your ironing board during the night. Seriously, what the hell?

Choose Life

2009-05-03T11:14:00.003-04:00

What if we combined the controversial North Carolina "Choose Life" license plate with well-known Scottish drug film "Trainspotting"? The result would certainly be more palatable to a wider audience.

Mmmmm BBQ night

2009-04-28T18:09:00.003-04:00

You know, I think it's time for BBQ night! But I'm so busy. I know! I'll buy some genuine smoked, pulled pork from BJ's and enjoy it!

Mmmmm, looks good. Some delicious pulled pork in sauce. In NEUTRAL sauce! My favorite kind!

I bet it looks just as delectable inside the package! Let me just open it up, and...uh...call the CDC.

Seriously, Hormel? It doesn't matter what it tastes like if the sight of it makes you feel retchy.

The Escalade in its natural environment

2009-04-19T07:27:00.003-04:00

Hulking, probably driven by some small-equipmented man-loaf, parked so that it perfectly straddles two spaces in a fairly busy parking lot with not-particularly-small spaces. You can almost hear him saying "I'm an Escalade, dammit. I need to be cutting you off without signaling--even when I'm not moving."

Seriously, I have never seen an Escalade being operated in a way that doesn't include tailgating, signal-free sudden lane changes, across-five-lane highway exits, and general swerviness. What is it about these lumbering boy-tanks that make their drivers so much worse than even the arrested development operators of an H2?

Today's spelling outrage

2009-04-16T14:05:00.002-04:00

On - where else? - Route 112.

Boo...er...bouk...er...screw it.

2009-04-14T11:00:00.003-04:00

Easter bokays are still available on Rt. 112 in Medford!

NutriSystem ads

2009-04-12T23:28:00.002-04:00

For some time now, I have watched the parade of "sports fan" favorites selling me NutriSystem on my TV. Everyone from Mike Golic to, well, Dan Marino has dropped by to extol the virtues of a pot roast-based diet plan that arrives in the mail.

A while ago, they introduced a curveball (sports metaphor) into the rotation. A voluptuous "sports babe" named Jillian started to grace my NutriSystem ads. With her gravelly voice and plastic-looking face, she was sure to appeal to the "sports fan" demo.

Then I realized something tricky that NutriSystem was doing. Depending on the sports celebrity, they would change the URL on the bottom of the screen to a) relate to the diet pitcher, and b) track which ads were working. It wasn't as blatant as www.crazyfox2943.com, but it became noticeable. For instance, Jillian Sports's URl was nutrisystem.com/pretty, perhaps a dog whistle to "sports fans" or possibly an ironic statement about the actress's looks.
Keeping this in mind, I ran a little test. When you go to nutrisystem.com, do different URLs take you to different places? Easy enough to test. I went to nutrisystem.com. Got a picture of Jillian in a bikini.

I went to nutrisystem.com/pretty. Same picture of Jillian in a bikini.

Hmmm. So they want me to believe that she is pretty. Let's try a test.

nutrisystem.com/ugly. Same picture of her.

nutrisystem.com/ILoveHitler. Same picture of her. It's very clearly implied by the NutriSystem ad that Jillian Sports loves Hitler.

"But," you may say, "maybe she's the type who loves everybody." That is obviously false, but here's one more test.

nutrisystem.com/IHateAmerica. Yup. This link goes directly to Jillian, who we have just proven HATES AMERICA.

Way to go, NutriSystem. You've hired a spokesbabe who loves Hitler and hates America.

The Old Russian Lady In Seat 3F

2009-04-08T17:42:00.002-04:00

I hauled myself to JFK for an 8:30 AM flight to Denver today. As I boarded the plane, I eyed my overhead storage for my carry-on. Nice and empty. Just as I was feeling all spacious, this incredibly old woman stopped in front of me and folded her jacket, put it in the empty overhead storage, and started to close it.

I held it open because I was about to put my bag in it. She again tried to close it. I said "Don't close it, it's got plenty of space. She unreeled a bony finger and pointed at the numbers underneath it. "For Row 3" she scowled, and tried to close it again, ignoring that there were three seats in Row 3, and Row 2 was also listed underneath the bin. "Yes, and I'm in Row 3," I replied. I kept it open and put my bag in.

I had seat 3D. The lady plopped her bags in 3E and started to make herself comfortable in 3D, the aisle seat. I looked down at her, a 5 foot drop from eye level, and said "I'm sorry, but I'm in Seat 3D."

She looked at me, and started to point at her leg and saying something about Row 3 in a thick Russian accent. I repeated "I'm sorry, but that's my seat. I have the aisle seat." The flight attendant asked if we needed any help getting seated, and I said "No, I'm about to take my seat as soon as this lady moves to hers." She grumbled something in Russian and moved to the window seat.

The plane took off, everything seemed fine. Drinks service started. The flight attendant came by and asked what everyone wanted.

Attendant: "Drink?"
Putin's grandma: "Please."
(pause)
Attendant: "What would you like?"
Putin's grandma: "Soda."

So, no progress there on the negotiations. She got her soda, and took out a bag of Russian chips. She was enjoying what was either a bag of Russian Beggin' Strips or a package of Бекон-flavored crisps when the snack basket came by. The attendant held out the basket for her. She took ten or twenty minutes to touch every one of the snacks, before deciding on some cookies. While taking them, she knocked a bag of almonds on the floor, looked at them, looked at me, then pointed her sharp digit at me and then down to the floor, telling me to pick them up. I grabbed them and gave them back to the attendant.

As we entered Kansas airspace, the attendant came by with tiny bottles of water. I took one, but Putin's grandma was so engrossed with watching ESPN News highlights without headphones that she didn't take any. A few moments later, she started gesturing at me. She pointed at my water, then herself, then made a drinking motion. Was she asking for mine?

I said "What are you asking for? Are you asking for my water?" She looked at me expectantly for a moment, then her face twisted into one of pure, unalloyed disgust, and she waved me away with her claws, obviously exasperated that mine had not become hers.

This courtship continued until we touched down. As the wheels hit Colorado ground, she picked her bags up, unstrapped and started to move towards the aisle as the plane was taxiing at 120 MPH. I looked over to figure out what the hell she was doing, and she slumped back in her seat and restrapped.

Finally, we came to the gate, and as I got up I actually turned my back to her so that she wouldn't a) try to tell me to do something through interpretive handwaving or b) shove past me only to slow down the entire line with her prescriptive Crocs.

Suddenly I felt the icy hand of death on my shoulder. She pushed down on my shoulder for leverage and to try to move me so that she could grab her jacket out of overhead before anyone could steal it from her. As I waited for the first two rows to exit, she stood so close to me that I could feel her scant remaining body heat within a millimeter of my shoulders. And then, as quickly as it began, our flirtation was finally over.

Who do I know in North Carolina?

2009-04-05T17:10:00.001-04:00

I got a call a couple of weeks ago from 336-xxx-8144. Then another couple of calls. No message.

I had no idea who this was. Didn't recognize the number or the area code. I searched the area code. Someone from Winston-Salem, NC. Don't think I have any customers there. I txted Chris in Raleigh. Was he in Winston-Salem? Does he know anyone there who might be calling me? No luck. Reverse lookup showed nothing.

Two days later, a txt from my 336 friend made things clearer.

From 336xxx8144:Hey. My m0ms goin t0 slp. She sed she will talk t0 yu 2m0r0.

Interesting...I haven't talked to any moms from Winston-Salem lately.

From Me:I don't know who this is.

The waiting game began. It was electrifying. Finally, a second txt pierced the darkness.

From 336xxx8144:This malaika. Fats daughter. My mutha jus calld yu.

So I guess I'd like to apologize to Fats and Malaika for not recognizing their number. Guys, if you're reading this, give me a ring - I miss you!

Cost-saving measures at work

2009-03-28T16:40:00.002-04:00

Our internal news site asks for letters and other employee contributions. We were recently asked for ideas to continue cost savings. I submitted a list of what I thought were great ideas, but unfortunately they were not used. I changed the company name to be generic throughout the note, but that pretty much falls apart when the note starts talking about the upcoming Windows release.

We've all felt the effect of our company's cost-savings measures in recent months. First, we would like to thank you all for doing your part to help us stay the great company we are. Effective next Monday, we are implementing additional cost-savings plans that will improve our profitability by almost $800 in FY09. Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with these new guidelines for a leaner company.

1. All personnel will be asked to save 25% on their travel expenses. Company preferred hotels now include Motel 4.5 and Super 6.

2. In order to trim the cost of airfare, all employees must share a seat when traveling on the same route. The senior employee will get the seat, and the junior employee must dress as an infant and ride on a lap. Level 68+ employees still retain use of their private jets.

3. We are always looking to provide inexpensive but nutritious meals, so our cafeterias are pleased to participate in the FDA Recall Buyback program. Today's healthful entree will be peanut paste-crusted Field Roast.

4. We are looking to get a handle on construction costs. All parking spaces on campus will be repainted as compact-only. This will have no immediate effect on most employees, since you ignore this anyway and triple-park Escalades, H2s, and Excursions in these spots.

5. The towel service provided on campus will be retained, but the towels provided may say "Stolen from Overlake Hospital" on them.

6. In your next meeting, look at the person on your left. Now look at the person to your right. Would you start paying attention to the meeting now instead of looking all around the room, you time thief? Thanks.

7. All art hanging in our buildings will be sold off and replaced with framed copies of unsold Magic School Bus Explores the Human Nose software.

8. Do not flush! Each floor will have a designated Flush Marshal who will be in charge of flushing all toilets on campus every two days.

9. We are removing the overhead of hot water and soap from rest rooms on campus. As a good corporate citizen, we will be using reclaimed water in the sinks, and the towels will be those rolls of recycled brown paper. Yes, those horrible ones that are less absorbent than wax paper.

10. All building-sized banners will be hand-written with erasable marker to encourage reuse. Congratulations on your product launch, Win ow 7!

11. When purchasing a new mobile phone for work, purchase one that promises "total office access." These phones are designed to gossip about coworkers who are out sick, steal your stapler, and if you hit *39 a Diet Cherry Coke will come out of it.

12. The 2009 Company Meeting will be held at a secret location. The first 50 callers to the Q-103 Morning Zoo Qrazy Line will get tickets. Attendance is mandatory.

13. Networking costs have skyrocketed over the past decade. We are pleased to announce a long-term arrangement with NetZero to provide on-site Internet services for only $9.99 a month. If another employee is online, we ask that you not pick up your phone to make a call until they're finished.

New photo site

2009-03-26T09:54:00.003-04:00

So let's say you have an idea for a new kind of photo site. You want a place where professionals gather to display and sell genuine photo art. This isn't going to be another Flickr; this is all high-end stuff.

You spare no expense on the rollout. You invest in a gorgeous design, both elegant and functional. You grab photoartgallery.com as your domain name. Descriptive, but not too long to type. Everything's going great. You don't even need to pay for product identity development. And as a result, you nickname your site after flatulence.

Yale hockey and Tim Taylor

2009-03-25T19:54:00.007-04:00

There's been a lot of excitement lately Chez Cynicor due to the unprecedented success of the Yale hockey team this season. The team won both the regular season and playoff titles in the ECAC, for the first time ever. (And this is the 114th season they're playing.) Back in the dark ages, I was the student manager of the team. It's about one step above towel boy (I did travel planning, stats, shot charts, handed out per diems, crap like that), but I look back upon that time fondly.

For three decades, Yale was led by coach Tim Taylor. As a leader, Coach Taylor was unparalleled. He taught me more about integrity and doing the right thing than just about anyone in my life. One story in particular stands out in my mind to this day.

During the season, we had a player who was injured. He healed up, and skated in a JV game for conditioning. During the the course of the game, this player threw a really dirty hit on an opponent. It was one of those "why did he do THAT?" moments. He didn't get called for it, but it was nevertheless ugly.

The next day, the varsity team had a practice before leaving for Cambridge to play Harvard. Coach Taylor gathered the team together without the one player. He informed them that because of the cheap hit, the perpetrator was going to sit out the weekend back in New Haven. Taylor said words along the line of, "It doesn't matter that it wasn't called. It was a cheap hit, it wasn't right, and it has no place in Yale hockey."

When you are being led by a coach who would send a message like that - that you play hard and with integrity - it never leaves you. So many coaches take a "boys will be boys" mentality to stuff like this. To this day, when I'm faced with a situation, at work or in life, where it may be a matter of integrity, I often think back to that moment. If you do the wrong, backhanded, or dirty thing, where does it really leave you? You might advance temporarily, but it's never worth it. Anyone who knows about your actions has problems trusting you from then on. You can't go to sleep knowing you always did the right thing. What you've done is always out there to see, and people take notice even if it's not called right away.

I have had situations where I spoke up when I saw that something was not the right thing to do, and situations where I should've spoken up but didn't. The immediate incidents have long since passed. Guess which ones I feel good about today?

Three years ago, Yale named Keith Allain head coach. Allain played under Coach Taylor 30 years ago, and he has built the team into quite a successful group. Today he was named the College Hockey News National Coach of the Year. It's just been a great year for both him and the team.

I'm not with the team on a regular basis the way I was way back then, but I have no doubt that his values were shaped in part by his close association with Coach Taylor all those years ago.

A proud day for DirecTV programming

2009-03-08T17:52:00.002-04:00

While flipping around on DirecTV, I just came across some of the finest programming ever offered on PPV (channel 120):

Ghetto Brawls: Craziest Chick Fights NR-Mature
Experience the Ghetto's craziest 100% REAL hair-flying, weave-pulling, skirt-splitting, ultra-sexy CAT FIGHTS ever CAUGHT ON TAPE in this collection of bloody, jaw-dropping, violent and shocking female fighting INSANITY! (All Day Ticket 6am ET - 6am)

And at 6 PM?

Wild VIP Parties Uncensored NR-Mature
Go beyond the velvet rope as sexy girls get naked in the DJ booth and bare it all on the dance floor. Wild coeds take their clothes off once the drinks start flowing. (All Day Ticket 6am ET - 6am ET)

My question is not related to the societal value of these two fine offerings. These both look like excellent light TV fare for the discerning gentleman. No, my question relates to relative pricing. Why is the first show priced at $14.95, while the second receives a true bargain pricing of $3.99?

It's time to go FIST CLASS

2009-03-06T18:10:00.004-05:00

Huge sign on Rt 112 in Medford. I actually screeched off the road in traffic so that I could take this pic. I wonder what life was like before they put cameras in every cell phone.

In case you can't read the text above FIST CLASS MANAGEMENT and don't feel like clicking through, it says:

This is a unique opportunity to be a part of a brand new 18,400 sq.ft. Retail Strip Center. This site is located in [sic] one of the busies [sic] roads of suffolk [sic] county [sic] Long Island, New York. Rout [sic] 112 is an access point to one of long [sic] island's [sic] major highways, 495- Long Island Expressway. This center is a part of growing [sic] retail & residential community of medford [sic]. A brand new 500+residential [sic] units development is in progress right across the street. Please call for more details.

Texas restaurant reviews

2009-02-25T12:53:00.002-05:00

Having been in Irving, TX for well over a week now, I would like to share some of my restaurant reviews with you. I've been to most of the places in Texas now, but if I've missed any please give me a hollar. Thank y'all.

Red Hot & Blue, Las Colinas
Grade: B+
Even though this is a chain restaurant, it had good BBQ ribs with an appropriately smoky flavor and meat that fell off the bone. I think I also got some other meat there but I forget what it was. The honey cheese biscuits are good. The sauce was OK. There seems to be a Texas thing where "potato salad" is really mashed potato with some crud tossed in it. Overall, it was good enough to go back and get a pulled chicken sandwich.

Sonny Bryan's, Las Colinas
Grade: F
I was expecting something resembling delicious BBQ when I went here. Instead, I got a plate of meat that tasted a bit too meaty, had no smoke flavor, and wasn't particularly tender. All covered with an acrid sauce and accompanied by a roll that tasted like it was made from parts of Poppin' Fresh with a yeast infection. I was tasting this all night, and the memory still haunts me.

County Line BBQ, Austin
Grade: B+
It's a bit out of the way if you're visiting Dallas, but County Line serves some real quality BBQ. I didn't like the beans that much; I think I ordered "cowboy beans" and they were just not rootin' tootin' enough. Afterwards you can go out back and see turtles and fish and crud in the river.

Popeye's, Las Colinas
Grade: A++
Brilliant! A taste sensation! Popeye's guarantees that you will not get what you ordered. If your order matches the stuff in the bag exactly, you get $1 off your next visit. Even for a Popeye's, this one served up a large helping of that delectable Popeye's grease. You know what you're going to get there. If you put the bag on the floor of the car, the grease will soak right through the bag and then continue through the floor boards to the center of the earth. So you have to be careful lest you confuse your car's translucence with a serious body problem. The rolls are just as grease-soaked, so when you reach for one in a desperate attempt to mop up the damage the chicken has done to your tract, you will get no relief. Highly recommended, and don't forget the apple pie.

Some Thai place, Las Colinas
Grade: C-
I forgot its name. Just avoid it. I wasn't at all happy with it. It's the place that was next to that store.

La Madeleine, Las Colinas
Grade: A-
I love going to La Madeleine, but haven't been to one in years. I got a chicken salad sandwich on a croissant, and should've held the tomato. When you bite into the tomato, there is no way to engineer the rest of the croissant and chicken salad so that it stays intact. Your only hope is to be wearing chicken salad-colored pants to hide the damage.

California Pizza Kitchen, Grapevine
Grade: C
CPK is my favorite upscale chain eatery. Although it sounds pretentious, "upscale chain" refers to who wipes down the table. There's a sliding scale, where customers are at the bottom and employees are at the top. When you go up the scale, it means that they have actual employees wiping down the tables between guests. At a downscale place like Burger King, you are expected to wipe any stray shreds of lettuce off your table yourself, with a combination of napkins and spittle. I usually enjoy CPK, but I was disappointed by the freshness and presentation of my take-out order. Everything was a bit gluey. I hope they read this and give me a coupon for a free appetizer.

Bluefish, Las Colinas
Grade: B
Looked good, although I don't enjoy seafood. They should make it clearer in the name that it's primarily coming from the ocean. I had the non-seafood choice, which was a salad with ginger-miso dressing. Others in my group had something called a crab dynamite, which looked something like a baby Horta. Instead of precious silicon eggs, it was protecting a series of California roll slices. I swear that when I looked up, one of the sushi chefs was giving me a mournful "you don't like my sushi?" look.

Indian Bistro, Las Colinas
Grade: B-
I went here for lunch. Would it have killed them to have forks available?

Cattleman, Fort Worth
Grade: A
Great, great, great steak. Everything you could want in a steak, served under a blow-up photo of a prize cow from the 1950s. The meat was perfect: just slightly crispy on the outside, and buttery smooth on the inside. I had it with some horseradish mashed potatoes, which could've had a bit more horseradish in them.

Hyatt Regency, Austin
Grade: C+
Every Hyatt Regency makes the same $11 breakfast panini with ham, white cheddar, and a fried egg. This is the only one that served it to me with two vials of ketchup and asked if I needed more ketchup.

Mayuri, Las Colinas
Grade: B
Not the best Indian food I've had, but reasonably good. If you order the full meal, it comes with a bewildering array of little cups of curries. One of these is actually rice pudding, which is infused with rosewater and cardamom, and you're supposed to save it for after you eat the others. Depending on your tastes, it can either resemble a delicate, perfumed treat or that perfume you pick up as a gift at Walgreen's at 8 PM on Valentine's Day.

Sonic, Hamilton
Grade: F
This was the only place open after my car broke down in the middle of Bumluck TX. The meat tasted like it had been refrozen, nothing tasted good, and my car smelled like a pickle for three days afterwards. It actually made me long for McDonald's.

Microsoft cafeteria, Las Colinas
Grade: A++++
If you can't get to Popeye's, this is an awesome second choice. The ice machine is free! I figured out how to make sweet tea, too. You take regular tea and toss in a bunch of sugar packets. Wow! They also have three or four different stations. You can get a burger, or a sandwich, or a salad. Perfect for the busy employee on the go.

Austin was nice...

2009-02-23T00:20:00.002-05:00

After a week slaving away in Las Colinas, I drove down to Austin on Friday, not having been there before and having a free night at a Hyatt that is going to expire next Saturday anyway. My compact/intermediate rental at Avis was actually a Toyota 4Runner. I took it for a day or two, but it was totally inappropriate for one person to drive back and forth to an office park. So I took it back to DFW and asked to trade it in. They had a PT Cruiser stowed away for just such a request. "Customer wants trade-in. Give him the ugliest car we have." The PT Cruiser had several assorted nut shells under the seat. I theorize that it had been rented by 30 clowns at some point, and they were all too crowded-together to pick up their shells.

I-35 is the worst highway ever. It is crowded for most of the way down to Austin. When it's not crowded, there's a truck in front of you anyway. The scenery is non-existent. There are these Escalades that do a little Escalade trick I hadn't noticed before. They cruise impatiently about 30 feet behind you. Suddenly, they gun it into the other lane, fly past you, and end up 30 feet in front of you and start cruising again. Nothing to do with going faster; all about being ahead of you.

Waco is about halfway between Dallas and Austin. It's home of Dr. Pepper, which even has a museum: The Dr. Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute. Because nothing says "free enterprise" like a horrible soda that tastes like all the other sodas in the fountain, mixed together and served in a filthy plastic tumbler.

In fact, the drive doesn't get nice until you hit Austin. Suddenly, the bleak, flat farmland turns into some gorgeous hill country. But this isn't about my trip to Austin. This is about my trip back the next day.

A couple of months ago I visited Springfield, MO and on my way to the airport I stopped at a cavern. Caverns are cool. They're all underground and stuff, and they have amazing rock formations that come about when water flow eats away at limestone to form karst caves. As it turns out, there are several of these caverns not that far from Austin.

I started out with a hearty breakfast at the hotel. All Hyatts seem to serve a ham and white cheddar panini with a fried egg on it. Only the one in Austin felt that the appropriate condiment for it was two mini-jars of ketchup. Anyway, it stuck to my ribs.

I headed out towards New Braunfels before cutting across to Boerne (pronounced "Bernie"). There are quite a lot of towns in the area that were settled by German immigrants, with quaint little downtown areas and streetnames like Haupstrasse. They also seem to have a lot of smokehouse BBQ places that were founded in 1946 for whatever reason. I try not to think about it.

I made it to two great show caves: Cascade Caverns and Cave Without A Name. I had my trusty camera in tow, along with a small travel tripod. Both tour guides graciously let me set my stuff up for a minute here and there to take pictures. (Check the links above.) Cascade Caverns has a waterfall inside it, plus a couple of bats sleeping in little holes on the ceiling. Cave Without A Name has a really grand main chamber that's big enough to have weddings.

Covered with mud and sort of sweaty/sticky from the 100% humidity in the caves, I started the drive back to Dallas. I briefly took IH-10 up to Comfort. (For some reason, Texas calls Interstates IH instead of I. Dumb.) I jumped off and hit US-87 to Fredericksburg, then TX-16 up to Llano, where I headed towards Burnet. All the towns are population about 1000 to 3000 around here. They all have a Family Dollar and a Sonic, just in case you need lousy merchandise or lousy food.

I cut across TX-29 towards Burnet, going across a really pretty section near Lake Buchanan. It was getting late in the afternoon, but I figured I could get closer to Dallas before having dinner.

I hit Lampasas and just as I passed the town, my fuel warning light went on. I had about 45 miles left to go. I thought about turning back, but figured I'd pick up gas in the next town. I was making good time, doing 70 or 80 on the straight, well-paved intertown highways. Adamsville was 12 miles ahead.

Adamsville had no gas. And honestly, Adamsville seemed to have no Adamsville. Evant was another 13 miles - should I turn back to Lampasas or push forward? Google Maps showed a gas station in Evant, so I pushed forward. 32 miles of gas left.

I got to Evant and was starting to get worried, but Google was showing me that Shamrock station just down the road on US-84. So I pulled onto 84, and there it was. A Shamrock station about 3 miles away from where the map said it was. I pulled up to the pump. There were three pump handles. Two of them had the hoses removed. The pump's electricity was on, but the station was closed. The credit card swipe had been removed. There was no one around, on a Saturday night at 7 PM. I drove down another 2 miles, to exactly where Google Maps said there was a station. There was no station. I now had 15 miles of gas left, and there was no gas station within 17 miles. I was starting to worry just a bit.

I had no option though. I pushed on towards Hamilton, where I was assured of at least three or four stations. The terrain was becoming hilly. I would push the car to about 60 MPH up the hill, then coast down it to save gas. The PT Cruiser, a car where every last feature was designed to annoy, started beeping more urgently. "I would love to pull over for gas," I explained to it, "but there's evidently no gas for 45 miles on US highways in Texas and Google Maps lies."

I kept pushing on up US-281 towards Hamilton, counting the miles. I did things I knew would be totally ineffective, like turning the radio and the fan off. I had to pee. I was finally within two miles of Hamilton, when I felt the engine seize up and start to slow down. I was going 70. Then 60. Then 30. I got my car off the road at exactly 31.66497 N, 98.13909 W. I was stranded, out of gas, and sitting in an ugly car.

The Avis keychain has a number for roadside assistance. I called it. The Avis guy kept explaining to me that I had called the NY branch and that he would transfer me to TX. I explained that they gave me the keychain and this was the number on it. He assured me that I hadn't done anything wrong, but I had called the NY number. Why does Avis give me the NY number? I don't know. He transferred me to the Texas operator, who told me that they don't help if you've run out of gas. Then he hung up on me.

I didn't have my AAA card, but I called them anyway. I have the number for the NYC area club on my phone, so I reached them and explained what had happened. The operator said I had to call the Texas AAA. I explained that I didn't have their number. She transferred me to another AAA club. I explained what had happened and where I was.

"And this is in Southern California?"
"No, I'm sitting just south of Hamilton, Texas, like I said."
"I can't find the location you gave me."
"Well, I'm sitting right here, look again. Would you like the exact latitude and longitude?"
"I don't find it in Southern California."
"That's because I am in Texas. I am exactly two miles south of the town of Hamil..."
"But what town are you in now?"
"There are no towns here. There is 40 miles of road with one town on it."
"We need a town name, sir."
"Hamilton, Texas."
"Not Southern California?"

It went on like this for a few years, until we got to the point where she asked for my AAA membership number and I didn't have it. She told me that I needed to get it from the NY AAA. She called them with me on the line. I gave my name and address. The other club asked if this was near Albany, because I just called the Albany AAA.

Long story short, we finally got it all worked out. AAA would come by Hamilton to bring me some gas for $7. It was 7:22 PM. I figured at around 8:15 PM, a truck would pull up.

At 8:03 PM, my phone rang. It was the gas station in San Saba. AAA had just called them a minute before to dispatch them. It took AAA 41 minutes just to send out the call for help. San Saba was another 45 minutes away. I stayed in my car because it was cold, even though the sky was brilliantly clear, with more stars than I'd see even in Montauk. Cars and trucks kept whizzing past me. Finally, one of them slowed down and pulled in behind me. It was a cop.

I explained that I'd run out of gas, I was from New York, I felt like an idiot, and so on. The officer was quite friendly, and said that one of the other guys he works with in Hamilton County was a retired cop from New York. They didn't have any gas though. He left.

More trucks and cars whizzing back and forth. Finally, at about 8:30 a truck pulled up behind me. I thought it was the AAA guy, so I got out of my car. It was a second cop, in a cop truck. He opened up his window and I was hit with a blast of cigarette smoke from 20 feet away. This cop said "Hey, I heard there was a guy from New York here. I just retired and moved down here a couple of years ago. Good luck, wish I could help!" Then he took off too.

Finally! At about 8:50 the AAA truck showed up. I was on my way again, making my first stop the gas station in Hamilton. My second stop was Sonic for some dinner. Holy crap, that's a terrible burger. It was just...bad, with that slightly-too-meaty flavor and the fries tasting like they'd been sitting in old oil for a few days. It was a miserable time, because I was still so far away and I knew everything was closed for the next 100 miles, if it existed at all. So, yeah. End of the story is that I continued up through Hico to US-67, and stayed on that all the way until Dallas.

And Glen Rose is about where you start to get Metroplex light pollution ruining the perfect Hill Country night sky.

Men, anger, and heart disease

2009-02-17T11:27:00.002-05:00

From this morning: "Men, anger, and heart disease. The terrible trifecta that can threaten men's health."

It seems somewhat, well, self-referential to include men in the list of things that threaten men's health. Maybe they should've said that anger and heart disease are the "daily double that threatens men's health." But since disease threatens health by definition, that doesn't work either. So we're down to anger as the only factor that can threaten men's health. Time to break out the cigars, booze, and red meat!

Man, these reports about anger just piss me off.

2001 vs 2009: A juxtaposition

2009-01-31T23:47:00.001-05:00

Compare and contrast these two photos.

Ramada Burbank

2008-11-01T12:55:00.002-04:00

I was in Los Angeles for the PDC this week. I started out in a great hotel - one of the best, in fact. I was in the InterContinental in Century City. Everything was beautiful. Marble bathrooms, incredibly plush beds, a little balcony overlooking Beverly Hills. Someone sneaking in your room and turning on classical music while you were out. Just lovely.

Alas, I needed to stay an extra night and then fly out early in the morning. On Wednesday, I moved to the Ramada Burbank. ("Latest in Meeting Rooms Facilities" barks their Web site.) The Ramada was not without its charms, but I soon noticed a few differences in the quality of the lodging.

By the time I staggered back from the dev community party at oh, 1:30 AM, these differences became acute:

1. Insufficient parking at the Ramada. However, they were pleased to offer six additional spaces across the street, next to the railroad sidings.

2. I needed to put a parking pass on my dashboard, even though there were no viable businesses within blocks.

3. The restaurant was named Whispers, a likely hat-tip to the many secret trysts taking place in the oversized, mildewy rooms.

4. My room keys didn't work at 1:30 AM. I had to go down to the front desk to get them reissued.

5. But the elevator on my side of the floor was "under refurbishment" so I had to walk all the way around.

6. Next to the front desk, there was a folding table set up with a cop sitting there on duty.

7. When I got my key and returned to my room, there was a woman sitting next to it, in a plastic chair, smoking. "Non-smoking" refers to inside the rooms only.

8. The toilet had stress fractures.

9. The couch had definite "naked fat guy" imprints on the cushions. Probably the same one who was responsible for the toilet.

10. The doors were made out of the hole-kickable wood paneling that I had in my room as a child. I was afraid that I'd be awakened by a steel toe at 4 AM.

11. When I woke up all too early for my morning flight, I went over to reattach my contact lenses. There were tiny ants crawling on the case.

On the other hand, I didn't have to endure the spectacle of a woman screaming out the front desk staffer like I did at the InterContinental. THAT was pretty gruesome. "HOW CAN YOU SAY YOU DON'T KNOW HER? HOW MANY PEOPLE WORK AT THIS HOTEL ANYWAY?" Followed by a long tirade as the clerk stood quietly. The screamer then turned and started announcing to everyone that she needed to see a manager. I tiptoed over to the staffer who'd been waiting on her and whispered not to worry, because the woman was going to be reincarnated as a diaper.

Important news from the world of pork

2008-10-20T18:36:00.001-04:00

From Jersey Pork Roll:

Attn: Consumers
JerseyPorkRoll.com
NJPorkRoll.com, and NewJerseyPorkRoll.com are our related domain names. We are not affiliated in any way with Jersey Boy PorkRoll.com, or Buy NJPorkRoll, the website that began using our name several months ago on yahoo instant messenger.

Just beneath the surface

2008-10-07T14:35:00.004-04:00

It's really interesting (but mostly terrifying) to look at how Obama's candidacy and imminent victory have scraped off the veneer that so many people have precariously painted over their deep-seated racism and hatred.

Obama Assassination Plot
Nathan Johnson, 32, an associate of Gartrell and Adolph, was also arrested Sunday morning. He told authorities that the two men had "planned to kill Barack Obama at his acceptance speech." "He don't belong in political office. Blacks don't belong in political office. He ought to be shot," Johnson told Maass.

I see it with people I know. I had one person tell me that "Obama's not qualified to be president because he's black. Maybe president of an Aunt Jemima bottle." What do you even say to someone in their late 40s who would voice a thought like that in public? You know it's not acceptable. You know it's offensive. This type of racism - mostly designed to make others feel uncomfortable - is really no different from the smoker who decides that no one's going to tell THEM they can't smoke, and then lights up on a train or in a restaurant. It's a pure attempt to wield power over others by inviting a challenge to known repellent behavior. The racist slurs are often then followed with "You know I'm just bustin' your chops." Oh, OK then. You're just playing the character of Racist Asshole. You're not actually one yourself.

Man Shot By Racist Gunman
A man told today how he was shot three times in a London street for wearing a Barack Obama T-shirt.
Dube Egwuatu was buying a mobile telephone top-up card in an off-licence when the gunman confronted him and glared at the top, which carries an image of the Democrat US presidential candidate underneath the legend 'Believe'.
The man then launched into a tirade of racist slurs, shouting 'I f***ing hate n*****s' and urging 36-year-old Mr Egwuatu to leave the shop with him.

The McCain campaign isn't being overtly racist, but it certainly is attracting overt racists. And the campaign is to be faulted for letting them fester.

"A Terrorist"
At one point, McCain asked, “Who is the real Barack Obama?” A member of the crowd yelled out, “a terrorist!” McCain paused while the audience laughed at the comment, and then continued with his attack — without condemning or admonishing the audience member.

The GOP has often run on some message of racial discord and undercurrent, from the origins of the "low taxes" quest (high taxes are being spent on THOSE people) to the Willie Horton ads of the 1988 campaign.

"Sit down, Boy."
One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

This isn't an issue of North vs. South, or rich vs. poor. This misbehavior can be found everywhere you look.

"Change"
7th grade teacher and coach Greg Howard is no longer an employee. He was suspended without pay for 10 days starting Thursday for making racial slurs at presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Howard asked his students what "change" stood for and proceeded to write out the acronym "change"- come help a n(word) get elected.

Sometimes the person involved is directly connected to the campaign, but often they're not.

Obama "spoof"
A local newspaper columnist, in a spoof of Obama’s platform, wrote in one recent piece that the Democrat would hire the rapper Ludacris to paint the White House black (a reference to a pro-Obama song by Ludacris), and divert more foreign aid to Africa so "the Obama family there can skim enough to allow them to free their goats and live the American Dream." He joked that Obama would replace the 50 stars on the U.S. flag "with a star and crescent logo," an Islamic symbol, and that his policy on drugs would be to "raise taxes to pay for Obama's inner-city political base."

What's more upsetting is that in the 1990s, we saw the culmination of the "Patriot Movement," where violent white separatist groups and sympathizers committed major acts of terrorism in Oklahoma City and Atlanta. The language that we're hearing now about Obama is becoming increasingly violent, and the McCain/Palin campaign is not addressing it. Can they? Or is this a small but significant voting bloc that controls them?

"Kill him!"
"Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," Palin said.
. . .
"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

One thing is clear. We can't just smile and pretend that no more racial divide exists in this country, because especially in the closing weeks of the campaign, we're seeing increasing numbers of disgusting incidents. Is it the desperation of people who realize that McCain is about to lose big? Or the economic downturn a factor, since hard times tend to lead to people blaming groups they view as outsiders?

Witch doctor
Martin arrived at the conclusion that Obama, whom he called a "media witch doctor," has "locked his granny away and refused to allow her to be seen" in order to "pretend he has no white relatives."

This won't be over in November, and frankly if someone can still make a Jemima joke in 2008, I don't know that it ever will be over. But the McCain campaign sure doesn't help it by ignoring it when it happens right in front of their noses.

Spear catching
Salter said to expect more of the same, saying the campaign was tired of “catching the spears.”

AMG is sooooo close

2008-10-02T10:31:00.002-04:00

All Music Guide bio of David Cross:

Also in 2003 he was cast as flamboyant anal rapist and aspiring actor Tobias Fünke in the much-celebrated Fox sitcom Arrested Development.

He was actually an "analrapist," not an "anal rapist."

Webmail

2008-09-29T18:44:00.003-04:00

It was upon opening this screen that Josh started to think that maybe Optimum Online mail was not his best option....

(click for full-size)

WaMu

2008-09-26T06:21:00.000-04:00

Official: WaMu is changing their slogan from "Whoo Hoo!" to "D'Oh!"

Hockey mom VP!

2008-09-03T23:37:00.001-04:00

Gotta say one thing. Sarah Palin gives a good speech.

How to make hurricane season more fun!

2008-09-03T08:38:00.002-04:00

I find it odd that we give hurricanes names, but leave it at that. We're trying to personalize storms to make them seem friendlier, so it's time to go the extra mile. From here on, I expect all tropical activity maps to look like this:

Rove speaks out against Palin

2008-08-30T08:37:00.003-04:00

"With all due respect again to Governor Palin, she’s been a governor for under two years, she’s been able but undistinguished. I don’t think people could really name a big, important thing that she’s done. She was mayor of a city of 8000 people. And again, with all due respect to Wasilla, Alaska, it’s smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; north Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It’s not a big town. So if he were to pick Governor Palin, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, 'You know what? I’m really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States?'"

Ooops, that was Rove talking about Tim Kaine a week ago.

God DOES answer prayer

2008-08-29T08:18:00.002-04:00

Just maybe not quite the way you wanted.

The prayer:

Focus on the Family Action has pulled a video from its Web site that had asked people to pray for "rain of biblical proportions" during Sen. Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field on Aug. 28. . . .

In the video, Shepard called for Christians to pray for "abundant, torrential" rains during the Democratic nominee's acceptance speech in order to disrupt it. He had asked Christians to pray for rain that would create flash flood warnings and "swamp the intersections."

God's answer:

Republican officials said yesterday that they are considering delaying the start of the GOP convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul because of Tropical Storm Gustav, which is on track to hit the Gulf Coast, and possibly New Orleans, as a full-force hurricane early next week.
The threat is serious enough that White House officials are also debating whether President Bush should cancel his scheduled convention appearance on Monday, the first day of the convention, according to administration officials and others familiar with the discussion.
For Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Gustav threatens to provide an untimely reminder of Hurricane Katrina. A new major storm along the Gulf Coast would renew memories of one of the low points of the Bush administration, while pulling public attention away from McCain's formal coronation as the GOP presidential nominee.

Scrapbooking weekend

2008-08-24T21:41:00.005-04:00

This past weekend, I spent a couple of days at the Ramada in Wayne, NJ. The rooms were pretty basic - they were almost motel-like, with "no smoking" signs that failed to inform the carpeting and drapes of their intentions.

However, the trip was well worth it. As you probably know, I'm a keen scrapbooker. Well, the National Scrapbooking championships haven't been held in the Northeast in six years, and this weekend they were on the grounds of Montclair State University. 840 people showed up for this thing, including two-time world champion Rose McNair. I specialize in "times past" images of dogs from the 1940s in my work, but you can really meet people who do just about anything at these events, from their own children to some R-rated stuff. The Somerville, MA group was actually on probation for a year because of one of their local events in 2005.

The hotel setup was actually nice, because the rooms surrounded a central courtyard. It had some benefits, as well as a few drawbacks. On Saturday afternoon between heats, a bunch of us hung out by the pool, trading stories about past events and gossiping about the scrapbookers who weren't there. And even at 2 PM, holy SHIT can those scrapbookers toss back the mojitos.

We headed back to MSU for the evening eventing, and a small scuffle broke out over the provenance of some pinking shears that someone had left on a table near the entrance. You're strictly responsible for your own supplies at the competitive level, and this whole thing kind of cast a pall on some of the competition.

I didn't get anywhere with my work this weekend, and I ran out of green squares at exactly the wrong time. Plus, the hotel is pretty hard to find in the dark - it's not as far as the Willowbrook Mall, but you have to make this U-turn and almost thread the needle to get to the Rt. 46 service road, then cut hard to the right just as you're merging.

Last night got a bit rough. People wouldn't go to sleep. Rose McNair gave a good seminar at the college, but she went a bit overboard when she got back to the hotel (they comped her suite), and they had to close the pool at 9:30 PM after she yuked in it. It sort of scattered us for a while, and I was feeling pretty tired anyway. But these people wouldn't SHUT UP! 2 AM, I had a guy pounding on the door next to mine, yelling "I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU HAD THE GLUE STICK." It was wild.

Anyway, I got a few photos up in my Scrapbooking gallery. If you've never seen scrapbookers in action, it's worth a look.

I is learning in college

2008-08-20T17:10:00.002-04:00

Just a quick rule of thumb here. If you've got a list of things you are - employee, parent, student - you should preface them with "I am:". If you say "I am a:" and then make the list, complete with bevowelled words, it just doesn't work right.

Olympics joke

2008-08-13T08:47:00.002-04:00

Well, I don't watch the Olympics because I find it excruciatingly boring and don't generally get off on jingoism. But I did write a joke!

Q: Why did the dog watch the Olympics?
A: Because he wanted to see Phelps finish Spitz!

Hahahahahahaha!

No, see it's "finish Spitz" like the obscure dog breed. Yeah, it's a type of dog. Sigh.

Photos from Brooklyn

2008-08-10T21:18:00.002-04:00

Last night I headed over to Greenpoint to see two great bands, Regina Hexaphone and Schooner. The show started at 8, and I got there at 7. So I tooled on over to the waterfront to see if I could get a few photos of Manhattan.

I drove up West Street, looking down each street to see whether it was fenced off or open to the water. After a couple of false starts, I drove down Java St. I heard some people congregated at the end, listening to music. There were some concrete blocks set up by the water, and two older guys were sitting there quietly, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

I pulled my tripod out and set up to take my photos. After the first batch, one of the quiet guys started talking to me in almost a whisper. "You want a better view, go down to Huron. You don't have any of this crap in the way. Huron is two blocks over." He pointed north.

I took a couple more photos, then thanked him for the tip. The second guy piped up. "You don't wanna go down to Huron," he said gruffly. "Huron's where the scumbags are."

Without missing a beat, he then turned back to the first guy and continued talking. "Who's this guy Brett Favre, anyway? My Giants beat him in the playoffs last year. He's got more gray hair than I do."

The two men started comparing stories about the relative arm strength of Chad Pennington versus Brett Favre, and I packed my gear away and headed up to Huron St.

Places like the end of Huron St. have that "feel unsafe to outsiders" thing going on. But at first glance you might see 12 "shady" New Yorkers, when it's really four or five different, unconnected groups hanging out.

Two Hispanic guys were sitting in their car listening to music and drinking beer. One Asian guy had brought his SUV there and was spending a lot of time washing its tires. A couple was sitting on a cement block, looking like they were discussing a college project. A woman was trying to catch a Canada goose that was swimming around. Three old Russian ladies were throwing hunks of stale bread through a fence, feeding some ducks on the other side. Scumbags.

I set up on Huron, and the view was great as well. The setting sun was tossing off golden highlights on the clouds, and made the city seem beautiful and tranquil. A woman was standing at the end of a concrete outcropping. I don't know who she was or what she was doing there, but she didn't move during my bracketing shots.

NYC photos here.

McCain misses 5/8 of all Senate votes

2008-08-04T10:48:00.003-04:00

Maybe they should STOP scheduling votes at the same time as the "early bird" special at Denny's. Second place? The guy with the brain hemorrhage.

Vote missers:

63.3%
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
Votes: 399 votes missed (63.3%), 231 votes cast

49.4%
Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD)
Votes: 311 votes missed (49.4%), 319 votes cast
Note: Sen. Johnson suffered a brain hemorrhage on Dec. 13, 2006, and spent several months recovering. He has since returned to the Senate.

McCain's running mate contest heats up

2008-07-29T06:54:00.002-04:00

I think we've found a love connection here.

Sorry kids!

2008-07-26T19:27:00.004-04:00

The issuance of this new series of stamps from the US Postal Service is proof that beloved character Mickey Mouse has been DEAD for at least ten years. Peter Pan, too.

McCain could have my vote

2008-07-02T15:45:00.003-04:00

All McCain has to do for my vote this November? He has to punch Bush in the face. And not a story about it either. We have to see it on TV.

Smile Train

2008-06-30T09:47:00.003-04:00

Look, they're an undeniably great charity. They have helped thousands of people with cleft lips, with incredibly low overhead.

I just think that their latest banner ads are a little bit, well, unsettling.

Dog stank?

2008-06-17T20:38:00.002-04:00

We've got a problem.

Bertie (pictured) has suddenly turned into an old dog, and with this change has come Beagle Stench.

I gave Bertie a nice bath on Sunday, complete with two scrubbings of Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap. He smelled OK.

By this morning, he once again smelled like someone had yuked a Chalupa on him.

What the hell do I do to get the Beagle Stench out of Bertie? Tomato juice bath? Dilute bleach? He just got a mint bath on Sunday. And he reeks again.

Obama's VP choice...

2008-06-11T15:50:00.002-04:00

Right now, Obama is mulling his choices for VP. If I may make a suggestion: John McCain.

Now wait! Hear me out. If he names McCain VP, he instantly shows he's got bipartisan credibility. More importantly, he confuses the hell out of McCain for at least four days.

"Now wait. I thought they told me I was running for president...?"

Headphone Quest

2008-05-18T19:16:00.002-04:00

I'm not having good luck with portable audio lately. My 160 GB Archos player's drive started making "bad disk" noises, and then wiped itself out. Drive's dead.

My new Sony noise-cancellation headphones let off a whine in the left ear. It goes away if I tap the outside of the speaker, but then builds up again.
I was travelling and didn't want to be without an MP3 player, so I rushed out to Best Buy and bought their house brand, an Insignia 8 GB drive-less player. It works pretty well, actually. The sound on it is pretty good, and I don't get that "disk spinning up" electronic noise that the Archos used to feed me in its last days.

But the player needed a friend - Bluetooth stereo headphones. I poked around the Best Buy site, and found a couple. Insignia makes one. So does Sony.

I went to Best Buy to look at the Insignia model. It's $49.99 at BestBuy.com! In the store, it's either $54.99 or $69.99. Yes, they have the headphones out in two places, with a $15 difference. I wanted to compare them to the Sony, so I picked up both packages. Dynamic range for the Sony was pretty good: 14-24K. Dynamic range for the Insignia, however, was...uh...not on the package anywhere. I looked a couple of times to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

A blue-shirted helper happened by. "Hey, would you know the dynamic range on these headphones?" I queried. "No, man. Sorry, I got two customers I'm helping" came his plaintive response.

An older woman came up to me. "Can you help me in the TV section?" I looked at her to figure out what she meant. "Do you work here?" Aaaaaah, I see. When I'm wearing a multi-colored striped Oxford shirt, it's pretty easy to confuse me with someone wearing a bright blue Best Buy shirt and a yellow name tag! Idiot.

I popped open my phone and searched the Web for the Insignia NS-BTHDP specs. BestBuy.com didn't show them. www.insignia-products.com couldn't say. I went over to customer service.

"I just have a question about these headphones before I can buy them. What's their dynamic range? It doesn't say anything on the package."
The helpful clerk took the package, rotated it around to read the fine print a few times, brightened slightly, and looked back up at me. "Up to 30 feet!" she chirped.

Alas, you're rather simple. I asked again, rephrasing my question. "No, I need to know their dynamic range. You know, the frequencies of sound they carry." She referred herself to the helpful folks at the Geek Squad, who had no idea either. Because this information is not published anywhere. I even looked at the product manual on their Web site. It has all sorts of specs about the unit's Bluetooth capabilities, but nothing at all about the actual sound that would be coming from the speakers.

I put them back and bought the Sony model, which feels about as sturdy as a plastic popsicle stick. But I know its dynamic range.

Sign of the day

2008-04-28T18:46:00.001-04:00

From Stop & Shop, Bay Shore.

One Secret Bush DOESN'T keep

2008-04-27T10:12:00.009-04:00

This question has been on my mind for years. Any doctors out there have an idea?

WHY

DOES

PRESIDENT

BUSH

SWEAT

SO

PROFUSELY?

That hot dog TALKS!

2008-04-26T16:12:00.004-04:00

While cruising around the ville today, I happened upon a service called GotVoice, which converts your voicemails into text and MP3. Sounds interesting:

GotVoice converts your cell, home and work voicemail to text and sends it to your phone and email. It's the quickest and easiest way to access your voicemail…let it go to text.

Exciting, no? But the greatest feature of all is that you can apparently have it read your voice mail back to you! Which didn't make much sense when I first read it, considering that voicemail is already spoken-word. But then I saw what makes this service unique.

Lip-synched Avatars read your voicemail to you. Turn your boss into the devil or your friend into a lip-synched Hot Dog.

Yes indeed. You can now ease the pain of creditor calls by making them look like large, drunken frankfurters.

Gut pitch

2008-04-25T09:37:00.000-04:00

This post should be a consumer alert to all concerned clothing wearers. Target's "More Room in Gut" campaign is clearly defunct.

Over the years, I have enjoyed many a piece of fine, cheap clothing from Target. Their shirts have always been ample, and their pants are designed to grow as I grow. But last week, I purchased what appeared to be a nice shirt at Target. It's a nice light green and white gingham number. I bought the XXL just to make sure I'd have, again, plenty of room to grow.

I got home, put the shirt on, and...no. The thing was so tight I could barely button it. I didn't want to risk it, because I'm aware of the damage a forcibly expelled button can do to drywall and plaster. True, I could use the shirt as a crimefighting tool ("FREEZE! Or I'll exhale!"), but I am not that community minded.

But how could this be? This is an XXL shirt. I may be grotesquely obese, but I've never not fit into a huge shirt before. I brought out the tape measure. I am currently holding a Gap shirt, XL, that fits great. Lots of room. It's got a 51" gut pitch - the distance from button hole to button. (Just as airlines measure seat pitch, so do I measure gut pitch.) I then took out this Target XXL shirt. Only 47" gut pitch! One size larger, and a full 4" less gut pitch! This is either mislabeled, or the shirts are being marketed to an increasingly slim, fit America. Since I can't visualize the latter without laughing, I'm going with the former.

In summary, beware of Target shirts purporting to be large enough. Keep the gut pitch in mind, and remember that if the Gap is like JetBlue, then Target is more like Delta.

The scourge of DRM

2008-04-24T06:14:00.002-04:00

Paying for the rights to listen to a DRM-protected song is JUST LIKE paying for a song, except when it's not and you're about to lose your whole library because you've reached the end of lifecycle support with your vendor. Or, as the "Dear MSN Music Customer" mail I received last night says,

MSN Music is constantly striving to provide you, our user, with the most compelling music experience that we can. We want to tell you about
an upcoming change to our support service to ensure you have a seamless experience with the music you've downloaded from MSN Music.
. . .
I am writing to let you know that as of August 31, 2008, Microsoft will change the level of support to be offered for music purchased directly from MSN Music prior to November 14, 2006. As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers. License keys already obtained as of August 31, 2008 will continue to allow you to listen to songs on all the computers that you previously authorized for service.I am writing to let you know that as of August 31, 2008, Microsoft will change the level of support to be offered for music purchased directly from MSN Music prior to November 14, 2006. As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers. License keys already obtained as of August 31, 2008 will continue to allow you to listen to songs on all the computers that you previously authorized for service.
. . .
Please take this opportunity to make sure you have the licenses you need to access your music. As a friendly reminder, please remember
that the MSN Music service allows you to authorize up to 5 computers for songs purchased from MSN Music. You must have licenses for the songs on each authorized computer, in order to be able to play the songs successfully. If you have already played a given song on a computer, then you have successfully obtained the license key for that song. MSN Music keys do not expire. If you intend to transfer a previously downloaded song to a new computer (or an existing computer with a new operating system, such as an upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista) within the maximum allowed limit of 5 computers, please do so before August 31, 2008. You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play.

So just remember. Our licenses don't expire, but if your machine expires (or if you upgrade to Vista) you will lose all of your music with no recourse. Have a DRM day!

Time to take the action?

2008-04-23T23:04:00.003-04:00

Because if you are ready to find out why the palm is emerging from the O in STOP, and why the skeleton has wasted his life, click here. Or down there -->

Another reason Bay Shore is great!

2008-04-23T23:00:00.003-04:00

Day or night, you can always head on down to Montauk Highway and pick up a nice pack of smooth, refreshing beear cigarettes.

Let's go baseball!

2008-04-23T22:51:00.003-04:00

Suppose you're a major beer distributor who really likes supporting professional sports. You've got a whole bunch of posters designed, linking your brand of alcoholic beverage with area athletic teams.

But something goes wrong. You don't pull off that coveted big league sponsorship. You can't make those New York Mets posters for all the local booze merchants. All is lost! Or...is it?

Solution: Create completely generic signs celebrating "New York Baseball", a schedule for New York Baseball, and a fan-pleasing pennant with the name of their favorite sport on it!

Bush has one dance

2008-04-22T08:17:00.002-04:00

It involves relucantly standing up, doing a chicken head movement, and hunching shoulders uncomfortably. Then grimacing for a second and standing up board-stiff before trying it again.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4699244

But at least he got to dance in New Orleans! That proves that the city isn't decimated!

Ten Questions for John McCain

2008-04-12T17:19:00.002-04:00

Just give me a 15 minute interview slot, PLEASE. I just have ten questions. They won't even take the full 15 minutes.

Do you foresee centuries-old conflict between Sunni and Shiite ending when you tell them to sit down and "Stop the bullshit," or have you have some other magical plan now?
Is it ever appropriate to call a woman a c***?
Was it right to attack a nation that we knew at the time had no WMD and no ties to the attacks of 9/11?
You are proud to oppose torture. So why did you vote against a bill in Feb that banned techniques not authorized by the Army Field Manual?
What things has Bush done badly that you are going to do better?
After all your work on campaign financing issues, why did you feel it was OK to withdraw from public financing without FEC approval, and then lie about it? How can we trust you to uphold the law when you violated the one you sponsored?
You have sought the support of evangelicals who say things like Hurricane Katrina was sent to punish New Orleans for its sin. Why did God give you cancer?
Is planning and implementing torture a war crime? If not why not; if so, then who from the Bush Administration should be labeled a war criminal?
Memory loss and cognitive impairment are common symptoms of aging for people in their 70s. What was the previous question I asked you?
36% of men in their 70s suffer from incontinence. Have you ever worn adult diapers?

Controversy at Guitar Center

2008-04-11T20:08:00.003-04:00

The genuine Guns & Roses Slash guitar kit does not contain a tophat, sunglasses, pick, and a strap. Instead, you get a strap, picks, and Slash's autobiography. In this blog's opinion, that makes it about 104% less cool.

Good thing they got this guy writing in the Times

2008-04-08T22:14:00.003-04:00

Bill Kristol. Why even bother? Just run another ExxonMobil ad in that slot.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time the last couple of weeks with conservatives of all ages and leanings.

No, really? Bill Kristol hanging out with a bunch of conservatives? What the hell is going on with this topsy-turvy world?

Every time you think the Times is snapping out of it, they run either something like this or, better yet, a unique NCAA bracket that--unlike EVERY OTHER BRACKET in the country--was drawn up to resemble a periodic table.

Lord Hummer's Cup

2008-04-08T20:48:00.003-04:00

This year, the Islanders, Rangers, and Devils had a friendly little wager called the Hummer Metro Ice Challenge. The results were based on games between these three great rivals. the Islanders tore out to an early lead, and the Rangers stayed close - both teams beat up on the Devils all year for some bizarre reason.

So anyway, even though the Islanders stumbled at the end of the season, they still split with the Rangers as the season ended, leaving them one point ahead in the Challenge standings after winning the season series with the Rags, 5 games to 3. The Rangers had one last chance, with a meaningless Sunday game against the Devils. Two points would catapult them ahead of the Isles for the Hummer Cup Metro Challenge Cup. But no. The Devils won the game in a shootout, leaving a tie at the top.

The final standings were:

Isles 11-4-1, 23 pts
Rags 10-3-3, 23 pts
Devs 3-9-4, 10 pts

So let's review. The Isles and Rangers tied at 23 points. The Isles had more wins in the Hummer Challenge Cup Metro series. The Isles had 5 of 8 wins against the Rangers. THE ISLANDERS WIN THE HUMMER CUP! THE ISLANDERS WIN THE HUMMER CUP!

Seems simple enough. Then the intrigue started. At the end of Sunday’s game, Sam Rosen comes on and announces “and the Rangers win the Hummer Metro Ice Challenge!” (This is the same genius who announced that the Islanders had been eliminated from the playoffs one week before they ended up making the playoffs.) Someone, somewhere (and I blame the evil James Dolan of Cablevision for this) just randomly decided that the Rangers were the winners despite losing all standard tiebreakers. None of this would be important except that the prize was $50,000 to the winning team's chosen charity.

So now there's a firestorm going on because the Islanders won the Challenge fair and square, but the Cablevision/MSG folks decided to give the charity money to the Rangers instead.

Chris Botta, the media relations VP of the Isles, called the studio immediately upon hearing Rosen saying this and, by his own account, swore out Al Trautwig. Even the Rangers partisans are all saying “What the F?” Botta has mentioned that there is an imminent solution, but we haven't heard anything further about it.

So to summarize: Madison Square Garden/Cablevision made up some bullshit and stole $50K from the Islanders charity for sick children. Way to go!

Better Beamer

2008-04-08T19:36:00.002-04:00

As the parents on the hockey team were kind enough to present me with a debit gift card, I decided to drop my new-found loot at B&H. I'd had my eye on a Better Beamer for a while, so I took the plunge.

The Visual Echos FX4 Better Beamer Flash Extender will help increase the reach of the flash and increases the flash output by about 2 to 3 f/stops. It focuses and concentrates the output of the flash into a narrow beam via the fresnel screen that gets positioned in front of the flash. This allows shooting at greater distances and shooting with smaller apertures.

I excitedly attached my Better Beamer to my flash, set it up on my camera along with my BML (Big Manly Lens), and aimed it at a blue jay across the yard. I focused in, pressed the shutter release, and POP! The bird exploded in a cloud of feathers.

WARNING: NEVER ATTACH THE FRESNEL BACKWARDS.

HDR quick grabs

2008-04-08T10:23:00.003-04:00

Digital SLRs have sensors whose analog output is converted to digital information, generally at 12 or 14 bits per pixel. The common analogy is to think of each photosite on a sensor as a bucket that can hold a certain number of electrons of either red, green, or blue light. Once the bucket overflows, you have a blown-out highlight in that location. (Technically, the sensor doesn't have pixels. Like a TV, an image is interpolated from the RGB values around it.) The larger the sensor on a camera, the more electrons a single photosite can hold. That's why a 6 MP image from a DSLR is always going to look far better, with far less noise, than a 6 MP image from a small point-and-shoot.

Anyway, you have 12 to 14 bits of information converted from each photosite. When that's converted to JPG, you lose some information because a JPG is 8-bits-per-pixel. You may lose some detail in a highlight, or a shadow might be clipped. If you shoot in RAW format, the camera holds the full information coming off the sensor, without converting to 8-bit values.

What an HDR photo does is expand the bits-per-pixel to 24 or 32, and then combines bracketed images to fill in info that may have been missing from a single shot. (Either the highlights overflowed or the shadows weren't exposed long enough to come out.) Once you've done this, you can use software to choose how you want these pixels mapped back to the visible 8-bit or 16-bit space. The result is a compression of the overall dynamic range into values that can be displayed in an image, just like the superior human eye can register them.

Last night I took a series of photos from a terrace in Tudor City. The first shows what a typical photo of the Empire State Building would look like. It is probably eight or nine stops brighter than the nearby buildings, so you can't get both the tower and the buildings properly exposed.

That was the JPG out of the camera. I took the RAW file (16 bits of data instead of 8) and ran it through Photomatix Pro. It expanded the image range to 32 bits-per-pixel, and then let me remap the tones. I overdid the color saturation a bit, but you can see how much more information is stored in the original image, versus what you get from the JPG.

I also bracketed a series of four photos. It went from so underexposed that you couldn't see much beyond the detail of the tower, up to exposed so you could see buildings but the tower was overly bright. I then used Photomatix to pull all the image data from these four JPGs into a single HDR file, and then mapped them all back to 16-bit space. (And then to 8-bit.)

This was a handheld bracketing, so there was a bit of misalignment and probably camera shake as well. This would look a lot better taken from a tripod. But note how you can now see the detail in the nearby buildings as well as the far brighter ESB tower.

I've taken a number of other HDR landscapes, all available in this collection as well.

Eating cessation

2008-04-08T07:54:00.002-04:00

After seeing a box of Nicorette patches on Eric's counter yesterday, I started thinking about what happens once someone stops smoking and gains weight. So I've come up with a new idea that I am officially copyrighting, so you can't do it too. Porkarette. You lose weight by attaching small adhesive strips of bacon to your upper arm, where the porky goodness leaches into your skin. Now you'll be able to go all day without a nosh. Available in original or mesquite smoked flavors.

Cheap advertising links

2008-04-08T07:49:00.001-04:00

Well, I decided "what the H" and added some adSense links to my page. My goal is to buy a Nikon D3, so start clicking away.

My first five links:

Hillary Clinton Wristband
Hillary Campaign Website
AARP Auto Insurance
Door Replacement
Need A New Garage Door? (Denver area)

I have been crawled for relevance!

Mourning

2008-03-14T08:58:00.003-04:00

As I sat in my comfy armchair just moments ago, there arose quite a clatter. A huge THUD, something hitting the sliding glass door. We've had small birds hit it before, but this sounded like a beagle tossing a chop-block.

I arose from my slumber and went to see what was up. There was a 10-inch-long smear, with a couple of small gray feathers, some small insects, and a couple of seeds. Was an eagle projectile vomiting? I looked further, and I saw it. There was a mourning dove under a teak bench, about six feet away, wings still in mid-flap, stone-dead. Guts trailing out of it. Jilly the foxhound was slowly approaching it, as if she had outrun some prey.

The poor bird had gone into the window at full speed, and hit it so hard that its guts exploded onto the door on contact. Ew.

Why I hate Avis

2008-03-09T20:39:00.002-04:00

Well, first of all, I hate every company. So this shouldn't come as a surprise. A long time ago, Avis dragged me through a lengthy small-claims process for $1000 they owed me. They hired a sleazeball Long Island lawyer who thought he'd piss me off enough to settle. So I vowed never to rent from Avis again, after winning all the money I originally asked for.

But then corporate policy got in the way, and I abandoned my blood vow against Avis. Yet they always manage to give me a completely inappropriate vehicle. I want small, they "upgrade" me to a boat. Or they give me a car with a glove compartment full of Marlboro butts.

How bad is it? I've kept track for the past two years, and Avis has given me the following late-model cars:

Ford Poboy
Dodge Dump
Mercury Cutprice
Toyota Three-Runner
Pontiac Broodmare
Hyundai Mistrial
Buick Pontoon
Chrysler Le Bon
Toyota Corroda
Kia Spackle

A tale of two hotels

2008-03-06T14:31:00.002-05:00

I'm traveling on business this week, to Seattle and Denver.

The first stop was Seattle. Or actually, Issaquah. I've stayed at this hotel before, and it's close to the Microsoft office.

I decided to show off by having a nicely pressed shirt. I filled up the iron, turned it on, and started to press away. When I gave it a blast of steam on the collar, a couple of little brown dots showed up. A bit bigger than poppy seeds. I ironed a bit more, and I got a small brown streak on my collar.

Figuring there might be a bit of schmutz in the iron, I took it into the bathroom to clean it. I hit the Clean button, and a ton of brown gunk bubbled out, like the iron was blowing its nose and hit blood. Every time I hit steam, more gunk.

So that wasn't going to work. I took a couple of garments to the front desk for dry cleaning. ("In by 9, back by 5.") I got back to my room that night, and no clothes. I figured it didn't make the daily drop, so I didn't say anything. Went out the next day, came back, still no clothes. I went to the front desk. They told me to look in my closet, because the clothes were hanging up. No, that's where I looked.

I went back to my room, and as I got there, the desk rang my phone. They found my clothes and were bringing them right over. A minute later, a knock on my door. The manager was apologetically holding my clean clothes. She handed them over and asked "Did you not get these yesterday?"

Yeah. I got them yesterday, but then snuck them back behind the desk when no one was looking. That's what happened.

Yesterday I flew into Denver. I have meetings today in Westminster, north of the city itself. I don't like it in Denver. I can't breathe right. If I eat too much, I feel like I have a road flare in my chest the next morning.

Fortunately, my hotel solved that problem for me. I drove up the desolate toll road, E-470. (Which is also the EU code-name for caramel coloring.) I got to the hotel, which was built to resemble a castle. All the conference rooms are named after medieval shit, like the Sir Galahad. The onsite restaurant is called Jester's.

I didn't want to go out to eat, so I called room service. The menu was photocopied and stapled on my desk. I asked for the chicken. Nope, they're OUT OF CHICKEN. They do, however, have the castle special, roasted turkey legs. And the photocopied menu even suggests wine choices - the turkey leg goes well with a "Petite Strah."

I went into the bathroom to freshen up. It smelled like burning hair because of some past hairdryer accident. I turned on the hot water, and it came out as orange as a Snapple label. The TV remote, which is vaguely greasy, doesn't let you use the channel up/down buttons. You have to go to the menu each time, and then choose the channel you want to go to.

I didn't have the turkey leg; I had the marinated steak tips. This is why I always have the road flare. Like most of the world's great hotels, this one has an ad on the cardkey. I could've used it to get 10% off an order at Godawful's Pizza somewhere on 120th Ave.

I want to fly home early. No dice. A 6 PM flight from Denver would get to JFK at about midnight. Nope. Nothing between 1 PM and midnight, for unknown reasons.

So now I'm in my room, trying to figure out which surface smells least like a cigarette so I have somewhere to sit.

Amazing fact of the day

2008-02-29T10:11:00.000-05:00

Right Said Fred has released six albums, including one in 2006!

Thoughts on the presidential race

2008-02-24T22:32:00.003-05:00

1. Obama is not a Muslim. Idiots.

2. Clinton is not a win-at-all-costs bitch.

3. McCain is not an ethical straight shooter. He does favors for lobbyists and can't seem to stop.

4. And so what if Obama were a Muslim? Frankly, we couldn't do any worse than the Christian we've had in charge for the past 7+ years.

5. Some people have told me that Obama has no shot, because "America's not ready for a black president." That thinking may be true if you're a Republican. But 70-80% of Democrats who have voted in the primaries have said they have no problem voting for the other candidate.

6. McCain will not choose Condi Rice for the VP slot because he will then lose the racist vote.

7. McCain is petulant and pissy, like all old men. Just what we don't need when dealing with someone like Putin.

8. Expect the "Clinton rules" applied only to the Dem nominee. Ask yourself why no one ever asks McCain or Huckabee whether they've put a yellow ribbon on their cars.

9. Maureen Dowd is a shitty, shitty columnist.

10. McCain means four more years of Bush policies. Enjoy!

RottenNeighbor: The Worst Idea Ever?

2008-02-23T16:23:00.003-05:00

I came across the Rotten Neighbor site today. It's a brilliantly simple concept: You sign up for a completely anonymous account (no email needed) and then post any comment you want about any person who lives anywhere on earth. Your comment is geocoded in a layer over Google Maps. There's no moderation, no evidence necessary, and no need to leave any info about yourself. In other words, it's an anonymous, untraceable, slander machine.

This isn't even like Emily's List, where you pay a little and sign up and post opinions about merchants and contractors. This is just a list where anyone can say anything about anyone else, and also point to their home on a map. What possible value could this have to others? I can't imagine this not leading to someone getting shot within 18 months.

(And no, that ahole neighbor who keeps threatening to call the cops because someone else's dog barks at 10 PM hasn't posted me on here. Hey! Maybe I should put up an anonymous note about them! This is great!)

Charlotte Dentist

2008-02-07T20:31:00.000-05:00

I flew down to Charlotte yesterday for a meeting. And you know how when you get off the plane in Hawaii, they put a lei around your neck? As we were landing, half of my front tooth broke off, probably as a way to give me that local look. ("NASCAR Mouth.")

It didn't hurt at all--it was a filling put over an old root canal a decade ago. But it was annoying, and sharp, and obvious, and NASCARry. I looked up the closest dentists I could find, and as luck would have it, I found one who had a 3 PM appointment open today.

So I got there, and... I spent an hour with a gay Haitian stranger in my mouth. I was curious and a bit scared, but he was very gentle with me. I was a bit uncomfortable when he told me to bite down at first, but he took it well. He really packed it around my root, too. Gave me an good, old-fashioned inlay. Fortunately, his injection didn't hurt too much. It was just a little prick. He saw me gagging, so he told me I could take a break and swallow halfway through. No, seriously he was really good. He filled my crack right up, and I was on my way.

(I'm looking for sponsorship for this barrage of gay dentist jokes. If you're interested, please drop me a line.)

View from Bayonne

2008-01-09T08:29:00.000-05:00

I got a BIG LENS a couple of months ago: the Sigma 170-500. With my job transition, I've been pretty busy lately, and I hadn't had a chance to really use it. So last week, I had to drop Kelli and the kids off at Newark Airport so I decided to take the lens along with me for a quick side trip.

To Bayonne.

Yes, Bayonne.

I wanted to have a view of the Statue of Liberty with Manhattan as a backdrop. There are a few places you can get this from New Jersey. I looked over my map and figured out that Bayonne would actually work. There's this road called Port Jersey Blvd, and if I could just find a place to set up along the way, everything would be great.

So I meandered my way through the Newark/Elizabeth area during rush hour (I think Linden was in there too), and found my way to I-78. I was in Bayonne. I drove along until I found Port Jersey Blvd. It was as industrial and desolate as you'd expect. But there were little brown signs pointing to a "Waterfront Observation Area." This was promising.

I drove past a bunch of big rigs, past what seemed like miles of high fencing, and over some disused railway tracks. Finally, near the end of the road, I found the observation area. It was just a wooden stand you could climb and see the waterfront. It was completely desolate. I got out of the car and was greeted by some stray dogs.

I climbed through some brush and over some paved-over tracks, and set up on a small pathway right next to the water. An occasional car would drive by, turn around, and leave. It was cold. The big lens was heavy. I nevertheless got off a series of shots, including the one you see here.

The lens was OK. It was actually sharper than I thought it would be at 470mm. The only problem I had was its weight, which caused a touch of motion blur (which you can see if you click on the picture and view it at a larger size).

I may even have to go back to Bayonne to try this shot again - and to go on a wonderful shopping junket down Broadway!

The greatest sandwich EVER!

2008-01-09T08:20:00.000-05:00

From JF: One pound of bacon, ground up into a patty. Stuffed with cheese. Deep-fried. Topped with more cheese.

"...and one Diet Coke, please."

Where I've been

2007-12-11T15:17:00.001-05:00

I used to blog quite regularly. (Where regularly is defined as "often.") If you're one of my three acquaintances, you'll notice that my well has run dry lately. I've been sort of busy...

First off, after half my lifetime I have left the publishing business. I had my first ties to MSJ in 1989, and continued as a contributing editor in the 90s, eventually being hired as technical editor of Microsoft Interactive Developer in 1996. Things went well until a couple of years ago, and I'll protect people by not using their names here, but it was really time for me to get out of there. For the past two years, I've been set up for failure, and I prefer the opportunity to succeed. I was miserable, but I was fortunate enough to be able to keep my wits about me.

Many people, when faced with a situation like this, convince themselves that they are worthless just because they're being told they are. I know what I've done in the past, I know what I can do now, and I know how many people have gone through a similar situation (genius to garbage) quite quickly in my old division.

I was still working against time, because after a decade of superlative reviews I was given my first negative review at Microsoft this past year. I knew it was coming way back in October 2006. I knew it was coming in February 2007, when despite getting an OK review the previous year, and doing all that was asked of me, I was told that I was "having a terrible year." In the past, I've been able to wait out situations like this, but I'm older now, it was affecting my health more, and I was tired of enforced misery.

Just before Thanksgiving, I started a new position within Microsoft, as a technical accounts manager. It's like night and day. The job is great - companies buy a services contract from Microsoft, and I make sure they're happy with it. I work them through problem resolution, case escalation, site visits, architectural reviews, and anything else an ISV needs to be successful working with Microsoft products.

I really enjoy doing it, and it's a lot like what I did as an executive editor. I would meet with advertisers alongside our sales team, talk about their products, gauge their needs and requirements, and suggest solutions and future paths for them. I want people to be happy with what I do, and I want to be able to fix it when they're not. So here I am, from executive editor to TAM.

Review: SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor

2007-12-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

My 250gb drive crashed last night. Specifically, it started to say "you must format this drive before you use it" every time I plugged it into my laptop. OK, this kind of sucks. My backup plan has been to backup all my data onto this drive, and then delete it from the laptop for space.

Frantically, not to mention cheaply, I looked for SHAREWARE DRIVE REPAIR.

Warning: SPOILERS

I downloaded SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor, and ran it on the drive. The program scans your drive and does a pretty good job of recovering data from unrecoverable HDs. The shareware version tells you what it finds; you have to pay for the full version.

SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor took a few hours, but it seems to have found thousands of my files. I've recovered lots of what I need from it, and it was a LOT cheaper than sending the drive away for recovery.

Verdict: This program actually did what it said it would, and the $140 was worth it. And the best part about it is the ultra-sexy About dialog!

Wildlife Day in Bay Shore

2007-10-22T13:14:00.000-04:00

(OK, so I took a couple of months off. Lots of stuff going on here.)

I got to the train station this morning. Half the place was marked off with yellow tape, and four cops were walking around looking for something. One of them pointed and said "There it is!" They all spread out to try and corner a rabid raccoon that was walking down the platform.

Then another cop car pulled up, giving them a force of five. (We have more cops than crime on Long Island.) Someone must've called for backup. With five cops against one slow-moving, sick animal, they eventually closed in and collared the perp.

Meanwhile, I was standing on the westbound platform, watching intently. I suddenly felt something on my wrist. I looked down, and it was a yellowjacket stinging me.

The train station: Better than any trip to the zoo!

Happy Memo Day!

2007-08-06T18:18:00.001-04:00

Aug 6, 2001: "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US."

Buying subs

2007-08-03T18:50:00.000-04:00

Mystery sub in the East River!

A man in a Revolutionary War-era submarine was cited by the U.S. Coast Guard for drifting into a security zone, and for unsafe sailing in New York's East River near the Queen Mary 2 luxury liner, the Coast Guard and New York City Police Department said Friday.

But, you say, where can someone purchase a second-hand sub in New York City? Oh, plenty of places.

Happy Anniversary!

2007-08-02T07:43:00.000-04:00

It was four years ago that I stepped into the gap when jumping off an LIRR train at Bay Shore. An overall nasty accident that resulted in a dime-sized chunk of flesh popping off my leg and disappearing.

Through modern forensic technology, I have now traced the path of that leg chunk over the years:

DigiGirlz Camp

2007-07-30T12:02:00.001-04:00

Last week, I participated in the Microsoft DigiGirlz technology camp at Stony Brook University. The event hosted over 120 teen girls from all over Long Island and NYC for three days of hands-on technology. I actually sort of roped myself into it; a call went out for volunteers a month ago, and I replied that I could help if needed. A couple of days later, I was signed up to teach eight courses! The whole thing was only made possible by the incredible work of Laurie Carey from Microsoft, and a bunch of hard-working volunteers from Microsoft, CA, and other companies around the Island.

We started at 7:30 AM on Tuesday, registering the girls as they got off the buses or were dropped off at the Wang Center. Things got a bit hairy, since the reg lists were sorted by phone number instead of name. (Oops.) It took a little fiddling, but we were able to get everything sorted out.

I took on three classes on Day One: Microsoft Office, Popfly, and Critical Thinking. About 40 kids were led as a group into my classroom for the first session. This was actually quite handy, because when I’ve presented in the past, I’ve had to wait around for stragglers 10 minutes after the session was scheduled to start.

I asked how many girls had used Microsoft Office before, and almost everyone’s hand went up. However, almost none of them had touched Office 2007. The goal of the camp was to empower the girls and show them what the business world is like, so we used a real-world example in the training: business cards. We fired up Publisher and I led everyone through the process of making their own cards, choosing images and color and anything else they wanted to put on it. It’s amazing how everyone seemed to have a MySpace page with a million pix on it already. I offered to take photos of anyone who wanted them on their cards, but only one kid took me up on it.

After designing their cards, some assistants gathered them up and took them to be printed for a networking event. Unfortunately, the color printer couldn’t handle the thick card stock, so the cards ended up being run in black and white. As the cards were being run, the girls were taking a self-defense course (which I wisely avoided), and I headed to my classroom to prepare for Popfly.

Popfly is a new Microsoft program/Web service that lets you design Web component mashups visually, without writing any code. It’s pretty cool – I’ve used it once or twice. It’s also in closed alpha, which posed a problem. I didn’t have accounts for everyone to use, and time was ticking down fast. With 15 minutes to go until a flood of kids came in, I was frantically emailing around to get test accounts. I managed to get hold of a list of nine accounts to use. I looked calm and collected as everyone poured in.

Popfly was a bit more challenging than the other courses, because it was one of those “stay ten minutes ahead of the class” situations. I wanted to come up with something they would find interesting – many of these classes started out confusing, so an “aha” moment always does wonders. In this case, the “aha” was creating a program that let them enter their home address and see their house. It’s a complete no-brainer in Popfly: you connect a User Input box, a GeoNames box, and a Virtual Earth box. You click a couple of settings and run it. Voila! A geosearch program. When the students did this and zoomed in on their homes, I started to hear them gasp things like “this is so cool!” One of the kids in the back said to the girl next to her, “I thought this would be stupid, but I’m glad my mom made me come!”

Then the questions started. You never know exactly where a group’s mind is headed, and the focus of the queries surprised me. A lot of girls started asking how software goes from alpha to beta to final release. I talked a lot about the process that Microsoft uses, determining feature completeness versus release readiness, and the various debugging cycles.

The next batch of questions came as we changed Virtual Earth to bird’s-eye views. The girls started to see details in their neighborhoods that had changed in the past year. Several of them asked me how often the photos were updated. I explained how services like Virtual Earth and Google Earth use satellite images, and how the bird’s eye shots are probably a couple of years old. Then we went back to more questions about alpha software.

We ended the classroom day with a session on critical debate. I split up the room and assigned the kids to develop a pro-con debate on whether mobile devices should be allowed in classrooms. Most of the kids wanted them allowed, which made it a perfect topic for them to develop the con argument. We led them through how to research a debate point online – again, the skills they would need in the real world.

On Day 2, I introduced my group to Windows Vista. There was an interesting divide with the students. They had almost all used Microsoft Office, and some of them had used Office 2007—but almost none of them had used Vista. It was a simple demo, involving searching and using the Sidebar. I wanted to show them 3D flipping, but the machines we got didn’t have Aero abilities.
After that, we did the second day of the debate class. Now that everyone had researched their topics, I had them group together and hammer out a single presentation on each side.

Day 3 started with a surprise. We had an Xbox 360 and a Zune that we were going to raffle off to the kids. When the first staffers got to Stony Brook, the locked storage room was open, and the prizes had gone missing. Yup, some dirtbag had actually stolen the prizes. I had to spend my lunch running over to Best Buy at lunch and buying new ones.

I taught three classes on Thursday. I started with a unit on HTML, explaining how every Web page was just a bunch of HTML code, and opening up a few to give examples. We looked at some basic tags, and made a simple page or two. Some of the girls figured out how to open up their favorite pages and paste the HTML into their own page. Since the course was designed to spark interest, that worked pretty well.

The second class of the day was a winner – we wheeled in a bunch of old desktop machines and opened them up. We identified all the parts inside and what they did, and installed memory. After the class, one of the girls told me that it was really easy to upgrade a PC, and why would she have a store do it anymore? I showed them where the clock battery was, the difference between RAM and drives, how the power supply works, and all the parts of the motherboard. The kids kept asking what various small transistors on the machine were.

The final class of the day was the debate wrapup. I have to say, the kids raised some interesting points. For instance, what’s the difference between passing notes between periods and txting a friend? If the former is allowed, why wouldn’t the latter be? We had everyone vote on everyone else’s presentations, and the winners got some extra raffle tickets.

The debates wrapped up early, and I had more prizes to give, so I started coming up with trivia questions for everyone. The first one was “How old am I?” It elicited answers from 19 to 62. I asked who our senators are, and who the governor was:

“Is it…George Pataki?”
“No, but good guess. Pataki left office last year.”
“Is it…Governor Pataki?”

Well, points for trying. I tossed them a trick question, too. “How many kilobytes are in a gigabyte?” It took about five minutes for anyone to figure out that it’s really 1024x1024.

We all marched back to the Wang Center for the final ceremonies. I was swarmed when the kids saw the Xbox behind me, but we regained order and got everyone into the auditorium. After a few minutes of warmup, we were treated to a multimedia presentation that some of the girls had created, and then gave out the replacement prizes.

The girls were pleasantly surprised by the presentations; most all of them said they learned a lot and wanted to come back. I was surprised by what they were able to create when given just a little pointer. I also found it interesting that so many of them were so taken with OneNote! It’s a sleeper product, like SharePoint; they are both going to get a lot more popular in the next year.

The next time something like this rolls into town, I strongly urge you to volunteer for something. You don’t have to teach – you can just help at registration, or herd kids from one place to the next. But any involvement makes a big difference for everyone.

(Cross-posted on the MSDN Magazine blog.)

Why I wear headphones on the train

2007-07-05T17:26:00.001-04:00

Overheard conversations like:

"They're trying to get rid of talk radio."
"Why?"
"Because liberal Democrats hate it."

News For Your Health!

2007-07-03T16:19:00.000-04:00

I'd like to extend a note of thanks to my health care provider (or maybe it wasn't even mine - was it Kaiser or Premera or Fidelis? I forget) for sending me my regular health newsletter. Packed full of four pages of utterly useless shit, the flyer manages to wag its finger at me numerous times while doling out gobsmackingly obvious advice.

Included are stories about:

- How you should use sunscreen when lying in the sun for 12 hours.
- How you shouldn't eat expired cold cuts or raw chicken at a picnic.
- Why stress at work isn't good for you.
- How eating ten corn dogs at a sitting will make you belch.
- How exercise is good for you.
- How alcohol gel kills germs on your hands.

Great stuff, that. You forgot the articles about remembering not to stab your eye out with a steak knife, and why you shouldn't aim the wrong way and pee in your face. At first, I thought that maybe the entire world is filled with utter morons who have to be reminded that smoking makes you cough and to not play lawn darts with toddlers. But then I realized what this was really about.

If the health care provider told you all these great ways to "stay healthy," that kind of counts as preventative care. They've done their part, so don't get all in their grill about actually covering checkups and yearly tests and shit. And if you do need an eye operation, tough noogies. They did tell you not to eat all those corn dogs.

Hurting our troops' morale

2007-07-03T11:17:00.000-04:00

For years now, we've been hearing the same old screed: If you criticize Bush, look at the war effort, or question any tactics, you are hurting our troops' morale and aiding al-Qaeda.

You're serving in Iraq, on your fourth tour of duty. You were originally told that the whole thing would last maybe six months. There's no end in sight. Every time you go back, things seem right back where they were. You're not stupid - you read the news, and you know that we're grinding our wheels in Baghdad and around the country.

Which of these is going to hurt your morale the most?

Laura Bush saying that no one suffers more than her and her husband over Iraq.
President Bush saying that we're sending in troops to draw all terrorists to Iraq, using you as a human trap.
Bush saying that he doesn't care much about Bin Laden's whereabouts.
Endless predictions that the hostilities would be over in just a few more months.
Rumsfeld shrugging when asked why the troops don't have the proper equipment.
Being trained for combat and being used for rebuilding or schools and hospitals that just get bombed again
Training Iraqi police that then take the weapons and perform sectarian violence.
The Iraqi government taking a couple of months off this summer, while you swelter and fight for them.
Eating spoiled food and drinking tainted water supplied by Halliburton to the troops.
The damn liberal media reporting that casualties continue in Iraq and that we're not making much progress.

I don't know...those first nine seem like they would sap morale, but what do I know? It's almost surely #10.

Wow, he DID walk

2007-07-03T07:49:00.002-04:00

The commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence is, in my opinion, this is an impeachable act. Bush has subverted justice because the person in question was part of the conspiracy that involved not only the person convicted of obstructing the investigation into the conspiracy, but also much of the top levels of the Bush administration. In other words, they were able to put it all on a fall guy, and then spring him.

To make it clear, several members of the administration worked in concert to burn a covert agent out of spite. And the covert agent was working on intelligence regarding the Iranian nuclear program. When you remember the simple rule - anything conservatives accuse liberals of doing is something they're doing themselves - it puts all the "criticizing the war is treason" calls into a new light. This administration has committed treason by publicizing top secret information that damaged our national interests.

15 Minutes, The Hard Way

2007-06-29T19:44:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, a gentleman became a hero by rescuing a rider who had fallen onto the tracks at a subway stop. The savior has had quite a bit of attention since then, not that it's undeserved.
But anyway, I was on the subway yesterday, minding my own business, when a new ad caught my eye.

GET CHECKED. IT'S JUST WHAT YOU DO.
50 or older? It's time for a colonoscopy - NOW! (blah blah blah) Be a hero for yourself and your family.
Picture: Subway hero Wesley Autrey with daughters.

Now, I know that some people are more attached to their 15 minutes of fame than others, but why would a subway hero make me get myself checked? "We've tried everything to get these people to have their asses checked. Maybe they'll listen to a subway hero."

It might've worked better with an alternate headline. Maybe... "Subway Hero says: Catch cancer NOW, before it gets into YOUR tunnel!"

Roto-Rooter

2007-06-23T15:47:00.000-04:00

Roto-Rooter was supposed to show up between 8 AM and 11 AM today. They showed up at 3:34 PM.

Now, call me old-fashioned, but I remember back to the old days, when "service" actually meant something. When your appointment was between 8 and 11, dammit, you showed up by 2:45 PM. No excuses. I guess it's too much to expect anymore in this day and age.

Why I (heart) British Sea Power

2007-06-23T06:20:00.000-04:00

From their newsletter:

These shows serve as advance heralds for the third BSP album - ‘Now That’s What I Call World War One Joy Division’ - which is scheduled for the Autumn.

When stories collide: Pope edition

2007-06-20T08:50:00.000-04:00

Road Rules: Vatican City
VATICAN CITY, June 19, 2007

(AP) Got road rage? The Vatican on Tuesday issued "Ten Commandments" for drivers, telling motorists to be charitable to others on the highway, to refrain from drinking and driving, and to pray you make it before you even buckle up.

Priest Crashes Into Restaurant, Arrested For DWI
Jun 19, 2007 9:29 pm US/Central

(CBS 42) SMITHVILLE A Smithville priest is charged with drunk driving after crashing the pickup truck he was driving into a restaurant.

Father Karel Fink, the pastor of St. Paul Parish according to the Diocese of Austin, was arrested Monday night for DWI.

FREE SCOOTER LIBBY!

2007-06-19T05:46:00.000-04:00

When he goes to jail for his multiple federal convictions for lying and obstruction of justice, they should put a "FREE SCOOTER LIBBY" sign on his cell. You know, just to serve notice that other inmates won't have to cough up any cigarettes to purchase him for the weekend.

Kirk and Spock

2007-06-16T21:17:00.000-04:00

Having every episode of the original (aka ONLY) series on DVD now leads to a lot of questions.

1. After Spock takes the captain's chair, does he leave it like 175 degrees?
2. Why does Mudd have that stupid accent?
3. Do Gorns live in lakes in Florida?
4. When Jack the Ripper drops by for a visit, why does Scotty hate women after a woman caused an accident? Did he hate men after men caused other accidents?
5. This list is lame. Sorry.

Tragic news

2007-06-04T09:24:00.000-04:00

My favorite blogger of all, Steve Gilliard, died over the weekend at the age of 41. He had gone into the hospital in February to treat an unspecified infection, which gave him a cough, fever, and some other symptoms. It got to his heart, and he fought it for over three months.

He was a fierce defender of good, and no one else could call bullshit better than he. Not the fake type of high dudgeon you see from so many conservatives, but real indignation and analysis drawn from his extensive knowledge of military history, race relations in America, and innate disgust with the crap that the administration has shoveled at us for years now. I learned a lot from him, even when I didn't completely agree with him. (I still don't like Al Sharpton, but he was the first person who really explained why Sharpton is a popular and powerful figure.)

Best of all, he hated the Yankees as much as I did. Fuck the fucking Yankees.

Steve made the world a better place, and I can't believe he's not here anymore.

When stories collide: Dog edition

2007-05-30T12:47:00.000-04:00

A mystery in Westchester.

Did Wild Coyote Snatch Vanessa Williams' Dog?

The pet Yorkie belonging to actress-singer Vanessa Williams is missing. Enzo disappeared from her Chappaqua yard Monday, becoming the second pooch of a high-profile owner to go missing from northern Westchester since Mother's Day.
While Williams raised concerns that there's some sort of dognapping ring, Mount Pleasant Police Chief Louis Alagno suggested another theory: Coyotes are snatching the bite-size pets.

Never mind, we figured out what happened to Enzo.

LONDON - A British artist has eaten chunks of a Corgi dog, the breed favored by Queen Elizabeth II, live on radio to protest against the royal family's treatment of animals.

Mark McGowan, 37, said he ate "about three bites" of the dog meat, cooked with apples, onions and seasoning, to highlight what he called Prince Philip's mistreatment of a fox during a hunt by the Queen's husband in January.

"It was pretty disgusting," McGowan said of the meal, which he ate while appearing on a London radio station on Tuesday. Yoko Ono, another guest on the show, also tried the meat.

Herb's Market

2007-05-27T14:43:00.000-04:00

I dropped by Herb's Market to pick up lunch today. As they finished making my sandwiches, the woman said "Wait, you're the guy who wrote about us!"

Confused, I said "Uh...no I'm not."

She replied, "Yes you are, I never forget a face."

I thought back hard. "Did I say something nice?"

The woman shook her head and said, "No. You called us stupid."

It dawned on me that she had probably seen my critique of their long-gone fried chicken sign, which said "4 pieces, $4.00. 8 pieces, $8.00. 12 pieces, $12.00" on up to something like 47,200 pieces for $47,200.00. I pointed out then that the sign could've been shortened to "Fried chicken, $1.00 a piece."

Well, let me set the record straight right now. I apologize for anything I said that might've implied anything negative about Herb's Market in any way. Herb's is not stupid. Herb's is a great deli.

One of the things I like about Montauk is that the food isn't just an afterthought, and it's not just because I'm grotesquely obese. Life's too short to waste on crappy meals from Burger King, which is why I enjoy places like Herb's. I get sandwiches there almost every day when I'm out here.

To prove that I love them, and to provide pointers for others looking for good food in Montauk, here are the top ten things I like about Herb's.

1. Their fried chicken is reeeeeeally good. It's exceptional, with just the right salty touch in the batter. You can get it from the hot bar or order your own for big picnics. It's worth $5 a piece, which is what they'll probably charge me next time they see me.

2. They make really good BLTs. Tons of crispy bacon, fresh lettuce (not iceberg!), and plump tomatoes. You know when you get tomato on a sandwich and you end up taking it off because it's pale pink and chewy? We've never had one like that at Herb's.

3. They have homemade potato salad and macaroni salad that's about an order of magnitude better than what you'll find at a place like the IGA.

4. They sell Tate's cookies.

5. They always have good crunchy snacks, like Salsitos, and more importantly they have Irish crisps.

6. They have a bunch of good marinades, which work well with the prime meats they sell.

7. They hand-trim the meat that you get from their counter, even trimming the gunky membrane stuff off boneless breasts.

8. Every sandwich I've had there has been thick with meat. They don't skimp on anything, and their cold cuts are never weird-tasting or fatty. It's like the opposite of Quizno's. I suggest the chicken cutlet with swiss, lettuce, and tomato on rye with Russian.

9. They make really good smoothies in the back, near the hot bar. And unlike most places, not all their smoothies have banana in them.

10. They let me buy the sandwiches today, even though I evidently called them stupid once. Which I didn't mean to.

When you want to pick up sandwiches for the beach, or meats for the BBQ, nothing's better than Herb's Market in Montauk. They go great with an afternoon at Gin Beach.

When you outsource headline writers...

2007-05-12T20:22:00.000-04:00

You get headlines like this:

Royals To Get A Taste Of Angels' Colon

(Sports Network) - Bartolo Colon attempts to win his third consecutive start off the disabled list tonight for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, who will be aiming to continue their recent dominance of the Kansas City Royals.

Roger that

2007-05-11T10:39:00.000-04:00

So anyway, there's like this guy, Roger, who craves attention and who named this, like, the most useless blog in the universe. I'm not going to link to him to encourage him but just remember - I have YEARS of unread content, while he has like three things on his blog.

The throat hole

2007-05-11T09:25:00.000-04:00

You know, I don't even smoke. I've never smoked. I will never smoke. And yet every five minutes, I am subjected to an ad where throat cancer victim Ronaldo Martinez tells me to stop smoking or I'll end up talking with a voice box like he does. OK, I GET IT. If you smoke too much you'll end up with a cool Darth Vader voice.

So this morning, I'm in the shower as my little morning radio blares next to the sink. I hear the ad come on. Not again - I'm so sick of listening to Throat Guy talking. (No offense to Throat Guy, but I'm not the target demo.) Then I step out of the shower. It's not even his voice on the radio - it's a talking didgeridoo from Outback Steakhouse. I guess there's at least one positive about having a hole in your throat - if you do find yourself accidentally eating a rapidly congealing platter of Outback cheese fries, they have a shorter, more direct evacuation route.

Next, wrestling my router to the ground

2007-05-08T10:57:00.000-04:00

Another step towards victory.

After getting SharePoint 2003 nice and cozy on my server, I decided to upgrade to the latest, greatest version, 3.0. Woe is me.

I ran the installation, and it hit a couple of minor glitches, but ended up working OK. hen I ran the configuration wizard. Uh oh. It was a 12 step process, and it crudded out on step 10 every time.

I looked at the logs: NullReferenceException. Every time. The logs also contained the trace of where the problems occurred, in great detail. Helpful? Maybe, but probably not so much.Plus, it's a huge file because the SharePoint setup logging is quite verbose.

03/2007 14:15:38 11 INF Retrieved the content service and content service instance, now enum the web applications to see if there is a match with template STS
05/03/2007 14:15:38 11 INF Site with uri http://myurlhere.com/ and port 80 and template STS could not be found
05/03/2007 14:15:38 11 INF The site http://myurlhere.com could not be found in the Web application SPWebApplication Name=MY URL HERE Parent=SPWebService.
05/03/2007 14:15:38 11 INF Site with uri http://cynicor.com/ and port 80 and template STS could not be found
05/03/2007 14:15:38 11 INF The site http://cynicor.com could not be found in the Web application SPWebApplication Name=Cynicor Parent=SPWebService.
05/03/2007 14:15:38 11 INF Cannot find a site matching template STS
05/03/2007 14:15:38 11 INF Leaving function SPEvaluatorModeProvisioning.TryGetIsSiteProvisioned
05/03/2007 14:15:38 11 INF Leaving function SPEvaluatorModeProvisioner.IsProvisioned
05/03/2007 14:15:38 11 INF The default site url is http://myserver/, port 80
05/03/2007 14:15:38 11 INF The owner account for the default site is mydomain\administrator
05/03/2007 14:15:43 11 INF The owner email for the default site is someone@example.com
05/03/2007 14:15:43 11 INF The db server for the default site is myserver\Microsoft##SSEE
05/03/2007 14:15:48 11 ERR Task evalprovision has failed with an unknown exception
05/03/2007 14:15:48 11 ERR Exception: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPConfigurationDatabase.CreateSite(SPWebApplication application, SPContentDatabase database, String originalPath, Guid id, Pairing pairing, Uri redirectUri, Boolean useHostHeaderAsSiteName, Boolean bypassExistingSiteCheck) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPConfigurationDatabase.CreateSite(SPWebApplication application, SPContentDatabase database, String path, Boolean useHostHeaderAsSiteName) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSiteCollection.Add(SPContentDatabase database, String siteUrl, String title, String description, UInt32 nLCID, String webTemplate, String ownerLogin, String ownerName, String ownerEmail, String secondaryContactLogin, String secondaryContactName, String secondaryContactEmail, String quotaTemplate, String sscRootWebUrl, Boolean useHostHeaderAsSiteName) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSiteCollection.Add(String siteUrl, String title, String description, UInt32 nLCID, String webTemplate, String ownerLogin, String ownerName, String ownerEmail, String secondaryContactLogin, String secondaryContactName, String secondaryContactEmail, Boolean useHostHeaderAsSiteName) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSiteCollection.Add(String siteUrl, String title, String description, UInt32 nLCID, String webTemplate, String ownerLogin, String ownerName, String ownerEmail, String secondaryContactLogin, String secondaryContactName, String secondaryContactEmail) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSiteCollection.Add(String siteUrl, String title, String description, UInt32 nLCID, String webTemplate, String ownerLogin, String ownerName, String ownerEmail) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPEvaluatorModeProvisioner.Provision() at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.EvalModeProvisionTask.EvalProvision() at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.EvalModeProvisionTask.Run() at Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.TaskThread.ExecuteTask()

What could be causing this? I had no idea, but staring at the log for a few minutes made a light go off: my router was failing me. It was obvious!

A couple of years ago, I got a Belkin router/wireless station. It worked decently, and had a nice Web interface that let me set up everything I needed. However, it wouldn't let me get to my own sites by name. If I went to www.cynicor.com from inside the firewall, it would redirect me to the router's administration page.

I finally figured out that there WAS no way to repair this problem. Any request coming from inside the network would go out to the router, who would figure out that it was coming from inside the network and redirect port 80 calls to the router. I asked Belkin what to do. They said "just set your Web site up to use a different port, or call it by IP address internally." The problem with configuring that is that I have multiple domains that live on my server, and calling by internal IP won't allow Windows Server 2003 to filter the requests by header.

I wrote back to Belkin and asked if I could change the admin port on the router. They said no, and I would need a router with port address translation to make this work. Instead, I bought a LinkSys router at Best Buy. The LinkSys router lets you change the administration port it uses, and it defaults to 8080. This solved my port 80 problem! Now to test SharePoint.

I ran the configuration utility again, and it worked like a champ. No more exceptions. I went to bed and slept like a baby.

When I got into work the next day, I wanted to look at the server a bit more, so I tried to use Remote Desktop to get in. Oops, I'd forgotten to open that port. On the Belkin, I foolishly set the server to be the DMZ, which allowed port 3389 (and everything else) to pass through. I had enabled remote administration on the router last night, so I was able to access the port settings from work, through port 8080. Two minutes, a couple of clicks, and I was RDCing again.

Great shot!

2007-05-03T20:33:00.000-04:00

Hey, let's go lens shopping.

This wide-angle lens looks nice! Let me click on the "enlarge" link to see a high-res version of the product shot.

Day By Day

2007-04-30T15:09:00.000-04:00

Day By Day is a painfully unfunny, Republican comic strip that finds most of its audience on the Web. Various corners of BlogWorld have started a contest for the best cartoon remixed to resemble one of these atrocities.

I, of course, feel that to do it true justice, the cartoon should be in its original form, with Day By Day dialogue pasted in. So voila - this makes as much sense as the average Day By Day (click for full size):

UPDATE: A second one.

Wrestling SharePoint to the ground

2007-04-24T22:00:00.000-04:00

I am doing a little programming project at work this week, and it involves the convoluted SharePoint APIs. (CAML? Why, oh why?) Instead of messing with an actual live server at work, I decided to set up a staging site.

My first choice was a test hosting account with Apptix. They sell full hosting for $40/month, with a trial month free. I dropped by, set up a site, and tried to program against it.

Oops. I tried to talk to the site via Web service in VB.NET, but I don't have the permissions to reach the site programmatically. So I decided to set up SharePoint at home. (I have a server at home that runs Windows Server 2003 and is attached to the Internets.)

Sounds easy, but I spent a day fighting SharePoint to the death, finally emerging victorious. For whatever reason, every roadblock that could've appeared did appear, and very little of it has been clearly documented online. Maybe some of this information will help future generations.

First off, I made sure that WS2K3 was patched and updated. I also put the .NET Framework 3.0 on it, as a prerequisite of running SharePoint 3.0.

Next, I downloaded and installed Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. The installation choked. It had a problem accessing a database called MSSQL$Microsoft##SSEE. Great. I went into Add/Remove Programs and tried a second time, and this time it completed successfully. I still had to run the configuration wizard to get things set up.

Uh oh. Same problem. The wizard went part of the way through and said something about the MSSQL$Microsoft##SSEE database again. It told me to disable the FrontPage server extensions. Why would they interfere with a database though?

I went into the ISAPI extensions and disabled FrontPage extensions. I tried the wizard again, and again I got the same problem. Maybe it was missing a DLL? I uninstalled 3.0, and installed Windows SharePoint Services 2.0. Then I immediately installed 3.0 as an upgrade instead of as a fresh install. No dice. Same problems.

I rolled back 3.0, and got back to 2.0. I repaired its installation just to be sure. Everything went fine. But then I clicked the administration link, and it went to fpadmdll.dll - and gave me a 404. The DLL was obviously where it should've been. But why was SharePoint still calling a FrontPage DLL after I'd disabled the extensions?

It took me a minute to find out where the actual installation point was for the FrontPage server extensions. They're hidden like a coin in a King Cake. You have to go to Control Panel. Then into Add/Remove Programs. Then to Add/Remove Windows Components to get to the Windows Components Wizard. Then you have to choose Application Server and click Details. THEN you have to choose IIS and click Details again. Finally, the list of IIS components appears, one of them being FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions, 14.1 MB. I uninstalled it and got out of Control Panel. Suddenly, everything worked. THIS is why you listen to the weak error messages, people.

I thought I was finished, anyway. I clicked on a link in the administration screen, and I got a message "There is not enough space on the disk." Every administrative task I tried gave me the same message. I had 22.4 GB on the drive!

This one was easier to nail down. I went to File Explorer, right-clicked on the C: drive, and checked Quotas. Sure enough, they were turned on. I turned them off (for now), and the last error messages went away.

So I did it. I wrestled SharePoint to the ground. I haven't upgraded back to 3.0 yet, but 2.0 is running great, under 384 KB of memory. And I finally have a test server I can program against, as well as a message board for the whole family. Life is good - or at least better than it is for the smoking monkey.

"And would you like the curly chest hairs with that?"

2007-04-21T16:30:00.000-04:00

http://www.tandoorgrill.com/fullmenu.htm

SOUPS & SALADS
Mulligatawny Soup ------------------------------------------- $3.95
Masculine Salad ---------------------------------------------- $4.95

Respecting our flag

2007-04-20T07:56:00.000-04:00

In the comments on a previous post, someone allegedly named Anonymous said:

Don't you think it's disrespectful to our country for the person singing the Anthem to wear a jersey saying "Beat X" where X is the opponent, and then for the team to flash said jersey on the scoreboard, thus encouraging more disrespect?

You are correct, "Anonymous." I certainly do think it was disrespectful to show the "Beat Buffalo" lettering on her jersey while she was singing the anthem. It was a sign that the person running the scoreboard was trying to get the crowd going, rather than showing our nation's anthem the respect it deserves. In their defense, however, it was a matchup between two American teams, so there was no opportunity to show a bear crapping on a Canadian flag, as is the Coliseum tradition during the singing of "O Canada."

It also defiles the Islanders uniform to put extra lettering on it. However, when someone wears a Rangers jersey that spells "CRACKHEAD" down the front instead of "RANGERS", that's comedy gold.

What would I do if I were running the scoreboard? I would put together a montage of patriotic scenes that all Americans could be justly proud of. It would start with an American flag flapping in a light breeze. It would then dissolve to home-movie-quality footage of a toddler wiping his butt with a roll of Bin Laden toilet paper. Then a few more flags. Then it would switch to a naked, blind, 70-year-old man chained to a cage in Guantanamo, with dogs snarling at him. A couple more flags, a still shot of Bush falling off a Segway, and then the grand finale. Finish it off with an outline of Iran that turns into a mushroom cloud, and then morphs into a shot of some shirtless fat guys in the crowd, with American flags painted onto their hops-and-barley-bloated guts. Superimpose some fireworks over that, and you've got yourself an anthem.

Can't let go on Leggo

2007-04-19T22:20:00.000-04:00

Last night, the Islanders scored to tie the Sabres with about a minute and a half left in the game. The referee, Mike Leggo, waved the goal off. He said that Ryan Miller was pushed in after making the save. (Untrue.) He also said he had meant to blow the whistle to stop the play because he lost sight of the puck. (Great. Maybe he can give some penalties out for hitting after the whistle, because he TOTALLY meant to blow the play dead but forgot.) He told the Islanders that the decision would be made by Toronto. Toronto said that the refs on the ice made the decision. None of the stories match up, but the fact is that Leggo made an awful call, on a clear goal, and then came up with 100 CYA explanations.

I did a bit of searching to see what Leggo's history in the NHL was, and it turns out that he has a proud string of really crappy, game-changing calls (and non-calls) to his name over the past few years. Why this ref is in the NHL, much less in the playoffs, is frankly baffling. And this was just on the first couple of pages of searches.

Buffalo gets benefit of Leggo blown calls vs. Rangers, day after Leggo screws up video replay, Nov 2006

But it's hard enough to have to face a team that good -- to have to face them on a second straight night of horrendous officiating that mostly went in their favor proved to be impossible. The litany of officiating errors in this game was legion, and all but one or two were by Mike Leggo, the referee who didn't see Cullen's goal the night before in Pittsburgh and failed to allow sufficient time for video review to correct his oversight (he had a different partner last night).

Leggo's errors in this game actually began with a bad call against Buffalo -- the double minor to Chris Drury for bloodying Adam Hall's nose with his stick was on the followthrough of playing a puck, which is not supposed to be a penalty. Leggo, as you an see from the replay, could not see the original impact through several bodies and made a late call only when he saw Hall on the ice.

The three calls that gave Buffalo a five on three for two minutes were all made by Leggo, and they were all correct (although he allowed Jason Ward to be crosschecked from behind when he cleared the puck over the glass for a delay of game call), but from there on everything went against the Rangers -- actually, some calls had already gone against the Rangers when Maxim Afinogenov was allowed to pick off Straka in his end of the ice and then get a call on Petr Prucha on a dive at the other end of the ice.

The absolute worst was when Jaromir Jagr was tackled right in front of Leggo, with no possible excuse for not seeing the penalty (which was actually the second against Jagr on the play after earlier obstruction). But it was not all -- Matt Cullen was tripped in Leggo's end of the ice with no call, even though the other referee had a line of sight as well; Straka was tripped on a possible breakaway with no call by the other referee; and Brendan Shanahan was obstructed off the deciding face-off as he tried to get to the point to defend against the shot that Drury deflected home for the game winner.

Leggo gets confused by loud noise, waves off tying goal, Mar 2003

Selanne's back-hander rolled over the shoulder of Dallas goalie Marty Turco and into the net as the final 10th of a second ran off and the horn sounded.

The goal was waved off originally by referee Mike Leggo, and after nearly 5 minutes of video replay, the call stood to the disappointment of most of the 17,496 fans.

"I thought it didn't cross the line before I heard the horn," Leggo said.

Selanne was already in midcelebration before he heard Leggo's ruling. After seeing several replays and getting the support of the fans, Selanne was steaming about the final decision.

"This is a joke," Selanne said. "Thank god this game didn't mean anything. But this is the NHL, they should at least get it right."

Leggo blows high-sticked goal, Avs vs. Wings, Jan 2007

Except for the goaltending of Jose Theodore, who started for the first time in a month, the margin of defeat could have been far worse, but Quenneville's ire was directed at referees Don Koharski and Mike Leggo.

Quenneville was upset when a goal by Tomas Holmstrom with 5: 58 to play in the third period was allowed to stand after lengthy video reviews by NHL officials in Toronto.

The goal, which gave the Red Wings a 2-0 lead, was produced when Holmstrom lifted his stick to swat the rebound of defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom's shot.

The play was reviewed to determine whether Holmstrom knocked the puck in with a high stick, but the replays were inconclusive.

Leggo allows kicked/high-sticked goal to stand, May 2006

The Oilers scored at very controversial goal at 16:07, with Hemsky kicking the puck in the net following what should've been a high-stick on Horcoff. On the play, Horcoff had his stick above his head and redirected a point shot at Legace. Mike Leggo and Mick McGeough blew the call, as it was pretty obvious Horcoff tipped the puck with a high-stick. McGeough was the closest on the play. Legace attempted to cover the rebound off the Horcoff re-direct, but couldn't get his glove on it.

Leggo's quick whistle negates goal, Mar 2003

Defenseman Brian Leetch had 10 of New York's 41 shots andthought he scored the tying goal with 10:19 left in the third period when he jammed a rebound through Luongo's pads. But aquick whistle by referee Mike Leggo negated the goal.

"He blew the whistle and you have to accept it," Rangers coachGlen Sather said.

"He lost sight of the puck and blew the whistle and it was atough break for us," Leetch added.

Canucks goal called off by Leggo "royal screw job", Jan 2006

Mike Leggo waved it off; said he lost sight of the puck. Fair enough, all he had to do was put the matter in the hands of the replay official. Nope, he wouldn’t do that either.

For the second time in the game, officials altered the course of the game with a whistle.

“They didn’t give us [an explaination],” said a stoic Marc Crawford. “They were adamant about it. They thought they had blown the whistle. But it’s his call to make, not mine.”

It was, as they say, a royal screw job worthy of its own castle.