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I left this in mostly to make Dave happy. :-) Though it doesn't, because Pitas doesn't escape ampersands, and neither do I; the spec is broken on that point.
A Wish, From Me, To You
Please accept with no obligation, expressed or implied, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all -- and...
(deep breath here)
A fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically
uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "AMERICA" in the western hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee.
By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.
(This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.)
Happy VD
And, as usual, an old flame shows up, the day before, to set me alight again. We'll see. May you, too, live in interesting times. :-)
My friend Alan, whose blog I won't link here -- because he never posts, and why embarrass him? -- linked me to a new blogroll candidate, with some very well thought out stuff including this piece on those 2 Arabic translators who got drummed out of the Army... because they're gay.
I agree with him on points, and I'm so glad I've managed to shape my life in such a course that I can say so in public, and not have to give a shit who reads it.
I'm not Spenser, but I get by.
[ ..which is nice triple pastiche, not only on the Fozzy the Bear riff, but something Spenser himself once said as well, about not being Jascha Heifitz. Walking Shadow, I think. (That originally said "Shadoe", but while Mr Stevens was a great DJ, I don't think he's really pertinent here. ]
[ No, of course it's not that simple. :-) In the late 90s, CBS was bought out by Westinghouse, before they were sold to Viacom, and apparently a reactor license ended up in their name before they were sold to British Nuclear Fuels. Isn't Wikipedia wonderful? ]
Remember that substitute teacher who was facing 40 years on felony charges... because she reported the porn popups on the classroom computers 4 times, no one would fix them, and someone's parent complained?
StormBar to follow; first advisory 5pm Fri; 320SW Tampa, N12, 1000mb, 45mph; expected to curve a bit east later, though it hasn't actually moved much the last 2 hours.
Sorry, Taste of Pinellas. (If the whole weekend rains out, donate something, huh? :-)
That's what snotty people use to refer to The New York Times.
The paper's website proper is mostly subscription, but they do have a pretty cool looking editorial blog, and this guy I don't much like (:-) provides the pretty useful service of translating their RSS feed into a newsriver, which is especially useful on things like my Blackberry.
My laptop -- A Compaq EVO 610c, which regular readers will l
remember I've been quite pleased with for the last over-a-year --
decided to shit the bed today, right after lunch.
At least it waited until after lunch.
Looks like a motherboard issue, and I was *just* about to
upgrade it to an HP nc6000. Damn. More when I know more;
light bloggage for a while. Pray if you got 'em.
UPDATE: apparently, you prayed. I just powered it back up and it came up just fine. Humidity from the walk back from the restaurant? I dunno. That'll teach me to not carry it in its case.
THU UPDATE: Now it's failing a different way. <le sigh>
A new Pew Research poll finds that Republicans are happier than Democrats. This finding has been consistent since the survey began in 1972.
"Republicans tend to have more money than Democrats, and -- as we've already discovered -- people who have more money tend to be happier. But even this explanation only goes so far. If one controls for household income, Republicans still hold a significant edge: that is, poor Republicans are happier than poor Democrats; middle-income Republicans are happier than middle-income Democrats, and rich Republicans are happier than rich Democrats."
"Might ideology be the key? It's true that conservatives, who are more likely to be Republican, are happier than liberals, who are more likely to be Democrats. But even controlling for this ideological factor, a significant partisan gap remains. Conservative Republicans are happier than conservative Democrats, and moderate/liberal Republicans are happier than liberal Democrats."
Well, of course.
Intelligent, thoughtful, well-read people who pay attention to (actually) balanced, unfiltered news about the world around them cannot help but feel the pain that paying such attention generates...
and most of those people aren't Republicans, and most Republicans aren't those people.
Wikipedia's Featured Article today is about the first film. I remember going to see it, with my dad, at Boston's Charles Street 6 Cinema.
It was, among other things, the first film most of the people in the theatre had ever been to with 6-track sound, and the reaction in the theatre when that first battle cruiser flew in was like a Chuck Jones cartoon -- every head in the place snapped around to the right with an audible click.
I have personally seen a photocopied 15 or so page treatment outlining all 9 (yes, 9) films projected for the series, sometime shortly after the second film came out -- I don't know where my roommate came by it; it was 4 or 5 generations of Xerox copy down. And it all held together and made perfect sense. So don't believe Lucas when he says there were never gonna be more than 6 movies; he's lying. :-)
There's a Big Thing going on in LA this week, too; among other things, the first time in history all 6 films will be played in a row, in one day. 14 hours. Wow.
UPDATE: and, oh, my ghod, if you want to know lots, lots more... go to (I swear I am not making this up): Wookiepedia.
I Had A Dream, by Cathy Salustri, as published in the Gabber, who are also brave.
It's nothing, really, that Bill Cosby and Chris Rock haven't said. George Carlin has a quote on why that's ok, but I probably wouldn't get away with saying it, cause I'm not...
I was talking to my friend Alan, with whom I'm going to the Heinlein Centennial in July, about Spider Robinson's short story Melancholy Elephants, which asks the question "Does information want to be free? or just $6.95?".
In an interstitial in his collection of columns The Crazy Years, published last year, I would swear that he'd disclaimed the premise of that story, and a weblog commentator somewhere asserted that it was because Robert Heinlein turns out to have a semi-adoptive granddaughter, and Spider putatively felt that these two things were incompatible (the kid, and the idea that copyright must expire Or Else).
But, yet, he's just posted that story on his website. (It had been on the Baen Books Free Library for a year or more, with his blessing.)
So does this mean he's changed his mind?
(And will I get an unexpected email about this -- does he, like Scott Adams of Dilbert fame, get pinged by Google Blog Search on his Blackberry when his name is mentioned on the web? Kibo would be impressed. (Hi, Scott. :-))
you're probably having no trouble breathing today. Everyone up here above ground, though, is getting the after effects of the brushfires around the state, in the form of smoke and ashes.
If your eyes have a mist, write a song about it; it'll probably sell really well.
was named by the NOAA Tropical Prediction Center as of Advisory 1, issued at 1100EDT today.
The storm is unlikely to make it across the state to here, and not all *that* likely to cause any major damage even on the northeast coast, but I'll keep an eye on it.
Now it appears that it's unlikely even to stay together long enough to make landfall.
and that means that the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season is about to commence. As I have for the last several years, I will be updating my Weatherbar, and posting it up top the site once the season starts, as well as a Stormbar when anything with winds over... oh, say, 50mph (what I call a "Category 0 hurricane), threatens West Central Florida, which usually means when the NOAA 3-day track includes us.
I'll have pointers to spaghetti plots and maps, wind maps, a bunch of interesting weather sites that perhaps you hadn't run across, and whatever else seems interesting at the time.
Just as a reminder, here's the Florida historical hurricane map for the last 25 years or so:
I agree with the commenter that notes that asking Slashdotters for advice about sex might not be the best approach... but there are actually some thoughtful comments in here...
though very appropriate, that this isn't nearly as good as this, which is from the actual production team. Of course, NBC *TOOK IT DOWN*, the lousy, stupid, moronic bastards, so you can't see it. But *I* can, cause I saved it. Good thing, huh?
whenever the topic comes up, that more damage has been done to children and society by the panic over 'Mr. Stranger Danger' abducting and sexually abusing your kid than has ever been done by actual Messrs. Stranger Danger to actual children, and it's only geting worse.
More on that, including some thoughtful replies and useful links among the customary drivel, at Slashdot.
who was probably my long-term favorite on Buffy: Amber Benson.
Damn; what a beautiful woman.
Funny too, as you'll see the interview. She has been burning up Hollywood the past few years, including a movie with the outre title 'Strictly Sexual', about.... well, the Desperate Housewives, as nearly as I can tell. Gotta find a copy of that on DVD. :-)
Presumably, she'll notice this when checking her name on Yahoo in a couple hours. Hi, Amber. :-)
"Can't we just skip all that? Can't you just be kissing me?"
That's apparently the tradename for Polaroid's new MP3 player, which I picked up yesterday because it's about 3/4 of Sansa's E-250 (which I wanted) for $99. Target.
Full review to follow at ePinions by the end of the week, but some salient points: it's apparently USB Storage Class, as so *many* such devices aren't -- this likely means I'll be able to use it with Linux with no fuss. It does MP4 movies and JPGs (and it will do a JPG slideshow *while* it's playing music, impressively enough. It *won't* play my XVID encoded Scrubs' 'My Musical', damnit. (I'll install their transcoding software at lunch and see what it can do with it.
It only has 512MB onboard, though it has a MicroSD slot (2GB now, 4GB soon), and switching shuffle and repeat is a bitch -- and there are a couple of other things that annoy me (and I know I'll never find a channel to clear those suggestions through, which annoys me worse), but for $99 instead of $230 I'll put up with quite a bit...
Pictures and some more information here. He's right: it's "surprisingly cool".
about 4 people's computers that wouldn't cooperate (my sister's PVR has a bad spot in a drive I don't seem to get around; a client's machine has a bad NIC driver I can't download because China's off-line today; another client's machine may just have lost it's boot drive -- but at least that one I have a spare and a backup to fix, etc, etc, yada yada...)
...and so I decided to go tolerate AOL's miserable on-line TV crap-thing, which is currently the only way to watch Spenser: For Hire since it's not in syndication *or* on DVD yet.
The pilot is actually pretty palatable. It took them 90 minutes to fit it into, even with as much stuff as they cut, but that's not surprising.
But it's not worth trying to watch more than the pilot; In2TV is simply too crapped up to cope with. Sorry, guys.
[ Oops: Hat tip (and happy birthday): Pam. Now -- as she does every year, she gets to spend a few months being 7 years older than me... instead of only 6. ]
I've had, over there to the left, at the top of the Crap Column, a button linking to the site for the Heinlein Centennial; the celebration in Kansas City MO this July of the 100th birthday of my favorite speculative fiction author.
My best friend Alan got his registration in months ago (though not early enough to get the discount :-); I just sent mine in today. So, for the first two weeks in July, I will likely be on vacation, and ignoring the rest of the world.
It's the first real vacation I've had in about 20 years (IE: all my life), so I probably ought to take longer than that... but 2 weeks is probably enough for it to feel like an actual vacation.
My schedule will likely be pretty close, but if anyone has any suggestions on stuff I ought to take pictures of while I'm there, let me know.
This is the midrange digital camera I would buy. I have a client for whom it would be perfect... except that he absolutely can not live without image stab, and it doesn't have that.
If you can live without it, then this is a good choice.
Being the best sales associate at Circuit City is along the same lines as being the best cook at McDonald's. If that's where your vision ends, that's almost certainly where you belong.
It was censored, in toto, by the school administration. Because it's honest about the war in Iraq... and we can't have *that*, can we?
I used to like David Isen, and now I'm kind of meh on him, but he's stepping up, here, hosting copies of said play -- which I encourage others to mirror, as well -- and illustrating a favorite point of mine, which *I* phrase as "defending palatable speech is unremarkable".
I'd just like to point out here that this acquisition, and several of the examples posters to the /. thread mention, are more evidence for my assertion that Mergers and Acquisitions neverever end well. For anyone.
this time about Largo City Manager Steve Stanton, and his sex change, and the fact that his kid didn't find out before the press did.
Alas, as a commenter points out, and as the St Pete Times itself made clear, even though they were the culprits, his hand was forced by someone who leaked the plans to the paper, and the paper refused to sit on the story -- as well it should.
But Cathy's fact-checking was weak on this one... and just like how spelling flames always contain mispellings, the irony is delicious. :-)
It's odd. I never really though of Cathy as intolerant, even on this second go-round, where she *does* remember getting tired of me. But that's how this piece reads.
Looking for stuff to bitch about, Cath? Odd; particularly in light of the piece which immediately precedes it. On which point, BTW, congrats.
Peter Salus and Tom Limoncelli, who walk this beat, have published a collection of the humourous Internet RFC's from the last 29 years, including all the April 1st ones ... and of course, thereby including mine.
I wish they'd mentioned to me that they were doing it, though; the published version wasn't canonical -- well, except for the version at netfunny.com...
And, of course, if no one hears from me for a week, assume that the FBI has come and picked *me* up for linking to this. I might decide I have the energy to set up a Warrant Canary... or not. Cute idea, though.
the Childrens' Online 'Protection' Act, struck down in Federal court. Bonus quote:
Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. wrote in his decision: "Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection."
That's the title of one of my favorite humor books, by author Colin McEnroe. In an Amazon review, someone wonders "why this guy has never put out another book?"
Richard Jeni, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
[ As much fun as the NFL ref joke was, I'm pulling it in light of the fact that the comedian's website notes that the likely cause for what his family is confirming was a suicide was "severe clinical depression coupled with bouts of psychotic paranoia." Damn, that sucks. Though it does make his "I'm schizophrenic; I *am* other people" joke about 6 times funnier, an irony he would likely have appreciated... a couple years ago. :-} Requiescat in Pace, RJC. ]
Last night, 1:59:59 am was followed immediately by 3:00:00.
Hopefully, this did not lead you to...
Aclockalypse Now...
(Note that if you want to embed a comedy central player on your site, their embed code uses single-quotes to wrap all the parameters, when the spec (and the browsers) apparently want double quotes, so you'll have to change them by hand. Stolen from Techdirt, who had just as much trouble as me...)
changes this weekend, not the first Sunday in April.
Congress changed the rules last year, and it's coming home to roost. If you run WIn XP SP2, your computer will be fine. If you're running anything older, you can try these files or you can use tzedit.exe, versions of which are apparently available for version back to Windows 98, if you still care. :-)
And if you're meeting me at the Renn Fest on Sunday, don't forget to reset your clock...
I see I forgot to mention that Chel and I went to see Wicked last week at TBPAC. We were off in the woods in the 4th balcony, *right* on the edge of "I can't see the stage". I managed to see all but the hard stage left wing, since I'm 6'2, and I think Chel had a pretty good view. But the tickets were $31.50 plsu service charge, a week before curtain.
Gallery A 20 and 22; those are your seats. :-)
The performance itself? Not bad; a bit week compared to last year's tour, I think. Glinda wasn't as crisp; she was kind of flinging it out there in spots where Kristen, and even Kendra Kessebaum (whose tour company bio *still* points to her website-which-doesn't-exist, a year later) were more measured in their squeaking.
Damned fine show overall, though, and certainly worth the money... even if my first date was otherwise occupied. :-}
If you have Peter Pan (or Wal-Mart's Great Value) peanut butter in the house with a code on the lid that starts with 2111, don't eat it -- it may have Salmonella.
There isn't actually a formal recall yet, so I can't tell you what to do with it, but eating it, not so much.
Thursday, February 15, 2007 @ 12:10 p.m. - Comment
Michelin - The Future
Blockbuster - Total Access -- they ran this in the pregame; this break was obviously not prime time.
State Farm - Yep, we're out of prime.
Happy Cows - Green Acres -- bet they didn't pay for the music
Grammy promo
Scotts - Fire Ants -0 they do suck, don't they?
Mitsubishi - Outlander -- Look! We have an X3 clone, now, too.
Flomax - making men pee less -- Wheee!
E-Trade - Give em the Finger -- And yes, I wrote that title before they got to the punch line
Rules of Engagement promo
CBS News repeat promo *again*; at least it was shorter
Pro Bowl promo
Masters promo
Publix - Rumble in your stomach -- mediocre
Bud Light - Watch Squirrel -- Hee.
Toyota Tundra - Repeat of the first one
Checkers bumper
FedEx - Naming Conventions -- chuckle
K-Fed/Nationwide - Fries! -- Nice
Bud Light - I Drank With An Axe-Murder
*Another* friggin CSI promo -- it's the most watched show, guys; give some love to HIMYM who need it?
Careerbuilder.com -- trying to be Capital One again. Failing.
Taco Bell - Carrrrrrne Asada lions II
Van Heusen -- they make shirts, don't they?
2.5 Men promo
Meet the Robinsons' movie promo
E-Trade - Bank Robbery - meh
Coke - Assembly Line -- Oh; is *that* what happens inside tha big box? No wonder it'll kill you if it falls on it.
Craig promo
"Use of teh accounts" threat.
CBS News repeat promo
CSI: NY promo
Grammy promo
Survivor bumper
Bright House local promo
Chevy Silverado - GM Warranty. Yawn.
Jobing.com promo - Yup; that screwup was important. Hee.
McDonald's - Birthday Club -- you couldn't be arsed to come up with a new spot for your $2.6M
Local news bumper
CBS Thursday Night promo
March Madness and Grammies promos
10 News Local news promo -- trying to convince us that bleeding heart local news is a Pretty Neat Idea
Geico - even more Cavemen
Acura - advance -- even more space and moon shots.
Checkers local bumper
Careerbuilder.com - Survivor -- cute.
Doritos - Checkout -- Cute, also.
Chevy - Car Wash -- The winner of Chevy's college advertising competition. Not as much meat as I'd like -- we needed more reaction from the girls inside. But not too bad...
Budweiser -- Kick in the Head -- they get almost as much mileage out the dogs as they do the horses. Nice tag.
Garmin - GPS rockstars -- What was that about?
CBSCares - Big Siblings
Pro Bowl and Grammy promos
Chevy - Pop Musik -- Wow this was a good idea for a spot
Bud Light - Carlos Mencia -- Hee.
Grammy contest promo
Letterman/Oprah -- Only funny if you get it, but hilarious if you do.
Language Log thinks he's just an idiot. At least, I believe that's an accurate, if somewhat facile for humorisitc purposes, characterization of what they actually said. (When attributing to the folks at LLP, one wishes to be cautious. :-)
if you live in East Central Florida. At least 14 are reported dead after a strong line swept through the state on a Southeasterly path, pushing tornadoes through Lake, Volusia and Sumter counties.
Since my three-month suspension from posting on NANOG.
I just today discovered that I'd inadvertantly de-posted my Goodbye, Cruel List message, preserved on my website for hysterical raisins.
It turns out there was also a thread on the admin mailing list about my banning which I'd managed to miss until now. The usual suspects ahad the expected opinions on the event. I found myself unsurprised.
new Florida Governor Charlie Crist is expected to announce tomorrow that Florida's touchscreen 'voting' machines will be permanently decomissioned and replaced with optical scan ballots for all future elections. Apparently, 6 years of Bush and 3000 extra dead bodies is what it takes to convince Republicans that stealing elections isn't worth it...
That's actually a shame, because touchscreen machines really *do* have something to recommend them... they were just miserably implemented.
In other news, those Ohio vote counters who rigged the recount that gave Bush a *second* stolen election? They were dumb enough to admit what they did *on camera*.
Somebody's going to Emergency; somebody's going to jail.
About 26 years ago, Apple Computer ran this ad in the Wall Street Journal:
Their point, of course, was that IBM was expanding the lake by getting into the business, and a rising tide lifts all boats.
They were right, of course.
My point is that the release of Windows Longhorn, er, um, Vista today on retail computers -- you can't get a new one with XP anymore unless it was already in the channel -- will make Linux look better and better on the desktop to the retail customer.
If you're going to have to put up with a whole new set of annoyances, and learn how to do everything all over again, why pay Microsoft $399 for the privilege. Yep, that's right; the OS alone accounts for more than $400 of your computer's purchase price, after sales tax.
Linux, in addition to being *much* more secure, and less likely to get you thrown in federal prison by cops who don't understand that that kiddy porn was downloaded to your computer by a zombie bot you had no clue existed...
Monday, June 11, 2007 @ 09:22 a.m. - Comment
Michelin - The Future
