March 02, 2004
February 29, 2004
The Pirate Movie (Happy Leap Day)
The Pirate Movie is a 1982 rewrite of the Gilbert and Sullivan musical, "The Pirates of Penzance." I vaguely remember seeing it on HBO (as did the reviewer in the IMDB article linked to above), and one of the funniest bits (to me, at the time) was the protagonist's being apprenticed to a bunch of pirates until his 21st birthday, and the protagonist's birthday being on February 29th. And since February 29th only happens once every four years, yadda yadda yadda, har har har.
Anyway, happy leap day. It's not often that a roundoff error does anything for anyone, but here it's given us a whole extra day to play with.
On an unrelated note, Word.
February 16, 2004
Snowmobiling is not for wimps (wimps shouldn't even watch)
The NYTimes has an article, Driving: In the Snow: Speed, Schnapps and Bloodshed, about a Nascar-style 500 lap snowmobile race in Michigan. The event consists of lots of crazed spectators drinking and barbecuing in the bitter cold (temperatures below 0 F aren't uncommon), while a bunch of crazed snowmobilers race around a track, causing grievous injuries to each other and to the spectators. Yeah, I could get into that. But then, every year I'm half tempted to drive out to Punxatawnie for groundhog day.
February 09, 2004
Hit and run is fun fun fun
On Sunday morning at the Waterfront Target, somehow my car acquired a huge dent in the rear quarter panel. I was inside the store at the time, so I have no idea what happened. I do know what didn't happen: nobody left a note taking responsibility, apologizing, or offering to pay for the damage. I guess everyone who told me never to park near the shopping cart return was right.
Today at the body shop, I was told that the quarter panel is toast, and they'd need to replace the whole thing. $500 for the part, another $1800 to install and paint it. Exorbitant! I'm supposed to believe that replacing one (obviously flimsy) body panel is worth a fifth of my car's current value? Yeah right. At least the insurance company is going to pay for it. But in the end, we'll all pay. Everyone in Pennsylvania is going to wind up paying just a little bit more for their car insurance because some yutz at Target couldn't keep their hands on their cart.
February 01, 2004
"So long and thanks for all the blood"
Around Pittsburgh, awful billboards like the one at the right are popping up. I'm not against blood donation, or saving little girls, but the message "Thank you for my blood" is pretty repulsive. Whatever happened to "Give the gift of life"? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, seeing as this is the town where the health care advertisements say "Choose a hospital as if your life depended on it." Here's one of the commercials that ran on tv for a while. (Copyright on that belongs to GBL by the way.)
January 28, 2004
There's good dirty and bad dirty
Today I happened across this NY Times article that explains that what most of us call "cleaning up" merely spreads the bacteria around. The usual ideas are floated: wooden cutting boards and 140 degree water good, plastic cutting boards and ancient sponges bad. For me, the peak of the article is a quote from a microbiology professor: "The cleanest kitchens, he said, were in the homes of bachelors, who never wiped up and just put their dirty dishes in the sink." This is obviously meant as a rebuke to mothers and girlfriends everywhere.
In other dirtyness today, Doc Searls has told the world about Naked Loft Party (note: link not safe for work, children, or my parents, who are somewhere in Mexico right now anyway), a blog of the erotic adventures of someone named Aleksander. This must be what it's like to live in New York City.
January 18, 2004
Does this stylesheet make my writing look flat?
Joi Ito's entry about writing style and blogging contains a link to Ten Mistakes Writers Don't See (But Can Easily Fix When They Do). As I was reading it, I was thinking of all the times I'd made those mistakes, especially on my blog. Especially mistake #2, "flat writing."
Not that I've been in the blogging game that long (though hey, I'm well past the one month mark), but in my own quest for more engaging blog writing, I've been trying to adopt a more "verbal" style. That's the way I've always written email. It helps me avoid the trap of non-fiction: sounding like a documentary or an article in a research journal (shudder). Is that what most people do?
January 15, 2004
Carol Moseley Braun still kicks butt
Christina dropped me a line to tell me that Carol Moseley Braun would be on The Daily Show last night. I managed to tune in just in time to hear the interview, and as usual, Braun was terrific. Not that there was a heavy-duty policy discussion or anything. When talking about Mars, Braun threw out some quotes ("Live long and prosper" and then, I kid thee not, "Fear is the mind killer") that made me think she was either pandering to the crowd or a genuinely geeky person.
Anyway, today I hear that Braun has withdrawn from the race. I expected her to drop out eventually, but couldn't she have stuck it out a while longer? Oh well.
January 11, 2004
Great cookbook
A few years ago, my mother gave me a copy of The Working Stiff Cookbook. At first, I didn't touch it (the graphics were a little too cute). But over the last couple years, I've made a bunch of the recipes from it and every one's turned out really well.
Just last night, we tried the pan-roasted salmon recipe and it was great. The recipe for pancakes is also terrific, and the sausage and escarole soup is not to be missed.
January 06, 2004
Carol Moseley Braun kicks butt
The presidentials had yet aonther debate today, this time on NPR. I admit that I haven't had the fortitude to listen to all of the debates (or any debate in its entirety), but I've been consistently impressed with what Carol Moseley Braun has to say. I hope that she doesn't fade away after (she gets trounced in) the primaries.
December 26, 2003
And my next oil change is...
Haven't been near a computer too much lately as I've been hanging out with the family for winter break/Chanukah. Now heading off to do a whole New England thing for the weekend. Over the next few days I'll be hitting Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.
December 21, 2003
Xmas lights
Christina saw some great Christmas lights in Bloomfield (Pittsburgh neighborhood), and they're as good as advertised. And now I know what a Moravian Star is.
December 20, 2003
Unemployment awaits?
In this article, CNN claims that there will be 26% fewer software engineers employed 11 years from now than there are today. I suppose this means that I (and my colleagues) could be in big trouble, since there will be more and more eligible applicants for each job, and that could drive salaries down. That could hurt, especially now that I've decided to spend the next 3 years in grad school rather than out raking in the big bucks while I can.
I'll ignore the issue of whether or not this study is believable. I'm more interested in who cares about it. Is there someone out there picking careers based on these sorts of projections? Frightening.
Btw, this is the first post of my second week of blogging. To link to yet another well-known url, this white paper from Perseus says that about 40% of the blogs they studied only lasted a day before being abandoned, and of the remaining blogs, the average lifetime was 5 and a half months. So my next challenge: keep this blog going until at least May '04.
December 16, 2003
Quiet at CMU
Today was the last day of finals. CMU's campus is emptying out for winter break. It felt more like spring break though, because the temperature was hovering at 55 F and it was sunnier than it had been in weeks. Most people looked a little disoriented in their heavy coats, squinting at the sun.
December 11, 2003
My girlfriend
PA Route Numbering Logic is written by a guy who my girlfriend had to share a desk with. Kinda makes sense she'd wind up with me, eh?
December 10, 2003
And away we go...
Hello world.