:: What makes you nuts? You know, the little things? Bloggers who blog about blogging on their blogs? (That one was for Keith). Bad drivers? Rude people? The provincial government? Taxation? That annoying neighbour? Tonya nicely synthesizes three things that drives her batty, and I can find some empathy in her words.
:: So the Twins beat the Yankees, and the Giants beat the Marlins already today. Now if the Red Sox beat Oakland and the Cubs beat Atlanta, all will be right with the baseball world. I grew up in Winnipeg cheering for the Twins in the 1960s. When they won in 1987, it was the first time one of my favorite baseball teams took the World Series. This time around, I'm hoping for the fantasy series: Cubs and Red Sox. The problem is, if the Cubbies and Red Sox meet in the WS, it means the world will end shortly thereafter. There has been concern expressed in years past that if the Red Sox and Cubs played in the WS, the result would be "complete and total armageddon."
:: Proving once again the belief that the Internet is a mecca for people with way, way too much time on their hands, check out this list of every single expression Dr Zachary Smith used to describe "the robot" on Lost In Space. My favorite will always be, "you bubble-headed booby".
:: Speaking of television, has anyone seen Carnivàle?
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:: I've been immersed in Stanley Kubrick fare of late. The last two books I read were Eyes Wide Open by Frederic Raphael, who co-authored the screenplay to Eyes Wide Shut, and Moonwatcher's Memoir - A Diary of 2001: A Space Odyssey by Dan Richter, the mime who Kubrick hired to choreograph the Dawn of Man sequence and play Moonwatcher in 2001. The Richter book fascinated me, bringing me behind the scenes of the making of this now famous sequence in my favorite movie of all time.
Tonight I watched Vivian Kubrick's 35 minute documentary, The Making of The Shining, filmed when she was 17 years old. Stanley is featured in many scenes, including some startling scenes with Shelly Duvall. Together with these two books and the recent documentary about him, made by Jan Harlan, his long time executive producer and brother-in-law, Kubrick seems much more human to me now than he was when he was alive. The documentary is included in the DVD version of The Shining, and includes a second track with commentary from Vivian, added 23 years later, when she was 40. You can watch 90 seconds of her documentary here (requires RealOne Player). BTW, for those of you who remember 2001 well, the scene in which Dr Floyd calls Earth from the space station and speaks to his daughter, "Squirt" - she was played by Vivian Kubrick.
:: From the Life Magazine publication, 100 Photographs That Changed The World, 28 of those pictures can be seen here.
:: Are those 92" computer screens I mentioned earlier a hoax? If so, it's a brilliant and elaborate one, because beyond reeling me in, it has fooled Forbes (which has withdrawn the story already), and by extension, Roland Piquepaille. Piquepaille became suspicious, though, after he received a comment from a reader, and began an investigation, concluding that the site is a fake. Then again, Lisa Ciesniewski, the PR Manager for Liebermann, gave an interview a few days ago in which she said the company has 30 employees and plans to open two showrooms in LA and NYC.
What do you think? Hoax or for real?
:: My thanks to those who sent comments about my two recent posts, including those who wrote privately.
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:: It's not these things necessarily (I still have my '69 Tele, never had a '54 Strat), but on days like today...it's a Sunday, I always hated Sundays, and it's dull and grey and dead and claustrophobic and suffocating in Edmonton today, and Sundays exist to remind you that you need to go back to work tomorrow. I was shopping at Costco just now, and every person there seemed to be in my way. We can't relive, we can only move forward, but all too often I miss the early 70's, which for me was the last age of innocence in my life. It's hard to describe, but it was a time when I didn't need to be aware of much beyond my immediate surroundings, and I didn't have to deal with everything else that comes with being a damn grown up.
I love being able to write about "stuff" on my site, but there are also things about which I can never write. I guess that's where a diary serves its true purpose. Today I'm smoldering with residual anger about this and that, and it gets compounded as I deal with the hearing aid (which is terribly tinny and not too useful in a movie theatre), the stuggle with the eating plan and workout regime, family issues, finances, loneliness, perceived injustices (personal and otherwise), turning 50 and staring into the virtual abyss, and so on. It's a moment when I want to say, f*ck it all, to hell with the planet.
Yesterday I learned that someone close and important to me was beaten regularly as a child by an older brother, until she was 20, as were three of her other siblings. I think of something like that, and consider how good I had it as a kid, and how good things have been as an adult. I try to reconcile that with how empty I feel inside right now.
Despite the foregoing, I maintain a rock solid awareness and appreciation for how good things are in my life. A balance needs to be struck somehow. I'm working on it, despite feeling like it amounts to a waste of effort.
And how peachy is your weekend? (And I laugh, because as I finish this, the sun snuck through the clouds and shone on my hands and keyboard. OK, God, you win!)
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:: Derryl Murphy has sold his twentieth short story. This is not a trivial accomplishment, but one worth celebrating. I met Derryl in 1987, when I was dating his sister's best friend. The rest is history.
His story, Island of the Moon, will be appearing in Neo-opsis. Read a "brief snippet from the beginning of the story" here.
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:: Robert sent a note about The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. At first I thought it was a joke, but I'll be damned if it doesn't appear to be real. Check out the trailer on the official site, or watch it here. The FAQ clears up a few issues. I checked the IMDb, and sure enough, there's an entry for it. One of the stars, Fay Masterson, was in Eyes Wide Shut (sorry, the WB site doesn't function these days). The first question I have is, what took anyone so long to make such a spoof - it's a no-brainer. Second question: will it be funny? My favorite line from the poster: "This was the day the Earth was disembowled in terror!"
:: The Segway, invented by Dean Kamen, is in a bit of trouble. 6,000 of the units are under voluntary recall because of a problem with the battery that may result in the rider falling off the unit as the battery nears the end of its charge. (From: The Gothamist)
I haven't seen a Segway yet, and don't know if any are in Edmonton. Personally, I'd like to see DEKA develop the Stirling Cycle Engine, which doesn't require gas or oil to function, into something that could be economically viable so that it could be used in mass market applications (like automobiles and other gas powered vehicles, which at the moment isn't feasible) and present a direct challenge to the oil industry (which will have to happen eventually, anyway - we will run out of oil someday). Here's an analysis of one of DEKA's patents on the Stirling engine by the American Stirling Company.
| TrackBack (0):: Opus is returning. The penguin who anchored Bloom County returns to the weekend-only funny pages on November 23rd. It remains to be seen if the Edmonton Journal will carry the strip. I'm not holding my breath. But this is great news, one of those "I never thunk it would happen again" moments. Great work, Berkeley! (Derryl sent word of this to me. He's changed his blog, Cold Ground, to a TypePad site, check it out, it looks great!)
This Slate article discusses which comic strips will be important in this decade. Leading the pack for me is Boondocks, which of course isn't published in either newspaper here in Edmonton.
:: OCLC has released an official statement regarding its lawsuit with The Library Hotel.
:: If you thought a 19-inch monitor was the pièce de résistance, check out these megascreens from Liebermann. The Cinerama has a 45", 51" or 57" screen size. Not big enough for you? The Grand Canyon comes in 76", 81" and 92" screen sizes (resolution is 6400x1200 pixels). The 92" is a bargain at $17,499.99US. (From: Roland Piquepaille).
:: My most excellent Winnipeg friends Steve, Mike and Tony like to hop on their bicycles and ride for long period of time, take pictures of themselves doing this, and then post them on the web. Bike With Mike is a document of their cycling adventures.
| TrackBack (0):: Hewlett Packard has introduced a device called a DC3000 DVD Movie Writer, that lets you transfer VHS and other formats, including BetaMax, to DVD. Another new toy!
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:: I experienced two "firsts" today. At work, we began our Librarian On-Site! service. For the first time in my 25-year career as a librarian, I left the library to do information and reference work, and went to where the users "live", on their turf. I set up shop in a large computer lab, and offered consulting to any engineering student or faculty who needed help. It was a lot of fun, especially in the second hour, when a class of chemical engineering design students descended upon me with a propane pricing and chemical property question.
The other "first" was more personal - I was fitted for a hearing aid. Yah, you read that correctly. It's wonderful getting old. I've had a version of low tone conductive deafness in my right ear since 1985 or so. It's never worsened or improved, so my ear doctor suggested I consider a hearing aid. I'm going to try it for a few weeks, and then decide whether or not to purchase (~$1,500Cdn, just a pile of chump change).
A hearing aid. I can't believe I typed those words. It seems to work well most of the time. It doesn't work well with a telephone or headset or headphones, so I'll have to get used to using the phone in my left ear. It has two settings, one for group noise (used in a meeting or a party), and a basic setting for conversation. The device feels ok in my ear, not too much of a bother, and most people I spoke to didn't even notice it. That's cool because it protects a bit of my vanity, but inside, a small part of me is very, very sad.
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:: I've been cranky all week. Sometimes I don't want to be around other sentient beings, and I think most of Those Sentient Beings are aware of that right now. I've been working hard on a new eating plan and exercising six days a week, and I don't feel or look any different. I've been on the eating plan since August 6th. It's very frustrating at this point in time. I'm beginning to wonder if I might have to accept the fact that I will not lose my tummy, despite my best efforts, or get in better shape. I've consulted with a nutritionist and a personal trainer. What's left to try? Oh, I could bang my head against a wall.
It's like, things seem so collectively lousy right now that the smallest, dumb thing that happens causes me to giggle hysterically for a second or two. I'd like to take an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner, and suck all the shyte out of my house, the zillion papers and magazines and other peripheral junk, and stare at the walls.
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:: More news about the OCLC-Library Hotel lawsuit is emerging. According to the Sept 26 Library Journal Academic Newswire (to which I have no e-access, and which I cannot quote for 60 days according to its redistribution rules, and therefore am paraphrasing), OCLC has tried, for three years, to get the owners of The Library Hotel to sign a simple agreement regarding use of the DDC. The agreement would in effect acknowledge that The Library Hotel's use of the DDC was done with permission of OCLC. The owner of the hotel is a man named Henry Kallan, and according to the OCLC lawyer, Joseph Dreitler, they heard nothing from him for two years. Then, in 2002, Dreitler noted that, "He basically told OCLC to get lost." At the moment, the hotel has denied any wrongdoing, and the General Manager, Craig Spitzer, has advised that Kallan is on vacation and will speak with the press when he returns.
At this point, I think I'm siding with OCLC.
Stay tuned. Who would've thought that the library world could get this exciting? I wonder what Melvil would do? Why doesn't OCLC have a press release about this on their web site? And what's up with the Library Hotel Erotica Package, and its special Erotic Literature Room? Mmm...classify that under, "rrrrrrrrrrr".
| TrackBack (0):: Randy Cohen writes perhaps my favorite column, The Ethicist (ID and PW: podbay), for the NYTimes Magazine. He is the author of The Good, The Bad & The Difference: How to Tell Right From Wrong in Everyday Situations. In the Sept 7, 2003, issue of the NYTimes Magazine, he responded to a question from a high school student regarding the use of online resources at a university attended by her brother, by using his password to gain access. I work at a university with a large number of online resources, and wonder how often this happens, since we are unable to patrol who actually is using passwords when off campus. Here is the question and Cohen's response:
A: If the library access your brother offered was, as I gather, unauthorized, then it wasn't his to offer, and it certainly wasn't yours to accept. (He's not allowed to swipe college office supplies and send them to you, either. Too bad, I know. But that's ethics for you.) Were he to have done the research for you -- something rare in the annals of big brotherhood -- that wouldn't change things. His library privileges, presumably, permit him to do his own work, not to set up a reference service. That he pays a lot of tuition is beside the point: those who shoulder Ivy prices must obey the rules, too.
What's more, the university could indeed lose if all students passed along their passwords to reference-hungry relatives. An overloaded system with delays for legit users is no boon to higher learning. But even if the school doesn't lose, you'd be on shaky moral ground. Yours is the same rationalization of those who hook up their own cable TV's or sneak onto the subway (or, more rarely, hook up their own cable TV's on the subway). For these services to be sustained -- libraries, HBO or IRT -- each user must pay his or her fair share.
On the bright side, there are many fine public libraries right there in Florida (if the Legislature hasn't cut their budget), as well as many publicly accessible sites for online research.
Cohen, Randy. The way we live now: 9-7-03: the ethicist - nuclear strategy. New York Times Magazine, Sept 7, 2003, p28.
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:: Well, I am proud, actually, but lately, my profession is doing what it can to make itself look, er, stoopid. First comes the librarian action figure, in which the action involves telling you to, basically, shut up. (Other superhero action figures save the world - our action figure tells you to stop talking.) Now comes word that OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center, is suing The Library Hotel in NYC for using the Dewey Decimal System as its theme. The Library Hotel divides each of its floors according to the DDC, meaning that each floor and room on that floor is dedicated to a specific subject in the classification.
OCLC owns the rights to the DDC, is concerned that people visiting the web site might think the hotel is connected with the owner of the classification system. From the hotel's website:
The Library Hotel in New York City is the first hotel ever to offer its guest over 6,000 volumes organized throughout the hotel by the DDC. Each of the 10 guestrooms floors honors one of the 10 categories of the DDC and each of the 60 rooms is uniquely adorned with a collection of books and art exploring a distinctive topic within the category or floor it belongs to.
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:: Megatunes, perhaps the best independent record store in Calgary, has opened up a store in Edmonton, on Whyte Avenue, in the old Greenwoods Bookshoppe space. (Their website leaves a lot to be desired, however.) Anyway, it is a primo location, and Edmonton was long overdue for such a store. I was in the store last Saturday when it opened, and noticed that local musician Jen Kraatz was working there.
Jen told me about her new album, Ashes, which I bought and have played a number of times now on the car stereo. It's a great little record, with a tight, clean production, and it really showcases Jen's writing and singing styles. The highlight of the album is Square, a song with a driving, repeating four note riff (B-C, G-F#, over low A and E strings) that I can't get out of my head. However, what makes the song is the haunting melody Jen sings over top of this rhythm. I can't say enough about this tune. I've already spent some time with my guitar, playing along with a few tunes on this record, most notably Square.
The songs on the album are rife with subtle musical spaces, a few notes here and there from various instruments, which adds to the pleasure of listening to it.
If you're looking for high quality product by a talented Edmonton musician, pick up Ashes, by Jen Kraatz. Information on purchasing a copy of Ashes is available on Jen's website.
:: I'm backed up answering e-mails, and checking out web sites and articles of possible interest.
:: This Scientific American article discusses the Six Degrees of Separation theory, suggested by sociologist Stanley Milgram in 1967. The project at Columbia U is called Small World, and you can participate if you like.
:: Michael Moore's new book, Dude, Where's My Country?, is due out on October 3rd. Hot on the heels of Al Franken's Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look At The Right, the book is sure to continue to tick off the right and get them dutifully steamed. Franken, of course, was sued by Fox for using the expression,"fair and balanced" in the subtitle of his book. Interesting that Moore's book title is a play on the movie, Dude, Where's My Car?, which happens to be a Fox production. Lawsuit, anyone? Franken's publisher, Penguin, moved up the launch date of his book from mid-September to late August, in hopes that the publicity and fallout from the lawsuit might help sales. Duh. The book opened at #1 on the NYTimes Best-Seller List, and remains there to this day.
It's an interesting time, where we are seeing more books from the left attacking the right. Also out there are Joe Conason's Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth, and Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News, among many other titles.
:: While it appears this site may no longer be updated, check out The Useless Pages.
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:: I discovered this afternoon, by serendipity more than anything else I suppose, that I had the wrong binaries loaded for NetPBM. Er, duh. Like, how would I know? Anyway, I uploaded them to my server, and Gallery started working on my site. I've loaded a handful of photos so far, and will continue to work on tweaking things in the next few days.
:: I'm feeling slightly better than yesterday. Bones and muscles not aching as much. It was very cool in town here today, and is 1oC at the moment. Apparently snow has been falling heavily in other parts of Alberta. Still, I'll take this over what Hurricane Isabel is about to give the eastern seaboard.
:: Some time back, during an NYC trip, I was introduced to Rainsong guitars. They haven't been available in Alberta, but a rep for the company was scheduled to come through Edmonton this week and visit Avenue Guitars, far and away the best guitar shop in Edmonton, and the only one I frequent. I'm looking forward to playing one again soon.
| TrackBack (0):: It's been quiet on the blogging front for a few days. I've been working on loading the Gallery program, which Geoff runs successfully, and since Geoff and I share the same hosting service, one would think I could get it to work. But no such luck. It appears that I'm mucking around in areas beyond my abilities, and it is very frustrating. I've had help from the Blogomania HelpDesk, and the Gallery Forums.
Contributing to the problem is the ambiguity of the Gallery documentation. The directions on the Installing Required Programs page are not that clear or user-friendly. For example, regarding NetPBM, you are directed to go to this page, and "grab the files" (binaries), FTP'em over to your host, and chmod them to 0755. Even I know how to do that. This page even lists the binary files (12 of them)! Wo-hoo! Ok, so Randy goes to that page, grabs what he thinks are the necessary NetPBM files, 6 zipped files ending in .tgz, unzips them, and none of them seem to contain any binaries. Um, btw, those six files are the ONLY files on this page. Like, there are no other NetPBM files to download.
Hello? This IS boring, isn't it?
:: In the meantime, I am a hurtin' unit tonight. My bones and muscles are aching, so it's off to bed. The configuration of Gallery, seemingly an endless activity, shall wait for another day.
| TrackBack (0):: September 12th, "The Day After" for many people, I suppose, is a significant day in my life. It's my father's birthday, the birthday of another very close friend, and the day in 1983 I was hired to work at the SciTech Library, where I remain to this day. For me Sept 12 is always a day of celebration.
:: What a sad morning, however. I woke up to learn that Johnny Cash and John Ritter both passed away overnight. Ritter's death was a shock, as he appeared to be in fine health when he collapsed on the set of his television show. Cash's death resonates through the music industry - his influence and impact was and is immeasurable. What other artist, late in his or her career, would cover Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails? He is already sadly missed.
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:: September 11th is almost over in this time zone, and as a day of reflection it felt more subdued than in 2002. The NYTimes editorial reflects of what has happened since that time (ID and PW: podbay). There were various specials and documentaries on television tonight, most notably on PBS. A two-part UK-produced feature, called 9/11: A Tale of Two Towers, chronicled the experiences of the employees of two offices located in the towers during the attacks. It was compelling viewing, but at times very difficult to watch, as well as to listen to the descriptions of what these survivors saw as they left the towers and escaped with their lives.
| TrackBack (0):: The stereotypical image of my profession has been reinforced with the debut of a doll wearing sensible shoes, a long, dull dress, and a cardigan sweater, and a moveable arm that "shushes" you. In July, Nancy Pearl, the librarian after whom the doll is based, advised the rest of us in the profession that how we would react to it would be based on how secure we are in our own work:
A better model might have been the Librarian Avenger. Look it up, baby!
Ms Pearl works for Seattle Public Library, and knew she wanted to be a librarian when she was 10 years old. She is the author of Book Lust: Recommended Reading For Every Mood, Moment and Reason. An interview with Pearl is available here. Meanwhile, the backlash from other librarians has been fierce, and the doll isn't even for sale until October.
But hey, judge for yourself! The manufacturer, Archie McPhee, also sells a ceramic smoking baby, Dick, The Albino Bowler, Pee Guy (really!), a pig catapult, and of course, Jesus Christ himself. What illustrious company!
Bottom line: because of the publicity regarding the doll, she'll sell more copies of her book than she could ever imagine, and McPhee will sell more copies of the doll than it could have predicted. Good for both of them, but forgive me if I pass on buying one myself.
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:: Well, that didn't take 72 or even 48 hours. Heck, not even 24. Like, overnight, baby. My domain name transferred quietly overnight from Edmonton to somewhere in Jacksonville FL. Blogomania is their name, web hosting, their game. Why the switch? The local host company wasn't that reliable, and they wouldn't support programs like Gallery, of which I am looking forward to loading onto my server. I did some homework in that Geoff switched to Blogomania last year, and still sings their praises. I can report that each in a series of questions I sent to their helpdesk have been answered with, as Monty would say, "With all speed."
:: It's been a stressful week on a number of levels, I'll write more about this shortly. Today I put a stainless steel U of A mug with coffee in it into a microwave to warm up the coffee. The microwave melted a small part of the plastic handle on the mug - which was a gift, btw. I had to clean the microwave afterwards, wiping away the sootlike black crud that adorned the its innards after the meltdown. This, plus missing a meeting, and struggling for hours, literally, trying to get a document to the CNS Plotter. Suffice it to say that by 4:30 pm, I was 1) in virtual tears, and 2) ready to put my fist through my work computer screen. Good night.
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:: A note to advise everyone that my site, http://www.podbaydoor.com, will be offline shortly, for a period of 24-28 hours. It might happen later this week. This will include my e-mail address, randy at podbaydoor dot com. I will be transferring my domain name to a new name server, and when I initiate that procedure, the site will be non-functional until the name is resolved on the new server. Kind of like an Apollo spacecraft orbiting the far side of the moon - no contact until it emerges on the other side.
Anyway, stay tuned, I'll probably put up another warning just before I make the switch. Thank you.
| TrackBack (0):: I took another baby step tonight, preparing for the move to another host. Yesterday I successfully loaded Moveable Type 2.64 onto the new server. Today, with a dose of patience, I was able to initialize the system so that I can reach the MT prompt on the new host. Patience was important: I encountered two errors while working, and was pleased that I was able to determine their source, and correct them. One was a typo (I had typed DBI:mysql instead of DBI::mysql - damn extra colon!), and the other was an incorrect URL I had loaded into the mt.cfg file. Whatever. Details, details.
This is too much detail, but forgive me the indulgence: this blog, the one you are reading, is running on as a Berkeley db (whatever that means). The new one will run as a MySQL db (whatever that means - Geoff, he knows what that means; so does Kenton.)
What's next is that I have to create a weblog on the new site, and then try to import the entries from here to there. As well, I want to import my templates. I hope I can do it without much grinding and gnashing of teeth.
:: Perhaps the best nutrition site I've ever seen is this one: NutritionData. It features a db of 7,154 foods, and "generates nutrition facts labels and provides simplified nutritional analyses for all foods and recipes." The only drawback: no foods found only in Canada are in the db (such as Vector or Optimum cereal).
:: This article on "geezer rock" is more annoying than anything else. It's been interesting watching rock music age, from its beginnings in the 1950s, to present day. The musicians who create and play pop, rock and folk rock music, seem to be the only ones who get slagged because they get older. Musicians working in classical, bluegrass, country, blues, soul, rhythm and blues, opera, klezmer, whatever, are never bashed around because they get on in years. But in rock, journalists like to lambaste them, as Jim Derogatis does here, almost just for the exercise itself.
Derogatis' thesis: that "the best rock 'n' roll is immediate, urgent and vital--it is music that celebrates living in the moment", is a good one, but it doesn't necessarily need to apply across the board. I mean, do the Artists That Matter need to rebel 24/7? I'm biased towards Steely Dan, but damn it if their new album doesn't haul ass, and sound better than most of the shyte being fobbed on music fans by artists and acts half their age. Derogatis offers five geezer lists, from Geezers who still matter, to Geezers who never mattered and are now less relevant and more offensive than ever. In the end it's all subjective. Who's to say the music being made now by (some of the) artists who've been active in these genres for 25-40 years can or cannot stand on its own merit?
Check out these responses from the Hoffman forum, many with which I agree. My favorite comment: "Terrible article. I wish I could have written something so shallow and negative when I was 15 and get paid for it. Might as well tell us that Jazz is for dead people. Go fling yourself in front of a schoolbus."
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:: I heard from my new host, and have the necessary information to begin setting up on their server. I've installed MT 2.64, and will begin configuring it tomorrow. Wish me luck, I hope it all works.
:: I spoke with a personal trainer at the Y today, and will meet with him on Sept 11 for an initial consulation. Tomorrow it's another meeting with the nutritionist.
:: Last night I sat on the edge of my bed, and stared at the bookcase next to it. I looked at, maybe 10 different books of interest that I'd like to read. Couldn't decide which one to read next. So I went to sleep instead. I'm no further ahead tonight.
:: The e-mails with the SobigF worms seems to be diminishing in number. Maybe the creator did discover girls. Or something. Maybe not.
:: School started today. Yesterday 23 new bright, flat-screen terminals were installed on our main floor. Today the new students attacked them with a fervor. The days of wondering if the new cohort of students is familiar with computers and peripheral devices is over. Already today, a student asked if he could plug his memory card into a USB port on the new machines (which aren't configured yet for said cards). Most of us don't know a USB port from a bottle of port. So the learning curve is steep again.
| TrackBack (0):: A couple of days ago, I started receiving random e-mails, 82 of them since Aug 31st, each infected with the W32.Sobig.F@mm worm. What a pain in the ass. I've run the removal tool, which confirms that the worm isn't on my machine, but the feckin' e-mails keep coming. Every one gets caught by Norton Antivirus and automatically deleted, but I don't know how to prevent them from coming in. The Symantec page includes a list of IP addresses correlating to the master servers, so I added those to my firewall restricted zone.
*sigh* One wishes those who waste their lives creating destructive worms and viruses might do something productive, like discover girls, or breath through their noses instead of their mouths. Or at least consider getting a life.
:: Tomorrow I'm on campus to deliver a couple of short presentations during Orientation'03, and then teach to 110 Chemical Engineering 200 students. Classes don't actually begin until Wednesday. The hordes are back, long live the hordes.
:: I've heard of this before, but this article in the NYTimes Magazine (ID and PW: podbay) about competitive eating, well, turns my stomach. It details how one competitor "trains" for these events:
After abortive trips to the Golden City buffet and the Golden Palace buffet, each of which Hughes deemed too low on food, we headed to the Szechuan Inn, where Hughes inhaled 10 pieces of sushi, another 20 shrimp and some chicken. Finally, we drove to the County Grill and Smokehouse. Before entering, Hughes, a stubby, cherubic man imbued with childlike enthusiasm, lifted his shirt to show off his distended stomach, which had swollen to just under the size of a beach ball and made an elastic pinging noise when he thwapped it with his finger. Inside the restaurant, he ate two orders of collard greens, a pile about the size of two fists, in 18 seconds. To an untrained eye, the evening was an astounding digestive display. But to Hughes, who eats heavily at buffets like these two or three times a week, it was a grave disappointment. ''You see, this is my problem,'' he said, small pebbles of sweat clinging to his forehead as he surveyed the obstinate wieners, which had been ordered post-collard greens. ''I'm good on speed, but I just can't do the volume yet. If I'm going to be a champion, I need to be able to go big on volume.''
The scariest thing is that all of this is actually so important to enough people that there exists an association, The International Federation of Competetive Eating. Read their mandate. They consider this activity a "sport". I wonder if they ever hold competitions in third world countries in which most citizens are starving. Please forgive me if I find this activity morally repugnant.
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