Happy New Year
Last blog post of this year. May 2004 be better than 2003 (and 2002 and 2001…). I’m not making it all the way to midnight tonight. The calendar will have to turn without me.
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Popularity: 12% [?]
Less of Me
I created a new category in the blog, and from now on I’ll be taking the lead from people like Bruce and posting about my fitness. Looking at the XMas photos after the fact, I’m so heavy in them that it makes me sick. I’m about to outgrow my size 38 pants, and I have [...]
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Back in Town
In a fun but grueling holiday tour, we went from Chicago to North Carolina, then to Georgia and back in 8 days. After having been through this trip, which involved around 35 hours of cross country driving, I definitely have a few more things to say about the state of commercial radio. I’ll save those [...]
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Free High Speed Internet
These four words have become our differentiators on hotel stays. All things being equal, we look for the ones with free internet. I’m suspecting that all new hotels from here on out will either have ethernet ports wired in or have complete wireless coverage in all rooms, and that older ones will be retrofit. We [...]
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Knightriders
My brother got me a great gift for XMas this year, the DVD of the George Romero movie Knightriders. This movie is not a great film, but it is my favorite movie of all time. Years ago, my father and I started watching this movie on HBO after midnight services on XMas eve, not knowing [...]
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Digital Camera
After a disinformation campaign that led me to believe I wouldn’t be getting one, my wife did get me the digital camera for XMas. I’m in the post-holiday playing with it phase but I am really enjoying this thing. It’s a Kodak EasyShare CX4310, a great starter digital camera. It was not expensive but has [...]
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Merry XMas
Merry XMas for those that celebrate it, happy holidays to them what don’t, peace and goodwill to all of us everywhere! Let’s hope for a better year next year, and a better world starting now.
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Popularity: 7% [?]
XMas Wrapping
I normally don’t have much empathy for the harried soccer mom protagonists of Connie Willis XMas stories. I always wonder “If all this stuff is such a burden, why don’t they just not do some of it?” Yesterday I had one of those, though. Errands all through Chicagoland, picking up presents, running the dog to [...]
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Diebold Monkeyshines in California
In every county that used Diebold voting machines in the most recent California election, there were unqualified machines collecting votes.
Marc Carrel, assistant secretary of state for policy and planning, said he was “disgusted” by the situation and worried that it could call into question any close races that might have occurred in three counties [...]
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Bird Feeders
If I couldn’t tell in a thousand other ways that I’m getting older, here’s a telltale sign - I have grown fascinated with bird watching. We have a bird feeder that I tried a few abortive ways of setting up. The pole in the ground kept getting knocked over by squirrels, and the dangling via [...]
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I Have a Bad Review!
Tonight at dinner my wife casually mentioned this bad review she had seen for my ebook of interviews, thinking I knew about it. I didn’t. To be honest, I had no idea it had ever been reviewed for good or ill. I googled it and turned it up here, written by Deborah Fisher. I [...]
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XMas Cards
We’re trying to get all the XMas cards done today, since if they don’t go out this afternoon they won’t get there until after the day. It’s been kind of a challenge for me, since most of my friends are as mobile as we are and tend to have moved from year to year. That’s [...]
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Bush Tax
Here is some highly sensible memecrafting from the Howard Dean campaign. They have created BushTax.com with information about how the tax cuts for the wealthy cost all of us more money than the piddling $600 checks we were cut. They recraft this as the “Bush Tax”, which they describe as:
Rather than take responsibility for our [...]
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Kid Fears
Via this post on the Paul Melancon weblog is a link to an MP3 of a live version of the Indigo Girls doing “Kid Fears” with Paul singing the Michael Stipe part. In the surrounding post, you can read Paul full of self-doubt. Dear lord I hurt for this boy. He’s so good, he recorded [...]
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OS Con 2004
I think that I’m going to look into attending Open Source Con 2004. It will be July 26-30, 2004 in Portland Oregon. I used to live there and have friends there, and I would like to hang out and geek out and really enjoy myself. On top of the interesting sounding program items you can [...]
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A Decade Under the Influence
Last night, without even really trying to, I got sucked into the documentary A Decade Under The Influence. I meant only to watch a little of part one, and I ended up sitting right through all 3 hours of it. I found it fascinating. This remains my favorite period of American cinema, although really the [...]
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More on Full RSS Feeds
Here’s an example where the clipped RSS feed really reduces my usability. I use FeedOnFeeds, and the below is a recent entry I have in it for the OK/Cancel weblog/comic strip.
Comic: Weird Science
OK/Cancel
on Comic at December 12, 2003, 6:20 am
(cached at December 12, 2003, 9:05 am) flag this item
There is no reason why this can’t have [...]
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Monsanto Goes Insane
Here’s a story that I really don’t understand. Monsanto, which makes the hormones frequently given to milk cows, is suing a Maine dairy for labeling their milk “hormone free”.
The label, used by Oakhurst Dairy in Portland, states: “Our farmers’ pledge: no artificial growth hormones.” Monsanto sued Oakhurst in July, saying its label implies the [...]
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Alex Ross
Until I read this article in Gaper’s Block, I had not realized that comic artist extraordinaire Alex Ross lived in Wilmette. We live on the Evanston/Wilmette border and I had no idea that any big-wig comics pros were in the area. For all I know, I have stood behind him in the line at Jewel [...]
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US Jobs
First, a CNET commentary about IT jobs going offshore entitled “Where did my IT job go?” Next, comes a post from Jeremy Zawodny wondering why CFO jobs aren’t outsourced to India and China? It’s a mostly clerical position. If you can save 70% of the price of a $80K programmer and think that’s just great, [...]
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