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Thursday, August 31
Addictions
I've developed a small craving for Sonic's bubble gum-flavored slushes lately. Luckily for my tongue and unluckily for my waistline, there's a Sonic on the way home from work. I think they did it on purpose.
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Wednesday, August 30
Confirmation
I received an e-mail reply from Dr. Terry Peard of the University of Pennsylvania yesterday confirming that the freshwater jellyfish I mentioned earlier are, in fact, freshwater jellyfish. He's adding the sighting to his database. Apparently this is the first sighting in Nebraska. Lisa and I walked down to the Mall this evening over our lunch break to see if they were still there, and although there aren't as many of them we did find some. I was pointing at one when a fish, apparently thinking I'd dropped a piece of bread or popcorn on the water (constant visitors have "trained" the fish to watch for that) tried to eat the jellyfish. The fish abruptly spat it out, so I think it's pretty safe to assume their stinging cells work (although according to the jellyfish Web site they don't affect humans).
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Tuesday, August 29
Possession Is Nine-Tenths
The information-sifting machine that comprises my attention span stumbled upon this article today, a story that describes the conclusion of a legal dispute in a small town in Massachusetts wherein the finder of a discarded winning lottery ticket settled out-of-court with the litigation-friendly heirs of the man who purchased said ticket. The motivation for settlement from the ticket-holder's perspective is a desire to enjoy the winnings before he (an 83-year-old gentleman) shuffles off this mortal coil into the great lottery game in the sky; it is not stated that the other side hinted at what would, in effect, be blackmail, but the existence of the possibility of such a threat was apparently enough to convince the gentleman to split the winnings. I know nothing about the children of the man who actually purchased the ticket, and thus perhaps judgment on my part is unwarranted, but I can't help but see a dark cloud of pouting and greed cloaked about them. I've seen commentary on this article that suggests it was the right thing to split the winnings, just as it's the right thing to return a discovered watch or piece of jewelry; I would note in counterpoint that most people do not intentionally part with their watch or jewelry by tossing it in a trash can, and that should they do so it would demonstrate a knowing relinquishment of ownership, as opposed to an accidental loss (and I would be dubious that the purchaser of the ticket would be grateful by the return of one of his non-winning tickets from the same trash can). My boss said this story reminded him of one of the plots of Dicken's Bleak House, wherein the acrimonious decades-long litigation of a fortune left all sides empty-handed when the cost of the lawyers' fees exceeded the worth of the fortune. Such is the power of the promise of wealth.
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Monday, August 28
Fresh Material
I finished the Sinfest archives yesterday; you'll notice its been added to the list of daily reads on the left-hand side, a relatively rare honor that should be indicative of my opinion. I was also amused that this was the comic for my birthday in 2004 (if you don't get it, assume it's an inside joke).
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Sunday, August 27
The Starting Gun
Alec started walking a few days ago. She's quite excited about it. She's also found amusement in pushing Kyle around on a push toy (although neither of them steers, so quite often it's just Alec pushing Kyle into a table or something). Pictures here (some of them even have me in them). Labels: twins
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Thursday, August 24
Self-Promotion
Solicitation of opinions to follow: What do you think? Innovative or desperate?
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Blockades
Dear Nebraska Furniture Mart truck, Although my fondness for your company is well-documented by the plenitude and profusion of appurtenances procured from your company that reside within the nest-like haven I have designated my living room, scant yards from the street in contention as set forth below, I humbly submit my request that you, in future transactions in my neighborhood, refrain from parking on the avenue of passage along which my domicile resides, as it is, in fact, a no parking street (a fact with which guests to my home must contend). On the rare occasions you feel compelled by extraordinary circumstances, worthy of solemn consideration and general consensus, to ignore the "no parking" signs that liberally dot said street, I would at least ask you to avoid parking directly in front of my driveway as I'm preparing to travel to my place of employment, mocking me with your flippant lack of drivers or other visible coteries. Such passive aggression is hardly worthy of you, I am sure, and of great frustration to me. Thank you for your consideration, -Jay
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Wednesday, August 23
Existential Angst
Cris and I braved a packed crowd of 20 or so to see " Little Miss Sunshine" at the Dundee tonight. We showed up to an empty theater 10 minutes before it started, but somehow people multiplied in the dark like Gremlins in water to fill at least a couple of rows behind us. Although not willing to put money on it, I'd make a friendly wager that we were the oldest people in the building. The movie was good, if you can stomach the last half-hour with its almost documentary-like look at the ghoulish world of child beauty pageants (there's something oh-so-wrong about 9-year-olds in bikinis with huge hair and elaborate makeup doing hip-shaking dances). I commented to Cris at one point that they looked like bobblehead dolls. The filmmakers' criticism of such exploitation was subtle, but there. I can see why the film didn't appeal to a wider audience, but I enjoyed it.
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Tuesday, August 22
Transcendent Tuesdays
My life, in bullet points: - In a sudden reversal from last week (when I expressed surprise at the decision), the IAU now seems more likely to demote Pluto. Frantic textbook publishers must now revise from 9 to 8 instead of 9 to 12. At least one observatory that never added Pluto to its display for lack of space is now accurate again. We'll need a new mnemonic device. I started writing one at Tim's behest last week that started with "Many Vaginas Ensnare Men" but couldn't come up with a word for the "C" in "Ceres." I don't suppose that would be elementary school-friendly anyway. - I spent a couple of hours helping Jennifer move tonight. That was my exercise quotient for a couple of nights. All furniture should have carrying handles. Bloody entertainment centers with no grips. - I somehow managed to talk a woman at the grocery tonight into buying the kind of fruit juice I buy but still couldn't figure out the message tree well enough to get her phone number. Lane the sage says it's easier in the Sims 2. I told her that's probably because the guys who programmed the Sims 2 are geeks like me and can't figure out the actual ins and outs of social awkwardness. - My *other* friend Lisa (from this point forward, "Lisa M," in true grade school fashion) popped online tonight for the first time since she returned from her escapade to Europe for a music festival. She regaled me with tales of scenic vistas and fabulous music (complete with pictures) for about an hour. She called it a "life-altering" experience, and I'm glad she had a good time. :) - I started reading Sinfest today. Probably not work-appropriate (in the language way), but funny as hell (no pun intended).
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Sunday, August 20
Alien Invaders
Although I prefer to visualize my residual self-image as open-minded, I have to admit I indulged in a wry expression today when I heard a group of kids and adults talking about the jellyfish in the pond at the Gene Leahy Mall this afternoon. "Right. Jellyfish." Moments later, my ego swiftly cowed, I had to backtrack to my car for my camera so I could actually take pictures of them. Turns out there *is* a species of freshwater jellyfish. And apparently they like the Mall, because there were a *lot* of them (I saw at least 20, all dime- and nickel-sized and moving slowly just under the surface all around the edges).
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A Girl After Every Geek's Heart
I gave Lane her birthday present early this year, since I had to install it and I wanted to make sure it worked before I told her about it. Although it might sound odd for a soon-to-be-eleven-year-old to practically swoon over such an item, Lane did indeed request and receive a new graphics card for her computer. I had just a little trouble with it. I first ordered a less-expensive but roughly comparable card and tried to install it about a week ago. I stared dumbfounded at the innards of her computer for a good two minutes as the slow realization that the AGP slot was missing sank in. Go Dell. So I have to return that one (luckily I hadn't unwrapped it yet, so I'm just out shipping to send it back to Amazon). I ordered a replacement PCI card (for those who have no idea what I'm talking about, there are three ways to connect a video card to a computer, in order from best to worst: PCI-E, AGP, PCI; ironically, the PCI-version of the card I originally bought was $30 more expensive) that arrived last Wednesday, and after I put the twins to bed on Saturday I spent an easy five minutes installing it and a frustrating hour trying to get it to work. Turns out Dell's BIOS doesn't have a way to disable the onboard video directly, and because it was reading two graphics cards I was getting conflict problems (not to mention the installation program wouldn't use the drivers supplied on the CD). After downloading the newest drivers and *still* not having a taskbar (which makes it hard to get into the Control Panel), I finally managed to disable the onboard video through the desktop properties, which fixed everything. I was going to surprise Lane with it today, but she beat me to it. The drivers installed an Nvidia icon in the taskbar that she picked up on immediately (according to Lisa, within a couple of minutes of turning on the computer). By the time I showed up this evening to give her the empty box, she'd already been playing the Sims 2 on the higher video settings for several hours. Then she showed me how to light her Sim on fire. Labels: birthdays
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Saturday, August 19
Cheap Therapy
Who needs a therapist when you can babysit for six hours? If one ignores Kyle getting into the olive oil bottle, the experience is far more soothing than a day spa. Labels: twins
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Come to the Dark Chocolate Side
The interpretive world of pareidolia allows for such amusing dichotomies as the Virgin Mary competing with Lord Vader (seriously, I think he's a better fit, given the black appearance and the "square panel" on the chest) . . .
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Friday, August 18
Congratulations!
Congratulations to Matt and Jamie on their bonding. It was a nice, casual ceremony and you could practically see the two of them glowing. I'm happy for you. :) (Other pictures here.)
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Thursday, August 17
Celestial Mechanics 102
I'll be damned if the IAU didn't go the opposite way I'd expected. Rather than demoting Pluto, we're getting an instant jump from 9 to 12 planets (including Ceres between Mars and Jupiter), and a new committee to evaluate the dozens of other potential new planets (we may end up with 20, 30, even hundreds). Time to rewrite the textbooks.
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Wednesday, August 16
Even Geeks Need Motivation
Actually, *especially* geeks need motivation. For all my geek, nerd and dork friends, 14 pages of geek humor (some of them are *really* funny; some not so much). Enjoy. :)
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Tuesday, August 15
Happy Birthday!
To Linde, my elder-younger sister (having two younger sisters makes such a designation important). She's 27 today. That's 30 in Canada (given the current exchange rate). Labels: birthdays
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Monday, August 14
Miscellania, Redux
Otherwise known as the "blah, I don't feel like writing an entire entry one one point so I'm going to scatter topics in front of me like M&Ms and let people pick the colors they like" mentality. I took the twins to the zoo on Friday. Kyle loved the diving penguins. Alec loved the glowing jellyfish. Surprisingly, they both liked the Kingdoms of the Night. Then I babysat them the rest of the evening (the three of us sat on the couch and compared belly buttons). Marcy and I returned to the zoo on Saturday. Wall to wall people. Go on weekdays, people. " V for Vendetta" was fabulous. Delicious dialog and excellent social commentary. And Hugo Weaving is incredible, even if he does wear a mask for the entire movie. " Lord of War," on the other hand, was just sad. A little over a year ago the World-Herald wrote an editorial about people moving back to rural areas; I wrote a counter-argument about the World-Herald being incredibly naive about the topic. A new article yesterday with the latest census results lends support to my position (as much as I'd like to see it go the other way). The new Snapple white teas are incredible. Go try them. Joseph Lieberman pulled the "if you vote for him, you vote for terrorism" sucker punch after he lost the primary election in his home state a few days ago. Normally I'd be loathe to use the harsh phrase "sore loser," but given such anti-democratic comments as "I cannot and will not let that result stand" (which basically translates as "The people of my state aren't competent enough to know they were supposed to vote for me," which I would think qualifies as an insult), I think such a phrase is warranted. You lost in a fair election, man. The people spoke. Move on. Trying to scare people with claims that terrorists are celebrating your loss is just petty. I had to buy and download the newest version of Norton Internet Security because Norton quit supporting my previous version. Upon installation, it claimed to be incompatible with Spybot (one of the more popular spyware removers) and demanded I uninstall it before continuing the installation. Curious, I did a search on it. Turns out Symantec (the company that makes the Norton suite) is doing it intentionally, probably because Spybot is freeware and is cutting into its profits. That lowers my opinion of Symantec considerably. (Incidentally, there is no conflict. It's a false-positive.) They're designating me the "administrative knowledge portal contact" or somesuch at work. I'm not entirely sure what it means yet, but I think it means I'll be in charge of badgering the office managers into updating their sections of the firm intranet on a regular basis. That should be interesting. Labels: twins
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Sunday, August 13
Celestial Mechanics 101
I've been waiting for this for awhile. It will be interesting to see what sort of definition they concoct and whether Pluto will be demoted or left in "for historical reasons."
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Thursday, August 10
Super Friends Hour
[insert joke involving "balls" here; go ahead, I'll wait] I arranged for some of my friends to get together for the first time tonight (one or two had met before, but I've never had a significant portion of my circle of friends assemble at once). We started with dessert at Village Inn and progressed to bowling. Informal surveys (plus or minus 3 percentage points) indicated some level of enjoyment; hopefully it can become a regular thing.
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Wednesday, August 9
Miscellania
I now have a GameCube, albeit one still in the unopened box on my dining room table. This looks like it would just mess up your day. I ordered three more books by Daniel Quinn today (he of my favorite book, whom I'm ashamed to say I have not further explored). I've had two female friends tell me independently that the proper course when the women in a tank top in front of you at the checkout line repeatedly flashes you while retrieving her items from her cart (and by "flashing" we mean to say "demonstrates the geographical location of the more interesting parts of the breast") is to ignore it and assume she's not flirting. It's so hard to tell these days. If she *was* flirting, she'd have done better if she'd had a copy of Pride & Prejudice or Much Ado About Nothing in her cleavage. I know, I know, I'm an intellectual snob. I think all single people need easy-to-read CGI bubbles over their heads saying things like "I'm interested in talking to you, but you have to approach me first" or "My cat died today; hit on me at your own peril" or "I've had five beers and you're looking pretty good at the moment." I've been noticing a lot of unintentional acronyms on Omaha plates now that we've reached the "P" section (mine start with "O"). PDF, PDW, PDA, PBJ, etc. Something to amuse me in traffic. I watched a VH1 game show about pop culture for about 10 minutes last night. Granted I couldn't name all ten U2 albums or the fictional television show the characters on "The OC" watch, but come on, "What floating city does Billy Dee Williams' character oversee in 'The Empire Strikes Back'?" The contestants are going to know the name of the restaurant in "Pulp Fiction" but not "Cloud City"? And you call yourselves pop culture buffs. Lane and I have been discussing a good domain name for her when we eventually build her a site/blog. Her own current suggestion, born of her passion for Monty Python and baptized in the river of sarcasm, is harmlesslittlebunny .com. It seems oddly appropriate.
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Tuesday, August 8
Fuel for the Fire
Thanks to Tracy for this excellent (and relatively unbiased) article on what it means to switch to a Mac.
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Monday, August 7
"Whoa!"
Well, this is cool as hell. Now, will they be partners or enemies? 'Cause as much as I like Jackie Chan as a comedic actor, Jet Li would so kick his ass.
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Sunday, August 6
They Call It "Babysitting"; I Call It "Fun"
I spent most of Friday playing with the twins, keeping an eye on Nick and talking about Flash programming and the Matrix with Lane. Lisa calls it "babysitting" and thinks I should be compensated in some form. I call it a "mental health day." The twins took great delight in feeding *me* Cheerios (one at a time), which was just cute as hell. Pictures here (currently the last 11, starting with this one). Labels: twins
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Saturday, August 5
Grand Theft Auto
I was somewhat amused (and perhaps unnerved) by the fact that, despite any working knowledge of "the streets" or the sundry skills employed in the titular video game of this post, it took me only two screwdrivers, a coathanger and 10 minutes to break into my friend Marcy's 2003 Suzuki (thereby saving her the cost of a locksmith). My naive belief that car manufacturers had identified the most common methods of entry and put in place sufficient countermeasures in newer models had left me with a sense of doubt that anything short of a man in coveralls with a box full of automotive keys would be able to open the door, but my errancy turned out to be Marcy's boon. This now makes one house (mine) and one car I've broken into with little difficulty. I'm afraid to contemplate what that might mean.
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Friday, August 4
Dual-Purpose
Jamie sent me a link to a different article about this magazine cover a week ago and today it made the headlines list on Yahoo's front page. The percentages of people offended surprised me, especially given the letters to the magazine came from subscribers who, one would think, would be more inclined to recognize the numerous benefits of breastfeeding (which have been documented so well that it's legal for women to breastfeed anywhere on federal property). I think much of this stems from a disconnect implanted in Western society that equates "breast" with "shameful" or perhaps alternatively "sexual," when sexual enticement is only one of its many functions (the primary one being the feeding of infants, which was the breast's evolutionary function long before it took on the secondary function of enticement). In this regard, it's also related to society's double standard involving the display of breasts on men vs. women (there is no outcry to remove pictures of shirtless men from magazine covers) and the more general feeling that nudity in and of itself (rather than the intent of the nudity, whether accidental, unconcerned, artistic, enticing or pornographic) carries a negative connotation, which I find to be an obvious cultural bias that leads to unnecessary conflict.
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Space Is Relative
The World-Herald, in its editorial space yesterday, displayed an embarrassingly unfortunate ignorance of celestial mechanics. By my count, they're only off by a little more than 34 million miles . . .
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Happy Birthday!
To Brandy, who turns 24 today. :) Labels: birthdays
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Thursday, August 3
Maybe it's a Vegetable
I think Burger King and I have two different definitions of " meat."
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Wednesday, August 2
The Loss of Innocence
This image leaves me with a profound sense of sadness and disgust at the human inability to exist without violent conflict. I may not like it, but I can at least accept the roles adults play in such exchanges; to bring children into it, as targets, soldiers or propaganda, by any side, seems so close-minded and irresponsible as to be starkly horrifying. War is an ugly, ugly thing, a jagged knife through the heart of innocence, a thing in which children should not participate.
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Tuesday, August 1
Patience
When the new Intel-based iMacs came out, I posted a question that tiptoed precariously along the wall that separates "confused" from "sarcastic": why would anyone buy an older iMac G5 for the same price as a new Intel iMac (since Apple priced them the same). Today I found out. It seems that the Intel iMacs run beautifully and are considerably faster than the G5s for all native programs (iLife and the like) and in all benchmarks. At the moment, however, they're *not* faster (and in fact are considerably slower) than the G5s when it comes to third-party programs like Photoshop and most games because the software was written for the G5 architecture and has to be emulated using a program called "Rosetta" on the Intel iMacs (and emulation uses up a chunk of the processor and memory). Supposedly it's only vaguely noticeable on programs like Word, but the Intel iMacs run intensive programs like Photoshop CS2 at only 60% of the speed of the G5 iMacs. That's a huge hit. This is a temporary problem (caused as least partially by Apple releasing the Intel versions six months ahead of schedule). Adobe and all of the other third-party software designers are working on universal binary versions of their software (Photoshop CS3 should be out early next year), and those versions should run considerably faster than the current versions run on the G5s, but in the meantime, as counterintuitive as it seems, it makes more sense for professional designers to buy G5s and run Photoshop at its native speed. I'd already planned on waiting until Christmas to buy an iMac (not only for financial reasons but because the next version of OS X comes out around then). I might wait a bit longer now to see if a newer version of the iMac is coming out (since Apple tends to price new versions the same as the older ones) and what the state of third-party software is. I already knew I was going to have to repurchase Photoshop, but I'd rather buy a version designed to run on my computer.
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