Howdy Liberty-folks (Libertines?).

I wanted to wish Happy Birthday to RoseVortex (my wife) and make a request.

<Turns down the Humor Circuit to level 1>

She’s 34 today. I know you aren’t supposed to share a woman’s age, but it’s a big deal for her. She’s actually in the hospital (“Club Med”) this week getting an antibiotic “tune up”. It looks like she’ll be there right through her birthday (I’m posting this a few days early). In fact, it looks like her meds might be doing something odd to her haircolor……

For those who missed my last long and drawn out post (for *my* birthday) in April, my wife has a genetic disorder called Cystic Fibrosis (CF) for short. Don’t know what that is? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cystic_fibrosis has the details. In short, your body can’t break down the mucus it produces – as a result CF patients develop persistant (and very nasty) lung infections and have digestive and other issues. Once upon a time, this was a childhood disease and most patients didn’t survive out of their teens. As the years have gone by, the median life expectancy for CF patients has risen almost every year (I believe its up to 36 now).

RoseVortex has been chasing that revised life expectency number for a while now, along the way she got married (to this weird guy), had 2 kids, graduated college, and taught high school English for a few years. Along the way through the last 14 years got sort of geeky/gamergrrl-y (which still makes me wonder if that means I have been a “good” influence or a “bad” influence…..). She started playing City of Heroes with me in January 2006, and we are pretty much only on Liberty server, where we hang out on the SisterhoodFriends global channel (which has a bunch of folks from all over the place). Rose has 3 lvl 50 toons (which makes me look like a slacker since I only have the 1….I think I might have alt-itis). She’s even managed to get the Master of Statesman TF badge on her empath (which seemed like an impossible task with Yank Shillelagh the Suicidal Scrapper along…thanks for the stress Yank ). We play mostly blueside, but both of us have a late 30’s baddie toon as well. She cheats and plays while I am at work…..

RoseV has been on the lung transplant list for about a year and a half. As of the last few days we are now up to #2 on the list at our transplant center. She has to have a double lung transplant because otherwise a “sick” lung would infect the “clean” one….otherwise I’d give her a lung in a heartbeat. Over the last 2 years we have sold our house and moved in with her Mom until after the transplant comes “someday”. At this point she’s on oxygen 24×7, so we don’t get out much. She is one of the toughest people I have ever met – she walked around with an undiagnosed pneumothorax (a collapsed lung) for a week last year saying she was “uncomfortable” – the living definition of the Willpower powerset I guess. Along the way we have kept our sense of humor (well, its gotten a bit on the dark side, but we are still laughing). Of course, if I make her laugh too hard I might pop another lung….its a delicate balancing act…

My birthday wish for Rose is not something I can buy. The Lung Store doesn’t seem to have a branch in our area.

The transplant lungs will come from someone we don’t even know. I don’t know that we will get a chance to say thank you to anyone.

My birthday request/wish for RoseVortex for all of you is this:
-If you don’t have any religious or moral objections (and I understand if you do) please go out and register as an organ donor. If you are in the US, go to http://www.organdonor.gov/donor/index.htm and find out how to register in your state (every state does it differently). According to http://www.unos.org/data/default.asp?displayType=usData there are 99,000 people on the waiting lists in the US right now. If you are outside the US, it looks like every country has their own way of handling registration, you’ll have to Google it.
-If you choose to register, make sure you discuss it with your family and they understand your wishes, because if the time comes, you won’t be around to tell them.

If you are already registered, thank you for your “birthday present” to Rose and to everyone else on the waiting lists. I will probably never get to say Thank You to whoever helps give Rose more life, so I will have to make it a general THANK YOU to everyone who has registered as a donor. It really will make a difference for somebody.

<Humor Circuit back to normal>

I don’t want any of you redside folks to get the idea of running down to the Facemaker and picking up a set of lungs. The doctors here seem to be pretty picky about knowing where the organs came from…..

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings, and please wish RoseVortex a Happy Birthday. Hopefully she’ll be back playing in a week or so.

I love you Rose.

Thanks for reading this far My posts tend to get kinda long…..

——————–
@Kalkin – Liberty
ArcherBot – lvl50 TA/A

Wish RoseVortex Happy Birthday, please become an organ donor.

(Sung to the tune of “Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats)

We can tweet if we want to
We can leave your friends behind
Cause your friends don’t tweet
and if they don’t tweet
well they’re no friends of mine

We can tweet when we want to
if the server has survived
and we can Twhirl, Spaz, Snitter
Twinkle, Twibble, Tweetr
within the limits of the API

and we can tweet
and DM!
I say, we can block who we want to
for tweets that they will never find
the bots will try to follow
we see their ratio’s awful
and block them with a victory cry!

I say, we can tweet what want to
unless we see the damn fail whale
Just stay under one forty
if you need to be shorter
then paste in a Tiny URL

I say, we can tweet, we can tweet
everything’s Inter-operable
We can tweet, we can tweet
just stay within the interval

We can tweet, we can tweet
its really not a difficult feat
We can tweet, we can tweet
Everybody thinks its sweet

Twitter dance
well the Twitter dance
yes the Twitter dance

We can tweet if we want to
Your phones got a camera that works fine
We can snap all we see
Twitpic with a link
And share or even post to MINE

I say, we can tweet if we want to
we can leave your friends behind
Cause your friends don’t tweet
and if they don’t tweet
well they’re no friends of mine

I say, we can tweet, we can tweet
everything’s Inter-operable
We can tweet, we can tweet
just stay within the interval

We can tweet, we can tweet
its really not a difficult feat
We can tweet, we can tweet
Everybody thinks its sweet

Well the Twitter dance
yes the Twitter dance
well the Twitter dance
well the Twitter dance – ai!
yes the Twitter dance
its the Twitter dance – yeah
its the Twitter dance

its the Twitter dance
its the Twitter dance
its the Twitter dance
its the Twitter dance
its the Twitter dance

- This came out of an off handed comment over dinner last night with @vividmuse, LT, @heatherwelliver, @grailwolf, @ljosalf, @pfischer to honor @philippajane visiting America.

This is a Turtle Pecan Cheesecake. It’s a recipe I first made 15 or so years ago.

Our teen recently asked me to make it for his 17th birthday, and I hadn’t made it in 6 or 7 years. It was such a hit, that I was asked to make it for Dad’s birthday party two weeks later in two forms, one with pecans and one without.

Our nephew tried the one without pecans (he can’t eat nuts) and LOVED it. I am now making one for his pre-surgery party this Sunday.

I’m also making the traditional family cheesecake for our niece that is turning 18 on Monday.

Doom. My diet is full of doom.

When I do it, I enjoy it, but then other projects come and go and before I know it I haven’t written anything in months. Rather than pretend that I’m going to blog for real reals, I don’t really see any point in pretending that I’m going to come back at any regular interval and update the site.

I’m really excited about some other projects I’m currently working on. I’ve been writing more fiction and writing more music than I have in the past 15 years. I have connected with people I’m not related to in a more significant way than I have since high school. My wife and I are closer than we’ve ever been (which I didn’t think was possible).. but other parts of my life are slipping.

There are still only 24 hours in every day.. and sadly I spend at least 3 of those strapped into my car every work day getting to work and back. That time is excellent for podcast listening, but not for just about anything else given the concentration needed.

At the beginning of the year I made a list of all of the ways I spend my personal time and started making some changes. I created a very strict schedule of activities which I started off well with and slowly let slip. This does not surprise me.

So, I’m working on version 2.0. The two most significant time sucks that took a hit last time were TV and video game time. I went from following two dozen tv shows to maybe a dozen. Of course, they’re staggered across different seasons, so while its a lot, its not quite as bad as it sounds. I also went from playing games from about five nights a week to two.

TV is still a significant time sink so I’m dropping to just 4 shows that I don’t think I can live without. That ends up being about 45 episodes per year, or about 45 minutes of television a week. Not counting 30 minutes of brain rot at the end of each day which isn’t really consumed but is more of a lullaby. This generally takes the form of Seinfeld reruns or Family Guy.

Game probably won’t change for now. What will change, however, is consumption of other media. I’m significantly reducing the number of blogs that I’m following and the number of discussion forums that I’m frequenting.

All of this, presumably, will give me the time to pursue the projects that I find the most fulfilling. Unfortunately, updating my own blog isn’t one of them. While I like the romantic thought of having a place to hold my memoirs and review in future years to remind me of where my mind is at — the truth is that I’ve NEVER looked back over blog posts that I wrote 5-10 years ago, so I don’t see what the point is.

I suppose it makes sense if friends and family follow the information, but it’s so difficult to know if that’s happening, and few do the same, so… there’s a loop that is left open, and time and energy goes spilling out.

As the man once said “and that’s all I have to say about that.”

There is a collection being taken for him, both to help with his expenses and to also show our love and condolences. Here is the link if you’d like to contribute. Donations for C.A. Sizemore.

An acquaintance came home this morning to find his wife had passed away. It’s not anyone you would know, so no need for you to worry about who it is.

I’m passing on this news about an anonymous couple to you, in the hopes that you will take a moment to share your feelings with your loved ones and friends.

Whether family, long-time friends, or new friends you all hold a special place in my heart and I’m grateful to have you in my life.

Feel free to share this with your friends, I can think of nothing better to honor Kelly than for love being shared today.

Love today.

The Tribe is made up of writers, musicians, painters, photographers, hackers, and many other disciplines. For most of us, our creative side is not applied as part of our “day jobs”. And perhaps we’ve lapsed in our art, have never created something tangible, or don’t consider ourselves “artists” however we all have a creative spirit, similar sensibilities, and similar tastes.

Whenever possible portions of the Tribe try to come together in meat-space, which usually occurs at sci-fi/fantasy/literary/media/tech conventions. I’ve never been able to attend such a gathering, but I have met a few members of the Tribe over the past 9 months.

This last weekend Mur Lafferty, her husband Jim Van Verth, and their daughter The Pink Tornado were coming to the DC area and I was able to attend a gathering at the Dogfish Head brewery and restaurant. I’ll have a complete listing of those in attendance with links and some pictures below.

This was my first time to a DFH, though I’ve enjoyed some of their beers purchased at a Total Wine near our home. As expected, the beers were excellent drawn from a keg. The food was quite good as well, however it was rather expensive. My burger, fries, and two beers came to almost $40 after tax and tip.

Don’t get me wrong – the food and drink were well worth the quality – however what made the afternoon was the company! I started the festivities off when Scott and Mae Breakall came to my house to carpool to the restaurant. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, Viv couldn’t accompany us We headed up to the restaurant and met everybody else, having laid claim to an entire section of the second floor.

Meeting these people that I’ve spent so much time corresponding with through Twitter, chatting, voicemail, and recordings was such a treat! Everybody welcomed me with open arms and a huge smile. I felt immediately at home, and fell easily into conversation. My only regret is that I ended up spending most of the time at one table and didn’t get to spend as much time with many at the other table. This isn’t so bad because the people that I ate and laughed with were such a pleasure to be with and I know that I’ll have more time with everybody as con season progresses and we have more meet-ups.

Attendees included:

• Marc Bailey; host of Grailwolf’s Geek Life
• Heather Welliver; Marc’s wife and an amazing singer
• Scott Breakall, hacker and musician
• Mae Breakall, Scott’s wife; singer; and Executive Personal Assistant to Scott Sigler (go buy Infected – on shelves at your favorite bookstore)
• Dr. John Cmar, infectious disease Director person
• “Sci-Fi” Laura Burns, a bona-fide rocket scientist who works for NASA.
• Paul Fischer; host of the ADDCast and the Balticon Podcast
• Martha Holloway, Paul’s wife and producer for Dancing Cat Studios
• Brand Gamblin, host of the Calls For Cthulu Vidcast
• Allison (unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to get acquainted and I’m not sure what projects she’s associated with)
• Paulette Jaxton, writer; and fellow Tribal Fit Club member
• Mur Lafferty, author of Playing for Keeps, the Heaven series; Secrets of the Podcast Masters; as well as many published short stories and RPGs; host of many podcasts including Geek Fu and I Should Be Writing
• Jim Van Verth, Mur’s husband and host of The Vintage Gamer podcast
• The Pink Tornado, their daughter.
• Tee Morris, author of Podcasting for Dummies; Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies; Morevi; and the Billibub Baddings series (among other podcasts).
• Nat, Tee’s wife (unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to get acquainted and I’m not sure what projects she’s associated with)
• Sonic Boom, their daughter.

You can find some more pictures on my Flickr feed.

After lunch many of us headed to Paul and Martha’s to visit some more and do some ADDCast recordings, which will be detailed in another post.

Such a wonderful afternoon and a wonderful group of people. I can’t wait for RavenCon !!

As I may have written here, we’ve been doing a lot of work in our basement. After three years of sitting there, we’ve finally cracked open most boxes and started sorting things to keep, give away, or toss. We resolved to re-carpet one room who’s floor was beyond redemption, and re-purpose most of the basement rooms to other purposes.

Each weekend we have a set of goals to complete little pieces, all leading up to a completion sometime mid to late April when we’ll have some greatly anticipated guests staying with us. Last week’s goals were first interrupted when we discovered that our dishwasher had broken. We had been contemplating replacing it for the last year or more, but its been working well enough that we decided it could be put off until we were done spending money on the basement (and see how finances for Con season held out).

So, off to the stores we went and bought a new one. I disconnected and removed the old dishwasher and started preparing to connect the new one as Viv started moving stuff around the basement and moving things to the garage. Unfortunately, she took a misstep and twisted her ankle very badly. Thus starts Emergency Room trip one for X-rays to ensure nothing was broken (which thankfully it wasn’t!). Then I completed the dishwasher installation which ran until just after midnight (do we know how to party on a Friday night or WHAT?!)

This made for a very interesting Easter luncheon with family as Viv was on crutches, an air cast, and Vicodin

This led into a very busy Monday as I had extra temporary duties and had to report early each day, as well as an expanded plate of responsibilities to tend to. As Viv was ordered with no weight bearing on her ankle for the week what would happen?? Our tween broke out with a strange rash and had to be rushed to urgent care one morning. The rash turned out to be nothing serious and was left to relieve on its own. Though he was subjected to a throat swab to check for strep.. and somehow I was subjected to a blood draw to check on my cholesterol (our Doc is so thoughtful you know.. didn’t want me to have to make another trip!).

The rest of the workweek was filled with little sleep (much of which was my own fault staying up to late) and early mornings. Friday night I made a trip after work to purchase carpet and pad for the aforementioned trouble floor. A friend of a friend was scheduled to come and install it for us on Saturday. That morning I did a major rearrange of remaining boxes in one room to move a couch out of the room getting the carpet, and removed everything else from the room.

As luck would happen, a twitter-friend was coming into town and an impromptu lunch outing was quickly brought together for many members of our Tribe to gather, meet (many for the first time) and socialize. Unfortunately, we couldn’t reschedule the carpet installation and Viv sacrificed the event to stay home and oversee it while I ran off to lunch (more about the lunch, and pictures, in a future post).

On Sunday we were prepared to turn the newly-carpeted room into the new video game room. I moved a TV and TV stand into the room, but to decide how we would arrange everything we needed a new reclining love seat moved from upstairs to the basement. I was able to remove the backs and the teen and I manhandled it down the stairs where it promptly got stuck at the bend in a hallway at the bottom. The teen hoisted it up sideways and got it swiveled around, however it cause one of the seats to start reclining and his finger became stuck in the reclining mechanism.

We quickly determined that setting the couch down would make things worse, so I pick the couch up a little higher (not sure if that really helped) and he was able to free his finger and immediately put pressure on a rather deep cut. I laid the couch down and we ran him upstairs to the kitchen to run the wound under the faucet. We wrapped a bunch of paper towels around it, as he returned to applying pressure and headed to the Emergency Room.

His hand received its own set of X-rays to ensure nothing was broken. The evaluated the cut and determined that no arteries or tendons were cut and he received three stitches. Poor guy. He was concerned as we were driving to the hospital that he may have gotten blood on the new carpet! Very sweet kid.

Through the whirlwind of activity the past few weeks I’ve only had one workout session. I forgot to weigh in this morning, so will have a weight update tomorrow. I’m fairly certain that I gained, as I consumed a lot of Easter candy and haven’t done much to burn calories. I’ve eaten mostly well, with the exception of a Chinese food dinner and the lunch outing on Saturday. Oh and pizza Saturday night.

Hmm….. never mind, my weight loss is doomed :-/

Here is an excerpt from a review of said in(di)gestible:

“Never let it be said that we don’t make sacrifices for our readers. Terrible, greasy, wadded sacrifices. When word hit the Internet that a German camping-supplies company was marketing a canned cheeseburger, we were instantly buried under a wave of requests—nay, demands—that we get our hands on one and rate the experience of eating it. The German company doesn’t ship to the U.S., but we paid an embarrassing price for one on eBay, acquired by an American soldier currently stationed at a German military base. (We’re fairly sure it wasn’t smuggled out of the country in a coffin, à la American Gangster, but we aren’t 100 percent positive.) A few days later, we all eagerly gathered around the hot plate in the A.V. Club labs to see whether cheeseburger-in-a-can could possibly be any good.

Answer: no. Oh dear sweet shrieking Lord, no.”

I have no problem downloading them with Bit Torrent since I paid for them; but a lot of tracking companies want the counts from the official site so that they can get a more accurate count.

Its very, very mellow. Very ambient and experimental. Instrumental only, no vocals. Awesome to have in the background while working on something that requires brain power.

Here are all of the ways to get it.

1. FREE DOWNLOAD
   Ghosts I – The first 9 tracks from the Ghosts I-IV collection available as high-quality DRM-free MP3s (320kbps LAME encoded, fully tagged) including complete 40 page PDF. Also includes thedigital extras pack – various wallpapers, icons, and graphics tools for your computer, website, profile, etc.
2. $5 DOWNLOAD
   Ghosts I-IV – All 36 tracks in a variety of DRM-free digital formats (320 kbps LAME encoded, fully tagged; FLAC Lossless; Apple Lossless) including a 40 page PDF. Also includes the digital extras pack – various wallpapers, icons, and graphics tools for your computer, website, profile, etc.This version is also available from the Amazon MP3 store.
3. $10 2XCD SET
   Ghosts I-IV – 2 audio CDs in a gatefold digipak package with a 16-page booklet. To be shipped TBD. Includes immediate DRM-free download of the entire collection in same choice of formats as $5 Download option. Download will include the 40 page PDF and the digital extras pack – various wallpapers, cons, and graphics tools for your computer, website, profile, etc.This configuration will be released to retail in North America (April 8), Australia (April 5), the UK (April 8), Japan (April 5) and most European territories (April 8).
4. $75 LIMITED EDITION DELUXE PACKAGE
   Ghosts I-IV – Hardcover book holding 2 audio CDs, 1 data DVD of all 36 tracks in multi-track format (in .wav files readable by Mac and Windows), and Blu-ray disc featuring stereo recordings in high-definition 24 bit 96Khz with exclusive slide show. Includes immediate DRM-free download of the entire collection in all formats and with all extras mentioned above. Also includes 48-page hardcover of photographs by Phillip Graybill and Rob Sheridan.Discs and art book both housed in fabric slipcover.
5. $300 ULTRA-DELUXE LIMITED EDITION PACKAGE
   Ghosts I-IV – Contains all elements from deluxe package, along with exclusive 4XLP 180-gram vinyl set, and two limited edition Giclee prints available exclusively in this package. Disc book, art book, and prints are all housed in a fabric slipcover. 4XLP vinyl set comes in its own fabric slipcover. INCLUDES immediate DRM-free download of the entire collection in all formats and with all extras mentioned above. LIMITED TO 2500 PIECES, NUMBERED AND PERSONALLY SIGNED BY TRENT REZNOR.

At weigh in I’m down a pound from last week so I’m down 12 pounds overall! I’m excited about it because I thought that I was going to be flat (or maybe gain) this week. I know I over ate all week. All healthy stuff, but I just can’t seem to get my portions down. I eat the “proper” amount and wait a little bit but feel sooooo hungry that I eat more. I need to get over that and just deal with the false hunger.

After moving boxes around all weekend; bending over to strip parts out of computers; hanging shelves and the like; the backs of my legs are burning more than the Couch to 5k runs and my abdomen feels like I did a thousand crunches. We got one room completely emptied; sent another 20 cubic feet of trash to the curb; moved a couch; and relocated the podcast studio to a temporary location.

Viv did an amazing job staining our new “desk” for the studio – it looks beautiful. We made a run to Guitar Center and got some new desk stands for our microphones and a headphone amplifier – oh and a groovy rug to sit under the new work surface from Target. Pictures to come after everything is in place!

If I feel better tomorrow then I’ll kick off week 3 of the Couch to 5k program and just run Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday though I think I may have to put it off until Wednesday:(

It actually went really well. We did some parking practice, lining up with spaces and not cutting too close to where another car would be. Then he parked next to another car. Finally we did some general driving around town which included going down a country road then unmaintained gravel; and a small stretch of highway at 55 MPH.. at night…

We decided that was a good time to turn around and head home

Like I said, he did great. A little nervous at times, but smooth acceleration and breaking. Remembered to use the signals and check blind spots. And when things were a tad hairy once or twice he stayed calm and moving straight.

We capped the night off by going out to dinner all together (Viv and the tween) and had some great conversation. What a wonderful night.

We’ve purchased a new scale that shows total fat % and stuff like that. The weight measurement is more consistent than the old scale, but I’m surprised to find the old scale was accurate, averaging the variance

I started the second week of the Couch to 5K podcast. I say “second week”, but we actually repeated the first week so I’m a little behind but there is still plenty of time before the Richmond race, so that’s fine. The running sections are longer (from 60 seconds to 90 seconds) but my legs don’t feel as bad as they did in the first week.

And the biggest news was that during my after-workout stretching I actually bent down and touched the ground!! Granted my legs were pretty far apart, but I haven’t been able to bend straight over and touch the ground since High School! I was so excited. Viv had to stop me from overdoing it.

This week I was feeling better and I exercised every other day. I did, however, splurge on some of my eating. Valentine’s day brought sweets and a mexican feast. The feast was on the healthier side (whole wheat tortillas, etc.) but had real queso Also, earlier in the week I had eaten out when getting side-lined by icey-road-induced traffic.Unfortunately I cannot escape the siren song of Applebee’s Chicken Fajita Roll-up.

All of this just means that I gotta work a little harder. I still have the biggest struggle with portion control. I eat way too much, even if it is mostly healthy. In addition, I have an unhealthy addiction to crackers. I loves me da carbs. I’ve been hooked on the Cheez-It Party Mix for awhile. It has a decent fiber to carb ratio, but I know I eat too many of them. The flavored Wheat Thins also rock most hard. Check out the Ranch and the Parmesan Basil – my favs. So I need to work on that as well.

The running training is going well. We’re going to do another run today. Still on the week 1 program, but I have a feeling the running spurts will come a little easier. That’s the dream at least.

Here is a weight loss ticker. I’ll try to find a way to make it part of the website.. Hmm, I’ll at least place it on my “About Chooch” page. It dynamically updates. I’ll include it with each of my updates though for sure.

The ticker shows a goal of 200 pounds. That is my first goal. The second goal is to get to the “ideal weight” for my frame according to the health sites which is about 175. I know that the more you lose, the harder it gets so I figured I would break the ticker into two goals to make me feel better watching the numbers move. It would help if they kept moving down

I’ve never done any kind of marathon, or much running of any kind past PE class in Junior High and High School. I’ve done bouts of jogging as a form of exercise throughout my life but its always been short lived.

With our renewed emphasis in our health that started this year, I think that a goal, such as the RFTC is a great motivator to stay on top of our diet and exercise routines. Viv tweeted about our participation this morning and was given a link to a workout plan to prep for a marathon in two months. There’s even a companion podcast to walk you through each run.

It looks pretty aggressive, but with such a short period of time it seems it needs to be. She actually started on it today. I will likely start tomorrow. Of course, I’ll post the progress here!

Oh, and speaking of scales: as of my weigh-in last week, I dropped another two pounds. So my total weight loss for January was 10 pounds! Hopefully the lack of working out this week won’t bring a bring a backslide.

The movie follows a teenage girl (Juno, played masterfully by Ellen Page) who becomes pregnant and has to decide what to do about it. She decides that she will give the baby up for adoption, and chooses a nice couple from a free shopping magazine.

Juno’s spirit is just so endearing that she carries the film, and you become invested in her decisions and I found myself truly wanting to know how things would end up. Like I said there are no major conflicts or outrageous drama, but it is an interesting story that held my interest to the end. That’s not to say that there wasn’t high emotion, moments that made me hold my breath, and a few tears shed.

One thing that I liked is that Juno’s relationship to her dad and step-mom were very happy, healthy, and loving. No stereotypical “evil step mother”, and no controlling ogre of a father. I appreciated that as both a father, and a step-father because those stereotypes constantly get revisited in Hollywood.

I can see why this sleeper indy movie has taken audiences by storm and placed it in contention for Oscar season. Juno delivers excellent storytelling, excellent movie making, excellent acting, and a quirky little soundtrack which all made for an enjoyable few hours well worth the cost of admission.

I started checking how I looked compared to the big party candidates. On the Democrat side I seemed to match best with Bill Richardson, just slightly trailed by Obama and Edwards. On the Republican side I came closest to Fred Thompson and McCain.

This is gonna be a tough one.

Part of it is the social aspect. On these trips I am expected to do a lot of after hours socializing, which invariably involves a meal at a good restaurant and beer. I basically end up feeling very self conscious ordering super healthy food when everybody is splurging on their week “out”.

I think the final nail is habit. I have gotten in the habit of when I leave town, I let loose with the food. That’s become my ritual of dealing with it all.

The good news is that this trip is coming so close to rededicating myself to my health. I recognize the patterns, I know what to watch out for.

===== Update Jan 15 =====

I finally got a little Internet access and thought I’d write an update. Its gone pretty well so far. I ate well flying in. The first day here there was a scheduling mixup though, so I missed my workout AND didn’t eat anything all day until dinner. Dinner was a salad followed by grilled Mahi Mahi with cucumber and artichoke hearts. It had a very heavy sauce though, and I didn’t escape the banana pudding Though, it did have fresh bananas in it and I didn’t finish it (other than the bananas).

This morning I made it down to the beautiful fitness center downstairs at the hotel. I had three sensible meals, though I was unable to resist the ‘chocolate decadence’. So, extra treadmill coming!

All and all it has gone well, and I didn’t immediately dive into a double Sonic cheeseburger followed by Weinerschnitzel chili-cheese dogs, so I’m pretty proud of myself. Off to bed. Up early for another workout before starting the next session at 8:00am.

===== Update Jan 18 =====

The trip is over. Well, I’m in the airport waiting for my flight home (free wifi FTW!). I did well overall on the trip. My ‘official’ weigh in is tomorrow, but according to the scale at the hotel I lost 2 pounds during my trip. Not too bad for consuming banana puddings, chocolate ganache and the occasional chocolate chip cookie

Very much looking forward to getting home and back into my usual routine. And sleeping in my own bed!

This is actually good timing with the writer’s strike and all. Perhaps the lack of new shows will help ween me from the prime time television teat once and for all. For shows that are any good, they will become available on DVD or for download and can be consumed in smaller morsels as I get the time.

To achieve this, I’m going to follow fewer blogs; watch fewer television shows; play less video games (which has been almost non-existent anyways, so thats not a big stretch); and likely listen to fewer podcasts. Though, the podcasts are pretty much only during commute, work outs, or work around the house, so they don’t need to change much.

So I’m scheduling certain nights to dedicate to feed reading; e-mail correspondence; video game play; television consumption; exercising; and writing. All in all I came up with 19 primary “leisure” activities and squished them in around the mandatory stuff: sleep, work, food, hygiene, etc.

I really just started on Saturday and its worked well so far. I was off schedule for a few activities, but made up for it as the days progressed. This may sound kind of crazy, but I truly believe that if I can get myself in the habit of doing these things in certain quantities and on a regular basis that soon I won’t need a formalized schedule and will just handle everything as it needs to be handled.

At least, that’s what techie side of my brain is telling me.. Nothing else has worked for any length of time so far, so its worth a shot!

Drunken Xmas brawl at South Pole

Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, December 28, 2007 8:45 AM | permalink

Doran says:

Two men working at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station got into a “drunken Christmas punch-up.” One man, an unidentified Raytheon employee, was injured so badly he couldn’t be treated at nearby McMurdo station and required an emergency medical evacuation to a New Zealand hospital. The other man was flown back to the US.

Link

Sure, that is strange, but understandable when people who are cooped up together in an isolated area let their hair down. However, just under that report in my newsfeed was the following:

Priests brawl at Jesus’ birthplace

Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, December 28, 2007 9:25 AM | permalink

 

At a Bethlehem church built over the manger where Jesus was alleged to have been born, two groups of “robed and bearded” Greek Orthodox priests and Armenian priests fought each other for over an hour “using fists, brooms and iron rods as weapons.” Seven people were injured in the brawl.

The brawl apparently began when Greek Orthodox priests set up ladders to clean the walls and ceilings of their part of the church after the Christmas Day celebrations.Armenian priests claimed that the ladders encroached on their portion of the church, which led the two sects to exchange angry words which quickly turned to blows.

Photographers who came to document the annual cleaning ceremony instead recorded the entire event.

Link (Thanks, jjasper!)

What on earth happened this Christmas? Very odd. New Years is shaping up to be quite interesting. Though, I think I may stay in now

The mixing on the Tascam works well and is pretty inclusive as far as effects loops inputs/outputs and all, but it is a very noisy board. You get extreme hiss (its a tape deck, after all) and so I always wanted a more professional board..

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Enter the Alesis. This is a little thing of beauty. Pots instead of faders, but its got all of the goods, including some decent effects (though I wish it had a noise gate!) and firewire input/output so you can record each discrete channel, as well as the mix simultaneously on a computer. Very snazzy.

After Guitar Center we hit CostCo, and the mall. Picked up some dirt cheap basketball nets from a toy store that was closing down. The shelves were pretty bare, but I had just taken down the half-there basketball net from our hoop last week so I was glad to see something useful there for 40% off.

Finally we did some grocery shopping, then it was time to hook up the mixer, mics, and everything. I found the combination of gear, cables, and positions that worked well just in time for dinner. Just need to make sure the drivers are happy on the Mac and we’re good to go. I can’t wait to do some recording. Perhaps tomorrow.

Of course, both of them are actually written by “somebody” (or several somebodies in the case of the latter) which definitely helps

Oh well. We can try.

Another goal I have is to actually comment on peoples blogs and, more specifically, to actually write reviews on iTunes and other resources for podcasts or other things that I enjoy. I’m starting to really wish that people would write some reviews of our podcasts and realized that I can’t expect anybody else to write a review for my podcast if I’ve never written any for the ones that I’ve enjoyed.

Now, I’ve posted comments; phoned-in; written e-mails; and recorded mp3 comments for other peoples podcasts. I’ve posted reviews to my blog here and played podcast promos too.. but I’ve never written reviews – which seems to have the biggest impact as far as helping them get more listeners.

Non-online goals include calling my son more often; reading more; writing more fiction; recording more music; getting to bed earlier; getting to work earlier in the morning; eating better; and getting into a real exercise habit. The eating and exercising seem to go well for about a month or two, but then falls apart. I need to make them no-brainer habits so that I stick with them.

With that said, its bed time.

Well, it appears that the Lakota tribe withdrew its treaties with the United States government last week. They have invited any US citizens to move in and join them as well.

I have no idea where this will go. I don’t think that the Government can be too happy about it though. Small disputes over gaming regulation are hard enough – this can have a deep impact on a range of issues. Of course, this may not be an official Tribal stance, as there aren’t many facts in the Agence France-Press article.
Seen on Indianz.com:

Lakota Freedom Delegation withdraws from US
Thursday, December 20, 2007

A group called Lakota Freedom Delegation is withdrawing from the treaties their ancestors signed with the U.S. and is setting up their own independent nation.

Four activists, including Russell Means, were in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to announce their plans. They said the federal government has failed to abide by 33 treaties that promised land, health care, education and other services. “Our people want to live, not just survive or crawl and be mascots,” Phyllis Young said, Agence France-Press reported. Members of the new nation won’t pay taxes. The new nation’s territory covers western parts of North and South Dakota and Nebraska and eastern parts of Wyoming and Montana.

Get the Story:
Lakota group pushes for new nation (The Sioux Falls Argus Leader 12/20)
Descendants of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse break away from US (AP 12/20)
Lakota group declares sovereign nation status (The Rapid City Journal 12/20)

Relevant Links:
Lakota Freedom Delegation – http://www.lakotafreedom.com

From BoingBoing:

Today in my series of photos from my travels: this baby bath on sale at the John Lewis store in London’s Oxford Street. It’s basically a bucket (the instructions refer to it as “womb-shaped”) that you wash your baby in. Seems reasonable, but once you use the enclosed stand, it begins to look a little bit too much like “baby in a blender” for my taste. Link

10 Minutes Of Staring at Boobs Daily Prolongs Man’s Life by 5 Years

By: Stefan Anitei, Science Editor

Listen, guys, now we know why Pamela Anderson made her transplants: to make us healthier. “Angels of mercy” like Jordan just prolong our life and Hugh Hefner knows it.

A German research published in New England Journal of Medicine and Weekly World News said that men staring at women’s breasts in fact prolong their lives with years.

“Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female such as Baywatch actress Pamela Lee is equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out,” said author Dr. Karen Weatherby, a gerontologist.

The team led by Weatherby was made up of researchers at three hospitals in Frankfurt, Germany, and found this results after monitoring for 5 years the health of 200 male subjects, half of whom were asked to look at busty females daily, while the other half had to abstain from doing so.

For five years, the boob oglers presented a lower blood pressure, slower resting pulse rates and decreased risk of coronary artery disease.

“Sexual excitement gets the heart pumping and improves blood circulation. There’s no question: Gazing at large breasts makes men healthier. Our study indicates that engaging in this activity a few minutes daily cuts the risk of stroke and heart attack in half.” said Weatherby, who even recommended that men aged over 40 should spend at least 10 minutes daily admiring breasts sized “D-cup” or larger.

She said that this was as healthy as going to the gym for 30 minutes daily and prolonged a man’s life by five years.

“We believe that by doing so consistently, the average man can extend his life four to five years.” said Weatherby.

This is indeed a very serious reason for men to enjoy without shame those midnight TVdownload low-budget women-in-prison movies and collect such instructive and health beneficial magazines like Playboy and Hustler.

Monday, December 3, 2007

From the Colbert Report Writers!

(From WGA Member and Colbert Report Writer Frank Lesser.)

Good news, guys! In solidarity with the WGA, all the cute internet
animals are going on strike.

The choreography and stuntsmanship is amazing. If you read through the video details they actually attempted the scene five times over the course of several months to get the perfect take.

create, share, download, and listen to thousands of NIN remixes in this new community of user-generated creativity. http://remix.nin.com

But the site is very rich, and well done. The concept is that Trent Reznor is making the original multi-track files available for anybody to change, add to, remix, destroy, and then upload it to the site for everybody to hear. There is a social network aspect (voting for uploaded tracks, commenting, etc) and every thing can be downloaded as free mp3 files.

The entire site is also RSS enabled- so you can subscribe to news feeds, or track listing feeds as well as subscribe to category feeds (or individual artists) for remixes which will download as podcasts of the actual mp3s.

When I heard that NIN was doing this, I was very excited at the thought, but the execution is just amazing!

The cop had the option of simply writing “refuses to sign” on the citation. He decided to arrest the driver instead and clearly tells another officer “he thought he was in charge” so he “got the taser”.

What a gross misuse of authority.

Here is the video from the police cruiser

Seen on BoingBoing:

Driver tasered for refusing to sign traffic ticket

Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, November 27, 2007 1:23 PM | permalink

Driver with his family gets pulled over. When officer won’t point out speed limit sign driver was accused of ignoring, driver refuses to sign ticket. Officer shoots man with taser, lets him fall and cut his head, then arrests him.

As the hero explained to a colleague a few minutes later, Massey [the driver] was “making me nervous as hell” by his insistence on being treated as a reasonable adult, rather than behaving like a timid child. “I was like, nah, we ain’t playing this game,” Gardner boasted to the second officer by way of justifying the Taser strike.”Good,” gloated the second tax-fed parasite. “Good for you.”

(Note: I don’t agree that police officers, even the the small minority of bad ones, should be called “tax-fed parasites.” I’m just quoting the blog entry that this video appears in.)

Link | CBS video with captions

The pictures are amazing, including stained glass, paintings, and carvings.

Secret underground temple seized by police

Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, November 23, 2007 10:12 AM | permalink

From the Daily Mail article:

“…the ‘Temples of Damanhur’ are not the great legacy of some long-lost civilisation, they are the work of a 57-year-old former insurance broker from northern Italy who, inspired by a childhood vision, began digging into the rock.The first time the police came it was over alleged tax evasion and still the temples lay undiscovered. But a year later the police swooped on the community demanding: “Show us these temples or we will dynamite the entire hillside.”

Stunned by what they had found, the authorities decided to seize the temples on behalf of the government.”

Link to full article

C3P-Oz

Darth Garth

Han Schwarzenegger

Jay and Silent Jedis

—

And now, we finally know what drove Lucas to create Episode One, thus destroying the balance of aweseomness that was The Trilogy:

Too all in the US – Happy Thanksgiving!

There are many great vids and pix at the Internet authority on cute

Oooh- an extreme pug Baroo

I can’t imagine how much practice and time it took to pull this off.. amazing.

Thanks to Cmaaarrr on Twitter

Link to product page

From Breakall via Twitter

Snippet from The Nerd Handbook

A nerd needs a project because a nerd builds stuff. All the time. Those lulls in the conversation over dinner? That’s the nerd working on his project in his head.

It’s unlikely that this project is a nerd’s day job because his opinion regarding his job is, “Been there, done that”. We’ll explore the consequences of this seemingly short attention span in a bit, but for now this project is the other big thing your nerd is building and I’ve no idea what is, but you should.

At some point, you, the nerd’s companion, were the project. You were showered with the fire hose of attention because you were the bright and shiny new development in your nerd’s life. There is also a chance that you’re lucky and you are currently your nerd’s project. Congrats. Don’t get too comfortable because he’ll move on, and, when that happens, you’ll be wondering what happened to all the attention. This handbook might help.

Seen on The Pint and Tome

Fast-food toxicity comparison chart

 

 

 

The Calorie Counter website has pulled together a great chart comparing the “nutritional” information from the “kitchens” of a variety of junk-food fast-food places. If you’re trying to figure out how to slow down the rate at which your trans-fat/ high-fructose/ ground-grade-z- beef habit is killing you, you can use this chart to pick the best of the worst. And hell, if you’re trying to commit suicide-by-burger, here’s the roadmap you need to get yourself into the grave ASAP. Link (via Kottke)

When it comes to children and school, safety always comes first… unless of course you live in China. Then safety comes right after a clean window.

One elementary school in Beijin, China requires its children to clean the windows as routine task once a week.

Every Wednesday, students climb out the classroom window, standing on a 10 centimeter (less than 4 inches) wide platform and clean the windows without any safety protection. Some windows are as high as 3 stories.

The school officials say this is their way of shaping their students will and bravery.

From BoingBoing:

Balancing Bowls tip when loaded with 100g worth of snack

Royal VKB’s “Balancing Bowls” are two-sided melanine snack-bowls that rock from side to side, and are balanced to tip over when one side has precisely 100g (or 250g for the large size) worth of nosh loaded into it, providing a built-in snack-measurement system. They also look great! Link

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Of course, “over weight” is much different than “obese” and while most fat people might consider themselves simply overweight, they are clinically obese.
From the New York Times:

Linking, for the first time, causes of death to specific weights, they report that overweight people have a lower death rate because they are much less likely to die from a grab bag of diseases that includes Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, infections and lung disease. And that lower risk is not counteracted by increased risks of dying from any other disease, including cancer, diabetes or heart disease.

As a consequence, the group from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute reports, there were more than 100,000 fewer deaths among the overweight in 2004, the most recent year for which data were available, than would have expected if those people had been of normal weight.

Their paper is published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

These suits basically turn you into a flying squirrel, and allow you to glide towards the earth a about 100 miles per hour. This video is quite exhilarating.

But they have a dirty little secret. Well, not so secret, but here it is: they can be read by bad guys. And those bad guys don’t have to be within a few inches of you, like the manufacturers would like you to believe.

Given that fact makes a gadget like The Guardian here a nifty idea. The article below explains it better, but basically this doodad will block random attempts by others to read the tags you are carrying around, and gives you the power to decide when your tags will and will not respond to read attempts.

From BoingBoing:

The RFID Guardian project has released the hardware and software schematics for the latest version of its personal RFID firewall. The RFID Guardian is a device that detects all the RFID tags on your person (passport, transit pass, bank-card, toll-card, car keys, etc), and interdicts them so that they can’t answer queries anymore. The Guardian can clone all of these tags, and emit their signal on demand, but unlike a dumb tag, the Guardian only emits when you tell it to, and gives you a central way to set and enforce policy about when you will be identified and by whom.

The new version is completely open, and the relaunched RFID Guardian site includes a wiki, source code repository and bug-tracker. Link (Thanks, Melanie!)

See also: Personal firewall for the RFIDs you carry

From Slice of Sci Fi

King Tutankhamun, the young boy Pharoah of ancient Egypt and one-time ruler of most of the civilized Western and Middle Eastern world, was finally revealed for all to see. The ancient mask and linens have been removed and now we can see what the young ruler of the ancient world looked like. While he served for only a very short time before meeting an untimely death, many feel he was murdered; this king has captured the world’s attention since first being discovered in the early 20th Century (1922) because his tomb had been left untouched by thieves and poachers for 3000 years.

[The face of the linen-wrapped mummy of King Tut is seen in his new glass case in his underground tomb in the famed Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. The mummy of the 19-year-old pharaoh, whose life and death has captivated people for nearly a century, was placed in a climate-controlled glass box in the tomb, with only the face and feet showing under the linen covering]

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[A facial-reconstruction model of King Tutankhamun made by a French team based on CT scans of the boy king’s mummy]

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[Right-sided view of the boy king]

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[Egypt’s antiquities chief Dr. Zahi Hawass, center, supervises the removal of the mummy of King Tut from his stone sarcophagus in his underground tomb in the famed Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt]

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Images courtesy of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and the National Geographic Society.

We love you!

One question I don’t believe she asks is “how much”.. of which the answer is $98k !

“I think it’s clear by now that the federal government needs to reclassify marijuana. People who need it should be able to get it – safely and easily,” says The Price Is Right and Power of 10 host Drew Carey in a new Reason.tv video examining medical marijuana and the war on drugs.

One of the most outrageous consequences of the war on drugs is the federal crackdown on medical marijuana, which is used by patients to help treat the effects of cancer, glaucoma, HIV-AIDS, chronic pain and nausea, and other severe symptoms associated with serious illnesses. Medical marijuana prescribed by a physician is legal in 12 states, yet federal agents are raiding state-approved dispensaries and preventing patients from having safe access to this drug.

In Episode 2 of Reason.tv’s Drew Carey Project, Drew takes a look at patients who need and use medical marijuana in California, and how the federal government is making their lives even worse.

There is a very large collection in his this Flickr set.

From Oh Gizmo!:

If you’re curious, the blue die includes the words Install, New PC, Upgrade, No Idea, Quit and $$. The green die includes Virus, Spyware, Modem, Video, Network and Reboot. And the red die includes Windows, Unix, Linux, Wireless, Wired and Mixed.

“With its unique, pressurized, patent pending process, Batter Blaster makes organic light and fluffy pancakes and light and crisp waffles in minutes!”

…a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that’s twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists.

The enormous stew of trash – which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers – floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man’s land between San Francisco and Hawaii.

After reading that description, I thought perhaps it was some corporate conspiracy of ocean dumping, but its not. Its just a matter of the wind patterns and circular water currents creating the “perfect environment for trapping” all of the plastic junk in the pacific.

Most of the stuff comes from land, getting sent down storm drains, or trash being left on beaches.

This is just mind boggling.. twice the size of Texas!! Wowza.

Link to San Francisco Chronic article.

Askwiki aims to make using Wikipedia even easier. Rather than having to guess at the subject title for a certain area of knowledge, you simply ask a question, and the most relevant entry will be shown.

The shape of a drinking glass reflects its content: columnar flute for champagne, curvy goblet for wine, short shot glass for straight liquor, stout highball for cocktails. but what if only the negative space of glasses assumes these iconic shapes? that’s the premise of amt’s line of pyrex glass barware. all glasses have the same outer shape, but pour in a drink and the glass’s inner identity appears.

Product Page

From APC Magazine:

After weeks of gruelling troubleshooting, I’ve finally had it confirmed by Microsoft Australia and USA — something as small as swapping the video card or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation.

Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into “reduced functionality” mode, where you can’t do anything but use the web browser for half an hour.

You’ll then need to reapply to Microsoft to get a new activation code.

How can this crazy situation occur? Read on for the sorry tale

I know I have, and its natural since the human brain seems very preoccupied with discovering patterns in things, and relating those patterns to familiar shapes.

It seems many other people find Faces in Places as well, and share them with the world at this blog. If you spot a “face” in the wild, upload it to Flickr for inclusion in this collection!

I know I’ll be keeping my cameraphone handy for the next face I encounter in an unlikely place.

It was a big hit in the neighborhood and our tween was very proud to wear it. Unfortunately its hard to see the ears in these pictures, and I forgot to get one of the tail.

Yeah, I still don’t get it..

CostCo has teamed forces with GreenSight on a program to recycle your old electronics gear in exchange for CostCo gift cards.

It works by heading to the website and clicking through categories to identify the gear to recycle. Then you ship the equipment in (they even pay for the shipping!) and once they confirm the condition of the equipment you receive your gift cards.

Currently they will give credits for Notebook PCs, MP3 Players, Desktop PCs, LCD Monitors, Game Systems, Camcorders, Digital Cameras, and Smartphones/PDAs.

They will recycle for free (but not give credits for) CRT Monitors, Personal Printers, and Fax Machines.

The initial thought was for our “bunker” that is prepared for the inevitable zombpocalypse (you know.. when the dead will rise and and walk da earth in search of brainzzz… You do have a zombie plan right? Right!?), but we figured we should open a can and try it first. After all, its $3.99 a can, which is an expensive proposition if you want to stock appropriately.

Behold, the can. That’s right, New England’s Finest!

Here are the directions on the can. I love the line “…gently push loaf … with a spoon”

The top of the can has been removed, revealing the carbo-goodness waiting inside

Here I am “gently pushing the loaf”

The uncanned loaf.

Here it is, out of the can. Ready to be sliced. I was surprised at how moist it is. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting; but moist isn’t something I normally associate with bread.

So my wife, I, the teen and the tween all gave it a try. The consensus? Tastes roughly like ass.

Though with strong hints of brown sugar and rye. In retrospect, it tasted a little like beef jerky. Though hardly anything like actual… you know… bread!

You can see the full quality images on my Flickr feed.

Seen on BoingBoing. Link to Amazon if you’d like to Cook With Pooh

Hugs and kisses. I love you sis!

 

Where will I buy Odd and The Frost Giants since I live in the US? Will there be a distributor here? How long do I have to wait? Also, how long do I have to wait for The Graveyard Book? I’m aching to read new Gaiman.

Thank you, Mr. Neil.

Siri

You’re welcome. Let’s see… I don’t know if Odd and the Frost Giants will be published in the US. No plans for it at present, anyway.

It was written for something called World Book Day in the UK, where a bunch of authors write books for nothing, and publishers publish them for nothing, and they get sold for £1 each to kids who have been given £1 Book Tokens, and the whole thing exists purely in order to get kids reading. They describe it on their website as the biggest annual event promoting the enjoyment of books and reading.

It was started by UNESCO, borrowing a custom from Catalonia, where roses and books were given as gifts on April 23rd (St George’s Day, Shakespeare’s birth and death day, not to mention Nobokov’s birthday and Cervantes deathday).

It’s a registered charity. (Here’s the FAQs on the website.)

In the UK and Ireland it’ll be Thursday the 6th of March 2008.

Here are this year’s books: http://www.worldbookday.com/1-pound-book-details.asp

As to how you’d get a copy if you aren’t in the UK, I’d suggest either get someone in the UK to buy one for you, or simply order one from an online retailer. You’ll be paying postage but it’s still a 14,500 word book for $2 (that’s about half the length of CORALINE) so it’s not going to set you back much.

If you decide to use Amazon.co.uk — which anyone with an Amazon account in any other country can use — you want to use this link to the one pound copy of the book. They have another link up to a discounted twenty-five pound version of the book — which is, I assume, and unless I hear otherwise, some kind of Amazon screw-up, although possibly they’re discounting packs of 25 copies.

“MiniTissues” are hydraulically compressed tablets that expand to an eight-by-ten “washcloth” (probably more of a strong Kleenex) when hit with a little water. They’re marketed as a way to store clean, contaminant-free tissues easily in a purse or pocket.

You can buy 96 of them next month for $13, plus shipping. I can’t wait to use one. They’re like those pills you could put in water that would expand into dinosaurs.

Catalog Page [Solutions.com via Oh Gizmo]

Since that vote (which Microsoft still lost, by the way) the ISO/IEC committee has ground to a halt because all of their votes require at least 50% participation from member bodies and none of those nations has bothered to come back since the vote on Microsoft’s format.

This certainly lends credence to the suspicions that it was all foul play on Microsoft (and those nation’s) part. A very, very sad state of affairs. I have long felt that Microsoft is an unethical, monomaniacal company, but this really takes the cake!

Link to the article

Given that, this excerpt from a leaked TSA report is terrifying:

At San Diego International Airport, tests are run by passengers whom local TSA managers ask to carry a fake bomb, said screener Cris Soulia, an official in a screeners union

Someone please tell me this doesn’t actually happen. “Hi Mr. Passenger. I’m a TSA manager. You know I’m not lying to you because of this official-looking laminated badge I have. We need you to help us test airport security. Here’s a ‘fake’ bomb that we’d like you to carry through security in your luggage. Another TSA manager will, um, meet you at your destination. Give the fake bomb to him when you land. And, by the way, what’s your mother’s maiden name?”

How in the world is this a good idea? And how hard is it to dress real TSA managers up like vacationers [instead]?

You can see more info on the report at Bruce Schneier’s blog

From Gizmodo

This shelf covers 70% of the base, holding the cereal above the milk; however it also has a section where the milk and cereal mix together. The shelf has a cliff that stops cereal getting underneath the shelf but allows the milk to flow freely.  Link

This site will take any text you type into it, and mosterize it by taking elements from a spooky halloween poster and combining it into the lettering

From BoingBoing

Claire sez, “Maybe I’ve seen one too many horror movies already this year, but I’m totally into the idea of a Hallowe’en cupcake that bleeds when you bite into it. Especially since they bleed cherry filling (actual blood would probably put me right off cupcakes).”

I baked my cupcakes, used the cupcake-filling technique I used on my devil’s food cupcakes to fill the cakes up with pureed cherry pie filling (canned or homemade) and topped them off with white icing to best accentuate the red bite marks. I made the marks using a skewer dipped in leftover cherry filling, making sure to leave a clear impression of a fang bite, rather than just a red streak on top of the cake.

Link (Thanks, Claire!)

© AP

J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling Outs Hogwarts Character

Oct. 19, 2007, 9:05 PM EST

NEW YORK (AP) — Harry Potter fans, the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay. J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall.

After reading briefly from the final book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” she took questions from audience members.

She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds “true love.”

“Dumbledore is gay,” the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. “Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” Rowling said of Dumbledore’s feelings, adding that Dumbledore was “horribly, terribly let down.”

Dumbledore’s love, she observed, was his “great tragedy.”

“Oh, my god,” Rowling concluded with a laugh, “the fan fiction.”

Link to full article

The scale of choreography is remarkable!

As a kid I played the original D&D (I actually found my blue module B1 in a box of books last weekend!) and Advanced D&D. I played a little bit of 2nd Edition, but completely fell out of it since then because of several moves away from friends that play. I’ve just never been able to find a new group.

So, as an outsider every release since 2nd Edition seemed like a clear money grab with no real value added to the play experience. The first part of this video shows that Wizards of the Coast understand this (in a way).

The big thing that 4th Edition is bringing is an online component, that extends your dining room table across the Internet, and lets you play with friends scattered far and wide. It features a customizable map, virtual miniatures, and a dice system. Presumably with the DM having complete control and the players only seeing what their characters would be able to. It also features voice chat, so that you have that interactive and role-play element.

Now, eventually the system is going to require a monthly subscription fee; but this might be included with the purchase of the books (via a serial key inside the book). Its a very interesting idea and I would love to be able to play with my friends spread around the country like the old days!

You can see the other parts of the video from these links (assuming YouTube hasn’t pulled them): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (above), Part 4.

Well, the little turtle that could has turned 40 today! There is a great piece on the Wired Blog about it. Oh, and there is a site where you can download versions of Logo to run on most modern computes!

Background: A couple of months ago Apple started selling tracks from record label EMI without Digital Restrictions Management. This was great news and kicked off all sorts of moves from labels, artists, and stores. Along with no DRM, the tracks included better sound quality, which justified charging a premium for them ($1.29 instead of $.99 for all other tracks).

Since then Amazon launched its MP3 store selling ALL tracks without DRM, high quality, and at only $.89 each. I think this Amazon store is the first truly viable competitor to the iTunes store. Sure, other stores offer no DRM (eMusic), all-you-can-download flat rate plans, or cheaper tracks. But none of them had the magic combination that Amazon has hit on:

1. Main-stream/big label artists
2. No DRM
3. Format compatible with the iPod
4. Equal price or cheaper than iTunes
5. Automatic synchronization with your iTunes library

Points 3 and 5 are bigger than a lot of people think. Since something like 80% of all “portable media players” are iPods, the stores that used Microsofts DRM were always doomed since the tracks weren’t compatible. eMusic is great, but its mostly indie artists and has a weird, confusing pricing model.

I think we are finally getting to some realism with regards to digital music. Video still has a long way to go, but “baby steps Bob”..

It looks like this is a series that has already done the last Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, Superman, The Matrix and several others.

Thanks to Shannon Farrell via Twitter!

The site is called Maps of War and contains several similar videos depicting the expansion and contraction of empires and nations in 90 minute snippets.

From BoingBoing

I think this was Twittered to me, but I don’t remember by who. Original URL link:

How to properly hug a baby

1) If you think you’ve spotted a baby, verify by employing classic sniffing techniques. Baby powder is a dead giveaway.

2) Flatten the baby before actually beginning the hugging process.

3) Simply slide paws around baby and prepare for possible close-up.

4) If a camera is present, you will need to execute the difficult and patented hug, smile, and lean in order to achieve the best photo quality.

Binibottle: Teen Invents Easy-Fill Water Bottle

 Posted by Joel Johnson, October 12, 2007 5:56 AM | permalink

 
Here’s a simple idea that I wouldn’t be surprised to see in new water bottle designs soon: A bottle with a second filler cap on the side to make it easier to fill in shallow sinks. (Or in my case, a sink still brimming with dirty dishes.) The “Binibottle” was created as part of a inventor’s contest.

From Oh Gizmo:

And believe it or not this simple but extremely helpful innovation was created by 15 year old Anna Axelsson. She designed the bottle for the Finnupp inventor’s contest and ended up winning the gold medal. The bottle can apparently be found in Swedish sporting good stores for around $5 and it’s safe to assume Anna won’t have any trouble paying for college when the time comes.

Product Page (Finnish?) [Sportflaskor.nu via Oh Gizmo]

On their way the crew finds the ship (that had gone ahead of them and disappeared) along with why it failed its mission. Predictably, there are many system malfunctions, several deaths, and moral dilemmas.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I’m not so sure that the physics are sound (much seems a bit far fetched) and there are some plot holes, but it kept things moving and held my interest through its entirety. Sunshine is a little bit 2001; a little bit Event Horizon; maybe even a little bit Sphere. There is a lot of science; a lot of humanity; and a lot of action. The human drama is what really made the movie work for me. Much more so than the science and technology which, while significant, didn’t distract from the characterization and thrills.

Not to say some parts weren’t utterly confusing, as is much of the ending. It quickly becomes apparent if the mission was a success or not, and if any of the crew is going to make it.

If you generally like sci-fi and don’t see why everybody thinks 2001 is so awesome (I’ve never cared for it) then you should definitely give Sunshine a try.

Lollipops

As a sample, here is his representation of none other than…

…

…

David Bowie!

(No, the mouse over option doesn’t work here. I’m low-tech and Mr. High Tech is elsewhere. It does work on the Lollipops site, no worries!)

Did you guess it correctly? If so, you’ve just shown your age.. Or maybe your cool factor.. Or maybe .. both?

Ferrell is Lost — Say It Ain’t So!
from Slice of Scifi by Sam

Universal Pictures has tapped Will Ferrell to star in…..get ready for it……a big screen version of Sid & Marty Krofft’s “Land of the Lost.”

Sources claim that this is one project that Ferrell has been wanting to be involved in for years and has pushed for it behind the scenes.

One thing that Ferrell may be disappointed in is his budget for the movie has been drastically cut from $125 million to $100 million because of the financial bashing the studio took with their film “Evan Almighty.”

Directing Ferrell in the effort to try and capture the TV skein on the big screen will be Brad Silberling. His most recent film dealing with both drama and comedy was the Jim Carrey 2004 film “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.”

The Krofft business enterprise will be involved with the project with its producers Julie Wixson-Darmody and Daniel Lupi.

Screenwriters Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas will adapt the script for film about a disgraced paleontologist (Ferrell), his assistant and tour guide who find themselves in the Lost World of prehistoric creatures, monkey people and a group of retilians called Sleestaks.

Production is set to get underway soon so that much of the principal filming can get done before the expected writer’s strike.

Well, I do in deed own the DVD. Sadly, I wasn’t able to see it in theaters. However, I was correct in my assumption. It really does suck. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have some moments. In fact, it was everything that I expected from a Tenacious D movie.

There were many nods to the Tenacious D album (an appearance of Ronnie James Dio; the Greatest Song in the World; c*** pushups; fart jokes; and a constant stream of obscenities. What I didn’t expect is that it is largely a music. Though I suppose “rock opera” would be more apropos.

The story begins showing a young Black Jack defying his religious parents and insisting on rocking. So he runs away from home to Hollywood where he meets Kyle Gass. In short order they room together, need to pay rent, thus needing to win the ‘open mic contest’.

Since they have no confidence in their skills, they begin a quest to the Rock and Roll Museum to steal the ‘Pick of Destiny’ which was crafted in the dark ages from one of the Devil’s teeth. This results in a stereotypical road adventure and ultimate rock showdown vs. Satan.

I laughed more than once at the stupiditiy, and in-jokes, being a long-time fan of their music. Some of the obnoxious, obscene language got a bit old, but that’s true of their music so its really no surprise. Also not much of a surprise is much of the completely predictable dialog, scenes, and plot points. Though, the target movie experience is in a smoke filled room with cold beers and a low thick haze of pot smoke.

Under those circumstances, I imagine that this is quite the masterpiece that could be enjoyed over and over.

Actually, it didn’t take long to see what they’d do, as yesterday Trent announced that a remix version of the newest album Year Zero will soon be released in three different formats. Y34RZ3R0R3MIX3D will be released as a regular priced download format; a six disc vinyl format; and a (slightly more expensive) CD/DVD format with the DVD containing all of the master tracks prepped for a couple different recording platforms including raw audio to be used in any way fans choose.

This DVD allows anybody to remix the songs, remove or isolate any instrument, and add their own instruments or vocals to any track on the album. Trent has already released several of the tracks on his website for free this way and promises to eventually post them all shortly.

From nin.com

08 October 2007: Big News

Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the
following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally
free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have
been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the
business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very
different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a
direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.
Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.
Exciting times, indeed.

posted by Trent Reznor at 10:45 AM. 1612 Comments

What the case basically says is that since this car repair shop is a business; and the mechanics listen to the radio while they work; and the customers might be able to hear the radio: then the shop needs to pay “performance royalties” for entertaining the customers with copyrighted works.  What a crock!

From BoingBoing:

Car repair chain sued for playing radio

Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, October 9, 2007 3:45 PM | permalink

James Glover says:

Kwik-Fit, a British chain of car-repair garages, has been taken to court by the Performing Rights Society for “public performances” of music played on staff radios.

The PRS claimed that Kwik-Fit mechanics routinely use personal radios while working at service centres across the UK and that music, protected by copyright, could be heard by colleagues and customers.

It is not entirely clear is the term radio is used to refer to broadcast radio stations or to CDs/Tapes payed on audio equipment. Either way this seems a ridiculous abuse of public performance licenses.

Link

From Weird Asia News:

There comes a time in every kids life when he or she needs to learn to use the toilet. We found this cute little cartoon that emphasizes the various joys of using the toilet for kids to learn.

Don’t forget to bid your waste goodbye before it goes down the pipes.

From Slashdot:

“Just in time for the 70th Anniversary of the Hobbit (published September 21, 1937) Entertainment Weekly has a 5-page article on a possible reconciliation between Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema that may pave the way for the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy to return and helm the filming of The Hobbit. It was previously reported here that Jackson would not be making the Hobbit film. The EW article says that Jackson wants to make two films: first the Hobbit in its entirety and then another film that bridges the roughly 60 years between the end of the Hobbit and the start of the Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately Jackson already has a lot on his plate with filming of The Lovely Bones scheduled to start this month and a live action Tintin film in the works.”

I thought this was an interesting secret:

From BoingBoing Gadgets:

Nintendo Wii Wedding Cakes

Posted by Joel Johnson, October 8, 2007 11:31 AM | permalink

My friend Adam recently got hitched. He had two cakes at the wedding: a traditional (and lovely) cake topped with his-and-her icons of the couple-to-be rendered as Mii avatars; and a Nintendo Wii cake for Adam’s son Jasper. I checked with Adam to make sure that Jasper has a real Wii at home. He does, thank God. Otherwise the poor boy would have a cake addiction for life. Now he’ll just be hooked on videogames like his parents!Adam’s Photostream [Flickr]