Sunday, October 24, 2004
Happy Blogiversary
Happy belated blogiversary to Andrew! This means he started at the same time as today’s birthday boy, almost exactly four months before I started.
Acceptance Versus Derision
This is extremely funny, at least to me, and not a particular surprise. The differences in the populace are almost a cultural thing, including the differences in how people react to the less popular candidate’s decor in locations highly oriented one way or the other.
Even if the acceptance is amused, I’ll take that over haughty derision any day. This behavior reflects a fundamental difference currently between the parties, the candidates, and the left and right.
Yes, there is such a thing as too smart…
So the baby slept peacefully for 3 hours Friday night--in the middle of a party!--in her swing, where she fell asleep (!) despite having been put down when she was still awake. Naturally, I was thrilled with this development, as she has a habit of not sleeping at all unless she’s being held. So last night I put her in the swing and go crawl into bed. She lasted an hour. Got her back out and put her back in the swing...20 minutes. Again this morning...15 minutes. Went and picked her up and she was all smiles...just wanted some company. I know the feeling, but I’m lousy company when I’ve only half-slept because I’ve been holding the baby all night.
Damn it. Sigh.
Sad part is that in a few months I’ll probably be complaining that she doesn’t want to be held anymore. Oh, well.
Spam
We are suddenly getting slammed with comment spam. Relatively speaking, that is. Several in a day, as opposed to one in several days or more. pMachine doesn’t get the effort or automation devoted to it that MT and WP do. On the other hand, apparently you don’t get the ability to fight it well unless you upgrade to Expression Engine, as we have been pondering doing.
I can just keep deleting comments as they come in, which isn’t a big deal, but has been getting on my nerves by its repetition the past day or two. They may as well not bother, since every last one has been purged before it could be spidered.
This led me to poke and prod at pMachine again and be reminded that I can ban IP addresses - and I finally tried it on the most recent, in case it helps - but that’s like using a sledgehammer when you need a mallet. I can set an entry to “closed,” but that makes the entire post invisible to the public, rather than merely closing comments. I can require registration, but that sucks. I tend not to comment at places where registration is required, though I am not opposed on principle so long as it is handled by an individual blog rather than centrally at a corporate level. Thus you will never see a comment from us on a blog that uses Typekey. I can’t make comments close automatically on a timetable, which I’d consider a good option. Since the comment spam seems to be generated by hand, on old posts, closure to comments or registration would seem to be the most logical options.
Spammers just suck.
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Fun
My friend Nicole is visiting the area for a week. She’s the one who moved to San Diego, then to Las Vegas, where she is looking for work (tech support, VB programming, QA/testing, or pretty much whatever). She had never met Deb, and none of my friends had met Sadie, so we had Nicole, Renee, Bob, Sherri, Paul, and Tim over last night so they could see Nicole for the once or twice a year that’s typically possible, and so they could see the baby.
It was fun. We ordered a bunch of pizza and hung out gabbing and making fun of whatever was on TV in the background. Like Enterprise. It was tough at times keeping talk from turning to politics, but mostly it was light.
Sadie slept through most of it! We call her swing “baby crack,” she likes it that much. Which didn’t keep everyone from admiring how cute she is. Bob was especially smitten. Some woman is really missing out; he’s a great guy.
We, meaning 90% or so Deb and 10% or less me, really paid for Sadie sleeping through the party. But Deb had fun and wondered why we don’t do it more often. She also hit it off with Nicole, probably more than any of my other friends, which doesn’t surprise me, and is sad that Nic lives on the other side of the country. Oh well.
Anyway, Nicole stayed at Renee’s house for the night, and we are driving her to the Cape today, soon. So we will be away from computers and blogging for a good while, to get to the status report point of this post.
Back later! Maybe I’ll finally post some pictures again then.
Friday, October 22, 2004
What She Said
Halloween is neither new nor scary. Get over it.
Of Course They Can, It’s Just Whether It Will Matter
Via Dean, early voting problems in Florida are being reported in Florida, from the expected quarter, apparently quite thuggish, or at least unsubtle.
If it’s not close, they can certainly still cheat, and they will, but it won’t matter. Please folks, make it not close.
Get Well Spidey
Poor Spidey is a very sick kid. Kelley posted specs for those who are medically able. It seems the hospital is at a loss. I hope he’s better soon!
In the next post, audio, Kelley reports things are looking up a bit.
The combination of having my own kid and being reminded of my own youthful hospitalization was enough to give me a major empathy attack when I read about Spidey.
Congratulations!
Happy blogiversary to Jeff Soyer, who has been at it for two years. Woohoo!
It’s almost his birthday, too. He’ll be 50 on Sunday, which means he was born the same year as my older brother, the oldest of my siblings. And yet… 50 isn’t really so “old” any more. We’ve come a long way.
Yes, But Who’s Buying
You may have seen Glenn, Blake, or others linking to Frank J. and mumbling with their keyboards something about Frank J. selling out. You may even have yawned at the screen in response before moving on in your surfing.
But wait!
This Halliburton ad by Frank J. is one of the funniest things I have ever heard. Not that I am saying you haven’t heard funnier things, but undoubtedly it’s right up there with funny things like “I did not have sex with that woman,” “actually I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it,” and “Hi, my name is Jimmy Carter and I’m running for President.” At least.
So give it a listen. The puppies, kittens, and school children will thank you.
Carnival of the Recipes Is Up
The 10th Carnival of the Recipes is up at Inside Allan’s Mind. Yum! My tuna noodle casserole is in it.
I expect to post a recipe for chicken (more for the sauce that goes on the chicken, really) soon to enter this week. Since its source is my stepsister, and the dish has no name, I’ll probably call it Laurie’s Chicken. Otherwise I would have to come up with something clever like Fire Chicken or whatever. Stay tuned for that soon.
For anyone who is confused about the nature of kinship…
Susanna explains the Noah factor. Heh.
Menino’s a moron.
Of course, we already knew that, but really, is the idiot trying to prevent a riot or start one?
Mayor Thomas M. Menino, blaming “knuckleheads” for the disorder that led to a death and several injuries after Wednesday’s Red Sox victory, said the city is considering “drastic measures,” including banning liquor sales, to ensure that World Series crowds do not turn violent.
Menino said he may invoke a state law, never before used in Boston, allowing him to ban the sale or distribution of alcohol “in cases of riot or great public excitement.” Menino also said that he will ask bar and restaurant operators today to ban live television coverage during games, because it incites fans.
[snip]
“Since people won’t act responsibly, I, as mayor, will take it into my own hands,” he said of measures planned for series games.
Wrong on so many levels that I don’t have time to list ‘em. Sheesh.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
For the next to the next to the last time…
The Toast-O-Meter is back!
Which Candidate Based On Issue Statements
Talk about awkward choices. On one of the pairings, I looked at the two and thought “yes, both.” Some of them aren’t so far apart. It’s definitely an interesting exercise, since it does use actual statements from the candidate web sites. Anyway, my results:
 | You preferred Bush’s statements 56% of the time You preferred Kerry’s statements 44% of the time Voting purely on the issues you should vote Bush Who would you vote for if you voted on the issues? Find out now! |
Ah, looking at the site again, I see the questions actually change if you go and take the test again, or if you refresh the test page. Intriguing.
I took it twice more and got Kerry 67% to 33% the first time, and Bush 67% to 33% the second time. Definitely an odd test.
Quote of the Day
I didn’t watch the last game of the ALCS last night--my blood pressure is still too high and my tummy still too delicate for the task--so I thought I’d dreamed the bit where Jay came to bed bearing the news of the Red Sox victory. Amazingly enough, though, it turned out to be true.
Which brings us to the Quote of the Day, from Michele’s very gracious post on the matter:
Beautiful.
Bliss.
Sadie is asleep in the sling and I have two hands to type with.
Now what was I saying?
Alas…
There will be limited posting today, as I resume office hours, sort of, today, despite not really wanting to and having a bit of a cold-like thing. This also means there will be no time to make more cookies like these:
Oatmeal Scotchies, cookies with butterscotch chips, from the recipe on the butterscotch chip package as slightly modified (since I can’t seem to make a recipe without modification, in this case using both grated orange peel and vanilla). Made them the day before yesterday and they are almost gone, 46 cookies worth. Deb thinks they’re heavenly, just slightly too sweet, to which I agree. I knew I was on to something when I declared it the best raw cookie dough I could remember ever tasting.
Then I made homemade fried chicken strips (sorry, no pictures, but they did look as good as they tasted) that came out fantastic. Next time I make them I’ll try to document a recipe that’s repeatable, since to this point it’s a completely by eye invention.
Making those reminded me of fried smelts, which I loved and we used to have with some regularity when I was a kid. I’d completely forgotten about that as a food option that exists.
But I digress. This was supposed to be primarily about the expected lack of free cookies (or ice cream or whatever) for the rest of today. Even when I am not at the office, I need to help clean the place better in preparation for having friends over tomorrow night. Nicole, who moved to San Diego and then to Las Vegas, is back this way for a week. Not only is there the baby, but also she has yet to meet Deb. Besides the tiny detail of not having seen the rest of us since at least December. It’s her presence that inspired the get together.
Okay, working now…
Received In E-Mail
MACE
A mechanic who worked out of his home had a dog named Mace. Mace had a bad habit of eating all the grass on the mechanic’s lawn, so the mechanic had to keep Mace inside. The grass eventually became overgrown.
One day the mechanic was working on a car in the backyard and dropped his wrench, losing it in the tall grass. He couldn’t find it for the life of him, so he decided to call it a day.
That night, Mace escaped from the house and ate all the grass in the backyard. The next morning the mechanic went outside and saw his wrench glinting in the sunlight. Realizing what had happened he looked toward the heavens and proclaimed,
“A grazing Mace, how sweet the hound, that saved a wrench for me!
View From An Upper Floor
Via Katie comes an impressively written, dead accurate look at the U.S., the world, the war, and our stark choice so obvious to so many of us, remarkably unobvious to more than I can fathom. A snippet:
An attack that manages to ground all US and most of the world’s air traffic and close down the stock markets around the planet is something qualitatively different from a bomb in an Ulster pub. Human life is fragile, so is democracy, the world economy, globalization etc. The US can absorb U$ 1 trillion in damages. The rest of the world cannot. The US can survive a nuke in Manhattan. Brazil can survive a nuke in Sao Paulo. But Brazil cannot survive a nuke in Manhattan. What most of the world’s anti-Americans fail to understand is that whatever harms deeply the US harms us even more. Were Africa to suddenly disappear, it wouldn’t make much of a change in the life of New Yorkers. Were NY to disappear, Africa would go along.
It occurs to me that this angle makes it easy to be an American who is anti-American, since you are in the part of the world least affected by an attack, at a deep, “whither civilization” level.
It’s relatively long, but read the whole thing for the view of someone who understand the world, yet will not be voting for Bush.
I Found It Odd
That the DNC ran a Kerry ad on Boston TV late last night, well after the game. (Yay Sox!) At first I was thinking “they need to shore up Massachusetts?” Then I realized they probably reach some southern New Hampshire viewers that way, so it’s not necessarily crazy.
Of course, it still seems odd to me for NH to have drifted left enough to be in question. Must be all those darn MA people who’ve moved there for affordable housing and low taxes, wanting to vote in higher taxes and worse economics so they’ll feel at home again. Or something.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Elect The Great In 2008!
I see over at Glenn’s that he has been nominated for President.
What you may not know or recall is that is is not the first time. That’s right, Jeff Soyer was waaaay ahead of Jeff Jarvis on this one. First, he proposed the basic idea and ticket here.
He continued it here, featuring a slogan, ”Elect the great in 2008!“ and acceptances of nominations.
Obviously it remains a fine idea that keeps drawing support.
Overheard In Our House
"Well, maybe Chan and Deb will have a girl.”
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Received In E-Mail…
Boston sports teams are like men in relationships:
*The Patriots are like the new boyfriend that you really like- he’s awesome but almost too good to be true, so you worry.
*The Bruins are like the guy that you just casually dated and you don’t really care about him, he’s just something to do.
*The Celtics are like the marriage that was great at one time but has lost its spark and you always kinda look back and think about how great it was.
*And the Sox are the hard core abusive husband who just absolutely beats the shit out of you, day after day, but you always go back to him cause you always believe that tomorrow will be different, and you just love him too much.
Go Red Sox!
Whyizzit
That a spiffy, tiny new pager, hardware by Sun Telecom and service by Verizon Wireless, eats batteries at 2 - 3 times the speed of a large, clunky looking old pager?
Worse, it beeps fairly loudly to let you know it’s dying, without regard to whether you are having trouble falling back to sleep after a baby, bathroom and blog interlude, such that it will be as effective as a bomb going off at bringing you to full alertness. And, having reminded you of work and money, terminally worsen the state of worry about those things that was contributing to the near inability to revisit dreamland.
Worse still, the battery that must be changed roughly every month (as opposed to every quarter) lives in a cubby that is all but impossible to open. This post is a direct result of my pausing from attempting to do just that.
All this on top of the fact that the pager has such wimpy tone and volume that I can’t hear it unless it’s on me or in my immediate presence, and were I truly sound asleep, might not actually wake me. The oldfangled one that barely needed batteries would also wake the dead, and could be heard from anywhere in the apartment. Sheesh.
Need An Extension?
Via Katie, who is finally back
Grand Rounds Is Up
The latest Grand Rounds is up at Echo Journal. This is a great way to get in touch with a sampling of what’s out there in medical blogging, without having to make a habit of perusing medical blogs.
Monday, October 18, 2004
RIP Things to Blog About?
Dean has been asked what he’ll talk about after the election, as if blogworthy fodder will dry up. He and I both recall having tons to blog about before politics heated up. People are adding their thoughts on what there will be to talk about, and how soon after November 2 the election will truly expire as a common topic.
This mommy thing takes a lot of coordination.
In case anybody was wondering...I *am* alive, and doing well...I just haven’t worked out how to either A: type with one hand or B: have both hands free for enough consecutive minutes that I can finish a thought. I swear I’ll answer e-mail and possibly even post once I resolve the conflict. Or at least bring it down to a workable level… *grin*
Speaking of Economics…
Here’s a post on our horrible economy, A Week In Hooverville (which I guess means it ought to suck), by the talented Frank.
I enjoyed reading such an eye-opener, and find it a shame the media hasn’t caught on to the deplorable conditions enough to emphasize them yet. You’d think there was an election to influence or something.