Saturday, December 18, 2004
Earworm
I keep bursting out in the Marine Corps Hymn today. Very strange.
But then, I can make Sadie smile almost on demand by making popping sounds with my mouth, and I tend to do that to the same song. Yesterday Deb sang (she knows all the words!) while I popped and Sadie looked worried, or something.
Of course, I tend to pervert it by saying “to the shores of Triple A.” It’s pretty sad.
The Dog Ear Question
I must confess, I have been know to do this to books. I try to use a bookmark, but if I own the book and there’s none handy, especially if it’s just some paperback…
Lately I’ve been really good about it, and even when I do it, I try to flatten them back out as neatly as I can.
If You Can’t Beat The Taxman Any Other Way…
Well, this is one motivation for becoming a dictator.
Via Rand Simberg
Friday, December 17, 2004
Abusing the Warranty
We went to target and then Wal-Mart today. Wal-Mart for some digital prints and a couple loose ends. Target for Christmas stuff and the bulk of other items.
We bought a 2.5’ tabletop Christmas tree with fiber optic lights built in, a big $20 for the year or two we can’t have a bigger tree. We also got some tiny ornaments for it, that would not be too heavy. Holiday Christmas stuff for your giving Christmas tree and other decorating, wrapping, etc. needs is insanely cheap these days. Not to mention varied and innovative. We forgot the hangers for the ornaments, so I’ll have to run to Brooks or whatever for some, or find some paper clips and adapt them.
Meanwhile, I setup the tree. Plugged it in, flipped the switch, and the switch wasn’t flippable, but more like flappable. Broken. Doh! This after Deb dug for one that had an undamaged box.
I took it apart. It’s made to be able to do that, because if the halogen bulb dies, it can be replaced. The whole thing is simply a motor turning a multicolored lens at an offset above a light that shines into the base of the tree and comes out the fiber ends in whatever color is between the bulb and the fiber in question.
The switch is a slider that makes contact between two wire connections on a tiny circuit board. The board the wires attach to was not connected to the switch mechanism. Easy enough. But then it was fussy about making the connection right, and would arc and flicker. No good.
Determined not to have to return it and deal with the madness, but to have a working pre-lit tree, I ended up soldering it so it’s always on. It’s controlled by the switch on the power strip or by the state of being plugged in or not. It’s sitting there, gracing the room as I type. Go me!
This would not have been possible had my father not given me a used soldering gun and small supply of solder when I was up there for Thanksgiving. He brought out his good soldering gun to improve my car’s wiring situation, and I remarked that I had always wanted one of those, ever since my older brother got one when I was a kid and I was all jealous. Sooner or later, I would have bought myself one. The one I lusted after is big, powerful, gun-shaped, and has a trigger for turning the heat on and off. You’d not actually want it for smaller, more sensitive electronics. Strangely enough, most of the soldering I’ve ever done was with a propane torch, doing metal work, not electrical at all.
My father gave me a little soldering gun that is always on when plugged in, better for small electronics, and just needed the tip sanded down a little. He never needed it any more, with the larger one around. I stuck it in my toolbox with the thin, solid solder.
Then tonight came along. Yay! My father saved our tree. And me a trip back to Target. Not that I might not end up there anyway, as I still need to get something for Deb… But I hate returns.
Now to hang Sadie’s stocking under the tree…
Gratuitous Pictures
First, I added pictures to the apricot chicken experiment post. Some will be amused to know that as I grabbed the camera I said, in my fake serious voice, ”step one: remove lens cap.”
Next, a Sadie picture! This is from a few days ago, in the bath:
Now that is pretty. Possibly even cute.
Carnival of the Recipes Is Up
Keeping up the spate of food-related posts, this week’s Carnival of the Recipes is up and looks quite extensive, including other cranberry-based recipes besides the one I entered. There’s even a snickerdoodle recipe.
Ethiopian Food and Alien Spices
I was reminded over at Jen’s how much I loved Ethiopian food the couple times I had it, both at restaurants in Montreal. I’d go regularly if we had one around here, especially good and reasonably priced.
In the past I toyed with the idea of making it myself, even to the point of looking up recipes such as these.
I don’t even remember what dishes I had and which I preferred. They were all good, and there were several, shared among a bunch of us who banded together to go. I rather liked the serving method. 4 - 5 people sat around a large round tray, covered with a giant flatbread, called injera. You spooned food from a serving dish onto the bread in front of you, ate it using other, smaller pieces of the bread, and finished up eating the last of it with the bread on the tray. We had, as I recall, chicken, beef, lamb and vegetarian dishes.
Anyhow, looking at the recipes, one thing is common; the berbere sauce. It’s an ingredient, which in turn you make.
It reminds me of an ingredient for an Indian cashew chicken recipe I saved from the recipe carnival a few weeks ago. It’s garam masala, which can be bought at Indian markets, or made with a mix of cinnamon sticks, cloves, black peppercorns, black cardamon pods, and black cumin. Er… okay then. It’ll be like a treasure hunt to find all that.
In this case, exact details depending which recipe you read, it takes something along the lines of cumin seed, whole cloves, cardamon seeds (whats?), black peppercorns, allspice, fenugreek seeds (what??), onion flakes, various chiles, ginger, nutmeg, turmeric, garlic, salt, oil, red wine, cayenne, coriander, paprika, cinnamon, and shallots. Exact ones included or not depending on the recipe.
Fenugreek seeds? I suppose I should Google it.
This, and not merely being single, may have been what put me off of trying the Ethiopian recipes previously. But hey, while we’re exploring the joy of cooking and stuff here, maybe it’s time to seek out new spices, and new recipes to use them in, to boldly cook like I have not cooked before.
And no, not sticks and rocks people.
I am used to mentioned having had Ethiopian food and being asked in a lame attempt at comedy, “Ethiopian? What do they eat, sticks and rocks?” Sheesh.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Not a Recipe
An experiment for supper.
The recipe for a variant of apricot chicken in the last Carnival of the Recipes got the gears turning. I bought some apricot preserves, if only because I love it in PBJ sandwiches. Thought I’d try it, but I was weirded out a bit by the inclusion of Russian, French or Catilina dressing in the recipe, and we didn’t have any. Not that wasn’t past its throw away date. I also had to make it for only two chicken breasts; a smaller recipe.
I poked around and saw some other apricot and chicken ideas online, and ended up, unmeasured this time, using three big spoonfuls of apricot preserves, some vinegar, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, a couple dashes of dry mustard, just about half a packet of Shaw’s store brand onion soup mix, and what probably amounted to around three tablespoons of brown sugar.
I stirred it all up vigorously, into a lumpy sauce, and spooned it onto the chicken breasts in a baking pan.
It came out a little too liquid, so I’d probably go lighter on the vinegar, if nothing else next time. About halfway through close to 40 minutes of baking at 400, I took it out and spooned the now thickened sauce from around the chicken onto it to add to what was actually sticking.
The brand of onion soup mix is particularly strong, and I should have remembered that and gone lighter.
The sauce itself tasted excellent and promised a good result. And it was, but not quite where it needs to be for an excellent dish. The onion soup was too strong a taste. I could see doing something like it, almost the same, but with a pinch to a dash or two each of onion powder and garlic powder, or just the onion powder.
We devoured and enjoyed it. It’s worthy of another test or two and then maybe I can make it a recipe with more detailed measurements. There are pictures, which I may yet take off the camera to post. Got a nice breast shot in the pan, as well as one of the rice, chicken, carrots and green beans with almonds arranged on my plate.
Update:
Here are pictures! First, the apricot chicken experiment in the pan:
Yeah, the pan is still soaking. Oh well.
Here’s the chicken in context on the plate:
Pretty, huh?
And nobody wants to talk about repealing the 17th.
What, does Lott think agreeing with MCain will make people like him or something? Or is this some other brand of idiotic swagger? Only time will tell, I suppose.
In the meantime, I like the advice Glenn has for McCain and his evil sidekick Hagel. Heh. Indeed.
Houston, we have a growth spurt.
These are fun. Take one baby, attach to mom, leave three days to one week. Heh.
I had more to say but she’s crying again, so I’ve got to go. It’s been 20 minutes since she finished eating, so she’s probably hungry again, LOL.
Told you these are fun! 
Back when I can get back…
Hey Computer, NOT NOW Please
A few weeks ago my home computer’s power supply died. Popped in a new one, no problem.
It’s a Pentium III 1 GHz that I built almost five years ago. Still as fast as I need it to be. It started out with an IBM DeathStar DeskStar hard drive, an early 7200x one, which was always overly loud. That died a couple years back, but it didn’t “die,” it just wouldn’t boot as a master. It’s been a slave drive since I put in a new one, working just fine.
Last night our DSL connection went out. Deb came in the living room and told me that, then a short time later she said I had some funky sound file playing on my computer. I came in to check it out. The machine was as I had left it, going squeak clicka clicka squeak clicka click squeak clicka clicka squeak clicka click, etc., and it didn’t go away when all overt programs were closed.
So I rebooted.
Well, the computer recognizes the keyboard and mouse, but doesn’t get beyond that. The rhythm section starts as soon as the machine powers up enough to juice the hard drives.
Yay, Self tech support. Yay, money I don’t have possibly needing to be spent.
Anyway, the possibility exists that the old IBM drive finally gave up the ghost and is afflicting the machine until it is physically disconnected. That would be a decent outcome. The possibility exists that the primary drive died, which would be a serious bummer, since my attitude toward backups is more “do as I say, not as I do” than “be obsessive.” And there’s always the tweaks and settings and little details that fit like a glove, which can’t necessarily be backed up as such. I don’t think it’s at all connected to the CD or CDRW drive. That would be too helpful.
This could also be a delayed result of damage from the power supply dying. That has to make me wonder about the rest of the system. Or it could be that drive that was on its way out two years or so ago, finally going.
Luckily I have a new 80 GB drive at the office, waiting to be a replacement in a machine where a drive dies, or to be used if I need to build a machine. Just in case. Also, ironically, in the car I have a computer from the office. It’s for working on code at home for our beta program I never work at in the office but had worked on very effectively at home before its deployment at one firm.
At this point the phone rang, I talked to the landlord’s sister and learned the story behind Slacker Dude’s girlfriend no longer living upstairs, found out she thinks Sadie looks like me, and reported that the gutter above the front steps needs to be cleaned so we aren’t walking through a waterfall when it rains.
Then I popped the side off, unplugged the power from the old IBM drive that was already partly dead (making it the most likely culprit), and viola, the computer booted! So I can finish this and give Deb her computer back. Woohoo!
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Checking It Twice
Ha! Here’s an amusing, comment-provoking artifact. I was searching on my computer at the office to see if I had a handy mailing list for holiday Christmas cards for clients and vendors. I came across my Christmas list for the year 2000.
My family demands one of these most years, else they have no clue what to get me. However, nobody mentioned it this year because I am no longer single and childless. The emphasis is always on the kids in the families that have them. I do now, so Sadie will get the presents.
Some years even I had no idea what to list, but apparently in 2000 I went all out to come up with a variety of items. That people could afford. Sometimes as a joke I would put something expensive nobody could possibly buy for me. But hey, they asked what I wanted…
So let your mind go back four years, long before Deb, less than two years after I left my full time job to be self-employed, a year after I became the only one of several partners working full time for the business, a year after I got my previous apartment, in Quincy, after sharing a house with my stepsister for several years, two years after my peak “watching movies in theaters as they were released” year, and less than a year after I got my first ever VCR. Here, verbatim, is the list, in approximately the same format as in Word, with everything I have since gotten or that Deb has, as best I can remember, in italics:
Jay’s Famous Annual Christmas List
For the year 2000
For the Apartment· Grater, one of those big metal ones that does something different on each of the 4 sides is what I am picturing
· Can never have too many paring knives
· Or anyway, something specifically designed for slicing cheese might be cool
· A couple more spatulas wouldn’t hurt, for non-stick pans specifically
· Tightly sealable containers made for storing cereal
· And other such storage containers for things like pancake mix, flour, etc.
· Only kind of pans I could possibly use would be a couple small to medium sized saucepans
· A container appropriate for maple syrup
· Wouldn’t mind some kind of blender/food processor thingie, the easier designed for cleanup the better
· I wouldn’t mind a couple wooden spoons
· Decent wooden cutting board (scientifically proven more sanitary than plastic)
· Spoon holder thingie for top of stove
· I am most in need of large plates and cereal bowls when it comes to dishes, but not direly so
· Set of measuring cups
· Some new mid-sized towels, by which I mean ones that many would call “bath size” but to me are just comfortably oversized hand sized. About the size some of you have seen me put under dishes on the counter.
· I wouldn’t object to a dish strainer thingie in a color that goes with the kitchen (unfortunately that means shades of beige, white, yellow, peach, orange rather than colors I personally prefer like blue, purple or maybe green… though green would kind of fit and blue wouldn’t clash)More General
· Any Beatles CD, though especially interested in White Album
· Videos of
Star Wars 4: A New Hope
Star Wars 5: The Empire Strikes Back
ET
The two Toy Story films
Beauty and the Beast!
The Wizard of Oz
Dogma
Princess Mononoke
The Die Hard films
The Truman Show
Fantasia
Fantasia 2000
High Fidelity
The Sure Thing
Life of Brian
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The Lion King
Aladdin
Sleeping Beauty
Lady and the Tramp
Jungle Book
Bambi
The Little Mermaid
Cinderella
Pocahontas
Clueless
The Breakfast Club
Top Gun
When Harry Met Sally
The Love Letter (big screen version with Tom Selleck, Ellen Degeneres, etc., not the Hallmark one with Jennifer Jason Leigh)
The Green Mile
Titan A.E.
The Batman films
The Superman films
Simply Irresistible
Every James Bond film
Armageddon
Deep Impact
· Gift certificates for any major book store or cinema chain in the general area, Filenes, South Shore Plaza in general, any place videos are sold at a reasonable price, Best Buy, Comp USA, Bed and Bath or similar stores, etc.
· Snow broom (Dad knows what I mean)
· Shirts of the long sleeved button down Oxford variety, size 18, 34/35 sleeves, basically any color but white and any pattern that doesn’t accentuate my need to lose 50 pounds. I tend to prefer ones that have a certain… weight and texture to them, which I know doesn’t convey what I mean, but most shirts labeled Oxford seem to have it to some degree. I have had good luck with Stafford brand Oxfords, and just bought the same thing in Van Heusen which seem to be thinner material and are a higher percentage cotton, but have traditionally been a brand I’ve had luck with. I’ve had mixed results with L.L. Bean shirts.
· Pants of the “Dockers” genre, which can be Dockers, The Original Khaki Company, Hagar and others. Not the waistbands that have stretchy sections in them. Waist 40, Leg 30.
· Socks, as long as they aren’t short ones, and have a reasonable degree of thickness to the material. I prefer colors other than white, but do like multiple socks of the same color/pattern making them fairly generic to match up.
There you have it, a blast from the past. Some things not in italics need comment.
I did get more knives, but not the good paring knives I wanted, and I have lost my favorite one since then.
My grandmother has a hand me down blender waiting for us at her house, which we didn’t take last time because the car was too full or something. But that’s not what I really wanted for a “food processor.”
Now we’d like some pans that aren’t non-stick, of various sizes. And need a medium saucepan or two, non-stick or otherwise, since I boiled my good non-stick one dry and ruined the coating with excess heat. I’m very fussy about treating them just so, and overheating with nothing in them is one of the best ways to harm them. Now things stick instead of not. I like non-stick cookware but would like some of the other kind too. Deb prefers the other kind.
I forgot how much I like the word thingie. I haven’t used it nearly enough lately.
Deb has a number of Beatles CDs, including the White Album and the red and blue compilations. I subsequently bought One after it came out.
I may have some of the movies wrong, since Deb has an extensive collection of mostly non-overlapping movies, and I can’t even remember everything I bought. The most amusing thing is between us we have three copies of The Cutting Edge.
I think it’s funny I had to start making my family a list as an adult. I never did that when I was a kid. Not as far as I can remember anyway.
Update, as I review the post:
I have the first and best Die Hard film, but didn’t mark that because I stated it there as plural. It’s about the time of year to watch it again, being one of the best Christmas movies.
I think Deb may have at least the first Toy Story, but again, plural and wasn’t certain.
I eventually got the first two Batman films. I think it’s two, not three.
This reminds me I need to watch While You Were Sleeping, another great Christmas movie, with Deb, who has never seen it.
NOT everybody loves Raymond, thankyouverymuch.
As a matter of fact, I agree in general, though I’ll take Pokemon if that’s what’s on, and I’d kill at this point for the extra channels of dreck. You see, I’m bravely living cable-free.
Shocking, isn’t it?
And since I’m back to needing both hands to nurse (don’t ask), I watch a lot of TV. I’m just not zen enough to sit and stare or worse, try to force some weird bonding thing on a baby fully occupied with eating and pooping. She takes her meals very seriously, this one does. In any case, I’ve repeatedly inisisted to Jay that I’m not nursing another baby until we’ve got cable. Heh.
He knows the way to my heart.
Nathan’s got yet another example of John McCain being a nasty little bully.
Nathan, you keep finding ‘em, I’ll keep linking ‘em. Gladly.
Cranberry Pie
This is a recipe someone gave my stepmother, origins unknown. It was astonishingly good! We had it there at Thanksgiving. Here it is, verbatim (some ingredients are listed “in-line” rather than at the top):
325 Oven
10” Pie plate
2 Cups cranberries
1/2 Cup sugar
Place cranberries in pie plate. Sprinkle 1/2 cup sugar over berries.
Mix together.
2 Eggs beaten, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup flour.
Melt 3/4 cup butter and slowly mix into above egg mixture until well incorporated. Spread over the berries.
Bake 1 hour.
I can’t recommend it enough. We’ll probably make it in the next week or so.
And I Don’t Mean The Broadway Musical Or The Cowsills Song
My barber marketing post below, and the comment about self-service haircuts, reminded me of my youth.
When I was really little, I can remember going to my current favorite barber a time or two. Mostly, we went to a guy a couple houses from my grandparents. He had a shop setup in his basement, and it was $1.25 for a haircut. Went there many times, and it was kind of unique because the families were friends. He died over 20 years ago, but his wife recently turned 90, and my grandmother, herself 88, with increasing help from my mother, has been helping and watching out for her for many years.
Anyway, we were poor. I could write about the whole mindset associated with that, which is dangerous, hard to break, and can make success harder later. But I won’t right now. When the price of a haircut went up to $1.50, my mother decided we could no longer afford haircuts. We stopped getting them.
So it was that I went through high school, plus a couple years beyond and before, frequently sporting what my friend Tom called “the sheepdog look.”
My mother and sister both cut my hair sometimes. The worst haircut I ever got was from my sister-in-law, who had gone most of the way through hairdressing school before knocking up my about to turn 18 brother and bequeathing him the school loan. Eventually, I ended up cutting my own hair, and surprisingly generated complements. Well, one, that I remember. As it turns out, my hair isn’t the easiest, because it is baby fine.
I found that out when it came time to go to college and I realized I was sick of unruly hair. The notion of image started to occur to me. My friend Tom was pleased to recommend a hair salon place he’d used. Sticker shock! It was $10 for a haircut there, in 1982. But it was also a den of hairdressers or stylists or whatever you want to call them.
I got an interesting hair job there, in which the ideal thing would have been to use mousse every day to make the front of my hair stand up the same way it did when I left the place. I liked it, but had doubts. That day I learned that my hair was baby soft and enjoyable to touch. Who knew! Seems kind of silly to sticky it up with chemicals if it’s that nice. Deb has talked of cutting my hair, as she is apparently passable at it (does a fine job on her own hair), but thinks it is too fine to do well.
For a while I went this place or that where they were stylists, not barbers. Eventually, though, I lived in western Massachusetts for a while and went to a barber in Amherst. She did a fine job of a basic haircut that looked good, for less money than the fancy people. When I moved back here, I sought out a regular barber and ended up with the guy I went to once or twice when I was very little. He did a better cut than anyone. When his son joined the business, he got even better. It was as if the subtle competition was good for the two of them.
I long ago decided that haircuts are not a place to eliminate spending to save a few bucks on the kids, at least not once they are old enough for image to matter to them and their peers. Had I not picked up on the same “too expensive” vibe about haircuts as my mother, and had I been just a little more aware of and concerned about my appearance, no way would I have gone through high school looking as freaky as I did. But a simple, basic haircut by a barber works fine for me.
Sadly, my sister bought into the whole “barbers are too expensive” thing, and her sons have never been to one. They have straight hair, unlike mine, so they more literally sport a sheepdog look. They really do look most of the time as if someone stuck an appropriately sized bowl on their heads and used it to guide a trim. They are vehement about not going, even afraid to. Very strange. I have threatened offered to take them myself. Heh.
Of course, my appreciation of a good haircut makes me no less a slacker about going to one. I can’t imagine going every two weeks like clockwork, as one of my lawyer clients does. No wonder he always looks great. But then, he’s also one of those people who can wear anything and look unnaturally smoothly attired. My theoretical “every six weeks or so” tends to become not less than two months. I think I am up to about four or so at this point. I consider the haircut needed, but easily put off.
The funny thing is, in what I think of as an outrageously shaggy state now, my hair in high school would have been in one of its shorter, relatively manageable phases. Yikes! These days I like to get it cut so short it’s almost a crewcut.
But enough about hair. I need to hustle and get to the barber today! Before I run out of money for it.
Colors
Where’s the traffic?
I am wondering if we scared almost everyone anyone away with our lovely new colors, which are expected to be temporary. This “shades of purple” (not pink Bob) theme is based on the default Expression Engine installation, and was nice enough to keep without major changes for now.
We’re thinking of shades of blue, when we get around to altering it. In the meantime, please don’t let it scare you.
Update:
Actually, we suspect some links were broken in translation, and we lost a lot of search traffic. Though I am still seeing hits for Erica Durance and Emily Proctor or Procter, nude, naked or otherwise. So who knows. I was already a bit concerned about traffic anyway. In these days of 300+ hits, sometimes it’s been more than half searches and few “real readers.” Not that there’s anything wrong with search traffic! It’s how some other bloggers get into the millions in their first year or two of blogging. Whereas in almost a year and 10 months, old and new blogs combined, and CotC, I can’t claim over 200,000 yet. Though the two of us can if we add Deb’s old blog into the grand tally.
Anyway, we’ll get back the searches. I was just frustrated to post and post yesterday - some of it possibly even interesting - and ping blogrolling, sometimes the others, yet get a modest day. Sorry for the lament. It no doubt sounds silly.
Then again, maybe lots of people have dancing raisin nightmares…
Deet Sales Will Be Brisk
Interested Participant reports that Prince Edward Island is getting a nudist campground.
Hey, if they can make money at it, I have no problem with it. But… this is the place we make a point to visit in the height of July/August summer, when it can sometimes be nice and warm. Besides, if you have to walk around draped in mosquito netting, doesn’t that eliminate the point of ditching clothes?
Sunday Will Never Be The Same
My preferred barber is closed on Sunday and Monday. I can deal with Sunday, though this is a great marketing idea to be open and promote the fact, but it always seems that I think of getting my hair cut on Monday. Trouble is, I’d need to go to a bigger barber, rather than a father and son place. Which is just what I am probably going to do today for the sake of expedience.
Really, though, how are you able to differentiate something like cutting hair? Lots of barbers are competent. Convenience is one way. Speed is another way; lots of chairs and staff making shorter waits. Price? Not so much. It’s not going to kill me to pay $11 for a good haircut and maybe a 15 minute wait right on the way to the office, rather than $8 for a nearly perfect haircut, upwards of an hour wait, and a half hour or so drive each way. In fact, it’s an improvement in opportunity cost for the time, and gas makes it a draw in actual cost.
Anyway, good item on marketing.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Movies!
Via my brother, trailers for Constantine, Batman Begins (actually a link I found, inspired by him, as the trailers wouldn’t work at his link), and War of the Worlds.
I actually watched that last one a while back, and it seemed okay. I just wonder whether I really like the idea of the name ‘War of the Worlds” being used for what amounts to a sequel. We’ll see.
Batman Begins is not much of a trailer, but what’s there is golden, and looks to be lifted straight out of source material like the Batman: Year One story arc in the Batman comics, which I was fortunate enough to have been collecting at the time. Go me. Death of Robin got all the press, but was lame by comparison. I can’t wait to see this.
Constantine, well… I have known John Constantine from his “mysterious chap showing up and harassing/helping Swamp Thing” days through most of his variable run of stories in his own Hellblazer comic introduced due to his popularity with Swampy readers. Is Keanu Constantine? Well, he strikes me as a better choice than I might first have suspected. But dammit people, Constantine has blond hair. Duh.
What’s funnier, for a die hard seeing the trailer, is the sort of self-referential humor in which the comics conveyed the correct pronounciation of his name once upon a time. He snipped at someone that it was ConstanTINE, as in rhymes with nine, not ConstanTEEN. Heh. They have given in to popular assumption and pronounced it teen in the film. It would be too much of an uphill battle to get people to pronounce it otherwise.
Anyway, the trailer for Constantine rocks, and dives in deep. No shallow storyline here, which is just as well. How likely would it be for Constantine to have a sequel in which to go deeper? Not likely. Get the heaven and hell battle in right up front. I suspect this is one of those films the more dogmatically religious church folks will cast stoney aspersions at, but hey, it’s just a fantasy film. Get over it.
Makes me wonder how much background we’ll get, versus how much mystery. They keep him mysterious in the comics, but by having read them, you know things like how he came to have blood transfused from a demon, and how his relationships with friends and women tend to wind up.
I most definitely can’t wait for Constantine. And Batman Begins. War of the Worlds? Eh.
Stunning Is a Great Word For This
Ever hear of George R. Lawrence? Me neither, but he was brilliant and famous in the early part of the last century.
His unique aerial, panoramic photography captured the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire stunningly. The page is a wealth of information about history and techniques, as well as displaying small versions of the photos. Imagine a 47” photograph, one shot, not pieced together, from 2000’ above San Francisco, in 1906. Amazing.
Discovered here at The View from the Foothils.
Firefox Ate My Bookmarks
I upgraded Firefox on my machine at home to the 1.0 release version, at its insistence. It’s cool in that it has more default search engines, and when it blocks a popup it tells you with a banner across the top (except Site Meter, which still gets around the blocker).
However, it ate my bookmarks. Gone.
Oh sure, the ones from IE that were imported I should be able to import again. But everything new… gone. Bookmarks Toolbar… gone. On that I had my frequently clicked things by themselves or in dropdown folders; weather, Gmail, blog and control panel logins, etc. Plain contents of bookmarks menu… gone. That tends to be where I would put blogs I ran across and wanted to check out again with the possibility of blogrolling them later. I’d added a bunch. Of course, my problem is I tend to forget to go back and they simply accumulate, as my “link these” menu of favorites in IE had done.
What the frick is wrong with people that they would write a beta that gently offered to import things, then wrote a release that would wipe everything out without mention or apparent recourse? I still can’t recommend Firefox enough, but if you are going to upgrade, you may want to use Manage Bookmarks on the Bookmarks menu, export your bookmarks to a file, then presumably import them back after the upgrade.
Quiz for the Well of Souls
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You Are a Dreaming Soul |
Your vivid emotions and imagination takes you awy from this world. So much so that you tend to live in your head most of the time.
You have great dreams and ambitions that could be the envy of all…
You are charming, endearing, and people tend to love you. Forgiving and tolerant, you see the world through rose colored glasses. Underneath it all, you have a ton of passion that you hide from others. Always hopeful, you tend to expect positive outcomes in your life.
Souls you are most compatible with: Newborn Soul, Prophet Soul, and Traveler Soul
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Via Baldilocks
We Now Have Weiners
The results are in for the 2004 Weblog Awards.
Pretty cool, but I’d take it more seriously if all the winners were, you know, weblogs. Anyway, congratulations to the winners! I even voted for some of them, yet amazingly they won anyway.
Grand Rounds Visits Our Universe
The latest Grand Rounds is up. It’s a nice collection of medical-related posts on different blogs, coming to you this week from those Parallel Universes you always hear about but seldom get to visit.
Carnival of the Rugrats
I neglected to mention yesterday that the latest Carnival of the Rugrats is up. It’s a celebration of kids in our lives.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Have I mentioned lately that I loathe John McCain?
Nathan’s got another reason why.
No Stormy Eyes Here
Jennifer has issued awards!
We’ve won!
It’s such a relief, after not being nominated in the 2004 Generate Traffic While Being Abused Mercilessly Weblog Awards. They like us! They really really like us!
They are the Windy Awards. I assume the name is a play on hot air in the blogosphere, and nothing to do with soongs by The Association. And Windy has great awards, that strike up responsive chords...
Then again, Windy the statue does have wings, if not “to fly above the clouds.”
Anywho, here it is:
We won the award because Jennifer likes to live vicariously through us, in memory of might-have-beens you would know about were you a relatively regular reader over there long enough. Happy to oblige, and thank you. We appreciate the honor.
There are many other fine winners in a range of categories. You should check them out.
Oooh, Pretty
Ian is (nrsfw) channeling Conrad (who seems to be down currently) today.
He’s been blogging up a storm lately, and always has interesting stuff. Part of the increase is because he has extra time but not extra money on his hands. Thus the prominent PayPal button, and the new Google Ads. Not to mention the aforementioned, er, naked traffic generation attempt. Hey, he got me to link it and send you there, so why not.
12/13 Carnival of the Capitalists Is Up
Rob Sama has this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists, again, as last year, with an interesting header graphic.
Happy birthday Rob! It’s his birthday tomorrow, which is why he chose to host CotC this week. What a way to celebrate.
The next edition will be hosted at XTremeBlog, and he is ”encouraging items on technology in business, the business of technology, and naturally anything holiday themed.” But you can always write about any business or economics topic and submit it for the host’s consideration.
As always, submit entries to cotcmail -at- gmail -dot- com. You can also use the newfangled entry form at Gongol.com.. Send them by 6:00 PM eastern time Sunday to be sure they’ll make it in on time.