Mike Kullen: all weblog entries (short text)

all weblog entries (short text)

2009-05-11 07:35:33

This past week I went to see a birds of prey presentation by Jonathan Wood of The Raptor Project. Compared to the last couple of raptor presentations I've been to (both at Hawk Mountain), this one was much more of a retail bird *show*, rather than...

Money Shot

2009-02-23 07:36:52

Last Monday was a holiday, so naturally I went down to Conowingo Dam to take pictures of bald eagles. It was my first day out with a new camera, so I was pretty excited to go. It was a fairly quiet day, with only about a dozen eagles around, but ...

Valentine's Day miracle

2009-02-14 23:38:46

It's Saturday night, Valentine's Day. It's lightly snowing outside. I'm in my Neon, in the parking lot behind Cascata Caffe. This being perhaps the busiest night of the year for restaurants, the lot is packed, so I'm parked way back in a dark corn...

Streaming audio, Rube Goldberg style

2009-01-20 12:27:07

I just finished listening to President Obama's inaugural address. I'm not home, so I didn't watch it on TV (not yet, anyway, but I do have it recording at home). I thought I could watch it on streaming video over the Internet, so I didn't bother ...

American Imagery Day

2009-01-18 15:41:58

Yesterday Kathy, Bruce (who's visiting from London), and I had a day of exploring different images of America. In the morning we went to Wilmington, Delaware, to see Barack Obama. The President-elect was on his way to Washington DC for his inaugu...

More on ring/reign

2004-07-01 15:35:20

I was looking at a discussion on Plastic today, and I was pleased to find someone else who shared my concern about the "Let Freedom Reign" thing I mentioned the other day. Of course, as Kathy pointed out, there are possible legitimate sources for ...

Speaking of spelling

2004-06-28 18:51:43

I was trying to find a clever way to work in a reference to the word "autochthonous" in my previous post. Then I stumbled upon this odd coincidence regarding the recent spelling bee. Funny stuff. But I still think the story of how I cheated at c...

So it shouldn't "ring", then?

2004-06-28 18:17:40

CNN has a story about the "ahead of schedule" transfer of "sovereignty" in Iraq from the transitional government headed by an American citizen to the transitional government headed by an Iraqi citizen. Accompanying the headline is a photo of a handw...

Hot side hot, cool side cool

2004-06-28 18:01:35

...and grounded side grounded. I went to see my parents over the weekend, and I convinced them (almost too easily - I was expecting some resistance) to let me try the electrical receptacle project. Even better than that, I tried it, and it worked...

The better part of valor

2004-06-24 14:07:51

Last night, I attempted the electrical upgrade for Kathy's apartment that I had mentioned here. Unfortunately, it didn't work as planned. Not because of any shortcomings in *me*, mind you, but because of shortcomings in the electrical box. Namel...

O give me a home...

2004-06-22 21:28:03

I've decided that I need a house. The wiring system in my apartment just isn't bad enough. :) On recent visits to my parents' house, I've been not-so-subtly hinting at how cool it would be if they had more 3-prong electrical outlets in their hou...

A child of Justice

2004-06-16 10:07:12

I just found out that yesterday my father was elected Village Justice in Shoreham, NY. Congratulations, Dad! Now, if only his jurisdiction extended down here to Pennsylvania, I'd have to start bribing him to overlook some traffic tickets... :)

Dr. Zimmerman

2004-06-16 09:53:34

Bob Dylan is apparently getting an honorary doctorate from The University of St. Andrews, in Scotland. He's been a hugely influential figure in music for over 40 years, but he hasn't had (or at least hasn't *accepted*) an honorary degree since 197...

As easy as $1.23

2004-06-15 23:52:46

I just got my long-distance phone bill, and I'm excited. :) Since I've been living in Philly, I've been mostly making local calls and mostly using my cell phone for out-of-state calls, so my typical long-distance bill of $6-$7 per month was alrea...

Space & Time

2004-06-14 13:47:33

Over the weekend, Kathy & I got over one of the major early hurdles in the wedding planning: we've picked a date and reserved the locations for both ceremony & reception. It's one of the first things you have to do (because the popular places get bo...

My kingdom for a... whatever's in stock

2004-06-07 15:31:21

This is not the greatest horse in the world. This is a tribute. I was hoping to get this posted on Friday night when I first saw it (and before the race was decided), but I was way too busy this weekend. Oh well. Anyway, here's the story. ...

Giving banks a bad name

2004-05-28 11:04:16

I've already ranted about poorly chosen names for people, but sometimes banks and other companies (which presumably have big important board meetings before choosing their names) are often just as bad. Am I the only one who reads this bank's name ...

Behind the Curtain of the Great & Powerful Oz

2004-05-26 18:35:20

Just in case anybody out there is in the same situation in which I found myself a month or two ago (you're looking for an engagement ring, but you don't know anything about them, and you don't want to set foot in an actual jewelry store EVER in your ...

Pop goes the question

2004-05-23 23:03:00

Yes, after just 4 short years together, Kathy & I are engaged! It's been about a week since we made this official (on Thursday, May 13), but we didn't want to put it on our web sites until we had a chance to tell some friends & family in person. ...

Such a simple thing

2004-05-12 00:15:27

I love my new fan. My apartment came with two very old air conditioners built into the walls (they look like regular window AC units, but not removable). They're crap. They're worse than crap. They churn out dust, eat up electricity, and still ...

Nickels

2004-05-11 02:45:27

Just a little wisdom from Strong Bad: "Man, if I had a nickel for every email I get... I would throw them at people in the food court. From that railing, like, up above."

No Angels yet

2004-05-10 16:48:12

Augh. The miniseries TV version of "Angels In America" aired on HBO last fall, and it was awesome. It was a really good presentation of a really good play, and I was looking forward to watching it again. My home-videotaped copy of it is out on l...

One of us

2004-05-10 16:32:35

Bruce finally started a blog. And he's apparently trying to jump-start it, with 5 entries already in the past hour. We accept him, we accept him, one of us, one of us...

Portable audiovisual squad, part deux

2004-05-04 22:20:59

Technically speaking it's a small piece of equipment, but for my recent quest this is huge: I finally got an adapter that will take the S-video output from my Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop and convert it to composite video (the yellow part of those stand...

Unproductive screaming

2004-05-04 18:38:53

No luck with the screaming. :( I called up the BankOne customer service line to see if they could answer the questions I had about the account that's supposedly opened in my name, but unavailable to me. The guy on the phone was able to tell me t...

The difference between "instant" and "in two weeks"

2004-05-04 17:23:01

The credit card shuffle continues. My main credit card with the 0% rate is expiring soon, so I decided this week that I could benefit from having a new card with a 0% interest rate. After much deliberating on the current dearth of credit card off...

Leave off the last S for "soaring"

2004-04-30 14:48:27

I'm having another one of those days. Sorta like that day when I saw two different drivers with things hanging from their cars just waiting to catch in the wheel or something. This time they were poorly-attached mattresses on car roofs that were ...

One Small Step behind

2004-04-29 23:43:43

How did I not know this new collection (book 3) of "Y: The Last Man" comics was coming out? I mean, I loved the first two, and just went on and on about them, so I should have just known somehow that the next one was due. Oh well, never mind the ...

Lick 'em if you got 'em

2004-04-27 00:22:23

Tuesday (April 27) is Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's.

Checkless streak still going strong

2004-04-26 23:30:13

I mentioned before that I've been working on getting out of debt, and part of the process was to use my debit card all the time instead of using credit cards (which build up debt) or cash (which is harder to track). One of my more unusual goals wa...

File under "Mister"

2004-04-23 19:22:37

Wandering around near my old office wasn't the only thing I did in Arlington last week. Since I don't get to visit too often, I did what any normal person would do. I didn't visit my old college, or look up lots of old friends, but I set aside a ...

Regimen change

2004-04-22 12:18:16

This week I'm trying to get back into some healthier habits that I used to have. In the past year or so I've pretty much been eating junk most of the time, and not exercising at all. So this week I'm back on a healthier diet, exercising in the morn...

But what about Good Taaaste?

2004-04-20 22:12:07

Last week, I happened to be in DC for the first time in a while. I moved out of town in late 2001, and have only had a couple of brief visits since then. So anyway, while I was in the area, I decided to check out the neighborhood in north Arlingt...

Inside out

2004-04-20 14:38:18

This has nothing to do with anything, but I just noticed that today's date is kinda fun: 20040420. In European format, it would be 20/04/2004. Not quite as cool as October 2, 2001 (20011002) or February 20, 2002 (20020220, or 20/02/2002 in European...

I am the most efficient Elvis impersonator who ever lived!

2004-04-19 19:15:19

(just trying to show I can do one better than a "trust me, I know what I'm doing" reference) Today, Pax informed me that the short-lived TV series "Sledge Hammer!" is being released on DVD in a few months, going on sale July 27. (Hmm, do you get ...

Door hinge

2004-04-09 11:31:56

All I'm saying is, I disagree with the popular claim that nothing rhymes with "orange".

Something about a straight razor

2004-04-08 16:04:28

Yesterday I got a haircut, and I did it right. I went to the Italian barber around the corner, and sat in the chair of the guy whose name is on the door. From about birth to age 18, I got my hair cut by a guy named Antonio, or one of his colleagu...

What is it about supernatural impregnation?

2004-04-07 16:59:09

When I joined Netflix a few months ago, I quickly amassed a long list of movies in my rental queue. How to decide which to see first? I noticed that a couple of movies I hadn't seen had the pattern "X's Y" (e.g., "Rosemary's Baby") in the title. S...

Krautmeyer?

2004-04-07 16:02:20

Dan Bern has a song entitled "Krautmeyer". The second line in the song is "Charles Manson's real name was Charles Krautmeyer." The rest of the song questions whether Charles' life would have been profoundly different if other people had known his r...

Convergence

2004-04-07 15:49:26

[I actually started this entry a couple of weeks ago, but I'm just getting around to posting it now. Pax also commented on this show (entry "Nonviolent Sociopath"), but I figure I should get my two cents in too.] Arguably my favorite live musical...

Probably something about Mexico, tequila, women, and celebrating life

2004-04-07 14:31:23

Last night I went with Pax to see Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers in concert. This is the band formerly known as The Refreshments, who had a couple of decent radio hits around 1996 with "Banditos" ("Everybody knows, the world is full of stupid people,...

All the small things

2004-04-07 14:06:44

Anybody who regularly checks my site may have noticed my relative silence of late. Basically, I keep having little inspirations, but then I put all this pressure on myself to build an interesting, detailed story around each one (especially when some...

Pleased to meet you, Kurt Cobain

2004-04-05 17:54:49

What better way to mark the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide, than to listen to Mary Prankster's "Punk Rock Heaven"? There's also Wil Wheaton's take on this anniversary.

Dishwasher epiphany

2004-03-19 10:14:47

I just ran my dishwasher. 29 cups/glasses/mugs (all used by me, and not more than one at a time), 4 bowls (suitable size for catching a freshly microwaved chicken pot pie), 5 forks, 4 spoons, 1 oven pan (for heating up frozen garlic bread), 1 sauc...

"something that is fungible"

2004-03-18 16:06:24

Mostly, I'm just in a hurry to post this before Pax posts the same thing... :) Pax mentioned something about a colleague who made show-offish use of the word "fungible" in a business email. Rather than pretend to know what a spline is, I decided...

Flaw in the Netflix plan

2004-02-29 11:24:39

Hmm. A while back, I theorized about the ideal plan for Netflix throughput, assuming that Monday through Saturday were the available business days for the Postal Service and Netflix. But then I started to notice something. The movies I was putti...

Don't ever sell me anything, ever.

2004-02-28 15:02:39

Ever. I mean it. (Warning: this is gonna be a long one...) I don't mean that nobody is ever allowed to exchange goods & services for my money, but rather that nobody will ever score any points with me by doing a sales pitch. The instant that ...

That child? What child?

2004-02-24 12:54:54

It's been over a month since I posted anything, so beware, I may let loose the backlog of random musings over the next few days. Anyway, as for the current random thought: On various occasions, I've seen trucks with the message "HELP THAT CHILD" ...

Shutterfly effects

2004-01-22 09:31:27

The good news keeps getting better... In response to yesterday's post about Shutterfly, a friend of mine emailed me to ask if the online services could fix cropping problems that he previously had when he got digital photos printed at a store. Th...

Shutterfly wins

2004-01-21 15:55:42

Lots of people are shy about using digital cameras because they'd prefer a permanent, shiny photo print in their hands. Personally, I strongly prefer a digital image file stored on a computer somewhere, safely backed up somewhere else, that doesn't ...

Swinging two bats

2004-01-16 08:09:03

They say that this guy was probably drunk when he flew his Piper Cherokee around the Philly area for 3 hours last night, before finally landing at his home airport in Limerick. First off, unless he was actively drinking there in the cockpit, he'd ...

Giving up on Scrubs

2004-01-15 16:17:33

Back in October, I complained about NBC rearranging their schedule on short notice, specifically pre-empting "Scrubs". Since that's the only show I regularly* watch on TV, that messed with my schedule. (* The word "regularly" seems to suggest tha...

Way too much of a good thing?

2004-01-14 18:02:26

It's only been an hour and a half, but I have an update on the Netflix thing: Kim tells me that there are other Netflix options I've overlooked (apparently not listed on the non-member area of their site, but this link works for Netflix members)... ...

Overdoing it

2004-01-14 16:25:24

In a previous post, I mentioned that after less than a week, I had 155 DVDs in my Netflix queue. Well, now (after about 2 weeks) that number has grown to 403. For those of you scoring at home (or even if you're alone), it's basically physically i...

Random sick humor

2004-01-13 23:29:20

Today I happened upon this little Flash animation on this guy's weblog. I especially like the twitch. :) Kinda reminds me of some animated cartoons on the Joe Cartoon site, first introduced to me a few years ago by some students in a computer tr...

Fun with mountain lions

2004-01-13 23:22:16

Over the weekend, CNN.com had this article about a mountain lion that attacked some bicyclists. Included with the article was an interactive pop-up entitled "Living with mountain lions", which included the following tips on how to survive an encount...

A Streetcar by any other name

2004-01-10 21:18:38

Speaking of candidate/movie connections... On Tom Tomorrow's blog, he mentions a NY Times article about Joe Lieberman (free subscription required, unfortunately) that opens with this sentence: "In many ways, Stan Kowalski is precisely the kind of ...

Fat, drunk, and stupid...

2004-01-10 19:49:47

"...is no way to go through life, son." I don't believe that Wesley Clark is any of those things. But I'm pretty sure the generic "COLLEGE" sweatshirt he's wearing in the photo for this article is modeled on the one worn by "Bluto" Blutarsk...

E drive A-OK

2004-01-08 12:18:35

In my previous post this morning, I mentioned that I had discovered this Computer Management/ Disk Management console, but that I still hadn't fixed everything yet. Well, sure enough, that same Disk Management thing that fixed my drive letters also ...

Slightly better hard-drive news

2004-01-08 09:45:34

I still haven't resolved all the problems from yesterday's rant, but at least one thing is now working right. For a while, I got the new drive working with the old drives (although the new one was still showing the wrong capacity), but the drive l...

Infinitely large HD support?

2004-01-07 16:06:14

I've had several different generations of computers, and it seems that I'm always asking them to do slightly more than they really want to do. Specifically, I'm always trying to install hard drives that are larger than the computer wants to accept. ...

Portable audiovisual squad

2004-01-05 16:56:33

There are two popular ways to do video input/editing/archiving/authoring on a home computer: 1) Buy lots of specialized hardware and lots of specialized software for your PC, figure out by trial & error which combinations are compatible, and event...

Fully vacated

2004-01-05 16:03:22

After 2 weeks out of the office, I'm finally back from vacation. Managed to visit family on Long Island and central Florida, and still had some time at the end to readjust before going back to work. That came in very handy, especially after the whi...

Networkage

2003-12-21 10:41:04

Christmas came a few days early at the Kullen house. Last night I set up the DSL connection and wireless router that will let my parents have 2 independent computers both get to the Internet without dealing with the slowness of AOL (and a million ot...

Our resolve is unshakable...

2003-12-19 16:38:11

...until about dinner time. For anyone who was skeptical about the government's ability to maintain "Homeland Security" funding in such tough financial times, your fears have been confirmed. Apparently there's only enough financial support to sta...

No relation

2003-12-16 06:26:48

In case you're wondering, this guy is "Cullen" with a "C". Not one of ours.

Step 1 to a good credit rating: Don't exist.

2003-12-13 16:39:41

Just curious, why do non-existent people named "Erin M Kullen" and "Stephen Kullen" get more and better credit card offers in my mailbox than I do? Don't these companies check names with a credit bureau first? It's one thing when young people with ...

Many things about "Proof"

2003-12-12 15:34:35

Stream of consciousness #1, actually from a couple of weeks ago: So, the other day, I happened to be on IMDB to look up something about Jake Gyllenhaal (I heard Maggie Gyllenhaal's name mentioned in a movie trailer, and just had to confirm my susp...

"Car curse continues", continued

2003-12-11 14:47:50

Start here, if you haven't already. I invite Pax to fill in the details from his perspective, but here's the story as it pertains to my curse: Since I was taking my car to the shop for repair attempt #3, I needed a ride from the shop to the off...

The car curse continues.

2003-12-11 13:44:51

Just to update you from last time... 1) The Beetle: still off the road for that rust repair job. 2) The Neon is the main star today. I'm still OK from the collision repair a few weeks ago, but that deer collision actually forced me to postpone...

Bait & Switch vaccine

2003-12-10 22:14:28

Clearly, the flu vaccine people have a great marketing team. They must be making money hand over fist. Headlines like "Flu fears and vaccine shortage grip nation", and sentences like "Widespread outbreaks already have been reported, but federal h...

The elusive José Chung

2003-12-08 21:50:59

"This is only a test..." There's a certain episode of The X-Files of which I'm very fond. You may have heard me mention it in passing before. The episode is named "José Chung's 'From Outer Space'", and it tells the tale of a recursive ali...

Transport 1 B.I.S.

2003-11-25 14:17:46

The Neon is back in service. The good folks at Ricciardi Auto Body did an incredible job of undoing the damage from that deer who attacked my car last week. The fender panel and hood look even better than what I had before the deer, and they're b...

Welcome to the neighborhood

2003-11-22 06:03:20

José's weblog is finally up and running. Betcha can't guess who built it. And betcha couldn't tell that my design style is basically "find something that works and stick with it". :) Hmm, now I'm curious about that ER episode that Jos&ea...

Contingency

2003-11-18 18:52:25

I own a VW Beetle. It's older than I am, so the floor has naturally rusted out. That's being repaired, so I haven't seen that car for a while. But that's OK, because... My main transportation is a Dodge Neon. Unfortunately, the Neon got hit by...

Doh! A deer.

2003-11-14 18:36:16

Sometimes it really sucks to be right. If you were on my site about 6 weeks ago, you may have read my jubilation about finishing the payments on my car loan ahead of schedule. I celebrated by cutting the comprehensive/collision insurance that the...

Let November be November

2003-11-13 14:32:41

Urg. Maybe I'm alone on this. I'm not a big fan of Christmas music. I don't think I'm that much of a Scrooge or anything, but I make a point of not turning on the radio at all on Christmas day, because I know there's nothing on for me. So, la...

Greatly disturbed minds think alike.

2003-11-11 01:16:02

I don't know if there was any kind of national trend or anything, but my friend Jamie, 3,000 miles away, apparently had exactly the same Halloween costume idea that I had (Roy Horn getting mauled by a white tiger, a recent theme here). Jamie already posted his photo, so here's mine.

Attention to detail

2003-11-07 10:40:18

I saw Matrix Revolutions last night. Good movie. I think one of the things I enjoy most about the Matrix series isn't the storyline, or the fight scenes, but the little themes and symbols that show up throughout. There are carefully chosen relig...

Oh yeah, and the world record...

2003-11-03 18:55:26

I forgot to mention in my first post about the skydiving, besides being fun and making a great video, Kathy's jump was also a world-record-breaking skydive. See, the guy tied to her back was Don Kellner, who currently holds the Guinness world record...

Plummet

2003-11-03 10:51:59

This past weekend, Kathy & I went skydiving for the first time. One of my co-workers found a place in the Poconos that does tandem jumps (you're tied to a professional who does most of the controls, including the ripcord), and a group of 6 of us wen...

Did I say that out loud?

2003-10-27 22:07:19

Heard on Monday Night Football, John Madden and Al Michaels... John: Was that guy naked? Al: I thought he was. We are so high. We might as well be calling this game from the blimp. 'Nuff said.

3 out of 4 ain't bad.

2003-10-22 13:54:15

Contrary to my fears, the car repair trip yesterday actually turned out OK. The car passed state inspection without any additional work, and the windshield wiper motor and airbag module got installed successfully, within the budget they had told m...

Wherefore art thou Salubrio?

2003-10-22 09:57:02

Some of you out there probably wonder where the heck I ever got a domain name like "salubrio". Well, the good people at Merriam-Webster finally have an answer for you. They've chosen "salubrious" as today's Word Of The Day. Of course, for a more...

New target

2003-10-21 14:47:31

I was feeling a bit left out when California got to be a national laughingstock for its political mess. But now we have our own in Philly. Well, technically, I don't live or work *in* Philadelphia, so I don't have a vote in the matter, but I'm cl...

Not included

2003-10-21 13:37:55

As Steven Wright used to say, "The other day, I bought some batteries. But they weren't included, so I had to buy them again." That's sort of how I feel about car repair this week. Last Thursday, I took my car in for service. I made an appointm...

Postscriptum

2003-10-21 02:34:41

In my previous note, I forgot to mention the other eerie part. After the trooper got through painting morbid pictures in my mind, I drove away and turned on the radio. What song was just coming on, but "Last Kiss" (Pearl Jam cover of J Frank Wilson & The Cavaliers). Message received.

¡Velocidad mata!

2003-10-20 14:09:48

As previously mentioned here, I sometimes drive faster than I'm supposed to. Today I think I got a speeding ticket on the way to work, which would be my first for Pennsylvania. I say "I think" because the state trooper (or whatever's the correct ...

The scourge of Whoopi

2003-10-17 09:49:09

Dammit, that's *twice*! I'm not a big sports fan, so 3 weeks into a new TV season, I was really looking forward to new episodes of shows like The West Wing and Scrubs. But NBC gave up without a fight (see especially the part about "bewildered and...

Who has that kind of spare time?

2003-10-08 08:30:27

I can understand spam. The whole idea behind junk email is that once you have a message ready to send, it's effortless to add another recipient to your list, so why not send to thousands of people? But it takes a special kind of lonely person to ...

More fun with GPS

2003-10-07 07:33:41

Wow, I'm really enjoying this toy. Very good on stationary positions, and also very good on tracking movement. It takes a reading about every second (over 1300 in a 20-minute trip), and includes ground elevation along with the expected 2-dimensio...

N40° 10.0768', W75° 8.1659'

2003-10-06 15:05:38

My new GPS toy arrived today (ordered online from here). It's not one of those expensive standalone units, but a small receiver (about 2" x 1.5" x 1") that plugs into the USB port of a computer (usually a laptop, but you can also get an adapter to c...

War for sale

2003-10-05 19:25:56

In late 2002/ early 2003, when the Bush administration was gearing up for an invasion of Iraq, you may have seen some of the flashy graphics for news shows with titles like "Showdown: Iraq" or "Road to Baghdad", and you may have wondered whether CNN ...

Tigers, tigers, everywhere

2003-10-05 18:55:43

A couple of weeks ago, Kim mentioned this book "Life Of Pi", a story that she sums up as "boy + tiger + lifeboat". The same day she posted that to her weblog, she came across this news story about the timeless tale of "drunk-American-soldier-in-Bagh...

Valderi, valdera

2003-09-30 21:18:51

"My knapsack on my back..." I just got a new backpack today. This is very exciting for me. According to Quicken, I've had my old one for over 6 years now, and it's really wearing out lately. The velcro parts are completely shot, and the zippers...

Owned.

2003-09-30 14:27:33

My car got owned today. No, not in the cracked sense. I mean I made the final payment on my car loan, slightly more than a year ahead of schedule. It's my car. It took a few more days than I previously announced, but anyway, it's done now. In ...

Incognito

2003-09-23 14:08:32

You've seen those little signs sometimes in the back window of a car, saying something like "CLERGY" or "MEDICAL DELIVERY", presumably for people who need to park briefly in illegal spots because they're on some urgent business. Today I saw a Cadill...

/wûd' uhv/

2003-09-20 06:41:30

There are people who speak just fine, but don't write correctly, because they don't notice the spelling differences associated with various homophonous words or phrases. Thus, people will write "your" instead of "you're" to mean "you are", or "it's"...

Wirelessness

2003-09-19 23:44:29

Yeehaw. My cheapo wireless router is up and running, my even-more-cheapo wireless network card is up and running, and I am typing this now from my laptop, with no wires at all dangling from the computer. This is new for me. Some people have been a...

Amazon update

2003-09-18 23:05:39

Just half a day later, and Netgear prices at Amazon have changed again. Here's the summary: First off, for at least the past week, and extending to the end of September, both the Netgear wireless router #MR814 and the Netgear wireless PC card #MA...

"Lowest price of the season"

2003-09-18 10:04:52

$49.95 $54.94 $64.99Amazon is absolutely, flat-out lying. There's really no other way to say it. For my new laptop, I decided it would be nice to have a wireless network, so I checked some prices for a wireless router and a wireless PC card. I w...

18 hours - a new personal record

2003-09-18 08:50:30

My laptop arrived yesterday - Yay! All the software worked well, and it played DVD movies with a really great picture - Yay! I installed the whole mess of software that I need for connecting to my office network (proprietary version of Norton A...

Leaving a long trail

2003-09-16 22:28:39

This was freakin' annoying. At home, my web browser is MSIE 6 on Windows XP Pro. I noticed lately that doing "View Source" on web pages wasn't working at all. Nothing would happen when I clicked. At first, I thought it was just a temporary malf...

Alter ego

2003-09-16 17:26:22

I've known for a while that there was a guy in Massachusetts who has the same name as mine. I knew he worked for a tech company, because he's been showing up in my web searches since at least 1996. But what I didn't know was that he is also somethi...

Don't read it, sign it.

2003-09-16 09:32:11

I like to (or used to?) think of myself as stubbornly resistant to signing away my rights without at least reading what I'm waiving. In high school, I served detention simply because I wouldn't provide private information that was at my fingertips, ...

A very, very complicated box

2003-09-13 12:25:31

Still waiting on that laptop. And yes, I'm still impatient. The fact that Dell offers detailed order tracking almost makes it worse. I placed the order on Tuesday, Sept 9. On Wednesday, Sept 10, their order status page was already showing compl...

Speaking of wagons...

2003-09-11 07:59:48

My car is almost mine. This morning I'm on my way to the bank to make the second-to-last payment on my car loan, with the final one coming in about 2 weeks. This is over a year ahead of schedule, and it's all part of The Plan. 15 days left...

Laptop bandwagon

2003-09-11 06:52:16

I've been thinking for a good long while about getting a laptop computer for the first time, but I'm constantly waffling over the low-end/high-end debate: do I (A) get a cheap one to start, without accessories, and just add things over time, or (B) g...

Easter eggs for Mr. Ashcroft

2003-09-02 11:35:04

Just in case any G-men are looking through my library records to get their jollies under the USA Patriot Act, I believe it's my civic duty to provide them some amusement once in a while. So when I decided to check out this CD set from the library, I...

It's a small Google after all.

2003-09-02 10:40:38

A co-worker of mine (working in our company's UK offices) was doing a Google search today on the terms "brokerage accounting" principles (quotation marks included as part of the search terms), and guess who came up as hit #6 on the results? Bizarr...

A horn isn't enough.

2003-08-26 16:23:07

Not once, but *twice* yesterday, I was driving behind somebody who had something hanging out from the lower right-hand side of their car, each time looking like the hanging thing was going to catch under the wheel and get yanked violently out. May...

"Close" means "close".

2003-08-22 11:15:54

For any credit-card customer-service people who might be listening out there... When I call up and say I want to close my account, it means I want to close my account. It doesn't mean I want you to talk me out of closing my account. It doesn't m...

You think you got trouble?

2003-08-16 07:10:15

There are just so many things wrong with the publishing of this article, I don't even know where to start. We can only assume that it was lifted from some high-school newspaper somewhere.

The penultimate man

2003-08-15 13:57:00

I'm not sure why Amazon is still showing it as not yet released, but thanks to my secret comic-book connection, I now have my copy of the second Y: The Last Man collection. This one is called "Cycles", and it contains chapters 6-10 of the series. ...

Is that really all it takes?

2003-08-14 10:29:02

I find it unbelievable that one can get on the recall ballot for California governor with just 65 signatures and $3500. Of course, I only heard about this after the nominations were closed, but if people knew the bar was so low, no wonder they have ...

Ba Haaba

2003-08-11 19:34:41

Kathy & I just got back from our roadtrip to Bar Harbor, Maine. It's beautiful up there, at least in the 100-foot radius around me that was visible in all that fog. I can't say we didn't have ample warning about the wet weather, but it was still ki...

2,164 to 1, maybe...

2003-07-26 12:19:29

I think there's something seriously malfunctioning on the "QuickVote" survey on this page at CNN.com. I've previously seen survey results on CNN that seemed inconsistent with my prediction of American opinions, but today's problem goes beyond mere...

Foxes are tough, but not as cool as a bobcat.

2003-07-23 11:17:07

I found an update on that story about the bald eagle that got killed a few weeks ago at the National Zoo in DC. They're now saying the attacker was probably a red fox. OK, that sounds a lot more plausible than the initial reports of a bobcat. I ...

Nano nano.

2003-07-22 14:09:24

There was a little fluff piece on CNN.com the other day, without much social significance, but with an excellent headline: "Little robots in your pants". The article basically amounts to a transcript of a prank call to Levi's Dockers customer serv...

A one-card state

2003-07-19 09:57:34

"...as human freight, the number eight..." The plan is slowly coming together. About a year and a half ago, I noticed that my credit cards were getting a bit out of hand. I had at least 4 active cards at the time, with balances riding on all o...

Depends who else is in there, I suppose...

2003-07-16 08:40:02

There are lots of people who cling to contrarian "wisdom" about seemingly obvious topics, always introducing their claims with "I know it sounds crazy, but I heard..." Case in point: If you've ever gone camping with a group of people, chances are ...

cover story

2003-07-13 13:10:29

CNN headline: "Bush stands by CIA after Iraq mistake". Sounds almost right, but it's possible that a couple of words are off: "stands by" -> "hides behind", and "mistake" -> "deception".

Y: The Last Man

2003-07-12 13:58:50

You must see this book. I'm not a comic-book guy. I've probably only bought 2 or 3 of them in my entire life. But this one was written by a friend's brother (Brian K. Vaughan), and came highly recommended from another mutual friend, so I decided...

rhymes with "torte" (?)

2003-07-08 22:16:22

I don't know why I'm on such a kick about word usage today (then again, I usually am), but I had another confession of one where I've been blissfully ignorant for a long time. Not so much misusing a word, but arguably mispronouncing it. If you've...

wreck/wreak/wrought/worked

2003-07-08 21:29:39

It bothers me when other people use words in wrong ways, or just use words that aren't words. Every time I hear somebody say "I could care less" instead of "...couldn't...", and every time someone uses the noun "quality" as an adjective (when "good"...

A bobcat? Are they kidding?

2003-07-07 18:10:02

CNN.com has a story about a bald eagle in the National Zoo in DC that died on the 4th of July. Sure, there's some sort of symbolic irony or something there, but that's not the weird part. They said it died of wounds sustained during an unseen ove...

a few more pictures from Italy

2003-07-03 23:18:55

OK, so I've been slow with sorting out the pictures from the Italy trip. Yes, the trip was almost 3 months ago, but still. I still have about 1,000 pictures left to sort (hoping to weed out at least half of those), but at least I now have the first...

mega != million

2003-06-26 16:03:25

Urg. This pisses me off every time I encounter it, so I don't know why it continues to surprise me. If you do much with the metric system (or System International, technically), you may be familiar with prefixes like "kilo", "mega", etc, for unit...

And they give you more than a nickel for it...

2003-06-24 22:27:33

If you're like me, you have a hard time throwing old computers & computer parts in the trash, because (A) there might be *something* useful in there, and (B) you worry about some of the toxic chemicals contained in computer parts getting piled into l...

3-5-Romeo is cleared for takeoff.

2003-06-24 22:07:06

Today I did my 3rd set of supervised solo flights. Each set consisted of 3 takeoffs & landings without my instructor Jim, who patiently watched from the ground (enjoying the 93-degree heat). I'm not finished with Jim, though - I still have a lot ...

Back to the sky

2003-06-10 18:35:58

After a hiatus of about 4-1/2 months, I finally had another flying lesson today. I couldn't have asked for better conditions - clear blue sky, warm, with only light breezes around 5-10 mph. Even after all that time off, I got back into the swing of...

Speaking of handwriting...

2003-06-10 09:33:11

Now there's a topic we can all get excited about, right? :) I caught this fluff story on CNN.com about how computer keyboards are eroding the grand tradition of cursive writing, and I say so much the better for humanity! Personally, I hardly e...

Windows Chi-Rho

2003-06-04 12:32:22

The other day, I happened to catch a glimpse of a Windows XP logo where the "XP" part looked very much like handwritten letters. Seeing them handwritten, the letters struck me as very similar to the ancient Christian symbol known as the "Chi-Rho" (t...

the long-awaited Cisco music answer

2003-05-29 16:12:18

If you were looking at my weblog back in February, you might have noticed this post about a Cisco commercial that was messing with my head in several ways. I hadn't thought much about it in a while, but the part about the "piano solo that I swear I ...

"Laugh"? Probably not.

2003-05-22 23:10:52

Today, on some random pickup truck, I saw a bumper sticker that confused me. While stopped at a traffic light, I had just enough time to pull out my digital camera and snap a picture, but the quick photo through my rainy windshield came out very blu...

Bald-faced

2003-05-20 10:06:28

With the end of the play came the end of Tito, and likewise the end of the beard. It's good to have my face back. The beard was actually OK once it came in, but it still wasn't me. During the shaving process, I conducted a little experiment with d...

NyQuil, NyQuil, NyQuil, we love you...

2003-05-16 07:18:18

Today is not a good day to have a bad cold. Tonight & tomorrow are the last 2 performances of the play. Tonight Jeff is coming (among others) to see & hear the fruits of his voice lessons for me. So it would be good if I could breathe. If only ...

Rave Review

2003-05-08 23:08:13

Not only did our play get its little press release in Haverford Press (last week), but now they actually have a review of our show. Again, I couldn't find an online version of the article, so I've scanned the whole thing in. Sounds like she liked...

What time is it? GAME TIME!

2003-05-02 18:21:13

This is it. Opening night. Show starts in less than two hours. Better finish dinner & get over there. See y'all at the theater.

He's a star, Max. His picture's in Haverford Press.

2003-05-01 08:49:19

Twice, actually. The April 30 issue of Haverford Press (small local newspaper here in Havertown) features not one, but *two* brief press releases about our production of Lend Me A Tenor. The first one is on page 5 of the front section, and the se...

It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights...

2003-04-29 18:26:57

Just 3 days left until Lend Me A Tenor opens. Two more rehearsals, and then bang, we're on stage...

Correction

2003-04-28 01:16:25

Credit to Pax for pointing this out to me. This correction was actually printed in The Economist, regarding our 2000 presidential election.

Back from Italy

2003-04-28 01:02:38

OK, so we've been back from Italy for about 2 weeks now, but I haven't yet had time to write about it in detail. Since our return, I've had rehearsal for the play just about every day, so things have been kinda hectic. Anyway, I'll post more deta...

Andando ad Amalfi

2003-04-05 14:18:08

OK, we're off to Italy for Giancarlo's wedding. Rome, Amalfi, and some stuff in between. I promise pictures. Hundreds of them. Arrivederci.

Why so Blue?

2003-04-04 11:42:29

First, a warning: if you are not a current or past resident of the Philadelphia area, you won't give a damn about this question. But if you do live here, you probably wonder from time to time, why people insist on referring to route I-476 (one of ...

Got it, got it, need it, got it...

2003-03-29 16:46:09

Different people collect different things. Last night, a kindly representative of the Maryland State Police awarded me a special certificate in recognition of impressive velocity achieved with a motor vehicle. The problem is, I already had a Ma...

Yeah, but that's all gonna change once I grow a goatee.

2003-03-27 18:59:28

(He's just crazy enough to do it, too.) So, if you've read my previous posts, you probably know about the play that I'm in. I'm playing Tito Merelli, a fictitious Italian opera star, and some folks involved in the show suggested it might be good ...

Yes, deer.

2003-03-27 15:18:57

On our trip to Maui in December, I had great fun pointing out to Kathy the ridiculousness of the deer crossing signs we saw at a nearby golf course. I assumed it was some kind of clever joke, for the golf-course crowd, presumably visiting from mainl...

A perfect day for bananafish

2003-03-09 22:46:32

It's a weekend in early March. It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon, about 50 degrees and sunny, after weeks and weeks of snow and cold. There's a good steady breeze, so what do you do? Duh, you go fly kites in the park. Good. Me too. Today wa...

The Watch III: The Final Chapter

2003-03-08 19:09:25

The watch is dead. Long live the watch. I think I can safely assume I've really really gone way past what anybody outside my head would care about with my whining about my watch, but anyway, the emergency is over. The watch I ordered on ebay a...

For the last time, NO, I don't make inter-continental ballistic missiles.

2003-03-07 16:24:56

On my old web site, I had my email address posted on one of the pages. I got lots of useless spam, and soon realized that there were automated systems harvesting my email address from the web. So now I try to avoid putting my email address on thi...

Tito

2003-03-01 15:55:23

Not Jackson, but Merelli. I just got the call for the community-theater show I tried out for this week. I'll be playing Tito Merelli in Lend Me A Tenor. I don't have a whole lot of information right now (haven't even met the rest of the cast y...

Time to get a watch.

2003-03-01 12:21:06

Most people who know me know my watch. It's kind of a relic, I admit. One of those big calculator watches like the nerdy kids had 12 years ago, and yes, I've had this one for that long. It does some useful stuff that most regular watches don't d...

two by two

2003-02-27 09:19:57

Last night, Kathy & I were watching The West Wing, and a Cisco commercial that I've seen dozens of times suddenly caught my attention. The commercial has Ricky Jay (narrator from Magnolia) talking about statistics of people benefiting from Cisco stu...

I'm no Tony Randall

2003-02-26 07:28:44

This morning, I've had a nasty bout of tinnitus. It varies for different people & situations, but for me today, it's a very high-pitched squeak/whine/screech/whistle, which sounds like some kind of electronic feedback. It's a single, steady tone,...

synchronicity

2003-02-25 08:12:41

I finally figured out how to sync my Visor with Outlook, but it required taking a step back. One of the biggest problems I've had with my less-than-a-week-old Dell Axim (Windows-based "PocketPC" PDA) was trying to copy all the stuff I've accumulat...

lunacy

2003-02-25 07:56:12

I'm used to getting up early for work, and it's OK. Sometimes the sun's not even out. Whatever. At least I can do the first few hours of my work from home, with my connection to the office network. And sometimes I even get to sit and watch a nice...

In case some of you are wondering who the best is...

2003-02-22 10:15:59

Apparently, Speed Stacks is The Leader in the Sport of Cup Stacking(tm). So, they finally have a leader. Yay. A few months ago, Kim sent me a link to the Speed Stacks web site, which features a video clip of the Sport of Cup Stacking's world-r...

And then the snow...

2003-02-17 22:50:52

I believe Dar Williams said it best in the song "February": "And then the snow, And then the snow came, we were always out shoveling, And we'd drop to sleep exhausted, Then we'd wake up, and it's snowing." I just got in from shoveling sno...

Dude.

2003-02-10 17:16:45

About an hour ago, I placed my order for a new Dell PDA. Just a few minutes later, this story about the Dell Dude showed up on CNN (personally, I prefer the front-page teaser version of the headline: "Dude, you're getting a rap sheet!"). At least n...

30 for 32

2003-02-07 17:54:34

Whoops. It just occurred to me to check the schedule of Nomadic Theatre (my old college theatre group) to see when their next show was coming up. Turns out the one I was expecting for this weekend was actually last weekend. Doesn't sound like th...

Amazon shooting the moon?

2003-02-07 16:24:36

Have you ever played the card game Hearts? See, the main object of the game is to avoid accumulating "point" cards - points are bad. But if you manage to get *all* the point cards on a particular round, then that's the best thing of all - it makes ...

Man Bites Dog

2003-02-07 09:53:59

Anybody get the feeling CNN got some of the words switched around in this headline? cf: this previous CNN story

"OK, but my nipple's a bit sore."

2003-02-06 13:36:49

That was the response of one of my new co-workers when someone asked him how the office party went last night. As you may have seen from previous entries, our office recently got bought out by a consulting company from the UK. They're fun. We st...

Maui Maui Maui!

2003-02-04 20:01:39

OK, so it took almost 2 whole months for me to get my act together, but I finally finished sorting the pictures from Maui.

still no justice for PA

2003-01-31 07:42:00

I don't know why I do this to myself. I just keep bringing up the same old pain. See, Chevys is my favorite restaurant chain. Just out of curiosity, I sometimes go back to their web site to check the list of locations, and it's always the same o...

Hang up and drive.

2003-01-28 23:23:43

So, some people did a study about cell-phone use in cars, and discovered (to nobody's surprise) that drivers were distracted when carrying on cell-phone conversations in the car. But the more interesting part is where they discredit governmental a...

never seen a "nucular" weapon

2003-01-28 21:47:53

Please please please, can we get a presidential dialect coach so that the guy with access to launch our country's nuclear weapons can pronounce the word "nuclear" properly? Two syllables: "NU" and "CLEAR". It's all right there. No "KYUH" in betwee...

Under New Management

2003-01-28 15:34:03

The British invasion has begun. My office is becoming part of a UK-based consulting company named SSS. As of Feb 1, 2003, I will be an SSS employee. If you're keeping score, that makes 3 different employers in the past year, while sitting at the...

The "Amber" Problem

2003-01-23 00:19:21

Please, people, can we agree on a few simple rules about naming your children? Here are some of the main ones... * For everyone: don't name your kid after yourself. If for no other reason, it gets confusing when both of you are getting mail at t...

Impeachment Theory

2003-01-22 23:41:35

Just another random theory that occurred to me a couple of years ago: Three US Presidents have been impeached or almost impeached. * First one: Andrew Johnson. * Second one: Richard Nixon. * Third one: William Clinton. I leave it to you to f...

No, thanks, my car's a vegetarian.

2003-01-22 08:01:57

A while ago, I had this link on my site explaining that people don't need to buy "premium" gasoline. Now it seems that some folks hardly need to use petroleum fuel at all - enter Biodiesel. Basically, it's vegetable oil mixed in with regular diesel...

Would a squirrel do that?

2003-01-21 17:35:33

A British co-worker of mine happened to notice my Demotivators calendar, and it turns out he has a similar taste for cynical office humor. He printed out a list of Office Wisdom from a BBC television show called "The Office". Good stuff. Especiall...

What went wrong in Wilmington?

2003-01-20 13:29:25

I ordered some stuff from Amazon to be delivered to Horsham, PA. The online tracking system says it was last seen in Wilmington, DE (48 miles away) on January 9 (11 days ago). Now, I grant you, today is a holiday, and the past two days were a wee...

bumper sticker

2003-01-20 12:44:48

The other day (OK, it was many days ago, but still), I saw this car with a red bumper sticker: "If this sticker is blue, you're driving too fast." (not a physics geek?)

The Iridescent Future

2003-01-20 11:59:28

For the first real post to my brand-new weblog, I decided I should discuss something I feel very strongly about, so here it is: In the future, everything will be iridescent. Just think back to the 80s, when CDs first came out. All entertainmen...

Watch This Space

2003-01-19 00:00:00

From The West Wing last week: "I think the best day's gotta be the next day. Life is all what's next. It's like those billboards where before the actual ad goes up, they put in, in big block letters, 'WATCH THIS SPACE'."

Juggled at the Inaugural Parade

1997-01-20 21:00:00

(From my old 1997 web site, re-posted on 2009-01-07.) Juggled at the Inaugural Parade today! The folks at the US Department of Juggling got invited to send a crew down to juggle around the parade route before the parade. Keep the angry mobs le...