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June 30, 2004

I'm in the mood to be drunk or high or on a sugar binge or something. Who knows why. But instead I'm going to listen to Murmur at potentially damaging volumes and pretend I can discern lyrics.

09:47 PM | Comment (1)

Dennis at work was talking about the Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding recipe and I had one thought: Jessie.

12:59 PM | Comment (2)

June 27, 2004

Saw Fahrenheit 9/11 today. Big surprise, I liked it. Can't say I enjoyed it because the subject matter is so depressing. But there's no doubt it's a great, even historic, filmmaking. Every voter should see it. Though sadly I fear that those most desperately in need of its message will chose to keep their heads in the sand. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that everyone needs to agree with the film or my thoughts. But I do ask you to watch it with an open mind. Then let's have an honest discussion of the facts.

09:00 PM | Comment (0)

June 23, 2004

You knew it was only a matter of time once I got the Treo 600. Yes, stumble.com has sprouted one of those pictures posted from the phone things. (For some reason I loathe that moblog term even though I'm using it.) Details such as picture size and previews over in the left column are still being worked out. Still, there's stuff to see.

12:01 AM | Comment (2)

June 22, 2004

No really. It's an actual headline from today's SF Gate. How can there be any question about whether rocket fuel in milk is good or bad?

09:45 AM | Comment (4)

June 14, 2004

"Eisenhower Wakes Up, Has Pie"
First President To Rise From Dead Since Hoover
By Patti Carlson

In a development that has left both historians and theologians stunned, former President Dwight Eisenhower emerged from his grave this morning and crawled to a local diner where he ordered apple pie. "Mmmm, this is good," the beloved General told waitress Paige Grossman, "course anything would be good after thirty-five years."

Upon picking up an old sports page Ike exclaimed, "Holy crap, the Marlins won the World Series?!! God, the Yankees suck!"

The former President then ran out without paying and was later arrested. He is currently incarcerated with no chance of parole. "I hope he never come back," said waitress Anna James.

Yeah, the preceding was swiped in its entirety from The Late Show. It's too hysterical not to share.

06:20 PM | Comment (2)

June 13, 2004

"Close cap after each use." Those words are molded into the top of the Colgate tube now. Close cap after each use. What kind of moron do you have to be to not know that you need to cover substances destined for your mouth. Close cap after each use. What asshole attorney suggested that it would be a good idea for a corporation to cover its ass with five simple words? Close cap after each use. Do you really want to live in a world where natural selection is interrupted so idiots who don't grock basic hygiene have more opportunities to spread their sub-defective genes around? Close cap after each use. Indeed.

10:52 PM | Comment (3)

June 08, 2004

Could the "Snoopy Doggy Dogg" be pronouncing the end of rap's fascination with SUVs? I'd say it’s official like a referee with a whistle.

10:19 PM | Comment (1)

June 05, 2004


I have mixed feelings about Ronald Reagan's death. On one hand, my knee-jerk reaction is good. I'm happier to live in a world without that amiable yet callous pawn of fascists such as Meese and Falwell. But then I stop myself and wonder if maybe there would have been more justice in his continuing to live as a semi-vegetable, voiding bodily fluids all over himself.

Make no mistake kids. Ronald Reagan was not a hero, great leader or even a particularly good president. The national debt that we will be mired with for generations is his fault. The epidemic of mentally disturbed homeless on our streets is his fault. It can even be argued that the daily embarrassments foisted on us by the current administration are his fault because so many of George W's croonies cut their teeth under Reagan.

So Reagan is dead. Time to move on and start hoping that Nancy suffers just as much in her final years.

10:40 PM | Comment (1)

The June gloom arrived right on schedule this year. Fog and blustery wind outside. Joint invading chill in. I'm fighting it with sweat pants, a fleece hoodie and hot coffee. Even then, the cold shock of the sleeping PowerBook's aluminum shell sent me to the thermostat. When the heater springs to life as the dial hits 65° it's too damn cold to care what the calendar says.

08:56 AM | Comment (0)

June 03, 2004

I'm in Seattle at a hotel that skived me out so I swore I'd never stay in it again. The Sheraton Bellevue fooled me because up until a month ago it was the hated Bellevue Hilton. Lesson learned.

But the real point of this post is to record my momentary horror after examining that breakfast menu hangtag thing that lurks on every hotel bed these days. This one features, I kid you not, the Lo-Carb Super Sunrise.

"A healthy start to a busy day begins with a grilled hamburger, seared Canadian bacon, apple-wood smoked bacon and southern style (sic) sausage. Served with a scrambled egg topped with cheddar cheese and Italian parsley."

Hamburger, Canadian bacon, bacon, sausage, an egg and cheese. In what perverted world can that combo possibly be considered healthy?

10:02 PM | Comment (2)

June 01, 2004

Contacts. Contacts. Too many damn contacts. That was my weekend. And not the optical variety either. No, I spent the long weekend wrestling my assorted and duplicative personal contact databases into partial submission. Why? Well another new toy has entered the gadget stage that is my life. Okay, not a completely new toy. Observant readers will recall that I mentioned Rich's Treo acquisition last week. Having recently gotten a MS Smart Phone for work use, I'm a convert to the notion of having all your contacts on the phone. But for reasons too tedious to go into here, I wanted to maintain a distinction between my work and personal lives. So I took the plunge and got my own Treo. (While the Smart Phone is great when tied to a corporate Exchange server, I don't run such a beast for just me. And more importantly Sprint doesn't offer Smart Phone hardware.)

Then I ran smack into a problem that's been simmering for years. Namely, I've got contact lists scattered here, there and everywhere. See, years ago I got a Newton. Wonderful device. Victim of its own hype though and ahead of its time. Nonetheless it and Claris Organizer replaced my rolodex. Then Claris Organizer morphed into the Palm Desktop. And right about that time, I took a job at an agency that used Now Contact for a group database. Got my first Palm organizer and had the first of a few hiccups integrating work and personal data. Then Entourage entered the scene. More Palm devices came and went. Then the agency moved over to Exchange. Finally Apple introduced Address Book into the mix.

Things wouldn't be problematic if I had progressed from one app and device combo cleanly to another. But no. I had some info, such as family members' birthdays, stranded in the Newton. Current email addresses lived in Entourage. Postal addresses and phone numbers were randomly split between Palm, Entourage and Address Book.

In short, I had a mess and no amount of software magic could solve it. No, this situation required nothing short of human intervention, logic and significant doses of fortitude.

Or several administrations of semi-legal hallucinogenics.

09:35 PM | Comment (6)

"Mac Word 6.0 was a crappy product." Kind of amazing to see that admission from a person involved in the project. Rick also provides an interesting and surprisingly approachable look at under-the-hood programming issues.

05:50 PM | Comment (0)