June 2006 Archives

In lieu of any original thought, I will share a few urls from my pile.

This artist uses spools of thread as the medium to create works of art. I would love to see this kind of art in person. Somehow I bet they cheat and use a computer to create this. [Link courtesy of Neatorama]

If you happen to have a lot of angst about GW Bush & have some craft chops, you could create your own doll that expresses your "opinions of the President of the United States and his policies." [Link courtesy of Amy]

Josh, yes the one with the impeccable timing, is back in Minnesota. I haven't seen him myself, but have heard several eye witness accounts who claim to have seen him. I can't wait to hear about his whirlwind trip through the great plains and the purple mountains majesty, etc..

In my line of work, downsampling data can be problematic, creating an unacceptable loss of resolution. That isn't all bad -- I for one would like to make one of these things to cover my TV.

Joel seems to have had some sort of blogstorm last night, posting more in 24 hours than in a typical month. The pick of the litter is this one entitled, "crickets, year 2". (One small problem with that post, I was IM'ing with Joel on that very night. Thanks a lot, dude.)

They need to clone this dog, seriously, a two nosed dog, who knew?

When I finish my basement I gotta have one of these hidden doors.

Do you ever feel like you are stuck in a place where you would like an IM client, but don't have one, check out meebo. It works in your browser and is pretty slick. It doesn't have a tabbed interface, if you are into that sort of thing & the notifications are weak, but it's a very solid way to IM and works through firewalls neatly. I like it enough that I would probably pay for https level service if I had to, but it's free. (Thanks to B.K. for the idea, I had heard of meebo before, but hadn't really given it much thought until she raved about it.)

I recently started reading Cartoon Church Blog. It's a funny little blog with amusing cartoons. My favorite blog post title was the wry "Anglicans elect openly female bishop (etc)". Some of his cartoons really amuse me.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

I like to prowl through the server log of the software that runs this blog -- mostly trying to figure out what people are searching for. The quote below is one of the more interesting items which someone was searching for.

'All god does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring'

I figured out that the quote was written by Chuck Palahniuk, from a book i haven't read yet. As soon as I saw the quote I was 90% sure who wrote it.

I've been feeling a little boring lately, so I have elected to interpret it as a message from god.

This is the worlds dumbest looking black eye.

Google knows what I search for, all about my correspondence, my spreadsheets, the news I read, the companies I invest in, the people I chat with and my calendar. I keep wondering, do they know too much about me?

Maybe if google is simply a web service they know too much, but what if google is something more, something bigger. What if the millions of queries and documents that pour through google's servers are the reflection of the hopes of billions around the globe. What if google is a reflection of us and what we want. What if google is the ultimate confessional booth and confessor. Where do you want to confess; yahoo, google or microsoft?

I finished another Dan Brown novel, "Angels & Demons". For the second time I can't figure out what the fuss is about.

The story is slow and the "puzzles" are simplistic.

Maybe I would have liked this book better when I was in my "OMG, John Grisham is the best author ever" period.

I picked the book since people I know consider it to be the better book when compared to "The Da Vinci Code". I didn't like "Da Vinci Code" I should have guessed that "Angels & Demons" would be annoying in exactly the same way.

I like stories that involve conspiracy. I like stories that discuss art & religion and history. I like stories that re-invent the classic stories of world religions. I still didn't like this story.

More than being annoyed by the book, I am annoyed by people who have their underwear in a wad, wanting to either prove or disprove the theories offered in this book or "The Da Vinci Code."

Now for an ironic twist. I occasionally spend the weekends with a real life conspiracy crank who thinks the illuminati, the catholics, and gubmint are behind everything. The conversations with said crank seem suspiciously like the plot of this book and they annoy the crap out of me. So why in the H-E-double-toothpicks would I choose to read not one but two novels huge novels that take that same conspiracy crapola and repackage it as a thin plotline?

Above all, since I would like to write a really successful novel, I'm especially annoyed that these books are so popular -- and my blog isn't.

Josh G. introduced me to the silly & over the top violent world of the video game Duke Nukem at LM. Since then, I've been waiting for the sequel.

This list of things that has happened since the first announcement of Duke Nukem Forever cracks me up. All software projects are late, but this one is special.

This reminded me of Wire's Vaporware Award; Duke Nukem was given a "LifeTime Achievement" award a while back.

The boys put on another strong performance with a crowded dance floor and enthusiastic requests for an encore. It was my first time to see their fifth member, Eric Fischer. He brought a lot of enthusiasm and a nice full sound to the mix.

ColdFront was opening for Dokken.
Dokken blew me away.

Dokken was a band with a following when I was in high school. Since I was going to hear them, I listened to some clips off of i-tunes and looked at their web site and the wikipedia web site. Nothing I saw or heard, other than the album covers looked familiar. I'm sure I must have seen the album covers in someone's tape collection, but didn't listen to their music enough myself to make the connection. Hearing them in person made all the difference in being able to remember their music. The songs were performed really well, with extremely good sound and great rapport with the crowd. "Paris is Burning" and "Too High to Fly" were my favorites songs of the evening.

Neat little visualization of my blog. It really should label the clusters of pages. I think the one on the left is "navel gazing" and the large one on the right is pretty much "bull" while the upshoot near the middle might be "trivia".

Make your own graph at Websites as Graphs.

What has the wikipedia helped me with lately?

• Kobayashi Maru aka "my life"
• Megami
• PTFE
• Dokken

Halley Suitt wrote recently about what really matters.

I couldn't say it better myself -- I'm not going to try.

What's more annoying; waiting in vain for hours for the cable guy to come and fix your phone ... or figuring out that your kids have jammed so much crap into the phone jack that no one can make phone calls.

Everyone's favorite local cover band, ColdFront will be opening up for Dokken on the 16th at Star Central. Be there.

Still not 100% sure if I'll be there yet -- ask me in the morning.

Update: I'll be there.

at some point in life you wake up and realize that you may have crossed the line from cliche into parody -- then what -- where is the bridge to ironic

It was ten years this spring that I started at LaserMaster. The picture is the back of last t-shirt I got from the last project I was associated with at LaserMaster.

I left LM, er Colorspan actually, eight years ago this spring. LM was a pivotal experience for me and even though it was difficult I still miss the place some days.

I'm retiring all my old employer provided t-shirts. The t-shirts represent product or company milestones -- each of which came at a high price one way or another -- none of them were "free". I am thinking of having them made into a quilt.

Good news! There is a pool on flickr for odd industrial warning signs.

Sunset from the deck.

I got the email with the summer concert line-up for one of my favorite bands, Bowling for Soup. Looks like the closest they will be is in Milwaukee on the 4th of July at Summerfest.

Anyone up for a road trip?

Seriously, you've never really rocked if you haven't rocked in Milwaukee.

I love this remix of classic art.

At the Kiev zoo a man indicated that if there was a God he would be kept safe -- while he lowered himself into a lion's cage. Predictably the lioness " ... knocked him down and severed his carotid artery." Story courtesy of Reuters

God loves hungry lions.

When I think about this story I was reminded of the famous quote from Arthur Clarke, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." This story has nothing to do with magic or technology -- the story is about theology and/or mental illness. I think there should be a corollary to Clarke's Third Law, "Any sufficiently advanced theology is indistinguishable from mental illness."

I love prowling the internet looking for funny t-shirts. I found this one on threadless and sent the link to Jennie, my scrabble playing bud from 5th & 6th grade. Check out Jennie's t-shirt.

These are some of the best coookies I've ever made.

The recipe is from the book, "How To Be A Domestic Goddess", by Nigella Lawson.

The filling layered in the cookies is a simple buttercream frosting with the addition of pistachio nuts which have been chopped up fine in the food processor.

My next batch of cupcakes will be made with this same frosting.