There was still a little snow in my back yard this morning. I expect it to be gone by the time I get home tonight, which will mean it’s the first time since December 22nd that there’s been no snow on the ground.
My spring crocuses in front have started to blossom, and the remainder of the bulbs are showing. I think I’ll like spring this year.
Just a few semi-random things:
I’m not usually one for conspiracy theories, but …
Computer program found guilty of practicing law. Does that mean that lawyers can pass the Turing Test?
And finally, via Anachronista, we have this. Based on the questions, I was expecting Vizzini, actually.
Which Princess Bride Character are You?I’ve been home sick for a few days. Cough (a bad one), congestion, and my voice sounds like the rusty hinges of the gates of Hell. Got in to see the doctor today, and was told it was bronchitis. Apparently, it’s running around the area right now.
My case is severe enough that the doctor prescribed a double run of antibiotics, in addition to cough suppressant, decongestant, and expectorant. The cough suppressant is the most immediately important to me, because I’ve got a racking cough that’s coming close to cracking my ribs.
Anyway, I caught part of a show about “Pizza Palaces” on the Travel channel this morning, and they made a point of the people in line waiting to get into one of the places. That brought back some pleasant memories.
Back in the mid-70s, I was stationed at the submarine base in New London, Connecticut. The local pizza place I usually patronized, Great Oak Pizza, was up a little north of the base in a strip mall on highway 12. It was owned and run by a guy who’d been a Greek submariner during WWII, Spiro Vitouladitis, and his brother George.
Now, they’d get lines. Some weekend nights, the line outside waiting to get in would run all the way to the end of the strip mall. When the lines got long enough, Spiro would hand a pitcher of beer and a stack of plastic cups to the first person in line, which would be passed back through the line to keep everyone happy. If there were enough kids in line, he’d provide a pitcher of soda for them.
Their “kitchen sink” pizza was called a Spiro’s Special. After diligent training, I got to where I could finish about 3/4 of a small and about 1/2 a pitcher of root beer by myself.
The last time I went back to Connecticut (1985, I believe), they’d moved into larger quarters further up the highway. Just wasn’t the same, though.
Memory requirements for American business information are going up again.
I’m old enough I can remember paying $495 for a floppy drive with a capacity of 113k bytes, and I remember seeing advertisements for the early hard drives – $2400 for 5 MB on a 16″ platter. Now I’ve got 500GB on my desktop (250 internal, 250 via USB). We’ve come a long way.
but my daughter’s the one who’ll love it, since she loves cars. So here we go, testing the top speed of the Bugatti Veyron.
Update: Ace points to this story of an idiot and his Bugatti.
Apparently, the title is in dispute, and has been for a while.
but they’re not all really merit badges, are they?
I qualified for this one when I was younger, but I’ve let my skills deteriorate since then.
Found here.
As I drove through a section of town today that I don’t get to often, I noticed a billboard meant to promote a particular “adult” store as a source for Valentine’s Day gifts. Other than the store’s details, what it said was,
It seems to me that, effectively, a guy who did that would be saying, “You can do without me.”
Well, RMBB 6.0 has come and gone, and the first thing I have to say about it is …
There’s no alarm clock as effective and unwelcome as a cat on a diet.
It was a good evening. I met several people I hadn’t previously met, renewed various acquaintances, and had a number of good conversations. I talked music (playing instruments and jamming) with Jeff, let Anachronista know that I was familiar with her brand of wierdness, and had a nice discussion with Tara (who was disappointed that Cheryl left early) and her friends, although Tyler was fairly quiet.
I brought some exercise tapes that I’d promised for Stephen. Good news: it’s good that I brought them, because the address I had for him is out of date. Bad news: he doesn’t have a VCR anymore. I’ll have to try to copy them to DVD (something that hasn’t worked for me quite properly, yet).
The party moved from the Wynkoop Brewery to Enotecas Trios later in the evening, and I managed to last until almost midnight before the smoke got to be too much for me. I’m still bothered by some left in my nostrils. That, or I’m hallucinating the smell of stale tobacco.
All in all, a good time. Wish I could have lasted longer.