Archive for October, 2009

Happy Halloween

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

I made a Jack-o-lantern today, but I left it a bit late. It doesn’t look all that good, but I’ve never claimed to be an artist.

CthulhuLantern

I’ve done better Jack-o-lanterns in the past; you can see a couple of them here.

I did do a web search for Cthulhu images, though I didn’t find anything that particularly helped. I was quite taken with this one, though, which riffs on one of my favorite Miyazaki movies. Actually, I’m not certain that there are any Miyazaki movies that I don’t consider favorites.

Tonari no Cthulhu

Miscellany 3

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

I’m by no means a full-blown birther, but I have always felt that there were things to be concerned about. That said, this is an interesting newspaper headline from 2004 for someone to have found. I wish I could remember who to credit for the link I followed to get there.

Ever wonder why spouts drip once you’ve finished pouring? Cyril Duez not only knows, he knows what to do about it.

I think I’ve posted a link to this clock before, but it’s worth another.

When my family moved to Del Rio, Texas in the early 1970s, I used to joke that the thing I liked best about the move was the fact that Del Rio was (at the time) about 150 miles from the nearest McDonald’s. That’s no longer the case, but Reykjavik now has similar appeal, albeit for regrettable reasons.

I have a set of Lionel trains in the garage – my mother told me that my father bought them as a present for my first Christmas, although it was years before I actually got to play with them. I’m glad this train setup wasn’t available then; I doubt I could keep from losing it even now.

Advice from Dear Abby’s predecessors.

Breaking news: Whiskey found in Antarctica.

Want to be an author? In case you want to get started during the upcoming Nanowrimo, here are two useful links for you.

This appears to be an interesting site.

More notes per song

Saturday, October 24th, 2009

Tonight, I’m going to see Steve Martin in concert, playing banjo with the Steep Canyon Rangers. It should be a good time – I’ve heard some of the songs already. Actually, I’ve heard earlier versions of the songs already; I have a copy of the LP, The Steve Martin Brothers. The post title comes from the liner notes:

Dear Banjo Music Customer:

Note for note, banjo music is the cheapest music available in America today. While the average rock song has 75 to 100 notes per song, banjo music can have a full 200 to 300 notes per song, not including fade-outs. So called “easy listenin'” records may be easy on the ears, but they’re sure hard on the pocketbook at an average of 50 notes per song. It’s ok to listen to free music on the radio, but my music dollar will be spent on banjo music every time.

See you at the movies!

Steve

Should be a fun evening. I’m certainly looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll see if I can get him to sign the LP.

Thumb (in your eye) drive

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

I’m surprised I haven’t seen this in the Thinkgeek catalog.

Ah, I guess they do carry it; I just hadn’t noticed it.

Bacon!

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

It will likely be a long time before I can try chicken-fried bacon, but I found a recipe for bacon sushi I can make at home. Part 2 here.

Via Double-plus Undead.

I loves me some good snark

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

And I found some in a comment on this post at Villainous Company:

Thank God we have a man who is as qualified and deserving to be President as he is, say, to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Not much to show after thirty years

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

I was going through boxes in the garage the other day, looking for things to fill the bookcases I recently assembled, when I came across the October 1979 issue of Dr. Dobb’s Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia. The magazine is now known as “Dr. Dobb’s,” but things back then were a little looser, with many companies having fanciful names – among the others I recall are Pickles & Trout, Parasitic Engineering, and Brown Dog Engineering, and Infoworld was once known as the Silicon Gulch Gazette. I used to work for a word processor company called NBI. Management claimed that it stood for “Nothing But Initials,” but I’ve seen one of the company’s original business cards, and its original name was Necton Bylennium, Inc. As an aside, I read about a man in California who was starting a computer consultancy back in the early 1980s who had trouble coming up with a business name that contained “computer” or “data” that wasn’t already being used, so he ended up naming his business “Solfan Industries,” with “Solfan” being an initialism for “Sick Of Looking For A Name.”

In any case, that issue of DDJ contains an article which is almost my sole publication to date in the computer field, apart from a letter to the editor in an old Apple II user group publication, a program distributed by the same user group, and a caption in one of the E.E. Times‘ Immortal Works competitions. Not a lot of output for thirty years, is it? Ah, well, something is better than nothing, and it’s not as though I haven’t been doing other things in the meantime.

Come Again?

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

I’m watching “Deep Fried Paradise” on the Travel Channel, which is an interesting show that would be making me a lot hungrier if I hadn’t just finished lunch.

They’ve just finished a segment at Dyer’s in Memphis, which serves deep-fried hamburgers, where they found a college-age guy who praised them as follows: “It’s always good to go pleasure yourself once a week.” I think he’d probably have phrased that differently if he’d been thinking.

Next time I’m in Texas, though, I want to try to make it to Sodolak’s for the chicken-fried bacon, which was covered in an earlier segment.

I couldn’t prove I was human with these

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Impossible CAPTCHAs.

I appreciate a good pun

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

This one’s a little too “cutting-edge” for me, though.