for those who were wondering....

I am DAMNED glad to have my moto back.

w00t!

there goes my gig at justice

THIS is AWESOME.

Iran Contra? I thought I was the only one under 40 hung up on that most depressing corner of American history.

Forever with you/Ever without you.

the C to the E to the R to the N

straight outta geneva baby!

file under: why didn't i think of that?

Soccer Donut Stunt

instant earthquake report

today, for the first time, i was chatting with someone online when an earthquake happened on their end. it was interesting. it has not yet appeared on the usgs earthquake site.

update at 12:20pm - on the AP wire.

and according the the usgs earthquake page, centered south of pomona.

joey described it as a slow roller. it was 5.8.

things i like

(that aren't normally on the list of things people like)

(not that they aren't likable, just that folks don't normally make list that include these sorts of things)

1) The endodontist i went to he other day. in san anselmo, worth the trip on bart. Vera by name. works in the office of Jaber. Electronic medical offices are rad.

2) The place we bought mary's last set of tires. seriously. Paul Diamond runs the Diamond tire center in San Rafael. Not even close. the best tire buying experience I've had since I scored a bunch of vintage sew ups with an old track bike. I spent hours online doing research on the perfect balance of performance, price and duration of wear. I called up this place and they offered the price right out the box and recommended the very tire I wanted for the car because it was "the best balance of price, performance and wear" - done in 30 minutes too. support your local superhero businessmen.

3) latin. yep. I got to use a bunch of it today. i like latin. i wish i had bothered to say, take it past 8th grade. dulce est. and how.

4) hangovers from belgian beer. yep. hard to beat. really. my favorite kinda thick headed mornings are from all that flemish goodness.

5) hangovers from absynthe. even better. less enjoyable than 4) above, but the sign of a productive evening/dreamstate etc.

6) good and plenty. i think they are plentiful because most people despise them. not i.

7) throwing up. admit it, you FEEL BETTER AFTERWARDS. plus, as anyone who has eaten near me knows, I wish every good house/restaurant had a vomitorium. (see 3) above)

8) leftovers. if it was good enough to eat once, it's almost always good enough for lunch the next day. or dinner again. or sometimes breakfast.

9) outlook. yes, a microsoft product. there are very few things wrong with it. i would like to be able to schedule 7 minute meetings at times other than the quarter/half hour yes. other than that, it's web accessible, has my calendar on it, lots of phone numbers/address/emails etc. and it's fairly easy to use. on the downside, it does seem to encourage people from outside my organization to schedule meetings on my calendar, which seems gross.

10) bit-o-honey. look, if you don't like the bit-o-honey, you suck. it seems like it is from another century, it's GOT to be bad for your teeth, it's got chunks of "something" in it, it's lasts forever without wearing little bloody holes in your mouth. it's awesome. mary janes are rad too.

11) NECCO wafers. see 10) above. except that NECCO wafers are not AS bad for your teeth and bit-o-honeys are. also, the New England Confectionary COmpany is like the oldest candy factory in the U S of A.

how many internets does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

how the internets works:

i get a chat from brent, who tells me he built a piano and these cool lamps.

cool lamps brent. even cooler piano. wow.

i suggest running european lights in his lamps to get them to glow orange and way less bright (just like my lamp from istanbul - thanks to jonathan and cheryl).

will they fit?

sheesh. if I know a think or two about threads (and I do, mostly from bicycling), they suck. at least making sense of them does.

so i check the internets for threads for lightbulbs. it turns out you can learn lots of things from the internets.

E26 is the standard thread for american lightbulbs (the e is for edison, duh) and E27 for eurpean bulbs. 26mm is the next full mm above 1 inch.

there are a host of reasons why, but an interesting cartel is likely partly to blame. who knew? the scandanavians were responsible for breaking the cartel and ensuring that we all have lightbulbs that actually last!

(tangent - I also learned about sintering! which is, I gather, how 3D printers work.)

but wait! what's this about Mazda? yes, mary's car=lightbulb? she drives fast, but hey, not THAT fast. well, somehow it turns out that mazda is two distinct trademarks. one is for a japanese car company party owned by ford (who would rather sell all of volvo (the passenger car brand which they bought from Volvo (the heavy truck brand) (see the scandanvian link above for further conspiracies)) than part of a japanese company.

Mazda is a brand of lightbulb (and anything other than a car) that was owned by GE (and licensed to just about anyone) enough so that song writer Johnny Mercer made a reference to it in his song "glow worm" (made popular by the mills bros) which happens to be an EXCELLENT song (anyone who can rhyme mazda and fazda wins points in my book)

all of that means that you end up finding this 16 year old girl in the philipines who has a GREAT voice and is not a bad songwriter herself and does an excellent cover of glow worm that goes...a little... like this:



so maybe 27 doesn't fit, and maybe it does (I know 26 fits loosely in 27 from experience, and I suspect .5mm on either side should be okay based on some years putting in lightbulbs (which reminds me of a joke or two...)

and THAT is how the internets works!

consumer protection as a quirk

interesting bit

that frames a belgian law that prevents the discounting of one product if it accompanies the raising of a bundled product or service as a "quirk".

actually, in economics, that "quirk" is what we call "cost"

the quirk reveals the cost of the new iphone at (US)$850 rather than the advertised (US)$300 because it is upfront. I'm not quite sure how anyone could pretend that a consumer protection law designed to make people explicitly aware of how they discount the future is a "quirk". it's a law. it was deliberately designed to do EXACTLY what it is doing because frankly, consumers aren't good at it and businesses take advantage of that fact to sell more stuff.

for the record

I am embarrassed by some of the things my country does.

I stand by the position that entities that knowingly violate the law to curry political favor and the politicians that ask them to do so will be the ones responsible for the fall of this great nation. same as it ever was.

is there a better lyricist than field commander cohen?

no. no there is not.

cap'n jack

guenevere pointed me (indirectly, in her own way) to cap'n jack's web-o-sphere.

which eventually ended me up at a nice blog about a messenger with a lot of history.

I met jack after he returned to chicago for a bit. the years are admittedly a bit fuzzy. for some reason 1998 seems a bit late, but what do I know...

holy crap!

Herzog is remaking der bad lueftenant!

mr. catholic crack smoker scorsese wannabe hisself abe ferrara is apparently pissed.

what I love about this post is that it basically lays out the money side of the equation really straightforwardly.

can someone explain to me why...

the LAtimes breaks the SF mayor's run for guv before the SF paper does?

there are not enough circles

In addition to being the ugliest man ever, leona helmsley really is probably one of the most evil corpses (ne people) in the entire world. I suspect that there are not enough circles in hell to properly contain all her repulsive self absorption.

A story about her leaving 5 billion dollars to "dogs everywhere" which I hope means someone will spend all of it breeding a race of violent dogs to destroy all of humanity.

the feelies are back

i knew it was coming, but seeing the article in the nytimes put me in a good mood.

"it's only life" was one of those time and place crystalizers for me.