Monday, January 31, 2005

Wanna go for a bike ride?

This makes me want to. That would be a hell of a game to play. Run around the city on a bike trying to trap your opponent via GPS trails. Doing it in a car or on a motorcycle would be cool to, except for the whole speed issue: I could picture myself flying through intersections as I try to cut off my opponent's exit.

Light cycles, go!

Friday, January 28, 2005

Food For Thought

a quick look at how some countries advertise food to kids
  • Ireland: All television commercials for fast food and candy are banned.
  • Sweden/Norway/Austria/Luxembourg: All television advertising to children is banned.
  • Belgium/France/Portugal/Vietnam: All marketing is banned in schools.
  • United States: Spending more per child than any other nation in the world, the U.S. plugs $15 billion per year into marketing food to kids, which is more than what it would cost to provide health insurance for all uninsured children.
I at least agree with Ireland. Marketing to children is difficult for all parents to deal with, and fast food and candy are hard and by banning them, you might get healthier children with little loss (except to candy companies). But I do think that educating your children about what they see on tv is important. Just hiding them from the assault of pathetic marketers doesn't necessarily prepare the little guys for used car salesmen and Amway snake oil deals.

*edit-- and I agree with france. School is school.

Contrast my frosty foto with ice storm in switzerland

Here's a cool shot. From Switzerland, land of my betrothel. Europe's been hit by some nice cold weather just like the north-east of the u.s. Kind of deflates the greatness of my little photo of frost crystals, eh?

Thursday, January 27, 2005


During the "Big Chill" of january (yeah, what a joke), I found myself laying on the side of the bike path in sub freezing temperatures so I could get pictures of the frost crystals. Some nice man passing by threw some change down by my head and said I should get some coffee. Posted by Hello

So True

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Dreamy

Wow. This is scary.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005


From last fall. If I remember right, it was after the neighbors called the cops about her excessive drinking and bellowing in the yard. What is it with people? Can't they just let a six (at the time) year old celebrate the summer with a few cold brews and some loud screaming?

Or maybe that was me. My memory has been so fuzzy since rehab.

Monday, January 24, 2005

Rip Snorting Drivin Music

Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen are on deck right now, this moment, in media res, that sort of thing. It's their live best of album, and I bought it because of its great music and Hot Rod Lincoln.

Driving music has pedal slapping bass. Driving music has velocity: horns that pull beats and machine gun drums. Driving music has vocal speed. It's your music fix for Route 66. A twanging rythm and rippling piano careen through the music like bank robbers in a Cadillac DeVille, cash and a blonde in the back, leaning through downtown Las Vegas.

Except! Why is it that when people make live albums they always screw up the music by adding in some extra "story" to the songs. With Hot Rod Lincoln, they did just that. Right smack dab in the middle of the hottest, swankiest high-octane riff, they slow it down and blah blah their way through some bull crap that's not in the original. The pump-and-jump, the side-step the clutch and go, the concrete rumbling, tire burning guitar crescendo and vocal power play gets bogged down in some explanation of what happened. I don't want someone to explain what happened. I want to feel what happened. That's why Charlie Ryan didn't include a bunch of crap at the end of the song. It's because he was done! It was a race he was singing about, not a funny thing that happened on the way to the office.

A pox on deviations from the original.

Ok. I'll shut up. And I think I'll get another root beer.

Gross Sound Brinkmanship

According to a recent boingboing post, the tasmanian devil has the most horrendous grunt known to man. I submit to you my contender from personal experience: the camel [realplayer required, sorry]. This like via the Encyclopedia of the Orient.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Insects

I used to collect insects. This was approximately one thousand years ago when the word digital referred to your fingers rather than electronics. I started with wasps. We had mud daubers everywhere and some yellow jackets. One snow white cotton swab soaked in chloroform, one mason jar and a blue spring sky and I would be out prowling around flower beds and house eaves preying on the predators. I had a viewing box where I would impale their little chitonous shells. I remember positioning the first wasp and jabbing it with a stick-pin. I smoothed the wings and adjusted the legs. I was technical, unhindered by empathy. I was seven or so. It was pure investigation, a burning need to know.

Later I collected butterflies. At my grandmothers house out next to a field I collected the white butterflies that used to float over the cotton fields. I only would trap and kill the ones I did not already have. I remember I scored a tarantula wasp out there. This was California and they had tarantulas. I gathered some beetles. I finally I found waterbugs and waterboatmen. And of course I trapped a few spiders.

The pins suspended these dead creatures in serried rows in my homemade viewing box that I would open slowly, as if wondering if any would still live and might fly from their tomb. I showed them to everyone: parents, friends, aunts, uncles. I had the names on rectangles of paper. I learned to pronounce them all. It was my personal insect museum.

All the actual names of these critters, I have long forgotten. I will probably never collect like that again, though you never know. I do miss it. These days I can’t get enough of taking close up pictures of bugs and little critters, and I credit this to my intense involvement with bugs as a child. But of course the desire was there then, and perhaps it has never gone away. Perhaps something in me needs to know more about the world of antennae, mandibles and multi-faceted eyes.

But what I do miss is the burning feeling in my head that I needed to hunt these insects and categorize them, to hoard them and inspect them under a magnifying glass. What shape are the moth’s scales? How do wasp’s claws grab prey? How many eyes can I find on this spider? What are insects?

Now the word digital refers, of course, to the numeric nature of computational electronics. Bits and bytes. Ones and zeros. I still have the burning in my head, but it has locked onto the language of computers and for now, I am not overly inclined to shift focus. But the beauty inherent in creating a block of great working computer code pales with the magnificent clap of tin on glass and the ominous hollow buzz as you pull a yellow faced, black masked hornet high and look it in the eye and ask: and just who, my friend, are you?

A dragonfly from a lake near Mount Jefferson. I Love this one.
Posted by Hello

A spider we saw in the redwoods. This thing was easily one inch in diameter.
Posted by Hello

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Root Beer Buzz

I am up at 12:30 at night because I drank 32 ounces of a possible 200 ounces of home made root beer and the sugar high hasn't left and probably won't leave until I finish this pasta. And read some news. And play some Civilization. And maybe do the laundry.

My son and I made the root beer last week and it's gooood. We made five gallons. Five *gallons*. I saved beer bottles for two months in order to have enough bottles to store five gallons.

I think I'm just going to buzzz over here now.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

I. Can. Do. This.

LEFT BRAIN RIGHT BRAIN

Left brain, right brain. While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles (with your foot). Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand.

Your foot will change direction and there's nothing you can do about it.


-took me about five minutes to do this, but I did. And yes, I was sitting in a chair, gyrating my limbs, bonking my foot on the table legs and laughing at myself, and yes there was no one else here. And you'll do the same thing.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

I was young, I needed the gold pieces

DnD again. This time cool stuph on shirts. I think I might just get me a couple of these, and maybe a sticker or two. Maybe I should just make my own. What a concept!

Monday, January 17, 2005


We saw lots of starfish, of course. And I one good picture of this one shrouded by some vegetable matter from the ocean.
Posted by Hello

Like Godzilla, she emerged from the sea...
Posted by Hello

The ice storm in Portland and Eugene gave us some nice cold weather. Here's a frozen imprint of a blackberry leaf.
Posted by Hello

Visited Yaquina Head this weekend. Here's a couple of shots. Being that i have a close up lense, I took few pictures of people. Sometimes I get my head stuck in a tidepool, and i forget to take pictures of people. duh
Posted by Hello

Friday, January 14, 2005

One word picture

If at first you don't succeed....

A man striding across the globe into his future.
Posted by Hello

we're swarming through the solar system

First mars, now Titan. We're flying all throughout Sol. If Johnny Cash were alive he would have to update his song. And Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com is setting up a space presence. Who knows what Amazon.com's shipping policy is to geosynchronous orbit.

Snowballs

Who out there gets cold testicles when riding your bike in the winter? Come on, show youreselves. I wish I could get a picture of my face when I get off the saddle and stand erect and those snowy balls touch the warm skin of my thigh. That's a surprise.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

pics for your clicks

Yo yo, got the pho-to. Not only can I annoy you with words, I can now send them at you 1000 at a time.

The Red & Black

I am dining at the Red & Black this evening because I can. But mostly I dine here for the weird people. I don't mean that weird like perverts, though they may be, and I'm certainly not one to judge. No I mean they're *different*. A lot of people with ropey-ass dreads come here. A lot of luddites come here to surf the internet because they refuse to own a computer at home. I imagine there are more than a few people that come in here that have an FBI dossier. Not a thick one. Not an important one. They might have a dossier like I might have:

30 something male, vocal neo-socialist. Hikes for solitude (find way to monitor possible terrorist cabal in woods) Likes dancing Transformers. Advocates education, work for all, equality (clearly anti-american). Diagnosis:harmless cafe denizen.

Intellectuals come in here. Closet rebels to a one. Tuggers on goatees, and spectacle adjusters. Women in short black jackets. Rakish men in scarves. Coming through the door right now is someone who looks like they just climbed out from a cardboard box under the bridge.

This is the Red & Black and I fit right in. Too bad they don't have Stumptown.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

If We Didn't Have Insurance

Everyone ould be doing this.

Monday, January 10, 2005

How to Avoid Customers

We are planning a family outing for the beach this weekend. One night only. And we though of going to a hotel we previously visited and liked which was right on the beach. So I called the last known number. They have no web presence. I hoped this was in our favor as it meant less traffic to the hotel. I dialed and:

Someone with a thick mexican accent answered.
"hello?"
"yeah hi. Is this the lawrensea hotel?"
"yes."
"I would like to ask about availability for this weekend."
"ok."
"Um. Are there any rooms available?"
"Joo wannatahlk mananahair?"
"excuse me?"
"Joo wannatahlk mananahair?"
"I'm sorry."
"Joo wannatahlk mananahair?"
"The manager? Yes. Please."
"Nine."
"Excuse me?"
"Nine. Six. One."
I start writing these numbers down.
"Eight. Eight. Five. Seven."
"Ok."
"Please."
Click. He hangs up.
"Thanks," I say into the phone. I imagined he was the janitor. Or maybe I had gotten a number of one of the rooms, and he was a patron steering me right. So I called the new number.

"Halo." This guy sounds either mexican or maybe east indian, but it might also be the *same guy*.
"Yes, is this the lawrensea Hotel?"
"Yes."
"I would like to see about availability for this weekend."
"Yes."
"For saturday night."
"Yes. We don't not take reservations."
"Excuse me?"
"Come by. Just this weekend."
"Ok."
"Just come by this weekend. No reservation, thank you. There will be room."
"Ok."
Click.

Now I am worried. Not only am I worried about finding another hotel, but it might be that some strange anti-business cadre has hijacked this once busy hotel.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

I Love This World

Went to the mom and pop store near work to get milk for my morning coffee. An asian couple runs the place. On the counter were some Altoid mints, peppermint flavor. I asked if they had any other flavors. She pointed to the circular tin of Tangerine Sours next to the peppermints and said: "This not bad. This good if you like shower."

I left with a tin of peppermint, and my brain tickled with picturing the relationship between a tin of sour mints and a shower. Cool.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Here's a Stupid Idea

Let's elect Richard Gere to represent the *entire world*. What a stupid idea. Who thought of this? As if the Palestinians even know who he is. As if they should care! Out of all the people they could have chosen, say the Pope, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, the president of the EU, hell even an Elvis impersonator, they chose Richard Gere? Come on. So what if he's got a foundation spawned from his interest in Tibet. El Ves has "Noel" tatooed on his knuckles. It's nice of Gere to contribute, and honorable of him to give those gifts of time and money, but when it comes to representing the entire human race, I draw the line. A big heavy line. The kind of line that separates the pillars of peace and humanity across the globe from say, someone who plays supporting roles in bad movies. And really, I don't like him as an actor either, but that's just my personal preference.

The only bright side is that when aliens invade, we can hand over our leader, Richard Gere, and he will be eaten. Then El Ves will be supreme human, and would make all the world a Graciasland. And a hip one at that.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Google Madness

Holy cow. Apparently, hundreds of people are using unsecured webcams, and you--that's right you--can check them out. Even control them.

linky

browse on through and see what comes up. One guy even found a phone number stenciled on a window in the background and gave the guy a call. Hehe.

update

Check these out japan? the innovation lab (where ever that is), a laundrymat in japan, a garage in Austrailia, lovefm (radio in japan), newtown, security ideas (here's an idea, secure your camera), this one has SOUND. It's really interesting to be able to see live pictures from somewhere, but not know exactly where. You're the invisible eye. You're present but timezones away.

cool

Monday, January 03, 2005

How Low Can You Go?

Holy Cow. Here's a great little list of ocean depths.

If You've Ever Wondered What A Griffon Looked Like

Check out this Griffon. And this Frakensquirrel. And this...Yeti? There's more on the rogue taxidermy site. That's right. Ever wonder what those taxidermists do in their off time? Wonder no more. My favorite is this capricorn.