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April 30, 2004
You Go Girl!
21-year-old Kristin Mulhall will saddle Imperialism in the Kentucky Derby on May 1, and will try to become the first female and youngest trainer in the modern era to win the classic race.
"Even though she's chronologically as young a she is, she's really a grizzled veteran," said Imperialism's owner, who also has 25 other horses with Mulhall. "She's been riding since she was 2 and doing horse business since she was 10."
If Imperialism goes to post as expected, she will become just the 11th woman to saddle a Kentucky Derby starter. If Imperialism wins the May 1 race, she would be the first woman to train a winner of any of the three Triple Crown races ó the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes ó and quite likely the youngest person of either gender to do so, though such records are incomplete.
As if that challenge wasn't enough, she'll be trying to do it with a colt with a physical defect known as a "sunken eye." Source: MSNBC
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April 29, 2004
I've Been Very Busy ...
Aren't you jealous. ;-)
Image courtesy of Al @ Fulton Chain: Postcards from the Attic. Thanks!
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April 28, 2004
iTunes Help (not Needed)
Update: Oz, I tried it myself and the download was fine. I can understand how you were tripped up, because the instructions were indeed a bit loopy.
------------------------This is a plea for assistance brought to you by me. :-)
Oz at G'Day Mate in Australia is attempting to download a 'free' tune that iTunes is offering, but for some reason it isn't working. Anyone who can advise him (specific details can be found in his blog post) should go to his blog and leave a comment there -- the help would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks!
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April 27, 2004
Blog Surveillance
"Blog-Tracking May Gain Ground Among U.S. Intelligence Officials" [Yahoo News]
Blogs, short for Web logs, are personal online journals. Individuals post them on Web sites to report or comment on news especially, but also on their personal lives or most any subject. Some blogs are whimsical and deal with "soft" subjects. Others, though, are cutting edge in delivering information and opinion. As a result, some analysts say U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what's reported in some blogs is questionable.
-via Ted @ Rocket Jones
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April 26, 2004
New York State Birds
I found this link, North American Bird Sounds, while reading a recent post on How to Save the World.
This is so cool: Songs and Calls from Some New York State Birds -- and I'm such a dork but I love the sound of birds chirping and singing. Check out the Finches. My favorite selection from that page are the (Cardinalis cardinalis) cardinals. :-)
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April 25, 2004
Just My Two Cents
[Note: Edits made for the purpose of clarity.]
The US government is annoyed about the published photos of US flag-draped military coffins. In 1991 the Pentagon imposed a ban on media coverage of coffins coming home and in March of last year clamped down again. The Seattle Times printed the photo despite the ban, which the Pentagon says is to prevent undue harm and grief out of respect for the families. [Source: MSNBC] The photographer (who gave permission for the photo to be published,) and her husband were fired for violating company and federal government rules. Reasons for her husband's dismissal were not disclosed. [Source: CNN]
This just increases my level of incredulity over what the government considers important enough to raise a stink about.
From an article in today's New York Times about this and other war-related images, "Playing Hide-and-Seek With the Costs of War" -- Hide them and they represent something shameful -- show them and they represent something dire. [snip] Americans know that the heroic narrative of battle is often followed by the sound of taps.
David D. Perlmutter, an associate professor of mass communications at Louisiana State University and the author of two books on the impact of photo images on warfare and the public is quoted: "There seems to be this belief that the American public is not mature enough to see images like these and not go running into the streets screaming."
Photographs of flag-draped coffins (and other photos of the war) offensive? It is the attempt to keep images like this hidden from public view that is the real offense here. Mr. Perlmutter: "If anything, it tends to be the political and media elites who panic in the face of shocking images rather than the public."
That particular photograph served to remind me of the sacrifice made by all those soldiers -- past and present, who selflessly gave their lives in an effort to serve this country. It made me think about my friends in the military - Henry, a captain and doctor in the US Navy and Mike, who serves in the Army National Guard - and the families of all those in the armed forces. I worry about my friends and their safety - I worry about their families and the strain they're under too. The war affects all of us, not only those directly involved but also everyone else - in this country and beyond. Mr. Perlmutter: "The truth will out, as they say, and so will any picture that someone is trying to suppress."
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Steve Jobs, Polishing his Apple
Great story about Steve Jobs in today's business section of The New York Times titled, "Oh, Yeah, He Also Sells Computers: How Steven Jobs is Shaping a New Apple."
To some people in the industry, Mr. Jobs, of late, has even outshone his old nemesis, Bill Gates of Microsoft -- not in market share, of course, but in innovation. "Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs arrived with the idea of digitizing the world, but Gates has lost his way," said George F. Colony, the chief executive of Forrester Research, a computer industry consulting firm. "Despite all of his warts, Jobs has kept the dream alive, whether it's movies, music or photos. I call him the digitizer."
In Silicon Valley, where speculation about what Mr. Jobs may do next is a favorite spectator sport, the betting is that the company is preparing to introduce such an effort in July at its World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
Hey Oz, any plans to blog from the conference?
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April 23, 2004
What Do Americans Know About Australia?
Update/Note: Since Oz already posted the 'typical' responses to the questions below on his blog, I went with the less obvious responses (which is why Crocodile Dundee, the crocodile hunter, Nicole K. etc. aren't listed here.)
----------------------------From a guest post survey on G'Day Mate originated at Interested Participant.
Name three things about the continent of Australia
a. It takes like FOREVER to travel from New York to Australia.
b. Sydney is not another name for Cindy.
c. A man who wears a kilt lives there.
Name three things about the country of Australia
a. Spiders and insects are super-sized.
b. It's the home of the Great Barrier Reef.
c. 50 percent of its beaches are inaccessible by vehicle.
Name three famous Australians
a. Supermodel Elle MacPhearson
b. Actress Cate Blanchett
c. Actor Geoffrey Rush
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Randy Rhino Pursues Sex with Car
LONDON (Reuters) - A rampant rhinoceros gave a group of visitors a glimpse of nature in the raw at a British safari park when he tried to have sex with their car. Sharka, a two-ton white rhino, got amorous with Dave Alsop's car when he stopped with three friends to take pictures of the animal mating with his partner Trixie at the West Midland Safari Park.
The 12-year-old rhino tried to mount the Renault Laguna from the side, denting the doors and ripping off the wing mirrors before Dave drove away with a puffing Sharka in pursuit. "He was a big boy and obviously aroused," Alsop told the Sun newspaper on Thursday. "He sidled up against us. The next thing I know he's banging away at the car and it's rocking like hell."
A spokeswoman for the park, which says "rhinos are not particularly intelligent animals" on its Web site, said Sharka was a hit with the female rhinos and had fathered two calves in the last five years.
"He's got a bit of a reputation this lad and he was obviously at it again," she added.
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April 22, 2004
It's All About Them
"With one small gesture you can change a person's life, for better or for worse. We are all in each other's lives to impact one another in some way. Look for the good in others." - via The Gray Monk
This recent post, reiterating the full text of an email chain letter about friendship, had me pondering my own interaction with others. One day a long time ago, I was feeling quite content in my life and very thankful for all the good things that were going on. That day, that moment, I decided to do one small thing every single day to brighten up the life of someone else, be it someone I knew or a total stranger.
It doesn't cost anything to put on smile on someone else's face. It isn't time-consuming nor is it self-serving. When you do unto others as you would have them do unto you, you can't help but feel good knowing you did your best to brighten up someone else's day.
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Today's Classic Quote
"Tomorrow my furry little friend, tomorrow. Your ass is mine. If I have to sit in that chair with urine running down my leg for three days,
I will have your photograph on this page." Al @ Fulton Chain, who has been very busy
Stalking the Elusive Beaver.
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That drawer under the counter is still stuck.
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Mark Your Calendars
You know, it could mean no UNDER pants day. ;-)
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It would be great if we could completely bypass building and maintaining a blog
and post directly as an RSS feed. I wonder if that's technically possible, or if it will be in the future. Maybe it's already being
done (and I've not caught up yet) or it's just a wacky thought... *shrug*
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blogg.de tracks 10,000 active German weblogs ... via Heiko Hebig, who
maintains his highly informative (English-language) blog from Hamburg.
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At age 4 . . . not peeing in your pants.
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April 23 - May 2: New Orleans, Louisiana - New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (thanks, Rob!)
April 29 and 30: Tlaxcalancingo, Mexico - Nopal Festival. Food fair featuring edible cactus called the nopal, stuffed, in salads
and even flavoring ice cream. (ew.)
April 27 - May 2: Seville, Spain - Feria de Abril. Bullfights, fine horses, carriage parades.
May 1: Louisville, Kentucky - The 130th Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs.
May 1: London - Annual Army versus Navy ruby match. Twickenham Stadium.
May 1-9: New York, New York - Tribeca Film Festival.
May 14 - 16: Miles City, Montana - Miles City Bucking Horse Sale. Rodeo stock bought and sold, plus rodeo, horse racing, barbeque and
a street dance.
May 15: Las Vegas, Nevada - Liberace Play-a-Like Competition. Liberace Museum.
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... and you thought your job sucked?
Maybe you'd like to change places with the target practice assistant,
or be the person who cleans up after elephants.
More at New Yorkish.
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The Cult of Mac notes that Tim Berners-Lee, (make that "Sir Tim") inventor of the World Wide Web, is a Mac user.
In other equally exciting news, Sir Tim has been selected by the Finnish Technology Award Foundation as the winner of the inaugural
Millennium Technology Prize. Berners-Lee's selection was made unanimously by the board of the Finnish Technology Award Foundation at an April 14 meeting based on the recommendation of the International Award Selection Committee.
The honor is accompanied by one million Euros.
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I spent time with good friends Ken and Andrew this past weekend. I was surprised to see that Andrew had shed some
30 lbs. since the last time we saw each other. He attributed his weight loss to the Atkins Diet, and the amazing
thing is that Andrew was never overweight to begin with, so the lack of meat on his bones was immediately noticeable.
Ken, on the other hand, wears size 28 waist jeans. I haven't worn size 28 jeans since ... since ... shit, I'm having a
senior moment and can't remember. Ken has always been thin, he'll continue to be thin, and that's that. Andrew, for as
long as I've known him, always had more meat on his bones than I did. To say I felt like a fat slob while walking
between the two of them is an understatement. It was a sandwich of crackers with a heaping pile of pastrami in the middle.
When your male friends are suddenly smaller than you are, it's time to do something about it. Starve yourself.
Sew your mouth shut. Walk the entire island of Manhattan every day. Empty the refrigerator!
Padlock the fridge! Empty the cupboards! Diet and exercise, diet and exercise, diet and exercise.
After reading this to Ken yesterday, he said I inflated things quite a bit. Uh huh. Yeah, okay. Everyone looks inflated next
to you, dear :-)
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Former colleague, good friend and zoo partner Ken has been in NYC since Wednesday. We finally caught up last night, as I'd been busy doing my civic duty and serving my time as a potential juror this past week. Ken looks fabulous (living in Portland, Oregon definitely agrees with him) and as always, our get-togethers are a guaranteed festival of laughs. We plan to catch up later today with Andrew, another former colleague and friend we haven't seen in a long time.
Making plans based on everyone's calendar can be difficult and often results in a game of hit or miss. My friend Marcus was also in town, having ventured down from upstate New York to visit museums here in the city. Missing out on his visit was absolute frustration for me. It looks like I'll have to hop a plane to Nashville one of these days if we are ever going to see each other in person.
Longtime friend David was also in town, and I missed out on seeing him too. *sigh*
So many people are surfacing from hibernation these days, and next week brings yet another former colleague to town. Hopefully the stars will be aligned and my schedule will not change too much. When it rains, it pours!
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From New York to Australia... happy birthday to Oz @ GDay Mate. Have a great day, young man! :-)
Here's a link to a special birthday present just for you! ;-)
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Creepy crawlers found in the Iraqi desert:
"...they also make no noise, they excrete no venom, and although they can be voracious nocturnal predators,
they don't eat camels. They eat delicious crickets and pillbugs, and sometimes scorpions."
I'd easily die a rapid death just parking my eyeballs on one of those creatures.
And speaking of spiders ...
Oz @ GDay Mate has been featuring photographs of monster insects-on-steroids and sizable spiders over at his blog.
The stick insect, for example, is shown
not only crawling up a tree but also across Oz's open hand and up his arm.
He's also been showcasing the spiders in his Down Under neighborhood, the most recent one is
here and a few more can be found
here and here.
Ewwww!
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The NYC Department of Parks and Recreation and the Department of Citywide Administrative Services kicked off the baseball season by
announcing the sale of authentic Yankee Stadium seats.
One hundred sets of seats from the 1975 stadium renovation will be offered for sale to the public beginning Monday, April 19 for $1,500 each
at CityStore, plus applicable shipping/handling and sales tax.
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Travels
This brings me to next week's schedule. I may be out of town next week, which means not having the chance to see my friends. I won't know if it's mandatory that I be out of town until Sunday evening.
Blogging: Maybe, Maybe Not
Murphy's Law
After ripping the nails off and grabbing a file to straighten them out and slapping bandaids on one or two, I returned to the jammed utensil drawer. Regardless of what I used to try and pry it open it wouldn't budge. Thankfully I had other utensils storedd away in a cabinet. No matter what I tried, the drawer remains jammed and that's that, I gave up trying.
Then it was time to open up a jar of marinara sauce. That jar lid wouldn't move, regardless of my smacking the bottom of the jar, or tapping it with a tablespoon, or using the piece of rubber I have to make jar opening easier. Nothing worked. I decided to repeat all these steps, and also ran the jar lid under hot water. A few more taps to the bottom of the jar and before I knew what happened, marinara sauce was all over my kitchen. Evidently the hot water loosened the lid. By the time I finished cleaning it up I'd lost my appetite.
I settled in to focus on some paperwork that needed my undivided attention and was well into heavy-duty concentration when the light in the room changed suddenly. First one light bulb burnt out, and five minutes later, another. I returned to the kitchen to get some light bulbs from a cabinet and in pulling them out, proceeded to knock over the container I keep coffee in. Coffee grounds were everywhere, and as the kitchen floor and cabinets were not entirely dry from cleanup of the marinara mishap, the spray of coffee grounds quickly turned from dry to soupy, muddy, liquified puddles of brown.
To say I was unhappy is to put it mildly. I was perturbed. I was beginning to feel the onset of blood boiling in my veins. Then I heard a loud crash in the closet I had cleaned out the day before. The rod in the closet had snapped.
Then I did.
Hopefully today will be a better day. :-)
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For you men who have long neglected the significant other between your legs, it's time to reconnect and improve your relationship!
Other than the obvious sexual gratification and release, there are health benefits too. The New Scientist
reports that frequent sexual intercourse and masturbation protects men against a common form of cancer. So don't delay, do it today! ;-)
I assume that most men maintain a very happy, long-lasting and fulfilling relationship with their penises.
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For $99 I can reserve my own genius at the Apple Store. As part of Apple's new Pro Care,
I can get priority, next-day turnaround on in-store repairs, have old files transferred and ready to roll before I leave the store, book free, one-hour workshops
and get special discounts. Since this means I don't have to wait around at the often-crowded Genius Bar, I'm wondering if that $99 gives me the freedom to hand-pick my genius, or if I get just any genius who happens to be bored that day. hmm...
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New from Wired: a blog devoted to the cult I'm a member of -- Cult of Mac.
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Ya bunch of whiney babies. :P
p.s. A man who wears a kilt reached clear across into the ether, pulled me by my hair, brought tears to my eyes, begged me to put my archives up and then made me leave, kicking and screaming from my non-box-like, one-pager of slung and raw HTML to return to this 2x4. So there ya have it. {wink, wink Oz.}
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Best wishes for a great day Kat! :-)
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Just in Case You Were Wondering
April 21, 2004
No Pants/Trousers Day
RSS Direct
German Bloggers
Success is ...
At age 12 . . . having friends.
At age 16 . . . having a drivers license.
At age 20 . . . going all the way.
At age 35 . . . having money.
At age 50 . . . having money.
At age 60 . . . going all the way.
At age 70 . . . having a drivers license.
At age 75 . . . having friends.
At age 80 . . . not peeing in your pants.
April 19, 2004
International Events
Trading Places
Mac 'n Money
Something's Not Right Here
April 17, 2004
Hit or Miss
Happy Birthday!
April 10, 2004
Creature Features
Here's a photo of a camel spider.
via boingboing
Yankee Stadium Seats 4Sale
April 9, 2004
Friday Featherbrain
I have two friends travelling -- one headed north, one going south, and spoke with each one while they were on the road. At some point they'll pass each other while continuing their driving. And that's just the friends travelling by car. Next week I've another friend travelling from west to east the middle of next week, and yet another, also from the West Coast, who will be in town the week after. It will be a busy time these next few weeks and hopefully the weather will be nice here. However, it might end up that I don't get to see any of them.
If it ends up I have to be out of town, (and I'm letting you know now,) I won't be online at all, which means no blog entries here until I return. It could be a few days minus entries, or it could be a week or two. If it ends up that there's silence here, you'll at least know why.
Anything that can possibly go wrong, will go wrong.
In other news, yesterday was "never a dull moment" day at casa de squip. I was multi-tasking -- speaking on the phone while preparing dinner and trying to get some utensils out from a drawer that is built-in under a counter. The drawer was not cooperating, and without thinking, I put my hand into the built-in metal handle, not realizing the drawer was stuck. In one fell swoop I managed to rip the tips of my fingernails off. This isn't exactly the greatest feeling when it happens. My fingernails weren't that lengthy in the first place (I shy away from talons that could be used as weapons) so I was not concerned with the aesthetic look. It's when you break a fingernail well into the ouch zone that makes it all very uncomfortable.
April 8, 2004
Reconnect With An Old Flame
Apple Pro Care
April 7, 2004
Cult of Mac
April 6, 2004
Happy Now?
April 1, 2004
Happy Birthday!
