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November 17, 2004

NYC Gridlock Alert Days

In case you're planning to visit New York City for the holidays, NYC.gov news created a handy list of gridlock alert days. Leaving your car home and travelling via other means (rickshaw, donkey, camel, etc.) would be a good idea. :-)

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Dave Pollard's "homage to readers"

"... the mainstream press has started a new and potentially deadly
meme about the blogosphere: That we are 'a million guys in pajamas'.
So please accept this as an apology of sorts, from all writers to
all readers. You deserve better." - Dave Pollard

homage to readers by Dave Pollard

welcome, precious reader, without you we can't go on:
you give us audience to think out loud, like plato's throng.

you read to reassure yourself what you believe is true,
your frames and mental models won't accept a different view,
and so you've self-selected to be part of pollard's 'crowd'
who dare to pose the truths that others will not say aloud.
and you indulge my clumsy prose with its despairing themes:
together, we're community, collaborating memes --
or maybe not -- we're not so joined, don't know each other well,
we grope with awkward language and the stories that we tell.

my blog's a raven's croaking in the darkness 'fore the dawn
and when i hear your hoarse reply my heart is filled with song,
your answer says "we're not alone, there's hope, we're strong, we know
together there's a better way to live, let's make it so:
resistance isn't futile, trust your instincts, fly with me --
the world's a prison, yes, but there's still time to set us free,
our 'civilized' behaviour's an illusion, don't you see?
our prison's locks are self-imposed, and nature holds the key!"

but wait -- i think i'm losing you, you start to turn away,
i've gone too far, presumed too much, oh, no, won't you please stay?
i've oversimplified my case, it's really more complex --
the average reader of a blog stays only ninety secs:
the time it takes a bee to pollinate a rose and flee,
the time it takes to break a writer's heart "oh, woe is me".

'cause reading is much harder work than writing, i'd maintain,
so here's to you, dear reader, please do buzz my way again.

Note: posted with permission from the author. Thank you Dave!

A Million Guys in Pajamas: An Homage to Readers
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/11/16.html#a953

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Hmm...

Either my jeans are too long or my ass shrunk.

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November 15, 2004

Whooped Arse

It's time to call them "ballerinas on hockey skates" again. The last time I wrote that about my AHL Hockey Whoopass team, the Hamilton Bulldogs, they suddenly started winning games. Now after pathetic losses not only to the Binghamton Senators but ALSO to the Cleveland Barons (again!), I am truly tired of slapping up the winning team's logo here, and sometimes it's already too late to do so (whoever has the losing team must put the winning team's logo up on their site for 24 hours.)

This concludes today's ice hockey bitchfest. :-)

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Quote

I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as stray eyebrows.
- Janette Barber

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Thanks!!!

A special shoutout and note of thanks to Al @ Fulton Chain, Kat @ Mostly Fluff and Pogo @ Dearie Me for dropping off some commentary about the podcast I posted last week. All along I thought I was just talking to myself on this blog. :-)

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November 11, 2004

Singing Software Developer

Daisy of Chasing Daisy, diva of delightful blog and web site discoveries, has unearthed yet another terrific find. Software developer Alexandre Guéniot took his CV and turned it into an amusing Flash CV -- available in French or in English.

Thanks, Daisy!

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Quote

Inside every older person is a younger person -- wondering what the hell happened.
- Cora Harvey Armstrong

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November 10, 2004

Firefox 1.0

If you're using Internet Exploder, now is a great time to make the switch to Firefox. Version 1.0 has just been released and is available for Mac (OS X), Windows, Linux. Just go to Mozilla site for more information. Note: for those of you using Mac OS 9, the Mozilla browser version 1.2.1 is available for download here.

http://www.mozilla.org/products/
http://www.mozilla.org/download.html#os9

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Quote

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.
- Jennifer Unlimited

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November 9, 2004

Quote

A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who never owned a car.
- Carrie Snow

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Polar Surge

We've reached that time of the year when we begin to write about the weather -- again. After a beautiful marathon day on Sunday, the temps 'round here took a nosedive and will remain for a few days. Since my head cold is hanging on and delaying its departure, I suppose now would be a good time to take the air conditioner out of the window. :-)

In the meantime, I sensed that it's really really cold up there in Al's (Fulton Chain) neck 'o the woods and sure enough, I was correct. I think I'm well within my yapping rights to sing along with Al, "here we go again!" In what is now a yearly tradition Al, here's some wood to help keep y'all toasty.

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For those of you unfamiliar with Al, he's the big kahuna of the Fulton Chain web site and he lives way the hell upstate New York -- somewhere around the green shaded area in this map (and I'm in the south, so to speak):

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Every time I even entertain the idea of bitching about the weather here in NYC, Al jumps right in and reminds me that I know nothing about extreme temps. That said, I can't wait for our yearly weather-related snarkfest to begin!

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Engadget Interview: Skype CEO

Engadget has a terrific interview with Skype co-founder and CEO Niklas Zennström here. If you haven't downloaded Skype yet, you should at least try it out. Sure it's got some kinks in it like the occasional dropped phone call, but it's truly worth giving it a go, especially since it doesn't cost you anything.

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November 8, 2004

Greeting Cards

During a chat I had with my friend Ken quite a while ago, I told him about the message I received in a fortune cookie. It read, "if you excuse yourself from the table now, someone else might pay for your dinner." As always when speaking with Ken, one thing led to another and suddenly we were simultaneously blurting out our own witty little fortune cookie blurbs. We quickly moved on to greeting cards. Ken's focused on divorce, job loss and car theft:

Now I'm thinking about greeting cards that don't exist. Copy that you only wish would appear in printed cards yet you've never seen them (that's what the blank cards are for, but the photos and drawings never quite match up, do they.) If you could write your own greeting cards, what's your message?

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Quote

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.
- Margaret Thatcher

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November 6, 2004

Witch's Brew

That's what I refer to this concoction I've been drinking since coming down with the sniffles. Here's the recipe:

Ginger root
Green apples
Water
Lemon
Honey

Cut up the ginger root and green apples into small pieces. Place in 2 quarts of water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for a half an hour. Drain. Discard the ginger root (or save, as I did) and apples. Pour into a cup, add a lemon wedge and some honey. Drink.

I've been floating ever since. :-)

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Just a Test

Kat @ Mostly Fluff rang me up last night and we had a rip-roaring grand old time chatting via Skype. She recorded our conversation and god only knows what will be churned out. I recall something about high heels and stomping mice...

In the meantime, I dusted off a poem I'd written last year and I recorded it to serve as a test post in this space. If all systems are go, we'll see if additional audio snippets or podcastanets surface in the future. Just click the graphic below (or your stilettos three times, but that'll take you to Kansas,) to listen. [59 seconds]

audio

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November 5, 2004

Bacon and Eggs, Please.

I just finished making oatmeal and raisins for breakfast. It looks like vomit.

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H is for ...

...head cold.

That's what it was! I knew the letter "H" was stuck in my head for some reason, and it's one helluva head cold. At least that's what I think it is, though my brains feel like they're about to explode.

Bleh. Feel free to send a heaping supply of tea, chicken soup and really really funny jokes. :-)

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November 1, 2004

H is for... hell if I know!

That was the answer.

Question: what the hell was that all about!?

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H is for... hula-hoop.

whirling...

... around my body with my hips.

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H is for... hypersexual.

yep.

See I knew if I wrote that it would get your attention. :-)

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H is for... headphones.

With a brand-spanking-new audio program to edit, I had my hands full when it came to editing the 96 hours and 5 minutes of audio. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. It actually amounted to around 50 minutes of raw audio, and with Ken back on the left coast, I was left with the responsibility (horrors!) of editing. Let me tell you, this was a neat trick. (not!)

Wearing headphones for a very long time became annoying. I couldn't understand why my ears and sides of my head hurt. (Notice where the theme of the letter "H" is coming from here -- 'having' 'headphones' 'head' 'hurt' 'here' ... I digress.) Unfortunately, the only headphones I could use were from my iPod... even though I have a fabulous, comfy pair of Sony Dynamic stereo headphones (MDR-V500 DJ) -- which would have made the editing task much more pleasant -- the Sony set doesn't plug into my G4 laptop. I don't know if there's an adapter available where I could actually make use of the Sony headphones. If you know of such a thing, do let me know. I'd be in Heaven. :-)

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H is for... hello?

*tap*tap*tap* ...is this thing on?

While disguised as a podcaster, I dove head first into learning Audacity and Garage Band. Audacity is very easy (she says now after the struggle) and Garage Band is quite cool.

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H is for... halloweenies.

Trick or Treat?

While my friend and former colleague Ken was visiting NYC from Portland, Oregon last week, we celebrated the festival of ghosts, ghouls and goblins on Friday (since he was returning to Portland on Saturday.) Anyway, for Halloween we decided to be podcasters from the nether regions of the universe. (That means we recorded an audio program.) It was a neat trick for me to learn the audio software on the fly and a treat to listen to it after all the editing was done. Is it available yet? Yes but no, not right now. More on that soon... maybe.

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H is for... hockey.

Hockey Whoopass

My ass was getting whooped in Rocket Jones' Hockey Whoopass Jamboree. The jamboree originally began as an NHL competition but turned minor league thanks to the NHL dispute. This forced all the participants to move from major league teams to minor league. As such, I shifted from the Montreal Canadians to its farm team, the Hamilton Bulldogs.

In the whoopass event, the loser must display the game winner's team logo on their site for 24 hours. I was beginning to get tired of changing that graphic so often. Lately the Bulldogs have morphed from a pathetic display of ballerinas on hockey skates to rock 'em sock 'em players. Yay for me. And to think I actually considered going with the Binghamton Senators....

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