I have two links in the Links section.
DIY Radio plays the kind of music I would play if I were doing a radio show.
Andrew Tobias is a financial author and treasurer of of the Democratic National Committee. I've learned a lot from his columns although they are sometimes a bit overly political.
The Stop & Shop grocery store was playing Belinda Carlisle's "Circle in the Sand" so I worried that it would get stuck in my head. That worry disappeared when Elton John's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" came on. Sigh.
I asked the checkout clerk if the music drives her crazy. She said yes and that it's on a CD that plays over and over.
This Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition books discusses how ideas (memes) might be considered a form of life. They mutate and reproduce. "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" is a mind virus.
Other than the name and the music the Stop & Shop is a fine store although it lacks the friendly character of the Hy-Vee.
Yes, I had to look up Belinda Carlisle. I had to.
When I was in middle school (probably) in the back of one my notebooks I once built a list of a bunch of numbers. I had been keeping up with the news and didn't have a good handle on how things were related, like economic numbers or populations. So for a while I just made a list and thus got some sense of things.
Now some numbers get stuck in my head.
Like the $160,000 that some (at least 10) school custodians in New York City earned last year (without overtime).
And the $200 million that New York state legislative leaders have at their disposal to pass out to worthy organizations without review, ie to reward friends. (In Pennsylvania and other places this is known as WAM, walking around money.)
And the $100 billion (or whatever) for the Iraq war/liberation.
And the $350 billion (or $1 trillion) tax cut. (President Bush had a public signing ceremony for this.)
And the $984 billion increase in the USA debt limit. (President Bush did not have a public signing ceremony for this.)
The debt limit is now almost $7.5 trillion. No further increase is expected until after the fall 2004 elections.
Harper's Index is all about numbers.
I thought I had fixed my bike's back tire through skillful application of rubber cement and a patch. Apparently not. Or else there is another hole!
After that hypothetical fixing, the back brake was out of adjustment. Now if you google to find out how to adjust a v-brake you'll read that it's easy. I believe it's easy if you know how.
It's easy if you know how.
For months my store and my other store have been out of the best pumpernickel bread.
Perhaps it is exceedingly popular.
I was so excited to use my new soap that I almost forgot to shampoo.
"Dial Vitamins gives you Dial's trusted protection and helps maintain your skin's natural moisture with a hydrating vitamin complex enriched with Vitamins E, A & B5 and glycerin."
Oh yeah, hydrate me.
I finally put up duck photos from last year. This was the first set from my trusty Canon S30 that I posted online.
I'm working with a colleague on a C program, the details of which I won't go into here now.
Today I got it running under Linux. On one decent-sized example, it is about twice as fast on my computer as it is on some fancy Sun Sparc servers using Unix. I'm not sure why. Technology is cool.
On my way home from playing racquetball tonight I was behind a vehicle whose brake lights weren't working. When he turned off and got in line (aka, "on line") for a drive-thru convenience store I pulled into the parking lot and went over and told him. He was surprised, of course, and nice.
He was third in line. I have never driven through a drive-thru convenience store.
If he hadn't stopped, I could have called the police with his license plate number or could have done nothing.
Better, perhaps, would be an automated system where I could have called and punched in his license plate number and a code for what was wrong. Then the system would have called or emailed him. The system would also have a web page.
I'm not sure if this should be a non-profit venture or under the DMV. Hmmm.
Be safe.
Mandrake Linux is now on my second hard drive. Big ups to Erhan for the install disks.
The bootloader has choices for booting either Linux or Windows, just like it should. Linux doesn't like my winmodem though so I can't get online with Linux yet.
I tried to use Google to help me choose either "bootloader" or "boot loader"? The former has 111,000 hits and the latter has 117,000. Perhaps both are correct. I opted for the Mandrake way.
I'm going to play with Linux now. Technology is cool.
So many options.
Somehow one of my parking light covers was punctured a few days ago. Perhaps a hooligan broke it. I do not know.
Looking around the Internet, such a part (recycled or used) might cost $35. My solution is to tape over the hole, since most of the amber plastic is intact. We'll see how long the tape lasts.
After the successful taping, I locked the tape and my keys in my pickup truck!
Computer programmers know how it feels to introduce an error while fixing a bug.
I broke into my apartment to retrieve a spare truck key. Nothing was broken when I broke in.
Oh, to live where one doesn't lock things!
Mark and Maureen had a party, not merely dinner, for the end of the Buffy series. Food was labeled with quotes from the series. For example, this was on the pitcher of lemonade:
Willow: What kind of punch did you make?
Buff: Lemonade. I made it fresh & everything.
Willow: How much sugar did you use?
Buffy: Sugar?
-- School Hard 2-3
After the climactic episode, we played Buffy the Vampire Slayer board game. Good triumphed after Buffy (played by me), in three consecutive turns, got an artifact that adds two damage points, then an explosive weapon that adds six damage points when attacking the Mayor and then rolled an 8 to move to and destroy the Ascended Mayor (played by Mark). Total skill. It was a team effort.
I am not going to the Moonlight Rising Buffy convention, June 6-8, in the Catskills.
I had part of one of my racquetball shoes restitched at Lenny's Shoe Repair. That's such a great name. If ever I have a shoe repair shop I'm going to call it Lenny's Shoe Repair.
The guy who did the stitching said it was his first Monday to be working there alone and he was not making any mistakes. He was enthusiastic.
What to fix next....
Here are photos from two shows I went to in March. It was my sixth time to see Atom and His Package. It was my second time for the Bouncing Souls.
As a blog-only special, here are excerpts from Atom's "Does anyone else in this room want to marry his or her own grandmother?" 4.84 MB AVI file, 1:21
The sound isn't particularly clear so here are lyrics in these excerpts:
...get married. I know it sounds like a crazy thing to do. We'll move you and your samples down to Philadelphia. Stay old with me, and I'll get old with you....It breaks my heart to see you alone. Grandma, let's elope.
I used my trusty Canon S30 to record this. I meant to set it to record two minutes worth of low res video but instead I set it for 30 seconds worth of higher res video. That's why there are excerpts instead of a whole song. I used VirtualDub to append and compress the AVI files.
So many options.
I was all set to take the Linux plunge....then found out that there seem to be no files on these so-called Linux install disks. It is a mystery.
Today Mark and I played five games of racquetball and no one got hurt. Safety first. He and Maureen invited me to their place Tuesday for the Buffy series finale with food based on the series.
Last time I meant to mention that time is also an idea in the Mambo Chicken book previously mentioned. This book talks about cryonics, extending life, perhaps in a different form, perhaps indefinitely.
That will change everything, or will it?
I was going to say how my Linux install went but all I've been doing has been backing up, scandisking and defragging. Let's hope for Friday.
I've been reading The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis and am currently on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, number three in the original sequence. (There is also a chronological sequence.)
Time is different in Narnia; years there are just moments in this world.
I recently finished Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman. Lightman presents all sorts of time realities. For example, time is circular or time advances at drastically different rates in different towns. Some chapters are cool and some not so much. The cool ones touch on the meaning of life.
Perry, one of my racquetball crew, told me he composed a piece based on one of Lightman's chapters for part of performance based on the book.
Everything is connected.
It begins not with a bang.
I went to the Matisse Picasso exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (temporarily in Queens) on Monday. It was very, very fun. The tickets for timed entry are sold out so we went to the pay-what-you-wish time. We waited in line (aka, “on line”) for an enjoyable two hours. Bill brought puzzles that he invented including Bubbles and Something Fishy.
Photography was not allowed in the exhibition.
I had read some of the exhibition catalogue, which, of course, enhanced the experience for me and for those with whom I shared insights. The catalogue has this Picasso quote:
The papier collé was really the important thing...one of the fundamental points about Cubism is this: not only did we try to displace reality. Reality was in the painting...We always had the idea that we were realists, but in the sense of the Chinese who said, “I don't imitate nature; I work like her.”
Papier collé is a type of collage.
The idea of working like nature without imitating her is behind nanotechnology, which is one of the topics in Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition by Ed Regis. This book is recommended in Frank's blog.
Everything is connected. (See Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card).
Kudos to everyone whose blog I read.
Welcome to my blog!