On a tip from Manuel, we recently switched cat litter from our typical large clay variety over to a product called Good Mews, sold in the silly yellow plastic bags pictured at left. It's fantastic stuff. Good Mews (annoyed by the name yet?) looks a lot like rabbit poops made...
I can't articulate why, exactly, but I've always loved the PBY Catalina, a flying boat built in the years leading up to WWII. It's ugly and slow, but it's also amphibious and looks like a hell of a good time. Functional Catalinas are assuredly multi-million-dollar machines. Odds are really good...
I've occasionally spotted this car driving around Bellevue for the last two years, and I've finally got a photo of it! In a handicapped spot in front of a Trader Joe's. As far as I can tell, it's a first-generation Buick Riviera (likely 1965, due to the lack of faux...
We've got bamboo in our backyard. Thankfully, it's not the weedy kind—it's more like a giant bush, and it's (reportedly) not likely to spread very much, or very quickly. But about six feet away from the base of the bush was a nice spot where I wanted to plant a...
A bastard squirrel did this to my deck earlier, and in only about fifteen seconds. He was apparently trying to get at a peanut crammed between the planks. Dammit....
There are typically two explanations for the power going out around here: a giant freak storm, or some jackass plowing his car into a power pole. Well, the power outage that took down the server this morning appeared to be the latter, and it also took out a big chunk...
Layla and I just got done watching Pan's Labyrinth. Great movie, if a bit gruesome at times. I wanted to see this film when it first appeared in theaters here a few months ago, but missed the narrow window of opportunity presented by its independent release. Likely owing to the...
This came over the wire today. Click the image if you can't see the badging. Nerds!...
This is the Avis desk at Los Angeles International airport. That's a lot of security cameras....
There are advantages to renting out the entire back lot of the Universal Studios theme park for the morale event at your company's conference. P.S. You can drink an entire beer in about as much time as it takes to walk through the empty queue at the Mummy rollercoaster. P.P.S....
That's it. It's done. Here's what it took to construct 75' of 6' tall fence:10 fence post holes, each dug 10" in diameter and ~24" deep. 20 bags of high-strength concrete (80 lbs. each), mixed one- or two-at-a-time in a wheelbarrow. 10 4"x4"x8' PT hemlock fir posts, laid into the...
The phone on my camera goes "click, whirr" every time I take a photo. My understanding is that this is so you can't secretly take photos with your phone—which, I also hear, is something of a problem in Japan. Whether this is simply a gentlemen's agreement between phone manufacturers or...
I'm no longer too lazy for even a picture post. First up is a story banner Alaska Air had wrapped around a pole at SeaTac. Too bad there was a big thermostat housing bolted to the middle of the pole. This is a totally sweet mid-1960s Lincoln Continental convertible with...
The internet access at the hotel was infuriatingly slow while I was there, likely due to the massive throngs of nerds converging for WinHEC 2007. Even though I'm easily frustrated, I'm difficult to actually anger—but the slow wireless connection actually pissed me off since the WayPort people were charging $12/day...
We've spent four solid days in Los Angeles working at the WinHEC conference and, with the exception of an In-n-Out order delivered by my boss on day 1, haven't yet had any significant Californian fast food while we were here. So, my buddy Rob and I decided to do a...
Buick LaCrosse? I don't think so. And then they tried to pawn a Grand Am or other piece of crap on me. I had to ask three times for something unAmerican before they gave me the pictured Toyota Camry1. Somewhat unfortunately, the new Camry is only modestly evolutionary from older...
So, this is sweet: walking back from the convention center at around 11pm last night, I saw a cop car careen around a corner with his sirens on (but with headlights off) at around 60mph and go sliding across an empty intersection. And then I spotted a black first-generation Mercedes-Benz...
I don't want to make it ridiculously obvious that I'm out of town at the moment, so I'm saving this for whenever it is that I get back into Seattle—but the important point for today is that I'm spending the week in Los Angeles for Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference...
I noticed an article earlier that noted that in 2006, revenues from online sales of apparel and footwear surpassed revenues from online sales of computer and electronic equipment. This is certainly understandable (clothes are awfully popular, even if they are inconvenient to purchase online) but nevertheless, many of my friends...
It's been a long day. I could type more but I'd probably pass out halfway through....
For those of you without IE running with JavaScript enabled, here's a screenshot of yesterday's post. It's more fun when it's interactive. Man. Coding the map up was easy—but damn do I hate hacking up CSS and onload crap....
var map = null;var pins = new Array(new Array( 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0 ), new Array( 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0 ), new Array( 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0 ), new Array( 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0 ), new Array( 1,...
She painted yesterday, too. Paint, Layla, paint! Yes, that's my fence in the background. I'm all done with the rails!...
We got these flyers recently. I smell a scam—either by Mr. Ho, Le, and Do...or by their advertising agency....
OK, this is the last fence post (rimshot!) for a while. I've got 3 of the horizontal rails cut and secured to the posts—so that means I've only got 17 left to go. At the current rate, I'll be done in ... a long time. In all seriousness, the first...
Since I put up the posts this last weekend, this is technically a post-post post. I've actually just removed the bracing 2x4s from the posts, so they're all free-standing now....
See, they hold the drills sideways in all the movies these days....
I see your crock pot and lamp, and raise you a J. J. Yeley checkbook cover. Not crazy enough to make the list of nutty NASCAR stuff, you say? Well then you must not have noticed the $23.99 pricetag on this little item. Booya....
It's undeniably shlock Americana: the Jeff Gordon coffee maker. It comes equipped with a water level indicator, ten-cup capacity, racing stickers, and a picture of Jeff Gordon looking mildly affected on the box. Merchandising, merchandising, merchandising!...
My cable internet service is on the blink, which is probably why you can't see this site right now. Comcast tells me this isn't part of an area-wide problem, so I immediately qualify for less-than-stellar personal service. A technician will supposedly be out on Monday to inspect the line and...
A lot of wood. I bought this today for the imminent fence project tentatively scheduled for this weekend. As luck would have it, I couldn't find anyone burly to accompany me to buy all this damned wood, so I spent 45 minutes hauling lumber down from the racks onto two...
This came over the wires this afternoon: a water main broke underneath one of the huge bridges here in Seattle and washed away a bunch of road. Two cars (pictured at right) were left stranded on loads of broken ground. Apparently the broken water main was originally laid in 1912....
