I'm out of things to discuss at the moment. Enjoy an ancient picture of Aleph and Fifo....
Continue reading Really old cat photos.
February 2008 Archives
One of the things I've learned in the last fifteen years I've been on-again and off-again playing the guitar is that for nylon-stringed classical instruments, the quality of the strings really affects the quality of the sound that comes out of the guitar. Now up until about five years ago,...
Continue reading Galli Genius.
We finally got Idiocracy in the Netflix queue. Lots of fart jokes, so that's good. I had a difficult time paying attention to the second half of the film as I tried to figure out who played the Secretary of State. Turns out it's our good buddy Michael Bolton. He...
Continue reading Idiocracy.
Skip to the last page of this opinion (specifically, this page is the dissenting opinion by Judge Randall Rader) and you'll notice this paragraph: ... The record also shows that Ms. Baird had notice that she could be subject to random drug tests. Removal thus seems a highly appropriate remedy....
Continue reading Exhibit A: Towelie.
I was looking at Gibson Les Pauls earlier and something occured to me. I've got my full time job. I've got my BMW. I've got my mortgage. And now I'm considering a vintage guitar? Where's my gun toupée?...
Continue reading Guitar Hero.
I haven't really had an opportunity to bust out my guitar since I left New Mexico. And that's too bad, since the move from New Mexico took the opportunity to bust my old guitar. I picked up a replacement in Spain two years ago but never really got around to...
Continue reading Back again with Capricho Arabe.
I've been sick most of the week but made the transition today from "better" to "good." And just in time, as the weather just perked up, too. Anyway, it occured to me that my usefulness dropped through the floor and I noticed that, as the dishes piled up on Monday...
Continue reading And the clouds part.
As a followup to my question about floor-bound laundry, I'd like to present lintsam (inspired by Bonnie!) as a word to describe all of those damned socks I drop on that patch of pavement between the washer and dryer....
Continue reading Lintsam.
I woke up this morning, turned on the television to catch the news, and was greeted by a live helicopter feed of my building with the voiceover that, "Microsoft is making a big announcement this morning." And that caught my attention because that was the first I'd heard anything about...
Continue reading I can see my house from here.
...or maybe Avalanche? Either way, just before going tubing on Saturday night, I spotted this totally sweet ZJ Jeep Grand Cherokee modified with sweet new fenders, headlights that appear to have been stolen from ... some other Jeep, a superlight front bumper. Oh, and let's not forget the truck bed....
Continue reading Jeep Grand Cherokee Camino.
I feel sorry for the box art designers who work for motherboard and video card vendors. They've got tons of variations on each product, can't really reuse graphics (the RT-XG3500 has to be distinguishable from the RT-XS3500), can't really picture the object in question (it's boring), and typically have no...
Continue reading Horrible motherboard box art.
"Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music" at Microsoft support....
Continue reading Best KB article ever.
But apparently not sick enough to space out watching old Sealab 2021 episodes for most of the evening....
Continue reading Too sick to post.
I still can't explain exactly why, but the roads in western Washington (and particularly those on the east side of Lake Washington) are filled with courteous drivers who practically never speed. It's a little odd traveling down the highway and noticing that the biggest differential between posted limit and actual...
Continue reading Nobody speeds in western Washington.
I lost a glove last night the night before last on the slopes. I was originally annoyed, but the more I think about it, the more I realize this is a good thing. My gloves (err...glove) is a generic black glove branded solely with "Thinsulate" which I got sometime when...
Continue reading Lefty.
It turns out that the Snoqualmie ski area is bedecked in flood lamps and is open for skiing until 10pm most nights. Snoqualmie is also comparably close to Microsoft (45 minute drive), so leaving immediately after work to hit the slopes for a few hours is totally within the realm...
Continue reading Late-night snowboarding.
I'm sure that, at some point, most kids' mothers tell them both of the following:Always save for a rainy day, and don't do drugs. So I suppose I can't fault this young lady for following the first bit of advice, even if she didn't really follow the second. P.S. Maybe...
Continue reading Following half of mom's advice is better than following none.
I like Indexed....
Continue reading Indexed is great.
That's right—it's been 3 years since I lobbed my first handful of posts here on /dev/null. It looks like I missed noting this last year (I was in Tucson) but since I don't really have much else to say tonight, I figure I'll keep the tradition going from 2006. So...
Continue reading /dev/null officially out of the terrible twos.
Those of you who watched the Super Bowl last week may remember two ads by salesgenie.com1. The first features Ramesh, an Indian salesman with 7 kids; the second features a family of pandas with Chinese accents. Both have ludicrous plotlines2. Both of these ads clearly have racial (although not necessarily...
Continue reading Apologies for the racist racial superbowl ads.
Don't ever get into an ass-kicking contest with the Isle of Man....
Continue reading Note to self.
The thing about the winter here in the pacific northwest is that it's actually pretty dry. That's not to say there's no precipitation—there's "plenty" of snow, but the freezing temperatures draw all of the latent humidity out of the air. And even though it doesn't really snow all that much,...
Continue reading Stormy Seattle.
There's a level of finesse, creativity, and cleverness to these Japanese Rube Goldberg devices that I've simply never seen in their western counterparts. The attention to detail makes this one a real treat. It's just so ... delicate and witty....
Continue reading Nippon no Rube Goldberg.
Here's a prediction on which kids will be caught racing their hovercars next to the Intergalactic Police station. P.S. Does this remind anyone else of a particular Family Guy clip?...
Continue reading Tomorrow's drift kid, today.
Here's a hint to all of you aspiring young ignoramuses out there: if you're planning on drifting a car you've just "borrowed" from the dealership where you work, it may not be best to do so at the parking lot marked 1 in the map at right. Why is that?...
Continue reading Where not to drift.
Layla and I bought a new desk a while back, but it took a few weeks to arrive, and we're probably going to pick it up soon. The thing is that it's much less of a monstrosity than our existing desk, and will no longer be able to hide the...
Continue reading Deep-freeze computing.
Following up on my Wikipedia post, I checked on the detail in the articles for Super Bowls XI and today's, XLII. Why #61 #11, you ask? I figured I'd pick one a few years after the first, and particularly after the Superbest of Bowls settled enough to be non-notable of...
Continue reading Counterpoint: the Super Bowl archive.
Rez HD was released for XBox Live Arcade on Wednesday, and it's totally sweet and awesome. I've never played Rez before this week, and up until now wasn't particularly impressed with the description ("it's a rail shooter...with music...and a vibrator?"). But now that I've actually gotten in some actual ......
Continue reading I [heart] Rez.
BMW revised the taillights on the 2008 5 series, and I'm very impressed. The lights now have an Art Deco feel and look even better than they do in the photograph at right. Bravo, taillight designer. These are particularly well-executed....
Continue reading Hat-tip to the taillight designer of the 2008 BMW 5 Series.
