White Bride in a Goth Wedding....

In case you've been irritated by music videos that just don't seem to match the words, here is your relief.

There's actually a set of these (music videos with sound and subtitles replaced by new lyrics to match the actions), brought to my attention by the blog of the enticingly geeky Jacqueline.

Oh - I challenge you to watch my favorite without giggling at least a little.

Capturing MILF island....

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Strutting my stuff in San Antone....

One of my missions on my San Antonio trip was....

I'd bought my mother one of those electronic picture frames a few years ago. More recently, I bought her another one (having forgotten about the first). She gratefully commented that the second one would get an honored place right next to the first in a box in her closet. So I figured it was about time I helped her set these things up with pictures of her loved ones. OK, mission accomplished, and they seem nicer now that they work for her.

During the process, I found out that she often needed to re-scale pictures, and spent quite a bit of time doing so. OK, me too. Not the only one, either - once my friend Heather's mom needed to resize a couple of photos to submit to an art show, and I helped out with that. So I decided to do what I do best (no, not "Tubthumping") and write a little application for her: now she just clicks on her "scalepix" icon, fills her "c:\shrink" directory with copies of pictures she wants smaller, clicks "Go" (or optionally, sets the desired width first if she doesn't want them 400 bits wide) and everything in the "shrink" directory gets shrunk. I can use that one myself at home, and anybody that wants one is welcome to a copy.

Detroit City

Home folks think I'm big in Detroit city.
From the letters that I write, they think I'm fine.
But by day, I make the cars,
And by night I make the bars,
If only they could read between the lines...

Nope, not making cars or bars here (shades of Rapture!), and no need to read between the lines...not that anybody thinks I'm big here. They're beginning to load people to my flight here.....so that was hardly worth paying the wireless charge.

You really feel like a homeless person when you want to find electric power at an airport!

Waiting for boarding.....

Sitting on the floor at the airport (to score some AC for my laptop) while waiting to fly from Rochester to San Antonio (connection in Detroit).

Listening to Sonic Youth's Destroyed Room, the book next to my laptop is BMOC - a fun and satiric read (although it could have benefited by a copy editor, or at least a spellchecker).

In a few hours I see my mom, haven't done that for quite a while!

Zombie Apocalypse....

A very serious investigation into the causes of this problem is here.

HT: Archaeoblog

22 years of marriage, many more of life!

Saturday was my 22nd wedding anniversary, tomorrow is my birthday. Jocelyn decided to make a combined gift for me....sort of a surprise. Yesterday I was to have some clothes packed away for mysterious purposes. Naturally surprises of this sort are bound to be a bit disappointing (how could they possibly live up to the odd things in your own imagination?), but it worked out fairly well.

Jocelyn had booked us a room at the Woodcliff. At 15:00 she had scheduled a couples massage at their spa(unlike the couples massage COURSE we had on the cruise almost 10 years ago, this was just us being massaged at adjacent tables, but it was still very pleasant and relaxing).

Then 17:45 she set up dinner at the restaurant there. I had lobster bisque and the thai spiced scallops, she had the pineapple marinated flank steak. 19:25 I took her to the Angels & Demons movie at Eastview Mall, less than a mile away (ok, but not great). Then back to the hotel bar for some jazz music and dancing....followed the next morning by a walk in Powdermill Park.

At trivia Sunday we got 13, not bad with Doug temporarily replaced by Sheila, and beating two of the other top teams, but far from the incredible winning score of 17. Then Jocelyn accompanied me to bring in my birthday with karaoke, doing "These Boots Are Made For Walking" (but not walking on me very hard) and accompanying me with Heather's help on "Tubthumping".

Celebrate, good times, come on!

Quote of the day

(he) thought, while he stroked the cat's black fur, that this contact was illusory, that he and the cat were separated as though by a pane of glass, because man lives in time, in successiveness, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant.

- Jorge Luis Borges, "The South"

If you didn't want to book the fright....

...how about a cruise?

Our guarantee

We guarantee adventure

We guarantee that you will experience at least two hijacking attempts by pirates or we will refund half your money back, including gun rental charges and any unused ammo (mini gun charges not included).

I'll stick with the frights....a flight to Texas on the fifth to see my mum!

Quote of the day

Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
-Isaac Asimov

Waiting impatiently for that fress feeling? Stinks?

This has got to be the solution for YOU! (I don't know how GUYS manage to live without it)


Click here for Engrish.com

Booking that Fright....

Title is a reference to Engrish -- and of course, the fact that I'm flying to San Antonio June 5th to see my mom.

Just got back from running the 5k in the Lilac Festival...very chilly, my son teamed up with me, and his girlfriend teamed with her mom.

Last, but not least.....Leonard Cohen in concert Tuesday night - can't wait!

Saddest xkcd ever.....

I actually know people like this.....

Quote of the day

From Radley Balko:

Finally, the “crushing the testicles of children of suspected terrorists” viewpoint has a platform!

(regarding the fact that John Yoo, Bush's torture advisor, is now writing articles for the Philadelphia Inquirer)

Funny to anybody that gets those annoying "prizes"

(as always, you can click on the picture to get to the original site, and do a mouseover to enjoy the cute text)

KEEP the sex quiet, won't you?

Although don't you think locking somebody up for being excessively passionate in their own home is a bit much?

Well, I suppose if you're British....

Wolverine...

Another good one. Some critics thought that they tried to cram too many characters into the movie at once, and they were probably right. The other just criticism was that we just HAD an origin story for the Wolverine in the FIRST X-Men movie, so why have another?

None the less, the story line was good, the performances were convincing, and the surfeit of characters mostly left you wanting more detail about the ones that were given short shrift.

Star Trek Zero.....

Saw it tonight. Verdict - enjoyable, touching, nostalgic.

I am especially impressed with the way they found young actors that really seemed like plausible younger version of "The Old Series."

Sad life of a pig.....

Apparently, with swine flu pigs are even LESS popular in Muslim countries:

The pig is a curiosity in Muslim Afghanistan, where pork and pig products are illegal because they are considered irreligious, and has been in quarantine since Sunday after visitors expressed alarm it could spread the new flu strain.

"For now the pig is under quarantine, we built it a room because of swine influenza," Aziz Gul Saqib, director of Kabul Zoo, told Reuters. "We've done this because people are worried about getting the flu."

One Hundred Days of...Obama

I listened to a good part of President Obama's speech on the radio while driving, and I must confess it sounded pretty good to me. On the whole, I've found his presidency somewhat disappointing so far - he presents himself very well, but hasn't made any of the difficult decisions that seem so necessary these days. On the other hand, Bush had the same problem with the decisions without even presenting himself well, so I guess much more would be too much to hope for.

This article goes into things a bit deeper, describing Obama as "an effective salesman of exhausted ideas".

On the economy, and specifically on the economic crisis, Obama came to office promising a sharp break from the past. Instead, he has added so much fuel to the fires that George W. Bush ignited—exploding already swollen deficits, using TARP monies (which were statutorily provided for banks) not just for auto companies but minor auto parts manufacturers, and giving the federal government more power to seize private companies than even Henry Paulson dreamed of wielding. Such has been the extent of Obama's me-tooism that he's taken to defending his record by pointing out that, hey, Bush started it!

The latter was actually a rare moment of transparency; Obama's typical M.O. is to proclaim a new era of responsibility while ushering in a new era of irresponsible debt, promise to close the revolving door of lobbyists and government while keeping it open, and vow to post all bills online for five days without doing anything of the sort. He says the bailout is "not about helping banks—it's about helping people," then gives more of the people's money to banks. He says he doesn't want to run General Motors, then fires its CEO, guarantees its warranties, and wags his finger about the company's surplus of brands. He says he's taking a battle-axe to the budget, then offers to shave $100 million off a $3.4 trillion tab. At his gee-whiz, interactive, online town hall meeting, he laughed off the most popular question asked by web viewers—should marijuana be legalized—with a lame joke before embracing the status quo like Jimmy Carter hugging a Third World dictator.

Well, it's not as though we had much of an alternative...I don't for a moment believe McCain would have done any better. Nor is the country likely to vote my way in picking somebody of a libertarian bent, whether or not they are a member of the Libertarian party. But one change has been occurring: more and more people are describing themselves as independent rather than Democrat or Republican.