April 2005 Archives
Okay, this is absolutely gorgeous.
Tactus Multimedia Studio introduces the iWoodKiosk: "
Hungarian kiosk developer, Tactus Multimedia Studio, has unveiled a new product in this week -- the iWoodKiosk. This unique stand and enclosure for the Apple iMac G5 gives the desktop Mac a stylish 'back to the nature' modern sculpture esthetic."
(Via MacMerc.)
...I thought they were only explosive after you digest them...
Burrito of Mass Destruction: "Xeni Jardin: A call about a suspected lethal weapon at a middle school caused police to place armed officers on rooftops, shut off nearby streets, and lock down the school. The culprit: a giant burrito. A suspicious onlooker phoned authorities yesterday after seeing a boy carry something long and foil-wrapped into Marshall Junior High.
Two hours later, drama ended when item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa, and jalapenos, wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.Link (thanks, caines)
(Via Boing Boing.)
It seems like April just began. Damn. Well, this marks the last day of my part-time status, and I return to work full-time next week. However, I am working it so that I have a couple of telecommute days each week (and as long as I continue to produce, I think I can keep it for a while). I've got a lot of stuff to catch up on this month, such as paying bills, lettering comics, billing my hosting clients, yada yada yada. Tomorrow, I'm going out to a friends to celebrate a birthday, so I'll have to sneak a post in before I head out, because I won't be back in time to post.
On the lighter side, today Julie and I really attacked the office and while we're not quite done, we've moved all sorts of furniture around, and now we have the 'dueling grandpa desks' side by side in there, along with new (to us) bookshelves to replace our press-board wonders. We have a shit load of furniture to off now, and though numerous friends have laid claim to them, I am not going to sit with them in my garage for any extended period of time, so come and get it or I'm calling good will in a week or two. I can't keep extra tables and desks and dressers in my garage forever.
That's right. This week, I've totally been blowing off blogging, and even though you see a post a day, it's all been done on friday. Instead, I've been falling asleep by 10:30 pm, or I've been up reading Quicksilver. I'm almost done, too -- and getting to the end of a 900 page book is just a little less satisfying when you realize... you've got 1800 more pages to go before you're done with the story. But, I've committed, and I'm enjoying it, but most of the time it feels like Neil is just trying to impress us with how much history he knows. I am also surprised at the serious lack of 'fuck' and 'shit' in the dialog (though it is not completely absent, it is a far smaller count than the average Stevenson novel). So yeah, I've fallen down on the blogging, and with reading blogs, or anything too. Kinda been a computer-free zone all week long.
...and it felt good, too!
Now back to your regularly scheduled blogophile...
Tonight I finished up another session of the Rome game that Jason, Ian, Matt and I are playing. At this point, the intrepid heroes really have their cheese out in the wind. We're about eight strong, plus a mortally wounded general whom we saved, but only to run into the mountainous hills, being pursued by forty to sixty celtabarian horsemen. We managed to get ourselves into a defensible but ultimately inescapable crevace, and now we're about ready to get pounded for the second time in the day. First we fought off about 15 riders, but the number is now around 40. And if we survive this, we might be able to get our asses out to contact the main camp, and we might actually manage to get our general back to safety.
Man, I love this game.
Every day for the last few months you've been giving me those silent dirty looks every time we meet. I know what your thinking, and I just haven't been ready to accept the truth -- to confirm my fears. Not that I really need the confirmation from you -- I know. I can feel the difference inside me, around me. I feel my equilibrium off-whack. I've blamed it all on having the new baby in the house, but you and I know better. I've been indulgent. Overindulgent, and I'm paying the price. And for some reason, even seeing your presence every day is not enough to make me face up to facts and change my behavior. I'm close to facing the truth, but I'm still in denial. Actually, I am not in denial, I'm just too lazy to do something about it. Well, that all ends... soon. So yes, today I went to you, we touched. I asked you the fateful question, and you just stared back at me with that look you always give me, and I knew the gravity of the situation immediately.
I'm 237. Again. Damn you, scale. Damn you to hell
Today I, along with Julie's family, Matt and Quinn, drove down to Redwood City to go through the effects of Julie's grandparents to select items to keep before the rest of their earthly possessions become part of an estate sale. The experience was a surreal one, and while we managed to get a lot of interesting things, some of them quite nice, it was a little odd to be walking through the home of people that had passed away over a year ago, and the house hadn't been occupied in about two years, other than people trying to catalog the possessions of the house.
I had only been there a couple of times myself before, but for Julie and her family, this was a place they knew very well. I personally hadn't been in more than two or three rooms in the entire house, but Julie had been all over the house. The living room, once covered in black and white shag carpet (now removed) was full of curios and books and had a player piano that Julie and her brother used to watch play different tunes - It doesn't work anymore. They used to play downstairs in the basement room -- the kid play area. Now, it's filled with mold and junk and stale air. The pool at the side of the house is black with mold and filled with all sorts of organics. For me, this was a place in decay. To Julie and family, it must be some strange pale echo of a house once alive and full.
We walked the rooms, locating all the items Julie and her family had tagged and cruising for any last items that we might want to take with us before the rest gets put into an estate sale. As a relative outsider, it was a strange experience for me, to pick through the possessions of the dearly departed for things I might want to keep. I did grab a few things. A pocket knife. A few lighters. A bag of golf clubs. We got some cool furniture. Julie picked up some things that were special to her. For her, these items have a reflection of her grandparents, of a life of memories. To me, they're just cool things. I feel like a fortunate scavenger, but I try and remember the context of all of the items. I try to picture Bob (or Poppa) using these items -- sitting in this chair -- playing a round of golf with these clubs. In this, I honor the life that went before.
Honestly, I didn't know Bob or Natalie all that well. Bob fell into dementia around nine years ago, starting ironically with a feeling of negativity towards me of all people -- feeling that I snubbed him in some way at Julie's brother's wedding. He fell into steady decline, forgetting people and details of his life until he became little more than a shell of a man. This was extremely hard for Julie and her family to watch. I felt really bad for them, but to me -- I only knew the man for about a year, and that was only at family occasions. He was evidently an amazing man, and I wished I could have known him better. I knew Natalie only slightly better, but unfortunately she was a gruff person that took Bob's feelings of me to heart early on, and I never really got back on her good side. She fell into depression and finally succumbed to a terminal brain tumor herself. It is hard for the family to know if this affected her in any way, but she pulled away from everyone several years before.
All that I know about Julie's grandparents are what I am told about them. I see their greatness reflected in their progeny's eyes and hearts. At Bob's memorial service, I got a glimpse of a man loved and respected by many. I didn't get a chance to go to Natalie's.
So, here I am, standing in the echo of two lives, placing their artifacts within the context of my own life. It's a sort of history I don't really have from my own family. We don't have pictures of ancestors, or family heirlooms. My sense of family pretty much ends with my own grandparents, who are either still living, or did not leave behind anything in their wake. In a way unexpected, this has enriched my life. I connect with the stream of life, even if it is not a genetic link. I somehow am more firmly rooted in history. I have been contextualized.
I just don't have anything worthy to say today. I'm sick and just struggling to get well. I'll talk more tomorrow.
I know that in the wake of the birth of my youngest, thoughts tend to be focused in his direction, but I do still have daily reflections on my eldest, who is four years old and growing up at light speed. Yesterday when I dropped him off at school, I stayed for a while to watch him play with his friends. He's got quite the cadre of pals, and he's definitely right there as part of the pack. I can hear him declaring that he's got a lightsaber, and watch him practice mock battles with his buddies. I am proud to say, Eli is always 'the good guy', even if he is infatuated with the dark side like his father before him. I think that both he and I like to rub up against the darker forces, in order to reinforce our inner will to do good. We have to understand what it is that we are striving to eradicate. He played for a bit with a large gaggle of boys until he spotted his real buddy, Camden, across the playground digging in the sand pit. He dropped everything he was doing, and shouted after his best buddy, who looked up and approached him for an embrace. The two then walked arm-in-arm to enter into other games, but making sure they were side by side. It's really awesome to see Eli forming strong relationships, and I see a reflection of myself in him. Gregarious, and always willing to join in with a large party -- always loving to meet new people (Eli is not the least bit shy -- he'll introduce himself to complete strangers in any setting), but he also has a place in his heart for those he deems as close friends, who trump all others. And of course, Daddy trumps them all (at least for now). I left the playground and got into my car with a smile on my face and a tear in my eye, knowing that I was watching history in the making, and witnessing the evolution of an amazing individual who's going to continue to knock my socks off each and every day.
Spent the evening with some very good friends. Not much else to say. Saw a good movie, ate lots of yummy cookies.
Tonight when I got home from work, Isaac did something that he has never done before, and he did it first with me. He locked eyes with me, and he smiled. He did it many times. All of a sudden, my little lump of baby flesh has actually become a little person with an inner life. I even have witnesses.
Man, this freakin' rocks. Parent crack! Parent crack! Parent crack! You see it, and you're hooked and you push the button until it breaks. Pretty soon he got tired, but after he rested up again, I tried it again, and it worked -- he smiled at me. I swear, this makes all the sleepless nights so completely worth it.
Okay, this has got to be one of the geekiest things I've ever seen... and yet, alluring. I'll never do it, but I wonder -- could you set up a web server from gmail?
yes you read right. it’s possible to install linux on gmail. richard jones wrote some python that allows you to mount
linux within gmail. you can use all kinds of unix commands to communicate with gmail like ls, rm, grep, cp, etc. it’s
an ongoing project in development but it’s very cool and allows you basically a 2gb virtual drive of sorts. you’ll
need to have libgmail and
FUSE at hand to make it work properly. libgmail communicates with
gmail while FUSE provides the filesystem. Give it a shot, it looks like it’s progressing very nicely.
(Via hack a day.)
They are on sale for Thursday May 19th. I'm buying for the 9:10am showing and the 7pm showing. I'm getting 4 tickets -- for myself, Julie, and two others (maybe Eli if the movie passes muster, maybe someone else). There are also rumors of a midnight showing, but those aren't on sale yet and might have to be purchased at the theatre. I'm getting the scoop on Friday what the deal is for the midnight showing.
Matt, this one's for you:
Woman beats off burglar with gnomeLONDON, England (AP) -- A grandmother stopped an intruder from entering her home by lobbing a heavy garden gnome at him, police said Friday. Jean Collop was woken early on Tuesday morning by the sound of an intruder on the roof of her home in Wadebridge, southwest England. "I grabbed the first thing that came to hand -- one of my garden gnomes -- and hurled it at him, and hit him," she recalled. "He lay there and I began to scream. I went back into the kitchen and found a rolling pin in case he came down. I didn't want to break another gnome." A neighbor alerted police who arrived shortly afterward and arrested the intruder. He added: "Our usual advice would be not to get involved, but to contact the police straight away," said a spokesman for the Devon and Cornwall Police. "We do appreciate that in the heat of the moment people react to that situation, and if it results in a happy outcome that's great."
If you won't be turned to the dark side, perhaps your sister will!
Boing Boing: Unintentionally sexual Star Wars coloring book: " Unintentionally sexual Star Wars coloring book (Click thumbnail for enlargement) Andrew Tonkin says: 'Coloring page found in 'Star Wars: Droids' and 'Star Wars: Balance of the Force' coloring books by Dalmatian Press. 'I hope this unfortunately suggestive angle was unintentional, especially considering the father-daughter aspect of the scene. Yecch. 'Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny billboard on the Sunset Strip created public ou"
I'm not the only one thinking about this right now...
Outer Life: Snip Snip: "« 'No Comment' | Main Snip Snip 'Go forth and multiply,' we were told, and we did. And it was good. 'No more procreating,' we resolved, after two. And it was good. 'I'm through with the pill,' she said, tossing me a Trojan. And it was bad. Thus I contemplate the vasectomy. No deference to my vas deferens. No more lifelines. Just snip snip and it's goodbye fertility, hello sterility. Ejaculating without propagating. Shooting blanks. Millions left behind. Never sharing my selfish genes with anyone ever again. And for some reason I'm not sure I want to go through with it. It's not that I'm squeamish when thinking of the procedure, or afraid I'll be less of a man (if anything, I'll be even fuller of the lusty juices of life after blocking their escape route), or concerned it will adversely affect my plumbing or hydraulic systems. A friend in my situation won't get a vasectomy. Although he's very happily married, he's concerned that if by chance his marriage fails, or if God f"
My friend Trey would love one of these...
Prototype iPod DJ mixer: "David Pescovitz:
At the Musikmesse show in Frankfurt, Numark showed a prototype iPod DJ Mixer. Image left is a rendering and here is a photograph of an early physical prototype. Link(via Gizmodo and WebBeatZ)
(Via Boing Boing.)
Tonight Jason, Ian, Matt and I picked up our GURPS Rome game after about a 2 month hiatus, and it was lots and lots of fun. I know some will never understand the joys of sitting around and play-acting with friends, but it's the most emotionally-immersive imagination play I know of, and it feeds my soul. I actually have a lot of irons in the fire right now with gaming, which is great, but I have to make sure not to overdo it all at once. I have a Star Wars game on the horizon, and several D&D games I'm planning on starting back up again. Once all potential cylinders are firing, it could be a lot of sessions to handle. Have to make sure I keep it rational. But man, it's so much fun. In the realm of hobbies, this is definitely my hobby above all else. I mean, where else can you conquer against multiple celtibarian forces, nearly die, recover, get promoted, and take over the operation of a house of ill repute all in the span of several hours?
Early in the wee hours I spent a long time after a bottle feeding just gazing at my new baby boy, and I had this moment of realization. First, I was just struck by how beautiful he is. He's a gorgeous baby, just like Eli was, but in a new and different way. Julie and I have a particularly good genetic mix -- we could make babies for a living and get top dollar for them, seriously. And second, I had a strong sense of Isaac as a little being, and what it's going to be like to have a new little boy loving and adoring me just like Eli -- or maybe in a new and entirely unanticipated way. What is true is that I truly love him, deeply.
It always takes the man a bit more time to fully bond with his babies I think, mostly because we don't have the advantage of bonding in utero, but last night, I think it finally clicked for me fully. I really am excited to see more and more of Isaac's personality develop over time. I can already tell he's different than Eli, but I can't quite articulate it. Not yet, at least. I've been telling people that he'll be the 'Strong, silent type', but that's just an approximation for this sense I'm getting from him. He's solid, and he's not demonstrative. He's self-possessed, and knows exactly what he wants. I think he'll be decisive, too. Strong will, strong mind. How can I say this about a month-old? I don't really know. I could be totally wrong. However, as a parent, you have access to strange subtle energies, and I think I'm picking up on the Isaac future radio station.
We shall see. Until then, I just love him to pieces.
Okay, I know it's a cheap re-post, but damn, it's funny.
Unintentionally sexual comic book covers: "Mark Frauenfelder:
'You could arrange a boy holding a pile of wood, and a cowboy staring knowingly into his eyes all day long and not get a more suggestive pose than this.'
Link(Thanks, Sean!)
(Via Boing Boing.)
Tonight I stayed up with my good friend Bert putting the final touches on a character rework for my Star Wars Role Playing Game character, Allean Dathsar, a Fringer and Jedi in training, come to the Rebel Alliance before the battle of Yavin, and has at this point risen in the ranks to commander, and is in special ops working secret missions with his good friend and Companion Jack, the captain of the Allasi. We started playing these characters about 15 years ago, originally in the West End Games rules version, and have converted them to D20 about five years ago, and then again to the newest version of the D20 rules tonight. The characters themselves have been out of game play for about 4-5 years themselves, and it seemed as if they were just delegated to distant fond memories, until I pulled the Jedi mind trick on Bert, the GM, and convinced him to start up the game again. I am really excited to play again, because I think we have all gained maturity as people and as players, and it will be rather interesting what we bring to the table now. When we started the game, we were all about 17-18 years old, and I remember making my character 'a little older', marking his age at 22 or 23. The character has aged to 25, but I am now 32. What was 'an older character' before, is now much younger than I am. I have gained wisdom beyond his years, and now I bring that to the game.
I honestly never expected to play these characters again, but they were marked in my memory as 'best of class', that shelf that you place maybe a handful of characters at, which in some way manifested beyond a mere extension of your personality, to have a tangible personality of their own. When you role play one of these caliber of characters, you lose yourself entirely and become that other person. Allean is definitely one of those characters. When the topic of playing the game started up again, I initially had concerns that I would have a hard time accessing this character, and his personality, but that fear is melting away as I pore over his stats and notes from previous games. He is whole, intact, inside my psyche, just waiting to act and be once again.
This time around, we're adding in a third character to the dynamic duo, played by our good friend Ian. Ian has played star wars with us in the past, but the character he'll be playing will be a new one, so Jack and Allean will have to come to terms at having a third in the group that is relatively new. I have complete trust in both Bert and in Ian to pull this off, and I'm excited to meet this new member of the team.
Unless you're a gamer, this might be a bit of an inaccessible post, but this is much like meeting up with an old friend, or reading a story you loved as a kid and finding out there's a sequel -- the nostalgia washes over you in waves, and the excitement of meeting that friend / story again, the anticipation at the next meeting, is energizing. I'm all fired up to play.
| Your dating personality profile: Liberal - Politics matters to you, and you aren't afraid to share your left-leaning views. You would never be caught voting for a conservative candidate. Wealthy/Ambitious - You know what your goals are and you pursue them vigourously. Achieving success is important to you. Big-Hearted - You are a kind and caring person. Your warmth is inviting, and your heart is a wellspring of love. | Your date match profile: Outgoing - Shy and timid people are not who you are after. You need someone with a vibrant personality to breathe life into a relationship. Intellectual - You seek out intelligence. Idle chit-chat is not what you are after. You prefer your date who can stimulate your mind. Sensual - You aren't looking for someone who is sexually repressed. You want someone who is adventurous under the covers. |
Your Top Ten Traits 1. Liberal 2. Wealthy/Ambitious 3. Big-Hearted 4. Sensual 5. Adventurous 6. Intellectual 7. Practical 8. Romantic 9. Outgoing 10. Traditional | Your Top Ten Match Traits 1. Outgoing 2. Intellectual 3. Sensual 4. Conservative 5. Adventurous 6. Funny 7. Practical 8. Traditional 9. Romantic 10. Wealthy/Ambitious |
Take the Online Dating Personality Quiz at Dating Diversions
Thursday night, Jim's car got totalled... again. Man, life could be a lot worse than missed hours of sleep. My heart goes out to you man. That sucks.
(Watching Star Wars Ep I, scene with Queen Amidala addressing Senator Palpatine on Coruscant.)
"Somebody put spagetti on her head!"
This is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Way to go, Gonzo!
Hunter Thompson's ashes to be blasted from a cannon: "David Pescovitz: This August, the ashes of the late, greatHunter S. Thompson will be shot from a cannon at his home. According to his wife Anita, the cannon will be part of a 53-foot-high sculpture of the Gonzo 'fist' logo. From the Associated Press report:
Link(Thanks, Mark Crummett!)'It's expensive, but worth every penny,' Anita Thompson said. 'I'd like to have several explosions. He loved explosions.'
She said planning for the fist has been guided by a video of Thompson and longtime illustrator-collaborator Ralph Steadman, recorded in the late 1970s when they visited a Hollywood funeral home and began mapping out the cannon scheme.
(Via Boing Boing.)
Yesterday on my way to pick up Elijah from school I stopped off at the video store to drop off a rental, and on my way back to the car I looked down the wide sidewalk of the strip mall, past Round Table, the stationery store and the frame store all the way down to the end at the sign that read 'Big 5 Sporting Goods'. Recently Eli and I have been taking some time to play in the big field behind our house after he gets home from school and before we have dinner, and one of the things we've been doing lately has been kicking around his soccer ball. Now, his soccer ball has been kinda flaccid and thus doesn't really go all that far when you kick it, so I decide that while I was there, I might as well go over and buy a ball pump. I walk on down to the end of the mall, and look in the doors of the sporting goods store, and it's at this point that I reflect that I've never actually had a ball pump, nor did I really own any sports equipment to speak of as a kid. No footballs, no basketballs, baseballs, soccer balls, gloves, bats, etc. Pretty much I was a boy devoid of sports gear. I didn't know the first thing about ball pumps, other than they had that strange metal needle at the end for pumping up the ball. I walk in, and the store seems strange and otherworldly to me -- foreign soil to the overweight asthmatic D&D geek with no sports training whatsoever. I think maybe I've been in a sports supply store a total of five times in my life, if you don't count getting ski equipment, which strangely was the only sport my parents and I indulged in, and that's only because my grandparents used to rent a big cabin in the snow every year for the family. Once I went in and got fishing gear, but hardly ever used it because my dad doesn't fish. In general, however, the exotic balls, pads, bats, sticks, skates are all a mystery to me.
Once in the store, I start to stroll, as I realize this world now belongs to me. I am the father of two boys, and I will not commit the same crimes of negligence of which my father was guilty. No, this is a Rosetta stone that translates ritual physical games into father-son bonding, and I am determined to learn its secret hieroglyphs. As of late, Julie's uncle Lou has been indulging Eli in the pursuit of baseball, and has recently given him a glove and ball. With the intention of further promoting this impulse, I walked over to the baseball section of the store. I wanted to get myself a glove so that we could play catch, and maybe a ball and bat of the appropriate size and material constitution appropriate for a four-year-old boy. Once I arrived, however, there were so many gloves and bats of differing sizes and makes that I felt instantly overwhelmed. How do you pick a glove? This is something that every father teaches his son, and that son teaches it to his own son, and yet that sacred chain had been broken in me, and I have no special knowledge to pass down or to use for myself. I'm a sports illiterate trying to get my bearings in a sea of symbols and gear that mean nothing to me, yet I know in my gut have meaning. I pick up a few mits, with no success of figuring out what the differences are, and what the right glove entails. I look at the bats, and I have no idea -- what's the appropriate size bat for a 4 year old? there were short T-ball bats, medium sized bats of foam or hollow plastic, and then the real deal. There were nerf baseballs, whiffle balls, as well as the classic white leather stitched. Soon I realize I'm completely over my head, and I need a guide. I decide I'll enlist 'Unka Lou's' help on this at some later date. Back to my initial task at hand, the ball pump.
I meandered around the store for entirely too long, dazzled by the alien artifacts, before I ask one of the stockers where the 'ball pumps' are, and he points me to a rotating carousel stand 5 feet away. Smooth move, Lewis and Clark. Even here, I'm faced with decisions on size, quality, set of functional parameters, and color. I decide to go cheap and functional, getting only the basic set of ball pump features required to do the job. It was translucent, it had a screw on ball-valve, a larger taper-valve for filling up what can only be guessed as water rafts, and was only five bucks. There were more fancy versions, but I didn't feel myself worthy of such gear just yet.
Leaving the store with my acquired treasure, I glanced my shoulder at the fishing poles -- I see these somewhere in my future. All around the store, I see echoes of what is to come next in my fathering two boys. I feel blessed, for what was always a sadness for me, my lack of a 'masculine' upbringing, is not irrevocable. It is not too late for me to take up the ball and bat, to learn how to play, and to spend hours celebrating the use of physical energy. I have been given an opening, an opportunity, to discover something I felt left behind when my father never managed to pass on this mantle of knowledge to me, when I was ten, and desiring to play little league.
Enlightened and inspired, I trekked off to pick up my eldest, and let him know of my intentions of taking him in back to the field to kick the ball around and 'play soccer' with him. He's totally excited, which makes me excited. In playing with Eli as his daddy, I am also simultaneously myself as a child, living out the fantasy of my dad taking me out to the field to play ball - something he never did with me. We get home, Eli announces to mom that we're going out to play, which makes me proud, and I grab two of Eli's grey-and-black soccer balls, and I have it in my head that I'll teach Eli the values of pumping up a ball, and each of us can kick a ball around together, since I know he doesn't like it when I 'steal' the ball away from him -- not yet at least.
As we're walking out the front and around the corner to the field, we're approached by two young kids, maybe 1-2 years Eli's senior, and their caregivers, who look to be in their late teens or early twenties. The boy (Jack, as we later learn) engages Eli instantly and starts up a conversation about Power Rangers, which Eli just totally loves, even though he's never seen the show. The girl, (Maddie) is happy to be playing along with Jack and Eli. At this point, I can sense what is going to happen before it even happens, and I have to admit I have a bit of resistance to it. 'No', I think, 'I came out here to play with Eli. Eli's my friend!', and though I sit him down for a bit while Jack and Maddie go off to play in the playground, to teach him about pumping up the soccer balls, before I know it, Eli has run off to play with his two new friends. At this point, my heart breaks a little bit, and I realize I've been left on the field for the new and the better. All of a sudden, I am 7 again, and I'm picked last on the team. However, I'm a mature daddy-type who loves to see my kid in action, so I get over it and realize that Eli is just a healthy social kid and his love for me is not diminished by his desire to hang out with his new pals.
I know at this point, I have the choice of sitting on my ass and just watching it happen, or to join in. So, I went over and hung out with Jack, Maddie and Eli. These kids were a few years older than Eli, but they were right there with him in their approach, and Eli is no one to be cowed by older kids. We hung out, played on the bars, kicked the balls around for a bit, and eventually I had to bring Eli home for dinner. The kids stayed in the field as we went around back to wave to them from our back yard fence. Of course part of me really wanted to kick the ball around with Eli and spend some one-on-one time, but also I thought it was wonderful to watch him do his thing, and to not get in the way. Eli is a tremendous individual -- a force of nature in many ways, and I'm lucky just to witness him, and I know I get his full attention from time to time. I'm just glad he's here, and he's letting me tag along for the ride. And, just maybe, I'll be first pick on his baseball team.
(While watching Scooby Doo 2) "I like her red booty!"
"...why, Eli?"
"Because red's one of my favorite colors!"
Dude, we should start up a fund to buy up 120 million of these, and guerrilla install them in all the red state households.
foxblocker filters out fox news: "
oh yes folks, just what you’ve always wanted. the foxblocker is a little piece of metal that screws
into your coaxial cable on the back of your television (or cable box) and will block out the news channel, FOX News.
this is a very interesting concept because in theory, you could start to daisy chain these together and filter out
whichever stations you wanted. i think it’d be fun to see these made into ‘nickelodeon blockers’ or something to that
effect. whatever will make your little brother cry.
it’s available now for $8.95 from the official website. thanks to off the
hook for informing me.
(Via hack a day.)
Okay, we are watching it happen before our eyes. The legitimacy of blogging has now come of age. Government is trying to stop us, regulate and control us. Let's not wait until they start passing big nasty laws, we have to go proactive with this and protect our first amendment right. The blogosphere is the last protected uncontrolled expanse of free speech publication left to us. It's where we'll be getting our real news, so let's not lose it.
San Francisco Attempts to Regulate Blogging: "Lawrence Person writes 'Forget about theocratic Iran or Communist China; today's report of a political entity trying to regulate blogging comes not from The People's Republic of China, but rather The People's Republic of San Francisco. 'The San Francisco Board of Supervisors [announced] yesterday that it will soon vote on a city ordinance that would require local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate.' Worse, this is not an April Fools joke. It seems that 'campaign finance reform' is turning out to be the biggest Trojan Horse in the campaign to regulate free speech. 'Are you now or have you ever been a blogger?'' Chris Nolan -- the 'not a joke' link above -- is more reserved about the true scope of the proposed law (which would deal with election-related journaling specifically, not most diary-style Web journals), but has little good to say about it."
(Via Slashdot.)
Okay, so THIS is the type of thing I think April Fool's is good for. Talk about woshipping the absurd...
Giant Ewoks of Star Wars Galaxies: "Cory Doctorow:
This year, Star Wars Galaxies celebrated April Fools' Day with a rampaging horde of gigantic Ewoks!
Link
(via Wonderland)
"
(Via Boing Boing.)
April 1st is that day we all tread lightly in the world, taking nobody at face value, and guarding against naivete and gullability, doing our best to dodge the playful jests of our friends and colleagues. I've never felt easy about this 'holiday' from truthful discourse, I must say -- it breaks the rules of assumed trust that makes relationships work well, and I pretty much boycott the holiday every year. I think it teaches a hypocracy that isn't good for our culture. It tells us that we cannot trust our friends and confidants to be truthful and honest, and it promotes the causing of pain and discomfort to our loved-ones. Perhaps I'm being overly dramatic, and I acknowledge that 99% of the pranks that are committed are harmless and the intention is in 'good fun', but I still can't help think that it even in a small way it desensitizes us towards the honesty we should all have the right to just assume in our day-to-day life. In celebrating dishonesty, I believe we rob ourselves of the possibility of a better world.
