Category: Uncategorized

Oh, baby… something to make when J–‘s in Tennessee.

Simply Recipes: Cilantro Pesto Recipe

See all the Superbowl ads on AOL or Google. Because it’s the only reason some people watch.

By the way, why does Google Video, from a company who’s Market Cap today is $114 billion, look like some middle school AV club designed it?

To get to work, J– and I have to park in a lot a little bit away from our buildings; not a bad walk for working at the U. To get to our buildings, we shoot down the parking lot and take the sidewalk (I know, stellar blogging, but hang on).

The sidewalks are, well, crappy. Not that the cement is jutting out all over the place, they just happen to run in front of student housing, a business that doens’t open until 8ish, and parking lots maintained by workers who don’t get to that part of town until well after 8. Generally, when you come into work, thye’re icy and snowy, but passable. Today was your standard day after snowstorm sidewalks.

So, as we gingerly made our way across the parking lot, a woman, in full It’s-20-Outside-In-Michigan gear walking in front of us slipped and fell down. Not fell like both feet went over her head and she broke the fall with her neck fell, but slipped and kind of collapsed to the ground, bent up in a full-length padded parka, boy wasn’t that lucky I could’ve been hurt sort of fell.

To back up a second. There is, in the social order of things, an implied level of involvement for a person observing an event. If I see a car accident in the distance (say a half mile away), and that car is surrounded by other cars that are stopping, I am pretty much absolved of having to cross a few lanes of traffic and stop to describe what I’ve seen to the police . Conversely, if I see someone fall down walking on icy sidewalks, but that person is a fair distance away, obviously not hurt (physically), and gets up immediately to keep walking, I’m pretty much free of responsibility to check on that person. Sure, if I was some do-gooder, I might, but I’m not that guy.

So, we are gingerly making our way across the parking lot and see this woman (not in the parking lot) fall, we both did the classic “Oooh” face, but neither of us felt compelled to run to see if she was ok, call an ambulance, or generally cause a scene. Falling can be an embarrassing thing and the speed with which this woman lept to her feet had all the earmarks of someone who didn’t want you to notice she’d just fallen. Both J– and I can relate.

How wrong we were. As we hit the sidewalk, a good 20 feet behind the once-again ambulatory Women Who Fell, she turned on her heels and opened with “Isn’t it funny how no one asks you if you’re ok anymore?” To which I immediately responded with “Are you ok?” Apparently this wasn’t what she wanted to hear as she countered with “You did see me fall, right?”, her eyes darting from my face to J–‘s face back to mine back to J–‘s in some kind of psychotic visual radar, probing for guilt or concern. She must have sensed something because as she turned once again to peel down the sidewalk she said “You must have, I see it on her face.”

She then walked to the bus stop on the corner by our buildings and stared at us as we passed like we were supposed to have a blanket and a warm cup of coffee for her, preferably something that came with a shaft of light built in so as to illuminate her presence to everyone else.

This is a stunning sequence at 7:30 in the morning. It’s slightly less stunning that it happened in Ann Arbor, but still not something you’re prepared to deal with on a Monday morning. I might have felt bad later for not asking, but after that exchange, I feel sorry for the people she is currently regaling with her story of the two insenstive clods who didn’t help the poor Woman Who Fell.

From the Boston Globe, a paper that went up a tick in my book today.

HINDUS CONSIDER it sacrilegious to eat meat from cows, so when a Danish supermarket ran a sale on beef and veal last fall, Hindus everywhere reacted with outrage. India recalled its ambassador to Copenhagen, and Danish flags were burned in Calcutta, Bombay, and Delhi. A Hindu mob in Sri Lanka severely beat two employees of a Danish-owned firm, and demonstrators in Nepal chanted: ”War on Denmark! Death to Denmark!”In many places, shops selling Dansk china or Lego toys were attacked by rioters, and two Danish embassies were firebombed.
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It didn’t happen, of course. Hindus may consider it odious to use cows as food, but they do not resort to boycotts, threats, and violence when non-Hindus eat hamburger or steak. They do not demand that everyone abide by the strictures of Hinduism and avoid words and deeds that Hindus might find upsetting. The same is true of Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Mormons: They don’t lash out in violence when their religious sensibilities are offended. They certainly don’t expect their beliefs to be immune from criticism, mockery, or dissent.

But radical Muslims do.

The article is titled “We Are All Danes Now”, something that’s slightly blasphemous in this country from the statements made in the wake of 9/11 (yeah, I went there; sue me). But the important point is I get their point. I’m not pissed at the reference, it’s actually fitting. Radical Muslims have showed the world that it’s not enough to tolerate them, they demand that you bend to them as well, and that’s a line I will cross. Christianity in this country has demanded for decades that we as a society conform to some outmoded thought pattern, a demand we have vehemently opposed. We should not cave to the same demands simply because Islam is the new media darling.

Read the whole article; there are people trying to change the thought patterns in the MIddle East. But not enough.

There’s oppression and then there’s oppression. Forbidding statements about a religion you don’t even believe in is the worst kind of oppression, and any politician in this or any other country should be ashamed for cow-towing to anyone who says otherwise. Muslims are wrong on this issue the same way Christians are wrong about abortion. This has to stop and stop now. The world has moved beyond the ninth century, so should Islam.

For context, we live near Detroit.

• I’d forgotten what a real football game looked like
• I’m having a hard time reversing (as in watch the commercials, not the game).
• Poor Mike Holmgren (Seattle coach)
• Poor Paul Allen (owner, Seattle; co-founder Microsoft)
• F**kin dog! You would have been in less trouble drinking the last Coke.
• *sniff* Damn commercials

Again, made me laugh….

Something Awful got sued. In 2004. Lowtax just decided to respond to it. Do yourself a favor and read the intro, then skip the end and read the letter he sent to the NY AG. I laughed so hard I had tears.

Link

I’m filing this one under “Made Me Laugh”, mostly because you’d think they’d know by now.

StarForce, who apparently tried to install crap-tastic DRM software on my computer when I bought Silent Hunter 3, decided that they would threaten Cory Doctorow over his post which called them on their, well, crap-tasticness. Seems the wonderful piece of software they wrote tends to cripple if not outright break some CD and DVD drives. (Nice work, by the way StarForce.)

What’s a company to do in the face of this? Talk to the author and plead their case? Post their own rebuttal on their website or blog? No! Threaten to sue someone! Which, in this case, turned out to be an author on one the most heavily trafficked blogs in the world. Brilliant. Since StarForce hasn’t caught onto this whole Internet thing, I’ll put this in terms they can understand. Instead of talking to their critic, they implied that Vinny, their legal goon, would come and break the critics fingers. (Note to actual StarForce Vinny; that’s called sarcasm and a metaphor, respectively.)

The outcome of this brilliant strategy? Well, I’m talking about it. I realize I’m like 7,430,882th on the list of importance on this topic, but I heard about from Boing Boing (2). And Nelson Minar. And Darren Barefoot. And the Consumerist. And Broadband Reports. It has over 1500 diggs right now. It made the front page of Slashdot. And TechDirt. And Kotaku.

By the way, if you run into any problems with their software, it’s your fault. To wit: “According to our research those of users [sic] that do run into compatibility problems are beginner-level-hackers that try to go around our protection system.” That’s Dennis Zhidkov, StarForce PR Manager. PR Manager?!?! Who the hell hired this idiot. Let’s see, our business model includes selling products to companies that target high-end computer users. That group has, well, high-end computer systems, which these days normally includes some type of high-speed Internet connection. With all that bandwidth, those people might read lots of websites. Good thing no website will dare publish how craptacular our software is after we threaten to sue them. From Russia. *hand to forehead*

Note to whoever runs StarForce: Fire Mr. Zhidkov. He cost your thousands of sales today and you deserved to lose every one of them. You certainly lost mine. You can find a list of games that contain this ridiculous software here. Removal tool is here. If you’re feeling particularly grumpy, you can email Dennis Zhidkov at denis.zhidkov@star-force.com

If you feel like trashing a system for $10,000, StarForce is running a contest for you.

As a society, we have accomplished quite a bit: cured diseases, created works of art that move people to tears, stood on our nearest satellite. But today, we have reached the pinnacle of what we can accomplish. Yes, today, men (and soon, I’m sure, women) can urinate on a tree. But not just any tree. No, our technology now allows us to pee on a tree made of bright, white, ceramic, hands-free. It even stands tall so it “can be seen from far – making it accessible when in urgent need.”

Oh, did I forget to mention that now, since we are so advanced, it is no longer necessary to take this magnificent creation indoors. Yes, the Pee Tree will stand proudly in public areas, available for any passing urinator’s use. I can’t wait to see the Central Park installation.

Link

I don’t know why, but I found this conversation suprisingly lucid (and funny) for 8:30 on a Monday morning.

J– [8:34 AM]:
ok
Me [8:34 AM]:
ok?
J– [8:34 AM]:
so this girl is totally my doppelganger…
http://anchorednomad.blogspot.com/
J– [8:34 AM]:
i was SO looking at those sheets
Me [8:35 AM]:
really…
J– [8:35 AM]:
until i decided they weren’t chocolatey enough for my color sceme
J– [8:35 AM]:
and the ikea kitchen bar..it’s just creepy
other than her terrible taste in artwork
Me [8:35 AM]:
weren’t chocolatey enough?
J– [8:35 AM]:
but that’s pretty subjective anyway
J– [8:36 AM]:
meaning….all chocolate – no white
J– [8:36 AM]:
do you like her sheets?
Me [8:36 AM]:
and the huge circles
Me [8:36 AM]:
if I say yes, do I get in trouble?
J– [8:36 AM]:
no
Me [8:36 AM]:
no
J– [8:36 AM]:
LOL
J– [8:36 AM]:
well good. i ‘ll stick with all chocolate then
Me [8:36 AM]:
doh
J– [8:37 AM]:
what?
Me [8:37 AM]:
i’m blogging this conversation btw
J– [8:37 AM]:
you are?
Me [8:37 AM]:
well, i will
J– [8:37 AM]:
why? is it that funny?
Me [8:37 AM]:
is to me… if you want something witty for the world to see, now’s your chance
J– [8:40 AM]:
er, no, that’s too much pressure for a monday morning

.. out of of corrugated.

Ok, granted, big points for the geeky factor, minus a few points for the geeky factor, multiplied by a hell of a lot of geeky factor. I think that equals geeky, but I was never that good at solving math problems.

Warning, annoying music ahead.

Link [via digg]