Yesterday's tweets were inserted into my blog by me, your humble host. Today's are in the hands of tiny elves named Perl and Crontab. Any bets on whether they're actually gonna get it right?
07:51
According to Slashdot, some guy built a Twitter client for his Commodore 64. 1982 tech in the 21st Century! I am *so* impressed!
13:55
Justice certainly isn't swift. Just got a check from an FTC action against a credit card scammer. The verdict was rendered on 8/29/2000!
22:36
Just finished watching the very last episode of Pushing Daisies. Bastards! How could you cancel something so amazing?
Yes, that really was my first blog post in a very long time. My only
excuse is that I've been busily tweeting, once I discovered how easy
it was to use my Twitter posts to update my Facebook status. I wonder
if I can wire that stuff to here. Granted, the posts will be short,
but short is better than nothing, right? True, that claim didn't do
much for my dating life, but maybe this'll be different. Or not.
For the next couple of weeks I'll be driving a rental car, while my
Camry is having the crunch taken out of its left side. (No one was
hurt, and the damage was relatively minor if not exactly inexpensive.
Thanks for asking.) I accept that I'm a creature of habit, and I like
my little conveniences. But is it ridiculous that I hate a rental so
much based on the lack of a plugin for my iPod, or that I keep looking
in vain for the navigation screen? I even resurrected the iPod radio
transmitter I used with my last car, only to discover that this
particular vehicle seems to lack a working power adapter. At least I
assume that's the problem. Maybe the transmitter is the piece with
the fault.
I spent a couple of hours at DFW yesterday on my way to the Romantic
Times conference in Orlando. DFW doesn't have free WiFi, but they do
have something almost as good: Clear Channel-sponsored power and
Internet access kiosks, one of which was right by my gate. It was
kind of a good news/bad news story though, as I hadn't known about the
wired Internet and had my Ethernet cable in my checked bag. The
nearby shop didn't carry cables. Brookstone did, but only as part of
a $50 collection of accessories. Fortunately, the sales person
pointed me way down the concourse to a shop called
In-Motion. They did have a cable, at the bargain price of $8. Their
biggest seller, if the sales person there is to be believed.
Which makes me wonder: given the proximity of the sundries shop to the
Internet station, why wouldn't they add cables to their offerings?
There was even a giant Sony vending machine; what better product to
add to the music players no one wants than an actually useful cable?
Seems to me they could have charged $10, $12 or even more and I'd have
bought it without a moment's hesitation. Clearly, I belong back in
Marketing...
Looks like my writer friend
Barry's fixation on political bloggers is starting to pay off.
First,
Hilzoy
of Obsidian Wings noted the use of her and her blog's name in his
latest book, Fault Line. Then yesterday,
Glenn Greenwald
noted the plethora of progressive blogs and bloggers in the book. And
today, Barry is interviewed in Harper's by
Scott
Horton, who gives his name to yet another character. I guess this
is what they call nontraditional marketing.
This afternoon found me in a concert hall for the first time in
years. The venue was Davies Hall, home to the San Francisco
Symphony. The event was a performance of The Composer is Dead, a
twenty-first century version of
The
Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra or perhaps
Peter and
the Wolf. So what was I doing there, not being a young person and
all? Well, it had to do with the writer and not the composer (or the
Composer), a strange fellow by the name of Lemony Snicket. I'm a bit
of a fan of Mr. Snicket's work, and have been jealous of some of my
friends who have met him, or at least his alter ego, Daniel Handler.
So this was my chance to see if his strangeness and silliness
translate from the page.
Short answer: they do. Longer answer: if you ever get the chance to
see and hear The Composer is Dead, especially if its writer and its
composer (definitely not the one of the title) are in attendance, go!
One of the funniest things I've ever heard was when Elmo and his
support person Kevin Clash appeared on
Wait
Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR news quiz. As good as that was, and
it was indeed good, it may just have been surpassed by this video
interview with Elmo and Ricky Gervais. I'm not sure who has the upper
hand, although it's clearly not the unseen interviewer.
And that name is redshirt.
I have been redshirted. The redshirter in question is my friend Barry
Eisler, whose new novel
Fault Line
arrives in bookstores today, complete with the aforementioned
reshirting. Weep for me...
I thought I was past outrage at politicians and their tendencies
toward mendacity. But I guess I'm not, or at least that I
underestimate their capacity for invention. I refer to President
Obama's not-State of the Union speech, and the Republican response
from that rising star, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. During his
response, which can be appreciated only for the hamfisted crapfest it
was, Jindal
told a powerful anecdote about government bureaucracy run
amok during the Katrina disaster and how he backed up the local
sheriff when he told those same bureaucrats to stuff it.
Except... turns out
it
didn't happen. And we know it didn't happen
because the sheriff, now sadly deceased, didn't tell the story the way
the Gov did. And because the Gov was nowhere near New Orleans at the
time the events happened or, in this case, didn't happen. But why let
that stop him? Making stuff up worked so well for President Reagan,
who never could tell the difference between movies and real life. And
if Republicans are going to keep invoking Reagan as the epitome of all
that is good and holy in public policy (ignoring a few inconvenient
details like Iran Contra, the state of the economy and ballooning
deficits), then why not emulate his tendency toward fiction?
Gosh, Bobby. You're almost as entertaining as Sarah Palin...
Not safe for work, or much of anywhere else, this appears to be an
example of what happens when a kid's show decides to have a little fun
with the premise...
Disorderly Content
