Get Smart

Why do we not get the COOL cars here in the U.S.? No, we only get the Chevy Cobalt! Or the Dodge-freaking-Neon.
I'm talking about a cool, little car that gets killer milage...Right? Want to end our dependency on Foreign Oil? Well, Get Smart. I especially like the very customizable Roadster!
Now get this: This company is owned by Daimler-Chrysler...So come on already, start shipping these here..we need something to compete with the Scion xA and Honda Fit. Unfortunately, U.S. car makers are a litle slow on the uptake...I mean, how long did it take them to see the success of the Mazda Miata and come out with something to compete with it.

Beer Me

I enjoy a nice, cold beer while watching the World Cup, but after reviewing my picks in the pool I'm in, I think I may need to do more than just drink the beer. I might have to bathe in it!

Yes, the good people at Bierschwimmbad think bathing in beer is a great way to nourish your skin and feel better. I suppose so, but will it make me feel any better for NOT having picked Argentina to advance?
I'm sure an hour spent soaking in beer would cure nearly anything!

Lies, Damned Lies!

Not to be a wet blanket during all this World Cup fun, but I caught the last bit of a PBS Frontline program last night and, not having recorded it, was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be able to watch it in its entirety. Have no fear...PBS is Showing it online this Thursday.

I would recommend watching it if you have even the slightest doubts of this Administration's motivations.
Believe me, after having read "Weapons of Mass Deception", having seen Fahrenheit 9/11 and having lived through GWB's mind-numbing press conferences, this program essentially seals the deal. If you still believe we went to Iraq for the (ever changing) reasons Bush and Co. say we did, you must be in the dark or on the darkside....

World Cup Quote

Quote from a not-too-happy Australian fan, and former co-worker of mine, after Australia's loss to Brazil:
"Fucking assholes. Bet if the ball was a beer we would have feckin won"

Watch the World Cup on your PC

OK, I'll admit I failed. I was actually thrilled to find streaming audio of World Cup games, thinking after a very half-hearted search three was no way to actually WATCH it on your PC.
My friend at work found it today and rather than do all the heavy lifting, I'm going to point you to another blog(also a blogger.com site) that has the ol' How-To. Enjoy!

Get it at Ramblefish

One caveat: This software works great but creates a LOT of network traffic which may cause the network Security group to stop by your desk with lots of "ahem-ing"...Just pull up a seat for them and let them watch too...That should stop them from killing any neccesary ports.

Wieder Nomi

OK, embedding video is just so easy now that it may just turn this blog into a YouTube/GoogleVideo Fest.

I should have added this in the earlier post about the Nomi Song(The Biographical Documentary about Klaus Nomi). Mind you, the quality is pretty bad(by comparison there is a link on YouTube to an appearance by Klaus Nomi and David Bowie on SNL that is much better quality), but the video itself is quintessential Nomi. Of course, "music videos" were nearly unheard of when this was made, back when MTV actually played videos, so it shows its age a bit.

World Cup

So you're at work and you're dying to at least HEAR a World Cup match. Well, now you can. The Sun online has streaming, live commentary on current matches! I'd suggest headphones at work.

Mentos: The Mess Maker

Heh..Most of you have seen this already, but I just found it hilarious so I thought I'd post it...

Update: I didn't use YouTube on this for a couple of reasons:
1. The source site, revver.com, asked that the video not be linked to places like YouTube or Google Video and
2.I wanted to play around with the {embed} tag...

Feck

Been too busy/lazy to post lately.
But how's this? I've just finished reading Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire and if you haven't read it yet, go get and start reading.
A lot of people will dimiss him as a loony Liberal, but he does a fair job of providing arguments for nhis analysis. This book is a bit of a continuation of his previous book Blowback, which centers more on U.S. Foreign plicy ion Asia.
It's a good wake up call at any rate.

Trouble and Strife

I've always been interested in slang.Who hasn't? The first thing you want to figure out is how to swear and use slang convincingly when learning a foreign language. Why? Probably so you can look like you've been speaking it all your life...Or to look cool..Or to NOT look like a tourist. Also, it's good for laughs if you're obviously too old to be speaking that way.

Now, Cockney Rhyming Slang has always confused the crap out of me. On its surface, it seems like something you'd be able to figure out since it's all rhymed, unlike other slang which just seems to be made up, with no clue as to its etymology. However, if someone were to ask you to "have a butcher's", would you know it meant "Have a look"? See, the trick is the whole rhymed phrase is not spoken. The complete phrase would be A butcher's hook".

Even so, how many other words rhyme with "hook" and "look"? I suppose you have to take context into account, but I've always wondered how even two people conversing in CRS could understand the meaning of the words. It's not like there's a definitive source, like a dictionary...Or is there?

And if anyone out there actually speaks like this in their daily life, please let me know. Is this "dictionary" accurate? Or is it a load of turkish delight?

Triste

Melancholy is a luxury.

Ten Hut!!

BootCamp...Drop and give me twenty!

Yeah, I finally got around to playing with a Mac that now thinks it's a PC. Unfortunately(or maybe fortunately), it was not a Mac I own.
To their credit, Apple has made it very easy to set up. As long as you have an XP SP2 disc, you're ready to go. After a quick firmware upgrade and a cursory look at the instructions(this makes sense later), I was off.

I was amazed once the XP installation completed and the MacBook Pro booted into the familiar "teletubbies" XP desktop...and even the XP sound. Weird. Of course, having not RTFM, I spent a while trying to figure out why the hell I had no network connectivity...then I realized you have to RUN the disk, not just point to it. That's why they provide instructions! Holding down the "alt" key on boot offers you the option of which "disk" to boot to...It's funny that the icons are these big ol' desktop hard drives...
The next hilarious move was realizing there was no "ctrl"+"alt"+"delete" combination on a Mac! Yeah, OK, it works with an external Windows keyboard, but this is a laptop. Did a little digging around and found the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit, which has the 'remapkey' utility that allows you to do just that. I decided to christen the F12 key the Delete key for the purposes of logging in.

Voila, Windows on a Mac. There are still a few little annoyances,(trying to get LEAP authentication to work automatically), but it works and I think it could be a great move for business taht have developers using Unix/Windows and even Mac OSX!
I'm not convinced a bunch everyday people are going to rush out and do this though...especially the Maccolytes.

IP Freely

So, Paracelsus was out to visit recently, and when he found I was no slave to the Cable Company, he accused me of being a Luddite. It didn't help that I have no TiVo either.
Look, I'm no Luddite, I enjoy technology as much as the next guy. My problem is the money it takes to keep up with it all, which is why I'm intrigued by the advent of IPTV.I like that someone is stepping up to do battle with the Cable Companies. Not like the Telcos are real heroes either...
See Brian Clark's article on the first shots fired in the New Jersey Cable vs. Telco war. Of course, the Cable Companies are fighting tooth and nail to maintain their monopoly and hopefully, we'll all benefit from this Free Market slugfest. Wonder if the Invisible Hand will land a Sucker Punch....

No Future

If you long for the days (daze?) of early Eighties Punk, go to Strange Reaction.
What a find this was...I was looking for a version of "Jet Boy, Jet Girl" by The Damned,because I was trying to convince a co-worker that this song was the basis of "Ca Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand. I found way more than that, in fact I had no idea there were that many independent Punk bands, from so many countries back then.Not only are there short Bios of the bands, but included are at least 2 songs of the album in question. And with bands like The Hugh Beaumont Experience, how can you go wrong?

Go Fly a Kite

With all the talk of Boot Camp out there, it's little wonder that someone doesn't try to get OSX to run on a PC.Well, someone has...Sort Of.

I like it. What I really want to do, is load it on a machine at work and see how many people I can convince that I've done the impossible.

Do you LUV your SUV?

From Ars Technica:
OK, so it looks like GM, in spite of all of their other problems, is partnering with Donald Trump's "The Apprentice" and allowing everday jokers to create their own Chevy Tahoe commercials. To their credit, they allow something like THIS to get in and posted on their site...complete with a Chevy logo...Nice.

And of course, here's mine

The Vinyl Solution

Granted, if I really wanted to, I could rip all my vinyl through a PC then transfer all those files to my Powerbook...then onto the iPod. OR, I could just get an iKey and be done with it.
This cool litle gadget will allow lazy slobs like me to avoid actual work and get those great Sparks' songs onto my iPod, so i can embarras myself further, by singining along to "Angst in my pants" while taking Asher.Mental for a walk.

Why Study Math? Here's Why.

I could have used this when I was in school. Unfortunately, I was in a family that "was never good at math" As a result(OK, I'm not going not blame it all on them), I never really excelled at math.
In college, I roomed with a Grad Student who switched from Physics to Mathematics.
At that level, math is closer to religion than anything else...A really goofy, freaky religion.
At any rate, a Norwegian Professor has compiled a list of 12 Reasons to Study Math.
I like the opening paragraph in which he notes that in the "developed" world, students see math as too difficult and boring, and as a result, study it less. What does this mean for the West?I am printing these 12 steps and hanging in the dining room where my daughters do their homework. They may come from a family that "was never good at math" either, but that doesn't mean they won't be!

Evolving

I Saw this on Gizmodo today and it reminded me of the Old, Sad Things site I sent to Paracelsus rambles a while back.
Why I should be sad, I don't know. Capitalism is about competition; winners and losers. In most cases, the losers get slapped by the Invisible Hand if they can't keep up, not that Faber-Castell
didn't try to keep up, but you know what I mean. It's just that in retrospect, you see how pitiful and/or misguided their attempts were.
It also got me thinking about typewriters. Yes, I am old enough to rememeber those...In college, I had a typewriter,a Brother. They
too tried to bridge the gap, with goofy little LCD screens and on-board dictionaries. Amazingly, they still make typewriters and, yes, they still have on-board dictionaries and the silly little LCD's. Their Australian site explains why someone would choose a typewriter, citing the need to produce professional documents, without "the cost and complexity of a PC". Meh, they may have a point. Just wondering when they too will go the way of the rotary phone.
Hey, imagine the "bridge" version of a rotary phone!

AWOL

Yes, well, I have been remiss in my posting recently. One noteworthy thing is that my Brother-in-law, who has an extensive construction background, was visiting and offered to help on the horrible home lighting project...The result? He was as unsuccessful as I! And he knows what he's doing!
What needs to be done now is to kick down some quid for a proper electrician to fix it...I'm washing my hands of the damn thing.