Ploafmaster General

I like to get to work earlier than necessary. My office's hours are pretty flexible, so I could technically sit down to work as late as 9:30 AM if I so chose. This, of course, would require me to stay later in the day as well, and this I can't abide.

I'm the sort of fella who likes to arrive by 7:45, work through lunch, and be out the door by 4:30. This allows me to accomplish certain errands that require attention before 5, and I get to leave the office while there's still some shreds of daylight, even during these shorter winter days.

Well this morning, I wish I'd stayed home an extra hour or so.

I arrived at my usual time, and I was digging out from under a vacation's worth of email. I'd just about finished when, at 8:33, I noticed that my network connection had dropped. Before I could consider the impact, the fire alarm for the building went off, and we were all ushered outside. In the 30 degree cold. With wind. For a FULL HALF HOUR.

Thankfully, I'd brought my coat (and my phone, just in case). After we were allowed to return, we still had no internet or phone for a solid half hour while much of the employees milled about with nothing to do. Clearly, the network has been restored...though I have to admit I was kinda hoping for the sort of outage that would have sent us all home :-)

Hooray for 2008! The leap year makes my birthday on Election Day, so I think I'll take the day off to vote, then bitch-and-moan about the government :-)

Of course, I'm really excited about the Summer Olympics. I love watching the gymnastics, the decathlon, et al., and I'm really curious how it's going to work out in air-poisoned Beijing.

Here we are, minutes away from the kickoff for what may be the most watched season game for this NFL season. I'm wearing my Giants jersey and I'm antsy.

I don't honestly have high hopes for my boys in blue, but I am hoping to see Strahan put a few hits on Brady before the night is through...

UPDATE:
Alas. My Giants didn't pull through. It's pretty cool that another team has a perfect regular season now (we'll see about the playoffs), but I wish it hadn't been my fellas at the end of it all with the expectations and such. Anyway, it was an exciting game.

Merry Christmas to me. One of my Christmas gifts from Mugs and his wife was Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman". WOW.

I've read through it for the first time during this past week, and now that I'm back in Richmond I plan to re-read it with a pencil for note taking. I won't link it in the sidebar to Amazon because they don't seem to carry the fantastic and gorgeous Penguin Classics edition pictured above (which I received).

This is the second play I've read in as many weeks (after "The Iceman Cometh" by Eugene O'Neill), and it's my favorite so far. The tension throughout this short drama is so palpable that I was nervous from start to finish. I wish I could explain further, but I'm not yet prepared for commentary until I re-read it and gather my thoughts. In short, however, I was floored by the quality and content of this play.

I'll have a bit of catch-posting coming shortly. My travels are winding down as I write this on Thursday morning from a Holiday Inn Express in Fort Pierce, Florida. Today, after checking out Stuart Beach with Val's family, she and I will head north to Jacksonville. We'll be back in action (and Richmond) by Friday night.

ARRRRGGHHHH.

So that LaCie networkable external hard drive I have? Well, I've been having plenty of issues with this lately. I don't really feel like explaining everything now, but essentially I'd like to format the whole disk so it doesn't have this wonky server software on it, and I want it to function like a simple slave drive.

The problem is, I can't get the friggin' disk to be recognized as a simple mounted volume when I hook it up via the USB jack. Nothing I do can get that done. OSX's Disk Utility doesn't even recognize it as a mounted volume, so I can't do anything from there.

I'm at a total loss here, and I'm about to smash my face through some plate glass...

Stop what you're doing. Really - right now. Go listen to the results of The Great Sufjan Xmas Song Xchange. Make sure you scroll all the way down to hear the winner, and do click the link to listen to all the other top entries. Many of them are quite good.

Well, it appears that Chrysler is even more of a sinking ship that I already thought...

Things appear to be so bad that they decaying auto maker is even dragging down it's buyer, Cerberus Capital Management. Dang.

When, after turning their noses at our fatuous Iraqi endeavor, the French lost favor with much of the American public I rolled my eyes as far back into my head as humanly possible. We had folks changing French fries to "freedom fries," imbeciles pouring out good French wine, and intelligent people with a none-the-less shallow memory of American history claiming massive French debt because "we saved their butts in WWII." Heaven forbid that a sovereign government disagree with the U-S-of-A.

Thank goodness most of this lunacy abated.

There remains, unfortunately, a fairly pervasive negative attitude towards France to this day in America. Whether it is the fashion, the food snobbery, the socialist domestic tendencies, or their frequently differing stances on the world stage, our populace carries a bias against French cultural elements which I cannot abide. I love red Bordeaux wine. I treasure those French-perfected cooking practices which serve me in the kitchen. I owe much to French film-making pioneers who advanced the art to tremendous effect. I'm anticipating my March trip to Paris as greatly as any vacation I've ever taken.

It was with whole-hearted fist-pounding agreement, then, that I read the latest post by Michael Ruhlman on his blog. He responds to a Publisher's Weekly review of his book, The Elements of Cooking, wherein he's criticized for his apparent Francophilia. Ruhlman claims that such acknowledgment of cooking's French roots is a strength, not a weakness. Right on, Mr. Ruhlman. Here's hoping I find your book under the tree wrapped in shiny paper on Christmas morning.

And they say that beans are musical...

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GabHGlGm14&rel=1&border=1&w=425&h=373]
(via Ze Frank)

Sarah Walker tells us how to roll out of a moving car. She's really quite thorough.

Well? Should I? Shouldn't I? I'm thinkin' of doing for it this evening. This, of course, depends on whether the store in Short Pimp carries my size, and the shoe is as cool in person as I think it is on the web.

Does your Chevy van take too long to slow down? Why use one of those normal auto-parts stores when you can buy a shmancy new brake rotor over the glorious Internet...from...Amazon.

Really.



I found this while searching for Express Card Slot devices (slot was the key word for these slotted rotors), but it turns out Amazon has a whole section for auto parts and accessories. Who knew?

I couldn't help noticing, as I typed my last entry, that the word "schlock" wasn't picked up by the Firefox spell checker. I was surprised as I'd always thought this was a nonsense word - but as is often the case, I was totally wrong.

Here's what Webster has to say:

Main Entry:
schlock Listen to the pronunciation of schlock
Pronunciation:
ˈshläk
Variant(s):
or schlocky Listen to the pronunciation of schlocky ˈshlä-kē also shlock or shlocky
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
perhaps from Yiddish shlak evil, nuisance, literally, blow
Date:
1916

: of low quality or value
— schlock noun


Well how about that. I think I'll integrate the term more heavily into my everyday banter :-)

Those of you who know me well know that I despise 99% of modern radio stations. I hate that Clear Channel and Cox own nearly every radio station in Richmond (or elsewhere), and largely the same set of schlock rock plays on 102.1 and 101.1 FM.

In fact, I really only listened to NPR when I'm driving. Until, of course, my home-slice Jake introduced me to 103.1 FM. This frequency is the Richmond transmission of 91.9, WNRN FM in Charlottesville, VA. WNRN is a listener supported radio station - not NPR, but much the same model. They play largely rock music, but their programming page spells out their typical schedule which includes some hip hop, mash-ups, bluegrass, etc.

The broadcast can be a little spotty around Richmond (and nearly dead around Glenside for some reason), but it's generally clear enough to enjoy. Here's a sample of what's played recently:

Lips Like Sugar...Echo and The Bunnymen
No I in Threesome...Interpol
Some Surprise...The Cake Sale
Youre the World to Me...David Gray
Regret (Album Version)...New Order
Lets Call It Off...Peter, Bjorn and John

I hope their support grows sufficiently that their Richmond broadcast gains strength and clarity. Rock out with your...um...smock out.

For your own good, please go to the website for This American Life and listen to this week's episode. Particularly the segment on Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble that starts after the introduction. Holy CRAP, it's hilarious.

Here I am trying to squeeze in at least one post for the weekend before I hit the hay.

So Valerie's sister, Elizabeth (or Margaret depending on who's asking), has driven us around Tallahassee all weekend long, and over the course of these few short days we've seen this ridiculous sight:



Now I can't find a decent sized picture of this anywhere (yet), so let me explain. That window depicts Bobby Bowden, the CURRENT coach of the FSU football team, looking out over a packed stadium. This window is over the entrance to said stadium. This is not a joke.

It seems that everybody who makes decisions about buildings at FSU thought, "Oh yeah, a gaudy stained glass window of our coach would look amazing...for the right donation, of course."

This is tragic, too, because much of the architecture at FSU is glorious and classic - the football stadium included.

The rebels can't hide from the Empire...not even in the SoCal desert...

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2GZ4Uxoa9s&rel=1&w=425&h=355]

The original is pretty sweet, too, and the notes offer an explanation.

(via The Sneeze)

After today my posting may get a little light...

Early tomorrow morning I'm heading down to Florida for the third time this year (!!!), this time because my sister-in-law is graj-muh-laden from FSU. She has WiFi at her joint where Val and I are staying, but I don't know how much time I'll be spending parked on the couch with my laptop :-)

I'm hoping to use the travel time to catch up on some reading, so I'm brining Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, Chesterton's Heretics/Orthodoxy, and Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities (maybe I'll actually read the whole thing this time!).

According to Engadget, UPS has been using software to reduce the number of left turns in a driver's route. This is part of the shipping company's general plan to boost efficiency. Quirky, but effective.

Nicole Pasulka interviews Didier Massard at The Morning News about his hand-crafted scenes which he then lights and photographs. These are absolutely remarkable, and you can see plenty more at his website.

Noctilucent clouds occur when ice crystals are high enough in the atmosphere to be visible in both day-lit and dark parts of the earth. The sun reflects off the clouds and causes an apparent glow to observers where the sun is mostly set. Check it:



The BBC has an article describing the NASA spacecraft, AIM, which is designed specifically to study such clouds.

Here's a BBC report on the Led Zeppelin reunion show:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv-lW7K66M0&rel=1&w=425&h=355]

I hope, at least, that they recorded the performance so there can be a live DVD/CD (or combo?). At best, I'm one of tens of millions around the world hoping for a real reunion with a tour, and maybe even new rock goodness. I'm certainly anxious to hear whether Jason Bonham can truly fill papa Bonzo's shoes.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you the most hideous animal to crawl beneath the surface of God's green earth, the Naked Mole Rat:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvey71Feu0E&rel=1&w=425&h=355]

Not only are these things pretty fugly, but the eat...their...own...excrement.

I always new they were hard on the eyes, but I had no idea their diets were just as repulsive.

This morning I read an article on The BBC's website about an endangered rodent in Mongolia called the Long-Eared Jerboa, which hops around like a mini kangaroo! I found a video I could embed on The Guardian's site. These things rock my face off!

http://image.guim.co.uk/static/39603/original/common/flash/brightcovewrapper.swf