Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Airplane permitted items
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Clinton Interview on Fox
Friday, August 18, 2006
Fishy Quote #18
Friday, July 14, 2006
Monday, July 10, 2006
Hell's Kitchen -- Lesbian Style
Security Signs in Chestnut Hill, PA
Chestnut Hill is the sort of place where houses like these don't look out of place:
People have things like birdbaths and little ceramic animals in their yard. Everyone has beautiful flowers planted in their front lawn. At least one family even planted orchids. In West Philly, where I live, you're lucky to see geraniums, let alone lillies and orchids.
But every bit as plentiful as the flowers, I discovered, were signs for security companies. (those companies that install alarms on your doors and windows, and then they monitor activity from their remote office. If someone breaks in, they call the police for you.) It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that nearly every house had a sign out front. And even *more* amazing than that was that almost no two houses used the same security company!! Apparently so many people out here use these services to guard their homes that the area can support a veritable shitload of these companies! (This is very different from West Philly, where you see stickers on the front door of some houses, but you pretty much assume they're all fake, designed to scare burglars away.) It also made me wonder about status symbols. Clearly, HAVING a company (or at least a sign) wasn't a status symbol, because *everyone* has one. So i wondered if some of these companies were more "presigious" (read: expensive) than others? There were more ADT and Vector signs than the others, so I assume those are the cheap, low-end companies. Here are the signs I found:
TWENTY FOUR DIFFERENT SIGNS?!!! And that's just in the short time I walked up and down a few short side streets. Imagine if I'd explored the entire neighborhood! Oh, and for the "poor" people in Chestnut Hill who can't afford a security company, there are signs around the area that let you know that "this area protected by Neighborhood Watch." I took a pic of one of them, but forgot to upload it.
Oh, and not just security signs, but *fence* signs. I mean, there's a fence there, so you can't see how beautiful the actual yard is, right? so at least I can impress you by letting you know what company made my fence:
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Chestnut Hill Coffee Company. Mmmmmmm.
The first thing I noticed when I walked in was that there were three people at the counter--a man and two women-- who all had their attention focused on me. That's really different from what I'm used to. (At La Colombe it's always a madhouse at the counter, and everyone working there is rushing around like chickens with their heads cut off because the line is out the door.) It kind of caught me off guard, but it was really nice and totally changed my mood after my frustrating morning.
I had a brioche with my coffee first, which I have to say was not as good as the brioche at La Colombe. I followed that up with a chocolate croissant (or pain au chocolat for you snooty French types), which also was not as good as the ones at La Colombe. It's too dense and heavy, and a little greasy, which is everything a croissant shouldn't be. Both were made by "Cake," which must be a bakery somewhere in town. Most of the pastries here, though, are made by Miel, which is in center city, just south of Walnut, I think on 17th, and I can tell you from experience they're delcious. It's one of the few places where even Fishy will spend money on dessert. (Fishy and TvDetective and I went there once and Fishy bought us a sampler tray of tiny versions of all their desserts and we devoured the entire thing. Mmmmmm.)
The atmosphere here is very nice, although slightly chilly from sitting too close to the air conditioner. (It reminds me of this...refrigerated train car I rode in when I was visting my sister in Gabon, semi-delirious with sickness from drinking the local water. It was so cold, and I kept saying, "Je suis climatise," ("I am air conditioned") which sounds every bit as strange in French as it does in English, btw) At least today, early on a Sunday afternoon, it's nice and quiet, too. Just a few people upstairs, all of us alone, reading books and typing on our laptops. As far as I'm concerned, that puts it above most of the other coffee shops I've been to in the city, which tend to be noisy and crowded. Last time I was here, though, it was much more crowded. Packed, really. I think that must have been on a Saturday, when I was here with Fishy. They're playing the Beatles "Revolver," which is one of my fave albums, and it's just the right volume, not too loud, not too soft.
IshDontThinkSo (Hey, I had to think of a nickname for you!) asked me to buy some coffee for him while I'm here so he can try it out, so I'll pick up a half pound on my way out for him. Personally, i don't make coffee at home anymore. Yes, it's cheaper. A lot cheaper. But somehow it never tastes as good as when you drink it at the cafe it came from. Take La Colombe, for instance. Nobody makes La Colombe coffee as good as La Colombe. Maybe it's the atmosphere. Maybe it's the expensive equipment they use. Maybe it's the fact you don't have to go through the hassle of making it yourself. I don't know the scientific explanation for it, but drinking it at the cafe makes it good.
I've had two cups of coffee now, so I should be good for a while (I've learned that one cup just isn't enough). It still pisses me off that I didn't get here until almost noon because of the detours. I should have been caffeinated hours ago, but at least I had a nice time while I was here.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Teke and pronunciation: revelling in my linguistic nerd-dom.
Are they trying to create a new slang for their universe? Or perhaps it makes it easier on their letterers. Or saves more space on the page for the drawings.
For you non-geeks and other people out there too lazy to look it up, telekenesis (also known as psychokinesis) is the ability to move things with your mind. My question (and I'm sure one of my thousands of regular readers will have an answer for me) is: How do you pronounce it? Here are some obvious choices (sorry. I'm too lazy to use the IPA today): teekee, teckee, teckeh.
Fishy, who is fairly insistent that his way is correct, added: tee kay (t.k.) which I hadn't thought of previously. And Rogue (my friend, not the comicbook character) pronounces it "teek," which is a good one. Jesse said he uses the same pronunciation. And I suppose "taykay" isn't unreasonable, especially if u speak a Romance language.
Here's the list, in order of my preference:
teek
tee.kee
teck.ee
teck.eh
tee.kay
tay.kay
teek.eh
Of course, another possibility is that it's supposed to be pronounced "telekinesis." There are abbreviations we use in writing all the time that we don't pronounce the way they're written. Some examples:
"The room was filled with misc. toys from my childhood."
"The library has newspapers like the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, etc."
"Mrs. Vasquez baked me a cake."
We would never pronounce the above as "misk," "ets," or "murz". We just know when we see them to pronounce the full, unabbreviated words they represent. So maybe "teke" is just another space-saving abbreviation and should be pronounced "telekinesis." Admittedly, teke is different than the above in that it doesn't have a period marking it as an abbreviation, and so far, I've been unable to think of another such abbreviation that doesn't include a period. Still, the possibility remains.
My problem with "teek" is that, although it's a perfectly reasonable pronunciation of a word spelled "teke," it's entirely unobvious how it would have evolved from "telekinesis." The only decent etymology I can come up with is for telekenesis to become "t.k.," which is Fishy's pronunciation, and to go from "tee.kay" to "teek." But I don't remember Marvel ever using "t.k." in their comics in any systemitized way. (update: Fishy has informed me that Marvel does or at least did indeed use "t.k." so maybe "teek" is the winner after all.)
"teh.keh" really makes the most sense. The problem is that it sounds really dumb. Surely teh.keh would have evolved into "tek," if for no other reason than that it sounds so much better.
Any comments or help from out there is much appreciated!
Friday, July 07, 2006
Restoring your Thinkpad after installing Linux
I chose the option to wipe out all the other partitions (incluing the Linux partition) and restore the drive to its original fresh-from-the-factory state. I didn't really have anything important stored on the Linux part anyway, so I wasn't losing much.
But then, when my laptop rebooted, I got an error! And it wouldn't finish booting! The error was something like:
I quickly discovered that the problem had to do with the master boot record (MBR), which I know nothing about except that I'm not supposed to touch it or it might mess up my computer, and all of the discussions online of possible solutions to my problem were too technical for me to follow, plus they were all followed with caveats of "...but don't try this solution unless you're familiar with GRUB and MBRs, etc." which as I stated, I am not. At this point, I was on the brink of depression.
Grub loading stage 1.5
Grub loading , please wait
Error 22
To make a very long story short, here is the solution I ultimately found on the web. It involves booting from a floppy disk (which I was fortunate enough to still have a few of lying around), but I don't see why you couldn't do it with a CD or USB hard drive or flash drive:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-54483
You just make the floppy disk per the instructions on the webpage, boot to it, and follow instructions. You can get an external, USB floppy drive really cheap at a computer store, but we had one at work I was able to use. It takes a while to run, so be patient.
The solution came from here: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Rescue_and_Recovery,
and most helpful was this comment toward the bottom of the page from 217.146.157.238. For the record, although he did not find the first method to be successful, I did, so try it first :
I have tested the Recovery repair diskette on my T43, which was not booting the Rescue and Recovery partition anymore. I have successfully created and used the disk with an USB floppy drive. Everything works now again the same way it used to when the laptop was shipped. The tool on that floppy will offer two different major options:
"1. Repair the current master boot record" and
"2. Replace the current master boot record.".The first option did not fix the problem with the Rescue and Recovery partition on my system. When selecting the second choice, there were three new "sub-options":
"A: Supports the newer IBM Rescue & Recovery ...",
"B: Supports previous versions ..." and
"C: Supports only the main operating system environment.".For my system the choice A was successfull.
You'd think IBM / Lenovo (and they are aware of this issue, BTW) would include fixing the MBR as part of the Rescue and Recovery process.
Anyway, I hope someone else finds this useful at some point.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Depressing Moment
The Four Responses
1. Shakes his head
2. Rolls his eyes
3. Sighs
4. Gives a "no" response. (ex. "No, you can't." or "No, you won't."
It reminds me of that opening scene in Dead Poets Society, when the principal is addressing the student body, and he asks them in that booming voice of his, "Gentlemen, what are the four pillars?" And all the boys stand up and respond with, "Tradition, honor, discipline, excellence." Only in my version, he asks, "Gentlemen, what are the four responses?" And they come back with "Shaking his head, rolling his eyes, sighing, and saying 'no'."
I actually told Fishy about this yesterday. He responded by shaking his said and saying, "No I don't."
The prosecution rests.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Bookmarklet for one-click tagging in del.icio.us
I often come across webpages that i want to read later, but I don't really have time to tag and describe each of them properly. So have a del.icio.us tag called xyzpdq (some people use 'toread' or 'to_read' or 'unread' etc.) that i use to tag pages to be read when i have more time. But even that takes longer than I want it to. I have to click on the "post to del.icio.us" bookmarklet, then click in the "tags" box, then type "xyzpdq," and then click save. Too much work. It should be easier. I mean, all I want to do is mark it to be read later, right?
I looked all over the web but couldn't find a bookmarklet that did this in a single click. Some came close, but usually required an additional click or two at least, and that's exactly what i was trying to avoid. Others automatically tagged the page with del.icio.us's suggested tags, and I don't like the idea of using tags that aren't my own or that I might disagree with.
So I've put together a bookmarklet that accomplishes my goal with ONE CLICK. I just click on it and continue working while del.icio.us does it's thing in the background. Basically, when I click on the bookmarklet, a window pops up behind the current browser window (so it doesn't get in your way), posts the page to my del.icio.us account with the 'xyzpdq' tag, and then closes the popup window a few seconds later, all without any additional input from me. I freaking love this bookmarklet!!
You can customize it by replacing xyzpdq in the code with a tag (or tags, separated by spaces) of your choice.
And you could have several of these bookmarklets if you wanted to. I often want to mark pages that I think my boyfriend, Fishy, would find interesting. So I could have a 2nd bookmarklet where I've replaced 'xyzpdq' with 'for:Fishy'sUserName'. Or with any other specific tag or tags you use frequently.
Here's a bookmarklet you can add to your toolbar (don't forget to change USERNAME to your own username):
bookmarklet
Here's the actual code snippet, broken into multiple lines for easier reading:
javascript:void(child_win=open('http://del.icio.us/api/posts/add?
tags=xyzpdq&user=USERNAME&description='+encodeURIComponent
(document.title)+'&url='+window.location.href,'delicious','toolbar=no,
width=500,height=150'));setTimeout(%22child_win.close()%22,5000);
window.replace(-1);
Understanding:
It assumes you're already logged into del.icio.us. Otherwise you should be prompted to do so.
If you have previously tagged the page, this bookmarklet will replace all of the tags for that page with the xyzpdq tag. If this is a concern to you, you can add (without the quotes) "&replace=no" right after the xyzpdq and before the word 'description', which will cause del.icio.us not to change your existing tags for that page and not to add the xyzpdq tag. I would much prefer to simply append xyzpdq onto any existing list of tags, but i can't figure out how to do that, so if anyone else does, please lemme know.
The popup window closes 5 seconds after it opens. That's just a safeguard built in to allow enough time to contact the del.icio.us server, but i've never had problems even when I didn't have the delay built-in. You can adjust the delay time by changing the number 5000 at the end of the code. (5000=5 seconds, 10000=10 seconds, 500 = a half second, etc.) Since the popup window is behind your active browser window, it really doesn't matter that it's hanging there a few seconds before disappearing.
This bookmarklet was inspired in part by the lazy sheep bookmarklet, which is worth checking out, although it really doesn't do what i wanted it to, and it has the additional disadvantage of relying on a third-party server. But I did examine the javascript when I was creating the oneclick bookmarklet
disclaimer: i do not know javascript. I pieced this together (with some additional help from Fishy) from other bookmarklets out there. I've only tested it on Firefox 1.5.0.4, but I don't see why it shouldn't work with other browsers.
I hope you find it as useful as I do!
Friday, June 16, 2006
Jamón serrano
Monday, June 05, 2006
New Trance Podcast
I'm listening to episode #10 now. (2 hours of music!) Here's the playlist if you're interested:
01) John O'Callaghan vs. Mike Foyle - Shipwrecked (Club Mix AvB Intro Edit)
02) Viet - Sky (Magik Muzik Remix)
03) Tim Hornsby - Protect You (Dub Mix)
04) Kyau Vs. Albert - Kiksu
05) Sunlounger - White Sand (DJ Shah's Original Mix)
06) Andain - Beautiful Things (Gabriel and Dresden Mix)
07) Jose Zamora and Damian DP ft. Paleday - Transatlantic (Andy Moor Remix)
08) Allende - Retrograde
09) David Forbes - Answers
10) Nitrous Oxide - Frozen Dreams
11) Above & Beyond vs. Andy Moor - Air For Life (Mirco de Govia Mix)
12) Sean Tyas - Pacifier
13) Emphased Reality and Spherical - Realsphere (Static Blue Remix)
14) John Askew - All or Nothing
15) Marc Dawn - Random Walk (Nu Nrg Remix)
16) Avanto - The Flute (Orkidea Remix)
17) Underworld - Born Slippy (Paul Van Dyk Mix)
18) Matt Darey - Eternity (Second Sun Mix)
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Loud Bastards
HOLY SHIT! ANOTHER ONE!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS, SOME KIND OF CONSPIRACY!!! EVEN AS I SIT HERE TYPING THIS, THEIR LARGE LOUD ANNOYING GROUP HAS JUST GROWN LARGER, LOUDER, AND MORE ANNOYING! The new guy just asked me if he could take the empty chair from my table. I politely smiled and said, “no problem,” but what I really wanted to say was, “Depends. Are you going to SHUT THE HELL UP?!” Damn my pleasant demeanor and good upbringing!
It’s not really their fault. They’re not really doing anything wrong. I mean, that doesn’t make me hate them any less, but they’re just hanging out (loudly) in a café where everyone hangs out. And the whole café is loud, but what’s annoying is the fact that they’re sitting so close to me that I can hear their individual words and sentences instead of just the generic loud hum that people generate when they’re not sitting so damned close. Also, I just can’t relate to wanting to sit in a large, loud, annoying group and talk in a loud, annoying way. I like to sit alone, or maybe with a friend, and hang out in a quiet way. I don’t understand this philosophy of, “Hey! Look! Another person who can join us and talk loudly! Hooray! The more the merrier!” As far as I’m concerned, it’s “the more, the annoyinger.” How come nobody ever sits next to me who just wants to read a book or work on their laptop? How come it’s always loud bastards?
Saturday, June 03, 2006
The Day of Insects, or How I Leared to Love the Bugs
I was outside a lot today, mostly because of the recent rain. I discovered that the drain spout in the front of my house was clogged, and the rain water just poured off the edge of the roof onto the porch below, no doubt damaging the wood. And my back yard flooded yesterday, which I discovered was due to the fact that the drain in my yard was clogged with all sorts of nasty gunk.
So I went out on the roof this afternoon and cleared out the spout. As I climbed back in the window, I decided to put the screens down instead of the storm windows, and let some air into the house. Well, as I lowered the screen, a whole bunch of small green spiders fell down too, maybe 10-20 of them. They were all dead. I've never seen them before, and I don't know what kind of spider they are. Here's a photo of them (click to enlarge):

I wiped them all up with some Windex and a paper towel, in case they planned on coming back to life later on and infesting my living room.
Then I went to the back yard. I never have a need to go into the back yard, especially all winter long, so it's always a mess out there, covered with leaves twigs and over grown ivy and stuff like that. And that's what usually clogs up the drain. While I was out there, I found all these red bugs on the lid to the garbage can that's been sitting out there since last July. Here are a couple photos:


While I was out in the back yard, I saw a very interesting mosquito. It had stripes. I didn't think too much of it except to note that I'd never seen a striped mosquito before. I usually think of mosquitos generically. That is to say, I don't think about there being different KINDS of mosquitos. A mosquito is a mosquito is a mosquito, right? Wrong. I googled "striped mosquito" which brought me to Aedes albopictus, aka the Asian Tiger Mosquito. Apparently it can transmit both Dengue Fever AND some forms of encephalitis. Oooh. fun. So I'm off now to catch an example of this striped mosquito. I didn't think much of it before, but now that I've read about the ATM, I'm a little concerned, so I think I should verify what kind of mosquito it is that I just saw biting me.
I'm back! (that was fast) I put on some jeans and a long-sleeve tee and I took a tupperware container outside to start looking for mosquitos. It's amazing how there's never a mosquito around when you need one. I was out there 15 or 20 minutes and still couldn't find a thing. And then I was like, "if you let me catch you and take your photo, I promise I'll let you go when I'm done." And I swear, not 5 seconds later I caught a mosquito. But I wasn't sure it was the right kind. I took it inside and looked at it in the light through the tupperware and decided that it didn't look very striped after all. But all of a sudden, there in my kitchen, was ANOTHER mosquito! I quickly got another container and a couple minutes later I had 2 mosquitos in my posession. And the second one was striped!
How ironic is that? You know that song, "Ring Them Bells," where the woman "travels 'round the world to meet the guy next door"? Well I had to wander through my back yard to catch the striped mosquito in my kitchen. But I digress...
Here are the photos of the striped mosquito, and there's not a doubt in my mind that it's the Asian Tiger Mosquito:





It's really quite beautiful. The photos don't do it justice. I really wish I'd had a good macro lens to take better photos of it.
Just so you know, I kept my end of the bargain and let both mosquitos go outside, and then I ran back in before they could swoop around and attack me.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Dog People

At some point I realized that there was a second, almost identical dog out there with it, but not tied up. We actually have leash laws in this city, u know. I so wanted to call the city dog catcher (do we still have one of those?) except that punishes the dog more than the owner, since it’ll end up being killed, prolly. She went out once and gave them a good talking to, and scratched them behind the ears. Yeah, THAT’ll teach ‘em, lady. That worked for about 60 seconds, and then it started up again. People had to hold their coffee up high to keep the dogs from getting to it. I was about to go over and say something to her. I wish Noddy’d been here. She’d’ve backed me up. Finally the woman and the guy she was with got up and left. Dog people, I’m telling ya.