Wednesday, January 17, 2007

We've been iced in (more or less) for 4 days now. I don't know what most people do with that time, but my wife has developed an addiction. Yes, I left a link lying around, and one hit of Puzzle Pirates, and she was a goner. Quote of the Day: "How does Mom expect me to become a successful pirate when she keeps calling all the time?"

Also heard an amusing commercial which I guess has someone singing through a voice box (my only experience of those being the Vietnam vet on SouthPark) a ditty with the tagline "Cigarettes don't always kill you." (I might've gotten the words wrong but that's the gist.) Somewhat morbid, but as a breather of cigarette smoke for far too many years, I'm game for it.

I took some of the time this weekend to read Those Who Watch by Robert Silverberg, a sci-fi book from 1967 predicting the wonderful electronic world of 1982. Good first-contact kinda book with interesting alien cultures.

And American Schadenfreude premiered last night. It's my name for the first few weeks of American Idol where more truly painful performances are shown than good or even decent singers. This isn't the first-round audition - these people have been vetted for embarrassing performances. And either they're not told of their novelty status, or we have far better actors in America than watching most TV or movies suggests. Of course, I sit here disgusted, but I'm watching.
posted by Unknown 2:12 PM | 0 comments

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Sometimes I just have to share things. I hope whatever readers I have left will enjoy this.

http://missedmanners.wordpress.com/2007/01/12/what-i-did-over-christmas-vacation/
posted by Unknown 3:46 PM | 0 comments

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Poor President Bush. Apparently watching the video of Saddam's execution made him "upset." I'm guessing it was watching an execution since no clarifying statements were made. Yet Texas executed 152 prisoners in his 6 years as governor. Maybe if he'd watched some of those, he would have considered some of the clemencies that would have avoided killing 2 people a month on his watch. I'm tempted to make a joke linking this to his support of sending troops to Iraq when he dodged the draft, but both are too sad to joke about.
posted by Unknown 4:50 PM | 0 comments

Monday, January 08, 2007

My most recent ad in gmail was:

Olive Oil Shopping Secret - www.davidrosengarten.com - Free report: What your
local store doesn't want you to know.

Yep, conspiracy theory now has our local supermarket franchise conspiring to thwart our olive oil-based life goals. Who thought Taxi Driver was a forerunner of marketing techniques?

While I think this (and many other ads - I'll try to start posting the best ones) is silly, I do like gmail's very minimalist ad presentation that allows me to read it and laugh or easily ignore it.
posted by Unknown 10:02 AM | 0 comments

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Well I'm at least staying true to my resolution to blog at least as often as I go to the gym. :-) To be entirely honest, there's just not much to blog about. I keep thinking of little tidbits to share, and then forgetting them - I'll try to do better with that. But I'm working a lot, and I doubt any of you want to hear about the complexities of attributing the same data across four reports for multiple date ranges. See, I put myself to sleep right there.

I continue to despair a bit about political rationality. I regularly visit Larry James' blog about his work for Central Dallas Ministries. The conservatives state that non-conservatives obviously don't understand economics, and then complain that other commenters "insult" them. The liberal side calls anyone who disagrees with government programs greedy. I'm discounting several very rational posters from both sides, and Larry himself, who is more concerned with helping the poor by any method available, but the flamers tend to take over commenting. The only political sites I have seen that aren't like this start with the posters themselves flaming, and then the commenters jump in. Even more than discouraging me from wanting to be in politics (which would seem like a doubtful road for me regardless), it discourages me from working for government agencies that could do more good than my current marketing support job because these people would be my boss. Visigoths, we await your invasion and welcome your overlordship.

On the plus side, I'm second in my NFL pool, and looking good to hang on. Woot!
posted by Unknown 5:51 PM | 0 comments

Monday, January 01, 2007

Whoops - missed a month. Two, if you don't count my most excellent substitute. Excellent for her post or because she's baking brownies as I write this? You make the call.

So January 1. Do you think there are more blog entries or gym visits today? I'm guessing blog entries, since the Internet has no concept of holiday hours. Of course, here am I (and not at the gym ;-)), so I guess I shouldn't be throwing stones. Not that that's ever stopped me.

I finished 2 of the alternate-history Roman Empire trilogy, and will get back to the third. But I wanted to read Eragon before seeing the movie. The book was pretty good, as was its sequel Eldest, but I think it's a good thing I haven't seen the movie yet. They can't all be Lord of the Rings, I suppose. Jeremy Irons is starting to be a pretty good indicator of pretty bad movies, though. I know The Time Machine and Dungeons&Dragons were both so he could build a castle (yep, he built 2) - I wonder if he decided he needed a third.

The Rose Bowl's on TV right now. I like watching the 2 teams who lost the Rose Bowl to us the last 2 years playing for the "title". Seriously, UT should still be considered Rose Bowl champs until someone we didn't show up wins. We'd be willing to surrender the Alamo Bowl title, I'm sure.

Welcome to 2007! May we all blog at least as much as we make it to the gym.
posted by Unknown 5:24 PM | 1 comments