Can we boycott the Saudis? Please?

What it's like to be an unmarried girl in Saudi Arabia. Cruel, stupid, and just plain sad.

Arlen Specter is a waste of space

A United State Senator getting involved in a scandal in football about some coach breaking a rule that shouldn't exist in the first place*? Yeah, because it's not like we have any real problems to solve that he might be pertinent to. Maybe it's for the best considering how utterly useless he was as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, where he blew a lot of hot air about illegal wiretapping. If he got involved in any real issues, what little progress we might expect the Senator to make would get reversed.

* You can use a video camera on the field, and you can look at signals, and you can write things down, but you can't record signals? The genius who thought of that is probably the same guy who thought up DRM.

Our Hardy Heron

Google Video finally got their act together.

intimidation tip

"The Senior Partner does not share your optimism." I am convinced that slightly modified Darth Vader quotes are a badly under leveraged asset. I have been using them, and I think with good effect.

I recently found The Sardonic Memoirs of a Private Equity Professional. I quite enjoy it. Your mileage may vary, depending on how mean you are and whether you have a subscription to "The Economist." She thinks Guy Kawasaki is a tool, so points for that.

Pasadena and Pasadena

Pasadena, TX, is #161 on the list of largest American cities. Pasadena, CA, is #162.

Florida and Michigan

Even though Obama will win the Democratic nomination, he won't win by much. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton's attempt to count delegates from Florida and Michigan is clearly a non-starter. I'm guessing that's just a strategy.

What would be fairest would be to run the primaries in Florida and Michigan again, on the grounds that the race is too close to give a clear mandate, so every state's Democrats should have their say, while also recognizing that the primaries that already happened were invalidated for a good reason. I don't know how hard it is to have a snap primary, though, logistically speaking.

It would be unfortunate to have the nominee with such a scant majority of the support of Democratic voters, but that is not at all something one can blame Hillary Clinton. She has many faults and weaknesses as a candidate, but the West Virginia results clearly show that a significant number of voters want her.

chicka chicka boom boom

I dropped the chick off this morning at the Wildlife Rescue. It seemed no worse for its wear, though the volunteer discovered some flies had planted eggs on it. Ick. I was going to post a little video of it squirming in an empty mushroom box, but Google is being uncooperative. I don't think I got any recording of it peeping. It peeped in the car with me on the way over. I don't think it'll miss me.

Update: coincidentally, I just installed Ubuntu "Hardy Heron" on my work laptop.

bandwidth booth (tm?)

We switched to slower DSL because it was cheaper. It makes uploading videos so sloooooow. For everything else it's fine. I think there's a market opportunity there. Customers can come, plug in, and get access to a super fast connection. Charges would be either by the minute or by the megabyte. You could use it for either upload or download. Put them in grocery stores, Kinko's, libraries, or whatever. They could be basically completely automated. In a lot of ways, it's similar to an Internet cafe, but the modes of use would be different.

Gun Barrel City

There's a Gun Barrel City, TX.

Attempting a rescue

 

When I came home from work, the chick was still alive. I called Wildlife Rescue. They told me to keep it warm, and to bring it in tomorrow. If it was the wind that knocked it out, it's survived for two days; I hope it makes it through tonight. It's on a heating pad wrapped up in a towel. They told me not to feed it.

two dead chicks

The strong winds we've had recently appear to have blown one egg out of each of the Yellow-Crowned Night Heron nests in our front yard. It's hard to tell whether the chicks had hatched already; the egg shells were on the ground as well as the chicks. One was dead, the other soon to be so. Its futile strugglings were disturbingly similar to the weak, random movements of a young infant. I sure hope there are more in the nest. Wikipedia claims there are usually 3-5 eggs.

super-lame company party

The medical practice I patronize is having a company party this month. You have to pay $5 to buy tickets to attend. How obnoxious is that?

Nobody makes you mad like your kids

Especially if that kid is 3 years old. I think I figured out why. With everyone else, you can always say, "screw this," and leave. You have no escape from your kids. I have learned a huge amount of sympathy for single parents.

So many pockets

Cargo shorts with 10 pockets? SRSLY?

kudos for the pun

The collapse of an underground salt dome earlier this week is starting to eat away at Daisetta, TX. Some residents have begun calling it "the Sinkhole de Mayo." Whoever came up with that deserves the Nobel Prize, or at least the Medal of Freedom. Never mind that it didn't happen exactly on May 5th.

NY Times review of "Speed Racer"

I liked this bit:

Not only does it surpass the grinding tedium of "The Matrix Revolutions," but it does so with far less excuse. Back in the early years of this century, it was possible to pretend that the grim-faced expository noodling of the later "Matrix" movies was the vehicle for profound insights into — well, something. Go look it up on Wikipedia.

the midnight golfer

Back when "MadTV" was funny (really, it happened), they aired this classic skit:

Blogger move

I realized should just put the Blogger-driven weblog in place of the old one, and move the old one to a new sub-domain. So I did. Please let me know if anything seems flaky.

optimizing children's sleep schedules

Adjusting Uma's schedule earlier by 45 minutes has made a big difference. She seems happier, rarely wakes up at night (knock wood), and goes to sleep more easily, both for her nap and at night. She still sleeps about the same amount; it just appears that waking up at 7:30am and going to bed a little after 8pm work better for her rhythms than waking up at 8:15am and going to bed a little before 9pm. Waking her up at 7:30am seems like a pretty good way to encourage her to keep her napping in the afternoon, which is pretty important with a baby in the house.

Don't use words you don't understand

"If you go to Google Trends and track the number of times it is mentioned, the curve is almost algorithmic from a year and a half ago."

Emphasis mine. I guess his ignorance will keep him from being embarrassed by it. I'd be pretty embarrassed. But I'd like to think I wouldn't try so hard to sound smart, either. I'd probably just say "very steep."

Hey, there's another dumb thing in the article: "A steampunk fantasy game, Edge of Twilight, will be introduced by Xbox 360 and PlayStation next year."



Source.