Month: February 2020

Saint Expedite

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From Julie McGalliard, the story of how she discovered “St. Expedite”, the “patron saint of getting things done in a hurry”.

Saint Expedite and me: Part 1:

Our guide took us through Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is the oldest church building in New Orleans. It’s Catholic, of course, but it also has — according to our tour guide — the only genuine Voodoo saint in the US. He showed us the statue of “St. Expedite” (yes, his placard has the quotes) and told us the following story:

This Italian-made statue of a young Roman Centurion is from the 19th century. It was secular, intended for a Garden District mansion. But it was delivered to the cathedral by mistake. The French-speaking nuns opened it and, seeing that it was similar in size and style to the statues of saints in the Cathedral, they assumed it was a saint they were unfamiliar with and put him on display, using the name stamped on the outside of the crate: Expedite.

Some time later they discovered their mistake and tried to remove the statue, but after much public outcry, they put him back up again. See, the local Voodoos had already taken Saint Expedite to heart as the patron saint of getting things done in a hurry.

[…]

It wasn’t until then that I made the connection between things I wanted being offered to me, on the contingency that I accept them RIGHT NOW, and having earlier asked for a blessing from the mysterious entity known as Saint Expedite.

And be sure to continue on to the next post, Saint Expedite and me: Part 2

“You know that statue that’s been in the crawlspace forever? I think it’s Saint Expedite.”

We thought this unlikely, to say the least. Because there aren’t statues of Saint Expedite — not in this country, anyway. The one in New Orleans was the only one, as far as we knew. As far as anyone knew. That’s why the tour guide could tell that story about the nuns and the mis-delivered statue, because he could be confident that nobody taking the tour had ever seen or heard of Saint Expedite before.

Still, we had to go to Port Townsend and check it out.

Fascinating story, and you know? It never hurts to keep things like this in mind when you’re in need of a little extra assistance.

On This Day: Feb 20

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 23 posts previously published on February 20th

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2021
    • 📚 9/2021: Failed State by Christopher Brown ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee 2/6 Not quite as “we came far too close to this” as its predecessor, so a bit easier to get through. Has some interesting ideas for a post-ecological-collapse approach to legal liability. ➡
  • 2020
    • Star Trek: Picard S01E05 Stardust City Rag Bjayzl, vajazzle, let's call the whole thing off.... ➡
    • Be Angry, Elizabeth There is nothing wrong with women expressing anger. We’ve certainly given them enough reasons to do so. ➡
    • Saint Expedite Fascinating story, and you know? It never hurts to keep things like this in mind when you're in need of a little extra assistance. ➡
    • On This Day: Feb 20 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from February 20 ➡
    • Whidbey Island Getaway I played a bit with getting some abstract shots of the decay and geometries of the structures. Those shots, along with more representational shots, are up on Flickr. ➡
  • 2019
    • Siddown, Bernie I have the advantage of being a straight cis white male, and thanks to those genetic/social happenstances, it's easier and safer for me to say this than it is for many other people who don't fall into one or more of those categories: take a seat, Bernie. ➡
  • 2017
    • Book seventeen of 2017: Firestorm, by L. A. Graf. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
  • 2016
    • From earlier at dinner. My chopstick skills are a little shaky, but I get the job done. :) (51/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Fire Destroys Students?!? Unfortunate fold placement for this issue of the campus paper. (The missing word is “Apartment”, and no one was harmed, just property.) ➡
  • 2010
    • Seagoth Survey Are you now, or have you ever been, involved with or considered yourself a part of the Seagoth (Seattle gothic) community? If so, please take a moment to help me out! Thank you very much! ➡
  • 2007
  • 2004
    • This bandwagon just keeps rollin’ on… Thank God for people like Gavin Newsom — people who decide that it's time to do the right thing, and do it. And congratulations to every single one of the more than 3,000 brand-new married, loving couples. It's been a long time coming. ➡
    • Smoke and mirrors Related to the previous post, a new whitepaper from security consulting firm BoydForbes Security states that the nation's aviation security system is 'smoke and mirrors.' ➡
    • Now boarding Osama bin Laden… Imagine if the world's most notorious fugitive, Osama bin Laden, attempted to board an airliner in the United States. Suppose he were clean-shaven, sporting short hair, wearing a pinstriped business suit and looked like so many other travelers that no suspicions were raised. How far might he get? ➡
  • 2002
    • Cross-platform 2.0 Tom was good enough to send me two screenshots of my site that he took on his *nix box. Generally good results, but (sigh) not perfect. ➡
    • MT Upgrade While I'm sure this matters to absolutely nobody except me, I thought I'd post a quick note to track the changes -- I've just upgraded Movable Type (the scripts that I use to run and manage my blog) to version 1.4. ➡
    • Palindromania Need a cheap excuse to party? At 8:02pm tonight, if you use military time, it will be **20:02 20/02 2002**. This won't happen again until Dec. 12, 2112 at 12:12pm -- and won't happen again after that. ➡
  • 2001
    • New ‘puter! A 350 MHz blue and white Power Mac G3, 128 MB memory, DVD player, 22.3 GB of storage spread across three drives (1 ATA/IDE, 2 SCSI), and dual 17 inch monitors, one running off an IMS Twin Turbo card, the other running off an ATI Rage 128. ➡

Whidbey Island Getaway

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Whidbey Island Getaway

Since we had an extra day this past weekend, Prairie and I decided to run off for a “mini-break”, and headed up to Whidbey Island for an overnight stay in a B&B. We stayed at the Anchorage Inn B&B, which was a pretty place with pleasant hosts, drove around the island, and spent some time exploring Fort Casey State Park.

While wandering Fort Casey, I played a bit with getting some abstract shots of the decay and geometries of the structures. Those shots, along with more representational shots, are up on Flickr.

Getting away for a day was long overdue!

On This Day: Feb 19

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 23 posts previously published on February 19th

  • 2024
  • 2023
    • 📚 Widowland by C.J. Carey No review, as this book is a Philip K. Dick Award nominee, and I am the coordinator for the award ceremony at Norwescon. While I have no input into the selection of nominees or judging, I want to be sure to avoid any appearance of influence. ➡
  • 2022
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Book seventeen of 2019: Beyond This Horizon, by Robert A. Heinlein. ⭐️⭐️ 1943 Retro Hugo Best Novel. 📚 As an exploration of boredom in a utopia and the possibilities of genetic engineering, it’s mildly interesting, but felt unfocused, oddly structured, and kind of tedious. ➡
  • 2018
    • Book ten of 2018 (and fourth #pkdickaward nominee): The Book of Etta, by Meg Elison. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
  • 2017
    • 2017 PK Dick Reviews Here are my thoughts on each of the nominated books, in order from my least favorite to my personal favorite and pick for the award. ➡
    • Book sixteen (and sixth and final #PKDickAward nominee) of 2017: Unpronounceable, by Susan diRende. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
    • Book fifteen (and fifth #PKDickAward nominee) of 2017: Super Extra Grande, by Yoss. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • It’s barely visible, but there was a rainbow this evening. I tried to get it shooting up out of my head. Didn’t quite work. (50/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Red Robot thinks it’s time to go home. Sadly, it’s not. I think I need to check his clock settings. ;) ➡
  • 2013
    • 2012 Philip K. Dick Award Thoughts One of the highlights of Norwescon is the award dinner for the annual Philip K. Dick Award for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. For the second year running, I've purchased and read each of the nominated books. What follows are the brief reviews I posted to Goodreads as I finished each book. ➡
  • 2010
    • DVDs vs. Piracy I want to make it clear that I don't condone piracy (of the digital or high-seas version, outside of the silly over-romanticized modern view of historical pirates). However, there's a very real truth in this graphic. ➡
  • 2007
  • 2004
    • 10 Random Songs From D: Put your .mp3 collection on random, list the first 10 songs it plays. No editing allowed (though I don't mind editorializing, myself). ➡
    • 99 percent failsafe That abstinence bit worked REAL well for Mary and Joseph, didn't it? It's 100 percent fail-safe, after all. ➡
    • Apple out of debt Impressive, really — even with the economy in the shape it's been lately, Apple has been doing so well that they were just able to pull themselves out of debt. ➡
    • Clumsy Brits According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, in 2002… ➡
    • XFN Friendly For those who care (yes, this means you, Phil), my 'Elsewhere' page is now XFN-friendly. ➡
    • Why the genealogy bug? Because it makes history real. ➡
    • More on the genealogy project I spent some time last night following up on playing around with software for tracking my family's history on our website. So far, things are actually looking fairly good — and the first version of the family tree is up on the web. ➡
  • 2002

On This Day: Feb 18

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 24 posts previously published on February 18th

  • 2024
  • 2021
    • This is the entirety of an email I got this morning. I’m used to the occasional weird spam getting through, but this was a standout. A no0b spammer just getting their software set up? I got caught in an initial test run, perhaps? ➡
  • 2020
  • 2018
    • Found these at Ross today, and they were so wonderful/horrible I had to have them. “I put the ‘naughty’ in ‘Illuminati’!” 😆 ➡
  • 2017
    • Book fourteen (and fourth #PKDickAward nominee) of 2017: Hwarhath Stories, by Eleanor Arnason ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • With a slightly better background, this would be a good indie album cover. (49/366) ➡
  • 2014
  • 2009
    • Links for February 18th from 07:00 to 13:31 Sometime between 07:00 and 13:31, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • Non-Hierarchical Management • Irony for Me: The Trilogy Tomatometer • No Photo Ban in Subways, Yet an Arrest • Facebook Backs Down on Privacy Terms • YouTube - the Simpsons - NEW Main Title ➡
  • 2006
  • 2005
    • Run away! Run away! Prairie and I are running away for the weekend, down to a beach house that her dad has access in Greyland, somewhere south of Aberdeen on the Washington coast. Rest, relax, and so forth. Be back sometime Sunday-ish! ➡
    • More on Harvard and Women I haven't had as much time to really dive into this as I'd like, but that happens sometimes. A transcript of Harvard President Lawrence Summers' controversial remarks has been released — and it does appear that the man was being a bit of a goob. ➡
  • 2004
    • Brain Drain As other nations become more attractive to mobile immigrant talent, America is becoming less so. A recent study by the National Science Board found that the U.S. government issued 74,000 visas for immigrants to work in science and technology in 2002, down from 166,000 in 2001--an astonishing drop of 55 percent. ➡
    • Why gay marriage should not be legalized Obviously, gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children. ➡
    • Duck! The food’s shooting back! Capt. Craig Kohlbeck of the Brown County Sheriff's Department said the husband had put the ammunition and three handguns in the oven before the couple left on a vacation. ➡
    • iPhotoToGallery iPhotoToGallery is a beautifully handy plugin for iPhoto that adds the ability to export directly to Gallery installations. Very nice. ➡
    • Heaven and Hell …the damned Windows users are forever bombarded with boiling projectile vomit from the thousand-foot high screaming thing that used to be Bill Gates. ➡
  • 2003
    • Movie Quiz A movie quiz from Dave Hyatt. I didn't want to open up his comments to make my stab at the answers, since I'd probably see other people's answers, so I'm doing it via Trackback. I'll start with the quiz, and put my answers in the rest of this post. You can use the comments if you want to play along, too! ➡
  • 2002
    • Unamerican Blasphemy means ignoring your dreams. ➡
    • Britney Spears [Britney Spears] is progressively wearing less and less at an alarming rate. It won't be long until she's dancing around bare ass nude at Arena football halftime shows while dousing her naked gyrating body in Pepsi. ➡
    • Air Force gets ray guns The AC-130 gets a laser gun. Cool! ➡
    • You suck. I put your post into Babelfish's Elitist-to-English translator, and all I came back with was: 'You suck.' ➡
  • 1999
    • [From Usenet: 2.18.99 0000] Has anyone ever thought much of the possiblity that the planet that transformed the Voyager probe into V'ger was the Borg home planet, before they got to the point of striking out on their own and assimilating everything that sneezed twice in their general direction? ➡

On This Day: Feb 17

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 26 posts previously published on February 17th

  • 2024
  • 2020
  • 2018
    • In the midst of a power outage, so I grabbed sandwiches on the way home, Prairie got her USB drive with Jurassic Park (she uses it for her classes), and it’s dinner and a movie by candlelight for us! ➡
  • 2016
    • All the snow melted away during our long weekend in Olympia! Obviously, we should have taken that trip weeks ago. (48/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • I’m not thrilled that the three-day weekend is over, but at least the long weekend means this will be a short work week. ➡
  • 2013
    • Me at Norwescon 36 In just a few weeks, I will once again be indulging in four days of glorious geekery at Norwescon 36. I'm wearing more hats than ever before this year, so here's a rough rundown of what I'll be doing and where you'll be able to find me... ➡
  • 2010
  • 2009
    • Links for February 17th from 14:54 to 17:12 Sometime between 14:54 and 17:12, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • Magenta Ain't a Colour • A Young Mad Scientist's First Alphabet Blocks • CBS & Paramount Announce First Star Trek Blu-Ray Sets • Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Specify Your Canonical • Joss Whedon Goes Where No TV Man Has Gone Before ➡
  • 2007
    • As You Wish I'd be hard pressed to come up with a Top Five (or even Top Ten or Twenty) list of favorite movies, but if I did, The Princess Bride would definitely be on there. ➡
  • 2006
    • The Last Trip I Took Paper number three for ENG101. A 'personal narrative' essay about the last time I did any sort of illegal narcotics. ➡
  • 2005
    • Another Music Meme: Cover Me Another music meme, this one being started by Terrance: Cover Me. ➡
    • Not Gallimaufry Since I've kind of slacked off on my 'Gallimaufry' meme posts over the past few weeks, here's a music meme from Don to play with. ➡
  • 2004
    • Barry Manilow listens to Underworld?!? I was poking around on the iTunes Music Store, and started looking at some of the Celebrity Playlists — essentially 'mix tapes' (only there's no tape involved) assembled by famous people. I saw Barry Manilow listed, and had to know. ➡
    • Free music is good I got my first free song from the iTMS today, thanks to the current promotion with Pepsi! ➡
    • Soundtrack to a wedding During the wedding reception, Kevin and Emily passed out CDs they had made with a selection of songs special to the two of them. Here are the songs that they chose to represent them at this point in their life. ➡
    • Genealogy software wishlist Okay, so here's what I wish I had available in a genealogy software package. Any mad coders out there feel like putting it together? ;) ➡
    • Back home with lots of pictures I've managed to get my photos of the trip uploaded. Feel free to take a look, just realize that many of the shots are out of sequence. ➡
  • 2003
    • Flirt vodka Something tells me that this isn't an ad we'd see here in America. Not sure why? It's kind of subtle. Look at his legs. Sure makes me wish I knew Russian, just so I knew what the ad copy was. ➡
    • Apple bloggers? There's been much discussion recently regarding Microsoft bloggers. Got me thinking — what about 'Apple bloggers'? The only one I know of off the top of my head is Dave Hyatt, who works on the rendering engine for Safari. Any others out there I should know about? ➡
    • Scoblemania Yikes. After going through my 'Technology' grouping in NetNewsWire, which includes RSS feeds for 34 different weblogs and news sites, every link that I called up as 'probably worth babbling about' was from Robert Scoble. ➡
    • Riot in Anchorage A Fur Rondy teen dance erupted late Saturday into what officials are calling a riot of 300 youths spitting, kicking and throwing rocks and bottles at police in downtown Anchorage. Nearly every on-duty Anchorage police officer, about 70 in all, converged around the Egan Center. What happened remained muddled Sunday. Police and the Egan Center manager gave different versions of how the situation got out of control. ➡
    • No jive talkin' Unfortunately, at this point, the plugin mangles URL's (see the comments to the previous post) so I can't use it to post and link anywhere. With any luck that will be corrected at some later point, though… ➡
    • Jive talkin' This is a test, and this is only a test. Hopefully it will at least be an amusing test — I'm playing with the MovableJive text formatting plugin for MovableType 2.6. I probably won't use this very often, but it could be fun from time to time. Included filters are Jive, Texas Drawl, Cockney, Swedish Chef, Valley Girl, German Accent, and Hunting Wabbits. ➡
  • 2001
    • Completing the set So, I've now got a collection of all 19 official Bond movies to feed my testosterone fix when I need it...woohoo! ➡
    • Great Napster discussions I understood Metallica's plight at first. There music was being hijacked, goddamn it! But their waning CD sales weren't from Napster, but from the fact that they were like a tough version of Poison; they should have become extinct when the meteor of alternative hit. ➡
    • Karaokemon! Hell is going to be me strapped into a chair at a lounge where there are a bunch of different Pokemon all singing Karaoke. ➡

On This Day: Feb 16

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 21 posts previously published on February 16th

  • 2024
  • 2020
  • 2016
    • Another “Right, I haven’t done that yet today” picture. (47/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Grumpy face because my RLS is acting up tonight. Grrrr! ➡
  • 2013
    • Do You Know Anything About Techno? A mid-90s-techno-and-rave mix inspired by a YouTube clip of a bad (well, presumably, I haven't actually watched it...yet...) mid-90s movie called Vibrations. ➡
  • 2009
    • Links for February 12th through February 16th Sometime between February 12th and February 16th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! • Mindfuck Movies • Firefighters Get Eyeful When Called to Hotel • Legal Guide for Bloggers • 13 Facts About Friday the 13th • Star Trek Inspired Corset ➡
    • Non-Alcoholic Hangover Ugh. Unpleasant. I'm just hoping that it wears through by this afternoon so I can flake out for a nap at some point. Failing that...well, I can be _damn_ sure that I'm going to pass right out tonight. ➡
  • 2008
    • Twice an Uncle Paul Fain Hanscom was born at 5:58PM AST (6:58PM in Oregon). Emily and Paul are doing fine. They had not recorded height and weight when Kevin called. ➡
    • Another Valentine’s Day Present Valentine's Day morning, as I was puttering about the house and getting ready for the day while Prairie slept in, there was a knock at the door. When I answered, I was handed a package from Amazon by one of our landlords. This was a little confusing, as I didn't remember ordering anything, but it was definitely addressed to me ➡
  • 2007
    • Just move it to the streets Nice rant on Metroblogging Seattle yesterday regarding the ongoing, neverending mess of a fight between Greg 'Big Dig Seattle' Nickels, Christine 'Viaduct? Vhy _not_ a duck?' Gregoire, and the people of Seattle who just want this all over with... ➡
  • 2006
    • First Confirmed OS X Malware Key points: this is _not_ a virus, rather, it's a trojan horse; it's buggy (doesn't perform all the intended actions); and for most people, activating the payload involves entering their password, which should tip most people off that something's not right. ➡
  • 2005
    • Comment Spam Update This is so nice to see. Since Feb. 8th (the last time I reset the logfile), the only entries in MT-Blacklist's log for Eclecticism are automatic updates of the master blacklist. ➡
    • Newsflash: Psychics as accurate as ever I'm running behind in my online reading, between concentrating on my server and then feeling ill last weekend — I'm currently reading items from Feb. 13th in NetNewsWire, and I've got 2000 unread items to go — but sometimes there are advantages to being a bit behind the times. ➡
    • Too many movies! Apparently the most movies you can have in your Netflix queue is 500. I had no idea. Of course, I'm not sure I expected to end up with a queue this big when I started this whole Netflix thing, either. ➡
    • Hitchiker’s Trailer Amazon has the full trailer for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on their home page right now. It's Flash-based and kind of small, but at least it's there. So far, things look promising. ➡
    • Cuff ’em on! Eat ’em off! Oh, so you think the fuzzy handcuffs your sweetie gave you for Valentine's Day are cool, huh? Kind of funny, maybe something to add a little 'spice' to your sex life if you get the nerve? That's nothin'. Check out what I got from Prairie for Valentine's Day this year… ➡
  • 2004
    • Congratulations! One last post before I stop monopolizing Em's family's computer…a wedding picture of Kevin and Emily! ➡
    • Wanted: advice concerning Wikis I've got a project running around in my head that I believe a Wiki would be a good solution for, but I've not done much to play with/experiment with Wikis in the past. I'd like to start playing around with this project soon after I get home, so if there's anyone out there who might be able to give some advice or recommendations, I'd appreciate some 'expert assistance'… ➡
    • Preparing to head home Well, the deed is done — there are now three sets of 'Mr. and Mrs. Hanscom' in our branch of the Hanscom family. ➡
  • 2001
    • Just a quick test of Lynx Kind of amusing how a Mac-junkie like me still loves being able to do things through a command line and a text-based terminal from time to time…guess I'm showing my age as a 'net old-timer or something. ➡

On This Day: Feb 15

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 25 posts previously published on February 15th

  • 2024
  • 2023
    • 📚 The Extractionist by Kimberly Unger No review, as this book is a Philip K. Dick Award nominee, and I am the coordinator for the award ceremony at Norwescon. While I have no input into the selection of nominees or judging, I want to be sure to avoid any appearance of influence. ➡
    • Bandwagon Time: Jock-Nerd/Prep-Goth Test Someone who combines the geeky knowledge of nerds with the non-conformity of Goths to engage in gaming, fantasy-worlds and the like. ➡
  • 2021
    • Difficult Listening Hour 2021.02.13: Snow Day! The Seattle area was getting inundated with snow, so every song in this mix was pulled from a playlist of tracks with wintery themes. ➡
    • 📚 9/2021: Rule of Capture by Christopher Brown ⭐️⭐️⭐️ It is not easy to read near-future dystopian SF set in an America waiting for the outcome of a contested election after the fascist incumbent loses but the Texas Gov. invalidates the electoral votes and it goes to SCOTUS. ➡
  • 2020
  • 2018
    • Opening night! #blackpanther ➡
  • 2016
    • Out for a stroll at Priest Point Park with Finn, Hope, and Nalah. (46/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • And here’s the last of the kids here today, nephew Leo! ➡
    • My newest niece, Sadie Opal! ➡
    • And here’s Nalah’s little sister, almost-three-year-old Finn! ➡
    • Me and my just-turned-five niece Nalah! ➡
  • 2009
    • Meeting N Last weekend, Prairie became the proud aunt of little Nalah Sophia Graham. After giving her some time to get used to being with her parents (and vice versa), we went over on Friday night to meet her. She's definitely a cutie! ➡
  • 2007
    • Are ‘diggers’ the internet’s neocons? It's that same all-or-nothing, no-quarter-given, us-or-them, black-and-white viewpoint that our culture is rapidly sinking into. No matter whether the arena is politics or the net, online or off, there seems to be no room left for people who actually want to _talk_ to each other, _even if they don't agree_. ➡
  • 2006
    • iTunes Essentials: Goth The iTunes Music Store's Essentials series has weighed in on the 'essentials' of goth. It's an interesting collection of tracks. Not a bad selection, either -- I'm mostly just impressed that they have this many non-pop artists available now. ➡
    • I got shot by Dick Cheney! Okay, so sure, I've never been much for hunting, and I knew it could be a bad idea. Still -- how many times do you get a chance to go kumquat hunting with the veep? Too bad it turned out like this. ➡
  • 2005
    • Thanks, Six Apart What it boils down to is that over the years, time and time again, I've gotten incredibly friendly and personal service from the crew at Six Apart. I can't think of a better way to build and maintain customer loyalty than that. ➡
    • Final comment tweaks Some few final tweaks to the comments tonight, and I think I'm finally done tinkering. For now, at least. There's always more projects coming down the line somewhere. :) ➡
    • Let’s try this again, shall we? Allrighty then. I've done some restructuring and work on the server, and it's time to bite the bullet and see how things go: comments are turned on again. Or, at least, they're turned on for this entry and any going forward. ➡
    • Another article in CNNMoney My Uncle Doug pointed this one out to me: Blogging is all fun and games, until the boss finds out. The article doesn't cover any new ground, and I just get a single-sentence mention, but it's another one for the list. ➡
  • 2002
    • Cross-platform compatibility…ugh Testing my website in every browser available to me to see how they handle the CSS code I'm using. ➡
    • Just testing something This post is more of an excuse to post this link (assuming it works) so that I can do some work double-checking how my site renders in different browsers at a set window size. Feel free to ignore it. ➡
    • Geek Love I gotta say, this is really cool. ➡
  • 2001
    • But will I remember it? When your mind forgets who you can trust and who is your enemy, how can you ever hope to solve a mystery? ➡
    • Sugar and Spice While most definitely a 'fluff' film, it was a lot of fun, and one of these days I'm going to have to sit down with my friends and see just how many shots were parodies of/tributes to famous crime/drama flicks. ➡

On This Day: Feb 14

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 30 posts previously published on February 14th

  • 2024
  • 2021
    • Would you be my meatheart? Happy Valentine’s Day! ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • 🖖 #StarTrekDiscovery S02E05: Mostly continues the stronger season. I’m really enjoying Pike, the adventures in the Upside Down, and the “sinking ship” effects were really fun. But I’m not sold on the non-secret Section 31, and the continuing Spock teases are ever more annoying. ➡
    • This image, visible for just a second or two in this trailer for LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS, an upcoming animated SF anthology show on Netflix (content warning: strobing/flashing images, glimpses of possibly NSFW content) made me laugh. ➡
    • Happy Valentine’s Day (or not, if you prefer)! A happy Valentine’s Day to all of you who are celebrating with spouses, partners, significant others, metamours, paramours, lovers, friends with benefits, playmates, platonic loves, or any other applicable person, persons, or combinations of the above. And for those of you who for whatever reason don’t celebrate this day, I hope you have a good ... Read more ➡
    • Book sixteen of 2019: Slan, by A.E. van Vogt. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1941 Retro Hugo Best Novel 📚 Definitely dated, esp. regarding views of women, odd extrapolation of tech (a very 40s world, but with ray guns & antigravity ships), but I’ve read far worse from this era. Fans are slans! 😏 ➡
  • 2018
    • Valentine’s Day may not be one of the High Holy Days in our household, but it doesn’t go entirely unrecognized, either. Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast! ➡
  • 2017
    • Prairie got me a cute lil’ puppy for Valentine’s Day! #lego ➡
    • Quick tip for iPhone users: Say “Hey, ‘puter” to Siri! #lego #legobatman #batman ➡
  • 2016
    • Book eight of 2016: Apex, by Ramez Naam. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #PKDickAward nominee. #rameznaam ➡
    • Found a nice path for a morning walk, with real trees! And moss! And a light drizzle! Gee, I think we miss the west side. (45/366) ➡
    • Breakfast of bread and fruit, taken in bed. Good start to this Valentine’s Day! ➡
  • 2014
    • Whether you see this as Valentine’s Day, S.A.D. (Single’s Awareness Day), or just another day on the calendar, I hope you have a good one! ➡
  • 2011
  • 2009
    • Meat My Valentine Happy Valentine's Day, everyone -- or Happy S.A.D. (Singles Awareness Day), depending on your situation. Whichever it is, I hope you have a good one. ➡
  • 2008
    • De M’amour Soiez Sure Our Valentine's Day presents to each other: poesy rings inscribed with 'Of my love be sure' in French. ➡
  • 2007
    • Happy Valentine’s Day Hope everyone's V-Day (or anti-V-Day, depending on how you look at this particular holiday) was a good one! ➡
    • Hatred Fatigue Hatred Fatigue: being so wearily sick of the Bush Administration pushing forth an agenda which is on every point the precise opposite of what you think and believe that you can’t bear to pay attention anymore. ➡
  • 2006
    • Frequently Secretly Willie Nelson has a new song out. Normally, this wouldn't be something that I'd take much notice of -- while I don't have anything against country music (and even have a little in my collection), it's not my main forte. This one, however...isn't your typical country song. ➡
  • 2005
    • Back when I was cute… A post by Terrance prompted me to pull out an old picture of me from when I was about two years old. :) ➡
    • Reason interview with Neal Stephenson There's a great interview with Neal Stephenson at Reason right now. Every time I read something by Neal, whether a book or an interview, it amazes me how unassumingly intelligent this man is. ➡
    • On Valentine’s Day Valentine's Day is like the opposite of Christmas. On Christmas we go to bed looking forward to exchanging gifts with the people we love. On Valentine's Day we exchange gifts hoping to go to bed with the people we love. ➡
    • Happy Valentine’s Day Happy Valentine's Day everyone! The weekend actually didn't end up being too bad, given that I was feeling fairly miserable when it got started. Visits, movies, and a bit of website tweaking. ➡
  • 2004
    • Too many people! Besides — my little brother's going to be married in another fourteen hours. I owe him a drink. :) ➡
    • The day before I'm sitting at the house that Kevin and Emily have been staying at, taking advantage of a momentary lull in the activities of the day to check in for a few minutes. ➡
  • 2001
    • A little too obvious? This is so sad. They're just lamely trying to copy Steve Jobs' Apple presentation -- right down to the guy having a black shirt and black pants.... It's almost like Windows ME 2. Or as Apple might call it, Windows Me Too. ➡
    • A tribute album worth listening to Tribute albums have a tendency to be one of the most overdone and under-worthy genres in the music business. Take a bunch of songs by a worthy artist, farm them out to a bunch of bands that aren't nearly as well known, and issue a 'tribute' album that usually tends to be an excercise in mediocrity. ➡

Difficult Listening Hour 2020.02.13

by

Week four of my unplanned, unrehearsed, seat-of-the-pants goofing around. All mashups this week! As a way of getting back into practice and doing something regularly, I’ve started doing regular Twitch broadcasts on Thursday nights. These are the results. Anything goes.

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