Geekery

Whatever I’m geeking out about at the time.

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📚 forty-three (yes, again; this book was a two-in-one) of 2020: Collision Course by Robert Silverberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shaky first half, but the latter half actually reminded me of TOS Star Trek’s “Errand of Mercy” (two warring races forced into detente by a third more powerful race).

On This Day: Oct 27

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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 19 posts previously published on October 27th

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2020
    • 📚 forty-three (yes, again; this book was a two-in-one) of 2020: Collision Course by Robert Silverberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Shaky first half, but the latter half actually reminded me of TOS Star Trek’s “Errand of Mercy” (two warring races forced into detente by a third more powerful race). ➡
    • On This Day: Oct 27 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from October 27 ➡
  • 2016
    • In the lobby of CWU’s music building before tonight’s Halloween concert (which was very good and a lot of fun). (301/366) ➡
    • Hey, CMK: You’re not cool or a rebel, just a childish jerk. #cwu #ellensburg ➡
  • 2011
    • Occupy the Vote. Make a Difference. #occupythevote Yes, protests are important. Yes, we need to make our voices heard. But we also need to remember that shouting in the streets _isn't_ the only way to make our voices heard. Fill out your ballot. Put it in the mail. Put it in a drop box. If you don't live somewhere where you can vote by mail, then take the hour out of your day to go to the polls. #occupythevote ➡
  • 2008
  • 2005
    • America’s Next Muppet I'm not sure what I got more excited about -- the fact that there's a Muppet-centric weblog that I just discovered, or that the Muppets may be coming back to TV! ➡
    • Frappr I've created a Frappr group for Eclecticism readers...feel free to drop by and add yourself to the map. I'd love to get an idea of just how widespread my readers are! ➡
  • 2004
    • Happy Anniversary One year ago today, I lost my job because of a photo I took, and began my fifteen minutes of fame. My, how time flies. ➡
    • Lunar eclipse, Seattle, WA After finding out about tonight's eclipse earlier today, I started wondering if I could get any halfway decent shots of it. Since the camera I'm using allows longer exposures (up to eight seconds), I figured it'd be worth a shot. ➡
    • Lunar Eclipse tonight John reminded me that there's a lunar eclipse tonight. If the skies stay as clear as they are right now, I may climb up to the roof of my apartment building and see if I can get any decent pictures. In the meantime, I present this handy-dandy guide to eclipse terminology. ➡
  • 2003
    • Of blogging and unemployment And that simply, as of about 2pm today, I once again joined the ranks of the unemployed. ➡
    • Nothing to see here…move along… The White House is excluding Google and other search engines from indexing any whitehouse.gov page with 'iraq' in the address. Can't go making real information easy to find, now can we? ➡
    • Gene Robinson under FBI guard The lengths that people will go to in their homophobia in the name of religion is really scary. Bishop-elect Gene Robinson is currently under 24-hour FBI protection due to death threats. ➡
  • 2002
    • Small updates Finally grabbed some time to do some small updates to the site I'd been meaning to do for a while now. ➡

On This Day: Oct 26

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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 20 posts previously published on October 26th

  • 2025
  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • The ‘Dune’ Screenplay Was Written in MS-DOS: The Oscar winning screenwriter of ‘Dune’ writes in an MS-DOS program that can only hold 40 pages in memory. ➡
  • 2020
    • Even though they’re parked on the moon, Kent-built Apollo Lunar Rovers are now Historic State Landmarks These high-tech electric buggies were used in Apollo Missions 15, 16 and 17 in 1971 and 1972, and helped astronauts explore more of the Moon’s surface. ➡
    • On This Day: Oct 26 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from October 26 ➡
  • 2016
    • Love the streets here in the fall. Also glad I don’t have to clean up those leaves. (300/366) ➡
    • Forgot yesterday’s photo, so here’s my Snapchat filter as penance! ;) (299/366) ➡
  • 2006
    • Time to Move For the past couple years, this weblog has been hosted through the kindness and generosity of Michael at Rain City Story. However, he's decided it's time for him to move on to other projects in his life, so it's time for me to start investigating other hosting options. ➡
  • 2004
    • Eminem: Mosh I've never been a fan of Eminem. I tend to find his music boring, and his lyrics violent, misogynistic, homophobic, and offensive. That said…hot damn this video is a powerful piece of work. ➡
    • iPod Photo It's time to upgrade my iPod. Too bad I'm broke. (sigh) ➡
    • You’ve gotta be kidding me Who comes up with these headlines? Damn near made me spew my drink all over the computer screen. ➡
  • 2003
    • Ash to ash, dust to dust The stories posted of people coming out to find ash covering everything do sound very familiar, though — only for me, it was due to volcanoes. ➡
    • Bush's plans to expand the Patriot Act President Bush doesn't think the current Patriot Act is good enough. In an attempt to 'close loopholes' in the original legislation, he's proposed three very frightning changes. ➡
    • Panther goodies Lots of interesting tips and tricks for Panther are showing up on the web now that it's been out a few days. Some of the niftier ones I've run across so far: ➡
    • Bush in Oz While it's certainly no surprise, apparently Bush's visit was heavily stage managed to make sure he got the most possible accolades, and the fewest possible questions… ➡
    • Kill Bill, Vol. 1 I'm going to keep my comments here fairly brief, as this is only the first part of a two-part story. So, briefly, first impressions of the first half of Kill Bill… ➡
    • Ooooh…spooky! Seeing as how we've found our way into Halloween week, I thought I'd find some appropriate colors for the week. Enjoy! ➡
  • 2001

On This Day: Oct 25

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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 18 posts previously published on October 25th

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • This is really clever, and I’m totally on board: What if every film Keanu Reeves has starred in is actually just Neo in another iteration of the Matrix? ➡
    • The Muslimness of Dune: A Close Reading of “Appendix II: The Religion of Dune”: “Dune does not cheaply plagiarize from Muslim histories, ideas, and practices, but actively engages with them.” ➡
    • Dune’s Not a White Savior Narrative. But It’s Complicated. | by Haris Durrani: “Do you think Dune is a white savior narrative? Well, you’re wrong. To accept that interpretation is to re-inscribe an account of the novel promulgated by adolescent white boys since the first of Frank Herbert’s Dune books came out in the 1960s.” ➡
  • 2020
  • 2008
  • 2005
    • Autumn in the Arboretum There are some gorgeous colors in the fall in the Seattle Arboretum...as well as some rather odd wildlife. ➡
  • 2004
    • The Topfree 10 In the lawsuit, the Topfree 10 points out that the only legal means to expose female breasts is for the gratification of others, not for a woman's comfort. ➡
    • Book Meme Reading preferences, meme-style. ➡
    • I just don’t get it. How anyone can claim to care about the state of affairs in the country, but not care enough to vote, is beyond me. ➡
    • Why are we in Iraq again? 21 reasons for war with Iraq, by 10 key players, circa September 2001 through October 2002 via a study by University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign student Devon Largio (now graduated). ➡
  • 2003
    • Fall back… Don't forget to set your clocks back tonight! ;) ➡
    • Bubba Ho-Tep On a whim for something silly and fun, Prairie and I went out and saw Bubba Ho-Tep today. It was exactly what we were in the mood for. ➡
  • 2002
  • 2001
    • Job frustrations 6/17/05: My lord...Microsoft canned me for a photo, but this post slipped right by Xerox? I got _really_ lucky. In retrospect, a really stupid thing to post publicly. ➡
    • O Brother, Where Art Thou? Incidentally, now I'm going to have to find Down from the Mountain', which apparently is available both on CD and DVD. Hmmm...Christmas is coming up pretty soon... ➡
    • Enterprise: Terra Nova If I can't make first contact with a group of humans...I don't deserve to be on this ship. ➡

On This Day: Oct 24

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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 19 posts previously published on October 24th

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • 📚 39/2021: R is for Rocket by Ray Bradbury ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2020
  • 2016
    • Having another moment of amusement at the slowly increasing grey in my beard. (297/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • Giant dragon! #chineselanternfestival ➡
    • Spokane Falls. Now to climb back up the path I took to get down here… ➡
    • At the bottom of Spokane Falls (well, as far as is publicly accessible, at least). ➡
    • Run, runner! #logansrun #carousel #renew ➡
    • Spokane Falls. ➡
    • Seen on the ceiling of the men’s restroom at the Satellite Diner. Made me laugh. ➡
    • The Radio Flyer Wagon/slide, also from last night. #latergram ➡
    • Sunset along the river as we walked to dinner last night. #latergram ➡
  • 2014
    • The temporary setup as data transfers to the new machine. Two 27″ iMacs and one 20″ second screen take a lot of desk space! ➡
    • This seemed like the right shirt to wear while setting up my new iMac. ;) #applehipster ➡
  • 2003
    • Metadata is a good thing While I've played with it a bit, I don't see myself becoming a big user of the iTunes Music Store for one very simple reason — their metadata doesn't meet my standards. ➡
  • 2002
    • Breaking news: something happened Now, this breaking news. Something has reportedly happened. Details are sketchy, and we really don't have any idea of what it might be, but let's show these impressive aerial shots from our helicopter. Now let's go to our correspondent in the field to tell us that he doesn't know anything. Bob? ➡
    • A reminder You are an arteest, and no longer have time for things like cooking and grocery shopping and laundry. Start demanding favors and treats from friends and loved ones now. That way they'll be fully acclimated to the new you once November rolls around. ➡
  • 2001
    • Wild phlebotomists loose in the building! Downsides to having a tattoo barely a year old -- from what I understand, I can't give blood for another year. I'm sure they'll be fine, though, they had willing volunteers in the chairs already. ➡
    • For a wonderfully surreal time ...pop in the new Monty Python and the Holy Grail DVD, set the audio track to French (or maybe just mute it if you actually speak French), and turn on the 'subtitles for people who hate the film.' ➡

On This Day: Oct 23

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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 October 23rd

  • 2023
  • 2020
    • According to Photoshop’s new neural filters, this is what an elderly me will look like. Other experiments were not nearly as flattering, and occasionally somewhat frightening. AI-based image editing at our fingertips has both fascinating and disturbing results. ➡
    • On This Day: Oct 23 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from October 23 ➡
  • 2018
    • Book forty-two of 2018: Krull, by Alan Dean Foster. 🌟🌟🌟 ➡
  • 2016
    • Five hours of driving later, we’re home! It was a good weekend, but it’s good to be back home again. (296/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • On the carousel in Spokane! ➡
    • Prairie’s footwear choice for today is wonderful. :D ➡
  • 2014
    • An index card pinhole view of the solar #eclipse going on right now! ➡
  • 2009
  • 2008
    • McCain Concedes When I saw this bit of news earlier today, I had the same thought that Daily Kos does here: he's throwing in the towel. Since my vote went to Obama, I can't say that I'm disappointed...but how must his campaign staffers, who still have twelve days to go before the election, feel about this? ➡
    • Links for October 22nd through October 23rd Sometime between October 22nd and October 23rd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! ➡
    • Pushing Daisies: Candy-Coated Family Friendly? Pushing Daisies is one of our favorite shows on TV right now -- wonderfully quirky, and often feels to me like what might have happened if _Edward Scissorhands_-era Tim Burton had gone into television. The Disney Weblog has been doing weekly wrapups, and something about this week's review got under my skin a little bit. ➡
  • 2004
  • 2003
  • 2002
    • VOTE VOTE ➡
    • Two Towers protest This just might be the single stupidest thing I've seen in a very long time. A group of people have put up a website protesting the title of the next Lord of the Rings movie, 'The Two Towers', because, 'The name of this movie will undoubtedly cause a return of the emotions felt on Sept 11th which left so many people in the nation feeling stunned and in a state of shock.' ➡
    • Why movies are bad Most movies seem to follow the following formula to success… ➡
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🖖 Discovery S03E02: Overall not quite as strong as the last episode, but certainly works well to bring the full cast together again. Getting a space western saloon was very Trek, but the bad guy took things a bit too dark for a few minutes. Still, much more good than bad.

On This Day: Oct 22

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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 27 posts previously published on October 22nd

  • 2025
  • 2023
  • 2020
    • 🖖 Discovery S03E02: Overall not quite as strong as the last episode, but certainly works well to bring the full cast together again. Getting a space western saloon was very Trek, but the bad guy took things a bit too dark for a few minutes. Still, much more good than bad. ➡
    • The best line from The ‘Great British Baking Show’ Is Broken. Here’s a Five-Point Plan to Fix It.: Noel Fielding comes across as the strangely heartwarming result of a thought experiment that asked “What if A.A. Milne wrote The Vampire Lestat?” ➡
    • On This Day: Oct 22 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from October 22 ➡
  • 2017
    • Book forty-three of 2017: 2023, by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (furthermore known as The JAMs, a.k.a. The KLF, a.k.a. Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond). ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • Me and my nephews: Noah (12), Wren (5), and Paul (8), who resist posing for group photos. :) ➡
    • Woody (me) and Stiffy (Mark Stiffler) — high school friends catching up for the first time in over two decades. Nice way to spend an afternoon! ➡
    • At the first of two soccer games with my brother and nephews. ⚽️ (295/366) ➡
  • 2008
    • Human Cannonball Another multi-image collage to tide things over while I try to get caught up with photos. I've never seen a human cannonball before, and actually didn't even know this was still done. Pretty cool to see! ➡
    • Links for October 21st through October 22nd Sometime between October 21st and October 22nd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! ➡
  • 2005
    • My blog is worth… But the real question is...would I actually sell it if offered the money? Heh. On the one hand, that's a lot of money -- on the other hand, that's _my name_. Of course, it's not going to happen, so I don't think I really need to worry about it. ➡
    • Why Target’s target is red Target's policy is that the customer can go to hell if their pharmacist thinks you're a sinner. Target will let their pharmacist turn you away so that YOU have to go find another pharmacy, rather than their pharmacist getting another frigging job. ➡
  • 2004
    • The Gamesters of Triskelion Sure, today they're flying a flight simulator. Tomorrow, they'll be betting Quatloos on how well we fight. Don't say I didn't warn you... ➡
    • Because it matters. The story has changed. It is not about the candidates anymore.... The story now IS the election. The election process.... The real story is the engagement of the people. ➡
    • You’re never too old to die for your country Though, I certainly hope this gentleman doesn't end up dying for his country — he's a 70-year old retired doctor who's been called into service. ➡
    • Comments working again It appears that last night when I was adding the latest batch of spam URLs to MT-Blacklist's blacklist, I inadvertently added one entry that was just the string 'tp:'. This has been corrected, and comments now appear to be functioning correctly again. ➡
    • Tight Jeans Flight and motorcade uneventful. Bush was accompanied on AF1 by his daughter Barbara, in tight jeans, and by Dan Bartlett and Karl Rove, who were not wearing tight jeans. ➡
  • 2003
    • Free association I hopped onto iChat tonight, and found a message from Phil waiting for me that he'd sent while I was off at work. I responded, and then we stumbled into a couple hours of free association. ➡
    • The Stovepipe Lies, falsehoods, ignored warnings, emphasized inconsequentials, fabricated documents, and a fair amount of blind incompetence all contributed to moving us into the mess we're in now. ➡
    • Electronic civil disobedience A group of students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania has launched an 'electronic civil disobedience' campaign against voting machine maker Diebold Election Systems. ➡
    • Deer gee-füür ist der BØRK BØRK BØRK! All I can picture in my head now is the Swedish Chef onstage, introducing the new machines. ➡
    • G4 iBooks!?! Wow. Apparently without any kind of fanfare whatsoever, Apple just updated their iBook line across the board — to use the G4 chip! ➡
  • 2002
    • Two theories Just tossing these in really quickly — I may come back and revisit them later on tonight. ➡
    • Everything, everything… Imagining yourself at the centre of a circle, how far do you have to expand the radius of that circle until you've encompassed all of human experience? ➡
    • Valid RSS Admittedly, I can't honestly say I really know or understand the difference between RSS 1.0 and 2.0. But hey. They're both there. ➡
  • 2001
    • Another week begins Been a busy morning so far, but I figured I'd grab a couple minutes to babble away for a bit. I ended up having a pretty nice weekend -- a good balance of getting out and doing stuff, and kicking back and killing time at home. ➡

On This Day: Oct 21

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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 16 posts previously published on October 21st

  • 2023
  • 2020
  • 2016
    • Tagging along as the group explores the OSU campus. They seem determined to visit every floor of the library! :) ➡
    • Ahh…hotel bed! In Corvallis for the weekend for a short little jaunt away from home. (294/366) ➡
  • 2009
  • 2008
  • 2005
    • Lost s02e05: …and Found Scribbled notes while watching Wednesday night's episode of Lost. Spoilers, obviously, so only read further if you want to... ➡
    • Voltaire at the Vogue In addition to the [photos I took][3] over the course of the night, I also took a few minutes of video a few times during the night, and have put together a nine-minute sampler of bits and pieces of the show. Be warned -- not everything in the video is exactly "family friendly", though it is quite funny. ➡
  • 2004
    • Rocky Horror-A-Thon This is a bit too far away for me to show up, but if anyone who stops by here is in the Boston area, you can help set a world record and raise money for the AIDS Action Committee tomorrow night! ➡
    • Mad World Calling Donnie Darko — we found the plane to go with your engine. ➡
    • Repercussions You may remember that a couple weeks ago, Bush's hometown paper The Iconoclast endorsed John Kerry for President. Reaction to their endorsement has been strong — to the point where they wrote a second editorial, detaling some of that reaction. It's not a pretty picture. ➡
    • Well, bummer Last night was the monthly Seattle Webloggers Meetup, which I'd been planning on going to. Unfortunately, I got roped into covering at one of my work's stores while the staff went to an employee meeting. ➡
  • 2003
    • There goes that fantasy ...erections in space are difficult to achieve because in zero gravity, blood tends to collect in the head and feet. ➡
    • Ack! After a full week's work, I did manage to get my webserver up and running again, complete with upgrades, so djwudi.com, hanscomfamily.com, and geekmuffin.com are all active again, and starting to regain content. ➡
  • 2002
    • Yawn (sigh) Mornings just aren't my best time. Bleary-eyed, brain dead, wishing I was still stretched out in bed. Bleah. ➡
    • A common misconception Entertaining little Doonesbury strip today where they introduce a new character — a blogger. ➡