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Site updates and anything else related to the technology of blogging and my site(s).

On This Day: Dec 20

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Since I 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 29 posts previously published on December 20th

  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • When Tony Kushner, Steven Spielberg, and actor iris menas reexamined the 64-year-old musical, they found a trans character in plain sight. ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Clubbing: ‘I can’t bear the idea that there is an age at which you should stop’: I’m 46, and while I don’t get out as often as in my 20s (can’t do 3-4 nights out a week anymore), I have no intention of stopping. It’s too much a part of who I am and what ... Read more ➡
    • This edit got removed (and re-added and re-removed until the page was locked down), but for a while, this existed. Here’s a link to the archived version of this revision. ➡
    • Apple’s Best Show Is an Alt-History Cold War Epic About Moon Missions With Women: I’m really looking forward to finding the time to dive into For All Mankind. ➡
    • SmugMug has been working hard to revitalize Flickr, and is now offering a 25% discount for new signups! I’ve been active there since Sept. 2004, and while my use has ebbed and flowed as it’s had its ups and downs, after uploading over 18,000 photos, I’d hate to see it disappear. ➡
    • Obviously, I’m not a best-selling SF author, but if you adjust for that, John Scalzi’s approach to recognizing his own likelihood of making problematic mistakes in his past, present, and future and accounting for such very much matches my own. ➡
  • 2016
    • Star Wars time! (355/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Bizarre but kind of entertaining: two flatbed trucks decked out with Christmas lights, with a bunch of people riding on them, and with speakers blaring Christmas songs driving around the neighborhood. Just ’cause. Merry Christmas! ➡
  • 2013
    • Sidewalk graffiti in Ellensburg. ➡
  • 2009
  • 2006
    • Weekly World News Best discovery of the past couple weeks: the Weekly World News (sorry, Seattle Weekly and Stranger, but _this_ is my favorite weekly newspaper) has an RSS feed. ➡
    • Bachelor Days Prairie's off on a train down to visit her family down in Vancouver (south), so I'm on my own for a couple of days. ➡
  • 2005
    • The Twelve Days of Christmas Today, mom sent me a neat bit on the origin of the Twelve Days of Christmas. I'd not heard this before, so never knew that the song wasn't secular -- in fact, it's actually a 'coded' catechism song. Neat to find out about that... ➡
    • I’m blind! Well, crud -- it appears that the video card on my computer just died. ➡
    • Professionalism If you worry about equipment, you're an amateur; if you worry about money, you're a professional; if you worry about the light, you're a master. ➡
    • Lens Lust Last night during a slow point at work I found a Nikon 50mm f/1.4 to pop onto the store's D70s. Oh, wow..._such_ a nice lens. I spent a good half hour shooting randomly around the store and experimenting. _Man_ that lens has a nice shallow depth of field. I want! ➡
  • 2004
    • Anyone in Denver? I don't have any definite details yet, but it appears that sometime in mid-February, I'll be flying down to Denver (on the company dime, no less) for a couple days of meet-and-greet and 'team building' events with the other FM staffers in my group. ➡
    • Private Party I just got back from The Vogue's holiday potluck party — apparently an annual event, though this was the first year I've been invited. I've got to admit, it's kind of cool to walk up to a club with a sign that says 'Private Party — Vogue Employees and Guests Only' and be able to walk right in. ➡
    • Quick Review: ‘Salem’s Lot This past weekend, Prairie and I rented a recent TV miniseries version of 'Salem's Lot. In the end, it was one of the more disappointing adaptations I've seen, simply because it seemed to start so well — to have it take such a drastic turn for the worse was more frustrating than if had simply been bad through and through from the start. ➡
    • Odd Movie Combinations I saw a couple movies in my Netflix New Releases feed that made me laugh today…some days it really seems like we've run out of original ideas. ➡
  • 2003
  • 2002
    • Bye-bye Sen. Lott! Bowing to harsh criticism from fellow senators and the Bush White House, Trent Lott resigned as Senate Republican leader Friday after colleagues worried about the repercussions of his racially insensitive remarks openly lined up behind Sen. Bill Frist. ➡
    • michaelhanscom.com I'm now the proud owner of www.michaelhanscom.com. ➡
  • 2001
    • That’s more like it Two more projects coming up -- the first is going to be changing the .cgi I use to post news to Moveable Type. Secondly, finally going through the rest of the site and actually getting all the pages using a consistent look. ➡
    • Site fixed, new addy, and LOTR Just got back not too long ago from Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. In a word -- incredible. ➡
  • 2000
    • Mononoke, eye candy, and John Doe Well, seeing as how my life has one very happy coincidence that payday and video release day both happen on the same day every week...Tuesdays are my usual day to go out and get movies. Picked up quite the trio today, too. ➡

On This Day: Dec 19

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Since I 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 December 19th

  • 2023
  • 2020
  • 2019
  • 2018
    • Book fifty-seven of 2018: Night of Masks, by Andre Norton. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2017
  • 2016
    • Bonus picture: I am also now a card-carrying member of the #EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation)! ➡
    • I was greeted at the door with an after work cocktail (pumpkin spice rum eggnog) and bread about to come out of the oven. Prairie enjoys playing 1950s housewife when she’s off work (as long as she gets to choose which parts of the 1950s to emulate). (354/366) ➡
  • 2008
    • My Movie Rating System For no particular reason that I can come up with, I was thinking over how I rate movies, and attempting to quantify the basic reasoning for each star of a five-star rating system. I think I've pretty much nailed it down. ➡
  • 2007
    • An Early Christmas As I briefly hinted at earlier today, Christmas came a little early for us this year. Prairie has all of the details over on Domesticism, but in her own words... ➡
  • 2005
    • I’ve got the blues… I've been wanting to move away from the stock template included with Movable Type 3.2 for some time now, but just haven't been able to find the time and energy to tackle the project. Today I actually managed to find both at once, and here's the result. ➡
    • Meanwhile, back in Anchorage… I'm torn as to which got a bigger grin -- the snowman itself, or the Mystery of the Missing Corncob Pipe. ➡
  • 2004
    • Stupid Practical Jokes This reminded me of a couple stories I was told by a teacher I knew in high school. The man had a somewhat odd sense of humor and a fondness for pranks, which landed him in trouble from time to time -- and to be honest, I'm somewhat surprised he never got himself fired. ➡
  • 2003
  • 2002
    • Options Scripting languages have more options than bisexuals…. ➡
    • The Two Towers While…LotR:TTT admittedly cannot stand entirely on its own as a single entity (and I would hate to be someone in the unenviable position of attempting to watch LotR:TTT without having first watched LotR:FotR), as the second chapter in an epic saga, it is far and away an absolutely incredible achievement. ➡
    • Own yourself Own your name. Buy the domain name, get yourself linked to, and put up a page. Make it a blank page, if you want. Fill it with disinformation or gibberish. Or, just reveal the parts of your life that you feel represent you most effectively on the web. But if you care about your privacy, and you care about your identity, take the steps to control it now. ➡
  • 2001
    • Argh… Well, I was experimenting a bit with the layout of the site, and managed to more or less hose things fairly well. I'll try to get them straightened out as soon as I can, but not sure when that'll be. ➡
  • 2000
    • [From Usenet: 12.19.00 0228] Just a quick note that I'm working on starting a new website tracking local Anchorage musicians, who's playing where, things like that. ➡

On This Day: Dec 18

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Since I 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 December 18th

  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Impeached Two for two ➡
    • Thanks to micro.blog’s ability to import Instagram archives, all 1,512 posts, from my first on 12/14/13 to my last on 12/31/18, are now on my blog (all tagged as from:instagram, on the chance someone wanted to browse back through them all). Nice to be out of that walled garden! ➡
  • 2016
    • Book fifty-five of 2016: Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
    • A pleasant way to start the day, reading in the library by the Christmas tree. (The book is #HiddenFigures, about the black women scientists behind America’s aeronautic and space flight industries.) Photo by Prairie. (353/366) ➡
  • 2009
  • 2008
  • 2005
    • The VP is out of control! While I _know_ it's just two headlines smooshed together, the sudden image of Dick Cheney going completely feral and lashing out at anyone around him was enough to give me the giggles for a few minutes. ➡
  • 2004
    • Made it! Well, we survived! Man, that's a lot of movie. When all's said and done, it was a lot of fun, and all agreed that it was well worth doing, and definitely something that should be done again. ➡
    • Getting ready… Just some general ramblings while we putter around and get ready for the day… ➡
  • 2003
    • Jose Padilla held unconstitutionally, says US 2nd Court of Appeals We also conclude that Padilla’s detention was not authorized by Congress, and absent such authorization, the President does not have the power under Article II of the Constitution to detain as an enemy combatant an American citizen seized on American soil outside a zone of combat. ➡
    • Annoy the ultra-right-wing! The American Family Association is currently running a poll to determine how people feel about the legalization of marriage between people of the same sex. ➡
    • Walmart has an online music store?!? I had no idea this was even in the works, but it appears that Walmart has an online music store now. ➡
    • M/A/R/R/S: Pump Up the Volume Pump up the volume, pump up the volume, pump up the volume, dance! Dance! ➡
    • BlogDating Nothing wrong with a little mental nookie! ➡
    • ToySight ToySight is hands down one of the coolest games for the Mac that I've seen yet. It's a collection of several small mini-games and 'toys' that you play by using your iSight camera as the controller! ➡
    • About airplanes There are more planes in the ocean than submarines in the sky. ➡
    • That's gotta hurt… I turned around just in time to watch a car skid to a stop in the middle of the street with sparks flying out behind it, as its front left tire went rolling and bouncing across the road. ➡
    • 9/11 could have and should have been prevented For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented. ➡
  • 2002
    • Well, of course! Lott said he would survive any challenge to his post as majority leader, and Tuesday he picked up the support of a few GOP senators, including Alaska's Ted Stevens, who vowed to 'defend my friend.' ➡
    • Caught by the Zeitgeist Last October I ran across a website claiming to be a protest against the latest installment in the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films, 'The Two Towers'. Over the past week and a half or so, as the release date for LotR:TTT has grown closer and closer, that entry on my site has suddenly been getting a highly unusual amount of interest. ➡
    • Who’s protecting Eli Lilly? There is now substantial evidence that due to the mercury content, Thimerosal may be the cause of autism in many, many children, and Eli Lilly has been facing a number of lawsuits from parents looking for some help in caring for their children that were affected by the drug from this company. ➡
  • 2001
    • Two quick things One silly that popped into my head: why is the plural of box 'boxes' when the plural of ox is 'oxen'? You just have to love the English language, don't you? ➡

On This Day: Dec 17

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Since I 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 December 17th

  • 2023
  • 2021
  • 2020
    • 🖖 Discovery S03E10: I’m glad that’s wrapped up. As pretty as the Mirror Universe is, torture is one of my least favorite plot devices, and that just dragged on and on. Those two episodes could have been one. But at least Carl was a fun treat! Now back to the plot, please? ➡
    • On This Day: Dec 17 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from December 17 ➡
  • 2019
    • Pro-Impeachment Rally What do we want? Impeachment! When do we want it? A few years ago, quite frankly, but I’ll be satisfied with now. ➡
    • Impeach and Withhold I really hope Pelosi and the House Democrats have the fortitude to do this: Impeach and Withhold. The key here is that there is no requirement that the House immediately send the articles of impeachment to the Senate. This is Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s final card to play. So here is a modest proposal: the House ... Read more ➡
  • 2016
    • Apparently I was feeling a little Steve Jobs-ian with today’s wardrobe choice. (352/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • At least Alaskans know how to clear our cars off. None of this lazy foolishness that I see all over the place here, that leaves both headlights, the rear windshield, and half the front windshield covered, with piles of loose snow on the roof poised to blow back onto the person driving immediately behind. #notthatimopinionatedaboutthesethings ... Read more ➡
    • So much pretty snow! That I have to brush off the car. #grumble #leftAlaskabecauseofthis #winterbelongsontheothersideofawindow ➡
  • 2014
  • 2008
  • 2003
    • Some slight design tweaks I've done a little light fiddling with the design here in order to clean up some details that had been bugging me. ➡
    • Safari 1.1.1 (v100.1) The single most exciting improvement for me in Safari v100.1 is that we finally have tooltip support for title elements! ➡
    • Linkdump I'm generally not a huge fan of 'linkdump' posts, but if I want to get these posted before having to run to my bus… ➡
  • 2002
    • Goodbye Gore, hello… Now that Al Gore has decided to step out of the ring for the next presidential race, the field looks pretty wide open. I don't really know much about any of the other potential Democratic candidates, so it was nice to see a quick rundown on the current possibilities. ➡
    • I’m Karl Barth We reject the false doctrine that the church could have permission to hand over the form of its message and of its order to whatever it itself might wish or to the vicissitudes of the prevailing ideological and political convictions of the day. ➡
  • 2001
    • Six months in Seattle! I think it's official -- I've managed to duck the Hellraiser chains that drag so many people back to Alaska when they try to leave. ➡
  • 2000
    • Mulder, Scully, Carey Grant, and Max Schreck Just thought I'd put up a quick note of the new movies I picked up this week…I may start doing this from time to time as I add to my already extensive collection. This weekend I picked up two that had come in while I was off on vacation, then one today that we rarely get into the store, so I figured it was worth grabbing when it showed up. ➡

On This Day: Dec 16

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Since I 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 22 posts previously published on December 16th

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • Jean and Jorts As Metaphor For Disability Accommodations. ➡
  • 2020
    • 📚 fifty-one of 2020: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Sure, Asimov’s gender politics don’t age particularly well. But he was always a brilliant and breezy writer, and for all his faults, he’ll always be a favorite. This collection of robotic puzzlers is always enjoyable. ➡
    • On This Day: Dec 16 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from December 16 ➡
  • 2019
    • An Alarmingly Deep Dive Into the Science of Baby Yoda: “But whether the Yoda is Baby Yoda’s true daddy isn’t what fascinates us every time we tune into The Mandalorian. What keeps us coming back for more is trying to figure out what in the actual hell Baby Yoda is supposed to be. […] We ... Read more ➡
  • 2018
    • Book fifty-six of 2018: Gigantic Worlds, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • I made dinner! Well, I helped. We had French dip sandwiches, I made the au jus. From a powdered mix. Okay, I stirred hot flavored water. (351/366) ➡
  • 2009
  • 2008
  • 2004
    • 32.4 Days After adding as many of the 100 overlooked films to my Netflix queue as I could, my queue is now 389 discs long. Assuming an average of two hours per movie, that's 32.4 days of movies lined up. Something tells me that that's going to take a while to get through. ;) ➡
  • 2003
    • MiddleEarth mania, week two: The Two Towers And speaking of LotR, I just realized that I'd completely forgotten to say anything about seeing LotR:TTTEE at the Cinerama on Saturday. ➡
    • It's almost time… I'm whining. ➡
    • Another star for Clark Just not another star on his collar. Rather, the four-star General's newest star is none other than Madonna, who expressed her support for Clark's campaign in a CNN interview. ➡
    • The cost of Longhorn [Longhorn], according to Microsoft chief architect Bill Gates, will cost more to develop than it did the US government to put a man on the moon. ➡
  • 2002
    • Blogs: 1, Lott: 0 It's been really fascinating over the past week or so to see Senator Lott's comments create such a stir (and rightly so, I'd say) — primarily because it's entirely possible that his comment just may have gotten swept under the rug had the 'blogosphere' not started voicing their outrage. ➡
    • Giant sea sparrows? No giant sea sparrow is known to be endangered by the eating habits of goats. ➡
    • You’re owed $20 If enough people file claims that the disbursement would end up less than $5 per claimant, then the entirety of the settlement fee would be donated to not-for-profit, charitable, governmental or public entities to be used for music-related purposes or programs for the benefit of consumers who purchased Music Products. ➡
  • 2001
  • 1994
    • [From Usenet 12.16.94 0626] As far as I can tell, after being a fan of both Queen and nin for quite a while, I'd be willing to bet that all that 'sample' is, is holding down the fast forward button on a cd player and panning it back and forth during the goofball experimental middle section of GDML. ➡

On This Day: Dec 15

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Since I 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 December 15th

  • 2023
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • US Finally Giving Boot to Official Foot Measurement: “The change started in 1959, when the federal government mandated that everyone use the international foot but allowed surveyors to keep to the old U.S. survey foot for a while. That temporary reprieve has lasted 60 years, but it will finally end in 2022.” ➡
  • 2016
    • I am now an official card-carrying member of the #ACLU. (350/366) cc: @aclu_nationwide ➡
    • That’s two days this week I spaced on my photo. At least Snapchat had an Edward Scissorhands filter to play with! (349/366) ➡
  • 2013
    • On our way back to the burg. Prairie’s driving, so I get to take silly selfies. #roadtrip ➡
    • Saw this on a wall as we were walking around yesterday. Remnants of climbing plants that had been removed, the paths of the vines can still be seen. ➡
  • 2008
  • 2007
    • Done with Hawaii I was beginning to doubt that I'd ever find the time to finish this project, but I'm _finally_ done with the pictures from our trip to Hawaii last summer! ➡
  • 2006
    • Congratulations H and P! Prairie’s sister and her boyfriend just got engaged -- to each other, even! ;) ➡
    • Post-Storm Report All in all, nothing major to report, as far as we're concerned. Elsewhere in Seattle, though, it's far different. Flooding, mudslides, downed trees, three people dead (one a woman who drowned in her basement apartment) and one million people without power. ➡
  • 2004
    • He had a piercing stare… This is hands-down one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time — eyeglasses without rims, bows, or even a bridge. They're attached via a bridge piercing. ➡
    • Well, it sounded good… That camera I won? Nevermind. Turns out that that was the prize for the account manager. I, as the valued employee who interacts with the customers on a daily basis and provide the customer service that gets such high praise, get the hearty thanks of the company for a job well done. ➡
    • Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika Very cool: an early 1950's pictoral map of the United States of America, apparently issued by the US Government to introduce our country to the people of Germany, most of whom knew little of us outside of what they'd picked up from GIs in their country during World War II. ➡
    • Popular Public Potties According to the PI, our new space-age public restrooms are a success. I've still not used one of these things — but then, I'm still convinced that they're eating people. ➡
  • 2003
    • Spider-Man 2 Teaser A disappointingly low-rez but very cool teaser trailer for Spider-Man 2 just hit the net. ➡
    • Billy Idol’s ‘Cyberpunk’ The future has imploded into the present. With no nuclear war, the new battlefields are people's minds and souls. Megacorporations are the new government. The computer generated info-domains are the new frontiers. Though there is better living through science and chemistry, we are all becoming cyborgs. ➡
    • 0 is also a number Does anyone know how to access and rip the hidden tracks on the X-Files Songs in the Key of X soundtrack CD on a Mac? ➡
  • 2000
    • Back again Got in (late…damn airlines) from my vacation last night, and am currently enjoying my last actual unscheduled day, as far as I know. I may not be on the schedule at my weekend job this weekend, but this being the Christmas shopping season, I'm not betting on that, and just working on the assumption that this is my last "day of rest." ➡

On This Day: Dec 14

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Since I 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 31 posts previously published on December 14th

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • I am pleased to see that we have differences. May we together become greater than the sum of both of us. ➡
    • Preparing for My New Office NCC-1701. No bloody A, B, C, or D. ➡
    • The Micropedia of Microaggressions – the first encyclopedia of microaggressions.: The Micropedia aims to collect everyday microaggressions and highlight their harmful impact through source-based definitions and real-world examples. ➡
  • 2020
    • AI Weirdness • 2020 headlines: “Midway through 2020, people started suggesting that I train a neural net on 2020 headlines, and I was skeptical that there would be enough weird ones to make a decent project. Then 2020 continued to be 2020.” ➡
    • ‘Plaguecore’ and the Rise of Tumblr’s Dress-Up Culture: “Young people are weathering the pandemic by posting photos of themselves in 17th-century plague-doctor outfits.” Discussed here (with lots of links to Tumblr posts): plaguecore, cottagecore, and dark academia. ➡
    • On This Day: Dec 14 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from December 14 ➡
  • 2019
    • Meeting’s done, time for the Norwescon holiday party! For which, of course, I brought out my most seasonally appropriate suit coat. ➡
    • Gathering the troops for this month’s Norwescon planning meeting. Just four months to go until this year’s con! ➡
  • 2014
    • Christmas cookies! #nomnomnom ➡
  • 2013
    • Stuffed full of tasty tasty Ethiopian food. #QueenofSheba ➡
    • Me: “Don’t jump, Santa!” Prairie: “Why don’t you care about the snowman?” #morbidxmasjokes ➡
    • The chase is on… #looff #carousel ➡
    • Carousel! ➡
    • Love the ice patterns on the rocks. Taken from the SkyRide tram. #spokanefalls ➡
    • The Spokane falls are gorgeous! ➡
    • Debating playing with Instagram again. Took this on Friday back in Eburg. ➡
  • 2007
  • 2006
    • Stormpocalypse ’06 Looks like the strongest storm in 13 years is going to be hitting Seattle tonight. Yesterday hit hard enough to knock out power at our apartment for a few hours in the morning, with other outages reported across town. Tonight, though, is predicted to make yesterday look positively balmy. ➡
  • 2005
    • The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe So. Very. Good. Some small quibbles here and there, to be sure, but on the whole a marvelously successful job of translating the book to the screen. Hurrah! ➡
    • iTMS Affiliation is a pain in the butt While I love the idea of iTMS affiliation -- and if I got more traffic, it might even bring me more than a few pennies here and there -- I've got to agree with Scot Hacker that the whole shebang is really a pain to deal with. ➡
    • Poseidon In my version of the movie, the survivors of the capsized ship would make it to the surface, find a life raft, and make it to shore only to discover that the wave had been generated by a huge meteor or asteroid crashing into the ocean not far from their ship. ➡
    • My favorite random facts about… There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Vin Diesel allows to live. Superman owns a pair of Chuck Norris pajamas. The last man who made eye contact with Mr. T was Ray Charles. ➡
  • 2004
    • Found slides from 1979 Most of what I find is general office and printing stuff, some of which I can use for my job, some of which I can't. Yesterday, however, I found an old box of slides. I can't be sure when they were taken, but the date stamp on the slides from when they were developed is April of 1979. Most of the slides were horribly overexposed and unuseable, but seven of them were good. ➡
    • LotR:TYEBEE update A reminder e-mail with directions and details has been sent out to those of you who expressed interest in attending my little Lord of the Rings: Till Your Eyes Bleed Extended Edition deal on Saturday. ➡
  • 2003
    • CSS geek humor Last week, CSS guru Eric Meyer and his wife Kat had their first child, Carolyn, which resulted in a large number of congratulatory posts using css-ish puns. ➡
    • Profile of a Spammer Ever wonder about the people responsible for cramming your inboxes full of offers that you neither want or need? ➡
    • US Political Regions Commonwealth Magazine, unsatisfied with the standard blue (Democrat) vs. Red (Republican) political reporting of elections past, has proposed an interesting division of the country into ten seperate political regions. ➡
    • Emperor Norton You are Joshua Abraham Norton, first and only Emperor of the United States of America! ➡
    • Security: Mac OS X vs. Windows Last week, a minor firestorm erupted when PC Magazine columnist Lance Ulanoff wrote a ridiculously inflammatory article gleefully declaring that, 'the Mac OS is just as vulnerable as Microsoft Windows.' ➡
    • Saddam captured – what now? Of course, me being me, I have to wonder where things are going to go from here. Two things immediately stick out in my mind. ➡

On This Day: Dec 13

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Since I 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 December 13th

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • Good update to a classic track: It’s Raining Them (hallelujah!). ➡
    • When one of the most effective and frightening villains of 1980s-era Trek is a collective without individuals, it’s not surprising that an inability to look beyond the individual to act in the interests of the common good is our biggest real-world barrier to dealing with Covid. ➡
    • We’ve Lost the Ideal of the Common Good From the New York Times: Vaccine Hesitancy Is About Trust and Class: …people who reject vaccines are not necessarily less scientifically literate or less well-informed than those who don’t. Instead, hesitancy reflects a transformation of our core beliefs about what we owe one another. Over the past four decades, governments have slashed budgets and privatized ... Read more ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Amused to realize that at the moment, thanks to my posts about books and Short Trek episodes, I’m kind of dominating micro.blog’s 🖖 Star Trek “discover” feed. Maybe once Picard starts broadcasting more micro.blog Trekkies/ers will show up? ➡
    • From what I understand of the U.K. election, comparing British politics to American politics is now like the tag line to Alien vs. Predator: Whoever wins, we lose. I’m tired of feeling like we’re in a race to the bottom. Can we get back to trying to set a good example, please? ➡
  • 2018
    • Book fifty-five of 2018: Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2016
    • Ever pause the TV at the perfect moment? 😜 (348/366) #izombie ➡
    • Was being cranky and forgot yesterday’s photo. Snapchat filter penance time. (347/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Got our lights put up this afternoon. We’re all twinkly now! ➡
    • Yay…more behind-the-scenes Trek geekiness! Only 1,000 printed, and mine is one of only the first 100 to come autographed. #startrek #trekkie #trekker #geek More info: http://creaturefeatures.com/shop/books/returntotomorrow/ ➡
  • 2007
    • Finally, More Photos! I actually had a day off today. No school, no work, nothing. So, I spent the day working on getting caught up on some of my photographic backlog. I started by processing a set of shots of Club V that I'd been asked to take, then dove back into the vacation photos from this summer. Lots of photos of the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo just outside of Hilo (one of which ended up being my 11,000th photo uploaded to Flickr!), plus some more snorkeling. ➡
  • 2006
    • Happy Holidays from Me, Prairie…and Flickr A bit of silliness on Flickr these days: if you add a note that says simply 'ho ho ho hat' to a photo, Flickr will add a Santa hat to the photo where the note is placed. ➡
    • Other Life Updates It was pointed out to me by Casey when I ran into him, Jen, and their daughter on the bus yesterday as I was heading home from school that, with the dearth of posts here lately, I've been letting down those (poor, sad) souls who depend on my rambling here to live vicariously through me. Sorry 'bout that! ➡
    • Another Quarter Done No final in English (just a final paper that was turned in last week), my History final was yesterday, and my Intro to Programming final was today. ➡
  • 2005
    • Marie Antoinette How very odd this is -- odd, though, in a way that gives me a grin. The first trailer for Marie Antoinette, a new film by Sofia Coppola. It's a period piece starting Kirsten Dunst as the ill-fated queen...and the trailer is all set to New Order's 'Age of Consent'. ➡
  • 2004
    • Quick Review: Dawn of the Dead Last night's fun was the modern remake of Dawn of the Dead. I've not seen the original, so I can't compare the two in any way, but this one was exactly what I expected it would be &dmash; a fun, sometimes silly, and very gory horror flick. ➡
    • Quick Review: Timeline I just finished watching Timeline, based on the book by Michael Crichton. I don't know anything about the book it's based on — I haven't read a Crichton novel in years — but the movie? Oooh, ouch. Bad movie. No biscuit. ➡

On This Day: Dec 12

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Since I 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 December 12th

  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 224 I've been feeling a little spacey today.... ;) ➡
    • Apple Music Grumbling That's both 'the Apple Music service' and 'using Apple devices to listen to music', to be clear. Apple changed something with iOS 17 and made Apple Music less useful for me, and I'm ranting about it. ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • The Newest Short Treks Offer a Bright Hope for Star Trek’s Animated Future: “These two tales, on their own, may not be the grandest Star Trek stories ever told—but they don’t have to be. They prove there is space for Star Trek, on the precipice on an unprecedented level of saturation, to tell tales which ... Read more ➡
    • Trying an experiment which I hope I won’t end up regretting: Re-enabling comments on blog posts on my site (but leaving them set to auto-close after two weeks). Don’t know how often they’ll get used, or whether it’ll just be spammers and trolls, but it’s worth an attempt. ➡
    • Short Treks E09: “The Girl Who Made the Stars”: A sweet fable told to a young Michael Burnham (with an adorable tardigrade stuffie) by her dad. Gorgeous animation—and the being the girl in the story meets sure looks like it came right out of The Abyss! Maybe a crossover? 😉 🖖 ➡
    • Short Treks E08: “Ephriam and Dot”: Extremely cute, and definitely a love letter to TOS Trek—though perhaps so much so that more casual or newer watchers might be confused by some of the images that flash by. It worked for me, though. Plus, the narrator is Kirk Thatcher! 🖖 ➡
    • Continuing my Instagram Lurker Status After (almost) a year away, I toyed with resuming uploading to Instagram. But in the end, nope — I'll lurk, but I won't contribute. ➡
  • 2018
    • Book fifty-four of 2018: Star Trek: Klingon Empire: A Burning House, by Keith R. A. DeCandido. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2017
    • Day three! #cah #cardsagainsthumanity ➡
  • 2016
    • We picked this one up a while ago, but decided to save building it until there was a day crappy enough to warrant a #Lego sanitation truck and portapotty. Guess how my day was. (At least the Lego set is really cute.) #💩 ➡
  • 2015
    • Thank you Pike Place Market for supplying the fixings for breakfast in bed! Various croissants, a couple donuts, and fresh dates and Turkish figs for Prairie. ➡
  • 2007
    • Pet Dreams These people need to get together with these people so that Prairie and I can get a hypoallergenic glow in the dark kitten. ➡
  • 2004
    • New Styles I've done very little posting or reading over the weekend, and I'm up way too late tonight (tomorrow morning is really going to suck), but it's all for a good cause as there are now two new stylesheets available in the switcher over to the right. ➡
  • 2003
    • I'm a dork It's a phone. Nothing else. No call waiting, no caller ID, no voice mail, no fancy goodies of any sort. Just a phone. If someone calls when I'm home, I pick it up and answer it. If they call when I'm out, then they'll just have to call back later. ➡
    • Ooga-chaka! Ooga-chaka! Presented for your amusement: one of the most bizarre, funny, and somewhat disturbing music videos I've ever seen. ➡
    • Resume of George W. Bush I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record. ➡
  • 2001

On This Day: Dec 11

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Since I 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 December 11th

  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 223 The longer this ‘photo-a-day’ project goes on, the more difficult it gets. ➡
  • 2022
  • 2020
    • The Racist Legacy of Computer-Generated Humans: “Moviemakers have perfected the art of rendering skin and hair—but only for white people.” ➡
    • On This Day: Dec 11 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from December 11 ➡
  • 2019
    • 2019 Mac Pro isn’t the most expensive Mac ever. Not even close.: “There has been much handwaving over the $5,999 price tag on the 2019 Mac Pro. It’s often been criticized for being Apple’s expensive computer ever. But it’s not. And it’s not even close, if you factor in inflation. Many of the early Macs ... Read more ➡
    • 📚 fifty-nine of 2019: Gods Above, by Peter David. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ A little odd, because I didn’t know beforehand that the New Frontier books were quite so serialized, and I was coming in mid-story. Still an enjoyable follow up to TOS’s “Who Mourns for Adonais?”. 🖖 ➡
    • On This Day Looking back on 20 years of blogging ➡
  • 2016
    • Book fifty-four of 2016: Hollow City, by Ransom Riggs. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
    • Piles of presents under the tree! We’re all Christmassed up and ready to go! (346/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • I’m Concerned About I-1351’s Effects on Higher Education Filed under 'yes, even I can have unpopular opinions': I'm _very_ concerned about where the money to fund I-1351's directives is going to come from. We live in a state where voters refuse to put money into the system, and it's really not even clear that smaller class sizes will make that much of a difference. ➡
  • 2008
  • 2007
    • Expressiveness I think a short passage in a Reuters Photographers blog may have nailed one of the reasons why my interest in sports is limited to football (_real_ football, that is -- most of you know this as 'soccer'). ➡
    • A Vogue New Year’s Eve I don't guess that I'll be going -- Prairie and I, over the past few years, have found that New Years Eve out and about is often just a bit too much -- but it's nice to see one of my photos in use on the flyer for Monsignior and Roxy's New Years Eve' bash! ➡
  • 2005
    • Let it snow! Heh -- cool web toy of the moment (if you have a web cam -- without a cam you can read about it and see the sample images, but the effect just won't quite be the same): Webcam Snowstorm. ➡
    • Going Going Gone (And I Did Nothing Wrong) Amusing moment of the evening: now that the club is non-smoking, it made the one guy who forgot about the smoking ban really, _really_ obvious as he sat in the corner having a cigarette. ➡
  • 2003
    • What you leave behind Well, it's done. Last night I finished the last episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The Dominion War is done. ➡
  • 2002
    • Interesting Apple rumors Some unusually interesting (to me, at least, as both an Apple fan and a music fan) rumors surfacing over at /. today. ➡
    • Message from our sponsor Written and performed back in 1992, I was listening to this spoken word piece by Jello Biafra tonight and it struck me how little has changed since it was written. Aside from the reference to Al Haig, this little pice of satire is just as relevant today as it was ten years ago. Kind of funny and sad at the same time, I think. ➡