On This Day: Sep 7

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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 September 7th

  • 2023
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Book forty-eight of 2019: How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, by Randall Munroe ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Smart people over-thinking things to the point of absurdity” has been many of my favorite conversations with friends, and this is that, in book form. ➡
  • 2018
    • “Proposal: If you take any piece of footage of Trump in a White House meeting, and replaced Trump with a penguin, the expressions on the faces of everyone else in the room would still work.” ➡
    • Book thirty-three of 2018: Doctor to the Stars, by Murray Leinster. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
    • The Propaganda of Resistance This is NOT the administration falling apart. It’s A+, live action storytelling with a controlled demolition, and it’s actually really dangerous. ➡
  • 2016
    • I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way. (251/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • And dessert! Apple crisp, right out of the oven, ice cream, and warm drinks (coffee for Prairie, cider for me). ➡
    • Dinner time…pulled pork, baked potatoes, corn, and cucumbers and tomatoes fresh picked from Prairie’s garden. Eaten on the patio, of course, with a rose also from Prairie’s garden. ➡
    • Cocktails and appetizers on the back patio on a nice late summer afternoon. ➡
  • 2014
    • Under the heading of things I probably should be embarrassed about but aren’t: I was amused enough to actually pick up a dorky souvenir Alaska shirt. :) Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Batmoose! ➡
  • 2008
    • Old Money While we were in Woodland with Prairie's dad and grandpa, Prairie took a few minutes to poke around the house and collect some old glassware to bring home. While she was exploring, she found some fun old currency, some of which we recognized, some of which we didn't. I've scanned them in and done a little Wikipedia research, and here's what we came up with. ➡
  • 2005
    • Olbermann blasts Bush Well, not so much Bush specifically, as the entire botched crisis management in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. ➡
    • White Foragers Report Threat Of Black Looters They're somewhat on-again/off-again, but when the Onion is on, they're _dead on_. ➡
    • A little ray of sunshine While it's never a _happy_ thing to see one of Seattle's many homeless inhabitants laboring to push a shopping cart filled to overflowing with what few items they've been able to claim for themselves up one of our many hills, I have to admit it's hard not to grin when... ➡
  • 2004
    • Personality bits and pieces I've often semi-seriously joked that one of the things I'm proudest of in my life is narrowly avoiding becoming the über-sterotypical basement-dwelling pathologically introverted 'geek' by discovering at one point that not only did I actually have a personality, but that it was apparently a rather pleasant one. This ended up putting me in the rather rare position of being a geek who can generally actually cope fairly effectively with the real world. ➡
    • Guantanamo on the Hudson A first-hand account of being jailed for protesting (even though she wasn't really protesting, and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time) in New York during the RNC. ➡
  • 2003
    • 100 most challenged books 1990-2000 The American Library Association's list of the 100 most challenged books of the last decade. Titles in bold I've read. ➡
    • Define 'gay', Arnie I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman. ➡
    • Ecstacy or meth? A greatly publicized study detailing the harmful effects of popular drug Ecstasy has been retracted after the scientist realized that instead of Ecstasy, methamphetamine had been used in the experiments. ➡
    • Validation favelets The ampersand character — & — should be coded in valid HTML as &&, and failure to do so will result in broken validation. ➡
    • You idiots can't drive We expats get to hear a lot about the Second Amendment and its application back home. 'They give guns to everyone?', my friends ask. 'Don't mind it,' I usually reply, 'they do much worse. They give cars to everyone.' ➡
  • 2001
    • Funny or frightening? Both? Amazon.com customers comment on the American Film Institute's top 20 films of the 20th century. Kind of explains why such tripe becomes so popular these days, and the movies worth seeing are so hard to find (if they even get made). ➡

Difficult Listening Hour 2020.09.05

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Week twenty-seven of my unplanned, unrehearsed, seat-of-the-pants goofing around. As a way of getting back into practice and doing something regularly, I’ve started doing regular Twitch broadcasts, now on Saturday afternoons. These are the results. Anything goes.

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On This Day: Sep 6

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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 September 6th

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2020
  • 2018
    • Looks like BBQ Betty showed up at DragonCon… 😉😆 ➡
  • 2016
    • This wasn’t my original plan, but Prairie giggled when she saw this after I flopped and before I got more aesthetically arranged…so here we are. (250/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Back home after an enjoyable evening at the theatre. A bit tired; bedtime soon. ➡
    • The sausagefest was quite good (notwithstanding the distinct lack of reindeer). ➡
    • In pseudo-Germany (Leavenworth) for dinner and Shakespeare. Dinner, of course, is something of a sausagefest. Wait, what? ➡
  • 2012
    • Man’s Natural State Men should be offended when someone claims that women should prevent rape by not wearing certain things or not going certain places or not acting in a certain way. ➡
  • 2006
  • 2005
  • 2004
    • Bumbershoot 2004: Monday And so today wraps up another Labor Day weekend at Bumbershoot. Being able to go at all was actually a rather nice surprise. The company I work for didn't close today, so I'd long since resolved myself to only being able to hit two days this year— but one of the other people at work offered to take my shift so that I'd be able to have today off. ➡
    • Bumbershoot 2004: Sunday Yesterday (since I didn't get around to posting this last night) was another fun day of crowds and music, made even better by the sudden appearance of actual sunshine, something we had been sorely missing on Saturday. ➡
  • 2003
    • Well, would'ja look at that? And here we go, folks — step one of the new design. It's not completely finished yet, as all I've got active at the moment is the primary content, but the rest will follow soon enough. ➡
    • Emily and Amy Emily and Amy in Pioneer Square, Seattle. ➡
  • 2001
    • More about this cruise thing Basically, it sounds like a dream job. Get paid to take a 6-month (at least) cruise, spinning in a top-flight dance club every night. ➡
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📚 thirty-five of 2020: Masks by John Vornholt ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #startrek #tng 🖖

Given current events, it’s kind of amusing to be reading a Trek adventure in a society where everyone wears masks at all times, and their status is determined by the type and quality of their mask.

On This Day: Sep 5

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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 September 5th

  • 2023
  • 2020
    • 📚 thirty-five of 2020: Masks by John Vornholt ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #startrek #tng 🖖 Given current events, it’s kind of amusing to be reading a Trek adventure in a society where everyone wears masks at all times, and their status is determined by the type and quality of their mask. ➡
    • On This Day: Sep 5 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from September 5 ➡
  • 2018
    • Constitutional Crisis “Impeachment is a constitutional mechanism. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment is a constitutional mechanism. Mass resignations followed by voluntary testimony to congressional committees are a constitutional mechanism. Overt defiance of presidential authority by the president’s own appointees—now that’s a constitutional crisis. “If the president’s closest advisers believe that he is morally and intellectually unfit for his high ... Read more ➡
    • 2018 Summer Vacation, Part 2 Here's my photo gallery from the second part of this year's summer vacation, when we spent a week on Lake Coeur d'Alene with friends, rented a lake house and a boat, and pretended we were living a life several tax brackets above what we actually do! ➡
  • 2016
    • A better photo of the cute lil’ #goth #lego minifig we got today. He’s just so gloomy! ➡
    • Yum…Italian Prunes picked from our backyard and turned into a dessert crisp! ➡
    • Today our @fredmeyerstores came through, and we added four more #Lego minifigs…including the little #goth boy I wanted, plus the #Sikh, #banana, and #devil. ➡
    • Two hours twenty minutes, almost seven and a half miles…and seven unleashed dogs. Ah, well. (249/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • And Smokey the Bear! ➡
    • Wow – I can’t remember the last time I saw this! Gotta love small town America parades. #McDonalds #ronaldmcdonald #grimace #thehamburglar ➡
    • Waiting for the parade and peoplewatching. Bundled up against the freaking Ellensburg wind that simply will. not. stop. It’s cold out here! ➡
  • 2014
    • Watching a neat Nova show on Netflix about space jellyfish! Well, okay, “sprites” of high-altitude lightening. But they look like giant space jellyfish to me. ➡
  • 2013
    • On Dickwolves Since I've commented a time or two on my problems with Penny Arcade (primarily including, but not limited to, the 'dickwolves' incident), it's only fair to recognize that Mike has posted a clarification expanding on his comments at this year's PAX. ➡
  • 2008
  • 2005
    • CascadiaCon Thursday evening Prairie and I went out for dinner with some friends from the Vogue, and found out that Erin had been asked to showcase some of her clothing in a fashion show at CascadiaCon. Over the course of the conversation, I ended up getting asked to photograph the show, and Prairie was asked to be one of Erin's models! ➡
    • First Steps As of approximately 10:15 this morning, I've officially applied for admission to North Seattle Community College, intending to start in January with the Winter 2006 quarter. ➡
  • 2004
    • Third time’s the charm? This is getting insane. Hurricane Frances is still working its way across Florida, and in the last paragraph of one article about the storm comes word that a third hurricane may be on the way. ➡
  • 2003
    • Another idea Work continues on reworking the design of this place. I think I've finally come up with something that I like, too — miracles never cease! ➡
    • Pshaw. Rank amateur. I think I mentioned to Bob [Geldof] I could make love for eight hours. What I didn't say was that this included four hours of begging and then dinner and a movie. ➡
    • Company on the way! And yeah — for the next week, I'm living in a studio apartment with two or three girls. Gee, ain't life tough? ;) ➡
    • In the beginning… And God created Day and Night. And God saw there were 0 errors. And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Sunday, March 1. ➡
  • 2002
    • What kind of God…? The last gasps of isolationism will be snuffed out by more humiliation, until we get the truth, we aren't above the rest of the world, but we are part of it. ➡
    • Don’t hold back! Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. ➡
    • Yahoo! editorializing It may have been just an editorial mistake, as pointed out in the MeFi thread...even so, it's certainly an interesting editorial gaffe. ➡
    • Ascii-pr0n! Okay, sure, so I'll freely admit that i've been curious about seeing Deep Throat for a long time. Somehow, I never thought that my first chance would be through the magic of ASCII animation! Curiously engrossing, I've got to admit. ➡
    • Rights we used to have Some of the fundamental changes to Americans' legal rights by the Bush administration and the USA Patriot Act following the terror attacks. ➡

On This Day: Sep 4

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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 September 4th

  • 2023
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Book forty-seven of 2019: Starfleet Academy, by Diane Carey ⭐️⭐️⭐️ A quick and simple bit of fluff, based on an early CD-ROM game. As such, not exactly the most complex or demanding of novels, even among Trek books, but that’s about what I expected, so no disappointment. ➡
  • 2018
    • Thanks to @brentsmmons for pointing out the URL for an RSS feed of your micro.blog timeline: https://micro.blog/feeds/USERNAME.json. (Also, hooray for resurrecting NetNewsWire!) ➡
    • These shots of the fire at the National Museum of Brazil are amazing. What a horrifying loss. ➡
    • The first planning meeting for Norwescon 42 is this Saturday! If you’re in the Seattle (or surrounding) area and want to help put on a great literary-focused SF/F con, come down and join us. If you haven’t been to Norwescon before, much more info is on our website. ➡
  • 2016
    • It’s cupcake time! Nice to have friends who give us treats. (248/366) ➡
    • Finally found some of the current #Lego minifigs (our local @fredmeyerstores has been letting us down and not stocking these, so we went down and found some at the Yakima @target)! Got one of the three I really wanted (the arctic #explorer with #penguin; I also really want the one wearing a penguin suit and ... Read more ➡
  • 2014
    • What with post-vacation recovery, I’ve missed a few days of my photo-a-day project (though as I posted multiples some days on the trip, I think my average is still on track ), so this shot of me at VI(NL) from just before I moved out of Anchorage seems appropriate for today’s #throwbackthursday shot. ➡
  • 2008
  • 2004
    • Bumbershoot 2004: Saturday Another year of Bumbershoot is off to a rousing start for Prairie and I. Lots of good music and peoplewatching today, and more to come. This rundown will be a bit abbreviated, as I'm pretty tired, but I wanted to get as much as I could out of my head while it was still fresh. ➡
    • Off to Bumbershoot Prairie and I are heading off to Bumbershoot today. Possibilities for places we might end up… ➡
    • Olympic Commentary Sometimes, the best part about the Olympics isn't the events or the athletes themselves, but the commentary... ➡
  • 2003
    • Just an idea Someday I'm actually going to come up with a good, clean, attractive design. Until then (and that day may be a long, long time coming), I'll keep poking, prodding, and stumbling around. ➡
    • I'm bored That is all. ➡
    • Debate wrapups From the gist of what I've read so far, it seems that while Dean wasn't at his best, he did hold his spot at the top of the pack, while Lieberman came off like a complete ass. ➡
    • Meetings are the mind killer I must not attend meetings. Meetings are the mind killer. Meetings re the little-death that brings total obliteration. ➡
    • Universal dropping CD prices Under the new pricing scheme, Universal would lower its wholesale price on a CD to $9.09 from $12.02. The company said it expected retail stores to lower CD prices to $12.98, from the $16.98 to $18.98 they now charge, and perhaps to as low as $10. ➡
    • The blackboard jungle It's a rather sad commentary on the state of many inner-city summer schools, and the challenges teachers face in trying to teach those students at the bottom end of the curve. However, at the same time, it is absolutely beautifully written, and gave me quite a few laughs while reading it. ➡
  • 2001
    • More cruiseship daydreaming Every time I had to place another call to Xerox to see if I could get a tech to fix my machine today, the idea of spending six months getting paid to spin for a club on a cruise ship sounded better and better. ➡

On This Day: Sep 3

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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 September 3rd

  • 2024
    • Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga 🎥: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Not quite the mind-blowing heights of Fury Road, mostly just because Fury Road would be so difficult to follow up. ➡
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Just returned from an Alaskan cruise. Enjoy this sequence of a humpback whale breaching in the distance. I sure enjoyed seeing it. ➡
  • 2018
    • Book thirty-three of 2018: Star Trek: The Classic Episodes Vol. 2, by James Blish. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
    • Book thirty-two of 2018: Moving Mars, by Greg Bear. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Actually finished a couple weeks ago, but was vacationing and not posting photos.) ➡
    • A small selection from last week’s vacation trip to Lake Coeur d’Alene. ➡
    • Linkdump for September 1st through September 3rd An automatically generated list of links that caught my eye between September 1st and September 3rd. ➡
  • 2016
    • Three laps around the lake and over five and a half miles for our morning walk today. (247/366) ➡
  • 2006
  • 2004
    • I’m an iTunes Affilliate Earlier this week, I tossed a link to my linklog to Apple's new iTunes Affiliate program, but didn't write up anything more about it, as at that point, I didn't really know much at all. While I was there, though, I went ahead and tossed in an application…and what do you know, last night I got my e-mail telling me that I was accepted into the program . ➡
  • 2003
    • Democratic debate tomorrow night New Mexico is going to host a 'conversation' style debate among the nine contenders for the Democratic nomination tomorrow night, at the University of New Mexico, Albequerqe. ➡
    • The world's oldest profession Who are some of your favorite historical whores? How about slutty eras? Eras you wish were a little less prudish? ➡
    • Diplomacy based on petulance The Bush Administration continues to amaze me -- they have an amazing ability to firmly put both feet in their mouth with their head up their ass. ➡
  • 2002
    • My new desktop I just found this image (along with a ton of other [often barcode-based] very cool desktop images) at some site that I can't read because it's all in Cryllic. ➡
    • Validation fixed (kinda) One of the stumbling blocks I discovered today about enabling Trackback is that it breaks the W3C Validator -- even though I make sure to use valid XHTML 1.0 in my pages, the validator chokes on the RDF code needed for Trackback to work correctly. ➡
    • Cybersodomy? There's a page for everything on the 'net these days -- even gay robots. ➡
    • Bumbershoot ’02 It's taken me a couple days to get to this, and it's not going to be nearly as long as last year's opus — but I did get to spend last Saturday out at this year's Bumbershoot. Unfortunately, I could only hit one day this year, so I decided to go Saturday, as it seemed to have the best lineup of artists I knew I wanted to see. ➡
  • 2001
    • Bumbershoot ’01: Monday, Sep. 3rd NW Connection Community Choir, Kevin Kent, Bill Dana, Kiki & Herb, Tiger Lillies, WOFA, C.J. Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band, Nikol Collars, and Nina Hynes. ➡

On This Day: Sep 2

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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 September 2nd

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • If you have a love of classic musicals (and an Apple TV+ account), Schmigadoon! is absolutely wonderful. Highly recommended. ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Book forty-six of 2019: Dead Wake, by Erik Larson. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fascinating account of the sinking of the Lusitania, and the many factors that led to the tradgedy. Larson’s historical non-fiction work is great — perfect reading while taking a pleasure cruise vacation! ➡
    • Book forty-five of 2019: Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1962 Hugo Best Novel Good story, and this was very likely one of my earliest introductions to any sort of consensual non-monogamy ideas, but gender role and sexuality issues bother me. ➡
  • 2017
    • Yummy treats between movies! ➡
    • Oh, yum. Indian wraps for lunch. So good! ➡
    • Shiny shoe day! I have gold, Prairie has silver. We’re heading to the Cinerama’s 70mm Film Festival today, so we decided to bling it up Hollywood style (on our feet, at least). #chucks #converse ➡
    • Chucks of the day (55/55): shiny gold (lamé-ish) high tops. #chucks #converse ➡
  • 2016
    • Friday of a three day weekend! While many of my friends are at either #dragoncon or #pax, I’ll be spending the weekend at home hiding from the #ellensburgrodeo. Have fun with whatever you’re doing! (246/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Gorgeous! #rainbow #ellensburg ➡
  • 2008
  • 2005
    • The New Apartment Finally -- pictures of the new apartment! Each of the following shots has notes added if you click through to the Flickr page, pointing out some of the bits and pieces you see in the rooms. And now...tour time! ➡
  • 2004
    • Frances: the satellite view Thanks to a program called OSXplanet that puts a map of the globe on my desktop, complete with current cloud patterns, I can watch Hurricane Frances approach the Florida coastline from the comfort of my apartment. Freaky and cool, all at the same time. ➡
    • First Charley, now Frances When Hurricane Charley hit Florida, my grandparents had to be evacuated to a shelter for the duration of the storm. During their time there, Grandpa suffered a fall, ended up in their retirement home's hospital after they returned from the shelter, and was just able to come home to Grandma on Friday. Now, however, with Hurricane Frances bearing down on Florida, word has come that it's highly likely that they will have to evacuate again. ➡
  • 2003
    • Rule #1: Validate Bottom line: valid markup is a Good Thing™. Sure, it's a bit of a pain, and it can take a little time to get used to the conventions involved in writing valid code. The amount of time, effort, and anguish involved in solving niggling little browser issues that valid code saves, though, is more than worth it. ➡
    • esoterically.net: Psych Eval The Guardian has a fascinating and disturbing article posted where psychologist Oliver James analyzes George W. Bush. ➡
  • 2002
  • 2001

On This Day: Sep 1

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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 September 1st

  • 2023
    • Year 50 Day 122 Today's post-travel Lego build: A classic yellow New York City taxicab. ➡
  • 2022
  • 2021
    • 📚 30/2021: The Fire and the Rose by David R. George III ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🖖🏻 ➡
    • Neutral Good Insistence on either lawfulness or rebellion is seen as detriments to or distractions from the greater goal of promoting true kindness in the world. ➡
  • 2020
  • 2018
  • 2016
    • Rice Krispy treats made with coconut and peanut butter. Yum! (245/366) ➡
  • 2010
  • 2007
    • Offline Time ...it's pretty much safe to assume that we probably won't be reachable via e-mail or phone for the next two weeks, and _certainly_ won't be responding to messages in a timely manner. Not ideal, but that's what it is. ➡
  • 2005
    • Sometimes predictions come true The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great. ➡
  • 2004
    • Bumbershoot tips A re-post from last year — some rambling from me on how best to approach this upcoming weekend's Bumbershoot festival (which, unfortunately, I'll only be hitting two days of this year, due to my workplace not closing down for Labor Day). ➡
    • Kids’ ideas about sex Sex columnist Dan Savage recently asked his readers to submit letters detailing their childhood misconceptions about sex. The resulting two columns are hilarious… ➡
    • Another one bites the dust Yet another in the ongoing saga of webloggers canned for really stupid reasons. This time, it's Troutgirl, who until recently worked for Friendster. Ontario Empoblog has a good rundown of the situation. ➡
    • What a deal! Y'know, it's really a shame I don't go to Florida State University. Turns out that they're working on setting up a special deal with Apple that would provide free iTunes software to students and allow them to download music for 99 cents per song. ➡
    • Two digits, thousands of votes Issue: Manipulation technique found in the Diebold central tabulator -- 1,000 of these systems are in place, and they count up to two million votes at a time. By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. ➡
  • 2003
    • Bumbershoot '03: Mon, Sep 1 Finally, we made it to the end — day four of Bumbershoot is over and done with. After this post, no more Bumbershoot babbling until sometime next year! ➡
  • 2001

Difficult Listening Hour 2020.08.29

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Week twenty-six of my unplanned, unrehearsed, seat-of-the-pants goofing around. As a way of getting back into practice and doing something regularly, I’ve started doing regular Twitch broadcasts, now on Saturday mid-mornings. These are the results. Anything goes.

Read more