All The Greatest

"All the greatest things are really messy!"

-- Waitress, responding to the difficulty of eating the dessert without spilling it.

The Pirates of Ersatz

I enjoyed this book, and it is available free online from BookGlutton.

Expensive Kindle Books

I noticed that this book for the Kindle costs $864, which means it costs more than 2 Kindles. I guess that's a bargain compared to the list price of over $1,000. So I decided to sort the Kindle books by price to see what the most expensive one is.



And the winner is: Selected Nuclear Materials and Engineering Systems (Part 4). The Kindle edition costs $6,431.20. And that's a $1607.80 savings off the list price of $8,039.00! Never before has the one-click order button felt so terrifying.

To The Strong

Some gardeners enjoy the challenge of coaxing some exotic and finicky flora -- something more at home in the Amazonian basin or the sweltering slopes of Mt. Doom -- to grow in their suburban back yard. I am not one of those types.

I love the plants that love to grow in my garden. I love the ones that burst out of the soil with an eerie buoyancy: bold, strong ("exuberating fantasticisms" as one reality-show contestant so memorably and hysterically put it) as if to say, "Look at me! I'm here! I rock! I kick ass! I rule this garden!"

Let us celebrate the strong. Lemon Sorrel, Swiss Chard, Giant Curly Mustard Greens, Cardoon, Rosemary, Strawberries, Bamboo, Figs, Jostaberry, Chives, Watercress, Arugula, Beets. The grape hyacinth that is taking over my lawn. And that weird hardy geranium that I can't remember what it is, that too. I'm proud of all of you.

Longboard Anti-Pumping

I've learned longboard pumping, which is a way of propelling a skateboard on the flat or slightly uphill without touching your feet to the ground. Now that I've gotten pretty good at it, I've been trying to learn to anti-pump. It seems logical that if the pumping motion can speed you up, doing the opposite motion could slow you down. (I don't mean sliding on purpose to slow down, which also works but is a whole different thing.) The anti-pump does work, and you can noticeably slow down while going down a hill, but it feels like a very unnatural silly motion, even more than the regular pumping motion does. It almost makes me laugh every time I do it. Maybe with more practice it will feel normal.

Heard Tuesday Night

"I used to work on an oil platform . . . well, actually it was a gas platform but they found it was cheaper to insure a gas platform if you call it an oil platform because oil platforms don't explode as often."

Sakuracon 2009 Cosplay and Dance

I just got back from Sakuracon 2009, where I covered the event for JLHLS (I will post a full report on the convention there soon). The convention was great. See more of our Sakuracon pictures on Flickr.

Update 5/3/2009: the Sakura-Con 2009 Convention Report is now up at JLHLS.

The Horror

My tax preparer asked me whether I "had borrowed money to invest in 2008."

I gasped and a look of sheer terror crossed my face. ". . . borrowed money . . . to invest in 2008? Oh man, that would have not ended well! No! I didn't do that. Oh I'm so glad I didn't do that!"

My tax preparer got a big laugh out of that one.

(Of course, like most people, I did lose money on investments in 2008. But at least I was not investing borrowed money.)

Google Is Mean

The downside to Google is it makes you realize how unoriginal you are. You have a cool idea, you Google it, and you see that 25,000 other people have already thought of that (some of them back in 2002) and at least 9,000 of them have already done it better than you ever would have. I guess it is good in terms of keeping you from wasting your time though.

The Magic of Starbuck

Me: What should we watch next, Battlestar Galactica?

Her: No, I'm too tired. I can't watch Battlestar when I'm tired because I have to really concentrate on the plot.

Me: No you don't. Just stare at Starbuck's body, that's what I do. It gets me through it every time.

Her: But Starbuck doesn't do anything for me.

Me: I was joking.

Best Oregon Trail Summary

"Of course, the main point of The Oregon Trail was to hunt animals until you got bored, after which you would attempt to drown your family in the nearest river." -- FingerGaming review

Giant Curly Mustard Greens

"Giant Curly Mustard Greens." I planted these seeds in my garden a while ago, not really intending to eat them, but just because I remembered reading somewhere that mustard greens make a good cover crop if you can't decide what else to plant. They started coming up in February, and eventually I became curious enough to taste them. Well, these are extremely delicious! They taste kind of like romaine lettuce crossed with wasabi. They make a great salad green if mixed with lettuce, so the spicy flavor isn't too overwhelming. Now I wish I had discovered this years ago, because they taste so good and are so easy to grow. And it's true, you can be growing edibles in Portland even in February.

The Howling

Me: Now it's time for the howling.

Her: "The Howling?" I thought we were going to watch American Idol.

Me: We are.

The Soundtrack Is Off

I had lunch in a place with curved walls, and the acoustics of the spot where I was sitting were unusual. The conversation from 3 tables away sounded exactly like it was coming from the table next to me. I looked over at the next table and I saw a woman talking but her lips didn't match up with what I was hearing. "The soundtrack is out of sync," I thought. "I hate it when the sountrack is off.". But then I realized that couldn't be right because this was real life and not a show. I briefly wondered if I was having a strange dream. Then I noticed the curved walls and figured out that it was an unusual echo.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Changes

"When in the course of human events somebody does something that puts somebody else to the trouble of adjusting the numb routine of his life, the adjustee is resentful. The richer he is and the more satisfactory he considers his life, the more resentful he is at any change, however minute. And of all the changes which offend people, changes which require them to think are most disliked."

-- from The Pirates of Ersatz, by Murray Leinster

Fanno Creek Flooding in Portland

As I was driving home today, I was shocked to see how high the water in Fanno Creek had gotten. I went home and returned with the camera. Here the water has almost reached the pedestrian bridge on SW Oleson Road.

This area is normally a very deep moat-like trench with a tiny bit of water at the bottom. Today everything looks different.

This is not normally a pond or stream. These ducks are swimming in a parking lot that has become completely flooded.

Crawl Bloopers

Don't mess with the "Shreriff."


Especially not on "Wenesday."

The Pan of Destiny

Me: So, if we get this new "au gratin pan," is there room in the kitchen to store it?

Her: I'll hang it up in the kitchen on the wall, I already have a place in mind for it.

Me: Oh, I get it, it's a big trophy item, kind of a way of saying to people without au gratin pans: "Ha! In your face, losers!"

Her: You know what's funny about that?

Me: That it's true?

Her: No.

The Economy Post-Game Show

Lately when I see government officials on TV talking about the economy, I feel like I'm watching one of those post-game sports interviews with the coach of the heavily-favored team that just got clobbered by the underdog after fumbling the ball eight times. And the coach sort of hangs his head and scowls and talks about how they just "didn't execute" today the way they planned, and they are going to have to put this behind them and work harder next week.

The trouble is, it is now mathematically impossible for the Economy to make the playoffs. We're already looking ahead to next season's draft.

Air Traffic Chaos

I've been playing a clever little game called Air Traffic Chaos for the Nintendo DS. It's been said that the sign of a good game is that even when you lose, you feel like you almost won. That's what keeps you coming back for "just one more try." This game works that way. You play as an air traffic controller trying to manage the traffic at one of 5 airports. The early stages are very easy, almost boring, but by midway through the levels things really get interesting, and you have to be juggling multiple arrivals and departures on multiple runways all at once. I also like this game because each level is fairly short, so you can play it a little at a time.