Les Triplettes du Mêmê

Tagged by Bret in a scarily naive fashion (he's obviously never heard me "play" the guitar):

1. Three things that scare me:

• Small spiders
• Large spiders
• Medium spiders

2. Three people who make me laugh:

• The president of Iran, Rajamaneedeenidef, although not in a good way
• My brother, when he's talking about his cowboyin' days
• The guy who plays Dwight on The Office

3. Three things I hate the most:

• Mean people
• The way a little blob of yogurt poots out when you first peel off the foil top, no matter how careful you are
• Internet Explorer

4. Three things I don't understand:

• Why it is that the more rain we get, the worse my lawn looks.
• Programming arrays in PHP
• How Song of Solomon ended up in the Bible

5. Three things I'm doing right now:

• Well, duh...this
• Staring out the back door at my degenerating lawn
• Tapping my left foot really, really fast

6. Three things I want to do before I die:

• Snowboard
• Complete a cross-country bike trip
• Learn to program an array in PHP

7. Three things I can do:

• Code a website from scratch without using a page layout program. Not that I would ever do such a thing, but I could.
• Completely fake my way through the folding of a fitted sheet
• Run four miles in 32 minutes, but only on a treadmill

8. Three ways to describe my personality:

• Goofy
• Quirky
• Odd

9. Three things I can't do:

• Samba
• Sing in a manner pleasing to those around me
• Remember names until after the third or fourth reminder

10. Three things I think you should listen to:

• Cindy Morgan's Listen (the whole album, not just the single)
• Everything by Delbert McClinton
• That odd scraping sound coming from the left rear wheelwell

11. Three things you should never listen to:

• The silence of the lambs
• Any music from 1997
• The idiot in your head that tells you to ignore your wife's instructions for the best way to do...anything

12. Three things I'd like to learn:

• Play chords on my guitar
• When to use "lay" instead of "lie"
• How to build a time travel machine

13. Three favourite foods:

• Breakfast foods
• Lunch foods
• Dinner foods

14. Three beverages I drink regularly:

• Water
• Diet Berries & Cream Dr. Pepper
• Coffee

15. Three shows I watched as a kid:

• The Twilight Zone (scared the c**p out of me)
• Those black and white WWII movies that came on Sunday afternoons after church; I never knew if they were documentaries or made-up movies, but they were spell-binding.
• Admiral Foghorn

16. Three people I'm tagging (to do this):

• Kyle, because he's too cool to meme*
• Denise, because you need to know her better
• Beth, because I'm hoping she'll send me chocolate, and despite the fact that I'm sure she's already done this one before

*By the way, I'm too cool to meme, too. Just so you know.

Katie's Amazing Inverted TV Effect

Everyone's heard by now of the digital airbrushing applied to Katie Couric's photo by the CBS Department of Photographic Alteration and Agenda Advancement, and the overwhelming reaction is one of yawning non-surprise. But until now, I had not seen the before and after photos.

Most of the focus has been on the narrowing of Ms. Couric's waistline and hips, but the makeover seems to be much more, um, widespread. Compare her face and neck, for example, in those photos.

Fortunately, we can still rest comfortably in the knowledge that TV news is all about accuracy and objectivity, not cosmetics.

Tip o'the hat to the prolific Isaac Schroëdinger, whose post also reminds us that the MSM's airbrush goes right as well as left.

Random Thursday

Today's the last day to enter the "Give the Gazette a Tagline" contest and possibly win Fame and Glory (but not much else).

Meanwhile...

• The winner of the "Snidely Whiplash Employer of the Year Award - Creative Use of Technology Category" goes to RadioShack for its use of email to notify 400 employees that they had been fired. Now, the move -- if not the medium -- wasn't unexpected. In a news release dated August 10, RadioShack announced the planned layoffs:
  
  Most of RadioShack’s planned reductions will affect positions at its headquarters operation. The exact number of employees affected has yet to be determined; however, the reduction will include employees at all levels. RadioShack will notify affected employees by early September.
  
  I suppose that the company just figured that the immediacy of email in helping it meet its self-imposed "early September" target superceded the humanity of its corporate motto: Enhancing the quality of life in the neighborhoods we serve ... it's what RadioShack corporate citizenship is all about.


• I watched the early release DVD of The Sentinel this week, and while I haven't yet had a chance to watch the special features on the disk, I did notice something unusual in the credits. One of the stuntpersons in the crew was Cotton Mather, which seems to run counter to the conventional wisdom that there are no longer any good roles in Hollywood for 300-year-old Puritans.


• And speaking of Snidely Whiplash, the true comedic genius of My Name is Earl was showcased last season when Earl's brother, Randy, used his vast knowledge of TV trivia to confirm the nationality of the brothers' fence's putative Russian mailorder bride, via this exchange:
  
  Randy: Say "Moose and Squirrel."
  
  PRMB: Mooose end Squeerul
  
  Randy: Yep. She's Russian, alright.


• Speaking of profiling via linguistic accent, there's a Biblical precedent for the practice, used very effectively by a group of Hebrews during wartime. Anyone remember the context?


• I'll close here -- no, don't thank me -- with this old joke that I was reminded of while listening to KLOVE this morning:
  
  A group of scientists approached God and told Him that they weren't all that impressed with His skill in creating man, because they were sure they could duplicate the feat using their own learned prowess. God said, OK...give it your best shot. The scientists began to gather some dirt in an attempt to duplicate God's handiwork. Wait a minute, interrupted God. Get your own dirt.

Hope you have a great day...just remember Whose dirt you're treading upon.

Your Orders for the Day

OK, here's what you do.

1. Go here. Familiarize yourself with "Milk Truffles."


2. Go find a store that sells Hershey's Milk Truffles.


3. Buy two bags.


4. Send one bag to me. Immediately. Before even reading Step 5.


5. Eat as much as you want out of the remaining bag, and wonder why you're just now discovering this chocolate that's much better than it has any right to be, considering it's not European.


6. Consider whether you're grateful enough to repeat steps 3 and 4, again and again. I should think you would be.

I cannot repeat it strongly enough: do not do step 5 before completing step 4. Trust me on this.

Shooting a Python

Things have slowed down a bit, for the first time this summer, so I took an hour off and headed for the Midland Shooters Association range to get some target practice.

I understand there are about 1,800 members of the MSA, and, apparently, 1,799 of them had other things to do, because I had the range to myself. I signed in and headed for Range A-1, which is the 25/50 yard bench rest target range for rifles and pistols. I hadn't shot in about six months -- maybe longer -- so I was looking for something easy. And, I was pleasantly surprised by the results.

The top target is a couple of cylinders worth of .38 Specials fired at the 25-yard range. The next one was shot at 50 yards. I'm especially pleased with the latter results, considering I can barely see 50 yards, much less hit anything. I guess I should mention that I was firing a Colt Python with a 6" barrel, single-action-style, bench-rest position. The Python is one sweet firing revolver; it's much more accurate than I can shoot it, if you know what I mean.

Update: Just for the record, the bottom grouping is 4 1/2" at 50 yards.

Next time: Silhouette Range. I can't wait to draw down on a T-Rex. ;-)

Technorati tag: Colt Python

Want to improve the reading skills of teenaged boys?

Send 'em to this site.

I'm either showing my age or my geekiness -- probably both -- as I confess that as I watched a preview in action, my main thought was "how did they do that?"

Note: This site was originally designed by Philips (the electronics conglomerate) to allow the sending of condolences to fans of losing teams during the recent World Cup Soccer tournament.

Tug of the zipper to AdRants, which provides a more titillating introduction than the site deserves. But, that's advertising for you.

Midland 2005

The Census Bureau has released its 2005 American Community Survey, and here are some Data Profile Highlights for the city of Midland (county stats are on a separate page):

• Our fair city is fairer still due to the fact that 52.3% of its population is female (vs. 51.0% nationwide).


• We're younger than the nation as a whole, but not by a lot. Our median age is 33.8 vs. 36.4 overall. 11.9% of Midlanders are 65 and over (vs. 12.1%), and 7.7% are younger than 5 (vs. 7.0%). The survey didn't assess how many of us act younger than five.


• We're sadly lacking in residents of Polynesian descent (0.0% vs. 0.1% nationwide), but we more than make up for it with our Latin flavor. 34.5% of Midland's population declared itself to be of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, vs. 14.5% nationwide.


• Midland's average family size is right on the money vs. the country overall: 3.19 members vs. 3.18 overall. This probably excludes dogs and geckos, although this isn't explicitly stated, presumably due to yet another bureaucratic oversight.


• This surprises me a bit: a lower percentage of Midlanders have a bachelor's degree or higher (26.2%) than the nation's average (27.2%). We've always trumpeted our highly educated workforce.


• Another surprise. 8.9% of Midland residents admit to being foreign-born, vs. 12.4% of Americans in total. One might question the honesty of the respondents for a variety of reasons we need not recount.


• In a glaring statistical aberration, the Census Bureau reports that 100.0% of Midlanders speak a language other than English at home (vs. 19.4% overall). Apparently, West Texas Drawl is deemed to be a unique linguistic characteristic.


• My head hurts trying to assess the logic of this; perhaps it's more transparent to you. 62.3% of the male population in Midland (over the age of 15) is married, but only 53.7% of the women are married. Both of these percentages are higher than their nationwide counterparts (55.9% and 51.0%, respectively). There are also 1,051 "unmarried partners" in Midland households, but the stated margin of error for this statistic is +/-527, rendering it unusable for anything other than lame jokes.


• The "Mean Travel Time to Work" is estimated to be 16 minutes in Midland vs. 25 minutes everywhere else. I can't tell if this includes driving through downtown on Big Spring Street. If it does, then the actual mean for everyone else is, like, 3 minutes. Also, it occurs to me that "Mean Travel Time" takes on a whole different meaning if you're commuting down, say, Central Expressway in Dallas, or I-10 in Houston.


• In the "No Way Category," the Census Bureau reports that 4,473 Midlanders -- 10% of its working population -- carpools to work. And in other news, most Midlanders say they'll vote for Hillary in 2008.


• I'd be interested in seeing a national comparison for this one, but it's not in the online report. 5,640 or about 20% of Midland's workforce are self-employed. That seems to be an unusually high number.


• Getting serious for a moment, the economic stats are sobering. In the category of "families with female householder, no husband present," 30.7% of them had annual income below the poverty level; this percentage rises to 63.4% for those households with related childen under 5 years. Overall, 15.1% of Midlanders reported annual incomes below the national poverty level.

Time doesn't permit us to explore some of the more esoteric data presented in the report, but I recommend especially looking at the social category of that data, to get insights on criteria such as "Education, Marital Status, Fertility, Grandparents..."

HDR Photography

I've been educating myself on high dynamic range imaging (HDRI), which is a fancy name for averaging under- and overexposed images to come up with one that provides a full range of detail, from dark shadows to the brightest highlights. The Wikipedia entry for HDRI explains the theory behind the process, albeit not in an especially edifying way.

I've downloaded a program designed specifically to create HDR images from digitized photos, and it provides fairly impressive results. The application is Photomatix Pro, by MultimediaPhoto. While it provides a good deal of flexibility in manual processing, it also has an auto mode that essentially allows you to combine the dynamic ranges of two images into a third image with one click of the mouse. Below is a real life example of my first attempt at using the software.

The first three photos were taken using Auto Exposure Bracketing, which instructs the camera to take three photos: one using the "normal" exposure, and two more using exposure settings which are under and over the normal setting. The first photo is the "normal"; the next two show the underexposed and overexposed duplicates.

The next image is the "averaged" or HDR image, using the under- and overexposed images. Note how the tree outside the window is visible as is the detail of the indoor bookshelves.

OK, granted these are not the best examples of HDRI, because the original photos are low quality (I did no tweaking in Photoshop). However, this type of image is a good example of a problem setting for most photographers: a relatively dark setting with a big bright spot right in the middle. In any event, perhaps you get the general idea. If you want to see some really impressive examples of HDR processing, visit the HDR pool at Flickr. Some amazing images have been created using HDRI techniques. You'll see that HDRI can be used for effects other than simply recovering detail lost in shadows or blown-out hightlights.

Note that if you have Photoshop CS2, it provides a tool for HDRI creation. I don't have CS2 so I can't compare it to Photomatix. But, in the short time I've used the latter program, I can tell it's going to be a useful tool for specific situations.

Technorati tags: HDRI | High Dynamic Range Image | Photomatix

Tagline Contest Reminder

Just a quick reminder that this is the last week to submit your suggestion for the Gazette's new tagline. Contest details are here. You can submit your ideas either via the comments of the post or email them to info -at- ericsiegmund dot com. Enter as often as you like...make the members of the Celebrity Judging Panel earn their non-taxable goody bags full of west Texas air.

Flattened Squirrel Redux

Remember the flattened squirrel? Well, he's back...

Wish he'd chill out every now and then, you know?

Go North, Young Ant

About the same time BP was announcing that its Prudhoe Bay pipeline system was dissolving like a fizzy in battery acid, our friends Lyle and Cindy were off on a vacation jaunt. Could there possibly be a connection?

Well, you decide:

Fire ants on the North Slope? Hmmmm...

This would make a great recurring feature: Fire Ant shirts in exotic locales. The only problem is that it will require that the eight people who've actually purchased one will have to start doing some serious traveling.

Aerial Photo Shoot

As I implied in the previous post, I had the privilege of doing an aerial photo shoot yesterday, the first time I'd done such a thing. It was a lot of fun, good experience, and I think the results were good (although the client will have the final word in that regard).

We departed from Midland's Skywest airfield mid-afternoon and headed south about 30 miles, toward a well site just north of Rankin where preparations were underway for a frac job (for the uninitiated, "frac" refers to "hydraulic fracturing"; this is a technique whereby liquid -- sometimes millions of gallons -- is pumped into the underground producing formation at pressures high enough to split the rock, thereby increasing the production of the well). We were asked to get aerial shots of the equipment on location.

The skies were mostly clear and winds were blessedly light, but the air was a still a little bumpy and it was very hot, in the mid-90s. The pilot, my friend Tommy, did such a good job of getting us to the location that we actually thought we were off course, because when it came time to look for the site, we couldn't see it -- because it was precisely below us. We made four passes at about 4,000' and I put the burst mode of my Canon digital SLR to good use, taking more than a hundred photos during the relatively brief periods that I had a clear shot through the open window and past the wing and strut of the Cessna 172.

My new 70-200mm zoom lens performed admirably. I put the camera in shutter-priority mode, setting the shutter speed to 1/1000 and varying the ISO between 200 and 400. At speeds of around 70 mph, there's plenty of buffeting through the open window, but those combinations were sufficient to make any evidence of camera shake insignificant in the resulting photos. And even though the conventional wisdom said to put the camera into manual focus at infinity, I got better results with Canon's autofocus.

So...what were the results of the shoot? Well, I can't show you the actual well site; those photos belong to the client, who hasn't yet seen them. But here's a photo of a windmill I took while we were banking to make another run:

As an interesting footnote that gives you an idea of the "community of Midland," my pal Wallace will be doing the same shoot today. As the logistics worked out, my pilot wasn't available today and his wasn't available yesterday. I expect he'll have his own report up over at Streams at some point.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the top photo, the pilot's wife accompanied us on the trip.

Update: As promised, Wallace has his report up over at Streams. I'd link directly to it but his permalinks seem to have a hitch in their giddyup. Just look for the August 25th entry.

Technorati tags: Aerial Photography | Frac Job

Contest: Give the Gazette a Tagline

Update: The Tagline contest is now closed, as we await the next step in the interminable process of picking a winner. Many thanks to all who participated. Stay tuned!

We're getting close to rolling out a new design for the Gazette ("close" being a relative term, and in this case roughly equivalent to when scientists speak of the sun being "close" to going supernova), and that new design just screams for a catchy tagline. So I'm sorta hoping you can do my work for me, and come up with a good one.

In order to provide sufficient motivation, we're hereby proposing a modest little contest. If you provide the winning tagline, you'll win Fabulous Prizes, and the quote will appear in the Gazette's header for at least one year. You'll also get a one-year link in the sidebar, extolling your awesome creativity and apparent overabundance of discretionary time.

Contest Rules

• Tagline should be 10 words or less.
• Entries are due via comment or email (info -at- ericsiegmund dot com) on or before September 1, 2006.
• Taglines should be at least vaguely relevant to the Gazette's style (or lack thereof), tone, and content (ha!). Concepts might include references to: Texas, fire ants, Content Free posts, and/or baby squirrels.
• You can enter as often as you wish, or as your pride will allow.
• After September 1, five entries will be selected by a panel of objective, um, panelists. Those five will then be included in an online poll and Gazette readers will have the final say-so in picking the winner.

Fabulous Prizes

The winner will receive a $25 gift certificate from either Amazon.com or the iTunes Music Store, and a Fire Ant Gazette coaster (what can I say? I over-ordered for Blogathon, and I sure don't want them.), along with the aforementioned one year's worth of valuable publicity.

On your mark...get set...

Go!

Oh, and thanks a bunch. All I've been able to come up with so far is "Got Milk?" and I'd swear I've heard that somewhere else.

Update: By the way, just so you won't get your feelings hurt (I know how sensitive you guys can be), I will not be commenting on your suggestions during the duration of the contest. It's not that I don't want to, and I will be reading them all with great interest, but it's probably best that I stay out of it.

Bank and Shoot

I know you're heartbroken over the prospect, but Random Thursday™ will likely not appear today. Something on my schedule this afternoon is preempting the intense mental strain of producing that feature, but I hope to have a report on that preemptive activity that will prove to be a suitable substitute.

Here's a clue.

Exposé! Secret Experiments Conducted on Plush Toys

PETSA would be appalled by this.

Caution: Brains Working

The human brain is an amazing organ, and mysterious in its functioning.

Two cases in point. First, my new writer friend over at SanLeon.net, Deborah, shared via a comment thread that she once had a car that she was never able to unlock on the first try, even after ten years of ownership, because she always turned the key the wrong way. That confession caused me to wonder if there are specific cultural cues that cause our minds to equate "clockwise" with "unlock" (or whatever), or is this simply learned behavior? But if it's the latter, then how do we explain why an otherwise highly intelligent woman would have such a problem with such a minor detail?

I'm not picking on Deborah, by the way, as every one of us can come up with at least one example of a detail that we've been unable to master. I, for example, cannot position myself on the backside of a bolt and remember which way to turn it to loosen it. My brain just can't visualize that simple action.

Then there's the question of pattern recognition. Another blogging friend, Jim, detected an amusing acronym in the comment thread for an otherwise inconsequential post. Something in Jim's brain is apparently wired to try to interpret initial caps in a string of words, a skill that is no less impressive simply because we can't discern a use for it.

And so it goes. Some people can glance at a long block of text and the misspelled words leap out as if on fire (I'm that way, except when it comes to the titles of posts, which are apparently kryptonite to my super powers of detection). NASCAR and Formula One racers apparently can process scores of variables instantaneously and [generally] make the right decisions required to ensure their safety and competitiveness.

Ever think about the dynamics of the mental and physical interplay of standing at at your back door, arms full of groceries but with one hand just free enough to unlock the door? You've got a carton of eggs under one arm but that hand is also holding a 12 pack of Diet Dr. Pepper; in the other hand you've got a half gallon of milk and your rather fragile sunglasses, as well as the door keys. How does your brain communicate to your arms, hands, and even individual fingers just the right amount of pressure that needs to be applied to keep control of each item without overdoing it?

Well, I obviously have no insights as to how any of this works; I'm just endlessly amazed (and often amused) at the way we've been fearfully and wonderfully knit.

I'd like to hear your observations of similar Behavioral Mysteries (or "BMs" to Jim).

I can't believe it's still Monday

I just took a break to take a load of laundry out of the dryer, having previously turned the knob to "touchup" and punched the start button. My Levis always need a little more fire to dry out completely.

Imagine my surprise to find that the load of laundry was still in the washer, nicely cleaned and still quite damp.

At least the dryer was warmed up as I [finally] completed the transfer between the machines.

Type of the Living Dead

From E-Zombie.com, by way of Denise over at Blue Sky in Texas, the new Font of the Week:

Please note that no zombies were harmed in the making of this typeface.

Local Kids Rebuilding NOLA

Our evening service last night was devoted to reports from four mission trips our church sponsored this summer, to Costa Rica, Germany, Montana, and New Orleans. The latter trip sent a group of teens to work on The Baptist Crossroads Project, a partnership with Habitat For Humanity that undertook the building of 40 homes in 40 days to replace some destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. (According to Habitat-NOLA.org, the scope of the project has now been expanded ten-fold!)

The report was given by our youth ministers and two of the teens who went on the trip, and it was accompanied by photos taken during the project. The work was hot, hard, and -- according to the workers -- extremely satisfying. The photos showed a very orderly row of colorful homes, elevated on concrete piers: the rebirth of a neighborhood.

Why do I mention this? Well, I think it's worth pointing out that not all teens spent their summer at the mall, but I also wanted report that if you were watching Fox & Friends this morning around 7:00 a.m., during the "Good News" segment, you saw video of the same row of houses we saw on the screens last night at church, as the network ran a brief report on Saturday's dedication of the first group of homes to be completed.

It was a great coincidence, hearing first from those whose hands helped shape those homes, and then seeing it affirmed via the international media.

Technorati tags: Baptist Crossroads | Habitat for Humanity

Imagine

Be sure to cover your keyboard before you start watching this...

Update: I forgot to give credit for this link, which I found at Random Commands. But the blog seems to have disappeared since I visited it earlier today. Perhaps it's back by now...

An Innocent Question of Etiquette

Dear Miss Manners,

Name withheld by request

Monday Debriefing

You may be forgiven if this appears suspiciously similar to a Random Thursday post, only without the stimulating and insightful content. I just figure that if you're like me (and I pray you're not), reality is best served in small bites on a Monday morning.

• Think you're not a creature of habit? Move your paper towel dispenser from where it's now mounted to another part of the kitchen.


• Headline of the Day, as seen on today's New York Post, with reference to the transport of ubër-creep John Mark Karr from Thailand to LA: "Snake on a Plane."


• Desert? What desert? -- Thunderstorms rolled through last night, dumping another half inch of rainfall in our back yard, and bringing our August total to 2.4", or about 1/3 of our total precip for the year. It's rare that west Texas is cooler and wetter than north and east Texas, but such is the strange climatic syndrome we're now experiencing.


• Perks of being a "blogger of influence" -- Fox Films's PR firm has sent a few (probably numbering in the millions) bloggers free review copies of The Sentinel, the movie released earlier this year starring Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland. We're supposed to ignite a blogospheric buzz over the upcoming general release of the DVD. My first impression: it will not play in my computer's DVD drive. (I'm not really sure how to review a DVD, especially after having reviewed the big screen version of the movie.)


• Confirmation that it is, indeed, Monday morning -- In doing a quick search to locate the previous link to my movie review, here's what I entered in the search box: "blog."


• Driving tip of the Week -- Activate your turn signal before stepping on the brake. Doing it the other way around simply confounds and annoys the drivers following you.

There. That wasn't so painful, was it?

My busy life...

I don't know why I feel the need to share this, but here's what filled our Saturday, and why, at 10:00 p.m., I can barely keep my eyes open:

• Breakfast with friends
• Walk Abbye
• Tandem ride (22 miles)
• Wife's company picnic
• Shooter's Association range rules and safety orientation
• Dance class
• Dinner followed by dessert and coffee while stealing looks at magazines at B&N
• Walk Abbye
• Update websites for three clients who couldn't care less that it's Saturday
• Post this update so I can check "make lame post" off my list
• Issue a disclaimer: I don't really have a list
• Issue a clarification: OK, I have lots of lists, but they're all mental and pretty much non-functioning
• Bid you adieu and good night while pondering the implications of blogging in hyper-realtime

Total discretionary time spent at home today: 12 minutes.

Nighty-night.

SoaP: "Time is Tissue"

You can often judge the movie you're about to see by the trailers selected to precede it. Tonight's showing of Snakes on a Plane was preceded by the following:

• Beerfest
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
• Tenacious D in 'The Pick of Destiny'
• Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

So, it's not like we weren't warned.

SoaP is so bad, it's often quite good. All the performers deserve awards for delivering their lines with straight faces, but it really only works if you know that they know that you know that they know what's going on. After all, this was a movie that was sent back to the editing room to add some gratuitous sex and violence in order to get an R rating and to keep the buzz in the blogosphere alive. The editing worked; judging by the twelve people in the theater tonight, the buzz didn't, at least not in Midland.

In the midst of the gore -- who knew snakes could be so inappropriately assertive? -- are some really funny moments...well, seconds, anyway. Saturday Night Live's Kenan Thompson steals several scenes as a distinctly non-menancing bodyguard for a rapper, and Samuel L. Jackson has his usual quota of deadpan one-liners.

The snakes are uniformly creepy, malevolent, ubiquitous, and persistent -- sort of like Howard Dean, only with more grace. The animatronic and animated versions blended impressively with the real ones, but those who are weirded out by snakes of any persuasion should really stay away from this film.

I think this brief exchange between MLB (who, by the way, suggested that we see the movie this evening, just so you know) and me sums up SoaP. As we were walking to the car after the film, she said "I'm embarrassed to tell anyone we saw that." I tried to reassure her. "Don't worry; nobody we know will see it, so they won't be able to make an assessment of what we did." In any event, I can claim I was doing research for this review; I don't know what excuse she'll be able to concoct.

To be truthful, once it's cleaned up for network TV, it won't be too bad as a campy horror/disaster genre flick. But if Beerfest represents the pinnacle of movie achievement in your book, by all means, go see it on the big screen.

Oh, and for the record, let it be understood that I've just coined the term "vipercam." Well, second only to the folks who hold the patent on the dental intraoral device of the same name. (What were they thinking?)

Technorati tag: Snakes on a Plane

2005: A "Disastrous" Year for Texas Baptist Men

Texas Baptist Men is an organization within the umbrella of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, working in a wide variety of worldwide ministries such as church building, spiritual training and disaster relief. TBM was a key part of the Southern Baptist Convention's Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in partnership with the Red Cross.

In the most recent issue of its newsletter, the extent of TBM's involvement in disaster relief was clearly spelled out, and the numbers are a bit staggering. As a part of the relief efforts following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, 5,114 TBM volunteers cooked and served 1,834,068 free meals to storm victims and relief crews. They also washed more than 1,500 loads of clothes.

When you include disaster relief trips in Mexico, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and India, TBM served more than 2 million free meals. Its motto sums up its commitment to service pretty well: "Love More Than Words...Anyway, Anywhere, Anytime."

Here's the kicker -- the organization has no budget for disaster relief, and receives no government funding. Volunteers pay their own way, and organizational costs are covered -- hopefully -- by donations from generous individuals.

If you'd like to make a contribution to the work done by TBM, you can do so online via JustGive.org, or via check or phone using the information on this page.

Oh, and despite its name, the organization includes women. You don't think guys could get 2 million meals served on time by themselves, do you? ;-)

Technorati tag: Texas Baptist Men

The Project Report: On a Roll

The next step on The Project was to attach the casters, so I can roll the whole shootin' match around the garage, as needed. I picked up four wheels at Home Depot and welded them to the bottom of the frame:

You can also see the metal flat welded across the bottom of the main compartment, and -- if your eyes are sharp -- a couple of small tabs on the bottom rail farthest* from the camera. The flat and the tabs will serve as attachment points for the expanded metal floor for that compartment.

I realize that it appears that I haven't made much progress since the last report, but the lack of progress is in my reporting, not the construction. I've made excellent progress, to the point where I'm actually using the device for its intended purpose, even though there's still some major additions left to be done. I'll try to put up another report over the weekend so that you can sit in awe of my ode to the manly art** of metalworking.

*I refer to you Garner's Modern American English for a thorough and definitive explanation of why "furthest" wasn't chosen for this mission, despite my initial inclination to do so.

**Although, I must admit that it sort of ruins the effect when, in the midst of flying sparks and the crackle of the welder, the iPod playing over the powered speakers in the garage serves up It's My Party by Lesley Gore. At least it was quickly followed by Hendrix doing Voodoo Child.

Meet the real stars of "Snakes On A Plane"

[Warning: Serpent Alert]

Snakes On a Plane opens tomorrow, and we plan to see it at the earliest convenient time. Make of that what you will; it sounds like a fun movie*.

Anyway, if you want to get up close and personal with the serpent stars, take a look at this National Geographic interview with the snake wrangler who worked the film, and the related photo gallery.

If it makes you feel any better, according to the article About two-thirds of the film's serpents are either animatronic or computer generated.

Still, that leaves a slithering one-third.

*Anyone dare me to let loose a slinky from the top of the movie theater during the movie?

Blind Faith

I frequently hear the following from passers-by when I'm out walking Abbye: "Oh, she must be so tired," or "you're walking her poor little feet off!" This is because she trails along behind me, keeping the leash taut, and onlookers seem to assume it's because I'm imposing a pace that she can't handle.

The reality is that she's most comfortable with that arrangement. Since she's blind, the tight leash is her feedback and security mechanism to ensure that she doesn't take a misstep. That's not to say that she's perfectly adapted to the arrangement. Occasionally, she'll get excited or startled and will veer off to the side, beyond my shadow. Depending on where we are, she'll fall off the curb or stumble onto a lawn. The worst case is when she decides to speed up and tries to get ahead of me; that rarely has a good outcome. But, on the whole, she seems to understand that things work out better when she lets me lead the way.

I think Abbye's situtation has relevance to our relationship with God. For one thing, we're blind and He's not. We can't see into the next second; He's not only seen eternity but He's been there and back. Also, His guidance is perfect (unlike mine; I've been known to get distracted and let Abbye bump into obstacles)...but the leash is loose enough that we can veer off or try to run ahead if we decide we're better equipped than Him to forge our path. The outcome of doing this almost inevitably results in pain or chastening.

I know that some folks will be uncomfortable with the leash analogy, and the flippant answer is to remind them that they're the "Ten Commandments," not the "Ten Suggestions." But it goes beyond that. God's laws -- every last one of them -- are laid down for our own good, out of a desire to help us avoid bad things.

So, the next time you're tempted to run ahead or backwards or amok, do what Abbye does: pay attention to that gentle tug that will remind you of the right direction and speed. You'll find that God's eyes work plenty well for the both of you.

Random Thursday

Burning question of the day: mayo, mustard, or ketchup/catsup/squished tomatos?

• In the comments of this post about the the "25 Most Influential Products" of the PC era, I posed a question about a "classic computational device" that I saw in action as a mere pup in my first real job out of college (way back in the 70s). I couldn't remember what it was called, but I do now: a comptometer. Check them out here; I think the model I observed was similar to the electric Burroughs shown about 2/3 of the way down the page.


• The cool thing about the comptometer was that its tiny little mechanical brain could perform rather complex ciphers, but it was very slow. You could leave the room and take a coffee break while it computed a square root. I'm sure it's an urban legend, but some say that you could divide a large number by zero on Friday afternoon and return Monday morning to find that the machine had exploded at some point during the weekend, giving up its very life in pursuit of the infinite.


• Bicycle riders often accuse car drivers of being inconsiderate, but that street runs both ways. Only thing is, drivers have more options for payback.


• Given the ongoing crisis in the Middle East -- and especially Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons -- something tells me that CBS ought to rethink the appropriateness of its new fall series, Jericho, the plot of which centers around an apparent nuclear explosion in Kansas.


• By now, I'm sure everyone has heard that Google has now launched its free citywide WiFi coverage in its home town of Mountain View, California. While this certainly sounds appealing from a user's perspective, "free" is perhaps a bit misleading, especially if you want to use the service indoors. A wireless modem will set residents back $70-$150, and there will be a certain set of users who will be too intimidated by the technology to even bother with it.


• Font of the Month is the aptly named Killer Ants, a distressed typeface that evokes absolutely nothing related to ants, as far as I can tell. But, it's still a cool font.

Closing here with a gentle reminder that there are only about two weeks left in the "Give the Gazette a Tagline" contest, the new game sensation that's sweeping the country. Feel free to leave your suggestion here, or email it to me at info -at- ericsiegmund dot com.

While I was posting about fast food ads...

...David Gerstman, aka Soccer Dad, was participating in a blogger conference call with former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He asked one of the most interesting questions of the session, and got an equally interesting answer (following from interview transcipt posted on Atlas Shrugs, another interview participant):

One thing in Netanyahu's answer bears repeating, a reference to the recent Israeli/Hezbollah fight: this was the opening salvo of Iran's bid for empire, and Shiite Islam's bid for world dominion, and it is an unrestricted, uninhibited quest and will use nuclear weapons once it acquires them.

I would love to hear someone present some facts that would disprove Mr. Netanyahu; I really would. But, I'm not holding my breath. All evidence seems to point to the fact that only Israel, America, and to a lesser extent, Great Britain are standing in the trembling pause that precedes a global conflict of unimaginable devastation, and the short fuse that cannot be allowed to be lit is Iran's procurement of nuclear weapons.

Global editorializing aside, this interview seems to underscore the increasing legitimacy of bloggers as "citizen journalists." Was Netanyahu preaching to the choir, using a group of friendly bloggers as a megaphone to get his message out? Of course he was, and it's a shrewd move on his part, in light of the enemy's ability and willingness to do the same thing.

I don't intend to turn the Gazette into a political or news commentary publication; I have neither the skill nor inclination to do that, and I don't think most of my readers come here for that sort of thing. At the same time, it's important that we each take a stand on issues that will, whether we like it or not, affect the world in which we dwell. In this instance, I choose to stand with Israel.

Netscape? Are they still around?

Janco Associates has published a white paper documenting browser market share and the big surprise is that Netscape has almost 5% of the market, compared to 0.3% a year ago.

Quick show of hands: any Gazette readers using Netscape?

[Aside #1: I just popped over and looked at the Gazette's visitor stats and note that Netscape is used by 4% of the traffic, with a scary 2% (!) still using Netscape 3.x. Yikes. I can't imagine the jumbled mess they see here. OTOH, that's the same percentage as those using IE 7.]

Confusingly, Janco had this to say in the news release accompanying the white paper:

They must be seeing something in the numbers that I'm overlooking.

Anyway, Firefox's adoption rate has slowed a bit and continues to hover around the 12-14% share.

[Aside #2: The most intriguing things about all of this is the amount of interest that the relative market share of a bunch of free software can still generate. Sometimes I think that there's a perception that one's choice in browser says as much about them -- or more -- than their choice in automobile.]

[Aside #3: If that's the case, perhaps the browser marketers need to take some lessons from car makers like Hummer, where one's manhood (and, now, womanhood) is directly proportional to the amount of Hummerization of one's driveway.]

[Aside #4: I tried to find an URL for the Hummer commercial alluded to above but the whole dang website is a Flash movie.]

Mixed Blessing

I could have also titled this post "Be Careful What You Pray For," but I'm pretty sure I've used that before -- multiple times.

It's raining -- again.

After one of the driest summers in a long time, the past couple of weeks have provided a pleasant respite from the heat and drought. But every silver lining has its dark cloud.

For one thing, the allergies that accompany rainfall (mold?) have been rampant; my head is an undetonated IED and I'm going through tissues like, well, tissues.

On the other hand, everything is becoming nice and green.

On the other hand, longtime readers of the Gazette will understand what a problem the rainfall presents to Abbye (see also, Leaves of Death). The problem is compounded now that we have to test her before giving her an insulin shot.

On the other hand, the 90- and 100-degree days are temporarily only unpleasant memories, stirred by the $300+ electric bill I just received. I noticed that Dallas was expecting a high temp today of 106; we're to be 20 degrees cooler.

On the other hand, I really should have mowed the lawn yesterday during a break in the action. (See also, "Allergies and the Lawn Mowing They Prevent")

On the other hand, the rain has not been heavy enough to cause any damage, despite being under a seemingly continous flash flood watch or warning. Some of our friends in nearby Odessa haven't been quite as fortunate.

On the other hand, there's no bike riding in the rain.

On the other hand...well, I've run out of hands. The bottom line in the rainfall bookkeeping is that we'll take it whenever and however we can get it, and if I have to pay a price in physical discomfort and a recalcitrant dog and a jungley lawn, so be it. I'm sure someone out there appreciates my sacrifice for the greater good.

Business? We don't need no steenkin' business...

Not that I would know, but I suppose there are many different ways to alert the world that you have all the business you want, and this* is one of them.

*Profanity, albeit bleeped; may not be office-friendly for that reason, depending on where you work.

It's too bad, really, because Subway could really use the help with their ads. ;-)

Technorati tag: Coudal Partners

The PC's 25th: Most Influential Products

In recognition of the the 25th anniversary of the personal computer, eWeek has assembled a rather eclectic list of "The 25 Most Influential Products of the Past 25 Years."

Number one on the list is probably a consensus selection: the IBM PC. The second place product -- the Mosaic web browser -- is a not-so-obvious choice. The PC was widely and effectively used well before the WWW hit the mainstream, and products such as Lotus 1-2-3 (on the list at #12) were arguably more instrumental in the adoption of the PC as a business tool.

The list is a good mix of geeky (e.g. Nessus, Sniffer, and XNS) and mainstream (e.g. Adobe PDF, Apple Macintosh, and Microsoft Office). It's also refreshing to see a top-whatever list that doesn't include a single reference to an iPod or the mp3 file format.

Book Review: "The Detonators"

There was a time in America's history when a major complex in New York City was targeted and destroyed by an enemy that most people either didn't know existed or didn't understand its motivations. It was a time when that enemy was working to weaponize anthrax to use against the United States. It was a time when small amounts of seemingly harmless liquids could be transported without suspicion, then combined to wreak devastation. It was a time when the American intelligence community, such as it was, was composed of independent agencies apparently more interested in protecting their individual turfs than working together to share information that might help identify and defeat the real enemy. It was a time when that enemy was living and working in the very country it targeted, using forged IDs and laundered money.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Of course it does, but probably not for the reasons you think. The time in American history described above began in 1916, just prior to the United States' entrance into World War I. The "unrecognized enemy" was Germany, in the form of a network of spies who were interned in the States while their country waged war in Europe. And the sabotaged facility was the munitions factory on Black Tom Island, located in New York Harbor.

In The Detonators, Chad Millman has written an unusually compelling account of this little-known act of sabotage on American soil, and the two-decades long effort by a few passionate men to properly lay the blame for the act at the feet of Germany.

This is a piece of American history that, frankly, I knew nothing about. World War I has never seemed to have the same historical allure as the sequel, and almost everything that happened prior to World War II seems to have been overshadowed by the Great Depression. But as many are fond of saying, history repeats itself, and those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat the mistakes.

Besides documenting some uncanny parallels to our post-9/11 world, the book manages to make the real life tedium of international legal wrangling and file scouring interesting. Millman has a gift for narrative, able to deftly insert small tidbits of personality into what would be dry and boring in less-skilled hands.

Make no mistake; this is not a page-turner, nor does it offer any cliff-hanging plot twists. It's a workmanlike, well-researched account of an incident in our country's history that would otherwise remain a footnote in a textbook. Millman has breathed new life into that incident and his account will enliven the most scholarly interest in that period of history.

The primary shortcoming of the book is that the author didn't take the opportunity to address the obvious parallels between that time in history and today's. The reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions, and that's fine -- perhaps even preferable if the alternative is to have some revisionist dogma laid out. But one gets the feeling that Millman would have been an objective and informed guide in helping us to place some of the most important events of this century into the historical context of the previous century.

If you're a fan of American history, this 286-page book, published last month, will probably be right up your alley.

You can learn more about the book and the author here.

Disclosure: A review copy of The Detonators was graciously provided to me by the good folks at the Online Marketing Group of the Hatchette Book Group USA.

Technorati tags: The Detonators | Chad Millman

When Bad Things Happen to Good Lizards

Our Monday got off to a traumatic start when MLB arose early this morning and found the inert little body of one of our household geckos floating in Abbye's water bowl. Despite her best resuscitative efforts, the details of which are best left undescribed, the lizard's croakedness* was deemed to be a permanent condition. The body is now lying in state on our patio, awaiting the proper honors.

Theories and rumors of conspiracies abound, but one thing is clear: spiders were involved. One would have to be an idiot not to recognize that.

At the same time, who knew geckos can't swim (other than the spiders, of course)?

Measures have been instituted to prevent a reoccurence of this tragedy.

Mark my words, spiders of the household: this death shall not long remain unavenged.

*I've been assured by The Authorities that this is the proper technical term, despite the apparent misassociation of species.

Veggin' Out

It's Gwynne's fault.

What Veggie Tales character are you?

Junior
Take this quiz!

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"World Trade Center" - A Few More Thoughts

I'm not someone who normally looks to the movies for education, nor do I tend to seek out films that are designed to "make me think." I'm too skeptical of Hollywood's motivations and agendas to imbue most movies with any value beyond that of simple entertainment. But, I have a very short list of exceptions.

The Passion of the Christ is on that list, and now, so is World Trade Center.

I suspect that I'm no different than most of you in this regard: I don't need to see a movie, however sincerely envisioned or well crafted, to remember 9/11 and how it changed our nation. However, that day's events birthed a multitude of individual stories, as numerous as the individuals and families who were directly involved in those events, and there's merit in being present during the telling (or retelling) of some of those stories. And that's what World Trade Center was to me...a chance to see and hear some of those stories, the reality of which were lived by some of my neighbors.

Oliver Stone has crafted a love letter to first responders, pure and simple. As awesome (and sensitively presented) as the actual attack and destruction of the Twin Towers was, those scenes became simply a backdrop against which we see the true definition of heroism: people doing great things not because they are not afraid, but in spite of their fear.

World Trade Center is a masterpiece of technical movie-making, no doubt about it. With only a few exceptions, I couldn't distinguish actual footage from 9/11 from re-created footage. Much of the "action" was implied, with the loss of absolutely none of the drama and emotion. But in the end, it's a pretty simple and wonderful account of people caring about other people.

The contrast is stark, isn't it? On September 11, 2001, 20 people made it their lives' work to kill 3,000. On that same day, thousands of people risked their lives to save 20. And while we probably don't need a movie to remind us of that contrast, there's still value in the reinforcement offered by one like World Trade Center.

Note: At the end of the movie, some onscreen text dedicates the film to the fallen first responders. A list of the names of those who died on 9/11 rolls immediately following those notes. I shouldn't have to say this, but -- please -- help honor those people by remaining seated for the 15 seconds it takes for their names to appear. Only about half the people in our showing did so. I'm sure those that got up and left during that segment meant no disrespect, but I found it a bit unsettling that they would do so.

"World Trade Center" - Worthwhile

Got a dance tonight, so no time for a full review, but I can tell you that we were both impressed with World Trade Center. I went in a skeptic -- too soon, too much, too...everything -- but Oliver Stone got it right.

How can you tell a story that affected so many thousands of families? The scope is overwhelming, and the mind can't process it until it's broken down into small bites.

We can love our country only as much as we love our neighbor.

More later...perhaps. And, perhaps, this is enough.

Technorati tag: World Trade Center

Airport Security Measures Tightened in Wake of New Threats

New security measures in place today at US airports in response to thwarted terror plot include:
-- No liquids or gels of any kind will be permitted in carry-on baggage.

Better think twice before having that last-minute preboard cup of coffee.

Technorati tag: Airport Screening

Great Font Moments In Film -- A Continuing Series

So, for unimaginable fame and glory, tell me the name of the movie in which the following dialog appears, along with the name of the actor who delivered them:

Hint: These lines carried forward from a previous profanity-laden scene in which fonts played a central role.

Random Thursday

• I saw a quail sitting in the top of a mesquite yesterday during my bike ride. I don't believe I've ever seen a quail in a tree (or a bush, for those of you familiar with west Texas mesquite). I envisioned him sitting on the top of that bush, looking at the horizon, and yelling "I'm king of the world!"


• Come to think of it, DeCaprio looks a little like a quail.


• If you're considering switching to a polyphasic sleep cycle -- and, really, who isn't? -- you'd be well advised to heed this guy's advice. I'm a big believer in polyphasic sleep, although I've found it works best if I add it to my regular monophasic sleep cycle.


• Here's a music video assembled from 16,000 digital photos. (You guys couldn't figure out how to work the video feature on your digicam either, huh?) The artist, Yunyu, blogs about her experience in learning to be a human version of Gumby. I'm so impressed that I'm considering copying her bloody dead raven look for the Gazette's new layout, although that might throw our tagline contest into a funk.


• Actually, Yunyu's character in the music video reminded me a bit of The Grudge, one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. I'm creeping myself out just writing about it.


• From the Damned with Faint Praise in Dance Class phrasebook: "Nice recovery." Uttered by the instructor.


• Say, did I mention that we bought a new camcorder last weekend? Yep, one more piece of hardware and associated software that I don't have the time to master. We didn't jump in with both feet, however, electing to stay in the shallow end (a good name for a blog, by the way) and going for a lower end Canon DVCam, the Elura 100. And even though it's a relatively inexpensive recorder, I'm quite taken with its small size and plethora of features (like taking widescreen -- 16:9 -- video). Anyway, the main reason we got it is to capture new dance steps at our lessons, since we have a hard time remembering some of them by the time we get home. I may have to try my hand at uploading a YouTube video just so I can be like the cool kids.

Don't forget to leave your suggestion for the Gazette's new tagline.

A Photo(shop) is Worth a Thousand Words

Actual unretouched Reuters photo of mutant Israeli
soldier prowling the Lebanese countryside

Reuters new motto: Reshaping reality one pixel at a time.

Technorati tags: Reuters | Photoshopping the News

Mac Pro: Time for my own personal blogathon

I just popped over to the online Apple Store and configured a Mac Pro Quad Xeon with the following upgrades:

• 3GHz processors
• 16 gigabytes of RAM
• 2 terabytes internal hard drive storage via four 7200rpm Serial ATA 3gb/s drives
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 video card with 512MB of VRAM and Stereo 3D (2 x dual-link DVI)
• Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and AirPort Extreme wireless connectivity options

The total is just *cough* $12,128, plus sales tax and shipping.

Of course, if I'm going to get that NVIDIA card, I might as well spring for two 30" Apple Cinema Displays.

New total: $16,126.00.

Looks like I picked a bad day to close up the meth lab.

Debating the Long Tail

There's an interesting dust-up going on between Wall Street Journal columnist Lee Gomes and Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson over the validity of some of Anderson's hypotheses set forth in his best-selling book, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. [Disclosure: This book is laying on my end table, but I've yet to read it.]

In his July 26th Portals column entitled It May Be a Long Time Before the Long Tail Is Wagging the Web, Gomes argues that a review of some recent data either refutes or at least doesn't strongly support some of Anderson's arguments.

Anderson strikes back in this blog entry entitled The Long Tail: The Backlash, Chapter 1, accusing Gomes of misinterpreting his book, mistating the facts, misunderstanding the statistics, and being mean to baby squirrels.

It's all very amusing, and even educational, especially if you take the time to read through the extensive comments left on Anderson's post. Anderson comes across as a bit defensive (someone accused him of assuming an attitude of martyrdom), but he also raises some good counterpoints. And any thread in which someone mentions that omitting an reference to leptokurtosis invalidates the whole discussion must have some merit (if only to my pal Jim).

I'm not all that interested in whether the statistics prove the truth of the Long Tail Theory, primarily because it feels right, and I want it to be true (as a card-carrying, non-dues-paying member of the Long Tail in nearly every conceivable part of my life). That's hardly the basis for sound economic decisions, but I never claimed to be an economist. However, I am fascinated by the give and take of the proponents of both sides of the argument. At some point, the discussion over motives gets louder than the debate of the facts.

Particularly telling is this comment by well-known (OK, to some) blogger and journalism professor Jay Rosen:

I just didn't see that in the WSJ column, but perhaps I'm not journalistically-sensitive enough to pick up on such subtleties.

Technorati tags: The Long Tail | Chris Anderson | Lee Gomes

Turning Down Work

I've spoken with enough prospective clients calling to ask about a website that I can tell from the beginning whether a project is something I'll be interested in. Thus it was that my antenna was quivering early in yesterday afternoon's phone conversation as the man on the other end of the line rattled off a litany of things he wanted in his new website.

I want to be able to sell stuff via the site. I want to have my site pop up in a separate window whenever somebody looks for what I'm selling. I want to have everything on my site link to eBay so it's always available there. I'm just starting out so I want everything to be as inexpensive as possible...

OK...well, let's talk about some of these things. Do you have a merchant account?

No.

OK. No problem. You might consider using PayPal to handle your transactions. Are you familiar with PayPal?

Uh, no. I don't know anything about computers.

Well, that's what I'm here for. Now, what are you selling.

Oh, knives. Jewelry. Jewels, like diamonds and stuff.

So, do you need a database backend to manage your inventory?

What's that?

Well, it allows you to update your website's store without actually having to get into the website itself. But if you don't have a large inventory, it's probably more expensive and complicated than you need at this point.

Yeah, well, we just want to be able to update the website ourselves.

So...you know HTML?

No, but my partner knows all about websites. She says she can build the website but I don't trust her.

Ooooo-kay. Now, I really don't know what you mean when you say you want your products to automatically appear on eBay. I don't have any experience in that area, but it seems to me that that's something you'll need to handle via your eBay account, and not really something that requires a special set up on your website. But, again, I don't know that for sure.

I don't know anything about computers.

All right. Uh...let's talk about this pop-up thing you mentioned. What do you have in mind there?

Well, you know when you visit a site and, like, 500 windows pop up and you have to click through each one of them to get back to where you're going? I want my site to be that annoying pop up generator.

[Note: "Annoying" is the exact term he used.]

So...

Yeah, so that whenever somebody goes looking for something I'm selling, when they visit another site, I want mine to start popping up...

You know...uh...I'm not your guy. I'm not interested in working on something like that...

[I didn't bother explaining to him that what he was requesting was quite impossible. The very idea that he wanted to do it in the first place was sufficient reason for me to write off the project.]

Oh? Well, where could I find someone who will do that for me?

[That's right...I'm here to help you find my competion. It's what I live for...pleasing the customer until the bitter end.]

I suggest that you look in the Yellow Pages. Good luck. [click]

Calls like this are the reason that while I pay for a small Yellow Pages ad, I do so grudgingly, as I've rarely gotten a worthwhile project via a cold call. Over 90% of my business comes from referrals, and that's the way I like it.

Anyway, I'd love to listen in on this guy's conversation with other web designers.

Note: I don't make it a habit to publish conversations with clients, prospective or otherwise. But every now and then something so outrageous occurs that it must be documented -- as a cautionary tale, if for no other reason.

Apple Developer's Conference: Big News

I just checked in on MacWorld's live coverage of Steve Jobs keynote address at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, and even though this conference is not generally about product announcements , there's usually at least one big one thrown out by Jobs just for fun. This year's no exception, as Apple is rolling out its MacPro desktop box sporting two dual core Intel Xeon processors:

The new machines will support up to 16 gigabytes of RAM, and up to 2 terabytes of internal hard drives (via four snap-in enclosures). The standard configuration features two 2.66GHz dual-core Xeon processors, 1GB of 667MHz memory, 250GB storage, Nvidia GeForce 7300GT graphics with 256MB VRAM and a 16x SuperDrive optical drive, priced at $2,499. Upgrades are available to 3GHz processors, a heftier video card, and the previously mentioned maxed-out RAM and hard drive capacities.

The systems go on sale today; interestingly, Apple's website doesn't yet have an announcement, showing just how new this news is.

Hmm. Time to upgrade?

Technorati tags: Apple | Mac Pro

My gecko can beat up your gecko

Geico's not the only one with a gecko:

This is the little fellow (or girl...I'm not that nosy) that lives in our game room. The spider-eating lizard is only about two inches in length. He blends in pretty well with the brick that covers two walls of the room; I'm not sure if they're able to change colors to match their environment, but I'd swear this one turns a lighter color when he's on our tile floor.

I'm pretty sure this one doesn't have a Cockney accent, though. It's more of a drawl...kind of squeaky, but still a drawl.

Floyd Landis to lose his TDF title?

By now you've probably seen it: the second sample confirmed the findings of the first, and Floyd Landis now faces the very real possibility of being stripped of his Tour de France title and suspended from the pro cycling circuit for two years for used of a banned substance (testosterone, in this case). He's already been fired by Phonak, his Swiss cycling team.

Landis continues to maintain his innocence, and we can expect to see months of legal wrangling about this, as not only his reputation but also millions of dollars is at stake.

Interestingly, Greg LeMond, 3-time TDF winner and the first American to win Le Tour, has already passed judgment:

I still say there's something fishy about this situation; prepared to be surprised by future revelations.

Technorati tags: Floyd Landis | Tour de France

Aeon Flux: Need a backstory, folks...

Thus begins Aeon Flux, a sci-fi movie that wasn't treated well in these pages when I first viewed it, and one that I find hasn't improved with age, having seen it again on a NetFlix DVD.

But it was only on the second viewing that the implications of the opening screen text sunk in.

If the virus killed all but 5 million people, and that 5 million represented 1% of the world's population, that means that -- um, carry the one -- the beginning population was 500 million people.

Something's not right. Stick with me on this, OK?

The US Census Bureau estimates that the world's population in mid-2010 will be 6.8 billion (well, actually, they say 6,825,750,456, a number I'm not prepared to dispute but one whose precision is dazzling). So, what I'd like to know is what happened to the 6.3 billion people who apparently "went away" between 2010 and 2011.

Frankly, I think that backstory would have been much more interesting than what actually appeared on the screen.

OTOH, perhaps we're just seeing some fuzzy math, which shouldn't surprise us given that the movie was produced by MTV. No wonder Johnny can't make change at the drive-through window.

What? Well, what do you think about while driving home from the grocery store?

Love Me Lender

I just got an email informing me that I am pre-qualified for an Elvis Presley Visa card.

That's pretty tempting, but I think I'll hold out for a Johnny Cash ATM card.

Get it? Cash? ATM?

I crack myself up sometimes.

Gotta love the oil bidness in Texas

I see that Chesapeake Energy was the high bidder for drilling rights in a new portion of the prolific Barnett Shale natural gas play in North Texas. They're paying $181 million in cash and giving up a 25% royalty for the right to drill -- are you ready for this -- under the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport!

Chesapeake is already a big player in the Barnett Shale, and they've identified at least 250 potential drillsites on this new acreage. Based on their news release, it appears that they'll be working from pads similar to those used on the North Slope of Alaska, drilling multiple wells from one central, small footprint location, using directional drilling (once known by the pejorative term, "slant hole drilling") to stick those steel straws into the producing zones.

Since the lessees are the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, along with the DFW Airport Board, Chesapeake also gets to deal with this wonderful little detail:

I'll bite my tongue at this point.

Anyway, if you thought flying in and out of DFW was interesting before, wait until it's underlaid by a dense network of flowlines carrying an abundant supply of flammable material. I can only imagine the interest that the federal Department of Homeland Security is going to take in this project.

Technorati tags: Chesapeake Energy | Barnett Shale

The Outlaw 92.5 Update: No Chicks Allowed?

I've been streaming The Outlaw 92.5, an alternative country music radio station originating in San Antonio (and first discussed here), for about six hours during mindless Photoshopping and web maintenance work over the last couple of days, and while it's occasionally amusing, periodically entertaining, and generally harmless, I have just one question: where are the women?

In those six hours of listening, I have heard zero-zip-nada-no songs by a female artist. What's up with that? Are there no "musical outlaws" of the distaff persuasion in Texas? I guess Gretchen Wilson (for example) is too much of a Nashville Yankee to qualify.

That's pretty lame, when you think about it.

On the other hand, by my scientific measurement and analysis, 84% of the songs mentioned drinking beer until senseless, so it's got that going for it.

Update: In the interest of providing fair and balanced reporting, I need to let you know that only 80 minutes after this post, the station played "Something The Doctor Didn't Order" by Bonnie Bishop. It was quite excellent, by the way.

Technorati tags: 92.5 The Outlaw | KRPT-FM Radio

And the bride wore pink...ropers, that is

You may be a Texan if...

...you wear pink full-quill ostrich ropers under your wedding dress:

Photo by Jennifer Taylor

Gotta love it...although you can't help wondering at how the groom was shod.

Infant Bereavement Photography

Note: This post deals with sensitive subject matter (look at the title), and I know that it may not be appropriate for some Gazette readers. Please feel free to browse elsewhere. I just didn't want to unintentionallly surprise anyone.

I'm not sure why -- because the subject matter has never directly touched me or my family -- but after only about 30 seconds on this site I had a strong sense of really needing to go somewhere else.

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep ("NILMDTS") is a nonprofit organization that offers free photography services to parents experiencing the death of a baby. I had no idea that such a service existed, or that there was a demand for it.

Similar free services are provided to the parents of "desparately ill children" American Child Photographers Charity Guild.

The thing is, as difficult as it is to consider the subject matter, I can't imagine being the one doing the photography. It takes a special person, I think, to provide this kind of ministry, and that's what it is, really. And I need to start getting more comfortable with it, because I've just learned that one of my professional photography web clients is going to start offering these services in our area. I don't know if the client will be a member of the NILMDTS network, or will offer these services independently, but we'll be building a new website focused on these services.

May God grant me the sensitivity and skill to do a job worthy of the subject.

What a web designer's blog should look like

I'm a little late in writing about this, although I doubt that any of the Gazette's regular visitors include Digital Web Magazine in their list of daily reads. The July 25 issue has an interview with Belgian web designer Veerle Pieters, and Ms. Pieters is quite candid about a number of aspects of the way she approaches her successful business.

A few items of note that I found particularly relevant to my own situation:

• She says that she meets only about 25% of her clients face-to-face. While I've met a much larger percentage of mine, there is a significant minority whom I've never met and likely never will, even though we may correspond and collaborate as often as weekly. That's one of the fascinating aspects about this business.


• While she agrees that web design is evolving to the point where many designers will be specialized, Pieters believes there will always be a market for the "one person shop who does it all." I hope so, since that's me. But, really, I can't do it all; I have to make a conscious decision about what technologies I'll try to master and which ones I'll leave to someone else (like, say, Flash).


• She charges different rates for different clients (e.g. slow-pay vs. fast) and different types of jobs (mainly distinguished by tightness of deadline). That's something I still haven't come to grips with entirely, although I do take into account perceived ability to pay when developing an estimate, particularly when I'm working with a small nonprofit organization.

Pieters's blog is a showcase of her eye for design. I hate to even link to it, as it serves to highlight my own design inadequacies (as if they weren't already apparent). She makes a comment in the interview to the effect that you either have design talent or you don't, and if you don't, well, you're just out of luck.

I really hope she's wrong about that.