Still sprinkling. Glad I keep an umbrella at the office.

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My laptop’s screen has been taking on a distinct reddish hue upon powering up the last few weeks. I remembered that well from the last time my screen backlighting crapped out on me.

I did take the precaution of letting our local Help Desk folks know — and they assured me they’d make sure they had a spare backlight for the machine, just in case.

Well, it suddenly went completely black on me this morning. The LCD is okay — I can just make out the outlines of windows and dialogs and the like — but without the backlighting, it’s unusable. I cycled the power and it came back on, but … let’s see if I can get it fixed now.

Filed under :: My Computer
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It might not get any better than this: French-Fry-Coated Bacon … on a Stick.

Originally I was planning on making a French fry coated, bacon-wrapped hot dog, but thought that the inclusion of the hotdog was largely pointless. Why not just head straight for the bacon?

My only question: would it be better with a bowl of chili to dip it into? Might have to experiment …

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Rain down at the house, light snow up at the office, and the foothills in the misty light all limned with black and white like a giant electronic microscope scan.

While the cold may cause some issues, I think everyone’s gardens will enjoy the good soak.

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Synchronizing five metronomes. Ingenious.

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Here.

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Chile’s Chaitén volcano + a Big Thunderstorm = Primal Nature Wow! 

(via kottke) 

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To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, “Depend on it, sir, when a man knows the electronic expense report system is to be swapped out with a new one in a couple of days, losing all the credit card receipt records it has accumulated over the past six months, it concentrates his mind wonderfully on getting his old expense reports submitted.”

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I actually enjoyed Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, both as the book and the 1971 Robert Wise (very faithful) movie adaptation (which I actually saw in the theater). Though more than a bit cerebral and talky, it’s also tense in stripped-down man-vs-man Fail-Safe sort of way.

When we went to Iron Man, we saw a trailer for the A&E 2-night mini-series, coming up Memorial Day weekend. And my reaction to Margie was, “Hey, it’s like The Andromeda Strain, only with car crashes.” And it seems that was pretty close to the mark.

 Andre Braugher, who plays the nefarious Gen. George Mancheck in A&E’s upcoming SF miniseries The Andromeda Strain, told SCI FI Wire that the show goes well beyond the original Michael Crichton book and 1971 movie version.

“It’s very anticlimactic, the book and the film,” Braugher (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) said in an interview at the miniseries’ Hollywood premiere on May 7. He added: “You’ve got the Andromeda; it’s suddenly somehow benign, but then you’ve got a reactor thing, you know? … But that movie wouldn’t have held up today, you know what I mean? So it had to be re-imagined.”

The premise remains the same: A satellite falls from the sky, and most of the townspeople of a small Utah hamlet die suddenly. A group of top scientists, led by Dr. Jeremy Stone (Benjamin Bratt), race time in the top-secret underground lab called Wildfire to uncover the mystery of the deaths before the cause—a contagious agent called Andromeda—can spread.

Writer Robert Shenkkan has updated and expanded the story well beyond the parameters of the original 1969 book and Robert Wise’s movie, taking a lot of the story outside Wildfire and boosting the action elements. “I think our screenwriter and [director] Mikael [Salomon] together have done a really wonderful job bringing that together,” Braugher said.

Because, of course, the idea of a mysterious space contagion that might wipe out humanity if not identified and contained is simply too … passé for modern audiences, too conventional. We have to do something to “boost the action elements.” Like car crashes. And we definitely need a “nefarious general,” and all those other “environmental, political and military storylines.”

See, that’s what was missing from Lord of the Rings — a cabal of Elven, Dwarvish, and Human military juntists that were out to take over the One Ring to further their own purposes. Similarly, a remake of Casablanca wouldn’t be complete without an examination of the European-Islamic relationships in Morocco and the imposition of French hegemony over North Africa. And let’s not forget the animal abuse subtext that was woefully under-represented in Gone with the Wind, but will clearly need to be added into the next version filmed. And don’t get me started on Bambi and the need to “punch up” the impact of strip-mining upon the denizens of the forest …

*sigh* I’ll still record it, though …

Filed under :: Media - Books :: Media - Movies :: Media - TV
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Michigan’s voters passed a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage “or similar union for any purpose.” Because of that, the state supreme court has now ruled that no public agency can extend any benefits to domestic partners (e.g., to gay couples, who, of course, cannot get married in Michigan).

The irony is twofold. First, though the amendment was touted by “pro-family” organizations, among those hurt by the ruling are the children living in households of gay couples.   Sorry, not only do we not recognize your adoptive parents as your “real” parents, but you can’t have health insurance, either. A bigger irony is that the “pro-family” folks who proposed and got Amendment 2 pushed through claimed again and again and again that this was not about “benefits,” that beneifts would never be taken away, it was simply about protecting the “M” word from those nassssty gay people.

I wonder if the “Citizens for the Protection of Marriage” can be sued by the couples so affected.

Meanwhile, the Maryland supreme court has ruled that, regardless of Islamic law, a guy can’t summarily divorce his wife by simply repeating “I divorce you” three times - certainly not in order to avoid having to divide up the (in this case sizeable) estate.

Maybe he’ll sue that his freedom of religion is being infringed …

Filed under :: Gay Stuff :: Love and Marriage :: Politics & Law :: Religion
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Well, not quite, but some residents of the island of Lesbos who (it is claimed) call themselves Lesbians, are upset that their locational designation has been usurped by gay women, the “Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece” in particular.

Lesbians (the gay women kind) adopted the name from the island, which was most famously the home of the poet Sappho, who, among other things, wrote poems about love between women.

The locals from Lesbos seem to have suddenly become aware of this, and are now suing in court. While both women and men are complaining about it, it’s not clear which gender is more unhappy about the reaction when they describe themselves as Lesbians.

Hmmm. It’s almost like one of those domain disputes over food and wine in the EU, e.g., you can’t call it Champagne unless it comes fro the Champagne district of France. Except, in this case, it’s not a matter of sparkling wine trying to call themselves the name of official sparkling wines, more like a brand of car calling itself the Champagne and having the French get ticked off about it.

Some possible solutions:

1. Use capital letters appropriately. I’ve always found it vaguely incorrect for Lesbians (the gay women) to use a capital L when gay men only get lower case letters. So let “lesbians” refer to the gay women, Lesbians to the Aegean island dwellers.  Not that it will stop the glances or snickers when someone from Lesbos mentions their nationality in conversation.
2. Drop back to the old-fashioned “sapphists” and “sapphic” nomenclatures, more accurately allowing gay women to commemorate the person they intend to honor without the folks of Lesbos getting peeved. Plus it has a cool 19th Century sort of ring to it.
3. Just call them all “gay” and stop coming up with gender-specific nomenclature. I mean, isn’t that kind of discriminatory?

Obviously, I have no personal skin in the game, being neither Greek nor gay. I just have an interest in language and how it evolves, along with a disdain for political correctness (though a fondness for politeness, which is not the same thing). I don’t want to tell people what they can or should call themselves, while at the same time I can understand the dismay of some folks of Lesbos (whether or not they represent a majority, or even if people from that island actually call themselves Lesbian) at having people make assumptions (or jokes) about them.

No good answers here, assuming the questions are valid, but I’ll be curious to see how it plays out in the Greek courts. 

Filed under :: Gay Stuff :: Writing and Language :: ZT & PC
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Lots of burbling online over the protest sign — supposed to have been taken at some anti-China protest related to the Olympic Torch back in April. I’ve seen a few credit it to San Francisco and a pro-Tibet rally. Les posted about it most recently. And, of course, the obvious retort is, “Um, yes, we did.”

Three things:

1. I’ve not researched it exhaustively, but I can’t find an actual solid news source (or any original source) for the picture. There is every possibility, I think that it’s Photoshopped, rather than legit.  Note how crisp the letters are vs. the other parts of the image, though that could be a matter of focal depth. Second, how many protest signs would start with the phrase “Would we have …?” That’s a long phrase for signage, which is usually pithy and punchy to the point of incoherence. It just seems … too obvious a setup. But, I’ll confess, I could be wrong.

2. We don’t “allow” any given country to host the Olympics. The host is chosen by the IOC, in which “we” (the US) have a voice. Unless the “we” refers to the International Community as a whole.
3. As has been noted elsewhere (see the comments to Les’ post), while there were already a lot of troubling signs from Germany in 1936, that country wasn’t yet outwardly that much worse than a lot of other nations lurking around at that point — and certainly the US treatment of Jesse Owens was nothing to brag about. (Plus, the hosting decision was made in 1931, before the Nazi party had come to power.)

As to the merits of China hosting the Olympics, our participation therein, or the whole Olympic Movement itself — that’s another story.

I’m still not convinced it’s readl.

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Grats!

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So we’ve been discussing getting new everyday glassware for some time. Margie’s not been fond of the big-wide glasses we’ve had, and I’ve not liked the big-tall ones,

I’ve had my eye set for a long time on the Libbey Inverness glasses. You see them in restaurants a fair amount, heavy glass with a pentagonal bottom. Margie’s been mixed on them, but she finally offered that she had no real objections to them, after we saw them at the local Pier One store.

So today, amidst various peregrinations, we stopped by and cleaned them out of their supply (i.e., bought ten of the Tumblers, plus ten of the Old Fashioned size). So now we can actually set a table with consistent glassware without pulling out the crystal, which will be nice. And they fit in the dishwasher well, too. Plus, as they are food service glasses, they’re designed to be tough and break-resistant.

Of course, it’s tough to get out of Pier One with only what you went in for. Which is why we ended up with some replacement lanterns for out front for parties and so forth, as well as some additional ideas of ways to spend our money.

Not a cheap afternoon, but a productive one.

Filed under :: Food & Drink :: Home Improvement
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While there is a sense that the final two episodes of Torchwood were connected (by the last denouement scene of the first), in reality they are (NO SPOILERS) worlds apart in terms of beginnings and endings.

“Fragments” is, oddly enough, an origins show. Though Torchwood started off with introducing Gwen as the “grounded human” ingredient to the team and how she came to join them, the joining of the others into Torchwood Cardiff / Torchwood III has never been fully explained. Through an odd and artificial (but aren’t they always?) set of circumstances, we get lengthy flashbacks in this ep of how Jack, Owen, Tosh, and Ianto joined. Needless to say, it all involved a lot of pain and personality dysfunction.

The Season Finale manages to explore, in an hour, everything that gets implied at the end of the previous episode, including two villains (well, one … maybe), torture (of course), massive destruction, terrible loss, and a death, or two, or … well, you get the idea. At the same time, most of the characters rise to the occasion, showing that, despite their more-than-occasional feet of clay, they really are worthy to be protectors of the human race. It’s a gut-wrencher, and it leaves the team with as many questions as it does offer answers — as in, where to they go from here? 

Good stuff, if “nasty, brutish, and short.”

This has been a mixed bag season for Torchwood. The characters have been much more established than in the first season, but the plot arcs have been uneven. Gwen’s marriage — and her husband, Rhys — have been spiffy. Owen’s death and semi-resurrection were … less so. Those two, plus Jack, have gotten the lion’s share of attention, though Tosh and Ianto had a few good moments. It’s still felt as though the show were still trying to find itself, to establish a theme a bit more solid than “How deeply can we screw with our cast and all they hold dear or want to?”   That’s fine as the occasional bit, but as regular fare it can become a bit much.

That said — there’s a lot there to like. If they can get the tone more consistent while keeping everyone on their toes as they have …

I have no idea what’s ahead for Torchwood — and, no, I don’t want to know, though from what I understand, there’s been no official word on a Series 3 from the BBC. If it does come to pass — I’ll be there.

Filed under :: Media - TV
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So Katherine’s birthday is in a couple of weeks, and we’re having her Official Party next Sunday. In a remarkable display of constancy for a 7-8-year-old, she wants to have a swim party (again) at the rec center (again), with a Hawaiian / Tropical / Luau theme (again).

It’s also interesting as she works on her guest list. The fact is, she’s a bit of a tom-boy, and would (with a very few exceptions) invite an entire group of boys to the party, eschewing the girls. It’s an interesting insight into her socialization right now.

Went to the Party Supply Store today. We still have a fair amount of thematically appropriate decorations from last year’s party (a good chunk of which were from De’s murder mystery). Nonetheless, we ended up picking up invitation stock, and more decor (that will end up in her room), and more cheap leis, and the now-required party gift bags for the attendees. Hawaii/Luau is a popular theme, it appears.

More exciting news as it happens.

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Having recently re-added the books/movies I’ve seen recently (in the “***Recently” sidebar), I’m now also adding the most recent wines consumed via an RSS feed I get from CellarTracker and a clever little sidebar RSS widget from  SpringWidgets, by way of FeedBurner (though it doesn’t require FeedBurner).

So now whenever I post a review of something I pull from my cellar, you can see it here, woo-woo. Click on the title (CellarTracker) to get summary reviews of all, or on any of the individual wines to see the details.

I’m not wild about the SpringWidgets Flash widget, but it looks a bit less unattractive than what Grazr offers, and even though I have the feed already showing up in the sidebar via Google Reader, I can’t quite figure out how to get Google Reader to display it.

It’s interesting — I’m trying to turn this page more and more into sort of an aggregation portal for what I browse, read, see, and now drink, rather than relying on static links and blog posts.  I have specialized ElseBlog items, the Google Reader shared items (Unblogged Bits), my Recently “wishlist” from Amazon via Dealazon, and now this feed via SpringWidgets. All of which are meant to save me having to write added blog posts about stuff if I don’t have the time or inclination — the Lazy Man’s way of blogging, I suppose.

I think SpringWidget is meant as either (a) an easy RSS feed aggregator for folks to post on their blog (or even their desktop), or (b) a cheap way to publicize one’s site (“Hey, get the SpringWidget for my site!”). I think it makes a reasonable aggregator for my own personal feeds.

Though … all this stuff has gotten a lot easier, but nobody has a complete model — something that will take any source and spit it out in any other format without wrapping all sorts of crap around it (as even SpringWidget does). The things I can do with Google Reader come close — but, as SpringWidget shows, even there I can’t easily grab the contents of a single feed and share them in my sidebar — and the shared “clip” like I do with Unblogged Bits has serious formatting limitations.

On the other hand … I can do a lot more of this sort of thing than I could when the blog started (both personally, in my level of “expertise,” and in what the Net provides in the way of services). Which is kinda cool …

Filed under :: Blogging - Technical :: Food & Drink - Wine
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Today has varied between blustery, sunny, overcast, clement, snowing (a few flakes, but distinct) and beaming. And now …

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN DENVER HAS ISSUED A FREEZE WARNING…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO 8 AM MDT SUNDAY.

LOW TEMPERATURES TONIGHT ACROSS NORTHEASTERN COLORADO WILL MAINLY BE IN THE UPPER 20S TO LOWER 30S. MANY LOCATIONS WILL SEE TEMPERATURES SLIGHTLY BELOW FREEZING FOR A FEW HOURS.

A FREEZE WARNING MEANS SUB-FREEZING TEMPERATURES ARE IMMINENT OR HIGHLY LIKELY. THESE CONDITIONS WILL KILL CROPS AND OTHER SENSITIVE OUTDOOR VEGETATION. IF POSSIBLE…MOVE PLANTS INDOORS TO PROTECT THEM FROM THE COLD. OTHERWISE COVER THEM WITH NEWSPAPERS OR BLANKETS.

Filed under :: Weather
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One of the side joys of having a spouse who enjoys wordplay, esp. of the bawdy kind, is that we can be having quite suggestive conversations and repartee without our young’un following along.

An eventual follow-up joy is that we’ll be able to embarrass her greatly once she is able to follow along.

Double entendres — the gifts that keep giving.

Filed under :: Love and Marriage :: Parenting :: Writing and Language
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“Is he coming to plant us?”
“I think he’ll never come.”

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Introducing Kate to the Addictive Joys of the Botanic Garden Plant Sale

Filed under :: Home Improvement
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So the Boss Man is visiting around the turn of the month for a one-day conference in the office — which will also see one of my direct reports (running the meeting) and one of my former direct reports (in a supporting role) (and, ironically, given our distributed organization, the first time I’ve met him in person).

Boss Man has a penchant for sushi (as demonstrated when we’ve done off-sites at his house), so I’m planning on dragging him off to Domo, along with Margie and Katherine, for a pleasant dinner the evening he arrives. I think he will like it.

Yet another thing to mark on the Busy Calendar Now Thru September.

Filed under :: Job Jollies
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… just terribly, terribly busy …

Filed under :: Job Jollies
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If your engineering company is involved in the building of mine works at a central Colorado molybdenum site, you will probably, sooner or later, get a request from a rather sheepish engineering manager that you update the company spam filter to white-list the terms “erection” and “Climax.”

Filed under :: Job Jollies :: Spam
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My next-wall neighbor has a radio. Though she keeps it down enough not to bother folks around her (it’s a cubicle), it’s stuck right against my office, and a faint, ever-so-faint drift of country music through the wall keeps drawing my attention …

Filed under :: Job Jollies
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The War on Terror will never end. Not because we can never actually defeat a concept like “Terror,” not because we haven’t been able to actually find and kill Osama bin Laden, not because we’ve let ourselves get distracted in Iraq — but because the War on Terror is just so darned profitable. Everyone, it appears, has figured out a clever way to hold their hand out to the federal slop bucket.

In mid-2003, the Department of Homeland Security compiled a list of 160 potential terrorist targets, triggering intense efforts by representatives, senators and their constituents to find potential targets in their districts that might require protection and therefore be eligible for federal funding. The result? Widened definitions and blurrier categories of potential targets and mushrooming increases in the infrastructure and assets deemed worthy of protection. By late 2003, the list had increased more than tenfold to 1,849; by 2004 it had grown to 28,364; by 2005 it mushroomed to 77,069; and by 2006 it was approximately 300,000.
 

Across the country, hundreds of interest groups recast their traditional objectives and funding proposals to reflect the new imperatives of the new war. The National Rifle Association declared that the War on Terror means more Americans should own firearms to defend against terrorists. The gun control lobby argued that fighting the War on Terror means passing stricter gun control laws to keep assault weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Schools of veterinary medicine called for quadrupling funding to train veterinarians to defend the country against terrorists using foot-and-mouth disease to decimate cattle herds. Pharmacists advocated the creation of pharmaceutical SWAT teams to respond quickly with appropriate drugs to the victims of terrorist attacks.
 

According to a 2005 report by the Small Business Administration (SBA) inspector general, 85 percent of the businesses granted low-interest SBA counterterrorism loans failed to establish their eligibility. The SBA authorized 7,000 loans worth more than $3 billion, including $22 million in loans to Dunkin’ Donuts franchises in nine states.

Sort of like using the “Sarbanes-Oxley” stick to justify IT spending on all sorts of activities that we’ve always wanted but could never justify on their merits, the WoT has become the source of endless justifications for spending money on anti/counterterrorism measures. And it’s better than the Cold War, because they may be among us even now.