News You Can Bruise for November 2003

(2) Sat Nov 01 2003 15:28:

Almost done moving all my stuff. Bleah.

(1) Sun Nov 02 2003 09:01:

Guest weblog is up. I'm out of here.

Seth said I was courageous. I hope I am.

Mon Nov 03 2003 14:09 Probably My Favorite Spam Headline:

It's got it all: bad economics, rabid noise, and trilobite craving.

I-want-a-trilobite Start Now The relatively new concept of giving away money is called the American Free Grant Giveaway . bwmuutizu e rgt nba fpfwjjmzjsviutf tsxvcovsspeszxrsmkqmrloyuanzfw wwfvch ksszs tdpt sg

advertising/spam

Tue Nov 04 2003 18:53 This Happened To Riker, Too:

I forgot to pack my electric razor (I did pack the recharging cord!), so I am de facto growing a beard. My face's general attitude towards beards is that they are a silly fad which should not be encouraged. I anticipate the beard will stop growing in about a week, giving me the look of a crude farm hand or forty-niner.

Wed Nov 05 2003 19:16 My Name Is Mario, And I'll Bake You One With Pesto! Yeah, I'll Bake You One With Pesto! Damn Good Pies!:

They got some funny business names here in Little Rock. For instance, there's Catfish City, which has a great logo (no good image of same on web) and a water wheel in front which cost $4200. And there's a pizza place called Damn Good Pies, which I've been told is a good approximation to Super Pizza Hut Plus. But my favorite business name is "Tourism Research & Warehouse". It's a nondescript building in a strip mall of other nondescript buildings. That whole strip mall has to be a front for something. I know there's a Strategic Helium Reserve, but I'd think we'd have outsourced our Strategic Tourism Reserve to Japan.

That reminds me of a joke Jason made up. "What do miners say when they strike helium?" [squeaky voice] "We're rich!"

food people places

(1) Thu Nov 06 2003 07:56 Well You Should Apologize:

"Sorry, I've become your mail."

advertising/spam

(5) Fri Nov 07 2003 20:07:

How are you doing? When I was in Utah I had the privilege of experiencing two chain restaurants I had never before attended. Unfortunately, neither of them was anything to write home about. Despite this fact, I am writing home about them.

P.F. Chang's had delusions of grandeur, but it was actually just a good Chinese restaurant. They did offer brown rice as well as white, which is good because I greatly prefer brown rice. It was while I was eating the uninspired, chocolate-chip-laden P.F. Chang's chocolate cake that I realized it is a waste of time to buy chocolate cakes from restaurants because they are inevitably drier and much worse than any cake you might make yourself (even from a box mix), and they always have semisweet chocolate chips pushed into the side of the cake. This is supposed to make it more decadent, but it just makes it taste weird, like Cool Whip on caviar. Like a free ride, when you've already paid.

P.F. Chang's had things going for it, like good entrees, but The Old Spaghetti Factory was just stuff to keep you from getting hungry for a few hours. They also brought me the wrong thing, although I can't remember what I ordered or what they brought me or how the two differed. Everybody had a plate containing a bunch of yellow-white stuff covered in red stuff and it was all pretty similar.

Verdict: Old Spaghetti Factory: bleah. P.F. Chang's: should change name to P.F.C. Hang's, start serving down-home UGR-H&S chow.

Sat Nov 08 2003 22:05 Oh No!:

"Most astrologers would counsel that beginning new ventures with Mercury retrograde is not the best possible timing."

politics places/space

(1) Sun Nov 09 2003 15:13 Your Kitsch Is My Command:

What more could you ask for?

Elephants who walk the Pits of Peril
The Duchess!
Pre-looted and pre-time-ravaged antiquities

And more, if you have time.

(4) Sun Nov 09 2003 18:33 This Is Like The Wigs, Right?:

Question Time is on C-SPAN right now, and all the MPs are wearing red-and-green shapes stuck to their lapels. I've never seen them before. What is their purpose?

Update: Now I feel like a jerk. I apologize for the boorish joke, albeit a joke about my own boorishness.

politics

Mon Nov 10 2003 18:05:

There must be some Arkansas state law that says that urinals have to use the same amount of water per flush as toilets, 'cause when you flush a urinal here it runs for about a minute. A little excessive, I think.

(2) Tue Nov 11 2003 17:57 Day 8: Delirium Begins To Set In:

I am way too excited by the discovery that I can turn my small change into larger change by putting it into the vending machine and hitting the coin return button. It's actually a win-win situation because giving the machine smaller change makes the "exact change required" light (I originally typed "link") go off.

(3) Thu Nov 13 2003 00:01 Diary Of A Madman:

HTML forms, my life is consumed by HTML forms. I know Sumana already posted this to the guest weblog, but for NYCB consumption I should mention that I'm working on the Clark Community Network, a big Scoop site for the campaign. I have had to put aside both my hatred of Perl and my distaste for the word "blog". I am doing nothing but work and sleep.

In my madness I have taken to imagining what dynamic data-driven websites would look like if ancient civilizations had dynamic data-driven websites. For instance, in ancient Greece, a user signup form would have a field for "City-State". If I had the time, I could actually do some mockups that would be pretty funny, but right now all such projects seem as insignificant as my project to come up with mass nouns for all the Nethack monsters (eg. a conglomorate of floating eyes, a loitering of trappers).

Thu Nov 13 2003 16:32:

tallskinnikiwi linked to Downhill, but every time I look at the URL in referer logs I think it says "tallskinnywiki".

(2) Fri Nov 14 2003 20:03 Your Tax Dollars At The Job Interview:

From seth-trips, I encourage you to petition for late(r)-night BART service.

Update: Nick says the problem is mainly technological, so clearly what we need is to petition the laws of physics themselves.

technology/logistics

Fri Nov 14 2003 21:39:

While trying to look up a cocktail name for Sumana, I found the best name for a drink ever: I'm Busy, Drink This. I thought the narrator of the drink name was the uncaring lush mother placating her child with booze, but the prosaic reality is that it's the drinking equivalent of not being able to enter your initials for the high score before the timer runs out.

food people/Sumana Harihareswara

(3) Sat Nov 15 2003 10:31 Messing With Texas Is A Violation Of Texas State Law:

Google image search: don't mess with texas. Includes the polite version.

search requests places

Sat Nov 15 2003 17:41 DSR:

how to draw Cartoons that kill each other

search requests

Sat Nov 15 2003 21:45:

Glowing Shrimp "Harmless", Say Naive Scientists

biology/organisms

Sun Nov 16 2003 19:01 Very Short Story Search Requests #2:

i took my roommates goldfish and she found out now i'm scared!

biology/organisms search requests

Sun Nov 16 2003 21:08 My, That Was A Yummy Spam:

Subject: Get what you need today!kumquat

food advertising/spam

(5) Sun Nov 16 2003 22:48 Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch:

Shipping containers plot their revenge.

technology/logistics/shipping containers

Mon Nov 17 2003 15:36 That Which Does Kill Me, Kills Me (Dead Spammers #Aleph-Aleph-Null):

Re: murder can only s dbcnql n tpfs

advertising/spam

(1) Tue Nov 18 2003 19:58 Or It Could Be Rockin' Pneumonia:

I got a flu shot a couple days ago, and now I'm feeling a little under the weather. Of course, getting injected with dead viruses is probably the healthiest thing I've done all month, so I don't think I can blame the flu shot for it.

biology/organisms

Tue Nov 18 2003 20:05:

Yes, this will surely work.

technology

Wed Nov 19 2003 20:04 Fish Party:

All my creativity is going into other things so I can't think of anything to say about this, but there's nothing greater than a fish party.

biology/organisms

Sat Nov 22 2003 21:20 Quick, Look Over There While I Distract You!:

Patches to chess, which is funny but ignores the actual patches to chess, like the en passant rule.

games

Sun Nov 23 2003 20:22 Llamatron 2004:

What am I doing?

biology/organisms politics

(6) Mon Nov 24 2003 10:03 The Pizza In Little Rock Is No Good:

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

PROPRIETOR, a purveyor of pizza
CUSTOMER, would-be consumer of same

ACT I
SCENE I

[The scene: a pizza store.]

Proprietor: Good morrow to you, sir!
Customer: The same to you, sir.
Prop.: Welcome to my quality pizza-serving establishment. How may I assist you?
Cust.: Your finest "pizza", if you would.
Prop.: Certainly.

ACT I
SCENE II

[The same store, later. CUSTOMER is seated.]

Proprietor: All right, who has the nachos?
Customer: Nachos? You must have misheard me. I ordered a pizza!
Prop.: Pizza? You must mean "nachos with tomato sauce and pizza toppings".
Cust.: I shall never dine here again! [Arise and exit.]
Prop.: [Calling out] Good luck with the take-out pizza you're planning to get instead! It has the same crappy crust!

Disclaimer: I have not yet eaten at Damgoode Pies (sic), so there might still be hope for pizza in Little Rock.

food

Tue Nov 25 2003 10:19 python sleep:

"For [sic] hundred python sleep in this cage"

biology/organisms search requests

Sat Nov 29 2003 20:13:

When I was in Bakersfield last, we went to see Bakersfield College's production of Richard III, which was really good. Instead of using the auditorium seating, they built a smaller stage on top of the real stage and put bleachers to three sides. This had the advantage that the audience as a whole surrounded the actors. The actors had to act like real people instead of people with a strange biological attraction towards the front of the stage.

The play was good, the actors very competent, and the producers somehow managed to resist the urge to set the thing in the Old West. But the writing was so melodramatic that I find myself receptive to the revisionist history peddled by the first Google results for "richard iii", organizations set up to combat the negative image of Richard III formed by this play. Richard's monologues were all to the effect of "You know, I'm really evil. But what good is my being evil unless I do evil things? I know, I'll kill [x]!"

I think we've found the perfect Shakesperean role for Seth: the Second Murderer from Act I Scene IV.

Not to kill him, having a warrant for it; but to be
damned for killing him, from which no warrant can defend us.
I'm Seth David Schoen.

people/Seth David Schoen

News You Can Bruise for 2003 November