General Rambling

Weddings, Holidays

by

I’m off to the Twin Cities for Christmas. Before I go some overdue congratulations need to go out. First, to Jon and Maureen. Jon was probably my first reader here, and he’s been a great friend, coworker, and drinking partner for a long time. Maureen is awesome, one of the only women I know that not only tolerates our shenanigans but will routinely one-up us, too. Not unpredictably they are now going to make their relationship official. Yea! 🙂 Congratulations! Second, to Derick and Maitri, for the same reasons. Their last attempt at getting married was foiled by big swirly atmospheric disturbances so I wish them a happy, uneventful wedding ceremony this round. May it go off with only one …

Read More

Carl Sagan, We Miss You

by

Today is the tenth anniversary of Carl Sagan’s death. The world needs more people like Carl Sagan, bringing science, skepticism, and critical thinking to the fight against complacency, creationism, and blind faith. I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone. – Red, “The Shawshank Redemption”

NOLA, SF, MN, OMFG

by

I don’t know why I do it, but I always volunteer to help friends move cross-country. After a day of rest & laundry from the SF trip I took off for New Orleans. We stopped in Memphis for a night to drink on Beale Street, which wasn’t very busy but decent nonetheless. 2100 miles later I’ve seen roller derbies and mind erasers, my Jeep needs an oil change, a new throttle position sensor, and a new window motor (it finally died… wide open, of course), and I know what the destruction looks and feels like, thanks to my friend Maitri’s tour of the decimation of Lakeview and the lower 9th ward. It’s a ghost town in those parts, and odd …

Read More

Some People Just Don't Understand

by

“Who is Estella?” she says calmly, sitting back down on the couch after pouring two more glasses of wine for us. Oh shit. “My computer?” “Yeah, the one I checked my email with. The icon on the desktop says ‘Estella.’” “That’s what I named the computer.” “You named it after a woman?” Surface calm dissipating, trouble in 5… 4… “She isn’t a real woman. Have you read Great Expectations?” “Dickens? A long time ago. You named it after a fantasy woman?” “I wouldn’t call Dickens a fantasy writer. Estella was the girl who broke Pip’s heart. I always build my own home PCs, and they always find a way to break my heart. Seemed fitting.” See, I’m not a psychopath. …

Read More

Basted in Blood

by

My brain is fried from all the flying I’ve done in the last 24 hours, so I will stall by sharing with you this old SNL clip a friend sent me. I hadn’t seen it before.

Days 3, 4, and 5, San Francisco

by

These last three days seem like a blur. I haven’t checked my email, I haven’t checked the comments here, I haven’t even had my cell phone on. It’s been nice. Having just walked around the northern half of San Francisco, though, I think it’s time to let my feet rest and see what the world is up to. I see I mis-marked one of my posts for automatic posting… going… going… gone. As for my trip so far, my comments on Day 3: – The Pork Store was busy, like an hour line, so we went over to All You Knead. Good breakfast, polite service. – Amoeba Music still rivals Cheapo Records in Minneapolis. I found a number of CDs …

Read More

Day 2, San Francisco

by

Day 2 out here was rainy. Mainly rainy when we were outside, and not rainy when we were inside. Hmmm. – A stop at SFMOMA to see what was new. I don’t really like a lot of modern art, and it seems SFMOMA has just the right amount for me. Some of it, like “paintings” that are completely blank or a single solid color, just annoy me. How do things like that get into museum collections? – After SFMOMA we walked down to the Bay. It started raining so we ducked into Gordon Biersch to have a beer, killing time until another friend made it into town and met us for dinner. The “Cupid’s Span” sculpture is pretty cool, and …

Read More

Day 1, San Francisco

by

Having flown into SFO at 4:45 PM PST food and drink were foremost on our minds. 🙂 – Jack’s Cannery Bar, as suggested by Mike G., is awesome. 65 taps and a wonderful barkeep named Tula. – San Francisco Brewing Company is awesome, too. If you visit make sure you read about Joshua Norton, the first emperor of the United States. They have several menu items dedicated to him, served up by the wonderfully friendly Molly. – The King George Hotel is great. It doesn’t look like anything special, just a hotel, but they’ve done everything right. The shower head is up high so I, being six feet tall, can shower. The pillows are perfectly dense. There are extra blankets …

Read More

No Flowers in My Hair, Though

by

I am off to San Francisco, continuing my month of flitting around the country. I get to see my first professional football game ever on Sunday, the Packers vs. the 49ers. With the Packers lately it’s no doubt who will win, but it should be fun regardless. Plus I’ll be in San Francisco, the place where I first ate sushi and drank bubble tea and hard pear cider. What a great place. The guys I’m going with are beer guys, so trips to the Toronado Room and the Magnolia Pub are inevitable. Probably at least one breakfast at the Pork Store, and a lunch at PPQ is tradition for me. If you have an idea for what else I should …

Read More

"Share This" Icon, Part Two

by

Alex just put up revision two of the “Share This” icons. Go over and see what you think. But then again, I just thought of another possible modification. An “OCR A Extended” asterisk. Similar to the star, blunt-ended, though. Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking for the second one, either.

+ More Posts +