Blog
Since I lost my tattoo stories in the Great Hosting Disaster of '05 (and since my tattoo category has been sitting empty for so long), I thought I'd just point to this photo set of our recent tats. I'm sad to report that my coat of arms healed like boogers and needs some retouching. Not sure what went sideways with it, but I blame only myself.
Also, I'm currently working on a design for my other forearm. One word: Dagger.
Yeah, that's right.
Report: Firms to increase offer for NHL
According to a report in Friday's Toronto Star, a Wall Street financial services corporation and a sports advisory firm are prepared to substantially increase their initial offer of $3.5 billion US to purchase the 30 NHL teams.
Personally, I'd love to see this happen. Sure, it would kill the idea of a "dynasty" team, but who cares? Share the love, I say.
Unbeknownst to me, the MLS actually operates under a single entity ownership, and despite the fact that they actually pay for major network airtime (as of last year...), they have a strict salary cap (that every team is interested in following, because they all work for the same people) and probably do fairly well financially. (I couldn't find anything that said whether or not the operation was running in the black, and I'm just too damned ignorant about pro soccer to say anything with authority.)
Oh, and meanwhile, Don "Grapes" Cherry is making friends as usual, I'm sure, with his statement that if NHL players get to go to Europe to play during the lockout, European players shouldn't get grief if they come over here to fill in the holes.
"Talk about hypocrites. They go over to Europe, 400 of them, and take those jobs. As far as I'm concerned all those guys over there are scabs."
Nice. Like Don wouldn't go work for ESPN – possibly costing John Buccigross a job (I doubt it.) – if he got "locked out" by the CBC?
Chimps escape, attack visitors at animal sanctuary in Calif.
A couple's visit to the chimpanzee they were forced to relinquish to an animal sanctuary turned tragic when two other chimps attacked the husband, critically wounded him before the animals were shot to death in mid-assault.
Not cool.
Rolling with Ruby on Rails, Part 2 Since I previously mentioned Part 1 of this series, I thought I'd better just post the second part.
Also on the Ruby tip, the guy behind CDBaby is converting the site to Ruby on Rails and blogging all about it. Cool!
Hawaiian punch: Waitiki throws a Polynesian party to play the music of Juan Garcia Esquivel
Tonight at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, Waitiki is presenting a very special show, even by Waitiki standards. The group will swell to a 20-piece ensemble, dubbed Waitiki Orchestrotica, for a rare live performance of the ''supersonic space-age bachelor pad" sounds of the late Juan Garcia Esquivel, variously known as the King of Lounge, Mexico's Duke Ellington, and -- oxymoronic though it may sound -- an easy-listening innovator.
Fantasic. The music scene is one of the main things I miss about Boston. And you gotta love any band that travels with its own drink menu.
I wonder if/when Waitiki will have a disc out for us land-locked folks... Or if they will ever travel west of Pittsburg.
Congrats to "millionaire adventurer" Steve Fossett who has successfully become the first person to fly solo 'round the world. (No word on whether or not he found his lover.) Also, much-deserved congrats to my aerospace hero, Burt Rutan.
The first nonstop global flight without refueling was made in 1986 by Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan, in the propeller-driven Voyager airplane. Dick Rutan's brother, Burt Rutan, is the designer of the GlobalFlyer and the Voyager as well as SpaceShipOne, which last year became the first privately developed craft to soar into outer space.
He is the future of aircraft.
So, even though it's twice as much as the first two rounds were (Stupidity penalty, I guess.), I've signed up for lifetime hosting with TextDrive. Matt's splitting it with me, so it'll only take about 10 months for it to be a wash, monitarily.
Nice.
Optimus
Originally uploaded by Jake Sutton.
Now that we are married and approaching our early-mid-thirties, The Wife and I occasionally discuss the possiblity of procreating... While I generally run from the room screaming when the subject comes up (little people scare me), I have to say I would have a fun time gearing up my kid thanks to the following options:
Of course, the best thing ever would be tooling around the mall with one of these puppies.
Oh, dear god help us...This woman obviously knows not what she does...
And I love him for it. Grounded: Millionaire John Gilmore stays close to home while making a point about privacy
As happens to the disobedient, Gilmore is grounded. He is rich -- he estimates his net worth at $30 million -- and cannot fly inside the United States. Nor can he ride Amtrak, rent a room at most major hotels, or easily clear security in the courthouses where his case, Gilmore v. Ashcroft, is to be heard. In a time when more and more people and places demand some form of government-issued identification, John Gilmore offers only his 49-year-old face: a study in stringy hair, high forehead, wire-rimmed glasses, Ho Chi Minh beard and the contrariness for which the dot.com culture is renowned.
It's enough to make the folks at Reason soil their pants, I'm sure.
The technique here is to go outside and sit on a park bench. Whenever you see another dog you say "oh, look, here comes a cookie dog." And as soon as your dog sees the other, you give him a treat. Even if your dog is tense and growling and one might say that you are rewarding the dog for growling and acting badly around other dogs, things will improve quickly. The dog cannot help but make the positive association between the approaching dog and the cookie and soon he will look forward to other dogs approaching. Any time your dog acts appropriately when a dog approaches, offer a reward. Be sure you give your dog enough space from the other dog to feel safe and comfortable. And watch for early signs of discomfort, such as yawning, and excessive panting or activity. You don’t want to push your dog too far too fast.
Clever.
Mingus needs some work in this area, for sure. Or, I suppose, I do.
Oakland: Taste of fire sparks feeding frenzy
The experience produced a notable rush. Having eaten fire, I was surprised to find I was greedy for it. All of us were as we raced to dip our fire sticks in the instructor's martini shaker of Coleman camping fuel, and then crowded around the little votive candle that was our source of flame.
Man, I can't tell you how long I've been interested in fire eating and – more specifically – juggling fire. Hmm... I gotta get out my juggling clubs again sometime...
Here's the best part:
The office worker, John Sutton, 39, said he wanted to be the first in his group to eat fire. "I don't know anybody who does it," he said. "Guys who knit aren't edgy anymore."
Good to know. Suttons around the world just want to be cool, I guess.
Anyway, remember always: "Don't do more than one stupid thing at a time."
You can try to learn German online from Deutsche Welle. You can also do some self-study in German, French, Spanish, and Italian (plus others, to a lesser degree) with the help fo the BBC.
Nice.
[Since I'm getting Google hits, here's the 37% lamer 2006 Oscar summary.] The best musical performance (by far!) was Jorge Drexler accepting his award by singing his own Best Song, completely showing up the version Antonio Banderas and Carlos Santana put forth. Seriously: The music sucked. Someone tell Adam Duritz it was time to lose the fake dreds five years ago. Please.
When Sean Penn came out I thought to myself, "Man, he's badass. He looks like he needs to beat someone." Then he got all grumpy at Chris Rock for asking who Jude Law is, so yeah, I guess he was looking for someone to beat.
I'm sorry I missed his tirade about who's a movie star and who isn't, because, other than that Chris Rock was pretty dull. They showed clips of Johnny Carson when he hosted: Too bad for Chris.
Was Dustin Hoffman completely pixelated or what?!
Jamie Foxx is a sweet guy. He should stop acting like an asshole.
Clint Eastwood is just getting started, y'all. His mom was in the audience at age 96. Someday I want Clint to yell at me and make me cry like a little girl.
Hilary Swank is "teh hotness" (as they say on the internets).
The "everyone on stage so the losers can relive their middle school talent show failures" presentations were extra lame.
Why does the foreign film award "go to" the country of origin??
Best moment I didn't catch (from a pre-show):
"Before you were a movie star, you were a serious actor," said ABC's Chris Connelly to Orlando Bloom.
I used to like Connelly when he was on MTV. Now I wish Orlando had smacked him.
The show was over EARLY. WTF?!?! That's just stupid.
See CNN, NYT, EW, and, well, everywhere else for more...
Ligers are real. And really fuckin big!
(This post mostly belongs on FtN which may make a comeback soon.) I had a poker night at my house last night for the first time in what feels like forever, but is actually probably a month. We ended up shorthanded with only four of us at the table, but that actually ended up being rather nice — We only got distracted from the game a couple times and probably ended up playing more hands than we do with six.
My homegame consists of guys from my workplace. Occasionally that means we gossip like bitties at the backyard fence, but mostly it means we are often in similar moods thanks to the current "atmosphere" at work. Let's just say Matt got things rolling when he whipped out the flask I gave him for being my best man at my wedding. He was rolling with a pocket full of Jameson, which eventually led to a rather deep discussion of whiskeys (focusing on bourbon and Irish). By the end of the night Neal has taken a small dent out of my bottle of Bulleit, I have poured myself a couple fingers of Powers, and Dave has had "sips" from pretty much everyone else's cup.
The poker ended up being rather incidental, but for the record:
That's the poker. The whiskey's magic had only begun. I slept like I was possessed of demons. I can only hope I wasn't crawling all over my poor, dear wife. I had dreams – the details of which mostly escape me, but it's unusual for me to even remember dreaming – of "test driving" two vehicles, one of which was a large pickup with two steering wheels. I guess in case you wanted the passenger to take over...?
The test drives were also road trips involving a handful of women who seemed to have more drama going on in their lives than the Desperate Housewives (no doubt a dream analog to our back fence gossiping). At one point we were all gathered in my kitchen, which was laid out like my current house but featured the wacky knotty pine cabinets of the house we occupied in Quincy, MA. Why the whiskey devils put me in the position of herding these particular cats, I can't exactly imagine.
I'm just not sure if I want to stay away from the Powers now, or have some more...
Trackers Kill Tiger in Ventura County
The decision by government trackers to use high-powered rifles instead of tranquilizer darts to bring down the elusive cat outraged animal rights activists. But state officials said they had no alternative but to shoot to kill, because the animal could have attacked or bolted onto a highway or into a public park nearby.
I agree with Tippi Hedren, though... They could have at least tried sedating it first with the big guns at the ready.
I just want them to string up whomever brought the cat to suburbia in the first place.
In case a home invasion/robbery isn't exciting enough for the soccer moms... Last night we were disturbed by (at least) a pair of police helecopters (or maybe they were just news choppers, don't really know) hovering over our whitebread 'hood like we we suddenly in Compton or something. While it was fun for me to watch the flyboys zoom around — they were a lot higher than I expected considering our walls were shaking, it was more than a little creepy overall.
Turns out some ass was trying to shake Johnny Law in a car chase that went right around our neck of the woods.
I can think of a handful of possible locations for that sign the police officer ran into. All of them are within maybe a mile of my house.
