dsandler.org

Holy truncation!

Christ…, you’re about to unlock your Gold Box(tm) offers!

Off Topic, But…. (Score:5, Funny)
by Tsali (594389) on Fri 29 Aug 07:33PM (#6830656)

How many /.’ers actually own a lava lamp?

Good.

Now, how many of those who raised their hand are involved in a relationship with someone.

Ahhh. You in the back. Anyone else? Good.

Thanks.
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This space for rent…

I’ve expanded my tentative exploration of the offerings of a particular independent Canadian beverage outfit to their cream soda, having already become enamored of their root beer (as a locally-available alternative to Henry’s). The cream soda is also excellent! It’s actually rather unlike cream sodas I’ve had in the past — this particular interpretation has a wonderful cotton-candy aroma, and a similar flavor. Quite sweet (it’s cream soda, after all) but, honestly, not even as sticky-sweet tasting as Pepsi.

The reconstruction of Iraq is held above our heads like a promise and a threat. People roll their eyes at reconstruction because they know (Iraqis are wily) that these dubious reconstruction projects are going to plunge the country into a national debt only comparable to that of America. A few already rich contractors are going to get richer, Iraqi workers are going to be given a pittance and the unemployed Iraqi public can stand on the sidelines and look at the glamorous buildings being built by foreign companies.

Riverbend, the newest Baghdad blogger taking the world by surprise with her incisive commentary and resilient wit. Just like with Raed, people are wondering if she’s for real. But William Gibson makes a compelling argument for her authenticity: “I have doubts about the assumption that there could not be, today, in a population the size of Baghdad’s, Iraqi’s in their mid-twenties whose English is fluent and idiomatic.”

OK, looked out all the windows, can’t see for the life of me where this helicopter is. The sound is fading in and out slightly, which implies a patrol — perhaps a suspect on foot? Anyway, all I can really see tonight is Mars, bright orange, high in the southern sky.

Um, so, the distinct sound of a helicopter has been filtering through our double-paned-glass windows for at least a half-hour now. It hasn’t really varied much in tempo or strength, so I suspect it’s idling in a field somewhere, ready to life-flight someone to safety.

But if it was so urgent that they needed to send a helicopter, doesn’t a delay of a half-hour mean that the time for urgency has, uh, passed?

I.m a big Rush fan.

Yeah, I know. Me and 50 million other drummers.

If you are prejudiced against Rush (because of their rabid fans) or drummers (because of their rabies), please skip past the first two paragraphs of what turns out to be an excellent, excellent article on the trend toward “LOUDER IS BETTER” in contemporary rock recordings. Seriously, it’s really good, presented in lay terms, but with enough savvy and bite to satisfy an audiophile. Look, the damn thing has diagrams!

Hmm, now I need a radio scanner. The Freq Zone: Shortwave and HAM frequencies in the Houston area.

Yikes. Δ(PALM): +6.1%

Impressions of F-ZERO, day one: It plays very much like hardcore Super Monkey Ball racing, and it ought to — the same developer, Amusement Vision, created both for SEGA. The SMB similarities are striking, from the fluidity and general rhythm of movement, to the details of the multilayered techno music, to the up-and-down-and-around-and-around track designs, to the impossibly-rich and detailed environments. “Show me your moves!”

For those keeping track, I just received a collection call for a new name: “John Noe”. (”Knowy” ?)

A weekend Slashdot thread, which I had previously ignored, actually yields some wonderful fruit in the form of Douglas Adams’ precise instructions on how to brew a brilliant pot of tea.

[The geeks note also that a popular Earl Grey (Adams’ favorite variety of tea) is Harrods Earl Grey, Blend № 42. Coincidence?]

websites near dsandler.org, in the desert of the real, courtesy GeoURL.

Since the original Keirsey temperament sorter is no longer free, I’m always on the lookout for new online Jungian (Myers-Briggs) personality type classifiers. I’ve just found one (don’t laugh; it’s Bloginality, the weblog-oriented personality test) that’s super-straightforward: four questions, no nonsense. It is, of course, easier to skew the results, but I appreciate not feeling like I’m having my tea leaves read mysteriously by Professor Trelawney.

Despite its transparency, it seems to be effective, as I seem to match my historic classification of INT[P/J] (the Architect or the Mastermind — I’m pretty close on the perceiving/judging axis).

✱ ✱ ✱

Aside: You know, I took a weird detour into ESTJ-land when I was consulting, right out of school. ESTJ is “The Supervisor”, and that’s totally where I was going. Wearing smart clothes to work, organizing others’ time, keeping projects on track, thinking about stock options and making Senior Engineer in a year and a half.

The thing is, I don’t think my personality really changed at all — I think it was just sort of trying on new clothes, a new way of approaching life. And the dissonance, the underlying conflict between the E and the I, took its toll.

I sort of stayed in that groove for another year or so after I started at Be. We had another huge project, with a big client, and gosh, nobody around here knows how to stick to a schedule, and go go go go! By this point it was 2001, and I had almost completely removed artwork from my life (discounting any UI design I did at the office), and I lost much of my ability to be patient with people and pets. Learning how to make judgments about the world around me taught me how to be judgmental of my friends and family; I made a habit of setting my jaw when things did’t go my way. Oh, yeah, and I developed social anxiety — again, tied to situations I didn’t have full control over.

A (sort-of) new job, and now, a change of venue, and I’m finally starting to sort this all out. The Extrovert settles back into an Introvert; lazy dependance on the Senses gives way to Intuition; summer turns to high. I’m drawing more than I have in years, and I’m learning to be kind again. It will take some time, but I think the attitude gauge is finally starting to level out. (I’m reminded of some excellent advice I once received for fighting seasickness: “Don’t take your eyes off the horizon.”)

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Boy, I wasn’t intending to write all that. It just came out. And all I wanted to do was talk about a Myers-Briggs tool I found! (I really believe that was my only intention in starting this entry, but you’re welcome to perform your own armchair psychoanalysis if you like.)

Look up, look down, all around, hey — satellite.

We walked out in the middle of “Le Divorce” today.

The movie was fine (if a little uneven); our complaints were technical. Intermittent right channel, about 30sec of dialogue-volume static, and then severe blurriness which the booth monkey was unable to correct even after about a minute of fierce jiggling. The manager explained that they got a used print, because the studio didn’t make many prints. He apologized and instructed the teller to give us free passes as he rushed down to screen 10 to check out the illegibly-blurry subtitles.

This is why celluloid sucks.

Yet another collector calling for the previous owner of our phone number. I’d say I get a call for these Stasio people at least once a month. (Notable: they’ve moved on from the husband, and are now on to the wife. I guess they’ve decided that their debtor is laying in a ditch somewhere, and are on to his next of kin.)

I’ve discovered something very interesting in all this, however: When you’re not their target, conversations with collection agents can be downright pleasant!

Hot air balloons over Clear Lake!

It’s so #t   I love the very idea of scheme in the kernel, and I feel so dirty for it!

Missed Connections #1275   If you were in an SUV on Montrose today, honking and waving maniacally at a little silver Saturn coupe, could you please tell me why? We couldn’t see in the window, so we don’t know who you are, or what neurological disorder you may have been experiencing.