a beginning...

the daughter-in-law has written a book! and it is good -- very very good! she asked me to read through it and see if there were inconsistencies or problems, so i'm doing that now. but i keep forgetting to proof because i keep getting drawn back into the story.

if she's got more of this stuff in her, she could really go somewhere with it!

what's the buzz, tell me what's a-happenin' ....

do you do facebook? do you do twitter? well, here comes buzz.

i have a facebook page, although i rarely spend time with it. and i have a twitter account although i've never ever used it.

i don't know if i want to bother with buzz. i'm curious about it, but don't have time to deal with what i currently have, let alone take on something new. but this article made me wonder about it. the biggest problem i see is that it would keep grabbing your attention, especially if everyone starting chipping in. and that takes time.

let me know if you have tried it and what you think.

did you hear the one .....

"hey, have you ever dated a robot before? I used to date a vacuum cleaner. it sucked!"

if that makes you curious, go here to read about robotic bartenders. sadly, the one i thought was most interesting-looking didn't even get talked about. maybe it was only the waitress.

one-stop shopping

i didn't know about this website! either there are too many things to know in this world, or i am sadly out of the loop. probably too many things .....

anyhow, there's a dearth of navy shoes out there. they're just not readily available. but with this newly-discovered website, i can search by color and voila! there are 494 pages (12 per page) of blue shoes!!! admittedly, a lot of them are astonishingly horrible ... i mean ... godawful ugly, uh ... i mean, uh ... mmmm ... interestingly fashionable, so it's really a kick just to look through them. but by the 65th page i had seen two pair that i wanted to look at closer.

and, let's be real, i pass over the ones for $595 (as well as the ones for $20) but it's helpful to see them all.

i''m going to put this on my favorites!!

ppphhthttttt ..... phmmmbm

YES!!!!

remember those tubes, well, no -- i suppose most of you are waaaaaay too young to have ever seen those pneumatic tubes in action, but they used to have them in banks and department stores and government offices.

they were so cool! you'd put something inside and zip!!! off they went to be quickly deposited on someone's desk. and there have been a number of times in the last x-months when i and my colleagues have mentioned we wish we still had a system like that at work.

well! look at this! there are people out there who know the value of this system! it just makes an old heart glad *tear on cheek*. yay, retro!

a split-second difference

i think the death of the young luge athlete is sad. here you are, doing this sport that your dad and uncle have done and taught you about, that you have prepared for, and because of one miscalculation, or a poorly engineered run, or those low walls, while in sight of the finish line, your life is suddenly cut short.

i watched the video. i don't consider myself one of those people who has to slow down and look at a gruesome accident, but i am one of those people who needs to know what happened. and how it happened. and what caused it. so i watched the video. and would have watched it in slow motion but the capability wasn't there. it wasn't bloody. it was curious. he was too high, then was tossed to the other side, then swooped off the edge and his trajectory led him to connect with a steel support beam. something flew off to the right, and his faceplate bounced back onto and down the track. he hit that beam really hard. it looked like he probably connected from his neck to his tailbone, probably shattering those bones, and his internal organs, at that speed, probably ruptured. i don't know medical stuff. but it helps me, having a mental image of what happened.

don't ask me why; i've always needed to know.

youtube has apparently pulled their videos of it. i'm not sure i agree with that philosophy. the video isn't grisly, bloody, scary, dirty, or any negative. it's just real and it's sad. the video on nbc's olympics site is still there. and the new york times had a good presentation of what happened.

this isn't hollywood or tv or made-up. life is fragile...use it wisely.

geography

well .... that was interesting. i got a score of 88 in 405 seconds with an average error of 22 miles.

here -- try it! thanks, max!!

danger, will robinson ....

okay. so we need to drive less because we emit harmful gasses. so ... we do drive less, or we get cars which get better mileage, and what happens? the powers that be find out they are getting less gas-tax money and need to come up with another plan.

now they're thinking about charging us for how many miles we drive. good grief. that might not be a problem for delaware or rhode island, where you can just about walk from one side of the state to the other in an afternoon. but, hello ..... texas? montana? oregon?

i don't know, but it just doesn't sit right. you can read more about it here.

giger counter culture

and here, for your prurient leanings, is an interesting selection of pictures; don't miss number 7. the older people may not recognize this guy's stuff, unless they are a fan of Alien. the younger people will have seen it before. i simply cannot imagine what it's like to be this guy and have these things in my head. i wonder if the scientific explanation is that he is channeling bits of an alien civilization (term used loosely) which, hopefully, lies far far away from ours. i say 'hopefully' because, really, there seems to be such a feeling of evil which touches, slimes, and imbues so much of his work. still .... it's a lot like a car accident. you just HAVE to look.

bah humbug

here it is, 6:30 on a weekend morning and i, a night person, have gotten up early specifically so i can go out and see the space station as it zooms by overhead. however ....

it is raining.

life!

in spite of the fact that i never seem to have any free time anymore, i chanced upon several very neat videos recently.

i wonder what this cat is thinking.
i love this although i suppose everyone has seen it already except for me.
do not watch this if you are a prude. i thought it was very clever, but some people ....
pure joy!!
i think i already posted this one, but i don't remember and it's too cool to not add.