Thursday, August 31, 2006

Can something that happened 400 million years ago be considered "real time"?

Sometimes, yes...
I know I've mentioned "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper" before. A quick, entertaining read that I'd recommend to anyone who even marginally relies on "journalists" to tease apart statistical and other numerate information in "news" stories.

So when I see articles like this, written by a sensible economist and explained with great clarity, well I'm just delighted.

Sunday, August 27, 2006



The Office Pirates offer four suggestions for personalizing your work space...

Friday, August 25, 2006


There's walking your dog, and then there's walking your dog.

The apocalypse, I swear, will arrive any minute...

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Free music downloads? "Well, why not? It ain't worth nothing anyway" says our trickster hero.
I happen to live in an area where there are a fair amount of snakes, mostly of the benign variety, though there are a couple of rattlesnake dens in my town. Regardless, over the years I've largely lost my extreme aversion and fear of snakes, I think mostly because I've seen so many and well, they just aren't that scary.

But then I see this, and I think it's going to be a while before I go back to a movie theater...

Monday, August 21, 2006

Treacher posted a poll last week, and there's still time to get your vote in.

Separately, Treacher also reviews Snakes on a Plane...

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Evidence of an alarming trend in a loss of daylight is being completely ignored by the media...


Just returned from an almost week-long business trip to the west coast. I was able to spend some good Hollywood cruise time with "Winners Only" Nick, and with our other good LA friend Jay.

Had some sushi with Nick and Jay one night in Santa Monica, just near the water at the edge of the continent, and among much hilarity mostly relating to relationships and non-relationships, Jay opined of sushi: "I like it, but not when it's fishy". Yo, Jay, it's raw fish, ffs, it might taste a little fishy. Next day they took me to a dive Mex joint I'd have never stepped into alone and enjoyed the best burrito I've ever had. The burrito itself was bigger than my head, and the waiter (burrito boy?) was impressed at how much I was able to put away. I was quite famished though, and I must say again it was the best damn burrito ever.

Nick and Jay play their soccer in Malibu, and I got to see their home field, a place of knee-buckling beauty high above the Pacific ocean across the street from Pepperdine University. The ocean winds no doubt play a factor in the games, but with a setting like that who could ever possibly care?



Spent some time where we have an office, way inland in the desert, and the hotel I stayed at bizarrely had a New England nautical theme: lighthouses, lobster traps, etc. I'm not kidding, the whole New England nautical theme in a hotel in the southern California desert. Wishful thinking, I guess.

I'm glad I got to finally visit southern California, however briefly and however much the trip focused on work. I don't think I could live there though. I'd miss autumn too much...

Thursday, August 17, 2006

My very presence in southern California is enough to make the Hollywood establishment come to its senses, if only momentarily...
We've got a few months to go, but this will easily make the top 5 weirdest headlines of the year.

Apart from the headline, good for the monks for having the backbone and courage to do what too few in the democratic west are willing to do.
If they're so smart, why can't they get up on dry land with the rest of us mammals?
(via Pajamas)

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

The first ever Carnival of the Grill is up, and among its many fine features and recipes are the Not My Fault artichokes.

You have to look carefully, though, like don't blink or anything...

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Finally some, er, uplifting news from the Middle East...

Monday, August 14, 2006

I don't care about either Joe or Ned, and neither does just about anybody else...

Thursday, August 10, 2006

I've got some business travel coming up over the next few months, but I don't believe I'll be going anywhere on August 22...
The Not My Fault sister gave me a very nice grill cookbook recently, and I've been dabbling with some of the recipes. Unrelatedly, I've been on a bit of an artichoke kick lately, cause, well, they're kinda tasty. So I figured out a way to incorporate grilling flavors with artichokes and I share this now (not that you asked):

3 or 4 Artichokes
a lemon
3 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup white wine (what the hell)
a couple of cloves of garlic...okay 3 cloves
a little fresh parley
a fair amount of fresh thyme
salt & pepper

Cut the chokes lengthwise into quarters and drop them in cold water with the lemon juice so they don't discolor. Scoop out the nasty hairy inedible innards (Do veggies have "innards"? You know what I mean).

Get a big saute pan, turn up the heat, add the oil, vinegar, wine, garlic, parsley, thyme, salt, & pepper. Lay the cut up chokes in the pan and let them cook for a minute but not much more. Then put the pan in a 450 degree hot oven and let it cook for 15 or 20 minutes. Let it cool off a bit, then fire up the grill and throw the chokes on to heat up and get that smokey flavor, maybe 5 minutes or whatever. Viola!!

(Veggies don't easily compliment wine very well, so you should drink whatever you like.)
Summertime, shockingly, is nearing an end...Trying to get the Not My Fault daughter refocused on school, and what better way than with the latest installment of the Carnival of Homeschooling, done up wild west style.

For those of us still unfortunately connected to the teacher workfare program known as "public education", here's the latest Carnival of Education.

But hey, its still summer vacation for a little while longer, so stop by the Carnival of Travel to see what's up...
Do I have to?

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Michael Totten explains himself.

Not that he needed to...


I've spent a fair amount of time around seas and oceans over the years, at the Indian Ocean and the Great Australian Bight as a child, and more recently around California and the waters of Cape Cod.

And every time I so much as dip my toe in the water I remind myself that I'm entering an ecosystem that is more than 30 million years old. You are utterly out of your element and any thought that you might be "in control" in an illusion.

So for goodness sake, be careful out there!

Friday, August 04, 2006

Ann Althouse, guestblogging over at Instapundit, weighs in with some clever commentary on bloggers and the trouble they cause, in this instance as it relates to Connecticut's Boy Joe...
Now who's going to clean that up?














On the left: Beirut, July 12. On the right: Beirut, July 31. (via PajamasMedia)