chuggnutt.com

On this day...

• Hanukkah ends at sundown
• Festivus is "traditionally" celebrated
• The Night Before Christmas was first published, in 1823
• Eddie Vedder was born in 1964
• The Emperor of Japan Akihito was born in 1933
• Van Gogh cut off his ear in 1888
• A whole bunch of other stuff happened

...and oh yeah, it's my birthday. I'm 34 today.

I'm nerdy, no two ways about it: while thinking about the kind of things I would want for Christmas this year, I got to wondering about fictional gadgets and technology that I wouldn't at all mind having. So, as a perfectly goofy/nerdy/idle/self-amusing blog post, I put together a wish list of sci-fi/fantasy gadgets I'd like to get for Christmas (or my birthday).

(Incidentally, I do have an Amazon.com wish list here. It doesn't necessarily match the list I made for my family this year, but I'm just sayin'.)

Lightsaber

Forget laser guns, a lightsaber is the perfect all-in-one weapon. The blade is indestructible, cuts through anything, deflects energy blasts, and acts as a flashlight. Plus, when you're done slicing up Sith Lords, it has a ton of household uses.

Tricorder

The ultimate all-purpose scanning device and handheld computer. As the various Star Trek series show, there's really nothing your tricorder can't tell you—from general weather and environmental conditions to the movements and stats of hidden people to the spin orientation of quarks.

Sonic Screwdriver

Doctor Who's miracle tool. There was almost nothing he couldn't do with that thing... repairing any machine... unlocking any door... cooking meals... getting cash from ATMs...

Time-traveling DeLorean... or TARDIS

Gotta have a time machine.

For vehicular transport, I can't decide between these two. If I went with the DeLorean, I'd have to go with the fusion-powered flying version, but then I'd run into various hijinks related to the existence of magical automobiles in the wrong era. And, of course, the hassle of being able to get the car up to (arbitrarily) 88 miles per hour just to get anywhen. Plus, it doesn't travel spatially—you travel to the same corresponding point in space in the different time period. Could be a problem if there's a building there in the future or something.

But, the thing looks cool.

On the other hand, Doctor Who's TARDIS travels both temporally and spatially, and is bigger on the inside than the outside. Drawbacks? Doesn't seem like you actually have much control over where and when you travel. Plus, it always seems to look like a goofy blue police box. Or, at least the Doctor's did. Perhaps I could get one of my own, an updated, working model.

Babel fish

Yeah, this isn't a gadget per se, but man, being able to understand and communicate in any language without having to fiddle around with something as cumbersome as a Universal Translator...

That's all I can come up with right now. Though I'm sure somebody will point out that since I chose a Babel fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that I should choose, well, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" as a must-have gadget. Nah. I figure I'll just load Wikipedia onto my tricorder.

Based on what I've been writing (ranting) about "Lost" recently, I was contacted via email by a woman doing a feature story about the subject who wanted to interview me (also via email).

The twist? It's a Brazilian television Lost fan site entirely in Portuguese.

Globalization, ya gotta love it. It's cool seeing my name and site in print, even if I don't know what the article is saying. It's here: "LOST" JÁ ERA? TEMPORADA DESANIMA FÃS E PERDE AUDIÊNCIA NOS EUA.

Guess it's time to fire up the Google translator...

A little cross-pollination: over on Hack Bend I'm going to be posting a Holiday Shopping Guide, and I want to make it collaborative as well as listing my own opinions on where to shop for the holidays.

So if you live in Central Oregon and have any recommendations or want a piece of the action, let me know, or comment on my Hack Bend post.

Cheers!

SouthFlorida.com is running a photo gallery of kids scared of Santa Claus, which is gut-busting funny. (Really! I laughed out loud at a lot of these.) But some of these Santas are so messed up that I had to re-run them here. (But go check out the rest.)

Like this one...

Hard-drinkin' Santa

Or this one:

America's Most Wanted Santa

More...

Bank Robbery Gone Bad Santa

And while those are fun, what the hell is with these fake Santas?

Holy shit this freaks me out... it's like Night of the Corn Santa or something

And finally, I think we have what qualifies as Worst Santa Ever:

Via Boing Boing.

For real.

Yes, I'm aware I haven't posted much here on chuggnutt.com lately. I've been focusing most of my writing energy on The Brew Site and Hack Bend recently, since I keep thinking of topical things for those blogs and I really don't want to become a caricature of myself with "Lost" rants.

Aside from that, here's a loosely-presented list of things that have been happening:

Thanksgiving was very nice, and low-key. We did the expected big dinner at my parents' house, though we weren't a big crowd. We made some excellent pumpkin pies with a gingerbread graham cracker crust. (Gingerbread graham crackers. Seriously. Rachael Ray is on the box.)

I hung outdoor Christmas lights on the house the day after Thanksgiving. The cold air gave me a bit of a cold.

The day after that consisted of generously picking up weary travelers Shannon and Brian from the Redmond Airport; Shannon confessed a creepy desire to pummel saguaro cacti. Whack job. :)

The two recent books I've read/are reading are Stephen Baxter's Manifold: Time and Manifold: Space. I think Time is the better written of the two, where he actually builds characterizations (mostly; he's not as strong here as some writers) for his cast, whereas in Space they feel more like mouthpieces or conveniences. Maybe he just got lazy, since he's sort of continuing the main character's story, and didn't feel necessary to rehash... or not. I don't know. They're full of interesting concepts, nonetheless.

When I get a chance (which isn't often), I've been thoroughly enjoying "Secret Weapons Over Normandy" for the PlayStation 2. That game completely rocks. I didn't think I'd like it as much as I do; I think a big part of that is the relatively simple controls used.

(Yes, that's me: I need simple video game controls. I'm retro that way.)

Anything else? Um... working. Nothing interesting to report there.

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving is a good one. We're baking pumpkin pies today (made with a gingerbread graham cracker crust) and heading out to my folks' house for dinner and family. Enjoy the long weekend!

Something I don't really get about those people (mostly young?) waiting—no, camping—in line for days outside of stores like Best Buy for the PlayStation 3... Do they not have jobs, that they can take the time to spend a week camping out at a store? And if they don't have jobs, how can they afford to buy something as expensive as the PS3 (at $600)?

Of course, I don't get why people would camp out for movie premieres, either. YMMV.

I'm starting to think I'm becoming a parody of myself with these "Lost" posts. I'm also thinking about coining a new phrase: "to pull a Lost." It should be self-evident what I mean by that, but: to start out strong, have everything going your way... and then blow it. Which seems to be what they're doing.

Actually, last night's episode was better than it has been this season... mostly. I'll get into that below after the obligatory spoiler warning...

Here there be spoilers!

I realize I'm about a week late blogging this item (should have been around Halloween), but I just can't resist: Count Dracula not in the numbers, physicist says. A scientist is playing Scully to scientifically disprove the existence of monsters—vampires, zombies, ghosts, and so on.

Articles like this make me amused and irritated at the same time. I always get a kick of out it when a goofy, kooky topic like this shows up in the "serious" mainstream news, but it annoys me when they purport to have The Answer to things and get their science and logic wrong.

Case in point: his proof against the existence of vampires is flawed:

[Costas] Efthimiou takes out the calculator to prove that if a vampire sucked one person's blood each month — turning each victim into an equally hungry vampire — after a couple of years there would be no people left, just vampires. He started his calculations with just one vampire and 537 million humans on January 1, 1600 and shows that the human population would be down to zero by July 1602.

Now I'm not saying that vampires do exist, but that's weak. Yes, you've shown us that repeatedly doubling a number increases it exponentially very quickly, but this "proof" is hardly proof. First of all, why the assumption that vampires always make more vampires? If the vampire doesn't kill you outright, then you become a vampire. I think it's up to the "source" vampire. No exponential increase.

Second, couldn't some of these vampires be feeding on animals instead of humans? (Digression: wouldn't vampire cows be funny?)

Third, I'm sure vampires are reasonably intelligent enough to have figured out that if they keep making vampires, there's no more food left. I imagine they plan accordingly.

Fourth, where did this "one person per month" figure come from? That seems rather arbitrary.

So his reasoning is flawed. I think he would be better off arguing against the more implausible vampire myths, such as the physical impossibility of their not casting reflections in mirrors.

Or, you know, doing real science.

I love this video mashup of Lost and The A-Team. I might even like it better than the actual third season of "Lost" so far!

This entry stems entirely from a gross misspelling/mishandling of the word "proletariat" on my part. "Protolariat" is not a real word; if you search for it nothing comes up. What better opportunity to create a new word and be the only search engine result for it? :)

So, what should the definition be? I'm thinking something along the lines of:

• An incomplete model of string theory
• A poorly-executed or work-in-progress "Web 2.0" site; possibly derogatory. "Friendster is a real protolariat"
• Mushroom juice
• A long piece of rope with a knot at one end

Coining new words with the power of the internet!

The "illness" referred to in the title above is our daughter's; she isn't seriously sick but has this cough that really kicks in after she's been asleep for a few hours, and this happens two or three times a night. It really sucks to have your sleep punctured every couple of hours to go administer meds or water or whatever.

Anyway. It was also our daughter's birthday weekend, so we were running around a lot getting things ready and such. The birthday party went really well, so that's good. Thankfully they seem to get easier as the kids get older and more autonomous. No need to give the little ones booze and sleep it off anymore.

I'm kidding. (Or am I?)

The only hitch was two kids didn't get picked up; turns out the mom who was supposed to be picking them up went to the wrong place. Fortunately, we had our minivan and cellphones, so we were able to take the extra kids to where they needed to be. That may well have been the first time we've carpooled...

Anyway, I'll try to get back to my regular blogging schedule. Which hasn't been very "regular" of late, I know. I'll get right on that... sometime...

No, this won't be quite the rant I did last week, just thoughts since watching tonight's episode of "Lost." In particular I thought tonight's Eko-centric episode was far better than last week's, but most of this is just braindump. Maybe some ranting. And oh yeah, huge spoilers.

Huge spoilers ahead, don't say I didn't warn you...

I'm not sure what this might say about me, but when I was reading this KTVZ story about the utterly ridiculous Measure 37 claim on the Newberry Volcanic Monument, I couldn't help but think the image filed with the story looks like a skull:

See the eyesockets? Yeah, that's messed up.

Oh and FYI, Measure 37? Only one of the most retarded ballot measures ever passed in the state of Oregon.

C'mon, with a title like that, how could it not be?

"It" being the Halloween party we went to last night. Costumes, booze, food, and friends. And a giant inflatable Scooby Doo. (Yes, it was this same Scooby.)  Although this year, perhaps the title of this post should be, "Oh my God, they killed Scooby! Those bastards!"

Yes, that's right: somebody killed Scooby Doo.

See, when Scooby disappeared from the back deck (where he was leering in the window this year), the assumption was the thing had deflated. Somebody suggested that Scooby had, indeed, been killed, but I thought it was just the running gag. Until Scooby's giant deflated plastic corpse was discovered lying in a pool of blood with a large knife in the neck.

(I think this Family Guy clip applies here. I've been looking for an excuse to link to that.)

I knew I had been beating that dead horse into the ground, but I had no idea it would incite a murderous crime of passion...

That was a good party.

Those bastards!

Okay, I've managed to hold out for the first four episodes of "Lost" this season, but after tonight I couldn't resist it any longer. It's a rant. It's gonna be spoilerish, and long-winded, usual disclaimers apply, etc. etc. Only click through if you're ready.

Read on... spoilers ahead.

That's the new toy in the house from this weekend: a garbage can whose lid opens automatically (via infrared sensor). It was from Costco, but I can't find it on their site to pull up a picture; and since I'm too lazy to go look at the brand on the actual thing itself, you'll just have to use the awesome power of your imagination for now.

So far, the sensor has been tripped by standing too close to it; walking by it; intentionally (via Jedi hand-waving magic); and the dog. That dog one only happened once; he sniffed too close to it, it popped open, and he jumped and scrabbled away. That was pretty funny.

Now, what is that goofy phrase they always use on Slashdot and the like? ...I for one welcome our new robotic garbage can overlords...

...because really, it's just a matter of time at this point.

I've been on a reading tear over the summer, mostly all good books, and I thought I'd be a little self-indulgent and list what I've read with some comments.

• Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World. It clocks in at something like 3,000 pages total, but it was by far the best thing I read this year. Maybe several years.
• Virtual Light, by William Gibson.
• Spam Kings, by Brian McWilliams.
• Gray Lensman and Second Stage Lensmen by E.E. Smith. Two middle volumes of what is often considered to be the "best space opera series of all time." Written in the '40s, so they're somewhat dated, but pretty good. I don't know about Best of All Time good, but worth a read nonetheless.
• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein.
• A Canticle for Liebowitz, by Walter Miller, Jr. Different from what I was expecting from the description on the back cover.
• Still slogging through Gödel, Escher, Bach. Unfinished.
• Across the River and Into the Trees, by Hemingway. Tough to get excited about this one.
• Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond. I'm reading this one now, it's very good.

Cyberpunk:

Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, noted for its focus on "high tech and low life" and taking its name from the combination of cybernetics and punk. It features advanced science such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or a radical change in the social order.

Cyberpunk writers tend to use elements from the hard-boiled detective novel, film noir, and postmodernist prose to describe the often nihilistic underground side of an electronic society.... much of the action takes place online, in cyberspace, blurring any border between the actual and the virtual reality.

Classic example: Neuromancer

Steampunk:

Steampunk... concerns works set in the past, or a world resembling the past, in which modern technological paradigms occurred earlier in history, but were accomplished via the science already present in that time period.

The prototypical "steampunk" stories were essentially cyberpunk tales that were set in the past, using steam-era technology rather than the ubiquitous cybernetics of cyberpunk but maintaining those stories' "punkish" attitudes towards authority figures and human nature. Originally, like cyberpunk, steampunk was typically dystopian, often with noir and pulp fiction themes, as it was a variant of cyberpunk.

Further derivatives: Stonepunk, bronzepunk, ironpunk, sandalpunk or classicpunk, middlepunk, clockpunk, dieselpunk and atomicpunk, transistorpunk, spacepunk... though I don't think most of these are full-fledged subgenres, and were developed for the GURPS Steampunk role-playing game.

Classic example: The Difference Engine

Biopunk:

It describes the nihilistic, underground side of the biotech society which is said to have started to evolve in the first decade of the 21st century. Unlike cyberpunk, it builds not on information technology but on biology. Individuals are enhanced not by mechanical means, but by human genetic engineering.

Postcyberpunk: Not so much a derivative as an evolution.

Postcyberpunk describes a subgenre of science fiction which some critics suggest has evolved from classic cyberpunk. Like its predecessor, postcyberpunk focuses on technological developments in near-future societies, typically examining the social effects of an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized informaton, genetic engineering and modification of the human body, and the continued impact of perpetual technological change. Unlike "classic" cyberpunk, however, the works in this category feature characters who act to improve social conditions or at least protect the status quo from further decay.

Includes a sense of humor, as opposed to the frequently deadly serious nature of cyberpunk.

Classic example: The Diamond Age

...At some point, you know, this all seems like a snake devouring its own tail...

Friday, after much hand-wringing and debating and questioning sanity (almost entirely by my wife), we adopted a new kitten from the Humane Society.

He's about seven weeks old and has that full-on kitten rambunctious flexibility that all the good kittens possess. Kittens like that are like crack for some people.

Thankfully the first night was the only night (for me) that messed up my sleep... seems like the last cat we got kept me up a lot more at first. I'm not complaining!

So far, the other two cats are still unsure of what to make of the interloper. I'm sure that will pass and they'll start kicking his ass any day now.

And now, of course, the obligatory kitten pictures.

I haven't decided yet if that black on the nose qualifies this cat to look like Hitler...

On the one hand, I want to say, "who knew it would come to this," but on the other, well, it figures: Dustin Diamon, AKA Screech from "Saved by the Bell," is the latest celebrity to have a sex tape released to the public.

See also stories on TMZ.com here, here, and here. That last link purports to have a preview. Consider all of it NSFW, kids.

This is an incredibly weird story... mind-boggling, really. TMZ describes the tape as:

The tape begins with Diamond in a bathtub, narrating what's to come. It ends with Diamond introducing one of the women to a "Dirty Sanchez." Suffice it say, it is unbelievably graphic.

...I have to say, I never thought the phrase "Dirty Sanchez" would ever appear on this blog. You can look it up on Wikipedia if you like, but I ain't gonna link to it.

The cynical theory is that since Diamond is supposedly flat broke, and his career is stalled out due to the Screech typecast, this video not only breaks him out of that stereotyped image but also kicks-starts the PR on his career.

If that's true, that's pretty hardcore. (Pun intended.)

See also: my post from over three and a half years ago.

I think we should start a new game: "What Can't You Find on Wikipedia?", or, alternatively, "Stump Wikipedia". Seriously, they have over 1.4 million articles now, and it keeps going up. Is there a ceiling?

Although you have to stick to real subjects... you can't punch something in like "nitrate waffles" and expect a legitimate response. (See Googlewhacking if that's the game you want to play.)

Of course, the irony here is even if someone were to find such a subject, that person or another could immediately create a new article for it... thereby negating the point.

So how soon before Wikipedia becomes sentient?

Random link for the day: Cats that look like Hitler.

Really.

Apparently today was "sandwich day" over on Slashfood and it made me think of something I've been meaning to share for a while. Something you'll probably think sounds gross at first. Most people do. But the thing is, even though it sounds gross, it's actually really really good.

And once I tell you about it, you won't be able to stop thinking about it.

Ready?

...the peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich.

You're all cringing. At least the ones who have never tried this are. But really, a lot of you routinely eat much worse that this. Yeah, I'm lookin' at you, High Fructose Corn Syrup—not to mention Monosodium Glutamate and Red #7. And what about Aspartame?

Think about it. PB & M. You might think it sounds awful, but until you try it, you'll never really know.

Really.

I've started using the spam-killing service Akismet to handle comment spam on my three blogs. That, and instituted a basic moderation system for comments. I can't say as I've been dealing with as much comment spam as some people, but I just got sick and tired of dealing with the problem myself and decided to offload the work.

So far Akismet is pretty slick, though I'd guesstimate that it has only caught 50% or so of the spam comments I've received since activating it today. I'm hoping it gets better.

It took a little bit of work to integrate it into my custom software, but I was able to crib a PHP class someone else had written and get it all integrated fairly smoothly. If you're running one of the standard platforms like Movable Type or WordPress, though, there already exist handy plugins that you should just be able to drop into your blog directory.

So if there's any comment weirdness over the next few days as I monitor the activity and work out the kinks, bear with me. If you post a legitimate comment, it should show up right away, unless it was incorrectly flagged as spam. That's where the moderation comes in; I'll make sure to approve legit comments ASAP.

One year and two weeks after we lost our first cat, we lost our second cat today. We had to have him put to sleep, the same as before; he was essentially end-stage advanced urinary tract disease. We'd spent the last two weeks doing everything we could for him.

This was our cat Lucifer. He was 13. We'd also raised him from a kitten. He was a big Maine coon, with six toes on each of his front paws; he looked like he was wearing mittens. He was also the sweetest cat you would ever meet.

Yes, it sucks. It's like that, sometimes. But at 13, he lived a full, happy, loving life with no complaints; there's not much more you can ask for.

We got the minivan back from the shop this week, and today I had the distinct pleasure of attending a diversion class for the ticket I had received (you all remember my accident, right?) The diversion class was the kind with the driving simulator—whenever you're involved in an accident this is the type of class you get. It ran from nine until about three.

The class by itself was just fine; full of information and videos about traffic safety, etc. Definitely worth it to get the ticket expunged from the record. The simulators, though, they were something else...

...as in, really old technology. I'm quite sure they were state-of-the-art fifteen years ago, but in this day and age they just seem, well, sad. Seriously, these are circa early- to mid-nineties units; the "simulators" are basically adjustable seats with the simplest possible console you can imagine: steering wheel, ignition, speedometer, and indicator lights for the program. Gas and brake pedals. Gear shift (for an automatic) and emergency brake.

Everyone sits in these consoles and watches a screen where the "simulation" is projected from—I kid you not—laserdisc. Laserdisc! Aside from thrift stores, I haven't seen a live laserdisc player since the late 80s. And it's just a movie, basically, no real interaction—you simply "drive" the console in accordance with what's on the screen, and the indicator lights flash if there was an error of some sort (too fast or slow, no turn signal, etc.).

All very basic. Embarrassingly so.

Modern video game systems are more advanced than this. In fact, with how affordable technology is these days, there's almost no reason you couldn't put together a simulator out of a PlayStation or Xbox, cheap LCD monitor, and driving controls (which I've seen for racing games), and have the entire system come in for well under $1000.

Laserdisc! I'm still shaking my head.

Compare and contrast this:

Global warming over the coming century could mean a return of temperatures last seen in the age of the dinosaur and lead to the extinction of up to half of all species, a scientist said on Thursday.

With this:

The earliest civilizations were not a product of favorable conditions but rather a last resort in the face of dramatic shifts in the weather, a climate scientist said on Thursday.

I'm trying to decide if these are complimentary or contradictory. Or maybe I'm just randomly amused, correlating the climate crisis faced in one article with the results mentioned in another...

...what we tend to think of today as civilization was an accidental by-product of unplanned adaptation to catastrophic climate change. Civilization was a last resort...

Interesting stuff.

Our Labor Day weekend itself was decent enough overall, but Sunday night we had to take our oldest cat to the emergency pet hospital because he'd been acting weird all day, and by the evening was seemingly in serious pain. Turned out he had stones in his bladder and was all blocked up.

Since our regular vet wouldn't be open until Tuesday morning, the cat stayed at the emergency hospital from Sunday night through Tuesday morning (about 36 hours), receiving treatment. Tuesday my wife transferred him to our regular vet, and they performed surgery to remove the stones that day.

Recovery Tuesday night, and again tonight. Probably home tomorrow. But all this adds up to another hefty bill. Pets are expensive. I'm beginning to wonder if we should have insurance policies taken out on them.

And before anyone thinks I'm totally cynical, the cat is doing just fine. He's 13 years old, but remarkably healthy otherwise.

I don't know what it is, exactly, but these last few days really seem like summer is done and autumn is just starting. No, it's not the colder weather we had today... perhaps it's like Jennifer's husband said, about the quality of light changing so that it looks like fall.

Actually I think that's a large part of it. The days are shorter and the sun has been shifting southward again, and the light has a fall quality to it. I can smell it in the air, too. Something crisp. It feels like the harvest season, or at least feels like it should be.

And then school's starting on Tuesday... both are kids are in this year (first grade and kindergarden). That plays a factor, I'm sure.

So, even though we officially have nearly another month of summer remaining, it seems to me that it is now (informally) the beginning of autumn.

Did everyone remember to bring in or cover their plants tonight?

Okay, geek levels are off the charts on this one: FC64, a Commodore C64 emulator for Flash. And it's open source. This is just mind boggling...

...because, among other things, what this means is that I could embed a Commodore 64 emulator, games and all, right here on my blog. Because it's in Flash. And Flash in installed on nearly every browser these days.

So not only could you play C-64 games here... if you know BASIC, you could write and run your own programs for it. So then I wonder if those are saveable? I bet that would be easy to hack... Talk about a community project: everybody writing programs for everybody else to run without having to install software or trade files at all. Hmmmmmmmmmm...

More geeky space news! This is more mainstream-popular, though, as I've seen it popping up everywhere. Pluto is no longer a planet. I'm actually a bit surprised at the uproar this seems to be causing; Slashdot has more on this.

Me, I guess I've always been suspicious of Pluto; I mean, the thing has this wildly weird orbit that goes above the plane of the ecliptic and that swings inside Neptune's orbit. And, it's smaller than our own moon. And, its own moon, Charon, doesn't actually orbit around Pluto; rather, they orbit around each other (with the center of axis somewhere between them rather than at Pluto's center).

All decidedly un-planetlike.

So I think reclassifying it is a good move. It doesn't make it any less mysterious or interesting. I guess I just don't see why this is such a big deal; Pluto itself didn't go anywhere.

So, my two cents.

And, getting even geekier (possible?), the Wikipedia article on Pluto mentions it "is the prototype of a yet-to-be-named family of trans-Neptunian objects." Trans-Neptunian? No no no. It should properly be classified as a Kuiper Belt Object. Right up there with other KBOs like Sedna, Quaoar, and the like. (And the name "plutino" is just stupid.)

Okay, I'm a little behind on news, but I thought this story was extremely cool: Voyager 1 passes 100 AU from the sun. I guess this is only of interest to you if you're a space and astronomy geek.

(Some quick Wikipedia references: Voyager 1, AU.)

It's just amazing to me that a spacecraft built with 1970s technology has been able to go so far and outlast a lot of other junk that's been introduced to the world since then. It's currently the most distant man-made object from Earth. Signals from the spacecraft take more that 13 hours to reach us.

The spacecraft [both Voyagers] are traveling at a distance where the sun is but a bright point of light and solar energy is not an option for electrical power. The Voyagers owe their longevity to their nuclear power sources, called radioisotope thermoelectric generators, provided by the Department of Energy.

Voyager 1 is now at the outer edge of our solar system, in an area called the heliosheath, the zone where the sun's influence wanes. This region is the outer layer of the 'bubble' surrounding the sun, and no one knows how big this bubble actually is. Voyager 1 is literally venturing into the great unknown and is approaching interstellar space. Traveling at a speed of about one million miles per day, Voyager 1 could cross into interstellar space within the next 10 years.

Via Slashdot.

So on my way to work this morning, I got into a car accident. One of three cars involved! Westbound on Franklin, just past the light on Third, and the first car stopped for the construction they've got going on, and the car in front of me rear-ended the first car, stopping up short, and I had to hit my brakes—but still rear-ended the second car. A three car pile-up. Sort of.

Anyway, I'm fine, no injuries, just smashed up the front of our Honda Odyssey real good (but the engine seems to be fine, so that's good). The other two drivers are fine, too, so everybody came out of it shaken but unscathed.

Yep, it all sucks. The car is at the shop now, waiting for a damage estimate, and I'm dealing with insurance and paperwork and all that fun stuff.

What I find amusing, is everyone's reaction: first is the natural, "Are you okay?" question; that's been followed up with, "It wasn't the new car, was it?"

(No, it was the older car.)

Yeah, that headline there? Totally saccharine and goofy and pointless. Yes, I know it's cribbed from John Lennon, so what?

Anyway.

The "life that happened" was a sudden and unexpected gall bladder removal for my wife last week. Yeah, I know—Wha?!? She went to the doctor on Wednesday, confirmed that she had gallstones, and they wanted to take the gall bladder out either that night or Thursday. We opted for Thursday, so I spent most of that day at the hospital and the rest of the weekend taking care of, er, everything. So I've been busy.

You know what's crazy? They treat gall bladder surgery (formally known as cholecystectomy, in this case laparoscopic) as basically outpatient; my wife was able to come home Thursday night.

Okay, this is even crazier, and creepy (from that Wikipedia article):

Gallstones are, oddly, a valuable by-product of meat processing, fetching up to $900 US an ounce in their use as a purported aphrodisiac in the herbal medicine of some cultures. The finest gallstones tend to be sourced from old dairy cows. Much as in the manner of diamond mines, slaughterhouses carefully scrutinise offal department workers for gallstone theft.

Wow. And "ew."

On the other hand... no, I won't even go there.

This is absolutely great: Send a free personalized message from Samuel L. Jackson for "Snakes on a Plane." I swear, the thing is brilliant... the audio editing is really good... and it makes phone calls anywhere for free. Even better? You put in the phone number you want it to appear from... and it uses that number for caller ID.

As my brother said, you think you're getting a call from a friend, and Samuel Jackson is commanding you!

Oh, uh, the movie itself? Well, if it's successful, it's because they've been taking the viral approach all along...

I figured it's been just long enough for everyone to forget...

The eye surgery went very well, our daughter has been recuperating marvelously all weekend (it wasn't a very eventful weekend because of this), and things are more-or-less back on track.

Saturday morning we did make a Costco run, largely because I had an eye exam of my own at the optometrist there. It's been probably 15 years since I last had my eyes checked, and the kids having the surgery—not to mention having had eye floaters for years—put me in mind to getting it done. As it happens, I have nearly perfect vision; I see 20/20 in each eye, and have a very mild astigmatism that may necessitate getting glasses in a few years. The floaters are normal.

And yeah, go ahead and get the "floater" jokes out of your system; I can hear a bunch of you snickering in the back.

Like the trip we had almost two years ago, tonight we're in the Phoenix Inn hotel in Lake Oswego in preparation for our daughter's corrective eye surgery tomorrow. Pretty much anything I would say is covered in that previous post; the only details being different really are that my daughter is six and it's her third (and hopefully last) such surgery. And I've taken today, Wednesday and Thursday off from work for it (back on Friday).

On the positive side, we had a really excellent dinner at Piazza Italia in Portland's Pearl District; we got to try some cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory at Washington Square; and we'll be doing a Trader Joe's run sometime before coming back on Thursday. Anyone need anything from TJs?

I'm taking the day off from work this Friday and going to Portland for the Oregon Brewers Festival! Woo hoo! My original plan was to stay in Portland the entire weekend, but as it turns out I'd already obligated myself to a friend's wedding Saturday evening, so I'll be spending Friday night with my friend Justin (who's also going with me to the Brewfest) and leaving Saturday late morning sometime.

It's going to be an eventful day. Aside from the Brewfest, there's a beer blogger meetup that evening (starting at five) over at the Rogue Ales Public House, so I'll get to meet yet more bloggers from Portland and other far-flung places (Arizona, for one, I think).

Are any other bloggers in the area going to the Brewfest? Let me know.

At any rate, I'll have the camera and notebook and plan on writing a bunch about it. And, Friday right now is looking at an 80-degree forecast for Portland, so that's just about perfect. Three days and counting!

Okay, I've pretty much become addicted to the show with zefrank. I can't help it. It's compelling. And funny. And smart. And for embedded online video, it just works. Go watch. And then go watch a bunch of the archives.

The Cowboy Dinner Tree was fabulous. A real experience, one I would absolutely do again! So this review will mostly consist of gushing over the meal (I can't think of anything bad to say), followed by a few pictures. Read on...

More...

Tonight my wife and I are driving down to Silver Lake to eat at the Cowboy Dinner Tree. This is actually something we've wanted to try out for years, but it was this article in the Bend Bulletin which finally prompted us to make reservations.

Probably the best description I could give is one I'll lift from the Bulletin article:

The Cowboy Dinner Tree, about 85 miles from Bend, is about as rustic as a restaurant can get. Made of rough poles and barn planks, the building itself has the look of a hermit's cabin. A sign on the wall proclaims "No electricity - No credit cards - No kidding," and it's not. A 12-volt solar-powered battery provides the juice for a couple of bare light bulbs in the dining room, but when the sun sets, the lights dim. All the food is cooked from scratch with propane.

When you make your reservations, you get the choice of either the steak or the chicken for dinner. And their serious about they're food; when they say chicken, they mean a whole chicken. And the steaks are 26 to 30 ounces. That's almost two pounds of steak!

Should be an experience, one I'll write about sometime in the near future, if I'm not comatose from that much red meat.

Simone noted the humor/frustration level I was having with Dell this week at work. Of course, anytime I mention "Dell" around her she shakes her head in disgust, so perhaps she's not exactly the most objective observer. :)

What happened was, at work this week one of the newish Dell PCs started making a high-pitched spinning/whining noise. At first I thought it was a fan, so I opened up the box, eliminated the fans as a source of noise, and quickly concluded it was the hard drive. Sounds emanating from the hard drive are, generally, a Bad Thing. And sure enough, when I tried to boot the machine up again in order to copy the data to the network (most of the user data is already on the network, except for a few things like email and some accounting data), I got the Windows blue screen and problems booting.

So I got the person set up with a temporary PC (an older one), pulled the hard drive, and called Dell.

(Let me disclaim in advance that in fact all the people I talked to at Dell were very professional and helpful, and the overall service they performed was very good. It just turned into a minor comedy of errors.)

First of all, the machine's out of warranty; it was purchased one year and one month ago. Of course! Even assuming I'd bought the one-year service plan warranty with it, it still wouldn't matter.

Nearly 45 minutes later, after talking to three different people (a woman from India; some fellow with an unidentifiable accent in Tech Support; and a woman from Roseburg, Oregon in Sales), I was finally able to get the order placed for a new hard drive that matched the specs of the machine and drive in question: 80GB Ultra ATA, IDE interface. Pay attention, that's an important detail.

They tell me that yes, even though I ordered the drive with Next Day delivery, it still may not even ship out until Friday the 14th. That's fine, I say, just get it here ASAP. And guess what? They surprise me by delivering the hard drive the very next day! Woo-hoo!

Open the package, mount the drive into the PC chassis, go to plug everything in... and it's the wrong type of drive. They sent me an 80GB Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive, which is incompatible with the IDE interface in this computer.

So there's not much else to do but get on the phone with Dell again, spending exactly 31 minutes on the phone this time (our office telephones have a call timer). I spoke with the Customer Service department (again a woman from India, as near as I can figure), got the return processed (UPS would pick it up in the next three days), then transferred to Sales, where I made sure to order exactly the right type of hard drive. I hope. This was Thursday.

The new drive hasn't arrived yet, so the speedy Next Day delivery that accompanied the first hard drive hasn't recurred. Hopefully Monday? But, the UPS guy did pick up the return Friday morning, so that's something.

Simone did warn me.

A promo-note to any garage salers reading: my brother and his girlfriend are having a garage sale today (Saturday the 15th). Among other things, he was planning on selling some of his older video game systems (Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo), with games, and we took a toddler mattress over there for them to sell ($45 OBO).

They live over on Douglas Street, just off and north of Wilson. I told them to post an ad on Craigslist, but I don't see one there...

Now, this story is just silly: Fanged killer kangaroo roamed Outback.

Forget cute, cuddly marsupials. A team of Australian palaeontologists say they have found the fossilized remains of a fanged killer kangaroo and what they describe as a "demon duck of doom".
...
The species found at the dig had "well muscled-in teeth, not for grazing. These things had slicing crests that could have crunched through bone and sliced off flesh", Hand said.

I have this absurd image of saber-toothed kangaroos hopping around... Hey, maybe somebody will make a horror-thriller-scifi-Jurassic-Park type movie where killer kangaroos are brought back to life and terrorizing Australia! And if you can come up with a dumb enough name, Samuel L. Jackson will star in it!

While I can't say as I've found much use out of MySpace, my sister-in-law did post an amusing bulletin that I had to steal. I'm sure we've all seen variations on the name game... here's a collection of rules for generating ten of them (along with my results).

Your Spy Name: Middle name and current street name
Travis Desert (only part of my street name, so it wouldn't sound so goofy)

Your Movie Star Name: Grandfather/grandmother on your mom's side, your favorite candy
Guy Snickers

Your Rap Name: First initial of first name, first two or three letters of your last name
J-Ab (Jab?)

Your Gamer Tag: A favorite color, a favorite animal
Purple Chicken

Your Soap Opera Name: Middle name, city where you were born
Travis St. Helens

Your Star Wars Name: First 3 letters of your last name, last 3 letters of mother's maiden name, first 3 letters of your pet's name
Abeittbob (or Abe Itt Bob as they tend to do names in Star Wars)

Your Jedi Name: Middle name spelled backwards, your mom's maiden name spelled backwards
Sivart Rolyat (I made up the maiden name... no way I'm posting that online for real)

Your Porn Star Name: First pet's name, the street you grew up on
Curly Deer

Your Superhero Name: "The", your favorite color, the automobile your dad drives
The Purple Chevy

Your Action Hero Name: First Name Of The Main Character In The Last Film You Watched, last Food You Just Ate
Popeye Radish

So, what are your names?

So I'm fighting off the advances of a summertime cold, picked up from my son. It's that tickly sore throat, run-down feeling and if it doesn't get nipped in the bud right away, then it'll turn full-fledged, and we don't want that. Hence, I've been dosing up on echinacea, Airborne, vitamin C, and Ricola. And tea. So far, I seem to have halted the advance, but I won't know if the tide has turned until the morning after a (hopefully) good night's sleep.

Last night's sleep was not good. At 4:20 in the AM we (as in, the entire household, kids, animals and all) were awakened to the sound of digital beeping. Loud digital beeping. After scouring the house and finding nothing out of the ordinary, my unconfirmed suspicion is that it was the new humidifier we had set up in my son's room. After that, it was sporadic sleep interrupted by the cat pouncing on my feet every 53 seconds.

On a totally unrelated note, why on Earth are so many MySpace pages so bloody ugly? No, I know the technical reason they are—because somebody actually thought it would be a good idea to give users that much control over their page—but holy Corona, don't any of these people have any sense of aesthetics at all? I don't get it.

Yeah, it's one of those "How I spent" posts, inspired by Shannon's this time. Only I'll confine mine to my super-busy holiday weekend.

Saturday, my wife and daughter went to Sisters with my mother for the rock and gem show. They do this every year, it's tradition. While they were gone, my son and I returned a bunch of cans and bottles to Safeway, went to the library, and stopped by the homebrew shop so I could pick up ingredients for a batch of beer and a wine kit for my wife.

A highlight of the homebrew shop: my soon-to-be-five-year-old son asking when we could leave because he didn't like this store... I guess not enough toys? Too creepy for kids? I got a chuckle out of it.

When the others got back, my daughter went home with my mother to have a sleepover, and the rest of us went back to town to check out the Saturday market, get some ice cream, and then head home again. For dinner it was Cibelli's Pizza (had to go pick it up).

Sunday it was off to Albertson's to return some more bottles and cans, return some movies, and run to Bi-Mart. I transplanted a bunch of plants (one of my hop plants, several tomatoes, a couple of beans). In the afternoon we went out to my parents' place for dinner and to pick up our daughter. It was a hot enough day that I took the kids over to Reynolds Pond and we played in the water a bit.

I took Monday off from work, and it was a big homebrew day that I had planned with my friend Paul. After going out to breakfast at McKay Cottage, we spent a good part of the day brewing, and then the afternoon and evening turned into an impromptu barbecue and party with Paul and his wife, Shannon and Brian, and Simone and her husband. The day was punctuated with the power going out all over town (only about a half hour for us, though I heard other people were out for hours), lighting off fireworks that Simone's husband had brought over, and a friendly poker game.

That night at 12:30 AM, someone rang our doorbell. I, however, slept through it, and only woke when my wife, er, woke me. Muzzy-headed with alcohol and sleep, all I knew was that the dog was barking in the middle of the night so I yelled at him to stop, only to find out he was actually performing a service for once... hilarity ensues. I stumbled around in the dark for a while, only wanting to go back to bed, my wife called the police to notify them of the "ding dong ditch" (a name I'm quite sure I'd never heard before then), and left the closet light on all night. I didn't get a very good night's sleep.

Tuesday the Fourth found us getting up and ready to go to the Pet Parade. After the Parade (we hung out there with Shannon and Brian), we wandered the park checking out the booths and food they have every year (festival-style), and then checked out the library's book sale. (Scored a stack of books for only $4!) In the afternoon we were back out to my parents' place for dinner and fireworks, and then when we got back home we did a few more fireworks when it got dark, and then watched the (in)famous Pilot Butte fireworks show. We have a pretty good view of that from our lawn.

And that, in a not-so-small nutshell, was our holiday weekend. Sometime I'd just like to relax for a day or two, you know?

I've been exploring YouTube a bit more lately and just thought I'd point to some of the videos I've found that amuse me...

• Crazy Cat Pinky - the cat in this video wigs out and I actually laughed out loud.
• This Place Sucks - Superfriends - the classic Superfriends/Office Space mashup.
• Deadwood Swearing - nothing but two and a half minutes of swearing edited together... even if you know Deadwood, this might be kind of surprising...
• Ryan vs Dorkman - A really well-done lightsaber duel between two goofy looking guys... really good amateur choreography and great lightsaber effects.

No, I haven't posted much on any of my sites this week. My aunt died on Monday, and I just haven't felt like writing much. There's really not any more to say; the funeral is on Saturday. In the meantime, I hope everyone's having a good week, what with the first day of summer and the hot weather and all.

Okay, tell me this guy doesn't look totally cool:

Photo thanks to Simone at Emerald Bay Photography

This guy was with the fire dancer troup that performed Saturday night at the Bite of Bend. We decided he looked like Willy Wonka, though now I'm also thinking the Mad Hatter. Watching him, I also think he had a Johnny Depp thing going on. Anyway, I begged and pleaded with Simone for a picture of him so I could post it... how could I not? That guy rocks. Seriously.

Top hats are cool.

When I started writing this post, the video in question actually existed... but now the link they had goes to the Visitor and Convention Bureau site... hmmmmmm.

The title of this post might as well be "How not to do viral marketing." It concerns a new animated ad campaign, detailed in excruciating detail in this Bulletin article, launched by the Bend Visitor & Convention Bureau... I'm actually at a loss for words.

Okay, I'm not really. Nor will I mince words: at best, this video makes me embarrassed for Bend.

My wife sent me the link in the morning, without explanation. First of all, it took forever to load, which is not a good sign. Finally, it started, and I was immediately sorry it did; my first impulse was to turn it off. When I first glimpsed something that sort of resembled Pilot Butte in the background, I thought, Is this supposed to be about Bend? It couldn't be, it doesn't even make any sense. But lo and behold, it turned out to be about Bend after all.

My next thought was that somebody had gone out of their way—poorly, I might add—to make fun of Bend. It's certainly not something that would ever entice me to visit.

Finally I saw the Bulletin article, and things started to make a perverse sense. Here's a clip:

The Bend Visitor & Convention Bureau has launched an edgy, animated online marketing campaign featuring a video the bureau hopes is so entertaining that viewers will e-mail it to friends, family and colleagues.

The video is sort of like Bend meets The Simpsons.

Locals will recognize scenes in the lighthearted production and presumably chuckle at the characters and lyrics.
...
"The video is funny and entertaining," Glover said. "But, there's also a message that shows what we have here - the river, rafting, skiing, etc. We hope that people will be entertained, then watch it again or pass it along via e-mail."

Ultimately, the video's goal is to interest more people in visiting Bend.

According to Glover, the video is the first of its kind to market a destination such as Bend through an emerging form of advertising known as viral marketing.
...
Glover already considers the campaign a winner, thanks to a marketing coup that will allow friendster.com, a video downloading site popular among iPod owners, to send links to the video with endorsements to more than 1.25 million of its subscribers.

"Just through that, the campaign is a success," Glover said.

Are you kidding me?

There's nothing "edgy" or Simpsons-like anywhere in that video. In fact, it's some seriously shoddy art and animation work happening there. (I know—well, I hope—the people behind it can do better.) And being a local, trust me when I say there's no chuckling going on, and the "recognizable" scenes are barely even that.

Here's a hint about viral marketing: it tends to work best when it's not directed. Don't hold it out there and proclaim it a success; either it'll happen on its own or it won't. You have no real control over the matter.

And they think hooking up with Friendster is a marketing coup? Really? Friendster is on the wane in a big way. They would have been far better off leveraging MySpace (with 86 million users) and YouTube. Then you'd see some real numbers.

Oh and by the way, pick a better domain name next time... "where-the-hell-are-we.com" just lacks that, how would you say, convenience and ease of use in passing around a link.

I will concede that this video is viral in an avian flu sense—it's spreading around the local blogosphere and everybody I've shown it to hates it. But that's not the kind of viral you'd hope for.

Postscript: And it's gone... I wonder if that was intentional, or there was too much backlash?

Post-postscript: Yes, you'll notice I didn't actually link to the video directly... I debated it. But since it appears to be gone anyway, oh well.

Go and check out today's Pearls Before Swine comic strip. It's the good stuff.

Deadwood is back (as of last Sunday)! I loves me my Deadwood!

I just had to point that out. That, and say, it's about time somebody beat Farnum to a bloody pulp...

I saw the third X-Men movie on Saturday, and while I don't think it's as good as the previous two movies, I rather liked it. It won't classify as a great movie, but it was certainly enjoyable.

So what follows is my review... although it's less of a "review" than just a general geeking-out about things. And there are definitely Spoilers ahead so be warned.

More...

So can you hear this ringtone? It's supposed to be too high-pitched in frequency for the ears of people over 30 to hear... but I can hear it. It's via Shannon, who seems to be alternating between thinking she's too old to hear it, or she's just been exposed to too much loud music over the years.

...she also wants me to use this quote for her quote of the week: "next thing ya know, i'll be wearing depends and drooling." I don't know, that seems too easy to me. We'll see.

This post is really to supplement my Water in the Desert post from yesterday; I wanted to include some pictures of the cistern we used to play on, because that was one of my favorite parts from that post. So while we were out at my parents' place today, I snapped a few pictures.

Here's a view of the thing. The concrete's a little worse for the wear after 20+ years, but you can see it's shaped like a box, and has those weird steel blade-looking things sticking out of it. Like rebar, only sharper. And sideways. Plus, you can get a sense of its height; I was standing on an elevated spot, and the top was still over my head a bit, and I'm six feet tall.

Holding the camera over my head and shooting blindly... here's the top of the cistern. Nice and flat. The pumphouse is adjoining; from the cistern you could wander around on top the pumphouse. That wasn't as much fun though.

Nice view along the side, closeup on the blade thingy. Yes, we would climb on those. They're what, maybe an eighth of an inch thick.

This is part of an ongoing series of articles that I'm writing on Central Oregon and growing up here; you can view the introduction here.

Growing up on the desert, water takes on a special, almost symbolic, significance. You are constantly surrounded by sand, sagebrush, juniper trees, dry vegetation like bunchgrass and cheat grass, all of it broken up by undulating mounds or ridges of dark lava rock... and not a drop of water in sight.

...I was going to write some pithy metaphor about how the mind grows to reflect the desert environment around it and consequently understands water to be as precious as it is to the ecosystem, but you know what? I'm not that high-fallutin'.

More...

Just thought I'd post a quick note on my quick-and-easy (and preferred) method for cooking salmon. Salmon is probably my favorite fish, and nothing beats it when it's fresh... anyway, here's how I've been fixing it lately:

• Turn the broiler on high. Move the oven rack up accordingly.
• Line your broiler pan (or similar) with a sheet of aluminum foil. Turn the edges up to minimize the mess.
• Spritz the foil with non-stick cooking spray. It makes things infinitely easier.
• Prepare the salmon: I season it with seasoning salt, lemon pepper (if I have it), and dill. Simple.
• Place it on the foil, and drizzle with olive oil.
• Put it in the oven, cook for 4-5 minutes (depending on the thickness of the cut). Flip it, and cook for another 4-5 minutes.
• Remove it to your plate, and eat.

Simple, quick, and easy. And so good.

The sixth day of the sixth month of...

Yeah, are we really doing this?

I got nothin'.

I'd seen this before, floating around the net, and should've linked to it then; but now is as good a time as any: People over 30 should be dead.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors!

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

You have to go read it all. Love it! :)

Jeez, come back from vacation to find Shannon's latest post:

"some gal on myspace.com contacted me. offered me a free silver bullet. how could i refuse?"

You'll have to go read the entire post for context...

I just hope Shannon doesn't think the silver bullet refers to Coors Light...

Our big Memorial Day weekend was spent over on the Oregon coast, chillin' out in Lincoln City.

...I of course mean "chillin' out" quite literally; it was chilly and windy and rainy on Saturday and Sunday, and finally started getting nice on Monday, when we were leaving. It was in the 50s and maybe low 60s, so by Central Oregon standards, just like spring!

It was nice. It'd been ages since I'd been to the coast, so the chance to get on the beach and touch the ocean and taste the salty air far outweighed any minor weather concerns. We stayed at the 'D' Sands motel right on the beach, just below the D River (the shortest river in the world). It turned out to be a pretty good place to stay since we had a fantastic view, easy beach access and a full kitchen room (condominium style). That worked out well since we had the kids and didn't have to rush to meals anywhere if we didn't want to.

The trip was split between relaxing, shopping, gambling, and drinking. I know, the perfect trip, right? The drinking largely consisted of driving up to Pacific City and visiting the Pelican Pub and Brewery (right on the beach), and having a bottle of wine later while the kids watched TV, and a few odds and ends here and there. Gambling was two hours spent at the Chinook Winds casino (not my cup of tea). Shopping was, well, shopping... Lincoln City improbably has a large and busy complex of factory outlets, and then there's all the tchotske and souvenir shops that you invariably find on the coast.

The relaxing was the money, though. The kids and I flew a kite. We walked on the beach and played in the sand and threw rocks at the ocean. We swam in the swimming pool (a bit chilly there, too). We lazed around the room. I even got up early in the morning and walked barefoot on the beach, collecting a few rocks and shells here and there and splashing in the sea a bit. Yes, nippy! But totally worth it.

Unfortunately, those coast trips never seem long enough. We left Monday bound for Portland, as we had an early Tuesday morning eye doctor appointment for the kids there. Perhaps we'll have to see about a summer trip, when the weather is much nicer... the ocean's still damn cold even then, but that's never stopped us from jumping in anyway.

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I'll be offline for the Memorial Day weekend—through Tuesday, actually. Hopefully everyone has a safe and fun holiday weekend!

There was a site I found the other day (and have subsequently forgotten what it was) that prompted you to enter your birthdate, and it would present you with various facts about your age. You know, what year in the Chinese calendar it was when you were born, what your astrological sign is, etc. etc. One thing resonated with me, though, and it was in the alternative time measurements of age (number of days old, and months, and weeks, like that): the number of seconds old.

Obviously it's an estimate, but the realization that I am more than one billion seconds old kind of brought me up short. On my 33rd birthday five months ago I was (approximately) 1,040,688,000 seconds old.

Put another way, I suppose I could say I'm 1.04 gigaseconds old...

Haven't seen a book on Lost in awhile, but they managed to slip one into the season finale tonight: Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. Not that it was hard to spot; Desmond only waved it around enough in a bunch of critical scenes.

As far as the season finale itself goes... I'm still trying to decide what I think about it. I think it started out strong enough. But I'm trying to decide if the last 15 or 20 minutes were weak. Definitely ambiguous, and a general "huh?" factor. And, I'm thinking, weak. I'll have to let it sink in some more.

Yeah, I know I'm a little late to the party blogging this, but I thought this was pretty good footage of the Trojan nuclear power plant being destroyed: Trojan implosion on YouTube.

There's not much more to be said on Trojan (check out some of the latest news); I never knew much about the plant, but I remember always being impressed, even when little, seeing the looming tower rise out of the forest on the horizon. There's something jaw-dropping, fleeting, and a little creepy seeing such an icon emerging from the landscape all of a sudden.

Trojan power plant, on Flickr

I had to wait a bit, but Shannon's got another quote of the week: "i think i need some higher goals in life like buying a house or putting money away for retirement but for now, i just want to be a dancing bunny."

I've been liking the remixed movie trailers I've been seeing lately, but this one made me laugh tonight: 10 Things I Hate About Commandments. Someone's remixed the Charlton Heston movie as a teen comedy... I especially like the surprise addition to the cast at the end. :)

Via Boing Boing.

This is sort of like those "How I spent my summer" essays—did anyone ever really have to write those? Anyway...

The main purpose of our day trip to Eugene was to visit one or several of the children's stores they have over there that specializes in kid beds; our four-year-old is soon to turn five and it's time to move him from the toddler bed to a regular bed. We'd looked around here in Bend but there's just not a great selection.

It was a beautiful day to cruise over the Santiam, and aside from some controlled burn haziness, ran into no problems at all. It's been years since I've actually been to Eugene, so it was a nice drive. And only about two-and-a-half hours, easier than the trip to Portland, even.

Our travels brought us first to the Valley River Center, to check out a store that, as luck would have it, was having a 20% off clearance sale. We looked at a few things, made some mental notes, and headed for downtown to check out the other store and get some lunch.

A quick note about navigation in Eugene: it's almost criminally easy. (Granted, we only went to a few places.) I always expect more complication, but the few times I've been there I've never really had any problem figuring out where to go. Today, for instance, I think we found every place we needed despite ourselves.

Downtown Eugene led us to the other children's store and then the Steelhead Brewery for lunch (I wrote a review of that on The Brew Site). We still hadn't decided about a bed, so after lunch back across the street we walked (nice, eh? The store and the brewery were next door to each other) to take another look at the styles we liked, and then it was back to the Valley River Center and the first store again.

That was the store that won out; we bought the bed we liked, but it was the floor model and they needed an hour to disassemble it for us, so off we went back downtown again.

This time, we were looking for a store named Down to Earth, which sells "natural products for the home and garden." My mom had ordered a couple of plants from them and asked if we could pick them up for her; no problem. Good grief, but this is a big store; it's basically a warehouse that spans the length of a city block and packs in an amazing variety of things. We were able to find my mom's plants (they had to search) and while we were wandering around the nursery, an employee asked the kids if they'd like to plant some free flowers for Mother's Day.

Turns out, they had planned and promoted this "Free Flower Day" thing for kids, but not that many showed up. It was a very cool idea though; we left with three extra pots of flowers, all free. And I was even tempted by a "hardy banana" plant, with the bold claim of being able to withstand temperatures as cold as -20°F. It was close, but I resisted. Aside from the exotic idea of having a banana plant growing in the backyard, it's not like we don't already have plants that can withstand that kind of cold: they're called "trees."

Back to the store to pick up the bed components, and some creative minivan-loading later, we were ready to head out of town. Almost, anyway; we had to make the obligatory trip to Trader Joe's.

Come on, you know the routine: Trader Joe's simply rocks, and whenever a Central Oregonian travels to a city with one, they have to stop and stock up on Three Buck Chuck, or shepherd's bread, or ten-pound bars of authentic Swiss dark chocolate, or whatever. Often, there's even a list of things to pick up for other people. It's okay. We've all been there. :)

Anyway, one quick TJ's stop later and we were on our way. We made good time coming back, just as in the morning, and pulled into the driveway at about 6:30. Sure, it made for a long day, but not as long as a Portland trip, for instance.

Hey, that makes me think of a great tag line for Eugene: "We're closer than Portland. And criminally easy to navigate."

Tomorrow we're off to Eugene for a day trip. We doing some kids bed shopping, and will likely stop at the Steelhead Brewing Company (fodder for The Brew Site) for lunch and beer. Likely it'll be a decent trip. It's supposed to be 71 in Eugene tomorrow, so that's good.

I had hinted a while back about a new project I was starting, and I think it's time to launch and announce it. It's a new blog called Hack Bend, and it's purpose is to be an insider's guide to Bend and Central Oregon. (In fact, the tagline I have on it right now is "Getting the most out of Bend and Central Oregon." Original, no?)

There's always a bit of trepidation in announcing something like this, but I'm excited about it. I've got a bunch of ideas and things to write about already, but as I wrote on the About page, "obviously, I can't claim to have all the answers or know everything there is to know about the area." One of the things I'm considering is opening it up to multiple authors, making it a group blog—but that would be down the road sometime. In the meantime, anyone who has any hints, advice, stories, or hacks about the area, please let me know! I'd like to make this a definitive website about Bend, and the more contributions I get, the more likely that'll happen.

So pop on over and check things out, subscribe to the RSS feed, and become a regular contributor. And let me know what you think!

Bill Gates' house: Found this on Wikipedia's Unusual articles page. Pretty amazing stuff; some things that jumped out at me:

• Assessed values (as of 2002) of $113 million, with over $1 million in annual property tax
• 66,000 square feet
• The wood columns from main floor to roof in entry area are over 70 feet tall.
• Some of the interior passage doors weigh over 800 lbs, but are balanced for easy use.
• The roofing is stainless steel.
• Hidden cameras are everywhere, including the interior stone walls.
• Gates insisted on saving a 40 year old maple adjacent to the driveway. The tree is monitored electronically 24 hours per day via computer. If it seems dry, it gets just the right amount of water automatically delivered.
• All woodwork is flawless. Much of the woodwork is of various rare types from all over the world - imported especially for this house.
• The theater (underground in a concrete shell) is the most state of the art theatre in the world according to specialty contractor.

Picture? Of course!

Photo from Flickr

More photos can be found on this Flickr group.

I'm not sure I can even get my mind around a place like this. Some of the photos look like a Disneyland attraction.