Category Archives: uncategorized

From Wired: A pioneering elementary school district outside Chicago has been sued for installing a wireless computer network by parents worried that exposure to the network’s radio waves could harm their children. Oh, puke. Give me a break. You don’t provide the tools, people complain. You provide the tools, people complain. Besides, I’ve had a wireless network in my house for almost two years, and I’m fine, except for the stutter I’ve developed. And sudden, uncontrolled urination.

And from Yahoo! News comes this gem. A student shared his inhaler with his girlfriend, who was having an asthma attack and had forgotten her own inhaler. He helped her. Let me repeat that: he helped her. What’s his reward? A three day suspension. Oh, yeah, and possible expulsion. Oh yeah, and he was arrested. Arrested! Why? Zero-tolerance policy. The school nurse reported the student to the campus police for violating the drug policy. The school principal said he couldn’t do anything about it since Kivi not only broke school rules, but also allegedly violated state law. Bull. The school principal could take a stand for common sense and say, “You know what? Nothing bad has happened here. No one was hurt, no one really did anything wrong. Let’s just forget about it.” Nope, instead he says there’s nothing he can do.

OK, enough about American schools, how about Australia? Well, it seems as though a five-year-old Territory girl shocked teachers when she showed her class how to make a bong out of a Coke bottle during a “show and tell” session. Yep, 5 years old. And not only does she know how to make a bong, not only does she do it, she does it for show and tell, so all the kiddies can learn!

Bill’s sister Amy is blogging now. Her latest missive on love and romance provides this insight: Never, ever EVER start dating someone in the spring. When the birds start to sing, and it starts to get warm, and people start sunbathing, it seems that everyone’s thoughts turn towards love. Even the ducks. and suddenly you find yourself entranced by someone who had merely been annoying previously. Don’t crack! It’s just the weather!

Interesting observation. I’m happy to report that Jen I and started dating in February (of 1991). So I guess winter time was a great time to start a relationship, because we’re still going strong.

(By the way, you haven’t lived until you’ve met the Fenstermaker clan. Seriously.)

I can’t believe I didn’t hear a single joke about a Total Recall today. I’m extremely disappointed.

On the bright side, Frequency 1.2b7 is out. Feel free to download and test it if you want to check out the new features in 1.2, such as Radio support, Movable Type support (both with categories), way improved post editing, faster HTML previewing, and more flexible setup. The beta expires on October 15.

So you wanna fake being an indie rock expert? Here’s your chance. So start somewhere safe: Sonic Youth . You cannot go wrong if you like Sonic Youth. Everybody in indie rock likes Sonic Youth, and those who don’t are afraid to admit it. So you can talk all night long about what a genius frontman-guitarist Thurston Moore is, and nobody will ever think you are an idiot or don’t know what you are talking about.

Interrogating the bird: A man claims a woman wrongly adopted his lost parrot — and he can prove it if given a chance to question the bird in court.

Meteorite smashes through roof: I’ve been very disorientated by the whole thing, especially when I consider what a narrow escape we all had and what could have happened.

Joy After Sun: Windows isn’t well architected. There’s a simple way to find out if an operating system has been well designed. When you get an error message, go to the help system and look up the exact words in that message to see if there was enough of a concept of an architecture that they have a consistent vocabulary to talk about what’s broken… All you have to do is try it on a Mac and on a PC to see the difference. Apple took the time to come up with a concise vocabulary, but in Windows the designers of the help system used different terminology from the programmers. That reflects a lack of design discipline, which means that as the system grows, so does the ambiguity of the software itself. Well, no arguments here.

Aaahh, nothing like a good animal-rights-liberation-goes-bad story: minks are apparently cannibals.

Man, I’m tired.

Grace and I spent the day together today; mostly just the two of us. Jen had a lot of children’s curriculum to write for 40 Days of Purpose, and she needed some uninterrupted time to do it.

This morning Grace wanted to do nothing but play on the Playhouse Disney website. OK, I thought, that’ll last about ten minutes. I figured I’d check my email and she’d be done. She went for hours. It was really kinda sad and weird: Jen was at her PowerBook, I was ay my PowerBook, and Grace was at the XP laptop. We’re a family of nerds.

After lunch, the rain seemed to have ceased, so Grace and I headed to Long’s Park to feed moldy pitas to nasty ducks. Good times. We made the mistake of walking out onto a very tiny dock-like structure. We were immediately surrounded by ill-intentioned waterfowl.

And check out the beak on this guy:

After escaping their clutches, we were headed to the playground. And then the rains came. Grace decided she’d rather skip the playground and not get wet. Good choice. We headed to Stauffer’s to pick up something for dinner (for the cupboard was bare).

While we were at Stauffer’s, we decided to go through the Hay Maze a few times:

Then dinner, devotions, prayer, and sleep.

I love these days with Grace. I can’t believe she’ll be going to Kindergarten next year. And after that… I can’t even think about it. I’m just trying to hold on while I can, because I know that someday she’ll be gone in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

Bill wondered why I didn’t post anything about Robert Palmer’s death, instead mentioning George Plimpton. I don’t know. Palmer’s death really saddens me.

I really enjoyed his music. His was one of the first rock concerts I ever went to (the first being INXS (come on, cut me a break, it was the 80s)); my friend Glenn and I saw him play at, I believe, F&M University back in 1987 or 1988. He was backing up his album Heavy Nova.It was a great show, and not at all what I expected. Glenn and I really only knew Palmer’s 80s music, from Riptide and Heavy Nova, songs like “Addicted to Love”, “Simply Irrestible”, and “I Didn’t Mean To Turn You On”. We had no idea he was also behind “Bad Case of Loving You”, and of course we’d never even heard of “Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley”. But we learned that night.

Of course, the biggest disappointment that night was his band. Don’t get me wrong: musically, they were first rate, very impressive. But they didn’t look the way we’d hoped. I mean, this man’s music videos fueled our adolescent fantasies. We expected a much more attractive band. More like this:

But, alas, that wasn’t meant to be. I guess deep down inside I knew that those women weren’t chosen for the musical ability.

Other great Palmer songs include “From a Whisper to a Scream” from Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley, “Get It Through Your Heart” from Riptide, “It Could Happen To You” from Heavy Nova, and perhaps the most original cover ever of The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” on the album Double Fun.

So, I guess I didn’t write anything earlier because I was trying to figure out what to say, other than “Here’s to the best dressed man in rock’n’roll.”

PS: BBC News reported that one of Palmer’s best known hits was “Some Guys Have All The Luck”. Don’t be fooled; that was Rod Stewart.

According to official research at the University of California at San Francisco, people eat when they’re stressed: Now, scientists have developed a model for a biological link between stress and the drive to eat: Food with lots of sugar, fat and calories appears literally to calm down the body’s response to chronic stress.

Hey, no crap! Nice work here, really. For crying out loud…

Bruce Willis: If you catch him, cialis just give me four seconds with Saddam Hussein.

Rest in peace, sick Mr. Plimpton. Rest in peace.

Barbie has been outlawed by Saudi Arabia’s religious police.

“Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let us beware of her dangers and be careful.” Way to anthropomorphize, guys. Seriously.

Other items listed as violations on the site included Valentine’s Day gifts, perfume bottles in the shape of women’s bodies, clothing with logos that include a cross, and decorative copies of religious items – offensive because they could be damaged and thus insult Islam.

This is so messed up.

Here are two chicks you don’t want to mess with.