Ugh

Waking up with a headache is no way to start the day.

That's "Year-Oh"

Since the nearest Greek food is 50 miles away in Orlando, I was pleased as punch when I discovered this at the grocery store:

The Opaa! Gyros Kit!..Hells yeah!

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I had my first gyro Cleveland in the mid 90's during a lunch break, in the midst of delivering furniture to people's houses. The truck driver was the sort to experiment with food, and could tell you all the best hole-in-the-wall Mom & Pop restaurants. Of course, being uncouth Yankees, we called them "Jye-row's".

I'd never had Greek food before, so my first gyro was quite a shock - the spices! The grey mystery meat! The tasty secret sauce! Now it's right there in my top 5 favorite foods.

It had been a good year since my last gyro when I found the Opaa! kit at the grocery store. They're nothing like a fresh gyro, but I'd still recommend this brand. They'll do until I can get to Orlando. If you're feeling mystery-meat deprived, give em a try!

Unreasonable Expectation?

Why is it - no radio station (over the air or online) can play 2 good songs in a row?

Real Life Conversation # 12

You ever wish that civilization as we know it would come to an end, just so you wouldn't have to worry about your career path, playing the corporate BS game, and your 401k? Just have a hut somewhere and hunt for rabbits and that's it?

Wow, dude - that's pretty f'ed up. You want the civilized world to come to an end because you're lazy? Just move to the middle of nowhere and build your hut.

Yeah, but there'd still be property tax.

'Cause the DJ is asleep

If you have a new favorite song, should you:

A) Listen to it over and over until you have absorbed the essence that's attracting you

B) Limit your listening to once per day, to keep it fresh and rare

It might depend on why you're enjoying it - something fundamental about the message/delivery, or how it enhances/changes your mood.

If it's fundamental, then you're less likely to get bored with it, and if it's attraction based on mood, you might as well enjoy it while you can. Hmn.

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Also, do you favor cleverness over brilliance? I do, and it seems childish of me.

Mebbe I need me a huntin dawg?

Reading through all the online job postings for this area, it's odd how many want you to show up on their doorstep - 'apply in person at 1234 Job St'. I'd never seen that in postings for jobs in Los Angeles - but I guess a smaller city can afford the foot traffic.

(I still have my job with Wingular Cireless, such as it is)

Also, in these job postings, there's a lot of 'fax your resume to...' and very few email addresses. Luckily we have a fax machine, a big ole printer/scanner behemoth that's like 10 years old. Tell you the truth, I'm not even sure the fax is working - maybe I'm sending blank pages to all these folks - that would:

a) Explain why no one ever calls me for an interview
b) Soothe my damaged and fragile ego.

Part of it could be that for the last 6 years I worked in Software Quality Assurance, and no one here has any idea what that is when they see it on my resume. It sounds like a BS job title, maybe? Does Data Processing Clerk sound better?

One posting that claims to be an international semiconductor sales firm appears (according to Google Maps) to be run out of some guy's house. Hm. My wife has vetoed that job, though I'm sure it's possible to sell semiconductors out of your garage. He's not necessarily a serial killer - the fact that he wants me to bring kitty litter, duct tape and garbage bags to the interview means nothing. Maybe he just has a lot of cats.

I'm gonna have to send a test fax to Cindy at her work. I'm torn - If the fax is broken, I can blame the equipment for not getting any calls... But then I have to buy a new fax machine and start over.

yalp no sdorw

Preposterous modesty is better than posthumous...

But what about post-humerous immodesty?

But not in a good way

A while back, I'd mentioned enjoying the Classic Orange..flavored Crystal Lite, but not so much enjoying the grit that settles to the bottom, making the last few sips... shall we say - less than fresh.

It be Negative Fresh. If you hit someone with a pitcher of the grit in an RPG, it would be The Cursed Pitcher of Grit: -5 to Freshness (as a Charisma modifier?)

Since I have far too much free time, I decided to make a whole pitcher of the Classic Orange gritty beverage and then strain it... Through a paper towel for some reason, even though I have about 100 coffee filters on hand. I forgot I had them, frankly.

I have to say, in the less gritty version the orange flavor was definitely diminished - that grit must have very necessary flavor crystal technology. Also, there was a troubling Bounty aftertaste. I wonder if Brawny would be any better?

If only I had art skills

It would be fun to take a really dynamic comedy routine - by Eddie Izzard or Robin Williams, say - and add in animations to demonstrate exactly what they're rambling about.

Maybe someone's already done this? I'll have to check YouTube.

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Hey, this was post #700. wow.

Flag!

It's odd how you get an odd sense of accomplishment from discovering a new musician or author - Wow, this is great! I have to tell everyone!

Yeah... Unless you discovered this person on a streetcorner, it's the result of a lot of editing, producing, and marketing. So why the tingle of excitement? Hmn.

RIP - Hoodie - 2005-2007

Here lies Cindy's very cute Hoodie.

She wore you to the Getty.

She wore you during the trip to Portland (remember those goony people at Rite Aid? We were closer to them than neighbors we lived next to for years).

Fare well, hoodie. You were cute and comfy and were good for outings and snugglings.

But she forgot and put you in the dryer with the socks and whatnot, and now you are too small.

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Real Life Conversation # 11

How you doing today?

I'm good. It's Kink Day at Jennifer Cruise's Blog.

Oh? Ok. Have fun.

What's wrong?

Nothing. Hey, you're on vacation - get your kink on.

What the - No, I said "cake".

It's all good baby - either way. Have fun, I gotta go.

Historical Mysteries - Revealed!

Thanks to the OmniPotent 5000 (Beta) I've been able to get answers to some of the most important questions of our time.

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Q: Was the sandwich really invented by the Earl of Sandwich?

A: Actually, the sandwich was invented about 4 minutes after the first loaf of bread (in 8,502 BC)

P.S. - Mustard was invented about 2 minutes later.

Harsh Reality

Super Genius
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Genius
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.<---<---<---how intelligent I like to think I am
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Smart
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.<---<---<---how intelligent I try to seem
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Average
.<---<---<---how intelligent I really am
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Duh
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Constructive Criticism

"You just need to talk to the customers with more confidence."

"Yeah, I know - I have a hard time doing that. I have zero skills in BS'ing."

"You just have to sound as if you know what you're talking about."

"Right. Being from the Midwest, I have trouble with that. We're honest hardworking 'aw shucks' kind of people. Remember Ford?"

"Henry Ford?" I was born in 1983, buddy.

"The President - He just died? You know what, never mind. Yeah, I'll work on my confident voice."

Odd and odder

Did you see the story about the astronaut arrested for attempted kidnapping?

It's bizarre. Astronauts are not average joes - these are highly intelligent and disciplined people who go through years of intense training and psychological screening.

This astronaut in particular is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, achieved the rank of Captain in the U.S. Navy, has several degrees including a Masters in Aeronautical Engineering.

Space Alien Brain Parasites are to blame, I tells ya!

Whatever happened to Corey Hart?

I'll wear my blogging hat at night

so I can, so I can

Keep track of the visions in my eyes

I'm gonna start blogging in the evenings, I think.

In the mornings I don't have much to say. For the past couple years, I'd been blogging at work - taking advantage of the mid-morning caffeine and sugar rush. Them glory days is over, mah friends.

Speaking of my friends, you bloggers - thanks! I haven't made any friends yet in Florida, though it's been a good nine months. It helps to have you guys to chat with, in our way.

And a flatscreen in the breakroom

There are some plumbers in the kitchen right now working on the faucet - it's in bad shape.

It's weird, but whenever there are worker people in the house, I feel like I should be offering them milk and cookies - or at least, lemonade - they should be made to feel comfy.

Good thing I'm not rich - I'd feel compelled to hire a second maid so the first maid wouldn't have to work too hard.

Patent Pending, natch

Heard of e-paper? If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, I've babbled about it before.

E-Paper is 'Electronic Paper' - where teeny little cells in the 'paper' are switched on or off, light or dark - what appear to be letters and words are actually millions of teeny dots.

The exciting thing about e-paper is that it uses very little power - the Sony PRS500 can perform 7,500 page turns on one battery charge (this is because it only takes power to change the page, not display the page - remember that, it's important).

Now I have an idea for an application of e-paper... It may not be do-able yet, since we've likely not achieved the ability for the required resolution... The Sony e-reader only has a resolution of 170 pixels per inch, I don't know if that's pushing the boundaries of e-paper or not.

How about an e-paper rewritable CD? Instead of burning the data, you actually 'write' the data as minute e-paper dots on the EtchCo E-Paper CD.

This is how a common CD works: (Thank you, Wikipedia!)

Common printing methods for compact discs are screen-printing and offset printing. CD data is stored as a series of tiny indentations (pits), encoded in a tightly packed spiral track moulded into the top of the polycarbonate layer. The areas between pits are known as 'lands'.

Each pit is approximately 100 nm deep by 500 nm wide, and varies from 850 nm to 3.5 μm in length. The spacing between the tracks, the pitch, is 1.6 μm. A CD is read by focusing a 780 nm wavelength semiconductor laser through the bottom of the polycarbonate layer. The difference in height between pits and lands leads to a phase difference between the light reflected from a pit and that from its surrounding land.

By measuring the intensity with a photodiode, it is possible to read the data from the disc. The pits and lands themselves do not directly represent the zeros and ones of binary data. Instead, Non-return-to-zero, inverted encoding is used: a change from pit to land or land to pit indicates a one, while no change indicates a zero. This in turn is decoded by reversing the Eight-to-Fourteen Modulation used in mastering the disc, and then reversing the Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Coding, finally revealing the raw data stored on the disc.

The EtchCo E-Paper CD Writer unit (Bluetooth version available soon) would house the power source and all processing components - once 'written', the CD no longer needs power to maintain the image, so this would allow you to re-write the same CD hundreds of thousands of times.

You could store all of your CDs in the EtchCo E-Paper Writer/CD Changer, and never touch the originals. Just tell the Changer which CD you want, and an E-Paper CD copy will pop out, protecting your originals. You'd only need a handful of e-paper CDs, since they are so re-usable.

E-Paper CDs would work in any CD player, since they would use the same format as all existing CDs... You could write any kind of data you wanted, from MP3s to documents.

You could also re-label the top of the CD each time, since you're not writing on it with a Sharpie, or burning/printing a label - yow!