Author: Brian

More cool stuff from around the World of The Internet!

• Who needs a calculator anymore when there’s programs like this that use natural language to do math? That’s the coolest calculator I’ve ever seen.
• Kittens love Front Row.
• You’d hope that our Congresscritters would be used to email by now. It’s only been around and in general use for, oh, over a decade now. Apparently not. Way to fuck up an investigation, guys and gals.
• I’m not sure how to square the idea of Multnomah County not requesting disclosure of prior felonies from prospective employees, with the twice-annual background check I have to pass to keep my job at the county.
• I hate spiders. Even photoshopped “cute” squirrel-spider hybrids. *shudder* You’ve been warned.
• On the other hand, I love LOLcats. And this week, some enterprising hackers came up with LOLcode, a LOLcat-based programming language. That makes me proud to be alive today.
• Scarlett Johansson is exactly my kind of crazy. So hot.
• I’m not sure what’s funnier – the energy that so many people put into uncovering such an obvious connection, or how pissed Thom Yorke seems to be about it, if the post at Stereogum is to be believed.
• I need to give Neil Gaiman’s advice on getting over writer’s block a try:
  

  Suggestions? Put it aside for a few days, or longer, do other things, try not to think about it. Then sit down and read it (printouts are best I find, but that’s just me) as if you’ve never seen it before. Start at the beginning. Scribble on the manuscript as you go if you see anything you want to change. And often, when you get to the end you’ll be both enthusiastic about it and know what the next few words are.

  And you do it all one word at a time.

• Note to self: become acquainted with Susan Wayward’s music list. I didn’t recognize most of the songs on that list. Dammit.

When I open the box on my desk this morning, I see a child-like sense of wonder.

Thanks! It’s just what I needed!

OK, back to work. I’ll enjoy that present… later.

Y’know, when I’m not so freakin’ busy.

Just sitting here, trying to be the best Brian I can be, looking for opportunities to make something happen.

When I make my morning peanut butter and jelly toast, I always am careful to spread both the peanut butter and the jelly all the way to the edge of the bread slice. I want every surface of the toast to be covered in both peanut butter and jelly.

I lay the slices on my cutting board after toasting, side by side. Peanut butter goes on one slice (usually the left) and the jelly goes on the other. When both are spread evenly, I put them together.

Then I curse when I take a bite into the sandwich and pb&j spread drips out the far side onto my pant leg.

Almost forgot to mention that my Christmas trip to Cancún will be green.

I bought carbon offsets for the flight there and back from The Conservation Fund.

My family does Christmas right. Most years, for the past, oh, decade or more, we fly away to some tropical location and bake in the sun and get drunk.

We don’t have to give presents to each other, and we leave it to Santa to take care of the kids. The vacation is present enough.

Last year we went to New York City. Not tropical. Had a great time, anyway, but I really missed swimming in the warm blue Caribbean Ocean on Christmas Eve, nicely plastered and tan and happy and surrounded by my family. In the past we’ve gone to Mexico (several times) and Hawaii and Aruba (I didn’t get to go to Aruba).

And this year is a traditional (our tradition) Christmas. I just booked my flight and hotel reservation.

I fly out of Portland on Saturday, December 22nd, early, and arrive that afternoon in sunny Cancún, Mexico, on the Yucatan Peninsula, the Las Vegas of Mexico, where I will be staying 13 nights at the Blue Bay All Inclusive Resort.

Yeah, that rocks. You can commence envying me now.

My sister, her husband, their two kids, and her mother-in-law, will be staying at the Blue Bay All Inclusive Family resort, on the north beach. What’s the difference? Well, for starters, there’s topless beaches and pools at the one I’m staying at. But I will still be spending time with the family. It’s still a Christmas trip, after all!

I should be down to the mid-160s in weight by then… maybe I’ll get my back waxed. Want to look good on the beach…

Went to bed early last night. Laid out my clothes – even pre-attached the ChampionChip timing chip to my shoe, and pre-pinned my bib number to my shirt.

Yep. I was ready for the Run Like Hell 5K this morning.

I didn’t dress up. I think about a third of the runners had some sort of costume on. I wore a thin long-sleeved green tech shirt with a black short-sleeved tech shirt over, shorts, a cap, and my Brooks Adrenaline 6 (the ones with MoGo). No music – I was serious. A snack of a cup of yogurt just to get my engine running and I went out to the bus stop.

Weather was good – around 50° F, no rain, a little wind. After yesterday’s downpour it felt good.

Maybe I should have brought the music, though. I think the mile markers weren’t set up right. I didn’t hit the first mile marker until almost 11:00 from when I crossed the starting line. I felt way faster than that. Then the next mile was uphill the entire way, and I hit the 2 mile sign at under 19:20 – which would have meant I ran uphill at at 8:30 pace or so. I was keeping basically the same pace!

Since I was doing so well by mile 2, I decided to push a bit until the end. That was made easier by being essentially downhill the whole way. When I turned off of Front Ave. onto Taylor again, and I could see the finish line, I felt good and did not look at my watch.

So I was disappointed when I saw the official clock showing 30:00 already. I knew that there was about 30-45 seconds difference between gun time and my chip time, but, damn. I stopped my watch as I crossed the line and it showed 29:45 – a 9:45 pace or so.

I hung around afterward to check out the costumes, and was still there when they posted the official results: 29:47 for me. Fuck. I’m trying to be positive and all but I was sure I’d done better than that!

There’ll be other races. I showed up and I gave it what I had in me for today.

I made it from my front door in SE Portland, all the way to Fit Right NW (where packet pick-up for tomorrow’s Run Like Hell 5K was taking place), without a car, and only having to walk a total of 7 short blocks and wait at a bus stop or train stop for a total of 12 minutes.

That’s pretty cool! I was not as lucky on the return trip, but I had warm, dry clothes and hot coffee waiting for me.

Some links from the past week you might have missed:

• Radiohead’s downloadable album, “In Rainbows” may have pulled in between US$6 million and US$10 million, according to The Seminal, via Eliot Van Buskirk over at the Wired blog. The average price paid per album appears to be between US$5 and US$8 per download.
• I want to wear a Mohawk toupee. Someday.
• Via kottke comes the story of two auto enthusiasts who have broken the unofficial Cannonball Run record for driving from New York City to Los Angles: 31 hours, 4 minutes. They were inspired by a movie that should be familiar to my family and friends, of a morning rendezvous in Paris.
• OYG! Time Bandit map! I want one!
• Dustin Rowles at Pajiba speculates on what came next in a whole slew of romantic comedies and made me laugh.
  

  Sure, sure — saving Buttercup from an Evil Prince bought him a few years of unconditional affection, years in which she tolerated Westley’s loutish ways (he never lifted the seat in the outhouse, for instance). But she always wanted to read or talk about her feelings, while all Westley wanted to do was appreciate her “perfect breasts” and swashbuckle. Moreover, as you may recall from their initial courtship, “nothing gave Buttercup as much pleasure as ordering Westley around,” and after the luster of their new relationship began to fade a little, Buttercup fell into old habits. Westley, however, stopped finding her incessant demands endearing; he just thought she was a nag (through the years, his “as you wish” grew more and more sarcastic).

  Heh. Indeed.

• I walk past the Hawthorne Strip every day on my way to and from work. Apparently so does this Richard Thruster fellow. I guess he a) works near me, b) liked his visit, c) but doesn’t like Goth-y girls. More for me, I guess.
• If fuckin’ Neil Gaiman can get lost in the trudge of writing, but sometimes finds himself flying and the words just flow… then there’s hope for me, too.