It's been a long week

Posted September 3, 2010 at 05:19 EDT under daily.

I dunno why, but the Daily Drop Cap tickles me to no end.

    It's always summer in that bachelor apartment kitchen in '74

Posted August 3, 2010 at 01:01 EDT under daily.

Ok, so this one is probably going to get confusing, so hang onto something.

During my usual lunchtime scan through my Google Reader items, I ran across this reference on Metafilter to Helen Reddy's 1974 hit Angie Baby. Creepy song, yes, but even creepier is that I did not recognize it.

Well, so what, right? Who has room in their head for all the commercial hits from 1974? Answer: I do.

Well, room for most of them, anyway.

See, I was but a young sprog in '74, but old enough to listen to the radio and parrot everything back that I heard. And the radio (either the big stereo hi-fi from Eatons in the living room that got that new FM radio everyone was talking about, or the little AM set in the kitchen) was on pretty much my entire waking life back then.

In fact, I remember nearly every single one of the Billboard Top 100 hit songs from 1974 just from reading them, and I'm sure the rest would come if I heard the first few bars. That is to say, I would not necessarily have known who a particular artist was I was listening too, or even the name of the song (though I did know who Three Dog Night and Grand Funk Railroad were, for example) but I would have memory of the tune and words.

Commercial radio really wore some grooves into my young mind back in the 70s. Those are neuron connections that were set early and often, and rarely have found a useful task since.

At any rate, Angie Baby is not on this list from 1974, so I have no idea what is going on there. Maybe it never made the Billboard Top 100 for that year, and this may explain why I have no memory at all of this particular song. Though, my young mind does remember Helen Reddy from 70s variety shows (which is a subject for another day.)

Which ones do you remember?

[Read the rest...]

    Things a week of fatherhood has taught me

Posted July 19, 2010 at 12:36 EDT under daily.

Things a week of fatherhood has taught me.

• Babies are not top-rack dishwasher safe, regardless of any such statements on the tag or packaging it arrived in.
• Receiving blankets are for primarily receiving a variety of effluvia.
• Effluvia come in a large variety, and in great amounts; you will need approximately 1000 square meters of receiving blankets to contain it.
• If you believe the internets, a newborn is less a human child, and more an eigeninfant system in perfect equilibrium poised to fall into a non-ideal chaotic state at the slightest provocation. Maintaining the health of your child is, apparently, like balancing a cannon-ball on the apex of a dome.
• If you are the sort of person that feels sick and groggy after a short nap, having a child will cure you of this. You will feel sick and groggy all the time, not just after a daytime nap.
• Blogging, and other non-baby-related tasks, are often cut short because of a sudden need to

@clvrmnky, out.

    BUSTED!

Posted July 5, 2010 at 03:28 EDT under daily.

THEY BE SHUTTIN DOWN UR INNERTUBES!!!

    Your Favourite Movie Sucks

Posted April 18, 2010 at 12:03 EDT under daily.

Yes, yes. Avatar and Kick-Ass both suck, and are symptoms of a dying culture.

Can we go back to ignoring the wasteland of late-modern English-speaking popular culture now?

    The whole world is made of metadata

Posted April 9, 2010 at 07:03 EDT under daily.

While I'm tinkering with the site, here's a picture of a standing cat.

No, not really. Here's the Weekly Roundup:

• My RSS had standing cats in it. Yours? The world is made of metadata (did you see that link?)
• Spent more than a few days herding testenvsand reading logs, and doing a lot of old-fashioned collective problem solving in this business we call Tech.
• We gave the bread robot a few turns churning out good-as-storebought loaves with the occasional stand-outs.
• Cooked An Entire Raw Ham! That thing was tremendous and raw and actually pretty good once cooked low-and-slow, then trimmed and glazed. Well, then plenty of left-overs for a week. Guess what's for dinner?

So, here we are, internets: another Friday night (locale adjusted.) I've got a bourbon-on-ice close to hand (thanks @doc_hatter!) and I'm just about to have a little dinner break from the hustle and bustle of this modern life.

Imma catch a game on the TV, and maybe catch up with y'all tomorrow.

@clvrmnky, out.

    Happy Important Bunny Day

Posted April 4, 2010 at 09:22 EDT under daily.

You know what I haven't been doing a lot of?

Anything.

No photography. No climbing (though I just have to make time for that, as @fivemagicbeans has been trying to get us deadbeats out for weeks now.)

At least I got the bike out of storage this weekend, thought most of my riding has been commuting to work. On top of that, I've been working odd hours. Odd, as in 4AM in the morning. Don't ask.

We cooked a whole raw ham, which was a lot more involved than I expected. It turned out pretty good, and we have sandwich meat for days. Which is why I'm making bread. Or, rather, the bread machine is making bread. But still.

Maybe I'll get me a bourbon and look for a hockey game.

clvrmnky, out.

    Camera porn

Posted February 26, 2010 at 09:41 EST under daily.

By Crom, I want to afford one of these one day:

Maybe I can mortgage my first-born for one?

    @(O_o)@

Posted February 24, 2010 at 03:00 EST under daily.

Your daily monkey, ASCII style.

 .oOOOOOo.   .oO  .oOOOo.                  Oo.   .oOOOOOo.  
.O       o. .O   .O     o.                   o. .O       o. 
O .oOoO'  o O    O       o                    o O .oOoO'  o 
o O   o   O o    o       O                    O o O   o   O 
O o   O  O' O    O       o           .oOo.    o O o   O  O' 
o `OoO'oO'  o    o       O           O   o    O o `OoO'oO'  
O           O    `o     O'           o   O    o O           
`o     o'   `o    `OoooO'            `OoO'   O' `o     o'   
 `OoooO'     `Oo           ooooooooo       oO'   `OoooO' 

Don't even ask.

    Unccl Inyragvar'f Qnl!

Posted February 14, 2010 at 02:39 EST under daily.

From the egregious-use-of-the-pre-tag dept.

              .-"""-.    .-"""-.
              /       `..'       \
             |                    |
             |      H A P P Y     |
              \    VALENTINE'S   /
             __\     D A Y !    /
        _   /  |`\            /'
       | \  \/_/  `\        /'
       \_\| / __    `\    /'
          \/_/__\     `\/'  .--='/~\
   ____,__/__,_____,______)/   /{~}}}
   -,-----,--\--,-----,---,\'-' {{~}}
jgs        __/\_            '--=.\}/
          /_/ |\\
               \/ 
 

Another greeting card holiday brought to you by Carlton!

    The developing world does not need your old shoes

Posted February 8, 2010 at 04:21 EST under daily.

And some kind of help is the kind of help/ That helping's all about/ And some kind of help is the kind of help/ We all can do without

Whenever decent people hear about disasters, like the one that is happening in Haïti right now, they want to help.

Sometimes this drive to help leads us in directions that are not actually all that helpful. For example, if we don't have a lot of money, we might look around and decide that our old shoes or skanky yoga mat or random medication is just the thing for those suffering through a natural or man-made disaster.

It isn't. If you want to help in Haïti, donate your money or go down to the local Red Cross and ask how you can help. And then consider doing what they suggest you do to help.

Just because you mean well does not necessarily mean that you will do well.

    What is a blog?

Posted December 31, 2009 at 11:42 EST under daily.

I was going to finish up the year of desultory blogging with an epic epistle on the personal blog.

But, well, you know. One thing led to another, and here I am, about to turn in at 10:30 on New Years Eve. No barn-burner of a rant or grand essay on What I Learned During My Year Of Blog, I'm afraid.

It's not like I haven't been tempted. Between our current Pseudo-Conservative government stepping on their own dicks week after week, or the International Air Travel Players and their latest Security Theatre production, there has been no lack of fodder for this blog.

But, honestly, it's pretty obvious I'm not as interested in that sort of thing as I used to be.

Happy New Year, internets.

@clvrmnky, out.

    Twc = 13.13 + 0.6215Ta - 11.37V^0.16 + 0.3965TaV^0.16

Posted December 19, 2009 at 11:20 EST under daily.

Well, internets, it has been a long time since my last daily update.

Mostly, I had my head down trying to get my task list down to single-digits, which required a fair amount of hacking, thinking and cat-herding.

But, I made it to Friday with most of those items complete or nearly complete, and look forward to a fair amount of time away from the office.

Because it isn't quite cold enough in SW Ontario, we have decided to vacation in Winnipeg this year. It ain't winter until the film of saline on your eyeball freezes between blinks. Luckily, I was able to get my parka repaired before we leave.

See you some time after Christmas, but before the new year.

@clvrmnky, out.

    The weather outside is frightful

Posted December 9, 2009 at 10:43 EST under daily.

Today I struggled to work in the filthy weather. During the commute I participated in a conference call. Then I battled with Oracle until my head asploded.

All I wanted to do is eat chips and watch hockey. So that is what I did.

@clvrmnky, out.

    A 9-minute major blog penalty

Posted December 6, 2009 at 11:10 EST under daily.

Urg. Stayed up a little too late watching cartoons and then reading.

Luckily all I really have to do today is arrange a meetup with @elbie and go to the airport to pick up @ecogrrl, who is arriving from the annual AAA meeting in Philadelphia.

Speaking of Philly, didya see that wild 8-2 blow-out between the Capitals and the Flyers last night? I guess the Capitals can win without Ovechkin. I have a suspicion that the presence of all those anthropologists in their city rattled the home-town team a little.

Time for more coffee.

@clvrmnky, out.

    Om nom nom

Posted December 5, 2009 at 09:51 EST under daily.

Hello, internets.

Pretty quiet Saturday. Slept in late, which was good.

So, I whittled away at the various and sundry chores that needed doing, including backing up and packing away our iMac G5 (which is moving on to another home) and doing some laundry.

There were three half-racks of beef spareribs defrosted in the fridge, so I made a seat-of-the-pants Memphis style dry barbecue and slow-cooked them until the hockey was on.

Now, the Leafs are skating hard but losing to Boston, so I'll probably turn it to the cartoons and finish putting away the food.

@clvrmnky, out.

    Weekly daily

Posted December 1, 2009 at 08:08 EST under daily.

I've been remiss, it appears.

Instead of blogging daily, I've mostly been at work, involving many hours of general hackery and debuggery (that last one legal in most provinces). Though, both @ecogrrl and I got a night out or two over the week-end. So that was good.

I'll probably idly watch the hockey for a bit, and then retire to my Iain Banks space opera.

A little photowork and then early to bed. Perhaps more later when I have some photos done.

That is all.

    Checking in

Posted November 25, 2009 at 09:38 EST under daily.

Your irregular checkin from the daily weekday commute.

It was a busy day of code maintenance and after, a nice dinner of left-overs and fortified beer.

Now that the washing up is done, I'm ready for a peaceful evening with a novel:

That is all.

    Monday Monday

Posted November 16, 2009 at 10:22 EST under daily.

Short one today, internets.

I'm still pretty tired from a full day at work and a not-insignificant bacchanalia on Saturday night. It's rare when I lose count of the number of drinks. But @Zuckervati was mixing them, and I kept drinking them; what are you going to do?

Clvrmnky, out.

    Chthonic Tuesday

Posted November 10, 2009 at 09:26 EST under daily.

Today I spent most of the day buried up to my waist in the silty remains of the Old One's Code, trying to comprehend a Model-View-Controller monstrosity that Man Was Not Meant To Know.

So, yes. Doing my usual work as a maintenance coder.

There was also the usual flameware on Metafilter, a few laughs on IRC, lunch at Chez Horton and then home. After two periods of hockey I got bored enough to turn off the TV and attempt to work a bit more on some of the photos I took this past weekend.

I do apologize for all the high-dynamic range cruft. One just has to work these things out of one's system. You may as well expect higher dynamism in the future. It just can't be helped.

That is all.

    Wragge & Co are a bunch of losers who eat children

Posted November 7, 2009 at 09:15 EST under daily.

I have it on good authority that law firm Wragge & Co from Birmingham (England) are a bunch of soused tossers who fornicate with animals and eat their own children

A friend of a friend told me, and since I am posting this on a 100% anonymous blog I am completely safe in sharing this completely true and factual information.

That is all.

    Unremarkable Wednesday

Posted November 4, 2009 at 08:33 EST under daily.

Too busy working to blog. I can now recognize basic phrases in technical Kanji, which is rather alarming.

There may be some interesting news shortly.

That is all.

    Happy Wednesday

Posted October 28, 2009 at 08:49 EDT under daily.

Sorry, internets. It has been a busy week, and the cognitive load necessary to form a daily entry would have overloaded my writing circuits. What has been going on around here?

There was a weekend bacchanal at the Whisky tasting show in the Big Smoke, where @ecogrrl and I hooked up with L. to taste a variety of spirits, all of the Scotch and Other Whisk(e)y persuasion.

We all recovered, though, and then I hit some of the old neighbourhoods on my way to the photo district.

Work is work, though with more bug fixing and general hackery than meetings, which is good. But the days are a blur of SQL and Javascript and other odd subjects.

So, another weeknight, internets. Perhaps I'll watch the hockey, or pretend to watch the hockey while I put away the laundry.

Clvrmnky, out.

    Day's end

Posted October 21, 2009 at 08:55 EDT under daily.

One fair commute and full day's work later, internets, and here we are. About to warm up some left-overs and pour a martini.

Clvrmnky, out.

    There is no god (on this site)

Posted October 20, 2009 at 08:50 EDT under daily.

I couldn't keep my nose out of the Twitter Trending Topic that made the tech newsie sites today. If you don't know or don't care what this trending topic was, consider yourself lucky.

Funny how Twitter is essentially a virtual ego soapbox for most of us, and yet we want the whole thing to bend to our will. I'm thinking this is partially because of the tendency we have to want to get along with others that, ironically, causes us to make sure EVERYONE AGREES WITH US AND WORRY IF THEY DON'T.

And if Twitter attempts to keep their own peace (it is a private site, after all) THEN OMG THEY ARE THE CENSORSHIP.

I love it. Without internet slapfests I wouldn't feel the need to have a blog.