Happy Holidays


December 23rd, 2005

I’m up in Ithaca now, with my family. Christmas will be here tomorrow night (right now she’s in Key West with her family), so I get to spend Christmas with Christmas! Afterward, she and I are going skiing at Whiteface.

Anyway, posting’s likely to be light or nonexistent during my vacation, so whatever holiday my devoted readers celebrate, have a great one!

Rollerblading During the Strike


December 21st, 2005

A couple more little observations about the strike:

It takes me a little under an hour to rollerblade into work. Which is a pity; if it were a bit less, it would be worth doing it on a regular basis, for the exercise. But I don’t really want to wake up a half an hour earlier for the purpose–anyone who knows me knows that waking up early is one of my least favorite things. Maybe I can bring my blades into work and rollerblade home, though.

I’m amused by the number of little stunt bicycles I’ve seen people riding in the past two days. You know, the ones with the tiny wheels for doing tricks. Guess people figure it’s better than walking.

Stupid Microsoft Interface


December 20th, 2005

Stupid Microsoft Interface of the Day:

If you’re running Microsoft Office 2003, try this:

  1. In Outlook, click the “New mail message” button in the top left corner of the window.
  2. Type some random text into the body of the message.
  3. Close the new message without sending it, using not the “close window” X in the top right corner of the window, but the “close document” X just below it. Answer “No” when it asks if you want to save your changes.
  4. Click the “New file” icon in the top left corner.
What do you get? Not another new mail message, but a new Microsoft Word document! (Indeed, even before you click that “New file” icon, you’re left with a full instance of Word running.)

Now, I understand on a technical level why this happens, but on a user interface level it’s broken. If I just closed a mail message, and I’m staying in the same program, odds are that I want to create another mail message, not a Word document.

Observations on the Strike


December 20th, 2005

A few observations on the first day of the transit strike:

It takes me about an hour and 15 minutes to walk into work from my apartment. Which is not something I’d want to do every day, especially when it’s this cold, but it’s manageable.

There were cops at the Queensboro Bridge enforcing the “all cars in midtown and below must have 4 passengers” rule by actually turning away cars that had fewer passengers. Seemed to be working, too–traffic on the bridge was moving at a good clip, and traffic in the city didn’t seem any worse than usual.

There was a Red Cross van parked at the Manhattan end of the Queensboro bridge, offering free hot coffee to people who walked across. Guess they’re trying to fend off a few cases of hypothermia.

Quote of the Whenever


December 19th, 2005

Quote of the Whenever:

“That’s the kind of thing that’s being done all the time by poets,
from Homer
   to Tennyson;
They’re always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket
after a
   winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket
of snow and
   I’ll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical
blanket material and
   we’ll see which one keeps warm”

-Ogden Nash, “Very Like a Whale.” Read the whole thing here.

Vietnamese Soul Food


December 18th, 2005

Someone should start a hybrid Vietnamese/Soul Food restaurant.

They could call it, “Pho Sho”.

Holy Orgasms


December 16th, 2005

Well, so far so good with the MTA…the next potential strike date is Tuesday. We’ll see.

In unrelated matters, did you know that screaming, “Oh God, Oh God” when you have an orgasm is endorsed by the Bible? It’s true. It’s Psalms 11:26, which reads, “Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini”, or…

wait for it…

“Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord.”

(I was at a choir concert that a friend sang in tonight, and that was one of the verses they sang.)