August 2004 Archives

I killed a deer last night with the mini-van. It did no damage to the van, but the deer was totaled. It seemed like a very small deer, likely a fawn from this spring, although I didn't see any spots. It was still twitching when I got out of the van to check things out. I hate to see any animal suffer, but couldn't humanely do much about it with the tools at hand. It was huge suprise to me when the deer essentially decided to run headlong into my passenger side bumper.

Usually when i have a very stressful day a little bit of raw fish will calm me right down.

IT"S NOT WORKING!!!!

Author of this quote wasn't given, but referenced by b^2.

Further googling finds reference to this phrase on this page, this page, and this page. Based on what I see, I will attribute this quote to graphic designer/artist Nick Philip.

Reminds me a previous David Weinberger quote I blogged about.

Can anyone explain why I would buy an HP iPod? It has the same specs and the same price as the Apple one, as far as I can tell. At least when Sony created a Palm it was different. It had a different price, different shape and a different configuration. This is HP innovation? I can't make heads or tails of this HP product. At least it doesn't use ink that costs hundreds of dollars a gallon. It's not even as innovative as a clone. I can't even tell from the pictures if it's been re-badged in a meaningful way. I don't get it.

The incidence of comment span seems to be on the rise. I get so few comments, that am very happy to get notification that a comment has been scribbled on my web page. But happiness gives rise to disappointment, when I discover someone hawking prescription drugs or pr0n. Everyday lately, I have to delete 10-20 spam comments. While it's very easy work to delete the spammy comments with the MT-Blacklist plug-in, it's still an annoyance. I think I'll have to start turning off comments for old entries as a stop gap measure.

Additionally, I notice comments were posting e-mail addresses if no web page was listed. I turned this off and rebuilt all comments. Sorry if this caused any spam for anyone. Feel free to post without fear now.

I just got back from lake Vermillion. Here are a few thoughts.

Speaking of Faith, is truly an amazing radio show. I find that there are very few truly intelligent shows in any broadcast medium that explore faith issues in interesting thoughtful ways. This week's show was about South Africa's "Truth and Reconciliation" process and was fascinating. It's available online if you go to their web page. It will be interesting to see where South Africa goes politically and economically, and to evaluate the effect of the "Truth and Reconciliation" work in another ten or twenty years. SA is a far cry from the country I reported on in the sixth grade.

I have been using gmail now for a week or so. I don't get what all the fuss is about. It's very good web mail, but I can't really see what all the fuss is about at this point. (I still have invites, if anyone wants one, BTW.) Perhaps people are just excited about the disk space available. It makes most IT departments seem a little stingy.

This Michael Moore ala Che t-shirt is one of the wittiest t-shirts I have seen in a long time.

The kids love being at the lake. They love being outside and fishing (better know as tangling), or running around catching bugs. Its fun, but sometimes I long for the days when going to the lake meant catching up on reading and sleeping. The kids have very different ideas about what the phrase "fun at the Lake" means. At least they aren't eating things off the carpet anymore.

I didn't see much wildlife up north. I saw some woodpeckers and a turtle from a distance as well as the usual loons. There were a few suspicious noises inside the cabin, which I attribute to mice. I found that someone had left a large sack of sunflower seeds in the cabin, which must have been feeding quite a large family of mice. Hopefully, removing some of their food supply will drive the vermin to the many traps we have been setting out.

Cool election year quiz, CSM Quiz.

After completing the quiz it appears I should probably vote for Badnarik, but I probably won't.

Also of note election wise is factcheck.org, which tries to debunk (or rebunk) campaign ads. It seems reasonably bi-partisan. It would be interesting to keep score and see which candidate sticks to the facts the most.

278 - 233

Adam Felber, of NPR's show "wait, wait, don't tell me, has a blog and it has a lot of funny posts including this priceless post where he parodies the "Swift Boat" controversy.

That's too funny.

Seriously, who would have thought Vietnam would be one of the most engaging political issues in the 2004 political campaign. I think both candidates would be smart to stick to more current topics, but neither candidate has taken my advice for a long time.

I rarely watch a real horror movie. The blood and gore genre just has no appeal. I don't feel afraid, but I do feel revolted at the "carnage for money" aspect.

But movies of people falling apart, "Leaving Las Vegas" or "Trainspotting" which are psychological horror movies, these movies grip me. These are the movie genre where the villain is the little voice in the protagonists head "one more drink" or "shoot up one more time" ; these movies both frighten and fascinate me. You can argue that either of these movies glorifies drug or alcohol use, but frankly both of them should scare people away from abuse of drugs or alcohol IMHO.

I think it's because I am convinced that nearly everyone is just a few small steps away from doing things that they might consider reprehensible. All that's required is just one push in a certain direction. It might take a brain injury, lowered serotonin levels, fear, boredom, or just loneliness to drive very ordinary people into doing very strange things.

How far away from doing something "out of character" are you?

My son said to my wife ...

Ah, the simple wisdom of a four year old.

I saw a seeing eye dog today. It had a sign with the following text on it.

My wife should get a sign like that for me.

So now I have gmail invites. If you want one drop me a line or leave a comment (no spam please). First five people get one.

Of course, I don't expect anyone needs one at this point, as I seem to be the last person to get a gmail account anyway.

As one co-worker noted "You are so, two months ago."

Someone finally deigned to send me a gmail invite. I was starting to wonder how socially inept I must be in order to rank so low, even on the digerati dork pecking order.

At least I didn't have to beg.

I've never been one to use free web based email, having had my own server for a long time. I'll be curious to see if I like it, and whether it becomes a spam trap.

To the man in the McDonalds playland who was screaming at me when my child allegedly pushed his child.

1. I am glad to discipline and watch my own children. I am also glad you brought the incident, which I couldn't see from my vantage point, to my attention.
2. You need to step back at least a good foot and stop the screaming. I don't tolerate my children pushing, biting, or yelling at other kids. I expect immature behaviour from the two year olds, but not the adults.
3. If you think I am not paying sufficient attention to my own children, give me a chance to rectify matters before you start screaming.If you hadn't been so belligerent to me, your children would have received an apology from mine, and they could have experienced seeing them given swift and severe consequences.
4. Kids playing rough on a playground or playland is no reason to be a beligerent ass. The playland is a bit of a free for all, where the parents are slighlty disconnected from the children by the deisgn of the tubes. All parents seem to struggle with occasional roughhousing. The kids are just learning manners. Maybe you should consider learning some yourself.
5. Be sure to talk to the right parents instead of walking around belittling each parent in turn hoping to find the right parent.

Until we meet again, Cheney Off!

I tried a new restaurant in North Oaks named Tria back in mid July. My bride and I had a delightful Saturday morning brunch there. The restaurant has a nice substantial oaken feel to it. The decor is sort of old world, mediterranean, california-winery style.

I had the eggs Benedict, which IMHO are the best north of Chez Collette at the Sofitel. They were done perfectly, and had a truffle shaving on top. The hollandaise was creamy and fresh tasting with just the right amount of bite. They did use brioche instead of the traditional english muffin, but it was very, very good anyway.

It's nice to have a choice in dining in the Northern Suburbs, when you want a little nicer atmosphere. The prices weren't too bad, especially for the brunch items. I haven't been there for dinner yet, but plan to go their soon.

You can check out the strib review, although I am sure the link will dissapear into the black hole of "registration required" at some point.

What is it that makes you so happy that you literally dance for joy?

I heard this question posed today. The speaker indicated that the day the Cubs go to the World Series and win, he and his family will dance for joy. I understand this feeling well. I grew up hearing about the glory years of the Green Bay Packers and the coaching reign of St. Vincent Lombardi. Unfortunately, I heard about the glory years during the 1980's where their win loss record was a dismal 66-85. By the early nineties, I had pretty much given up on the Packers. But thankfully Farve, Holmgren, White and their teammates brought the excitement back to Packer football. I danced for joy when they beat San Francisco in the playoffs or when they trounced their opponents in their first Super Bowl. I understand what dancing for joy is. I've danced, deliriously, oblivious to all others.

Lately, nothing much makes me dance. Don't mistake that for depression. It's not a case of the blues, rather it's a recognition that the high notes are missing to some degree.

The birth of my children made me dance, the hard work of parenting has left me feeling more subdued.

Buying my house made me dance, but caring for it has left me feeling subdued.

Sometimes I think a new gadget or responsibility will make me feel like dancing, but it never lasts long.

Backpacking restores my sense of being alive, but it doesn't make me dance. Perhaps if I took a longer trip, I would feel the dancing spirit at the end.

Am I in a rut or is this normal for life lived with responsibilties and cares?

Perhaps I need to change the music (metaphorically) I am listing too. Maybe the music I am listening to isn't danceable.

This question "What makes you dance?" isn't too different from the classic "What would you do if money weren't an issue?" Followed by "Why aren't you doing that?" Follow your bliss.

Elise is three years old today. What a great three years it has been. I am looking forward to many more.

Check out opensecrets and see where each candidate is geting their money. Lot's of really good aggregate data here.

Reminds me of fundrace which lets you snoop on your neighbors political donations.

I am half way through "We the Media", by Dan Gillmor. It's a good read and it makes me think that I should be taking my blogging a little more seriously. The entire book is available for d/l free and it's licensed under a CC License. There is also a related blog.

I often censor my thoughts about politics and life when I post. After reading this book, I am considering being much more open about what I write about. Don't worry, this blog won't become a political screed, but perhaps I'll post a few more serious items from time to time, with a little less navel gazing.

I love taking photos of children. You never know what you end up with. Here is Elise trying on her birthday dress.

I have been ancouraging my co-workers to read Curious George stories to their children. In fact it's surprising to me that they didn't already have these books in their collection. As soon as my wife was "with child", I went out looking for my old friends Curious George and Babar.

I attribute most of George's problems to the "man with the yellow hat." This fellow should know a little bit about monkeys before committing to the full time care of one. Why does he keep leaving George unnattended? This "man with the yellow hat" is at least partially culpable for allowing George to spend so much time without supervision.

Why is he the "man with yellow hat?" An astute observer will note that he has a yellow shirt, pants, and tie.

HA Mifflin's web site has this bit of info about George's author/illustrators.

The idea of the manuscript, with drawings of George on it, making it's way across the French countryside, with the Panzers in pursuit, has always made me chortle a little.

As someone who really loves words and data visualization, I find this wordcount web site both fascinating and cool. Courtesy of the Scout Report.

I have been cleaning up the link rot that has accumulated for some time. One reason I switched to MT was that I had grown tired of web page maintenance. Suprisingly, I found more instances of bad links in the MT pages than I would have guessed. Most bad links were the result of not having set the category properly, causing links to point to http://timbu.org/mtblog/cat_.html, which isn't generated. Once I fixed those and some plain old typos I got rid of most of the 404's that have been plauging the site. Now I really should attack the legacy site, but it mostly isn't very interesting to me. That will take much longer.

I have also been doing some style sheet experimentation. You can see for yourself at this navigation page some of the idea's I have been playing with. Hopefully, soon I'll give the whole blog a makeover.

I wish there was an easy way in MT to rename categories. I suppose I can do that in SQL, but that seems like a low level way to do a high level task.

Had a little art show today at work. This was the result of the art day last Sunday. The response to the three pieces (I am only responsible for the one you see above) was more positive than I might have guessed. I can't wait to frame this puppy and hang it somewhere at home. It's 4' X 6', so there may be some negotiation involved in this transaction.

It's more impressive in person, so I hope that no one is viewing it on the web in lieu of seeing it in person. You know who you are.

A hearty congratulations to Jennie, who has delivered a beautiful baby boy.

The first few weeks of parenthood are so burned into my brain. It's not like I remember anyone particular event but the foggy miasma of no sleep, but extraordinary joy seem so vivid to me. What an experience!

Best of luck Jennie.

I have been experimenting with color changes. You may notice some instability.

By all appearances there is an Antarctic blogger. Interesting stuff. [Courtesy of boing^2]

I am currently not reading any books. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Here are some books that I think I should read at some point. Items with a star are books that would probably be good for me to read, and have been on my mental to-do list for some time. This is in no special order.

• A Fire Upon The Deep (Zones of Thought),Vernor Vinge
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, Lynne Truss
• Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History,George Crile
• * Lolita, Vladamir Nabakov
• * Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
• * Wealth of Nations,Adam Smith
• * The Fedalist Papers, Hamilton, Jay, Madison
• * Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevski
• A People's History of the United States : 1492-Present, Howard Zinn
• Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Howard Rheingold
• The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth, Dianna Ortiz
• * Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
• Nostromo Joseph Conrad
• Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman
• The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom
• * The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
• * To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
• The Soul Of A New Machine, Tracy Kidder

I enjoyed this one. The story was fast paced, the action was cool, and I could make sense of the story without having seen the first movie. I like Matt Damon's acting and I also liked the cool as a cucumber character he played. Great movie, not intellectually challenging, but a good time none the less.

Four stars out of five.

My expectations were low, as Spiderman 2 was a sequel, and it was a "summer blockbuster" movie. I also didn't expect to be mentally challenged.

In the end, even with low expectations, I was dissapointed. I felt like I spent the entire film thinking, "Peter stop being a dough-head and tell her the truth. She can decide what to do with her own life." I still don't entirely understand why Peter blames himself for his Uncle Ben's death. Peter didn't pull the trigger, end of story. The person who pulled the trigger killed Uncle Ben. While Peter could and should have done more he didn't pull the trigger.

Additionally, if the film wasn't being to dumb it was being too preachy. I think exploration of the theme, "With great power comes great responsibility" is a worthy use of film, just don't rub it in our noses by saying it outloud.

I did appreciate the few humourous bits. At least the movie didn't take itself too seriously.

Two stars out of five. I might have given three if I had seen it as a matinee and if I had lower expectations.

Here is a list of things I want to do in no special order. I would like to do these in the next few years.

• Get more miles of the SHTA under my belt.
• Do a hike greater than 40 miles.
• Finish as least one room in my basement.
• Go around Cape Horn in a sail boat.
• Learn another programming language to the point where I can write idiomatic (but maintainable code).
• Find a way to get back into auto racing.
• Convert my old laptop into a networked picture frame.
• Go to India for a visit.
• Write something that is published. By published I mean something more than ftp'ed up on the 'net.
• Go camping with my kids.
• Catch a really big fish on Lake Vermillion.
• Fix my awning.
• Replace TIVO with a linux based PVR.
• Lose a few pounds.
• Be a little nicer, but not too much.
• Go for an extended vacation in Italy or France or someplace interesting.
• Take some really stunning photos.
• Matt and frame some art, including the stunning photos from above.
• Figure out how to keep the pond vegetation from encroaching on my lawn without dousing everything with chemicals.
• Build something in the back yard with stone.
• Go back to Yosemite.

There are other accomplishments relating more to family and internal goals, but there is no need to go into that here. I should have at least some inner life not lived out on the web.

I was thinking about a certain raconteur that I worked with at my last employer. He was known to tell a few, shall we say, unverifiable stories. After a long evening, and one story too many I looked him in the eye and effectively said I didn't believe him. He replied with the unforgettable line.

Just thinking about the implications of what this means makes me laugh.

Summer in Minnesota can be magnificent. Perhaps it's the paucity of really nice weather that makes us appreciate the really wonderful days. Whatever the reason, I would hardly trade a gorgeous day in Minnesota for anything.

Here's a picture taken a few weeks ago near a dock on Lake Vermillion.

I spent the afternoon spattering paint on a canvas in the style of Jackson Pollock. I didn't take photos as I was worried about dripping on the camera. It was a lot of fun and the results look pretty cool. It was a far more physical activity than I would have suspected. Can't wait to see how it looks when it dries. I don't really enjoy all Abstract Expressionist art but somehow the movement and emotion of Pollock's pieces are very interesting. They really need to be seen in person to really be appreciated.

Once the paint dries, I'll post a photo.

Celine Dion in French is much less annoying.

Cryptome has almost always been one of the most interesting sites to see things that governments don't want seen. Always good stuff.

Today Julia Child died. While you are all probably familiar with her career as a chef, she also worked for the OSS, the government pre-cursor to the CIA. Improbable but apparently true.

• NPR
• Wikipedia
• moaa.org

Came across a link to an interesting write up of CIA adventures in Tehran during the hostage crisis. Apparently they set up a film company as a cover story. The thing that struck me especially funny was this bit.

Hosted by the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence.

I have been spending far too much time lately playing with music playlists. Most of the time I have always listened to albums, using random when I wanted more variety. Some music begs to be listened to this way.

My trevails with my MP3 car deck caused an interesting side effect. I burned a CD with a lot of songs on it. I could do this as the deck only works with 128 kbp tracks. The software I was using to burn the CD added digits to the track titles indicating the album order. Since I burned them all into the root directory, and the deck plays tracks in ascii-betical order this meant for some very interesting combinations as track 1 from a number of artists were then played back to back. This is what got me interested in creating more ambitious play lists.

I am really curious to see how other people will react to my playlists. Am I the only one who thinks that "Lay, Lady, Lay" by Bob Dylan is a great lead into "No Woman, No Cry" by Bob Marley? Will I irritate people by mixing Norah Jones and Bob Seger on the same playlist? I have questions, but no answers yet.

"To the usability lab Batman!"

By no means I am I the only person developing this kind of obsession.

I was checking on amazon to see the status of my latest order. I ran into somthing they called a plog.

Here is a screen shot of something I found kind of funny.

Evidently if you are willing to hike around an island with a backpack on, you might not like some liberal mouthing off. Seems pretty funny to me. [I used to really enjoy Moore's humour, when it was less partisan. He used to pick on everyone in power.]

I hope it isn't easy to reverse engineer the customer id part of this. I would hate to make it easy for big brother or anyone else to get people's reading lists.

I haven't finished the entire 9-11 Commission Report yet. I have always been enjoyed reading these types of reports. I remember practically salivating over the "Tower Commision Report", when it became available.

Here are some thoughts in no special order.

• It was reccommended that the U.S. government sponsor public education in muslim states to replace, or at least compete with the religious madras, which have become the only alternative to no education in some poor rural parts of the islamic world. This seems like a really sensible long term strategy. Unfortunately, no one is really talking about this idea much. This policy also has a high political risk as opponents could charge "They're funding education in Pakistan, why won't they spend money here in the U.S?"
• Evidently, no is responsible. This, of course, grates on me a bit. i know the commission probably had to approach things this way in order to get broad cooperation, but still it seems like a lot of government entities got a "get out of jail free card."
• Although it only appear obliquely in the report
  "The only information that actually referred to a hijacking in this period was a walk-in at an FBI office in the United States who mentioned hijackings among other possible attacks. The source was judged to be a fabricator.", p. 535, para 2"
  This guy walks into the FBI office and tried to confess, but no one believed him. I don't know why this story didn't get more press.[Links CBS, uktimes, MSNBC, ]
• It's apparent that there isn't a very nimble infrastructure for communication between government agencies. I think if they all had access to some sort of secure irc the coordination could have been much better.
• Making this document available electronically is fantastic. The effort that people went to to remix the report, make it searchable, or reformatting it was very cool.

I have the following suggestion for policy makers. (I haven't yet finished the report, so this idea might still be buried in there somewhere.)

HomeLand Security should have a bi-partisan board of governors who vote to raise and lower the threat levels. The governors should be appointed to serve staggered terms and care should be taken to ensure they are qualified and that both political parties are represented. They should be appointed by the President and vetted by Congress.

I don't think our democratic system is doing too well with all the partisan rhetoric surrounding this issue. Restoring some trust in this system needs to be high priority goal.

This is perhaps one of the funniest things I have seen on the internet for a very long time. In fact this one item has renewed my faith in the medium. http://www.qsleeper.com/ [Link courtesy of boingboing^2]

Apparently, this bed is for the very paranoid among us. If you haven't yet clicked on the link, imagine the concept of a safe room, applied to a bed (which resembles a very large coffin.) This isn't a complete list of features, but just some of the highlights.

• Bio-Chemical Filtered Ventilation
• Rebreather
• Air/Water Tight Sealing
• optional cd player

So I guess to get a "safe" night's sleep you just hit the "Close" button on your bed remote and wait for the lid to clunk to a halt just above your head. Then you can snuggle up with your honey, let the tunes play, and ignore the looting going on in your house.

for the low-budget paranoid, I am thinking about creating a "safe sack."

In a note unrelated to my iPod quandry, I need some headphones that aren't hot and sweaty. I currently use a pair of Koss TD-61 headphones, purchased mainly on the basis of price. I think that the sound is ok, but my ears get too hot. It's enough to make me think that people are talking about me somewhere.

Would any of my two loyal readers like to make a suggestion?

I still wonder why I find myself wanting an iPod. I never, ever walk around with music and headphones, even though I own walkman style units and one headphone radio. It's not that I am ethically opposed to this practice, it's just not something I do. When I ride my bike by myself, I don't as I want to pay attention to traffic instead of the music or book on tape.

Competing hd based portables also are interesting, but don't have quite the same desire or longing associated with them.

I keep asking fellow co-workers why I want to buy this device. Most of the answers lead to simple "gotta have the latest" gadget mania. I do have a little case of "gadget-itis", which perhaps has been somewhat unfulfilled lately.

The most compelling reason so far is the following. Given the fact I like to listen to music at work, an ipod would be a good choice for transporting music from home to work. This way I don't have to have digital music reside on corporate resources, even if it was just a CD full of legit MP3's in my cdrom drive.

I see apple sells refurbs. That might be a good approach. At least then I can say "Well, it was a bargain anyway."

On the flip side, eventually there will be a bit more convergence and I'll be able to get a cell phone/music player/pda/gps/still camera/video camera/walkie-talkie w/a cone of silence and a personal firewall that would keep certain noxious people at bay. It's hard for me to concieve of a user interface that would satisfy all these demands. Maybe it will be a belt mounted base unit combined with a bluetooth personal area network.

If one of my two loyal readers bought me one and it showed up in my mailbox, I wouldn't be the least bit offended.

I installed XPSP2 without a hitch today. Hooray! Will keep both loyal readers posted

I finally got around to reading "The Da Vinci Code". I am just now reading it as I get to a point where I don't want to read the book because everyone else has. I even feel like the author has likely made enough money and I don't really want to contribute. I know it's wierd and snarky, but that's me.

Anyway, I really enjoyed it as a thriller, but was dissapointed in a few ways.

• I didn't enjoy the ending.
• I guessed the plot a few too many times. (Please go to the next painting/church/temple/gallery and stop discussing it ad naseum. The riddles were pretty obvious.I had the solution to the bank account number problem immediately.)
• I felt like certain items, like the development of the christian cannon, were dropped into the story without their full historical complexity. A person who doesn't know the full story could really have a skewed view of history.

I wish someone had a an unbiased web site for fact checking Brown's version of history as I noted some innaccuracies. (Although I suppose if you start out with the "The winners write all history" notion then you are free to make up whatever conspiracy theories you like.)

It was a very quick read. I am glad I got it from the library though.

I took a ride on the light rail today. It was a very nice experience. I made a roundtrip from Cedar/Riverside behind Riverside Plaza. The cars were fast, clean, and good looking. The system, while limited in scope, is pretty user friendly. Although, I had cash with me, it was nice that I could have used a credit/debit card if needed. I am looking forwad to the day when this line goes more places, especially the Mall and the Airport. Although I am a fairly conservative on most issues, mass transit makes a lot of sense to me, although I can't make sense of some of the numbers thrown around by the special interest groups (both for and against). I still don't really understand why they chose this route for light rail, why there aren't more elevated street crossings and why it's so hard to go from suburb to suburb on a bus.

The kids got a little squirrelly at the end. I think they were showing off for Grandma and Grandpa who also made the trip with me. The trip back was packed with riders going to the dome.

In the end it's too bad that I have to go downtown to get anywhere on a bus from my house. Maybe I should have thought more about this before I bought my house.

I noticed that the itunes store was giving away speeches given at the DNC. I went to download one and noticed that the "Listeners also bought" info was shown as well giving an interesting demographic look at what music is listened to by the folks interested in Kerry's speech.

Anyone want to take bets that folks interested in RNC speeches will have different music/audiobook tastes. I'll bet the Grateful Dead won't show up for one.

Something about the tone of this web site makes me think they are after regime change in the U.S. it still has a pretty interesting analysis of the electoral college breakdown based on polling. electoral-vote.com. They even have an RSS feed, so you can get regular updates.

"It may well be true that, as a number of pundits have claimed, Kerry gave the best ... speech of his career last night [at the DNC convention]. But that's a little like saying Yoko Ono's latest CD is her best-ever...", courtesty of reason.com.

Some people have a gift for punditry and twist of phrase.

I don't watch a lot of TV, but there are a few shows I like to watch. Today I found TVTome which appears to be the TV equivalent to IMDB. You can check the episode listings, read up on the goofs, etc. Pretty cool.

On Saturday I skipped the canoeing and headed to IKEA with my sister-in-law. Frankly I was in awe of the store. It was so huge and filled with really interesting ideas. I didn't end up buying anything, as I didn't go there with all the relevant measurements, but I am sure that the Sandnes shoe cabinet is in my future. The crowds were a bit unreal. It felt more like the Minnesota State Fair than a retailer.

After IKEA, I hit the baseball game which was more fun than usual.

Sunday was a day for a quiet brunch, afternoon nap followed by a screening of The Notebook. My wife had already seen it twice, and was completely taken by the movie. I thought it was a very sweet romantic movie. Anyone who has really been in love, or wishes they were in love, and likes the idea of love lasting for a lifetime should see this movie. I haven't read the book, so I can't tell you what I thought on the book versus movie issue. Really it was a very nice movie.