• Uncategorical Weirdness

    All-Inclusive, All Canadian

    It’s not my Canada, but I like visiting it; its culture, humor, scenery and food have long been favorites. Did you know that much that is funny in North America is actually of Canadian origin? This is because we Merkins have become a nation of humorless stiff-necked religious wackjobs, and we are unable to laugh at ourselves and our so-called sacred traditions of patriotism and love of country. This is not the case in Canada, where this sort of thing is done much more tastefully, without the boo-ra chest-thumping (not to mention the tattered 4X6 truck flags stapled to a…

  • Uncategorical Weirdness

    Cyborged

    Okay, this is funny enough that we sat and plugged in all kinds of names: David, Steve, Joe, Jim, Studebaker, and Red. Then we plugged in David’s dad’s name, and just now I plugged in my MIL and my mom, with predictably funny results. The other image choices are a kind of elegant C-3PO knockoff, and a cheezy femmebot. So naturally, I went with the big red maimbot. As seen at Pale Blue Dot: Get your cyborg name

  • Uncategorical Weirdness

    Tommy Guns Garage

    Right. We’re suburbanites. We hardly ever go to downtown Chicago – except for that time recently when I had jury duty at 26th and California. However, we made an exception because of Hanukkah. Here’s how things work in this family – sometimes it’s hard to get everyone together unless it’s one of those holidays that you’re supposed to keep clear. So when my mother-in-law tried to organize a Hanukkah/holiday season get-together, it was harder than ever this year. One of my sisters-in-law is in law school, the other has 4 kids, and their spouses (spice) are also busy and hard…

  • Uncategorical Weirdness

    No More Rape Rooms?

    This chonology probably couldn’t be more damning. And how strange that the phrase “rape rooms” is used repeatedly, yet it doesn’t seem to have entered the public consciousness – although it has entered the blogosphere. Maybe it’s entered the public subconsciousness (or unconsciousness, in the case of the fr33pers), and that’s all that’s needed. There couldn’t possibly be rape rooms in Iraq anymore (and of course there were before, right?) because we’ve been repeatedly told there aren’t. A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba listed some of the wrongdoing: ‘Breaking chemical lights…

  • Home Improvement - Traveling Along, We're Adventurers - Uncategorical Weirdness

    Stormy Weather?

    We’ve had a spell of very windy weather, and it looks like there finally might be a storm coming. For 3 days now, we’ve had high, warm winds blowing steadily from the West. Until yesterday the skies were clear, but today it’s steadily gotten greyer, and the clouds are starting to pile up on one another and look like something’s about to happen. We haven’t had much rain, so I haven’t put out the other two rain barrels; I need to get some blocks to raise them up abot a foot or so, and also they would just fly away,…

  • Uncategorical Weirdness

    Illuminati Shmoominati

    ***Dave Does the Blog passed along a virus meme, so I decided to play. 1. Grab the nearest book. 2. Open the book to page 23. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions Then I’ll show you the Eclipse Workbench User Guide, an in-depth guide to the features of the workbench. Not that I understand what this book is about – just that it was physically closest to me on the right hand side. In fact, Joe’s a friend of ours, and we’re having dinner with him on…

  • Uncategorical Weirdness

    Oh, No! There Goes Tokyo!

    Once again, Neil Gaiman finds a clever gizmo when he’s supposed to be looking for his lost notebook: Firewire Dino! Here comes Firewire Dino! The coolest 4-port Firewire Hub on the planet! Firewire Dino is stomping through town and he means business. With piercing red eyes and an open mouth that lights up when plugged in to the Firewire bus, Firewire Dino is as menacing as he is useful. When he’s not destroying your desk* he’s helping you with your Firewire connectivity problems. Among its many essential Key Features… 4 ports to expand your computers Firewire capabilities Menacingly fast 400…

  • Uncategorical Weirdness

    Nicknames

    Kuri, aka Kristen at mediatinker.com, wondered about nicknames. What nicknames have you collected? “Collected” is right. Once someone’s given you a nickname, it tends to attach itself to you forever. For example, my given name is Virginia, and my hair is red. Those two facts generated a dizzying array of not-very-original nicknames (with one or two startling exceptions). Also, nicknames tend to be context-sensitive – family-childhood nicknames often don’t survive your childhood, but occasionally they do. Sometimes you find yourself saddled with (or stuck with) a new nickname when something about you changes, or when you make a change from…