January 2005 Archives
Egad! More than one-third of U.S. high school students say that the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them.
So much for the theory that the younger generations will be our salvation from the facism of our times.
New Education Secretary Margaret Spellings denounces PBS for having a lesbian couple in an animated kid's program, in her first week on the job.
(Worse, it appears that PBS is now saying that they'd already decided to withdraw it, even before hearing from the DOE.)
Here’s a histogram of the best movies of 2004. (Note to self: refer to this list often.) [via]
elfintech posted a photo:
A Worldwide Guide to Tiki Bars, Polynesian Restaurants,
and other sites of interest to the midcentury Polynesian Pop enthusiast.
[Via BoingBoing]
As Jeff has reported, this past weekend we had a nice dinner at 701 Restaurant Saturday evening before seeing the adorable and funny Stephen Lynch and the odd and funny Mitch Hedberg at the Warner Theatre. I had left my camera at home, but Jeff brought his and got some nice pictures, including this moody black and white pic of the National Archives.
Earlier last week, on Thursday night, we went to the Kennedy Center. From Jeff's post beforehand:
Anyway, in other, lighter news: tonight Thom and I are going to the Kennedy Center to "experience another inauguration," as an advertisement in the Post Express puts it. The National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin, will premiere a new commissioned work by Philip Glass, Symphony No. 7 (A Toltec Symphony). Also on the program are songs from Gustav Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn, featuring baritone Matthias Goerne. Slatkin and Glass will host a discussion after tonight’s concert (which repeats through Saturday). It should all be cool, but I admit that my initial motivation was the special Express offer for $25 orchestra seats. Nice.
The Glass/Mahler concert was pleasant enough, though I must admit to having some difficulty staying awake; I'd been up very late the night before, since I had Inauguration Day off, but then after getting up Thursday morning to drive Jeff to the Metro I hadn't gone back to bed. That lack of sleep combined with the hypnotic quality of Glass's work kept me in a state just this side of consciousness through the performance, though I rallied a bit during the post-concert discussion.
elfintech posted a photo:
The cinnamon-apple pie with caramel and whipped cream at the Ballston Cosi. Jeff and I had seen the Lemony Snicket film at Ballston Common, and stopped at Cosi afterwards for dessert.
elfintech posted a photo:
The cinnamon-apple pie with caramel and whipped cream at the Ballston Cosi. Jeff and I had seen the Lemony Snicket film at Ballston Common, and stopped at Cosi afterwards for dessert.
elfintech posted a photo:
Two views of the snow on the brick skill and gravel outside my office, during our first snow of the year this past Wednesday. The image on the right where the rocks were in focus was flipped in Photoshop and pasted into the image on the left where the snowy sill was in focus.
elfintech posted a photo:
Monday morning, after dropping Jeff off at the Metro, I took this picture of the church at the end of our street; the clouds that morning looked like they had been painted onto the inside of a blue dome.
In this still-new legislative season, the Virginia legislature already has introduced a staggering array of anti-gay bills, including the latest introduced yesterday that would ban adoptions by gay people. Apparently in Virginia there's nothing more serious to worry about--jobs, the economy, poverty, education--than us evil horrible queers. Although there already exist two laws in the state against gay marriage, last year's went further by banning any domestic partnership, civil union or other agreement between gay people, including language that is broad enough that some believe it potentially bans even powers of attorney, medical directives, and other similar contracts by same-sex couples. Nevertheless, this is not enough, as this year the state likely will begin the process of amending its constitution to ban gay marriages, unions and contracts as well. Despite the Supreme Court's overturning of laws banning gay sex, Virginia has kept its own such laws on the books, and continues to use them to harrass its gay citizens. And, astonishingly, Virginia puts its homophobia even ahead of a Republican pro-business stance, as it is the only state that prohibits, by law, even private companies from offering group health insurance to anyone not related to an employee.
I am saddened and sickened that a state like Virginia, with such an incredibly rich history and that played such a pivotal role in the birth of this nation, one day soon will be known primarily because of its hatefulness towards minorities--already its name is enshrined in the annals of bigotry for its part in Loving v. Virginia in which it tried to continue to justify its antimiscegenation laws. The day will come when the current barbarism will be seen in the same light.
Unfortunately, it likely will be long years before we reach that level of tolerance, understanding and civility, and I'm already reaching a point nearly of numbness. This is why Jeff and I are making plans to leave this state. Virginia has been my home for all but seven years of my life, but it has become clearer and clearer that it is no longer a safe place--I don't fear for my physical safety, but legally, financially and emotionally the state poses a danger for me--to live as an openly gay man or as part of a loving gay couple, and it is surely not a place worth supporting with my thousands of tax dollars each year.
Non-Errors: "Those usages people keep telling you are wrong but which are actually standard in English." ...
Surprisingly, my agency has decided to close early because of the "inclement weather." Granted, it's still snowing even though we've already nearly reached the two inches forecast as the maximum, but from the windows here in our offices it doesn't look that bad (granted, when someone even spits in the street in DC traffic comes to a standstill, so snow is usually disastrous given the almost legendary lack of driving skills in this area). On the other hand, our offices downtown were going to close at 2:00 anyway because of all the inauguration-forced street closures in their area, while we were going to remain open here in Arlington. Whatever the reason, I'm appreciative of the opportunity to head home a few hours early.
Ah, it's begun to snow here. It's such a beautiful snow, too. They're only calling for one to two inches, unfortunately, though I'd love to see a show-stopping blizzard in time for tomorrow's coronation inauguration.
I realized today that it was about ten years ago that I developed my first personal website on the Internet. While my earliest pages--from 1994, hosted at Digex--no longer seem to be available (I can't locate them in the Internet Archive), in 1995 I moved to my own domain, elfintech.com, and the Internet Archive aka the Wayback Machine has several copies beginning with a version from mid-1996, then titled "The Elfwood."
elfintech posted a photo:
One day each weekend Jeff and I try to have a nice sit-down brunch together with eggs and bacon. This afternoon we added some garlic potatoes, oranges and grapes, and a pot of English Breakfast tea, using the cute and handy little teapot my mother gave us for Christmas.
Xeni Jardin: In wikipedia, we find this comprehensive list of fictional chemical substances from films, television, books and the scientific community. Included: Administratium, Orichalcum, Vibranium, and my favorite: "Upsidaisium" (from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show). Link (Thanks, striatic)
elfintech posted a photo:
We had an awesome sunset this evening. From certain perspectives, it looked like huge fires sweeping toward me.
elfintech posted a photo:
We had an awesome sunset this evening. From certain perspectives, it looked like huge fires sweeping toward me.
elfintech posted a photo:
After a dark, heavily rainy day, and an eerily foggy day yesterday, the rains broke this afternoon leaving us with some incredible displays of light on clouds with the evening sunset.
elfintech posted a photo:
Cory Doctorow:
Hasbro's latest Star Wars toy is total genius: a Darth Vader version of Mr Potatohead called Darth Tater! BAHAHAAHAHAHAA.
Link
(via Wonderland)
A short story by Will Shetterly lampooning copyright laws
nice parody
In the next few days, you'll see a fresh new face on elf-reflection. Behind the scenes, I've already upgraded Movable Type to 3.14; at the same time, though, I've decided to bring a new visual design to the site. The new index page is largely done, but I still need to apply the new style to the archives and comments and change some of the sidebar layouts and included items. I'll also be doing away with the separate serendipity and sputnik boxes in favor of integrating all my quicklinks--serendipity, sputnik, games and toys, political, papercraft, Prius, and my del.icio.us feed--along with my Flickr photos and 43things entries, directly into elf-reflection. If you've been using only the RSS feed, this content hasn't been incorporated there before, but now all my blogs will be aggregated into a single feed. Look for the new site to be up by this coming weekend.
In other news, both Jeff and I have taken steps towards re-engaging with old hobbies. As Jeff details over at Rebel Prince, he auditioned last night for the Arlington Players' production of Ragtime (I thought about joining him, but am still a little phleghmy and not in particularly good voice due to the lingering cold); I, on the other hand, am getting back into roleplaying games. The best news about the latter is that I'll be gaming with my very close friend and former housemate Sheldon, perhaps the best storyguide with whom I've ever gamed; the not-so-great news, however, is that Sheldon lives in Suffolk, Virginia, a 2-1/2 hour drive under the best of circumstances (and on I-95, "best of circumstances" is merely a dimly recalled legend), so we'll only be gaming one weekend a month.
Last night the new gaming group got together via irc to start talking about character concepts and saga development (we'll be playing in a world of Sheldon's design, but using mostly the Ars Magica ruleset--Ars is my favorite gaming system of all time). I really enjoyed the discussion, discovering just how much I've missed this hobby.
Mark Frauenfelder:
Andrew Brandou's beautiful paintings of animals are on exhibition at La Luz de Jesus gallery in Los Angeles. Link
Cory Doctorow: The pool of unredeemed frequent-flier miles is the most voluminous currency in the world, worth more than the cash supply of dollars and pounds combined.
According to a new analysis by The Economist magazine, the global stock is worth more than $700bn (£370bn), more than all the US dollar bills in circulation, and streets ahead of Britain's £42bn of notes and coins...
A close look at the rules can expose unbeatable deals. A civil engineer from California, David Phillips, became known as the "pudding guy" after calculating that an offer of frequent flyer miles with food at his local supermarket yielded a remarkable return. He spent $3,000 on 12,000 Healthy Choice chocolate desserts and earned $25,000 worth of free flights, enough to pay for travel for the rest of his life.
elfintech posted a photo:
The gift my sister received from her Secret Santa, our cousin-in-law Cricket
elfintech posted a photo:
The gift my sister received from her Secret Santa, our cousin-in-law Cricket
elfintech posted a photo:
The gift my sister received from her Secret Santa, our cousin-in-law Cricket
elfintech posted a photo:
The gift my sister received from her Secret Santa, our cousin-in-law Cricket
An article about the design aesthetics of The Incredibles.
A flushable toilet brush that warns users, "Do not use for personal hygiene" has been identified as the nation’s wackiest warning label in an annual contest sponsored by a consumer watchdog group. Other winners include a label on a popular scooter for children that warns: "This product moves when used."; a warning on a digital thermometer that can be used to take a person’s temperature several different ways: “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally."; a label on an electric hand blender promoted for use in "blending, whipping, chopping and dicing," that warns: "Never remove food or other items from the blades while the product is operating."; and a label on a nine- by three-inch bag of air used as packing material. It carries this warning: "Do not use this product as a toy, pillow, or flotation device."
elfintech posted a photo:
Baked New Year's Day, at Sonal's house in Somerville, Massachusetts. The recipe for "Fragrant Orange and Lemon Cake" was found in Patricia Wells' cookbook Trattoria.
elfintech posted a photo:
elfintech posted a photo:
elfintech posted a photo:
elfintech posted a photo:
elfintech posted a photo:
It's day 11 of my winter cold. Unlike all but four hours of last week I feel well enough to be back in the office today and, better still, unlike those other four hours that I was in the office last week, I'm well enough to be reasonably productive today. I'm still congested and a little achy, retain an intermittent cough, and sound like Marge Simpson's sisters, but I'm fairly hopeful I'm in the last few days of this virus's grip. And I am feeling much better, if not completely well.
We spent the weekend in Boston, as planned, though much more quietly and housebound than expected, for which I felt simultaneously grateful and guilty. The flight up Friday morning provided a rather unpleasant experience, as the congestion in my sinuses and ears made it difficult to equalize the air pressure, and for a while I was worried my right eardrum was going to burst. And even the short, easy walk afterwards from Harvard Square to Jeff's friend Sonal's house in Somerville left me feeling tired, overheated and breathless. We went out to dinner (an excellent dinner, in fact, at The Elephant Walk in Cambridge, a French/Cambodian restaurant near Porter Square), but we ended up staying in with Sonal and her downstairs flatmates and their cat, rather than venturing downtown for First Night, ringing in the New Year with limoncino, champagne, ice cream and cookies.
On Saturday, too, we stayed in all day, visiting and baking with Sonal, and otherwise just lounging and taking it easy, ordering in pizza for dinner with her flatmates, and then finishing off the evening with a boardgame.
Yesterday, we had a delightful yet inexpensive brunch at Veggie Planet (located in Harvard Square at Club Passim, where I saw a great many folk music concerts back in my Cambridge-Boston years, you'd never know that their delicious dishes were vegetarian or vegan) with one of Jeff's dormmates from his sophomore year at Stanford and her husband. Afterwards, we made our way back to Logan for the shuttle flight back to DC yesterday evening, where we spent another quiet night, catching up on email and snuggling together on the couch in front of the television.
All in all, I had a very nice time, and I'm appreciative that everyone else seemed to be willing to indulge in a low-key, quiet New Year's; I had wanted originally to spend New Year's on the Common, taking in the fireworks, ice sculpture, arts and dance, and continued to feel a little guilty that my cold may have been a factor in everyone staying in instead. I don't think it would have been productive or wise for me to stay out late and cold, though, and, frankly, no one else seemed to have a strong preference for going out either, so I think everyone else enjoyed the weekend.
