You can waste a lot of time refreshing The Nietzsche Family Circus. It’s a randomly generated Family Circus panel paired with a randomly generated Friedrich Nietzsche quote. Occasionally it makes no sense, but more often than you’d think, they match pretty well for some amusing results. Like this one, as an ominous looking Jeffy (or is it Billy?) lords some philosophy over PJ:

As an aside, the Firefox spell checker knows the word Nietzsche. Who’d’ve thunk it? (It does not know the word who’d’ve, though perhaps that’s because it’s not a real word.)

This is mostly for Martine, but according to slashdot, Alex the African Grey has died at the age of 31 (young, apparently). Coincidently, Martine and I were talking about him when she was visiting back in August. For those not aware, Alex is one of the parrots Martine worked with at the MIT Media Lab, training them to surf the Internet. (Remember when the media lab had so much money that they’d fund just about anything?)
I visited Martine there a few times and met Alex. I was impressed that a parrot could identify a key (when prompted by “What toy?”) and distinguish between wood and metal. He also knew his colors and could count, if I recall. He had a fellow parrot, Wart, who could do many of the same tricks, but it was always clear that Alex was “the smart one.”
Alex and Wart were a big part of why Martine got Jasmine, the quaker parrot who has pooped on me more times than I care to remember. Jasmine isn’t quite as clever as an African grey, but he can at least distinguish between the “hello” wave and the “night night” one. Perhaps in some fowl way (yep, second time in as many posts as I’ve used that pun), Jasmine can carry on Alex’s legacy.

Don’t worry — this post contains no spoilers.
Last night, my friend Cailin and I found a way to successfully enjoy the fun of being with the crazy Harry Potter fans at Borders and still get copies of the book by 12:15 AM. First, we headed over to the flagship Borders a few blocks from my house to observe the madness which included a “Great Snape Debate” (will he be good or evil?) and a costume contest, which really should have been won by the so-realistic-he’s-actually-frightening Voldemort. While he was willing to pose for pictures with anyone and everyone, ask him a simple question and he stayed remarkably in character, yelling and shouting and even causing a little kid to burst into tears. However, I think because the crowd so “hated” him, someone else wound up winning the contest.
But I don’t actually know that for sure… Cailin and I left at about 11:30, just before they crowned the winner. Because you see, we were heading across town to another location that was selling the book at midnight, but not advertising it — Kroger’s grocery store. Upon arrival at Border’s at 9:30, we were informed that all of their copies were pre-sold and there would be no more for “late” comers. (Three hours early is late?!?!) At Kroger’s, where we arrived at almost exactly midnight, there was only a short line of people, all waiting to buy the same book. Unlike Jeff’s experience, no one flipped through to the end to announce spoilers as there was barely enough time before you got to the self check-out.
And so, with the madness still going on on State Street, I was home by 12:30, safely in bed reading all about how Voldemort wins and everybody else dies. I mean, uh… nevermind. I promised no spoilers.

No fictional body of work has ever so accurately captured my day to day life as PhD comics. Case in point: yesterday’s strip. With the exception of the last panel, I seriously have this conversation with people at least once a week. Case in point… jcbarret’s blog.

Having enjoyed making the first dress, I went back to JoAnn Fabrics, bought another pattern (Vogue 8381) and made another dress.

I’m not sure I like how this one turned out as much — it hangs a little too high above my waist and the stitching isn’t as even as I’d like it to be. This pattern was a bit trickier than the last one. The bodice has a lining, which means that everything had to be done twice and in exactly the same manner for things to meet up right. I didn’t quite succeed at that, hence the slightly uneven waist line.
Also, strangely enough, my camera does not like to pick up the color purple resulting in the bodice looking a lot bluer than it actually is (left image). (I’ve noticed this before… is there any reason why a lot of cameras don’t pick up purple well? Johnston, I’m looking at you.) I adjusted the colors in Paint Shop Pro, but once the top was close to it’s actual purple color (right image), the skirt and my skin were too orange. Ah, well… use your imagination to get the idea of what the real dress looks like.
And as an extra bonus, we had a barbecue at my house, and I wore the first dress, along with the pearls Jenn gave me for being in her wedding. To complete the image of the 1950s housewife, I was given a broom while my friend Cailin took a picture. I submit for your mockery, the resulting photograph:

I did my oral quals last Friday, promptly got bored and made a dress. I’m still not exactly sure why I decided to do that.

It was Butterick’s pattern 4790 (“Retro ’52 Wrap Dress”). I picked it because the pattern claimed it was “very easy” which turned out to be correct as even a novice seamstress such as myself was able to finish it in under two days. Well, not finish… there are two snaps left to be sewn on. But I can fake it without those snaps, especially when I take the picture from the side. It’s kind of pretty, though if I had it to do over again, I would have used a solid green fabric for the front instead of the mottled green print.
This may become a new hobby. I haven’t decided yet.

When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”
People did not like it here.

— Kurt Vonnegut, 1922 – 2007

My favorite author died last night. So it goes.

I saw this on slashdot. It seems John McCain’s mySpace page was hotlinking one of its images from this guy’s server. So, it the spirit of the fishgina, he replaced the image with one stating that McCain had reversed his position on gay marriage, particularly in the case of lesbians.
McCain’s camp seems to have caught on and replaced the image, but it’s still awesome.

This was sent to me by a friend. Despite the fact that the movie was filmed in my home state (and is even subtitled “Say Goodbye to Minnesota Nice”), despite the fact that there is an Erin Rhode listed in the cast (as “Karate Student”), and despite the fact that I have been known to act in the occassional production named after a piece of genitalia… no, I was not in a movie titled “Prick.”
But I sure would like to know who that imposter is.

Almost as if it was a belated birthday present from Microsoft, the Zune I won a few weeks ago finally showed up yesterday. Benoc covers the public perception, which generally led me to believe that this wasn’t going be a prize I particularly valued. But you know what…
It doesn’t suck.
I don’t have a video iPod to compare it to — just a nano. But given that, the Zune is immediately more scratch resistant and durable than my nano. I stress the scratch resistant part because I had to go out and spend $25 on a durable case for the nano so that the display wouldn’t become unreadable. On the other hand, I don’t plan on spending any extra money on the Zune. (Well, actually it was free — I don’t plan on spending any money on it at all.)
There’s no scroll wheel, but the controls are pretty intuitive nonetheless. In fact, I like the non-click wheel better for adjusting volume. And for all the reports that it’s “bulky” — seriously, people, there’s a limit at which things become so small that it doesn’t matter. And because I’ve been watching video on the Zune, I’m not sure I’d want it to be too much smaller. I like to see what I’m watching. (Of course, it only supports a limited number of video formats not including divx or xvid, which means I’ve been using Usman’s Beauty and the Geek audition as the demonstration video for everyone who asks. Then again, his tie bit is pretty priceless.)
Oh but wait… there is another shoe to drop. The physical Zune itself doesn’t suck when loaded up with my stuff and not attached to the computer. The software on the other hand… yeah that freezes up a lot if I try to import too many videos. And occassionally it will hang if I decide to edit an album image and I’ll have to restart the program. Plus everytime I start it, it wants me to log into the “Marketplace,” which I have no intention of ever using. iTunes doesn’t ask me log into the iTunes store every time I open it. On the other hand, once a song is on my iPod, if I happen to delete it from my computer because I run out of harddrive space or whatever, I can’t get it back from the iPod easily, which is not true with the Zune. (Yes, yes, I know there are cracks out and there and I could do it… but I am lazy.)
Overall, for a prize, I am more than pleased and willing to put up with crappy software to be able to use it. It was definitely worth my 12 hours of puzzling.