Where’s the peanut butter?!

A week ago today I was drove home with some friends from a weekend trip to Canada - I should have been in Seattle with another friend. But if I’d been here, would it have made a difference? What if I hadn’t told him he was being a dick when we were playing tennis last summer (he was), would that have changed anything? Of course I’m not to blame - no one is responsible. So aren’t we all?

I’ll miss you, Eric.

New Dawn Fades

A change of speed, a change of style
A change of scene, with no regrets
A chance to watch, admire the distance
Still occupied, though you forget
Different colours, different shades
Over each mistakes were made - I took the blame
Directionless, so plain to see
A loaded gun won’t set you free - so you say

We’ll share a drink and step outside
An angry voice and one who cried
We’ll give you everything and more
The strain’s too much - can’t take much more
Oh, I’ve walked on water, run through fire
Can’t seem to feel it anymore
It was me, waiting for me
Hoping for something more
Me, seeing me this time
Hoping for something else

Eric Raymond lets out the secrets to making any woman putty in your
hands.

While human beings often have sex for pleasure, the instincts that
drive human mating behavior have been shaped by a deadly serious game
of evolutionary selection.

…

To be sexy, hackers need to learn how to emit fitness-to-reproduce
signals.

It probably gets better but I really can’t stomach any more. Courtesy
of the very funny href="http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/copa-cobandit">Everybody
Loves Eric Raymond strip. This ranks up there with rms’s href="http://stallman.org/extra/personal.html">personal ad on the
desperate-cries-for-help-o-meter.

i had a really bad consumer experience at our local Fry’s this past year. to summarize: last march i bought a 5 disc dvd changer and 5.1 sound system. last april it broke (wouldn’t eject discs). i got it back at the end of june and the same problem recurred within a couple days so i took it back for repairs again and after being told that it would turn around faster this time since it was a rework order, they called me back at the end of december lettingg me know “it’s ready!” by this time i bought a different samsung player for half the price that has worked like a charm and was convinced that either fry’s repair team is incompetent or the device is such garbage i didn’t want to deal with this. after pointing out they had lost the five dvds that were in it when i dropped it off, i convinced them to give me store credit for what i’d paid less the $100 store warranty (which i will never pay for at fry’s again - i’ve had a totally different expeience at best buy and would get their warranty again in a heartbeat).

so the question is: now that i’ve got $400 i need to spend at fry’s what do i spend it on? i honestly can’t think of much to spend it on. i’ve got computers coming out my ass, two fine digital cameras, a printer, scanner, and webcam i’m happy with (meaning i never use them) and a couple gps’es. psp? ninetendo ds? my iriver seems to be on the fritz but not totally broken yet. a microwave? i don’t know what it means that i’m not foaming at the mouth at the prospect of an electronics shopping spree but i’m a little worried.

well i did and last night we let him out! i christened my first homebrew, a scottish ale, the “thomas muir ale” for thomas muir was the son of a rennaisance era hops merchant from glasgow. and his was one of the first names i found in a web search for scottish martyrs. anyway i didn’t want to set expectations too high so the highest praise i would offer before last night was to call it “solidly drinkable” but after the reactions of my friends and peers, i’m prepared to go much further. “clearly exceeds all reasonable expectations for a first homebrew.” “upping the bar for all future beginners’ luck.” and maybe even “will not be dumped out under any circumstances.” what i thought might have been my undoing during one of the fermenting transfers, when i plunged my arm into the brew to initiate the syphon, was identified by gunter as what may have been key to the success. i can’t say whether everyone’s left arm has the same capacity for producing the perfect beer that mine does, but we all enjoyed a beer with a nice head, that was not too hoppy, and tasted great (but may have been somewhat filling). thanks to everyone who stopped by - if you missed it or would like a bottle, it’s like morrissey says: ask me, ask me, ask me.

UPDATE 2006.01.16 The Chill Wizzard

I was on the bus when I initially wrote about this and didn’t have
google handy but I would forever regret if I didn’t point out that my
uncle’s invention - the Chill Wizzard - definitely shared the
spotlight last night. I don’t think the Chill Wizzard is still being
produced but the concept is simple: a suction cup is attached to a
small motor powered by two AA batteries. You stick the suction cup on
your can or bottle, spin the beverage over an icy surface and in about
90 seconds you have a drink cooled to perfection. You can read people
raving about the Chill Wizzard on href="http://community.discovery.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/9401967776/m/2451947308/inc/-1">mythbuster
forums, href="http://www.shouldexist.org/comments/2002/7/7/44045/77063?pid=6">ShouldExist.org
and there seems to be an updated design model available from href="http://cgi.ebay.com/Chill-Wizzard-Can-Chiller-NIB_W0QQitemZ4432706052QQcategoryZ20690QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem">eBay.
It’s a shame these didn’t take off and I’m incredibly glad we had ours
last night - thanks, X!

Congratulations to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs for designing href="http://www.yeahyeahyeahs.com/">the most annoying web page,
ever. If you don’t get it right away, read the page and take a
minute for it to sink in - it will.

The glass artist William Morris once asserted that you should let nothing enter your home which you do not know to be functional or feel to be beautiful. Kevin Kelly hosts a great site dedicated to identifying and evangelizing items which fit the prior requirement in his Cool Tools weblog, and I’m very excited to have recently contributed to that effort with my review of a 3M tape dispenser. It really doesn’t sound like much now that I reflect on this, but it sure made my day!