Having a wonderful time; Wish you were here.

Smell that? That smells like douche.

ITEM!

My copy of Anathem arrived yesterday and was promptly placed in The Stack atop Matter, which is also a multi-thousand page sci-fi novel. I'm currently in the midst of re-reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for like, the fiftieth time, but when I'm done I'll start on the new Stephenson book. Matter scares the fucking bejesus out of me: it's got a fucking built in concordance. WTF?

Say what you will about Heinlein (and I'll fight you if you, probably, if it's bad enough), you can mostly follow his books without having to resort to external references.

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Some political crap, just to give you the runs:

It's like a really bad Disney movie. Matt Damon on the terrifying prospect of "President Palin". I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. . . because she's gonna have the nuclear codes.

Roger Ebert is in agreement. I want a vice president who is better than me, wiser, well-traveled, has met world leaders, who three months ago had an opinion on Iraq. Someone who doesn't repeat bald-faced lies about earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere. Someone who doesn't appoint Alaskan politicians to "study" global warming, because, hello! It has been studied. Even better: The most damning indictment against her is that she considered herself a good choice to be a heartbeat away. That shows bad judgment.

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I am in the process of absorbing the Spring Framework for use in the rockstar game. This is good and bad.

Good because I'm learning a new (and popular) technology. Bad in that it's irritating to have to learn yet another java framework. Why am I doing this, you ask? Because dealing with Hibernate sessions is a pain in the ass without it.

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Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay is good, but would have probably been funnier if they were high more throughout the film. R.I.P. NPH.

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After the awesome construction job on Portola at Woodside on Saturday, the guys totally screwed up the lane markers. This has been entertaining for me, watching people almost k-rash into each other from my porch. This is better than TiVo.

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Speaking of TiVo. Two years ago I bought a TiVo for my dad. I put the thing in my name, so that they billed me 12.50 a month for the service. He's my dad! He loves it. It's changed his life.

Anyways, apparently a year or so ago it died for some reason and they sent him a new one for free, provided that he pay a three year contract for three hundred bones or so. So he did that, not being aware that I was paying for his service. And today we discovered, lo and behold, that they've been double-dipping: I've paid for his service for the past 18 months even though he's also paid for it.

So I look forward to an afternoon of sitting on hold while I try to get my money back.

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Jimisan is excellent sushi. You should go.

Today was my friend Huff's 40th birthday party. In addition to the pig we ate below, there was another 30 pounds or so of ribs and brisket.

We drank a lot of good whiskey.




Now Maynard and I are playing Geometry Wars.

Chili is stewing. Started cooking it around 9:00 am.

Around 1:00 I'll add the cinnamon, honey, and brown sugar.

Smells excellent.

For my birthday last month, my parents sent me packages containing:

* A super-nice, high quality chef's knife
* Not one but two cast iron pans. These pans had been used by my now-dead great-grandmother, who got them from her mom. So they date to at least 1900. At least.


For Christmas, my parents got me:

* Two expensive, high-quality kitchen knives (a paring knife and a serrated utility knife)
* Three bottles of various flavors of Tabasco sauce (wrapped in paper, even).
* A bottle of hot mustard sauce that is local to where I grew up (also wrapped in paper).


I have absolutely no idea where we're going with this. It's the bottles of Tabasco that throw me.