Category: long story short

I don’t know what’s in the air but for the last two days my eyes have been dry and itchy. I’m trying not to be irritable about it and I’m trying not to rub my eyes, because that’s just been making it worse. Next I’ll scratch my cornea with an eyelash or something. Too melodramatic?

What makes someone park their big-ass 4×4 across two spaces clearly marked “COMPACT” in the parking lot of my office building? Probably the same thing that would make someone write ASSWIPE on a post-it and put it under their windshield wiper facing in.

Traffic was light today on the way to San Mateo, so my commute took only about 35 minutes instead of the usual 40 to 50. First Sunday of the summer. I snapped this photo from my window with my new phone (just switched from Verizon to Cingular and will save money in the process).

Not that I can take any credit for it, but Extractable has a spanking new web site launching today with a slicker look and some updated content. Congratulations to the crew who did the redesign!

B and I can never cram a full celebration into one single day a year, so we like to celebrate birthday months, with gifts and special events appropriate at any time for a loosely defined month surrounding the birthday in question. B’s birthmonth got off to a good start this past weekend with a wonderful…

A few weeks ago when I was in New York for the PDF conference, Halley Suitt (rhymes with Sally Root) was offering to give tarot readings at the cocktail party the night before the conference. I’ve always been a fan of divination and the subconscious so I asked her to read me. Mary Hodder took…

A few excerpts from The Friday Flush at the Whiskey Bar: Talk Left notes the release (in the now standard late Friday document dump) of a Pentagon report confirming at least five different cases of Quran desecration at the Guantanamo Gulag, including kicking, stepping and pissing (supposedly by accident) on the book — but not…

Twice in the past two days I’ve been mistaken for Craig Newmark. It’s kinda flattering in a way. Maybe he and I share a sense of style?

I’m jetbluin’ it to JFK later today for PDF 2 on Monday and I’m trying to figure out a few last-minute packing decisions. It looks like it will be mildly warm and rainy while I’m there, so I’ll pack my raincoat. I guess I’ll bring my leather jacket since it won’t be too hot and…

Up out of my sickbed yesterday I ran down to Lake Shore Avenue to pick up some Peet’s coffee to send to New York to arrive there before me and to grab a light-baked Arizmendi pizza for dinner. Police cars and an ambulance had the street blocked off, which made crossing easy for once. The…

It’s also 5/5/5, eh… kewl! I’ve still got a nasty headcold, makes me want to sleep a lot. The Mediajunkie server had a major crash the other day, but thankfully our fantastic sysadmin, Jeff Tiedrich managed to replace the munged drive and preserve everything we care about and transfer it all over. Now I’m in…

I’ve really been enjoying reading new stuff from Levi Asher nearly every day now that LitKicks has an subscribable feed. His piece today called Found Poetry reminds me how I always care what the text is everywhere. I don’t like web addresses that have “template.php?query=splunge” in them. I like the words to make sense, to…

Maybe I deserve to be struck down after a nearly weeklong run of bliss and fine weather in New Orleans but I find myself coughing up something nasty and feeling like napping today.

B and I are headed down to NOLA for our annual Jazz Fest pilgrimage tomorrow, and none too soon, given how stressful life has been for both of us, but especially B, lately. Last year I ended up not posting any of my notes from the fairgrounds, but the year before I posted a lot…

…but perhaps I should have: ABC News: Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany Is New Pope How old is Pope Benedict XVI anyway? I am correct that “the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” is just the old Inquisition re-branded, right? So I guess he was probably acting as a kind of vice-Pope during JPII’s infirm…

In Reason: The Pentagon’s Secret Stash: Why we’ll never see the second round of Abu Ghraib photos Matt Welch explains how “damage control” has trumped transparency, not that this should surprise anyone. I guess I should be thankful that any pictures were taken at all and that even some of them got out. I hope…

The world played a few unkind jokes on this April fool: a parking ticket near Piedmont Ave., and the state franchise tax board giving our tax refund to some other (unnamed) state agency, probably also related to outstanding parking tickets. Then the flooding in the basement – especially weird after no rain. No idea if…

Did some yoga this morning for the first time in months. What a relief. I nearly cried in downward-facing dog as I felt my calves stretching out of their tight cramp. And in the warrior pose, my shoulders felt like they might crumble and fall off, but something tells me this is just the countervailing…

I missed the kickball game this morning (KICK! 2005) … got to follow George’s advice more closely….

Well, the outgoing mail sending problem seems to be located in my client software, Eudora. By process of elimination, I’ve ruled out the DSL connection, the various mail servers, and so on. This seems to be the final push I need to abandon Eudora, since it appears to be a bug in the software or…

Nothing much substantial has changed but for some reason I’m the optimism tip this week. I have a feeling something’s about to break big and I can’t quite put my finger on it. Or maybe I’m just getting hyped for south by southwest. I’m more productive when I’m in this kind of mood, though. I’m…