Happy Halloween! Hello?

What's the deal? Is there some law against Halloween? It is almost 10 PM here, and so far I've had 2 trick-or-treaters. This is the worst turnout I've ever had, which is strange since my neighborhood gets bigger every year. Maybe it's me. Is my house not inviting enough? Are you supposed to send out trick-or-treat invitations? Is it the blood I poured all over my front steps? I think I will choose to believe that all the kids are sitting in the pumpkin patch waiting for "The Great Pumpkin" to appear, even though that thought is a bit sad and pathetic. And we all know that "waiting for The Great Pumpkin" is probably just a euphemism for what those kids really do in the pumpkin patch these day. Whippersnappers!

• How does your state rank for work environment? Here in Minnesota, we're number 3 overall and number 1 in job quality.
• Spruce up your cubicle with a readymech! I guess.
• Sky in a Room looks like a neat project that I'd like to try sometime.

By the way, I got my Papa John's gift certificates (see a couple posts down). That was fast service. Thanks!

Bed Sheet Orientation

This week at work, for some reason the debate of which way the top sheet should be placed on the bed (pattern side up or pattern side down) was raised. I, as a Print Side Upper, was baffled because I never knew that some people put the sheet print side down (after all, motels and such don't do that to my knowledge).

The only argument the Print Side Downers gave that was at least somewhat compelling was that some sheets have the pattern upside-down on the big hem. This is because (apparently) you put the pattern side facing down, then when the blankets and comforter are on, you fold the whole thing over at the top; thus exposing the pattern side, right side up. OK, after finding several Internet sites that support this, I was ready to change sides (flip the sheets, as it were). But, now I see that my sheets do not have the pattern upside down on the big hem. So if I were to follow this, the pattern would appear upside down when I folded it over. Dilema.

I've decided that sheet orientation is divined by the sheets. Pattern upside down on the big hem makes you a Print Side Downer. Pattern right side up on the big hem makes you a Print Side Upper. Solid color or non-directional pattern means you are Bisheetual, and can go either way.

I still don't know if I buy the whole fold-over on the finished bed, because basically the sheets are your bed's underwear, and exposing them is like a teen wearing his baggy pants way too low.

As a interesting related aside, while researching this I ran across this BBC article stating that not making your bed may actually be healthier. Take that Martha Stewart!

Pizza! Pizza! (Pizza!)

A friend and I ordered pizza from Papa John's tonight. When it arrived, we discovered that the pizza we received was similar, but not correct for what we ordered. The "pizza code" on the box label was correct, but didn't match the pizza. We called back up and found that they accidentally swapped pizzas with another order (put them in the wrong boxes). They said 'keep the pizza, we're sending a correct one. Sorry for that.'

Later, we received the next pizza. I should have reviewed it with the delivery guy before he took off, because when we popped it open, it was close, but one topping was wrong (black olives instead of tomatoes). Now, I've had pizza mistakes before, but never has my "corrected" pizza also been wrong.

Called back up and said I got another wrong one. 'Hold on, let me get the guy that took your order.' A lot of heated yelling in the background for several minutes. A lot of 'no way!' 'unbelievable!' '' 'maybe I punched it in wrong' 'did he verify it?' etc. Finally, I speak to the guy again and he says they can send another pizza or he'll mail me a gift certificate. I say I've got enough pizza already so send me the certificate. 'We got a lot of new people here today. We're having a lot of problems, sorry you had to get caught up in it.'

Well, I will await my gift certificate (especially since he never asked my name or address on the last call). I really haven't had problems with Papa John's before, but this was pretty ridiculous. I guess the plus side is that I got a lot of pizza for my money; too bad it wasn't all what I ordered.

Dumb Google Name "Game"

I found this activity on a friend's blog, and am guessing that it is a virally circulating 'hey, neato' thing. Basically, you go to Google's search and enter in "yourFirstName needs" (in quotes, where yourFirstName is your first name) and search. You then find the first ten or howevermanyyouwant entries of what you need. Share with friends for a laugh.
When I tried this, I basically just got results from other Brians doing this same activity. So, I will list one of their result lists:

1. Brian needs food, badly.
2. Brian needs to communicate more effectively and stop being negative.
3. Brian needs the money.
4. Brian needs a fix.
5. Brian needs to combine two or more site links to create a preferred route for Active Directory replication.
6. Brian needs prayers to help him rid himself of anger issues that are messing up his life.
7. Brian needs to add it.
8. Brian needs to do a Gospel CD because of all the songs, this one stands out the most.
9. Brian needs both money and a job.
10. Brian needs to find out when this is.

I'm hoping by listing this here, I may reap benefits of other Brians doing this search to run across my blog. So, while this little activity may provide mild entertainment to you, it is largely self-serving on my part. :)

Oil Money, Food Writing, Passport Tracking, and More

• Record oil profits, you say? How could that be? Exxon has $100 billion in quarterly sales... sheesh!
• I admit that Gourmet Impressions food embossing looks like a really cool idea. Too bad the photos look totally faked. ("All food images are photographically enhanced for demonstration purposes only.")
• The New Orleans Saints may move to Los Angeles. Or, LA may just loot them away.
• Say what? Wasn't this once a Dairy Queen slogan?
• Ford limits bathroom breaks. Timing breaks seems a bit, ahem, anal... but 48 minutes a shift? Isn't that almost what most people get for lunch?
• Hey, fellow Dark Tower fans, looks like Stephen King may be teaming up with Marvel comics for a new Dark Tower comic/graphic novel!
• Big Brother is Watching! would say the conspiracy theorist reading about RFID chips in passports.
• Harriet Miers withdraws Supreme Court nomination. This is news to you if you get all your information from my blog. (If this is the case, I feel sorry for you.)
  

Sox, Feds, Tunes (Vids)

When's that "World Series" on? What? Almost over?!? Tonight (game 4) could be the last night with a White Sox win... Found this somewhat interesting article about why it is "Sox" instead of "Socks". Some interesting points on the history of American English in general.

What's this? Abuse of the Patriot Act perhaps?

I got into iTunes when MusicMatch stopped supporting my iPod, but I've really started to like some of the features. I don't have a video iPod (yet), but ran across this article about using iTunes to download videos from Yahoo! video search. There are actually nice rss/subscription features in the application, and I'm going to try this out tonight. I already subscribe to several podcasts, which I don't listen to on my iPod (and some of them I don't listed to very regularly at all).

Stamps, Muppets, Alien Interference, Indictments, and Wizards

• Check this out: you can make your own stamps from photos, a Yahoo! service. Neat idea!
• Who said nothing good came from American Idol? America's Next Muppet.
• Umm, should we be concerned that the Mars probe crash site disappeared?
• Might be some indictments tomorrow...
• I just saw a commercial for the next Harry Potter movie. I didn't realize it was coming up this soon, but it looks good.
  

Yardwork, Yoda (Gremlins), and Groogle, er Google

This weekend, I finished the annual task of trimming all the landscaping, ripping up the garden, and mowing the lawn for hopefully the last time. (We did have a bit of snow yesterday in case you were wondering.) Chilly work, and I'm glad I got it done, though the "inner savage guy" in me always wonders if there would have been some way to do it with fire.

What has MTV, Headline News, etc. done to our generation? I ask because I just noticed that I'm watching the World Series game, listening to a podcast, browsing the web, while working on this entry at the same time (all on my computer, no less).

• I found this next one by way of Make:; if you know me, you probably know that I am a Star Wars fan (uh, "Warsie"?), but I think crochetting Yoda ears for your baby is a bit much. Maybe I'm just bothered because they look more like something from Gremlins (not the car).

• Don't know if you're following, but here's an interesting article ("The Point of Google Print") about the Google Print project and lawsuit.

Mentioned today:

Your Wait Is, Like, 15 Minutes. I Swear!

Chance of snow here today! Already? Guess it's time to haul that old Christmas tree to the dump...

At a restaurant last night with a friend and was told it would be 15 - 20 minutes until we could be seated, and the hostess kept telling us that we were 'next' (it actually turned out to be 30 minutes). Four or five other parties all arrived, and they were also given seemingly arbitrary wait times (I was totally mystified when one couple was told 30 minutes, and the couple right after them was told 20). Why can't these restaurants be more honest?... "We'll have a table ready for you in x minutes, where x is a variable anywhere from 5 to 50 minutes."

• Incandescent Light Bulb, your reign of terror soon comes to an end!
• Boy, I've taken a wrong turn before, but never as bad as these women.
• Ancient Greek computer studied. Apparently, its email inbox is totally filled with spam.

Copy Code, Splog, Jackson Jury; and Al Shamshoon

• Big Brother is watching you make copies! Apparently, copier makers include a secret code requested by the government on copies.
• Splog? Apparently, blogspot (the Google Blogger host I use) is riddled with blog spam. I've already seen the effect of this in my short blog life here; I had to turn on the word verification service for comment posters because I started getting hit by the spam bots right away.
• Michael Jackson headed back to court! Well, requested for jury duty anyway. (Is there a single article out there about this that doesn't start out with something like "Michael Jackson back to court"?)
• Omar Shamshoon? The Simpsons is headed for Arab TV.
  

Vice President Rice?

Apparently, there are White House rumors that VP Dick Cheney may resign due to involvement in the Plame case. Condi Rice would become Vice President. Wow. If he resigned, I figured it would be due to health or to cash out his huge Haliburton options. More on this here and here.

Cheney, Karl Rove, I. Lewis Libby, Bill Frist's stock sale, Tom Delay's felony indictment... who's next?

• What am I listening to lately?

Trains, Boats, Pods, and Covers

• I thought this was interesting and good work: model trains set in urban decay environments.
• If you can't trust The Today Show, who can you trust?
• OK, iAttire is a bit much, even for the most die-hard iPod fan.
• The Magazine Producers of America have unveiled the Top 40 Magazine Covers for the Past 40 Years. Magazine? What's that? Like a paper form of the Internet?
  

Back From Des Moines

Well, I'm back from Des Moines (pronounced "dez mwoy nez" for those that don't know); had a good trip. The first night, had a huge meal at the Cheesecake Factory, and oddly enough, did not have any cheesecake (they had one of the biggest menus I've ever seen; in quantity of items, not actual size of the menu). While there, we saw Andrew Dan-Jumbo, the carpenter from TLC's While You Were Out, who was in town for some home improvement convention.

The next day we visited the previously mentioned World Food Fair, where I proceeded to eat too much. At the fair, I enjoyed some egg rolls from Pho Ha Dao (Vietnamese), pad thai and spring rolls from Thai Basil (Thai), and a gyro from Yanni's Grill (uh, Greek-ish, I guess). I also had part of a rangoon from my sister; not sure where she got it. While we were there, we also stayed to watch an interesting capoeira demonstration, and saw part of a Mexican guitar performance.

After that, visited the Science Center of Iowa, which I mentioned before as well. It was very good; I think it would be a great stop if you are in the area, and especially if you have kids. We watched the IMAX film Mysteries of the Nile, which was a great experience in that huge IMAX Dome theater.

And, by the way, if you're still reading, that was not the correct pronunciation of "Des Moines".

What's next? An iPod you can smell and taste?

I have a 3G iPod, but boy, am I tempted by the new Apple iPod Video. I have to admit it is probably just the gadget-coolness factor, and I see a lot less use for portable video than portable music (are people going to be watching movies when they jog?). I guess it would be nice on flights or to carry around home videos or photos, but I mainly use mine to listen to music while I work.

I have installed iPod Linux on my iPod, but really haven't played around with it much. It is actually kind of annoying the way it is, because I can't get music to play when I boot into the linux mode (you can bypass it into the normal iPod bootup).

Also, iTunes has really grown on me (though I really resisted it at first. I only switched over after MusicMatch stopped supporting iPod). I really like the podcast subscription feature, but don't really listen to the podcasts daily.

For Science! (And Food!)

This weekend, I'm going to visit my sister and grandparents and other relatives in Des Moines, IA. While there, my sister and I plan on visiting the World Food Festival, which has diverse culinary creations from around the world. I hope they have corndogs. Just kidding, I'm looking forward to the variety of foods and culture.

We also plan on seeing the Science Center of Iowa, time permitting. That should be fun, too, since it's been a while since I've been to a science museum. I think the last was the Science Museum of Minnesota, which was also good, but I had a short visit.

It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo

CNN reports that bones of a hobbit like species were uncovered. I guess that's all the proof I need that the One Ring was real. My preciousssss. You know, I enjoyed those books and the movies, and bought the movies on DVD, but I don't think I've really ever watched them again since buying them because they are, like, really, really long.

I actually don't watch too much TV much either, but have become engrossed in Lost. I kind of wanted to watch it last season, but never did because I missed a lot of shows and it is hard to get into an ongoing drama if you miss shows (same reason I stopped watching 24 after the first season). However, season 2 of Lost started with a "catch-up" show that I watched, and was hooked. I bought the season 1 DVD set and have been further catching myself up. I really like the flashback-intensive, non-linear way they reveal things, and the show leaves little bits and clues to keep you wanting the next episode.

Weaving the Web

A couple of old college friends have blogs that I read semi-regularly, so I'm going to put links to them here. Well, they are not old college friends in the sense that they are 70 or 80 years old, but rather that they are from "the good old days" at college. Check 'em out at Kahn's Korner, Seth-Tech, *YOU DO NOT EXIST*, and *YOU'RE DEAD TO ME*.
I've sent them a note to see if they'll link to me. If they do, great. If they don't, no big deal... I'll just go back and wipe out any reference to them from any site or record I have. Thanks Kahn, Seth, *YOU DO NOT EXIST*, and *YOU'RE DEAD TO ME*!

Take a look at this; I've always loved optical illusions, and just ran across these today. Please make sure you are safely seated before viewing.

Behold the Preserving Power of Rice!

I was eating out at a Mexican restaurant last night and there was a group of young girls and a guy eating there. I couldn't help but hearing a lot of their conversation, and was amazed at their breadth of knowledge. The fantastic wealth of knowledge that our schools provide them is heart-warming. Some of the wonderful new facts I learned:

• The British Umpire is a commonwealth.
• The British Umpire, commonwealth, and knights is, like, historic.
  
• One of the Beatles, not the dead one, but Peter, is a knight.
• Mick Jagger is French.
• You can take that leftover rice home, because you can put it in the shelf and it will last forever. This is because rice is one of nature's most powerful preservers.

Rice will help preserve anything. It might be that there is salt in there, and if that is the case then it is called indigenous. I think someone needs to update the Internet with these facts; I'm sure they're sitting in someone's in-box and they just haven't got around to fixing the Internet yet. One of the sad things, though, is that I'm not even sure if these were high school or college girls. I'm sure this is a dilema that Sir Peter faces, as well.

I just caught the end of Extreme Makeover Home Edition, which I kind of like, but had always wondered about some of the later effects as mentioned in
this article.

Slowly Getting Started

I'm off to a crawling start on this thing. I'm using the wonderful Blogger for my blog tool. Very easy to get going; a little trickier to customize the look of the site. I have to dust off some of my html and css skills for the task. Also, I took a look at the Hello (Picasa) application that Blogger recommends for pictures, and didn't have much luck with it. I guess I'm looking for a bit more of a traditional image hosting for site graphics, so I decided to just use a combination of my ISP web space and Flickr.

I recently signed up for Flickr, and think it is a really cool tool for photo storing and sharing. I have a lot of old photo albums, so I decided that in case of fire or disaster, I should scan them and keep them somewhere safe. So, I've begun that arduous process. However, I've already run into my monthly limit of Flickr transfer and I'm only up to "Brian Whitmarsh - 17 months old". (There is a pay version of the site that I haven't looked into yet.)

Whitmarshall, MN is Incorporated

It is a good day! Whitmarshall, MN is now in existence; population: me.