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Wednesday, April 30, 2003
learn something new
I learned a new term today: Roman à Clef. According to Jack Lynch's Guide to Literary Terms: Roman à clef (pronounced roh-m?hn a clay) is French for "novel with a key." It's a novel in which actual events are given a superficial fictional mask; but, with the "key," can be read as a more or less faithful account of true events. They're often used to report scandals while avoiding charges of libel or sedition.
.: posted by Zemlet 2:19 PM
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
Posting Fool
OK Now I feel like posting all kinds of things. Like this great etymology link site I found (etymologic totally kicked my ass!) I also came across a list of rules for creating detective novels and I think like half of them are wrong, even Sherlock Holmes does a few of those things... but who can argue with the inherent wisdom in #6 "The detective novel must have a detective in it; and a detective is not a detective unless he detects." or #7 "There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better."
Here is a list of highlights from my weekend:
- Seeing the "Asia and Our Moment" show at the Yerba Buena
- Eating at Yoshi's for the first time, seeing "Better Luck Tomorrow",
then hearing about how rough it was at Billy's school in Taiwan.
- Watching "Rushmore" in a hot tub filled with 10.2 people, including
a big naked German and a baby, when it started to rain.
- Possibly catching a cold from not wearing a jacket at any time
during these activities.
- Winning a bet with Jonathan, resulting in him wearing an
Aluminum foil hat to work on Monday garnering four "nice hat"
comments and two "what the fuck" exclamations.
.: posted by Zemlet 2:27 PM
temporary fix
Well it looks like the problem is with php on my isp (bastards) so the blog is up but no comment system for now. I'll see what the deal is later, too busy now... perhaps next week? Sorry for the inconvenience, dear readers. But I am sick so you have to be nice to me. By the way, what is THIS? After sending them e-mail I got an aim from the "Curator" AVcurator2003. I am convinced this is a game- CRAP I guess I should fix comments before asking what you all think. AIM me with any findings!
.: posted by Zemlet 10:33 AM
Pro 2
I am not convinced blogger pro 2 is working, since none of my posts since 4/14 have shown up. So I am trying to post from pro 1 to see if that alleviates the situation. Perhap the posts are simply congested and have other symptoms as a result of this. (Can you tell I'm sick today? *sniff* *sniff*)
.: posted by Zemlet 10:00 AM
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Forwarded to me from Kate
"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named 'Bush', 'Dick', and 'Colon.' Need I say more?" -Chris Rock
.: posted by Zemlet 9:39 AM
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Stapler Wars
WELL! Aparently they are not over.
 
.: posted by Zemlet 12:13 PM
Monday, April 21, 2003
easter with italians
Left to right - annie, michael, and george. For some reason I decided to wear a tie yesterday. They had all worn Sunday best to church but had changed back by the time I got there, so there were plenty of jokes about me being a mormon, etc. No real reason needed to make fun of george, it's always open season.
.: posted by Rappin 8:30 AM
Monday, April 14, 2003
Tea Wars
Now that STAPLER WARS are over, it is time to find out who makes the best decaf Earl Grey. Products evaluated so far include: Trader Joes, Stash and Twinings. Each were brewed an equal amount of time (3.5 minutes) with water that was boiling when it hit the cup. (Because we all know if it isn't boiling when it hits the cup, it isn't tea.) We are assuming that Trader Joes is actually a repackaging of Bigelow brand. One of the tasters was a regular Bigelow decaf Earl Grey drinker who seemed to agree with this hypothesis. The Trader Joes brand had a good "nose" and one taster remarked that it was reminiscent of "what made me fall in love with Earl Grey in the first place" but I personally thought there was too much tannin, leaving an overly bitter aftertaste. Stash is a nice, light taste- in my opinion, a nice cup of tea, but as one taster put it "no Earl Grey". As a cheaper brand, I guess you get what you pay for. The Twinings bag we found was not nearly as fresh as the other two, so we were quite worried about how it would stack up and if we would need some sort of elaborate handicapping system. As it turns out, despite these circumstances, it was still fabulous. The bergamot flavoring came across as much deeper and more essential (as opposed to a hint of orange in the Stash) and the experience was, as one taster (well, ok me) put it "like a flower in your cup". Everyone has their own opinion, but in mine, Twinings seems to outperform all other brands on a regular basis. Am I missing a really good decaf Earl Grey?
.: posted by Zemlet 9:29 AM
Friday, April 11, 2003
I FOUND IT
OK who here has seen the TV show Dark Angel? Do you remember that totally great black leather vest she wore with the waffle stitching? I was totally obsesed with that vest for so long and finding one like it. I've even ordered several that were similar but didn't have the stiching or looked crappy on me, etc. But now I think I may have hit the damn jackpot and can now proceed with obtaining motorcycle lessons and score a date with Adam Sundermeyer. Even the gal on the phone where I was ordering it from agreed- this is totally the Dark Angel vest! Agree or disagree?
.: posted by Zemlet 5:09 PM
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Who me, make fun of there.com?
At first I thought the most appropriate moniker would be where?com especially since nobody can get there without some monster gamer system. Last night I came up with there.there.com as in "so sorry nobody played your game". Of course, I could just be bitter, since I don't have the video card chops to be in on the fun. Yeah, I didn't want my own hoverboard anyway! Losers. I'm going off to play Fed. Bye.
.: posted by Zemlet 4:46 PM
Monday, April 07, 2003
Oddly Enough
Like reading the tabloid headlines while waiting in line at the store, I like to peruse Oddly Enough from time to time. The game I play is "In What Country?" where you try to guess where a story takes place, based purely on headline. For some reason, "Man Cooks Woman's Head in Pot" seems far more likely to happen someplace in Asia than say, Britain. Unfortunately, "Man Jailed for Keeping Wife on Dog Chain" could only happen in Taxes. Anyone have a favorite Oddly Enough?
.: posted by Zemlet 9:57 AM
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
VERY strange
I was thinking about wearable computers today when the wierdest thing happened. This is a subject I've always been fascinated with and this time I was thinking about how it would affect playing augmented reality games in real space. So I'm searching around on the web and reading several geeky web pages and there are links to the resumes of the nerds behind the papers I am looking at, with more links to their personal pages and one guy's name sounds familiar. Hmmm... must have read about his work before and the name stuck in my brain. Hmmm... he lives in Palo Alto, perhaps I've met him somehow. Hmmm... So I'm looking around his personal site, at photos of trips he'd been on etc when I come across a PHOTO OF MY BEST FREIND FROM WHEN I WAS A KID!!!! It was the very strangest thing! And it hits me- his name sounds familar because I guess she's been dating him on and off since college and I must have heard about him way back then. More poking around the site confirms this. SO SO strange! The photo is from like 2001 and she looks GREAT! I wonder if I still have her address someplace... I should totally contact her. We could play e-mail MasterMind just like the old days. Wonder what she thinks of little Andy Firestone being the new Bachelor on ABC?
Also on this wearable computer nerd's site were a few rewritings of Gilbert & Sullivan songs including changing the "Matter Patter" into the "Anti-matter Patter" (but it really isn't matter-matter-matter). And others making fun of Bill Gates (who I guess is dead now, ha- side note: they attribute the fake killing to "Alek Hidell" which was purported to be Lee Harvey Oswald's alter ego way back when, and, some suspect, a play on "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" suggesting a split personality- damn I am still as Majestic as ever ). Anyhow, last night at bridge I was listening to an ex-Microsoftie admit that they left known bugs in major apps like Excel, so this seemed funny to me:
I am the very model of a Microsoft Executive
Work sixteen hours ev'ry shift on days that are consecutive
I make a line of software that is of the highest quality
But leave in bugs to fix in upgrades in perpetuality
.: posted by Zemlet 4:53 PM
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