What isn’t Apple, audiobooks, or alcohol is probably cats.
Stuff that doesn’t go with any of the other categories.
“Alex asks”:http://www.alexking.org/blog/2005/04/25/desk-chair/ for recommendations for desk chairs. I was going to answer in his comments, but it got to be long, so I thought I’d post here instead. I have three data points about desk chairs.
Alex asks for recommendations for desk chairs. I was going to answer in his comments, but it got to be long, so I thought I’d post here instead. I have three data points about desk chairs:
For those of you who may not be interested in everything I write (hi Mom, sorry about all the technology stuff), here are some channel-specific RSS feeds.
For those of you who may not be interested in everything I write (hi Mom, sorry about all the technology stuff), here are some channel-specific RSS feeds:
| Life | Tech | |
|---|---|---|
| Self Rochelle Food Travel The Cats The House The Job Haightlife I Like Politics & Law Media Miscellaneous | Mac OS X Anti-Spam Technology About This Site |
As if we didn’t need more proof that the economy is crummy, here’s an exceptionally literate journal of a porn store clerk. It’s funny, a little sad, and very disturbing by turns.
As if we didn’t need more proof that the economy is crummy, here’s the exceptionally literate journal of a porn store clerk. It’s funny, a little sad, and very disturbing by turns. I just spent 1½ hours reading the entire thing, and there’s no question the woman writing it deserves a better job, she’s a very talented writer.
Best of luck, Ali!
Hit another milestone on Saturday, now I’m under 100 messages. I am in serious danger of getting my act together…
Hit another milestone on Saturday, now I’m under 100 messages. I am in serious danger of getting my act together…
For years I’ve lived with hundreds of unanswered e-mail messages sitting in my Inbox at home, which causes me to ignore most of them. With a little motivation from some magic numbers I’m getting ahead of the situation.
For years I’ve lived with hundreds of unanswered e-mail messages sitting in my Inbox at home. Since e-mail is my preferred form of communication this is a real problem, because basically anything “below the fold,” that is, not in the first screen of my Inbox, gets ignored, often indefinitely.
Periodically I would get into a groove and file some, delete more, and answer or act upon others, without ever really getting the situation under control. But recently I’ve been on a roll, hitting magic numbers that provide new motivation. Last weekend it was getting under 300, on Saturday it was 200. After last evening I’m under 150.
My Inbox displays 26 messages in one screen, so theoretically my final magic number should be 25. For now, though, the only number I’m looking at is 100.
Now if only I could make this happen at work…
Today is my mother’s birthday. Happy birthday, Mom!
Today is my mother’s birthday. I’m working at a tradeshow until 9pm tonight, but I’ll call her when I get home to wish her a happy birthday.
But if she checks here before then, Happy Birthday, Mom!
Just a few predictions for the 2002 NCAA Tournament. Read ’em in three weeks and tell me how wrong I am!
Here’s a couple of predictions for the 2002 NCAA Basketball Tournament which starts in about an hour.
Duke takes it all. Kansas looks really strong, but every Duke player in the rotation knows what it takes to win a national championship. Duke’s not invincible, but they know it. Expect Jason Williams to focus, and win.
No way Cincinnati is a Final Four team. Yeah, they have 30 wins, but they won’t get four more.
Gonzaga got screwed by getting a #6 seed, and faces #2 Arizona in the second round. It’s going to be a Final Four-level game. I think AZ is going to bring it, but I’d love to see the ‘Zags move on instead.
Stanford is out in the first round.
USC is going to last a bit longer, but has to face Duke. And will lose.
Cal wins a game, but probably not two.
UCLA out in the first round.
Oregon, without any Tournament experience, will win two games, but no more.
Last year my tournament picks were in the 96th percentile at ESPN’s Tournament Challenge. Tell me how I did in three weeks!
Three magic words to strike terror in the hearts of telemarketers. Start using them today.
Steve Rubenstein, of the SF Chronicle, has a great suggestion for making the world a little less pleasant for telemarketers, the kind who call you during dinner.
The basic premise is that telemarketing is cost-effective because most people who are going to say no say it in the first 10 seconds of the call. This lets telemarketers dial as many as a couple hundred numbers an hour. If the “Nos” start slowing them down, by taking a couple minutes, the economics of telemarketing stop working.
How do you do this? When you get a telephone solicitation, say “Hold on, please” (or some variation), set the phone down…and let them wait to figure out you’re not coming back.
You’ll find it personally satisfying if you start doing this yourself, but the key to this technique really working, achieving the global aim of cutting down on telemarketing, is for lots of people to do it.
So, pass it on.
God knows we’re glad 2001 is over but, in retrospect, it wasn’t all bad.
Rochelle and I are both glad that 2001 is over with. It’s not as though a calendar can mark the boundaries of luck or experience, but as much as the date shouldn’t matter, you can’t help summing a year up into a theme. And 2001 sucked for lots of people.
But it wasn’t all bad. Rochelle and I were fortunate to be able to spend almost two months together, 24/7, and come out on the other side having more fun with each other than ever. It’s good to be married to a good partner.
Both Rochelle and I experienced job changes we hadn’t intended, mine because my company died, and Rochelle because her boss wasn’t right for her. Now we’re both in jobs we like better than what we started with last year, and which are overall more financially rewarding to boot.
We replaced the nasty carpets in much of our house with wonderful hardwood floors. The floors bring joy to us every day, and may go down as the best investment we made in 2001 (not that the others were hard to beat).
Inspired by the success of the floors, we got serious about lighting, and replaced five existing lights with 4 “new” (to us) period fixtures (this was the source of my Fun With Electricity postings). The one that gives me the greatest pleasure is in the office, which replaced a ceiling light and a 500-watt halogen lamp, lighting the office about 20% better using half as much electricity.
We also started in on our water closet renovation, but have stalled on that, because we decided that getting all of the excess crap out of our parlor and office was more important. Both of these jobs will be with us through most of 2002, I predict.
We threw or attended some really good parties, the best of which was Rochelle’s birthday, and the most impressive was David’s birthday. (One of these days we’ll get the food photos from that up on our site.)
We took some nice trips, including Mexico, Texas, and LA. We ate a whole lot of good food on those trips, most of which we photographed, and most of which we’re behind on publishing. A resolution for 2002, surely.
I bought a new Mac and transitioned entirely to Mac OS X. This is something which gives me pleasure daily, for a whole lot of reasons, one of which is that it enabled me to start this weblog.
I said goodbye to Tex, whom I miss dearly, but who is certainly living a better, happier life in her new household, where she’s the top kitten, with cat companions she likes, neither of which was true in our house.
Rochelle and I both made tremendous progress on our crap reduction and abatement programs, though we clearly have more to accomplish in 2002 (another resolution).
I’m sure we accomplished many other things we’re happy with in 2001, and my feeble mind can’t remember them. That’s why one of my resolutions for this year is to regularly update this weblog. I’m a little behind at this point…