I used this inflation calculator to see how much my parent's first house would cost now. They got a bargain, even then.
March 2004 Archives
(You can see the sarcasm tags in the title, right?) We had our fantasy baseball draft last night, and this morning I was entertaining ideas of a BatGrrl blog. Link to pix of my bat boys, copy the daily standings, rss news feed.... In the more sober hours of the day (after getting to work, that would be) it doesn't sound like such a good way to spend my time, but hey, who knows.... I've done sillier things.
Here's a nice neat little history of scrapbooks. I found this through a search for "extra-illustrated book", which phrase popped up on the bookarts list today. I like the sound of it.
All kinds of fun toys here. I have the distinct feeling I should have known about this a long time ago....
From an interview regarding a technology that I must unfortunately be interested in (with identifying names camouflaged):
Q: Isn't part of [your] strategy to prevent [Company B] from coming into [your] shops and saying 'Why don't you run [Company B's product]?' A: This is not a defensive strategy. This whole strategy is basically in favor of the customer. I don't care if they buy [Company B's product], and run it right next to [my product], then God bless them. If they find a reason to do it, then they probably know better than I do....
Q: And [Company B's] recent acquisition [of Company C, who helped you develop your product] from a couple of weeks ago?
A: God bless them.
It looks like Mr. Interviewee has learned a bit from the archetypal Southern Lady. You know, the kind who says, "bless her heart" just before describing some kind of damning character flaw or unfortunate physical characteristic.
Last night I reorganized the TMI site, and I thought the hardest part would be moving this blog. But no! MovableType has thought of that, and it was SO EASY. What a relief :-)
Two interesting articles in the WSJ today--one scary and one merely disappointing. The first, from the front page, was about the increasing practice of police drawing blood in suspected DUI cases, because the blood test is apparently more bulletproof than the breath test. Feeling squeamish from the start, I read on to find that Texas, my dear adoptive state, is one of a handful that has explicitly authorized the use of force in order to obtain such a blood sample. So they can strap you down, sit on you, whatever, and jab a needle in your arm whether you like it or not, and that's all okey-dokey. It seems that somewhere there is a rule that all US drivers have agreed to have the blood, breath and urine analysed, via "implied consent" laws that exist in all 50 states and DC. Now, I think drunk driving is a Bad Thing, and people shouldn't do it, but this is way over the top. I suppose it's come about because of clever lawyers getting people off the hook, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it. Once I get over the shock, I think I'll being some research into this topic, hoping that the result isn't a firm knowledge that I have zippo rights in this area.
The second article was a blurb about vision improvement programs that rely on eye exercises. I've been using a hard contact lens for reshaping for several years now, and while the results are terrific, it's SUCH a pain in the ass, and so often a pain in the eye, that at least every other day I swear I'm going to go back to glasses. So, despite my better judgment, I got curious about See Clearly, which advertises on talk radio. Sure enough, this article mentioned them as one of the exercise camp, and posits that you're not likely to have much in the way of results unless you have one of a couple of very specific conditions, none of which are my problem. Sigh. I guess it's not making me give up hope (again, further research is still needed), but I would have been really happy if they'd raved about how terrific these programs were instead of debunking them.
One thing after another has happened this month that really gives our Ramsey plan a serious goosing. It's pretty exciting. I'm beginning to think that our wedding-weekend hostess was right about the rain in the hair of the bride....
Who can resist free images? Not I...
PubSub looks very interesting. (ResearchBuzz is turning out to be one of my favorite RSS feeds.) I'm toying with a redesign for TMI, part of which involves moving the blog off the index page. And I keep meaning to include links and things, so it might be fun to make a Stack or two at that point.
OMG, I NEED THIS (but not for $80--yikes).
I don't know whether to laugh or spit about a printer 'designed for women'. This has to be one of the most ridiculous ideas (the concept of the design effort, not the resulting printer itself) that I've ever heard of.
FrogPad
Okay, this looks interesting. It's not quite the same idea as the Twiddler. In some ways it looks better (easier, actually, is what I'm thinking) and some ways not as cool (you still have to have a keyboard on a desk, mainly). But if you could figure out how to type with one hand and mouse with the other, that could still be nifty. But I guess it doesn't really solve my main concern, which is that I object to the required desk and keyboard posture, as well as the Twiddler does. But it IS neato.
Okay, so all I ever post about any more is Lileks, but this whole work thing is really cutting into my surfing time. Anyhow, along with the fun money (I think I posted about that) now he has a bunch of First Day Covers, enlivened with the usual Lilekian commentary.
Lileks discusses his 80's mix, and tosses off this typical Lileks line--
If anyone asks Pink "Who's your Daddy?" she has to say "Billy Idol." She owes him royalties for her sneer.
We had lunch today at one of those places that uses white butcher paper for tablecloths and leaves crayons on the table, and Lee was drawing Chinese characters and telling us what they meant. At one point, he drew a character that he said meant a person, and another that he said meant water. So I drew them next to each other and asked if that was a wet person. He laughed and said that, actually, I had just drawn "slut" and, after some giggling, we all agreed that, at some level, a slut was indeed a wet person....
