Commercial announcement

Well, I have enough t-shirts up on Spreadshirt that I feel I can shout it out a little louder. So I'm adjusting my policy about "no ads" to "ads just for my stuff." Now I'm a commercial blogger in an age where blogs are dead. Go me.

For those of you reading the RSS feed, you can find my t-shirt store on Spreadshirt. I have a few shirts on Zazzle, but so far I don't like the interface. More venues to come (there's some background work I need to complete first before adding those).

So if you enjoy my humor, work in allied health fields, have cancer, or looking for the odd t-shirt about NE Ohio, I'm here for you.

What I did this weekend

In this age of plastic money, do children still know the joy of counting up change to see if you can afford something you want? I know, I could afford it no matter what, but there is something visceral in counting pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters that still brings a smile to my heart. Seeing all those shinies in stacks and piles, knowing the value of each, it still thrills me. I don't know if kids know that simple pleasure any more. I will note I was born at a time when you could get multiple packs of bubblegum for a penny (I remember when Bazooka went from 3 pieces to 2).

I'm not sure counting Chucky-E-Cheese tickets is the same thing. First off, they don't have the weight coinage has. There's also not the thrill of discovering a new facing on the money or an especially old date. Tickets don't weigh you down with their gravity. There's no real smell to tickets (or there shouldn't be) like coins smell as they're handled.

Oh, and it was $55.38, which means I can get my honey that gift. So there was also the joy in that. Yes, I was going to buy it anyway. It's an easier decision (and it made me feel a little younger) when I know I have the cash in hand (which will be translated into a gift certificate and then into the gift itself).

I don't use cash that often anymore, so I don't collect that much change. This would be the various pieces of change I've collected for almost two years now. Which is another thing I wonder if kids are missing. Cash was hard, real, in your face when I was young. Pricing, however, could be all over the board and wasn't very real (or realistic). Now money is the same way.

Oh, and since we're talking about it, "Git offa my lawn!" :: shakes cain in general direction ::

It wasn't all I did. It's not like I Scrooge McDucked into the piles ($55, mostly in quarters, isn't much of a pile to begin with). I also did cleaning and woodworking (rebuilt one of the tables, created a new one, smaller top but taller legs). Also I notice I couldn't keep the tally in my head as well as I used to. While I've always stacked them in denominations (quarters in dollar stacks, pennies in tens), I had always been able to keep track of what I had counted. This time I needed the stacks to confirm what I had in my head.

How I Spent My Easter Vacation

All of one day.

So I took these

And made this

Which left me with these

Okay, to be fair I did need to add another one of those 2x12x96 planks, but I didn't need one of the 2x4x8s. And, yes, one is of better quality than the other. And while they may not be fine furniture, they're good enough furniture (considering I don't have a planer or jointer).

So that's one of 312 chores that have been stacking up for the past 4 years.

Star Wars Fandom

I've been quite (mostly) on the upcoming Star Wars movie and wading through the tides of squeedom emanating from the geek culture. And while I am happy to see that there will be familiar faces and we get to see how their stories played out, every time I hear someone new shout, "OMFG Han Solo!", this song plays in my head.


Christine Lavin Harrison Ford

And now it will play in your head too.

BTW, if you like her stylings, I suggest Getting in Touch With My Inner Bitch. "Some people have an inner child…"

The things that remind me

Going through some of my reading list and Terri Windling's usually magnificent "Tunes for a Monday Morning" posts I hit this. I now have the opening pull quote for Act III (the Orpheus in the Underworld part) of the WIP. And let me say, I love Rufus' voice, always have.

There are things in our lives that we've known and martyred to the necessity of living. Dust strewn, dimly lit figures flutter though our consciousness, and then we are by chance reminded of our former selves and all that revelatory light burns through our cobweb shroud.


Most people like to quote the first part of Sonnet 29, but I love the end.

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

To put in the modern vulgar parlance… all I need is you, babe, and the rest of the world can go fuck itself.

I may have to sing this to Bette tonight. Or at least recite it.

When we programmed computers wearing bear skins and using flint knives

The Scene is Dead.

It's a little lame (except for the water reflection part) until 50 seconds in. Then heavy techno music and graphics.

Okay, it gets my little geek engine running.

This is the third place entry in the PC | Revision 2012 64K Intro. The entry specs (for next year) are here. That video was created with only a 64K runtime app. Not 64M or 64G, 64K (65536 bytes). No libraries. No calls.

64K. One, that was almost an amazing amount of memory when I started programming (and we started seeing demos like this). And two, these days that's an amazingly limited amount of memory. It does this little hacker's heart good to know the kids can still program this way ('cause, frankly, most kid programmers these days don't know shit about condensing and streamlining their code - shut up, I've read your HTML).

You might need to be a total computer nerd to understand that what they're doing there is some pretty amazing stuff with only 64K.

(Pointed to by John)

A Very Special Linkee-poo - the Jay Lake needs your help edition

The Lakeside Kickstarter to finish up their film of a year in Jay Lake's life. It looks like they've already made their goal, but I'm sure more money will help with the incidentals.

If you'd rather use your money to help Jay directly, Catherine Shaffer and Mary Robinette Kowal have started a fund to secure a full genome sequencing of Jay's cancer. As the site says, "Whole genome sequencing can be used to compare the entire gene sequence of a cancer cell to the sequence of a normal cell." With that there are possibilities of extra/different treatment options. It may be a long shot, but sometimes the Hail Mary works (which is why teams still practice it).

Also, Jay Lake writes SF. How fantastically SF would it be to have a full genomic sequence done?

In case you haven't noticed, without Jay I would lose something close to half my blog content. I need that man.

All joking aside, the $10,000 goal is just the first marker on that journey. More money can see the sequencing expedited. More will get faster analysis. And time, as they say, is of the essence.

Edited to add Jay Lake says "Thanks." It was directed at other people, and I couldn't help that much, but you, sir, are entirely welcome.

Fell in love with this song the first time I heard it

More from my holiday playlist. This time it's Tish Hinajosa with Arbolito.


Wish she had an official youtube channel I could point to.

Signs and portents

The live blogging of the solar eclipse on facebook. This is really what the internet was invented to do. I love living in the future (some times). As of this posting we're about 1/3 the way to totality. The Panasonic Eclipse Live group is using solar panels to power their telescopes and broadcasting. Um, guys, I see a flaw in this plan. (yeah, they have batteries that were charged by the solar panels).

And that's why I love him

Thanks to Vince, I now know Joe Walsh has a new album out, Analog Man. I loves me some Joe. And thanks to the youtubies, I can get my fix before I get the album (and yes, damn it, it's an album - see the title track). There's a lot of great tracks on this one, and lots of great growling guitar licks that rock hard. But if you want to know why I really admire Joe, here's one of the songs, destined, as so much of good Joe is, to never get airplay, "And the Band Played On."


Gotta love a writer who can put the line "Yeah, everybody's got their heads up their asses" and not only make the meter work, but make it rhyme. Obviously the song may be NSFW depending on your situation.

"Too many chances to sink like a stone…" Oh yes.

Almost forgot to mention, one of the reasons I love Joe Walsh songs is that you can hear he's having such a damn fun time playing them. I can always see that half smile, half gritted teeth, face twisted like he's in pain, look while he plays. Should we all love what we do like he does.

They're baaaaackkkk

Had to go into a craft store yesterday. Not only did they have their Halloween Decorations ready for sale, they were setting up the shelves for the first wave of Christmas stuff. Just thought you might want to know that.

You. Must. Watch. This.

Bwahahahahahahaha!

(hat tip to Mer Haskell)

There's a store in Hermitage, PA, that is a local draw this time of year for their holiday displays. It's called Kraynaks. And that's where we went last weekend. It's fairly popular, and there's always a wait to get in.

But, that's not the whole line, once you get around the front you can see the rest of the line.

And then once you're in the door it's another 15-20 minutes before you get to the actual displays. Which can be worth it.

The TV set is a little snow covered village diorama. It's pretty good and seemed to be a stopping point for people to have their photos taken with it. But then there's the standard stuff.

Like the bumbles and your basic tree setup

But some of the things are pretty good. I'm not sure the palm trees will take off (they sold some smaller versions of theme).

They're more traditional, the manger having had been wired only the year before Mary and Joseph showed up, so the lights were still in good shape that night.

Then there are plenty of the creative class of decorations. Which some are quite impressive. And pink.

The in thing for trees this year is the ribbon topper. Which, strangely enough, they didn't sell although they had plenty of ribbon for sale at a fairly high price. I did buy ribbon that will go with the tree we're setting up this year, but I bought it at Michael's where it was on sale.

And then there are the variations on a theme. Like the white decorations.

And this one. There were a lot of good ideas, especially if you want to spend hundreds on tree ornament sets (I prefer the "homegrown collection" look myself). There was only one thing that really got me going.

WANTS. That would look so cool in my yard.

The odd decoration that I've just been seeing this year is the Charlie Brown (musical) tree. I think if I was in an apartment, I'd be tempted to get this. Or maybe as a joke office decoration. However, I'm not sure how it will fit within most people's decorating schemes. But it was interesting to look at. (This was one of a humungous assortment of brand tie-in products, not my most favorite concept)

As you may (or may not) know, I'm pretty in to decorating my house for the fall and winter holidays. So I keep track of what's happening when it comes to trends. This year the LED light is fairly well entrenched and fortunately they're offering "warm" white mini lights now (one of the major criticisms of LEDs are the "cool" light - ie. skewed to the blue spectrum). I relamped two of my white-wire deer with these and am please with how they look.

But the major thrust this year is the color changing LED lights. There's several products from C9 bulb sets, to stick luminaries, to tree-toppers, all are being sold on their "the lights change colors" properties. All of them being sold with the appropriate premium price points.

The display is free, if you're in the area. Of course, it empties you out into the area where they're selling all their decorations. I did see a lot that I wanted, but didn't get. There were new garland forms, the 6' wreath I've been dreaming of, some pencil tree decorations I could use for my entry way (but they were the wrong shapes and sizes). I did add some things, but not as much as I could have or wanted to. To much else needed to be purchased (like 2 heavy duty timers).

Once I get it all up outside I'll take some pictures.

Non-sequitur thought of the morning

Is it just me, or does John Hodgman always remind you of Professor Bunsen Honeydew of the Muppets?

On the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour

One of the things I like about the day job is that I get to do cool things like this. Occasionally. This is one of a series of similar graphics intended for use on our large screen TVs around the company.

I share it here as a way to honor all my friends who have served. Thank you.

Monday Night Lights

So, first up, I hope you saw the Northern Lights tonight. I'm glad I made it home in time to get Bette out on the deck to seem some of the red lights. There were bluish greens on the way home, with some pillars in there. Unfortunately I was driving without a place to stop and take a look. This was the first time I'm sure I've seen the Northern Lights. And I'm glad I could share it with Bette. Wow. It wasn't the sheets, but still pretty damn cool.

Next up was second lecture test at school. We had 75 questions and I got 73 correct. I confused my Introns with my Exons, and I don't remember the other question. I think it was on ribosomal enzymes. Anyway, I think that gives me a 97%. There were no extra credit questions (and only 1 point available so far). I think that gives me around 98% total (the grading this semester is kinda squiggly, so it's hard to figure out).

Happy Book Day!

Hey, today is the release date for Merrie Haskell's The Princess Curse. She has received several glowing reviews by people more important than I am, but I'll chime in. If you like fairy tales (and here I'm talking about real fairy tales, not the Disney-fied versions), you'll want to read this book.

You'll like it.

And you can read the first part right here. For free. Like all good drugs, the first sample is free. Go and read, so when Mer is all famous and whatnot, you can say, "I read her before all the hoopla started."

Way down below the ocean, where I want to be she may be

Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
On board were the twelve:
The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist,
The magician and the other so-called gods of our legends...
Let us rejoice
and let us sing
and dance
and ring in the new.
Hail Atlantis!

Sum Sum Summer Time

Psst. Hey, you read, right? I'm sure you do. Remember back when we were kids there were summer reading programs that had great prizes. Okay, great prizes for how old you were.

Well, Todd Wheeler is running his summer reading contest, again. Great cause. Great community. Great idea.

So go forth and read (oh, and tell Todd what you're reading).

Courting the Muse

The muse showed up last night. It's been a long time since I've seen her. She spent most of the evening kicking the couch and chasing out the dust bunnies in my head. I really wish she would get to work and focus on the project at hand. Instead she kept waking me up after I tried to go to sleep.

Hey, look at this. It's shiny. Don't you want to keep it? I think you should keep it. Here, why don't you write it down. Write it down now. Why aren't you writing this down?

Sigh. Then I flip open one of the book lights on my end table, grab the pen and pad I keep there, and write it down. Usually there are more lines waiting to come tumbling out once I get those first ones down. It's like mental constipation, once the first one flows the rest of it all wants to come tumbling out right after.

She can be that way. I really wish she would come together while I was sitting in front of the computer screen. Instead she kept getting me up last night. Three times before she would let me go to sleep. And then there was a line in my head when I woke up at 4am.

Wrote it down, got up to go pee, then went back to sleep.

Very tired this morning. We must have had conversations while I was sleeping. Maybe it was more like dancing. I don't feel very rested.

This is the flip side to having a muse. Sure, many writers deny they exist. Some of them long to have them. To some of us they're our own personal 3 year-olds who constantly want another drink of water. Won't we let them just watch a little TV. Can we check and make sure there's no monsters under the bed. Close the closet door so the monsters in there can't get out.

I missed her. I'm glad she came back. Welcome home, pumpkin. Don't go away for so long anymore, okay?