Maynard's own Geek Boutique receives a mention in the Boston Globe. (I hope that the owner doesn't get slapped with a similar stupid lawsuit from Best Buy/ Geek Squad. Idiots.)
The Geek Squad Inc. of Minneapolis, a unit of retailing giant Best Buy Co., recently filed suit in US District Court in Boston against Geek Housecalls Inc. of Lexington, charging trademark infringement. Both firms provide technical support for home computers. In its complaint, the older Minnesota company claims the Massachusetts company adopted a similar name to capitalize on its established reputation and business.But Dave Ehlke, the founder of Geek Housecalls with 30 years in the technology, said he and his partner, Andy Trask, adopted the name for two reasons: ‘‘We’re geeks. And we make housecalls.’’
My first-ever blog posting from outside!
The 21st century-- no flying cars and jetpacks, but still not bad: I'm working from home, sitting at the patio table. There are birds all around. Sean's wireless card (and the newly-arrived wireless hub) work great. And I have a spiff new optical mouse. There are worse things…
p.s. Did I mention that I was eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut and drinking an iced coffee?
p.p.s. Neener neener.
Well, it sure seems like Ken Jennings is an unstoppable juggernaut. Thirteen wins in a row is danged impressive, and he's still going! Doh.
This Salt Lake Tribune article is from last week, so the totals are all out-of-date, but there are some comments from co-workers and game show buffs, and a little about the history of the show and the lifting of the 5-appearances-only rule.
For example, Jennings correctly answered a "Daily Double" question that had this answer: "The only Central American country whose national anthem is sung in English."At the last possible moment, Jennings buzzed in and blurted out: "What is Belize?"
(chrism found this: Amusingly, if you check out Jennings's hometown howdy, you can tell that he disliked taping it as much as I did.)
Software developer wins 11 in a row on Jeopardy-- woot!
p.s. I finally feel like I've joined the 21st century. Finally got a replacement battery for the work laptop, and Sean loaned me a wireless card. I'm writing this from the couch, and I'm not tethered by any power cords or network cables at all!
I worry that I will become this woman. (I've never used a shotgun, but have employed a paintball gun, a broom, a super soaker, and various other implements of destruction. I have yet to actually hit one of the furry little rodents.)
I didn't write a real trip report for my recent London visit (wasn't much time for non-work-related events). But I did take some photos, and I've scrawled a few random musings. Enjoi.
Ah, so that explains it:
[…] In other words, strong emotional ties to another person inhibit not only negative emotions but also affect the brain circuits involved in making social judgments about that person. The results, conclude Bartels and Zeki, suggest that attachment involves a push and a pull mechanism – you are pulled along by the strong sense of reward you feel when you love. But you are also pushed by a tendency not to objectively see faults in the other person which might threaten love, or put the brakes on, so preventing you rushing headlong into a relationship, because circuits responsible for critical social assessment and negative emotions are literally switched off. So love really is blind and there is a biological basis for the blindness. […]
Via daypop.com, Amanita Design's groovy little Flash games. I particularly liked Samorost and Pantry.
Samorost is intriguing and immersive (and addictive-- I had to play it all the way through!). I love the look and feel of it, and its rich simplicity. Pantry is whimsical fun.
Scrabble junkie that I am, I loved Stefan Fatsis's Word Freak (refer to the popplers entry from 2002-01-23). Imagine my geeky joy upon reading that Word Wars is playing at the Coolidge Corner Theatre this week!
Anyone else want to go see Scrabble masters strut their stuff?
p.s. I think these people should teach their dog how to play.
Should I be concerned that my one of my co-workers sent this quiz around: Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? Or should I be more concerned that every one of my co-workers scored far better than my 5 out of 10?
Via Daypop, good, hard-rockin' fun with retroCRUSH's 50 Coolest Song Parts. Yes, there's a lot of Queen, The Who, and Rolling Stones (and more than a few bands in the "guilty pleasure" category). There were also a lot of picks that made me think to myself "No way-- who are they kidding?!" But almost every entry has an MP3 to accompany it, and when I listen to the snippet, I am forced to admit that, yes, that is an exceptionally cool bit of music. (Except for #22.) Robert Berry was dead-on with #27, though:
Sometimes the coolest song parts are just about the lyrics. Stan Ridgeway, the front man of the original version of Wall of Voodoo lent an inimitable nerdy twang to the lead vocals that was something special, and on a song like "Mexican Radio" it was just magical. Full of instruments and sound effects that I can't even begin to identify, this fuzzy sounding fast paced hit is full of great laughs (and has a great video, if you're ever lucky enough to see it), but only once every so often, do the stars align to produce a lyric as golden as:I wish I was in Tiajuana,
eating barbecued iguana!The video accompanies the line perfectly with a juicy giant lizard being rotated on a spit above a fire. And Stan delivers the line with gusto, with special tremble as he says, "bar-be-cuuuuuuuued" that ensures instant immortality.
So, go on. Start at #50, and work your way up to the top. You may be surprised.
The Boston Globe offers some insight into the origins of my favorite Tosci's treat: the microsundae. I loved this quote from a Toscanini's employee: "At first people are like, 'Oh, that's really micro.' But then they eat it and they don't feel so sick to their stomachs. It's the perfect size, the perfect amount."
And if you aren't close enough to stop in to one of their shops, consult The Atlantic's Ice Cream for Beginners for a quick course on Zen and the art of Burnt Caramel ice cream. Yum!
Via cluefairy.com: John Stewart's Commencement Address. Yeah, I know it's a little late, but I've been traveling and he's so danged funny. So read it!
[…] But today isn’t about how my presence here devalues this fine institution. It is about you, the graduates. I’m honored to be here to congratulate you today. Today is the day you enter into the real world, and I should give you a few pointers on what it is. It’s actually not that different from the environment here. The biggest difference is you will now be paying for things, and the real world is not surrounded by three-foot brick wall. […]Lets talk about the real world for a moment. We had been discussing it earlier, and I… I wanted to bring this up to you earlier about the real world, and this is I guess as good a time as any. I don’t really know to put this, so I’ll be blunt. We broke it.
Please don’t be mad. I know we were supposed to bequeath to the next generation a world better than the one we were handed. So, sorry. […]
Thai and foreign chefs cooked the world's biggest Pad Thai outside a shopping mall in Bangkok on Thursday. I am proud to report that we made the world's 15th biggest Pad Thai last night, in Maynard. In spite of it being the 15th biggest, there aren't a lot of leftovers-- we were hungry.
The World's Biggest Ketchup Bottle (and other really big things) are featured in USA Today.