popplers

BEES! More bees!

I start itching just thinking about this: Dog attacked by 20,000 angry bees (and survives).

Dang.

All good things must come to an end. It was quite an impressive run: over $2.5 million, with an average of $35,000 per game.

Now 99% clam-free

After discussing SPLENDA® and Clamato in the same weekend, chrism invents CLAMDA®.

What makes CLAMDA® an ideal no-calorie clam substitute?

* Made from clams, so it tastes like clams
* No calories
* Suitable for people with shellfish allergies
* Can be used in any food and beverage
* CLAMDA® Granular measures and pours like sand
* Stays clammy during cooking and baking

Here's to old RPI…

Via BoingBoing, creepy RPI/ NSF/ CIA research devoted to automated monitoring and profiling of the behavior of chat-room users: "We propose a system to be deployed in the background of any chat room as a silent listener for eavesdropping… The proposed system could aid the intelligence community to discover hidden communities and communication patterns in chat rooms without human intervention."

Stocking stuffers

What kid wouldn't be thrilled by a tekka-maki sitting under the tree on Christmas morning?

Heidi Kenney also makes cupcake dolls. Oh, and I am pretty sure that she is completely insane.

Security measures

Excellent Bruce Schneier essay on "behavioral assessment" profiling… something to think about as you travel over the holidays.

I love The Onion.

This makes my job a whole lot easier: FDA Okays Every Drug Pending Approval, Takes Rest Of Year Off

Bees! BEES!

This seems like something out of The Simpsons: shoplifter distracts security with bees, makes clean getaway.

Cubicle humor

Things that I haven't yet tried at my new job… (although my boss is out for the rest of the week). The keyboard is my favorite.

More news of the weird

Who would vandalize cheese (and why)?

Everybody's doin' it…

I know that Chris and the Clue Fairy can both relate to these holiday musings on the tech-support generation:

[…] Next week, millions of college students and young professionals will head home for the Thanksgiving holidays. We’ll sit with our families in warm, candle-lit dining rooms eating stuffed turkey, reminiscing over old photographs, preparing holiday shopping lists and … Please. Let’s be frank. We are going home to fix our parents' computers.

Forget the generational tags you’ve already heard, like Gen X and Gen Y. We are the Tech-Support Generation. […]

Book review time

Well, sometimes Amazon Recommends gets it right. (Of course, the blurb by Neil Gaiman on the back cover didn't hurt, either.) I ordered Craig Thompson's Blankets through inter-library loan a while ago, but wasn't able to pick it up until Tuesday evening. It was so incredibly good that I tore through it (in spite of having no time to read anything anymore) and finished it on Friday night. It's a wonderfully told, beautifully illustrated tale, poignant and sweet and full of truth.

I had also ordered David Sedaris's Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, expecting another Me Talk Pretty One Day. I happened to catch him on NPR a few weekends ago, telling a story about his sister, Lisa. His delivery adds to the telling, and I found myself laughing aloud. Reading these same stories, however, I would come to the end and feel a little sad, or unsettled. The first half of the book concerns his relationships with various family members, and each story left me feeling slightly more depressed than the last. Fortunately, mid-way through, the mood lightened. Sedaris is at his best when he balances the surreal and the mundane, the dysfunction with the love. I'm glad that I stuck it out; the latter half was worth the wait.

Teen Titans, Go!

Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi debuts tonight at 7:30 on Cartoon Network. I'll probably tune in, even though these musical analogies from the review are ridiculous (and reminiscent of the equally-ludicrous movie pitches in Altman's The Player):

[…] The retro-adorable style of animation is also driven by the band's catchy pop music, which can be described as Joan Jett on a steady diet of helium and lollipops, or a tougher, heavily caffeinated Go-Go's, or even a female Cheap Trick as produced by ELO. […]

"saucy German miniatures"

E.T., Gnome Home: Thieves have stolen scantily clad garden gnomes from a gnome peepshow in an eastern German amusement park. Alas, no pix that I can find!

City of Litigators, Part II

A tip of the pen to Jay, from the Too-Close-to-the-Truth Department: Marvel Sues Makers of Pens, Pencils.

Los Angeles — Soon after its lawsuit against the two companies behind the popular online superhero game City of Heroes, Marvel Enterprises has announced more lawsuits targeted at producers of pens and other writing instruments.

"It's the same principle," Marvel's lawyers explained. "Just as NCSoft's and Cryptic's game, with its excessively customizable character editor, allowed players to create accurate renditions of our trademarks, so too, do pens allow for pictures of our characters to be drawn and keyboards allow the names of our characters to be typed." […]

I haven't seen anyone organizing a letter-writing campaign, but why not start at the top?

Allen Lipson
President and Chief Executive Officer
Marvel Enterprises, Inc.
10 East 40th Street
New York, NY 10016

S2000

Well, I was going to take a lot of pix of the new car and post them here over the weekend, but things didn't exactly go as planned. However, this car is practically identical (and there are lots of pix) and you can buy it! The main difference that I can see is that my car doesn't have the Honda "H" logo on the nose and tail— it has a mostly black "S" logo. Oddly, numerous Google searches don't turn up any pictures of the aforementioned "S". So, I guess that I will have to get the camera out this weekend.

Calamari gone wild

Giant squid. Giant squid.

200th Entry!

It's been over a year since Poz set up Movable Type for me, and this is the 200th popplers entry on Foam Totem. Inspired by the Boston Globe's Ken Jennings timeline, I'm taking a look back at the previous 12 months or so:

October 2003: I have lunch with Cheryl et al. and first submit my résumé at PharmaCo. Chris interviews at Bluefin Robotics. Movies: The Two Towers (a little late), Kill Bill, Bubba Ho-tep.

November 2003: My episodes of Jeopardy! air. The Massachusetts State Supreme Court rules that same-sex couples have the right to marry. Opus returns to the Sunday comics. Movies: Freaks, Lost in Translation, Alien: The Director's Cut.

December 2003: We go to Florida to see the family. I'm a contestant on Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me's Bluff the Listener. Movies: Return of the King.

January 2004: Year of the Monkey! K. goes to Ireland. SF conventions: Arisia 2004. Movies: School of Rock, Peter Pan.

February 2004: Wardrobe malfunction. More interviews: Tribiosys, DAFCA, PharmaCo, Vertex. Culture: Threepenny Opera, Peabody Essex Museum. Fun: Mardi Gras! Movies: Space Station 3D, Matrix 3, Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, Big Fish, Triplets of Belleville.

March 2004: Jeopardy! check arrives! City of Heroes beta-testing consumes my life. Still more interviews: EMC. SF conventions: Lunacon, I-CON. Our first ever pilgrimage to Krispy Kreme. Movies: The Station Agent, Mullholland Drive, The Sting.

April 2004: City of Heroes beta ends; real play begins. Bjo and John visit from CA. I start doing some part-time work with a local non-profit. SF conventions: Anime Boston. Movies: Hellboy, Kill Bill, Vol. 2.

May 2004: More interviews: PharmaCo (again), DeepBridge. We get a Roomba. I start my new job at DeepBridge and visit NYC, Baltimore, and London in 3 weeks time.

June 2004: Ken Jennings's first appearance on Jeopardy! We start watching again, dedicatedly. I finally go wireless and start working from home— pretty cool, except for the never-ending conference calls and note-taking.

July 2004: Twin Trees retreat. My grandfather's 90th birthday. First time volunteering at Falconridge Folk Festival. We head to Florida for Chris's parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Movies: Spider-Man 2.

August 2004: Jury duty: many are called, but few are chosen. Au revoir, Julia Child. Laid off by DeepBridge (no work for me to do). More travels to Long Island and NYC for Devo and Jen's fabulous wedding.

September 2004: SF conventions: Noreascon 4. More interviews: PharmaCo (for the 3rd time), Octagon. House projects. TALCAR road rally with Sean. Movies: Shaun of the Dead.

October 2004: K's birthday. Learned how to make Italian goodies: pickled peppers and pickled eggplant. More house projects. Amy's bachelorette party. I start my new job at PharmaCo. New S2000. The Sox win the pennant! (The Series is the cherry on top of the sundae.)

November 2004: Hello Kitty! turns 30; Sean turns 38. Post-Election Stress Disorder. Skunk attack! Chris gets hired by TechniCorp. Hot water heater rings down curtain, joins choir eternal. Movies: The Incredibles.

City of Litigators

Via Fark.com (under the headline "Asinine"): Marvel suing makers of City of Heroes because they feel players can create characters that are too similar to their copyrighted heroes. Third graders and crayons reported to be next on Marvel's hit list. As usual, PvP gets it.

I'm an adult who plays City of Heroes and buys comic books. While I'm not exactly Marvel's target demographic (what with being a woman), I do buy their products. I go see their movies. Sometimes multiple times. With great power comes great responsibility: the responsibility to not piss off your fans and make them hate you. Lay off the lawsuits and let the fans play their MMORPGs.

In other news, I stayed in my PJs all day yesterday and finally got Freakazette up to level 31. Woo-hoo!

Dare to be stupid

As Dave Barry would say, I swear I am not making this up. Charges dropped in bogus Bush bill case: "Trautwine wasn't aware that the [$200 bill that featured President Bush's picture and the serial number DUBYA4U2001] wasn't actual legal tender, said her attorney, Harry Smail Jr."

I weep for the future of my country.

The spirit is willing…

Perhaps this is the antidote for Senator's Club vodka (in Zinc's words, "The vodka so bad that it made us stop drinking.")

Prices given for comparison (1.75L bottles)
Senator's Club: $11.95
Absolut 80 Proof: $25.99 (on sale)
Ketel One Vodka: $28.99 (on sale)
Grey Goose Vodka: $42.99 (on sale)

Brita filter: about $6 (if you buy the multi-pack)

Cold shower

Went up to NH last night to celebrate Sean's birthday in the usual fashion, with food and games and CAKE! The first snowfall of the season made for sloppy travel, but Chris was kind enough to drive up and back. It was still snowing when we arrived home, slid our way into the driveway, and stumbled up to bed. Woke up to a pretty, snow-covered landscape. (Note: the first snowfall of the season is always pretty.) Brewed a pot of coffee and was starting to think about breakfast when Chris commented that the faucet was taking a really long time to run hot.

Went down to the basement and learned that our hot water heater had bought the farm. <sigh> Turned off the water and started draining the water heater, bucket by bucket by bucket. Called a few plumbers, but I wasn't hopeful— trying to find a plumber on a Saturday afternoon? Inconceiveable. Lucky for us, K. called and recommended Roczynski Plumbing and Heating. I called and got their answering service, but they called back quite promptly. 6 hours and $1100 (ow) later, we have a new 50-gallon water heater and hot water! Yay, hot shower!

Soup is good food

The New York Times has a nifty article today about ramen shops in New York City. (Registration required, or use rv333/rv333 for username/password.)

[…] In Japan, ramen is more than a cheap cup of noodles. It is the national dish, cheaper than sushi, available everywhere and perpetually fashionable. With its rich, meaty broth, ramen is very different from other Japanese soups; in fact the dish is a relatively recent import from China. But since ramen became popular in Japan in the 1950's, it has been a national institution: quick, inexpensive street food, as closely associated with young people and budget meals as it is here. One Japanese name for instant ramen is gakusei ryori, or student cuisine. Ramen stalls cluster around train stations, and vending machines provide customized bowls. […]

The article also mentions a ramen museum/ theme park (in Yokohama) and an instant ramen museum (in Ikeda). More reasons to visit Japan: the Gyoza Stadium and Curry Museum.

Political smorgasbord

Alert reader Donna contributes yet another reason why I didn't vote for Bush: his continued ability to ignore facts that don't mesh with his world view.

President Bush is holding fast to his rejection of mandatory curbs on greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming, despite a new report from 300 scientists in the United States and seven other nations that indicates Arctic temperatures are rising. […]

Critics say Bush's opposition is ironic because the [Kyoto] treaty was modeled after the market-based US program for cutting acid rain created in 1990 by Bush's father and often pointed to by the current administration as a success story.

So, that's one reason. Ashcroft resigned (much to my surprise), but the damage has already been done. I can't believe the steaming pile of crap that is his resignation letter to the Bushmeister:

[…] Corporate integrity has been restored with the work of your Corporate Fraud Task Force. As a result United States markets have reinforced their position as the trusted allocators of the world's capital resources.

Thank you for your leadership which has made these and many other justice-related achievements possible.

The demands of justice are both rewarding and depleting. I take great personal satisfaction in the record which has been developed. The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved. […]

Do you feel like your safety has been secured? Feh. Still, I'm trying not to dwell on it. I'm trying to look on the bright side and get back to my usual routine. (Oh, and if you're not already completely sick of looking at the election results, these maps and cartograms provide a fascinating look at the real data. )

Nov. 11 Quickies

Three cool things:

• My Roomba, although I'm not as attached as these people are.
  
• Being able to laugh at your wardrobe. (Some of these look familiar. Scary.)
  
• Pocky! Happy Pocky Day, everyone!
  

Laughing on the outside

Brilliance from Fafblog:

[…] Why did Democrats lose the election? Clearly, this loss couldn't have come as a result of the strategic and tactical masterminds behind Kerry-Edwards '04, whose cunning political maneuvering, clear message, and deft counter to every shameless smear from the Bush camp kept their candidates shining in the sun from March through November. Nor could it have been affected by the negligence of the modern news media, which remained a hawklike watchman of democracy, quick to counter every rumor, baseless allegation and outright lie from GOP operatives not with mere fact-checking but with the sullen and lifeless talking points of Donna Brazille.

Indeed, in no prior election has the playing field been so level for a fight between a wartime president whose endless incompetence is repeatedly masked by a top-notch media team and overlooked by an oblivious press corps, and an able but wooden challenger with an inept staff and a play-doh running mate whose media narrative becomes hijacked for a week at the mention of lesbians. […]

Aieee! Aieee!

Thanksgiving is still more than two weeks away. More things that I'm not ready for:

• I went to the hardware store on Sunday to get a set of Garden Hands for leaf clean-up. There were already half-a-dozen different Christmas trees on display.
  
• The neighbors already have Christmas lights up, on the shrubs in front of their house.
  
• It snowed last night. On my way to work this morning, there were places where the accumulation (less than an inch) was still visible.
  

Altered States

This is pretty cool— you can create your own personalized map of the USA. Here are the states that I've been to (not counting states that I've driven through while en route to other states, nor states in which I've had a stopover but never left the airport):

Reeking havoc

I was outside for most of today, raking leaves. At one point, I heard some yelling from next door. At first, I didn't think much of it, since I often hear yelling from next door. (They have 2 young kids who often play in the yard.) But then I thought I saw a shadow near the garage, so I went to investigate. There were a few of the neighborhood cats running around, and a prominent aroma of skunk. Ohhh-kaay.

Neighbor guy said that there was a skunk running around in his yard, and that it might have gone into our garage. Krep. I took a few steps in and looked around, cautiously banging my rake against the cement floor. Didn't see or hear anything unusual. Everything smelled like skunk, since it had sprayed right next door in the yard. Neighbor guy had already called the animal control officer, so there wasn't much to do. I went back to raking.

Animal Control showed up, and started poking around in the garage. He found the skunk right away, hiding in the back corner behind some lumber. The skunk was not interested in coming out, and was getting more and more irritated at being disturbed. He seemed to be hopping up and down (hopping mad?) and he sprayed inside the garage at least once (maybe more) while Animal Control was trying to coax him out. Stinging.

I moved a lot of stuff out of the garage so that the skunk would have a clear path to leave, then stood back and waited. The Skunk Whisperer kept on rattling things and poking into the corner with a broom. Finally, the skunk bumbled out of the corner and headed out of the garage. Unfortunately, he made a beeline for the neighbor's yard and immediately hid underneath his shed.

I shut the garage door before any other mustelid refugees set up shop. I'd love to say that the skunk trotted off into the sunset to share his odor with the world, but it was not to be. The Animal Control guy came back with a gun, shot the little stinker, and took the carcass away in a plastic bucket (with a lid). I assume that they were worried about rabies, but it was sad to see the little guy meet a premature death. And the garage is still nasty.

Travels with Bruce

It looks like Bruce has some competition in the travel photo sector.

Got my superhero fix

On Friday night, we went to Udupi Bhavan for dinner-- yummy vada (savory doughnuts) with coconut chutney and dosai (lentil crepes). Afterward, we headed over to see The Incredibles (IMDb: 8.6 | Rotten Tomatoes: 97%). It was worth the wait— extremely sharp and funny, with a lot of sweet moments. Mad props to Brad Bird; I liked it even better than Iron Giant.

Cult of Ken Jennings

I meant to mention this on Thursday night, but it slipped my mind. Ken Jennings 0wnz0red his 2 opponents, hit $2,197,000 in winnings, and surpassed the previous record for most money won on a game show!

Ken "Can o' Whoopass" Jennings won $45,099 by coming up with the correct question in the Final JEOPARDY! Category of "Royalty":

ANSWER: This King was the Great-Grandfather of France's King Louis XV.

CORRECT QUESTION: Who is Louis XIV?

And I won't even have to move

Via BoingBoing: I completely agree with C. B. Shapiro's Modest Proposal.

News for foodies

A recent Globe Magazine article (Growing Up Gourmet) really makes me want to visit West View Farm in Dorset, VT. The inn and the town sound lovely, and the menu sounds amazing. Plus, I can't wait to meet the innkeepers' kid, 3 ½- year-old Ray Chen, a German-Chinese foodie in the making! Too cute.

Also from the Globe: an interview with Dann Paquette, brewmaster of the Tap Brewpub in Haverhill, MA. (Related: Belgian Beer Fest in Boston, this Saturday Nov. 6th)

Finally, from Alton Brown's Say Cheese! episode of Good Eats: a tasty-sounding recipe for Fromage Fort (yep, Strong Cheese). I have yet to try making it, but I'm intrigued.

No joy in Mudville

More Bush blather: ''I will need your support and I will work to earn it,'' the president said in an appeal to the 55 million Americans who voted for his Democratic rival. ''We are entering a season of hope,'' he said.

Yeah, a season of hoping that Zeus (or whichever deity you prefer) smites this administration with a big-ass lightning bolt. Or at least a rain of frogs. Or locusts. Locusts would be kinda cool. Or maybe something slimy.

I was surprised to read this: "In Ohio, Kerry won among young adults, but lost in every other age group. One-fourth of Ohio voters identified themselves as born-again Christians and they backed Bush by a 3-to-1 margin." 25% of Ohioans are born-again Christians?! Yikes.

On Sunday night, we watched Ed Wood's masterpiece, Plan 9 from Outer Space. I can't look at the election results without thinking of this line from the film: "Because all you of Earth are idiots."

From the pages of the Weekly World News to your backyard

Bat Boy: The Musical runs through Nov. 20 at Vokes Theatre, 97 Boston Post Road (Route 20), Wayland. Shows are Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. on Nov. 6 and 13. Tickets are $18 to $23. For more information, call 508-358-4034.

tiny little buttons

MuffinButtons! I particularly like information goddess and puzzle geek.

Otanjou-bi Omedetou Gozaimasu!

Hello Kitty turns 30. The charity auction has some outrageous offerings-- I still want the Airstream trailer.