blackblog

Mon, 26 Apr 2004 23:38:48 GMT

Burning Man pictures in 3-D...
click here (via J-Walk Blog)

bumper sticker of the day

Mon, 26 Apr 2004 07:12:33 GMT

"Behind every Bush, there's a terrorist."

Fri, 23 Apr 2004 21:39:26 GMT

Killer Kill Bill links:

The Kill Bill Study Guide

The Quentin Tarantino Archives
The Archives Guide to Movies inspiring "Kill Bill"

Yah. saw Kill Bill Vol. 2 last weekend and loved it. Liked it much better than Vol. 1, in fact...less violence and more storytelling; fewer take-home lines, but lots more narrative wrap-up. Lots of references I didn't get (not being much of a Kung Fu genre fan), but great filmmaking nonetheless.
Anyway, still brain dead, brain fogged. Worked until 4am last night and miraculously am functioning (though only partially) today....

Fri, 16 Apr 2004 21:06:29 GMT

some guy made nearly $4k in one month selling imaginary goods for ab online game called Ultima Online. I guess it's like Everquest.

I don't play any of these games, so the fascination is beyond my "real" comprehension, but that is just amazing to me that people would be so engrossed in these games, they'd actually spend hard-earned money to parlay an advantage in a virtual world!

I've gotten a whopping total of 10 hours over the past 3 days. Chalk it up to long hours at work (last night -- errr, this morning -- I went home at 5:25am) and a new addiction to a game called Bejeweled (on MSN.com's Games site).

Golly, I'm tired. Brain dead. Body beat. Half-marathon tomorrow. Oh, no! And, our offer on that lovely house in Soquel was rejected.

I wish I had something more interesting to say, but, man, I just feel like jello today (brain and body)!

Tue, 13 Apr 2004 19:43:54 GMT

National High Five Day falls on the third Thursday of April each year, which this year is April 15. The holiday origniated at the University of Virginia in 2002, and has since spread across the nation, and around the globe.

It is a day when, in the words of its founders,
"without inhibition, people can freely exchange high fives between all different genders, races, heights, and social classes. There's nothing else to it. Just a day when U.Va., and America as a whole, will be looking to give high fives, and will be just as ready to receive them."

We hope you will join us this year in spreading the holiday, the love, and the high five with friends and strangers alike. \

the governator speaks...

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 14:04:53 GMT

from this morning's LA Times:

'"I want to make the Legislature a part-time Legislature. Spending so much time in Sacramento, without anything to do, then out of that comes strange bills."

Schwarzenegger's comments came during an interview at the Four Seasons resort here on the island of Maui, where he is vacationing with his wife, Maria Shriver, and four children....

As the governor mixed work with golf, weightlifting and swims off a stunning Pacific beach set against mountains, lawmakers and their staffs in the California capital worked to prepare bills on one of Schwarzenegger's overriding causes, reform of the state's $20-billion workers' compensation system.

'While I'm out here working my ass off, he's pontificating from Hawaii?' Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) quipped in Sacramento.

...Schwarzenegger used his movie background to illustrate the point. The best work got done in compressed time frames, he said. "Pre-production is three months," he said. "You don't have more than that. Post-production is three months. And you have to be out next summer. Then people perform. 'Oh my God, now we have deadlines.' That's when people perform best. Same with legislators. You have a deadline. Everyone works. Works like a jewel."

...Joking, he said that in reading about the outsourcing of jobs to other countries, he wondered whether California could export its troubled prison system.

He laughed. "Hey, we don't have to have prisons in California. What about having them in Vietnam? What about having them in Mexico?"

Shriver jumped in: "No, no, no, no," and said to a reporter, "Don't write that down."

Egads. Well, I can't say much for his obviously simple-minded logic, but I also didn't realize that California was one of only five states that has a full-time legislature...But, then again, it is the 6th largest economy in the world, and perhaps, more time does need to be spent on running the place....

got jobs?

Mon, 05 Apr 2004 20:59:58 GMT

Bush takese credit for job growth while:

Bank of America lays of 12,500
Sun Microsystems lays of 3,300
Gateway lays off 2,500
and a UI design group whose jobs were outsourced auctions off their services in a post to craigslist (the group has worked on "The Last Samurai" and "Mission: Impossible," and video games similar to "Myst" and "The Matrix").

bucky fuller

Mon, 05 Apr 2004 17:33:31 GMT

The Post Office is releasing a stamp with a picture of Buckminster Fuller, inventer of the geodesic dome. He was also an humanitarian and tech evangelist--he believed the world could be made better for everyone with advanced technology--and was one of the first proponents of renewable energy.

I hadn't heard of him until a couple of years ago. Camp Nose Fish, at BMan, constructed a dome, to scale, in the shape of his nostrils! It was one of the best places we'd discovered, too. They misted visitors with cool water (definitely a precious commodity in the desert) and provided couches and ambient music for escaping from the desert heat.

Here's more about those domes:

"The geodesic dome is able to cover more space without internal supports than any other enclosure. It becomes proportionally lighter and stronger the larger it is. The geodesic dome is a breakthrough in shelter, not only in cost-effectiveness, but in ease of construction. In 1957, a geodesic dome auditorium in Honolulu was put up so quickly that 22 hours after the parts were delivered, a full house was comfortably seated inside enjoying a concert....

[They can] ...withstand winds up to 180 mph. Fuller is most famous for his 20-story dome housing the U.S. Pavilion at Montreals Expo 67...." -- from Buckminster Fuller Institute

not a gas

Mon, 05 Apr 2004 13:37:06 GMT

Was just catching up on blogs and just finished reading fdtate's post on rising gas prices and research on alternatives when I came across today's Daily Mislead.

"During his term, the president has pursued other policies that help enrich the oil industry, which has given him more than $3 million since 2000. For instance, his tax legislation actually created a massive tax incentive for consumers to purchase gas-guzzling SUVs over fuel efficient hybrid cars. Meanwhile, the first budget President Bush introduced after taking office tried to cut 37%, (almost $200 million), out of federal research on renewable energy and energy efficiency programs."

Aaargh...!

april fool's!

Thu, 01 Apr 2004 22:45:47 GMT

a list of sites that tried to pull the wool over our eyes today... (via MetaFilter)!

Here's my favorite so far: www.startrek.com - Klingon Eye for the Human Guy (new series).