One reason I quit the newspaper business

99% of what you see in newspapers is "olds". Newspapers thrive on follow-up. If newspapers only reported what was new, they would be distributed on an index card. Once in a while, like that day 5 years ago, there is something new, which warrants volumes of verbiage and acres of photos.

It's been 5 years. Get over it.

Web Dev Sunday

Woke up very early Sunday shivering like I was in the arctic. Thought it might be a low blood sugar incident, but applied Occam's razor and put on my winter bathrobe. Yup, I was cold. And sunburned. All the walking around Saturday at the fair and a half hour of swimming/sunbathing had fried my bald spot. But I still felt squirrelly after fixing the coldness problem, so went downstairs and poked a hole in my finger and bled on a test strip. Slightly under my comfort zone. A few weeks ago I had bought a couple of pint containers of Ben & Jerry's just in case, and popped one open and enjoyed about half an inch of something very chocolaty. It doesn't take much B&J's to raise blood sugar levels. Pity.

By now it was time to get up anyway, so I did. Watched some of the Seahawks game on HD till I got bored, played on the computer a little - I've been exploring a certain chat group on Yahoo, but all the groups I entered were wall to wall women selling time on their web cams, with very little real chatting taking place. Scam city, Yahoo ought to take a deeper look at their anti-spam policies as applied to chat.

Lynn came over at about 1 with Chinese food for lunch, and then we worked on her web site. It's taking shape slower than I want, and her taste in design is a bit louder than mine, but it's her site so I'll build it as close to what she wants as I can. This morning I finished her request form (it took some programming and set-up which I had not done in years). If you want to see a mock-up, try this link. Feedback is welcome. If you decide to "test" the request form, be aware that it gets emailed to Lynn.

We worked till dinner time, and after she left I made dinner and sat down to watch the "mano a mano" football game. Manning a Manning, actually. Boring game, and NBC doesn't broadcast in HD in my area so I had to watch on (yuk) cable. But Madden and Michaels in the booth were a pleasure to hear after having to endure those fools who have inherited Monday Night Football.

After the game I phoned the parental units, where no news is good news. My nephew will be visiting them this week, and I have sent a sound card & drivers for him to install on Dad's PC, which seems to think it no longer has one.

Work is slow today - I'm waiting for a software tool to finish being built & debugged. Thought it would be done by now but isn't. Tonight will attend the Church of Monday Night Football, the altar is all set up in my livingroom. Just need to take the soda out of the fridge and place it on the ceremonial TV tray beside the recliner. I'm taking bets on how many minutes into the game I get so disgusted with the inane booth chatter that I hit the "mute" button. Double-header - will probably miss the Minnesota - Washington game which starts at 4 pm (I may get home a little after 6) but should catch the whole of the 7:15 Raiders game (in Oakland against San Diego).

Prancing Ponies Get Good Press

"Prancing Pony Players (the folks who brought us “One Ring Circus”) didn’t place, but their Holy Grail/Spamalot medley was priceless."
- Andy Trembley, SFSF Magazine

That ought to make scendan, et al, happier...

Read his world-con write-up here.