vox

Number one with a bullet

Birthday: 9/27 (never forget)

Born: "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me" - Mac Davis, I don't know the song. My only memory of Mac Davis is he being on the Muppet Show and one of the characters making a joke about him being big...a big Mac...haw haw haw.

When I was 21: Mariah Carey - "Dreamlover" I'm sure it was on while I sat in my room watching TV for my 21st birthday. I didn't have any friends to hang out with so I spent my 21st watching TV and being very depressed. If I had only been a week later I could have said Meatloaf's "I'd Do Anything Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)". Damn.

I've got $10,000 and an hour

I'd say, "Where the hell did my $40,000 go?"

Also, I'd just run down to a bar and get everyone totally wastedhappy drunk.

The oldest thing I own

I have two three cent nickels minted in 1885 and 1887.

Picture 10

When I was a kid my dad owned a building that had at one time been a rogue hospital in our town. When he bought them they were existing as apartments, the tiny waiting rooms made for a comfortable $80/month "studios". It wasn't the official hospital of the town, that was down the street a bit, but it was a hospital of some sort. Amongst the glass pill bottles and jars of decomposed cotton in the basement of the main building was a stash of coins.

I remember when my dad brought them home and poured them on the counter, I didn't even believe them to be real American coins. I'd never seen anything more exotic than a Susan B. Anthony or a WWII era dime. In addition to the three cent nickels, there are silver dollars and half dollars, pennies, buffalo head nickels, and mercury dimes.

I remember having my mom buy me a book that would help me appraise the value of the coins, and it turned out the sum total of the coins to a collector would be about the price of the book.

My weekend plans...

Sale at DWR!? YES! Where the hell is Union City? Oh.

Chairs Chairs CHAIRS

DWR Sale

Best. Commercial. Ever.

Commercial: Hallmark Cards

I'm crying. I have to go home now.

Well Shit Howdy

Hi, Gandhi

New Flickr integration just made my day. Nice job guys.

Earthquake

This morning Amber and I woke to an earthquake near Gilroy. When we realized it was no big deal we both fell back asleep. I had completely forgot about it, and thought it was a dream, until I got into work and saw the item on CNN.

We're completely unprepared for an earthquake: we have about 5 cups of fresh water available at any time, some rice, beer (two brands), a stinking bowl of salad, and some popcorn. Our first night after "the big one" we'll at least be drunk.

New summer goal: get a damn earthquake box in our apartment.

Second summer goal: throw out salad.

Birthday Meme

This more interesting to me than anything. I knew a bit about Ranganathan, but to find out he died on the very day I was born made me more interested in him.

From Mena, the instructions:

1. Go to Wikipedia.
2. In the search box, type your birth month and day (but not year).
3. List three events that happened on your birthday.
4. List two important birthdays and one interesting death.
5. One holiday or observance (if any).

September 27th ¢

Events
1821 - Mexico gains its independence from Spain .
1903 - Wreck of the Old 97 , a train crash made famous by the song of the same name.
1998 - Google is first established

Births
1722 - Samuel Adams , American revolutionary leader (d. 1803 )
1885 - Harry Blackstone, Sr. , American magician (d. 1965 ) (beat out Avril Lavigne)

Death
1972 - S. R. Ranganathan , Indian mathematician and librarian (b. 1892 )

Little Mistakes

What's the one mistake you make over and over on the computer?

Passwords. I don't have keys between all my computers, and so I still type my password in and I have so many committed to memory that I sometimes cycle through them, or usually just type the wrong one (and keep typing it even though my fingers know they're wrong).

But then, when I do, Unix does this thing where it pauses for a few seconds, as if to punish you for wasting its time. When it does that, I close my eyes and wait a second so that when I open them the command prompt is there waiting for me.

Like coming back from the restroom and finding out the waiter has brought the bloomin' onion.

I'm reading (or about to read)...

I'm getting through everything Bill Bryson ever wrote. A few years ago I happened to pick up "A Short History of Nearly Everything" for a trip. I loved it, but then never bothered to see if he had written anything else.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson

It turned out he had written a few "travel" type books that are insanely funny. Most of it is pretty unbelievable, and he sometimes ends up in fortuitous situations that seem a little coaxed. But who cares? It's really funny writing.

If you want to get into Bryson start with "A History of Nearly Everything", and then his trip to Australia called "In a Sunburned Country".

It's pretty light reading, and the audio-books are even easier to get through because he's a good narrator, so it's perfect for the train.

Right now I'm reading "Made In America". It's a pretty good walk through American history from the point of view of a linguist. The nice part is how much history is packed into it.

In it you find out facts about America like history of the restaurant or the influence of American Indian names on our language. How little some cultures provided words and how much others did.

In a Sunburned Country

Bill Bryson

I also have numerous Sci-Fi books that I buy to relive my youth, only to come across the main character using a teletype machine, or something equally stupid and ancient and I find myself hurling the book across the room.

I love Sci-Fi, I hate Sci-Fi that's dated.