GirlHacker's Random Log

almost daily since 1999

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

 

It’s been a while since we took a look at “amusing NY Times movie review ratings descriptions.” Here’s this month’s batch:

“The Last Mimzy” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). It has a thimbleful of strong language and a bucketful of New Age ideas.

“TMNT” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). It has toothy monsters, scary female body images and ferociously ripped reptiles.

“Memory” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has strip poker, mild violence and a terrifying lack of logic.

“Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has slashing, bashing, baring and scaring.

“Shooter” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Did I mention the exploding heads?

Written by ltao

March 23rd, 2007 at 4:54 am

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Nostalgia Friday (don’t worry, it’s not music videos this time), prompted by Jason Kottke’s link to Marc Hedlund’s comment: “One of my favorite business model suggestions for entrepreneurs is, find an old UNIX command that hasn’t yet been implemented on the web, and fix that.”

  • Unix fortune: the quote generator, for when you need inspiration or diversion (but not really divination, despite its Chinese fortune cookie roots).
  • Unix ching: the I Ching fortune teller, for when you require guidance and unbiased advice. My favorite was “care of the cow brings good fortune“.
  • The Usenet Oracle: rec.humor.oracle was a Usenet humor group disguised as an advice columnist. It was actually multiple advice columnists who demanded odd offerings for their sage words.

Written by ltao

March 23rd, 2007 at 3:57 am

Posted in Uncategorized

 

A costume David Bowie wore at his final Ziggy Stardust performances is going on the auction block at Christie’s. The April 26st auction of rock memorabilia will include the blue with red & orange flames Ziggy Stardust leotard.

Written by ltao

March 22nd, 2007 at 6:05 am

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Ever left your keys behind somewhere? Or maybe you left your cell phone on someone else’s desk at work? That’s OK. Someone, probably not you, left their car, yes their car, on the Kingston-to-Edmonds ferry yesterday morning. The forgetful owner eventually showed up. The police were of course called to look the vehicle over.

Written by ltao

March 22nd, 2007 at 5:01 am

Posted in Uncategorized

 

I didn’t intend to take an entire week off from here, but it worked out that way for various reasons. Being a parent certainly keeps life interesting. For now I have a few tidbits to share:

Orders for the new Buffy comic (Season 8) have exceeded the first printing of 100,000. A second printing is coming.

I thought Jasper Fforde was done with Tuesday Next, but a new sequel arrives in July.

The L.A. Times details the trail of a thief who stole two violins from the house of a Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist on December 23rd. He flew to Europe with his dog intending to sell the violins and live off his profits. Dealers in a Paris violin shop, suspicious of this guy’s story, checked the Internet and found the instruments had been stolen.

Written by ltao

March 21st, 2007 at 4:52 am

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Administrative Goings-On: After briefly investigating other blogging software, I realized I don’t have time right now to learn how to manage a different tool. So I bit the bullet and upgraded to the new version of Blogger. I’ve also decided to give FeedBurner a whirl. Redirects are in place to make the RSS changes (hopefully) seamless so no action is needed from you. My RSS file has changed to index.xml. The previous index.rdf has a permanent redirect to index.xml. index.xml does a temp redirect to the FeedBurner feed (which in turn is actually reading from the feed file that Blogger generates). If you see any problems, email me.

Written by ltao

March 21st, 2007 at 1:08 am

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Spring’s around the corner which means it’s bulk Zoo Doo time at the Woodland Park Zoo. Those who want to get in the lottery for purchasing Doo in bulk or the new offering of Bedspread (a composted mulch) can send a postcard in for the random drawing.

Written by ltao

March 13th, 2007 at 6:29 am

Posted in Uncategorized

 

The Denver Post fine arts critic notes that a half-dozen young female violinists are poised to bring balance to the male-dominated world of solo violinists. Female violinists have achieved fame in the classical music world before, but this up-and-coming group of mostly 20-somethings illustrates the changing demographic in the field. “Women have made up at least half of the violin students in music schools for at least 15 years.” And they are going on to success at the highest levels of achievement. Kids entering music as a profession no longer feel it’s a man’s world. I’d like to see a gender comparison of salaries for professional musicians.

Written by ltao

March 13th, 2007 at 6:11 am

Posted in Uncategorized

 

WA is running out of license plate numbers. “State Licensing Department spokesman Brad Benfield says Washington is about two years away from running out of all configurations of letters and numbers in the current system” (AAA-000 through ZZZ-999). A decision on the replacement scheme will be announced in a couple months.

Written by ltao

March 12th, 2007 at 3:50 am

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Lush opened this weekend in Seattle’s Westlake Center. (And as an Eastside resident I must point out that we had it here in Bellevue first.)

Written by ltao

March 12th, 2007 at 3:42 am

Posted in Uncategorized