Liloia.com

New Resealable Bag!

The crew socks I bought this week inexplicably came in a resealable plastic bag. To keep them fresh? For people who remove a single pair and store the other five? To prevent freezer burn?

I think if you figure out the sweat socks in a ziploc reasoning, you've pretty much dug into the heart of all the problems with contemporary American society.

Because we can.

Honestly...

Working for the man is a dying ideology.

She didn't Cry

A few weeks ago, I went to the hospital with a friend to visit his father. There are few things that make us more vulnerable than visiting a parent in the hospital. This figure, formerly was perfect in our minds becomes frail and weak. By definition we are reduced to the same and our mortality hits us like a ton of bricks. I cherished the time, and respect him for sharing this with me. He could have just as easily asked me to wait in the lobby, or somewhere else while he stopped by.

After the visit we were scheduled to make a sales call on one of his customers nearby. The customer was still in a meeting, so we killed five minutes by grabbing a coffee and sitting in the courtyard outside the hospital. The area we settled was a smoking section, so he could light up while we drank our coffee.

Sitting inside or outside of a hospital is an excellent place to watch people. Malls
are also prime locations to monitor the human race, and are especially so while one is unemployed, but that is for another time. While we sat I was able to peek into a few peoples lives.

Two orderlies came out. Punk girls, whose individuality was barely contained by their bright pink hospital issued scrubs. The double layer of their conformity made me chuckle as I watched these two burn through cigarette after cigarette. First was the hospital garb, which their friends outside of work would probably mock them about endlessly. Below that was their tenuous grasp on their hardcore roots, while still "getting a real job". Black dyed hair, stretched lobes, tats, piercings and pasty skin made me love them and ponder them at the same time. I love the look, there is nothing better. Although, is it more punk to be punk or not to be punk and be ok with not being part of someone else’s category? Whatever. They were hot, so for now I will let it slide.

Then a husband and wife came out of the hospital. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them, as their sadness bore a hole through me. It was palpable as they walked past. The man was huge, probably a football player in high school although now he was just a broken man. He wore a grey t-shirt and wrinkled shorts with sneakers. No socks. The woman was petite, with light brown hair thrown into a ponytail. Some pieces of hair had escaped the elastic and stuck out in odd places around the crown of her head without notice. She was wearing a grey t-shirt and grey jogging pants. No socks.

When something urgent occurs, socks are one of the first things people are willing to let slide. Think about it. Have you ever had to run out of the house, had a fire drill, taken someone to the hospital. I bet you $5 that socks stayed in the drawer.

The color of their clothes couldn't have been more appropriate. I am sure that they didn't take the time to determine if the wrinkled clothes denoted the right "look and feel" for sorrow, but ironically they did.

He carried a clear plastic bag. Inside the bag was a pair of small shoes, a red t-shirt and blue shorts. When you take someone to the emergency room, and they require urgent attention or admission this is standard. The nurses and orderlies peel or cut off the patient's clothes, empty pockets and remove jewelry. All of this is stuffed into a clear plastic bag and either saved, or handed to the family. The bag is clear so that hospital employees can see everything inside. It's a safety issue. They do a similar thing to employees at some of the larger department stores. The women can only have clear purses so they can make sure nothing 'walk' out of the store.

The size of the clothes meant a kid was inside. She carried a diaper bag, so the kid was little, probably younger than 3 years old. At this point I stopped to think about Trevor. Was he safe? I don’t pray often, but the universe got a few words out of me then.

She sat on the picnic table bench, while he sat on the table itself. They both chain smoked from the same pack. I don’t think that either of them smoked much before this, but that didn’t matter right now. The Marlboro man himself couldn’t step in and question their grief. A few short phone calls were made, after which they sat in silence. He sobbed into his palm the entire time they were out there. She didn’t cry.

I have to assume that the child was still alive, in some kind of intensive care or emergency unit. I can't imagine that they would stay at the hospital if something more dire had happened. Thankfully I haven't had to make that decision, and I hope not to anytime soon.

My thoughts go out to them.

Found on Google News this morning

Well, I guess that's one way to express your displeasure toward the music industry:

Click image for larger version

And it's in the article as well:

Click image for larger version

Homework: Plan dinner for your family

Tonight's dinner/dessert choices, courtesy of Trevor:
1. Spaghetti     1. Peaches
2. Broccoli     2. Ice cream
3. Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup     3. Pudding

Anna's Taqueria

The other night I had dinner with Adam and Roseanne for 3 bucks at Anna's Taqueria. Cheap and yummy.

SP2, I never want to see your ugly face around here again.

By Tara "I am not a sysadmin, but computers fear me" Liloia

Two weeks ago, Windows XP Service Pack 2 pillaged my computer. Inexplicably, innocent programs started disappearing in the middle of the night. First Calculator. Calculator is a simple guy; he stays out of most things controversial. But he had an enemy and that enemy was called SP2. I have to admit, I didn't notice Calculator was gone for a few days. I just don't, uh... calculate... all that often.

Next, Paint was brutally ripped from her home in Accessories. I noticed her absence when starting GIF Creator and it screamed that Paint was gone. Poor much-maligned Paint. Frail grandmother to my beloved Photoshop.

Finally, Internet Explorer -- that bastion of Web surfing -- quietly slipped off the desktop and Quick Launch bar. That I noticed. Immediately. Panic ensued. Of course I have other browsers, but surfing with Opera is like watching a guy with a pegleg climb stairs. Mozilla and my Webmail like to elope to a bright blue vacation getaway called Fatal Error each time they meet.

I hunted through my Program Files. How could applications just up and leave? Was it something I said? I found a promising looking icon called IEXPLORE(2). It was a browser all right -- just missing a chromosome or two. I'm still not sure what Compatibility Mode is, but let's just say if "Compatibility" means "It Don't Work and Microsoft Employees Worldwide are Laughing at You," then it sure was "Compatible."

I tried a lot of things over the last couple of weeks: Restore Points, disabling parts of SP2, offering sacrifices to ancient Mayan gods. Nothing helped. Finally, this morning, I took a few hours and uninstalled the entire Service Pack, installed some older applications and configured until we were back with a satisfactorily working machine. Unfortunately, this really just delays the inevitable, since Microsoft is going to push the update to all XP machines in 2005, but, for now, Sadie is stable once again.

Want to guess the very first thing Windows did after uninstalling SP2?

It downloaded SP2.

A-Rod is A rod.

$1.88 Continued

Ok, let me extrapolate on what Tara has said here.

This also applies to when Dave says "How much were the groceries?"

And Tara says "oh, it was like 60"

but what she really means is, it was 79 dollars she dropped the 9 bucks and rounded down the 7 to a 6. This also applies to Pier One, Starbucks, Michaels Craft Store, The mall...

How's this for annoying?

Windows XP SP2 made Calculator, Paint and Internet Explorer disappear.

Ah, Microsoft. Erasing your hold over the browser market, one SP update at a time...

I just spent an hour getting cream cheese out of a tube

Normally in the morning, I stop by the local greasy spoon to grab a coffee and some breakfast. This morning there was a sign on the door which read:

"Due to a sudden death in the family, The Hidden Kitchen will be closed Thursday, September 30th."

That stinks. Not only did they lose a family member, but now I have to drink the bad office coffee. It actually isn't that bad, as long as I drink the coffee that Torrey and I have, that stuff is at least halfway decent. We have a coffee pot that has been handed down from office dweller to office dweller. Each time someone gets promoted to another location or out into the field, it is left behind. Like the unwanted children from a failed marriage it stays behind waiting for the next adoptive parent. The fabric covered walls of the cube it sits in serve as a makeshift foster home for this device. Regardless of its lineage, the coffee is good and strong.

The crap which is available in the cafeteria tastes like the watered down cappuccino's I used to get at the Quick Stop near Tara's parents house in the Winter. There was a reason they were only 89 cents for about half a gallon of caffeinated liquid. At the time, they were salvation against the cold interior of my 1986 Pontiac 6000. Even though the heat worked, there were always spots that stayed cold. The thin paper/plastic (does anyone really know what they are made of?) let enough heat through to keep my fingers warm on the rides back to school or home.

I grudgingly turned around and walked back to the office wondering what I was going to eat in lieu of my traditional eggs in the morning.

This past summer, my company added some new vending machines. One of them holds ice cream, some bad looking lunches and a few breakfast items. I nabbed a frozen cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese and started opening it. The bagel was popped into the microwave to warm up. While I waited, I grabbed a plate and knife. Then I realized something. The cream cheese was frozen, and in a metal foil package to boot. This meant that I couldn't defrost it in the microwave without starting a fire.

What genius thought this up? On the package there are no instructions that the cream cheese should not be warmed with the bagel. Knowing that people like my father exist in the universe gives me satisfaction. I revel in knowing that the bagel purveyors technical support line is plagued with microwave fires on a daily basis.

Don't misunderstand; my father is a good guy, well meaning and all. The microwave oven was not properly rolled out to the masses in its introduction to the oven loving suburbs, and thus caused many problems. I think my dad must have put two or three foil wrapped potatoes into microwaves, and ruined just as many before it sunk in. Metal, bad. Metal, bad.

This also should include the few coffee mugs which were detailed on the top edge with a bronze band of metal, from which sparks flew. It's a damn good thing he is a good salesman and kept winning the stinking things and keeping them in the basement. My family went through more microwaves than most families went through cartons of milk for a while there. Fun fun.

Having learned from his mistakes, I did not attempt to include this creamy packet with the currently rotating bagel. Having outsmarted the device, I stood smugly waiting for my bagel until I remembered that the cream cheese was still frozen solid. At first I thought I could open the package all the way and place the cream cheese onto a separate plate for warming outside of the foil. This proved fruitless as the foil wrapper was more durable than my strength could handle. (Mental note - The day a package of cream cheese beats me in an arm wrestle is the day I decide to start working out)

Next I tried to take the already open corner and squeeze the frozen mass out, without thawing. Square peg, round hole and a moment later Dave thinks better of it. In the end I placed the cream cheese across my coffee mug like an aluminum ant bridge. The steam from the coffee warmed it up in about 15 minutes at which point I was able to force it out of the tube.

Did I overcome this puzzle with intellect and logic, or was I less than average and stumped by this simple packaging longer that I should have been? I would like to think that the first statement is more accurate, but without validation from my peers it is uncertain. Therefore I write this in the hope that I will either be chided or praised for my efforts. Either way is cool, whatever dude.

Puzzle Fun

This is in German but all you need to do is identify 3 things that are
different in each pic.

Find Three Things wrong in the picture

$1.88

I'll buy anything for $1.88. Chewed gum, odd-lot dreidels with Chinese characters instead of Hebrew, a plastic baggie full of cat hair, a John Tesh CD. It's my magical marketing number—my brain disregards the dollar and rounds the 88 cents down to zero. I'll buy sixty-four "free" things for $1.88 before I start to realize there's something amiss...

Gmail Updates?

Did Gmail change their UI again this morning? I had just become used to "Move to Trash" at the top of the dropdown from last week's change. Today, I navigated without reading and managed to mark all of my spam read instead of deleting it. "Move to Trash" isn't at the top of the list anymore.

Just me?

Arngren

This is the best website ever.

http://arngren.net/

The page takes a long time to load, but as each element appears, another magical layer reveals itself.

This site is like the candy bowl at grandma's house (the good grandma, not the one with the dusty ribbon candy from Christmas 1954); each time you delve in, you come up with a colorful little morsel of mystery.

I'm going to redo Liloia.com with this CSS -- I'll even keep the Dutch.

Howard Dean - Yahoo Ad

This is awesome. Thanks to Clay for passing it along

Howard Dean - Yahoo Local Ad

BTW

If anyone has a car they were looking to give away or an unlimited bus pass to Vermont, I'll do just about anything.

No livestock.

I love the bus

Yeah, I am taking the bus again from Vermont. The car died for good this time and won't be coming back. Anyway, people on the bus are freaks. Everyone has their own strange story. This time there was an older woman from California driving cross country who wanted to chat with me the whole time.

Thankfully, she fell asleep and when she woke up an old man took the seat next to her. For the rest of the trip they debated the following issue:

"Who is more powerful, God or Jesus Christ?"

Wow. I see a Harvard lecture series coming up on this.

Simply Tracy

The other night at the Cake show, I had to play nice guy Eddie and it resulted in a creepy experience for Adam and I.

While hanging out in the lobby drinking our beers, a woman next to me dropped a few dollars out of her pocket. Being the boy scout that I am sometimes, I tapped her on the shoulder and let her know about the lost currency.

Mistake.

As she turned towards my tap and opened her mouth, both Adam and I knew we were in trouble. First clue was the female feathered 1980's mullet. Bright red with more feathers than the NBC peakock it was a fascinating sight.

Next was her speech. It was slurred as if she had been drinking although she insisted that she hadn't. In fact, it was part of the reason that she dropped her money. She claimed that she had forgotten her license on her desk at home when ordering the tickets, so she couldn't buy beer.

Some thoughts:
- She was clearly above the legal drinking age (possibly mid-40's)
- The concert was sold out weeks ago. Has she been walking around without it for that long?
- Either she was already drunk, or just plain crazy.

Anyway, the story about her license led into a request for one of us to get her a beer. During this split second I thought to myself.....either I can wait in a long beer line or stay and talk to Tracy. I was on the beer line two seconds later.

While I was gone, she apparently told Adam that she was the hottest thing on the club scene in Providence, RI and that if he walked into any bar and asked about 'Simply Tracy' he would hear all about her. I bet he would.

Then she started singing a song that she had written on the way to Boston called "Even Generals Cry". Here is a blurry picture of Adam wincing as she sings creepy lyrics into his ear.

Thankfully the house lights started to blink, signalling the begining of the show. As we parted ways, Tracy suggested that we hang out after the show. "Sounds great!" we shouted, runnning up the stairs in fear. We left the show the moment Cake ended their encore but before the masses got up. And we ran.

IMterruption

Is defined as being in the middle of typing something on your computer when an instant message window pops up, thus stealing the text you have just typed and at the same time confusing the person who sent the original instant message.

i.e. -
IMdave: Hi!
IMtara: if (!string) return false;
IMdave: what?
IMtara: crap, that was for something else.
IMdave: oops, sorry!

Kind of like that.

If this is Monday, this must be Vermont.

I've been having a problem lately where I wake up and I can't remember where I am. It's disorienting... which is just a word that doesn't do the feeling justice. It's terrifying to wake up without any idea how you got there. That's why so many horror movies have a scene like that.

It started happening when I visited Dave and Trevor in Boston while living in Vermont. I'd wake up in my own bed and think I was in New Jersey, even though I hadn't lived there in years. One morning, in the new apartment, I thought I was in Wisconsin and tried to remember what grad school classes I had in the morning. Am I moving too often?

The word terror...

has begun to lose it's meaning. Do you think the Republicans have an organized plan to keep America in fear? Watch this and see for yourself.

RNC - Terror A Go GO

Cake

Tonight Adam and I went to the Orpheum theater in Boston to see one of the best bands in the entire universe, CAKE.

As always, Cake put on a fantastic show and threw in a little social commentary along the way.

John McCrae "Cake firmly believes that there is no hope for the future, so you might as well have a great today"

The opening band, an all female copycat of the Beastie Boys called 'Northern State" was entertaining, but in the long run merely frustrating.

The Cake set ran from their new song "No phone" all the way back to a bunch of great songs from their first album "Motorcade of Generosity" including; You Part the Waters, Haze of Love, Is This Love and How Do You Afford Your Rock and Roll Lifestyle.

They also threw in:

- Stickshifts and Safety Belts
- The Distance
- Daria
- Never There
- Sheep go to Heaven
- Comfort Eagle
- Wheels
- No phone
- Carbon Monoxide
- Comanche
and some others that I can't remember now.

And ended with "I will survive" which is by far the best remake of this classic 70's hit which is probably better known than the original.

Awesome show.

The best question this week.

ME: "...I work for Howard Dean."
GUY: "Oh yeah? I've heard of Howard Dean. What do they make again?"

Back in Boston

I made it down to Boston this morning at 6:40AM. While that was great, and I beat most (not all) of the traffic on my way down - I still had to get up at 3AM to do this. Thankfully, the early morning drive only has to occur once a week. I don't think I could do it if I had to run down 89 two or more times a week.

The car is running much better, oil still burns but that is acceptable. I haven't started looking for a job in Vermont, for a number of reasons even though all of my friends are in shock and think that I should be doing everything possible to stay with Tara in VT.

That's it for now. Haven't written in a while, but I am constantly thinking of posts. There just doesn't seem to be as much time in the day.