[imaginary conversation] "So do you

[imaginary conversation]

“So do you want the job?”

“Yhea I want cheezy poofs.”

I was sitting at the Whataburger contemplating the signage. (Apparently the government of the state of Texas has seen fit to declare Whataburger a Texas Treasure.) I was listening to some postal workers lament their jobs, and another guy talking about how hard architecture is and how much school he has to go to to keep on top of it. I had been cutting and pasting the conversations together in my head hoping for an amusing anecdote about mail delivery and architecture. Then my phone rang and I answered it.

I get back from Austin

I get back from Austin and I am impressed to see that cool new stuff has come out for OS X and Bloggger. [email protected] has written an AppleScript based blog publishing tool for all us OS X 10.1 users. It’s a very clean implementation. Basically BlogScript will post, or post and publish, whatever you have sitting in your clipboard. Just throw something into the clipboard and then select BlogScript from the AppleScript menu that you can put in the top menu bar.

How many times have you

How many times have you had to listen to the obnoxious people scream “Free Bird” when you go to see a band? Chances are it’s every time you’ve seen a band. How many times does the band ever play the song? NEVER, unless it’s Lynyrd Skynyrd or Built to Spill. Yes, they closed out the night and their tour with a cover of “Free Bird.” They’ve done this before apparently. This was after they played a cover of Cheap Trick’s Dream Police and a few other covers in their set. I enjoyed their performance but I would have chosen a different set.

Alone with Leia I feel

Alone with Leia I feel a peace and clarity that I haven’t felt with a person before. I’ve only felt it alone in the wilderness. Before I had always thought of my relationships with people as engines of chaos and the wilderness provided an ordered refuge as needed. I had never thought a person could provide that tranquility. Why haven’t I found someone like that before? Why now? I certainly could have used that calmness during my tumultuous early 20s.

Yeehaw, I went to the

Yeehaw, I went to the Texas State Fair last night. I went with Amanda, Karen, Leia, and Mark. I confronted my fear of heights and took the ferris wheel full-on. However, I have to say the best ride at the fair was free.

At random times you could be walking along and a panic would overtake the crowd. They would start stampeding, screaming and pushing people in front of them out of the way. The stampedes would start small, with a few people, and then grow like an avalanche coming down a mountain. The first time it happened I felt the adrenaline kick in hard. I think if I hadn’t tried so hard to maintain my composure I would have gone with the crowd. The second and third times were good but not as intense. This is despite the fact that in the second one it caught me by surprise as it started out with people pushing into me from behind. Each swell only lasted about 15-30 seconds. I wonder what makes crowds of people behave like that?

Just installed OS X 10.1

Just installed OS X 10.1 on my Cube and it is sweet. Everything is a great deal faster. It has the new version of IE for OS X which is monumentally faster. The application menus are actually usable now and display immediately when clicked on. Also I now have DVD playback and this is the best playback I’ve had on any platform. I’m writing this as War Wagon is playing in a window. I’ve never had such clean and fluid DVD playback in a window under OS 9 or Windows 9x, especially while I use other applications. The finder windows pop open and they’ve made the column view even more usable. At the bottom of each column is a thumb that you can use to resize them, why just yesterday I was lamenting the fact that I couldn’t widen them easily and now I can!

The latest from mind control

The latest from mind control central is that lawyers are using neurolinguistic programming (NLP) to tamper with juries. Thanks to Mike at perpetualbeta.com for clueing me into this. I’ve known about NLP since Chris enlightened way back in 1995. Back then I only knew about its use in advertising. It’s interesting to see how it has spread. Advertising still has it’s own problems aside from NLP.

6-1-01 (Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville,

6-1-01 (Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama)

It all started out so simply when I said “I’m hungry let’s grab something to eat”

I didn’t expect Michael to say “Well, we could get free food from the hospital tonight.”

Gears started turning in my head, “Ooh, you know C. is working there tonight. I could surprise her.”

Getting the free meal was going to involve some trickery and deception. The catch to the free food was that it was for employees only. It was part of some employee appreciation thing that the hospital had set up. As I’m not an employee that meant I would have to crash it by impersonating an employee. Michael and I began a basic boot camp wherein I got a crash course in hospital lingo, who the executives were, and which mythical part of the hospital I worked in. I had the cyanide pills ready should I get caught inside the enemy base. Before setting out I donned the enemies clothes. I was wearing one of Michael’s Huntsville Hospital employee appreciation shirts. We were off to the front.

It's time for the real

It’s time for the real story about the DFWblog happy hour. I’ve been reading all these gushy entries about how everyone enjoyed it. Survived it is more like it. I was there and I must recant even my own previous entry about said event.

19:00 I arrived at the New Amsterdam with Andy, Dave, Erica, and Mark. As the saying goes “Confidence is high.” We were all looking forward to seeing members of our dfwblog tribe.

I had a blast meeting

I had a blast meeting so many dfwbloggers tonight. I was pleasantly surprised that they decided not to pelt me with small pickles and rotten tomatoes for the whole blogchecking thing I wrote. That Josh guy is just about one of the funniest guys I’ve been around in a long time. Although at times I couldn’t tell if he was being honest or sarcastic. He’s got Built to Spill on his calendar so maybe I’ll get to see him again this Sunday. He sort of vanished later so I hope he made it home okay. Also consider me pleasantly surprised that Karen was slumming with her dfwblog friends. I could enumerate all the people that were there but they are listed on dfwblogs.com except for Gary.