gnooks.com

Ah, gnooks.com. The place on the internet for intelligent discussions about fine literature. Like this discussion about Joseph Heller, the author of "Catch 22"

400 Freeware programs.

400 Freeware programs. Some of these I have blogged before. It's missing at least one good program Ardour a freeware multitrack audio recording program. Now if they just organized this list a little it might actually be useful.

What's Your State Beverage?

OK, so everyone knows their state flower and bird ..... right? Well even if you don't, you must know your state beverage. Here's the exec summary from some mildly trustable website....

18 States claim milk as their state beverage (LAME!). NY claimed it first in 1981, so the rest of you states need to find something else.

2 States claim branded soft drinks. Kool-Aid for Nebraska and Moxie for Maine. MOXIE? Are you serious? Have you ever drank that stuff? Holy crap, this one needs to be overturned by the state supreme court. But apparently Maine has a real "sweet" spot for the stuff.

South Carolina claims "South Carolina Grown Tea". Screw the Chinese.

And the winner... the only state that has the balls to claim an alcoholic beverage... Alabama with "Conecuh Ridge Alabama Fine Whiskey". I wonder what Clyde May paid for that?


And if state beverages don't do it for you, maybe you want to look up your official state dirt. NY's is Honeoye.

Victorinox Goes Off the Deep End

Hey, I'm a big fan of the Swiss Army Knife but I think they are starting to go crazy in Switzerland. Apparently normal metal tools jammed into a knife aren't cutting it anymore (har dee har har). So first, Victorinox comes out with the Swiss Memory knife. Basically a normal knife with a usb memory stick jammed in it. These usb memory thingies are showing up everywhere and I have no idea why, since the whole point of the internet was to stop people from having to put files on a piece of plastic to carry around in your pocket. That's another rant entirely. So with the success of the ipod and the apparent ease of putting an mp3 player in anything, Victorinox decided to stick one in a knife. I don't think they sell them yet, but they are on the way. I stumbled across this on the Victorinox website, when I was thinking of getting a new knife to replace my old one of almost 30 years. The old one has had 30 years of wear and still works but it could probably use a sharpening and it's likely that getting the thing sharpened will cost more than a new knife. Welcome to the disposable society. Anyway back to my 30 year old knife. I don't imagine that any mp3 player is going to last me for the next 30 years since electronic gadgets seem to go obsolete in just 3 years. Also couple with the fact that putting a knife on your mp3 player basically makes it impossible for you to use your mp3 player on a plane. I think the ipod has every company going nuts trying to cash in on a piece of the digital music gold rush. I thought decent, 100 year old companies like this were immune to fads but I guess I'm wrong, and yes, I think mp3 players are a fad. Very soon an mp3 player/recorder/radio is just going to be another feature in something else that you already have, and stand-alone mp3 players are going to seem pretty silly. How many of you buy a stand-alone fax machine and a printer and a scanner? Doesn't that sound silly? When I'm camping and I reach for my knife, mp3 player isn't on the top of my list of survival tools. Sorry Victorinox, cute idea but dumb.

From a notebook on my desk.

You're damn right! Pitman Still Rules!! Pitman! Pitman!

Drawing of the week. (Linda, who doesn't actually exist)

Another practice of drawing women's faces. This isn't based on anyone or any photograph it's just a drawing from nothing. I'm not that great at women's faces, and most of them end up looking effeminate men, so I'm practicing. The holy grail of drawing a woman's face is to draw one that is totally bald. The hair is to much of a visual cue and distracts from real female facial features. This one looked pretty good bald so I added hair. I also got sick of naming files like practice_female_portrait_2, so I named this one Linda. The first name that popped into my head.

How to throw out a computer at 811 10th ave. in NY

FYI, here's the procedure in the minimum number of steps ....

1. have the front desk guard buzz you into the building
2. go to the front desk
3. punch, in your key code
4. verify your identity with a hand scan
5. fork over an id
6. sign in
7. get a key
8. get a second card key
9. get an electronic ticket created to let your truck drivers in.
10. have the front desk guard buzz you into the inner door
11. go to the 16th floor
12. get a piece of paper to allow you to get stuff out of the building.
13. have the 16th floor call the loading dock to get the truck drivers on the list
14. go to the loading dock and show them your paperwork
15. get the guard to open the garage door
16. get your truck driver to park at the loading dock
17. get the security guard to operate the loading dock ramp
18. take your truck driver and or movers to go to the front desk
19. have the truck drivers fork over id's at the front desk
20. have the truck drivers sign the book
21. have the front desk buzz you into the inner door again
22. get a hold of the freight operator
23. take the freight elevator to your floor
24. punch in your key code again
25. scan your hand again and go through the first door
26. use your keycard to get through the second door
27. use the internal floor elevator to get your pallet to floor level.
28. use your key to get into your cage
29. get your computer
30. lock your cage
31. take the pallet down the internal floor elevator
32. call the freight elevator
33. itemize the server that you are taking out on yet another piece of paper
34. sign the trucker release form
35. get the guards to verify your inventory
36. have the truckers load the truck
37. get the guard to operate the loading dock ramp
38. get the guard to open the garage door
39. go back to the front desk and hand in your key
40. hand in your key card
41. sign out
42. get your id back
43. run like hell

Commercials Get Philosophical.

I believe it is a Nissan car commercial that currently poses the question. "What if we took a trip and only made left hand turns?" Quite an interesting philosophical question but I believe the answer might be that we'd just keep going around in circles.

Maybe it's just me.

Even Albinos are Complaining about "The Davinci Code".

Michael McGowan, an albino who heads the organization, The National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation, said "The Da Vinci Code" will be the 68th movie since 1960 to feature an evil albino. He said the group aims to use the movie's popularity to raise awareness about the realities of albinism.

I'm waiting for "Otis Day and the Knights" to release a statement that they in no way related to Opus Dei and the Knights Templar. Oh, you make me want to shout.

Apparently the Religious Right Likes Sexually Transmitted Disease.

From cnn.com comes this story.

Synopsis: Religious right groups want to block Merk from getting approval on a vaccine that is "100 percent efficacy in preventing the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, which causes 70 percent of cervical cancer cases".

Why? Because "Gardasil has also shown 100 percent efficacy in preventing the sexually-transmitted viruses that cause 90 percent of vaginal and vulvar lesions in young women, including genital warts...".

And that is a problem because? "Girls as young as 11 could be approved to use the vaccine. But the idea of children that young being inoculated against a sexually transmitted disease is upsetting to many parents and parental groups."

Aren't the kids of religious fanatics supposed to be abstaining from sex anyway?

Hey Crocodile!

This is a test post from Flickr to test changing of templates, but you might as well take a look at the drawing anyway.

A Bunch of Fruits

In many countries in the world you eat what is available. Local cuisine is usually based on what people can get. Seems simple right? Well what if you live in a country where everything is available and plentiful? In the US, you're living in it. As a kid I even remember there being seasonal fruits. Now it doesn't seem like there is such a thing. Anyway, so now you're in this society of plenty and your choice of food is practically unlimited. What do you do? You invent some new restriction on your food to stabilize your gastronomical keel. Behold the The Frutarian! It's the latest random set of food rules to keep your eating choices simple. (Veg-Aquarians, you have been unseated!)

What are the benefits? (you may ask)

"To be a fruitarian is to be free from all forms of cooked food addiction…"

I have to tell you I'm a confessed "cooked food" addict. I can't tell you how many times I've craved a hot meal. Glad I got into the cooked food addicts anonymous program.

"The proper application of fruitarian dietary and lifestyle is calculated to allow the human to produce healthy offspring, live more than 100 years of age...."

They're quoting someone or some institute or something that they don't cite, that did some sort of calculation that they don't specify. But it sure sounds scientific. It must be true.

Oh and it also cures every disease known to mankind including cancer, AIDS, Hepatites C and gangrene.

Unfortunately they don't name all the benefits of only eating fruit. Namely, vitamin deficiency and diarrhea.

Add this to the list of other random sets of food rules to help you organize your life.

My personal random food rule is not to eat any food that is masquerading as another food. Yeah, I'm looking at you tofu hotdog!

Drawing of the week (#118 Doc Aquatic).

Another drawing I did for the 700 Hoboes project. Doc Aquatic is one of the cleanest hoboes you'll ever meet. Though that's not saying much.

Update: Found some pictures of real hoboes for reference.

It's the First of May!

Time for an appropriate Jonathan Coulton song First of May.

Bruce Springsteen on Hurricane Katrina.

Over the weekend, (8 months after the fact) Bruce Springsteen releases his findings on Hurricane Kartina, calling the FEMA response to the hurricane "criminal ineptitude". Next week it is expected that he will reveal that there may have been some intelligence failures by the government prior to 9/11. (This is a CNN top story)

By the way, Bruce is looking alot like "The Edge" recently.