May, 1, 2001 archives

there's nothing quite like a sonic boom from a space shuttle landing to serve as a wake-up call. (actually, i was already waking up, but it served to prevent me from going back to sleep to figure out what the heck had happened.)

my next computer is so going to be an apple. the new ibook looks sweet. (and, of course, the powerbook g4 is awesome, too.)

ah, the shame of being minnesotan. what a crackpot. (belief in reincarnation is un-christian? can someone remind me what easter celebrates, again?) i do find it terribly humorous that the dalai lama will be meeting with jesse 'the body' ventura, though.

today's trick: homemade pasta. i don't know anything about making pasta from scratch. i don't recall my mom ever doing it, either. today's lesson learned: make sure the well you make in the flour to crack the eggs into is large enough to hold all of the eggs.

i haven't cooked it yet. the water is boiling now.

needless to say, this $130 pasta machine probably would have made things easier. a real drying rack would probably be good, too. (that's a wine rack doing double-duty up there.)

and coupled with that "minnesotan shame" i mentioned before, don't forget the occasional shame of being an american. (via mefi.)

here's a quite well-written story about a programmer's experience at a silly dotcom/software company. the lesson that i (and apparently the author of this piece) learned is: don't work too hard.

(and on a slight tangent, i'm beginning to not see any value to a company going public. it just seems to create an absurd pressure for growth.)

suv vs. minivan. how about a car? "aspirational vehicles"? gimme a break. (15 miles per gallon? someone needs to double the price of consumer gas immediately.)

i've moved on to my third shelf of cds in my cd-ripping quest. 85 artists, 168 albums, 2242 songs, 8.5 gigs.

this includes the brand-new album from marillion, anoraknaphobia. i've only listened to it once, so it is early to render a verdict, but nothing really grabbed me on that first listen, except for a few bits of songs here and there (particular some of the bass lines). because i pre-ordered the album (along with 12,000 others -- providing the funding for the band to record it), i got the special packaging and bonus disc. (but i didn't order early enough to get listed in the credits.)

i have a feeling we'll be reading about this for the next couple of weeks. (let me be clear -- the microsoft guys are obviously just spreading their usual fud. but the amount of coverage that will pass before my eyes on this will be mind-numbing.)