Project Insomnia

The Mercury News business section includes this article about Cold Stone Creamery and how they're moving up in Entrepreneur magazine's list of fastest growing franchises.

Cold Stone attracts customers by offering a twist on conventional ice cream cones and cups: custom-mixing premium ice cream with a choice of edible frills including marshmallows, coconut flakes, Gummi Bears, M&M's, pistachios, bananas or bits of Kit Kat and Snickers bars. The ingredients are swirled together atop a refrigerated granite slab -- the ``cold stone.''

First-timer Ginny Cullen, a real estate agent from Morgan Hill who visited a Cold Stone Creamery last week, opted for chunks of pecans mixed in to a heaping serving of butter pecan ice cream.

``I didn't know they did all this,'' Cullen said between bites one recent afternoon at a Cold Stone outlet at Westfield Shoppingtown Oakridge mall in San Jose. ``With the quality and everything they do, I will be a repeat customer.''

Something I didn't know until today was that Cold Stone was not the first to use the "cold stone" concept – Marble Slab came first. I wonder about the history there.

Nice to see a story about the San Francisco Zoo that doesn't involve the death of an animal – with two elephants and a gorilla, it's been a hard couple of months for them. Today, The Chronicle's Patricia Yollin relates the story of the zoo's 4 giraffes moving to their new habitat, the 3-acre "African Savanna".

As the giraffe move began, zoo veterinarian Jacqueline Jencek said any number of things could go wrong. For example, a giraffe could slip and fall, hurting its head or breaking its leg, or a human could be kicked.

"The larger the animal, the more challenging and worrisome the move," she said. "There's some adrenaline going on today. It's quite dangerous what we're doing."

The article features a couple of pictures of the giraffes checking out their new home.

You can now declare your opposition to four more years of chimpitude by purchasing a variety of "No-Brainer!" logo products from CafePress. Many thanks to Shawn Crosby for the fantastic design!
I've added $2.00 to the base price of each item; that amount will be donated to the Kerry "He's Not Bush" campaign.

My distinguished former employer has added my personal email addresses to their spam list. This makes things rather difficult since I have unfinished business with them. I guess I can't be shocked by the impersonal corporate mindset anymore, but this goes beyond that; someone had to add these addresses to the corporate spam list, ensuring that my messages—sent for a legitimate business purpose—will be routed to the recipient's spam folder.
Unbelievable.

Former (and future?) Giant Andres "Big Cat" Galarraga says he's overcome a second bout with cancer and is ready to play in the bigs again.

Beaming and looking healthy at a news conference, the 42-year-old Galarraga said wants to get back to the majors so he can reach 400 home runs. In 18 seasons, Galarraga has 398 homers. The first baseman known as "The Big Cat" hit .301 last season with 12 home runs and 42 RBIs for the San Francisco Giants. He also played for Montreal, St. Louis, Colorado, Atlanta and Texas during his career.

"I will play for anyone to get the home runs I need to reach 400," he said.

Hmm... JT Snow is out for knee surgery, and San Francisco needs a power hitter...

Sometimes you have to go with instinct.
At the store on Sunday, while walking across the lot to Safeway to get my usual lunch (soup from the soup bar, sourdough roll, single-serve bottle of apple juice) I was approached by a woman asking for money for food. As usual, I politely declined without giving it much thought.
A few minutes later, while ladling out my soup into the to-go container, I had a second thought. After glancing out the door to see if she was still there, I dished up a second container of soup and then picked up an extra roll and juice. I went through the self-checkout line and bagged the two meals separately. When finished, I looked at the receipt and noted that the total was around $6 or $7--less even than a meal at an inexpensive sit-down restaurant like Taxi's.
I left the store, found the woman in the parking lot, and handed her one of the bags.
The look on her face was more than payment enough for the food.

c|net News.com is reporting that Microsoft will begin producing a version of Windows for "high performance" supercomputers, such as those running at Lawrence Livermore.

High-performance computing once required massive, expensive, exotic machines from companies such as Cray, but the field is being remade by the arrival of clusters of low-end machines. While the trend could be considered an opportunity for Microsoft, which has long been the leading operating-system company, Linux has actually become the favored software used on these clusters.

Now Microsoft has begun its response, forming its High Performance Computing team and planning a new OS version called Windows Server HPC Edition. Kyril Faenov is director of the effort, and Microsoft is hiring new managers, programmers, testers and others.

Am I the only one who remembers Microsoft's foray into pen computing in the late 80s/early 90s? They produced a barely-working version of Windows 3.1 with pen input features for the sole purpose of driving startup GO out of the market and out of business. Once done, the initiative was quietly abandoned. In this case, though, these high-performance clustered machines are quite happily running various flavors of Unix and/or Linux, and I can't imagine the engineers responsible for these machines deigning to let Microsoft crash (yes) the party.

Chip off the old block: A 6-week-old Asiatic lion cub makes his public debut with Dad at Chessington World of Adventure in Surrey, England.
(What would I do without SFGate's Day in Pictures?)

Cameroon has arrested a Nigerian woman who was found carrying more than 200 dead parrots, a customs official said on Tuesday. An attorney who will be handling the woman's defense said they will most likely take an approach long known in British law circles: "They're not dead! They're just sleeping!"
(David Parrish/TopFive's Current Events)

To: The bastard who somehow obtained my check card number and used it for a shopping spree in SoCal over the weekend
From: Me
Message: Thanks for once again proving to me what a terrific bank I use. They've already put the money back into my account, and since you only had the number and not the actual card, the stupid retailers who let you charge with just a card number are going to eat the charges.
Oh, and I hope you die.

Glenn Dickey says the Giants should prepare for a big purge, and pretty soon.

In the recent past, Giants general manager Brian Sabean has done a good job of strengthening the team with midseason acquisitions but that's unlikely this year because the Giants need too much help, and they need it right now.

"Realistically, trades don't get made in April and May," Sabean said. "We're evaluating our team right now, and the first thing we're doing is internally, to give players who haven't played much a chance to see what they can do."

The article briefly profiles several promising Triple-A players who may appear in the lineup later this season.

Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, recently gave this commencement speech to graduates at his alma mater, William & Mary College.

I am honored to be here, I do have a confession to make before we get going that I should explain very quickly. When I am not on television, this is actually how I dress. I apologize, but there’s something very freeing about it. I congratulate the students for being able to walk even a half a mile in this non-breathable fabric in the Williamsburg heat. I am sure the environment that now exists under your robes, are the same conditions that primordial life began on this earth.

I know there were some parents that were concerned about my speech here tonight, and I want to assure you that you will not hear any language that is not common at, say, a dock workers union meeting, or Tourrett’s convention, or profanity seminar. Rest assured.

I attended one of Rita's many graduations some years ago, where the guest speaker was former Texas governor Ann Richards. Ms. Richards had just been defeated, in a rather ugly campaign, by future one-and-out President George W. Bush. This has nothing really to do with Jon Stewart giving an address at William & Mary, but it's customary to try to relate these links to personal experience, even if it's a stretch.

Cursor-B-Gone!
(Flash)

Ever wanted to know what that bloke meant when he called you a bloody pillock? Well, now you can find out. Hours of nattering entertainment.

Glenn Dickey of The Chronicle is the latest to call for Barry Bonds to bat 3rd, adding his voice to a number of others.

The reason for the change is less to protect Bonds than to maximize the offense for the top part of the lineup. The Giants have to get production from the top five spots because they have three weak spots in the bottom of the order, including the pitcher. Neither of the Giants' shortstops, Neifi Perez and Deivi Cruz, hits enough to be anything but a reserve, and the same is true of the three mediocrities the Giants shuffle in the outfield.

Perhaps the truly embarrassing weekend sweep by the Pirates will be enough to motivate some change in the lineup.

This AP story (via SFGate) tells about small, family-owned California dairies where

farmers add new twists to old traditions, or create California originals with local flavors. Many welcome visitors for a tasting, sometimes within view of the cows that produced the milk.

"California cheese is where wine was in the 1970s," said Nancy Fletcher of the California Milk Advisory Board. "It's really gaining recognition for its quality."

The article closes with an extensive list of cheesemakers.
All of which reminds me, I need to buy a lottery ticket tonight. If I won, I could afford all this cheese...

We got a little turned around this morning. Instead of hiking through the redwoods, we played at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. I'd never been there and Jen hadn't in some years. We both had a good time, though I waited for her as she rode the Giant Dipper coaster, and she waited for me as I walked through "Fright Walk", a Scary Farm-style spookhouse.
Got a little turned around again on our way out of Santa Cruz – who would have thought that an Auto Club travel agent wouldn't have maps in her car? But we worked that out and drove home by way of Highway 17 through Scotts Valley. Nice drive.

Just got back from the Sunset Celebration Weekend event at Sunset Magazine's offices in Menlo Park. I've been thumbing through Sunset for as long as I can remember--mostly interested in the before-and-after remodeling pictures at first, but now I read the whole thing--so it was quite fun to actually get to tour the place where the magazine is created. We saw the test kitchen, working gardens, toured the Glidehouse and checked out the vendors. Managed not to buy anything, and Jen picked up an entry to a get-your-recipe-published contest, specifically for cheese-based dishes.
We'll be heading out in a few to spend the evening in Half Moon Bay and probably check out Big Basin Redwoods State Park before coming home tomorrow afternoon.

Part of losing my job means I have to give back my lovely new Dell Latitude D600. I'm copying all my personal stuff off right now and will be wiping it and returning it later this afternoon. :sniff: As a consolation, and because my new persona as a semi-independent contractor really requires it, I've just ordered a Dell Inspiron 600m notebook. This is the consumer equivalent to the Latitude D600, identical in nearly every way. It should be here in a week or so and then I'll be mobile again. Until then I'll be tied to the Frankenbox at home.
For all that Dell refuses to upgrade their in-house BlackICE installation (oops, was that proprietary information? So what are you gonna do, fire me?), making extra work for the Desktop team any time there's a security emergency, they do make very nice machines. Jennifer loves her desktop and I couldn't be happier with the Latitude–hopefully the Inspiron will continue that tradition.

Edit: Just discovered this useful page which describes, in exhaustive detail, the steps and gotchas to installing various flavors of Linux on the 600m/D600.

Tech news site BBSpot is reporting on the approval by the International Grammar Standards Organization of the first new punctuation mark since the exclamation mark was added in 1914.

"Language is dynamic. It changes daily," said IGSO President Colin Thomas, "We felt a new punctuation mark was long overdue to help with the changing language."

Editors and English teacher worldwide are scrambling to update style guides and lesson plans to incorporate the new mark. Most felt that IGSO would reject the quartercolon.

Keyboard manufacturers, however, anticipated the move and have already begun shipping keyboards with the quartercolon instead of the back tick, which no one uses anyway.

Ms. Truss will no doubt issue an updated edition of her book to cover the quartercolon.

I don't know exactly what this is, but it seems to be a stealth promotion for Burger King.

Opera, maker of the fantastic Opera Web browser, have released the next major version of their browser: 7.50. This is a simultaneous release for Windows, Solaris, MacOS, Linux (Sparc, PowerPC, i386), and FreeBSD (i386). Usual suspects Slashdot and The Register haven't yet posted reviews, but early feedback in the opera.beta newsgroup has been quite positive. I have already downloaded the new version and will likely install it later today or tomorrow.

Well, the hammer fell today. I was laid off along with about thirty others. Another twenty or thirty get to stay on for a month or so to wind down operations. The Mountain View office is closing and all Desktop operations are moving to Atlanta.
Based on a message I wasn't supposed to have read last week, I had a pretty good idea this was coming, but that doesn't make it very much easier.
So, I'll be officially in the job market starting Monday. I'll probably see if I can pick up more hours at the store to make up a tiny bit of the difference until I find something new.

Whee.

A confluence of factors has caused spikes in wholesale prices for key ice cream ingredients including milk, vanilla, and cocoa, leading to higher ice cream prices for consumers this summer, reports this AP story carried by the Chronicle.

Although large manufacturers can absorb some of the higher production costs, consumers can still expect to pay more for everything from pints in the grocery store to cones at the stand and push-pops off the truck.

How much more? Estimates vary from 6 percent to as much as 20 percent or more, depending on region and product.

A pint of Ben & Jerry's is going up 8 percent, the most in the company's 26 years. Klondike bars will cost 10 cents more per multipack, according to manufacturer Good Humor-Breyers Ice Cream.

We have an ice cream maker but use it very rarely because it's a pain. This might be an excuse to get it out again.

CHP cracks down on speeders on I-280 (Mercury News )

Be forewarned: The California Highway Patrol has dispatched a ``speed team'' to a stretch of 280 between Mountain View and San Bruno with instructions to pull over and ticket vehicles going even 5 mph over the posted speed limit this afternoon.

The crackdown is part of a larger Bay Area campaign by the CHP moving from place to place that is aimed at getting motorists to ease off the accelerator a bit.

I did go that way for the first few months at Network ICE, when I was renting a room in Pacifica before we found and moved into our apartment in San Mateo. It is a beautiful drive, and people do indeed drive way too fast on parts of that freeway.

I have no idea why Google has selected ads from the completely annoying "CleanFilms" for display on this page. In an effort to change its anthropomorphized mind, here are some random keywords:
baseball, ice cream, Kevin Kline, Pontiac, cats, IKEA, lightbulb, pasta, Monterey pine, Sprint, chocolate.

nigritude ultramarine

That is all.

It's been a strange and not entirely pleasant weekend. Jennifer left early Saturday morning to spend the weekend with her mother in Santa Barbara and I worked at the store both days. I know I used to do this five or six days a week, but two consecutive eight-hour retail days have really knocked me out.
When I got home last night, I found a rather rude letter from the unofficial gadfly of the complex which basically accused the board (of which I am a member) and management of improper actions regarding the upcoming election. I don't know how much of what this person says is true, but I do know that I'm starting to resent the amount of time and energy I'm spending on this with nothing but hard feelings and anger in return. It's now likely that I will not stand for re-election, but we'll see what Wednesday (the general meeting and election) will bring.
Somebody had missed the litter box and I stepped in it. In socks.
There was a brief power outage this morning, which of course reset all the clocks and other electronic gadgets. Luckily something about it actually woke me up--maybe the absence of the subaudible hum of the ceiling fan--or I might have overslept and been late to work.
Today at the store, I was given "numbers". This means that I can now approve returns & exchanges, sign cashiers on and off, take reports, do cash pick-ups, that sort of thing. I'm not a manager or lead, but according to the manager with whom I worked today, this has been in the works for a while and she'd decided to quit stalling. So now I'm sort of an unofficial head cashier. I don't know what the actual status is or if the store manager even knows about it--I'll have to get clarification on that.
The store now has DSL, in preparation for possibly installing a wireless hotspot. I brought the new notebook in and attempted to connect, but found that although I could get to the Cometa login page, the login function was not yet working.
When I got home (wiped out) and logged on, I found that Blogger has gone through a dramatic metamorphosis in both style and function. The posting and site management interface looks much more polished and professional, there are now over thirty available templates (though I don't think I'll be changing any time soon) and there are a bunch of new features.
I watched South Park (an episode I hadn't seen, "Good Times with Weapons") and the Simpsons and now am going to get something to eat.
Jennifer returns tomorrow morning. I'll be picking her up at the airport and then going to "real" work. I'll be at the store tomorrow and Tuesday night as well. The extra days compensate for next weekend, which I'm taking completely off for a a few days away with Jen.
Currently reading: Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss (Gotham Books/Penguin, New York. 1-592-50087-6).

CNN.com is carrying a Reuters story reporting that Steve Martin will be the new Inspector Clouseau.

Martin, who will be starring alongside Beyonce and Oscar-winner Kevin Kline, said he was intimidated at first by the thought of following in actor Peter Sellers' stumbling footsteps as the hapless Clouseau, but he got over it.

"They have different James Bonds," he quipped at a news conference on Friday.

Others in the cast of the MGM Pictures film that should reach movie houses by next summer include French actor Jean Reno and Tony Award-winning actress Kristin Chenoweth.

If anyone could pull this off, it'd be Steve Martin. Needless to say I'm looking forward to this movie, due in 2005.

This one features video game characters in all their pixelated glory. Here's a local mirror in case the site is pounded too hard.

In an interesting historical twist, Leonardo da Vinci appears to have been the first to create a search engine, reports BBSpot.

Recently uncovered Da Vinci diaries describe how he collaborated with his neighbor, Googlio, to enable a renaissance in searching.

The diaries describe how da Vinci, who was always getting lost, shouted to his downstairs neighbor, "Hey Googlio, how the hell do I get to Rome?" Googlio returned the next day with a detailed map that highlighted taverns and brothels along the way. Da Vinci was impressed, especially since Googlio was an unemployed college dropout who spent most of his time writing his own name and adorning it with tiny pictures.

Result 1 of about ∞ for satire. (0.0001 seconds)

Chronicle staff writer Steve Rubenstein reviews the DCA tower of terror, getting in a few shots across Disney's bow on the way.

It bounces up and down in wild, unpredictable spurts. After shooting to dizzying heights, it plunges to earth, leaving an uneasy, unsettled feeling.

Is that Disney stock prices these days? Or chairman Michael Eis- ner's job prospects?

No, it's the new $60 million thrill ride in Anaheim, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, the company's latest attempt to turn things around and snatch back its heritage of magic and paying customers.

Tuesday, May 11, 9PM, CBS: The Dick Van Dyke Show.

In fact, it's being called the 159th episode and brings back the surviving cast members (in their original roles) with an introduction by Ray Romano. This is apparently not a clip show/shmooze fest/retrospective thing but a real episode of the show, written by Carl Reiner.

Unfortunately, I think I'm working Tuesday night. Gotta get DirecTiVo...

The Chronicle's Glenn Dickey prognosticates on Bay Area baseball's post-season chances (hint: not much).

The A's problem is that they're in a league that has great quality at the top. In whatever order you put them, the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Anaheim Angels are probably the three best teams in baseball. Not coincidentally, they are also the three teams with the highest payrolls, roughly two to three times that of the A's.

To get to the postseason, the A's either would have to beat out the Angels for the AL West title, or the Yankees or Red Sox, whichever is second in the AL East, for the wild card. Not likely.

The Giants don't have that kind of problem because 88-89 wins probably will take the NL West this year, but even that appears out of reach for this team. The Giants problem is ... well, the Giants.

It's been a depressing season so far. Sure, things could turn around in a flash – look what happened to the Yankees last week. Ooh, bad example.

JohnKerryIsADoucheBagButImVotingForHimAnyway.com
Warning: Strong language. Read it anyway.

(SFGate's Day in Pictures)

My friends at MousePlanet have put together three very slick Tower of Terror slide shows taking you through the construction, outside areas, and through the actual DCA attraction. The slide shows work perfectly in Opera 7.23. Nicely done, guys!

The man who robbed East Palo Alto's only bank yesterday made his escape through the IKEA parking structure, reports the Mercury News.

Maybe the bank robber had visions of filling his living room with Swedish-themed furniture. Or perhaps he figured he could lose his pursuers in the maze of simple, trendy and affordable home furnishings.

Whatever his reasons for racing into the Ikea garage Monday afternoon, it worked. Late Monday, East Palo Alto police were still searching for a man who brandished a handgun at California Bank and Trust, took an undisclosed sum from a teller and escaped by running across the street and through the floor-level garage.

A bank heist like this hasn't happened in East Palo Alto in more than 20 years -- the city didn't have a bank from 1985 to 2002. And Ikea, which opened last year, wasn't around to serve as an escape route.

Here's the Chronicle's version of the same story, in case you can't get through the Merc's silly new registration.

The Chronicle's "Urban Animal" columnist Hank Pellissier interviews Lynn Sadler, director of the Mountain Lion Foundation, an organization dedicated to preserving our state's largest feline. Among the topics covered: how to save your life if you are attacked by a mountain lion.

If you are stalked or confronted by a mountain lion, do not run. Lions can leap several yards and run up to 55 miles per hour. You cannot outrun them, and running triggers their predator response. What you should do is keep your face toward them, pull your coat open and raise your arms, so that the mountain lion thinks you are bigger than you are. If you are attacked, you should fight back, hitting the mountain lion with rocks, your backpack, fanny pack, walking sticks, anything.

Kendall Grant Clark, a columnist on O'Reilly's XML.com, writes this month about six steps to utilizing the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data, present in most books, to catalog and organize your personal library. We have a very disorganized collection numbering over 2000 titles. You can bet I'm waiting for next month's article, when Clark will describe methods of converting ISBNs to LOC classifications.

I admit to an incomplete understanding of how it works, but I've added HaloScan trackbacks in addition to the comment feature.

Perfidious actions at the corporate office may lead to me looking for full-time work within the next month. I'll be updating my resumé in the upcoming days and weeks, but until then, prospective employer, please view the existing file and bear in mind that my talents and skillset go far beyond what is expressed therein.