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Project Insomnia

Project Insomnia is many things, but in this context it is simply a "braindump" of whatever I happen to be thinking/reading/watching/doing at the moment. Parental guidance suggested.

Friday, October 29, 2004

/. sig of the day

Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you.
|| Andrew, 1:14 PM || || link

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Yo quiero

Following a link to a link to a link led me to "Cleaning pennies with taco sauce" on Cruftbox.
When I was in high school back in the 80s, I worked at Taco Bell. Work was not really tough at Taco Bell, so I had lots of time to goof off. One of the things I discovered was that the hot sauce would clean pennies. I've showed the trick to people many times over the years, but never really understood why it works so well.

I looked on the internet and found a wide variety of explanations from the silly ideas, like the idea the somehow hydrochloric acid is forming to the more reasonable ideas involving the acid already in the sauce. None of them seemed to make complete sense to me.

I decided to do a little investigative journalism and find out.
|| Andrew, 4:00 PM || || link

Dude

CNet News.com has eight photos taken inside Dell's Austin assembly plant.
|| Andrew, 1:55 PM || || link

80s TV Commercials

X-Entertainment has generously made many of the best 80s TV commercials available for free download, in Windows Media (WMV) format. Note that the latest Winamp 5.x plays WMV just fine.
We're talking the Stephen King American Express ad, a LazerTag ad, and the annoying Encyclopedia Britannica kid with the red shirt and long hair, among many others.
Be sure to support the site by clicking the ad links on the video download pages.
|| Andrew, 11:11 AM || || link

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Click "Yes"

delete Bush

Note: It's just an image. Clicking it will not accomplish anything.
|| Andrew, 1:23 PM || || link

Pondering a Kerry cabinet

Just some thoughts.
Secretary of State: Richard Holbrooke, former UN Ambassador
Secretart of Defense: Wesley Clark, retired four-star general
National Security Advisor or Director of Homeland Security: John McCain, Senator from Arizona
Attorney General, FBI Director, CIA Director, Energy, Treasury, Commerce: no picks at this time

I'd suggest Colin Powell keep his job as Secretary of State if he hadn't already said he'd be retiring next year no matter the outcome of the election.

I don't know enough about the qualifications for Attorney General, so I can only hope whoever gets it makes it his/her first task to remove the Ashcroft curtains.
|| Andrew, 1:21 PM || || link

Friday, October 08, 2004

Bush's mystery bulge

Salon (remember them?) are reporting that Mr. Bush may have been wearing a wire during the first debate last week. This is backed up by strange, even for him, stops and starts during some of his responses:
On several occasions, the president simply stopped speaking for an uncomfortably long time and stared ahead with an odd expression on his face. Was he listening to someone helping him with his response to a question? Even weirder was the president's strange outburst. In a peeved rejoinder to Kerry, he said, "As the politics change, his positions change. And that's not how a commander in chief acts. I, I, uh -- Let me finish -- The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at." It must be said that Bush pointed toward Lehrer as he declared "Let me finish." The green warning light was lit, signaling he had 30 seconds to, well, finish.
It's also worth noting that the agreed-upon debate conditions stated that no cameras were to be placed behind the candidates--a condition that Fox News (of all people!), as the pool video provider, ignored.
I'll be listening to the debate tonight in the car, so I won't be able to spot any mystery bulges. But you can bet several million people will be looking.
|| Andrew, 10:22 AM || || link

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

The Thing

Does anyone have a copy of this song they'd like to send me? It's currently running through my head, but I'd prefer to hear the original.
|| Andrew, 4:22 PM || || link

The Al Franken Decade

SF Chronicle staff writer Jane Ganahl reports that Al Franken campaigns for the left, bringing his radio show to San Francisco.
Franken is like a tight coil that could spring into the air at any moment. And he's clearly psyched at the way things are going.

"Air America's doing great now, after we shot ourselves in the foot pretty seriously right out of the gate," he says, referring to the network's initial financial woes. "It's been a big experiment, but it seems to be working out. In Portland, we're now beating Rush. We went from 22nd in that market when we started in March, to third."

Now in 25 markets across the country, the fledgling network will get its chance in the Bay Area, where it has taken over the dial location -- 960 AM -- previously occupied by KABL, which moves to 92.1. The new call letters for the station? KQKE -- "the Quake," which is not unfitting, given the network's desire to shake things up.
I hadn't known until just now that Air America finally secured a Bay Area affiliate. Now I'll have something to listen to on the way to work in between KCBS traffic reports.
|| Andrew, 10:44 AM || || link

Friday, October 01, 2004

Florida Secretary of State releases advance preview of November Election Ballot

Florida Election Ballot
|| Andrew, 10:03 PM || || link

Next time, somebody bring a whale

SFGate.com is carrying this AP story:
San Clemente surfer takes brief ride on a whale

Spyros Vamvas caught more than waves on a recent surfing trip.

The 60-year-old San Clemente therapist felt the ocean swirl under him and was lifted up, but when he looked down, he realized it wasn't the water he was riding -- it was a whale.

"All of a sudden I just felt, wow, this huge noise and bump," said Vamvas, "and it lifted my board up. I'm looking down, and there's just swirling water and I see barnacles on the back of the whale. I'm used to dolphins. This was different. It was huge."
The article doesn't mention the species of whale, but given the location I'm thinking it may have been an Orca.

|| Andrew, 9:48 AM || || link

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