Archive for October, 2009
Happy Halloween!
Friday, October 30th, 2009You know your kids are getting older when their friends start pulling their Halloween costumes straight out of the headlines:
And no, that’s not my son.
(Hat tip: Lisa Rafal)
Categories: Family Matters, The World Wide Weird | No Comments »
The City That Never Sleeps…
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009If I don’t miss my guess, Philadelphia has prepared for the World Series by placing a small, plastic statue of William Penn on top of the Comcast building. Here’s what New York did:
LET’S GO YANKEES!!
Categories: New York, New York, Sports Talk | No Comments »
Arnold Flips the Legislature the Bird
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009Fifty governors, but only Schwarzenegger can pull this off:
Seems like a pretty innocuous veto, until you read down the left-hand column of letters, that is. ;-)
(I had to scale the image down to make it fit on the blog. Click on the image itself (or click here to see a clearer version of the note).
Categories: Political Rantings, The World Wide Weird | 4 Comments »
Robo-Warrior Draft
Saturday, October 24th, 2009My phone just rang. It was a gentleman from the Democratic National Committee. He said that President Obama needs me to fight for Jon Corzine because Jon Corzine is fighting for New Jersey.
Very strange – I would think President Obama would have people that could do that for him. You know – without having to call me and all. Maybe he should nominate a Fight for Jon Corzine Czar? Besides, I’m too busy to fight for Jon Corzine today. I mean, at a minimum, I need to stay home and field all these calls!
I hope there isn’t a Fight for Jon Corzine draft. But just in case there is, I think I better find out who, exactly, is fighting against Jon Corzine. I mean, maybe it’s someone we really don’t have to worry about. Like the Boston Red Sox…
Categories: Political Rantings, Random Acts of Blogging | 2 Comments »
Wall Street Journal – Charging for Free Content?
Monday, October 19th, 2009Remember when the Wall Street Journal’s online content was free? And then they decided to start charging for it? And then it was free again? But sometimes it’s not?
As it turns out, the Wall Street Journal has implemented a rather unique, some may even say bizarre, online access policy. If you go to their website and click on an article, you have to login with a paid subscription. But if you Google a particular topic and the same article comes back as a search result, you can click through and read the entire article for free. So, in other words, you can’t read the entire Wall Street Journal on their website without paying for it, but if you were curious enough to enquire about everything in it, they will gladly share their content with you for free.
Perhaps an example would be useful. Follow along in a separate browser instance if you like:
Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Money Talk, Political Rantings, Tech Talk | No Comments »
On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Dog . . . but it helps if they do!
Monday, October 19th, 2009
A colleague of mine just informed me that he joined Twitter. After weeding out the obvious spammers who would follow him if he would just please click this one link, he seems to have settled in at around ten followers.
On a lark, he also created a Twitter account for his daschund, Logan. Again, after weeding out the obvious spammers, Logan seems to have settled in at approximately seventy followers. Mostly women, he says, as well as a random assortment of dog lovers, kennels, and other seemingly legitimate dog-related vendors.
So, it would appear, that in the sixteen years since Peter Steiner first pointed out in The New Yorker magazine the anonymity that the Internet can provide, this very anonymity has turned out to reduce your audience size by a factor of roughly seven-to-one. Not only that, but it’s a pretty good bet that sometime in the next sixteen years, sociologists and linguists will come together to discover that the previous sentence actually does makes sense…
Categories: Tech Talk | No Comments »
What Happened? Government Forces Ken Lewis to Work for Free
Saturday, October 17th, 2009Throughout the past year, I’ve written a few posts about various aspects of the financial crisis, but I’ve purposely stayed away from writing specifically about my employer – Bank of America.
I don’t speak for Bank of America. My words on this blog are mine and mine alone. No one at work reads them, approves them or, for all I know, even agrees with them. Still, I’ve made it a self-imposed, personal policy to steer clear of stories that involve the company, just to be safe. This morning, though, when I read about Kenneth Feinberg, the “Special Master for Compensation” (a.k.a., “The Pay Czar”), I felt compelled to speak out.
Just to be clear, though: these are my opinions. They don’t necessarily reflect the views of anyone else on the planet, whether they’re affiliated with Bank of America or not. Are we clear? OK, good.
Categories: Money Talk, Political Rantings | 9 Comments »
Gaah! October Snow!
Thursday, October 15th, 2009How depressing is this:
It’s like Minneapolis out here…
Categories: New York, New York, Random Acts of Blogging | No Comments »
Rivera in Puerto Rico?
Thursday, October 15th, 2009From a friend of mine, yesterday afternoon (Oct. 14):
My mom is on her way to Puerto Rico at the moment. She called me from the plane and said Mariano Rivera is sitting four seats away from her. Is it possible that he is on a Jet Blue flight to San Juan at the moment? Doesn’t he have a World Series to worry about????
Her mom later confirmed that it was, indeed, Mariano Rivera flying to San Juan on Wednesday, via an autograph and what she called a “very nice” conversation. (I also confirmed for my friend that it was the ALCS, not the World Series, that Mo would be worried about, but we’ll forgive the semantics in return for the inside tip…)
So, the question is this: with Game 1 scheduled for Friday, October 16 (weather permitting), why would Mariano Rivera fly to Puerto Rico on Wednesday, October 14? Wouldn’t you think the Yankees would have some kind of workout/practice schedule in New York this week? I’d guess that maybe he’s flying home for a couple of days, but Mariano was born and raised in Panama, not Puerto Rico. Connecting flight, perhaps?
Mom is checking the local, Puerto Rican papers for more scoop. I’ll update you here if I hear more.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled 24/7 analysis of the upcoming ALCS/NLCS series, brought to you by ESPN…
Categories: Sports Talk | No Comments »
More Baseball – Weather or Not…
Saturday, October 10th, 2009Tonight’s Phillies/Rockies game has been postponed due to snow and record low temperatures in Denver, despite the Rockies’ home field being the only one in the major leagues with an underground heating system.
Tomorrow’s Yankees/Twins game will likely go on as planned, even though Minneapolis’ forecast for tomorrow night is 38 degrees and snow flurries, but that’s only because the Twins still play in the Metrodome (an absolutely awful, but still, indoor) place to play baseball. Next year, when the Twins move to Target Field, which has no roof (retractable or otherwise), this will be the kind of thing Twins fans might wake up to on game day:
(Photo is of an actual house in the Minneapolis suburbs, courtesy of a very cold friend of mine…)
Of course, their other option is to just stop playing baseball in September from now on… ;-)
Categories: Sports Talk | 1 Comment »