I'm sorry I'm just linking to Excite News today, but I honestly can't decide which of these two "news" items disturbs me the most, Old Elvis Water worth $455? or Court Backs Firing of Waitress without Makeup.

posted by Chris at 11:04 AM Permalink

 
According to Excite News, Jeopardy's created a tool for bringing back Ken Jennings... go figure.

posted by Chris at 10:57 AM Permalink

 
I'd like to be petty here, but I believe the man's efforts here are sincere: Bush Announces Coalition to Aid Asia.

posted by Chris at 10:52 AM Permalink

 
According to my handy-dandy referral logs, someone got here recently by Googling "is there no help for widows son". OK, I went over here to see what a "google whack" was in technical terms, and this doesn't qualify, but it's always cool to click on a search link in your own referral logs and see only your own page listed.)

posted by Chris at 5:24 PM Permalink

 
Parkway Rest Stop accidentally noticed me and blogged about Asparagus Pee, so being in the holiday spirit, here's a reciprocal link.

posted by Chris at 10:38 AM Permalink

 
Having enjoyed several Reuben sandwiches recently, just to get a little variety in my diet I was making a sausageburger for lunch today. I use the 50% Less Fat product from Jimmy Dean, and I recommend it highly - it hardly shrinks or drips at all, and it tastes great. (Mmmm, snausages.)

So anyway, it's always irked me a bit that they print those helpful tick-marks that show you where to cut the chub in just the right place so they're hidden under the flap that's created when they seal the tube. So I called the handy 800 number listed above the obscured marks labeled "For Questions and Comments," and said, "Hi, I'd like to make a comment about this fine Jimmy Dean sausage product."

"Yes sir, and what is that?"

"Well, see I actually use those little marks they print on the package every half-inch or so to decide where to cut the sausage, but you have to fold that little flap out of the way every time, and it's kind of awkward to hold that while you're slicing the chub."

(Pause.)"Well sir, you do know that you could just cut it into half inch slices anyway, right?"

"No, you don't get it. I called you just to tell you this bothers me, and I'd like for you to pass it along, please."

"OK, um, thank's for calling."

It reminds me of the time I called the number on Lawry's Seasoned Salt and asked them what the heck they were thinking when they took out the MSG. Maybe I should get Brian Lewandowski to write them a letter or something.

posted by Chris at 5:53 PM Permalink

 
Seth Godin's blog has a list of The top 1,000 things to know.

Actually, he only lists the top 20, but they're pretty good. I saw this guy speak live at a gathering in New York a couple of years ago, and he was entertaining, but seemed to be talking a load of crap in areas where I'm actually knowledgeable. Nonetheless he has a lot of interesting ideas. (He's the author of Unleashing the Idea Virus, one of the first new books to be given away free on-line as an e-book.)

posted by Chris at 5:47 PM Permalink

 


"There are all degrees of proficiency of knowledge of the world. It is sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three. One class lives to the utility of the symbol, esteeming health and wealth a final good. Another class live above this mark to the beauty of the symbol, as the poet and artist and the naturalist and the man of science. A third class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing signified; these are wise men. The first class have common sense; the second, taste; and the third, spiritual perception. Once in a long time, a man traverses the whole scale, and sees and enjoys the symbol solidly, then also has a clear eye for its beauty, and lastly, whilst he pitches his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature, does not offer to build houses and barns thereon, reverencing the splendor of the God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny." — Ralph Waldo Emerson, from the essay Prudence

That last "chink and cranny" reminds me of a part in Roald Dahl's Big Friendly Giant, where the BFG tells the other giants they can search his place from "frack to bunt," and "look in every crook and nanny."

posted by Chris at 6:06 PM Permalink

 
God help me, I was actually doing work, like I'm at work, at my desk, doing real "work", when a necessary Google search plopped King of the Hill Quotes: "Peggy's Magic Sex Feet" into my lap.

(It's really kinda sick when you start reading it out of context, but it has closure.)

posted by Chris at 9:37 AM Permalink

 
I can't believe it - The Lady Janet and I forgot to watch Survivor last night. But it looks like someone here at work either recorded it or Tivo'd it, so we'll have a chance to see it, but DANG!,

I am, however, very pleased with the outcome, which you can see here: CBS.com.

posted by Chris at 10:17 AM Permalink

 
The cover story on this week's free Sacramento News & Review is Sacto Blogo, and it turns out Asparagus Pee has gotten a pretty nice write up. (Read it all, but they used my story for the close, so please scroll out to the end.)

They called me "Smary-pants blogger Chris Benson," then went on to say that Asparagus Pee is "...a reliably clever, good-natured look at science and politics."

I'll take that.

Special thanks to Mayagirl over at Postcards from Sacramento for making me aware of this article. Thanks Maya!

P.S. With this recent little bit of local notoriety, I'm coming to understand the meaning of journalistic phrases like "though he never responded to e-mail requests for an interview" - if I'd thought for one second that one of the 600-800 spams I deleted that day was SN&R wanting to talk to me about my blog, do you think I might have granted the interview? (Uh-huh.)

posted by Chris at 11:42 PM Permalink

 
Paul from Paul's Posted Notes has received his free Elliott Smith CD, From a Basement on the Hill, and he's done the required listening assignment, and blogged about it over here. He's also gone above and beyond, and started his own "mini-contest," so do pay him a visit.

posted by Chris at 4:51 PM Permalink

 
Finally, a poll whose results I can relate to:

posted by Chris at 10:42 AM Permalink

 
In today's e-mail, Daily Inbox sent me a link to The Contortion Home Page. It never ceases to amaze me what a hairless monkey with a too-big brain can do if he works hard enough at it - I mean, I can still put my foot behind my head, but this is PFR!

(PFR is a codeword that The Lady Janet and I use for "pretty f***ing ridiculous", it's along the same lines as "No BFD"... just thought I'd share this handy tool - hey, maybe it's the next LOL!)

posted by Chris at 10:10 AM Permalink

 
Curvy finally got her free Elliott Smith CD and blogged about it on her Blyg:

She says, among other things, elliott smith "*is what jewel would sound like if she were male, a better songwriter, and could play more instruments." Insightful.

posted by Chris at 5:18 PM Permalink

 


"Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool. It seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels into our world as to an asylum, and here they will break out in their native music and utter at intervals the words they have heard in heaven; then the mad fit returns and they mope and wallow like dogs." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

posted by Chris at 10:43 AM Permalink

 
I've grown tired of hearing "Never Forget" as a slogan to describe things like 9/11, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm flabbergasted to learn that in a recent poll by the BBC, "Among women and people younger than 35, 60 percent had never heard of Auschwitz."

Didn't know how to spell Auschwitz, sure, but never heard of it? Wow.

posted by Chris at 4:07 PM Permalink

 
Our local paper recently ran as a guest column a fairly substantial article I put together about my take on the local school budget crisis, from the position of a failed school board candidate who's working on the budget committee.

So today, I've got my first fan letter: Spin on school district finances misleading. (According to this guy, I've "joined the establishment." What's next, turning Republican?)

posted by Chris at 1:31 PM Permalink

 
You may have heard of this group, whose Statement of Principles informs the Bush administration's agenda. Scary stuff.

posted by Chris at 4:36 PM Permalink

 
As a quick follow-up to yesterday's entry about Jeff Hawkins' book, On Intelligence, here's a good article in Business Week: The PalmPilot's Creator on Good Design.

posted by Chris at 3:06 PM Permalink

 
I'm reading a great book that's got me very excited. It's called On Intelligence, and it's by the guy who invented the Palm Pilot and the Treo, Jeff Hawkins. I got my copy as an advance readers' galley from the big BEA book show last summer, and I'm finally getting around to reading it. You can get yours from Amazon — just click the little cover over there.

It's ostensibly a book about human and machine intelligence and how they work or could work, but it's also a great little philosophy lesson. His basic premise is that intelligence and understanding are created when you have a system that can anticipate patterns by recognizing them and coding them hierarchically as invariant models. It explains a lot of complex stuff pretty elegantly, in that Occam's Razor sense, and it makes a lot more sense in 100 pages than 100 words, so if you care anything about how the brain works, or the history of AI, just go get the book and read it.

posted by Chris at 3:44 PM Permalink