EGO SUM ABBAS

I see many horrors pushed on the American consumer... yet somehow I manage to feel shocked when I find things like the Barack Obama Chia Pet at Walgreens as I did today. ::shudder::

So I'm shopping for credit cards when Citi's Solaris based webserver tells me it doesn't want to serve its pages to my non-XP/OSX host. Sure I have access to plenty of Windows machines, and even have a virtualized XP box I could have used, and after two more such warnings it did let me view the site... but wtf?

Maybe this isn't something to base a financial decision on, but their cards won't be in consideration. I don't normally consider myself a raving zealot for open source or even web standards, but seriously -- write some better scripts!

While eating my sammich, I heard this 'pop' sound.

I didn't know it was even possible to tear your lingual frenulum without violently stretching it...

Sorry if this was TMI, but it's not gorey or even really very painful... I'm just a little sore and much with the freaked out.

edit: Not painful when I wasnt talking. Talking is cruel and unusual!

Gmail just started giving me a 502 error... I hope it doesn't last long.

http://www.converse.com/index.aspx?mode=pd&sku=106027F#productdetail

Is this going to be backdrop for the ad campaign?

I left work on Friday to a darkened sky. A few minutes into driving I noticed it was no cloud, it was a swarm! The biggest swarm of anything I've ever seen. For at least a mile, maybe two, (all around O'Hare, and at least to River Rd) the sky was filled with what I thought were dragonflies. They looked like they had long slender bodies with thin wings and flying precisely, although they were mostly about 40 feet in the air so I didn't get the best look at them. Later in the weekend I saw a cicada on the ground which made me think it might not have been dragonflies, but still very creepy.

This weekend I found more revelry than I can handle, and I managed to not get too excited about seeing Love and Rockets. Both signs of end times. (It was a great weekend though, and I'd write more about the revelry but can think of nothing not already covered by aka_nupi and carneggy.)

Now last night a tornado touches down in Franklin Park, tree branches (big enough to block car traffic) and other debris are scattered around my neighborhood, and the air raid sirens in Chicago go off for the first time in so long that I didn't think at first that it meant tornado. (yeah I'm dense)

What else? The end is nigh!

For as long as I can remember, street cleaning was announced on orange signs tied to trees. Today's was announced by green signs, tied to green lightposts. My ticket was still bright orange.

:(

My contradictory mood so easily described:

G'dammit it's cold! :(

but

W00t! Radiators just emitted their first belch of steam.

Thank you responsive landlords.

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

No use trying to fight it, you're an eight-sided die, a d8. A fine example of simple elegance, the d8 is one of the least appreciated types of dice, and is often neglected. You are known to be quiet and shy, outward traits that conceal viscous sarcasm and mean wit. You are very smart, yet wise enough to hide your intelligence the quicker they found out how smart you are, the sooner they'll put you to work, which is something you can do without. People call you dark and pessimistic, or moody and cynical. You find little point in arguing.

Had a great time at Duckon last weekend. It was a little strange for me since I can't really say what I did for the weekend -- I didn't make any panels, I went to parties only on Friday... I helped the Capricon party and registration table, but that was such very minor help as to not really be worth mentioning (sorry guys!). I guess I just wandered and enjoyed the chitchat?

With part of the chicago-sf.org crowd I had some great sushi that Saturday in downtown Naperville, and some maki called "Raw Power." Then we came back to the con where I had high voltage induced plasma streamers for dessert (or at least eye candy). I believe I'm no longer infatuated with the Theramin, and now have a more edgy and dangerous object of my affection -- a MIDI controlled Tesla coil! All in all an electrifying weekend.

Yesterday I went to a meetup. I'd say more but the first rule of the group was not to talk about it ( ... )

Recently was purging spyware from a friend's laptop, when one caught my eye and I decided to look it up. Of all things, it turned out to be made by a company I can see from my apartment window!

They seem to have a knack for eyesore - they've already rehabbed an old restaurant for their current office, now the ugliest building in the neighborhood (complete with its poor conversion of former restaurant signage). They've addressed this in a neighborhood meeting by showing off their plans to replace it with a glass-and-steel monstrosity.

Glass and steel might sound too neutral to be an eyesore, but in this neighborhood it is. Ours is a close-knit community of homeowners dedicated to the preservation of its predominant historical architecture. There's a dense concentration of large 19th century single-family homes -- many with landmark status, or worthy of it. Cohesion is very important to this neighborhood. This would be the only such structure for miles, and the tallest structure in the neighborhood.

I couldn't decide if I agree with the preservation or if the neighborhood consensus is too stodgy. That is until I realized what eyesore the company unleashes on the net. It's not of the horrible sort that's difficult to remove, but it is deceptive toward its users. Just like the building proposal: not inherently insidious, but decidedly against the accepted grain of the community.

So aside from taking a more active stance on their building proposal... does anyone have any ideas on what else can I do to express discontent toward living next to a spam canning plant? (not involving brick trajectory)

http://www.ca.com/us/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=453072502

Just watched the landing of the demonstration flight for the Airbus 380, the largest passenger airliner in existence. To give an idea of scale, the largest currently operational passenger airliner is the Boeing 747-400, which has 50% less floorspace. When configured for cargo, the only aircraft with more payload capacity was designed for the Soviet space program, and I don't believe that one is used commercially outside of governmental contracts. There's only one runway at O'Hare wide enough to accommodate this monster, which is conveniently about 600 feet (very rough guess) from my office.

I have a perfect view from my desk - the wall facing that runway is all-glass - but i joined the throng outside mainly to observe the chaos. OK chaos is a strong word, but having our parking lot fill up with tourists is certainly different from our norm. Irving Park road is still rather congested, many people stopped on the shoulder to take pictures.

As large as the thing was, it did not inspire the awe I experienced in watching the Concorde -- but this is probably the most impressive part of it. Having not really read much about it before, I had no idea that it would be quiet enough for me not to notice it if I wasn't looking at it. Nearly any other landing on this runway is loud enough to prevent outdoor conversation, including aircraft significantly smaller than even the 747.

I attempted some camera phone pictures, and failed. Maybe I can copy some shots by coworkers to post...

... ( and I take after him )

Strange stuff out there... Saw this place in Naperville and thought it too bizarre not to snap some pictures.

Nothing like a rainy Sonnenwende to clearly remind that from this point on we descend towards winter :(

I haven't sown all I intend to accomplish this summer, time to get busy!

Well I've managed to hold out against LJ for some time... but now I've caved. Not so disheartening really, just needed a good reason to do so first - this case is that I wanted to thank people for sharing in my birthday revelry. Otherwise I just don't think I have much of interest to publicly decry, and certainly am in no shortage of things to do with my time.

So might as well get on with it: to all those who shared in making my party a success - a hearty THANK YOU!!
(and may this have been the first in a series for those who missed out!)

I don't expect to post very frequently, however I'm thinking at least a party writeup is in order. Better to date it as when I write it, or backdate it to that of the party? hrm...