One, little link

Need a break from the computer and I'm busy poring over SI's NFL season special, so all you get is this link from good ol' ZenPundit to a review of 300 in the Michigan War Studies Review.

Good night.

SC news

+ Ok, if you watch the internet crazes, you've seen Caitlin Upton, Miss SC Teen, make a total fool of herself. I'd like to say she's from Aiken or Spartanburg, but she's from Lexington County just like me :-(

She's the top story on The State's homepage right now. Hey, it's not everyday your Miss Teen is an internet craze (and you can watch the vid from there if you haven't seen the horror yet).

In her defense, she had a 3.5 gpa and played soccer. She's probably not as dumb as she sounded.

But, whoa...

+ Hooray! Mississippi is the fattest state in the union! It's not SC! Reading the article... SC not mentioned... this is good... not in the top 3 mentioned in the article...

Oh, there we are. #5.

Not good.

Should I even say 'we'? I don't really consider myself a South Carolinian.

Iowa's 20th. Oklahoma's 11th. NC's 17th.

Elizabeth and Wil on the web

Back when I recorded the twins, more than 2 years ago when they were just in kindergarten, I tried uploading some of the files to Ourmedia, which is free. Well, it didn't work very well, so I never went back. But three of them did make it up and I want to make sure they're preserved for posterity:

Take me out to the ball game - Wil
Bethy's ZYXes
O Leaphart - Wil

If you have time, give them a listen. They are so sweet!

Is Jon Stewart ever not funny?

Jim linked to this hilarious analysis/sketch (Note: some of the language is a little rough if that's not how you roll):

Pile of Delusion‽

+ No offense intended to Hawk when I say Pile of Index Cards [Flickr set] [weblog (mostly in English; scroll down)] is the most shocking example of exhausting productivity pr0n(1) I have ever seen. I couldn't look away. This method of getting things done apparently works for him and makes him happy, so that's great. I would never get started on this amazing system...

+ How could I have missed the wonderful punctuation mark, '‽' (interrobang)‽ Unfortunately, Texter does not support it (as a pure character) or I could use it all the time! I'm in love!

+ If you've read this weblog long you know I really dislike Richard Dawkins. Here's a pretty good recent summary of why, the Wikipedia article on Alister McGrath's 'The Dawkins Delusion'. (And, not least of all, I'm putting it hear for my own reference.)


1) For my uninitiated readers (Christine, Kathy, et al.), meaning and usage

Two quick links for ya'

+ Hmm. Apparently some journo prof at Elon U popped off about weblogging lately. Matt linked to a nice response, including an impressive list of real, weblog journalism.

+ LOL: Nebraska Moves 2008 Presidental Primary to 1:30 This Afternoon

(Don't worry, Dan. I'm not dissing Nebraska (lest the Iowa barbs begin ;-).)

Trip down memory lane

Remember my cd post? It brought up a typical problem for me: I really have trouble remembering year, grade and age. I can remember 'Ok, this happened fall of 8th grade.' But what year was it? How old was I? I've written out a timeline before, but I thought 'I'll throw one up on Google Docs and then it'll always be where i can get at it.

And then that project blew up ;-)

I added columns for family, notes, world events, music, movies, and media notes. Check it out and tell me what you think.

I love you, internet!

I worked up a little personal timeline project today that I'll share with you later.

 

Tonight, when I was not sleeping :-( I got to thinking about an old timeline project I uploaded to my AT&T account years ago. Any chance it's still out there?

 

Find the post: http://seanmeade.blogspot.com/2002/08/i-edited-jorns-world-history-timeline.html

 

Find the URL: http://home.att.net/~sean.meade/papers/timeline.html

 

Search the Wayback Machine...

 

Voila! http://web.archive.org/web/20031021080551re_/home.att.net/~sean.meade/papers/timeline.html

 

That is so awesome!

 

Got it uploaded to my Google Pages now, for posterity (you know, as an Internet Archive back up).

 

I really love this internet thing :-)

Happy birthday, dear cd

Remember when you saw your first cd?

I was 13. It was the fall of 1985. I was in 8th grade. Mom and Dad and Kyle and I flew to Germany to visit my dad's brother who was stationed over there. And he had some classical music on cd.

That was only 3 years after the cd first came out. Pretty early adopter.

We didn't have a cd player for a long time. In fact, I was the first person in my family to own a cd and later a cd player.

My high school friends had cd players at home and I loved playing them.

My freshman-year roommate at Wartburg was a music lover. He had a 5-disc Onkyo changer and let me use 2 of the slots. A girlfriend gave me my first cds: Substance and Technique by New Order.

I started filling out my collection, mostly with REM. And my parents bought me my own cd player Xmas of 1990, my sophomore year.

Cds are going the way of the dinosaur (though they're still a fairly stable medium). But it's been a great run.

How about you? What's your cd story?

It's alive!

Aaron is posting again, at least long enough to tag me. I will comply, not least of all in the interest of encouraging him ;-)

7 random/interesting facts about me:

1. I spent far too much of my life in swing/show choir type rehearsals.
2. I have a Commercial Drivers License with air brakes and Hazmat endorsements.
3. I have been weblogging since 12/14/2000 - going on 7 years!
4. My favorite teams - Hawkeyes in NCAA basketball and football, Vikings and Cubs - have never won a national or world championship. (The Cubs' World Series win in 1908 doesn't count. The Hawkeye wrestling team with all of its national championships doesn't count, either.)
5. I am a big supporter of commercial space flight as the way to get us to the final frontier.
6. I do not believe in Bill Joy or Ray Kurzweil (dystopian and utopian respectively).
7. I have a lot of abortive weblog projects, but I am very proud of my consistency here. Don't know that I'd call it an achievement, but...

Don't think I'll tag anyone else. Pick it up if you like.

gBox 404 FFB

+ Did you see that gBox is a new online music vendor that will be working with Google to get referrals? Otherwise, pretty unimpressive to far. Still, I might get the odd single from them. I like that it doesn't require an iTunes like app, just runs in the browser.

+ Ran across this funny 404 not found page that's not really a 404 but instead an encouragement to get up from the computer and do something else. But why run such a geek-page on your own domain to encourage people to less geekness?

+ Diving back in to fantasy football for the year. Thinking of a different strategy this year based on points scored last year v. mysterious 'rankings'...

(Sorta) Back in the saddle again

Did'ja miss me? I was in Anaheim for most of the week for DARPATech. I posted on it quite a bit over at Ares.

A few links since then:

+ Ken Jennings had a really amazing assessment of JK Rowling and the Harry Potter books.

+ defective yeti's Bad Review Revue for Bratz . Some really inspired entries.

Random play on the Creative Zen Vision:M today

• Metal Health
• This Charming Man
• Float On
• 99 Luftballoons (auf Deutsch)
• Linger
• Speed Racer (Matthew Sweet cover)
• Livin' on a Prayer
• It's Tricky/My Sharona mashup, the cheekyboys
• Yesterday
• Equal to the Fall (Satellite Soul)
  
• Te Deum Guarani (The Mission)
  
• Cum on Feel the Noize (out of 2370 songs, those are the only two by Quiet Riot!)
• I Know It's Over (Smiths)
  
• Fairytale (Enya)
• You Know That (VoL)
• Satellite (DMB)
• Jesus Freak

Kinda' heavy on 80 and 90s pop...

Have a great weekend!

Google Bourne Baseball

+ Good review of The Bourne Ultimatum, plus this gem:

Whether this third chapter in the series will turn out to be The Bourne Penultimatum or even the Bourne Antepenultimatum is left in suspense by the ending.

+ Really cool United Countries of Baseball map. Is there such a map for football?

You know, I think there is. In fact, looking at this map, I think I might have linked it before.

(Latter link also has a really cool little magnification hack going.)

Here's the NFL one.

+ Google phone would be free (with ads) (via Brad). {Technolust!}

Quiz show

Jaq's got a quiz that caught my eye. Think I'll take it:

1. If there were no blogs, what would you be doing right now?

Driving trucks from Kuwait to Iraq.

2. If you had to spend one year living alone in a remote cabin, what would you spend your time doing?

Reading. Walking. Eating healthy. Detoxing. Listening to music. Praying some.

Then it would be time to actually write one of those projects I've been thinking about forever.

3. If you could go back in time, what one piece advice would you give yourself? (This was my favorite part of Jaq's)

Relax.

On some things: Don't work so hard. Quit sooner.

On some other things: Persevere a little more.

Enjoy learning. It's great. But needing to be right is a cruel master.

Your mom and dad love you very much and deserve even more of a break.

Childhood doesn't last forever. Enjoy it a little more. Don't be in such a hurry to grow up. Can you enjoy the people around you a little more?

Worrying about how you look is a waste of time.

If you don't want to be a little overweight, eat a little less.

Try not to worry so much about what kids think and say. They're young and even more foolish than you.

(That's it for now.)

4. "If you really knew me you would know that..."

I am truly a geek at heart.

Chicago happenings

+ It's officially time to start worrying. The Cubs are in first.

+ Mark has declared himself Emperor of Greenland and I asked for a nice, cushy job.