Dogs... and reporters who are too desperate to make a story.

Oh please. I went to check my email when I saw this.
I have been hearing way too much of this on the radio, but to actually see it in print was disturbing. Who cares about what kind of dog the president has? Does it really matter? Can't we let them lead a normal life?
oh, wait, they aren't normal...
Whatever. Here's the story.
The President and his Dog

So much for useful news, right?

The Amazing Shrinking URL

You may or may not have noticed the little addition to the side bar. It's a tool from TinyURL that allows you to put in a long, nasty URL and it will make it small. That may not be thrilling to you but it is pretty cool. The benefit is more obvious if you use Twitter and get your post maxed out by a long URL.

I'm not sure how well it works so I'm going to try it now. I just looked up a story about the Tongan Volcano. I found a cool video I haven't seen before and thought it would make a good trial link.

The original link was as follows.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-ml5uolY9rFI/
underwater_volcano_erupts_off_tongan_coast/

The new link is below.
http://tinyurl.com/cwc3wm

Not bad, eh?

By the way, bit.ly and tr.im are two more url shrinkers. Pretty nice stuff.

Gordonfreece

Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre

Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre

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deep thoughts with goldenfleece

Redondo Beach sunset with seagull, originally uploaded by kashtoreth.

Kashtoreth brought us a lovely photo to act as a muse for this post. So, I made the link from flickr to blogger and then clicked the "blog this" icon above the photo I liked. Then flickr opens a text box (which I am using now) for creating the post. Let's see how it works. :)

heaters make THE difference

Camping at the mouth of the Columbia River (Washington State side), I took note of a number of conveniences. First, we rented a cabin. It was 13' x 13' and had electricity which we used for heat and light. We cooked outside under cover of a porch which probably stuck out about 4' further than the basic cabin. Our cooking was all done on a propane stove. We also had quick access to good water.

It is perfectly acceptable to slog through delicious mud and even take a couple of dives in it if you know you can get back to your cabin and warm up. Taking a shower was also pretty nice. If I take out the access to good water, take out the lights, take out the decent shower, I really come down to some basics that I don't think I want to do without.

I like a roof and some kind of wind block. Most of all, I like a heater.

I think I can boil water in many conditions but even my stove didn't work as well until it was sheltered from the wind. Too bad you can't cook indoors with those stoves. So, at least, a wind shelter (that's got to be better than a tent), and some non-poisoning, heat source.

just thinking out loud....

Later

Schwingen and Swingin'

I am really tempted to start a new variation on the traditional swiss sport of schwingen. It would involve some style of swing dancing, so it would be a dance competition, and then shortly afterwards it would be a wrestling competition.
The rules are as follows:
• teams of two will be scored together during the dance portion of the competition.
• the winner in each team gets the points from the dancing.
• both team members must have at least one hand on the other's canvas shorts during the entire round of play.
• Tournament play continues until there is one winner. However, he does not win. The person who gets the most points wins.
• If you lose, you have to keep hold of the person who defeated you by their canvas shorts, even after the round is over. This shows who has won and who has lost. If you let go, you will get schwinged to the ground and all of your points will be taken from you and divided among the people you defeated, who are desperately trying to hold on to your canvas shorts.


Oh yeah, one more rule...
• anyone named "Alton" automatically scores 1846582934756.89467 points at the beginning of play.

Things I didn't do today

• earn buzzillions of Brazilian pesos short-selling Citigroup derivatives
• learn any Klingon genealogy
• fly a crop-duster
• trick any toddlers into fighting each other
• eat Fritos at Tranquility Base
• stump a podiatrist
• juggle geoducks whilst whistling "Roll On, Columbia, Roll On."
• bag groceries as a SuperTarget bagboy
• trample upon the freedoms of Laotian frequent fliers selling lotion
• there are actually a lot more things I didn't do today
• but I meant to do these, or at least something similar to the items on this nicely-bulleted list
• and I didn't
• and I guess that's OK
• what didn't all y'all do today?