beancounters

Highway 99 blues

It's going to be quiet here the rest of this week, I think. I've been traveling to and from Modesto since last Friday, when my mother had bypass surgery. She's doing well. Healing is slow but things seem to be progressing the way they should. But it's crucial I visit the hospital again tomorrow, because I'm reading a mystery out loud to her, and the plot is starting to get tense.

By the way, if you like dogs and you like mystery novels and you'd like to avoid boarding the Dean Koontz Express during summer vacation, I highly recommend Dog About Town. Mom wrote a review of it a few months ago. The narrator (and detective) is a black Labrador named Randolph. Yeah, I know, but trust me, it works! And we're on the second book now.

(My mom, on the subject of Dean Koontz: "Pam, would you like to read this? It's about a man who's running for his life from a shadow government ... wait, that's every one of his books. Hmm. Well, this one has a green cover.")

Friday dog-blogging: the tao of dog

Practice non-doing, and everything will fall into place.

This is truly a miskelaneous collection of links this week. Here we go ...

Unisex bracelets made out of camera parts. WANT

Learn 35+ languages for free on iTunes. I wonder! Maybe we'll load one into Bunny's iPod to test them. She's been wanting to learn Greek, for some reason.

American David [jpg] OUCH.

75 skills every man should master. Some of these actually come with instructions, making this a handy To-Do list as well. Look within, gentlemen.

I'm digging The Tao of Programming, though I'm no computer programmer. The Tao is universal.       

       

A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application. 

The manager asked the master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?"        

"It will take one year," said the master promptly.        

"But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take if I assign ten programmers to it?"        

The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years."        

"And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?"        

The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said.

Scrabulous

You feel like playing a good game of Scrabble, but alas! Everybody in your time zone is wise to the way you can ruthlessly place the word ZYGOTE on a triple word score tile and wipe the board with the rest of the players. And now, nobody will play with you again. What can you do?

The answer is: sucker your online friends into playing, of course. If you can think of a better use of the internet, more power to ya.

Scrabulous will addict you in no time. It's easy to start an email-based game by listing yourself and up to three other friends. There's no (free) sign-up required until the monkey's on your back and you want to start playing open games.

The only downside (and it's small but annoying) is playing people who live on the other side of the world - such as Australia. They tend to sleep while you're awake. And you sit there, with your eyes boring twin pinpoint laser holes into your monitor, impatiently willing them to wake up in the middle of the(ir) night and visit their computers. But hey, it's all in good fun. I can quit anytime I want.

Confirm or ignore

What would Facebook relationships look like in real life? [YouTube] The comedy troupe Idiots of Ants wants you to know.

Scary! This sketch should be released as a public service announcement.

Ostentatious but so worth it

Courtesy of Deputy Dog: A collection of 10 annoyingly brilliant offices. Let's all spend some time gazing at the splendor instead of looking at our walls made of padded turquoise fabric.

How'd you like to work someplace that grows lawn indoors for your lounging pleasure?

God's a tweeter

You can really that this Web 2.0 thingie has gained real traction when you find that even God uses the tubes. Here are some of the short updates which He wrote on His Twitter account.

[God] today has created a new forbidden fruit. Don't know yet how call that. 'Apple' was registered by someone else

[W]riting commandments, actually are 120 but looking for create a "portable edition"

[H]ave forgotten to give a sex to angels.. damn me

Enlightenment! The Universe makes so much sense now. [Kthx, Boot]

Communists at play

Dark Roasted Blend has posted part 2 of the (hopefully two-part) series they call Nightmare Playgrounds. Prepare to be disturbed.

Friday dog-blogging: J-O-K-E

[Thanks Mom!]

A mutt is walking down the street, and he passes a fancy mansion that has a long driveway and an imposing wrought iron gate. Behind the gate are two beautiful but haughty poodles who look down their long pointed noses.

The first poodle says, "You there. What is your name? My name is Mimi. M-I-M-I."

The second poodle says, "And MY name is Fifi. F-I-F-I."

The mutt replies testily, "Well, MY name is Fido. P-H-Y-D-E-A-U-X."

Public art abounds at the Capitol

Spied a cool new mural in the downtown on Tuesday, so I risked being late to my lunch appointment to swing over and take a picture. I like murals that play fast and loose with perspective.

The weather has been absolutely wonderful in Sacramento. You know the weather I mean. Sunny but breezy, and just cool enough that when you're sitting on a patio having lunch, you idly wonder where your jacket is. Everyone is getting out to enjoy it for the short time it lasts.

Afterwards, I took a detour through an alley behind the State Food and Ag building, and I swear I smelled cloves. Cloves, cloves, very strong. Their cafeteria wasn't suddenly baking Thanksgiving pies or anything; I ducked in there and sniffed. Are the Food and Ag workers smoking clove cigarettes near the giant vent? It's a Sacramento mystery.

Another mystery: Who are these figures on the side of the Department of Transportation building, and why are they hugging things?

e asked if the figures were meant to be riff on the Art Deco period. I replied they are the Art Deco period - period.

Speed bumps on the road to Hobbitown

This probably happens more often than we know: A guy has been tapped to direct the movie version of a famous book, in spite of the fact he hates the author.

[H]asn't anybody noticed that [Guillermo] del Toro has repeatedly said he doesn't like Tolkien, and that he never finished reading "The Lord of the Rings"? Here's what he told me in Cannes in 2006, when I asked him about the influence of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis on his own work: "I was never into heroic fantasy. At all. I don't like little guys and dragons, hairy feet, hobbits -- I've never been into that at all. I don't like sword and sorcery, I hate all that stuff."

Let's see, he doesn't like "little guys and dragons" or hairy-footed hobbits, and "The Hobbit" would be a movie about what, exactly?

To me, this alone is no reason not to give the job to del Toro. If he doesn't regard the LOTR series with near-religious fervor, he can be more objective in his interpretation and delivery of the story.