January 31, 2004
Chilling out
I took the dogs up to the lake this morning, despite the 15 degree temperature. I know it sounds completely insane, but I love weather like this -- the dogs darting back and forth across the crunchy ground, the heatless sun yellow on the horizon, each icy breath a mix of pain and exhilaration. Once we were walking for 20 minutes or so, it really wasn't too bad. Good enough, in fact, for Xena to plunge into the lake in pursuit of a flock of geese. Within minutes after she emerged dripping from the water, she turned into the ice Newf.
Now Playing: Nietzche from the album Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia by The Dandy Warhols
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:09 AM | Comments (0)
January 30, 2004
Forget the South
I've been watching the Democratic primaries with considerable amusement. What a confederacy of dunces. It was particularly fun watching Dean get tangled in a Confederate flag several weeks ago. An article in Slate says what I've been thinking for a long time: Why are the Democrats so worried about the South anyway? Face it. The South is Republican. Now get on with your lives ...
To quote:
"Since 2000, many Democrats have questioned quietly why they should expend so much effort trying to win votes in what is now a solidly Republican region. The Democrats' ceaseless courtship of Southern votes has fostered an unhealthy sense of entitlement. Southerners now consider it their God-given right to supply Democrats with presidential candidates or, failing that, to force non-Southern candidates to discuss Him using an alien evangelical vocabulary."
Now Playing: Shining Moon from the album Whites Off Earth Now by Cowboy Junkies
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:31 PM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2004
Dancing Bob ...
Lots of travel during the past week or so. I flew out to San Diego for a conference, where one night found me with a cigar in one hand and a Maker's Mark in the other while I was dancing the way only a drunken white boy can dance. Not a pretty sight.
Drove from San Diego to Ventura after the conference and skated through L.A. with hardly any traffic grief. That was nice. Then I got a first class upgrade on the way back to Knoxville. Very cool.
After a brief night back in Knoxvegas, Lara and I flew up to Chicago to see Buddy Guy at his Legends club. It was incredible. And once again, Dancing Bob was unleashed on the unsuspecting masses. It amazes me how all those folks can stand stockstill while Buddy is wailing the blues.
Perhaps the coolest part of the weekend was the return home. We stepped into a blustery Chicago morning looking for a cab and stumbled into a limo that agreed to take us to O'Hare for the same price as a cab. The driver turned out to be a blues harp player who was pretty impressed when he found out we'd flown in to see Buddy Guy. We were talking about the blues, and he whipped out a harp and blew a few notes to explain what a diatonic harmonica is. When I asked who his favorite harp player is, he said Howard Levy . I'll have to give him a listen.
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:02 PM | Comments (1)
January 19, 2004
MLK Day ...
"Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true."
Martin Luther King Jr.
Strength to Love, 1963
Posted by Bob Benz at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2004
Next of kin spam ...
I've seen a hundred variations on the "we're in some third world country and have a lot of money that we can't get out and if you'll help us we'll cut you in for a slice of the pie" spam. I've often wondered what kind of drooling moron falls for these things. But I received one the other day that's an interesting twist on this scheme. It definitely made me do a double take before I lunged for the delete key. Seems legal eagle James Link is trying to find th next of kin for a Michael Benz who died in an auto accident in Nigeria (why is it always Nigeria?) Dude was worth $10 million. And they can't find any trace of his next of kin. Go figure. Maybe I'm in for some cash? I'm sure Mr. Link can give me the details on how to get mine.
Here's Mr. Link's half-literate attempt to scam money out of unsuspecting Benzes ...
Dear : Benz,
I am Barrister James Obi,a solicitor at law. I am the personalattorney to Mr.Michael Benz,a national of your country, who usedto work with Shell DevelopmentCompany in Nigeria.On the 21st of April 2001, my client, his wife and their only daughter were involved in a car accident along sagbama express road. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost there lives. Since then I have made several enquiries to your embassy here to locate any of my clientsextended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful.After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to track his last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I contacted you. I have contacted you to assist in recovering the fund valued at US$10 million left behind by my client before it gets confisicated or declared unserviceable by the Security Finance Firm where this huge amount were deposited. The said Security Finance Company has issued me a notice to providethe next of kin or have the accountconfisicated within the next twenty one official working days.Since I have been unsuccesfull in locating the relatives for over 2 years now, I seek the consent to present you as the next of kin to the deceased since you have the same last names, so that the proceeds of this account can be paid to you.Therefore, on receipt of your positive response, we shall then discuss the sharing ratio and modalities for transfer. I have all necessary information and legal documents needed to back you up for claim. All I require from you is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through.I guarantee that this will be executed under legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. Please get in touch with me
Best regard,
Barrister James Obi
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:10 AM | Comments (3)
January 14, 2004
You ship it, they rip it ...
Interesting business model that's being spawned by the iPod/portable digital music craze. These guys offer to burn your entire CD collection and send it back to you so you can easily put it on your iPod. Cool idea, but I'm not sure if the pricing is quite there. At about $1/CD, that adds up if you own a lot of music.
Then again, I'm still transferring my CDs to my computer after several days, and I'm only in the C's.
Now Playing: Elube Changó (Son Afro) from the album A Toda Cuba Le Gusta by Afro Cuban All Stars
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:52 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
January 11, 2004
Now Playing ...
Just stumbled on another cool feature in ecto. In addition to making it easy to use Movable Type shortcuts on the Mac, it also makes it easy to insert the name of the song that's currently playing on my copy of iTunes (I'm busy moving my entire CD collection onto my iPod today ... ) Now Playing: Cluck Old Hen from the album Hogs On The Highway by The Bad Livers.Posted by Bob Benz at 12:56 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Movable Type and the Mac
My one disappointment so far with Movable Type on the Mac is losing the keyboard shortcuts that the PC provides. I haven't been able to find Mac equivalents, so to date, I've been inserting URLs by handcoding the HTML. Today, I found an app called ecto that handles that and more. Still experimenting, but it has promise. Basically, it acts as a control panel for Movable Type on your Mac and extends the content management functionality. This is my first test post using it ...Posted by Bob Benz at 12:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 8, 2004
Fashion police ...
God knows I'm no fashionista. But I thought this critique of fashion photography was pretty cool. Nice approach. I ended up clicking through the whole thing ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)
January 5, 2004
Bruising the Apple
Despite my glowing (fawning?) posts on all things Apple, Mock sees fit to diss the iPod. He raises some valid points, worth checking out. Here's my response to him.
In defense of the ipod
Just read your savaging of the ipod.
http://www2.mocktech.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=13
Overall, I see your point. But I still have to point out the advantages to it. At least for some users. Mainly: I'm not as focused on "on the go" music as I am portable music. I like the idea of having my CD collection available in the office, in my car and anywhere else that I can plug in. My 40 gig ipod does just that, plus it serves as a secondary backup for my Apple computer. 256 mb isn't what I'm chasing here. I want multiple CDs available. I played my ipod all day at the office today on battery power, which impressed me. And I intend to get a power adapter so I'm not limited by battery life.
I am worried about the reports that the battery craps out after 18 months. But it's not the first time a product has shipped with flaws. I'm on my third Tivo. First one had a bad modem, which I had to replace. Then I bought a series II. The hard drive died on it so I had to have it replaced. But I love the technology so much I'm willing to take that risk. Being an early adopter can be painful sometimes ...
As for the Mac vs. PC debate. I realize it's akin to a religious war. But I started on Mac, shifted to PC for about 8 years and have just gone back to Mac, at least at home. It has flaws, but it's so much easier to use and so much more fun than the Dell that I'm dumping that I suspect I'll be bi-technical from here. I need the PC for work, etc. But when I'm looking to have fun, I'll be using my Mac.
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:31 PM | Comments (0)
Dolphins evolve opposable thumbs
Joannie spotted this piece in the Onion, one of my favorite online sites. Jonathan Swift would be proud of these guys. Still some of the best humor/satire on the Internet. I don't know how they keep it up. The theme of this particular story is particularly appropriate here on opposable-thumbs.com. Maybe we can get a dolphin as a guest blogger ...
"HONOLULU–In an announcement with grave implications for the primacy of the species of man, marine biologists at the Hawaii Oceanographic Institute reported Monday that dolphins, or family Delphinidae, have evolved opposable thumbs on their pectoral fins.
"'I believe I speak for the entire human race when I say, "Holy fuck," said Oceanographic Institute director Dr. James Aoki, noting that the dolphin has a cranial capacity 40 percent greater than that of humans. "That's it for us monkeys.'" ....
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:52 PM | Comments (2)
January 4, 2004
For sale ...
I have several items that I'm trying to get rid of. This also is giving me an eye-opening look at online classifieds. I'm putting online/print ads in the local paper, the Thrifty Nickel and Yahoo! just to see what the differences are. So far, all I can say is that Yahoo! totally gets it. They make placing an ad online a simple and painless experience. The real test will be to see if their ads bring results ...
Here are the items I'm selling:
A saltwater aquarium (You have to enter my phone number 865-691-7731 to see the ad, which is a print ad keyed to my phone number.)
A desk
A printer
No sense linking to the desk or printer ads since the local paper got the numbers wrong. We'll have to see if the Thrifty Nickel does better, but that ad doesn't publish until Wednesday.
So Yahoo! was the only one that could get my ad up and running on New Years Eve without any delays. It's also telling me how many people have viewed the ad ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 4:03 PM | Comments (1)
An Apple a day ...
My Mac continues to astound me. I've started moving my digital photo archive into iPhoto, a very cool database approach to storing digital images. It also has a feature that makes it easy to publish a slideshow to my .Mac account. Here's my first test, using, of course, photos of my Big Green Egg. It couldn't have been easier to publish the photos. I need to geek around a bit to see if I can adjust a few things, but I'm impressed.
From a business perspective, Mac also gets it. They have managed to sell me a .Mac membership, and I've already downloaded numerous CDs and songs from their online music store. I'm buying gadgets and add-ons for my iPod. This stuff is like crack. And it's legal.
My one disappointment was the Apple Airport Extreme wireless base station. I couldn't get it to work in a reliable manner with my PC/Mac network, and I'm going to sell it.
Posted by Bob Benz at 3:51 PM | Comments (0)
January 3, 2004
Animals taste good
I see that PETA is trying to make hay over the mad cow problem. Their approach is almost hilarious. Seems they want to assure us that if we just quit eating meat, our food supply would be warm and fuzzy safe.
Here's the bad news: More people have died in the U.S. during the past year eating vegetables, green onions, specifically, than have died of mad cow disease. Tennessee and Pittsburgh both have had nasty hepatitis outbreaks linked to bad veggies.
Guess that wouldn't make good copy for PETA's propaganda ...
In the meantime, I'll keep nibbling on cows and chickens and pigs.
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)