The most unbearable part of moving from this house into another house is finding a home for the chickens. They are really just into nabbing bugs, laying eggs, and eating pizza crust, sort of like me, but with a much smaller brain.
Category: goatee-stroking musing, or something
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dan jones: on his chickens
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is there something I’m missing?
Downtown, many people are carrying potted plants. I wonder why?
Who are these plant people? What is their mission?
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Lady Goosepelt Rides Again!
In case anyone wants them, the 600 dpi page images of What a Life! are stored in this PDF: what_a_life.pdf (16MB). If you merely wish to browse, all the images from the book are here.
I got a bit carried away with doing this. Instead of just smacking together all the 360 dpi TIFFs I scanned seven years ago, I had to scan a new set at a higher resolution, then crop them, then fix the page numbers, add chapter marks, and make the table of contents a set of live links.
I’ve got out of the way of thinking in PostScript, so I spent some time looking for tools that would do things graphically. Bah! These things’d cost a fortune, so armed only with netpbm, libtiff, ghostscript, the pdfmark reference, Aquamacs, awk to add content based on the DSC, and gimp to work out the link zones on the contents page, I made it all go. Even I’m impressed.
One thing that didn’t impress me, though:
I used to edit multi-gigabyte files with emacs on Suns. They never used to complain like this. They just loaded (admittedly fairly slowly) and let me do my thing. Real emacs don’t give warning messages.
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l’air du bus
An old open-top Routemaster tour bus turned past me onto Bay today. The diesel smell and the distinctive bogla bogla groom! as it pulled away reminded me of UK public transport.
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forget, forget, forget
Well, the exam’s done. With luck, I can get on with life now.
The gym at UofT where the exam was held was stiflingly hot. It also didn’t help that the invigilator dude made announcements through a cruddy bullhorn, so he ended up sounding like an imperative Miss Othmar.
Ask me how I did in mid-October.
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cram, cram, cram
I have my PPE exam today for my Professional Engineers Ontario licence. This is my first exam in 15 years (not counting citizenship, which was more of a test). I think it’s my first essay-question exam, possibly ever, certainly since school.
I never was very good at studying; last minute and aim for one point above the pass mark was more my style. I’m sure Catherine can confirm it hasn’t changed.
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doesn’t rule my web
Lots of people are drooling over the book Rule the Web. I’m not, particularly. It’s good in parts, but reminds me so much of those mid-late 1990s “Best Web Directory Ever” tomes that are currently propping up shelves in bargain bookstore, and propping up houses built on landfills in Arizona.
My biggest complaint is its US-centric approach. Pretty much everything related to buying, selling or finding people or things mentioned in the book only applies to the USA.
As is the way when web meets paper, some things are out of date already. It happens, but it’s a shame when the book’s pretty new in the shops.
I did find a couple of things I genuinely didn’t know about, but might find useful:
- Combine PDFs, for slicing and dicing PDFs under OS X. (I could do this with pdftk, but Combine PDFs is purty).
- The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. When I next need a comic boing, I’ll know where to look.
It also gave links to OnyX and HandBrake, both of which I already use. But that’s about it. I’d have been peeved if I bought the book (yay, Toronto Public Library!), as this is more of a basic manual than a compendium of coolness.
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easily amused
I’m in Cambridge, at the Mill Race Folk Festival. The weather’s great, it’s a good event (just saw Enoch Kent [!]), but what’s really holding my attention are a number of big fish with orange tails rootling about on the riverbed of the Grand. They’re leaving pleasing silt trails.
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Mr Clean
I so want to see this documentary: Dr Bronner’s Magic Soapbox. (via)
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Let’s get started
We all got a pandemic starter kit at work yesterday:
I was most disappointed that it didn’t contain any influenza virus at all. How am I supposed to start a pandemic without it?
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Tranna ain’t Bawlmer, hon (eh?)
We just saw Hairspray. As the movie of the musical of the movie, it acquits itself quite well, but the edge of the original is lost under the sugar coating. I was about to add that we didn’t need a remake so soon after the original, but Waters’s version is 19 years old, which is an age in movie time.
The good bits? Nikki Blonsky is a wee honey, with huge cartoony eyes and a winning smile. James Marsden adds a little extra sleaze to the role of Corny Collins. The musical numbers are infectious; but then, they should be, coming straight off the stage.
The mediocre? Travolta’s face padding made his eyes look way too close together, and he’s no Harris Glenn Milstead. The cameos from the original are a little too cameo (didja catch Ms Lake as one of the talent scouts?), and the racist baddies are too bland to be disagreeable.
I recognized many of the Toronto locations: the high school’s on Spadina just north of College, most of Tracy’s neighbourhood was around Roncesvalles, the TV studio looked to be on Dupont, and yes, those streetcars were old Red Rockets (one even with an Eastern Avenue destination). If you didn’t know Baltimore, you might think it passed, but it’s nothing like the real thing.
It’s a pretty good summer movie, charming and fluffy, but the original is still better.
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shredder work #1
Media: tempera, shredder, glue stick.Â
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gah!
Saw my first Back To School! ad of 2007. It was at FutureShop.
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Never attribute to poltergeists
… what can be more readily explained by bad wiring or static.
Whenever we walk past the computer desk, Doug’s stereo turns on. But on if you walk from right to left.
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Do you need _pellets_?
There really is a conference called Interpellets 2007.
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Gutenberg Canada
Project Gutenberg Canada / Projet Gutenberg Canada opened its doors a couple of days ago. It’s gone through several organisers since I first heard of its imminent launch in 2002, but I’m glad it got going.
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So, Herr Rorschach …
I cleaned my fountain pens today.
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burning question
What’s the proper name for someone from Saskatchewan?
(apart from “Doug”.) -
i wish i had my camera with me
The semi-skilled busker with the snoozing-in-the-guitar-case spaniel was performing at Osgoode tonight.
