We Saw a Chicken …

Category: goatee-stroking musing, or something

  • The DSCN0001 Project

    dscn0001_project01.jpg
    Digicams produce sequentially-numbered picture files. Every camera has taken a first picture, and quite frequently these pictures and their original file names make it onto the web.

    Inspired by a conversation with James Dignan and Ken Weingold, the above is a collage of nine images originally named ‘dscn0001.jpg’ by the owners’ cameras. These thumbnails were found on Google Images, and have been scaled and tiled in a pseudo-random selection.

    I don’t who these people are, or what the images are from. The selection and arrangement is arbitrary. The only thing that they have in common are the file names. Somehow, despite their differences, they are strangely related.

  • Two differences

    There are two differences about me today. I’m sure you can tell what they are straight away:

    1) I’m now a part of the OMC Gas Grill family. All my life there was a gas grill family I didn’t know I had. We’re just like any other family, except that we don’t know each other, and all we do is barbecue things.

    2) I’m now the proud owner of a Faber Castell 57/87 Rietz slide rule. Watch me multiply with uncanny ease!

  • I think I’ve got my thunder, thank you

    Ah, a Scarborough dinner: mutton koththu roti and a bottle of Thums Up Indian cola. The soft drink tastes exactly like the colas I used to remember in Scotland, especially Barrie’s Old Time Cola. It’s slightly more spiced than that plain old brand from Atlanta.

    Thums Up’s rather improbably tagline is: “Thums Up, I Want My Thunder.” After that much spicy food and soft drink, well …

  • Welcome to Big Turtle Country

    We stopped in Madoc on Highway 7 last night for refreshments, and there in the Tim Hortons car park was a huge turtle. With its snake-like neck, thick bowed legs and saurian tail, it looked like an animated gothic footstool.

    Just a little down the road, there was another similarly-szied beastie. I wonder if they were calling to one another? Maybe the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.

  • No, it’s not “Your Brain On Drugs”

    oddblob.png
    Suggestions, please, as to what you think the above image is.

  • “The Quest For The Rest”–The Polyphonic Spree

    www.questfortherest.com

    Together We’re Heavy

    This flash game is by the same guy who did Samorost.

    (look, The Polyphonic Spree asked me to do this, so who are you to complain? Sure beats their original suggestion of forwarding the link by e-mail. )

  • A Happy Sight

    6/6/04 10:45 – The Don Valley Parkway as seen from the subway – car free, & filled with cyclists.

  • cheesepiphany

    The age I am, I thought I was a one cheese sort of a guy. Give me a good mature cheddar — none of your vac-packed rubbish, but something with a bit of history to it, like from Alex Farm Products — and I was in cheese heaven.

    Or so I thought. I occasionally like a piece of blue cheese on a steak, so I asked them at Alex's on the Danforth what they’d recommend. They came up with Fourme D’ambert. As Alex say, Its flavour is assertive piquant with a mellow buttery finish.. I’m already looking forward to it on oatcakes for lunch.

    In a different kind of cheesey news, my Sympatico DSL modem is on its last legs. They’re sending me a new one, but this one’s currently pegged at some ridiculously low speed so I can even connect at all. The tech at the (third stage) support centre says they’re really pushing for VoIP, with expected rollout in two years. That would be nice.

  • ebay.ca “page not responding” with mozilla

    ebay.ca seems to have great difficulty generating pages for Mozilla. I can have ebay.ca open on both Mozilla and Internet Explorer, and feed them the same URL. Internet Explorer loads it fine; Mozilla comes up with Page Not Responding.

    This appears to be entirely repeatable, certainly on my Windows box. Try it for yourself; here’s a sample URL for camera tripods.

  • a lyttle sladek, perhaps?

    I’m just wondering if Jason Lyttle of Grandaddy has read a lot of John Sladek. His songs of angsty machinery remind me of Sladek’s “Roderick” books.

    I’d recommend listening to one or reading the other. Or both. In either order.

  • don cherry

    21/5/04 15:31 – Don Cherry in a taupe linen suit @ YYZ. He’s smaller than I thought he’d be (I blame big-screen sports bars), and he really does wear those high collars in RL.

  • Putting the rant back into intolerant

    What’s with Canada’s eminently sensible newspaper The Globe and Mail carrying ads for far-right Colorado-based Focus on the Family? Are we getting so tolerant that we tolerate intolerance?

    The words far-right Colorado-based, aren’t mine, by the way. They’re from an article by the Globe‘s Leah McLaren where Focus on the Family … claim homosexuality is both preventable and treatable.

    Some of my best friends are from Colorado, and in a perfect world I’d hope that FOTF would take massive umbrage at Leah‘s article, and withdraw their ads from my paper. As is, I wish I had a subscription to the Globe, so I could cancel it in disgust.

  • How to make Windows suck 10000 fewer times

    In the same spirit of Marvin’s comment about Arthur Dent’s brain (It amazes me how you manage to live in anything that small.), it amazes me that anyone can actually get work done on a Windows box without having virtual workspaces …

    But I found DESKWIN, which does all I need; four virtual desktops, with hotkeys between them. Not much else. Perfect. Well, okay, Windows has still got about seven orders of magnitude of improvement to go before it’s even mildly usable, but it’s a start.

  • illicit substance: Caffeinated Scots Tablet

    I make Scots Tablet; in fact, I’m almost famous for it. I also roast my own coffee, which I get from Merchants of Green Coffee. What harm could come from combining the two, I thought?

    Plenty, is the answer. By adding ¼ cup (measured before grinding) of finely-ground coffee beans to a half batch of tablet has resulted in almost black tarry lumps that combined sugar, butterfat and caffeine into a mallet-to-the-back-of-the-head rush.

    Next time, I might use just a smidge less coffee. At the moment, it’s like a cross between full-on Rademaker’s Haagsche Hopjes and Uncle Ump’s Umpty Candy. I suspect that the RCMP will come knocking soon.

  • composed entirely of bananas

    acrobatguy.jpg
    Does anyone else think that the Adobe Acrobatâ„¢ logo guy looks more than a bit musaceous?

  • bunny

    tiny_bunny.jpg
    We found a baby bunny by the side of the road. He seems a bit stunned, but otherwise okay.

    Zoë has veterinarian training, so she’s looking after him.

    He fits in the palm of your hand, and is unbearably cute.

    Here’s a better picture (thumbnail links to larger image):

    Dave’s picture of the bunny

    Both pictures by Dave.

  • Temporary hearing impairment for pleasure

    (or, life without midrange)

    The Apples in Stereo rocked The Horseshoe last night; Robert, Hilarie, John and Eric always give a great show, and they gave everything they had last night. It was especially cool, as Hilarie had just played a set as guitarist for her other band, High Water Marks.

    Is it me, but on HWM’s song “Good I Feel Bad” do they really sing “She always keeps me open source”?

  • we’re going; are you?

    shore_to_shore_poster.jpg

  • CD Thinning annoyances

    Don’t you hate it when you have two copies of a CD, prune your CD collection, then discover that you’ve got rid of both copies?

    I’ve found I’ve done that with The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan — even if it has the most cringe-making liner notes ever published.

  • Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, 2004


    Hardly the perfect weather for it, but I did my best for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. Photo above links to my gallery of today’s efforts.

    I think I’ll be using Ilford Delta 3200 again. I love the soft grain you get in Microphen.