The Fly

We spent the weekend at our favorite little out-of-the-way ocean town. Of course we over-did the usual over-eating and over-drinking, but we also made an effort to get off our barstools for 30 minutes and do something cool: we took an aerial tour of the area.

The two of us and the pilot squeezed into an old and tiny Cessna – complete with ashtrays in the authentic vinyl armrests; the interior looked and smelled like a miniature 1972 Dodge. We flew out over the town, down the coast a bit, did a couple of circles around the Cape Lookout lighthouse and started back. Pretty cool. The pilot let me ‘fly’ for a bit – I did a little turn to the left, and a little turn to the right and tried to do as little else as possible before I gave the controls back. Hey, I’ve played MS Flight Simulator enough to know that flying is tricky, and that most planes end up on their back in the water once you get them off the ground. No thanks, man. I’ll just look out the window. Picture below.

iRant

My iPod’s shuffle function isn’t random: it favors some bands and ignores others. Out of the 4300+ songs I currently have stored on it, less than 20 are They Might Be Giants songs, and yet I get to hear at least one of them every day; the same is true for Fugazi (one a day, usually one of three songs out of thirteen total). By contrast, I never hear Bauhaus, Bob Dylan, Iron and Wine, Gastr Del Sol or Grandaddy (one album each); I never hear Elliot Smith or The Shins (two albums each).

Thankfully, there’s a new New York Times article, iTunes, a Hard Drive and (Just Maybe) a Brain, that confirms I’m not alone in thinking the iPod is biased:

“Dan Cedarholm, a Web designer in Salem, Mass., insists that his iPod has a predilection for the indie punk band Fugazi. Even though he only has two of the band’s albums stored on his ‘vintage’ 5-gigabyte device, the band seems to dominate his iPod to a degree wildly disproportionate to the amount of space it occupies on his player’s memory, he said.
‘It is truly bizarre,’ said Mr. Cedarholm, who no longer likes Fugazi. ‘Before, it was this hidden gem, and when I heard them I would be like, ‘Oh yeah. Fugazi. Cool.’ ‘
Now he hits the Fast Forward button.
Mr. Cedarholm has contemplated removing all Fugazi songs from his iPod, but he said he fears that ‘the baton will get passed’ to some other band, like his beloved Pixies, “and God help me if I wind up hating them too.”

Ass-scented Markers!

Zack Braff, the guy who plays the lead character on Scrubs has a blog.

What an exciting time to be from New Jersey. Why’s he quitting? Hell even Marion Barry hung in as Mayor of D.C. after he got caught taking a sip of the crack rock. A gay affair is nothing. When I was president of my elementary school student council I once purposely peed outside the urinal as an act of civil disobedience for being scolded for sniffing fruit scented markers. What did they expect? They were fruit scented! If you don’t want kids to sniff markers, make them smell like ass, not grapes.

Read all about his exciting gas rebate offer, too! Sadly, it doesn’t apply to Raleigh. Ah well.

Funny

CNN.com’s headline writers like to make little jokes from time to time. Here’s todays:

“Doping suspicions make it difficult to take track marks seriously”

Oh those clever criminals

Just got this one:

Dear Citibank Customer:

Recently there have been a large number [sic] computer terrorist attacks over our database server. In order to safeguard your account, we require that you update your Citibank ATM/Debit card PIN.

This update is requested of you as a precautionary measure against fraud. Please note that we have no particular indications that your details have been compromised in any way.

This process is mandatory, and if not completed within the nearest [sic] time your account may be subject to temporary suspension.

Please make sure you have your Citibank ATM/Debit card and your login details at hand.

To securely update your Citibank ATM/Debit card PIN please go to:

Customer Verification Form

Please note that this update applies to your Citibank ATM/Debit card – which is linked directly to your checking account, not Citibank credit cards.

Terrorists are trying to access my Citibank ATM/debit card? Wow! I didn’t even know I had one!

Ah, jokers

Here’s a good review of a Fujitsu Plasma Flat-Panel TV:

“Well Plasma Tv are very pricey as you can see however they are great for people who have web TV and like new digtal things
I bought a Plasma tv this on THIS TV IS SUPER IT WEIGHS 1.5 POUNDS AND IS THIS LIGHTEST THING ON EARTH YOU SEE I TRAVEL ALOT AND STILL NEED A TV “

Actually, the thing weighs 69.4 pounds. :)

Back off

Here’s one of the ways in which the editor in Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2003 is too clever: if you copy and paste some HTML, it will look at what you’re pasting and automatically change it to clean up any possible HTML errors, with no warning that it is doing this. While I appreciate that it’s trying to help me out, the overall effect is this: I can no longer assume that what I just copied will be what I paste. Now, I have to assume that the editor has gone and done something to what I just pasted, though I don’t know what that something could be, because I can’t find any setting anywhere that looks anything like “Auto-correct HTML”. So now I have to double-check everything I paste, to make sure the editor hasn’t done something crazy.