This Day In History: 06/19

Monday, June 19, 2006

Picture Day: Windows and Flowers

because the vast majority of our population is illiterate



Click on one of the flower images on the right to load a high-resolution copy that you can set as your desktop background.




The Battle of the Signs
Michael Jackson is obviously a stalker
Superhero for a day

tagged as media | permalink | 3 comments

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Museday Tuesday

in which I have thirty minutes to write a thirty second song

Spikiest: (adj.) Having the most sharp projecting points

My Composition (0:30 MP3)
Old Musedays:
Sidelong
Moodily
Obnoxiously
Obsessively

This week, I permanently changed the rules for picking the title to use adjectives instead of adverbs -- whenever I used an adverb before, I just went by the adjectivial definition anyhow. When Spikiest came up, the first thing to enter my mind was a bulked-up cartoon porcupine brashly trying to convince his peers that he is, indeed, the spikiest. I wanted to get a metallic treble aura of fat eight-note piano triads filled with the slicing ka-chunk of not-quite-together downbeats. The transition in the middle is a little rough, but I think this is one that I could expand into a larger work. With more than thirty minutes, I would have smoothed out the transition, and added an incredibly loud woodblock to the second half like a metronome.

Toddler starting early
Problems at O'Hare Airport
Grocery stores find more ways to make you do all the work

tagged as museday | permalink | 0 comments

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Capsule Review Day

Bucket List: Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson are simultaneously diagnosed with terminal cancer and decide to have one last trip to do everything they never did. Does a good job of mixing the sentimentality with steady doses of humour and only drags a little bit. The actor who plays Jack from Will and Grace puts in a surprisingly good performance as Jack Nicholson's assistant, and proves that there's occasionally life after television.
Final Grade: B+

Aspects of Love: A remastered edition of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that flopped. With the exception of one extended scene, there's nothing new in the recording, although it probably does sound a little better than the 1989 version. Catchy music, weak story, and Michael Ball sounds a little wavy. Only a worthwhile purchase because Paige has my original CDs.
Final Grade: B-

Ray Stevens Boxed Set: This low-budget release is a three-CD set of Ray Stevens' hits (both comedy and serious). Because of licensing issues, the classics are re-recorded (apparently it's cheaper to perform it again than buy an old recording) and are not as high quality as they once were. The package is weak except for the price: $14 for the entire set -- cheap enough for the nostalgia kick.
Final Grade: B+

Design Patterns in Ruby: A hybrid book on Design Patterns and on the Ruby programming language, written by a coworker of mine. It's high on interesting content and low on padding, making it an easy and educational read for all four hundred million Zone readers who program in the Ruby language. You can read my entire Amazon.com review here .
Final Grade: A

Cook accused of getting tail in his pants
Man gets extended leave for White Castle
The most original computer game ever

tagged as reviews | permalink | 0 comments

Friday, June 19, 2009

Friday Fragments

an automatic party foul of epic proportions

♠ This month, we've seen more rain than a Korean Music Festival although we're still patiently awaiting the arrival of Anna & Ben's second daughter, who I've decided to name Stella. In my capacity as village teacher, I'm not sure what sort of misinformation I will teach her, although preliminary reports suggest that I was successful in teaching Ella that 2 + 2 equals Cow. When I last asked her what 2 + 2 was a couple months ago, she moo'd.

♠ I'm predicting today that Anna & Ben will eventually have 6 girls: Ella, Stella, Bella, Kella, twins Mella and Yella (sponsored by the drink corporation), and a lone boy, aptly named Fella. They will then tour the country performing a live-action version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

♠ One of the questions in Rebecca's "How Well Do You Know Your Groom?" quiz books asked if I could name all seven dwarves. I missed Bashful and Sleepy -- obviously fake dwarves that should have been replaced with Booty and Humpy.

♠ Booty is growing more net-savvy with every passing day. On Monday night, she tried to log into Instant Messenger by walking across my keyboard, and nearly spelled her name backwards. I'll have to set up some online accounts on Facebook, Amazon, and Costco for her soon.

♠ Speaking of Costco, our office recently started buying the Costco brand of green tea instead of the disgusting Lipton variety that tastes of caramellized napkins. There might actually be real tea in this new brand. I'd recommend it for what it is, but the main reason I drink it is because it's the only 0 calorie drink in the soda fridge that isn't Diet or Canada Dry.

♠ I've never understood the draw of carbonated water. When I was a kid, my dad used to consume massive quantities of Seltzer Water. Every time I tried it, it just felt like I was trying to sterilize the inside of my mouth with a very mild detergent. On the scale of drinking, carbonated water ranks just above Cranberry Lambic.

♠ The other night I had a brilliant idea for a website where you could submit a drinking game for any movie, sport, or activity you can think of. Wouldn't your life be greatly improved if you realized early on that your movie rental was going to be horrible and could spice up the rest of the movie with drinks? Is there really any reason to watch Jurassic Park III unless you can sip whenever someone says "raptor"?

♠ Unfortunately, drinkinggames.com is already set up with an amateurish-looking site that doesn't even have any submissions yet. I'll let Mike (of Mike and Chompy) steal his domain when it expires in exchange for 2% of future revenues.

♠ I have nothing further to say today, so I'll leave you with a joke I invented this month:

    Q: Why do geckos make great spies?
    A: They know how to lose a tail.

♠ Have a great weekend!

Nintendo adds innovation to Super Mario Wii in the form of cheating
Calgary gorillas aren't actually in a gang
Cats outsmarted in psychologist's tests
When will Anna pop out a baby?

June 19 - 20 (2 votes, 33.3%)


June 21 - 22 (3 votes, 50.0%)


June 23 - 24 (1 vote, 16.7%)


Sometime in August (0 votes, 0.0%)

tagged as fragments | permalink | 7 comments

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Invention Day: The URI! Hood-Baby

filling needs the world never knew it needed

When it comes to riding in the car, children are always given short shrift. They have no control over the radio, must fight their siblings to avoid the "hump", and have to sit in rear-facing child seats for longer and longer. The latest study from the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children should sit in the rear-facing child seats beyond the age of 2, and platoons of helicopter moms have even been spotted at the Vienna Metro station, forcing their adolescents to employ the rear-facing Metro seats "just in case".

As many parents can attest, kids hate the rear-facing child seat with a passion. In interviews with a noted baby whisperer, a representative sample of 21st century one-year-olds noted that facing the rear was "boring as hell" because you "can't see a damned thing". Installing a special mirror to set up some sort of mommy's-face periscope was also dismissed as "a stupid way to sell unnecessary baby products". (Special thanks to the parents of Dakota, Leighton, Teegan, Creighton, London, and Skyler for allowing their children to be interviewed for this article).

Unfortunately for these kids, safety in the car will always be the primary directive, and rear-facing child seats have consistently protected children from collisions, turn-overs, and errant nudity near strip clubs. However, there is definitely room for improvement, and that's where my new invention comes into the picture.

Introducing the URI! Hood-Baby, or "Hoody" for short. This child seat attaches securely to the hood of your car, so your baby can look at you in the driver's seat for the duration of the trip. It retains all of the safety benefits of a rear-facing car seat, while allowing your child to see more than the stained beige interior of your Volvo.

Direct sunlight provides increased vitamin D intake and an early warning system should your child be bitten by a vampire. In a clinical study, the increased exposure to smog and dirt boosted the immune systems of 84% of test babies, an improvement beaten only by the home remedy of rolling your baby in a gluten-peanut paste twice daily for a year.

The hoody comes with a plastic accessory that can be attached to your child to prevent bugs from splattering on your windshield, and is also Bluetooth-enabled so Junior can meet other babies while idling in downtown traffic. The frame is hooked directly into the car battery while the engine is on, to prevent baby thefts when you're at a stoplight.

When reviewed by Consumer Reports, the URI! Hood-Baby was branded a BEAST BUY!, because "BEST just wasn't good enough". Coming to select Walmart and Target stores in Fall 2012. Preorder now for $89.99!

tagged as inventions, favourites | permalink | 4 comments

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Time-lapsed Blogography Day

Twelve years ago today, on June 19, 2001, I had just returned from my exploratory trip to Tallahassee, where I scouted out the area around campus and secured an apartment made out of cinderblocks.

June 19, 2001 6:28pm Tuesday

I'm back. The trip went pretty well, and I've got a good apartment close to campus. Saturday, we got in around 2 and looked at several apartments. Then, we wandered around campus some. It looked like a typical college campus... a little ratty, half-urban half Tech-like. I wasn't too impressed, but it will be exciting to be somewhere completely new, with no preconceived notions. Sunday, we drove all over western Florida, to the beach and other small towns. I got pretty bored, but my dad wanted to look for historical sites. Monday, we found the apartment I ended up picking and finished the shopping by noon. We then drove back to Jacksonville and caught a plane out early this morning. I went straight to work and worked until 3.

Nine years ago today, on June 19, 2004, my sister got married in Barboursville, Virginia. It was incredibly humid, I read a poem, and then turned pages for the pianist.

Six years ago today, on June 19, 2007, I composed the Museday piece, Spikiest. It is still one of my favourite Museday fragments.

Five years ago today, on June 19, 2008, our project at work received the greatest email support request ever documented.

Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 4:23 PM
To: RegOps
Subject: Password Reset Request
Importance: Low

Why the Hell am I having such a Mother Fucking hard time gaining access to your God Damn website?

I don't want to change my God Damn password.

-----Original Message-----

A request has been made to change the password on your account. Your new password is:

Four years ago today, on June 19, 2009, we were all placing bets on when Anna's second child would make an appearance. It turned out to be the 23rd.

tagged as memories | permalink | 2 comments

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Much Ado About Nothing (PG-13):
I have minimal appreciation for Shakespeare, as anytime it popped up in English class, it just meant that the teacher had run out of lesson plans and wanted to waste a week reading plays out loud. Obviously, I'm not in the target audience for Joss Whedon's remake of this play (in modern times but with the original text), but we put it on a few weekends ago to give it a try. The contrast between the setting and the dialogue is a jarring dissonance that my brain could never quite get over, and it felt more like a drama club's self-indulgence than a real movie. The only impact it had on me was seeing all of the familiar Whedonverse actors and wishing that Dollhouse hadn't been cancelled so quickly. We turned it off after fifteen minutes. Free on Amazon Prime.

Final Grade: Not Graded

Orange is the New Black, Season One:
I originally dismissed this as a Not Graded last Fall, but finally caught up on the entire season so I could potentially watch the second one with Rebecca. However, my original opinion stands. The show is tonally and emotionally inconsistent, failing to mix drama and comedy together with any skill, the main character is consistently unappealing, and most of the flashback sequences are of the "Jack's LOST tattoos" variety. Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: C

West Wing, Season Five, Six, and Seven:
I burned through the last three seasons (written after the departure of the show's creator) during recent bouts of coding. Season five is boring and low on continuity. What was set up at the end of season four as a juicy political situation is resolved almost immediately, and John Goodman is wasted. Season six improves somewhat. Season seven focuses heavily on a Presidential campaign. While this gives the show some needed urgency, the final season spends too much time with guest characters (although Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda are both great). The series ends pleasantly and as expected. Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: C-, B-, B

Awake, Season One:
This high-brow show is about a police detective who ends up living in two realities after a car accident -- in one, his wife has survived, and in the other, his son has survived. He sees a psychiatrist in each reality who tries to convince him that the other reality is just a coping mechanism to deal with his grief. Hints and clues from each reality bleed together to help him remember the accident and solve his police work. Each reality is filmed in a red or green tint to help the viewer understand which is in play, a fact that I was oblivious to for several episodes because of colour-blindness. However, after printing out a cheat sheet of which characters appear where, I was thoroughly engrossed.

The show is fairly slow when it uses the two realities as a serendipity device to do procedural cop work, but really spins up to potential in the final four episodes of the thirteen episode run. The final episode goes a little too far off the rails for my taste, but manages to function well as both a season and series finale. (It was cancelled after a single season). Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: B+

tagged as reviews | permalink | 2 comments

Friday, June 19, 2015

Shed Day

Making progress on Thursday...

But then... rain delay!

tagged as day-to-day | permalink | 0 comments

Monday, June 19, 2017

Weekend Wrap-up

We're now in week 39 of Baby Watch (or Baby Warning, if we are to use the National Weather Service's terminology). On Friday afternoon, the Ahlbins came up from Fredericksburg with their 4 kids for a night of basement camping and Wall-E, while Ben and Anna got to try out the Oculus Rift. Ben demonstrated his ability to physically dodge a robot with some sort of "sliding into first base" maneuver that took him precariously close to the descending stairway.

Not a lot happened on Saturday -- Rebecca went to a wedding shower in the evening while I ordered pizza in and finished the fourth season of The 100 and then played Overwatch.

On Sunday, my parents stopped by briefly in the afternoon to check out our swank nursery, then we made a grocery run to stock up on slow cooker chili ingredients (apparently having a newborn is so intensely demanding that you never leave the house for supply runs). Afterwards, we took a brief nature walk through Claude Moore, then had dinner at the surprisingly empty O'Faolains, where we learned that you can now swap out fries for tater tots. Of course, we did.

How was your weekend?

tagged as day-to-day | permalink | 1 comment

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Memory Day: Snapshots

This picture was taken 15 years ago today, on June 19, 2004.

Sporting my 2004 look-and-feel and a rented tux vest with some ridiculous European name, I'm at my sister's wedding at the Barboursville Winery, breaking hearts and draining eyes with a self-selected reading:

BRIDAL SONG by John Ford

Comforts lasting, loves increasing,
Like soft hours never ceasing:
Plenty's pleasure, peace complying,
Without jars, or tongues envying;
Hearts by holy union wedded,
More than theirs by custom bedded;
Fruitful issues; life so graced,
Not by age to be defaced,
Budding, as the year ensu'th,
Every spring another youth:
All what thought can add beside
Crown this bridegroom and this bride!

Happy Anniversary, Ellen and Dan!

tagged as memories | permalink | 1 comment

Friday, June 19, 2020

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Toy Story 4:
This is a pleasant, unnecessary segment of the Toy Story story that doesn't tread a whole lot of new ground. In order to invent some reason for existing, the movie undoes some of the work that went into making Toy Story 3 a "perfect" ending for the series. Treat it like a straight-to-VHS one-off and you'll be able to enjoy it, especially with key roles filled by Tony Hale and Key & Peele.

Final Grade: B-

Expanse, S3:
Season Three has a weird flow to it -- the first half feels like "the rest" of Season Two, and the last half (following a jarring time jump in the narrative) is really rushed with new settings and newly introduced characters. I liked it well enough, but it did a lot more telling instead of showing. Anytime a character gives a multi-minute exposition dump based on things seen in a vision, I felt like they were over budget and needed to stretch their funds as long as possible. Free on Amazon Prime.

Final Grade: B-

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (PG-13):
This is a mismatched buddy comedy from the director of What We Do In the Shadows, the mockumentary about vampries. It has a different pacing to it and manages to be fun and charming without getting sappy or oversentimental.

Final Grade: B+

Medical Police, Season One:
Parody is a really difficult tone to get right and this show does not succeed. I gave it three episodes but saw no reason to continue -- there were a few brief chuckles connected by lengthy segments of forgettable setup. Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: Not graded

tagged as reviews | permalink | 0 comments

Monday, June 19, 2023

Easy Photos Day

Rebecca celebrates her 40th birthday with a petting zoo!


The goats.


Ian listens to Grandpa read "My Truck Is Stuck".


IRL Mario Kart.


Realizing that handbells make more noise than shouting.


Meanwhile, Rebecca and Maia take an overnight trip into Shenandoah Valley.


tagged as day-to-day | permalink | 0 comments

 

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