On this, Blog Action Day, the topic is the Environment. Of course, we're supposed to talk about the real life environment, but there are some lessons that we take from fiction.

Namely, hobbits.

I've been playing a lot of Lord of the Rings Online, and during that time I've been spending a fair amount of time in the area of the game built to represent the Shire. This has been a kind of geeky paradise for me, because I love love love Tolkien's work and seeing it realized more fully in a virtual setting is just tons of fun.

But while I'm geeking out, I'm looking at the hobbit-houses in the game and thinking "man... wouldn't it be great if you could live in a house like that? Forget about how awesome it would be... just think of the savings on heating and cooling... look at the profile of the thing... it's just such an excellent DESIGN."

So... half geek and half responsible eco-parent. Okay. Fine.

Now, we can't bulldoze all the houses and buildings that are out there, of course, but how excellent would it be if someone out there was at least trying to provide a solution like this for NEW housing. If you can't get the government to do a damned thing about Global Warming, make changes on a personal level, right?

Personally, I want a real, beautiful hobbit hold, but if not that, maybe Earthship?

(Thanks to the WoW Insider poster that linked to this earlier.)

The Foundation that manages the One Laptop Per Child Program (which pursues the goal of giving one low-cost, Linux-based laptop to every child in the developing world) is making their machines available for sale in the developed world this Christmas. The price is $399, and includes two laptops, one of which will be given to a child in the developing world.

Mighty Goods: Cool Feet

Use MP3 Files as Ringtones on Motorola Q - Smartphone Edition Tutorial

Dave, who is the very picture of a modern renaissance geek man as regards his car, his faith, his hobbies, and his projects, is currently participating in the 2007 Blogathon, on behalf of the Episcopal Relief and Development fund.

You all might remember that I did this a few years back, and the rules haven't changed: one 'live' post every half hour, for 24 hours. Dave is posting reviews of a ton of comics and trade paperbacks he's read in the last year (and which I'd like to borrow).

SO: go on over, read a bit, leave a couple comments, and try to keep your feet off the sofa. Chat him up -- keep him awake!

Virg writes a little sea-chanty for Mr. Depp.

Wednesday last week Kate got into town late, due to flight issues, so that meant she and Kaylee and I finally got back to the house around 2 am. Yuck.

Thursday Kate spent some time at the gym and biking around the neighborhood. She was heard to comment: "street names like TimberRIDGE and NorthRIDGE, all located in HIGHLANDS Ranch seem to indicate hilly terrain. Who'da thunk?"

When I got home, we finished up a project Kate had started -- cleaning out the hallway hutch to make a space for our wedding china and other pretties. It felt good to get that generally cluttered and poorly used area all straightened up.

We then went to Transformers. This is a great, fun summertime flick. If you saw and enjoyed Die Hard for its summer movie goodness, you will enjoy this movie -- that's my personal belief. Good stuff -- lots of funny -- we had a great time.

FridayI had work, and Kate went back to the gym and a longer bike ride. This time, she was lulled into a trap by the innocuous sounding "Venneford Ranch" street name, which is actually both steeper and longer than any of the streets with "Ridge" in the name.

That evening, Dave and Margie and Jim and Ginger and Katherine came over. We ate a lot of good food, talked about home improvement stuff, let Kaylee charm us, and then Dave and Margie and Kate and I played Primetime Adventures, and other three headed home.

Saturday, we dropped Kaylee off at Jackie's and headed to the Aurora Reservoir for check in and orientation for the Triathlon. Met up with Kate's longtime friend Yi Shun and her husband Jim, who came in from Chicago to do the tri, as well as visit friends and do some work meetings. The orientation, bike drop off, and lunch took up most of the day. We headed home, got some pizza for supper, and watched the fourth Harry Potter movie on DVD.

This was not the movie we watched.

My thoughts on HP #4, from a guy who hasn't read the book yet:

#4 is not a movie adaptation of a book. It's a audiovisual summary of the book... and not a great one; about like having a friend a stranger who read the book try to get you caught up before you go see Order of the Phoenix. I was left thinking "if all I had to go on was this movie, I would be wondering what on earth made someone think making a movie from these books was a good idea." It's not... BAD -- it's just... uninspired.

Sunday The Triathlon, about which more has been said elsewhere. Check out my Flickr page for more pictures.

I love Flickr, by the way. I've upgraded to the Pro Account for the extra functionality, more sets, unlimited uploads, and what amounts to a private domain just for hosting my pictures. The price is reasonable, the service is top-notch, and I can pick up prints from my local Target about an hour after making the order. Plus, it allows picture blogging from the phone, and a host of other goodies. I'm in the process of getting ALL my pictures up there.

In the afternoon, we moved Bert-the-Oven over to Jackie's, and moved Unnamed Oven back to our place.

Yes, after getting up at five in the morning and doing a Triathlon, Kate then helped me move two ovens across town. She's like a super hero or something.

That evening, Kate and I went to Harry Potter #5.

My thoughts on HP #5, from a guy who hasn't read the book yet:

This is a great movie. It's fun, it's dark, the translation from book to film is inspired and well-done (notable: this is the only movie that hasn't been translated to film by the same guy as #1, #2, #3, and #4, and it makes me sad and worried that Mr. 1 though 4 is coming back to translate #6), the acting is superb, the real villain of the piece (played by Imelda Staunton) is easily the most HATEABLE character in the HP stories, and quite possibly in any movie I've ever seen. Most villains (and the actors playing them) go for a kind of bad-boy cool -- Staunton goes for the most pleasantly loathsome creature I've ever ...

*shakes head* She steals the movie, then tortures it, while you watch, breathless. She's THAT good at being THAT evil. GOD I hated her.

Anyway: good movie. Easily my favorite of the HP series to date. (Azkaban was good, but still managed to disappoint me in its delivery in some places. Ever nit I've ever picked about the HP series in general is handled with a kind of inspired grace in Order of the Phoenix.

To compare: OotP made me want to read the book because it was a fun movie and I want to reexperience the good stuff from the screen and get all the extra bits that they had to take out. Goblet of Fire made me want to read the book because I figure that the story can't actually be that bad. (I'm assuming/hoping, there, that #4 isn't bad for the same reason #2 was: that it was based on a bad story to begin with.)

Monday Countdown, a plugin for your iGoogle page, is very handy. What date could I want to count down to? Hmmm...

Did a bit of errand running in the afternoon, then picked up Kaylee (I have her all this week, due to some work stuff Jackie's got going on) -- we all sat around and watched Titan A.E., which both Joss Whedon and Ben Edlund wrote for -- good fun stuff, and Kate hadn't seen it. After the wee munchkin was off to bed, Kate and I watched Resident Evil, which she also hadn't seen. Fun Zombie flick. No nearly as scary as the game, but good action movie zombie fun.

Tuesday Kate flew back to New York. Happy Doyce is all out of Happy. :P

That evening, Kaylee and I played and watched a bunch of Avatar, Book 2 episodes. That is one of my favorite animated shows ever, I think. Great stuff.

Wednesday Today! Umm... not much going on. How about you?

make it this one, for Epuron. This is a really nicely done with a neat ending that I won't spoil, but will say that it ties into a number of other recent posts of mine.

Also, it won the Golden Lion for best advertising spot at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes.

Thanks to De for bringing it to my attention.

This is the website for the Douglas County, Colorado Clerk & Recorder. I am linking it here because every time I try to find the site, it takes ages and it a total pain in the neck.

That is all, return to your regularly scheduled slacking browsing.

Actually kind of sad when you think about it: Single Guys Live in LA, Single Girls in NYC, via strange maps.

KangaRoom - Divided Cord Storage & Organizer

I don't drink enough tea (some) or coffee (none) to warrant getting a new cup, but as the parent of a toddler who has yet to find a decent 'clip-on' sippy cub, this Carabiner Mug really appeals to me.

Revel in "Literally, A Web Log" -- "an English language grammar blog tracking abuse of the word "literally.'" In today's post, the authors propose "gilberthorpe" as a verb meaning "to commit multiple instances of 'literally' abuse."

Wicked Crispy -- your favorite pop culture icons... as bubbleheads.

Keep going back through the older stuff -- there's only a few pages of it, and they're all pretty darn great. Jabba the Hutt is great, but I think the Yoda vs. Palpatine one is my favorite. :)

... I am a lesbian.

Or I could be a really deep, sensitive, appreciative guy, but really the evidence doesn't indicate that.

You should be (feed)reading xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

supersecretthingy -- redefine your heroes

This is a Great Britain article, which is perhaps a bit different than the U.S. in terms of the amount of single-person, single-car commuting that's going on, but the gist is this: for best energy efficiency, work from home more in the summer, and work in the office in the winter.

Related: check this page out to see how much, on average, your commute is costing you.

Dire Boar.

Phlogiston: Incredibly Pale Ale

A No-Frills Kitchen Still Cooks - New York Times

In 1950, when I was in kindergarten in Detroit, the city had a population of (rounded off) 1,850,000. Today the latest census estimate for Detroit is 886,000, less than half as many. In 1950, the population of the U.S. was 150 million. Today the latest census estimate for the nation is 301 million, more than twice as many. People in America move around. But not just randomly.

The article goes on to look at "coastal megalopolises," noting a steady trend of shrinkage (relative to the U.S. as a whole) comprised of lots of natives moving away and somewhat fewer immigrants moving in. People are moving out of California instead of in, and New York, New Jersey, and Illinois are expected to lose seats in the House in 2010. The big growth cities are 'interior boomtowns' that are off the coast, but not TOO far of the coast (Orlando, Dallas) and there are a bunch of large cities (Denver among them) whose growth essentially matches up with the country as a whole.

Interesting reading, especially when projecting the impact these shifts will have on the political voting strength of traditionally strong areas.

Via kottke, the news article Skywalkers in Korea cross Han solo is not what you think.

Well-played, Associated Press; well-played.

Oh my word.

Yeah, this has "next inescable internet silliness" written allll over it. It's no Charlie the Unicorn, but it's up there.

How to Use There, Their and They're

Go.

Read this.

Stop being one of the people who embarrass or annoy me.

Rusty is a homosexual, via Iskander, an NYC gamer I've never quite managed to meet in all my trips out there despite having many mutual friends and thus suspect may be an elaborate hoax, but who is, nonetheless, splitting the room costs with me at the Forge Midwest convention in Chicago this weekend.

Good article on commuting in The New Yorker:

Commuter-wise, New York City is an anomaly. New Yorkers have the highest average journey-to-work times (thirty-nine minutes) of any city in the country, but are apparently much happier with their commutes than people are elsewhere. It could be that New Yorkers are better conditioned to megalopolitan hardships, or that public transportation ameliorates some of the psychic costs. Or maybe they're better at lying to themselves.

For myself, I really wish I was using the lightrail as much as I was the first couple months I came downtown. As it stands now, a monthly pass is as good as throwing away half the money (simply because I'm not coming downtown every day, which you almost HAVE to do to make the monthly pass pay for itself), and the weekly tickets are hard to remember to buy -- the car is always there, and always ready, but it doesn't get me to work any faster (sometimes quite the opposite); there's a hidden benefit in that delays on the train just mean more time to read (they're out of your control, and thus no big deal), while delays in your car are frustrating and stressful. Mostly, I miss the time I get on the train for reading; while I was using the lightrail more, I read more than a dozen books in a month and a half. Since then, I've read perhaps a quarter of that. I miss that, if nothing else.

But I miss working a four to ten minute drive away from my house most of all.

Neil Gaiman has begun writing his next book. Longhand, apparently, which both impresses and awes me. He details part of the process here, with pretty pictures.

Pack your bagel in a CD spindle

From Locus Online (April 1st edition)

VATICAN CITY - Today the Roman Curia announced that the beatification of Neil Gaiman had been completed, putting the writer one step closer to the official recognition of his sainthood. These steps were carried out despite the fact that Gaiman himself has repeatedly denied being a saint, pointing out that he was not Catholic, not really religious and, most importantly, not dead.

At her request, I'm 'sending this out' to people I know.

Hello there, "people I know."

Hey everyone: Happy Thursday! I just signed up to walk at that March of Dimes Walk America. SO... if you feel so inclined to donate, check out my personal web page and you can donate there or send me a check through the mail. My goal is $500 but I would love to blow that out of the water.

I walk for my kids -- if not for the research done by the March of Dimes Malik and Jadyn would not be with us and I don't think I could live with that. Regan was our special gift that helped the Doctors figure out what was wrong with me so that Jadyn could be born full term. I will always be grateful to the MOD and the work they do.

So help if you can, and if you can't, just know I love ya anyway.

Thanks,
Bonnie

Via Kate:

manamana

Emma Watson has reportedly refused to sign up for the last two instalments in the Harry Potter series, despite being offered 2 million pounds per film to reprise her role as Hermione Granger.

WARNING: According to a few ignorant morons right-thinking Americans, watching this commercial (originally aired during Superbowl XXX alongside Prince's penis virtuoso half-time performance) will turn you GAY.

Let the mockery commence.

Kids Domain, which provides a comprehensive list of freeware programs for you computer + your kids, broken down by age bracket, for both Macs and PCs.

sleepnaked.org

You don't think that's a phrase you'd ever hear yourself say?

Think again.

(Via Kottke)

One of the most important current legislative issues involving the Internet is the concept of "network neutrality." Simply put, network neutrality means that no web site's traffic has precedence over any other on the Internet. All of that data is treated equally and delivered from the originating web site to the user's web browser with the same priority. Amazon.com doesn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer, right? More importantly, you and I don't have to bid against Amazon for our own web sites to get the same treatment. That's obviously the way it should work.

That isn't what telecommunications companies want.

So what can be done?

Save the Internet: the video, the website.

Seven Things I Learned from World of Warcraft (Go to http://johnaugust.com/?p=718 to read it -- I'm killing the link because the trackback spammers are coming back here.)

1. Kill injured monsters first In Warcraft: When facing multiple bad guys, the temptation is to go after the one who's hitting you hardest. This is often a mistake. That injured razorback, the one who is running away? He'll be back in 15 seconds, likely with other baddies in tow. So take a few clicks to kill him now. Once he's dead, you can focus completely on the guy who's smacking you.

The real world may not have druids and paladins, but it's chock full of monsters. They're called "term papers" and "errands" and "mysterious car problems." At any given moment, there may be one monster that looms larger than all of the others, who clearly needs to be attacked. But before you do, look around for injured monsters -- the half-finished tasks that probably need only a few more minutes to complete. If you don't deal with them now, they'll be a constant distraction, and may eventually come back stronger.

This "injured monster theory" is why I try to return every phone call the day I receive it, and respond to every email within 24 hours. If a warning light comes on in my car, I go to the mechanic that day. Whenever I find myself thinking, "I need to remember to..." then I know I've failed. I don't need to remember. I need to do. I need to finish.

There's more I could write about this, but honestly? I need to train up my Revision skill, grinding on adverbs in Hidden Things.

Nora, The Piano-Playing Cat -- which is cool, but... she also happens to look exactly like Thomas. It's weird.

YouTube - Abbott and Costello "Who's On First"

... except not as good.

Women on average say they would be willing to give up sex for 15 months for a closet full of new apparel, with 2 percent ready to abstain from sex for three years in exchange for new duds, according to a new survey of about 1,000 women in 10 U.S. cities.

Sixty-one percent of women polled said it would be worse to lose their favorite article of clothing than give up sex for a month.

To which I can only say: "Men, we need to try harder."

The average woman between 18 and 54 years of age has hung on to her favorite article of clothing for 12 and a half years, a year longer than she's held on to her longest relationship.

"... though of those surveyed, 78 percent couldn't actually fit into that same 'favorite' article of clothing after 12 and a half years." (/snark)

I think when you can't actually wear the item in question anymore, it should count as a breakup. (Okay, NOW I'll /snark.)

Almost three-quarters of respondents, or 70 percent, also said they believed in love at first sight when it came to finding the perfect article of clothing, while only 54 percent of women were as confident in spotting the right man.

"The problem is, these jeans don't think," one woman explained. "When I want to go someplace, they just... go, y'know? So much easier than a partner."

NFL Football 2007 Super Bowl Commercials - the ones that made me laugh were the Budweiser Rock Paper Scissors and Blockbuster Total Access -- the mouse just KILLS me.

What else to say about the game? Umm... Tony Dungee is a great guy and totally deserves it. Manning is a great quarterback and it's nice to finally see him take the big show.

Speaking of big show: Prince's performance was spectacular.

Phone Calls via Google Talk, Offline Google Docs. I'll be even more stoked if the GTalk service lets you conference in with multiple people -- even just 4 or five total would be great. I've been using the Google Spreadsheets for awhile and just had a chance to work on Google Docs as well -- they're good products, though copy-pasting back and forth between that and Word, working on the document in both programs several times each, proved to be a recipe for pain. Still, for a beta product, it's awesome.

In order to counteract, somewhat, the (appropriate) mope that comes from Kate's sad day for a pony news, I present this:

Most everyone heard about duck who survived being shot and left in a freezer for two days, right?

Sure. But have you heard that Perky also went into the light while having surgery to repair her damaged wing?

Don't worry; about thirty seconds later, she popped her head back up and commented, quite lucidly, "quack."

One. Tough. Duck.

I need a bigger backyard. And a four-wheeler.

DadCentric: The Top 5 Parental Sex Aids for 2007

Vaseline and Watermelon are on the list... but you have to read the post to understand why. :)

In case you don't live in the city and internalized the cab fare system at some hyper-DNA level before you learned to walk, here's an NYC Taxi Fare Finder.

InstantMusic Vinyl and Cassette Ripper -- the only way I'll ever get Rolf Harrison into a digital format.

Obviosuly, you go for the sterling silver bubble blower from Tiffany & Co.

Oh, no, wait... no you don't, because that's just CRA-ZY.

Furniture manufacturers are making wider seats to accomodate expanding American butts.

"To Americans, the 12-inch-round stool won't work anymore -- now it's 18 inches," says Jeff Singleton, partner in wildly successful Groovystuff, which reclaims wood in Thailand to make mostly outdoor furniture for U.S. buyers. "Call it the bum factor. American butts are big."

I like that quote -- he gets right to the point and says exactly what he means, but this one below is the money shot.

American furniture makers want to coddle the American behind, and that means wider, deeper, cushier seating to suit the greatest common denominator.

Could also have been 'lowest' common denominator without any damage to the funny. I'm pleased to report that the holidays didn't have any adverse affect on the amount of chair real estate I require -- I didn't make any weight-loss headway, but with everything that the holidays entail, holding steady (at 186) feels like a win.

Why Google Calendar is about to overtake Yahoo Calendar as the best web-based calendar app.

Via BoingBoing, Internet Explorer Unsafe for 284 Days in 2006 -- Security blogger Brian Krebs has calculated that Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 was "unsafe" (that is, vulnerable to known security holes, with no available patches) for 284 days in 2006 -- more than 75 percent of the time. By contrast, Firefox experienced a total of nine days' worth of insecurity last year.

Now I sometimes wrestle with Firefox a little bit -- the problems I run into stem from the fact that some websites that make heavy use of javascript have lazy @#$@# programmers who only ever check their code against IE, and as such don't actually write their stuff to a true internet standard. Firefox expects that standard, and won't just ignore it when it's not there.

And yeah, that means that some of the sites I visit often are a bit of a hassle, and some I even have to pre-set to automatically open in IE when I navigate to them.

And I will still never use IE ever again as my 'regular' browser. The above article is but one reason why.

15K people per hour, by transport mode: Diagram that shows what it takes to move 15,000 people/hour using different modes of transportation (car, bus, light rail, etc.). A fast train with one track going each way (using a space 8 meters wide) moves as many people as a freeway with 7 lanes in each direction (51 meters wide).

The gender of my brain is evenly split between male and female... my final result was an exact '0 point', balanced between both genders. Which is to say that, when taking the test, I scored on the 'high' end for pretty much everything, thus breaking the thing.

As Oz said, "I test well."

House of the D.: WoW -- that right there is darn near enough to make be buy World of Warcraft.

Via Randy The Gallery of Unfortunate Christmas Cards

Pan's Labyrinth looks very very good.

I am, therefore, seriously considering this surprisingly afforable Lazer Trip Wire system to set up alarms in a couple areas of the house to alert me of Kaylee wanderings.

Also, it's friggin' cool.

Then make sure that those toys are AWESOME. I present: Ninja Launcher!

Newyorkistan, via strange maps

The Complete Wreck (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Books 1-13)

Back to Basics: the one-stop shop for classic toys: Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, or a set of giant cardboard blocks.

Awesome.

Via Kottke, The peak-end rule: a study of human memory that indicates we remember experiences by the high (or low) spots in the middle, and by how the event ends. For example, when you recount a vacation later, you'll tend to remember some particularly high point in the middle of the vacation, and how it ended (so plan something cool in the middle and a good last day).

Unsurprisingly, this tends to follow my experience: in the vacation to the UK in 2003, London (the first half of the trip) is largely a blur leading up to the halfway point of the trip. The 12th (in London, with sightseeing and a musical and not-coincidentally my birthday), the 13th (Stonehenge and Avesbury and Glangrwyney Court), and 14th (Tintern and Chepstow) are easily the clearest memories for me, and we ended with a visit to Raglan Castle, which had pretty much everything we adored about castle tours in one place.

Prague, by contrast, had a more downbeat 'middle' (Josefov), coupled with homey charm (Molly Malone's) -- probably why I remember that place so fondly... and why I'll always be able to recount the stupendously annoying trip home with such clarity. :D

Dr. Richard Joseph Jackson's latest book, Urban Sprawl and Public Health

The message of the book is simple: our car-dependent suburban environment is killing us. Planners, most notably the New Urbanists, have been saying this for decades, but Jackson's got the statistics. And the charts. And the tables. In his book and in lectures nationwide, Jackson demonstrates how sprawl is at least partially responsible for a full range of American diseases, from asthma to diabetes, from hypertension to depression. The reason that we spend one dollar out of six on health care is very preventable, and yet we claim some of the worst health statistics in the developed world.

I actually had the chance to meet and talk with Dr. Jackson in 2005 at a convention held in downtown Denver by the Center for Disease Control, focusing on kinds of epidemic health disorders mentioned above: diabetes, obesity, and a number of other disorders and diseases that are tied directly into healthly lifestyles and the way an urban environment can be designed to aid or hinder them (I was there as a freelance writer, writing summaries of various talks on Policy-as-Change-Agent at the request of the CDC -- part of a 98 page artifact that was later published nationally). It was a fascinating series of discussions in an area I have a lot of interest and little experience in and, like this book, an eye opener.

You discuss, in a very encouraging way, how walking is really the best exercise.

It's the one exercise we can do at virtually every age. It breaks my heart when I see people pushing four-year-olds in those three-wheeled strollers. I know that parents want to get things done, but that child needs to walk. The same is true of the elderly.

Interesting, sobering stuff.

Via Kottke, America's Most Fonted: The 7 Worst Fonts

6. Kristen ITC This is another "fun" font like Comic Sans or Curlz, but it of course has its own unique twist on things. Kristen ITC fans are usually elementary school teachers, childcare professionals, and other people with kid-centric jobs. These people love to employ quotes like, "We don't stop playing because we grow old--we grow old because we stop playing," and they really like to use a font that serves as a constant reminder that THEY HAVE NOT STOPPED PLAYING, DAMMIT! DON'T YOU SEE HOW PLAYFUL THESE LETTERS LOOK? YOU ARE TALKING TO SOMEONE WHO IS YOUNG INSIDE!

Anyone reading these and feeling a twinge of guilt or two? I admit to making use of pretty much all of these fonts at SOME point (Except for Kirten, above, which is why I quoted that particular snark. With that said, I've only used them for things like a Header fonts (which see limited use) when there's a kind of theme going on. (Like using Comic Sans for COMIC-related stuff, and Viner Hand for vaguely Oriental-thingies.) In other words, nothing actually professional; professional work gets Arial/Helvetica or Times New Roman, period (depending on whether or not consumption will be electronic or dead-tree by default).

Once the first step toward intimacy, holding hands is more likely now a sign of commitment.

Fun, interesting article -- I find it fascinating: the indication in today's culture that a kiss at a party can be a 'whatever' kind of thing, whereas holding hands as seen as much more of a serious public declaration of coupledom. More surprising -- it makes total sense to me. Wacky.

Also, I love what they're saying about the bonds that form from parents to kids with hand-holding. I can't speak for Kaylee (nor she for herself, besides "Hi!" "What?" "Shoes!" ""Book!" "Dizzy" and "Daddy"), but I can personally attest to a physical reaction -- pure relaxation tonic -- when she walks up and takes my hand.

Hugs are even better. :)

Voodoo Doll Knife Set

Earth Day Footprint Quiz

It takes 42 acres of land to support the way I live. If everyone lived the same way, we'd need 9.5 earths to support everyone. Yikes.

Which... okay, sure. I'll agree.

If everyone (and they apparently mean EVERYONE) on the planet lived in cities no smaller than 1 million inhabitants, and commuted 50 miles a day to work in effiecient-but-non-hybrid cars (sue me: it's not like Denver has efficient mass transportation), and wanted at least one meal at day with some meat in it... yes, that would be impossible to support.

Duh. Give me some information I can use from day to day.

Terri Irwin is a tough, tough lady.

I, who have (knock on wood) only lost one close family member in my lifetime (and that at age 10, 25 years ago), cannot really imagine what losing someone so close to you, so abruptly, would be like (nor do I want to spend much time or energy trying to -- that's an unpleasant place in my head).

That said, wow: Terri's the kind of lady I know I'd be happy to know. Luck and best wishes to her in an incredibly tough time.

WikiHow's randomly-picked "How Tos" of the Day are awesome. Today? How to Apply Conditional Formatting in Excel and How to Escape from a Sinking Car.

Case Logic Gray Litter Chute

I have a new car: what?

Two instances of Arrgh in one day? Oh yes.

1. GMail writes error messages that contain the word Arrrgh! That is the main reason they will eventually destroy Microsoft.

2. Pirate stuff for me I mean, umm... kids!

Shedding Parent Pudge: 7 Tips for Slimming Down and Keeping Up with the Kids - from The Zero Boss by Jay Andrew Allen

1. Cheer the hell up. Why are you eating too much and moving too little? Standard dieting advice wants us to believe that slimming down is purely a matter of "will" and motivation. In my experience, however, overeating is a sign that all is not right in the Control Tower.

Funny guy, and some good stuff in there.

Le Parkour Kai

Too Awesome. Too Cute.

Dad Gone Mad: Nice and Cozy

I stepped out of the shower this morning and saw that the door from the bathroom to our bedroom was wide open. Believing it was Hot Wife who’d turned on the light (and thinking that she might like to see my fresh, clean butt) I looked into the bedroom. What I saw made me audibly gasp:

My three-year-old daughter was standing at my nightstand and was stretching her little arms into The Drawer of Sex and Violence.

I have both already been there and done that, folks, and will no doubt have it happen again (cept in my case it's more of a self-contained compact carry unit that -- oh, okay, it's an old shoebox). I don't know if, reading this, I was covering my mouth to stifle the laughter or block the moans that rise from the remembered horror of my own experience.

Agassi Wins 3 1/2 Hour U.S. Open Marathon

I'm not a tennis fan, but come on. Agassi's 36, in his last open, and comes back from the first round to win the last two, doing the final service AFTER midnight. Details and likelihood that he'll keep that up aside, that's just... cool. It's lovely for folks like Jordan and Elway to go out on the top of their game, but props to Agassi for fighting for a win and enjoying a long goodbye.

An alternative to personalized rubber bracelets as ID when you're taking your kids someplace where they might get seperated from you -- Sharpie your cell phone number on your kid's belly. Via Parent Hacks.

A list of non-liquid items like mouthwash powder, shampoo bars, and powdered tooth cleaners that are safe to carry on commercial airline flights.

Here's something interesting: imagine the consumer product world, as a 'near future science fiction' exercise, in which all major non-food (and even food) industries have shifted entirely to non-liquid versions of their current-day, modern antecedents.

Of course, in six to ten months, once there's an entire 'liquid-free for the frequent traveler' market of products ranging from makeup to yogurt, there'll be another anthrax scare and Powders will suddenly be the new black. (Or, in this case, the new Threat Level Orange.)

Meh.

To paraphrase Greg Rucka, calling it the War on Terror and acting as though it is an ongoing battle is idiocy: once people are afraid and, more to the point, make significant choices about their day to day life based on that fear, said "War on Terror" becomes a moot point; terror has already been delivered to its intended target.

Doesn't mean you can't have a War on Terrorism, I suppose, but that's a very different thing.

Google Maps/NYC Subway Mashup

In honor of Kaylee's birthday theme: The Purple Store: for all your purple shopping needs.

How to Create a Rubberband Ball.

Via De: if this video doesn't make you want to go to the gym, nothing on this earth can.

Via WantNot, Free tea samples from Yogi Tea: - Green tea, organic herbal tea, black tea and other "healing" teas.

How to Sleep Comfortably on a Hot Night

D is amazing, sometimes:

I suddenly wondered what exactly happens to your brain when you do that [repeat a word over and over until it's meaningless]. Do you unhook synapses or something? Do you make it so all references to that word only relate back to itself, instead of to what the word means? I wonder whether you could force yourself to erase a memory that way

That's positively one of the neatest ideas I've encountered in ages.

... via this animated Obesity in America map.

Facts and figures on the Publishing Industry

"58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school."

Whatcha doing this Wednesday?

If you've got kids, you should be going to the movies for FREE. Clickity click to find out if there's a participating AMC Theatre near you, then go enjoy a new, free movie every Wednesday this summer.

Top Gun 2: Brokeback Squadron

Quite possibly one of the more pathetic want-ads ever.

Pictures: Over a million Ninja Sparrows starlings in massive flying formations that block out the sun.

Amazon.com: Everybody's Gotta' Have A Place: Music from Dirk Shumaker.

If everyone that she knows could make sure to have a copy of this album in their automobiles on the off-chance that she's riding in it... that would be swell.

((Oh, and your kids might love it too. Seriously. Teriffic stuff.))

How to dry out a drooled-on cell phone

So you married... a Gamer.

Though it is cleansing to start a dialogue with your husband regarding his secret penchant for dragon-slaying, there is the danger that if you open the floodgates too far you could be overwhelmed. DO NOT GO SOFT! [...] If you go soft now you run the risk of having sex in front of a Frodo action figure with seventeen points of articulation.

Now that YOU know, do NOT tell your parents or your friends.

Really. Just don’t. Trust me.

I'm (apparently) a Reverse Snob.

Lots of people I know can boast, with all honesty, of never having seen a single episode of Survivor [...] Our ignorance of these stupid totems makes us feel superior. Untainted. [...] The other day, at a casual get-together, the conversation turned to Angelina. My son’s girlfriend didn’t know what “Angelina” meant. God, were the rest of us envious!

Without getting into my movie viewing, which most of you know is a deplorable wasteland, my list of ignorance includes...

Sex in the City
Sopranos
Survivor
American Idol
Desperate Housewives
O.C.
Las Vegas
CSI
How to Marry ... Anyone
The Bachelor
The Apprentice

... of the top of my head.

WikiHow - How to Run up a Wall and Flip

Via Randy: Words first coined by Shakespeare.

That's simply... monumental, to borrow a word from the list.

HOW-TO: Use your Gmail account as a personal file server. Even with a file-size limit of 10 megs, this is useful for, at the very least, backing up documents.

Colbert Roasting President Bush is currently the top-selling audiobook on iTunes music store.

Mighty Magic Tricks

Why? To impress Kaylee and all her friends, even when they're old enough to pretend they don't care.

This.

Workman's UtiliKilt: say no more. :)

ninja training camp - Google Video. Wow. Just... wow.

Via ***Dave: Google Calendar Goes Live

So. Jazzed.

Or... well, I met him. He's funny. So is this: YouTube - Something Big

And weird. REally weird.

But funny.

Real Live Preacher: A Desert Childhood.

Touches me on a number of different levels. Growing up in South Dakota has a lot of that same kind of bleak, beautiful harshness, though for other climatic reasons. Would be an easy thing, I think, to write something similar about the 'power in extremes' that comes from my old home.

Via Kottke, Wikipedia's scary breakdown of Leetspeak.

An increasingly common use of the "-xor" is changing its grammatical usage to be deliberately incorrect. Instead of using "Bob r0x0r", "Bob am teh r0x0r" or "Bob are teh r0x0r" is deliberately used to increase the level of irony and to separate it from less ironic, true Leet. This deliberate misspelling is similar to the cult following of the All your base are belong to us phrase. Indeed, the online and computer communities have been international from their inception, so that spellings and phrases typical of non-native speakers are quite common.

Slither, with Nathan Fillion, opens today. It's getting pretty good reviews (and even the bad ones mention that Nathan is good).

Looks like a gross-out horror flick with a lot of funny in it -- should be perfect for him.

Shades of Serenity: The Mandarin Offensive: Beijing's drive to make Mandarin Chinese the widest-spread language in the world.

Banlieue 13 "Parkour" scene.

Holy. Cow.

((Via Randy))

Go here to read a bunch of critics eviscerating the new Ultraviolet movie.

The best one:

"Although it masquerades as a futuristic action-thriller, Ultraviolet functions best as a multi-million dollar commercial for Milla Jovovich's personal trainer."

In fact, I saw her personal trainer mentioned no less than four times. Pretty impressive.

Glow-glass:

Researchers have come up with a novel way to keep long-distance lovers in touch -- high-tech wine glasses that glow warmly however far apart the pining couple are.

When either person picks up a glass, red light-emitting diodes glow on their partner's glass. When one puts a glass to their lips, the other glass glows brightly.

The article mentions a wireless connection, so presumably you'd need a wireless network connection where the glasses were, in order to work.

Still. Cool.

... now if they could just beep your cell phone whenever Gloria grabbed your glass instead of her own. :)

Google calendar details leaked:

Bloggers are gawking at alleged screenshots of Google's currently-under-construction calendar program.

According to Michael Arrington's Techcrunch blog, which is running the alleged screenshots, the new calendar is tightly integrated with Gmail. Features let people integrate with other calendar applications and share data. The calendar, allegedly dubbed CL2, also has a notification service that uses SMS (Short Message Service).

CL2 also apparently lets people create events that can be viewed on their calendars, or shown to the public, even to people not using the same calendar program.

While the product is still apparently well away from a launch, bloggers are excited about the possibility and are speculating whether the service is a prelude to bigger things for the company, and for online calendars.

Open Office? Yay :)

... because I need an EXCUSE to visit London. I think not.

Gothic Nightmares explores the work of Henry Fuseli and William Blake in the context of the Gothic – the taste for fantastic and supernatural themes which dominated British culture from around 1770 to 1830.

From Parent Hacks, L-100 Salubrion Seat.

Just a good little thing for being down near the ground. I like. I want.