May 25, 2004 - Grilled Expedition
Agenda
- Strange Bananas
- What time is it? Anelace BCD Clock
- Movies
- J Walking
- Punctuation
- the Two Things
- Speed Racer for a Day
Strange Bananas
George sent me a link that he discovered on a new blog he reads (more later) called Strange Banana. The author is a fledgling web developer who wanted to strengthen one of his weak areas (one of mine, too): Layout design. He read up on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and then wrote a program which randomly generates a new style sheet each time you load the Strange Banana site. The program randomly selects colors, fonts, and overall layout for a boilerplate web page which includes a header, a menu, and a body.
I tried it a few times, and was amazed at the different web page designs that were produced (some good, some not so good). I was even more amazed (this was amplified by my poor knowledge of CSS) to learn that only the style sheet changes from one incarnation to the next-- the HTML doesn't.
The author not only allows people to use the produced CSS and HTML (it is readily available by selecting VIEW SOURCE), he encourages it. Keep in mind-- if you see one you like, view the source and save it! It will likely never occur again.
What time is it?
Even with this clock handy, you might not know what time it is if you're not a geek (or if you don't have a geek handy). George bought me this great clock as a birthday gift! Each column of lights represent a single decimal digit in the current time. The clock displays hours, minutes, and seconds (in the picture at right, the time is 10:48:36). If you want to know more about how to read the clock, click here.
This clock reminds me of a t-shirt I saw once that said "There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those that understand binary, and those who don't." Here's an even geekier treatment of the subject.
You can buy your own BCD clock at my favorite online store for geeks, ThinkGeek.com.
George recently sent me a photo of his clock displaying a distinctive pattern! It is titled "Check, please."
Movies
George and I saw a few movies recently.
George watched the Last Samarai on DVD recently (I saw it in the theatre and really liked it). He enjoyed the film, and really liked Ken Watanabe's performance. George's favorite parts were the scenes where Tom Cruise's character (Captain Nathan Algren) was describing the Japanese village, and how
I was completely swept up by the story. I found myself wanting to live the life of the samurai-- simple, beautiful, and above all: honorable. I was so affected by the ultimate outcome that my eyes were wet for some time.
I recently rented and watched Lost in Translation, starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson.
Scarlett Johansson is terrific! Bill Murray can't help being himself (so there is plenty of wry humor), but this is not a comedy. It is a great window into the chance encounter of two people trapped in Tokyo by circumstance. Neither one fits in, but once they strike up a conversation in the hotel bar, they begin a brief journey that will do more than just pass the time. Thank goodness it doesn't end in a stupid April/November romance! It is much more, but I'll leave the rest for viewers to discover for themselves.
When Laura Hillenbrand's book was released, I was interested enough to buy a copy... but I never made the time to read it. When it came out as a motion picture starring Tobey Maguire, I still didn't make time to see it. By dumb luck, I was standing in the lobby at work when another employee returned the DVD to the company collection, so I grabbed it.
Seabiscuit is a masterpiece! I still don't understand what happened to Toby Maguire's parents after they left him with the horse racing guy... but I enjoyed the film all the same. It was nice to see a movie where the hero doesn't kill anyone!
George often sends me interesting links that he has found in the J-Walk Blog. The entry above on StrangeBanana.com resulted from George reading about it in the blog. I believe he also found the link to this cool PC on the J-Walk blog.
I read BBSpot (a satirical site) which presents new links to interesting sites daily. I also read the Stupid Evil Bastard blog, which also links to interesting sites. What's my point? I found that a lot of the interesting sites on BBSpot, J-Walk Blog, and SEB are the same! I even followed some credits on the J-Walk Blog to other blogs which when examined closely also yield links to these same interesting sites. It looks like a lot of these people read a lot of the same blogs, and a great deal of cross-pollination occurs. I guess it's not necessary that you read all the great blogs, as long as you read a few.
"Hey man, I'm a panda. Look it up!," he replies. The bartender opens his dictionary and sees the entry for panda:
A tree-dwelling marsupial of Asian origin, characterized by distinct black and white coloring. Eats, shoots and leaves.
On her website, you can see photos of punctuation violators in the Hall of Shame, and even
play the ESL Punctuation Game.
Lynne provided another memorable example of how punctuation can totally change the meaning of a sentence. Here is a sentence as a man would write it:
I couldn't help myself-- I found their website when I got home and sent them the following e-mail: "Bad. Punctuation. Period." Naturally, their VP in charge of community relations replied (several weeks later) to ask if I could point out the poor punctuation on their website, as they certainly wanted to correct it! Completely. Hopeless.
I found this very intriguing! I've spent quite a bit of time scrolling through the list. Here's one of my favorites about business:
Last Samurai
everyone strove to achieve perfection in everything they did. Seeing this film reminded him that he'd like to go watch Shogun again.
When I tried to talk to my Mom about the film, she scoffed at the idea of seeing it, saying that it wasn't how it happened and that Tom Cruise was just trying for an Oscar. While it is true that no American Army officer lived with the samurai, the overall story was pretty accurate (I did a little reading myself regarding the timeline and major events at the film's website, where they have a great flash presentation.). I also bought an interesting looking non-fiction book about the actual last of the samurai: The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori. I haven't found time to read it yet, but it sure looks good!
Lost in Translation
SeabiscuitJ Walking
George discovered one of the possibly millions of Blogs out there that is interesting to him (and also to me). It is the J-Walk Blog. This guy (John Walkenbach) must not do anything else, because he posts the equivalent content of a Lunch With George lunch every day!
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
I heard an interview on NPR of Lynne Truss, the author of a new book on punctuation. She was very entertaining, and had some clever stories about the
consequences of incorrect punctuation. One ended up being the title of her book! It is the punchline to a joke in the publishing industry:
Lynne Truss correcting some poor punctuation
A Panda walks into a pub. He orders a sandwich and gobbles it down. Next, he pulls out a revolver and fires it into the air, then heads for the door. The bartender stops him and asks what that was all about.
The misplaced comma makes a big difference!
A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman might punctuate it differently:
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
Only a week after hearing the interview, I noticed a billboard along I-17 touting a 
wonderful new planned community in the Phoenix area. I wass stunned by the deliberately incorrect punctuation the copywriters had used in an attempt to get their point across. The
three sentence fragments appeared underneath the name of the development: "Home. Town. Arizona."
The Two Things
While reading BBSpot, I followed the link to The Two Things. Glen Whitman maintains the site as the repository of a growing collection of The Two Things on a myriad of subjects. What are the Two Things? Well, apparently there are Two Things about everything. He learned this in a bar one night when the guy next to him asked him what The Two Things were about his field, economics. when Glen didn't understand, the guy replied: "You know, the Two Things. For every subject, there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important."
The Two Things about Innovation:
Here's another favorite of mine:
1. Innovation is inversely proportional to organizational strength.
2. Organizational strength increases with time.
(from Steverino)
The Two Things about Star Trek:
I'm not going to reproduce any more here... just visit the Two Things! Do you have Two Things to contribute? Send it to me, and send it to Glen, too. I'll probably post it first!
1. Don't beam down in a red shirt.
2. You can always talk evil computers into destroying themselves.
Speed Racer for a Day
For George's birthday (a few months back), Toni gave him a full day off racing instruction at the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving. George got the opportunity to drive a high-performance Ford Mustang GT in a variety of situations, learning proper turning and braking techniques, etc. He even got the chance to ride with Bob Bondurant himself, taking laps around the oval in a Corvette Z06. Did he have a good time? The picture says it all.
