Category: observations
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Wacky Names for Daughters
Looking over the bio list of a conference which I won’t be attending, I saw this hilarious biographical detail for Cory Doctorow: On February 3, 2008, he became a father. The little girl is called Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow, and is a marvel that puts all the works of technology and artifice to…
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Help! No More Greased Lightning!
I was surfing away on some random topic when I heard the song Greased Lightning play spontaneously on my speakers. It kept playing and playing and playing while I frantically tried to figure out which crappy web page was sending it to my audio speakers. Seriously I had about 100 web pages open and even…
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Wynia invents a National Holiday
Yesterday, while waiting in line at Walmart and catching up on RSS feeds on my PDA, I read about J Wynia’s idea for a new holiday: National Sit on your Butt and Watch Movies day. Awesome! Seriously this is awesome. It’s amazing how little time you allow yourself just to relax and enjoy yourself. All…
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A Secret of Life: Don’t Forget the Scanner
A life lesson learned after many unfortunate episodes: if you have lost an important document and are desperately tearing up your dwelling to find it, the document will be lying face down in your scanner.
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Thread to End all Threads
Last Saturday I came across a single post on a forum. This forum was one I had never heard of, and the subject was something I had also never heard of. Someone had linked to it from another site, and I found the subject to be of immense interest. I am not going to mention…
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Yanz Kezboards!
Amayzinglz, on German kezboards, some of the letters are rearranged. Mz life is becoming topszßturvz!
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Not the only Robert!?!
A little while ago, I posted my travel itinerary on this weblog. I noticed that I could google that URL pretty easily. (All I had to do was google Robert Nagle Europe trip). That seemed plausible. This time, however, I just typed Robert Europe trip (no quotation marks), and my link appear as the number…
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The Perils (and Benefits) of Sad Knowledge
Today has been one year since Haley Paige’s death. (I wrote an obituary to her a few months ago–warning NSFW photo). Over time, the father has provided more details of her tragic ending (which I reprinted in full). The father has provided remarkable insights into the nature of the tragedy and has put up with…
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Secret to Buying a Sweet Watermelon
Once at Walmart, I ran into a man who was an eccentric health nut. He was talking to strangers about fruits and vegetables, so of course I had to talk with them (that’s my job, I guess). We talked about lots of random things, but he shared with me a tip about identifying a good…
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Thomas Disch and Paying the Rent
Last livejournal posts of sci fi writer Thomas Disch before committing suicide. (here’s a boingboing discussion) Here’s a poem by him: The Art of Dying Mallarmé drowning Chatterton coughing up his lungs Auden frozen in a cottage Byron expiring at Missolonghi and Hart Crane visiting Missolonghi and dying there too The little boot of Sylvia…
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How many ways to write?
I just noticed that at the moment I have open an XML editor, Windows Live writer (for blogging), Open Office (for editing), a web browser (for checking email and replying), a simple text editor and a Skype client (with chat capability and telephone capability). 6 different tools for creating content, so little to say.
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TV Vomiting Hall of Shame
July 10 Update: To accommodate the groundswell of public support, I have formed a Coalition to Prevent Gratuitous Vomiting on TV facebook group. Maybe when you read my recent complaint about too much vomiting on TV, you thought I was exaggerating. I wrote: I don’t watch much television except when eating. I have my basa…
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Twelve Dancing Rabbits
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. (Rod Serling) More quotes
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Playing the Game Called Life
TX blogger Robert Nagle talks about games he made up to endure the tedium that is his life.
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Net Flix Tip
If you take the movie survey in the Recommendation Wizard on Netflix, and if it asks if you like a Star Trek episode, don’t say yes… or else you will find every single show of the series appearing on your Recommendation Queue.