Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/05/06/slacker/
When I began attending grammar school, I learned that I was the weird kid. In the first environment in which we keep score, I stood out as a failure. Sure, my grades were okay, but where it supposedly mattered – the esteem of my colleagues – I was outside. Once the weird kid works out some detente with the bullies, and settles down with the fact that people generally don’t care what you do, you can find some non-social activities that interest you and coast through your days as a slacker.
In time it was revealed to me that my failure was a consequence of my intelligence. I was eventually transferred to the gifted school, but I was still a weird kid, who had had trouble socializing, and even at the gifted school I remained weird. That I was weird because I was allegedly smart, yet even among the smart kids I was weird, taught me skepticism. Maybe I wasn’t really that smart, or maybe smart had nothing to do with it.
Being weird isn’t all that bad, as long as you have somewhere else to spend your attention. For me, where other kids had friends and a social life, I had books and model trains and video games. Throughout my life I have tended toward words and hobbies and puzzles while others spend their time calling friends, planning parties, and following gossip. (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/05/02/email-att-mobile/
Last week, some of my users stopped receiving e-mail on their cell phones.
We had the aliases set up for:
<ten digits>@mobile.att.net
mobile.att.net no longer exists.
So, after some research, I got an answer from USENET:
<ten digits>@mmode.com
This is also accepting messages:
<ten digits>@mobile.mycingular.com
(But they do not seem to be delivered. Except to one user who recently switched phones.)
A very smart person reports that if your mobile is GSM you might want:
<ten digits>@cingularme.com
Update–July, 2007: For John and Bertrand, who is on Cingular’s “Pay as You Go” plan:
<ten digits>@txt.att.net
I did this to my aliases file:
:%s/mobile.att.net/mmode.com/
(I only bother to blog about this because simply typing my problem in to Google got me nada.)
14 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/28/this-haiku/
This haiku I wrote
Is awful, it’s terrible
Why do you read it?
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/26/awesome-blog-idle-words/
Now, I don’t believe the words “awesome” and “blog” should ever go together, but sometimes you have to make an exception. Maciej Ceglowski takes the time to write some truly enjoyable prose, putting weird and other pleasantly engaging images in my head. I enjoy reading every word, and you might as well. From his recent survey of New York Pizzas:
Back in the heady post-Soviet days, it used to be possible to get really bad pizza in Warsaw. Vendors in the little plastic booths on every corner would sell you a hot dog bun spread with tomato paste and pressed ham for about ten American cents. Then the Vietnamese showed up, with their cut-rate lunch specials and even smaller booths, and the Warsaw pizza market was no more. Finally the Health Department got funding, shut everyone down, deported the Vietnamese, and now the nation’s capital is a desolation of McDonald’s and hipster cafés.
If “The Unbearable Thinness of Crust” gives you a clue as to what may inspire Maciej’s writing, then that may help you determine if you will enjoy reading “Idle Minds” as I do.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/25/hello-samurai/
On Sunday, Yayoi and I made it to the Cherry Blossom Festival, which was fun. Yayoi had some takoyaki, but it was made with ground beef! (Tako means octopus, and she was impressed that she could get such inexpensive takoyaki, until the awful truth dawned upon her …)
Well, we took a lot of pictures. My favorite is of this older guy dressed up as a samurai, giving me a friendly wave.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/22/i-am-all-powerful-muhaha/
Increasingly, prospective and existing customers are interacting with corporations electronically, both for research and purchasing purposes. Those that ignore online inquiries are alienating consumers–especially young “affluents,” the 24- to 33-year-olds earning $75,000 or above who are the heaviest Internet users (and most likely to be asking the questions). In fact, our research indicates that 70 percent of consumers go to a competitor’s site if they don’t receive a timely response to an online inquiry. And losing those customers is a faux pas few companies can afford.
I don’t really need to read the rest of this CNET article because I already know all I need. Companies, fear my “affluent” wrath!! MUHAHAHA!!
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/21/graffiti-train/
[
Flickr]
A graffiti covered train, in Lyon.
I have been uploading a lot of photos via Flickr lately. I purchased a “pro” account for $42/year (now $25/year) in part because they have a “blogging” interface with which one can post photographs to one’s blog.
They’ll also retain my original image files, and promise to get around to a “bulk download” facility so I can use them as a “disaster recovery” mechanism as well. On top of that, the site has nice features and is definitely zippy.
Anyway, I like this photograph. It is a train, covered in beautiful graffiti, in France. I like all that stuff. And I like that Flickr will store the image for me and provide an interface for re-posting it here.
I will be uploading many more photos over the next few months. All images taken in 2005 are online, and I’m making my way through the 2002 “World Tour” in alphabetical order right now. Flickr only allows me to upload 1GB/month, (actually, they just changed it to 2GB,) even with a Pro account. This is fine, because I have so many photos, I ought to take my time sorting through them.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/20/yayoi-warning/
I woke up Sunday morning from a dream in which Yayoi had just warned me, “if I were made redundant, I would become one thousand times an alcoholic.”
As my conscious brain began to mull this over, I noticed several problems with this vignette:
- Yayoi is not currently employed.
- Yayoi does not speak in British euphemisms.
- Yayoi does not speak melodramatically.
- Yayoi can not hold her liqour.
Otherwise, I totally feel her pain at being layed off . . . what was my subconscious mind doing?
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/19/flickr-schwag/
[
Flickr]
A color-enhanced view of Mount Diablo from the foothills above Walnut Creek. The rain has made things green and a quick trip to the GIMP only emphasizes this.
So, I recently bit the bullet and bought a Pro account on Flickr. They’ll store my images for me in high-resolution, with a pretty nifty, pretty zippy interface to manage them. The community-building features have been a pleasant ego surprise — one photo I uploaded from when I was flying in to London on September 11, 2002 was found by a guy who could see his house in the photograph. (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/18/sticky-riddle/
What is long and brown and sticky?
(more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/15/gnucash/
Said I: “Personally, managing pictures is one of the three things I do with my Windows computer. (The other two are games and Quicken.)”
Asked another: Quicken? Have you looked into gnucash?
I replied: (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/14/blacksmith-poet/
There was this poet, who decided to retire from poetry.
He went and enrolled in blacksmithing school.
He learned all about smithing, and pounding, and metals and all that, and became a master blacksmith.
He was later interviewed by The New Yorker magazine, and was asked,
“Why did you leave poetry to become a blacksmith?”
(more…)
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/13/inappropriate-size/
Things of inappropriate size
We find them funny
But if my nose were runny
Would I still be your honey?
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/12/best-buy-2-dollar-bill/
I just read the most stunningly bizarre story in the Baltimore Sun. It is about Mike Bolesta, who bought a car stereo for his son, but Best Buy gave him one that was too big for the car, then offered him a cheaper one, waiving the installation fee because they shouldn’t have sold him the wrong one in the first place. Then they called him up and said that if he didn’t pay the installation fee, they would call the cops. So, irritated, he goes in there the next day and pays in $2 bills.
He gets arrested.
Not only is every last employee at that Best Buy stupid, but the Baltimore Police are evidently wack-jobs as well. After some hours in handcuffs and leg irons the Secret Service comes along and explains that his currency is legal-tender, and that yes, it is not unheard of for a bit of ink to rub off of legitimate US currency.
ObTip: Use BugMeNot to bypass compulsory registration. It actually took me a few tries.
ObIdealism: stratusmonkey declares April 13th is “Two Dollar Bill Day” to commemorate the life and career of President Jefferson, and remind the American public that the paper money bearing his likeness is legal tender.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2005/04/10/taxes-done/
You know, doing taxes really isn’t that bad. And, if my math was correct, we will receive a substantial refund with which to pay off much of our credit card debt. I skipped the state taxes, because I was in two states, and each wants to see the paperwork for the other, and, well, I would likely receive modest refunds that would otherwise go to fund schools, or something. But mostly I am just lazy.
The Illinois web site says you can file until October. (more…)
Feedback Welcome
« Newer Stuff . . . Older Stuff »
Site Archive
