Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/06/14/vivent-la-bonne-vie-de-fromage/
My books just came from Barnes and Noble. They include a sticker so you can return the books if you don’t like the books. I read “Who Moved My Cheese? For Teens” — I had tried to order “Who Moved My Cheese?” This version I guess is “Who Moved My Cheese?” but with some cheesy teen dialog written by marketing folk.
It’s this parable about the rat race, and how if they move your cheese you should get over it and pick yourself up and go find some new cheese, and you’ll recall that finding the cheese in the first place was part of what made you happy. Well, I know all too well that I have to keep a lookout for new cheese … is the lesson lost on me?
I’m so clever that I ask “what if you are sufficiently comfortable hunting the cheese that what you’re really trying to figure out is whether you should enjoy the cheese you have before you and not waste your time hunting cheese?”
(more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/06/08/three-quick-anecdotes/
- As of July 7, 2004, I will be a Community Representative of the Wells High School Local School Council. There was a three-way tie for the two seats, and my name was selected out of a wastepaper basket. I am honored. Actually, the LSC Meeting was cool yesterday. I attended as a public observer. I may write more on that later …
- You know why Windows administration sucks? Because sometimes you need to dump some data so you can move a config somewhere else. On Unix, you just cat the data output to a text file, most days. Today I had to take a screen shot of a window on a remote server, paste that in to Microsoft Paint, and print out a picture of the window on the screen. Ewww!
- Amazon.com versus Barnes and Noble. Okay, I just ordered four books. Amazon.com was cheaper on three of the books, and a penny pricier on the fourth. The total came out 10% lower. Barnes and Noble gave me the total right off, with free standard shipping. To actually total the order on Amazon.com, I had to enter my Credit Card information. With not-free standard shipping, the total, after I had to enter my credit card number, was a few cents higher. To be sure, Amazon.com offers free super-saver shipping, which is slower than the free standard shipping from Barnes and Noble. The Winner? Barnes and Noble. Four books plus free standard shipping six cents cheaper than four books plus not-free standard shipping on Amazon.com, and I don’t have to enter my credit card to see the shipping charges, so they’re more straight-up and honest. I’ve complained in my log about Amazon.com before. We’ll see how bn stacks up.
/danny
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/06/07/all-under-control/
(21:56:01) MaryJ: so, are you living in chicago?
(21:56:07) dannyman: yes.
(21:56:10) MaryJ: cool..
(21:56:10) dannyman: totally.
(21:56:13) dannyman: everything rules.
(21:56:20) MaryJ: just you and your girl?
(21:56:32) MaryJ: and you have gainful employment
(21:56:58) MaryJ: near your momma
(21:57:03) dannyman: my boss is actually my landlord, and the office is in a coach house behind the apartment. there’s a coffee shop on the corner across from a pizza place. and the subway is three blocks away and i can bike to the lake in fifteen minutes.
(21:57:09) MaryJ: sounds like you got it all under control
(21:57:28) dannyman: well mom is like seven miles away by city streets but i get to see her.
(21:57:36) dannyman: and my sister comes to party at my place.
(21:57:43) dannyman: sexiness abounds.
(21:57:54) MaryJ: i’m happy for you, boy
(21:58:25) MaryJ: okay.. now it’s time for six feet under..
(21:58:29) MaryJ: talk to you soon..
(21:58:43) dannyman: i have tivo too.
(21:58:44) dannyman: cya!
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/05/29/the-seattle-library-a-view-from-two-cities/
Since returning to the middle class at the beginning of this year, I have really started to enjoy reading The New Yorker. Alas, I have to skip over a lot of stuff at the beginning of the magazine about what’s happening in New York, but there’s a lot of good articles and really excellent writing. I really appreciate The New Yorker, even if it makes me a feel a tiny bit provincial in The Second City.
I have read that Chicago has had a long-standing inferiority complex, because despite its own inherent greatness, and its own motto to “make no small plans” it will never be the Great Metropolis that New York City is. On the one hand, a lot of folks dig that its not New York City. We are, after all, midwesterners, who would be lost in such an insanely huge city. Chicago is so large and chaotic as it is … why would we want to make it moreso? But our Civic Leaders – the rich folk, the intelligentsia … the people who could have anything they want, and could live anywhere they want, have to justify settling for America’s Second-Greatest city. So, they have historically taken corrective measures to secure Chicago’s superiority – the World’s Fair and the Columbian Exposition. Our great Museums, most notably the Art Institute … and the ferris wheel at Navy Pier. Tallest Building in the World. Busiest Airport in the World. The title “Windy City” was earned not because of our weather, but from New York City newpapers, reflecting on how much we bragged about our World’s Fair, so long ago.
I was reading The New Yorker today, which had a good article on Seattle’s new library … designed for useability. A bold statement at the beginning of the new century, that could be compared with and contrasted against New York’s own great library, built at the beginning of the last century. The praise was even-handed. There was no jealousy. After all, The New Yorker already lives at the Center of the Universe, it is interesting that one of America’s modest cities should construct something new and innovative.
(more…)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/05/28/whatever-became-of-1998s-christmas-bonus/
Back in 1998 I took a semester off of school to work at a company called EnterAct. It was the most awesome ISP in Chicago, and I had previously worked there as a technical support intern during the summer of 1996. For Christmas that year, they handed out stock as bonuses. It was kind of a cheat on me and Juan, though, as we were both leaving the company in January – I was returning to finish school, so we’d never see the one year cliff to vest our Christmas bonuses. What fame and fortune was not to be mine!
Well, EnterAct soon after got acquired by 21st Century Cable, which was subsequently acquired by RCN Cable, which my Mom still uses for her cable, telephone, and broadband Internet provider. I read in the Tribune just now that RCN yesterday declared bankruptcy. “Common shareholders are expected to have their equity stakes wiped out, though once RCN emerges from bankruptcy, it said it plans to issue equity warrants to its previous shareholders equal to 2 percent of the newly structured company.”
The closing paragraph of the story hints at what a wild ride it has been, “RCN’s stock price, which climbed to $72 a share on Feb. 8, 2000, closed on Thursday at 15 cents a share.”
As for me, I graduated in May, 1999, with an offer from EnterAct and another from Tellme Networks, which was then a close-lipped startup in California. Tellme’s offer was $3,000 higher, so I went there. When I visited California two weekends ago I quietly inquired and learned that my half-vested shares in that company are worth a decent amount of money, and the people there remain confident that some day they will all find themselves respectably wealthy. More power to ‘m.
By the way, I never heard from Budget. I should work up a list of my corporate endorsements and blacklists sometime. You know, for fun.
/danny
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/04/27/here-i-come/
That’s right, dannyman will soon visit the San Francisco Bay Area for a three-day weekend!
Plane arrives Thursday, May 13, at 10:30pm. I’ll have Friday and Saturday and the first half of Sunday to while away, before departure Sunday, May 16, at 6:00pm.
And I won’t be alone! My girlfriend, who speaks fluent Japanese, will actually be in the area for two weeks, one on either side of my visit!
So far, I’ve only really planned to visit Tellme on Friday and get a lunch gang going with my IT people and whatever other interested folks want to eat some food, and then rolling along with whatever party plans people have. It sounds like the girlfriend has a place to stay. I may rent a cheapo car.
But, uhmmm, suggestions or invitations are entirely welcome! Let me know what’s up that weekend, drop me a line, give me a call!
E-mail dannyman@toldme.com to get the 312 cell phone!
Alright,
-danny
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/04/23/keeping-busy/
Busy week at work. More stress than I think I like but then maybe it is just enough stress that after work I feel pretty good about work. The nice touch is that it is tech support. Helping folks makes me feel good, though the truth is the few nuts in the bunch who demand too much attention … well they’re easy to forget about after work.
I’m not paid as much as I have been. And I feel that a bit more because I’m going from zero to outfitting a pretty nice apartment and Yayoi too. But then she enhances quality of life, while also taking up my time.
Truth is between work and homelife I have very little idleness. But its all pretty much quality time. Work could be better, yeah, but then if it were less of a chaotic small company then it would suck in other ways. I think the suck factor in a small company is actually easier for a human to deal with because it better approximates the same sort of troubles you encounter in a family or a clan. We are more adapted, each of us, to this level of suck, than to the suck of a larger institution.
So maybe I’m not paid as well as I’d be elsewhere and yeah I am pretty busy these past couple of weeks and it aint soon to let up, but all in all I’m pretty happy. And while the company itself may be less stable than a larger company, I feel personally a bit more stable because of the greater relative magnitude of my personal contribution.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/04/19/bang-bang-accursed-gangs/
Meanwhile, just down the block …
http://www.nbc5.com/news/3020231/detail.html
… aint exactly Mister Roger’s neighborhood.
/danny
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/04/08/medieval-visitation/
<dman> Man.
<dman> I had a passing desire just now to be in FRANCE.
<lotus> hopefully it was for the ass
<lotus> that’s a good reason to go
<lotus> they have good ass there
<dman> No. I wanted to wander down the hill from Vieux Lyon and lose myself in the twisty ancient streets.
<dman> Maybe buy some chocolate.
<dman> Eat a baguette and drink a few bottles of wine, and curl up in a gutter, blanketed by warm rain and horse piss.
<dman> Must be the pining of some medieval ancestor of prior life in me.
<dman> Ah, sweet melancholy.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/03/30/if-i-may-ask-a-favor-of-a-livejournal-paid-account-holder/
Please visit http://www.livejournal.com/users/dannyman/667.html and follow the instructions for adding the syndication from this web site to your friends list. This should lower the cost of the syndication sufficiently to allow non-paid subscribers to add the syndication to their own friends lists.
You would basically be “sponsoring” the access of freeloading fans to this website via Livejournal.
Oh, and, thank you.
/danny
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/03/10/thar-she-smogs-yay-car-x/
So, my car is now compliant with Chicago emissions. I’ve been neglecting to take it in since the last time it failed, after which I got it tuned up, and started working full-time, with a long-ass commute of about thirty feet. Yeah, well, it failed the second test, at which point they gave me a booklet with a list of shops in Chicago, sorted by their success rate at fixing emissions problems. Since I’m in a new neighborhood, I took the beast over by Car X. Now, normally I’m a bit wary of big chain stores when there’s plenty of greasy guys around willing to do a perfectly good job in a local garage, where the money will stay in the city, and not be siphoned off to some offshore, or at least suburban tax shelter. Yeah, well, the guy figured out my catalytic converters were shot – I mean, they were fifteen years old, right? So, for $475 those were replaced. And it was a slow last Friday over there so you know what they took it by the emissions testing station and passed me through the test!
I am in love. They fixed my car, and they saved me a boat load of time. Car X rocks!
What else? Ah, you may have noticed this funny little strip on the right-hand side of my home page, of little photos. Check it out — You can leave comments and stuff, and I’ll read them. And it is easy for me as sending an e-mail. Hopefully this adds a touch of … whatever.
Other fun things, in case you need to waste some time:
The New York Times has an an article with a plainly funny graph showing optimism, to the point of “no, wait, you guys are so obviously full of Bullsh!t” in the Bush administration’s job projection figures. Every year the administration’s graph goes stright up at a steep angle. Every year the reality graph goes down at a very soft angle, and every year the administration has to move their steep line over to the right …
A Moveon web site called Daily Mislead points out that Bushs’ new campaign ads, which I haven’t seen, which feature the image of firefighters carrying a body bag from Ground Zero, are all the more hypocritical given the administration’s ban on filming body bags returning from the War on Terror.
But it is not all grim, depressing politics. The New York Times has a fun, insightful article on pickpocketing research. A study posted by BBC reports that teens who take a vow of celibacy have less sex, but the same rate of STDs as their morally loose peers, in large part because they are not prepared, with condoms, when they do succumb to their hormones. I heard an NPR story about the abstinence curriculum that schools do in many places, and the main reason to be “abstain” is to avoid STDs … but … well … I don’t know, this just sort of shoots that side of the argument all to heck. Maybe we’re better off with the advice “you needn’t rush into a sexual relationship, but if you’re going to do it, get a damned condom first! Promise me you’ll carry a condom with you, just in case your sex drive overpowers your good judgement! Thanks!”
What else? It’s been some windy times in Illinois. In fact, back in Champaign-Urbana, an MTD bus took a fall off a bridge. That’s some wind! It turns out that eBay has been spanked by New York State because PayPal plays a little too fast and loose with “the truth.” Silly PayPal! Bad PayPal! Hooray for Eliot Spitzer!
And, for your grinning pleasure, a piece on how Californians see United States geography.
Alright.
Last, but not least, I was really productive at work yesterday. (7MB AVI file, but the paper shredder is fine.)
/danny
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/03/03/march-2-happy-birthday-sister-girl/
Happy Birthday, Sister Girl!
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/02/24/new-years-back-to-the-apple/
I was feeling ill just before New Years and went to bed early on New Years Eve, but Yayoi dragged me out of my dreamy reverie to watch the ball drop. I saw the throngs of happy people cheering on a cold Winter’s day in New York City, and I felt unusually emotional about it. I let it go … let it go, and figured that what it was is that it has been a pretty strange few years, for the country and for my own self. Strikes and gutters. World travel and layoffs. Lovers and heart breaks. Progress progress always progress. And nothing seems to symbolize a victory over the things that dog us more than a throng of New Yorkers packing in to Times Square to boldly shout that they are alive and happy. Ah, what a tasty target they must be … but they don’t care. They’re proud, and confident, and even if times are a bit rough they believe that tomorrow ought to be better. Fates bless ‘m!
Some time on the first I managed to pull this one out, to the tune of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s _Woodstock_:
Well I came upon a child of God
He was walkin along the road
And I asked him “Tell me where are you goin?”
This he told me,
Said “I’m goin down to NYC,
Gonna join with the American way
Got to get back the people,
and set my soul free.”
We are stardust
We are golden
We are billion year old carbon
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the Apple
“Well then can I walk beside you?
I have come to lose the fog
And I feel myself a cog in something turnin
And may be all the time that we live in
Or maybe too much CNN
But I dont know who I am,
and life is for learnin.”
We are stardust
We are golden
We are billion year old carbon
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the Apple
By the time we got to Times Square
We were over one million strong
And everywhere was the sound and the celebration
And I dreamed I saw those death-bombin planes
And those buildings in the sky
Turning in to butterflys
above our nation
We are stardust
We are golden
And we all die Americans
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the Apple
/danny
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/02/11/cleaning-out-the-e-mail-box/
Cleaning out the e-mail box. A few gems:
- Which Dysfunctional Care Bear Are You? — A link to my sister’s blog. She’s Bondage Bear and I’m Gay Bear. That’s what we get for disdaining the Christian Coalition.
- Moveon.org are up to … advocating censure of President Bush for misleading us into War. Hey, it’s not like he lied about a blowjob or something pernicious like that!
- Let us say your local municipal or state website is disinterested in helping you register to vote. Franchisement is such a pain in the ass! Okay, well, You can visit rockthevote.com and get yours squared away. They asked me questions and generated a PDF file for me to print out and mail in.
- Billed as “Yet Another Mirror” — A Crazed Lunatic Prevaricator — I’m told that the P word fits and “sounds a bit fancier than ‘liar’.”
- Ever had to send a test message to a mail server without relying on sendmail and/or DNS, but couldn’t recall the SMTP commands? Yeah, I hacked up a little script to take care of that for me.
- Does your Windows box maybe have one of the many virii that have been ravaging the Internet the past few weeks, but you’re too lazy to install a danged virus scanner? Well, drop in on Trend Micro and they can help you clean your hard drive up quick and free.
And then, I share with you a bit of my childhood that I typed to another list . . .
The song on my schoolbus went like this:
I was down at the bar
Tryin’ to pick up some chick
But none of the girls were good to go
So I said “Hey what’s wrong [with my dick]?”
I looked over down
At the other side of the cantina
I asked the guy why you so fly?
He said “I’m funky Daniel Howard!”
-d
My factual lack of funk in those days had a profound impact on the gifted, bored children I rode the schoolbus to and from the magnet school every day. By the way, some of you get excited because I’ve dated quite a few Asian girls what’s my strange fetish from? Heck if I know — I don’t really worry about these things — but since I mention many a long hour of my adolescence spent aboard the schoolbus, I will note that a very cute Korean-American girl blossomed before my eyes on a daily basis over a few years, a couple hours a day. I shall always have fond memories of that young lady, yes indeed.
See, we live at the far north end of the city. My grammar school was downtown. We were the first to board in the morning, and the last to alight in the evening. About an hour each way. Those were long hours indeed. Confessions of lab rat.
On that note . . . BADGER BADGER BADGER BADGER ! ! !
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2004/02/11/european-sushi/
On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 05:01:41PM -0800, Benjamin Feen wrote:
> Hey, this reminds me — it’s time once again to talk about Italian
> beef.
> Anyone have a recipe that can approximate the real thing?
I saw some in the Deli Case at Jewel today. I bet you get a few pounds of that sliced up REEL THEEN and some beef stock, french rolls, and peppers and onions, if you’re in to that stuff, you could have yourself a good ol’ time.
Personally, I dig the italian beef at Pizza Chicago. It aint all that authentic, but when I worked there’s I’d fuckin’ drench that thing super-juicy, and slide a slice of provolone in there that shit was good.
I just got some Natural Ovens whole grain bread, toasted it, good mayo, good good wonderful mustard, deli pastrami, swiss, tomatoes, lettuce .. put that shit together so fine my baby was like damn it’s like the elements blend harmoniously I feel like I’m on Iron Chef and I’m like yeah baby, this is the European equivalent ta SUSHI!
Guess I need some horse radish to dip that shit in.
-d
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