360 ride
30 mile ride with Caesar today, northbound on 360. Wind out of the south. Fast. Whee. Light traffic. Caesar showed me a shortcut that I like.
May 2, 2002
Oh my God, it’s full of stars!
One of the lines from 2001 that sticks in my head is when Dave gasps “Oh my God, it’s full of stars!”
That’s my reaction to the new Hubble photos. One of the images shows 6,000 galaxies in the background, and if I recall correctly, the field of view in that image is equivalent to that of a dime viewed at 70 feet.
Death to Smoochy
Just saw Death to Smoochy. Good movie–clever, sharp dialog, manages to balance sweetness with sharpness pretty well. And I saw it at the Alamo Drafthouse, which is always a plus. As usual, they were playing something weird-but-appropriate before the movie started. In this case (unsurprisingly), it was footage of the Evil Purple One, though mercifully without the sound. I asked the guy who came to take my order if he could perhaps bring some “mild hallucinogens to help make Barney easier to stomach.”
Follow-up on censorship
Follow-up time:
Turns out the blogger I mentioned in this conundrum never asked for the offensive website to be removed, he just mentioned it to the index’s, uh, curator.
The amazing Jenster (who doesn’t have a web page, otherwise I’d point a link at her), who tipped me off to the dating-hell story believes the story to be a fake. She points out in particular A) the time-zone problem in international chat sessions; B) the extreme improbability that the guy would be able to meet her in the baggage-claim area after they had both taken international flights from two different points; C) the improbability that someone who hopes to have any credibility as a tech writer would have ever fallen into a situation like this in the first place. I think she’s on to something, which raises the question (if you’re a linguistic pedant like me, it does not beg the question): why invent such a story?