search

God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut

Love him or hate him, Kurt Vonnegut gives good rant.

I've found him pretty much unreadable since Slaughterhouse Five, but I'll always love him for Cat's Cradle and Mother Night.

Money quote: "If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts."

You Now Have an Atomic Energy Merit Badge

Boy Scout constructs his own nuclear reactor. Surprisingly, when the adults figured out that it was almost workable, they got all prissy.

An old story that raises some interesting questions, including, "Aren't you supposed to have an adult advisor when you go for a merit badge?" More importantly, why didn't Jack Baugher shot this guy in the thigh?

The Truth About Being a Writer

Is there anything better than having written? Well, perhaps not having to write at all, but do people who have never itched know how exquisite a good scratch can be?

Cold, Steely Efficiency

Elizabeth and I went out to Quiznos for lunch today. They make those toasted sandwiches, you know.

We learned that it takes more people to make a sandwich than it does to make a magazine — one person to slice the bread and squeeze out the salty dressing; one person to add the floppy meats and cheeses, and stick it through an oven [That guy deserves a raise!]; one person to collect it from the oven and add the browning lettuce; one person to wrap all that goodness up; and one person to stick it in a bag and take your money.

I wonder what kind of budget an operation like that…

Friends Because of Chemistry

I accomplished a ton today, but not nearly all that I wanted. That's alright, though; I'll get more done tomorrow.

But, this was another one of those days when it was absolutely impossible for me to overlook my good fortune. I received constant reminders of the fact that I work with totally awesome people — people who are not only brilliant, but kind and beautiful.

Check this out. Today alone:

John Marks invited me over to his place for the weekend to listen to a $100,000 system before he crates it back up. "Best sound I've had here yet," he tells me. Unfortunately…

Free Music

I love Cantaloupe Records. David Lang's The Passing Measures is one of the most beautiful compositions I've heard this millennium and Phil Kline's Zippo Songs was my hit of CES2006. While supplies last, you can order a free Bang On A Can/Cantaloupe Records sampler and find out for yourself how good their recordings are. Adventurous and different—and did I mention free?

More 21st Century Neologisms

Favorites:

Blowing your buffer: Losing one's chain of thought
GOOD job: "get out of debt" job
World Wide Wait: What did you think www. stood for?

I've Suspected This For Years

Does HT surround-sound only need to be "good enough?" According to a new NIH-sponsored study, "the circuits in the brain that process auditory information are influenced powerfully by the circuits that control where the animal is looking—the animal's direction of gaze." Umm, the animal being, for the purposes of this study, a barn owl.

Studies on ordinary couch potatoes are in the works, I'm sure.

Mark Twain <I>vs</I> Tom Sawyer

I love Twain and view UC/Berkeley's Mark Twain Project to print everything. ever written by Sam Clemens (even down to the individual drafts) as God's own work. Yet, like many readers (including Ernest Hemingway), I've always had a problem with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn's final chapters—say, around the time Tom Sawyer highjacks the novel.

The moral center of the novel, of course, is Huck's decision that sacrificing his friend Jim's freedom to ensure his own eternal salvation isn't a choice he can make. "All right then, I'll GO to hell" may be one of the most powerful lines in all of…