Mike DeWolfe : The Daily Edition

Why am I dieting ? Because I did do it once and can do it again. I want to blaze a trail for others who are in my boat I want to stay alive to enjoy life with my wife and daughter. What's your reason(s)? The above left photo is one of me ca. 1990 and the photo on the right is me in August 2005. Photos are a good indicator of how far one has fallen.

The advent of camera phones and digital cameras, means that photos are flooding into the digital realm. I found this link to a photo a NYC woman took of a guy who whipped it out and stared her down while he was beating himself off. If the police want evidence of what he was doing, they have it. Scum love anonymity. In related news, I've started to photograph local prostitutes and vagrants. I have encouraged our neighbours to do the same. We may put together an exhibition of "Hoes On Parade" Stay Tuned! Update via Zezette and Babble : A city restaurateur suspected of being a subway perv had been busted years ago for exposing himself on a train platform, law-enforcement sources said yesterday. Authorities said Dan Hoyt ( 2 ) — a leading expert on raw foods and the owner of two Manhattan eateries — agreed to appear in lineups after six women went to cops complaining that a man recently performed sick acts in front of them in the subway. To take one of his quotes totally...

What if you want to make your mark-- to become remarkable-- but you also want a family and friends? A few months, back I was talking with a friend/boss about how make a great accomplishment. I said to him that you had to "immolate yourself in your craft" to pull off that greatness. He actually didn't know what "immolate" meant (not a big deal, there are many many words and everyone should be fine missing out the odd one). By immolate, I mean create a fiery brightness at the cost of using yourself as fuel. I saw a r ecent article that referred to programmers at Electronic Arts basically as widows. I am reading through a book called, " Zenith Angle " by Bruce Sterling. The central character is a computer scientist who submerges into the post 9/11 world of security and disappears from his family. This topic has come up many times: Josepth Campbell wrote that the role of sacrifice is alive and well in our society. Every day that a man commutes to a do-not...

This from KOMO-TV: The person visited public areas in Redmond between Aug. 16 and Aug. 20. REDMOND - King County public health officials have confirmed a case of measles in an adult exposed to the virus while traveling abroad. Basically, he came back from some offshoring expedition and returned to Microsoft campus. Between the exotic places that Microsoft is fishing up workers and the sickly nature of computer guys, we have a Measles outbreak. There is something ironically fitting in this. I'm having many politically incorrect thoughts about how the Hudson's Bay company used to trade cootie covered blankets that would decimate their trading partners. What if people in North America are retaining their hold on IT work? What if that grip needs to be interrupted a little with coughing and sneezing? Where would a place like Microsoft turn for skilled labor in the event their North American staff started dropping off like flies?

This NY Times piece on a geological discovery had me thinking. If the surface of the Earth rotates once every 24. hrs. 59 sec. and the core of the Earth spins once every 23 hrs. 58 mins. 26 sec. that means parts of the Earth's core and outer crust are only synchronized very occasionally. What if there are "mountains" in the inner core: elevations of more solid material like iron that cannot be accomodated by the outer crust. In other words, the core spins past a fault line-- perhaps a subduction faultline where one plate is going beneath the adjacent plate. This creates stress that is released in vulcanism and/or seismic activity. What I'm getting at is that if this is happening, its cyclical and recurring. Earthquakes are not random phenomeons; or constant stress with random release. Earthquakes are combination and synchronization of recurring factors: solar-lunar tidal activity; the contact of core elevations with crust depressions; and basic solar energy investing...

I ranted last week about an idiot who used to "practice" law for 20 yrs. and now he's running a sham tech college. It's said today that people will go through three careers in their lifetime. With the changing, fickle job market and people living to retirement, that seems likely. But then I have a friend who's in his late 70s and still practicing law. He regails me with law stories from the 1940s. How the Hell didn't he jump careers two or three times? This has all gotten me thinking about wasted opportunity and how it pisses me off. I have wasted lots of opportunity. I have wondered if there's the brass ring. Someone read one of my scripts and said, "if you have more stuff, let me look at it." I did nada. Back in the 80s, I was in the queue to code v1. of Civilization. Civlization! (in a fantasy world, there is a time dilator where I can kiss Alice good night, pop into the dilator, play three weeks of Civ, come out and go to sleep with Cheryl). ...

65 Girls Pregnant I just was to for the record state that it was me (I mean, 65 of them? That would be a lot-- well, according to some people, it would be).

So, I clear probation from my job this week. I am going to see if they can sponsor me to go to the PHP conference in Toronto: (September 14th-16th) . The question is: how to spin it. It will cost $800 for the attendence plus air fare and accomodations. Would these be good enough reasons?

Read the Blethering Place entries on these two sites: http://www.oaklanevictoria.com /restaurants.htm http://victoria.innerharbour .com/vicrest.asp What do these two pages have in common? My wife did one in 1998 and then started traipsing it around the Internet (our Islandnet account, cheryl.dewolfe.bc.ca , her victoria.innerharbour.com domain). In 2001, a desperate "designer" who probably couldn't string two sentences together, lifted it and used it on a site he was designing (I can't speak about all of these other references, I am sure their owners can step up and claim ownership). As to question of who got there first: we turn the Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/19990908012940/www.islandnet.com/~dewolfe/victoria/vicrest.html vs. http://web.archive.org/web/20010603192415/www.oaklanevictoria.com/restaurants.htm My question: was the "designer" desperate to cut corners, or does he cut corners all the time? What if someone started a school to tra...

Guess who this is. Hint: he was probably tired of being beaten up by everyone. It's Carrot Top ! ew.

Let's play a new game! What is it? Guess what this is. Creative answers are encouraged. One clue: this was bought in a store (accidentally)

This from the Register .... Britney Spears' squeeze Kevin Federline wants the highly-talented chanteuse to drop her sprog on live TV, a breathless Yahoo! reports. Britney is due to eject her bun in October, and young Kev reckons - in the wake of the couple's recent ratings flop Chaotic - that the sight of the pop sensation, legs akimbo, grunting her Hollywood rugrat into the world might prove an audience-puller. Yep. "Dancer" Federline is actually contemplating pimping out his wife. Instead of giving one guy the keys to the waterworks for $100, he's willing to give millions of guys a peek for advertising revenue in the name of the miracle of birth. Of course, the American mindset probably means that they will show the miracle of birth but pixelate everything from belly button to knees. Some 24x20 pixel blotch will fly out of the former mouseketeer, the violin music will play and we'll cut to a scene of the happy couple and their cream cheese coated creation...

Britain is fighting their hooligan problems with ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) contracts . Anti-social behaviour has a wide legal definition – to paraphrase the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, it is behaviour which causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more people who are not in the same household as the perpetrator. Among the forms it can take are: graffiti – which can on its own make even the tidiest urban spaces look squalid abusive and intimidating language, too often directed at minorities excessive noise, particularly late at night fouling the street with litter drunken behaviour in the streets, and the mess it creates dealing drugs, with all the problems to which it gives rise. They are trying to curb these problems by getting yahoos to sign ABCs (Acceptable Behaviour Contracts). Pledges by those found guilty of these offenses that they not commit these crimes again. In the weird world...

So many people liken figures in the White House to villians in Star Wars. Does Dick Cheney = Darth Sidious? Would that make Karl Rove like a Darth Maul or Darth Vader? That doesn't work. Vader and Maul were both cool. Karl Rove is like an ill formed lump of dung. If you had to fit him somewhere in the Star Wars pantheon, I would make him a lead Ugnaught . Think about it: what is a closer fit for Karl Rove? Option A: Sith Lord A figure who comamnds ancient energies known as the dark side of the force. Ruled by passion, Sith lords often dress in dark cloaks to mask their true identities Option B: Ugnaught A species of humanoid-porcine beings who live and work on [Capitol Hill].[Political consultants] are barely one meter tall, have pink skin, hog-like snouts and teeth, and long hair. Okay, it's a trick question. Maybe Rove could best described as an Ugnaught Sith Lord: Darth Turdous. Anyways, here's the Karl Rove bio, you need to see: http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/k...

Tupperware is looking for entries to create a Tupperware-inspired work of art that could send you – and your masterpiece – to New York City! My entry: The Husband keeper. It has a scream proof seal and is watertight to allow marine escapes. Can be made from the hundreds and hundreds of dollars of existing Tupperware.

The lead story on our local noon "news"? Security cameras are great! The privacy comissioner has no problem with private security cameras being put into use. Police think that they are vital tools in crime fighting. This coming after last night's story about how people would willingly trade personal freedoms for more security. After the London bombings, speedy arrests (and the murder of one Brazillian who committed the crime of having black hair) everyone is pro-camera. I thought our local TV station was pro-camera because someone got a bug to cover it. I was right. All across Canada, Global TV stations and their sister newspapers are lauding the wonders of a closed circuit television future. Why? Theory A We're becoming an authoritarian state with Orwellian overtones. Well, yeah. But, we've been going that direction since the introduction of the ATM card. It's not big news anymore. Theory B Sports has always done well in the ratings. Really well. There ar...

Why is that Hollywood's Entertainment-Addiction Complex manages only to kill the fat SNL alumnis? Please, please, don't leave out Rob Schneider, star of celluloid asswipe, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo he's half as funny as Pauly Shore; half as manly as Andy Dick.

So I typed "false + false" into Google to get a quick refresher on boolean math. What I got instead was this: http://www.redheadedleague.com/films/false/false.html

This from Microsoft Watch and WebProNews : Basically, MSN is cooking the blogs they host for their own benefit. MSN Filter appears to be a cross between a traditional Web log, where writers have full editorial control, and a wiki model, embracing user contributions. Adam Sheppard, lead product manager for MSN Filter, said MSN's model " is essentially Nanopublishing as originally championed by Nick Denton at Gawker Media and Weblogs Inc. Both are great blog networks with their own audiences that they'll continue to be successful with." I saw the MSN ad for professional bloggers. I guess I should have thought that if they were going to throw money at bloggers, they were doing it for nefarious reasons.

Wired is running an article about a guy making furniture out of FedEx boxes. FedEx is hitting him with a DMCA violation. Yes, the DMCA. Apparently they are not upset about the furniture itself but rather this site that he put up with pictures of his creation . His site looks down from traffic weight, but he also has a blog . Beds, desks, chairs, you name it. Back when I and my micreant friends where teenagers we used to save all of the dot matrix edge pieces for some unknown project that we never carried out. It's good to see him putting this crap to good use.

This in from Victoriawood Reports: In trying to get some more information about Cameron Bright 's role in X-Men 3 film . I managed to contact Cameron's mom, Anne Bright . She was able to confirm that Cameron is playing Leech , a member of the Morlocks. More... Victoriawood was the first to get news of this. Way to go!

Theatre goers in 1982 were so hungry for a good movie, they were willing to see the Turkish Star Wars ( 2 ). A movie that liberally ripped off its US counterpart and made it into a Turkish "classic." Unfortuately, the word "classic" in English means "memorable." In Turkish, "classic" means "tremendous load of crap. "

A "Cthulhoid" link I saw to a cool Livejournal full of Octopus references got me thinking: what's in a name? Cthulhu.Blogspot.com - goes to a said 16 yr. old from Virginia who stopped posting in 2001. Shoggoth.blogspot.com - is for angry people who speak Spanish. DarthVader.Blogspot.com - goes to a Bangladeshi blog with a photo of two people holding hands. Darthmaul.blogspot.com - is, of course, the metaphysics of augu. Hansolo.blogspot.com - is empty and Chewbacca.blogspot.com is still free. Hitler.blogspot.com is actually titled, "Nazi Blog" I gave it a quick read. I can't tell if its a warning of encroaching fascism or if it's a sarcastic pro-Nazi blog. The Adolfhitler.blogpot.com site is something in Arabic. I think it's a poorly named flower site; but I fear it's a how-to for wouldbe bombers. The NAACP.blogspot.com is Chris Puzak 's back-up site. Don't expect an ammo refill from the NRA.blogspot.com : It's the newtown ri...

For those of you who yearn to create comics, but are not held back enough by the lack of technical hurdles: behold the Comic Book Markup Language (CBML) . A series of XML qualities to what you put in a book, throw on a page or land in a panel. Ug. It makes me long for coming of the Three Pigs and the Apocolypse. ...

It turns out there is some hair splitting in the same-sex marriage issue. Gay marriage is non synonomous with same-sex marriage. That being the case, two middle aged straight guys are getting married to each other . This makes sense. Married couples get benefits that singles do not enjoy. Friends look out for each other (for better or for worse). There are open marriages. Married people complain that sex fizzled after the marriage. Why wouldn't two straight guys who wanted to save money, meet women and not have sex with one another get married? Besides all that, the concept of marriage in the name of love is uncommon. Royalty often forged political unions via marriage. Many cultures have arranged marriages to transfer assets to the next generation. This concept isn't so much a perversion of the concept of marriage as it is a carry-through to the nth degree.

When I tried to email someone at Nortel from my GMail account, I got this reply : Your email was blocked at NortelNetworks by our spam filters. The reason for this is explained below, and what actions you should take (if any) are also described below. If you do not maintain your own email server[s], we suggest that you forward this email to your email server administrators. Your email has been forwarded to the intended recipients. Your email is still blocked. This is likely because our metrics indicate that your mail server is continuing to send unacceptable quantities of spam and/or viruses and we have not removed the filter rule that caused the block. We recommend that you deal with the blacklistings shown below, and then contact us (by replying to this email) about re-enabling email access. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to reply to this email. Sorry for the inconvenience. Regards, Spam Filter Operations Nortel Networks filtops@nortel.com We blocked thi...

I used to work for this web design company. Tuesday, I saw that, according to their website, they were on the move ( 2 ). Today, they no longer have that announcement up on their site. Hmmm.... These snap 180° turns are the kind of things that frustrated me to departure. You know what they say: " A ship that never gets to port eventually sinks with all hands. "

October 7-9th, 2005 there is an HP Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland Oregon. By a weird quirk, I think I have seen much of the Cthulhioid things put to film (this is the list of things I've seen): Die Monster Die Dunwich Horror Reanimator From Beyond And let's not forget the bastard love children of Lovecraftian Lore: Cast A Deadly Spell Bride of Reanimator The Evil Dead movies Babylon 5

At the nexus of my Mythbusters and sculpture obsession: Kari Byron . Her website has a super cool collection of sculptures made from found objects, sculpey, etc.

This is my recent complaint to Tim Horton's: I wish to complain about the conditions of the Tim Horton's at 2 1258 Esquimalt Road in Esquimalt BC. Tonight I came in at approx. 8PM to find that both washrooms were out of order. This is a frequent occurence. Of the last three times I have been to this location in the last month, the restroom has been out of service. When I asked the staff about this, they said that were not going to clean up after a drug addict used the washroom. The associate said that people could go to other businesses and use their washroom. Given the frequency I have found them to be lacking in this area, I do not know if they ever make a washroom available. If the washrooms are used by drug users for injecting drugs, I don't know if they would be hygenic at all. In general, this is not a location I would ever want to go again: be it for the lack of basic ammenties that are required by Vancouver Island Health Authority; the likelihood that should we nee...

The Planet is offering a contest for women entrepeneurs . Don't worry guys. Apress is offering a contest too . I think I am going to enter this one :)