My friend Tara Hunt runs her own marketing firm, Rogue Strategies, by day and her disco revival party, Cream Soda, by night. It seems to have gone over well; her Cream Soda nights are always packed, and now the National Post has a story on her.
(You may remember Tara from my report from the Naked News launch party.)
Yesterday, my friends George (whom I’ve known for sixteen years) and Alicia (to whom I was introduced eleven years ago) became a family of three with the addition of a 7-pound, 15-ounce baby boy named Henry Gherardi Scriban. Both Leesh and Hank (Can I call him that, George? “Hank Scriban” got a ring to it) are doing fine and taking it easy at resting at NYU Medical Center.
Congrats, George and Leesh, and welcome to the world, Henry!
You’ve probably already heard the very good news: Saddam Hussein, dictator and alleged porn star, has been captured. There’s rejoicing from all corners of the ‘Net, from Salam “Baghdad Blogger” Pax to Little Green Footballs. Sometimes, Christmas presents come early.
The Redhead informed me that the operation to capture him was called “Red Dawn”, to which I replied “WOLVERIIIIIINES!”. A little subsequent Googling found me this report, stating that the targets were named “Wolverine 1” and “Wolverine 2”. It’s nice to see an underrated action flick finally get its due.
Here’s a little something for the geeks to think about.
Below is the photo of a freshly-captured Saddam, who’d been hiding in a cramped and presumably not-climate-controlled “spider hole”. He was described being “disoriented” when he was found, which suggests he’d been holed up there for at least hours, if not days. Needless to say, he probably hasn’t had an opportunity to practice daily hygiene, hence he looks like this:
Now, let’s take a look at Free Software guru Richard M. Stallman, who is not hiding from U.S. Forces in a hole in Tikrit, but hanging out in an office at Harvard, where I hear soap, running water, hair gel and trimmers are cheap and plentiful. And remember, this photo was taken for an article, so they probably took a set of pictures and chose the best one:
Somebody please tell me why they appear to have the exact same level of grooming.
Really, my fellow nerds, a little break from the keyboard for a wash and a trim wouldn’t kill you, would it?
The good news:
A restaurant is making it easier to eat low-carb when eating out: they’ve introduced a new Atkins-approved line of foods to their menu.
The bad news:
That restaurant is T.G.I. Fridays.
Okay,okay, there’s nothing terribly wrong with T.G.I. Friday’s; it’s just that it reminds me too much of the restaurant in Office Space, where Jennifer Aniston plays a waitress who is scolded for not wearing enough pieces of “flair.” It just reeks of the sort of place where you’d eat if you worked in a cheesy suburban office park.
The strange coincidence:
I know a charming young woman who is in international business development. She is responsible for bringing T.G.I. Fridays to Central Europe.
The statement “no two countries with a McDonald’s have ever gone to war” is no longer true — the US/Serbia conflict negated that one. Perhaps T.G.I. Fridays can keep the peace where McDonald’s failed.
The Canadian news:
The Atkins site now has an Atkins Canada section. It has the headline: “Living the controlled-carb lifestyle in Canada,” which is a dead giveaway that whoever wrote it doesn’t understand us.
I would have written it as “Low-carb, eh? Give ‘er!“
For the love of God, please let this thing be a joke:
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION:
Mount your laptop or notebook to your car’s steering wheel and catch up on all your work while out in the field. Ideal for outside field sales and service professionals, real estate executives, students, etc. ARKON’s Executive Laptop Steering Wheel Mount will hold ALL portable laptops up to 10 Lbs. in weight. A ball point pen included conveniently attaches to the underside of the base of the mount. The laptop steering wheel mount is very portable. It conveniently folds up and can be stored under the seat while not in use.
First came the Clarke Axiom, named after the guy who coined it, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Now we have Maciej Ceglowski’s brilliant quip from the #joiito IRC channel:
Any sufficiently advanced society is indistinguishable from Canada.
Clever, and at least partly true.
My favourite neocalvinist, Gideon Strauss, isn’t afraid to ask some Pretty Big Questions. It’s food for thought, and stuff like this is why I like reading him so much.
If only he were into gangsta rap. Then I could buy him two brass knuckles — one with the word FAITH and the other with the word REASON (along the lines of “Radio Raheem’s” LOVE and HATE brass knuckles in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing). I think they’d suit him. He could even use them to bang loudly on his desk when his students aren’t paying attention.
