the great escape

I just saw some thing on TV about that son of an appalacian turd farmer who defected to north korea 40 years ago. Anywho, he got out and went to japan and the army let him off easy. They asked him what he was most surprised to see after 40 years in relative isolation from the west - computers, cars, new technologies? He said he was surprised there were women in the army, black police officers, and that you couldn't smoke anywhere any more. That kind of surprised me, being used to the 3-5 year rush of technology of nerdliness, 18 month transistor doubling, etc. The things that are hardest to change, and most surprising when they do, are these cultural things. Ok, its obvious, but maybe something that's easy to lose sight of in day-to-day life.

To do

Nickel Creek - Stubb's
Hedda Layne - Rain
Ridgetop Syncopators - Hole in the Wall
Li'l Alice and the Monkey Butlers - Hole in the Wall

maps

I just looked at a google map of my hometown, and I never had a clue of it's shape. I mean, I knew how to get places, I drove all over the place. I knew which roads were the boundaries, what went where. It's odd. Every other place I'll lived, I figured out what's what with a map, so I've had an inherent sense of geography. Odd. How important is global position understanding vs. context based location really?

Waffles

I've recently become obsessed with waffles. During the week, I often run out of either cereal or milk, so I'll pick up a donut at the gas station on the way to work. Mmmmm. dougnuts. Then after watching Alton Brown's show - waffles! wait, follow me here. I can make french toast - but its too much for an everyday breakfast and the bread always goes bad. Pancakes are good, but they're pretty labor intensive with all the watching and turning. Cereal is still the bomb, probably the invention with the greatest impact on productivity until the personal computer, but eh, the milk. Waffles - I know, I still need milk and eggs, but once made they're freezable - so I can always have a few on hand. Bam, jimmy!

waffle maker

Random idea

Why do we date our co-workers? Propinquity is one leg of Sternberg's tripod of love. Is it just being close all the time? How about artificial scarcity? For most of the day, they may be the best thing around. Common interest? working together towards goals? what the fuck ever. All I know is it can be great when it works, and terrible when it doesn't. But what if there was a loophole.
How about this: a 'date my co-worker' dating website! You link up people with similar jobs, but different companies. Lawyer at firm A gets a setup with lawyer at firm B. Tech nerd level 3 at gets setup with Tech nerd level 3 at . This cracks another online-dating problem. People are incapable of answering self-surveys properly. A person's self-opinion is seldomly the same of an observer of that persons actions. Chances are that a person who made a similar career decision as you (actions), may hold very similar values, although their reasons may be quite different. Isn't that one of the 'big five'?

science break

little johnny was a chemist
little johnny is no more
'cause what he thought was H2O,
was really H2SO4.

to do list

• feed ducks rolled up pieces of bread
• throw a jar of superballs off the top floor of the frost bank building
• catch a bat
• strap a flashlight on a dog's harness so he can see better at night
• wonder why homemade pizza crust never turns out the same as take-out
• try to reverse-engineer the salsa recipe from Labamba
• try to grow a banana plant
• turn over a rock, just to see what crawls out