Satanism - bad for pedestrians

WASHINGTON, DC - Washington, screw you and your Freemasonry/Satanism based spoke-hub street layout. It seems to take about ten minutes to cross some of these things on foot.

Note below, I shot the photo of that sign from its good side - the sidewalk. Because if you're in a car on the street, the crack DC sign crews planted the sign of parking policies for the street about two feet from the street map, blocking it from view.

Haiti seems to be getting more attention than other recent large earthquakes

WASHINGTON, DC - The Haiti situation has certainly gotten a large and deserved share of national and international attention. I even watched a bit of the Clooney telethon, and in fact donated during that time - via the web, of course, I didn't want to risk calling in, having John Cusack answer my call, and end up berating him regarding his recent film choices.

I always remind myself at times like these, that it's just a dumb accident of the cosmos that I was born in New Jersey and not someplace like Haiti and that I have a cushy life because of this, that it's just luck that I'm not one of the tens of thousands of sudden orphans.

But I have noticed - there seems to be a lot more attention on addressing the situation in Haiti than I've seen for other recent earthquakes similar casualty counts.

An earthquake in Iran in 2003 killed 31,000 people. All I remember about that quake was that Iran refused help from Israel.

Earthquakes in Pakistan in 2005 and China in 2008 each killed about 87,000 people.

I don't remember a massive all-media response or celebrity-studded telethons tied to those quakes.

There was the 2004 quake and subsequent tsunami in Indonesia, and I do remember that getting a good amount of attention.

But things have gotten very acute for this Haiti situation. Is it because the casualty count is much higher relative to the population size of the country than the other incidents? Something else? I don't know.

All this awareness is not bad, I'm just noting my observation.

The Phone Book is not going down without a fight

SEATTLE, Washington - I got a few more phone books deposited on my stoop last week, bringing to seven the number of phone books I have that are officially "current" (i.e. labeled as being good until June 2010 or all of 2010).

And I tossed a few phone books out last year, so it's possible that if I had checked dates before disposing of (er, recycling) them, I'd have more than seven current ones.

My landline is from Qwest, so I guess I expect a few Dex books, but I have no relationship at all with Verizon yet they deliver three phone books to me. I guess enough people are still putting ads in big yellow phone books to make it economically viable to print and distribute them.

The oddest thing of all - the White Pages. Not only is this useless, but if you think about it a bit it creeps you out - "here's a big book full of the names, addresses, and phone numbers of everyone in the city!" And nowadays, it's not even close to being everyone, it's just older people who haven't abandoned landlines and didn't have the sense to tell the phone company to exclude them from the book.

Why do men cheat? Two Jews think they have the answer

SEATTLE, Washington - When Dennis Prager and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach get together to debate, you know one thing: someone's gonna get cracked over the head with a folding chair. If Michael Medved is also invited, it could turn into a full-scale donnybrook.

Mr Medved was nowhere in sight two days ago as Rabbi Shmuley (author of Kosher Sex) and Mr Prager (author of Happiness is a Serious Problem and, it must be said, two divorces) vigorously presented their views on the question of Why Men Cheat.

Video of the two hour event is archived at The Jewish Journal. Rabbi Shmuley did lapse into speaking Hebrew, but only briefly.



Found at Luke Ford

No I haven't lost weight but thanks for mentioning it

SEATTLE, Washington - When you're me, and you're continually dancing around on the boundary between somewhat overweight and somewhat more overweight, people seem to feel compelled to automatically tell you that you look like you've lost weight when they're seeing you for the first time in a while. It's damn near automatic. Due to work circumstances I'm seeing lots of people that I haven't seen in 1-4 years and they instantly comment that I look thinner.

I'm not thinner. I keep track of these things. I've had quite a bit of trouble getting motivated to diet after swearing off the pursuit of women a year ago and I'm near all-time weight highs.

When I grow a beard, people say the beard looks great, makes you look thinner. When I shave off the beard they say great, being clean-shaven makes you look thinner.

There's only two times - August 1998 and September 2004 - when my weight was higher than it is now. Unless I have achieved some sort of greater density, or unless those specific months were the last time you saw me, I'm not thinner now than when you last saw me.

Mike Holmgren sounds like Don Lucchesi

SEATTLE, Washington -

Mike Holmgren, discussing the future of Eric Mangini:

When egos get in the way, it destroys the team. My goal is to have everyone thinking in a like manner, going in the same direction. Let's put the egos aside.

Don Lucchesi, in The Godfather Part III:

Yes -- you will take control. We’ll gladly put you at the helm of our little fleet. But our ships, must all sail in the same direction. Otherwise, who can say how long, your stay with us will last? It’s not personal, it’s only business.

Look out, Mr Mangini - we all know how things turned out in The Godfather Part III. Don't we?

They don't make coffee mug warmers like they used to

No contest

SEATTLE, Washington - I've had my Dazey 1400 coffee warmer since the late 1990s. It's so old that the plastic is all cracked, the metal plate has actually separated from the plastic, and most of the brown marks on it are not dirt or stains, they're burns. Still, I've kept using it as it keeps the coffee at the correct temperature with its 25 watts of power. This warmer was discontinued years ago.

Usually I'm the only person I can find with some absurd loyalty to a humble product like this, but from reading reviews of other warmers looks like I have a lot of company:

...My old Dazey CW-10 (25 watts) is still getting the job done, but I wonder how much longer it can last...

...I agree with the other reviews that the Rival coffee cup warmer barely warms the cup, much less the contents. The Dazey has 25 watts, and that makes a big difference...

...After ten plus years of use, the heating element of my Dazey Corp. coffee warmer died. With 25 watts it has been the best. I wish I could find another...

...I agree with the other person who mentioned "Dazey Cup Warmer" I also have been try'g to find a mug warmer to compare to it...

...We all miss the old 25 watt Dazey warmers...

...I know it's called a beverage warmer, but it barely does that. I wouldn't recommend this at all. I had a cup warmer by Dazey (can't find it now) and it kept my drink HOT, as it should...

Still I need another warmer so I bought the Mr Coffee black warmer. With a pathetic 17 watts of power I did not get my hopes up, and in a side-by-side comparison with my Dazey it's clearly not keeping the coffee as warm.

There's rumor of a 23 watt warmer in Australia so I finally have a reason to vacation there.

UPDATE 2012/12/30: I knocked the warmer off my desk by accident and it shattered into a few pieces. While I could probably try to re-assemble this I think the time has come. I gave it a dignified disposal. RIP. 1998-2012.

Year in Review

SEATTLE, Washington - My past year via the Facebook status collage app: