:: meanders ::

:: Sweet Tweet Flightsuites
How can anyone grow jaded in this world? Check out these di-dees

:: Snow Soo-flay | A tale of one man and his blog
It's a deflated soo-flay outside. Yesterday's "Pineapple Express", a warm front originating in Hawaii, made slush of the roads and the light fluffy underpinnings got mushed with what fell off trees. And the kiddees are back on the corner waiting for the schoolbus. Some nice press for Evan Williams, the one-man show behind Blogger: Guardian Unlimited | A tale of one man and his blog

:: Revolutionary Gear for those who can't be bothered
Turns out Winona is not the only one deserving her own T-Shirt. Noelle Bush, Daniel Pearl, Adam Ant, and even Martha Stewart deserve saving, at least if Y-Que Trading, the self-styled invaluble resevoir of cultural artifiacts in the present, is any indication. Other goodies include a Che Gevarra T-shirt and one with the Enron logo wrapped in what looks like a devil tail. Yes, yes, I know, it's humor. I can't help but see it as a feeble echo of the 70s, a trying-on of the past to re-experience Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book!, which will be republished Feb 9, or, darkly, the protest movements, the most recent of which are against globalization and are quite slick and chic. The echos are feeble, as the times, they have a changed. The unparalleled prosperity of the past ten years pales in comparison to the dwindling prosperity from the heights of the 50s to the depths of the 70s. And the young men of the 60s and 70s were still subject to the draft, a very real axe waiting its next execution. Spiraling further, a related tangent is defense spending as a percentage of the GDP. By the end of WW2 was at 45%. By the Korean War, defense spending was at 14% and steadily declined to the present 3%. Not making a case for defense spending here. No. It is to remark that how leaders have used the energy represented by the GDP is mirrored, at times with distortion, in the cultural concerns of the children they brought into the world. Actio et reactio.

:: An expression that is radical and at the same time meaningless
How fitting. Following yesterday's blow to the glorification of sports thuggery, today the scales again tip towards lunacy as we read that it is Kewl to be Kriminal . Why squander moral outrage on 9/11, terrorism, illiteracy, and other assorted cruelty when, like, you can show your extreme caring in a far more hip way. Rock on. jiji -- a friend writes re: the T-Shirt: Naturlich, I want one. And I plan to shoplift it!!

:: Nevada Board Denies Tyson License
It may be far fetched and wishful thinking to make more of this than it is. But the glorification of the thuggery lifestyle was dealt a blow today. Not a knock-out, but a blow nonetheless.

:: Full Wolf Moon at 2am
At 2h 52m this morning was the Full "Wolf" Moon, physically in the constellation of Cancer, what the Saxons called Crabba, astrologically in the sign of Leo, and in the Lunar Mansion Anathra, "The Gap in the Lion's Fur".

The moon, like a flower
In heaven's high bower
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night
William Blake

The next New Moon is Feb 11, with the Full "Storm" Moon falling on Feb 27.

:: Speaking of Enron, Don't Eat the Saba!!!
Not long ago, I found out that in that commercial where the chef takes forever to get to the dining room to yell out "DON'T EAT THE SALMON" (or so I thought), he's more likely saying "DON'T EAT THE SABA!!". It makes sense to me as the fish bones, with heads, on their plates sure didn't look like salmon. Well, here's another item of interest I fished out of too-still waters:

"Saba o yomu" literally means, "to read the mackerel". Since mackerel are common fish of relatively low value, and also rot quickly, when fishermen offer them for sale, they often inflate their estimate of the number of fish. This is why this expression has come to mean, "to manipulate the figures for one's advantage" or "to offer false numbers intentionally".
{kewl sushi image from digital sushi itself a very hip site}

Be wary of smelly fish such as ENE!! (or on the other side of the two-headed coin, thinly traded, highly manipulated stocks, for that matter!) update (2:00ish): After blasting up the volume really really loud, I am very disappointed to report that the chef does say salmon. However, as we create our own reality, I will live in denial of that. I like the smelly fish angle.

:: ::: The Amazing World of Colorgenics :::
Web surveys are the rage among internet junkies. Here is a fun and remarkably insightful "personality profiler" based on colors. Remarkable in the way that astrological readings are, that is! Have some fun!

:: snowy day & pictures
Some pictures from around Washington State. Our local cam just went dud-- might have gotten snow fogged, like cable was a bit earlier. Snow flurries have left a light fluffy powder everywhere. A Yugo-sized snowball made by a gang of boys, having cracked under its own weight, was abandoned at the corner, just before it could be sent caroming down the hill. It is now a rubbled Yugo, a car having smacked it pretty hard.

:: Japanese Scientists breed pigs with spinach genes
From a cyber-acquaintance's mad mad world: CNN.com - Japanese scientists breed pigs with spinach genes. I find this bizarre, but the world is increasingly incomprehensible through my antiquated eyes. Why pigs when it is tabu in so much of the world ? Why spinach? Well, perhaps the operative question is "Why not?", so much more appropriate in the world of extremes that draws my voyeurish interest.

::
I have spent too much time implementing and debugging a calendar add-in for the archives. It works quite nicely except that on the archive pages the text attributes are goofed up. I can't find the problem!! Not a java-head, I'm on the learn as you go plan. Hey, my last programming feats were donkey's years ago... probably FORTRAN (gg). It's taken the sap right out of me. And to top it off, the "floating image" problem persists. (Roman in the UK has been so helpful in describing its persistence!!) As I do not have this problem using IE6, and suspect it is an early IE5 (or earlier) problem. I really do believe folks should consider upgrading to IE6-- it's far more stable than IE5 and loaded with features.... once you implement the security patch (grrrr). Hey, this is supposed to be fun and leisurely. HA! I'm whacked. Good night!

::
Have a go at The Philosophers Magazine Games . Just what is art and having sorted our your criteria for "good art", would Shakespeare or Britney score higher? I pit Miles Davis against Picasso and the results were interesting.

::
After visiting these pages, a couple of vistors have remarked that the "images osciallate" or that the "text is blinking". I puzzled a bit over these as I run IE6 on WME and OS9 on an iBook and didn't see those effects. I don't have older browsers and can't validate the pages. However, finally, someone told me that the background changes color. Yes. That is by intent. The links also change along with the background. These pages use a modified version of an XHTML1.0/CSS cross-browser compliant design created by Eric Costello at www.glish.com. It may be you have an older browser or have disabled the features that allow you to view these pages as the code intends. Or, it may be that the morphing colors simply distract or annoy you. "Serendipity" is what I thought when I found Eric's template. The slow morphing of the background was, for me, a perfect analogy of the market. The market is ever changing. There are times when it presents itself clearly, when our reading of it seems unimpeded and clear. Then, subtlely, slowly, the market behavior becomes blurred, sometimes to the point of total incomprehension. What we do at that point can be telling.

• Do we assume it is broken?
• Do we watch and suddenly notice that indeed, it was red just a moment ago, and by gum! it is green now!
• Do we simply wait a moment, and watch it 'correct' itself and once again become legible?
• Do we go on to something else?
• Do we laugh at it and enjoy it's playfulness?

No doubt there are other reactions. Each time I visit my pages to leave a comment or to review progress, I am reminded that the market doesn't stand still, that it is ever changing. And that, at times, it's wise to simply rest a bit until it becomes clear again. I am reminded to go with the flow, let go of preconceived notions, and look for the content apart from the style.

::
File under: The Mustard Never Fell off This Hotdog!! Glad to read Chick Hearn is on the mend and enjoying his recovery. Can't remember how many Lakers games he brought into vivid color.

Hearn, the only play-by-play announcer the Lakers had had in 42 years in Los Angeles, had worked 3,338 consecutive games over a 36-year span when he had the surgery. "I really never gave the streak much thought," he said. "What did it last, 36 years? It was a case where I would just automatically go work. "I'll just have to start on a new streak."<-- now that is attitude! Hearn, who turned 85 Nov. 27, said he plans to be back next season as well, announcing every game, home and away. "I want to work every game," he said. "That's just the way I am. The travel doesn't bother me, and before the surgery I felt pretty good."

::
Played hookey to catch a matinee presentation of Lord of the Rings. What a thoroughly charming and engaging movie. Walking out of the theatre and into the mall was a feat of readapting to a world somehow less magical. The production was a fine tribute to the legacy of an enduring story much loved by devoted readers. Plus, there's Mortensen, err Aragorn ... rrrowwl!!!

::
No Comment

::
The End of Free , chronicling free to fee and beyond. You've no doubt noticed previously "free" internet services increasing going subscription. Outraged? Wistfull at the demise of the open internet? Harbinger of an internet winter? I have mixed feelings, but lean heavily towards modest payment for services rendered. The $15/month model of many sites, however, won't be cutting it, particularly for recreational use. $30 a year? Perhaps. And certainly much closer to "reasonable". A development to keep an ear on.

::
A eulogy to the cindered relics rusting along the Internet Highway -- Internet Bubble Monitor. Like abandoned cars on lawns, in alleys, and dotting fallow farmland, dead dot bombs are simply a part of the landscape, not quite worth turning in for scrap, not quite worth rehabilitating. We just move on to the next, hopefully big, thing.

::
When Victims are Heros, what to say of genuine acts of heroism? No doubt an unpopular view in the aftermath of 911, but Nicholas Thompson ask an important question: When we put every victim of tragedy on a pedestal, what are we looking up to? Hero Inflation, the title of his article in the Globe, is yet another manifestation of the extremes-orientation of our society. No hero is too small in the quest for aggrandizement, and no issue too big in how small it is made in the exploitation of its value. Quiet memorials mushroom into 24/7 TV coverage of grief, the solemn intonement of 3000 names to be harshly followed by appeals by lawyers and victim foundations at the ready to squeeze every penny necessary to assuage the suffering of those that did not die. Is public display of grief and empathy more potent, closer to the heart? qui bono? Apart from lawyers, media, and self-serving politicos willing to carry the torch, the winner is perhaps the oldest shadow warrior, the ego.

::
Is this another way of saying patternistas are naturally high? Hallucinations Lead To Insight Into The Visual Brain

::
"Middle aged stars are more green". What they need to include is a swatch, partic. as the color is more of a turquoise than "green".

::
If there is a physicist for the common man, Michio Kaku might be one. I first saw him on Big Thinkers, a wonderful TechTV (available on DirecTV) program showcasing, well big thinkers! His fresh approach to how the world works is imbued with a child's curiosity and wonder. He doesn't let science get in the way of mystery that is life. His site, Michio Kaku Online: Re-Inventing Science, gives a glimpse into his thinking.

::
space-time continuum? Just kidding folks. This page will be used to record the odd thought, an interesting read on the web, that sort of thing. No a priori intent, purpose, or focus. It's a way of keeping my non-market and quasi-market ideas in a separate box.