sit stay down wait here come

(1 comment)
2004.06.13
This is the second and final day of Kisrael Held Hostage with your guest captor, LAN3.

AIM of the Moment
Last Saturday, I got this IM from kirk, out of the blue:
kirk: now they're gonna wanna put him on money
LAN3: What's that now?
kirk: sorry, wrong IM window. My response to someone asking if I heard Reagan died
LAN3:: Reagan died?
And that was how I got the bad news. But as much as it does a Republican (arguable) good to trump up the passing of that late great President, I really just wanted to mention that as the ...

Segue of the Moment
because this morning I heard, on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, a short thumb-sucking essay by host Scott Simon, which is a regular feature on the show. This week, Simon contemplated the alleged drive to add Reagan to money. I don't know if the drive is substantial, merely has a good media coverage, or just presumably exists, but considering what I now know about Andrew Jackson, I'd be happy to see him off the $20. However, Jackson had very big hair, and Reagan had a rather squared hairstyle that just won't fill the oval on the bill very well.


Radio of the Moment
That last link goes to a long-past episode of "This American Life," the WBEZ (Chicago)-based public radio show that gives a weekly hour of radio documentaries around a single theme.

Last week's episode was one I nagged Kirk to listen to. It spent the entire hour on a single general story, a look at private contractors in Iraq: "I'm From the Private Sector and I'm Here to Help" (RealAudio and Audible.com archives available)

It covers, in its various acts, some of the private soldier/mercenaries, the friction between the contractors and the military (including an argument near the beginning which is terrific radio), a contractor who is working on Baghdad's heavily-improvised power systems, a woman in a nearly-all-male niche, and even lets you witness, aurally, an ambush in traffic.

In other good radio: Scott Simon's thumb-sucker is at times cloying, but I'll give him credit-- he got Simon and Garfunkel in the same room.

Animal Science of the Moment
Science has confirmed what dog owners all know: Dogs understand language. I sent this to my sister, and she estimated that her golden retriever, Cider, can understand almost 40 words:
sit stay down wait here come outside leave-it kong swimming frisbee bo-bos (bedtime) puppy-chow good-girl greenie bone treat cookie go-hup paws-up kisses bath ears hot no-begging out go watch-me walk love who's-there speak find-it cat quiet as well as the names of 4-6 people she sees often.

Paranoia of the Moment
The Reproductive Cycle of Black Helicopters. This probably confirms everything you've ever suspected about their sinister origins.

Game of the Moment
N is an addictive game that runs on your PC or Mac using CPU-hungry Flash. The gameplay? "play as a ninja trapped in a world of well-meaning, inadvertently homicidal robots." Think Lode Runner with physics added.

The game is really fantastic, but I don't think I'll ever finish it-- to advance you take 5 levels per episode, and there appear to be 30 episodes. Watch the demos that autoplay on launch for a great look at the various inhabitants of the game, and read everything in the "help" and "story" -- there's a lot of hidden humor and classic gaming references.

1000 Thanks to Kirk for letting me cover his weekend. This was fun! LAN3 out.