bestof/snapshots

This is an old attempt to gather the most interesting bits of kirk.is in an easy-to-browse format.

If you like kirk.is mostly for the quotes and links, it might not be the "best of" per se, but overall these pages represent a big part of my creative output so far in the 21st century. The "best of" parts are shown in their natural habitat, often accompanied by the typical quotes and links and asides.

I've divided the work into various categories, and tried to sort each page into roughly descending order of "interestingness". Sometimes there's a particularly chosen closing entry.

Baby Picture of the Moment

--Me at the age of 3 months, in Philadelphia. I thought this picture was lost, but it's my favorite...either I'm thoughtful, or doing a ferocious elbow smash. It was a bit of a shock to discover that the photos in my photo album were all duplicates and rejects from my mom's collection...I had forgotten that utterly.

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Cheer of the Moment

Gimme some angst!
Gimme ennui!
What do we got?
TEAM APATHY!

Image of the Moment

I've been scanning in my old photo album. This is one of my favorites, my dad and I on a public beach on St. Thomas (Virgin Islands) where my family lived for a year.

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Quote of the Moment

How many times must I tell you? Queens consume nectars and ambrosia, not hot dogs.

Rant of the Moment

Evolution is supported by the entire scientific community; Intelligent Design is supported by guys in line to see The Dukes of Hazzard. No. Stupidity isn't a form of knowing things ... 'Babies come from storks' is not a competing school of thought in medical school. We shouldn't teach both and if Thomas Jefferson knew we were blurring the line this much between church and state, he would turn over in his slave.

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Gadget of the Moment
The Japanese Segway has no handlebars, just a little handheld controller. (Glad it's not a remote control, I'd hate to see that thing hacked.) Just lean and go... as the article points out, it makes it a lot more stowable at the office.

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Photo of the Moment

--My Dad as Superman, or at least in a Superman T-shirt. I believe this is at the Salvation Army's "School for Officer Training" (SFOT, their seminary) and this is a bit of a prank, the T-shirt there to get people to think he's gone off the deep end and might just jump.

Yesterday, on a whim, Ksenia and I decided to celebrate the fourth by renting a kayak and paddling down to see the Boston fireworks.

I learned a few things.

• I'm "ok" at paddling if you define it by being able to make a kayak go forward, and roughly steer, but absolutely terrible if the definition of ok includes not getting a few gallons of water in the damn kayak. Stuff in the bottom of the kayak was drenched. Also, close quarters manuevering was like learning parallel parking all over again.
• I prefer kayaks over canoes, because they seem less... campy, in both a figurative and literal sense. Plus the oar seems a bit more fiddley when you switch sides.
• Muchies might have been a good thing to bring along...I didn't know what kind of room there'd be for one.
• But maybe not beverages, because of the annoyance of having to locate a restroom. This we learned from experience.
• Consider investing in a small anchor if you want to park your kayak...having to constantly adjust one's position while waiting for and viewing fireworks gets old after a while. Ksenia and I were quite fortunate, we made friends with a fellow kayaker named Rochelle, who was teaming up with 4 folks in a canoe... and they had an anchor! We lashed our watercraft together, Rochelle even passed around some munchkin bottles of Pinot Noir, and in general we had a grand old time.
• It's a little disconcerting when you hear the concert from speakers behind you before the sound from the stage speakers has carried over the water.
• It's a long way from the Charles River Canoe & Kayak (a couple of miles maybe? I was trying to figure it out) to where they have the fireworks. And, of course, even longer back.

Anyway, a few images:

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Nostalgia of the Moment
Speaking of Dylan and Sarah (as EB was in the sidebar) I dug up pictures from July 26, 1998 when I went kayaking on the Charles with them and their friend Mandy.
Two points: I think it is a even more fun to have a definite goal such as as "seeing fireworks" than just "paddling around for a bit", and man... in 1998 I had a craptacular digital camera. That last picture of Sarah was ok though.

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Link of the Moment
Fun Facts about Springfield's Fireworks. It was my first clue about the names for the various types, which the wikipedia page now covers in greater detail, from Peonies to Cakes and including my favorites, Salutes... just a big sound and a big noise. (Heh, that first link was probably in my backlog since before I knew much about wikipedia.)

Photos of the Moment
So I bid a fond farewell to Seattle. I think my consulting role went well, though I had to put in some brutally late nights, and it was one of those things that never feels perfectly resolved.

Got a chance to wander the city a bit more on my last evening there.

I even found a very fun little arcade at the lakefront. I think the arcade games were set at their easier settings for the most part, which I appreciated. I played Star Wars Tilogy Arcade, destroyed the Deathstar which is always enjoyable. I also played ticket games, I usually don't go for that but they had this one mallet game, sort of a virtual Whack-A-Mole but with a real mallet on a big screen.

So see ya, Seattle... I'll miss you, and how you have the Daily Show on at a decent hour. Plus my hotel had the NFL Channell... man, as much as I enjoy following the Patriots and gaving a game on in the background, 24/7 football coverage is kind of creepy.

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Fortune of the Moment
"You may find if you relax that you dream a thousand new paths and awake to walk your old one."
--Excerpt from the card I got from the Arcade's mechanical fortune teller. It was a lot better than the one from the mechanical Elvis at the Pike Place magic show that started "You are nature's stepchild. You enjoy nature and thrive when you spend time outdoors." Damn, Mechanical Elvis just doesn't know me at all, does he...

Photos of the Moment
So, yesterday I went hiking with Ksenia, Shawn, Ellie, Ash, and Andy. While The Marlboro Trail on Mt. Monadnock is considered not too tough, the snow and ice made parts of it really challenging...especially descending. Especially while descending in the twilight! We got a late start and then the newbies took longer than expected going down, so it was dark by the time we were halfway down the trail. Luckily three of the experienced people had flashlights, and looking at the stars from this one plateau made it pretty much worthwhile. Still, it was like a seven hour hike...my knees were killing me.


So, the experienced hikers all brought those "trekking poles", like skipoles but for hiking. I got to use one for a big part of the hike and it was a huge help. Someone who knows what they're doing and using two can make incredible progress, they're like 4-footed beasties.

Incidentally, Shaw has a site, UpHillTrek, about the climbing he does with Ellie. They're pretty serious about it!

You can also see more photos from the day.

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Thought of the Moment
My knees, which have been pretty much fine all my life..the left one started giving me some pain after messing about with some jogging over the past few weeks. And then yesterday both started killing me. But you know, ibuprofen really helped my knees once I got home. It's funny, I always thought of Advil and Aspirin and Tylenol and all that stuff as little more than placebos, but for certain problems they're really good stuff.

It turns out that it's harder than you might expect to give away tickets to the Circus, at least on a Thursday. But in the end I'm glad Ksenia decided to go... her class got cancelled anyway, and all I had to do was duck out a tad early from Prof. Schmolze's memorial service (I guess I could try to rationalize it as fitting in the "celebrating life" mandate for the service, though that's pretty transparent.)

--The shore at Lynn, MA, 2005.05.09 Quote of the Moment

In the end that's all we have: our memories - electochemical impulses stored in eight pounds of tissue the consistency of cold porridge. In the end they define our lives.

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Stuff on Kirk's Camera, Day 1

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Article of the Moment
Slate slideshow on Basquiat and his place in the New York art scene. That movie really did do a lot to increase his recognizability I think, at least for people like me who were too young to remember that part of the 1980s.

Passage of the Moment

So I do get to laugh. Our situation, the human situation, is, in the final analysis, neither grim nor meaningful but funny. What else can you call it? The wisest people are the clowns, like Harpo Marx, who would not speak. If I could have anything I want I would like God to listen to what Harpo was not saying, and understand why Harpo would not talk. Remember, Harpo could talk. He just wouldn't. Maybe there was nothing to say; everything has been said. Or maybe, had he spoken, he would have pointed out something too terrible, something we should not be aware of. I don't know. Maybe you can tell me.

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Photos of the Moment
Ok, I admit this might fall in the "questionable signs of Kirk's mental health" department, but Mo has a revitalized interest in getting serious about photography (and a new nice digital camera to boot) and it has triggered something competitive in me. Part of it is a philisophical difference about cameras; portable (my favorite, since it's always there for the shot) vs. well, higher-end, and larger.

Anyway, Jane took the first one...we were slacking in the marshy and rocky area at the Salem shore during low tide. The second is a simba head I saw on the street. (I probably attracted some odd looks taking the picture. And The focus was, admittedly, a bit tough to get a hang of.)





I keep thinking I'd like to take a class in photography, but I'm mostly interested in composition, and want to keep it digital, but it seems like most places that get serious want you to pay your darkroom dues. I know there are reasons to go with film over digital, but still.

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Link of the Moment
Retrogaming Times, an online classic gaming periodical, just published its last issue. Some interesting stuff there, especially the Many Faces Of... feature, where they did ratings to see which systems had the best versions of big arcade games.

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Story of the Moment
One scene told thirteen times: Always Be Closing. It's a great read, and the gimmick works well I think. It reminds me a lot of this one piece of interactive fiction, Andrew Plotkin's The Space Under The Window.

Open Photo Gallery

(I love prophecies with expiration dates.)


(Ksenia (right) and her friend Tonya in Tonya's kitchen. I don't know why the hat either)


(Mama Mia working out chords on her trusty accordian)


(O Christmas Tree! And lots of presents.)


(I guess Ksenia just has a thing for hats.)

With uncertain web access this weekend, I thought I'd highlight some photos from Chicago for the next four days. Or you can just see all of the photos in three sets. UPDATE: the link now has a bit more text describing the days we were there.

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Reflections from Chicago
Ksenia getting ready for the day:


Elevator down in the Sears Tower:

Cloud Gate at Millennium Park...unfortunately it's still kind of an ongoing process, so we could only see one end sticking out of a protective tent:

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News of the Moment
Oh boy, here come the Supreme Court Retirings. And wasn't she generally a moderate, my favorite outlook? It's kind of dry reading but Slate has the Supreme Shortlist. Lets see if Bush has any chance of nominating someone who fairly represents this 50/50 nation of ours... (yeah, right. If he was "all or nothing" when it came to recreational substances, why should he start understaing "moderation" now?)

Some evening and night photos from a recent trip to Chicago:

View from the Sears Tower at Twilight:
(great time to go, the lights come on
but it's not too dark to see the detail.)


Not sure what building this is, near the Sears Tower:


Navy Pier on a Foggy Night:

Some very random photos from a recent trip to Chicago:

Open Photo Gallery

Not too long ago I made my holiday gift for myself a Canon SD450...I shouldn't have waited for so long, it's a big improvement from the S200 I've been using... most notably, response time is much better. It has like twice the resolution, though that seems mostly useful for taking up more diskspace and making my image editing programs rather sluggish...it's also smaller, with a friendlier UI, but the same physical interface Ive grown used to.

Anyway on with the photos... I ended up having fewer interesting photos from Texas than I expected.

Here's one oddity....the room had a note waiting for me that said, in part:

Please let us know what you think of our new bedding package. At this time, we are still waiting on two items that will complete this initiative; bed skirts and bed scarves. We have been waiting on these items for the last several weeks and could not, in good conscience, wait any longer to let you feel the new bedding.

What amuses me is the "in good conscience" bit. I never thought bedding would carry such a moral imperative... Here's a photo of the bed once they got to adding the "bed scarf":



I have to admit, the scarf didn't seem that great to me. It was there just for my final night, and actually had fallen on the floor by the next morning. The rest of the bedding was excellent, and I don't see that a decorative scratchy throw adds to it that much.

Anyway...one other bit of Texas ephemera...



Beek jerky in convenient (?) "chewing tobacco" shredded form. Pretty gross. It was pretty finely shredded, I was expecting something more like "big league chew".

So, the only shots I really like are of these flocks of birds in Addison...



Umm, don't park your car under the trees in that area. But full size versions of the images are on my desktop backgrounds page.

Finally, the ugliest self-portrait I've ever taken...



Tada. I didn't get to see much of DC... a lot of the attractions close in the evening, and I didn't want to sick around for a weekend. But one night we did go down to Georgetown... pretty in the twilight.

And I got to visit my cousin Scott...also my Aunt Ruth and Scott's wife Sandy.

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Restaurant of the Moment
Now, on this trip, last night I had a very odd meal... Chris suggested we go to ESPN Zone. I thought that the series of tables, each with its own small TV was a little odd, but our actual dining experience was even stranger... both of us sitting in a seperate recliner with a built-in swivel table, in front of a GIANT TV screen... I have to say, watching "talking head" sports coverage/interviews on a TV the size of most movie screens is...well, kind of tedious really. The giant screen was then flanked by a total of 12 smaller screens with different games going. (I would've thought almost any game would be better fare than talk talk talk, but what do I know, I'm not THAT much of a sportsfan.)

After we went downstairs to the arcade... we played an extremely overpriced (they use a swipecard system, so it's hard to calculate prices exactly but it was over $2) game of air hockey (set to play to 5 points...sheesh) and an older foozpong-ish ice hockey game.

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Results of the Moment
Not that it drummed up that much interest, but I liked the night scene with the Washington Monument, and Ksenia liked the daylight one.

So the other day I decided to go catch the Boston Museum of Science Star Wars exhibit before it headed out of town, pay a bit of homage to the Trilogy that still has such a visceral grasp on my imagination, with Ksenia in tow. So for our 2-year date-a-versary Ksenia and I went on the Schooner "Fame", which, oddly, was immediately below my room's window at Taxware, since it launches from Pickering Wharf in Salem,but I never took advantage of it. We'd strongly recommend this trip over the regular Boston cruises... Salem is in many ways friendlier and more interesting than that part of Boston, there's something lovely about moving by windpower alone, and overall the operation is a very...well, if not "family" affair, it's a small, tight-knit-but-friendly group making up its crew. It was built 3 years ago as the reconstruction of an old privateer vessel. (Privateering is interesting... I had kind of forgotten it was essentially government-authorized piracy.)

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Indecent Proposal of the Moment
As if people in a "blue state" state of mind didn't have enough reason to dislike the red... according to CNN and businesswire, comedia Jeff Foxworthy is... well, let me quote:

In celebration of Jeff Foxworthy's "new baby," his new CMT sketch comedy television show FOXWORTHY'S BIG NIGHT OUT, CMT is awarding $50,000 for a BIG NIGHT OUT to the mother of the first baby born in America during the premiere of the show at 8:30 pm ET(a) on Friday, September 1, 2006. As part of FOXWORTHY'S BIG NIGHT OUT on CMT Baby Bounty cash giveaway, CMT will also award an additional $55,000 -- $5,000 each week -- to the mother of the first baby born in America during the premiere of the 11 subsequent new episodes of FOXWORTHY'S BIG NIGHT OUT airing Fridays at 8:30 pm ET(a) on CMT.

This mix of good-old-boy "wouldn't it be funny if..." jocularity, shameless huxturism, medically poor ideas, and desperation of the people who might really struggle to hit the deadline (or, almost as bad, couples who aim for the deadline 'all in fun') is mind-blowing.

Are their doctors willing to go along with this? Could this be a new medical specialty, on-demand baby delivery? Ugh.

Ksenia's friend Alla is in town, and we decided to go on a Whale Watch cruise and hit the aquarium...

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Link of the Moment
Via Bill the Splut, it's Bad Congressional Hair.

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Quote of the Moment

The Bay Area is the cradle of the computer and software industry, which continues to create jobs for our children. The iPod was not developed by Baptists in Waco. There may be a reason for this. Creative people thrive in a climate of openness and tolerance, since some great ideas start out sounding ridiculous.

He's discussing the Republicans rush fearmongering about Nancy Pelosi "a woman from SAN FRANCISCO" as Speaker of the House, which he feels is an irritating viewpoint, especially from a party that seems to have lost its ideas of fiscal responsibility and general simple conservatism.

The idea of the association between high intellectual and economic activity in a region and a thriving gay population harkens back to that one study I kisrael'd a while back.

In a recent Tuesday Morning Quarterback Easterbrook mentions "The Progress Paradox" (Hmm, I might have to read his book on the subject.) In TMQ he writes

Kahneman, Krueger and their collaborators also offer a vital insight -- that happiness comes from choosing time over money, but most Americans choose money over time. "Leisure is better for happiness than increased income," they argue, supposing that time spent in travel, having new experiences, relaxing, hiking, reading, or simply looking up at the stars is more important to our sense of well-being than a new car or impressive house. Unless you are in a bad financial situation, Kahneman and Krueger recommend you spend less time working, accept somewhat lower income, and use your freed hours to experience life.

Man I wish I was better at living that! I guess there are two things drawing me back from trying to coast on savings: health insurance and vague fears about retirement. Of course, I'm way overdue for bucking up and figuring out my 401Ks situation once and for all. But man, I so wish the Clintons Single Payer Healthcare idea had made it in the 90s. Rent and food, I can budget for that, but it always feels like healthcare has this risk for becoming an unlimited and vast expense at any moment, even though it probably won't.

I was talking to a Candian Ex-Pat He considers Canada's healthcare to be, and I quote, "best in the world". Which doesn't jive with how it's sometimes painted here.

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Photos of the Moment
Another bug at work... bigger than the last one I took photos of but mercifully on the other side of the window. A bit backlit, but I kind of like the parking lot behind:





--On yesterday's comments, bozo asked "Well, what happened in the NEXT frame" so here is the same image with the before and after frames. To my surprise the newlyweds were in the neighborhood and stopped over last night for just a bit of video game fun.

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Quote of the Moment

The Eskimos had 52 names for snow because it was important to them; there ought to be as many for love.

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FAQ of the Moment
Wow. Does National Hurricane Center really frequently get the question Why don't we try to destroy tropical cyclones by nuking them? Yikes, this world must have a lot of people who are even more insane than me.

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Link of the Moment
Language Removal Service takes out all the language from soundclips and leaves only the breaths and "um"s and "uh"s. Here's their take on the California Recall Election. Sounds kinda like obscene phonecalls from the mentally handicapped, which probably isn't inappropriate, considering. Image of the Moment

The parking lot I use for work (a violently icy ten minute walk to the office) had the most amazing shade of blue last evening. I'm not sure if this picture does it justice or not. The orange shade on the right is from the lone streetlight there, it made a nice contrast. And that was at five pm! The days are getting longer!

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Ramble of the Moment
I closed the KHftCEA (my four year old Palm quote journal) today. I'm doing pretty much everything I set out to in the KHftCEA in this journal, and then some. The thing is I have to allow this journal to be a bit more personal sometimes, not just entertainment for the masses. (Masses. Shyeah.)

That said, I called up my friend Habib's work today... I've been stopping my his house lately (it's right by the ice covered parking lot of doom) but he's never been in. I guess he's back in Morocco for a while because of a family tragedy, alas. It's interesting having a close friend of strong religious faith who isn't Christian. He's really amazed at my skepticism and confidence in ideas such as Darwinism.

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Link of the Moment
The Onion is back after it's long Winter vacation! If you don't know what this site is, you're either new to the 'Net, or just a touch lame. (That's ok, I'm a touch lame as well. Only in different ways.) Arguably the funniest site on the Web. Go read The Onion! Oil Rainbows of the Moment

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Link of the Moment
When Bad Scenes Happen To Good Movies and then vice versa. (via Bill the Splut) Image of the Moment
We got the wedding picture proofbooks this week, and Mo spent a big chunk of yesterday scanning them all in so long distance friends and family could select what they want prints of. This was probably my favorite picture of the lot:

--copyright 2001 Allison Evans Photography
In some ways it's an odd shot; it's after we all had changed our clothes (though Mo is still in white) and I'm soaking wet, but from the chest up only. (There was a Wrath-of-God style thunderstorm with hail and heavy rain for the last half of the reception.) Plus I have kind of a goofy expression. The photographer says she was just fooling around with a plastic lens camera she has. (No built-in flash, she held the shutter open as the assistant did the flash. I always wonder how photographers got that blurred-but-with-something-well-lit look.) Still, I like the feeling it captures, and it's visually interesting.

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Quote of the Moment

Welcome aboard Southwest Flight XXX to YYY. To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seatbelt and if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised. In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with two small children, decide now which one you love more.

Mike and Dave from this weekend. In the background is that neat building with big arch, between 93 and the harbor.

We went on the subway this weekend. I've always been struck by these two signs:

PASSENGER EMERGENCY INTERCOM UNIT AT END OF CAR.
SISTEMA DE INTERCOMUNICACION PARA PASAJEROS EN CASO DE EMERGENCIA SITUADO AL EXTREMO DEL TREN.

They say basically the same thing, but it always struck me how much more concise the English version was than the Spanish. On the other hand, certain other phrases, especially involving verbs and recipients of action, are much tighter in Spanish. That plus the smaller selection of word ending sounds probably is what makes for better poetry. But English seems good at the nouns.

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Link of the Moment
There has been 4 of 5 cartoons in the What The Drugs Taught Me series up for a while, don't know if the fifth one is ever going to show up. (UPDATE: Here's the Final Cartoon) I like the narrator's mom's rule, a two year statute of limitations, after that you can admit anything and she can't get bad. (Other favorite quote: "Maybe everything I've been told is bad... is good!" Such a goofy sophomoric way of looking at the world.) Party Image and Quote of the Moment
News of the Moment
Hrrm. At first I was truly outraged about the story of the notebook clutching man who ran up to the UN Inspectors yelling "Save Me, Save Me", with the inspectors just letting the man be dragged away by Iraqi guards. Later though I read this Washington Post story, that says U.N. guards brought him into the compound, and handed him over once they found out the notebook was empty...I'm glad they didn't just completely ignore a possible lead, after all their bellyaching about not getting Iraqi scientists to talk with them. The metafilter comments board has some interesting viewpoints, though most don't seem to have heard the Washington Post details.

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Online Game of the Moment
Oh man, this is addictive...iSketch, online "Pictionary". People gather in "rooms" of 10 or so, one person draws at a time, points are awarded, 100 for the first person to get it, 90 for the next, etc. A little frenetic at first, but great once you get the groove. Look me up as "kisrael.com" there.

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Image of the Moment

--The Bernhard Oldendorff, docked at Salem, MA. I guess that's a coalburning electric plant. In trying to google some info, I found Boatnerd.com..."trainspotting" for big boats on the Great Lakes, mostly.

--Mo found this little fella when were out removing foreign material from the garden bed.

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Science of the Moment

Question/Title: How do worms dig without hands?
Purpose: To find out how worms dig.
Hypothesis: I think worms need hands.
Materials: I used dirt, worms, a container and dead leaves.

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Procedure:
1. I got my materials.
2. I put the worms in the container.
3. I looked to see what had happened every other day.
Results/Observations: On day one worms were on the top of the dirt. On day three they were halfway through. On day five they were on the bottom of the container.
Conclusion: Worms don't need hands. My hypothesis was incorrect. They eat their way through the ground.

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Article of the Moment
Slashdot linked to this set of pages about the United State's prop-planes they would loft a nuclear weapon onto its target. Brave guys in those...actually, the parent site of that page has a lot of cool stuff about military aviators.

Walkway Light Over Snow, January 8 2002 1AM

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Lyric of the Moment

Kinko, Kinko, the kid loving clown, if the kids just love me back, I'll never wear a frown. Kinko's in his kinko car, pockets full of change, lots of dirty pictures and sticky candycanes. All the kids love Kinko for the presents that they get, silly leather clothes to wear and happy cigarettes.

I remember someone writing the kinko car/pockets full of change line on a board in high school. Google search didn't come up with many matches (I guess they used to play it on Doctor Demento), but it got me the rest of the lyric.

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Link of the Moment
Salon.com had A is for Arabs, an Alphabet of Arab Achievement . Amazing how many things their culture produced, but right now I think our culture's strength is being really good at co-opting things. Although many of the achievements listed are things they utilized from other cultures, I think in general they've gotten less flexible with time. I wasn't surprised when I found out one of the better translations for "The Great Satan" is "The Great Tempter".

"Pink Office Park", my submission to the very cool Mirror Project.

More info about the shot on the entry page. (I also thought 'submission' was a funny word for this kind of stuff. I use it all the time on the loveblender but it seems kind of funny.)

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Movie Line of the Moment

"I like your nurse's uniform, guy."
"These are O.R. scrubs."
"O, R they?"

John quoted that last line out of the blue the other day, and it has been rattling around my head ever since, just how the kid who speaks first is kind of trying to cover for himself. Thanks a lot John. Ahh, my last day of self-indulgent non-workday before returning to my role as dutiful office denizen.

And set myself for some bigtime indulgence I have, with the purchase of an Xbox 360 as an early birthday/lets get it while I still have a smidgin of vacation left gift to myself. I generally don't get a new system until I see something of a personal "killer app" for it. This system it happened to be the game "Crackdown", which I hoped would be a blend of GTA, Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, and Mercenaries. So far it's mostly like Mercenaries, but it's decent fun, and there are some upcoming titles that probably would have convinced me to buy the system anyway. The Xbox 360 isn't cheap, but probably fits within the price differential of what I could have spent on vacation, and what I actually did. No wonder the travel industry is so big; people can drop so much on a trip without even thinking about it.

Of course, a vacation gets me out of the house, into some warmer climes, lets me catch up with distant friends, and provides many interesting photo-ops and chances to catch up on my reading, while a video game system is an enabler of cocooning. Which might be reasonable as I finish up recovering from such a big cold.

Looking back on the past 8 weeks, I'd have to admit I did not get my personal project mojo working the way I had hoped. I don't think I was quite orderly enough about it. I did a number of small projects, but mostly ones that entered my head on a given day, and not off of "the list".

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Floria Photos of the Moment
So on my final day there Felisdemens and I snuck in a trip to Butterfly World! (It was either that or, I kid you not, a trip to the firing range, which is something I've always wanted to try.) My company has a "Beer O'Clock" tradition of having some booze at 4PM on Friday. Somehow yesterday it got joined with a "Whisky-Thirty" supplement to toast some birthdays.

That was good.

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Images of the Moment

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Quote of the Moment

Oh man, this isn't happening. It only thinks it's happening.

Saying "it only thinks" is more clever than I remember it being; I never noticed the kind of sly nod to Descartes in that before. Announcement: I will never be able to spell "seperately" correctly on the first try. The problem may be phonetic.

That is all.

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Inexplicable Objects of the Moment


Hmm. When did fire alarms start spouting sideburns? Oh, and: ewww. (Taken in the Arlington Street Station hallway.)


USE THIS PRODUCT MAY MAKE ENGLISH NOT TO SO GOOD! (Taken at the South End 7-11 magazine rack.)

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Music of the Moment
All of the Beatles' LPs condensed into an hour of extremely weird and fast music.

So, hot weekend in Rockport, and on Saturday Evil B and I knocked off early and headed to the beach (along with wife and child (not that you'd know from these photos)).

Open Photo Gallery

No man is an island but in still-but-salt-laden waters
I can do my best impression of one.
It's almost like a sensory deprivation tank there.

Here's a detail from the last one
of the stone seawall we then jumped off of:


EB showed me the way:






Finally EB took this one of me:

It was a lot of fun. Clambering up the big stones of the wall made it an interesting physical challenge. Especially because those rocks were sharp. Unlike the guys climbing them, perhaps.

photobook ii                               (about)			kirkmo	I assembled part 2 of my online photobook. Photobook ii, hopefully an ongoing project, emphasizes photos that have a certain visual flair (relative to the first edition) since I'm taking so many more pictures these days.
family	people	nyc	mikedave
honeymoon	random	party	landscape

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Parenthetical Note of the Moment

(The other day, in a monastery, Phunsook pointed to a mural of an ogre, who was stomping on the head of a defeated enemy. "This is the Buddha of Compassion, in his wrathful form," Phunsook said. Again, this may require some clarification.)

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News of the Moment
It's official, al Qaeda kills cute little puppies. (I remember my tenth or eleventh grade history teacher joking about some terrible historical figure being labelled as a "kicker of puppies"...who knew such a line would end up having an overtone of menace.)

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Funny of the Moment

Moderator: We're here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des---

(Scientist pulls out baseball bat.)

Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?

(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate's kneecap.)

Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!

Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn't mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the "naturalistic" explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now.

Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!

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Passing of the Moment
Oh...and of course, RIP Rosa Parks.

You know, seperate "white" and "black" sections were bad enough...having the "white" section in the front and the "black" section in back was horrendous. But worse than those, it's not like they were even differentiated...when the white section "needed" to grow, the black section had to shrink. That's just horrendous in at least 8 different ways.