Lee.org

I went I went to the East Coast Hobby Show in Fort Washington, PA looking to speak with manufacturers and remote control know-it-alls for a project. What a total frigging waste of time. The website and the advertising material blatantly lies about what kind of a show it is. It is billed as a “full line hobby show” but it is, in fact a train show.

Take a look at the photo of the poster I took (the odd vertical line in the photo is me merging two photos to get a good shot of the whole poster) Now don’t get me wrong, trains are well and good. But I came looking for… well, looking for what they said they had. Their sign says, “Over 200 of the largest manufacturers, distributors and publishers will be exhibiting.” Well, after I walked the entire show, I went to the info booth at the front and asked, “I was wondering if there are any manufacturer reps here like the sign says.”
The response, “There was one guy here yesterday.”
“Yeah, but yesterday was a dealers-only day.”
“Yeah, sorry.”

And it was a fine train show. There were hundreds of model train exhibitors, miles of track laid and thousands of 2″ tall trees and people and ity bity locomotives with fake smoke gleefully billowing out of them. There was a huge setup, taking up 100′ x 100′ with this amazing 9″ tall set (9″… is that HO scale? N? PG-13? I forget) with amazingly realistic Maersk and Sealand and double-decker containers just like I’ve seen rolling across the NJ Meadowlands. It was pretty cool…. except that it had NOTHING to do with what I was looking for. I drove a friggin hour and fourty-five minutes each way for nothin.

“R/C planes will be landing at the show” Ummm. where? The show is indoors. There was no space for indoor flight, no calendar of such events (no calendar at all, actually) and none of the 4 airplane exhibitors had anything that could fly.

Phoey.

Through all of this, a few good things still came to pass. While I was driving down there, a Computer Guy client of mine called me in need of help. I was happy to help, it let the time pass quicker. After a while, I told her where I was going and why. She came back with, “Oh really! My sister-in-law works with kids with C.P. They use all kinds of stuff like that. I’ll get you in touch with her!” Cool beans. There might have been a little kismet going on there..

After I realized the hobby show was a bust, I called PPG. She was in an art show called The Big Art Show in Asbury Park. Since I was “in the neighborhood” (a mere 1 1/4 hrs away) I decided to make a run for the coast! Also, my client was encouraging me to enjoy life a bit more :-). Well, the evening was quite a bit more fun than I thought it might be. I got to see PPG and Taco and Joe (who is also moving to the bay area soon) and meet some new nice folks. So there.

This is a nice discovery.

My first use for it is:
Make a bookmark of “http://www.google.com/search?q=%s”
Go into the bookmark properties and give it a keyword of “?”
Now you can go a google search for happiness by typing the following into the address bar: ? happiness

You can do this for IMDB, Dictionary.com… anything. Slick.

Here’s what I’ve keyworded so far:
? http://www.google.com/search?q=%s
w http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%s
imdb http://imdb.com/find?q=%s

I saw the Iron Chef America miniseries a couple months ago and was totally psyched about it. I even wrote a gushing post here on my blog… but then I deleted the gush because… well… something didn’t feel right. I had to watch a few more episodes before I was sure what was up.

I know what’s up now. Iron Chef America isn’t a good program. It wasn’t transposed to the U.S. well. Actually, the only elements that they really brought over were that it’s a cooking competition with a secret ingredient with running commentary. Any other similarity to any show, current or canned is purely coincidental.

I’ll get it out the way and say that I enjoy Alton Brown’s commentary quite a bit.

Here’s what they’re missing:

A host with charisma… cult of personality style. Everyone knows that nearly a decade ago, a man’s fantasy became reality in a form never seen before, Kitchen Stadium, a giant cooking arena. The motivation for spending his fortune to create kitchen stadium was to encounter new, original cuisine, which could be called true, artistic creations. On the flip side, the backstory behind Kaga’s nephew is that “he came to America”. Feh. (BTW, just to break everyone’s heart: Kaga’s backstory isn’t real and his nephew… isn’t)

The Challenger doesn’t get to pick who he’ll fight. Why not? Everyone is standing there… why did the other Iron Chefs show up if they already knew who was fighting?

The American Kitchen Stadium isn’t as well supplied. I’ve noticed a couple times how chefs were having trouble finding ingredients or appropriate utensils.

5 dishes in 1 hour? Come on! I know that Americans appreciate busyness, but this is crazy. It changes the show from a culinary competition to a track and field meet, literally. I suppose that it forces the chefs to make better use of their sous chefs, making their management style important. Also, it is a different (and not necessarily bad) thing to see chefs barking orders and discussing things. But it seems a bit impersonal that some components of each dish aren’t even touched by the chef.

It’s obvious that the chefs know what the secret ingredient is before it’s revealed. That breaks my heart.

Alton has to do the final countdown himself instead of the cool voiced, Star Trek computer-like timer lady. That, and a lack of, say a big clock on the wall gives me the subtle impression that the timer might not actually be exactly 60 minutes.

The Iron Chefs specialities aren’t named. I realize that specialities are more of a moving target with the American chefs, but you’ve got to say SOMETHING else besides their name!

The Challenger’s introduction is too short. You could conceivably shorten it from what the original Iron Chef did… a full Olympic-hopeful style 3 minute biography, but to say, “And here is our challenger, Chef Blahblah. He owns a really nice restaurant!” Is…. distasteful.

The interstitial graphics look way too much like Robot Wars.

Why, oh why, oh WHY does our NC (Nephew Chairman) keep saying, “This is your first appearance in Kitchen Stadium.” They’ve put like 5 episodes in the can. Of COURSE this is their first appearance!

There’s a lot more I could say about this… a lot more. I thought about doing a careful analysis of what was wrong with the show and how it might be fixed, but that wouldn’t be seen as a QA effort but a crazy fandom streak in me. I’ll settle with this nice little rant.

It’s just all manner of junk I’m selling before my big move. But it’s good junk.

Buy my stuff on eBay

I’ve only got some of the stuff up so far. More to come in the next few days. I’ve also got some stuff up on Amazon.

If you are a friend of mine and live near me, email me and we’ll work something out.

I’ve been going through all my older things, getting ready to move. Here’s a little tidbit I clipped from… I don’t even remember where.

After all these years, it still makes me laugh in that “Oh my god! Don’t tell anyone I laughed this hard at something so cruel! Ow, my sides hurt!”
(click to enlarge)

Concerning Understandable Statistics, Seventh Edition by Brase, Charles Henry Brase

I took this course last year at Warren County Community College. I found myself very interested in the subject. There were problems though. Several times I had to bite my tongue in class or while speaking one-on-one with the teacher else I show her up… and that is an uncomfortable proposition! Also, the book SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKED

So, I often found myself sitting in class, not listening to the teacher and correcting the mistakes in the textbook with my pencil. And this is from someone who hasn’t ever taken Statistics before! One sunny day in the back of the classroom, I went ahead and wrote an “Authors Note to Students” on one of those pages that was intentionally left blank.

Authors Note to Students

Although this book is in its 7th edition, no care has been put into making this extremely interesting topic easy or accessible. To this end, Brase and I have made sure to not explain the variables in our equations, not describe our reasonings in “English” and not show each of the steps in the examples that we give. In addition, we have placed several exciting “Easter Eggs” in the form of incorrect or poorly reasoned answers in the Answer Key. This is designed to enhance your classroom experience by giving you all something to talk about in class.

We hope that you enjoy this text as much as we have enjoyed the boat that you have collectively bought us. Don’t forget to buy our 8th Edition, the exciting page renumbering of the popular 7th Edition!

Brace & Brace

Here’s an article about a guy becoming an eBay opium addict. I was thinking that he sounded like he was speaking from a place of authority on the matter so I checked on it…

He wrote:

There were online pharmacies on the Internet. I ordered Tramadol from Mexico and Nurofen Plus with the legal max 12.8 milligrams of codeine per tablet from New Zealand. Then that got tougher.

Illustration By Sandra Hoover
Finally, I found eBay. I had been looking for old motel stationery and fake Jackson Pollock drip paintings. They sold everything–why not drugs?

I typed “poppy pods” into the search bar.

Like anyone trolling the Internet at 4 a.m., I had been looking for some kind of temporary drug fix. I found it on eBay under Crafts>Floral Supplies>Flowers, Foliage>Dried.

Crafting. Sure. I liked art.

And, there they were! (Yes, that is a real eBay screenshot)

Now, I’m all for the legalization of most recreational drugs as long as they come with appropriate warning labels on them, but… and please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t opium a “controlled” substance?

It’s pretty intense, following the buying patterns of these buyers via their feedback. Over the course of a few weeks, first they buy a little…. and then they buy a lot. And then they buy a real lot.

The etymology of phrases is curious. For example, Captain Kirk never said, “Beam me up, Scotty”. Tarzan never said, “Me Tarzan, you Jane”. And most important of all, Doctor Bronner never said “Dilute! Dilute! Ok!” The actual quote is, “Dilute! Dilute! or Wet Skin Well! OK!”

I have to agree, however that NZC’s take on it is a beautiful thing.

For fun, here’s some more misquotes

This fantastic poem was written by my good friend Molly Carocci.
She has licensed this under the Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Creative Commons License.

The Cheese-loving Shepherd to His Love

Eat cheese with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That dills and Wensleydales and Tetillas, Or Edams or Havarti yields.

And we will sit upon a sweater,
And see the shepherds eat some Cheddar
By shallow rivers, at whose falls
Melodious birds eat Emmentals.

And I will make thee clothes of cheeses
Amid a thousand fragrant breezes;
A cap of Cantal, and some Fontal,
Embroider’d all with leaves of myrtle.

A robe made of the finest Brie
Which you shall wear so Caerphilly;
And shoes of finest Port Salut
With buckles made of Lou Palou.

A belt of Gouda ringed with Feta,
With Stilton clasps and Mozzarella:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Eat cheese with me and be my Love.

The cheesy swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then eat cheese with me and be my Love.

Cheese Weasel Day is my second favorite holiday, second only to Groundhog Day.

It is a time for joyous celebration and reverie!

Here’s wishing you a tasty bit of cheese under your keyboard!

(images gleefully stolen from ecards made by MostImportantThing.com.)

(Don’t know what CWD is? Google it!)