How I became a Java expert

I was teach­ing myself C out of the Kernighan and Ritchie book (sec­ond edi­tion, so you know I’m a poseur john­ny-come-late­ly) when I tried to pick up Java. This was 1996 and my head was filled with «what if» sce­nar­ios that are still as absurd today as they were then. You know, like «what if all appli­ca­tions were Open­Doc com­po­nents writ­ten in Java?» Which is sec­ond only to «why can’t we all just get along?» in it’s naïveté. But any­how, … Read the rest

This clinches it.…

Asadol­lah Mirza lift­ed the nee­dle from the record that was play­ing on the gramo­phone and said, “Moment, moment… do you want me to guess? You’ve paid a vis­it to San Fran­cis­co with Layli and you’ve left her a present in her suitcase?”

“No, Uncle Asadol­lah. Don’t make jokes about it. It’s some­thing much more important.”

“Oh, shut up with you, man, so it’s noth­ing to do with San Fran­cis­co? Los Ange­les is in those parts, round the back, and if

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Coffee and ink are thicker than electrons

In The Secret Life of the Love Song, Nick Cave leads us on an illu­mi­nat­ing digres­sion about a cousin to the love song, the love let­ter. He says that the love let­ter has the pow­er to bind the loved one, to blind and imprison as the recip­i­ent is recre­at­ed from the writer’s imag­i­na­tion, cre­at­ing the lover anew in paper like Pyg­malion with his stone.

Me, I nev­er trust a woman who writes let­ters, because I know that I myself can­not

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Oh for pity’s sake

I was over at 23rd and Mis­sion again today. Some­one has kicked a hole in the recent­ly repaired and repaint­ed image of Rachel Cor­rie. It was heart­break­ing the first time, and heart­warm­ing when it was repaired and repaint­ed. Now it’s been defaced in the same man­ner as before and any sus­pi­cion that it might have been a ran­dom act of drunk­en­ness has dissolved.

Jeezus Christ. This is Lib­er­al-Left-Coast San Fran­cis­co for cryin’ out loud! If this is the kind … Read the rest

Moving? It’s decision day

So I’ve been putting off com­mit­ting, but today is the last week­day before it turns into next month, so if I’m going to give notice to my land­lord this month, it has to be now.

Not this very minute, but yeah, today. I have to call my land­lord today any­how to tell her about the leak in the roof, so I’m tempt­ed to just hit her with the double-whammy.

I’m sick of com­mut­ing. I’m start­ing to get down­right tired of liv­ing … Read the rest

Jernigan

Some­times I feel I should just give up reading.

A cou­ple weeks ago, I read a Star Trek nov­el to get some cheap enter­tain­ment. It was bad. Real­ly bad. I’m a life­long read­er of sci-fi so don’t give me shit about this. I haven’t read Star Trek nov­els since I was in fourth grade. But I decid­ed to try out a Voy­ager nov­el that took place imme­di­ate­ly after the TV series end­ed; I’d been curi­ous about what hap­pened to the … Read the rest

I’m so out of touch

Some­one asked me which pic­ture I liked for Best Pic­ture. I thought about it for a moment and respond­ed that I did­n’t know what pic­tures had been nom­i­nat­ed. After a few sec­onds, I added that I did­n’t think I’d prob­a­bly seen any of the nominees.

She said, “what? you haven’t seen xxxxxxxxx? and you haven’t seen yyyyyyyy?” Nope, nope.

So just to check, I went to http://www.oscar.com/nominees/nomineelist.html to see what has been nom­i­nat­ed. Turns out, not only have I not seen … Read the rest

Oh, say it aint so…


You’re The Dic­tio­nary!
by Mer­ri­am-Web­ster
You’re one of those know-it-all types, with an amaz­ing amount of
knowl­edge at your com­mand. Peo­ple real­ly enjoy spend­ing time with you in very short
spurts, but hang­ing out with you for a long time tends to bore them. When folks
real­ly need an author­i­ty to refer to, how­ev­er, you’re the one they seek. You’re an
excep­tion­al speller and very well organized.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyra­mid.… Read the rest