Archive for September, 2004
Rovers, Awake
The Mars Rovers are back in contact with Earth after a two week comm blackout caused by Mars passing behind the sun. With lots of power and some extended funding from NASA, it looks like we’ll be getting much more science — and cool photos — from Mars for a while longer. For me, that [...]
Am I Also A Liberal?
I’m lifting a couple more pages from Tim, as his thoughts on Bush and Kerry echo some — not all — of my own: Am I a Liberal?, and It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I feel fine).
Photoshopped Future of the Past
So, it turns out that the 1954 vision of the 2004 computer which Presurfer linked was a skillfully done Photoshop job of a nuclear submarine manuevering room console, posted to a Fark Photoshop thread. I got taken in, but it should have been obvious on a closer look, with the ragged feathering on the left [...]
Sunset Down the Road
I just leaned out the window to catch this lovely sunset shining down E Street. Note the patterns of light on the walls of the hotel at left: it’s sunlight reflected from nearby building windows. Photo taken with an Aiptek Mini Pencam 1.3MP SD.
Hurricane Ivan and Memories of Typhoons
The remnants of Hurricane Ivan (now just a tropical depression) are passing through the DC/VA/MD area, spawning tornadoes out in the suburbs and dumping rain on Washington. News on TV is saying this is the most damaging hurricane to hit the US in five years. I’m trying to compare the destruction in the Southeast with [...]
No Upo
From Weez, a comfort recipe: tinolang manok, or chicken-ginger soup. Not having had that for a while, I thought of cooking some up with the chicken in my freezer, but the recipe lacks one ingredient which I’ve always had in my tinola since childhood: upo, or bottle gourd — which is fairly hard to find [...]
A Passing Tremor
Breaking news said there was an early morning earthquake in Manila, so I texted and IM’d family and friends asking if they were okay. Everyone had slept through it, except for Ganns, who told me he had been doing aerobics at 3:10 AM, the time of the tremor, so it was probably his fault.
Tim and Times
I’m not too concerned about RaTHergate and the Bush memos, since I’m more focused on the presidential candidates’ current positions and platforms rather than the indiscretions of their youth, but I still can’t resist linking to this authoritative analysis from Tim at By Farther Steps. The man was in the Air Force, and he knows [...]
Amazing Kabastusan
I’m supposed to be in bed, but I caught Amazing Race on TV, and they were in the Philippines. The only thing more amazing than the race itself is the amazing kabastusan (Tagalog for “rudeness”) with which some of these contestants treated their Filipino drivers, quite fulfilling the stereotype of the obnoxious ex-colonizer. To be [...]
DC Primary 2004
Today was the DC Primary, where registered members of the political parties vote for their representatives to the November General Election, and for various party and local council positions. I had to select a candidate for a Delegate to the House, a candidate for “Shadow” Representative, (both non-voting positions, since DC sadly remains unrepresented), an [...]