Holly Hunter is everything you fear you police officers are like.  She breaks all the rules, is offensive to everyone around her, and in the face of overwhelming proof in the existance of God proceeds to piss off her 'Last Chance Angel'.  Somehow she is both horrific and lovable at the same time.  The plots are a bit light, some of the characters, like Jesus boy tonight, are over the top, but when Holly Hunter and Laura San Giacomo are on camera together the chemistry is some of the best I have ever seen on TV, you can actually believe these two are life long friends that had crushes on the same boys growing up

I'm not sure how long I'll be able to believe that Holly can kick God in the teeth and her Angel continues to try to save her -- but perhaps that's exactly the point.

I can't figure out if shopping carts belong to the shoppers or the store. People seem to treat them like their own possessions, they take them down the street to their neighborhoods so that there is never one at the store when I need one. But then some people must feel like as soon as their purchases are out of them they'll get arrested for touching them, at least that's the only reason I can see as to why they have left them behind my car when they are done with them.

Trader Joe's had some really great shopping carts just the right size for my Daughter to help get groceries and keep her interested, but them some person with no sense of personal responsibility decided it would be fun to sue Trader Joe's because one of these undersized (useless to her) shopping carts jumped up and bit her (or was it that she cluelessly tripped over one). How much could she really be suing for that TJs would remove the carts from all of their stores?

Alex Williams writes in the New York Times that Emoticons have been around 25 years and have gone way beyond high school IM discussion about the cute boy or girl and laments how our language is being truncated with symbols because we lack the time to properly express ourselves with the written word. I started using emoticons only a year ago when I started communicating with coworkers predominantly on IM. It became apparent that my dry humor (hard enough to read when face to face) had no body language to back it up.

I like l33t sp33k and IM, emoticons and LOL. You could make an argument that it isn't appropriate for rejecting a multi-million dollar deal, or you could accept that in this day and age curtness is king, communication is ubiquitous, and no one will ever again have the attention span required to watch Das Boot. Don't bother reading the seven Harry Potter books --- Voldemort kills **** :)

I propose new legislation.

Section I
For every handicap parking place that is mandated by the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) there needs to be one permanent fixture for leaving a bicycle.

Is this too much to ask?

Perhaps the only thing I can find good to say about Barry Bond's home run record is that it won't be on the books very long. Alex Rodriguez will eclipse The Babe (Babe Ruth), The Hammer (Hank Aaron), and The Juice (Barry Bonds) in the next 6 to 10 years depending on his health. Is tonight the night that he will hit 500?

More and more places are popping up for people to merge recreation and social interaction with work. The ever present laptop, blackberry and pda are going places they never designed to be. I wish my laptop and cellphone were water proof so I could check the fishing reports while on the boat. If anyone knows how to get bluefish blood out of the keyboard of my MBP let me know.

Ocean City, New Jersey is investing in Wi-Fi and RFID. There are websites devoted to mapping out Wi-Fi zones. New York City Parks has a map of all their free Wifi. The email lists I belong to are always discussing the best places to meet, but interestingly wireless connection is not the top reason a spot is deemed usable. it is access to power outlets. I just heard that a very popular spot in Manhattan, South Street Seaport Pier is no longer usable because all the power outlets were covered over after a lawsuit happy cleaning person tripped over a laptop cord -- what happened to personal responsibility?

A new emerging trend for work at home computer professionals is coworking. Here you have the ability to meet like minded people who are working on similar projects, and not have to have the overhead of a full blown office. The range of services vary as does the price. A brand new coworking location opened recently in Manhattan called cooperBricolage, where you can have high speed Internet and all the power you need for $20 per day. Although I haven't gotten down there yet myself I do expect to frequent it often once I finalize which start-up I'll be working with.

It's amazing how much I now take connectivity for granted. It can't be more than 6 years ago that I would dream that my life would be complete it I could just have cellular internet where ever I traveled, now I can't imagine what it was like back when. The infrastructure is remarkably fragile, there will be a major outage someday soon. Many people have been predicting a full scale collapse of the back bone for 10 years and been laughed at or told 'so what'. Every day that goes by we come to depend on the internet more and more as our primary work, recreation, and communication outlet. Every day it becomes more critical that the backbone gets redesigned to be truly redundant.



Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

I spent 10 years as the big fish in a little pond at Did-it.Com. I remember Internet World 1998 in the Javits Center, I had a great title on my badge 'Chief Cook and Bottle Washer'. I stayed there too long, I lost my sharpness to complacency. The curiosity and fascination of the new media that challenged me to drop everything and surf the phenomenon that is the Internet in the mid 90s was all but a memory to by the middle of this decade. Watching from the window of 55 Maple Ave and seeing the smoke of Towers falling in Manhattan, Refineries explode on Staten Island, and a plane crash in Queens, may have helped squelch my enthusiasm.

The last year at Netscape and Blogsmith under the AOL umbrella I certainly was the little fish in the very BIG pond, I learned so much about motivation of myself and others. I have been re-exposed to the constantly re-invented Internet. I've matured as a developer while regaining juvenile exuberance for the new social media.

I refuse to stay at AOL too long. My last day is this Friday, July 27th. I don't want to be the small fish, and working towards being a big fish within AOL would take me away from my family friendly home office. So how do I propose to be the top predator in the Ocean ? Start at the top and build beneath -- join a start-up as a partner -- more to come. Thanks AOL you were very good to me. To my fellow developers and for your enduring spirit, thank you Alex, Gavin, Christoph (*), Tom, Trey and Michael. For making my code look good thanks Mike, Matt, and Andy. For reminding me that there was the Internet and innovation didn't stop when the bubble burst Thank you Jason and most of all Brian.

We've been thoroughly enjoying our summer this year. The evenings have been particularly pleasant. One of the joys this year has been watching the 4 year old collect fire flies with help she can get 8 or 10 in a Chinese soup container with wholes within 30 minutes. You have to get them just as the sun is setting - they start lighting up the back yard and you can still see them landing on the grass. There aren't as many in our suburban back yard as the farm fields when I was growing up, but seeing any makes me happy since they are a sign of clean air.

We've eaten dinner outside a couple times this year without getting overrun with mosquitoes. The other night a game of wiffle ball broke out after dinner and the baby got his first grand slam, because Mom was afraid to send in the high heat brush back pitch.

I believe that once you cave to the heat and humidity and put the air conditioner you become captive to the indoor environment and stop enjoying the awesomeness that is summer nights - maybe we'll make it through August and I'll never have to put that giant window unit in.. you can't hear the ice cream man if the windows are closed.

Wow! It has been a whirlwind two weeks -- I haven't had a chance to breath, and my blog has been neglected. I'm going to quickly summarize the events so that maybe someday I can go back and Journal the fantastic time I spent with my family.

June 29th: Met up with all my Cousins and there wonderful kids in Pennsylvania, most of this crew I haven't seen in 10+ years.
June 30th: Grandma's Memorial service the graveside service was spectacular with Doves being let loose.
July 1st: The most excellent fourth of July Party at Jack's (we missed the fireworks).
July 2nd: Rush concert at Jones Beach. Thanks Brian and Niki for the tickets. Tailgated with Rob Scott and the brothers -- swapped Confucius says jokes.
July 3rd: China Town for Lunch with my family, brought back all sorts of memories of Hong Kong.
July 4th: BBQ in Greenport, Amy's new grill was put to the test and came through superbly.
July 5th: Bringing in Bluefish by the Dozens during surface blitzes all around Peconic Bay.
July 7th: Clamming outing with Aaron and Gabby. Fireworks on Shelter Island (almost so Utopia in Flames)
July 8th: Party at the house. I was sure Carrie cooked too much food, all of which was outstanding, but I was mistaken Shelter Islanders can pack it away.
July 9th: Crabbing under Second Bridge and a sunburn.
July 10th: Wind down with wine and cheese on the boat to close out the day.

Whew, except for Dad being sick for a large portion of the time it was wonderful.

My favorite show on television right now is The Spanish Fly with Jose Wejebe. I'm not a big fan of watching fishing on T.V. I get bored with the technical how tos, and have no desire to see a 'hi-lights' real about the wonderful fishing in some remote location. That said, Jose's show is different, their are tidbits of 'tips' from show to show, but mostly it is all about fishing philosophy. A single episode of the Spanish Fly might show him catching one nice fish, but the journey is well laid out, the steps that were taken to get that fish are narrated with precision to make sure that the viewer understands a 10 minute fight with a monster grouper started with days of planning and preparation.

It has been many years since I've watched Jose with any regularity, Sunday morning is not normal TV hours in my house. All that has changed thanks to our DVR, I believe my fishing habits are changing as well, very much due to pointers learned from the Spanish Fly.

This fluke was caught following some of Jose's basic principles. One, spend time getting good bait - I used my seine net to get some chubs in a nearby inlet. Two, choose a target species based on the season. Three, fish the conditions - the wind from the north kept me off the boat - but not off the beach.

For those who care about the details, This 19 1/2" Fluke was caught fishing a three way swivel, with 4 ounces of weight on a 10 inch drop - slowly retrieving the bait along the bottom. The beach drops off to ~40 feet within casting distance of shore. With the three way the bait looks like it is swimming up the shelf as you slowly reel it in.

Today is my least favorite day of the year. I hate seeing the light fading earlier and earlier in the evening. Often I'll be extremely depressed on June 21st, this year is different. This year I work the mornings and evenings and I actually see the sun instead of punching the clock.

Sun worship is far from sitting on the beach lathering on tanning lotion. Our earliest ancestors worshiped the sun in numerous ways, the Druids built solar calendars by lying stones in circles, the Aztecs laid out entire cities based on the position of the sun in the summer sky. All early agrarian societies deified the sun by naming gods around it's movement through the sky.

I don't think it is by chance that our two biggest national holidays, July 4th and December 25th come within weeks of the solstices, our body has millions of years of evolution telling us that these are monumentous events in our lives no matter what air-conditioned-artificial-light-sanitized-rooms we try to cocoon ourselves in.

Last October when we went to the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool festival, Carrie came home with pounds of wool and other fibers, I got a nice blanket and Andora the Jersey Wooley. Carrie's fiber is probably long gone, Andora just yielded her first ounce. Andora was $35, her cage was $60, she's probably eaten $80 worth of food, it took 2 hours to trim her and get $5 worth of fiber .. priceless. I watched a women demonstrating how to trim an Angora at the Connecticut Sheep Festival we went to this spring, I've got a lot to learn, I did nick Andora 8 to 10 times, none very badly thank goodness, I'm more worried about her ego than her cuts, I think Mike (the older bunny) is making fun of her - boy does she look silly.

The great thing (or terrible thing) about a virus is you only need one carrier to sprout up and start a new epidemic. Once a forum or wiki has been infected chances are the contagion will reside there for a long time waiting to infect unsuspecting viewers over and over. If you read my last post Anatomy of a Viral Web Phenomenon, and you know anything about web memes then you might think me a noob, frankly I'm amazed at the stuff I've dug up recently about internet fads and the subculture that spawns and flocks to them. To be cool you need to discover them on your own, and once they are popular they like poison to touch. Today thousands of teens and pre-teens are quickly trying to strip their phones of text messages before their parents search for who they might be sending 143, 143, 143 to. Because the mainstream media announced that it stands for I Love You.



Turns out LOLCATS is the latest in the image macro line to mutate out of AYBABTU and IM IN UR memes, all of which pray off the mutual fascination the Japanese and Americans have with each other and something lovingly called Engrish -- both AYB and IM IN UR also came from the video game subculture and were taken up well after true geeks had declared each fad dead -- But these things never really die -- they certainly loose their coolness, but they seem to have a tremendously long tail.