2011 Komen Houston Race for the Cure
Thursday, 16-Jun-2011 @ 5:15p
This fall I will be running in the Komen Houston Race for the Cure. I'll be putting on my goofy toe shoes and running a 5K race alongside many of my FlightAware employees and cow-orkers.
The marketing copy I'm supposed to spam you with says that I'll be running in order to "raise awareness" and "fight breast cancer" but really I'm running because holding a high-profile event like this has proven to be a very effective way to raise funds for breast cancer research. And that's really what is needed -- funds. Not coincidentally, that's where you guys, my merry band of LiveJournal compatriots, come in.
I'm going to abuse my knees in the crippling Houston heat but all you need to do in order to help is bust out your wallet and donate a few bucks to the team. You get all the good karma, you get to make a positive contribution to medical science, and you'll help me embarrass my colleagues with my undeniable fundraising prowess. When it's all done I'll even post pictures to Facebook of my feet shod in silly toe shoes for everyone to mock. What a bargain!
All you need is this url and five minutes: http://rfch.convio.net/goto/nugget
My blisters - your dollars - everyone wins.
Hope all is well. things are doubleplusfantastic here.
^ isn't that logo awesome?
OMG A meme
Monday, 10-Jan-2011 @ 7:37p
I never participate in these insipid memes, but this one turned out to be fun... Sorry.
Let's start a band!
1 - Go to wikipedia and hit 'Random Article'. The name of the first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. (mine)
2 - Go to quotationspage.com and hit 'Random Quotes'. The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album. (mine)
...
3 - Go to flickr and click on 'explore the last seven days'. The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. (mine)
4 - Use photoshop or similar (picnik.com is a free online photo editor) to put it all together.
So this happened..
Tuesday, 14-Sep-2010 @ 11:05a
This morning I went back and consulted my IRC logs to determine when, exactly, I first stumbled across Craig Mitchell's web-published serial novella "She Hates My Futon." Anyone familiar with my logging OCD will be as amazed as I was to learn that my IRC logs do not go back that far.
So anyway, Craig resurfaced on the net about a year ago and I've been Facebook stalking him and combing his new site (he lost myboot.com a few years ago). This morning he posted a new chapter.
Let me say that again...
This morning he posted a new (penultimate) chapter to She Hates My Futon -- The Stew-Man A Cometh. Chapter 25, the conclusion, is in the pipe.
Those of you who are familiar with SHMF have surely already stopped reading this post and have headed off to find the new chapter. Those who aren't are highly encouraged to start here at chapter one.
"Futon" has been my constant for a decade.
08-Jul-2000 * Nugget94M is reading myboot.com 08-Jul-2000 <phule> hey, thanks for pointing out myboot.com that site is wild and wierdly great :) 06-Sep-2000 * ItsIllak idlly wishes the myboot guy would write another chapter or two.. 24-Oct-2001 <Nugget> myboot.com rocks. 07-Mar-2002 <RyJones> the novella at myboot.com is annoying, he never finished it 11-Nov-2002 <NevTHC> I was up until 5AM the night I started Futon. 28-Nov-2002 * ODD^work is bored at work, and rereads 'myboot' 05-Jun-2003 <NevDull> I wish myboot.com was updated more often. 13-Apr-2004 <url> i think good story is at http://www.myboot.com 14-Jun-2004 <Mike> I wasted a Saturday night reading myboot 21-Jan-2008 <Leto> omgwtf futon is back?!? 21-Jan-2008 <gregh> finally finished reading the futon story
Hey, if url likes it you know it's gotta be good...
I don't always do what my mother asks...
Wednesday, 17-Mar-2010 @ 6:17p
Thank Harry Burn (a post by GoofyHoofy)
If you ever wondered who elected Abraham Lincoln, or Grover Cleveland, or Woodrow Wilson, or any of the Presidents before him, it was men. Women couldn't vote. Finally, in 1919, after 7 decades of protest and suffrage, Congress passed the 19th amendment giving that right to women.
But a Constitutional amendment requires passage by 3/4ths of the states, and by the summer of 1920, only 35 of the required 36 had done so. Three had explicitly refused, the others found it not important enough to consider, at least for a while.
Anti-suffrage forces were happy when the Tennessee legislature decided to take up the cause, the head count being slightly against the proposal, but when it came to a vote the count was 28-28.
Harry Burn, then in his first term as a state legislator, had previously announced that he was a "no" vote, but then he got a letter from his mother urging him to vote yes. He did, and that broke the tie and put Tennessee in as the 36th state, and the amendment was ratified.
Asked later what changed his mind he said, "A good boy always does what his mother asks him to do." In spite of, or rather because of that, Burn had to go into hiding for several days, the anti-suffrage forces being so outraged by his "betrayal."
In our lifetime it seems normal that men and women share the vote, but women have been eligible in only the last 16 Presidential elections, while men have voted for all 44 US Presidents thus far.
Sometimes one vote makes a difference. It did for Harry Burn - and for 51% of the country who, up to that point, had no voice in the laws under which they were governed.
Iambic Dudameter
Wednesday, 13-Jan-2010 @ 1:24p
Two Gentlemen of Lebowski:
LEBOWSKI
Was it I, sir, who urinated on your rug?
THE KNAVE
Not in person, sir—but if a man is his name, and his reputation his indelible inkstain, surely thy sea of care is tormented; what tongue shall smooth thy name?
LEBOWSKI
Make me to understand, sir, for you are slow of speech as I of step, and I am unsatisfied in motive. When any rug is micturated upon within these city walls, must I stand accountable? Or are you as one of a thousand rogues, fishing for sixpence betwixt another man’s pursestrings? Are you a labourer, Master Lebowski, earning that you eat, getting that you wear?
© Copyright 1995-2012 David McNett. All Rights Reserved.
