The Ostrich -- King of Birds

Stephanie and I have been arguing a lot lately about whether or not I can have an ostrich.

Her arguments are mainly as follows:

1. There is something wrong with you. You are a complete fucking idiot.
2. We live in a townhome in an urban area where it gets very cold.
3. Ostriches are mean.
4. You can't ride an ostrich anyway.

My counter arguments go something like this:

1. Am not!
2. We can keep it in the garage.
3. They are only mean to people who are going to eat them and pluck out their feathers and make ugly leather out of them. I just want to ride mine around.
4. http://www.digisys.net/bcranch/race.htm

I should mention that the only abuse my ostrich might suffer is that I remember a Curious George book from when I was a kid, where Curious George fed a trumpet to an ostrich, so that the ostrich had a big trumpet-shaped lump in its throat. While Stephanie is indeed a big dumb monkey, and she might do something like feed a trumpet to an ostrich, we don't have any trumpets at this time.

$7K

Two researchers from Harvard & UNC/Chapel Hill have released a study saying that it takes five thousand peer-to-peer mp3 downloads to displace a single album sale.

They observed 1.75 million downloads in total... or about $7000 in lost CD sales. Boy, that really seems worth it, doesn't it?

Wired News Article: Maybe the Music's Just Lousy?

Oh Yea, I forgot that Microsoft Sucks...

When all of us at the office upgraded to OS X we wanted to ditch our old OS 9 software once and for all, so we opted to use MacMail rather than our old Outlook 2001 in a OS 9 window. All was going swimingly until some folks realized that we weren't receiving meeting notices. Of course, actually getting invited to meetings was somewhat unusual, so it took us a long time to figure it out.

So it was decided that a whole lot more money was going to be handed over to Bill Gates and we were all going to get our own spiffy copy of Microsoft Office (up until that point, we'd been using the PC in the corner when we needed Word.) Being the lucky bastard that gets to have my own email plus that of the domain name management address, I set up my two accounts, linked up Entourage to the Exchange server, and watched my new G5 1.2GHz machine fall to its knees.

You see, every time I clicked anywhere in Entourage, a couple hundred spam messages would fly into my inboxes, get fed through my filters, get filed into Junk, and I'd attempt to delete them. I could listen to my hard drive gronk for 9 hours a day.

I made the grave mistake of mentioning this to our rent-a-tech. He said he'd fix it. And well, he sort of did something. He made it so no more than say 100 messages could come through at any given time. But it also meant that there was this odd batch of mystery messages lurking somewhere... the "unread message" counts were going up even though my folders were empty.

This whole thing came to a head when I had to watch my domain name email over the weekend. I logged in to the web mail (in Internet Explorer, I might add, because Exchange web mail doesn't acknowlege that Safari exists) and found over a thousand messages from varying dates all living in my inbox -- even though my Entourage inbox said it was empty.

Half an hour of click-delete later, I managed to cull it down so I could actually watch for my stupid Network Solutions/Open SRS emails (a different bitch session entirely.)

When I got into work this morning, I decided to do something radical... I put all my Entourage settings to the most standard things possible -- check every half hour, check everything, delete when I log out instead of often, etc. etc. Then I did something unheard of...

... I turned my junk mail filter off.

And wouldn't you freaking know it? I'm only getting about a hundred messages a day instead of 7-800. My folder tallies actually match the number of messages I have. My hard drive was silent nearly all day. My only guess is that Entourage's junk mail filter doesn't know how to deal with Exchange server's message system and would constantly be sending the message in an endless loop of send and resend and file and refile and send and resend.

Microsoft, you suck.

Spring?

It doesn't take much for Minnesotans to think it's spring. Hell, we're having a cold spell this week, but since the daytime temps will probably stay above 40, we think spring is here. Last week, I saw folks in shorts and sandals. Of course, come October, 50 degrees will get your winter jacket out.

Unfortunately, this is just about the ugliest time of year. The snow has melted leaving piles of sand and greasy dirt coating everything. Our yard is full of sticks and trash, but it's too soggy to really step out there and clean it up. Our trellis and grass sustained a fair amount of snowplow damage.

But my sedum is starting to come up. So I'm happy.

This haXX0r scares me.

It's one thing to be able to post on the site. The 733+ 5k|11z0rz needed to post is one thing. The certain knowledge that Steph is a big dumb monkey could only be dug up by someone who...

...happened to pass by her on the street. Uh, never mind.

1337 H4x0rz

Heh! Look! I'm in your blog! And I was just trying log onto my blogger account. Holy crap. How did this happen?

Mwahahaha!

My name is Steph and I'm a big dumb monkey.

Bulldozer Bash

St. Anthony Chamber of commerce invites you.
Apache Plaza's Ultimate Evening -- Bulldozer Bash.
Capture the memories, toast the future.
Apache Plaza, Saturday, March 20th, 5pm to 10pm.
Use west entrance off of Stinson at 39th Ave. 7pm program featuring 15,483 Days of Mall Memories in 20 minutes. Performed by Apache Plaza Players.
Entertainment, Food, Cash Bar, Silent Auction, Door Prize. Casual attire recommended. Food -- from first course to dessert -- available for purchase. Silent Auction proceeds benefit St. Anthony High School's Huskies Court Club, Band Boosters, Choir and Gymnastics.
Free admission. More cool Apache stuff at http://www.apacheplaza.com

Anonymous Marketing

For better or for worse, I'm not much of a big picture person. Sure, I will think about the ramifications of my actions, but I'll very rarely look at what the world and I are doing to search out the big trend, the next big thing. Which I suppose is a bad thing for someone that works in marketing, but that kind of subversive behavior is definitely not welcome at my firm. (I tried.)

I do, however, often mull on the futility of it all. I spend days of my life putting together the little micro-sites that our clients desperately want and they get: Three... hits... a... day... And they think this is great! WTF?

Anyway, James Lileks' muses today in The Bleat about the lives of people like me, and really, it's just as futile as he imagines. Ouch.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I wish there was some way to make the grand in tips that the staff at Kieran's will make tonight, without actually a) working at Kieran's and gadzooks, b) working at Kieran's tonight. Tim and I are not wearing green today. Me, since my "Irish" family consists of my father's adopted father, who is technically orange Irish (not something you want to advertise, really) I'm wearing brown. Tim, of course, is wearing black because that's what he wears. (And we won't talk about his* geneology.)

Wanted: Excellent Neighbors

I got a note in my mailbox yesterday that my neighbors are selling their house. The realtor is listing it at the end of the month, but do we know anyone that would want their place? Answer? Yes and no. I know lots of people that either just bought houses or aren't quite there yet.

Tim and I love our house and it would ROCK if we had cool immediate neighbors. Of course, we'd probably hate them just a little teeny bit because their house would be just like ours... only slightly bigger.

Sleepy and looking at the list...

Tim and I have a big week of entertaining ahead of us, starting today. His mother and her husband are coming to spend 6 days gabbing, eating, and generally "catching up" on the three years its been since we've seen her. I'm staunchly pro-family (just as I'm staunchly pro-choice) and I anticipate these whirlwinds with glee and dread. I wouldn't miss it for the world but I know I'm going to be dog dead tired in the end.

Just to ensure that I wasn't facing the week with sleep deprivation, I took a sleep aid last night. It's not one of those ones that puts you to sleep (not a problem) it's just one that keeps you asleep (nirvana.) The only downside is that you wake up feeling heavy and you spend an hour or so in the morning just being a little slow. On a weekend, I groove on this big time. On the weekdays, I sit at my work computer, looking at my always huge to-do list like it was written in Czech and wait for the coffee to kick in.

Still, I'll take it, because I know the rest of the mornings this week will slowed by genuine exhaustion that no pill will help (at least no pill I'm willing to take) and my todo list will morph from Czech to Kanji.

Anyone wanna buy a department store?

So Target has announced that they're going to try to sell Mervyn's and Marshall Field's. (Article in StarTribune.)

I'm not surprised and I'm not sad. Since the "merger" with Marshall Field's there is nothing left of the old Dayton's I knew and loved. The clothing is more conservative and expensive. The staff is sparse and cranky. The hometown pride was mocked and stomped -- I feel no loyalty. If I didn't work two blocks away from the big downtown store, I probably wouldn't shop there at all.

Herberger's has been my store of choice for quite some time now. Originally from St. Cloud, they were purchased by Saks several years ago. It's really filled the niche were Dayton's used to be.

Analysts say that potential buyers are May Department Stores or Federated. I'd really like to see it be May and they turn all the Marshall Field's into Famous Barrs. That would be sweet. (Says the girl wearing an Evan Picone blouse she picked up at Famous for $9 this past weekend.)

So I'm not sad to see it be sold. I just hope it gets better.

Back off, Bush...

NY Times, March 5, 2004

In a sharp departure from its past insistence on the sanctity of medical records, the Bush administration has set forth a new, more limited view of privacy rights as it tries to force hospitals and clinics to turn over records of hundreds and perhaps thousands of abortions.

Webnoxious

Yesterday, while I was working on adding annoying little Favorites Icons to my client's web sites (no, they didn't ask, but I'd just figured out how to do it and I thought it was kind of cool, in a geeky way) I decided that things like that should have a name. And that name should be...

Webnoxious.

I like it a lot. Unfortunately, someone registered "webnoxious" on February 18th, so I'm a little late to the punch.

BUT, there are no google hits for Webnoxious, and I still think that it should be added to the Internet lexicon. Here's my definition...

Webnoxious, adj; Annoying web features such as popups, popunders, favorites icons, embeded sounds, items requiring rare plugins, banner ads that blink or cover site content.

What else?

What is this picture?

I'll be curious to see how many folks manage to identify this "Recent Past" landmark. Here are some hints:

• My grandmother would take me there on the bus. We would go to Minnesota Fabrics and pick out patterns and flanel for new jammies. I was particularly smitten with odd buttons. (The "proof" of her love -- the white sweater with pockets and fish buttons.) For my birthday I would have cash to spend and ice cream to eat at the Woolworths counter.


• I bought my first records at the Don Leary's located there. Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe" on 45.


• Queen's Court School of Dance was located in the basement. Mid-year recitals were held in the courtyard. Plain white tennis shoes (required for "Jazz" dance class) could be had for $5 at the aforementioned Woolworths. The more expensive black ballet slippers could be picked up at Kinney's.


• Many hours playing Centipede at the Bowl-O-Mat with my junior high stoner friends. Hello Kitty items available at a kid's store and multi-flavored candy canes at Lancers


• The only time I really got to see the "other grandma" was at the antique shows held here.


• I never got to ride the train and I still resent it.

Okay, either you've guessed it or you don't care, but it's Apache Plaza. The Twin Cities' second enclosed mall (after Southdale) is scheduled for demolition in March. There will be a Bulldozer party from 5:00-10:00pm on Saturday March 20th. Even though we'll have houseguests and Mara's brithday party earlier in the afternoon, I think I might try to take a peek at it.

Here are some links with pictures and news about Apache:

• The Recent Past Preservation Network (Where I pilfered the photo above)


• The Apache Plaza Tribute Site (Some great pictures from Apache's history)


• St. Anthony Village's Redevelopment Plan (Mixed use development, primarily.)