It's Steve (now in blog form)

I’ve been busy with super secret new project stuff and sadly neglecting my blog.  Here’s a collection of some random imagery from the last month to catch up.

I love LA for the never ending parade of freaks.  I didn’t manage to get a picture of the leatherman under the freeway the other day, but here’s a sheik strolling in short pants.  If I’d been quicker you’d have seen his Mr. T-like gold chains

Fry’s had this out as a recession solution.  We could buy an awful lot of these for $700 billion.

 

Normally the machines at the front of the grocery store sell gum balls and stickers.  I thought it was a bold move to branch out into Village People/child molester mustaches.

 
Ben did too much and got very sleepy on the couch.

 
I am now fully prepared for the new company’s first board meeting.  This thing was the size of a sledgehammer!

Looks like it’s actually a girl.  Kim is excited.  I’m incredibly nervous about the whole concept.  Having a girl seems like you get an easy ride for the first 11 years and then get to experience the nightmare that is having a teenage daughter.  As a wise man once said, “When you have a son, you only have to worry about one penis.  Having a daughter means worrying about every penis in the world.”

Anyone have good advice to bringing up a daughter to (a) not think that she’s a princess, (b) not resent her parents from age 12-22, (c) not idolize her generation’s version of Paris Hilton, and/or (d) not force me to destroy some 16 year old boy down the road?

This morning I posted something silly on Please Wash Hands about exploding poop.  Within a couple of minutes we were getting followed by PoopPal on Twitter.  That’s the danger of automated search and follow.  Sure I mentioned poop repeatedly, but I wasn’t looking for assistance.  Failure to consider sentiment makes this type of behavior annoying rather than effective.

It’s interesting that the abuse is starting to kick in on Twitter.  Quantcast has them at 6 million monthly uniques.  That seems to be the inflection point for abuse on social sites.  I hope they can sort it out before things get really out of hand.

Update: PoopPal is less automated than I thought.  His response to my post:

@stevepearman I agree there is a lot of questionable practices going around, but I am not interested in your money, just your poop

Well said, sir.  I stand corrected.

Some completely unrelated stuff for a Friday morning.

Christopher Moore is a genius – If you aren’t reading Christoper Moore, you should.  I just finished Fool and I believe he is the only living author that can make the plot line of King Lear not make me feel dumb.  He’s also writes great blogs.  I can’t help but think of this post every time I see a hotel door with two peep holes now.

Squirrels eat oranges - I don’t know why this was so surprising to me.  I’ve previously seen squirrels eat dogfood, nuts, and doughnuts, but citrus just seems weird (can animals get scurvy?).  I also can’t believe this pic came out.  I shot it randomly out of the window of my car as I was driving by.

Tough decision – If I get this, I know that some of you will be impressed and some of you will think less of me.  What to do?

Screw that 25 Things About Me nonsense. What are your 10 favorite gadgets and why?  (All of the gadget dorks just had minor aneurisms at the prospect of choosing).  Start with your favorite and work down.

1. Casio Exilim 10MP Camera – I love my digital camera.  10 megapixels? Yup.  Small enough to stick in my pocket?  Yeah.  Special setting that waits until the subject smiles before going off? Bet your ass.  At less than $200 you just can’t beat this thing.
2. Philips 50″ plasma HD TV – My giant TV is an endless source of pride/joy.  It also gives me a distinct technological advantage when I play online multiplayer Call of Duty.  An example:
   

   Kid to me: “Dude! How’d you shoot me from all the way over there. I couldn’t even see you!”
   Me to kid: “I have a giant hi-def plasma.”  
   Kid: “That sucks!”  
   Me: “Sucks to be you. I’m an adult and can buy stuff like this.” 

3. 13″ MacBook – The MacBook is a great device.  You can immediately tell that the hardware and software were designed to work together from the get go.  Makes me super happy.
4. Xbox 360 – After a hard day at work, nothing helps me relax like a cocktail and blowing up strangers on Xbox live.  The 360 is a well designed machine if you don’t mind massive heat generation, an incredibly noisy fan, and the occasional red ring of death.  Actually, it’s a terribly designed device.  It’s also really fun when it’s working properly.
5. Blackberry Bold – A haiku:
   

   Oh, Blackberry Bold
       You give me joy and sore thumbs
   Red light blinking bright

6. DVR – I have the generic DVR available through my cable provider.  It’s not a great example of the category, but DVR’s are freakin great.  I no longer watch any commercials, ever watch live TV, or associate shows to a particular network.  I’ve made the jump mentally to content existing as stand alone elements outside of any sort of continuous time stream.  It’s great if you’re not an advertiser or network.
7. iPod Shuffle – If my Shuffle was any tinier I’d have to have smaller fingers.  Great piece of gear given how much I’ve been traveling over the last year.
8. Network Attached Storage – I have a terabyte of storage on my home network.  I remember being about 12 and talking with my friends about how awesome it would be to have a whole terabyte to ourselves.  In retrospect, we were huge dorks.  
9. HP Mini 1000 – I really like netbooks.  It’s the missing link between my Blackberry and MacBook.  Even cooler since I got it running Linux.
10. Garmin Nuvi 350 GPS – I have no sense of time, social appropriateness, or direction.  GPS helps with the getting lost all the time at least.  When all else fails and I’m completely lost the “Home” button is a life saver.  Way better than calling the wife and asking her to get on mapquest.  ”I’m lost and don’t know where I am!!”

Here’s a weird one.  I recently finished the Cryptonomicon (the first 800 or so pages were great.  The last 20 were just terrible).  Anyway, Douglas Shaftoe is one of the main characters in the book.  The weird part is that a couple days after finishing the read, I’m now being followed on Twitter by this fictional character who only tweets segments of the book.  Very strange.  Check him out.

The bit I’m trying to sort out is what mechanism triggered the follow.  I’m using Living Social these days to catalog my reading activities, but I’m not sure how the leap was made from there to my twitter account.  Going to have to do some digging.