Surfcasting rods on Nauset Beach

Surfcasting on Nauset Beach

Going 1776-style

A coworker forwarded me two images he'd taken in D.C. recently while visiting the Air and Space Museum. The Declaration of Independence is in there during renovations of the building it's normally housed in. Here's the thing: Scanning the document, his “practiced eye” (he's also a web editor) found a few discrepancies in the copy:

If these required a "1776-style," imagine the following:

1776-style search engine:

1776-style link bait:

Christmas Carols for the Disturbed

These have been posted all over the blogosphere for weeks, of course, but after my sister sent them in an email today, I can't resist sharing. I didn't immediately see where this should be attributed, but assume the following is in the middle of large "quotes."

1. Schizophrenia --- Do You Hear What I Hear?

2. Multiple Personality Disorder --- We Three Kings Disoriented Are

3. Dementia --- I Think I'll be Home for Christmas

4. Narcissistic --- Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

5. Manic --- Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and.....

6. Paranoid --- Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me

7. Borderline Personality Disorder --- Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

8. Personality Disorder --- You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll Tell You Why

9. Attention Deficit Disorder --- Silent night, Holy oooh look at the Froggy - can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away?

10. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder --- Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle ! Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle ! Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle ! Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle ! Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle ! Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle ! Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle ! Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle ! Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle ! Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells...

JibJab's 2006 Year in Review? Chuckle-worthy.

Nuckin' Futs - The JibJab Year in Review

Google Screams Happy Birthday, Edvard Munch

My favorite holiday logo switch yet, though there have been some strong contenders over the years. It was fun to look back through the Google holiday logo archives.

Blogger Beta

I was finally offered the opportunity to switch today.

I shouldn't be this excited but can't help it. No more publishing. I can finally tag label posts. Widgets are easy to add. I can feature RSS feeds. And it's all tied neatly into Gmail, GoogTube, Calendar, Reader and the rest of the emerging Google online ecosystem.

I may have to delay my exit to WordPress for a few more months after all.

Sic semper tyrannis: Pinochet passes

Unfortunately, the classic "thus always to tyrants," courtesy of Brutus as he and his senatorial colleagues stab Julius Caesar to death on the floor of the Roman Senate isn't quite accurate, as the Chilean dictator passed in a hospital this weekend, isolated from much of the world but hardly slain by his countrymen.

May the whispers of the disappeared follow him into the afterlife.

Christopher Hitchens sums up the case against Pinochet in a properly damning post over at Slate.com.

Classic 'Net humor: Summoner Geeks

This was me, circa 1993. Except my friends weren't always this funny.

Douglas Adams - hyperland

Douglas Adams made a documentary in 1990 about the Web. It's remarkably prescient about what the Web has become. Might be 'cause he was bloody brilliant and easily one of the funniest writers I've ever had the privilege to read.

Receding into the ether

I participated in my first talkcast tonight, text chatting contribution while I listened to the speakers express careful and mournful commentary, as all were shocked and saddened by the death of CNET editor James Kim. I'd been following the story of the young family lost in the wilderness of Oregon over the past 11 days. Learning that his body had been found today is crushing -- and my heart goes out to his young wife and two daughters. The hearts of so many are with them. I know I'll miss James' intelligence and charm on the Crave video podcasts. He was a great tech journalist and by all accounts a remarkable human being. Interacting with in the talkcast was rather like being at a virtual wake, albeit with frequent updates by the moderator. Intriguing and sad all at once.

The Iraq Study Group's assessment arrives

Here's a PDF of the whole thing.

I'll see if I can find time tonight to read it.

There's an awful lot on my plate these days but, given my preference for primary sources, I'll definitely make a point of doing so. Whether I l can lend any pithy commentary analyzing to such a grim subject remains to be seen.

Just white and nerdy enough.

You know you're a redneck nerd when you get all of the references in Weird Al's latest single.

Though I'm not quite as far out on the deep end as his caricature, I qualify easily by that standard.

I doubt that shocks anyone.

"Cops" meets Star Wars. Hilarity ensues.

The UN's #1 mustache resigns

Apparently, the prospect of irking the incoming Democratic Congress (further) didn't appeal to the President. It doesn't sound like anyone at the UN will miss him, either. I'm guessing that the BoltonWatch blog will die a natural death now as well, along with this spirited defense of the (former) UN Ambassador and Plenipotentiary Extraordinaire. Even the good Fellows at the Heritage Foundation had to cede that Bolton wasn't the most popular figure at the UN, though perhaps, given current American attitudes towards the UN, that's not a contest you'd want to win. I wonder how much lower that public opinion might be if we all learned what nations sat on the human rights committee or if the Oil-for-Food scandal became enough of a scandal to distract us from shopping, professional sports, video games, movies, television and celebrity culture.

Maybe the departure of such an iconic mustache from the world stage, as the new Democratic Congress takes office, will in turn gift the UN with an ambassadors that both represents the best interests of Americans and more gracefully bear the burden of being a hyperpower with undeniable strategic interests.

Whoever is nominated, I doubt we'll be seeing a 'stache to match Bolton's any time soon.

Geocaching 101 is through. Time for the field practical.

After my ramble in the Blue Hills this past weekend, I'm hungry to get out and get geocaching.

This heavily Dugg article from lifehacker, Geocaching 101, is officially the tipping point.

I'm looking forward to it with the new gadget. My monochrome Visor Edge was durable but not exactly field-ready nor as accurate as the geocaching hobby seems to demand.

Ze Frank? I'm so late to the party.

I should have clicked over to Ze months ago.
Sigh.




The Rumsfeld holiday medley, close to the end, is definitely the highlight.

I wish one of my former acappelle groups had done something along those lines, in terms of political hilarity.

I like how he used "Maliki-ied" as a verb, too.

As much as I've enjoyed Rocketboom, this guy is enough of a singular talent to make the close zoom tolerable.

And who doesn't like duckies?

Sure, I kind of remember the dancing guy invitation that made him famous five years ago, but this is obviously much cooler. If not, frequently, quite as funny.

I can't help but notice his use of Revver as his video hosting service, either. Smart chap, actually getting paid for his vlogging.

Another step in the right direction

Some happy news today at work, where eight months of labor apparently have led to a promotion. More on that to come later, as the New Year begins.

So that's happy news.

I've set my phone up with Flickr to automatically post here, though given the low quality I'm not thrilled about the arrangement.

Other news? I'm following an engrossing thread over at the Belmont Club, following upon this cover story, "Open Source Spying" in the NYTimes Sunday Magazine. Two posts, Blog and Blog2, examine how blogging and intelligence collection are increasingly converging and intermingling, all in the public sphere. Intellipedia aside, we're all analysts now.

While it's a bit painful to hear of the closed pools of intel (nothing new, as we've learned in numerous post-mortem of 9/11), it's extraordinary to see how much has occurred around the democratization of intelligence online and the ability of the masses (crowdsourcing, anyone?) to analyze and disseminate the worthy memes.

We're not quite at the singularity yet, to be sure, but the online hive mind just keeps growing.

Following my Shadow

I slept late today, perhaps catching up on all of the missed hours from this past week. It was an intense five days. Shadow, though he didn't have quite as much in the way of post-Thanksgiving workload to bear, was even more excited than I to stretch his legs today. With the Biostat Belle out in Natick for (of all things) an applied statistical modeling class, he and I headed south shortly after noon to the Blue Hill Reservation.



By the time we made it back to the trailhead at the Trailside Museum two and a half hours later, we'd logged 4.95 miles, with 1428 feet of altitude change (I brought the GPS, naturally) scrambling over boulders and twisted tree roots or striding quietly down open dirt roads.



It was a spectacular early December day, with bright sun and crisp, clean air. There was very little wildlife in evidence, either to be seen or heard, as only a few jays and chickadees called from bare branches. The wind alone made noise in the trees and bare ridge lines, making for a contemplative hike.



I was amazed that of the few people I saw along the trails, at least a third of them had ear buds in instead of listening to the sounds of the outdoors.

We went to see For Your Consideration tonight, Christopher Guest's latest mockumentary. While it was no Spinal Tap, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at times. While there's no outrageous, over the top naked-hairy-bear-wrestling scene, as in Borat, this flick so thoroughly skewers the entire ecosystem of guards, extras, writers, studio execs, talk show hosts, actors, agents, producers and publicists that I can't help but be impressed by Guest's mastery of the form. Sure, Entourage is slicker, but this cast is so familiar with the form now it's enough to sit and watch them play with the characters. If rock and roll, small town stage productions, dog shows, folk music and now indie film have been rendered so, I'd love to see his treatment of Washingon.

I added a Flickr feed to the blog today too, when we returned, along with a few other sidebar tweaks.