That annoying book meme

I really hate memes like this, but since everybody else an their frickin’ dog has done this (and I guess it all started here), here you go:

1) Grab the nearest book

2) Open the book to page 23

3) Find the fifth sentence

4) Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions

For me, the nearest book is one I’m selling on eBay, the Corel Draw 9 User Guide:

Click file, New, From Template.

OK, that sucked, let me see if any of these other books have anything useful on page 23. The next closest books have chapter/section page numbers (1-3, 4-2, etc…) and I don’t feeling like doing the math, so what else can I find here? [looking around my office]

OK, here’s a coherent sentence from The Hip Pocket Guide to HTML 4 (a book that you’d think I’m not actually using, looking at some of my sites):

The text is rendered by browsers in many ways, such as a tool tip over graphics.

This is referring to the “TITLE” attribute.

Wow, that sucked. Carry on.

April 26, 2004

Teen is surprised burning cross got so much attention

The 16-year-old teen who pleaded guilty to burning a cross on a black pastor’s front lawn says: “I didn’t think it would draw that much attention, but the following day, we were watching television and it was on every channel, including a Spanish station.” Idiot. Full Story via Obscure.

April 26, 2004

Space Shuttle Victims Mistaken as Iraq Deaths

Quoting this news release from NASA:

Many news organizations across the country are mistakenly identifying the flag-draped caskets of the Space Shuttle Columbia’s crew as those of war casualties from Iraq.

Editors are being asked to confirm that the images used in news reports are in fact those of American casualties and not those of the NASA astronauts who were killed Feb.1, 2003, in the Columbia tragedy.

An initial review of the images featured on the Internet site www.thememoryhole.org shows that more than 18 rows of images from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware are actually photographs of honors rendered to Columbia’s seven astronauts.

The images in question are mirrored here as thememoryhole.org is getting pummeled with traffic.

On a related note, George W. ordered these photos not released, but he’s still moved by them. Can you tell its an election year? Thanks Barney for the tip.

April 25, 2004

Bend students are dancing — just not at school

I posted last month about the Bend High School dance that was shut down early for some naughty dancing. So with senior proms coming up, what’s the status now? Summit High School in Bend is just canceling dances entirely, and Bend High students are planning to hold their own “anything goes” dance off of school property. This could get messy, and is starting to show the workings of a sequel to Footloose — I can picture Kevin Bacon playing a bull-headed school principal.

April 25, 2004

Your Moron for the Day

The man who volunteered to have 20 firework rockets shot at him from about 15 feet away while wearing no protective gear other than a helmet. A mighty scary video. As the site says, Mom would be proud.

April 25, 2004

I didn’t need to see that

If you want to scare the crap out of somebody in the morning, set this as their wallpaper.

April 25, 2004

Pimping out a crappy car

Forget buying and modifying a nice Honda, BMW, VW, whatever. Just by yourself a dirt-cheap clunker, and make the thing look snazzy. I like the racing stripes made out of blue masking tape.

April 25, 2004

Need backup solution advice

OK, the DLT drive at work has gone dead — again (this will be the 3rd DLT drive I’ve been through here). The primary reason for using tape here at our office is so somebody can take it home nightly so we can have an off-site copy.

I’m looking to ditch the tape drive, and move to a permanent off-site solution. I’m looking into either an outsourced off-site (online backup) solution or rolling my own and just keeping the server in my garage at home until I can find cheap co-loco in Bend.

Have anybody rolled their own off-site backup system or used an outsourced provider? Has anybody used a reBYTE system for off-site use? What about using something like Ahsay’s off-site software? Or does anybody else have any bright ideas? I’m all ears.

April 22, 2004

Oregon creates Office of Rural Policy

They don’t understand the needs, wants, or desires of the other half of Oregon and its population, so they decide to spend some tax dollars, and create an office to study us.

It’s asinine that an office such as this had to be created, but it does. My worry is that this will just reinforce the stereotype that we’re just a bunch of redneck hicks over here, which we’re not.

Now if you’ll excuse me while I go work on my Ford so I can go out in the desert and shoot something full of holes (joking on all counts). Link from Rob.

April 22, 2004

Are you a billionaire?

Make sure you support your presidential candidate. Thanks John for the link!

April 22, 2004