Archive for March, 2005

Why Wendy’s isn’t “finger-lickin’ good”

Thursday, March 24th, 2005

Ew. :shock:

Finger Food
Claim: A patron dining at a Wendy’s fast food outlet found a human finger in her bowl of chili.
Status: True.

On the evening of 22 March 2005, a customer dining at a San Jose outlet of the Wendy’s fast good restaurant chain discovered what appeared to be a human finger in her bowl of chili.

More details in the page at Snopes.

Yahoo! acquires Flickr

Monday, March 21st, 2005

I’ve mentioned in passing to some of you that I recently set up an account on Flickr, and plan to migrate my photo gallery photos over to there in the coming weeks because I really dig how easy and super-cool they make the entire process.

I guess I’m not the only one who groks Flickr:

Yahoo actually does acquire Flickr

Holy smokes, SOMEBODY out there is bad at keeping secrets!! Yes! We can finally confirm that Yahoo has made a definitive agreement to acquire Flickr and us, Ludicorp. Smack the tattlers and pop the champagne corks!

More details at the post on FlickrBlog.

Most interesting to certain readers of this blog should be the revelation that Yahoo! Photos will be getting certain as-yet-unrevealed FlickrFeatures.

To the guys and gals at Flickr, congrats!

iPodder 2 is out - go get it!

Friday, March 18th, 2005

For those of you doing the listen-to-podcasts thing, go grab the brand-new iPodder [Lemon] 2.0.

I’ve had it installed for all of about 3 minutes so far, but I can already tell that it’s several orders of magnitude better than the 1.x series.

New IE still won’t support CSS

Thursday, March 17th, 2005

It’s 2005, and Microsoft still has its corporate head up its corporate ass when it comes to supporting standards for web-based presentation:

CSS Support Could Be Internet Explorer’s Weakest Link

Sources claiming familiarity with Microsoft’s IE 7.0 plans said the company will add some additional CSS2 support to its new standalone browser.

But Microsoft isn’t planning to go the whole way and make IE 7.0 fully CSS2 compliant, sources said.

Idiots.

One more reason to get people to switch to Firefox.

(via)

Buddy TMC update

Friday, March 11th, 2005

Just ’cause I know some of you have been interested in the goings-on with JMS’ cat Buddy:

From: jmsatb5@AOL.com
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 08:35:46 +0000 (UTC)
Lines: 20

Buddy seems to have leveled out (for now, they apparently grow for the first three-four years of their lives) at 15 pounds and 28 inches from nose to butt, not counting his tail, which is almost as long as he is…so fully stretched out he’s almost five feet from tip of nose to tip of tail.

His latest trick — he comes up with a new one every few days — is to go up the stairwell to the bonus room a few steps, so he’s already a bit high, stretch as far as he can, reach for the hand-rail, balancing like a ballerina on point, and peer around the corner when I come down the hall so that I’m looking at a cat head peeking around the corner at nearly eye-level. Completely wigged me out the first time he did it.

He thinks it’s great fun.

I’m having him committed.

jms

Relevant posts:

Um… yeah….

Friday, March 11th, 2005

There is apparently a D&D for Dummies book coming out. I don’t really know what to make of that.

Oh, wait, I’m starting to. From Amazon’s listing:

Product Description:
The fun and easy way to get started in this popular fantasy role-playing game

Market research indicates that 4 million American males, ages 8 to 45, play Dungeons & Dragons, while 7.6 million who haven’t played say they want to learn how. The popularity of recent sci-fi and fantasy movies has also boosted interest. D&D is complex to learn, and this friendly guide helps the curious locate a game, understand the rules, choose or create a character, follow proper game etiquette, and even move up in the hierarchy to become a Dungeon Master. The four-page foldout cheat sheet will include markers and a model dungeon layout that serves as an actual game board, allowing readers to play using this book and nothing else.

“Move up the hierarchy”? Geez, harkens back to all the bad D&D stereotypes from the 80s a bit, doesn’t it?

YOU ARE ALL MY PUPPETS! I AM THE DUNGEON MASTER! IA! IA! CTHULHU FHTAGN!

:roll:

[via]

New podcast feed, rededication

Thursday, March 10th, 2005

If you have my old podcast feed in your favorite aggregator, please update it to:

http://www.soulcookie.com/podcastfeed/

And, after numerous false starts (and too many profanity-inducing technical glitches), I think I’m once again ready to try my hand at podcasting.

The tagline I have in mind is:

“Soul Cookie: A geek’s-eye view of the universe.”

It’s broad enough that I can cover books or comics or RPGs or whatever, but isn’t as unfocused as I had been (which was really making it difficult for me to focus on what to say).

I’m also kind of wishing I had a co-host, ’cause the give-and-take between someone else and me might make for better [not-quite-]radio, but I’m not sure how that would come to pass.

Thoughts on theme, ruminations on a cohost, suggestions for future programs, requests (other than, “Don’t do it!”), or whatever? Comment away, me hearties (yo ho!).

Why does it smell like burnt hair in here?

Thursday, March 10th, 2005

Funny: Fast Times at Hero High at IFILM. :grin:

Help me decide which title to pick!

Wednesday, March 9th, 2005

As most of you know, a little over a month ago I got the promotion I was expecting. But here’s a bit of a bugaboo about it:

My promotion hasn’t been announced to anyone yet.

One of the issues has to do with a peer negotiating his raise, but another has to do with what my new job title will be. Since I’m relatively new to the commercial Internet development world, I’d like your help.

The two titles that are in play are Development Manager and Senior Web Producer.

(For comparison: I was hired as — and, as far as most others know, still am — a “Web Producer II.”)

Development Manager was my inclination, but the head of the department (my boss’ boss) suggested that Senior Web Producer would be a better choice (as in better for me).

Personally, I think the DM (no D&D puns intended or invited) title carries with it a bit more prestige or cachet than SWP.

Would those of you with tech hiring experience, whether on the West Coast or East, weigh in and let me know which title would look more impressive/distinguished on a future resume?