Bitter Cold

I heard about a great website today, via Presurfer, called Big Dead Place. This is a website about working in Antarctica. I could start to describe its better pages, but I won't. They are all great. Read them all and follow every link. It's hilarious, and touching, and now I'm sure I will never work in Antarctica.

The Gender Within

The world of Marine Science is all a twitter today with the discovery of the osedax worm. They have no eyes, mouths, or stomachs; live symbiotically with bacteria which digest their food for them; they live at the bottom of the Monterey trench. And they are all females. More...

Doing Our Bit for the Ecosystems

We have an apple tree and a plum tree in our backyard, and that means that around this time in summer the backyard smells like an applejack distillery as the fruit does what spoiled frust does: it turns itself in to pruno. More...

Tutorial on Apache Web Server config

...under OS X, naturally. This is part 4, with links to the previous three.

Pepsi Cola Lottery

The other day I bought a yellow-capped Pepsi and got curious about this "Play for a $Billion" game they're running. What a scam on people who are bad at math. More...

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Trip

This is a road trip I've wanted to take for 30 years. I've never seen a nice map of it like this. "On the Banks of Plum Creek" was my favorite, and it didn't know until now that you can visit that creek. It's not that I want to "fondle the artifacts," no. I want to visit the countryside that she grew up in, and it appears that some of it is still left. I'll like to go see.

Next, I'll have a double "Switched Ethernet"

In Leigh Weimer's column today, we read that at the Fairmont Hotel, The Wireless, is a cocktail that might be the cheese steak of San Jose. Please San Jose, you've been trying to distinguish yourself from San Francisco for 150 years. The best thing that ever happened to you was Burt Bacharach. You can stop trying now. Anyway, here's the recipe. More...

Ancient Lesbian Kisses

Every so often I type "lesbian" into the search window at eBay and see what turns up. Mostly rainbowed pride swag and "dip me in honey" tee shirts. We almost bought the "our daschund has two mommies" tee shirt until we saw the price.

And then were are the old photos, referred to with the keywords, "lesbian interest," like these: More...

Lesbian Icon

On eBay this week: You are bidding on this 8" Lesbian Witch in the Magical Forest sculpture. It is in excellent condition and will make a great decorative sculpture in your home or office. More...

Stone Stacking as Public Art

Perhaps you've seen the stacked stones on West Cliff. Here are some photos. More...

A Drug Store, and a Whole Lot More

Dear Longs,
I noticed that the new Longs in Downtown Santa Cruz is now
selling cigarettes. I know that it once was a managers'
decision to sell cigarettes and now it is a corporate
decision. More...

Santa Cruz to Lose Its Record-Breaking Ice Cube Tray

Several years ago, the City of Santa Cruz produced a "Beach Area Plan." It cost a lot of money, and involved tens of thousands of hours of staff and citizen time to create. There were hundreds of meetings, and surveys, and drawings, and plans, and studies, and the whole thing was more than two inches thick. And then, shortly after a council election, it was shelved. More...

Freedom to Marry Television Ads

Apparently following the example of MoveOn.org, GLAAD will be buying television ads that promote the freedom to marry. You can see all ten of them at Planet Out and vote for your favorite. I voted for the funny one about the marriage license office.

Gastropods Digested

I completely missed this: last May, UCSC's banana slug was named the best college mascot by Reader's Digest.

The End of All Things

This month's SciAm includes a beautifully-written sidebar story describing the death of the sun as it could be witnessed from our planet. It's not in the on-line version so I'll copy it here. By Bruce Balick and Adam Frank. More...

Small Town Crime

Santa Cruz needs something like the Police Blotter in the Arcata Eye. If only I didn't have this job thing everyday I'd do it.

Condensed Version of the latest "King Arthur" movie

And to think that Jon Stewart called this movie a "steaming pile of sh*t." If this treatmentis representative, I think this one could be funnier than "Holy Grail."

A Second Life for Coffee Grounds

If you feel guilty buying manufactured logs, now you can relieve yourself with java logs, made from coffee grounds and molassas. Only $6 each, including shipping!

Movies for the People

Here's a surprisingly non-sarcastic story by Dan White in the Sentinel about the free movies that have been spontaneously offered on Friday nights. What a nice alternative to the free oldies concert at the Boardwarlk.

"South Park" No Longer Makes Me Feel Dirty

I tried to watch South Park several years ago, but it was an episode with a singing piece of poop, and although I laughed like crazy, I felt dirty afterwards and didn't watch it again. Recently, I started watching, and except for the theme being stuck in my head, I feel fine. I am so happy that children are watching this show. South Park is the smartest and most moral show I have seen since I can't remember. And it helps me laugh about my troubles. If you haven't tried it, it's time.

An Alternative to Photoshop

I have to admit I never learned how to use Photoshop. I used it years ago, probably version 1.5 or something, but never had much occasion to use it in my old Victorian Literature job. Then in the mid-90s, Macromedia offered Fireworks, and that was all I needed for the web. Now that Fireworks is at version 5, its features, like almost all software packages that reach version 5, outweigh its usefullness. So today, I installed the geeks' favorite image editing software, the open-source and enternally free GIMP. This blog entry is here to remind myself to use this tutorial and learn how to use it.

Gay Appearing, Straight Acting

Two souvenir Santa Cruz Salt and Pepper Shakers were advertised on eBay, thus: More...

As If We Need a Reason to Pay Copy Editors Lots of Money

Finally, the copy editor crisis has caused real harm. Real Harm. Only a professional would have noticed this typo BEFORE it was carved on to Ground Zero memorials.

Isn't the Senate on Board with This War Thing?

John Stewart's on the Daily Show put it this way: If Osama Bin Laden had wanted a gay marriage, maybe he would have been caught by now.

The True Story of Gumby

I was a Gumby fan as a child, and a fan of Eddie "I'm Gumby, dammit" Murphy's character on Saturday Night Live, as an adult. I never knew where he came from, or that he is a "symbol of the spark of divinity in each of us, the basis of the ultimate value of each person" until I read this.

What Are They Thinking?

I recently received an email at work that warned us about a new trojan (virus) that contained a list of common usernames and passwords. The trojan used this list to attempt to gain access to servers. Clever right? But what was interesting to me is what these common passwords are. When they need to create passwords, it seems like the men in my industry have but four things on their minds: computer culture, sex, alcohol, and Harry Potter. More...

Strange Santa Cruz Residential Design

Over in the westside is this strange new house: More...

"Who Am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?"

...via Arts and Lectures Daily: How is it that in a world dominated by men, chess, one of the most popular games all over the world, features an all-powerful Queen who moves across the playing field unrestricted in her movements? Marilyn Yalom offers a few theories in a new book. After reading this article, I was reminded of a fact about power. And discovered truth of a widely-held misconception. More...

Worth of Money Through Time

The economic history site has given us a historical currency converter. Micawber's fantasy annual income would be worth only about 1200 pounds now, or $2000. That seems low, given that Dickens knew exactly how much a poor family could live on in the 1840s.

I remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a-year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable.

Unnatural Acts of Photography and Motherhood

Mimi Smartypants calls this collaboration between Celine Dion and Anne Geddes "Something Unholy" and I have to agree.

Disproof of God

Many years ago, I thought that I had discovered strong proof that the "God" of the Christians, Jews, and Muslims did not exist, but I just thought of another one. More...

Hooking Up

I encourage you to read this column by Mike Cassidy in the Mercury News. Registration is required and free. The column is about modern teens and how they have sex with each other at young ages and without committment. This reporting reminded me of something More...

The Transit of Leading Indicators

Have you ever noticed that Economics is just like Astrology? Listen to the financial report some night and try to substitute Astrological terms. You'll find they fit together as nicely as the lyrics of the Gilligan's Island song do to "Stairway to Heaven." You can hear things like "influences" and "strong showing," and "Dow is Down" instead of "moon is waning" and "Consumer Spending" instead of "Jupiter's expansiveness." If you're not familiar with astrology, I suggest reading the Venus Reborn Columns of my friend Judy Havey.

Too Much

I'm supposed to not eat wheat anymore. This wipes out everything at the cafe bakery bar. Yesterday, I noticed that Emily's offers a wheat-free pineapple upside-down muffin. I bought one, and then I noticed the price $2.50 for a tiny little muffin. An obscenity of avarice. I won't do that again.

Lost Pleasures

I still remember the pleasures of smoking. I miss so much to be able to pleasure myself every twenty minutes in public, in private, in my own fashion. How I loved smoking. How I loved everything about it. The smell of a new carton, the beautiful Camel cigarette package, the matches and the lighters, the silver cigarette cases. The lighting of cigarettes, the sharing of cigarettes, the bumming of cigarettes. And the pleasure, the delightful warmth of the craving being satisfied every time, without fail, exactly as I wanted it to be satisfied. No wonder tobacco is a deity. Surely, surely I will follow Tobacco God all the days of my life.

But I didn't. I left the kingdom of King Nic about 8 years ago, never to return. Today, I noticed that yet another one of smoking's pleasures is no more. More...

Palm Center

Palm Center is a "strip mall" on Mission north of Bay. It is one of my favorite places in Santa Cruz, and I have somewhere around her a half-written essay called "My Language, My Strip Mall" complete witih photographs. I have to finish that someday because in the signs above each of the stores one could read almost every major language on the planet, all mixed together in a Californian stir-fry of immigration and commerce.

But that's not what I can write about tonight. I just want to show you a photo of the new sign. Thank you Redevelopment Agency! More...

Poetry Break

I have a backlog of things I want to write about, so to get me started, allow me to share with you a poet I just discovered. Apparently she is popular, as she once won the Pulitzer Prize. But does that award correlate with good poetry? Hardly ever. I found a collection of Mary Oliver''s called "New and Selected Poems, Volume One" at Avalon in Capitola Village. A pedestrian title for an amazing collection. More...