Tuesday
Fairly run of the mill day at work today. And, it was a rather productive day, to boot.

After work, I had dinner with Jess and . After dinner, we went out for coffee and dessert. And talk, talk, talk.

NPR and PRI Stories
I think that I had an epiphany today while listening to NPR: While I’m not overly enamored of the whole concept of the current war in Iraq and while I tend to tune out a lot of news items about it, I find that I do have an interest in the technical news that stems from it. Go figure.

I also found this item from today’s production of The World to be interesting.

Song of the Day
Since hearing a version of A Whole New World, from Aladdin, this evening, today’s “Two-fer” will come from the movie’s soundtrack:

  • One Jump Ahead
  • Prince Ali (Reprise), sung by Jafar (Jonathan Freeman)

Stray Toasters

  • While looking up information for a product this afternoon, I came across this comment/review. Somehow, the title (and “The Bottom Line”) juxtaposed against the fact that it was a child’s toy was just a combination of “sick and wrong” and “terribly funny.” Everyone at work thought so, too. There was another page of reviews; the title of the next one was “How much do you like to blow?” Oh, the directions in which the mind spins…
  • …and so, I mentioned the first link to someone else and they countered with this. Uhhh… Okay. “URL Ping-Pong” can be a dangerous thing.
  • Since I was at work until almost 9:00 PM last night and in a movie theatre on Sunday night, today was the first time since the time changed that I was able to fully enjoy some late afternoon/early evening sunlight and sunset. Sure, it’s not “much,” so to speak, but sometimes (in fact, more often than not) it’s the simple things that are the most worthwhile.

Idiotstick of the Day
Being Tuesday, why should Song of the Day be the only section that gets all of the “Two-fer” fun? It shouldn’t. And so…

  • On the way home from work, exiting from I-215 onto Redwood Road, a car (already on Redwood) came up behind me as I was merging onto Redwood. (Note: The distance from the end of that ramp to the first traffic light is roughly a quarter-mile.) Apparently, this person needed to make a left at the traffic light. This meant that they needed to cross one lane in order to make it to the left-turn lane. A quarter-mile away. There was minimal (read: “almost NO”) other traffic on Redwood Road, so getting across should have been a piece of cake. It wasn’t. First, they were VERY indecisive about getting to the far lane. When another opening appeared, they passed on that, too. So, from the “middle” lane, they swerved into the far right-hand lane to turn right at the light. What in the Nine Hells?!? After making that turn, they proceeded to make a fast U-turn so that they could go straight through the light in the direction that they had originally wanted to go. *sigh* I wonder about people sometimes…
  • After coffee, we were heading south on State Street, in order to drop off Nyx. We heard a siren, but couldn’t see the source. So, we dismissed it. The sound got a little louder. Still, there seemed to be no emergency services vehicle in sight. There was a truck about 10 – 15 car lengths behind us, but that was it. The truck got closer… and, oddly enough, so did the siren. When it got about 5 lengths behind us, the driver FINALLY had enough of a coherent thought process to turn on the flashing lights. It was an ambulance! Imagine that. It barreled past us in the far left lane. It also had its right blinker on. *shrug* Sometimes people forget to turn off the signal lights when they change lanes. No big deal. It got to the intersection of State and 33rd South and turned right… from the far left lane!!! I could be a little off with this, but I seem to remember hearing rumors about something known as a “dispatcher” who tells the driver where to go. And, isn’t a EMS vehicle driver supposed to have at least a vague clue as to their destination? You would think that finding Point B from Point A in a city whose streets are laid out in an almost Cartesian coordinate system wouldn’t be all that difficult.

Okay, now that I have put away my soapbox, I think that I’ll call it a night.

Namaste.