Footloose

I almost left the bowling alley last night wearing one bowling shoe and one street shoe.

Cheap EL Wire at Ikea Winter Sale

That's EL Wire, not El Wire ("the wire).

I just wanted to turn you on to a deal on EL wire at the IKEA Winter Sale. I was at the IKEA in College Park, MD (I don't know if it's the same at all of them) last week; down in the lighting department, there were a couple of boxes of EL wire; the name is Glansa ; it lists for $19.99; the sale price was $4.99 per unit (10 meters of EL wire, with 3 meters of cord and a wall socket transformer).

I don't know if it's 2.3mm or 3mm; it's made in China and it's probably loaded with cadmium or something, but it it cheap.

This is my first EL wire, so I also don't know how the quality compares -- here's a long-exposure photo:

I'll be doing a few more entries about my IKEA run last week.

This Is What You Get for Being an Attentive Driver

You actually get to see a truck that's sporting a set of Bumper Nuts (no, I'm not going to link to the Web site) dangling from the rear hitch.

Work It

I now head to the gym for my first workout of 2006.

I have taken extra precautions, including painstakingly re-memorizing my padlock's combination (important, since I have not used it for several months).

I am prepared to encounter the tail end of tonight's New Year's Resolution crowd.

Although I am not a fan of the New Year's Resolution crowd, I must say that it does afford one the chance to check out the new talent.

Meet the new year. Not the same as the old year.

In an updated version of the "writing the wrong year on your checks" predicament, when I am manually entering the date in file names using the standard USian MMDDYY format, I keep putting "05" for the year.

Talking About My Comfortably Numb Generation in Aja

This morning, I had a very confusing dream involving much of the pantheon of classic rock.

I was hanging out with Pink Floyd after a meeting. It may have been after writing some songs with them, or it could have been some sort of tutoring session.

A diabolical conspiracy of some sort is also not out of the question.

In any case, one of them (I am not sure which member it was, other than the fact that it was not Syd Barrett) gave me a ride home.

At one point, the driver ran a stop sign over by Reston Hospital and very nearly got clipped by a car going the other way. He got very angry, because he'd thought the other car had run the stop sign.

After I pointed out that it was he, in fact, who'd erred, we had a good laugh.

We then went to someone else's concert. I'm pretty sure it was The Who.

Pink Floyd-guy was able to get us good seats, because rock stars can get tickets to other rock stars' concerts on short notice, you know.

It was not your typical Who show. There were dogs on stage.

At one point, I was petting a very compact Doberman (I had an aisle seat). However, I am not sure if the Doberman was part of the show.

In a shocking twist ending, just as I was waking up, I realized that the main character I'd been talking to in the dream was not from Pink Floyd, and in fact was Walter Becker, from Steely Dan.

Incidentally, Walter Becker now looks disconcertingly like Mr. Kidd, one half of the very lame gay assassin duo (yes, Gel-Man, they are LAME) in the Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever.

Don't believe me? You are a fool:

FYI, Walter Becker is on the left. Mr. Kidd is on the right.

Also FYI, The Steely Dan Dictionary is pretty cool.

Lastly, Diamonds Are Forever is a pretty weak movie, but I will watch it when it's on TBS just for Jill St. John. Rowr.

Decision Time

For the second season in the row, I managed to miss the season finale of Battlestar Galactica by messing up the VCR.

Yes, I don't have a TiVo.

So, in moments, there will be a preview of the next season, which will recap the hour that I missed.

The season premiere is Friday, and they're going to rerun Season 2 on Thursday.

Times up.

[Update: I did end up watching the show. It revealed the broad strokes, which I already knew, so I think I made the right choice.

Also, I was mistaken; we've only seen the first half of the second season; this week, the second half begins.]

A Simple Plan

Pointing out other people's typos is bad karma, but it is easy. And a cheap laugh:

It's on the front page of the Washington Post, pointing to this article.

I Visit Illegal Websites

Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 12:05:52 UTC
From: Office@fbi.gov
To: konrad@comcast.net
Subject: You visit illegal websites
Parts/Attachments:
1 Shown 17 lines Text
2 56 KB Application
----------------------------------------

Dear Sir/Madam,

we have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites.

Important:
Please answer our questions!
The list of questions are attached.

Yours faithfully,
Steven Allison

*** Federal Bureau of Investigation -FBI-
*** 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 3220
*** Washington, DC 20535
*** phone: (202) 324-3000

************************

I am gratified to see that our FBI agents are so polite.

Yours faithfully,
Joelogon

Update: In case you missed the sarcasm, the above mail is a virus spam e-mail. You can see the official word on this from the FBI.

Here's My Secret

I was planning on going today to see the PostSecret exhibition in the Washington Project for the Arts/Corcoran space in Georgetown.

Unfortunately, I neglected to remember the part where it says it's only open Wednesday through Sunday.

It closes January 8, though, so I still have a chance. It will probably be crowded.

Then again, it will definitely be crowded at IKEA, which is where I am probably going to go today.

Project Mayhem

One of the really annoying things about watching the incessant Law & Order: Criminal Intent reruns lately on Bravo (as opposed to those on USA) is having to watch that stupid Project Runway commercial with the queeny designer yelling, "Where the hell is my chiffon!"

The Kitchen Sink

I just had the dishwashing equivalent of a double-flusher: My sink was so full, I didn't have enough room in the drying rack to do them all at once. I had to do the plates and bowls first, dry them by hand (which I never do) and put them away, then do the second batch.

Oh, and passing by the garbage can, I was reminded of the pre-holiday chicken fiasco: Don't buy a 5-lb value pack of chicken breasts, use half, inexplicably choose not to freeze the remainder, then go home for Christmas.

You won't like it very much when you come back.

I've Lost My Head

I haven't changed my blog template in a few weeks.

So, why have the header styles all changed?

Update: It looks like it's just in Firefox. Odd.

Update the Second: Looks like a browser restart cleaned it up.

I Just Turned Away Some Pussy

I admit it, I went with the cheap joke headline that takes advantage of the interchangeability of the terms "cat" and "pussy." My penance is removing any notion of suspense, and also any hint of story momentum, with this silly expositional paragraph.

Anyway, I had an odd moment just earlier. I was heading out to forage for some dinner; opened the front door, when all of a sudden, a grey shape darts inside.

Actually, it was more like strolled. I was too surprised to do anything.

Using my keen powers of observation and deduction, I eventually figured out that it's one of the neighborhood's stray cats.

This grey cat comes in and, as cats do, starts walking around the living room like it owns the place.

Now, I like cats. Dogs, too. I am mildly allergic to cats, though -- after an hour or so around a cat, my eyes start itching. It's not quite a deal-breaker, I've just never really considered owning a cat. I'm too self-centered, even to own an animal as self-centered as a cat.

So I half-shooed, half-lured the cat back outside with a saucer of milk. It was skim, I wasn't sure it would go for it.

I keep looking outside, though. If I see the cat again, I might let it back in. I don't know yet.

Evaluation of 2006 Thus Far

So far, 2006 looks a lot like 2005.

I've been watching too much TV, I've got a sink full of dirty dishes, my bed is covered with unironed clothes, I have no visible date prospects and there's a big, painful blemish right between my eyes.

Oh, and I have a scratch in my throat; I hope I'm not getting a cold.