Extra88

"A Number" very good

This weekend I went to New York City for a short post-Turkey Day holiday. While I didn't spend much time in shops, it wasn't nearly has busy as I feared. Anyway, one of the highlights of the trip was seeing a recent play by Caryl Churchill, "A Number." (here's a local copy of the page if/when the original disappears). In the play, a son has found out there are "a number" of clones of him. The story mostly involves the details of the situation and how it came to be.

Sam Shepard plays the father to the son played by Dallas Roberts. I was told this is the first time in a long time (decades?) that Shepard has acted on stage but you sure couldn't tell from watching him. I was also told Michael Gambon originated the father role in London but I can't picture it, not so much because Sam was so perfect (he was good but I can imagine others doing just as well) but just because the character talks a lot about suing in a way I can't imagine a British character doing. I suppose Gambon could have been playing an American but there's nothing in the play that says the characters have to be American.

I never heard of Dallas Roberts before but he seemed very familiar. His credits list some Law & Order appearances (I think every actor living in New York has been on L&O at least once) but I haven't watched that show in ages.

Anyway, the play was very enjoyable. I don't think I've actually read an entire Caryl Churhill play but "A Number" was more "accessible" than what I've been exposed to before. It's a drama with mysteries that are slowly revealed but also a fair amount of tension-releaving humor. I'm into "science" tales so the mention of cloning was an immediate draw but it's really not that kind of story. It has an element of the philosophical (which I'm also into) but mostly it's about father/son dynamics. The fact that cloning was involved simply serves to prove the saying, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Over quota

Boy, I sure am glad Yahoo increased their free email quotas ;)

I don't really use the account, in part because of all the spam it receives. I didn't realize I had gone so long without checking it. It appears I last checked it in late March and in that time have received over 50,000 pieces of spam. That's not including anything their SpamGuard caught (usually 30%). Almost all of it is in a sub-folder because I have a couple of mail rules that moves the messages if, for instance, my address is not on the To: line.

My problem now is the system won't let me delete a folder with messages and I can't delete more than 200 at a time. Maybe it's time to just walk away. I've had it a long time, but the only part of "My" Yahoo that I ever use is the calendar so it'll page me. I used to use Yahoo chat a bit but now I just use AIM.

What NOT to get me for Christmas

As you may or may not know, I'm especially squeemish when it comes to exposed brains. I once was channel surfing and Discovery or TLC was showing brain surgery and I started hyperventilating. I've gotten better about it but I still wouldn't want to go to Hannibal. Anyway, this brain gelatin mold is just the thing to not get me for Christmas.

My First Omelet

Okay, maybe not, I might have tried it 10 years ago or something but if there was a last time it didn't work out, otherwise I would've been making omelets.

It looked pretty good. I was using a brand new non-stick pan so that made flipping it pretty easy. How did it taste? It was all right, good for a first try. Not quite done enough in the middle.

... Naturally

I'm living the bachelor life again which pretty much sucks. The cat didn't even sleep on the bed so he knows something's not right. So it's amidst this cheerful attitude that I pour myself a bowl of Cheerios and discover there's no milk! Left with just my OJ, I browsed for a while then went back in the kitchen to find the bowl of Cheerios still sitting there. Am I just projecting my current attitude or is there something really lonely about a bowl of dry Cheerios sitting on the counter?

Didja miss me?

We never lost power at work but power went out at home a little before 4pm. It came back on at 11:30pm. It was a nice night. I stayed somewhat late at work (in the air conditioning), we went to Empire Brewery for dinner (downtown and High Falls still had power) and played Scrabble by candlelight (I lost). Work has sucked for the past 3 days as we try to get the Win2k machines patched against Blaster. Application of SP4 hasn't been working well on the oldest machines and had to be reapplied.

Back from vacation

Miss me?

Liquid Bandage Usability

I was browsing around the site of a usability wonk and came across his assessment of Band-Aid Liquid Bandage. Usability is cool and so is idea of liquid bandages so article was right up my alley. The short version is the current experience of using a liquid bandage leaves much to be desired but it does have its advantages.

I recently had to have my skin professionally opened. I thought the procedure would culminate in stiches but I was hoping, it being the 21st century and all, that it would be more like building a model airplane than hemming pants. Unfortunately it was neither, it was more like construction workers covering a pothole with a steel plank except this pothole oozed and stuck to the "plank." This made removal of the plank rather painful but subsequent, self-applied planks were of a non-stick variety.

Send me a S.A.S.E. for a translation of the paragraph above.

SARS-a-licious

This caught my eye A) because it mentions Taichung (where my brother and his wife are) and B) has a picture of a cat wearing a "surgical mask." Awwww. Everything's actually ok in Taichung, right guys?

I'm not sure how fast the SARS bug is spreading, but the meme's pretty infectious

Uploading files

So here's something Kung-Log can't do. You can upload files with Kung-Log but it can't use the optional image manipulation features of the blog server. By uploading a picture through the web interface, I can choose to have a thumbnail image like this one automatically created which can then be linked to the original uploaded picture (which is big, btw).

OMG, I have a blog

We'll see how this goes. I decided I should "push" a little less through email and "pull" a little more to stuff online. It's also a hassle to figure out what to send to whom. Now people can just come here and read what they want. You never know, this might actually be useful.