Matt is right.
While I do relish the idea of telling people off for being examples of why I hate MySpace, the greater political good is a far more lofty goal. Who knows if it will do any good, but if it gets one extra vote somewhere then it’s worth every bit of bandwidth it takes.

Cut to a few days ago. I was checking the web stats for my blog (which I haven’t been particularly good at updating over the summer months) and I noticed a had some very odd sites linking to mine– people I don’t know about on topics I don’t care about. After a little digging it turns out the reason is that they are direct linking/in-line linking my Snakes On a Plane picture. Now in case you don’t know what it means here’s the brief version. There were using pictures hosted by my web server for their websites– more from wikipedia
This pissed me off pretty well. If you’re going to take someone else’s artwork (and yes I use the term VERY loosely) and post it on your site at LEAST have the decency to

A: host it yourself and

B: ask permission first.

So I replaced the image with this:

This made me a feel a bit happier and it was taking up a LOT less bandwidth since the new one is much smaller than the original.

Cut to this afternoon. I was taking a closer look at the past few months web statistics and discovered the extent the linkage had gone, and how much it was still going.

Holy Crap! Over 7 GBs of data in August! 800,000 people viewed it! I never suspected that it was so widely linked. After doing some more digging it seems it’s still in very wide circulation, the numbers are decreasing but we’re still talking hundreds of thousands of people looking at this image I control over the next few months. The number one culprit?

MySpace.

Now I really hate MySpace. It’s an unattractive, annoying, pit of Internet stupidness. Yes I DO have a profile there but only for the purpose of keeping up with a few friends who are otherwise difficult to reach/keep up with.

So here’s the dilemma– I have the ability to replace that image again with whatever I want. It can be crass, ugly, gross, insulting, or whatever I want it to be! I can even advertise a good cause or my own website. My revenge on MySpace for being a eyesore on the face of the Internet is at hand!

What should I do? If anyone has brilliant idea’s please leave them here as a comment– but for right now I’m going to ponder the possibilities and giggle happily.

Edit:  Grr Craigslist.. I knew I should have made a cached copy.

It was funny, someone was trying to sell a “Bicycle Hamlet” for $3… I suppose it looses a lot of humor away from it’s original source.  Bummer.

I’ve never been big on naming my possessions. I’m not sure why, but even cars I’ve owned over the years have never had a name. Bikes on the other hand seem to demand names. They aren’t just something you sit on and pedal– different frames, tires, gearings, and other characteristics all seem to come together to form a sort of personality. The reasoning is less clear for two other personal truths about bike names I’ve discovered. First, bikes are female. I don’t know why (and maybe it’s because I’m a straight guy), but this is defiantly the case– I’m sure Freud would have a field day with that one. Second, and even more inexplicable, bike names always begin with the letter S. I really have no clue on this one.

So without further adieu I give you the newest member of the family, a single speed with sass, Sabrina:

Of course, a few of you have already met Sally but in case you missed it here she is again:

Man I am such a dork.

Oh and in case anyone is a bike dork too Sabrina is a 54cm Concord racing frame (made by Kuwahara in the 80s) with it’s original fork, headset and BB. Spinning on the back is an Araya 700c double wall rim and Deore LX hub built up with spacers. The front is some generic wheel and tire that may get replaced soon (the tire in particular is a little aged) being stopped by a set of good old fashioned caliper breaks and a BMX brake handle. It may be getting some Nitto or el-cheapo Nahsbar TT bars soon as well, although I have to admit I didn’t hate the straight bars it came with anywhere near as much as I thought I would.

Edit: I’ve given it a bit more thought and I’ve decided that only road bikes need to begin with an S. Mountain bikes need to begin with a B… or maybe a J…

The first three courses were unimaginably delicious sushi (two courses Nigiri and one hand-rolled Maki). I’m serious, you can’t imagine how good it was so don’t bother trying– you might strain something. Course four was the traditional miso soup followed by a melon and ginger salad with truffle oil infused raspberries as course five. Course six was a pan seared salmon steak with a mango and miso sauce topped with a super-fine shredded basil. and a delectable gelato for dessert. Of course everything goes better with booze so we split a bottle of Hoyo Kura No Hana Junmai Daiginyo (translated) Sake which was excellent. The waiters were all wearing black suits with white shirts and black ties (not bow-ties) and they gave us the lowdown on each item as it was served.

It was altogether a really excellent dining experience. Heat is able to maintain an extremely high level of food quality without making the gourmet sushi novice (like me) feel like a schmuck. Kudos to them.

Of course all good things must come to and end. Now there’s nothing left of the meal, or the weekend, but a fond memory and a dent in the checkbook. It’s the nature of such things– They’re always fun while they last.

It’s all pretty fascinating but this is actually what caught my eye from a Washington Post article:

“The planets have aligned to tackle cancer in a comprehensive way that we’ve never had the tools to do before,” said Francis S. Collins, director of the NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute.

Wait.
Did he just refer to astrology in the same sentence as one of the most scientifically complex research programs ever conceived?
Yes, yes he did.

(thanks Ross)

Oh poor Samuel L.– You do know you CAN turn down roles don’t you?

At any university there are a myriad of little communities that appear seemingly out of the ether. I’m not sure why this happens so readily at a university (vs. private companies)– Maybe it’s that people at universities are naturally collaborative and social, maybe they feel put-upon and confused enough by the unnecessarily complex series of systems and groupings that govern the workplace that they band together out of necessity, maybe both.

Regardless I find these little social and professional circles to be pretty interesting and useful, in fact some days they’re the saving grace of what can otherwise become a pretty dull and uninspired job.

About two months ago when I realized that there were quite a number of music fans in my office so one of those little communities was born. Last night was the second meeting of RAWK (Which stands for the rockin at work krew– not my idea). Once a month the five of us meet and each person brings four copies of a favorite obscure album to share with the rest, then we talk about the previous months selections. It’s just like a book club, but it’s four albums a month and we meet at a bar and talk music for hours while drinking sangria. So far, it’s been a resounding success.

Oh and on a semi-related side note This came in from one of those university microcommunities (click on the Relax link). It’s a truly amazing piece of music, download it and give a listen if you have the time. Of course I can never leave well enough alone. That link led to the writer of said song, which led me to songfight.org, a really cool website where each week a group of composers duke it out for audiance approval by writing and recording a song based on a common theme. I know a few song writers who might reallt have some fun with this.
*cough* *Steve* *cough* *Luke*

For those who don’t feel like reading today here’s the gist of it– Until JP2 any pope who died was whacked in the head three times with a silver hammer by his camerlengo (read chamberlain) and then yelled at to determine if he was really dead.

What the heck?

I wonder what that hammer looks like and how many dead popes it’s whacked? I can’t help think of the Beatles song…

Bang! Bang! Maxwell’s silver hammer
came down upon her head
Clang! Clang! Maxwell’s silver hammer
made sure that he was dead!

I also found out there’s a fairly active gambling ring surrounding the next pope. The papal successor odds are currently in favor of Dionigi Tettamanzi… whoever that is.

In that vein, every year on the day after thanksgiving nearly every store on the planet has super-special deals to get the good little consumers to empty their pocketbooks so we’ll all have something shiny under tree come Dec 25th. This year I have the edge. Someone has compiled a list of the “Black Friday” deals before they are available to the public. Check them out and plan ahead!

http://www.bf2004.net/

Oh and speaking of holiday cheer, check out this link.

Apparently a bunch of smart guys got together to see if they could turn some really crappy vodka into some pretty good vodka by using a Brita water filtration system to filter out the impurities and chemicals which give cheap vodka its nasty aftertaste (and beforetaste and duringtaste for that matter).

Surprisingly, it seems to work pretty well. I happen to have a Brita and I recently bought a new set of filters for it… I might just have to give this a try.

In order to relieve my stress when needed I keep a bunch of office toys around to play with (Yoda magic 8-ball, matchbox car, stress ball, light-up super ball, etc..). My most recent accusition is a freebie yo-yo I comendeered from one of my office mates.

Now I like a good yo as much as the next guy, but I have always considered them children’s toys. Sure they were once considered kinda cool and people had yo-yo trick competitions but in this modern day these things don’t still go on do they?

This proved me wrong. Apperently (much to my surprise) Yo-yoing is alive and well– In fact it appears to be Kicking ass all over the place.

It’s all very cool I suppose, but ask yourself– What kind of person do you have to be to actually sport one of these.?

Sven and Ole went on vacation and decided to go fishing out on their favorite lake. They rented a boat and floated around on the lake looking for a good spot.
After about three hours of poor luck they found a good place and started catching fish. As fast as they could throw out their line they would catch another one. Ole exclaimed “Man Sven, this sure is a great fishin’ spot! I wish we could mark the spot so we can come back here tomorrow and catch more fish!” Sven nodded and thought for a moment then he laughed and reached into his tackle box, “I’ve got just the thing” he said. Sven produced a big piece of chalk and marked a huge white X in the bottom of the boat. Ole shook his head sadly and said “Oh that won’t work you big dummy! What if next time we don’t get the same boat?!”