The only reason we still have a car is my daughter’s car seat. It’s just not worth the hassle in the city. Sometime Sunday night, someone came down our street and slashed or deflated a bunch of car tires, including one of ours. I don’t see a visible puncture, but I find it pretty hard to believe that someone actually removed the cap, let the air out, and took the time to screw the cap back on. It could have been worse – we need new tires anyway – but it’s a huge hassle. I’m going to have to call AAA because the Mazda dealer managed to lose the wheel lock key last time I was in for an oil change, back when they were still doing them for free. So I can’t change the tire myself. I was thinking about this – if I were the vandal, I would actually take the time and let the air out and replace the cap. I think that’s way funnier, and it doesn’t cause any damage, so you don’t get in as much trouble if you get caught. Mindless vandalism lacks style. Do I need to file a police report? Half the street got a tire slashed, and I know at least a couple of my neighbors reported it. Our insurance deductible is more than the cost of a tire, so we probably won’t report it to them, either. Doesn’t seem like it’s worth the trouble.
Author: Jon
Romo still sucks in December
After last year’s NFL playoffs, I mentioned that Tony Romo is a miserable quarterback after December 1st. No one else seems to notice this. But today, he’s doing it again (Against a great defense, to be fair). At the end of the first half, he’s completed 11 of 21 for 91 yards, two interceptions, and a lost fumble. His rating is about 20. This looks remarkably like every other game he’s played in December, and should be terrifying to Dallas fans. Pittsburgh’s utter lack of offense today is keeping the Cowboys in the game, but Romo can’t give up the ball three times a half and expect to win games. Edit to add: Maybe I spoke too soon. He completed two of three, including a touchdown to Owens, on the first drive of the second half. Edit again to gleefully add: I had given up on this game, watching Encino Man instead, when a friend IMed me to let me know that Romo had thrown a pick-six with the game tied, his third interception and fourth turnover of the game. Nice game, Romo.
If I were a teen girl
Have you seen the commercials for One a Day Teen Advantage vitamins? I keep seeing them because we’ve gotten hopelessly addicted to NCIS and House reruns on USA. It’s a disease. Anyway, if I were a teen girl, I would be pretty pissed off. The commercial says that there are vitamins designed for teen boys and for teen girls. That’s fine – teen boys and teen girls have different vitamin needs, so it only makes sense to have different vitamins for each of them. But the commercial and their website only mention that girls want healthy skin, and boys want healthy muscles.
Complete Multivitamins for Teen Boys & Girls to Support: * Healthy muscle function with Magnesium (for Him) * Healthy skin with Vitamins A and C, Copper, and Iron (for Her)
Now, as I said, I’m not a teen girl, nor was I ever a teen girl, or a girl of any kind. But I feel I can speak for them when I say that girls need muscles, too. You know, for exercising and playing sports and moving. Does One a Day Teen Advantage really think that the only thing girls might get (or want) from their vitamins is healthy skin? That sounds like a pretty worthless vitamin.
Banana Leaves – Yum
Dinner was so good. I had the Grilled Honey Peanut Tofu with brown rice and the wife had the Malaysia Mee Goreng, and we each had a vegetarian spring roll. The website lets you choose a time for delivery. We chose 7:45, and the delivery guy arrived at 7:43. It’s funny, because the first time I heard of them, it was because I found the website, and I made fun of it for being really awful. And in some sense it still is really awful, but at least they spent their time (or, more likely, money) on an online ordering system rather than gobs of awful Flash. Well done, Banana Leaves. We will definitely be ordering again. Local blogging sensation Prince of Petworth mentioned Banana Leaves today, too. The commenters there aren’t all as positive about the place as I am, but what do they know?
Dancing bananas and surprising websites
Have you ever been to Banana Leaves at Connecticut and Florida NW? I went once when they first opened, and was pleased with the food. The bench seats were freshly varnished and stuck to my jeans, though. They have a pretty goofy website with a little dancing banana gif straight out of 1996, but they also have a pretty neat little online ordering system. It apparently doesn’t work too well in Firefox 3 on OSX (The wife’s computer, not mine), but it was fine on my work laptop (Firefox 3, XP). I just ordered dinner. I’m waiting for confirmation. The interface is a little bit three years ago, lacking the polish that we’ve become accustomed to, but it seems to work well. This is fantastic for those of us who would really like to abolish phones. I try not to ever have to talk on the phone. I did have to call them to make sure they deliver to us, although I could have just ordered and waited for them to say no, but that would have taken too much time. We’re trying to time delivery with the little Fusspot’s eating schedule so that maybe the wife and I can both eat together without a screaming baby. She’s been pretty good today, so we’re hopeful. I’ll let you know how the food is.
Monuments to Nothing – My 2008 Nanowrimo novel
So here is my 2008 Nanowrimo novel, Monuments to Nothing. It is shared here under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. That means you can read it, share it with your friends, write a sequel to it, edit it, write fan fiction about my characters, or ignore it. If it is possible that you are my Christmas secret stocking person, you should not read it yet. You may not present it as your own, share it without giving me credit, share it or derivative works under a more restrictive license, or use it commercially. Unless you ask me and I say it’s okay. The story has a little bit of sex, violence, and profanity. Nothing really crazy, but I feel I should warn people. Enjoy.
Nanowrimo is over for me
Originally uploaded by thetejon
I hit 50,000 words this afternoon. I kind of like the story. It’s not my favorite, but after the last two years of utter garbage, this one is fantastic by comparison. I plan to post it here eventually, but I kind of want to take a break from it, at least until tomorrow, so you’ll have to wait if you want to read it. As you see in the picture, I didn’t get out of all my parent duties this month. The wife went above and beyond in helping me make time for writing, although she complained a bit. I am indebted to her for a while now. I couldn’t have come close to 50,000 if she hadn’t helped, and I am very grateful, even though she doesn’t believe me when I tell her. I wrote a lot today with the kid in either the Moby wrap pictured, or in her Lascal M1 Carrier
Wikimetro says, “We’re totally not a scam”
I got an email from Wikimetro last night telling me that they were not a scam. They did nothing to address my concerns, however.
Dear Complaint Hub (we dont know your real name, sorry), We just saw your comment on Complaint Hub and wanted to reply. Wikimetro is not a scam at all, but rather a marketplace that lets ad buyers and bloggers meet. If you are avail to talk, just email us a tel number and time to call, or give us a call using the contact us page on our site. Jeff B www.wikimetro.org
It was nice of them to actually read my blog this time rather than scraping a header tag for a name-like word, but this was never really my concern. It was more a clue that the email was auto-generated by a script. But telling me you’re a “marketplace” is one thing, and listing blogs as available to purchase ads on when these bloggers have never heard of you is quite another. I’m going to start my own “marketplace” here on Complaint Hub. For $500, Jeff B of Wikimetro will tattoo your name on his forehead. No, he doesn’t know it yet. But when you give me the money, I’ll approach him (Through the convenient contact us page on their site) and see if I can work something out. Or maybe I’ll just pocket the money and never even tell Jeff B he was part of the transaction.
That’s a weird place for an ad, Google
Those of you who use Google Finance to track the implosion of your stock portfolio have probably noticed that they’ve moved the graph that tracks the Dow and the S&P; over to make room for a big box of ads. I’m curious why they did that. Not only does it look a little out of place, but do people really go to Google Finance looking to buy something? If they offered a cheap way to buy stock, I could understand that. But the ad it’s showing me now is “Free Grants for Finances”, whatever that means. It doesn’t seem to really fit in with their typical strategy of unobtrusive, targeted ads. I suppose it doesn’t cost them anything, and could bring in plenty of money, but it could also backfire by annoying long-time users like me by taking up a pretty large chunk of prime screen real estate. I hope they don’t make any money off the ads and decide to remove them.
I hate the Cowboys
Originally uploaded by thetejon
What a disappointing game. Fantastic seats, though. The picture from my phone kind of sucks, but I didn’t feel like bringing the cool camera and I forgot to steal the wife’s point and shoot. Have you ever been to FedEx Field to watch the Redskins? It is the worst stadium I’ve ever been to in terms of getting home. There don’t seem to be signs to get back to the Metro (Probably because it’s a mile away) and getting out of the parking lot takes hours. I met my friend at New Carrollton because he was coming from Annapolis, and I rode with him to the parking lot. On the way out, he was going to drop me off at the Metro again, but I had to leave him and walk. When I got to the Morgan Boulevard station, he still hadn’t moved from his spot, and I caught the second to last train of the night. It’s too bad, because I like the stadium, but I’m not sure they could have made it less accessible.