Chuggnutt!

Category: Blogging

  • Q’s New Toys

    Two real-world items that I fully expect to show up in the next James Bond movie:

    The Skyray and the Aquada Bond.

  • New Urban Legend

    We got an email this evening from a friend, one of those types of emails that has been forwarded something like 5 times or more, warning of a serial killer that lures women out of their houses by playing a recording of a crying baby. Something about the way it was written made me think “urban legend,” so I dug around a little bit on the Web.

    It is an urban legend; the Snopes page debunking it is here. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen an urban legend so new that it’s practically gestating; interestingly, the text of the email we received has some slight variations on the one posted by Snopes. Urban legend evolution?

    Here’s the full text of the one we were emailed, the only thing I edited out was the annoying >’s from all the forwarding:

    ***VERY IMPORTANT*PLEASE READ***

    This is scary!

    Someone just told me that her friend heard a crying baby on
    her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird.

    The police told her, “Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.” The lady then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street and get run over.

    The policeman said, “We already have a unit on the way,
    whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.” He told her that they think a serial killer has a baby’s cry recorded and is using it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby.

    He said they have not verified it, but! t have had several calls by women saying that they hear baby’s cries outside their doors when they’re home alone at night.

    Please pass this on and DO NOT open the door for a crying
    baby. This email should probably be taken seriously because the Crying Baby theory was mentioned on America’s Most Wanted this past Saturday when they profiled the serial killer in Louisiana.

    PLEASE send this to friends and family.

    Note the variations from the Snopes version; the most interesting addition to the one we received was the bit about America’s Most Wanted. Designed to give a bit more authenticity, perhaps?

  • Towel Amnesty Day

    Am I just cynical? Holiday Inn is declaring today Towel Amnesty Day in which anyone who has ever stolen a towel (or anything else, I imagine) from a hotel can tell their story, and Holiday Inn will donate $1.00 to charity (plus 25 lucky people will “win” a souvenir towel). You know what I see when I look at this? A “Towel Information Awareness” (take that, TIA!) database that Holiday Inn can then use to red-flag future customers. “Even stolen a towel? They did? Charge them an extra $10 for this room.”

    Don’t think so? Why else would their entry form ask for your full name, address, phone number and email?

    Cynical, indeed.

  • Disturbing

    A little while back (a month, maybe two), the “Furball Asian Mart” opened up on the south end of Bend, near the corner of 97 and Brosterhous/Division.

    Yeah. “Furball Asian Mart.” You’re thinking the same thing I did.

    Apparently, somebody else thought so, too: Friday when I passed it going home from work, they had covered up the “Furball” so that it’s now simply the “Asian Mart.”

  • Blogging Bush

    The big news around here is that George W. Bush came to town. Ironically, he came to talk about healthy forests and programs to help cut down the forest fire danger, but was pre-empted from Camp Sherman to Redmond because of forest fires.

    Here are some links:

    And Jake over on UtterlyBoring has blogged a bit about it, too, both here and here.

  • Error!

    Yikes. For the past, oh, 6 hours or so, I’ve had this error killing the site entirely:

    Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /path/to/blog.inc on line 395

    (Of course, if you tried to connect during that time, you’ll know what “/path/to” really is. It’s probably already cached in Google, damn it all.)

    I’d forgotten the all-important semi-colon at the end of line 394. This comes about because I’d been making changes today, and like an idiot forgot to test the last upload I’d made before heading home. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  • Back Online

    Yep, back from our excellent adventures in camping. It was a good weekend, sunny and hot, the nights not too cold. I was a little nervous about how the kids would do sleeping in the tent this year, but for nothing: they slept better than the adults did.

    The campground itself was a bit primitive—no plumbing. Restroom facilities were outhouses, and the only water was from an old-fashioned pump. I didn’t mind so much, but others did. Next year’s family reunion will be held somewhere slightly more modern. But overall, Cold Springs Campground is a nice rustic little campground, and we had a great time.

    The Beach Boys concert on Sunday was cool, too, even though we were dead tired from camping. Free drinks, cigars, steak dinner. VIP indeed. The only drawback was that only the serving areas were tented; all the tables were right out in the hot hot hot sun and we all sat roasting for awhile before some of us figured out we could sit out behind the main tent in the shade and the breeze to cool off before the concert actually started. After that, it was a perfect evening.

  • PHP Cruise Clarification

    Back on the 11th I blogged about the PHP Cruise and quoted the price for 2 as $1199.99 plus $819.99. I wanted to clarify that I was talking about the Full Suite pricing, which is the most expensive (and would also be the nicest for traveling with my wife). Marco from php|architect commented to point out the better deal price of $799.99, for the Inside Cabin fare. Details here. He’s absolutely right; re-reading my entry made it sound like it was more expensive that it is. So get on it! $800 is a pretty good price for a cruise in the Bahamas.

  • Offline

    I’m going offline this weekend, starting today at noon. We’re going to the annual family reunion, and camping out at Cold Springs Campground just outside of Sisters. And then Sunday when we get back, we have the Beach Boys concert. Full weekend. I may be back online Sunday night. Maybe.

  • PHP Cruise

    Here’s a first: php|architect is organizing a PHP cruise. I’d heard of the geek cruises before, but I certainly never expected to see one exclusively for PHP. Interesting and slightly off-kilter at the same time.

    Prices put it out of my reach, however. $1199.99 plus $819.99 is just more than I could afford. It might be fun, though…