Sunbeams illuminating a coastal forest in Port Orford, Oregon

Chuggnutt!

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  • MySpace rant

    I’ve been seeing lots of referrer hits from MySpace on my site lately, so I thought it was apropos to point to this article on Kuro5hin: MySpace: A Place for Dolts. It’s just too funny not to, and it’s full of great soundbites.

    You see, when you sign up for MySpace, you instantly have your first friend. You’re immediately best buddies with the most popular person on MySpace: Tom. Now, to understand the stupidity of this, you have to understand that this is a social networking mechanism; if I’m friends with John and John is friends with Sally, then Sally is syllogistically my friend, and if I visit her profile it will tell me just that: “Sally is in your extended network”. But if EVERYONE is friends with Tom, then there might as well not be an extended network feature at all, and he is defeating the purpose of his time and his website. Basically what I’m saying is, Tom is a dumbshit.

    But there’s a reason why none of this matters. There’s a reason why he wins even though he programs in Cold Fusion (I have yet to meet someone who uses Cold Fusion and isn’t a complete moron), even though he has no sense of style or ergonomics, and even though he’s lazy as hell: he gets an enormous amount of money from the website. Movies, bands, dating services, clothing companies, non-profit organizations, and even the US Army advertises on MySpace.

    Ah, you gotta love cynical internet rants.

    See also Movable Type Rant, a pointer to another great Kuro5hin piece.

  • Poker (or Wil Wheaton) doesn’t make it right…

    I don’t care if it’s poker terminology or not, the expression “bluffing into the nuts” is just so, so wrong. It’s simply the gayest phrase ever.

  • Bend bloggers galore

    Yep, a new Bend blogger: Rhysently. First saw this today show up linking to me in Technorati, and ORblogs has it listed as a new addition tonight. Only two entries so far, but I found them quotable:

    Anybody who doesn’t live in Central Oregon is a sucker. This is the most amazing, beautiful place on earth. I’m never leaving, ever. It’s so unbelievable that this place and someplace like Florida—that miserable swampy armpit with the most roaches and serial killers than any other place in the world—could exist on the same planet, let alone the same country.

    And:

    I paused to reflect on something that deeply bothered me in the past: the NASCAR fried chicken bucket series….

    What kind of white trash CEO thought this one up? And let me tell you, I’m not using that term loosely. I grew up in a town with 23 bars and no library. I lived in a trailer for part of my youth. I have relatives with more tattoos than teeth. I KNOW from white trash, okay? And still, I can’t think of anyone tacky enough—not even my mulleted cousin Dwayne who’s spent more than half his life in jail and gets conjugal visits from a beer-swilling hottie who can braid her own armpit hair—to actually SAVE THEIR NASTY GREASY CHICKEN BUCKET. Arggh. Seriously, do you display them on the mantel, or what?

    Okay, we seriously need to have another blogger meetup and get all these new bloggers to come.

  • Portland for the weekend

    Yep, we’re heading up to Portland tomorrow, for the weekend. We’ve got a bunch of clothes shopping to do. And appointments to keep. And friends to see, if there’s time. With all the running around, I wonder when (if) we’ll find time to relax…

    Taking the laptop, though, so I’ll still be checking in.

  • Pimp name

    Get your pimp name right here. This is classic! Here’s some of what it gave me:

    Suede Jon Shmoove
    Pimp Daddy Jon Wicked
    Trick Magnet J. Ice
    Stealth Maestro J. Glide
    Delicious Jon Wicked

    Via ongoing.

  • Bastille Day

    Today is Bastille Day in France, their equivalent to our Fourth of July/Independence Day. The Wikipedia article I point to there has a pretty good overview.

    On 20 June [1789] the deputies of the Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath (named after the place where they had gathered which was a place where an ancestor of tennis, the “jeu de paume” was played), swearing not to separate until a Constitution had been established. To show their support, the people of Paris stormed the Bastille, a prison where people were jailed by arbitrary decision of the King (lettre de cachet). The Bastille was, in particular, known for holding political prisoners whose writings had displeased the royal government. Thus the Bastille was a symbol of the absolutism of the monarchy.

    There were only 7 inmates housed at the time of the siege. The storming of the Bastille was more important as a rallying point and symbolic act of rebellion than a practical act of defiance. No less important in the history of France, it was not the image typically conjured up of courageous French patriots storming the Bastille and freeing hundreds of oppressed peasants. However, it did immediately inspire preparations amongst the peasants for the very real threat of retaliation.

    An even more comprehensive history (you gotta love Wikipedia) is found at the Storming of the Bastille article.

    Back in the summer of 1989, when I was 16, I spent three weeks in France on a high school trip. We were there for the Fête Nationale (National Holiday), in… Tournon, I believe it was. Not only was it Bastille Day, but it was the bicentennial as well. Sadly, it was half my lifetime ago and I don’t remember nearly as much as I should; I remember fireworks in Tournon but the big action was in Paris (where we weren’t). I did keep a journal for the time I was there—most of it, anyway—I think I’ll dig that up and re-read it. Hell, I’ll post it here, even.

    In the meantime, happy 14 juillet.

  • Bend SummerFest

    This last weekend was the Bend Summer Festival (“SummerFest” for the rest of us, it’s shorter and easier to say) and despite my expressed ambivalence in the past toward the various seasonal festivals around here, we went on Saturday and had a pretty good time.

    The weather was decent while we were there, except for a brief interlude during which it downpoured rain—about five minutes worth, and then the mini-squall moved on. Typical Central Oregon weather, though sooner or later some local will trot out the old chestnut about it snowing on the Fourth of July…

    There’s great shopping to be found there—for adults. The kids got bored pretty quickly as we wandered among the various tents. I got bored after a while, too; there’s only so many arts and crafts you can look at before they start blurring together. Ultimately we did buy two framed prints from a photographer, and my wife got a bracelet and a scarf/wrap thing.

    The children’s section was great. Like last year, it was sponsored by the Working Wonders Children’s Museum and had a bunch of fun and educational things to do. The best part was the bird house building; Home Depot had donated crates of kid-friendly bird house kits (seven pre-cut board plus nails and screws) and kids could assemble them and take them home for free. Well, kids and adults; I ended up putting together most of the two we took. But it was still a very cool idea.

    Food—good (mmmm Philly cheesesteak sandwich…); alcohol—good but some confusion reigned as to when they could start serving. OLCC rules say not until noon, but no one was allowed to start til sometime after that, not sure why… regardless, my wife finally got to taste some good wines and I had a beer (only had time for one), a tasty Ropewalk Amber from BridgePort Brewing. There was a big selection of other beers on their sheet, too, I was impressed.

    We didn’t catch any music—a consequence of having small kids who are impatient—but it was still a pretty good SummerFest. I like it best of the various Bend seasonal festivals.

  • Another Bend blogger

    I’ll post about the Bend SummerFest tomorrow I think, but I just wanted to get something out there tonight, and I note that ORblogs is reporting another Bend weblog: under the ponderosas. Right on.

  • Did Barcelona close down?

    In this case, “Barcelona” refers to the restaurant in Downtown Bend, in the St. Clair building. The reason I’m wondering if they’re closed is because they have a banner reading “Restaurant fire sale Monday” and the interior looks, well, disassembled.

    Anyone know what the scoop is?

  • Lurker Day

    Shannon did a lurker day on her blog a couple of weeks ago and said I should do one, too. Okay!

    Since it’s nearly midnight, let’s call Friday “Lurker Day” on chuggnutt.com! If you lurk on my site, make a comment! I’d love to hear from you. Even if you’ve made comments before :). And, I’ll shamelessly steal Shannon’s Lurker Day questions for myself:

    1. Who are you?
    2. How did you find this blog?
    3. Why do you come back?