The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Fun

  • Streets Alive Atlanta

    Streets_Alive
    Biking in from Inman Park MARTA where we picked up Keith

    We attended Streets Alive in Atlanta on Sunday. It was a blast! They closed down Edgewood Avenue from Peachtree Street to Boulevard and Auburn Street from Peachtree to the Connector. There were cyclists and skateboarders and rollerbladers and walkers and strollers and jugglers and all sorts of stuff. It was a lot of fun. Hot, but fun.

    One of the coolest things I saw though was this guy (who’s name I totally didn’t get!).

    Portable_Music

    He passed us while we were on a group ride around town, on his way to the Streets Alive. On his bike he had:

    • A dog
    • A guitar
    • Himself
    • His amp
    • His speaker
    • The speaker stand
    • The battery to power all that stuff
    • Microphone and stand

    That’s hard core. I love it.

    There’s more images of him and his dog at my flickr set of the event.

  • On a Lighter Note

    If you’re sick of politics, watch this:

    “Until they got caught by man-eating teddy bears.”

  • Youtube Favorites of Recent Vintage

    Molly Lewis does Lady Gaga. I find this video fun to watch for several reasons, one of which is that Molly Lewis has one of those faces that lights up when there’s a smile on it. See for yourself.

    Time Machines and Paradoxes (and Humor). I love it.

    Multi-part, overdubbed personal music recording (with excellent production quality). I really like this genre of DIY music.

    Speaking of Multi-Track recording:

    …and of course, make sure you check out his ode to the Penis.

    That’s all I have for now. There were a few others I can think of, but I can’t find them. Silly me. Need to use those Delicious bookmarks better.

  • One of the Better Posts in a While

    There are frequent complaints about internet grammar. I contribute to the pool of people doing the complaining despite my not-so-occasional typo or its/it’s screwup. (I vote that “it’s” be disbanded and all forms of “its” be spelled without the apostrophe. It won’t be too hard to figure from context)

    This posting amused the hell out of me. Yes, an Alot is the answer to everything.

    I like Alot. Do you?

  • 2010 Hugo Nominations

    The 2010 Hugo Nominations are out and I haven’t read a single one of them. Nada. Zilch.

    This is surprising to me. Not that I’m a grand peruser of all that is scif/fantasy, but usually I manage to read something that hits the list, if only by accident. Last year I got three of the novels under my belt without even trying. China Miéville’s The City & The City is in the house, but I haven’t read it yet. Jenn is currently talking on that chore.

    I was a tiny bit surprised that Steven King’s Under the Dome didn’t get a best novel nomination. Only a tiny bit, though, because while I suppose it could be considered scifi (or fantasy, depending), it may not have been very good. I only got through the first four chapters before it lost me.

    So I guess I have books and stories to go find or buy. Five months until the actual awards come out.

  • Happy First of April Day

    Bubbles Fun

    April Fool’s Day has always been somewhat of a mystery to me. Part of that is because I’ve never been into practical jokes; I’m not a fan of being on the receiving end which translates into not wanting to offer them up to someone else. Plus I always feel obligated to help clean up if someone gets a messy prank played on them (such as filling an office cubicle with shredded paper).

    That being said, I’ve been a huge advocate for the tongue-in-cheek reporting that comes out today. I just saw a posting for Google acquiring nuclear weapons and a few years ago NPR had the story of the exploding maple trees of Maine (I want to be a professor of arboreal thermodynamics). Those, I think, are near the pinnacle of jokes/entertainment because everyone gets to enjoy them, including the victims.

    I’ll be listening to NPR today to see what they come up with.

  • Childhood: Shattered

    That sound you just heard? That horrible, crashing sound of breaking hearts and shattering happy places? That was the sound of my childhood foundering on the rocks of this Pooh vs. Alien mashup.

  • Marathon, Concerts, Presentation

    It’s been a busy few days. Lots of stuff going on.

    But let’s start with something funny that I have in common with this girl who ran the ING Georgia Half Marathon today.

    Runner with Her Tongue Out

    Let’s Compare!

    Sticking my Tongue Out!

    That was last Friday while I was giving a presentation on Diverging Diamond Interchanges (Soon to be a podcast at Talkingtraffic.org!) Sticking my tongue out when I concentrate is a habit I’ve been trying to break for years. This is incentive.

    What else did I do? Oh yes: I gave a presentation to the Georgia section of the American Society of Highway Engineers on something that is near and dear to me, professionally, right now.

    Diverging Diamond Interchanges

    A diverging diamond interchange is, well, Talking Traffic is going to cover that in just a few and ’til then you can hit Wikipedia.

    The presentation went very well and I got a lot of good questions from the other engineers and planners in the audience.

    Dimitri and Aelus

    On Saturday I ran the sound board and recording setup for The Extraordinary Contraptions. Pictures of that concert, and one this morning are at my flickr stream. This was at Momocon, which is a free convention put on at Georgia Tech. It’s an anime and cosplay and steampunk convention. Much fun was had.

    North Atlanta Multisport Club

    On Sunday I grabbed my bike and my MARTA pass and headed to downtown to cheer on the other people in the North Atlanta Multisport Club who were running in the ING Georgia Marathon and Half Marathon. I also got some good pictures while following the race route.

    It’s been a good weekend!

  • Socialism is good for…

    This quote from a CNN Tech article (which is a further quote from another location) amuses the hell out of me:

    Being a socialist is a great way to get laid in college but it’s no way to run a society.

    The article in question is about five silly slogans for tech companies. Check it out.

    I especially agree that Google’s slogan of Don’t Be Evil isn’t exactly the slogan of a for-profit company. I don’t see how Google can not be evil, for some values of evil. Check the onion for related content.

  • Brackets

    I filled out my brackets for March Madness at lunch. I do two of them every year. One based on my best intuition of the coming contests and one based on coinflip. Coinflip usually beats intuition.

    Now it’s important to realize that by “best intuition” I mean, “my best guess” or “whichever team has a cooler sounding name” or “I’m feeling perverse so I’m picking Old Dominion over Duke in the Elite Eight”. I have no real knowledge of any of these teams; I’m not a basketball fan. That doesn’t prevent me from doing my bounden duty to waste time during the month of March and contribute to the lack of productity nationwide.

    My intuition bracket has Ohio State, Butler, West Virginia, and Villanova in the Final Four with Villanova defeating Ohio State in the championship. Yes, I’m prejudiced against #1 seeds this year.

    My coinflip bracket has an amusing set of matchups. Indeed, Old Dominion defeats Duke in the elite eight, as I alluded to above however OD then loses to UTEP in the final. Yes, ladies and gents, UTEP is going all the way!

    Coinflip rounded out the rest of the final four with Kansas and Missouri. So I’ve got a twelve seed defeating an eleven seed in the championship after defeating the one seed from the Midwest (Kansas). Missouri is the ten seed from the East. If coinflip gets it right, I’ll be impressed.