Single of the Week
Been a while since I had a single of the week. This week’s top tune is Cool by Gwen Stefani.
Trade a Paper Clip for a House?
This guy Kyle is trying to trade his way up from a red paperclip to a house, or maybe an island or maybe something bigger. Currently he’s at a 100W generator. If you have something better you’d like to trade for that, visit his site and let him know.
Things I Hate #14
#14: Going to the urinal, unzipping your trousers and being unable to find the opening in your underwear. So you have to stand there, hand inside your trousers, while you fondle about for a bit, aware that anyone else in there with you is wondering what the hell you’re up to. Only thing worse is then finding out that your boxers are on backwards…..
My Airports
Been trying to think of something neat to do with the Google Maps API and finally came up with doing a map of the airports that I’ve flown into. Yeah, its been done before but first time for me, and isn’t the first time always special?
Conundrum Of the Week
How is it that the most guys who spend their weekend off-roading in the desert look like extras from Deliverance, but the girls are usually hot looking runway-model types? Inquiring minds want to know!
For more dirt-people related articles, see this one on my MINI blog.
True Lies
At a stop light near Palm Desert, top down in the MINI. A gold PT Cruiser convertible pulls up alongside us.
PT: Hey, nice convertible!
Me: Yeah, you too
Civilization IV (Non) Review
I bought Civilization IV last night, something to keep me busy at my San Diego residence during the upcoming winter months. But, to my dismay, it seems like my laptop isn’t up to the job – rather than lush green tundra and rolling ice fields, my people were moving around a totally blank background. So now I’m stuck, I can’t return the game and I don’t have time to play it at home, so either I wasted $50 or I need a new computer for the loveshack.
Up Yours Exxon Mobil
The price of gas might seem to be going down but it is still a staggering $2.80+ for the el premo variety here in CA. And now Exxon Mobil announces a whopping $9.9 billion profit for the last quarter, up 75%. So the whole country is suffering, people can’t make ends meet because of high gas prices and Exxon is living high on the hog. Forget the price gouging dealer on the street corner, these are the *!%@ers who should be taken to task. Now I know this is just capitalism at its finest but there should be some moral responsibility out there, shouldn’t there?
Some Animals For Ya
Enough ranting and moaning, here are a couple of pictures from a trip I took with my Dad to Marwell Zoo last month; to see all of them go to this Flickr photo set.


English as a Non-Language
So here’s a hot topic where I live right now – should stores employ people who can’t speak any English? There are an increasing number of sales assistants who only speak Spanish and its getting to be harder for non-Spanish speaking people to get jobs, even McDonalds wants bi-lingual people. It has generated a lot of letters in the press: Anglos takes the view that this is America and the national language is (American) English and if you come live here you should learn to speak it; the Mexican view is that their culture is being suppresed and they should be able to do what they please. Of course it makes sense to hire bilingual people when your customer base is at least 50/50 English/Spanish speaking but I can’t see that it makes any sense at all to put a non-English speaking person on the front line.
But lets face it, in 20 years time California will be 90% Hispanic so maybe I need to drop the French (thanks British school education!) and learn Spanish.