The Twitter is so March, 2008. Check me out on Friend Feed. Yet another doo-dad that I’ll be blaming for not blogging.
Keep ‘em coming!
-k-
Technorati Tags: friendfeed, twitter
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Monthly Archives: June 2008
Like Kissing Your Sister
Not that I’d know, seeing that I don’t have a sister. I hate to see rain-shortened NASCAR races, especially when the eventual winner had zero chance to win if it weren’t for the rain. Such was the case today, as Kurt Busch was crowned the winner of the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
I know that pit strategy, keeping an eye on the skies, etc, are all part of today’s NASCAR. What galls me is the fawning post-race reporters, who attribute almost Kreskinlike prescience to the driver, crew chief, and owner. What they should ask is “How does it feel to luck one out?”.
-k-
It comes as no shock
Proud to wave the colors:
| You are a Social Liberal (73% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (80% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian
Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid |
-k-
RIP, Scott Kalitta
Scott Kalitta, two-time NHRA Top Fuel Champion, was killed in a qualifying accident yesterday.
I love racing, and always am sad when someone loses his life in any form of the sport. Scott’s father is the legendary racer Connie Kalitta, who I recollect from pictures in drugstore-bought racing magazines from years ago. Television coverage of racing was practically nil in those days, but I remember the magazines.
I suppose there will be pundits opining how dangerous racing is, about how there should be some form of regulation. Racers are born to race, and it is an inherently dangerous sport. I saw the replay of the accident; the car exploded just past the finish line, the parachute was wadded up when it deployed, the car went straight, with no signs of slowing down, when it hit a jersey barrier at track’s end, and exploded into a huge fireball. I wonder why there is not a large sand trap at track’s end, to slow down runaway cars. The shutdown area in this case was all asphalt, until an extremely short dirt area immediately berfore the barrier. Maybe he was unconscious after the initial explosion; my surmising about that would just be idle speculation. I do think that with a better and longer shutdown area, that this accident may not have resulted in such a tragic outcome.
Winning, even being a champion, is a tremendous accomplishment. Being a member of an iconic drag racing family perhaps added to Scott’s following. Save for the memories, none of that matters now. Talking about what track reconfigurations may have prevented this, is just talk right now. To the Kalitta family, and the legion of NHRA fans, my condolences.
Later today, Scott’s competitors will dedicate the funny car bracket to him. And they will deal with their grief, at least for today, in the way racers do; they will strap themselves into their cars, and with heavy hearts, they will race.
-k-
Technorati Tags: NHRA, ScottKalitta
Back Home
I planned to post something yesterday, when I was actually safely ensconced back in tbbs WorldHQ. My last “yum update” session brought down the released version of Firefox 3. Thereafter, my Scribe Fire blog plugin would only post the article’s title, sans content.
I deinstalled/reinstalled Scribe Fire, and now write in SF in the HTML instead of WYSIWYG mode. At least that has worked once.
So for the fourth time, and hopefully this one is visible, I’m safely home from Boston and the Red Hat Summit. What an amazing conference. Information overload is an apt phrase to use to describe the goings-on. The sessions were presented by developers, engineers, and doers, rather than by marketing flacks. I especially enjoyed the cobbler and func presentations. I love infrastructure, and both of these are an infrastructure guy’s dream. I have dabbled with func, and read about cobbler; I’ll investigate the latter in more detail ASAP.
My original plan was to attend some FUDCon sessions on Friday, after Summit wrapped up. However, on Thursday night, or more precisely, early Friday morning, I took a header walking back to my hotel. Believe me, the sight of asphalt coming up to meet your face is not pretty. I managed to break the fall with knees, elbows, and hands; the face, for better or worse, is OK. I was stiff and sore on Friday, and have remained so since. I don’t know whether it was the fall, or toting around my backpack full of electronics, but my left side is especially tender. In spite of my right side having absorbed most of the punishment in the fall, it’s the left one that gives me grief.
I think it’s time for some liniment. Warming, and leaves me smelling like wintergreen.
-k-
Safely in Boston
I arrived in Boston safely and on time yesterday. An evening of wining, dining, and socializing followed. Today, it’s off to the Red Hat Summit, where there are so many good sessions being offered in any one time slot that it is difficult to pick one.
Better feast than famine, though. Knowledge is Good.
-k-
Only in the District of Columbia …
Could one see a headline like this:
4 teens stabbed in northeast Washington after peace festival
At least they weren’t shot; guns are banned in the District. Looks like the ban is working.
-k-
Congratulations, James!
Via the Evil Genius Chronicles, an update on James Slusher’s run in the WSOP. By the numbers:
- James wound up 230th in a field of 2706.
- He was knocked out by Bernard Lee, who now leads the tournament event.
- Bernard Lee isn’t a newbie at this.
- James netted $3,000 for his efforts, not bad for a $1500 buy-in. Definitely more money than I made yesterday.
Congratulations, James!
-k-
Not Pokin’ Along
Frequent tbbs commenter and all-round good egg James Slusher is in Las Vegas this weekend, playing in the World Series of Poker Event #27. Via the Evil Genius Chronicles, an update on how he’s doing:
At the last check-in, the field had shrunk from 2700 to 600 and Jim had about an average stack. Something like the top 270 will get paid, so he was getting awfully close to the money. He hasn’t called lately so that has to be good news.
That sounds like a commendable performance to me. I went out to WSoP’s event website in search of more up-to-date news. All I could tell for sure was that there are now 350 left standing; I didn’t see James’ name in either the eliminated list or the chip count list. I don’t know what that portends.
So, James, if you’re still in the running, rock on! Try not to do any belly flops on the river, or whatever it’s called.
-k-
Technorati Tags: worldseriesofpoker, jamesslusher
Lying with the Dogs
I’ve griped and groused here on this old blog, and back in my days with the Twitter, about my need to consolidate all my RSS and Atom feeds under one roof, preferably a web-based one.
I tried Gregarius, as detailed here. And it was cool. I was hosting my own feeds. Problem was, I found the interface to be somewhat impenetrable; it was hard, at least for me, to mark items read, and have them stay so marked. I liked the tagging features, and appreciated the available plugins and themes. Nevertheless, it remained a pain to use.
From there, I migrated to Feed on Feeds. It was easier to navigate, though lacking in available plugins. After a few weeks of use, I noticed that read articles popped up again, unaccountably. Or worse, that unread ones got marked read.
With both, I had to lash up my own feed update mechanism. With both, perhaps my wanting it to do everything I wanted out of the box was part of the problem. Reading feeds shouldn’t be so high maintenance in my world.
So, shamefacedly, and bashfully, I went to the Google, and opened an account.
After a week, I’ll say that it’s a great web-based reader. I don’t like the Google, I don’t trust them, and consider them to be the new Microsoft. Any company whose mantra is Do no Evil is hiding or doing something, to my notion. Do no Evil is best demonstrated by example.
But, at least for now, all my subscribed feeds are back in one sock.
-k-