Pre-Date Confidence Builder

Whenever I'm feeling down and need a laugh, I click on over to zefrank's Pre-Date Confidence Builder. I guess my favorite is "Is my butt too big?" but really, they are all hilarious.
Now, if only I could get a date I would be all set....

Doin Fine on Cloud 9

Glancing at my calendar on my way to bed I noticed that today is the 5 year anniversary of the delivery of my McRoskey Airflex mattress. Although I tend to accumulate stuff, I don't really think of myself as a very thing-y person, but man, do I ever love that bed. It is the softest, lightest, bestest mattress a person could ask for. It was born in SF just like me and I really think we were made for each other. They call it the extra gentle, but I call it The Cloud.
Nighty-night!

Pausing only to reconstruct the whole infrastructure of integral mathematics in his head, he went about his humble task...

Today is Douglas Adams's birthday. I first heard his radio series on KCSM when I was about 12. I just happened on it one night and fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I have listened to one or another of my tapes of the show nearly every night for more years than I care to reveal in this venue. Here's to the creator of an audio work of particular wit and genius, and my lullaby of choice.

The BBC Hitchhiker's site has a short biography with links to little clips from the radio and TV (boo!!) shows and other hg2g related info.

Wild Kingdom Right Here at Home

The PG&E building has a pair of peregrine falcons nesting on a ledge on the 33rd floor and they have set up a nest cam in partnership with the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group. George and Gracie are taking turns sitting on the eggs right now, so there isn't a whole lot of action, but eggs mean that little baby predators will be busting out soon, so I'm going to keep an eye on this.

Wednesday Is Trash Day

Okay, I admit that a large part of the reason I'm posting this is that I really like the name: Milestones in Garbage. But the EPA's municipal solid waste history timeline has some cool tidbits (or perhaps I should say orts) of information about garbage. For example, the third item is about how Benjamin Franklin started the first street cleaning service in the US, which is also appropriate for today as Wednesday is street sweeping day as well.

In other trash news, our cans are back on the outside of the house, after a week of being in the breezeway due to my neighbors caving into the obnoxious note left by "concerned neighbors" about how everyone on the block should put their cans out of sight because they attract homeless people. We'll see how long they are there before another round of notes are taped to our doors...

Cracking good cheese, Gromit

Wallace and Gromit are back! Or they will be, in October, in a full length movie. Some details are available on the official site. No trailer yet, but there is a short description, and that great music.

Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.

Happy Birthday to Alexander Graham Bell. A few things I didn't know about Bell until today: he was born in Scotland, he taught elocution and came from a family of noted elocutionists, that both his mother and his wife were deaf, that he taught deaf people thoughout his life, that Helen Keller dedicated her autobiography to him, that he was interested in both hydrofoils and breeding sheep, and finally, that when he was buried, all phone traffic in the US was stopped for a minute.