Clearance Sale

Rowhouse 'Hood You scored 25 out of 40 on urban-rural and 22 out of 40 land intensity.

People know you as: The Bohemian Gentrifier Quote: "That crack house just needed a little paint." Your score indicates that you are a city-dweller of the old-school. You like a dense, finely grained neighborhood with restaurants, churches and brothels all on the same block. Although you've never spoken to him personally, you know that guy Eddie down the street is a pimp and you're sure to tell your lame suburban friends about him at every opportunity, just to freak them out. The bad news is that as more and more people like you move into your neighborhood it gradually becomes less cool and more expensive. Enjoy things while you can, because in 5 years you're going to have to move to the next 'hood uptown. Examples of places you should live: Baltimore, Philadelphia All Categories Secluded Hideaway / Farm or Ranch / Small Town / Little City / Suburb / Streetcar Suburb / Rowhouse 'Hood / Downtown Loft

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 60% on urban-rural You scored higher than 51% on land intensity

Link: The Where Should You Live Test written by TwelveFloorsUp on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	6.6
Mind:	6.7
Body:	4.3
Spirit:	4.8
Friends/Family:	6.3
Love:	7.3
Finance:	7.3
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

6.25 %

My weblog owns 6.25 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

You Are Mexican Food

Spicy yet dependable. You pull punches, but people still love you.

What Kind of Food Are You?

You Should Get a PhD in Science (like chemistry, math, or engineering)

You're both smart and innovative when it comes to ideas. Maybe you'll find a cure for cancer - or develop the latest underground drug.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

You Are a Boston Creme Donut

You have a tough exterior. No one wants to mess with you. But on the inside, you're a total pushover and completely soft. You're a traditionalist, and you don't change easily. You're likely to eat the same doughnut every morning, and pout if it's sold out.

What Donut Are You?

My name....David

childhood memory... rushing to the kindergarten toychest to get the batplane before anyone else could get it – would have to have been 5

fondest memory... Hammer to Egg for a goal, Yuk vs. Indiana, Pool play, College Nationals, Wilmington, NC 1989 – although I have many fond memories.

soundtrack...Melissa Etheridge

retreat... often I wander hardware aisles looking for inspiration

wildest dream... for the family of my past to be the model for my family of the future, in Maui, and independently wealthy, and with an ipod, and…

proudest moment...opening night, La Cage au Faux, MSMT, 1992 – although again, a long list

biggest challenge... coming up with answers to soul searching questions, really

alarm clock...I do my own reminders.

perfect day... a day that doesn’t need a list

first job...store associate, toy department, K-Mart

indulgence... McDonald’s #2, Supersize with a Coke – I indulge a little too much

last purchase...with a card? Gas, I know – thrilling!

favorite movie... Matrix Reloaded

inspiration... I try to find the inspiration in anything, its all about how you take from one thing and have it shape another

My life... going very well, thank you for asking

My card is...pick a card, any card!

You scored as Engineering. You should be an Engineering major! Mathematics 100% Engineering 100% Journalism 100% Philosophy 92% Anthropology 75% Theater 75% Chemistry 75% Psychology 75% English 67% Linguistics 67% Sociology 67% Dance 58% Art 58% Biology 50% What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com

You Are Apple Pie

You're the perfect combo of comforting and traditional Those who like you crave security

What Kind of Pie Are You?

You Are Somewhat Machiavellian

You're not going to mow over everyone to get ahead... But you're also powerful enough to make things happen for yourself. You understand how the world works, even when it's an ugly place. You just don't get ugly yourself - unless you have to!

How Machiavellian Are You?

Anyone Know Any HTML?

I have this problem with the page. When I print I get this strange mess of HTML just after the counter. Happens here and at work, in IE and in Firefox, on this page and the other one. In the sidebar I see the hitmap and then the counter and then this (replacing the greater and less than signs with brackets so it will print):

[a href="http://sm2.sitemeter.com/stats.asp?site=sm2Tanbi" target="_top"]
[img src="http://sm2.sitemeter.com/meter.asp?site=sm2Tanbi" alt="Site Meter" border="0"/][/a]

Can you print or print preview an entry and see if you get it too?

If you do, and you are someone that knows about such things, could you scope out the source and see if you know what's up? The counter guy says there's nothing wrong. I'm begining to wonder if it is just me.

Link of the Day

There are no words, just go.

Ellipses...

Yesterday's post needed "start" and "finish" entries for each item, then it would look much more possible... I wonder why we're not hearing from governments that they would like to give us back the windfall gas tax profits they're getting... I can't tell if parking next to a tented dumpster with "asbestos removal" danger tape on it should make me nervous... Moussaoui is not Bin Laden, he's more the their towel boy... I think the font on my CV is too big, but the people getting it are always complaining I make the text too small... Just why is it that deporting 12 million people is so impractical, certainly the guy that saw them pour the first truck of fill on the Boston Back Bay thought that was impractical... If it goes below freezing tonight I am definitely registering a complaint, as soon as I figure out where it goes - other than here... I think that when someone advertises something on the TV, say like cable, they should have to tell you the price after the introductory deal with just as much energy as the price during the deal... I have now purchased four different, and differently tasked, items to try to deal with seasonal allergy congestion... You can't imagine my shock when I discovered that "decider" actually was a word, damn... Anyone got any good and inexpensive ideas on digital archiving of say 100 C and D sheet hand draftings??? I got an email today trying to sell me the guide book for Acad2K7, personally I think we were fine at AcadR14. Too many updates...

Four Days...

1. Buy binder stuff
2. Professional & Academic Referrers list
   
3. Student Referrers list
   
4. Alumni Referrers list
5. Peer Referrers list
   
6. CV
7. Personal statement
8. Course Materials
9. Work Examples
   
10. Supplimentary items
11. Paper output
12. CD output
    

What Good Will Short Range Snub Fighters be Against a Space Station Like That?

My pick for this year's winner. I didn't go in, so I don't know what their game was.

I would show you pictures of this year's modifications to last year's entry icon - done this year by Kevin's Stage Machinery class. But what with all the rain, both times I was there it was just a mound of viscolene.

Actually, all in all carnival passed pretty much without my notice.

If its Raining, It must be Carnival

Never seems to fail this time of year. CMU students get all ready to cut loose with a big, pre-end of year blowout for carnival and, of course, it rains. Its just something about Pittsburgh and spring. When I was a junior here it actually rained, on and off, for 40 days and 40 nights. Building an arc would not have been a waste of time.

And if you lucked out with the theme you might have been able to enter it as a booth.

I went for a walk around the midway today. I beat the Entertainment Engineering game. That was fun. I liked the Death Star booth. I'll try to get a photo tomorrow.

If it isn't raining. :-(

Is Powerpoint the Devil?

For the longest time I have thought Powerpoint was some kind of evil incarnate. Like many other MS Apps, I believe that the program has actually changed the way things are done rather than people finding a tool that does what they need. Do you think when they started out that the people at Microsoft had the idea that they were going to permeate graphic design and information delivery to the depth that they have? The thought that what was a business tool has become such a normal education tool is a little scary. Working at the board is dynamic - lecturing is jazz, not a march. Even if the tool has the ability to go backward and forward and to write on the screen over a slide, it can't skip from one presentation to another smoothly, and I would bet that some of the other mitigations aren't implemented by most of the people using the tool.

So its the Devil, right?

Like so many things, I guess it depends on your perspective. Today we used a Powerpoint presentation at a faculty meeting. I had spent some time the night before cutting and pasting about 7 emails into a presentation file. The result was that 6 different people giving an update to a single effort were able to present something cohesive. All six people didn't have to put time into the composition, and I myself didn't have to generate everything from scratch, and on top of it all, people walked away from the meeting with a copy of the slides. Since the purpose of the session was to recap things we'd talked about several times before, times when people could have taken their own notes, getting the slides as a take home seems like a fairly high value facet. Seems like in this case we had hit the target of what the software is good for and it delivered startlingly.

So not completely the Devil?

Since I did this presentation while accumulating supplementary items for my renewal binder, no sooner did I hit save then did I print and punch a copy for my "school service" section. At that moment I was struck my another possible strength of the process. Right now all of my classroom lectures are outlines. Most of them are outlines with six years of scribbles on them, things that were missing, show or person specific items, connections to current events, whatever. They are a very valuable tool for me to teach with. In at least one case, they are also good enough for someone else to teach with - even if they don't know the subject. (Although I haven't tried that for years, but some time ago I would just put a student up front with the outline. Worked pretty well for CAD.) The downside, in this atmosphere of renewal, is that they are not presentable. If I had all of the lectures in PowerPoint, then in my binder along with the syllabus and all the assignments I could include the content outlines from every single course. That would really punch up the document especially since for my field, often people don't understand what I do. Too late now, but what an advantage at renewal time.

So, not the Devil?

Probably in the end I will always think PowerPoint is the Devil, even if it does have proper uses and archiving advantages. I know I can't submit my outlines, notes, and photos (I sometimes shoot a picture of the board at the end of class as source material for another lecture if I have had a particularly useful tangent). But for me, in class the improv element is too important to lose, and in meetings the whole thing still feels a little bit smarmy. Maybe for class I could make it more useful by doing the presentation against a whiteboard, so it could cut down the actual amount of writing for the stuff I know I am going to do but not cut off the room to roam. It might be worth experimenting with.

Today I could have been convinced. I wonder if the feeling will stick.

Renewal Trauma

That's a lot of printing. Today I went through an entire ream of paper. I got a warning on both the color and black ink cartridges (and the black was new yesterday). What am I doing? I am preparing to submit my case for review. This review is for promotion from assistant to associate. Seems kind of weird to be head of my option for more than three years now while remaining junior faculty, but I guess that's how it works sometimes.

So, for the last two weeks I've been assembling potential reviewers. I have to give them contact information for 20 Professional or Academic reviewers, 20 current or former students, plus some people from "other units" at the university. Are you out there and I've forgotten you? Send me an email. It turns out to be quite a few names.

On top of that I've been gathering the syllabi and assignments from every class I've ever done. Its interesting to see which classes have changed and which haven't, and its fun to watch as the format of the document changes over time. I feel like they're pretty tight now. I wonder what they will look like if I do this for another six years - or more. Most interesting from my classes is probably Technical Design. It appears to get easier every year at yet still remain too difficult in whatever its new configuration is. The first year I think I did something like 8 projects and 6 homeworks. This year I am down to 4 and 4. Project #3 appears to be cursed, as over the years I have had more different project threes than any other number.

Today I went through my hard drive looking for school service and professional items. I appear to be something of a hard drive packrat, and a well organized one at that. Pages and pages of forms, schedules, drawings, and reports. Printing and printing and printing.

The saddest part about the output is that in the end it will be submitted electronically. So everything I printed today I will have to .pdf sometime in the next 2 weeks. But I need the paper output so I can see the thing to make decisions. In front of me there's quite a bit of .pdf publishing and CD burning. Maybe I'll do an autorun menu for the disk, and labels. It wouldn't be my project unless I were making it bigger.

Next I have to confirm reviewers and figure out to do with the contents of my portfolio. I don't think I want to submit the full sized items this time. But that means scanning a bunch of photos and drawings (and just figuring out what to do with c-sheet and d-sheet drawings). I still have a CV to revise and a personal statement to craft. Yes, there's quite a bit to do.

Kinda fun though.

Graft

Today I heard on the radio that UnitedHealth Group posted first quarter earnings this year of over $800,000,000.00!

Well done.

That's eight hundred million dollars if you lost track of the zeros. The sad thing is, UnitedHealth Group isn't a hospital, or doctors, nurses, not a medical equipment fabricator. UnitedHealth Group is an insurance company. They are an insurance company that stands to profit 3.2 billion dollars this year.

Billion, with a "B"

The sad thing is, this isn't an investment column.

The CEO of said company last year accumulated stock options worth in excess of $1 billion dollars.

That's a lot of lattes.

So, just for the record, because of this country's current stand on national health care in the first three months of this year $800,000,000.00 that could have actually gone for health care went into the pockets on insurance companies.

That's just sick. But wait, there's more!

Apparently, a large chunk of these profits come courtesy of the new Medicare Part D public/private partnership for the purchase of prescription drugs. You know, the one that said that Medicare couldn't negotiate for better prices. The one with the deadline that scared everyone in ASAP so they wouldn't have to pay a late fee. That one.

If there were any doubt that what this congress and this administration called Medicare reform was actually a big, wet, sloppy blow job to industry I have 800,000,000 examples to clarify the question.

If there were any doubt that these jackals should not be let anywhere near the social security program, I think we have 800,000,000 good reasons to convince us.

And in case you didn't connect the dots, that a big chunk of the money came from Medicare means that the money that went into the corporate pockets...

... it came out of ours.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday to You!
Happy Birthday to You!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

Happy Birthday to You!

and also Val!

Link of the Day

Something to break up the taste of ellipses, sort of a link of the day sorbet.

We've been talking a lot at work about fundimentals to the kind of things we teach in later years. We've bandied about things like sequence, and cause & effect, and simple machines.

I wonder what kind of lab we could make out of this:

13 Minutes of Goldberg Machines

Might be fun.

And On The Seventh Day Ellipses...

A whole week of disjointed, random musings. Not sure it is actually an achievement... I just subscribed to 11 free magazines, I bet I don't even get two... Henry Kissinger sounds a lot like Steven Hawking if you are dozing... I wish the weather would make up it's mind already... Neither Josh nor Danny got laid, Tony still hasn't called the building inspector, Nikki got stopped at her own husband's store for identity theft, and Huff's brother thinks the smoke detector is talking to him... Is it possible they are actually going to solve the Natalie Holloway case??? Tonight on CNN they got a unanimous result to a phone poll - first time ever... My sister and I have arrived at a new favorite communication tool: texting. I wonder why... If you are keeping track, I didn't get much work done on my list for the weekend. I do at least know what I am doing tomorrow... I heard the power company in Scotland is declaring war on "standby" devices. Sounds like a good idea to me... I just saw Sarah Jane Smith and K9 will make an appearance on Doctor Who. Not sure how I feel about that... The radio today featured conversation on how spending on pets in the US doubled last year, and no we're not talking about food... Next weekend is spring carnival, maybe I'll even go to watch buggies this year... Even Marisa couldn't be convinced that hunter-gatherer is the way to go... I wonder if "I'm not him" will be enough of a campaign strategy to oust Rick Santorum...

Saturday Ellipses....

My wife is reading a new book and has as a result decided that we are no longer allowed to eat basically any food we can buy at a store or a restaurant... Saw the first Hustle tonight, very good TV... I would, were I you, avoid the Homestead Highlevel Bridge Munhall-bound for the foreseeable future... I saw an interesting post on boingboing that showed a New Orleans mayoral candidate campaign photo that was clearly taken in the French Quarter at EPCOT. Guess she couldn't make it home... I wonder if Jerry Falwell thinks these tornados are about Midwestern gays... The people that make closet accessories have set things up such that you simply cannot comparison shop. Well done... There's nothing that says spring quite as well as spring cleaning, except maybe fraternity brothers carrying booths down Forbes Avenue like Hebrew slaves, or maybe the giant inflatable bunny in one of our neighbor's yard... That bear that got those people in Tennessee is probably counting his money on a Brazilian beach by now... 50% of the weekend gone and I haven't really made much of a dent in my weekend list... There was a congressman on CNN today advocating the end of all social support programs in favor of simply granting every US citizen over the age of majority $10,000/year. Now that's out of the box thinking... Let's not forget to help Rick Santorum find a new gig... Tom Cruise is giving baby birthing lessons. I wonder if we cover that in our acting program... I wonder if the South Park this week was censored or drawn as censored... I wonder if it worth my time to learn about feed readers... The Blogger spell check wants "Santorum" to be "sanatorium." Interesting...

Post Congestion Ellipses...

Much better today, thank you... I think that after careful consideration I have decided that the price of gas and the price of a barrel of oil are unrelated... Starting next week I am going to add "...and remember to vote out Rick Santorum!" to every post. I hope nobody is offended... We've seen the end of the Daleks so many times, I just find this ending hard to believe... I think I have my two lists of 20... Got myself the DVD of The Aristocrats. I hope it is even more foul then people make it out to be... Even without class I never seem to get too much done on the average Friday... I need to make a list of all the things I need to get on about... I need replacement foamy things for my iPod buds... The magnifier tool that came with my new mouse is really useless, but for some reason I am always playing with it... a one pound bag of Skittles in the office is a sure route to tooth decay... It seems to me that in order to use a digital recording of something you should need the mechanical license, not the performace rights - after all, it's just very speciific instructions... I sure hope the tax guy did the electronic filing already... Thursday night TV has really become a wasteland... They say if you put something in a box and don't need it for a year you should throw it away. I wonder if a garage has the same rules as a box... Not much in the way of hard hitting stuff here today - but you read it anyway, curious...

Snot Impaired Ellipses...

Today's post could have been: See Wednesday, April 13 2005... We've entered a lovely Pittsburgh spring weather pattern, and by that I mean daily, torrential downpours right about 4:15... I think Izzy is going to need a lot of help with the icon this year... Not watching the news or listening to NPR makes doing ellipses much harder... When someone who once said "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" says we need to get tough with Iran, I think we might need to get tough with people that tell us we need to get tough (but not me, of course)... I think HR makes the login to check your benes difficult so you won't use your benes... Skittles are like little drops of happiness, thank you mystery Skittle giver... Do you think when future archaeologists unearth data stores from our time they will think our generations most trusted newsman is Jon Stewart? Rush Limbaugh??? I haven't heard how the Cubbies are doing, I should look it up... I think I may be unreasonably proud of the John Henry assignment... 3D is definitely the denouement of my CAD class... I'm not getting anywhere on my case submission, maybe this weekend... Today, the lawn and my face got a trim -simultaneously as it turns out... The album is here, it is large and impressive. Well worth the wait and the work...

A Steel Driving Man

We interrupt these ellipses for an John Henry Project update...

As you may or may not remember, my department recently came up with a CNC router for our shop. Of course, now that we have it I had to come up with some kind of assignment giving the students a chance to use it.

So, I did:
It came with a nice drawing and everything:

We even got the scene painting class to help out by using our project as their faux finish marbling project. There were some SNAFUs along the way. I expected to come out with one piece that fit together well and one that was, less so. Because of some mistakes we actually came out with two that fit togather just OK. But still, I think it was a cool project, and a cool outcome:

a Week of Ellipses???

Even without a theme, knot dating is pretty cool... We are perfectly capable of entertaining at home, who knew... Our cats are very afraid, I don't know why... Everything doesn't need to be updated for the sake of updating... Lost didn't stand a chance... All kids like dinosaurs, take it to the bank... Apparently I drive like a maniac, I wouldn't have thought so... The little motor didn't have enough oomph - although that's not the word the supervising technician used to describe the situation... We have a very clean potty... Unbeknownst to ranting women in the Waterfront Giant Eagle, the sLiberty Whole Foods is apparently Passover central... You can rotate the view, the object, or the universe. Make sure you pick the right one... I used to know the double dragon, zeppelin bend, and adjustable hitch. Now, less so; although I did relearn the zeppelin a new way today... I married a very capable woman... One more day until we get the wedding album... We spent quite a bit of time today discussing a particular set piece - this almost certainly means it will get cut at tech... Really I need a shave... I think it unlikely I would've taken that gig anyway... If I had an assistant, they would need an assistant... We got a grad TD for next year, outstanding!!! Even things done at the last minute can come out well...

and Even More Ellipses...

Thank You For Smoking, is not about what you go there thinking it is... There is apparently a gay and lesbian organization in Australia named Dayenu... "I cannot deal with a box of rocks"... Really I think I would have liked the offer... My latest foray into Chang's Spicy Chicken was somewhat spicier than I remember... Leave it to my class to find a way to have a SNAFU with paints on a class project... The thing is, when you volunteer to do something at a meeting often people don't forget - then you have to actually do it... We are having people over, huzzah!!! I believe I may have firmly entered the mopey phase of the academic calendar... I don't know why, but it seems like Spike and Bravo are conspiring against me... Which do you think will win the battle for my wife's affection: Lost or a Seder??? It looks like I am looking for professional prominence rather than tenured TDs... Whichever parking lot I have to move to, I will have to pay more money. Why am I not surprised... Must be real hard to be a righty and come up with a position on illegal immigrants, all that low cost labor... I really can't think of any reason to watch The Real World anymore, and I used to really like it. Now I'm an 8th & Ocean guy... Next week is carnival, I can't wait to see what that does to parking... I believe that the current state of my garage in unacceptable... When did it get that late???

And More Ellipses...

I'm seriously not going to miss Tom Delay... Some days I really do like what I do, and even feel like I am good at doing it... Frisbees just seem to be popping up all over... It looks like Vegas went another way... Is it foolish to try to make a class out of something originally labeled "to stupid to teach?" Guess we'll find out... Two weeks + three cats = much poop... Was there ever a key for the cent sign on a standard keyboard??? I don't believe anyone gets wisdom from their wisdom teeth... My sister is coming to visit... Build during the build, install during the install... Of course Noah Mitz can join my network... If it weren't for classes, I think I would almost have enough time to get to my whole list... Why are immigrants demonstrating against legislation to curb illegal immigrants??? I don't really care what Katie Couric's job is, or that Gweneth named her new child Moses, but I couldn't help knowing... I think that people would watch oldTrek on G4 without all the 2.0 nonsense... T-1 day to knot dating, no theme this year - it hasn't been the same since we rescheduled class before lunch... Let's all give thanks for Segundo's quick convalescence... The ventures are dead, all hail Oswald... I had my first $50 tank of gas this week, maybe I'll buy a scooter... I wonder if that mandatory MA health insurance will actually cover anything... Should get a wedding album soon, that'll be cool... The Bucs lost their home opener... Its going to be a long week I think...

Ellipses...

In our house there turned out to be no marriage penalty this year... I don't know if I know 40 people to act as references... I guess its time to take the salt out of the spreader and get some turf builder - with halts... We're a little bit behind but we think we'll be fine - not... It is long past time to have the wisdom teeth out... I'm not ready to take children to the emergency room, I can hardly manage a cat... The new iPod thing works better than the old iPod thing, but I still wish I didn't need a thing... As much as I like comments, I don't like to see flame wars. Maybe Peg and Blake are just trying to disguise an uncomfortable attraction... So Santos won, but Leo died, Tony beat the crap out of a guy that was being nice to him and the fat guy got outed, Bill is having an affair with his wife, and Huff moved his brother into an apartment I would like very much... Did you see that Battlestar Galactica won a Peabody??? I don't think I talk to my family enough... This week I really do have to get onto my CV, either that or write a personal statement - I vote CV... The yard needs cleaning, do you think its safe to assume it won't snow again??? I think I missed the NBA season almost in its entirety and I don't appear to care much... Still nothing from the people in Las Vegas, but that's how its been the last two times... I can't wait to buy me some ETCP merchandise... Time to get some people hired for precollege... Not sure when it happened, but basically there's only four weeks of class left... I've always mumbled a little, but now I apparently have a mouse that thinks I "click-mumble"... Maybe this summer I will write a book. I say that every summer... I finished Magic Street, next up Outbound Flight... There was an excellent episode of Hustle this weekend on AMC, if you're not watching it, you should... I wouldn't have thought it, but everything Randi Rhodes ranted about over a year ago is slowly coming to pass... I wish I had the energy to link every one of these references, maybe tomorrow... Hooray for Massachusetts and mandatory universal health care, I wonder if BU is hiring... Wouldn't it be cool if the Democrats got control of Congress this fall, just to see the politics of it??? I hope the scene painting class finishes painting the John Henry project. I'll post the whole thing if they do...

Ask and You Shall Receive

Here we have Bra'tac chowing down on some of his favorite Beef & Egg Skillet. He didn't want to be photographed, so we had to trick him into posing. Recently, he had his butt shaved. He didn't seem to appreciate it much, but very much enjoyed the bathing part of the grooming visit.

Here, we have the senior member of the cohort, RoLaren. Also, the bottom of my Steve Madden sneaker. She was convinced she had done something wrong and was about to be locked in the bathroom. Recently, she has become more friendly, but only after Marisa is sleeping.

And finally the star of our show, the current reigning world's best kitten, Freya. Freya made me work with her for some time before getting this casual over the shoulder photo. She is a Leo, has long black hair and enjoys the chasing game. When she gets to know you better she might even lick your nose.

Crap Weasels

Did you know that the people currently running our country may in fact be crap weasels? I offer this example...

Last night while watching The Colbert Report I heard that it turns out we seem to have had some actual good news about the environment. Data collected for last year indicates that we actually had an increase in the number of square miles of wetlands in the US. That would seem to suggest that environmental groups prevailing on developers to spare existing wetlands and to make provisions for wetlands in new development may have been having some success.

Now, before we get excited about the news, realize this is comedy central. The other shoe must be about to drop on this story.

Were I the writer for the Report I would have said something to the effect that the unexpected increase in American wetlands was centered around the New Orleans 9th ward. Topical, ironic, maybe a little true - just the kind of thing that would work on that kind of show. But this actually didn't turn out to be a case of where they had to think up a joke. This was the kind of time where the joke just wrote itself. See, the increase in the statistical amount of American wetlands was in fact due to the US government bureau that tracks such things redefining just what it takes to be a wetland...

From now on, the assessment of wetlands shall include: water hazards on golf courses.

This shit just writes itself sometimes. These guys are such crap weasels they might as well just say "let them eat cake" and be done with it:

"Mr. President, Mr. President there is an ecological crisis! Developers have destroyed all the wetlands!"

"Let them have golf courses."

Clear Skys Initiative, Sectarian Insurgents, Enemy Combatants, No Child Left Behind, Compassionate Conservative, Oil Exploration, Personal Saving Accounts - Webster's is going to have to do a new edition.

Link of the Day

During the USITT conference Loren Schreiber was selling patches to raise money for the Long Reach Long Riders. This is a group of people that do a charity motorcycle ride every year and donate the proceeds to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and to Behind the Scenes, both of which are great causes.

I told him that I would give the group some extra internet support. So, I've added them to the links on the News From the Real World page, and here we're making them the link of the day:

Long Reach Long Riders

USITT Day #4 & 5

Home at last. Here are some of the remaining highlights...

My panel went well and was well attended - even if it was mostly inside baseball. I got seven more volunteers to work on the project. It seems though, after talking to people with more institute time than myself, that the project is likely a waste of my time. We'll see.

The gorilla Carnegie Mellon reception at Maker's Mark was nice. It was unfortunate that we were unable to get the invite to everyone that might have come, but as is, it was well attended and a good time was had by all. Plus a waitress got a nice tip.

We placed four students into the annual Young Designer's Forum...

Zi:

Caitlin:

Hallie:

And Andrew:

Overall, except for the van, a very good conference.


Many, many more photos here.

USITT Day #2 & 3

More conference inventories...

Sessions attended: 0.5
Bars closed: 0
Naps taken: 2
Bourbons sampled: 11
Prospective students pitched: 10+
Cards in: 5
Cards out: 9
Panelists prepped: 3
Panelists seen: 4
Meetings missed: 1
Receptions hosted: 2
Receptions attended: 1
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