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« November 2005 | Main | January 2006 » December 30, 2005Marnie n' Gary, Sittin' In A Tree
Gary popped the question in a pretty cool way: Marnie had just returned from a trip to Napa, and the he invited her to play a game of "Life" to unwind. So they're sitting there, spinning the wheel and moving their cars along the board, until Marnie gets to the big "STOP AND GET MARRIED" square. Gary promptly picks one of the blue "guys" from the box, puts it in her car, then pauses and furrows his brow. "Oh, wait," he says. "This might work better." And produces the ring. (Gary, you are a stud. Seriously.) They're tyin' the knot in 2006. (And Marnie: please, please, please don't schedule the wedding for the weekend of October 8...) Way to go, you guys! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 30, 2005 9:28 AM. Another Marathon ... Only FasterI'm going to run another marathon. After some back-and-forth, Richard and I have decided to train together for the Royal Victoria Marathon in Victoria, BC, Canada, on October 8, 2006. I'm all registered and ready to rock. My Portland experience was pretty exceptional, and I'm finding myself wanting to do it again ... but faster. Seriously, 4:21:35 was a fine time, but I know I can get under four hours by changing up some of my training. Now that I know a little more about what I'm doing, I can improve my stamina at distance, and I can do some smarter nutritional things to prevent the Mile 18 Bonk. So I'm going, and I'm going sub-four. The serious training kicks off in June. Anyone out there wanna do this with us? (They've got half marathons, too.) Could be a fun weekend in Canada ... Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 30, 2005 9:18 AM. December 29, 2005Ghost TownMicrosoft is a ghost town right now. No, really: everyone's either on vacation or working remotely. Frankly, it feels like I'm in greater danger of running in to a tumbleweed blowing through the halls than into another human being. The cafeteria closes at 2 PM. Heck, even the receptionists aren't in this week. The good news is that the holidays are an excellent time to get caught up on work. Without constant meetings and interruptions, it's far easier to get good thinking done. I've had these glorious, wonderful uninterrupted blocks of time to work on some of my projects these last few days. I'm working remotely tomorrow (no meetings, right?), which means this is my last in-office day of the year. (Is 2005 over already?) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 29, 2005 1:52 PM. FSM: The Wired InterviewRegular blog readers know that I find the whole Flying Spaghetti Monster business to be pretty freakin' hysterical. Well, turns out that Wired magazine has posted an interview with Bobby Henderson - aka "The High Priest Of FSM." It's a hoot. In it, he talks about why the Kansas Board of Education is obligated to give equal airtime to His Noodliness: Our theory is as much science -- in fact much more so -- than what the ID (intelligent design) guys are proposing. And, if you are going to redefine science to include supernatural explanations, you have to allow them all. To include intelligent design in a science classroom you have to first expand the definition of science to include supernatural explanations, rather than only natural ones, as it is now. It also turns out that Henderson is working on a new book, "The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" that will be out in March (hint: I love gifts). And the proceeds from the book? Well, they'll be used to buy a pirate ship. No, really. Awesome. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 29, 2005 1:34 PM. December 28, 2005Your Comments Are WelcomeI've had a handful of folks tell me lately how much they like to post comments on blogs - but they prefer not to go through a registration system (e.g., TypeKey), such as the one I use here on gavinshearer.com. After considering it for a bit (and evaluating some of the new, anti-spam features of MovableType 3.2), I've elected to turn off registration requirements on my comments system. If you want to post, well, post away. Two caveats. First, if you're posting without being authenticated, your comments won't appear immediately. This is because I fear "check out my online casino" posts will otherwise proliferate like wildfire. Second, should I, indeed, find myself flooded with comment spam (as I did with trackbacks, before disabling them earlier this year), I'm going to have to lock things down again. But if y'all wanna converse, well, bring it. Here's hoping it all works as intended. (Sigh. Spammers = bastards.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 28, 2005 6:55 PM. December 27 ConfabLast night's Confab is now available. We had a full house (myself, Richard, Keith, Elaine, Brian and Adrianne) and a very good time. You can get the (1 hour, 39 minute) show by clicking here. (62.3 MB MP3) I've had a number of my friends ask about getting Confab automatically through iTunes. We're currently in the process of hacking the show's RSS feed so the iTunes Music Store will add it to its directory. In the meantime, you can manually add the show to iTunes' podcast system. It's pretty easy:
That's it! iTunes will then begin downloading the latest installment of Confab to your drive. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 28, 2005 10:35 AM. December 27, 2005Canadian Christmas
Elaine, Richard and I took off for Canada on Friday afternoon. Elaine's someone who knows people, so we scored a pretty astounding deal at the Four Seasons hotel, right downtown. It's an amazingly nice hotel, and it's even more amazing when you've got an executive suite on the 19th floor. The weather wasn't terribly cooperative (rain, rain, rain), so we busied ourselves playing around in the underground mall, watching IMAX movies ("Magnificent Desolation" - thumbs up), and, of course, riding SkyTrain. (The photo you're seeing is Richard and Elaine buying SkyTrain tickets on the night of our arrival - I'm a huge transit dork, and they played along.) Our friends Keith and Angela arrived on Saturday, and we had dinner at the Sequoia Grill in Stanley Park. A-frickin'-mazing food. And Sunday night - Christmas Day - we spent with Elaine's extended family at a Chinese restaurant (that's a rented restaurant - the family's really extended), getting served course after course of interesting delicacies like jellyfish. Poor Richard got caught in the cultural crossfire - to most Chinese restaurants, "vegetarian" means "eats seafood" ... which is a somewhat more lax interpretation than Richard uses. They rushed some special, veggie-friendly dishes into production, and all was well. (In the meantime, Richard had to console himself with Cabernet and chocolate. Poor fella.) In-between our evening events, we walked the city (note to travelers: Vancouver panhandlers are aggressive), browsed in stores, laughed, and just hung out. It was easily one of the most unconventional - and memorable - holidays in recent memory. I love Seattle, but I may start to love Vancouver more. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 27, 2005 11:39 AM. December 23, 2005Off To VancouverI'm off to Vancouver, BC for the holiday weekend, so posting will be light over the next few days. Happy holidays, everyone! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 23, 2005 11:46 AM. "The Santaland Diaries"So Wednesday's performance of "The Santaland Diaries" at the Bathhouse was just terrific. It's a one-man show, and runs a little more than an hour. If you're not familiar with the story, it goes like this: a few years ago, humorist David Sedaris took a job as an elf at Macy's Santa exhibit. He, along with a cast of other elves, were responsible for moving the hordes of people through the line so their kids could sit on Santa's lap, place their order, and have their picture taken. As you might imagine, people shopping at Macy's didn't exactly behave well. And the guys playing Santa, well, let's just say that some of them weren't super-well-behaved, either. The play is hysterically funny. But the thing about Sedaris' writing, though, is that the delivery is key. If you've ever heard him read his own work, you quickly realize that his nasal, neurotic, slightly-bitchy vocal style is the only way to experience the humor in its full form. In fact, Jeff and I were chatting about this at work yesterday, where he confessed that he'd expressly bought the Sedaris book, "Me Talk Pretty One Day" as an audiobook off iTunes. "It's not the same on the page," he said. Sadly, the Bathhouse is sold out for the rest of the season, but they nailed the Sedaris voice. If it comes around next year, go. It's worth it. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 23, 2005 9:56 AM. Dell Comes ThroughWe've got a happy ending, here, folks: Rich Barrett got his Dell PC before Christmas. I just got the following e-mail from him: ...yesterday we actually received the machine. We're still working out compensation; they want to apply something to a future order and I want them to make good on this one. We'll see. So: a few details left to settle, but at least the machine is here. I'm very glad to hear it. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 23, 2005 9:43 AM. Storm Calendar In .icsAs I did last year, I've compiled the 2006 Storm Home calendar into an .ics file (download here). If you're an iCal user (or a user of ics-compatible calendar software, such as Outlook), you can simply subscribe to this file to get your calendar populated with all the games. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 23, 2005 8:18 AM. December 21, 2005Storm 2006 Calendar Is OUT!Score! The Seattle Storm released their 2006 calendar today; the first home game of the season is Sunday, May 21, 2006 vs. Los Angeles. Can. Not. Wait. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 21, 2005 3:41 PM. Pac-Man vs. Blinky @ U of MOK, this rocks - a couple of students at the University of Michigan dressed up in full-size Pac-Man and "Blinky the ghost" outfits and then ran through a) the library and b) a computer lab, all the while saying, "wocka wocka wocka." And they filmed it. (QuickTime required) (My friend Cale streaked his ten-year high-school reunion, but now I bet he wishes he'd done it in a Pac-Man outfit.) Thanks to BoingBoing for the link! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 21, 2005 2:32 PM. "A Christmas Carol"I caught the 8:30 performance of "A Christmas Carol" at the ACT last night with Richard and Elaine. Richard had managed to secure three single tickets on fairly short notice - and don't ask me how, because the show was sold out. Now, my memories of Dickens aren't terribly fond. In fact, they're mostly informed by reading things like "Great Expectations" in seventh grade; I remember his material as being pretty verbose and overwrought - the dude was writing serials, and was clearly paid by the word. But "A Christmas Carol" is one of those holiday classics that you're supposed to see, like "It's A Wonderful Life" (which is a pretty good film) or "Nutcracker" (whose popularity continues to baffle me). That said, last night's performance was awesome. My expectations were exceeded on several levels. First, the play was adapted, which meant it was cleaned up and streamlined, taking out a lot of the turgid prose. Second, it was done in a "theater in the round" style, which meant the audience was sitting in a circle, facing one another, with the actors and actresses in the middle (coming and going from tunnels that lead from backstage). They made excellent use of a hydraulic floor and props being raised and lowered from the ceiling. It's imaginative and novel. Third, the set design and effects were perfect. And fourth, finally, the performances themselves were just outstanding. The 90 minutes flies by, and you really get a sense of Scrooge's transformation from a hard-hearted old bastard into someone who really understand the value of love. We're on a bit of a theater kick this week, and off to see "The Santaland Diaries" tonight at the Bathhouse. Look for a post about that sometime tomorrow. UPDATE, April 1, 2007: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 21, 2005 11:28 AM. December 20, 2005"Commander In Chief"I woke up this morning and saw that the ABC drama "Commander In Chief" has been added to the iTunes Music Store for purchase. I've been curious about this show for a while, but, not having a TV, had resigned myself to wait for the DVD to come out at the end of the season. So I punched up iTunes, dropped $1.99, and jumped in to the shower while it downloaded. By the time I was dressed and walking out the door, the bits were on my iPod, ready to go. Surprisingly, the experience of watching en entire TV show on the bus is pretty pleasant. I wasn't sure how well it would work - up 'til now, I've tended toward 3-to-5 minute "snackable" content like music videos and Rocketboom - but I can totally see the appeal of having 45 minutes' worth of programming in the palm of your hand. The commute went fast. Amazing. Oh, and the show's great. I expect I'll buy Episode #2 for tomorrow morning. UPDATE, July 4, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 20, 2005 9:28 AM. December 19, 2005Why I Love BloggingSo I had the coolest thing happen to me this weekend. It involves the blog. I've written before about how revolutionary I think blogs are in terms of bringing people together. My experiences with the UW MBA program, for instance, continue to generate conversation (both in e-mail and in person) as a function of my having archived those experiences on my site. It's not very interesting for most, but if you're thinking about B-school and want to know about life at the UW - hey, it's all there. Which brings me to this latest cool thing: on Saturday morning, I posted a blurb about how Jeff and I didn't get selected to do Alcatraz this year. And in that message, I said, Suddenly my early summer is free. Anyone got any cool, Olympic-distance triathlons they'd recommend instead? About two and a half hours later, I got the following in my e-mail box: [Note: I edited for relevance] From:Â Â "hanan" Wow! I've already e-mailed Hanan back to say "thanks", but honestly - how cool is this? Someone I've never met decides to take a moment to answer a random request for information on a topic that, let's face it, isn't super-interesting to a lot of people. It made me all tingly for the rest of the day. "Six degrees of separation" indeed. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: put yourself out there. You never know who's reading ... and you might just be pleasantly surprised. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 19, 2005 3:49 PM. December 18, 2005"Everything Bad Is Good For You"I've just finished Steven Johnson's "Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter The general consensus about pop culture is that it's a vast wasteland, pandering to the ever-lower tastes and appetites of the passive American consumer. It's filled with sex and violence, and the latest 'innovations' - reality television, or violent video games - are perfect examples of the moral depravity we've fallen in to. Johnson is having none of this. He postulates - convincingly - that the context of pop culture (sex, drugs, Halo 2) is being confused with its true content, and that the content of popular entertainment is more challenging than ever. Shows like The West Wing and 24 force the viewer to keep vast amounts of information in their heads, from character social networks to casual information about the worlds these characters inhabit. And unlike older shows (e.g., Dragnet) where all the relevant information is presented to the viewer for easy consumption, shows like The West Wing repeatedly keep vital information from viewers, forcing them to pay attention and infer what's going on. Video games, too, are quite good at forcing their players to think logically, deal with deeply-nested hierarchies of tasks, and solve puzzles and problems. One great passage from the book that sums it up: So this is the landscape of the Sleeper Curve. Games that force us to probe and telescope. Television shows that require the mind to fill in the blanks, or exercise its emotional intelligence. Software that makes us sit forward, not lean back. But if the long-term trend in pop culture is toward increased complexity, is there any evidence that our brains are reflecting that change? If mass media are supplying an increasingly rigorous mental workout, is there any emperical data that shows our cognitive muscles growing in response? Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to finish the latest Entertainment Weekly. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 18, 2005 11:58 AM. December 17, 2005Dell Hell FollowupFollowing up on Rich Barrett's nightmare with Dell, Cintra sent me a link to a recent article on Clickz ("Blogs and Dell's Enduring Hell"): A highly public discussion of Jarvis' troubles with his Dell laptop computer this past summer leapt from dialog on Jarvis' Buzzmachine site to other blogs, and even into mainstream media. The result is a population of links on search engines such as Google. In this case, postings on Buzzmachine and MSN, as well as other blog and news sources, surpass Dell in terms of "information influence" in terms of customer service issues. My friend Char posted a bit in the comments section of my original post; if you're following this at all, it's worth looking at. Rich: any news from Dell? Anything? Here's hoping it gets handled. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 17, 2005 6:05 PM. Alcatraz Is A No-GoWell, phooey. Jeff and I were waiting to see if we could get in to the Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon this June, and it looks like the answer is no. We each put our names in for their random drawing (too much interest, too few slots), which was held yesterday. We're not on the list. Suddenly my early summer is free. Anyone got any cool, Olympic-distance triathlons they'd recommend instead? UPDATE, December 31, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. UPDATE, December 2, 2007: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 17, 2005 10:43 AM. "'Twas A Night Of Shitty Theater"
It's terrific. Random, funny, and terrific. The central concept is that Open Theater, being a community institution, has received hundreds of unsolicited holiday-themed scripts over the years. The aspiring writers who created said scripts each hoped to have their plays produced. Sadly, the plays suck ("shitty theater"), but the Open Circle has decided to stage the particularly excruciating bits from 20 different plays in one evening. With narration. (Of course, this is all nonsense, but it's a shockingly funny device.) Mechanically, it's 12 or so actors and actresses, scripts in hand, stepping forward to play the various parts, each of whom returns to their metal folding chairs once their part is done. Tonight's the last show, and it's just $10. Go! Go and see it, I say! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 17, 2005 8:45 AM. December 16, 2005Holiday Party Excuse GeneratorNot that I'm looking for excuses to get out of holiday parties or anything, but my buddy Pete shot me a link to a hee-ster-eye-cal "Holiday Party Excuse Generator": A company called Enlighten has a Holiday Party Excuse Generator™ that makes up these hilarious excuses on the spot. It's great for parties you'd rather eat dirt than attend. Also great for creating holiday high jinks among your nearest and dearest. Anyway . . . it's cool. Basically, you tell the Generator the type of party ("Swanky", "Very Martha Stewart"), your feelings about the host ("Mild disdain", "Unadulterated loathing"), how badly you want to avoid said party ("Slightly", "With every fiber of my being"), the tone your excuse should convey ("Perkiness", "Detachment") and the believability of the excuse ("Within the bounds of credibility", "Make me look like Pinocchio"). Then enter the host's name and your name and click "View". Voila! Letter's done. It's awesome. Consider this a warning: you're going to lose, at a minimum, 15 minutes at work playing with this thing. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 16, 2005 1:59 PM. Elephant Hunting
The rules of white elephant gift-giving are simple: everyone takes a number from a bowl; the lowest number starts. Person #1 selects a gift from under the tree, and opens it. Person #2 has a little more choice. They can also elect to take a gift from under the tree, or they can steal the gift from Person #1. If they choose to steal, Person #1 can then open another gift from under the tree, or, as the game progresses, steal from others. The only rules on stealing are a) you can't steal "back" the item just stolen from you, and b) any given item can only be stolen three times. As you might imagine, this gets competitive (and hysterically funny) pretty fast. When you're out shopping at the store for your white elephant, your real goal is to find something so horrible, kitchy, and gawd-awful that it becomes an object of lust for the other players. There is no higher compliment in the game than to have your item be "locked" - that is, stolen three times, and therefore removed from play. Big winners last night included an oil painting of Elvis, "Thing Hands For my part, I brought a white elephant that I thought was sure to get locked - "Mr. T In Your Pocket." It's a tacky, oversized electronic keychain that - you guessed it - plays up to six (six!) Mr. T quotes, from "I pity the fool" to "Quit your jibba jabba." I actually giggled when I bought it at Urban Outfitters. Sadly, Mr. T was no match for Elvis. But what else is new? Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 16, 2005 8:37 AM. December 14, 2005Another Visio Blog!Eric Rockey, the Lead Program Manager on Visio (and a coworker of mine) has recently started blogging. He's focused on providing information about the next release of Visio ("Visio 12") - tips, tricks, and new features. Pretty cool stuff. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 14, 2005 7:28 PM. December 13 ConfabWe recorded another Confab last night, and it's online now. There were five of us (myself, Richard, Keith, Jeff, and Elaine), and we (once again) found a way of amusing ourselves for an hour an a half. Give it a listen! Thanks, too, to everyone for the positive feedback about last week's show - remember, if you're interested in sitting in with us sometime, just drop me a line. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 14, 2005 7:27 PM. December 12, 2005"The Sound Of Music" @ The 5th AvenueSorry I didn't post this over the weekend, but I caught "The Sound Of Music" at The 5th Avenue on Friday night, and simply loved it. Live theater is odd for me: I never really go to events (usually when I do it's because one of my friends is in/has produced the show), but whenever I do go, I always come out energized, excited, and vowing to see a heckuva lot more live theater in the future. So when Elaine asked me if I wanted to go to "TSOM" a few weeks back, I said "sure." And hoo, boy, am I glad. "Sound of Music" is first-rate all the way. The female lead has a tough job, right? I mean, she's playing a well-known part that was made famous by a beloved actress in a movie that's known (and revered) all over the world. Fortunately, Kim Huber stepped in to it and knocked the cover off the ball. She's a big-time thesp (according to the production guide, she's played Belle in "Beauty and the Beast" on Broadway more than 1,000 times), but it just makes the show that much better for the audience. The performances are great. The sets are great. The show is breezy and wonderful. And if you want to see it, you better move fast: the show ends its run on December 18. Richard's got season tickets to the 5th Avenue, and now I know why. I expect to be bugging him for his spare ticket over the next year. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 12, 2005 9:21 PM. 2006 WNBA Rule ChangesI'm just getting caught up on some of my RSS news, and it looks like the folks over at Chasing The Title have the skinny on some new rules for the WNBA:
For the full report, check their site or visit the WNBA directly. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 12, 2005 9:12 PM. Dell Customer Service HellMy friend Richard Barrett paid for a new Dell laptop back in early November, and the machine's not here yet. Making matters worse, he's getting the runaround from Dell's customer support department ("Uh ... the machine's in the mail. Uh, yeah.") Well, it is the age of the Internet, so he's got a blog up to detail what's going on. You can check it out here. Anyone know anyone in power over at Dell? I suspect the people in charge of the business would be none to pleased to read that this is happening to a (formerly) happy customer. (Alternately, if anyone has any other horror stories about Dell to share, I'm sure the guy wouldn't mind some company.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 12, 2005 3:53 PM. "The Search"Last night, I treated myself to the luxury of an unbroken couple of hours on my couch, curled up with a glass of wine and a copy of John Battelle's "The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture (I'm firmly convinced that I don't finish enough books. God knows I start plenty of them, but they always seem to wind up stacked on top of my bookshelf with an Amazon.com bookmark parked in around Page 70.) "Search" is excellent, a wonderful hybrid of business profile and social commentary. It is most explicitly not a chronicle of Google; rather, it's a historical look at the rise of search engines (think WAIS, Archie, and WebCrawler, then AltaVista, and so on), the de-emphasis on pure search by the leading Internet companies (Excite, Yahoo) in the late nineties, and the rise of Google as a solution to a problem that nobody wanted to address head-on. The book benefits from three things. First, the firms it discusses (and the timeframe in which they're discussed) are just flat-out interesting. The Internet boom created a lot of winners and losers, flooded a lot of people with money and power, and a number of interesting ideas and personalities were brought out as a result. "The Search" captures that aspect pretty well. Second, "The Search" is more than a business biopsy. Battelle thinks that search matters to society, and is firmly convinced that we're in our infancy with a lot of this stuff. I agree with him, and am really intrigued by some of the directions we'll see go over the next 5, 10, and 20 years. Third, and finally, "The Search" benefits from Battelle's writing style, which is just outstanding. His examples are clear, his characters are interesting, and the prose made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion. A lot of these kinds of books tend toward the gushy, breathy, gosh-this-is-wonderful vibe, or else are dry, technical, and about as interesting as watching paint ... well, you know. This is not that. Definite recommend. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 12, 2005 9:40 AM. December 9, 2005Check Out My Swank BuildingThe Windows Live team re-branded MSN Virtual Earth as "Windows Live Local" yesterday, and rolled out a series of quite-nice improvements to their mapping and satellite-image system. One really nice thing about the new system is that its satellite images are fresher than Google's; this means you can now see where I work (Building 36 is the big, battleship-looking thing there in the upper-right). By contrast, Google Maps thinks I work in a big, empty lot (look in the lower right corner). Pretty nifty, huh? Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 9, 2005 4:15 PM. Heidi Is Blogging!Mad props to my good friend Heidi, who is joining the blogosphere from Los Angeles, California. (One more feed for the RSS reader, folks!) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 9, 2005 10:23 AM. "Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic"Elaine, Richard and I caught the 9:30 showing of "Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic" at the Varsity last night. Silverman's a stand-up comic who specializes in really pushing buttons with respect to cultural taboos. Her character is this narcissistic, self-absorbed, pampered white girl who doesn't realize the horrible things that are coming out of her mouth. I first got notice of Silverman (and this film) during the previews before "The Aristocrats" (Silverman also appears in 'Aristocrats'; she's one of the best things in the movie). "Jesus is Magic" is pretty uneven - riotously funny, punctuated with long periods of ho-hum. She blends a filmed stand-up comedy routine with fantasy musical numbers - some of which work, most of which don't. That said, when she's funny, she's funny (and you hate yourself for laughing). She's also wildly offensive, so don't go with anyone who takes race/sex/gender/political/religion jokes seriously. And feel free to wait for video, too - there's nothing special about seeing her in the theater. You can read a profile of her in the New Yorker ("Quiet Depravity") if you're interested. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 9, 2005 9:04 AM. Photographs Of The Damaged MonorailGood buddy Patrick (aka, "He Who Turned Me - And Therefore, My Entire Office - On To Pandora") makes his living working for Team Nickels down at Seattle's City Hall. Working for the Mayor has some advantages, of course, one of which is an "access all areas" pass for parts of the city that we mortals can't get to. One great example of this is that Patrick got to take a tour of the damaged monorails as they lay in their barn at the Seattle Center. Photos from his trip can be found on Flickr. They're amazing. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 9, 2005 8:55 AM. December 8, 2005Google Transit Trip PlannerCNET reports this morning that Google has launched a new Transit Trip Planner: The Google trip planner asks people to enter their preferred itinerary, such as location of departure and arrival, as well as dates and time of travel. The site then gleans all available information on public-transportation schedules to produce a trip planner. You can check it out at google.com/transit. I use (and love) Seattle-centric Google hack BusMonster, whose phenomenal usefulness was undoubtedly a nudge for Google to brew its own version. BusMonster, however, doesn't actually do the trip planning piece for you (e.g., "Take route 10 to 7th and Pike; catch the 194 to Sea-Tac at 6:20 AM"), while Google's does. As an example, check out these directions from Portland's airport to the Westin downtown. The site currently just supports Portland, Oregon, but it's a pretty simple mental move to see this supporting other cities in the near future. My favorite feature? The "Cost calculator" on the bottom ("$1.80 (vs. $4.49 driving!)"). Awesome. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 8, 2005 10:27 AM. December 7, 2005"American Gods"Marnie was kind enough to loan me two(!) Neil Gaiman books - "American Gods I just finished "Gods" and really enjoyed it, but was struck by some eerie parallels in the plot between it and Douglas Adams' "Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul." In both books, the central concept is that gods (Odin, Thor, Loki, and so on) are walking among the human population, doing day jobs - they've lost their celestial powers as belief in them has waned among the human population. And, on the flip side, new gods - gods of technology and television, in Gaiman's book - are on the upswing, and a war is coming between the old and the new. I enjoyed both books thoroughly, and found Gaiman's to be engrossing and fun (Adams is a bit more whimsical, and certainly very British). But the parallel was pretty odd. Has anyone else noticed this? Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 7, 2005 8:43 PM. "Legalize Drugs - All Of Them"Former Seattle Chief of Police Norm Stamper had a thought-provoking essay in Sunday's Times ("Legalize drugs — all of them"): I've witnessed the devastating effects of open-air drug markets in residential neighborhoods: children recruited as runners, mules and lookouts; drug dealers and innocent citizens shot dead in firefights between rival traffickers bent on protecting or expanding their markets; dedicated narcotics officers tortured and killed in the line of duty; prisons filled with nonviolent drug offenders; and drug-related foreign policies that foster political instability, wreak health and environmental disasters, and make life even tougher for indigenous subsistence farmers in places such as Latin America and Afghanistan. All because we like our drugs — and can't have them without breaking the law. No to put too fine a point on this, but Stamper articulates my personal position on the subject perfectly. Prohibition didn't work. It only caused an influx of cash to the Mob and other illicit parties. As time went on and the political winds shifted, Prohibition ended. I'm not a fan of "hard" drugs (I don't use, and haven't - I'm too enamored of caffeine and beer), but I cannot see the logic in subsidizing tobacco (cigarette deaths per year in the US: 438,000) while criminalizing other substances whose negative social impact is far smaller (deaths from illicit drugs: 17,000). I guess we just want the brand name on our drugs to say "Merck" or "Pfizer." Legalize it, clean it, tax the holy hell out of it. God knows it works for Prozac and Viagra. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 7, 2005 8:36 PM. More People, Less Energy
The first thing I did upon arriving, naturally, was to check out the view from my new season ticket seats. Since I'd purchased the tickets over the phone (trusting my account rep and general knowledge of the arena), I'd had yet to experience the full-throttle, full-tilt, maximum-red-hot goodness of the view itself. Naturally, I packed my digital camera to snap a photo of the view. And, as you can see from the attached picture, it rocks. Sadly, the Sonics people weren't down with letting me stay in said seats, and so Elaine and I trudged up to the tippy-top of the 200 level (pack some oxygen, binoculars, and a hanky in case you get nosebleeds) to peer down at the game. It'd been so long since I'd been to a Sonics game that I'd forgotten what the energy and vibe felt like. It was a touch surreal, as I was in this place I was familiar with, watching a sport I know pretty well, and seeing many of the same ArenaVision graphics (as well as hearing the same "Arena Rock" CD music) - but it was so different. It took me back to watching the Sparks game in Los Angeles. The verdict? Well, I'm hardly impartial, but the Sonics just aren't the Storm. The game was fine (we lost by a hair), but the audience just isn't the same. I've written before about Storm fans: But mostly, I like the fans. I like their energy, their positive vibe, their welcoming of anyone (and everyone) who wants to come and watch this team play. We've all been to sporting events where drunk boors shout obscenities and epithets at the players; those people don't come to WNBA games. Who does come? Families, young couples, 15-year-old girls who play high school ball, older folks. We get - what? - 7,500 fans in to the lower bowl of a typical Storm game? And yet we're easily louder than the 16,000 or so that were there to watch the Sonics. The crowd was dead. Things would perk up from time to time (when the game got exciting) but a lot of the chants ("Let's go Sonics!") that the ArenaVision tried to instantiate were just ignored. Instead, we were treated to some amusingly blue language from the guys in front of us. Ah, so. The 2006 Storm season kicks off in May. Can't wait. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 7, 2005 8:26 PM. December 5, 2005PandoraI saw an article in this month's Fast Company about a new, online music service called Pandora. The service is a Flash-based streaming radio station that lets you start with a favorite "seed" artist (e.g, New Order). From there, Pandora works to find you music you'll like. You can vote on the songs it plays (thumbs-up or thumbs-down) as they come to you. I'd checked out the site, but hadn't made time for it until today, when my buddy Patrick sent me an enthusiastic e-mail. So I surfed over, created an account, and rocked out at work for the balance of the day. It's totally cool. After a handful of recommendations, Pandora has quickly honed in on some music that I'm really enjoying - new stuff, stuff that's agreeable to my tastes but that I'd not heard before. One of the great things about the service is that you can bookmark stuff as it plays, which saves it to a playlist - iTunes Music Store and Amazon links, ready to go. Check it out! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 5, 2005 8:06 PM. December 4, 2005ConfabI'm thrilled to announce that I've started podcasting. Last spring, a group of us were trying to put together a "salon" for friends, and friends of friends. The idea was to get a bunch of folks together to talk about ideas, issues; basically, stimulating conversation. However, when the concept ran smack-dab up against the steely-cold reality of logistics, scheduling, and whatnot, it died. Well, a few months ago, Richard proposed that we start a podcast. The idea was intriguing, but I wasn't exactly sure what we were going to podcast about (I mean, does the world really need another podcast about movies, technology, or politics?). But as time went on, and we tossed out ideas, we came to see that it might be fun to resurrect the salon idea, making it smaller, more intimate, and, ultimately, recorded to disk. We call it "Confab" (yes, it's short for "confabulation.") This "first" Confab is really the third one we've recorded (as with so many things, the third time's the charm). Our initial effort, done on October 25, was a raw prototype ("Is this gonna work?"). We learned a lot from the session, and learned even more about GarageBand. Mostly, though, we got excited - people came out of the session pretty amped up. The second try, on November 8, was more of the same. A few great lessons, more great conversation. And thus, November 29 - Confab v3 - is here for your listening pleasure. If you listen to the show, and like it (or hate it), let me know (and if you'd like to come participate in one, let me know that, too!). I'll confess that the show (like this blog) started as a fun idea, a labor of love - and that's all. We have no real ambitions, here, save getting together with cool people every two weeks to chat about ... whatever. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 4, 2005 8:22 PM. "Napoleon Dynamite" Idaho ResolutionOK, so after much urging by friends of mine (who I otherwise respect), I saw "Napoleon Dynamite" a few months ago. And didn't hate it, really, but didn't love it the way some do (I mean, the film is a cult hit. You can't escape it). But did the Idaho Legislature really need to pass this resolution? WHEREAS, the State of Idaho recognizes the vision, talent and creativity of Jared and Jerusha Hess in the writing and production of "Napoleon Dynamite"; and It goes on for a while. Turns out Idaho politicians are fond of the movie, too. Or they're just bored in Idaho. UPDATE, January 1, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 4, 2005 4:04 PM. Math GamesI sometimes get little flashes of insight in the strangest places. This particular one came toward lunch on the Thursday MLR session. We were talking about market basket analysis, and the lecturer asked a simple question: "Let's say we have a store with a thousand different products in it. How many different combinations of products could we sell at any one time?" After soliciting various answers from the students, he then said, "A half million." And I sat there, going, really? And then, how'd he do that so fast? The problem is a classic set problem, right? Any given basket could be Product #1, or Product #1 + #2, or Product #1, #2, #3, and so on. So the total amount of combinations is equal to the sum of the series. And I was suddenly noticing that half a million is really 500,000, which is 500 times 1,000. And 500 is half of 1,000. And then that little insight thing, going, "So is it a universal rule that the sum of any series of numbers is the upper bound times the midpoint?" If you try it with 1 through 10, you get 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 +9 + 10 = 55. So the solution doesn't work. But it doesn't work in a possibly-obvious way: in addition to multiplying the upper bound by the midpoint, you also add the midpoint. So let's try it again. Sum of the numbers between 1 and 20? 20 x 10 = 200 + 10 = 210. Checking it in Excel ... and it works. I tried a few more combinations, and they all worked, too. It looks like a neato shortcut for solving these types of problems - midpoint times upper bound, plus midpoint. It also means the "market basket" answer was not "half a million", but rather "500,500 combinations." I think we can let the lack of precision slide. Does everyone know this trick already, except me? It seems too obvious that it wouldn't have been in common use before now. I love stuff like this. When I was a kid, I worked a summer job in a soils lab at a local concrete company. My job left me with lots of time to myself while the lab machines did their thing, and one day I realized a kinda-cool bit about exponential powers, specifically:
Turns out it works forward as well. If we square 5, we get 25. So the square of 6 would be 25 + 5 + 6 = 36. Which is true. And it seems to work for everything I've thrown at it (which doesn't constitute a proof, but certainly keeps one feeling semi-clever while toiling away in a soils lab at age 15 1/2). Anyone got any other cool math insights they want to share? Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 4, 2005 12:12 PM. MLR WrapupThursday was the second half of our MLR session at Microsoft. It started with great promise (new lecturer, fresh material), but quickly turned in to one of those all-day, butt-numbing slog-a-thon conferences. We simply had too much to cover in the limited time available, and you could see people tuning out as the day went on. Ah, well. On the other hand, my team is great. The vibe is good, and I think we're all going to get along fine. We even got our first choice of project(!) - we're doing some work for the Windows Live group. Now, for the really important question: what cool name will we give ourselves? Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 4, 2005 11:55 AM. |
Big, big shouts out and congratulations to my good friends Marnie Efishoff and 
My Vancouver Christmas trip was a smashing success.
" It's a terrific read.
Among his many talents, my buddy 
Last night was the annual Planning holiday party, held at my boss' home in Seattle. It's a tradition that people bring a "
Last night, Elaine and I went to Key Arena to watch the Sonics/Knicks game. (And we did it on Microsoft's nickel, as part of a MLR morale event.)