Bob's House o' Smothered Deep-fried Carbs

It's a very simple menu—we batter it, fry it, and cover it with one of a variety of gravies. As long as it is sufficiently carb-laden (bread, pasta, potatoes, mac and cheese, potato pierogies, or even gravy itself).

And then we serve it in a sourdough bread bowl.

The menu will be printed with little indicators (like they use little hearts to indicate 'heart healthy' on some menus) to indicate bypass level required after eating, from single to quadruple. The mixed appetizer with be the 'Cardiac Special' consisting of full portions of everything on the menu.

I'll be accepting franchise applications.

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Edited to add Oregon and Washington. Somehow our train trip to Seattle had slipped my mind.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, everybody. Don't blow anything up. Not a good idea. Remember, though, to save a penny for the Guy.

Got my Google Wave invite this weekend. Now I just have to find out who else I know that's on Wave. Because wtf use is a collaborative social communications environment when you're the only one you know on it?

Any body out there Wave-ing?

An excerpt from Microsoft's attempt to be 'funny' with the Windows 95 launch, starring Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston. Who says you can't buy cool? Uh, this video does.

1. An opera based on Weekend at Bernie's

2. Film adaptation of Freakonomics

3. A novelization of Teletubbies

4. Broadway play of Jackass

5. Saw VII

Saw the news that Yahoo is officially shutting down the Geocities servers today, spelling an end to millions of personal websites that haven't been updated since Clinton was president. Back before everybody offered free blogsites and actual interaction, Geocities was a way to put up a static webpage that you could forget even existed and never update. All those millions of dreams and ambitions will be going into the virtual dumper later today when Yahoo pulls the plug, along with the personal photos, introductory essays, and countless animated GIF "Website Under Construction" pages. Someday, all our domains will resolve to that big 404 error, but, for today, let's just bid adieu to Geocities and hoist a glass of Jolt cola to the place where many started to learn basic HTML skills.

Just back from the Dia de Los Muertos celebration at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. _darkvictory has been going for several years, but this is the first time I've been able to join her. I uploaded a whole bunch of photos to Flickr, but it's hard for them to really do justice to the event. It's too much for all the senses.

Almost ever altar put up has music playing, and incense burning. The folks who are doing the altars want to talk with you about the departed and give you a little glimpse into their lives beyond what a casual glance can offer. One was a devoted Red Sox fan, another was a serious chef. This one rode a bicycle and that one told stories about their childhood to their grandchildren. It's hard not to both feel the loss and join the celebration - a complex mix of sensory input and emotional tugs. You get dragged into the lives of strangers and see how they affected at least a small part of the world. You leave taking a part of each one of them with you. That's human commonality - that we can all share a little bit of our world with each other and find some reflection of ourselves staring back from the glittering painted skull sitting next to a set of faded old photographs.

Another part of my childhood passed beyond. It's hard to appreciate these days just how subversive Soupy was. A true Erisian presence in children's television. I don't think that Abbie Hoffman would have ever existed without Soupy.

A pie, a seltzer bottle, and a couple of giant imaginary dog/bears. I'm missing them all already.

One of the primary hooks on which the structure of Web 2.0 is hung is the concept of crowd-sourcing — the belief in the collective wisdom of the masses. I wrote here a couple of weeks ago about my experience with Aardvark, a crowd-sourced answer engine. As I've continued to use it, I've been impressed, and have continued to search for other, related solutions for other problems.

As it happens, a problem in need of solution was conveniently at hand. My daily commute can be a bitch. I've got to deal with three L.A. freeways (the 10, 405, and 101) that can be incredibly congested, including making two passes a day through an freeway interchange that was dubbed the worlds worst a few years ago (the 101/405 interchange). I've subscribed to sigalert.com for traffic updates, downloaded several different traffic applications for my iPhone, picked the brains of former L.A. cab drivers about alternate routes, and done everything short of sacrificing a Yugo to the traffic gods in attempts to streamline my drive. So, when I came across a crowd-sourced, free, open source, real-time traffic and routing application and website called Waze, I was eager to give it a try.

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Current headline on CNN front page:

"Deaf Users Sound Off"

Not the the story itself is bad - it's not, but the headline writer needs to think twice.

I met Lou several times, most notably when he was managing one of my favorite bands, NRBQ. Seemed like a good guy, and certainly was a personality and a force in professional wrestling. Great sense of humor, to boot. As professional wrestling became more glamorized, there wasn't room for the Captain Lou's of the world anymore. It's sad, because I thought he and others like him brought a breath of perspective and fun.

check out therinth's awesome post about how TV is misleading folks in the health care debate (and, no, it's not what you think).

that I am the bastard child of Jomo Kenyatta and Ingrid Bergman.

Check out my Official Fake Kenyan Birth Certificate

I know that birthdays can be difficult for you, but I like to think that every year we end still above ground and functioning is a triumph. Plus, still being here means that there are still things to be discovered and there is always the potential for joy. Best wishes of the day, and for the rest of the year, Matthew.

On the whole, I'm a big believer in crowd-sourcing. I've seen it work time and time again, when a reasonably intelligent and thoughtful group of people get together and a question arises, if somebody present doesn't know the answer, they know somebody who does. Despite its flaws on hot-topic issues, Wikipedia is pretty good proof that it tends to work well if enough people are involved that the grinding of axes can be drowned out by common sense.

I was also having a conversation with _darkvictory this evening about altruism. I know that I've been helped multiple times over the years by folks who have no real reason to help out, but they do, and expect nothing in return other than the expressed hope that I 'pay it forward'. I've run across folks who say that they don't believe there's any such thing as altruism, but I've seen it in action too many times not to believe.

So, when I heard about Aardvark, I signed up. Over the years, I've managed to somehow collect a huge amount of random facts and esoteric knowledge, and I have no trouble with sharing it if it can help somebody else find a solution to a problem they have. After all, Man is a tool-using animal and his best tool is his brain.

So, I'm asking you, my friends, to sign up too. I"ve asked a couple of questions so far and gotten good answers. I've answered a couple of questions (I hope the answers were good. I did my best to make them so). Sign up on your own or use the link to my invites if you feel like helping me get a Vark t-shirt (yes, if 10 people respond to the invitation, I get a t-shirt, which I'll probably donate somewhere, since I've already got more t-shirts than I need). Together, we know a bunch of stuff, and there's no reason not to share it with others who can make use of it.