On Caltrain, the 5.14pm bullet from the city.

Behind me, 2 separate conversations (one person to person, the other person to phone) about the new android/gphone g1 that went live today.

neeeeeerrrrrrdddddddddssssss!
(say it in your best ogre voice)

• I didn't realize initially that it was the Michael Phelp-ics, but I'm pretty burned out now. We watched some at the beach, but the Olympics have never been my thing. I do wish I'd followed the soccer a bit more though.
• Mike and I went to Daly City last night to pick up a new dresser and nightstand for me off of craigs list. Oh man. I had measured the car to make sure the dresser would fit in the backseat. Check. However, I made the fatal flaw that I'm sure everyone does at some point — I didn't check to make sure the dresser would fit through the car door. The result? We look like idiots to these people, who send us up the street to the dollar store to buy string to tie the trunk to the dresser. We evenually get it all together after much amateur fumbling and I drive the 45 miles down the 280 sweating the entire time, convinced the string will break and something bad will happen. Nothing does and we make it home just fine. I have a dresser for the first time since moving to the west coast.
• This morning it occurred to me that the "Batman R.I.P." (which I know Ben is reading, at least) by Morrison currently running in the Batman comic is a lot like the "Hush" storyline by Loeb from several years ago. Except that Loeb went low-brow and Morrison is hitting the high-brow notes. Also, "Final Crisis" is very, very good. I'm burned out on DC still, but if you have basic (or nerd-basic) knowledge of DC, "Final Crisis" should tickle you in strange places. Of course, if I say Mister Miracle, Seven Soldiers, Barry Allen and 4th World and you have a blank stare, you'll need to hit up Wikipedia to fully appreciate it. (Also, bringing back Barry Allen is the single worst idea DC could do. I'd like to say it doesn't actually raise my blood pressure, but it does. I am a nerd.)
• This post by the Portman's bf, titled "In Which We Request You Not Tongue Our Balls" might be enough for me to wish the couple well. As much as I love the Portman, I'm not sure I can offer more than this post does. Yes, I may no longer be the perfect match for Natalie. The nerd in me is crying.
• Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is out. It's David Brynes and Brian Eno's first collab in 30-some years, the first since "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts." I need to listen to this one some more before I decide if I'm buying it or not.
• We were on vacation for Imperial Fleet Week this year. Looks like we didn't miss a ton.
  
• And yes, I'm doing well. I haven't fallen off of any cliffs, though I'm staying up too late, eating too late (last night dinner was at midnight) and generally driving myself to exhaustion. Debate may begin if this is a healthy coping mechanism.

i think i want to found the church of alan moore - be a moorist.  his notion of afterlife is extremely comforting to me: 

we might get this life forever — you'll have to read the book to get the whole thing, but I tend to think that it's a pretty watertight theory: That you don't get reincarnated as somebody else, but that you get reincarnated as yourself, over and over again. You have the same thoughts, and you never know you've done this [before], except for those little moments of déjà vu.

—

i'm a little addicted to the website freerice.  it's a really basic vocabulary type quiz, but for every word you get right, the site donates 20 grains of rice to an underprivileged country through the UN world food program.  how cool is that?

So I'm out of town the next couple of days; on top of that, I have been super busy the last week or so — a trend that will continue for the next 3 weeks or so.

So here are a bunch of links (better late than never) that should have been thrown up days ago. Sorry. And yes, I should be back on track posting someday.

• $490 billion. We have hit a new record with the deficit. This comes as people start to realize we are in some deep trouble: "People in the know like George Soros are saying this is the worst financial crisis since the depression."
• Spoiler alert: Barry Allen is returning as the Flash. If you are a nerd, you've known this for months. If you aren't, you don't know who Barry Allen is anyway. Nor why Geoff Johns writing this "Rebirth" series is frightening. Here is my short take: Barry Allen is pretty much the last (only) superhero that has been killed and not come back. This is a really depressing turn of events, undoing decades of storytelling progress to cater to the whims of fanboys. I mean — Johns is bringing back Krypton in the coming months (by taking Kandor and bringing it up to full size. On Earth.) Anyway, this now will complete the undoing of the original Crisis.
• Lost spoilers from ComicCon. Nothing shocking, really. But still. Spoilers.
• Ludachrist, which I haven't had time to listen to yet. But it's compared to Girl Talk — but better. Which I don't find to be much of a stretch, frankly.
• Randy Pausch has passed away. Worth watching "The Last Lecture" one more time.
• And why you should never talk to the police — even (and especially) when you are innocent.

Have I mentioned how boingboing does less than nothing for me? No? Here, just take this link and we will leave it at: this sums up boingboing for me. if there was a cthulhu reference in here it would be all over.

This looks like a late-18th-century organette, correct? Look again. It hides the Dell laptop you got me when I went to college. This bronze hand crank turns it on, and I've hidden a miniature photo printer where the tune sheet is supposed to go. I even installed Linux. I've put a lot of time into this since I quit my job at Anthropologie, which is something else I wanted to tell you about. Don't get up and go to Lowe's yet. But when you're there can you get me a two-speed fan capacitor?

Don't be silly. I am not affiliated with the goths who hang out at the end of the boardwalk. Yes, rivetheads have made attempts to horn in on my culture. It's attractive to them. Since Evanescence went mainstream, they've been able to buy their clothes at Spencer's Gifts. But just because they read about our ways on Boing Boing doesn't mean they can rock a true neo-Victorian lifestyle. It takes a lot of time and a lot of welding.

from Mom, Dad,
I'm Into Steampunk.

i have been up for a little over 3 hours this morning and already i think this is going to be tough to beat. this is the best thing i have read in days (also because i have never wondered until now. but now that i have, i can't stop wondering.):

Gentleman in office: Hand jobs are nothing new. They've been around for centuries. You could just sit around and wonder how many hand jobs Anne Boleyn performed.

Overheard in the Office

i sent out a mass email soliciting real-life examples of bad grammar, and i'm putting out my request here, as well.  i'd like to use pictures of spelling and mechanical errors in some of my videos for big tree, to try to highlight why we should at least pay attention to most elements of correct punctuation, syntax, and the like, and not, well, be dumbasses.  i know there are a lot of examples of this online, but in order to avoid copyright, ownership, and permission issues, i'm trying to create my own stockpile of grammatical unfortunates.

they can be basic, like this one:

or a little trickier, dealing in the land of misplaced modifiers:

or my own personal favorite, the completely incorrect use of quoation marks, like this:

tripp hipped me to this website, which i think is so god-damn funny i almost shot crysal light out of my nose.

so, if you want to be a buddy and email me a pic if you happen upon any of these types of things as you go about your daily life, i will be eternally grateful.  well.  maybe "eternally."