Jefflog

Gatorade pledges $240 million in thirst aid to underquenched nations (from The Onion)

Another little pleasure: riding my bike home from work, there was a light sprinkle overhead. Although it was a bit chilly, the weather isn’t cold yet. Shortly out of the door, a fellow bike commuter caught up with me, and we rode together, talking about bike stuff. Things like that can’t happen if you’re driving a car to work every day.

I went out on the balcony to feed the birds today, and I got a record number of pigeons to come. 11 in all. Count the little chickadee on the left and it’s an even dozen birds. My balcony is going to be collecting a lot of poop.

After more than two weeks of not being able to get into the office by 10am, I decided a change was necessary. So I moved my alarm clock ten feet from my bed. Was able to get in by 8:30 today. Just one of life’s little victories.

Amazon.com is opening their French site this week. It’ll be at the address www.amazon.fr, although as of this writing that link just redirects you to the UK site. Allen Murray is over in France helping to co-ordinate the launch. Bienvenue sur amazon.fr!!!

PassThisOn.com is an extremely scary site. Not only is it filled with sentimental pablum and stupid computer tricks, but it’s ranked as the 38th most-visited website. Apparently, this is due to having things which appeal to the lowest common denominator and making it easy for people to send email to their friends about it. The site is being run by Sanford Wallace, the former “King of Spam” who says he’s changed his ways. Great. Now he’s just going to get my friends and family to spam me instead.

Yesterday, I finally received the couch I had ordered from the now-defunct living.com. The process was a long and torturous one, originally ordering the furniture at the end of March, then having the furniture originally scheduled to be delivered the weekend before they went under. The furniture wasn’t delivered then, and I had to call the shipper and reschedule the shipment. I had to pay the shipper C.O.D., which means I’ve now got to battle with the credit card company to get a reimbursement for it. What a hassle. It is a nice couch, though.

What’s the lesson to be learned from this? Don’t pay large amounts of money to startup Internet companies? Yeah, I think that’s the lesson.

Carl Barks, legendary comic book artist for Disney, has died at the age of 99. I really liked Carl Barks’ comics as a child, and they still seem magical to me today. His stories were always great, and I feel much, much better than 99% of the over-drawn and over-violent comics that exists today. Thanks for all of the good memories, Carl.

So much for my plan of riding my bike to work every day this week. My back was hurting on Wednesday, so I took the bus that day, and I took the bus again today because I didn’t feel like riding. Three out of five days isn’t bad, but I’m sure I could have done better.

Hehe.. The IRS website has on its front page a picture of “Tanya” holding her first paycheck. They go on to mention how Tanya was not surprised by all of the deductions that were taken out of it, because she was an informed taxpayer. I wonder if she’ll be surprised when she tries to cash the “check” she’s holding in her hand…