Canandaigua, NY

Panoramic view of the lake front of Canandaigua, New York.

Liveability

No shocker here. Top cities to live in based on crime, threat from instability or terrorism, and transportation/communications infrastructure are:

1. Vancouver
2. Melbourne
3. Vienna
4. Perth
5. Toronto
6. Adelaide
7. Sydney
8. Copenhagen
9. Geneva
10. Zurich

How did an island of outcasts manage to become a fantastic place to live? Why don't we have some Aussie invite me to come firsthand and investigate?

Link to report is here.

What jealousy looks like

1. Go to work in morning. Open browser. Go here.
2. Observe mid-afternoon revelry and note ambient air temperature here.
3. Look up, observe your cubicle surroundings, and realize you are still at work.
4. Go to bathroom, look in mirror. Behold: jealousy.
5. Splash your face with water, return to your cube, repeat in 3 hours.

JJ Abrams to direct King's Dark Tower

Let's just hope it doesn't get fucked up. This is a killer series and a great comic book. There's so much that could get messed up in the translation, I just don't know if I trust Abrams. Maybe Abrams' Star Trek XI will be an indication of what is to come. My preference? Get Peter Jackson!

Abrams to direct Stephen King's Dark Tower movie.

The beautifully-done (flash) Dark Tower website is here.

Wedding Site Visit

Just visited the B&B we will be having the wedding at and took a few pictures to have some Autostitch fun. Below are my shots looking towards the front and back - piloting the software.

Expectation setting: big white tents in 2nd photo will not be there.

Stay Indoors

From the I'm-lovin'-it-desk:

Notice to Russian citizens: stay indoors and play Barry White.

Van Halen Do-Over

Hazaa! The Gods have looked favorably on the alpha dog of the 80's rock band that helped launched an entire phalanx of hair bands. Van Halen has announced that they will reunite with David Lee Roth. Seriously. This time it's not a hoax. Well, at least according to the Internet. And everything you read on the Internet is seriously true. srsly.

ARC vs. JNJ

This has got to be one of the funnier lawsuits I've seen in a while. Although the Johnson and Johnson lawsuit against the Red Cross may have some legitimacy, it doesn't matter. The financial advances that they make in the short term (assuming they win the lawsuit) will do nothing for winning the hearts and minds of an entire generation who may associate their name and/or brand with a singular act that's been likened, in the blogosphere, to kicking puppies.

Take a page from the American Red Cross and what a single (legitimate) act, infamously known as the "coffee and donuts" issue, did to impact the opinions of an entire generation of WWII military personnel and families.

Link to Johnson and Johnson's Corporate Blog, JNJ BTW, is here.

Video of the Day

Crazy. Watch Christopher Walken roast a chicken with pears.

Time to go back to dot matrix...

From high school and even into college, one of the most comforting sounds was the screeching sound of my Apple Imagewriter II printer. From the long, soothing startup sound to the quick, jerky, almost giddy sound it made to indicate it was ready - the sounds emitted by the printer were probably the most comforting sounds I heard all through my education. Probably because it meant that I was done with writing a paper.

A new study shows that laser printers can emit microscopic toner particles during printing that are small enough to get into the lungs and cause as much damage as smoking. BS? You decide.

Article is here.

It has arrived...

Shirts. From Woot. This one's going to the link listing.

Dark Knight - Batman Begins Sequel

It looks like marketing for the sequel to Batman Begins has started. Not surprisingly it coincides with the ComicCon in San Diego.

Spooky 800 number and website: Why So Serious?. Call this number: 1-800-395-9646.

Crazy Baby Names

Babies to the left of me! Babies to the right of me! Amusing article passed my reader this morning on crazy baby names. My personal favorites:

• Fifi Trixibell
• Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily
• Jermajesty
• Moxie CrimeFighter

Walkable

Since my return to the US, I have tried to pursue a more walkable lifestyle. Primarily, it's taken the form of taking the BMW to work (Bus, Metro, Walk).

There's a new website that ranks your locale in terms of "walkability". It scores your neighborhood based on proximity to other amenities - restaurants, movie theaters, schools, etc. Although the addresses for non-US locations show up on the mashed Google map, the scoring is only available for US locations.

Check it out here.

Hiking the AT

A few months ago, we accompanied another couple on a hike on the Appalachian Trail. It was an exhausting, strenuous, but finitely rewarding experience. It was, in fact, the first time I had ever been on the trail.

We started by unloading our packs from our cars near Burkittsville, Maryland. You'll probably recognize the name of the town - it was made famous by a mediocre horror film, but it doesn't seem to have caved to the sellout nature of a lot of small towns suffering from the Hollywood effect. We hiked half a mile deeper into the rough and found a quaint cabin / campsite with primitive setups. We sprayed the DEET on like it was AXE body spray, then played the role of paranoid urbanites by rolling our pants into our socks (thank you ixodes scapularis).

The last time I really roughed it was when I was waiting on a desolate road outside of the town of Saou in France. It probably lasted all of 45 minutes. I was clearly out of my league.

We unloaded our stuff and rubbed our bellies for the first hour, trying to encourage our hastily-eaten Dominos pizza to digest and make way for the onslaught of GORP, beef jerky, and water that we would soon be subjecting our digestive tracts to.

We built a small fire and immediately got to drinking. We made our bunks in the rustic cabin and laid down to sleep, not knowing what hell was in store for us the next morning.

Waking up to a gloriously sunny morning, we returned our packs to the car and ventured up towards the AT. We made a wrong turn and eventually found ourselves in the middle of a steep ascent - when it was all said and done, we had risen 1000 vertical feet in .4 miles and lost somewhere around 5 pounds of water weight. The views from the vista were respectable, but didn't seem to do the effort justice. We got on the AT and hike another 11 miles into Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. We crossed through an area of forest infested with bark-eating caterpillars, endured a knee-busting downhill hike into town, then subjected ourselves to the tedium of walking 2 miles along a flat-ass path. My arthritic knees were not happy. The freakiest part? When our friends' never-ending barrel of energy golden lab laid down in the dirt from exhaustion. IN THE DIRT.

We made it back with our pride still in tact - enough for us to talk boastfully about our experience.

Flickr set is here.

Harry-est towns in America

Everyone with "I" in your Myers-Briggs in the states of Washington and Virginia unite! The cities with the most sales of the new Harry Potter book came from these two states, almost exclusively. Who the hell in lives in Katy, Texas? I thought that everyone in Texas grew up either playing football or cheerleading. I guess every team needs to have a marching band...

Witty Dialogue in 10,000 BC?

New trailer for a film has my snagged my interest - what language will people speak in the new film about life in 10,000 BC? If this is another ploy to get me to tune into that ludicrous idea of a sitcom about the GEICO cavemen, I'll just spit.

What else will be great? Seeing the VF version of the movie once it's translated into French. Heh.

Posts TBD

Coming up... posts from hiking the Appalachian Trail and spending a weekend at a friend's lakehouse on Smith Mountain Lake.

Overheard

Just found a great website called Overheard in New York. Reminds me of my experience shortly after coming back to the US of overhearing ridiculous conversations. Some of my favorites:

• Man: I just don't get it! Just last night you were complaining about how you never try anything new, but you feel like you should.
• Woman: Ok, well ordering the roast duck is a little different than a threesome, Tim.

• Kid #1: Paper beats rock. BAM! Your rock is blowed up!
• Kid #2: "Bam" doesn't blow up, "bam" makes it spicy. Now I got a SPICY ROCK! You can't defeat that!

• Young woman #1: Guys never want to eat me out.
• Middle-aged dad with kids: Hey, we're trying to eat over here.
• Young woman #1: See, even hearing about it freaks them out.
• Young man at next table: Maybe I can take a look for you and give you my assessment.
• Middle-aged dad with kids: For God's sake, this is a family restaurant!
• Young woman #2: You have a very controversial vagina.

• Older woman: Excuse me, miss?
• Younger woman: Yeah?
• Older woman: Your veil, your burqa is very beautiful. I didn't know your people were allowed to wear it in bright colors.
• Younger woman: It's not a burqa, it's a poncho. I'm Jewish. It's for the rain. I got it at TJ Maxx.

• Guy #1: I'd totally hit that.
• Guy #2: Dude, I'd hit that so hard whoever could pull me out would become the King of England.

Playin' Around

Goofing around with new templates, layouts, and integration with new widgets. Forgive the mess...