November, 2005


11
Nov 05

Bah. More genius canceled.

Bah. Fox just canceled “Arrested Development,” aka “the best show on television.” Rats. Well, that’s it for me and the sitcom. Back to hour long HBO dramas and “The Daily Show.” (and occasionally “Extras,” although that’s got nothing on “The Office.”)


10
Nov 05

doofus

don’t know why, but my favorite word lately is doofus. here, i’ll use it in my most common recent sentence: “oops. i’m sorry about that. i’m a doofus.”

my mac dictionary tells me not only that the plural is “doofuses”, but also that it originated in the 1960s and could be an alteration of “goofus” or from Scots “doof”.

there you go. make sure to credit me when you use that little tidbit.


8
Nov 05

Sam’s First Basketball Game

Kathy, Sam & I went to the first Stanford basketball game of the season last Saturday, and had a great time. I’m sure Kathy will have great pictures to post soon, but I just wanted to say that while we were worried about how Sam would react to the large number of people, the loud noises, etc., he was amazing! He didn’t like things at first — had his bottom lip thrust out for a few minutes in the first half — but after that, he settled in and really paid attention to the game. Was startled every time something happened and people cheered/booed, which got worse when he fell asleep in my arms for the 2nd half, but eventually he just was cool about the whole thing.

We’ll have his 2nd game this coming Saturday — hopefully he’ll do as well this time. Was afraid for a while that this season might be a TV-only season, but I think he’s a gamer. 🙂 What a great kid.


8
Nov 05

A History of the World in Six Glasses, by Tom Standage

I picked this book up because I read a book by Standage called The Victorian Internet, about how the telegraph (or, more specifically, speed of light communications) was the big discontinuous innovation in communications — even more significant than the Internet revolution over the past several years. That was a fantastic book; one I highly recommend.

In 6 Glasses, Standage tells the history of the world (a little tongue-in-cheek) through the lens of the 6 really major beverages:

  • Beer
  • Wine
  • Spirits
  • Tea
  • Coffee
  • Cola

It’s an interesting book — he makes compelling arguments about each drink being emblematic of the era for a particular country or region was dominant. While I thought it was a fun topic, the book reads pretty slowly, and I was a little disappointed by it. He’s got another book about Attaturk that sounds good — maybe I’ll check that out.


8
Nov 05

Traveling

I’m currently in Pasadena for the day — making this my first business trip for Mozilla, my first work-related trip in nearly a year, and only the 3rd airplane that I’ve been on in total this year. I have to say that not traveling has been awesome — it’s been great for my time with Kathy, my diet, my health, and my mental state. Getting on a plane today was nice, though — nice to get a bit of totally disconnected time in the air, nice to drive around Pasadena and look at things I haven’t seen before. I don’t really ever want to go back to the travel schedule that I had last year — was just too much. Also, I’m struck by how much “in between” time there is — time waiting for a meeting, or when you’ve just boarded the plane, or whatever — that’s time that I get to listen to my iPod, or read my book, or things like that. Kathy & I haven’t had much of that lately, with Samosaurus around. Kind of neat once in a while.