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18 November, 2002

A Dead Fish

Losing a beloved pet is never easy...

Albino G. Fish (1999-2002)

Long-time pond resident Albino G. Fish was found dead today, his bloated body partially obscured by a water lily pad. Known affectionately as "Al," he apparently died from complications resulting from an ailment commonly known as "fat fish syndrome." An autopsy was not performed. Al's body was discovered by the pond-keeper, John Walkenbach, during routine pond maintenance. "Yep, he was sure dead alright," explained Walkenbach.

Al began life in 1999 as a member of a large community of feeder fish at a local Petco store. Even at an early age, Al stood out from the crowd due to his rare albinism. In fact, he was hand-picked and purchased solely on the basis of his white color. According to Walkenbach, "I was looking for some variety in the pond, so I asked the guy to get the white one." Al was purchased for $0.15, put into a sealed plastic bag, and taken to his new home in a small garden pond in suburban San Diego. Is it possible to put a price tag on the life of a fish? "Hell, I would have paid as much as $0.20 for that one," Walkenbach boasted. But he goes on to admit that "[Al] did get pretty ugly as got larger."

Al adapted quickly to his new environment, and got along well with the other pond residents, who mourn his passing. "He was basically a good fish," explained Goldie I. "I'm sure he fertilized many of my eggs, but he probably ate just as many of them." Goldfish paternity, of course, is difficult to ascertain due to their community life style. Another resident, Goldie II, reflected on the time he spent with the late fish. "Al used to always talk about how good he had it here in the pond," he noted. "While living in that pet store, I think he endured enough glass tapping to last a lifetime."

Goldie III was saddened by Al's passing, but he takes a realistic approach to life in a pond. "We're just common goldfish," he explained. "We get sick. Sometimes we recover and sometimes we don't. It's not like we were expecting a vet to make a house call." Goldie IV, on the other hand, has a more positive attitude regarding Al's passing. "Sure I'll miss him, but the bottom line? It just means more food for me," he stated.

Al will perhaps be best remembered for his love of music. According to Goldie V, "He had a fine voice, for a fish. I can't count the number of times he coerced us all into joining him in a round of 'Roe Roe Roe Your Boat'." Those who knew him best agree that Al's musical tastes were very broad. He loved traditional songs such as 'Tea for Tuna.' and 'Tanks for the Memories' (particularly fitting, given his background), but he also like to flap his fins to rollicking numbers like 'Sweet Home Abalone'. A few months before his death, Al became interested in the guitar, and he could often be heard playing the introduction to 'Stingray to Heaven'. Although certainly no virtuoso, Al was not unfamiliar with the piano, and loved to play the familiar chords to 'Heart and Sole' -- always in the key of Sea.

Funeral services were held two minutes after the body was discovered. "I grabbed a net, scooped him out, and threw him over the fence into the ice plant," explained Walkenbach. It was a low-key ceremony, and the other pond residents didn't surface during the services, preferring to mourn in private, as is their custom. The service ended with a brief eulogy by Walkenbach that concluded on a touching note: "I just hope some animal comes along and eats him before he starts stinking up the place."

Posted on 18 November, 2002

Master of the Etch-A-Sketch

Now this is really amazing.

Michael McNevin is a singer and songwriter -- and also a world class Etch-A-Sketch artist. I didn't know there was such a thing as a world class Etch-A-Sketch artist, but now I'm convinced.

Michael has combined his music and drawing talents in a new CD titled "Sketch" (not kidding -- look at the CD art). While the music is receiving rave reviews, the CD cover art has audiences genuinely delighted and dumbfounded. He actually illustrates his lyrics on the toy, creating a sort of "Norman Rockwell" picture of his songs.

I haven't played with one of these in many years. But I do remember how challenging it was to draw something other than a horizontal or vertical line.

Posted on 18 November, 2002

The Gap? No Comment

A few weeks ago I mentioned that amazon.com is now selling clothes. They sell the wares of quite a few companies. And, as with other products offered at amazon, customers can provide comments about the merchandise -- unless the merchandise is from The Gap. According to this New York Times article,

Jason Kilar, Amazon's vice president in charge of apparel, said the e-commerce giant reluctantly agreed to disable reviews for the Gap in order to get the ubiquitous, if somewhat ailing, merchant to validate Amazon's apparel efforts.

I can only conclude that The Gap folks anticipate too many negative comments about sweat shops.

Posted on 18 November, 2002

An RSS Feed is Now Available

I spent some time over the weekend, and worked on getting an RSS feed for this blog (see the "RSS Feed" link on the left).

Most of the standard blogging tools (such as Radio Userland and Blogger) provide this capability automatically. But this is a "roll your own" blog -- I use FrontPage rather than normal blogging software. Consequently, creating a RSS feed took a bit of work. I spent about three hours working with FrontPage VBA, and created a procedure that scans the HTML, and then creates the XML file. Although I'm an Excel VBA wiz, this was my first project with VBA in FrontPage. You don't realize the value of Excel's macro recorder until you work with an app that doesn't have such a tool.

What's the point? The contents of this blog can now be retrieved and displayed by news aggregator software (for example, Newz Crawler). This enables you to "subscribe" to this blog -- as well as thousands of other blogs and news organizations. The items appear in a list, very similar to the way Outlook Express displays newsgroup posts. A standard XML format (RSS) is what makes this possible.

Posted on 18 November, 2002

Microsoft SPOT

Microsoft unveiled a new project at Comdex: Smart Personal Object Technology (SPOT).

Smart Personal Objects are everyday objects, such as clocks, pens, key-chains and billfolds, that are made smarter, more personalized and more useful through the use of special software. These everyday objects already exist in huge numbers, and, of course, all of them already have primary functions that people find valuable. So our goal is simply to improve on these core functions to make these new, smarter objects that are not just useful but indispensable.

Wow, just like The Jetsons! Adding additional layers of complexity to a simple object is a fantastic idea. A typical tech support call of the future: Q. Every time I try to use my keychain I get a cryptic error message. A. Have you tried re-booting your keychain?

Another quote:

Imagine how handy it would be to have a travel alarm clock that, in addition to telling time very accurately and auto-adjusting to time-zones, could also wake you to your favorite WMA-encoded music, display information about road closures along your expected travel route, and deliver urgent messages.

WMA-encoded music? If it won't play my MP3-encoded music, forget about it!

Posted on 18 November, 2002

Microsoft's Office Web Site: Mystery Solved

Last week, I finally figured out something that has confused me on more than one occasion. In the past, I've gone to Microsoft web site for their Office product. Then I go back there, looking for something that I've seen before, and I can't find it. The reason? Microsoft has two distinctly different web sites for the Office product:

At first, I thought the Orange site was designed as a sales-oriented site, intended for people who don't own Office. But that's not true. And I can't even find any links between the two sites. It's as if they were created by two different companies. For example, if you're looking for general tips on using Office, you can ho here (at the Orange site), or you can go here (at the Blue site).

I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for this -- maybe it's the result of some age-old internal power struggle within Microsoft. Or maybe it's just part of the overall goal of keeping their customers confused.

Posted on 18 November, 2002

Embroidered Toolbar?

Man, somebody really likes PhotoShop! Here's an embroidered PhotoShop toolbar. I'd like to have one of these for an Excel toolbar. Well, on second thought, maybe I wouldn't.

Posted on 18 November, 2002

Error Wear

Looking to make a fashion statement? You can't go wrong with this collection -- lots of t-shirts with computer error messages.

This is where I got my "blue screen of death" t-shirt, pictured here. Whenever I wear this shirt in public, it never fails to attract the attention of strangers.


Posted on 18 November, 2002