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26 January, 2004

A New Design For Ukulelia

Ukulelia, the world's greatest ukulele blog has a new design. I wish I could say that I like it. But I don't so I can't.

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Ed On The Captain

One more reason why you should bookmark Ed Kemmick's City Lights blog: The captain signs off. It's about Captain Kangaroo.

Today, too many children's shows feature frenetic, rude, rapidly yammering hosts (live and animated), as if children were in need of more chaos in their lives. On the other extreme are the hideously smarmy shows that insult the intelligence and maturity of even the youngest viewers.

Captain Kangaroo was, more than anything, a real person. But back then, that was true even of many politicians. Imagine that.

Ed doesn't post nearly as often as I do -- after all, he has a real job. But when he does, its always worth reading.

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Hopalong Cassidy

A cowboy legend: Hopalong Cassidy (no relation to Eva Cassidy). From the Hoppy FAQ:

How many products were endorsed by Hoppy? 2,400

What's the most valuable collectable? Probably the Hopalong Cassidy bicycle. It sold originally for $65.00 and collectors are asking $6,000-$11,000, depending on condition.

You can get a Hopalong Cassidy cookie jar for only $195.

(via Sol)

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Microsoft History

Here's a new download from Microsoft: Key Events in Microsoft History. It's a MS Word (*.doc) document.

Review important dates and events in the history of Microsoft Corporation from 1975 to the present.

I wonder why they didn't just make an HTML web page for this? I guess that's too simple.

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Chicken Economics

I'm about to throw a beer-butt chicken on the grill. I noticed the price on the chicken: $3.51.

Now I don't know much about food pricing, but $3.51 seems very cheap for a 5-pound chicken. How can anybody make any money at this price?

This chicken was raised from an egg. Fed chicken feed. Cleaned up after. Probably pumped up with chemicals. Killed. Plucked. Cleaned. Packaged. Shipped to a wholesaler. Then a grocery store. Put on the shelf. And then purchased by me.

I'm sure Foster Farms is some type of cruel concentration camp for poultry, but I just can't see how they (or anyone else who handled this chicken on its journey to my grill) can make much money at all.

Does the grocery store make $0.50 profit? $1.00? Or is it a loss-leader and they don't make any profit? How much profit does Foster Farms actually see on a single chicken? Did this chicken also lay eggs for an extra source of income?

Discuss among yourselves.

I'm sure someone has an inside knowledge of chicken economics. By the time this chicken is cooked, I expect some answers.

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Reading Material

A site called Harvest Fields has 18 pages of links to a variety of "Ebooks, Etexts and Literature."

For example...

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Madonna Photos

Even if you don't like Madonna, you've got to be impressed with MadonnaShots -- a huge collection of Madonna photos. They are organized by year, beginning with 1958.

It all began in November 1998. We usually played with the computer at night. Although Mikael was the devout Madonna fan, it was actually Eleen who first came up with the idea for a Madonna web site. We didn't have a clue about html-programming, but the layout program that Mikael had worked with for several years, PageMaker, had some web page functions (very poor, we found out later). After a few nights of scanning we came up with the very first version of this site, which we called "M & E's Rare Madonna Pictures".

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Paper Toys

Here's a huge collection of free templates for Paper Toys. Just open the file, print it, cut, fold, and glue.

I can make models of anything! Just click here and tell me what you want. I'll put it on the "to-do" list. Give me a real challenge!

(via Bernie DeKoven's Blog o' Fun)

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Coffin Calendar

This Italian coffin-making company seems to have it all figured out. The best way to sell coffins is to offer a calendar with scantily-clad (live) women.

Shown here is Miss September/October, along with the Model 110 Padre Pio coffin.

(Thanks Betty)

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Jesus Of The Day

Every week, a new Jesus. It's the Jesus of the Week, ad submissions are welcome. Here's one:

Time cries and you are there, but Jesus laughs, and you can eat off of him! As long as you own this stupendous Christ plate. Which you obviously don't.

I do.

So it looks like I'll be the only one who will know the unique pleasure of filling this plate with beans of some sort, then eagerly ladling them into my mouth as quickly as my little hand can move, as the chortling face of the Son of God emerges through the sauce.

(Thanks Fine-Line)

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Talk Like An American

Hey foreigners. Now you can get some American Accent Training. It's a Web site to promote a book by Ann Cook.

Posted on 26 January, 2004

A Flash-Based News Portal

Road Runner (the high speed cable ISP) recently set up a news portal that's done entirely with Flash. It looks nice and downloads relatively fast. But it has a few problems:

  • It's not possible to bookmark an individual news item
  • You can't change the size of the text. Those with high resolution monitors and bad eyes are out of luck.
  • It has lots of links to other sites, but it's impossible to tell if the link is there because it's useful, or if it's just a paid ad.

Correction: It turns out that you can change the font size. I missed the little button that lets you choose Small, Medium, or Large text.

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Synonyms For An Idiot

From the always interesting Vitamin Q site: 101 other words for idiot. This could come in very handy.

Posted on 26 January, 2004

One-Minute Vacations

Fire up your MP3 player and take a one-minute vacation.

Surely you can spare a minute to clean your ears? Take a one-minute vacation from the life you are living.

One-minute vacations are unedited recordings of somewhere, somewhen. Sixty seconds of something else. Sixty seconds to be someone else. A new one-minute vacation will be added each week on Monday if I can manage it.

(Thanks firq)

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Where You've Been

The World 66 site lets you create a map that shows where you've traveled. Select from a world map, or a US map.

To the best of my knowledge, this map shows the 26 states that I've been in (not counting airports).

I also created a map of the four countries I've visited. But it was too boring to show.

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Symbolic Sheets

Sheets with symbols. Shown here is "girl-boy." All combinations are available.

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Beetle Photos

Incredible close-up photos by Harald Schillhammer: Mostly beetles.

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Quotes From Bill Gates

Bill Gates said this recently:

"Two years from now, spam will be solved."

But he also said this:

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Why I Do This

Yesterday, someone named Maurice left this comment to one of my blog entries. I accidentally deleted the comment from the database, but here it is:

One thing I've never understood about your blog is why you spend so much time writing it. What drives you to write this blog? Why don't you use the time to write more books? Do you plan to monetize your blog someday? I came to your web site because I own five or six of your books. Excel Charts is one of my favorites. Frankly, I wish you would spend your time writing more great books. I love your books! Your books have made a huge positive impact on my career and the company I serve. I'll use your charting techniques next week to create charts that will be presented to the board of a Fortune 1000 company.

You are an incredibly talented book author. You say Excel 2003 is a huge disappointment. Well find something else to write another book about while we waitstate for the Longhorn version of Excel! You'll certainly extract more money out of my wallet if you write another book. I'll bet you could have written at least one, perhaps two books in the time that you spent writing this blog. Maybe you are planning on writing a book on blogging.

Good questions. What drives me to write this blog? Well, it's basically a hobby, I guess. It's fun, and I enjoy it. And it doesn't really take all that much time. I would be wandering around on the Web anyway, so now I just save the interesting stuff and put it into a database (i.e., this blog).

It's gratifying that you would like me to write more Excel books, but there is definitely a limit on how much Excel stuff I can do. I spent the first nine months of last year working on three book revisions, and that was enough for a while. Excel used to be a fascinating product for me. Now I'm just bored with it.

You are certainly correct in that I could have written an additional book or two in the time I've spent on this blog. But I really don't need the money, and I would not have enjoyed it. And I probably would have missed out on thousands of interesting Web sites that I've mentioned in this blog.

I have no plans to ever make any money from this blog. It costs only $24.95 per month to host this site -- which is relatively cheap for a hobby. I guess I'm long past the point where everything I do must earn money.

I have considered writing a book on blogging, but I abandoned the idea because there's nothing I can say about blogging that hasn't been said already.

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Another Piercing

Here's another one of those overly-pierced people. This is Elaine Davidson, from Brazil.

The story is several months old, but I missed it. See Pierced lady scared to go home.

The Brazilian woman with the most body piercings in the world - 1,903 - fears returning to her crime-ridden home country as she would attract so much attention she could be robbed.

Posted on 26 January, 2004

The Microsoft / Mike Rowe Soft Settlement

From the Microsoft Blog at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Mike Row Settlement. They basically paid him off, but no money was involved.

And he may even get to meet Bill Gates, the knight!

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Instructions

From The New Yorker: Instructions To Everything. Twenty-five all-purpose instructions. Here's #5:

Think, write, revise. Lather, rinse, repeat. Before you begin assembly, locate the fissile isotope plutonium-239. Determine its expiration date, then predetermine your own.

(via Reenhead)

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Age Discrimination In Cleveland

Apparently, the Cleveland Plain Dealer doesn't want real old people visiting their web site. In order to gain access, you must enter a year of birth greater than 1900.

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It's getting so you can't access any newspaper sites without encountering this annoying form. What I want to know is: How can collecting fake information from web site visitors help them serve us better?

Posted on 26 January, 2004

Murphy's Other Laws

This is one of those things that everyone (eventually) gets in their email. Just in case you haven't gotten it yet....

Murphy's Other Laws

  1. Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don't have film.
  2. He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
  3. A day without sunshine is like, well, night.
  4. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
  5. Back up my hard drive? How do I put it in reverse?
  6. I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.
  7. When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty.
  8. Seen it all, done it all. Can't remember most of it.
  9. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
  10. I feel like I'm parallel parked in a diagonal universe.
  11. He's not dead, he's electroencephalographically challenged.
  12. She's always late, in fact, her ancestors arrived on the Juneflower
  13. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted and used against you.
  14. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges.
  15. Honk if you love peace and quiet.
  16. Pardon my driving, I'm reloading
  17. Despite the cost of living, have you noticed how it remains so popular?
  18. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
  19. It is hard to understand how a cemetery can raise its burial costs and
    blame it on the higher cost of living.
  20. Just remember... if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.
  21. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.
  22. It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end to end,
    someone would be stupid enough to try and pass them.
  23. You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
  24. The latest survey shows that 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the world population
  25. If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.
  26. The things that come to those that wait may be the things left by those who got there first.
  27. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he
    will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
  28. Flashlight: A case for holding dead batteries - very true... never fails
  29. The shinbone is a device for finding furniture.
  30. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
  31. It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
  32. Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
  33. I wished the buck stopped here, as I could use a few.
  34. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.
  35. When you go into court, you are putting yourself in the hands of 12
    people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.
  36. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright
    until you hear them speak.

Posted on 26 January, 2004