AAAAAAAA OOOOOO AAAAAAAAAA!
Funny how we can call stuff "that's so early 2000s" now. What else is from the era of the early 2000s?

Riding along in a car on a vacation sipping on an old soda that has been resting for a couple hours... that's what drinking a warm soda reminds me of.

I like how threadless says your age in decimals: My threadless profile. It's fascinating how that number changes every day. If someone asks me how old I am today, I can say 29.78.

This is a vegetable tray that Lisa and I made for a tiki party.

The weather forecast for the South Pole today is a high of 17°, but tomorrow's high is -61°. That is a difference of 78 degrees!

Google has now released their own instant messaging service called Google Talk. It's available for PC and Mac. There is a program for the PC users to download, while there is none for the Macintosh. However, Google Talk does work in the program Adium.

If you don't have Adium already, you should get it. This program combines aol instant messenger, yahoo, msn, and ICQ into one interface. And now it also supports Google Talk.

Click here for complete instructions on how to set up Adium for Google Talk.

there should be an thesaurus that you can look up a word and it will give you
• tv shows
• movies
• actors
• fictional characters

i.e. look up "architect" and it will give you every pop culture reference to architects

It would be fun to become an elevator cheerleader. While riding in the elevator with someone do loud obnoxious cheers for that person. "YOU CAN DO IT BOB! MAKE THAT SPREADSHEET! BOB-BEE! BOB-BEE!" And clap for that person as they exit the elevator, "Let's go bobby, let's go!"

Do it enough and then you'll get the reputation for being the company "elevator cheerleader."

Why do cashiers hand you the paper bills first and then try to precariously hand you the change on top of that? It makes no sense, because the coins end up sliding all over the place.

PLEASE ALL CASHIERS OF THE WORLD, follow this sequence:
1) Hand your customer the coins FIRST
2) THEN hand over the paper bills

Thank you.

At the end of 2003, Chicago lost all its toy stores downtown. Now there are no hardware stores downtown. I just found out that the Ace Hardware at 26 North Wabash is now a eye glass store. In 2000-2004 there were no office supply stores in the loop. But now both a Stapes and an Office Max Express opened up. Maybe there's hope for the toy and hardware industry in Chicago's loop.

Underscorebleach.net makes an interesting observation:

Today is August 19, 2005, quite far into the 2005 MLB season. I think it's rather remarkable that every single team in the National League East has a better record than every single team in the National League West.

NL East	W	L	Pct
Atlanta	69	52	.570
Philadelphia	65	57	.533
Washington	64	57	.529
Florida	63	57	.525
NY Mets	61	59	.508
NL West	W	L	Pct
San Diego	59	61	.492
Arizona	57	65	.467
LA Dodgers	55	65	.458
San Francisco	53	67	.442
Colorado	45	76	.372

For over half of baseball history there was never a team on the West Coast (1876-1957). Maybe they don't deserve to have any teams there now.

Whenever I see someone buying hair products, I check out their hair. "oh they have beautiful hair, I'll try their product." or "oh boy, I'm sure not gonna buy what they are using if their hair looks like that."

But then yesterday I fell victim to my own scrutiny and judgement. With my hair a fuzzy mess, because I ran out of product, I bought some new stuff at Walgreens. I thought to myself, "If anyone judges this product on what I look like now, they surely will never want to buy this stuff."

So, I'm gonna stop evaluating people's hair products based on how their hair looks like in the store. It was never the right or fair thing to do in the first place.

1) normal
2) lots of yawning, stretching.
3) inattentiveness
4) sloth. slow moving.
5) complete exhaustion. unfocused eyes. too tired to yawn. too tired to stretch.

It's kinda funny how spiders like to sit right in the very middle of their web. It's like taking a lawn chair and sitting right in the very middle of your backyard.

I wonder if there is some sort of structural reason for sitting in the middle. Like if it somehow helps to hold the web together better.

In America we drive on the right side of the road, and pedestrians tend to walk on the right side of the sidewalk. What about in other countries where they drive on the left side of the road. Do they walk on the left side of the sidewalk as well?

From time to time we all tend to eat too fast. Ever finish a sandwich and wonder where it all went? What if you could order a sandwich that came cut up in individual bite-sized pieces? Much like how candy bars are now sold (e.g. bite-sized Snickers, fun-sized Baby Ruth). Each sandwich piece would come in it's own fun-sized individual wrapper. And then you just buy the entire "sandwich" in one big bag containing all the bite-sized pieces.

The phrase "how are you?" is said more as a greeting instead of an actual question. It always surprises me how many people ask a question and then just keep on walking and don't even bother to hear your response. It's nice that they ask, it shows a bit of compassion. It makes me wonder if the origin of this phrase was actually in some sort of taking the time to hear the answer. Or has it always been buried in a social ritual where it's said so we seem like we care.

Here's some things found online in regards to "How are you?"

---

The Cambridge Dictionary says:

used to ask someone if they are well and happy:
"Hi, Lucy, how are you?" "Fine, thanks, how are you?"

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A search on dictionary.com for "how are you" points to "How do you do:"

A conventional greeting used mostly after being introduced to someone, as in And this is our youngestsay "How do you do" to Mr. Smith. Although it is a question, it requires no reply. Originally, in the 1600s, this expression was an inquiry after a person's health or standing, how do you do meaning "how do you fare?" Today we usually express this as How are you? or How are you doing? or How goes it? or How's it going? Even more general are the slangy locutions How are things? or How's tricks? All of these greetings date from the first half of the 1900s.

If they didn't say "how are you" before 1600, how did people greet each other?

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MSN Encarta makes a distinction between "how are you" and "how do you do":

how are you (doing)? used to ask about somebody's health, or simply as a greeting when you meet somebody, especially somebody already known

how do you do? used when meeting somebody for the first time

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Here's a psychological look at "how are you" from ethicalspace.org:

The psychologist, Eugene Gendlin, remarks that Heidegger’s conception of mood is more “interactional” than “intrapsychic” (Gendlin 1978). In his article on Heidegger’s concept of “Befindlichkeit”, he writes:

“Sich befinden’ (finding oneself) thus has three allusions: The reflexivity of finding oneself; feeling; and being situated. All three are caught in the ordinary phrase: How are you? That refers to how you feel but also to how things are going for you and what sort of situation you find yourself in. To answer the question you must find yourself, find how you already are. And when you do, you find yourself amidst the circumstances of your living.”

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And columnist Brad Houston looks at different forms "how are you" and the typical responses at: 'Greetings, Earthlings' was already taken.

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Brad has it right, when he asks the question he actually takes the time to listen to the response. Personally, I never ask "How are you" unless if I really want to know. I feel like I'm being snotty on this. But I'd rather be sincere.

Does anyone out there use Macintosh's iCal program?
Or even one of the following
• .ics format
• Thunderbird
• Firefox Calendar
• Mozilla Calendar

I'm thinking of publishing a bunch of calendars with the ics format, but wanted to make sure it was worth my time. If you don't use any of these, what sort of calendar system(s) do you use? Please reply using the comments. Thank you.

To look like a efficient corporate worker while standing in the elevator, do not lean on the walls. Instead stand up straight. It's so easy to lean on the walls in the elevator, I do it all the time. But it kinda makes you look all slouchy.

On a bus shelter on Michigan Avenue in Chicago is an advertisement for DHL. I'm quite suprised to see that it's customized for Chicago--and quite funny at that too. At first I was wondering if this could be a generic ad that could run in any city--which it could be. But the fact that where the north side and the south side begins and ends is so Chicago.

But actually now that I think about it, there is kind of an in between. Isn't downtown the "in between" of the north and south side? I don't consider the loop to be the north side.

I'm trying to come up with a shorter name for this phenonmenon:

That's-not-my-cellphone-ringing-although-it-reminded-me-
that-I-still-have-mine-on-but-I'm-waiting-an-extra-miniute-
to-turn-it-off-so-you-don't-think-that-ringing-was-from-me.

Sitting in the 3rd row at midfield at a Chicago Fire game in Soldier Field, the fans barely ever stood and cheered--if at all. Granted the Fire was already down 0-3 with 15 minutes left when they scored two goals. But c'mon that 2nd goal made it 2-3, the fans coulda stood up for that. Only about 25% of the fans in my section stood up and cheered.

There are three great Chicago community blogs.
gapersblock.com, chicagoist.com, chicago.metblogs.com.

But why are there none for the burbs? There's gotta be community blogs for either
A) The entire Chicago burbs
B) Localized part of the burbs (i.e. West burbs of Chicago)
C) A specific burb (like Schaumberg)

Policeman in Chicago are now giving tickets to adult bicyclists who ride on the sidewalk and disobey stop signs. (according to Chicagoist, Gapers Block, Chicago Notebook.

I'm trying to picture the scenario of a policeman giving a bicyclist a ticket in the city.

Are these cops in cop cars?
Are they on cop bikes?
Are they just walking around?

How does a biker get pulled over? Is there a siren? Does the cop just yell, "Hey you, stop!"?

When they pull you over for being on the sidewalk, do they make you pull over onto the street? Or does the cop go onto the sidewalk with his bike? Would they just stand there on the street and give you a ticket?

Tomsaaristo posted the revised food pyramid by Harvard University. Here's my comments:

It's much better than the new one. However, it's kinda odd how you have alcohol and vitamins floating outside the pyramid. I can see content-wise that it's nice to include them. Visually, it's just weird. With a 3-d pyramid we look at the diagram as being three-dimensional space. So these flat 2-d diagrams floating outside the pyramid looks like they are floating ghosts. Ooooo the floating ghost of alcohol past! Oh it's the ghost of vitamin future!

And in a more serious note, the exercise bar at the bottom is nice. However it doesn't seem to be all that important because it's so skinny. It looks like the other food groups are so heavy, they are squashing the crap outta the exercise layer. Let's give the exercise layer a nice thicker bar. Let it visually show how exercise is really a good foundation.

It's also rather funny that the apex of the pyramid points to the word "eating" in "Healthy Eating Pyramid." Eat! Eat! and Eat summore!

This photo from wikipedia's entry on sweet potatoes is really cute. It's like a big potato party! All the attendees are like people, some skinny, some fat, some average.

Here's some notes I took from the Bloggers & Books talk last week:

People are vaults of entertainment (iTunes playlist, RSS, Netflix queue, current books reading) This list of entertainment for each person becomes a way of defining this identity.

My comments: So What is this identity? Yes, we can find people who are Harry Potter fans. We can find the action movie fans. I would like to see this somehow cross-pollinated with Myers-Briggs personality character types.

This list of entertainment/interests defining people is just like a livejournal user page where a user can list 150 of their interests. It's just so surprising that nobody has developed a tool that can identify which users have the most common interests with another user. For example, my livejournal user page has 149 interests. I would like to find the people out there that have 15 or more of those interests in common with me.

Virtual Book tour. One author of a book (or blog) goes to like 15 different blogs and does a guest post. (not a comments, but an actual post). This would not be recycled content from his/her blog or book, but posts that are fitting to each particular website.

My comments: This is an interesting idea to get some varying content on people's blogs. And an excellent way to promote another person's blog or book.

There should be a place for fans of a particular author to go and express their interest in this author. If you are the biggest fan of XYZauthor, then you should be ale to do something aout it. Not just site and twiddle your thumbs. There should be one centralized place to be notified of when an author is coming to town.

My comments: Oh yeah, this is centralized event notification would work greatly for the idea of one common calendar standard.

Getting a book deal. One of the bloggers mentioned that how a publisher may have said to her "not another book on weight loss!", BUT with her blog she already had an audience of followers. This made it a lot easier for the publisher to decide to publish her book.

My comments: And not just any audience, this would probably be an following of people who are bloggers. For anyone wanting to do viral marketing, bloggers are an incredible resource as MarketingSherpa.com says in their article: How to Get on the Wall Street Journal's Best Seller List via Online-Only Marketing & Distribution.

Are there any cultures that eat bees? I'm afraid of bees so I was just wondering what it would be like to consume them.

Here's a site that mentions this: "people eating bees, which is more common in Asia than the United States. 'When bees are cooked they have a dry, sweet flavor, like a french fry,'"