Eric highlights this nifty chart of Unix development history. I’m not sure why Eric implies it to be covering future events, as it appears to be up-to-date (yesterday, to be specific).
The Tables
As predicted, I spent a major portion of my day at Boeing Surplus, which is having a sale this week. We came away with about five simple slab-style desks, a round break table, two quite nice task chairs, and four nice conference chairs. The task chairs are fully ergonomic, solidly built, and cost $10. The conference chairs cost $2.
Each desk was $13.50.
We also picked up some metal inboxes and a ton of hanging file folders ($1 for 40). I picked up a BNC-to-oldstyle Mac video cable and a very nice black laptop bag for myself. I deliberately did not investigate the coputer and printer offerings, but I did notice at least two wrapped pallets od SGI hardware, acres of laser printers, and paused to consider the potentially disastrous relationship implications of a sign which read “20-inch or larger monitors $5; smaller $10.”
There was no wrapped white letter size paper by the ream, but there are boxes and boxes of fanfold. I did not get any of the 15-cent pressboard magazine holders, to my regret.
The other items that I gazed on with lust but left behind were the incredible variety of wooden flightcases, in many sizes, all with interesting stencils, silvery hardware, and convenient metal handles. Purses? Gig case for musicians? Mic case for bands?
We arrived before they opened and joined the small crowd clustered under the awning, seeking shelter from the day’s rain. When the doors opened, the portly men who entered first ran-slash-waddled to their destination, somewhere in the copious technology-related material arryed on the tables.
Alas, though, for the old-“Boeing”-logo mouse-pads available in quantity were uniformly stained and schmutz ridden. And alas alack, for the lightweight metal storage cabinetry on offer was uniformly gunky and banged up, as well.
We did not pick up low, single-person filing pedestals, however, something I think I may regret.
Big day
Boeing Surplus will occupy much of my day tomorrow. $2 chairs! Half-price tables! We are camping out in the morning, like ardent fans of a washed-up rockstar.
Alas that they do not allow customers to bring cameras.
Simianews
Monkeywire: the #1 source for news about monkeys and apes.
I doubt very much I can add anything to this succint description. Here’s this month’s pickins.
ERRANT
When I was a young apprentice and less than compos mentis
I took leave of all my senses, with a maid I fell in love
Her ringlets so entwined me, Aphrodite’s smile did blind me
Cupid’s arrow struck behind me, and her father owned a pub
It was there I met my nemesis in her father’s licensed premises
Like the Seraphim of Genesis, sat Mary Anne Maguire
Arrayed in fine apparel, astride a porter barrel
She looked the kind of girl that would fill you with desire.
I happened to hear this performed by Andy Stewart on PHC this Sunday and was spellbound by the rhyming gymnastics. Sadly, it was not credited or titled on the air. Happily, I was able to unearth it. The link above includes audio, and now I have the song lodged firmly in my ear again.
Banjos, Drums, and Violas
The Viola Joke as Musician’s Folklore was uncovered whilst idly Googling. I sought research on the tradition of genre-specific ostracism-based musician jokes. These jokes are directed at a specific instrument, and are told within a community of musicians who participate in ensembles including the instrument being mocked.
The best known of these are banjo jokes, viola jokes, and drummer jokes. The banjo mockery is associated with traditionally-oriented pickers; the viola jokes are for consumption by a classical consort, and drummers take shit from rockers.
One article appeared tantalizingly beyond the web, however. Knowing the Score: The Transmission of Musician Jokes among Professional and Semi-Professional Musicians, by Nancy Groce, was published in the New York Folklore Journal Vol. 22 in 1996, but appears online only in the list of contents.
To judge a book by its’ cover, however, the title appears to propose a function for the jokery: it establishes that the joker has been exposed to the culture of working musicians. If that’s the thesis, I’d love to read more.
Are there similar categories of writer’s jokes?
It Burns
Evil toxic awful stinky floor sealant next door that the damn floor refinishers didn’t think to inform anyone in the building about is FLAVORING MY FOOD LIKE SHARPIES.
I went into the apartment to tell them to stop it and get a floor sealant that won’t KILL BABIES and this tiny Vietnamese teenager who spoke no English was applying it by hand to the floors wearing a cloth dust mask and no gloves that I recall.
I read the label on the giant multi-gallon drums cheerfully decorating our courtyard. Over half the label space was occupied with warnings about such topics as permanent neural damage and the necessty to wear rubber gloves and full-on respirators wile in use.
My eyes are burning and I am hearing some high-pitched sounds in my ears. I’m sure it’s just me wanting to slap whoever hired the refinishers silly.
UPDTAE: I blaim all mispleeings on nerve damaj.
Refreshing
I could reload my website all day long, just watching my spiffy new randomizing header reload and change. I loves me summa dat ol’ woodtype, yers I do.
Alas, though, for Photoshop’s v.7 lack of the excellent Illustrator filters that so beautifully allow random shifts of baseline and edge to be gently inflected ‘pon the bodies of the glyphs, in earnest pursuit of the organickally worn type our forefathers knew and endured.
Did you know, as far as I can tell, that it is simply not possible to order the fine letterpress tchotschkes produced in the lovely type shop of Ye Olde Colonial Williamsburg online? Will no-one make an appeal to King George, that ye internette may be mayde availabbule to the fine & industryous colonials?
Alas, too, that there is no third dimension avalilable to provide texture in the context of ye webbe payge. Were it so, I would marke this to be nubbly and stiffe, with a ridged embossing, like the book it imitates.
Oo-er! Looka this! Some luverly mud o’er ‘ere!
More SIFFblog shtick
DUDE, WHERE ARE MY FRIENDS? is Karla’s anecdote of SIFF’s opening night party. Gillian and Kristopher also narrate their way through the crowd.
I rather baffled Karla and my playing partners Greg and Karel when I opted to ply music with them at home instead of hitting up the not one, but two SIFF opening events I was invited to. What can I say? I’m a misanthrope.
Dr. Lane's blog
New-minted PhD Michael Lane dropped a line noting his blog. Mike’s a pal from undergrad days and recently took the sheepskin from the University of Sheffield. He’s, um, real bright. Real bright. At IU I always thoroughly enjoyed provoking him into passionate discourse on any given topic I knew nothing about. If timed correctly, hopefully after a beer or two, I would sit back and enjoy the hurricane of ideas and facts that would come spilling out at high velocity.
Mike’s been marinating in the mists of Airstrip One since shortly after finishing school in Indiana, and we’ve kept in touch via email. I look forward to following his rants and essays on his blog.