Posted on by mwhybark

Richart

One man’s treasure-from-trash is a Centralia tourist attraction – The Seattle Times profiles Richard Tracy, “Richart”, and his wonderful folk-art assemblage, on his property in Centralia.

(I noticed this as we were having lunch at the Pig-n-Whistle in Greenwood. We were there whilst I scheduled my driver’s test.)

Several years ago, my old band played an Oktoberfest in Centralia-Chehalis for three nights and during the days we poked arounf the town. One of the sights we saw was Richart’s magnificent pile.

Richart talked to all of us at length.

Here’s the man himself.

Posted on by mwhybark

EmoteMail

EmoteMail, an MIT emotive-context experiment.

[via Memepool.]

I’ll give this a whirl, but I think I am fundamentally disinterested in the concept. When I write an email, I might very well be interested to know the information captured and presented in the client here – but do I wish to share that info with others? Hell no!

I want the words in the email to carry the emotional context, and especially if the message has its’ genesis in a moment of anger I almost always want to wring that anger out and replace it with humor, self-deprecation, wit, sarcasm, and politeness.

Now, if I could hack the client to replace the realtime data with emotional expressions and evidence of typing intensities that I specify interactively in order to shape the message, now that’s something I’d probably be interested in, at least until the app was widespread and people understood it to be a medium.

And, in a completely unrelated topic, I wish there was a universal and customizable control-menu app for OS X, so, among other things, I could highlight a word and paste a well-formed href anchor tag around the selection.

Also: where the hell is my freakin’ hovercar, people? Huh? I mean, come on!

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Vongole

Tonight, I’m channeling my inner Italian ma to make a mess of spaghetti alle vongole, something I first had at an Italian restaurant in Boston’s North End in 1972 (although, of course, it was prolly linguini).

I don’t ‘member the name of the joint, but it was big and bustling. I’ve been thinking about this dish all day and I only just realized that it was because of the convention coverage.

I’m gonna use this exceedingly simple recipe, ‘cuz I’m too lazy to fight the shells tonight.

Next time, bivalves, next time!

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A New Thing

I live in a heavily rental-oriented neighborhood in downtown Seattle. Renters are not, by-and-large, voters, and thus they are not generally campaigned to.

This evening, I stepped outside to take the trash to the dumpster. I’ve been listening to the Democratic convention speeches all week, generally with interest and sometimes with criticisms. Tonight, as I carried my dripping bag of refuse out, John Edwards was just entering the “two Americas” portion of his speech.

To my amazement, the speech did not fade into the distance as I approached the alley. Instead, it seemed to be coming from everywhere. I stopped and listened closely. From more than one apartment and backyard within a half-block radius of my house, my neighbors were tuned in to Edwards’ speech, volume up, as they prepared dinner or puttered in the yard. His voice echoed off the buildings in the summer sun.

I’ve lived in this neighborhood for fifteen years, under three presidents; it’s the kind of neighborhood where I still see Nader 2000 stickers and I doubt that a single person on my block is opposed to gay marriage.

But I have never, never known the neighborhood, collectively, to be so engaged in the national political state of affairs that they would listen to a convention speech in unity. I am amazed.

Posted on by mwhybark

Sanyo Lightship

The Sanyo Lightship has been buzzing my neighborhood since the weekend, and unaccountably, there’s been no Googleable local press. Interestingly, Sanyo itself has not been updating their news and info very much.

Foolishly, I did not immediately attempt to talk my way on board the day I saw it in flight. Even more foolishly, there have been several times I’ve seen it where if I had been carrying a camera, I would have been able to snap a real version of this (docking and multiple blimps aside).

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Change

Viv got home late last night. Among her California booty was a bumpersticker that her dad gave her.

As some readers will already know, Viv’s parents came to the U.S. from Cuba after the revolution. While my father-in-law is far from being the political caricature of Cuban emigres seen as players in both Florida and national politics, it’s safe to describe him as a reliable Republican voter, comfortable in the Reagan-Nixon zone of Orange County, California.

The bumpersticker he gave Viv endorses one John Kerry, lately of Massachusetts. I’m beginning to suspect that the current President may – just maybe – be in trouble, barring Osama, Osama, or bimbo eruption.