month 0 : June 2004

Rand McNally

Bureau of Prisons

Free Background Check - really?

Mythbusters: Hyneman & Savage (Discovery Channel)

FACTA: the Fair & Accurate Credit Transactions Act

random fact: AAA gets 20% more service calls when temp hits 100F

Customs & Border Protection (part of Homeland Security)

Plano TX Convention and Visitors Bureau

Money Factory

Dallas Theatre Centre

tickets.com

Benefits Checkup.org

AARP : beyond 50

Bag Lady Prevention : " Realistic Strategies for Retirement Security, Fulfillment and Fun"

Votenet online voting software

Liquid Lense Eyeglass Scratch Treatment - epinions.com ?

The Freedom Forum (war correspondents)

The Discovery Channel's High Definition Theatre

Blisswood: bed & breakfast about an hour west of Houston (in Cat Spring, TX)

bad movies recommended by Dave-Bob and Brian-Bob:
Galaxy Quest (1999) starring Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver
Kingpin (1996) starring Woody Harrelson and Randy Quaid

Innovative Signal Analysis

"yuppie biker hangout with $5 beer pitchers" : Duke's Original Roadhouse is at 4180 Belt Line Rd, Addison TX

O'Reillys British Rose Pub : 8989 Forest Lane, Dallas TX

Jasper's is at 7161 Bishop Rd (in the Shops at Legacy), Plano TX

John's Backyard Grill is at 17604 Davenport Rd, Dallas

The Gingerman is at 2718 Boll St, Dallas

new seafood place to try: Fish on Fire is at 6006 Belt Line Rd, Dallas TX

Village on the Parkway originally had Sakowitz Department Store; old timers still call it Sakowitz Plaza.

Rapid Bottle Chillers

heard on scanner: "family violence camera kit"

Home Movie Day

home water test kit: Watersafe (about $15)

Iso-HEET is an additive to eliminate gas tank condensation (it contains isopropyl alcohol)

Whole Health MD

who2.com

Ask an Expert.com

Local Harvest.org

24 June 2004 - week 3

nerd|geek stuff

an article in the Houston Chronicle (Getting Gmail put them on the A list) pointed me to gmailswap.com where you can trade a Gmail invitation for something useful. Wonder if I can get a pony for my remaining invitations?

I was tracking down Adam Stiles' site (stilesoft.com) which pointed me to Yet Another Browser: NetCaptor

You can somewhat circumvent sites which force you to register first: Bug Me Not.com

I've played with the AT&T Privacy Bird for several days, and it's sometimes insightful, but mostly irritating (until more sites support P3P [Platform for Privacy Preferences] (thanks, Alec)

a free password manager and one-click web form filler "with some serious Artificial Intelligence": roboform.com

travel & exploration

In an attempt to prove there are websites for nearly everything, I stumbled across SeatGuru.com ("your enlightened guide to airline seating") which lists the best and worst seats on any given aircraft configuration. Fascinating.

I suspect they're talking about places like Addison Circle, or the West Village: New Urban News "focuses on building mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods instead of conventional suburban subdivisions, shopping centers and office parks".

Roundabouts USA (aka traffic circles). My favorites were in Canberra, Australia (the capital); I visited there in 1993.

The Showcopters are the helicopter equivalent of the US Navy's Blue Angels

 job hunting

Right Management Consultants

Ciber.com

M&A Technology has locations in Dallas; Houston and San Antonio. They appear to integrate Intel and AMD systems, including thin clients.

 politics and/or religion

Evil Bible includes the essay "Hitler Was a Christian" which led me to the book Hitler's Pope (apparently well researched)

Conservative Pulse -> The Reagan Dollar Petition (any excuse to get women off our money, eh?)

The Complete Bushisms - Updated frequently. By Jacob Weisberg: "[B]y the way, we rank 10th amongst the industrialized world in broadband technology and its availability. That's not good enough for America. Tenth is 10 spots too low as far as I'm concerned."

DubyaSpeak.com : Fresh Dubya

 just plain weird different

Hiroo Onoda (the Japanese bloke who was still fighting World War II into the 1970s)

Cats and Kittens Magazine: Iams Service Center Funnies

 tree huggers environment|health issues

smallstep.gov is a site done by the US Department of Health & Human Services; it appears to be a 52-step program aimed at reducing obesity.

 useless facts Cliff Claven would be proud

The Slot ("a spot for copy editors since 1995")

US newspaper lists: NewsVoyager.com

Control Your TV.org "provides parents and caregivers with tools to control and manage the programs that come into their homes" (I suppose this means it learns us [sic] to set the rating threshold).

great time waster: SelectSmart.com Selectors Quizzes Tests Decision Makers Select Quiz Test Surveys

Watching late-night television [TV], I saw ads for Liquid Lense (a liquid which purports to repair scratched eyeglasses). The local Fox affiliate (KDFW) says that I should Save My Money (navigate to ON YOUR SIDE/Deal or Dud).

Here are online infomercials, if you're in need of a laugh: As Seen On TV.com; Best Deals on TV.com; Infomercial Goodies.com; J L Ryan.com and TV Has Everything.com. Indeed.

Mystery Shopping Providers Association (both Europe and the USA) bill themselves as a "trade association dedicated to improving service quality using anonymous resources" .. which pointed me to the The Mystery Shopper's Manual. I wonder if the book will tell me How To Spot A Mystery Shopper And Ask Her On A Date?

17 June 2004 - week 2

travel & exploration

El Paso, Texas Named Sweatiest U.S. City and Corpus Christi was #4. Woo hoo - Texas has 2 of the top 5 spots!

James Lileks' American Postcards: Motels: "Most of these places are gone or renamed. But we still have the cards."

Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge: "Hardwicke Interpretive Center is open from 9am to 4:30pm Tuesday through Saturday"

job hunting

Joyce Lain Kennedy: "nationally-syndicated twice-weekly column, CAREERS NOW"

politics and/or religion

Any profits from Bush/Zombie Reagan 2004 will be donated to Alzheimers research.

JewishPress.com's Islamist Barbarism And The Western Media follows the pattern of not being able to criticize Israel without being branded an anti-Semite. Pity; discussion is good for the soul.

William Rivers Pitt's Planet Reagan

entertainment

tonight at the Gypsy Tea Room: "Legendary Pink Dots / A Tiger Named Lovesick"

Corky and the Juice Pigs were on Fox's Mad TV

Film Threat - Truth in Entertainment

Texas Music Events Calendar 2004

Movies: Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

just plain weird different

Pork Pie Appreciation Society (animation with audio)

Here's something the PETA Nazis will not find funny: Maxigumee Land: Society for The Protection of Plants

Compare your face to anyone else's (such as a descendant or ancestor): Visage Physiognomy Demonstration

tree huggers environment issues

Biotechnology Industry Organization

norm peterson would be proud

Inspired House magazine

Meet Joe Blog: "Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they're fast, funny and totally biased"

Only a certain species of mosquito carries West Nile (oddly enough, only in the Denton County section of the DMN)

"crikey" and "for Pete's sake" are explained

This is True's Bonzer Web Sites of the Week (bonzer == Australian slang for 'great | excellent')

10 June 2004 - week 1 (it's a whole new blog)

Quite a few items caught my eye this week, and rather than wait .. well, here is sundry on Thursday:

there you go again

1. Are spammers going to take Friday off? Highly unlikely. Direct Marketing Association Urges Halt to Telemarketing, E-Mail for Reagan Remembrance

2. Family Circus Predicts! is Truly Great Stuff; each day, the Family Circus cartoon (about As White Bread As It Gets) is "interpreted".

3. I Google'd for [most important meal of the day] and the results were consistent: Breakfast - Most Important Meal of the Day. I didn't see any sites advocating brunch, lunch, supper, dinner or even bedtime snack. So ... mom was right?

4. The prior search led to Get in the Breakfast Habit (in the UK) which mentioned Egg and Soldiers (a British breakfast delicacy). Then there's the British Egg Information Service. My heart, be still.

5. Elena Lappin's haunting item regarding The Patriot Act: Welcome to America describes a systemic policy of harassing media representatives from friendly countries. With friends like us, who needs enemies?

4. Silly me, I must've missed the day in school where they discussed forbs. I encountered this term while trying (unsuccessfully) to find out the name of the mystery plant I saw growing along the roadside last Sunday, in Wise and Throckmorton Counties (apparently part of the Rolling Plains). Dallas appears to be on the Edwards Plateau (see the map: 11 natural regions of Texas) on the Texas Parks and Wildlife site.

5. Dallas, Texas Scanner Frequencies. This is riveting stuff, not for the faint of heart.

6. OddSpot of the week: TexLUG (Texas LEGO Users Group)

7. UrbanDictionary.com defines sheeple (aka the Hoi Polloi, aka the Silent Majority, aka .. aw, who cares? -- they don't vote.)