I hate to disappoint you if you came here looking for tips regarding scorched bread, but while I am an acknowledged — yet exceedingly humble — expert on the subject, I’m actually here to warn you about the app named Toast. You may have encountered Toast at a restaurant that has adopted it as its… Continue reading Toast Alert
Category: Technology
Random Thursday: Drones, Death, and Drama
Howdy, buckaroos! Today is National Chocolate With Almonds Day, and I can’t think of too many more magnificent combinations (although those chocolate-filled chocolate marshmallows come close, because too much chocolate is never enough). Today we’re stumbling through a variety of topics, so let’s not dawdle. I had a birthday recently and scored this sweet drone:… Continue reading Random Thursday: Drones, Death, and Drama
Random Thursday
Don’t try this at home…or anywhere, actually. Happy Thursday! Today, as you well know, is National Grape Popsicle Day. There are many fine ways to celebrate the day, one of which is to use a grape popsicle to keep your drink cold, as long as it’s not chardonnay. Today, for your reading pleasure, we shall… Continue reading Random Thursday
My Dad’s Collection: Glass Insulators
Warning (Nerd Alert): This post careens pretty far into the weeds on a rather obscure topic. Perhaps its saving grace is some pretty pictures. My dad was a dedicated collector of…everything. He had copious quantities of stamps (we’re talking thousands) and coins (a hernia-inducing amount, to be exact). He, along with my mom, “invested” in… Continue reading My Dad’s Collection: Glass Insulators
The Perfected Art of Planned Obsolescence (…or, “I should have paid it off slower”)
I celebrated a monumental event last week. It wasn’t my wedding anniversary, nor my wife’s birthday, although those things did take place…but they do pretty much every year. No, this was something that happens only very rarely: I paid off my iPhone. I had been anticipating this blessed occurrence for a few months, but that… Continue reading The Perfected Art of Planned Obsolescence (…or, “I should have paid it off slower”)
Random Thursday: The Friday [Semi-Lockdown] Edition
Hello, fellow Gazetteers. I trust that your household pets are thus far avoiding becoming science projects. I was going to do a long post about how I’m pretty sure I had COVID-19 in the first week of February, as I suffered many of the symptoms that the CDC are now putting forth, but tested negative… Continue reading Random Thursday: The Friday [Semi-Lockdown] Edition
Hawk Gawk / Drone Moan
The pair of red-shouldered hawks in our neighborhood have built a nest in a huge oak tree in the lot just to the west of our house. I wasn’t completely confident of this fact until yesterday, but the circumstantial evidence was pretty strong. We could see a mass of twigs and small limbs waaaay up… Continue reading Hawk Gawk / Drone Moan
Who’s Zoomin’ Who?
Apologies to the Queen of Soul for the post title, but the question is a valid one today, albeit for different reasons than Aretha anticipated. And the answer seems to be…pretty much everyone. One of the few beneficiaries of the COVID lockdowns is the maker of the videoconferencing software, Zoom. I guess it’s been around… Continue reading Who’s Zoomin’ Who?
Random Thursday: The Friday Edition
It’s cold and rainy and dreary…and I’ve decided that I’d be the world’s worst arsonist. It might have taken hours to build, but it is cozy. I did finally get a conflagration going in the fireplace, but it took an entire edition of the Wall Street Journal and most of my kindling to accomplish that.… Continue reading Random Thursday: The Friday Edition
Retrospect: 20 years ago, I built websites
2020 marks a milestone of sorts for yours truly. Twenty years ago this month, I semi-voluntarily* left a position with one of the largest energy companies in the world and embarked on a new career in the glamorous but low-paying world of website design. The World Wide Web was still in relative infancy at that… Continue reading Retrospect: 20 years ago, I built websites