Dumb Things I Have Done Lately

I turn 40 next Monday, and my still-somewhat-misnamed Actual 40th Birthday Commemoration is this Saturday (March 24, 9pm, Jimmy's Old Town Tavern in Herndon if you're interested).Two weeks ago, I had in mind the goal of getting down from my current weight (about 142), to my driver's license weight (

Bisnow's Singles Schmooze is Tuesday night. Billing itself as "Two hours of Cocktails, Hors D'Oeuvres & DC's Most-Eligible Professionals," I haven't been and don't plan to.Here's the event invitation email, presented with an unfortunate truncation, a big red box, and no further comment:I can't atte

...was install an Aliens-style Sentry Gun control interface program on my laptop, after reading about it online.In order to do that, I first to install two separate programs -- an Amiga emulator (E-UAE), and a configuration editor (Hi-Toro) -- on my MacBook.Anyway, it works (although the graphics ge

On Sunday, I went to Electric Sunday, Fairfax County's monthly free electronics recycling day. I was getting rid of a dead DVD player, an old CRT monitor, a few old cell phones and a bag full of peripherals (including my old SupraFax 28.8K modem). Electric Sunday runs from 10am-3pm, usually at at th

Starting Wednesday, January 18, 2012, the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee is having three days of meetings to discuss issues and recent findings around dissolvable tobacco products (which include items like tobacco orbs [similar to a breath mint],

Remember the animated holiday classic, The Online Adventures of Ozzie the Elf? Yeah, me neither.It came out in 1997. (Here's an AOL Canada press release about it.) It represented some sort of new media synergy, which was all the rage at the time. It features claymation and really dated '90s referenc

As a man-child of the 1980s, I naturally think that '80s Christmas songs are the bestest of all time (boomer nostalgia-driven radio airplay notwithstanding -- suck it, Millenials). Although in recent years, I've managed to avoid most of the trappings of the holiday season, there a still a few favori

For work, I've been having to keep an eye out for reports from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) that relate to government contracting and procurement. But GAO  reports on a lot of interesting stuff, so while I wouldn't say I'm reading GAO reports for fun, I'm definitely reading a lot

 Got this postcard in the mail today:The front of the no-frills, black and white card says:Patrick Forrest: Coming Out of the Liberal Closet!* Patrick Forrest is Openly Homosexual... He was endorsed by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.* Patrick Forrest supports illegal immigration reform. He is a Fede