GWB continues to misunderestimate the attention span of the American public

Our president spoke at the commencement ceremony of the Naval Academy yesterday about the war on terror.

In his own words:
"The lesson of September 11th is clear: new dangers can arrive on our shores without warning."

In the words of Condoleezza Rice:
"I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."

Speaking of maps ...

Can anyone tell me what the heck the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song "Maps" is supposed to be about? I mean, I like it and all, but ..

Confusing the Map with the Territory

I've recently been fortunate enough to get to play around with the new "Virtual Earth" that Microsoft is producing ... it should be online soon (i.e., within a month or so). Of course, the first thing I did when I got my greasy hands on it was tear it apart and see what made it tick, so soon after it is released to the public, I should have some neat new mapping applications right here ...

Mo' Money

Some folks may recall my earlier experiment with Google Adsense, which netted me a cool $4.50 or so in advertising revenue on the blog. Well, I'm trying it again (mostly just to see how the technology works), adding their new advertising option to my "feed" -- if you read this on the web, you won't notice the difference.

Fresh Air file online

If you, like me, were too busy watching American Idol on the East Coast feed instead of listening to Fresh Air, the audio is already online.

Fresh Air

My friend Scott Heim, who I think I mentioned, oh, once or twice on the blog recently, is going to be on the NPR radio program Fresh Air tomorrow, along with director Gregg Araki. Find the show in your area! I'll be listening on 88.5 KPLU at 6:30 p.m.

Canadian Burrito

A new favorite dish in the Stewart house is the Canadian Burrito. It is quick, easy-to-make, delicious, and (recently important) easy-to-chew (therefore, good "transitioning to solid foods" food).

The original Canadian Burrito, invented by me when I was just a wee bachelor, was simply a tortilla with ketchup on it, rolled into a burrito. However, as a refined married man, I have upgraded this into the following: Low-carb whole-wheat tortilla, cheese, Hebrew National hot dog, ketchup.

(Laurel puts kraut and relish on it and skips the ketchup).

OK, so it is basically a hot dog in a tortilla instead of a bun. So what makes it a "Canadian Burrito" instead of, say, an "Arizona Hot Dog Taco" or something?

Well, it isn't in a taco shell, for one. Geez.

Also, please don't confuse this with the Steamed Burrito at the Steamrollers Restaurant, which happens to be Canadian:

Tooth status

According to Laurel, my breath was "a combination of toothpaste and death" today, but otherwise, I'm starting a bit of semi-solid food.

I'm not lost, but can't be found

Unfortunately, AT&T shut down their location server, so the "Find Dave" feature no longer works. I'll add it back if they ever turn it back on (or if I switch to Sprint, which has the service actually working ...)

Slash-Dan

Dan Crevier, who works on my team at Microsoft and is known for writing code during meetings on his incredibly large "laptop" and for being maybe the world's biggest Oingo Boingo fan, was mentioned on Slashdot today. Neat! Although probably not as cool for him as being mentioned on Dave's Stuff.

Post-surgery report

Since having my wisdom teeth out, I've noticed several improvements in my overall health, such as:

• Increased self-confidence
• April-fresh smell
• 20% faster digestion
• Ability to play the violin
• X-ray vision
• Fire-proof fingernails

In short, women want me, and men want to be me.

I'll be less wise tomorrow

Getting my wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow, finally.

Head, meet sand

MovieGuide.org rates my friend Scott's movie, Mysterious Skin, "ABHORRENT: Intentional blasphemy, evil, gross immorality, falsehood, evil worldviews, and/or destructive, horrendous worldview problems."

They raise concerns about "sick homosexual pedophilia and homosexual prostitution" (I assume that the hetrosexual versions of those crimes are OK with the folks at MovieGuide).

My Mum taught me to just say to myself, "It's only a movie, it's only a movie" ... what's happening up on the screen is not real.

Oh, and the point is that this stuff is bad and really screws kids up ... unfortunately, sometimes you have to be blunt about this kind of thing, even if it seems obvious.

Then again, I haven't seen the movie yet, maybe it is abhorrent. How could it be worse than any of the Star Wars movies, though?

One Million Dollars

One of the DJs on Sirius Satellite Radio, Madison on 21 Alt Nation, offered one million dollars to someone if they emailed her the lyrics to the great Gorillaz song, "Feel Good, Inc." So I did (easy enough to find this on your favorite search engine). She has not yet acknowledged this, but I do expect my check in the mail soon.

Double your steak pleasure

Laurel and I have two favorite places for steak -- Jak's in West Seattle and Palisade at Elliott Bay Marina. We were at Jak's last night when our waiter looked very familiar to Laurel. She said, "That's weird, I go to school with someone who looks exactly like that guy, but he's a waiter at Palisade!" I said, "Maybe he has a twin brother who also happens to serve steaks."

So we asked, and it turns out, yes, he has a twin brother who also happens to serve steaks who does go to Laurel's school.

What are the odds?

Non-hicks don't nix sticks pic

My friend Scott's movie made $56 million* on its opening weekend, making it the number one movie in America and possibly the best opening weekend of all time!

*This is based on the fact that the "actual" No. 1 movie, Kingdom of Heaven was in 3200 theaters and Mysterious Skin was in one theater ... if you take the box office numbers for Skin and extrapolate ... voila!

Happy Birthday, Windows Mobile 5.0!

Windows Mobile 5.0, aka Magneto, was just released. I'm watching my pal Neil Enns show it off onstage in Vegas right now (well, he's in Vegas, I'm in Seattle watching it online). Great to see something I worked on alive and kicking!

Hello to all my friends who got to go to the MEDC in Vegas ... wish I could be there!

Who is the narrator?

Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk's latest book, Haunted, is basically a collection of (really great) short stories wrapped by a (really not-so-great) tale of the 19 authors of those stories.

The question I haven't seen anyone answer yet is, "Who is the narrator of the story?" It isn't an omniscient author, as the narrator says "us" all the time, implying it is one of the 19 short-story authors.

OK, so which of them? The first assumption you could make would be that there is a 20th person in the house, however, if that is the case, Palahniuk's math doesn't work out, as he is twice very specific about how many ways the profits from the eventual final story will have to be split as characters "leave" the storyline ... (not to give anything away). He specifically says "14 ways" and "13 ways" at points when it would make sense that only 17 authors are present in total -- the other 2 people being their captors.

And it isn't one of the captors, as they aren't included in the "us" (plus one of them is gone by the end of the book and the other is missing for a large part of it, although could be the narrator in a stretch).

The best clue, though, comes from the order that people get on the bus at the beginning. The two captors are already on when the book starts, along with one of the authors, who is driving the bus. And one other author, the "Earl of Slander."

The Earl is referenced pretty lightly throughout the book and is the only person present for the entire narrative scope of the book other than the bus driver, "Saint Gut-Free" (these names make sense, too much sense, when you read the book).

Why not the Saint, then, who is also present throughout? Could be him, too, as he is also the only person to narrate a story outside of the house, but too often he is referenced as "looking at us." But there is one reference of the Earl as separate from "us" as well.

So who is the narrator? Who knows. I think it was intended to be a guessing game and perhaps I missed a few clues, but my best guess right now is the Earl of Slander.

Again, at least the short stories are good, and I do applaud Palahniuk for at least trying to come up with a real novel instead of a story collection, which I really hate out of my favorite authors (do you hear me, David Foster Wallace? Yes, you -- about to release another book of essays?)

Going to NYC

Laurel and I are heading to New York for her break between school quarters, June 25 through June 30. We're in the market for tickets to see a taping of the Daily Show or Conan O'Brien, but those tickets are hard to come by. So, if anyone reading this happens to have a ticket they can't use ...

Blogs I will read

I'm more than happy to read blogs from folks I know but don't get to keep up with much, like my aforementioned friend Scott, whose blog I found today. Subscribed! Sad that this is the way that I found out his mom died, but that's what happens when someone gets famous and all jet-setty and forgets his ol' Kansas friends ;-)

Is that Chloe I hear?

Watching the Mysterious Skin trailer, I heard a voice that sounded just like Mary Lynn Rajskub (who most people know as Chloe on 24, although I mostly know her as one of the regulars on Mr. Show with Bob and David) ... sure enough, she is in the movie. As is that 3rd Rock from the Son kid, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Pretty good stuff, although the movie is looking like it is going to be rated NC-17, so no one will end up seeing it. I also wish they had gone with the Fruit Loops on the movie poster like they did with the book.

Another successful college friend

My friend Scott Heim, who was one of my best friends my sophomore year of college, became a writer ... and he just had his first book turned into a movie, which opened this Friday in New York.

You can see the trailer for Mysterious Skin by clicking here. You can buy the book here. Or, of course, if you know me, ask to borrow my signed first editions of either of Scott's two books (and I'll say "no").

The movie, like the book, is probably not for everyone, but try to support it anyway when the movie comes to your town (June 17 in Seattle) -- even though Scott still has never thanked me for the concept of the "Suffering Box," which he used in his second book.

My other friend Dan's birthday

My college friend Dan Niemi, who works at the New York Times (perhaps you've heard of it?), had a birthday on May 3. I usually send him an email on his birthday, and sometimes he writes back. This year, he did, with great news: He's engaged! NICE. Dan was cool enough to attend my wedding, so I hope I get to attend his (especially if it is also in Vegas) ... I think finding out I had a friend who worked at the New York Times helped legitimize me in the eyes of my father-in-law (because *good* journalists go to the NYT ... *bad* journalists go to Microsoft).

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Yesterday: This blog's birthday. Happy birthday, Dave's Stuff!

Today: Dan Rodina's birthday. Happy birthday, Dan!



Tomorrow: The iJoy chair arrives (between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.).

Shall machines do the work of man?

I just finished mowing the lawn -- actually, I just finished watching my ROBOT mow the lawn.

About a year ago, I got a lawn-mowing robot for about 80 bucks from "Woot" (a decent site to get halfway-decent prices on indecently overstocked items).

After letting it sit in its box in the garage for that year, I finally took it out and set it up.

It worked OK ... we don't get much traffic on our street, but quite a few folks driving or walking by just stopped and watched it go!

Once I had it set up properly (I forgot to set the wheel height right), the 'bot only got stuck once, when it couldn't figure out how to get around the fire hydrant. Otherwise, it mowed all by itself for two hours and did an OK job of mowing the weeds back down to a reasonable level.

I've stopped reading blogs

I used to subscribe to 100s of blogs. Then I filtered that list down to about 50 or 60, which still meant I read several hundred blog posts a day. Recently, I cut the list down to about 10 or so, as you can see from my blog listing on the side of the page, and three of those are my own. Why? I just got tired of seeing it all. The information that was coming in wasn't all that informative. Plus, I actually enjoy "surfing" the web much more than having it come to me. I'm thinking of dropping all of them. So I might end up reading a lot of the same blogs, but just whenever I remember to surf over to them -- not via a subscription so much.

Napoleon Dynamite: Another Dave's Stuff (exclusive) Review!

Also bad.

Who know this blog would become a hotbed of exclusive movie reviews? Of course, this movie is quite a bit older than Hitchhiker's Guide, but I just saw it today on DVD ... I'm a bit under the weather today, so I kicked back and watched it to see what all the fuss was about. Kind of wish I had gone to work instead.

One year of blogging!

Tomorrow will be this blog's birthday ... I'm wondering if we'll hit 20,000 visitors before the year is out (of course, since the counter didn't start till long after the blog did, we're way past 20,000 by now, but whatever).

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Dave's Stuff Review!

Bad.