October 2002 Archives

Ed Thompson gained my vote today in Wisconsin's gubernatorial race today. In his 20 questions-style interview with the local paper, his longest answer to any of the questions asked was in reply to his arrest history. His answer didn't dodge the question, but rather took it head on, relating the many times he has been arrested. (He currently owns a tavern in Tomah. That helps explain it.) The answer that won me over was when he was asked to say nice things about his opponents. Paraphrasing (but not by much): "Jim [Doyle] has a nice shiny head. Scott's [McCallum] got a nice smile. Jim [Young] has nice hair. He has a pretty ponytail."

This tells me Ed doesn't put up with the political crap. I like that. And he knows how to party, and doesn't hide it like our president tries to. You also may say that I am throwing my vote away. You should let me exercise my right to vote for any candidate I choose. Respect my vote, and I will in turn respect yours. Thank you.

You've probably noticed some layout changes on this page. It is now completely controlled by CSS. The main page has no more tables cluttering the code and confusing me. In the coming days, the rest of RobbyB.com will be updated. KrisandRob.com, however, won't be, but all the slide shows will be outfitted to be read by MSN/WebTV users.

How many of these people do you know?

I spent the past two nights adjusting the code in the wedding slide shows to allow my grandparents to view it in WebTV. They even have a nifty viewer to emulate the remote and user interaction. I learned of the limitations of presenting web pages to a TV, and in the meantime, managed to find a gazillion resources to better design the rest of my pages. So, from now on, under the guidance of professional web designers, I am attempting to design my pages without tables and have it validate. Like you really care, though.

I don't know how, where, when, or why, but Huntbar invaded my computer. It switched my home page, changed the generic 404 error in IE, and supposedly was sending information about what sites I visited back home. Freaky. Thanks to a Google, Thanks to and.doxdesk.com, HuntBar bothers me no more.

U2.com is streaming songs from the upcoming Best of 1990-2000 CD. Today's selections are Beautiful Day and North and South of the River. I've been listening to it all morning. It reminds me of the classic, "With or Without You." Not quite as stirring, but the words represent the same feeling. It makes me very excited for November 5.

It's Ryan - not Bryan Adams. This guy learned it the tough way.

I have come to discover that the worst part about sleep, its enemy if you will, is waking up. My wife has said, "I love sleeping. It's so fun." I wholeheartedly agree. Why then, do I put off going to sleep to the last possible moment, when I know that waking up is the hardest thing to do?

It seems to me, that with Madison's latest try at smoking restrictions, and New York's attempts, that there's a niche to be filled. If given the choice, would you go to a smokeless bar?

From Bambino's Curse Tony speaks for every sports fan when he rips Bob Costas. Not once, but twice. And then he lets a reader share his voice. I also made it a weekly point to watch Inside the NFL. Now, there is no point. Now, it's just a little football amongst friends.

I am a lazy web page designer. I admit it. It's not my profession, just a hobby. But tonight, I got on the kick of trying to validate this front page. After many iterations, I can proudly display the following image:

Next up is XML. I hope to get a database of Swimming Alumni on-line in a manageable and presentable format. Keep your fingers crossed. Suggestions are more than welcome.

Earlier, I talked about the recently crowned funniest joke. Turns out, to everyone's suspicions, that it isn't that funny. Who wudda thought?

I am still getting used to some of the features with the new Canon digicam. One of the coolest is the "stitch" feature; putting panoramic shots together. I took two at the Badger game on Saturday. Breese Terrace before the game and the skyline view from our seats.

Despite the best efforts of Google to index the entire net, if it's not on the net, it can't be indexed. Harvard Extension students learned that valuable lesson (via Library Techlog) in an assignment about research. Based on the article, many are believing that if it doesn't exist on the net, then it isn't available. If this is true, will the internet generation survive? Better yet, do they care?

My workday is doomed from the start. What I thought was a cinnamon raisin bagel ended up being a chocolate chip bagel. (FYI: Chocolate Chip bagels are the absolute worst flavor ever. Especially with strawberry cream cheese.) Just as soon as I discovered that, my computer at work broke. Then we didn't get a project we were hoping for. I want to go home and go back to sleep. It's much safer there.

Kristin threw a great birthday bash of bowling fun. With all sorts of hijinks (stink bombs, disappearing ink, etc.) around, many pictures were taken. more...

I received this article in an e-mail yesterday. It got discussed today at lunch, along with a bunch of bad blonde, polish, "whadda-call-a-guy-with-no-arm-and-no-legs..." and "your mama..." jokes that surprisingly burst forth from my memory. Other people remember dates and events, but I remember bad jokes. And I repeat them. Often.

You find yourself in a highly attended town meeting. Everyone is there, Opie, Andy, Aunt Bee, Gomer, Goober, and Don Knotts as 2002 Don Knotts, not Barney. Everyone is black and white. You are the center of the town meeting. But you don't realize it right away, like you just entered your body from a Quantum Leap. After some vicious debate, you are asked to leave by Andy and you start to walk home. As you exit, the world is now in color and wet from a recent downpour. You're idly minding your business crossing the street, jumping over the rainwater rushing in the gutter when you hear a loud honk to your right from a truck plowing the rainwater out of the street. Barely jumping out of the way of the tsunami from the plow, you continue along your way to a bend in the street, noticing many townsfolk lined up on the sidewalk with their aluminum folding chairs and blankets to ward off the evening chill. That's when you notice the little league games against a orange-pink sky from the setting sun. But something's different about it. It's like you're looking though a fishbowl lens at the field, the players on the peripheral stretching as they fade from view. Then there's a repeating beep off in the distance. Rubbing the sleep from your eyes the beep grows louder, you reach for the big button next to the bed to stop the beep and get another nine minutes of sleepful bliss.