Today I decided to violate my longstanding policy of not eating lunch with my coworkers. I haven't made a bigger mistake in quite a while.

Things started out around 11:00 when I was told that a few guys in my department were going to go to the Galleria for lunch. I initially declined, but later changed my mind and went along with them. The trip there wasn't too bad, although the guy driving insisted on digging through all of his CDs to find a CD of some "fusion jazz" for us to listen to. It was a guy singing and playing a bass guitar. The lyrics to the song involved yelling "BASS GUITAR." I was not amused.

Once we got to the Galleria, however, things took a turn for the worse. We had originally decided to eat in the food court. But first we had to wander around the mall so Pete could find a store that would sell him a lighter. Then we went down to the food court, but Pete didn't seem too keen on any of the stands down there. He's on the Atkins diet, and apparently all he is allowed to eat on this diet is cheeseburgers (sans bun, of course), but the place that sold burgers wasn't up to his standard. So we went back upstairs where we consulted a map of the restaurant, and Pete decided he would eat at the Pasta House Co. So back down to the food court we went. Pete checked out the menu at the Pasta House, but decided it wasn't acceptable, so after wasting 30 minutes, we (by we I mean Pete) finally decided to eat in the food court.

The meal went pretty well, but when we were walking back to the car, Pete decided he couldn't wait to smoke, so the other three of us had to stand around in the parking garage for five minutes while he smoked a cigarette. Then we drove back and listened to more bass guitar shit. As soon as we got out of the car at work, Pete had to light up another cigarette, so I got back to work reeking of second-hand smoke.

Lets just say that I'll stick to skipping lunch in the future.

Comments: 2 Posted by david on 26 September 2003 at 9:30 PM

Apparently the Segway isn't perfect.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 26 September 2003 at 12:35 PM

Samuel Pepys puts all bloggers to shame. Not only does he have us beat by more than 300 years, but he manages to be more personal, more entertaining, more risqué, and more interesting than most of us. I first read an abridged version of his diary in high school. I only read a few hundred highly censored pages of Pepys masterpiece, but I was hooked. The full, unabridged diary spans nine volumes plus companion and index volumes, but I hope someday to read it. In the meantime, I've been reading pepysdiary.com. It's Pepys as a weblog. The site started on January 1, 2003 and is posting one entry per day. I'll update you in another eight and a half years to see if they made it all the way through the diary, but in the meantime, I'd recommend you go over tot he site and read it. It's been annotated by visitors, so its easy to figure out who all the various people Pepys meets and writes about are. The only caveat is that the site is based on the 1893 edition of Pepys's diary, and the Victorian sensibilities of the editors invade it. So you won't here any of the details of Pepys's trysts or his wife's various gynecological conditions. Although you probably wouldn't much understand them. Pepys was very vague and usually resorted to a combination of French and Latin when he mentioned them. Anyway, visit the site. Its a lot of fun.

Comments: 1 Posted by david on 24 September 2003 at 8:05 PM

The best response I've seen to the "JetBlue is invading our privacy and selling our personal information" brouhaha is on slate. It's worth reading if you've been following this story.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 24 September 2003 at 7:46 PM

Last night some friends of mine from Evansville were in town. Luke and Cuz, along with michael, Rachel, Chris, Eileen, and I went to the Cardinals game. My memory of the game is imperfect, but I do know that we were sitting directly behind the left field foul pole, in the section next to Big Mac Land, and that Rachel went into Big Mac Land and got a McDonald's hardhat. The Cardinals didn't get off to a very good start, and ended up getting blown out by the Astros 8-1. To take a look at all the pictures I took before and during the game, click here.

After the game, Chris and Eileen ditched the rest of us when we went to the City Museum. I had a little trouble finding the place, but after driving around for about 15 minutes, we managed to locate it. I didn't bring the camera in, but as you can imagine, we climbed on all kinds of stuff, michael and Rachel ate corndogs, and then we left.

After the City Museum, we stopped at Steak 'n Shake to eat, then headed back to Apt. 12.

Comments: 2 Posted by david on 20 September 2003 at 12:39 PM

Is anyone surprised that the Swedes voted against joining the Euro earlier this week? Everyone is acting shocked by the large margin in the referendum -- there was a 14% gap between the yeas and the nays -- but I don't see how this vote could have gone any other way. The simple fact of the matter is that there aren't any convincing arguments for the Swedes, who have a relatively prosperous economy, to join a currency dominated by France and Germany, both of whom are in the midst of a huge recession. More to the point, France and Germany are violating the Euros internal rules on, among other things, their deficit levels. All things considered, the economic news from the euro member nations is not very positive, so the Swedes were probably well advised to stay out of that mess.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 16 September 2003 at 2:49 PM

Since both Chris and Jim have mentioned dead squirrels stuck in gates recently and one of the taglines on Jim's site now claims that rubidium is "Like having a dead squirrel jammed into the gear assembly," I thought I'd show exactly what something like that looks like. The link below will take you to some pictures michael took of the squirrel that got caught in our gate a few months ago. Do not click the link if you are squeamish or are in an environment where it is inappropriate to look at dead squirrels stuck in gates. They're a bit disgusting.

Squirrel Pictures

Comments: 3 Posted by david on 12 September 2003 at 1:12 PM

I first found out about it through email. I had a Chief American Writers class at 10 am and had gotten up to get ready for class and one of the first things I did was check my email. Someone had posted a message to a mailing list I was on that said something like "Turn your TV on right now. This is important." Being the obedient guy that I am, I went out and turned on the TV. A few minutes later a second plane hit the undamaged tower. I didn't make it to my 10:00 class, but I did go to Graphics at 11:30. I brought a radio with me and listened to the NPR coverage until we voted to cancel class and I went back to Millbrook and watched more coverage on TV.

Moments of national tragedy are supposed to be imprinted indelibly in our minds. Both of my parents know where they were and what they were doing when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot. A couple of you have already done this, but I'd like to hear what all of you were doing when you first heard about the planes hitting the Trade Center towers.

Comments: 3 Posted by david on 11 September 2003 at 3:07 PM

Since everyone else is so caught up in these "Trackbacks," I thought I would give them a try. Like Charlie, I'm using SimpleComments to merge the comments and the trackbacks together. So when you click the comment link up above, if trackbacks have been enabled, you'll be given a URL you can ping. I haven't really tested any of this, so if you notice a problem, let me know.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 10 September 2003 at 4:44 PM

In addition to the weblog party, I got quite a few things done over the weekend. I ripped 86 CDs into MP3s to rebuild the collection I lost when my laptop died earlier this summer. I also went shopping at Target and bought some shelves to put my CDs on and a few other things for the apartment. As if that weren't enough, I also put on my plumbers hat and put in a new showerhead in the bathroom that michael and I share. Its one of those hand sprayer things on a hose. Other than dropping my roll of Teflon tape and losing about 4 feet of its length when I was wrapping the threads of the showerhead, everything went pretty well. And the tape only cost me 79 cents and I'll undoubtedly lose the whole roll before I ever need to use it again, so it wasn't a major loss.

I also did my own ironing this weekend rather than taking my shirts to the dry cleaner. What a big waste of time. It took me hours to get through five shirts. I worked with a guy earlier this summer who claimed he ironed his shirts every morning before coming into work and it only took him a minute or two each morning. I must be missing something, because I spend 20-30 minutes on a shirt. Which makes the $1.25 I spend to get them cleaned ironed all the more valuable.

The other thing I wanted to note was that I found a big tank of laundry detergent in the parking lot at Sam's over the weekend. I asked all the people nearby if it was theirs, but they all said it wasn't. So I brought it home. But I felt bad about taking it and it was so big that I didn't have any place to put it in the apartment, so I wrote "Free - Take as much as you need" on the side and left it on the laundry room in my building. Bets are on as to how long it will stay there before being taken by someone.

Comments: 1 Posted by david on 10 September 2003 at 1:24 PM

I have a question about all this file-sharing nonsense. If I own the CD that a track came from, am I still violating copyright law by downloading the track off of kazaa or whatever program people use for that these days? Also, if I listen to the track once and delete it, am I violating their copyright? Fair use should give me access to it at least once, I'd think. So, if the answer to these two questions if that I'm not violating the copyright by doing either of those things, there seems to be a pretty big burden of proof on the RIAA if they go after people who only download songs.

Which brings me to the 12-year-old girl the RIAA sued (and then quickly settled with when they realized how dumb they looked) earlier this week. All the articles I read indicated that she was primarily a downloader and her mom was quoted as saying that they usually just listened to a song and deleted them. If that is the case, why would the RIAA target them? And if that isn't the case, why didn't any of the news outlets call her on it? My suspicion is that the reporters went into this story with the angle they wanted to pursue already selected. They let that drive their story rather than letting ther facts drive the story.

Comments: 5 Posted by david on 10 September 2003 at 9:50 AM

These past two weekends I've managed to miss two things that I really wanted to do. This past weekend was the St. Louis Art Fair. I had every intention of going, but the weblog party and the assorted things I needed to get done in preparation for the weblog party kept me away. And the weekend before this was the Japanese festival at the Botanical Gardens. When I read about the Japanese festival in the paper I was reminded that I had been to it before. It was probably more than 15 years ago when my parents took me. But I had already made plans to be out of town that weekend, so I couldn't make it to that, either.

Comments: 1 Posted by david on 8 September 2003 at 4:25 PM

The weblog party was, I think, pretty good. I don't really have time to write a detailed description because I should be in bed right now, but let me hit the highlights. We watched I'm with Busey, Jeopardy! and The Office and played Super Monkey Ball. The attendees, in approximate order of arrival, were Chris, me, Nathan, James, Amy, Amy, Charlie, Rachel, michael, Jim, and Nik. If I forgot anyone, I'm sorry. I'm tired; it's late. Food was graciously provided by Ron, even though he couldn't make it to the party. Well, that's all I have time for. Thanks to all for coming, and thanks to Ron for the pizza. We'll do it again soon.

Comments: 1 Posted by david on 8 September 2003 at 12:25 AM

Does anyone want a toaster? I have one that I no longer need. It's chrome and has four slots. When last I used it, it worked perfectly. Drop me a line if you want it.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 7 September 2003 at 10:13 AM

I've found the most interesting take on Universal's decision to lower their CD prices over on The Register and it happens to echo what I've been thinking on the issue. No one else seems to be reporting this, but despite huge sales increases in the nearly twenty years that CDs have been produced, this is the first price drop by any major label ever. The labels went so far as to illegally collaborate to keep their prices high in the 90s. And now, with sales falling steadily for two solid years, Universal has decided to lower their prices. Is this really a bold move to undercut file sharing? I would argue that file sharing has nothing to do with declining sales, except giving the record company executives a convenient excuse for their underperformance recently. This is just simple economics. When CDs first came out, they were produced in much lower volume than they are today. However, as sales volume increased, the labels didn't allow the price to change; they artificially kept it high. Now, I've taken a few econ classes, but I'm willing to bet anyone who has had a high school econ class (and a lot of people who haven't) know what happens when prices are too high: sales fall. So there's nothing bold about Universal's move to lower prices. It's a well-tested macroeconomic response to falling sales. And it is somewhat surprising that it took a record company two years to realize that the best way to increase sales was not to send cease-and-desist letters to college kids but to lower prices.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 6 September 2003 at 7:52 AM

Has anyone ever told you to bite your tongue? No, no has ever said that me, either; its a bit old-fashioned. I have heard people say it in movies and on TV though. Nonetheless, without being enjoined to do so, today I bit my tongue. I can't say that I recommend the experience.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 5 September 2003 at 12:19 PM

After much deliberation, we've decided that the next weblog party will be on Sunday, September 7 at 7:00 pm in apartment 12. We'll have fun, games, food, and beverages.

I forgot to mention that there will be fabulous gifts and prizes at the weblog party, including this:

If you think you'll be coming to the weblog party, please leave a comment on this post. We'd like to have a idea of how many to expect. Thanks.

Directions to Apartment 12 from WashU:
Forest Park Parkway is closed, so you'll need to take Lindell east from WashU. At the third stoplight (just 20 feet or so after the second stop light and in front of the History Museum), turn left onto Debaliviere. You'll go through a stop light at Forest Park Parkway and at the light just after you cross Forest Park Parkway, you'll turn right onto Pershing. Once on Pershing you'll want to take the first left onto Clara. There will be a fountain on the corner of Clara and Pershing. Our apartment building is 323 Clara. It's the first building on the left past the alley. If you get to the stop sign, you've gone too far. You can either park on the street or in the small lot across from the building. Once you egt into the building, hit the button for apartment 12 and we'll buzz you up.

Comments: 12 Posted by david on 4 September 2003 at 9:30 AM