+ 3 - 2 | § ¶Yay, LOTR!
Congratulations to the entire "The Lord of the Rings" crew on their eleven Oscar wins!davidh
+ 2 - 2 | § ¶Amusing quotes
"I know this isn't a dream because I'm dressed."-- Harold, "Red Green: Duct Tape Forever" (which I watched Saturday afternoon on DVD)
"Einstein is no different than [sic] Tiger Woods, or Bill Shatner or Boutros Boutros Ghali."
-- Lennox, "Men With Brooms" (which was on The Movie Channel late Saturday night/early Sunday morning)
Apparently I'm on a Canadian kick this weekend. Guess I should have a Canadian bacon pizza, eh?
davidh
+ 1 - 3 | § ¶Where have all the Hardee'ses gone?
(And is that the right way to make a plural out of a proper possessive noun?)Apparently two of the Hardee's restaurants in Peoria have gone out of business in the past few months. The one that I usually stopped by on my way over to the southeast side of town whenever I had to go there in the morning shut down a couple months ago; it's all boarded up now. And more recently, the Hardee's by Bradley University appears to have shut down. I stopped by there a few days ago and the place was completely empty. I only know of one other Hardee's in town (though I wouldn't be surprised to find out there are more), over in Peoria Heights by the bicycle school, but since I rarely get over to that area I don't know if they're still in business.
Frankly, I'm not too surprised that they're doing poorly, because their commercials have been among the worst I've seen.
Actor playing Elderly Customer: "I used to enjoy going to Hardee's to talk with my also-elderly friends and read the paper. It was a very friendly place. But now Hardee's scares me. They play rock music and sell Angus Beef Burgers." // Announcer: "Hardee's. Now with fewer old guys."
Actress portraying Cashier: "Our menu used to be enormous. There were so many options for our customers that in they couldn't make up their minds. And when they did, our cash register was so complicated that I couldn't place their order. Rather than re-organizing our menu layout for the customers' benefit and firing me for incompetence, Hardee's has decided to drop everything they used to sell from their menu and go with something completely different: Angus Beef Burgers. I'm still employed here, but that's okay because the cash register has but a single button: Angus Beef Burger. I almost never make a mistake now that we've made these great improvements."
Actor playing Cool Customer: "I never used to eat at Hardee's because the service was very fast. When I go to a fast-food restaurant, I prefer to be kept waiting for fifteen to twenty minutes at a time. Now Hardee's has noticably slower service, so I go there frequently and order an Angus Beef Burger!" // Announcer: "Now everything is made to order."
With commercials like these, who needs enemies?
davidh
+ 2 - 2 | § ¶Complex Thoughts
As any good mathematician knows, a complex number has both real and imaginary components. Some of the things I've been thinking about recently match this concept. . . (more)+ 0 - 5 | § ¶The Arrival
Aaron's girlfriend Melissa arrives today from Alabama (about an hour and 45 minutes from now), and she'll be staying in town until next Wednesday. For a variety of reasons, I'm both looking forward to her visit, and also also a bit nervous about it. . . (more)+ 3 - 2 | § ¶Psi Phi Minutes
It's been a while since I did the minutes, but I got this week's up fairly quickly. Of particular note:There will be an on-line Reunion chat this weekend, Saturday around 4pm. Anyone interested who hasn't been to one of the Reunion chats before, E-mail David. Otherwise, he will invite all previous attendees. (If you're on-line and don't want to join the chat, just decline the invitation.)
There was a misprint on the "geek" T-shirts; both front and back had <geek>, rather than having <geek> on the front and </geek> on the back. A Cute Tee is correcting the shirts and they will be ready soon. They are also offering the misprinted shirts at $3 each. Contact Eric or Ryan with orders for the misprinted shirts.
Further T-shirt orders are being taken for those who hadn't yet placed their orders. Ryan or Eric will contact Ray Kremer at Purdue to see how many shirts people there want.
Ryan announces that there will be stripping this weekend, Saturday at noon. Contact him (or read the complete minutes) for details.
The next Constitution Reform Committee meeting will be held on-line on Tuesday, February 24, at 10:00pm. If you would like to attend but have not been to an on-line CRC meeting before, please contact David.
Rocky Horror Picture Show -- Ryan currently has ticket money from six people. The show will begin at the midnight between February 28 and 29. Tickets are $12; contact Ryan if you're interested in going.
"Weird Al" Yankovic will have a concert in Peoria on Wednesday, April 7 at 7:30pm. Tickets will go on sale on Monday, February 23 at Ticketmaster. Tickets will be $28.50 or $33.50 each.
davidh
+ 2 - 3 | § ¶Scenes from yesterday
Events, observations, etc. from throughout the day, in roughly chronological order. . . (more)+ 4 - 0 | § ¶Friday the Thirteenth
Comes after Thursday the Twelfth and before Saturday the Valenteenth. Other than that interesting fact, it's just an ordinary day to me.Well, it's also deep dish pizza day at the cafeteria at work, which is always good. :-)
In other recent events, I:
* Saw Psi Phi alumni member Kenny, who is visiting Peoria for a few days. Stayed after the meeting Wendesday night for about an hour chatting with him and others. Much disturbing content discussed by certain female members of the group (the term "squicky" was mentioned, and is quite appropriate to describe these things), but Kenny punned, which kept me sane among such company.
* Am now the owner of pipes which have been restored to working order. Yay, running (and draining) water!
* Got a lot of data on Star Trek books to add back to the database. Have been adding it in over the past few days, but it's kinda slow going. Am going to try to write a parser that will take the input files and get them formatted for insertion into the database, to make things go quicker.
* Started working on my taxes. May get a pretty nice refund depending on whether certain deductions are allowed or not. If not, will still get a refund, just much smaller. Gotta research this.
* Am missing an item to fill this space, so will put something self-referential here instead.
* Got the back cover text for "Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume One: Cardassia, Andor". Interesting developments are afoot. (Note: contains spoilers for DS9: "Unity"!)
* Made some good progress on a technical problem I've been having on at work. But missed all of "Tru Calling" (and most of "Survivor") last night because I stayed late working on a problem for a different project. Alas. And, as was pointed out to me, alack.
davidh
+ 2 - 3 | § ¶Avuncular Announcement
It's a girl! I'm an uncle! Yaaaay!Doug (my youngest brother) and Misty are now the proud parents of Zoe, a 6 lb. 4 oz., 19" baby girl, who was born at 11:15am on Wednesday, February 11, 2004.
I hope to get over to Normal to see them on Saturday.
davidh
+ 1 - 3 | § ¶Plumb out of luck
The pipes are messed up. This morning, the tub wouldn't drain--normally it's a somewhat slow drain, so when you finish with a shower, it'll take a minute or two for the water that's accumulated to all flow away, but now it just sits there with no signs of going down. Then, when I noticed some gunk in the toilet and tried to flush it, the toilet overflowed, and I had to turn off the water to it to make it stop. But a few minutes later, something gurgled from downstairs and made it continue overflowing anyway, and there was much dripping of water in the basement.Apparently something similar happened yesterday while I was at work, but everything seemed okay last night. I'm not sure what's causing this... a backed up sump pump? Something lodged in the pipes?
I've asked Aaron to call Dave B., the guy I bought the house from, today to see if this sort of thing has happened before, and what should be done about it. I hope it's not a major hassle to fix.
davidh
+ 6 - 2 | § ¶Psi Phi Reunion [Chat Transcripts]
01/31/2004 Transcript02/07/2004 Transcript