BrockLi Soup

I don’t want to post it publicly, but if you want my updated vCard (.vcf file) with my phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and mailing address, leave a comment here with your e-mail address, or drop me a note.

I can’t help but wonder if other people do this: any time I find a TV show, or podcast, or book or magazine or any kind of media that I like, I feel compelled to catch up on all back issues before I move ahead. Like, if I catch an episode of an interesting TV show, I want to watch all of the previous episodes before seeing any more new ones, so I know the back story. When I find a new podcast, I want to listen to all the previous episodes, and the same with books by some author. I feel like I’m missing something if I don’t get the whole back story.

Arrested Development is a great explanation for this. That show constantly referred back to previous events and made countless in-jokes and callbacks. People that didn’t see the previous episodes would miss half the jokes, and that’s probably why it failed - people who watched the show were undying fans, but anyone who came into the middle of the series wouldn’t find it entertaining.

Increased serialization of TV shows may lend to this. For example, I wouldn’t bother to start watching Lost, or Heroes, or The Wire without catching up on the old episodes, because I would be missing big parts of the back store. This seems to be true of most popular shows these days, and not just those that are generally considered to be serials like that - even sitcoms like The Office and My Name Is Earl have a good deal of back story that come up in jokes and plot lines again and again.

Maybe other people don’t feel the need to catch up like this, but I almost never take people up on it when they recommend a TV series to me, because I know I won’t be able to enjoy it without first putting in the time to get caught up. Entertainment is hard work.

Jeff Atwood, in stackoverflow Podcast #5:

So I like to put the disclaimer out there. Because I have a history of mispronouncing things a lot. I think it’s because I grew up in an area that was somewhat rural, and I read a lot. And I didn’t hear people using the words that I was reading, so I kind of had to imagine what they would sound like. And I think that got, at some point just, you know, it became second nature for me to pronounce things however I thought they should be pronounced and not look them up.

This is pretty much the exact excuse I’ve been using for years to explain why I never knew how to say things like “hors d’oeuvres”, and why I’ve always been irritated by people who say things like “could of” when they mean “could have.”

The Treasury Department discriminates against millions of Americans who are blind or have poor vision by printing paper money that makes it impossible for them to distinguish between denominations, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

This is the kind of thing that most people don’t even think about. I certainly never did, until a couple months ago when I met - pay attention, here - my fiancée’s sister’s boyfriend’s high school friend and her husband, both of whom are blind. He is a lobbyist for a blindness special interest group (I can’t remember now if he’s with American Council for the Blind, who filed the case) and filled us in on this and other issues they’re working on.

A design change in our currency could mean big - and potentially expensive - changes. The most obvious example is the scanners in vending machines that need to recognize different bills, but any kind of electronic money counters may need to be updated. But I’m all for it. As Eric the lobbyist pointed out, there are different options: tactile differences or differently sized bills, for example. He’s not an expert on money, so he’s not trying to say he knows the best way to do it. The Treasury Department, on the other hand, is an expert on money, and it’s their responsibility to figure out a way to make cash accessible to everyone without having a huge impact.

Reuters Article

It’s been a long time since I started looking for a new man purse, and I finally found a suitable replacement: the OGIO Hip Hop messenger bag. It’s the perfect size, and unlike most bags I’ve looked at, it’s got a water bottle pocket. In fact, it’s got TWO water bottle pockets, just in case.

My only complaint is the strap. It’s got these little plastic square loops that connect the strap to the bag. It should look like this:

Unfortunately, it gets twisted up a lot like this:

But, I found a simple solution: a four-dollar carabiner from the hardware store:

It still bunches up on the bag side, but it doesn’t get twisted up when I adjust the length of the strap. Once my Crossbuster patch gets here and sewed on, I’ll be happier than a ternader in a trailer park.

One of my favorite new blogs, The Art of Manliness, has a free Guide to Being A Gentleman in 2008.

I learned something important today: hurling is WAY more badass than the field hockey the neighbor girls played in their front yard when I was growing up. I only just found out that it’s not the same thing.

Part two and part three are also available on YouTube.

I went looking for info because I saw a flier the other day for the Washington DC Gaels Gaelic Athletic Association. I’d like to go watch some of their matches one of these days - it looks like it would be fun to see up close.

A nerd needs a project because a nerd builds stuff. All the time. Those lulls in the conversation over dinner? That’s the nerd working on his project in his head.

Rands in Repose has a fantastic Nerd Handbook, and honestly, I can’t imagine a more succinct and complete guide to the nerd in your life.

Humor is an intellectual puzzle, “How can this particular set of esoteric trivia be constructed to maximize hilarity as quickly as possible?” Your nerd listens hard to recognize humor potential and when he hears it, he furiously scours his mind to find relevant content from his experience so he can get the funny out as quickly as possible.

Seriously, go read it, because it’s perfect.

Awesome and sickening and the same time.