Last weekend, I went to the official kick off meeting for the Portland Adult Soapbox Derby. Woo hoo!!!

I'm excited. Last year, Crystal, Jessie, and I decided to have an all-chick team. We do. Our team name is Drunken Monkey Knife Fight. Our motto? "Pillage. Plunder." Our soapbox car? A pirate ship, of course. In honor of y'all, I'll try to come up with a suitable haiku to carve onto the ship wheel or an axle rod or something.

Speaking of axle rods, I'm hereby putting out a call for parts. Got some 3/4" pipe laying around wasting space in your garage? Extra wood that might be made into a pirate ship? Flanges? Cotter pins? Cable? A ship wheel? Anything else we'll find useful? Let me know!

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For awhile, Other Kitty was coming around. She was sweet; I liked her. Theo, on the other hand, did not. Theo hated Other Kitty with a dedicated, focused passion.

Other Kitty would sit in the back yard, or in the front, within window view of Theo. He'd growl and yowl and his tail would poof out. She'd sit there, looking at him, calmly flicking her tail. Occasionally, she'd approach the window and hiss at him. Other Kitty, though half his size, was not to be intimidated. It was obvious that she'd been through a few rough spots: she was skinny, and part of one of her ears was missing. She was a scrappy little thing.

At one point, Theo wedged his whole body between the sliding glass door and the screen door. He kicked himself upside down, and then out before I managed to get the camera. I did get this shot, though, when he wedged just his head back in there.

Other Kitty is gone now. I haven't seen her for almost a week. It's probably just as well, and I hope someone really nice has adopted her and will take the very best care of her. We were getting close to the point where I was going to adopt her myself. It's a safe bet Theo wouldn't have liked that so much.

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1. Get the book you're currently reading.
2. Open it to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with the above instructions.

The project file contains version information, build settings, references to other assemblies (typically members of the CLR, but also custom developed and third-party components), and source files to include as part of the project. -- "Programming ASP.NET" by Jesse Liberty & Dan Hurwitz

(from kungfukitten and foxinthesnow)

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Sometimes, it seems Mark Morford forgets that not everything is about sex and nipples. On the other hand, he makes a good point:

...we have become a population that is increasingly willing to forgo its own rights and opinions and individual spiritual paths in favor of a sort of collective numbness, a general rejection of responsibility, this ridiculous, childish view that if we just let the Powers That Be cleanse the world of all the accused evildoers and drug dealers and F-words, we will be happy and pure and flowers will smile and priests will stop ogling online porn and the rivers will run strong and clear once again.

It is a polarized, absurdist view that blinks not at all as we send hundreds of disposable U.S. soldiers off to die for appalling and indefensible and very oily reasons, but the raunchy parts of "Seabiscuit" deserves immediate attention, if not scowling legislation.

read the full article

Mad props to KungFuRamone for referencing this post on his blog within five minutes.

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I started to make my pinhole camera this weekend, but didn't have all the supplies. My mom and Luke were in town -- Luke was busy playing with my Erector Set, so he didn't have much interest in the camera idea and it seemed like it would be bad form to run off and go shopping while they were in town. We went to the zoo right after they arrived, and it was excellent. We even went on the Dino Island ride, which was way cooler than I expected.

I really liked the giraffes and the hippos and, of course, the bats. It surprised me how excited people get about the naked mole rats. Before we went to the zoo, at least two people (possibly three) excitedly told me I'd get to see naked mole rats. Next time you go to the zoo, stand by the naked mole rat and listen to people approaching. "Ooh! Naked mole rats!" they exclaim. So strange. Is it just because their name contains the word naked?

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Just a quick heads up: Pinhole Camera Day is coming up on April 25. I've never made one before, and I'm excited to give it a try.

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Over at Camp Beefpile, the Fusion Cartoon is done. It's, well... pretty random. It evolves from a hangover to a curse to some Big Lebowski and Princess bride references to, of course, Poon Mart. Because that's where all good stories end.

(I wonder what kind of google hits I'll get for having "beefpile," "princess," and "poon" all in the same post. Twice.)

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AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Subservient Chicken. Damn you, Burger King.

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Today is my second metal working class. Crystal, Brian, and Ransom signed up for the class, too, so it's even more fun. Woo hoo! Metal working rocks. We went over the cutting machines last week. There are these amazingly huge machines that so easily and smoothly go "gnr-gnr-gnr-chunk" and slice through metal. The metal can be up to 12" long and 1/2" thick. Holy cow! (I think I got carried away with the pressure specifics earlier -- anyhow, the machine that most impressed me is made by Piranha and looks like this, only it's a lot older and doesn't have any of that namby pamby yellow paint for safety.)

Today we get to learn about welding. During the course, we'll learn gas welding, arc welding, soldering, lathing, foundry, and so much more. There's a plasma cutter and a flame cutter and a sand blaster and all sorts of machines that seem to be hungry for fingers. Must remember to be very, very careful.

Mom, Dad, Paul, you can probably expect some ugly-yet-heartfelt metal ash trays for Christmas.

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I was talking with Sam Lloyd last night about how odd it would be if, instead of shaking hands, we pet each other's hair by way of greeting. It would change so many things. Hats would be out, gloves would be in. You would be able to tell the people who had no friends because they'd have greasy hair. Anti-social people would wear scarves all the time. Sam thinks people would shave their heads a lot more; I'm not so sure about that. Either way, phrenology would be huge. HUGE. Bumpy heads would come in and out of style. A whole lot of inventiveness would go into tattoos and other head decorations.

Something else I just thought of is that the machismo factor of shaking a hand really hard would be lost. How do you pet someone's hair really hard? I mean, it's possible, but super weird.

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