So, as you may have noticed in the last post, I have finally caught up to last year's cutting edge blog trend, category tags. I'm going to use them going forward and they'll appear at the end of the post under the clever heading "Categories". I'm also going to retrofit my older posts a little at a time. That way, when you need a dose of Karma, there's an easy link to collect all her exploits. In fact, I'll probably tackle those first! If you have category suggestions, fire away.
Categories: Blogging
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Tag! You're it.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Why Jews Hate Christmas
So, my friend Kerri had something amusing happen to her recently and we chatted about it over IM. It does relate to the subject line, really. But we don't hate Christmas, really. We'd just be justified if we did. Go read Kerri's tale and then come back here and tell me how amused you are. And how much you crave jello cheese.
Categories: Humor, Judaism
Friday, January 27, 2006
Wine Snobs Rejoice!
I know there are a few of you out there. You know how to taste wine and describe it in all the right terms. You have tasting parties and rate different varietals. You know when to have a Riesling and when to have a Chardonnay. You probably even think the bumper sticker "Life is a Cabernet" is funny. (Actually, I think that one is pretty funny myself.) Well, it's time to take it to the next level. Enter Crush Pad. They are a professional winery that lets individuals and groups come in and make their own wine in their facilities. This is a very high end operation. There are 30 wine making decisions you have control over during the process, but don't fret. You have access to a professional winemaker for consultation. Some of the questions you'll be answering are: What varietal do you want to make? Do you want to keep the free run juice separate from the press wine? Do you want to allow, encourage or block the malolactic fermentation? When all is said and done, you'll have 25 cases of wine with your own custom designed label. It'll run you between $13 and $23 a bottle, or about four to six grand. That's a pretty high price to pay to have Pat say "This tastes like ass!", but it might just be worth it.
Categories: Hobbies, Do-it-yourself
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Market Analysis Mumbo Jumbo
I really wish I understood the stock market better. It seems like the country is run by the market. Possibly even the world. We use it to justify all sorts of decisions. "We can't tax businesses because the market is down" or "We have to allow lenders to make loans that are almost certain to ruin people so because the market is down". And we have analysts who are supposed to keep close tabs on companies and make recommendations as to whether or not you should buy a stock. About two weeks ago, a report came out saying that analyst Stifel Nicolaus had downgraded a stock I'm interested in. Before the comment, the stock was at 40.19. After the announcement, there was no news out of the company or a week. The price crept down to 38.21. Since that day, news has come out of good performance in both the company and the sector. It's trading right now at 45 and they haven't even announced the fourth quarter numbers yet. So, I guess what I'm saying is WTF? In the absence of news, analysts influence the markets directly based on their secret formulas, but if this one was wrong, how many others were wrong? And people are making financial decisions based on this? Spaghetti-monster help us all.
Categories: Rant, SocialCommentary
Friday, January 20, 2006
ENoB Number 9. Number 9. Number 9.
You say you want a revolution? Well, you know. Today's weighty philosophical discussion comes from...me! Well, nobody had any suggestions, so I had to dredge my brain and come up with something to keep this regular feature alive. It's so hard to stay out of those minefields known as religion and politics in a feature like this. I mean, I could go the sports prediction route. You know, make a couple of football statistical predictions and then ask the magical ENoB. With that, you get to have a right and wrong. But who wants black and white? My world has infinite shades of gray. Let's go with entertainment this week. We've all heard the flap about "Brokeback Mountain". Hollywood is trying to turn us all gay. The outrage will probably only boost ticket sales. But I want you to answer to these statements. "I would like to see the movie." "I think the people protesting the movie need to get a life." Either, Neither, or Both. As always, I'll wait until we have a few responses before I weigh in. Wouldn't want to bias the poll with my overwhelming force of personality. ;-)
Categories: SocialCommentary, Poll
Thursday, January 19, 2006
The First BriWise Song Challenge?
Ok. I was thinking that, after the response to Deeply Irresponsible that I ought to have a contest here. But what should the prize be? If we are going to have a contest here at BriWise, there ought to be a decent prize. Is public adulation enough? Maybe the prize is that I will record and release the song onto the net. What do you think?
Categories: Contest, Poll
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Pandora Rocks!
Ok, this is review for most of you, but one or two of my readers don't read ULev or Aces Full. I know, it's hard to believe. But given that it is true, and given how cool Pandora is, I had to post about it myself. I'm not going to go into the same level of detail as Chuck does. Not when a link does just as nicely. The short form is that you enter an artist or a song and Pandora looks in its database for the song. Based on what it sees, it finds songs with similar characteristics. You can set a channel up with one or more artists or songs. As the station plays, you tell it which songs you like and which you don't. It analyzes the attributes of each and evolves to give you more of what you want and less of what you don't. It's not perfect. It doesn't have classical, latin, or world music. But what it does have, it does pretty well.
Categories: Entertainment, Website
Colorado Photos
So, my brother-in-law Daniel is much better at putting timely content on his blog than I am at putting timely content on mine. Many's the time I've posted about a picture I'm going to send or a story I'm going to write. You often don't see it for six months. Well, you are in luck. In spite of the fact that he took ten times as many photos as I did and maybe more, he has posted the photos from the family Colorado trip. There is some overlap, so you can look at his pictures and we can all pretend I was prompt. Follow this link to see the family oriented photographs. The link under each picture opens to a thumbnail gallery. Daniel is an excellent photographer. When you are done looking at those pictures, I encourage you to look at his urban wanderings photos. You're welcome.
Categories: Personal, Photos
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Thanks, Maya
So, we were sitting in the office Sunday night playing a game with the kids. The game is Gulo Gulo, by the way. Not important to the story, but a good game to play with kids and adults. Anyway, Josh was talking about his friend Jalen's birthday party which is coming up this weekend. There was no way we were going to have time to shop, so we hit upon the idea of giving Jalen one of Joshua's Hanukkah present duplicates. We hadn't returned them and we bought him a personal DVD player instead. He had forgotten about the gifts and the DVD more than made up for the returns, so, those were sort of in the gift pool. I said to Josh, "How about if we get Jalen a Spiderman lego set like the one you have?" Josh thought about it for a second and said "Wa-hoooooo!" He was in a bit of a hyper mood. And then Maya chimed in "You mean like the present of Josh's we returned?" I glared and shushed her. Somehow, she felt she hadn't quite been helpful enough yet. "Ohhhhhhh. You mean we haven't returned it yet." Thanks, Maya.
Categories: Personal, Kids
Friday, January 13, 2006
Hi, Fox News? I'm an idiot. Can I have a job?
Ok. I was walking out of the cafeteria here at work. They installed TVs so we can have FOX News piped in all day. I know. Yay. What would you guess they were running? The tragedy in Mecca? Sharon not coming out of his coma? The Alito hearings? Heck, even the emperor's reconstruction trip to New Orleans? Nope. They title on the bottom of the screen? "Kong V$ Gay Cowboys". That's right, the incredibly newsworthy issue of a movie about homosexuals doing well. Apparently, they are trying to say that Kong got unfair reviews and is not getting the buzz of Brokeback because of the secret homosexual agenda. I didn't stay for very long. Just long enough to watch the liberal fodder pointing out that the conservative expert was not using facts to defend his point. *sigh*
Categories: Rant, Politics
Fall Seven Times, ENoB Eight
This is getting to be a challenge. Feel free to private mail me with topics for this in the future. I'm a software engineer, which makes me lazy by nature, but I like the idea of a regular feature and want to keep it going. I hink I want to get away from religion for a bit. It's too controversial. Let's talk politics, instead! Samuel Alito is on his way to the Supreme Court unless something really shocking happens. There's a lot of posturing going on this week, but ever since Bork, nominees pretty much say little to sink themselves if they make it to the hearings. We've shifted from a burden of the nominee proving suitable to the Senate proving the nominee unsuitable. And in these days of blind party loyalty on both sides, it is increasingly less likely that either side is going to betray their own. So, what kind of ground rules should there be for a confirmation that is sure to have great impact on the lives of majority and minority alike? Should a nominee be required to answer specifics items about their background? Should hypotheticals be allowed in order to better understand a nominee's philosophy? Either. Neither. Or both?
Categories: Poll, Politics
Thursday, January 12, 2006
A Little More Hanukkah
At James' advice, I am forcing myself to leave the angst behind and see what happens. So, all of the holiday blogging has put a preponderance of Hanukkah and other Jewish words on my web page. This has had the effect of having all manner of Judaica being marketed in my Google Ads. I click on them from time to time to see what kind of stuff they have and today, I found one I am actually going to buy! The LeeVees are an indie band made up of Jewish members of a couple other indie bands. They have recorded an album of Hanukkah songs! This is not your average novelty album. While I love Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song", it is not particularly musical. The LeeVees are musicians first and comedians second. So, the gags aren't as overt, but the songs are better. They ask the musical question that Chuck over at ULev has lamented in "How Do You Spell Channukkahh". There's also an amusing comparison between celebratory styles called "My Goyim Friends". In all, there are four songs you can listen to on their site. They kind of remind me of Barenaked Ladies. I heartily recommend them.
Read More......Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Back in the Saddle
Ok. I've returned from vacation. I've caught up on work mail. I've caught up on personal mail. I've read through all the blog posts I missed whilst away. I've commented on many of them such that my friends cannot possibly miss the fact that I am in town. I've mostly caught up on work. So, why the hell haven't I blogged? It's a curious question and no doubt has many answers. I have plenty to say. How many of you have ever known me to be at a loss for words? Perhaps I have too much to say and can't decide where to start. That's undoubtedly true, but why should it be so hard to resume regardless. I've had too much to say before and managed to post. Some things fell by the wayside because they lost their relevance due to inaction, but still. I've posted. I think as I've typed this, I've hit upon the reason. Fear. Fear of what, you may ask? Well, this isn't exactly an anonymous forum for me. And some of the things I want most to blog about, to enlist the aid of my community on, probably shouldn't be on a public web page. Were I in a more joking mood, I suppose I might quip on the problems of celebrity. Sorry to return so melancholy, but there it is. When life gives you lemons, post an angst ridden cryptic message to your blog.
Read More......
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