bicycles == evil?

accreditted to a baltimore preacher in 1896:

These bladder-wheeled bicycles are diabolical devices of the demon of darkness. They are contrivances to trap the feet of the unwary and skin the nose of the innocent. They are full of guile and deceit. When you think you have broken one to ride and subdued its wild and Satanic nature, behold it bucketh you off in the road and teareth a great hole in your pants. Look not on the bike when it bloweth upon its wheels, for at last it bucketh like a bronco and hurteth like thunder. Who has skinned legs? Who has a bloody nose? Who has ripped breeches? They that dally along with the bicycle.

posted by geoff on 5/21/2003 09:03:15 AM
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xml validation with XML::LibXML
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Programming_Languages/Perl/Q_20371536.html

posted by geoff on 5/19/2003 04:22:08 PM
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mac 'n' no-cheese recipe

thanks abbey! (though i think you said you stole it from somewhere, but it doesn't matter)

½ c. margarine, melt in pan
add ½ c. flour, stir (sometimes requires a little more flour to be thick enough, mix flour with water first into a paste and then add)
add 3 ½ c. warm water, mix
1 ½ tsp. garlic powder
1 ½ tsp. salt
2 tbsp. soy sauce
touch of tumeric
cook and stir until thick
add 1 c. nut yeast and ¼ c. oil
mix with 3 ½ c. pasta and put
in casserole dish.
save a little cheese sauce
to spread on top.
Sprinkle with paprika
Cook 15 minutes at 350 degrees

good mixed with broccoli or
Peas or some green veggie, add
Before baking.

posted by geoff on 5/18/2003 05:11:57 PM
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is technology a good thing? i would generally say yes, of course as i love computers and other tech stuff and i think most who know me would say i spend inordinate amounts of time mucking about with them. one argument from the tech. == good side of things is that it lets people communicate in ways they otherwise can't, i.e. hearing from people across the ocean or across state lines and being able to keep a running dialogue that would just turn into a lapsed friendship otherwise. lately, i've been writing a lot more letters, and i've grown to enjoy it, but i feel like letters might look cool and be nice to look at and re-read from time to time, but they only work to be markers of an ongoing friendship and not the thing that preserves a distanced friendship. on the other hand i've been appreciating a digital communication between my friend patrick and i as we hardly ever see each other and don't write letters but can carry on a conversation of sorts through e-mail and by reading each other's weblogs have some sort of context for the e-mail dialogue.

so that's all fine and good, but what happens when you find yourself using electronic communication to communicate with someone 8 blocks away? does technology cripple us and prevent us between saying things to each other directly, or does the anonymity and ambiguity of digital words let us say things that we otherwise wouldn't be courageous enough to say? right now i can't help but have erin tobey's "i've been writing secret letters" song running through my head. i always thought it was a beautiful song, but now, it's suddenly not only beautiful but excitingly and frighteningly relevent.

is the fact that you've discovered that you're using technology to do the exact same thing as someone else endearing, or does it mean that both of you are somehow limited from doing what needs to be done or saying what needs to be said in the way that it needs to be said?

posted by geoff on 5/18/2003 12:43:44 PM
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this is going to be cryptic as hell, because i'm not sure if it belongs on the internet, but 1) this is my only form of self documentation and 2) i can keep secrets, but i don't always like to, especially when they're (mostly) my own.

i feel like i've been shocked by the capacitor on the flash circuit of one of these over and over until i'm dizzy and maybe not completely coherant, and that's not neccessarily a bad thing. i'm just confused, and again, not neccessarily in a bad way, but i have a feeling that i have to be very careful so i don't fuck up something good. i feel like i'm suddenly preoccupied with something which is awesome and really great, but intellectually or rather sensibly, i don't want to by preoccupied with that thing to extent that it's something that i think about all the time and rearrange my life around. it's hard because that's exactly what i want to do in the short term, but in the long run, experience has told me that that's not how i want things to be. so i just have to be cautious and i think things could be amazing or at least different and special.

posted by geoff on 5/18/2003 11:42:29 AM
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