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Signs you may already be an atheist

I am not one to randomly quote from a book I have never read, but this quote found by Kottke from Penn Jillette's God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales made me stop in...
Police mug shots reveal the effects of drug abuse

A new anti-drug campaign is being launched which uses police mug shots to show the effects of drug abuse. The before and after photos are indeed shocking. On the plus side, most of these addicts could probably find a walk-on...
Thank you Trader Joe's

Thankfully, I can only bear to eat one of these in any one sitting. Do you have a favorite Holiday treat either homemade or store bought?...
The Best Plumber in Oakland

Here is something I never thought I would ever hear myself say, "I love my plumber." At the risk of revealing just as bourgeois as I am, I will say this: after living in Oakland for the past 12 years...
Living with Trolls Among Us

I just finished reading Trolls Among Us from The New York Time Magazine. I was struck most by this quote from Fortuny in which he explains how he feels justified in hacking the Epilepsy Foundation's web site with seizure inducing...
Five Things

I think I may very well be the last person at my job who has not been tagged and asked to complete the "5 Things" blogging meme. And I work for a blogging company! Furthermore, you would think that once...
Looking for a good general contractor in Oakland?

This is a post I have been meaning to write for a very long time, because it is so rare that one finds and works with a good contractor, then when I actually did, I felt obligated in some way...
Broken Windows

Today, I helped out the neighborhood in a yearly Oakland ritual of planting daffodils throughout this great city. Over 150,000 daffodils were planted today, and I am proud to have participated. We planted the daffodils in and around the City...
Know Your Rights

While I was in college I was pulled over a police officer because I had parked illegally in Tilden Park. I knew at the time I was pulled over that one of my friends in the back seat was carrying...
Oh Firefly, why do you have to be so good?

My guilty and nerdy pleasure for the past two weeks has been staying up hacking on Test Run and watching Firefly. So how many times can I watch this series? Let's see: Once to simply watch the series all the...
Want to take your Perl knowledge to the next level?

For those who live in the Bay Area and are interested in taking their Perl knowledge to the next level beyond Perl’s basic syntax, I am teaching a course in “Intermediate Perl Programming” at UC Berkeley Extension. This is a...
Thank God I am paying so much for gas!

After having to pay $3 per gallon for so long I am so happy to be paying $2.30 per gallon that I forgot that one year ago I was paying a little less than $2 per gallon. Oil companies are...
Leading Cross Functional Teams

I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have worked for two of the smartest people I know, and both of them presented Tuesday night at Haas Business School. Ken's presentation is brilliant, and not just because of its content and message,...
God Rest Ginny, the only dog to be voted "Cat of the Year"

Everyonce in a while you see a headline that you have to follow, and what you find is not at all what you expected. This is one of those. Some excerpts: Ginny died in August at age 17, after a...
Agile Product Development

Last night I had the honor of presenting to a class of about 50 or so students at Berkeley's Haas School of Business on product development lifecycles. I presented with two other speakers, Kevin Shwatrz, a consultant with PRTM, and...
Not just another day at the beach...

God I love the amazing things I find when visiting flickr. Today, while doing my semi-daily visit to check out pictures my friends have been taking, I saw amongst "Everyone's Photos" a picture that caught my eye. At first...
Mind Hacks Live!

Mind Hacks is a book I personally found more entertaining than anything else. Then again, I didn't read the whole thing cover to cover (who has time to read anymore? - he asks facetiously). However, my impression of it...
A tribute to Alan Dundes

On Wednesday, March 30, 2005, one of my favorite teachers of all time passed away. Alan Dundes was a great scholar, teacher and man. But the most tragic of all is the loss of a great story teller. Each year...
Best Forrest Gumping Ever

I have seen a lot of pretty decent "Forrest Gumpings" of famous actors into movies and commercials. Including a great Mustang ad featuring Steve McQueen. But this Gene Kelley gumping is out of this world....
Busy, busy, busy...

Life has been pretty hectic recently. I am getting to the point where I feel like my head will explode. I love writing software, but I never really consider the commitment I am making when I actually produce a piece...
More Photos from Thailand

I stumbled upon a blog today that made me long for the days of $5 Thai massage on the beaches of Koh Samui. It is amazing to see Thailand through the lens of another traveler. (Photos Volume 1, Photos Volume...
How sweet is that?

Did I say how incredibly excited I am to be an uncle!? My sister and brother in law have started posting photos of Delia and I find myself checking every couple minutes to see if any new photos have been...
Welcome to the World, Delia Emily Rune!

I am incredibly happy to announce that I am a proud uncle to Delia Emily Rune, who was born to my sister and her husband just moments ago. Delia Emily Rune weighs a little under 7 pounds, and is healthy...
And so ends, "The Summer of Byrne - the Extended Dance Re-mix"

What an amazing summer. It was a summer that was my time. It was time to taste the fruits and let the juices drip down my chin. I proclaimed this: The Summer of Byrne! During which time I spent six...
Drama, Drama, Drama

In my family it is pronounced "drah mah" - kind of like "dramamine," just without the "mine." Ok that, was weird. But no matter, my family has tons of it. Drama that is, not dramamine. Anyways, the point is,...
Where no man has gone before

Well, it appears that William Shatner truly insists on going where no man has ever gone before, or will ever for that matter. Apparently a little drunk on his 2004 Emmy Award, he will soon be releasing a new album....
Someone buy this for me!

In looking for a new job there is one thing I keep coming back to as a possible next profession: professional poker. Granted, almost everything I know about professional poker is from watching World Series of Poker and so forth....
The Happiest, scratch-that, The Scariest Place On Earth

Whether or not you like Disney, the company, as many of my friends have come to be very cynical about in their adult life, most can't help but to remember fondly their first visit to Disney Land, the Happiest Place...
As if worrying about my cat crossing the street wasn't enough

Now I know how my parents felt when I showed an interest in joining the circus as a child. Do I really have to start worrying about my cat running off an joining the circus? And if he did, what...
Dell Inspiron 3500 Laptop For Sale!

It is time to do some house cleaning, and for me to admit that I really don't need a laptop right now. And before this sucker depreciates anymore, I figure, sell it to someone who really might need it. So...
Special Effects Prodigy?

I remember growing up dreaming of Star Wars, and having mock lightsaber battles in my front yard with friends. But that was about as far as I could take it. Ryan Weiber on the other hand took that fantasy to...
Gmail Hits the Auction Block

My wife is highly unlikely to promote herself so flagrantly. So I will do it for her. A story she wrote for PC World just got published to their website....
The Real War in the Middle East

Just the other day I was on my way to work and I saw the following billboard paid for by blueStarPR - the Jewish Ink Tank on the corner of Howard and Fremont in San Francisco: Seeing it reminded me...
Mad Skiz-nilz

There are some abilities that people have that are honestly difficult to admire when you take them at face value. But then, you witness these skills, talents, and people and you honestly can only admire them... even if they...
Spring has sprung

Miraculously and earlier than I anticipated, Spring arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area in full force. Normally this would bother me because the onset of Spring also means the decline of Winter, and thus, snowboarding. A moment of silence...
"Thinking Snow"

majordojo.com/uploads/snow2.jpg">majordojo.com/uploads/snow2-thumb.jpg" width="150" height="200" border="0" align="left"/> I have only put in 5 days worth of turns this year (so far) and already they have been some of the best riding days I have ever had. My wife and I just got...
Community Adventure Program

Major props to my cousin Ford Church who recently started The Community Adventure Program in Boulder Colorado. He recently sent me word on the program's progress and an article about the program (it was also mentioned in another article...
More irony...

Yesterday my wife pointed out this piece of irony, and now I must point out my own: a pop-up ad that just appeared on my screen. What scares me the most, that no matter how much you may despise...
A butterfly flaps its wings

Ever heard the proverb, "a butterfly flaps its wings in New York and it rains in San Francisco?" Aside from the fact that the odds of it raining in San Francisco no matter what in the hell is flapping its...
The Hidden Poetry of Hip Hop

There are those among us, and you know who you are, who hear rap music and think to themselves, "you call that music?" But, what they all fail to see is the poetry obscured by the ultra-urban, ultra-hip idioms and...
His Master's Voice

This weekend, my wife and I went up the California coast to the Point Arena Lighthouse - the best part of the tour was the tour guide himself and his loyal dog who followed him around endlessly perching himself...
It's a small blog-world afterall

It is weird enough when you bump into an old friend on the street, but bumping into them virtually is quite another. Several weeks ago, I followed a link from my friend's blog to The Gothamist - right there on...
Garden nearing completion

This weekend, Arin and I went to the neighborhood garden center and bought plants for the first portion of our garden that required planting: the pond. Just a few more plants to go, and we will be all done!...
Biggest. Zuchinni. Ev-aah.

We could not believe our eyes when we were harvesting vegetables and bingo: we found this hiding behind one of its own leaves. It must have been there for weeks. Let's be honest, it's just plain obscene....
Labor of Love

It was a great weekend. I was able to make significant progress on relandscaping my backyard: I completed a frame for a new deck, and set it on some small footings. But as my My labor of Love for the...
Growing My Own Food

I must admit, growing one's own food has been more rewarding than I anticipated. I have found so much solace in coming home to care for the tomatoes (3 varieties), corn, zuchini (2 varieties), squash, eggplant, romaine, green and...
Google Hacks - Are you "Feeling Lucky?"

My coworkers have been sending around a great set of Google Hacks using the "Feeling Lucky" search option. I always wondered what that puppy was for. To do these all you do is goto Google, enter in the specified search...
Wow, CSS actually works...

I will keep it short, but it is nice to see that CSS is capable of doing what it always promised it would do....
The Webby's kinda sucked

My girl wrote this piece last night on The Webby's which is what is prompting me to write this little blurb... Ok, I have never gone to the Webby's, but I must admit, from what I have heard from years...
Read it before they take legal action

Penny Arcade is an online comic strip in my daily surf routine - a niche strip aimed at gamers. Last week they posted a strip that was later retracted by a court order. They just posted a new strip today...

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majordojo

Recent Entries in Hodge Podge

Signs you may already be an atheist

I am not one to randomly quote from a book I have never read, but this quote found by Kottke from Penn Jillette's God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales made me stop in...

Police mug shots reveal the effects of drug abuse

A new anti-drug campaign is being launched which uses police mug shots to show the effects of drug abuse. The before and after photos are indeed shocking. On the plus side, most of these addicts could probably find a walk-on...

Thank you Trader Joe's

Thankfully, I can only bear to eat one of these in any one sitting. Do you have a favorite Holiday treat either homemade or store bought?...

The Best Plumber in Oakland

Here is something I never thought I would ever hear myself say, "I love my plumber." At the risk of revealing just as bourgeois as I am, I will say this: after living in Oakland for the past 12 years...

Living with Trolls Among Us

I just finished reading Trolls Among Us from The New York Time Magazine. I was struck most by this quote from Fortuny in which he explains how he feels justified in hacking the Epilepsy Foundation's web site with seizure inducing...

Five Things

I think I may very well be the last person at my job who has not been tagged and asked to complete the "5 Things" blogging meme. And I work for a blogging company! Furthermore, you would think that once...

Looking for a good general contractor in Oakland?

This is a post I have been meaning to write for a very long time, because it is so rare that one finds and works with a good contractor, then when I actually did, I felt obligated in some way...

Broken Windows

Today, I helped out the neighborhood in a yearly Oakland ritual of planting daffodils throughout this great city. Over 150,000 daffodils were planted today, and I am proud to have participated. We planted the daffodils in and around the City...

Know Your Rights

While I was in college I was pulled over a police officer because I had parked illegally in Tilden Park. I knew at the time I was pulled over that one of my friends in the back seat was carrying...

Oh Firefly, why do you have to be so good?

My guilty and nerdy pleasure for the past two weeks has been staying up hacking on Test Run and watching Firefly. So how many times can I watch this series? Let's see: Once to simply watch the series all the...

Want to take your Perl knowledge to the next level?

For those who live in the Bay Area and are interested in taking their Perl knowledge to the next level beyond Perl’s basic syntax, I am teaching a course in “Intermediate Perl Programming” at UC Berkeley Extension. This is a...

Thank God I am paying so much for gas!

After having to pay $3 per gallon for so long I am so happy to be paying $2.30 per gallon that I forgot that one year ago I was paying a little less than $2 per gallon. Oil companies are...

Leading Cross Functional Teams

I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have worked for two of the smartest people I know, and both of them presented Tuesday night at Haas Business School. Ken's presentation is brilliant, and not just because of its content and message,...

God Rest Ginny, the only dog to be voted "Cat of the Year"

Everyonce in a while you see a headline that you have to follow, and what you find is not at all what you expected. This is one of those. Some excerpts: Ginny died in August at age 17, after a...

Agile Product Development

Last night I had the honor of presenting to a class of about 50 or so students at Berkeley's Haas School of Business on product development lifecycles. I presented with two other speakers, Kevin Shwatrz, a consultant with PRTM, and...

Not just another day at the beach...

God I love the amazing things I find when visiting flickr. Today, while doing my semi-daily visit to check out pictures my friends have been taking, I saw amongst "Everyone's Photos" a picture that caught my eye. At first...

Mind Hacks Live!

Mind Hacks is a book I personally found more entertaining than anything else. Then again, I didn't read the whole thing cover to cover (who has time to read anymore? - he asks facetiously). However, my impression of it...

A tribute to Alan Dundes

On Wednesday, March 30, 2005, one of my favorite teachers of all time passed away. Alan Dundes was a great scholar, teacher and man. But the most tragic of all is the loss of a great story teller. Each year...

Best Forrest Gumping Ever

I have seen a lot of pretty decent "Forrest Gumpings" of famous actors into movies and commercials. Including a great Mustang ad featuring Steve McQueen. But this Gene Kelley gumping is out of this world....

Busy, busy, busy...

Life has been pretty hectic recently. I am getting to the point where I feel like my head will explode. I love writing software, but I never really consider the commitment I am making when I actually produce a piece...

More Photos from Thailand

I stumbled upon a blog today that made me long for the days of $5 Thai massage on the beaches of Koh Samui. It is amazing to see Thailand through the lens of another traveler. (Photos Volume 1, Photos Volume...

How sweet is that?

Did I say how incredibly excited I am to be an uncle!? My sister and brother in law have started posting photos of Delia and I find myself checking every couple minutes to see if any new photos have been...

Welcome to the World, Delia Emily Rune!

I am incredibly happy to announce that I am a proud uncle to Delia Emily Rune, who was born to my sister and her husband just moments ago. Delia Emily Rune weighs a little under 7 pounds, and is healthy...

And so ends, "The Summer of Byrne - the Extended Dance Re-mix"

What an amazing summer. It was a summer that was my time. It was time to taste the fruits and let the juices drip down my chin. I proclaimed this: The Summer of Byrne! During which time I spent six...

Drama, Drama, Drama

In my family it is pronounced "drah mah" - kind of like "dramamine," just without the "mine." Ok that, was weird. But no matter, my family has tons of it. Drama that is, not dramamine. Anyways, the point is,...

Where no man has gone before

Well, it appears that William Shatner truly insists on going where no man has ever gone before, or will ever for that matter. Apparently a little drunk on his 2004 Emmy Award, he will soon be releasing a new album....

Someone buy this for me!

In looking for a new job there is one thing I keep coming back to as a possible next profession: professional poker. Granted, almost everything I know about professional poker is from watching World Series of Poker and so forth....

The Happiest, scratch-that, The Scariest Place On Earth

Whether or not you like Disney, the company, as many of my friends have come to be very cynical about in their adult life, most can't help but to remember fondly their first visit to Disney Land, the Happiest Place...

As if worrying about my cat crossing the street wasn't enough

Now I know how my parents felt when I showed an interest in joining the circus as a child. Do I really have to start worrying about my cat running off an joining the circus? And if he did, what...

Dell Inspiron 3500 Laptop For Sale!

It is time to do some house cleaning, and for me to admit that I really don't need a laptop right now. And before this sucker depreciates anymore, I figure, sell it to someone who really might need it. So...

Special Effects Prodigy?

I remember growing up dreaming of Star Wars, and having mock lightsaber battles in my front yard with friends. But that was about as far as I could take it. Ryan Weiber on the other hand took that fantasy to...

Gmail Hits the Auction Block

My wife is highly unlikely to promote herself so flagrantly. So I will do it for her. A story she wrote for PC World just got published to their website....

The Real War in the Middle East

Just the other day I was on my way to work and I saw the following billboard paid for by blueStarPR - the Jewish Ink Tank on the corner of Howard and Fremont in San Francisco: Seeing it reminded me...

Mad Skiz-nilz

There are some abilities that people have that are honestly difficult to admire when you take them at face value. But then, you witness these skills, talents, and people and you honestly can only admire them... even if they...

Spring has sprung

Miraculously and earlier than I anticipated, Spring arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area in full force. Normally this would bother me because the onset of Spring also means the decline of Winter, and thus, snowboarding. A moment of silence...

"Thinking Snow"

majordojo.com/uploads/snow2.jpg">majordojo.com/uploads/snow2-thumb.jpg" width="150" height="200" border="0" align="left"/> I have only put in 5 days worth of turns this year (so far) and already they have been some of the best riding days I have ever had. My wife and I just got...

Community Adventure Program

Major props to my cousin Ford Church who recently started The Community Adventure Program in Boulder Colorado. He recently sent me word on the program's progress and an article about the program (it was also mentioned in another article...

More irony...

Yesterday my wife pointed out this piece of irony, and now I must point out my own: a pop-up ad that just appeared on my screen. What scares me the most, that no matter how much you may despise...

A butterfly flaps its wings

Ever heard the proverb, "a butterfly flaps its wings in New York and it rains in San Francisco?" Aside from the fact that the odds of it raining in San Francisco no matter what in the hell is flapping its...