Miscellany

From about 9 pm my time last Saturday night to around 9 am today (Monday) Typepad, my blogging service, was offline due to scheduled maintenance that had problems. Typepad has undone the changes, but some images and the name of this blog still aren't showing up. Hopefully things will be completely back to normal soon.

Wow, old bloggers CAN learn new tricks. I've been thinking about changing the design of my two blogs for quite a while, but wrongly thought this would be difficult. It wasn't. Just took a bit of clicking around today. I'm trying out a "responsive" TypePad style that is mobile friendly. I also deleted some extraneous stuff in the sidebar. To me the look and feel is considerably cleaner and more modern now. And I've heard that the Great God Google has taken to rewarding web sites that are mobile friendly in his/her/its search results. So... another benefit.

Interesting piece in the New York Times about why movie trailers almost always feature male voices. Here's some excerpts from "Why Men Always Tell You to See Movies."  The question has been pondered by mystics through the ages, but in the sanctuary of cinema the voice of a sonorous, authoritative, fear-inspiring yet sometimes relatable presence is, invariably, that of a man. Consider the trailer and the omniscient, disembodied voice that introduces moviegoers to a fictional world. ...Do moviegoers want to hear female voices? Research indicates that our brains are wired to prefer theirs to male ones; that’s the reason robotic…

Remember the Maine. Pearl Harbor. The first moon landing. Last -- and most certainly least, though still worthy of remembrance -- the controversial key play in the 2010 BCS national championship game between should-have-won Oregon and Auburn. Tomorrow is the one week anniversary of Auburn running back Michael Dyer's miraculous 37 yard jaunt down the field in the closing minutes of the game. "Miraculous," because it sure looked like he was down after being tackled, yet upon urging from the Auburn sideline he came back to life and kept on running for an annoyingly long time. So let us Duck…

Ooh, I love to see my name and photo in the newspaper! Also, my brilliant piece on What's so great about Oregon? When the Statesman Journal asked for submissions, I couldn't resist.

Short answer: We're #1 in personal freedoms.
Longer answer: click on post continuation

(Note: my wife wanted me to clarify that I don't go to strip clubs. I just admire Oregon for being free to have so many of them. Also, to the online commenters who thought my piece was a satire — it isn't.)

You'll see an Apture site bar appear when you scroll down the page now. Try it out -- pretty cool. Highlight a word or words. Click on "search." You'll get results from my blogs, Wikipedia, Google, You Tube, Amazon, and more. Web sites found via a search can be browsed from within this blog if you're using Safari or Chrome. Close the browsing window by clicking the "x" and return to the post you were reading. You can share a post via Facebook, Twitter, or email by clicking on the icons. Enjoy.

My wife sometimes says, "I'm glad I never had any kids of my own, because the way things are going, soon the world won't be livable for people." I understand her pessimism, given the crappy way we're treating the Earth and all the threats facing humanity.But one day last week I had a string of experiences that made me think, "Maybe the Beatles were right: it really is getting better all the time."In the evening I attended a fundraising event here in Salem sponsored by the Democratic Party of Marion County. Carl Wolfson, a talk radio host of Portland's progressive…

Ah, I never realized how satisfying it would be to have a blog post with this marvelous title. Thanks to Pharyngula, I was exposed to a You Tube video that offers exactly that: hot hyena dominatrix sex.Well, it's probably a lot hotter to hyenas than to humans. But I'll let you decide. Here's the National Geographic video.

Some days I turn up more interesting Internet riches than others. Today was one of those days.-- San Franciso Chronicle columnist Mark Morford runs hot and cold for me. But his writing style always is entertaining. I loved his tale of visiting a Vegas bar and coming to see lions and lionesses rather than a Dude and his mini-skirted admirers.And there he is, the big male lion, strong and haggard and terrible, watching over his pride of lionesses and sniffing the air for potential adversaries who might dare threaten his leadership position, take his women and gobble up his portion…

Browsing through a recent People magazine, my wife pointed out to me a series of double page ads for JC Penney's new American Living line. Laurel was struck by the strangeness of people wanting to go around wearing clothing emblazoned with the American flag. The American Living logo is a bald eagle flying off with the stars and stripes on a flag pole. This strikes me as against the flag code, but my Boy Scout days are so far in the past I can't remember if it mentions anything about a bird absconding with our national symbol. Of course, all…

Ah, how things have changed. I remember when "Made in Japan" was a synonym for "Piece of Crap." Now two hybrid cars from the land of the rising sun, a Toyota Prius and a Highlander, are our trouble-free transportation. And China? It used to be several large rungs below Japan in the quality category. Just a few years ago I never would have guessed that my new laptop would say "Made in China" on the bottom of it. But it does. I just bought one of the first U.S. computers that are newly available in Lenovo's "IdeaPad" lineup. As I…

A triple threat blog post. Cleaning up my office today, I came across some must-share items. You'll laugh. You'll be amazed. And befuddled. At least, I was when I read them. "Share Our Joy" by Larry Doyle is one of those The New Yorker pieces that make me realize that if I have $50 left to my name, I could do a lot worse than spend it on a subscription to this always entertaining and informative magazine. Hugely humorous, Doyle is. Also from The New Yorker, "Fragmentary Knowledge" is about what may be the world's first computer – the Antikythera…

Over on my other weblog I've been asked what I found wrong with Shotokan karate. A good question. I trained in this Japanese-based martial art for about nine years. Then I flew the Shotokan coop and earned a black belt in a less traditional mixed style after three-plus additional years of training. Now I'm almost three years into an almost exclusive emphasis on Tai Chi – which most decidedly also is a marital art. Some would say the ultimate martial art. But who's to say? The trend line of my martial arts philosophy was expressed in the title of my…

Here’s a hugely entertaining video, in the best “glad that wasn’t me” sense, of cars sliding down an ice-covered street yesterday in Portland’s Goose Hollow neighborhood. (Thanks to Blue Oregon for the link from Seattle’s KING-5). Videos like this should put to rest the fiction that Oregonians are snow weenies. True, on the west side of the Cascades we usually get snowfalls that would be greeted with a yawn in Chicago, Minneapolis, or Denver. But there’s a big difference in slipperiness between cold dry snow and snow that falls around the freezing mark—especially when freezing rain precedes the white stuff.…

I bought my first Bratz recently. Looking over a Giving Tree at my athletic club, where Christmas present requests from needy children were hanging, just about every six to nine year old girl wanted a Bratz. So I headed off to Fred Meyer and entered a new doll world. They’re a lot hotter and hipper than Barbie. More controversial, also, as a fascinating article in The New Yorker (“Little Hotties: Barbie’s new rivals”) discusses at length. These excerpts convey the essence of the Bratz appeal. And for many mothers, the fright. "Bratz dolls have large heads and skinny bodies; their…

Most computer software that I use is blandly functional, like Word and Outlook. Some of it is curse-worthy crap that I get rid of as soon as I can. And then there’s the sweet stuff: software that brings a smile. Because it’s so beautifully designed. Because it does what it’s supposed to. Because it fixes a vexing problem caused by less praise-worthy software. Here's what I’m currently in love with on my laptop. Google. Lots to like here. I just downloaded Google Desktop after a lengthy absence. I had it on my old computer and decided to give it another…

Be sure to check out SearchMash, Google’s lightly publicized search testing ground. I just learned about it a few days and already I’m hooked. It’s a Zen-ified Google. Simpler, purer, more direct. Just start typing anywhere and you’re typing into the search box. Cool. No click and type. Do a web page search and some images often will pop up on the right side. No need to do a separate image search. Nice. (But my “Brian Hines” search revealed a guy who doesn’t look a whole lot like me.) Get to the end of the first ten search results, click…

I thought it’d be fun to head on over to NewsOK to see how Oklahoma Sooner fans were taking their team’s one point loss to Oregon yesterday. Just as I expected, they’re pissed. In fairness, they’ve got good reason. Aside from the fact that an Oregon player sure seemed to touch the on-side kick before it went ten yards, video shows an Oklahoma guy picking up the ball when it squirted out of the pile. Hate to say it, but it looks like Oregon got away with a win that it didn’t deserve. Still, it’s a win. Go Ducks!