it's official

I have joined the mindless sheep and am basically maintaining my private blog on Facebook. Check me here.

yeah. i know: i need to update this puppy.

SpamBot Poetry

I love these. From a spambot message I got today:

Forms of life. In the natural world there are need such a
woman for his wife. But that sting and depending upon the
utterances contained in like a circle of fire, and was,
o king, seen sometimes by the civil powers so this church
seems to have and suras, together with the best soldiers
of will cease to live.' sanjaya continued, 'yuvutsu joy
of the real blazing june! Tell me about it? Assuredly protect
you. Ye srinjayas, entertain in the center of the building,
does not contain it's a cool evening and the creek is very
wet, his works both dogmatists and sceptics appealed,.

Hypermiling

Here's a movement whose moment has arrived--at precisely the speed limit.

It's called hypermiling, and it uses techniques that tend to maintain constant speeds and eliminate braking. Hypermiling maximizes your mileage with potentially dramatic fuel and cost savings. There is some evidence (a little quirky) that it could actually break up traffic logjams, too.

And all you have to do is drive like me.

For years I have driven passengers crazy with my tendency to let my foot drift off the accelerator, my slow-rolling stops, and my overall lack of speed. I haven't done it precisely on purpose; I daydream a bit, you might say.

But today I consciously drove the hypermiling path, and I am here to say that it takes some getting used to, but is a very pleasant way to game the road. Since I drive in stop-and-go city conditions, it's more than a little hard to break the habit of scooting back and forth between the accelerator and brake, but maybe by the end of the week I'll have the hang of it.

And I might be driving more safely, I think. What with all that looking around to see who's speeding, who's stopping, and who is in between.

I've been getting about 18 in the city, and at $50 a fill-up, I'd sure like to gain seven miles or so per gallon. Fingers crossed.

The Steampunk Desktop

Steampunk refers to a subgenre of cyberpunk that is taken up with the pleasures and regrets of the Age of Steam.

So much so, that steampunks will go to great lengths to outfit their modern conveniences--such as this LCD monitor--to resemble machines from yesteryear.

Check out the amusing and informative (if not always user friendly) Steampunk Workshop for all sorts of ideas on outfitting your latterday gear with brass fittings and analog charm.

A New Low

Why do bloggers go on and on about their traffic stats---to their AUDIENCE?

Carol Burnett did not end her variety show by announcing the latest Nielsens.

Musical acts may clock the number of visitors to their sites, but rarely in any detail.

And even ebayers, who are asked to rate the merchandise and transactions, don't comment directly on the ebay dream itself.

(and good thing for ebay, too. You guys are losing us, sellers and buyers alike, with your inscrutable software and your little virtual stores).

Here at TTH, we've refrained from such navel-gazing and mirror-crooning.

Until now. And for an excellent reason. Because I can't wait to tell you how essentially unread we are.

Time to have a...comment dit-on?...frank discussion of those little pixel points we call site visits and page views.

To understand this technical discussion, you have to know that in our heyday (last year), we had 35 unique viewers per day (some of them were me, and I'm not so unique).

Then we dropped to a respectable 23, and held there no matter what I did or didn't do.

But something crazy and unprecedented happpened this summer: We lost 10 daily viewers between June and now! And those who do visit have rapier-like attention, clocking a minimalist .17 seconds in their Wham-Bam attempt to move on to likelier prey.

It sort of makes me feel like I can say anything.

I am drunk with power.

Caution: The last guy who felt that way has also reached a new low, such that he's cornered the market on the phrase "a new low."

Illustration here is copyright of and graciously lent to me by the uniquely gifted Bryan Ballinger.

Bonnie Jo Campbell does not need my publicity...

...no, and I don't need her sympathy either.

But she's cool.

There, I said it and I'm not sorry.

If you want to know how cool, click you this link rightchere.

That's right. Cool enough to stand by unblinking and watch a donkey get gelded.

Oh, and she's written a few books too.

And if you want to know why I am posting a link to her on my site, it's because she and I briefly kept company if you'd Googled* the phrase "Love and beauty will endure until the game is called for darkness" in the wee hours this weekend, as one of my alert readers recently did.

Gene Fowler said it.

He also said, "Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead."

Shoot. Everybody knows that. Ask Bonnie Jo if you don't believe me.

*****
This particular search was not one of Google's finer moments, by the way. My blog actually did use this quote once, while as far as I can tell, Bonnie Jo's just happened to use all the same words. Only a few hours later, her site is still in the search and mine's out. Go figure.

"The most certain sign of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy."
--Francois de Rochefoucauld

That wouldn't be me.

oh yes we did

Reality Shows We've Thought of ...Then Thought Better...So Then Just Posted. Because We Can.

"Oh No You DID'n't!"
True Crime Stories About People Who Do the Horrible Things We've All Contemplated Tagline: How Many Times Have You Wanted to Go There?...These People Really Did.
(Car-plowing crowds at street festivals, microwaving a newborn baby, torching a spouse for any reason, and other unacceptable acts)

Poor Eye for the Rich Guy
Immigrant Rental-Style Home Makeovers for the People Who Live Upstairs Ever wanted expert advice about how to achieve just the right balance of shabby-chic South-of-NAFTA style with all that money you made investing wisely and then buying cheaply in a transitional neighborhood? Want to know how to maximize your space as if you had to share it with three other families and some day-laboring cousins, even if you have it all to yourself? Does your loft need that extra touch of something indefinable that says, "I'm not just an overpaid IT technician, I'm an Authentic American?" Well, tune into PERG where we show you how to use lime green (the new basic) in your home, and how to accessorize your kitchen and bath with Food Lion brands out on open shelves.

Who's Your Daddy?
Taking the Search for Family to the Mean Streets and Main Streets
Ever wonder what the chances are that you could finally find that long-lost authority figure in your own back alley? WYD? asks this question, too, and more: every week we take the WYD? van to a different inner-city neighborhood or rural backwater with our contestants to find alimony-jumpers, bail-skippers, and ne'er-do-wells dads. We gather likely candidates and place them in line-ups for contestants to choose (after we've already coerced--um, gleaned, confessions from the "right" dad). Winning contestants get to collect the equivalent of back-child-support from our sponsors: the DC, Maryland, and Virginia Lottery Boards; Little Debbies Snacks; and Big Jug Liquors. Losers have to take their real dads home.

A Day in the Life in Northampton

Ah, the Pioneer Valley in general...

(and Northampton in particular).

via my mom-in-law, Steffi.

Humphrey to me this morning: "Do You Want to Cure Yourself?"

O man, do I ever.

Humphrey is the name of a spambot that visited me this morning to ask, "Do you want to cure yourself?"

So that was one spam I actually opened, because, you know...just in case.

I think it's important to open the odd can of Spam now and again, if for no other reason then simply to show The Man you're not scared.

And it was from Humphrey, and I seem to get a lot of spam from that one guy Humphrey.

And out here in meat space I actually do have a friend named Humphrey, an awesome lovely dude who just wants to be an American citizen for cripes' sake, and I really like getting email from him.

But it was just my luck. Same old pharmaceuticals from Canada.

A couple of friends (half my readership) emailed to ask if that was really reeally REALLY my last post.

i was totally kidding. just as i will never properly maintain this blog, so will i never properly leave it.

and because i have nothing to say and i am saying it, I'll just keep saying it:

THIS is my last post. Honest.