Busy Hands.

There was a lot of activity this weekend at the Lockardugan compound; in between feedings and naps, we got the lawn mowed for the first time in two weeks, a garden plot dug in the backyard, more seedlings planted (and cucumber sprouts showing), doors on the garage and the Scout started (cough cough), attended a 1st birthday party, and found a secondhand backpack carrier for Finn. All that activity must have worn on me more than I expected, because I’ve been dragging ass ever since.

Man, 30, gives ‘birth’ to his twin

From the “Eeeewwww” department: Man, 30, gives ‘birth’ to his twin. The picture says it all. (via)

V-8 Power.

Salon: Stop worrying about your children!

Stop worrying about your children! My sister and I walked to school by ourselves when I was in the first grade, and often left the house for the entire day without having a cellphone, GPS tracking device, or RFID implant. Don’t believe the nobody-is-safe hysteria.

What, Me Worry?

“Eeyore: depressed, pessimistic draft animal, or introspective, deep-thinking intellectual? Discuss.”

Perqs.

One of the highlights of the neighborhood in which I work, besides the close proximity of the Block, is the assortment of regular vagrants who wander the area in various states of distress and mental confusion. So it came as no surprise this morning, when, stopped at a red light in front of the venerable Hustler Club, I turned to my right to see the bare ass of an obviously inebriated bum hanging out over his jeans, which were slipping down around his knees as he exited the 7-11. Having time to kill, I stared, fascinated, as it took a full minute for him to place his Coke and a paperback book on top of a trashcan, hoist his drawers to a more socially acceptable altitude, drop his paperback on the ground, and teeter forwards to pick it up (thankfully, after covering his ass) without falling on his face. Had there not been several cars behind me, waiting at the same light, I may have waited through the green just to observe and report further.

64 things every geek should know

64 Things Every Geek Should Know. A bit PC-centric, but there’s some good links in this list.

View From The Ark.

We’re in week 2 of the Great Deluge, and while my nose has stopped dripping, our gutters are still clogged. All this rain means I haven’t gotten a damn thing done outside on the house, or with the Scout, or in the garden, which is driving me batshit crazy. However, while feeding Her Highness the other morning, I noticed that our neighborhood currently resembles Ireland in its lush, green, foggy beauty, and that’s not a bad thing. When we are slogging through another oppressive brown August, I’ll look back and remember how vibrant all the plants looked this spring before they had the life cooked out of them, and that will make me happy until I can crawl back into the air conditioning.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal Saturday evening with Mr. and Mrs. Scout, who are possibly the only people in Maryland to have actually managed to sell their house this year, within weeks of putting it on the market, and who will be leaving the ‘Ville to move across the Bay where the traffic is slower and the sky is sunnier. Mr. Scout promises me he will be back in the area regularly, but I suspect this means we will now have to settle for long-distance bromance.

I took the time last night, in front of a roaring fire, to finally wipe my MacBook clean and install a fresh new copy of Leopard, a full year after buying the install disc. I’ve noticed a huge speed gain already, as well as access to modern conveniences I should have been enjoying months ago. The last 12 hours have been a whirlwind of new installations and digging through discs to find long-forgotten files, but overall it’s great to have a clean system for the first time since 2004 (I’ve done user migrations since 10.2, and it was getting very, very crufty under the hood).

And finally, after a month of fruitless listings, untold numbers of flaky, half-legible emails, and three no-shows, I sold my sidelined G5 iMac this evening—for exactly what I paid for it a year and a half ago.