http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Apophenia “Apophenia is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. The term was coined by neurologist Klaus Conrad and defined as the ‘unmotivated seeing of connections.’” One evening, a good many years ago, I was exercising — just a sort of free-form dance — in the living room, with […]

Dear Minions of the Insane Monopoly; My check for the current amount due is enclosed. Please also accept my sincere disgust for your cavalier treatment of an honest, reliable paying customer. For several years I have enjoyed the convenience of paying my bill online. Lately, it has changed from a convenience to a growing annoyance. […]

I love small things. Looking at origami furniture models, I thought how fun it would be to assemble a paper suite for Borrowers. But out of all the chest-of-drawers type models available, I found none that I really wanted to fold. Either they were fussily complex, or not proportioned right. So I took paper in […]

I was sitting at my computer (where else), hopping between Twitter and other things. Music suddenly started playing out of nowhere, loud and clear. I went all WTF and looked for the source. With four workspaces, four browsers and a few other windows open…woof. On my way down through my cyberspace mansion, I closed the […]

A Short Tale of Betrayal I have built a reputation for honest work and trustworthiness. People rely on me to help them recover their passwords, rescue locked email accounts, salvage their lost files, clean up and speed up their computers. Last Friday, I was fired from a job I held for nearly ten years. Seems […]

Cheapest quick last-minute Halloween costume evah.

My previous web hosting lacked security, and gradually my site became a party zone for script kiddies. Not only littered with unwelcome files, it was impossible to clean up because file permissions had become unchangeable. Support ticket? Forget it. So, last night I grabbed some recent logfiles and torched the whole thing. Well, scorched it, […]

I followed this link from Twitter, enjoyed it immensely, retweeted it, and tried to post it on Facefuck. I was prevented from doing so. FINE! I will share it even more. If you think it is offensive, don’t share it. 3 Dads I’ve encountered Facecrap’s nannying before, and I will never condone it. Why stop […]

Yep, changed my site password and forgot to tell WordPress.

Dinner is cooking, and it smells great. No turkey. No great expectations. No plans for the next artificial emotional pump-up. No one screaming and cursing at the TV, no after-dinner battles to sour the food. It’s quiet, peaceful. Enjoyable. Not all families are like that, but I know mine wasn’t unique — there are enough […]