sloppy

..just got a little better.

One of my peeves is the intersection of Gold and 8th, which I walk through at least 4 times per day, often 6.

It's a 3-way stop, with traffic coming from the north, _​not_​ stopping. This has various consequences.

1) You better be alert and watch for traffic coming around the curve to the north. A good idea anyway, of course, but here it's extra tense.

2) Drivers _​know_​ how weird it is, so some of them coming from the north, stop anyway. They're not supposed to. I wouldn't, either. And yet, I sympathize. It "feels" wrong to not stop. But you shouldn't, because the other cars just have to wait for you anyway, and traffic is backing up behind you, and everyone is projecting psychic waves of "you don't have a stop sign, idiot!"

I think the reason there's no stop sign, is that it's really intended as a relief route for eastbound Central.

So what changed? Why do I hate it a little less now? Because I found a $20 bill in the crosswalk. Yep, just sitting there on the pavement in the middle of 8th street. Nobody else around, either, to ask, "Hey, did you drop something?" It's mine, all mine! I guess Torture Victim gets a round of whiskey sent up to the stage tonight.

In the 1980s, SNL had a surreal skit. It was a fake TV ad for General Dynamics (the leader in laser-guided technology), as if running TV ads would be part of their business model.

Fiction becomes reality.

Today I was reading a transcript of Bill Richardson on MTP, and I saw a Boeing ad. It doesn't suggest any particular product that I should buy -- it just shows their logo. I guess this is just to build up some name recognition, for the next time that I impulsively buy a large passenger jet airliner. I will think, "Boeing, huh? Yeah, I've heard of them. Ok, I guess I'll get one of theirs, instead of some mysterious, obscure Airbus."

What do YOU think? The next time you're in the checkout line at the supermarket and have an impulse to drop a few billion dollars on a fleet of the aircraft they have on display, what will YOU buy? If you said Lockheed Martin, it's probably because your Firefox installation includes an ad blocking extension.

I noticed that my comment on a Daily Word column, where I lament that peoples' attitude about cryptography still doesn't seem to be changing, made it into the print edition of The Alibi..

..right next to a letter from Don Schrader.

I don't quite know what it means to find myself in such company, but I suspect it supports my point that most people -- you know, _​normal_​ people -- view communications security as an odd thing to care about.

The question: is it the good kind of odd ("ooh, prescient and insightful"), or the bad kind of odd ("sheesh, what a paranoid loon")?

I guess that gives us something to discuss at the next PGP keysigning meeting. Remember to bring photo id and a hardcopy of your fingerprint. I'll wear my EFF baseball cap to make myself easier to spot. (Pocket protector optional.)

Met a guy at the Dukes of Ale meeting on Tuesday, who is doing two side-by-side brews with two different systems on Saturday morning, and he's invited us over. So I'll be over there for a while, and then I'll buy some minor equipment from him (scales).

Then when I get home, I begin my number 6: Scottish Ale. This'll have a little peat-smoked malt in it, heather in place of some of the hops, and I'll be doing some funny stuff to increase carmelization. After all my pale ales, and the exotic number 5, this will be yet another direction.

Don't expect to taste any until at least 3 weeks later.

I watched the first episode of Do No Harm and thought it was ok. Or at least that's what I thought I thought. "I'd watch more," I said. The second episode came out, and .. huh. I never got around to it. I felt no urge to see what misadventures Dr. Jeckyl would have next. The file's still sitting there, unplayed. My mouth said I like it, but my mouse-clicking hand said I don't.

It's said that Do No Harm set a new record in low ratings. No show has ever failed quite as utterly as that one.

I hope Hannibal makes it, though. It's growing on me. It's kind of sad that this show (like Bates Motel) has to build on already-known-characters; the fact that I'm watching it is directly related to why Hollywood makes so many sequels. But once you get over that, and of course the "atrocious" deviations from Thomas Harris canon, and the silliness of Will Graham's quasi-psychic visualization power, and .. ok, maybe the show actually sucks, but I like it, anyway.

I just wonder who decided that 2013 is the year that it's suddenly cool to retrofit our old favorite fictional serial killers, so that two of 'em are happening at once. Surely it's not an accidental coincidence.

Both series have good actors, too. Or at least actors who did a great job of studying and mimicking earlier actors who played the same characters. ;-) The guy who plays Norman Bates doesn't just look like Anthony Perkins, he acts like him and has the same not-quite-right feel. And in the Hannibal series when you first meet Dr. Chilton, he's not introduced by name. But as he's speaking his first sentence, I was thinking "That's so Dr. Chilton" and they confirm it a few seconds later when they say his name. But they didn't need to confirm it, because the actor was totally channeling the actor from the Silence of the Lambs movie. He just fucking nailed it. Good job, (google google) Raúl Esparza.