Monthly Archives: April 2009
I don’t speak Japanese, but…
…the narrator may as well just be saying “Owls are so fucking cool I can’t stand it” over and over:
Dept. of Weird Observances
Today is the 99th anniversary of my great-grandparents’ wedding; visitors to Heathen Central can see an April 3, 1910 picture of Ike and Dell Farmer in our entryway.
Another tiny thing about Windows vs. Macs
This one’s not a right or wrong thing; it’s just different.
On the Mac, scrolling instructions from scrollwheel equipped mice are directed at whatever window is below the cursor without regard to the current focus. This means one can have (say) a Word doc for notetaking open over a long web article, and scroll the article without clicking on the browser window and taking the focus away from the Word doc.
On Windows, no input is ever directed to a window unless it has focus. Using the scroll wheel on my mouse will scroll, or attempt to, whatever window has focus regardless of where my mouse cursor is.
I’m honestly not sure which I like better, but I sure DO wish there was a preference I could set on one or the other of them to make them both act the same.
(It seems likely that someone has developed the old X-windows focus-follows-mouse trick for both platforms, but seeing as how that paradigm makes me crazy, I won’t be going that route.)
Goofus and Gallant at the Kansas City Airport
In this context, read “Goofus” as “the Continental terminal” and “Gallant” as “the Southwest terminal.”
GOOFUS assumes travelers are content with off-brand prefab food, a standard-issue airport bar with Sysco burgers, and a single Starbuck’s.
GALLANT at least provides a Sbarro and a McDonald’s, and God help us if we’re viewing that as “the nice option.”
GOOFUS hides outlets under furniture.
GALLANT has biz-traveler friendly desk-counters with outlets in the waiting area for laptop warriors to plug in and work while waiting for their flight.
GOOFUS has dodgy wifi prone to signal drops at the slightest provocation.
GALLANT’s connectivity is rock solid.
Unfortunately, GALLANT requires me to stop in Dallas, so GOOFUS it is. Basically, the answer is that there’s no way to go to and from Kansas City that doesn’t suck in some way.
What a smackdown looks like
Stephen Colbert 1, Glenn Beck 0.
The smell’s not included
ThinkGeek now has perhaps the most disturbing childhood sleeping bag EVER.
Also, squeezable bacon.
(We suggest, gently, that you check the date before ordering.)
Yikes.
Bad news from Mrs Heathen: Andy Hallett, the actor behind the green-skinned lounge owner Lorne on “Angel,” died yesterday of a heart ailment. He was 33.
Ah, “Heathers”
It’s apparently time for the obligatory where are they now stories. Turns out one of ’em died of a brain tumor already. Wacky.
Something about Windows I actually like
The whole “click to show, click again to hide” app behavior from the Vista task bar is kinda nice. I wish the Dock worked that way.