Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Dr.Dubious, DDQ's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, September 15th, 2007
12:31 am	I am a Prince of Expired JellO™! Over on The Big Room, I seem to get a fair number of hits from people searching for information on "Expired JellO™" and related phrases. Probably because of A couple of posts I did.... For a while, I was even the second hit on Google when searching for "Expired JellO", but I seem to have fallen to #3. This will not do! I've discovered that I have some old boxes of generic-brand gelatin that expired 2½ years ago, which would mean the box was probably packaged almost 5 years ago. I just made up one of the boxes and stuck it in the 'fridge to solidify. Tomorrow, I shall eat it. And then there will either be a blog post on the Big Room about it, or a copy of the newspaper article describing the my untimely death due to expired-JellO™-poisoning. Stay tuned! I shall not be satisfied until I am the KING of Expired JellO™!.... UPDATE: - I do'd it. See http://www.bigroom.org/wordpress/?p=63... Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Monday, March 19th, 2007
10:27 pm	Where Was I? Episode 6: Multicultural Hedonism Day Or: "Aw, man, this sucks!" Sunday was Culture™ day. We went to see an Italian opera about Scotsmen and then ate at a Brazilian restaurant. The subtitle for this post ("Aw, man, this sucks!") is a summary of the opera. No, not of the quality of the opera (which was actually very good for a mopey opera) but the actual theme of the opera. For anyone who doesn't want to sit through three hours (including intermissions and pauses for scene changes) of Lucia di Lammermoor, here's the entire opera: There are really 7 major characters in the whole thing. Since this opera is set in Scotland, all of them have clearly recognizeable Scottish names like Enrico, Edgardo, Lucia...hey, what do you want, it was an Italian composer. Anyway, there's this brother (Enrico) and Sister (Lucia) who are McCoys Capulets Ashtons, some guy who's in charge of the castle guard (Normanno), the last surviving member of a family with which the brother and sister's clan were a-feudin' (Edgardo Hatfield Montesque Ravenswood), a deep-voiced Presbyterian minister (Raimondo), and some guy who the brother wants his sister to marry (Arturo) because then he (Arturo) will be their family's bestest friend and he's a friend of the Bush family and Enrico is out of favor because he voted for Kerry or some such thing. There's also Lucia's Renaissance equivalent of an "executive assistant" and a bunch of extras. The play has 3 acts of two scenes each. Act 1, Scene 1: A bunch of guys looking for somebody around some castle A bunch of escapees from a RenFaire are running around with torches looking for some guy who the audience can see lurking around. Finally, Enrico and Normanno show up on stage. Enrico: "Did you catch the guy who was trespassin' in my castle?" Normanno: "Not yet, but I bet I know who it is." Enrico: "Who?" Normanno:"I better not tell you, it'll just tick you off." Enrico: "Tell me, I can take it." Normanno:"It's probably Edgardo. Ever since he saved your sister from being trampled by a bull, they've had the hots for each other." Enrico: "That jerk! I'm gonna kick his butt!" Act 1 Scene 2: In some garden or other with a well Lucia and her maid Alisa are hanging out in a garden while Lucia waits for Edgardo to show up Lucia: "Tee hee, I'm so happy. Edgardo's so cool. Did I mention I saw something spooky the other day? You know that story about the girl that got killed here by a jealous boyfriend and fell down the well? Well, I saw her the other day! Right there! Then she disappeared but then the well water turned to blood! BLOOD! THE HORROR! THE HORROR! Tee hee, Edgardo makes me so happy." (No, seriously, that's pretty much how the speech goes...) Alisa: "That's obviously a Sign™ that you should break off messing around with Edgardo or bad things will happen." Lucia: "No way. Oh, look, here comes Edgardo" (Edgardo shows up) Edgardo: "Hey, sorry to drag you out here for an unscheduled secret rendezvous, but I've got to go to France right away for unspecified political reasons and thought I should tell you." Lucia: "Aw, man, this sucks! How will I cope with being away from you?" Edgardo: "Tell you what, I'll just give up a-feudin' with your family, shake hands with your brother, and we can just get married, how about it." Lucia: "Nah, he'll never go for it. He thinks you're a jerk." Edgardo: "Aw, man, this sucks! He cheated my whole family and made them miserable and the hardship killed my father, and now I'm the only one left and I swore to kill him! KILL! KILL! Ah, but I love you too much to do that." ["My name is Edgardo Montoya Ravenswood. You kill my father. Prepare to die..."] "But we're PRACTICALLY married, right?" Lucia and Edgardo sing a happy song and exchange rings, then the guards show up and chase Edgardo off. Act 2, Scene 1: Some room inside the castle. Normanno and Enrico are chatting about trying to get Enrico's sister to marry Arturo, who is evidently rich or powerful or something and can use his political influence to smooth over the fact that the Ashton family was rootin' for the wrong team during the last fight over who gets to be king of Scotland. Normanno: "Think she'll go for it?" Enrico: "I'm not sure, but I think we can talk her into it when we show her this forged letter that says Edgardo has forgotten her and hooked up with some other girl." Lucia shows up and Enrico shows her the faked letter, which really bums her out. Enrico: "See, I told you Edgardo was a prick. You should marry Arturo instead, he's way cool and will be our bestest friend if you marry him." Lucia: "Aw, man, this sucks! I don't really want to marry Arturo, but I'll think about it." Raimondo shows up, Enrico leaves. Raimondo: "Come on, do it for your family. Arturo's not such a bad guy." Lucia: "Well....I guess so." Act 2, Scene 2: A big hall set up for a weddin' There are a bunch of expectant extras waitin' for the party to start. Arturo and Enrico are there. Arturo: "I'm going to be your bestest friend because your sister is totally hot." Enrico: "Thanks, dude, you are so cool. Oh, but if my sister's kinda mopey don't worry about it, she's just still bummed out about our mother dying." Arturo: "Okay." Lucia mopes in reluctantly, still bummed out about Edgardo. Arturo goes over to a desk, reads, and then signs the wedding contract. Lucia the mopes over, hesitates for a while, then signs it too, even though she obviously thinks the whole situation sucks. Just then, Edgardo bursts in. Edgardo: "What the hell's going on here? I'm gonna kick yer butt, Enrico!" Enrico: "Nuh uh! I'm gonna kick YOUR butt!" They start trying to chop each other up with swords, but Raimondo, the Presbyterian minister intervenes Raimondo: "Hey! I'm God's local representative here, and God says knock it off! Besides, Edgardo, you're too late, she's already married to Arturo now. See, here's the contract!" Edgardo: "Aw, man! This sucks! Is this really your signature?" Lucia: "But..But...But..." Edgardo: "Gimme back my ring, you heartless wench!" Edgardo takes off the ring he got from Lucia and throws it on the ground, then takes the one he gave Lucia, throws it on the ground, and stomps on it before he finally gets thrown out of the castle. Act 3, Scene 1: Partying extras at the weddin' reception. The extras are all dancing around the stage in their RennFaire costumes - obviously Arturo and Lucia have gone off to bed (nudge nudge, wink wink) when Raimondo comes in. Raimondo: "Aw, man! This sucks! Lucia totally lost it and killed Arturo!" The extras stop celebrating. Lucia comes wandering into the scene covered with blood, holding a bloody dagger, and obviously hallucinating. Lucia: "Tee hee, I'm so happy we're going to be married, Edgardo!" Enrico shows up. Enrico: "What the heck's going on around here!" Raimondo: "Dude! Your sister killed Arturo!" Enrico: "Aw, man! This sucks! Who's going to be our bestest friend now? Sis, you're gonna get it for this!" Lucia: "Tee hee. Edgardo, you're so handsome and cool. I'm so glad we're getting married." Enrico: "Whoa, you're, like, totally messed up. Guess I shouldn't have been such a jerk about making you dump Edgardo and marry Arturo, huh?" Lucia: "Tee hee." Lucia collapses. Raimondo: "Aw, man! This sucks! This is totally all your fault, Normanno." Act 3, Scene 2: Edgardo moping in his ancestral graveyard. Edgardo: "Aw, man! This sucks! I'm the last member of my family left and now Lucia dumped me. I might as well go let Enrico stab me to death and get my miserable life over with!" A bunch of extras go marching by. Extras: "Oh, woe! Oh, woe! Aw, man! This sucks!" Edgardo: "What sucks?" Extras: "Lucia went nuts, stabbed her new husband to death, and is now dying of Terminal Chronic Mopeitis!" Edgardo: "Aw, man! This sucks! I'd better go see her right away!" Raimondo shows up. Raimondo: "You're too late, dude, she just died." More extras bring the dead body on stage. (No, they never explain how they knew Edgardo was moping around his family's graveyard or why they bring her body there...) Edgardo: "Aw, man! This sucks! JulietLucia, I can't live without you! I guess I might as well die too!" Edgardo stabs himself and falls dead across Lucia after obligatorily singing about it. Raimondo: "Aw, man! This whole situation sucks!" The End. There, I just saved you all three hours. (Actually, the opera was very well done. The voices of Raimondo and Lucia were particularly impressive, as was the staging given the limited space on the stage at the local opera. I think it was overall extremely good, other than being a mopey opera, and a few odd [to me] places where the music the composer (Gaetano Donizetti) wrote seemed to have a casually happy tone ("Hey, I just won ten bucks in a poker game!", "Gosh, tomorrow's fishing trip sure will be fun!") while the singers were going on about killing each other and whatnot. Must be a Bel Canto thing.) And then, the Brazilian restaurant. It was very much a reminder of why Gluttony is my second most favorite Deadly Sin™. It's an all you canwant to eat kind of thing. You pay 'em, and sit down with a plate while servers wander around carrying various things on skewers that are cooked over a gigantic grill in the kitchen. Anything that sounds good, you have 'em whack off a hunk of it for you. Repeat until gorged. GOOD gluttony - everything was excellent. And I've discovered that Guarana soda tastes remarkably like a sweet Reisling or Gewurtztraminer wine. MMMmmmmmmmm. (Whatever happened to "Caprio" ["One taste says it all!..."], anyway? Am I the only person who remembers that soda?) And now it's past my bedtime. Good night. Current Mood: tired (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 25th, 2007
7:38 pm	I wanna T-Shirt The perfect Evil Mad (Microbiological) Scientist T-Shirt: Current Mood: amused (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 9th, 2006
8:18 pm	Mudbug Solfatara, v2.0 ChangeLog: Increased ratio of ginger to pepper New Feature: Sour Cream How to compile: Dump One cup rinsed (uncooked) white rice, 1/2 bottle (~375ml) Gewurtztraminer, Reisling, or similar wine, 2 cups of water into a rice-cooker. Add a generous portion of dill, a generous portion of ground dried sage, a healthy dose of ground ginger, and some pepper. Mix well. Dump 3/4 lb (12 oz.) of frozen crayfish tails on top. Add 1/2 stick of butter. Turn on the cooker and close it up. When cooking is almost done (most of the liquid boiled off or absorbed by the rice), dump in about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of half-'n'-half, and allow THAT to cook down, mixing well. Add about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of sour cream and mix well. Add more dill, ginger, pepper, and salt to taste - the final result should have a pleasant, mild sourness and nice lingering gingery bite. Precompiled Binary downloads: Forget it! This is MINE. I'M eating it. Get your own. Features planned for future versions: Verjus Garlic Replace Pepper with Galingale MMMmmmmm.....solfatara..... And now, back to dinner. And studying for tomorrow's biochemistry test. Current Mood: hungry (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 14th, 2005
9:56 pm	"Where was I?" Okay, here's the story. I flew back to Idaho for the weekend, and we went out to play in The Big Room Saturday and Sunday. I got a phone call during the day on Saturday - it was my mother, wanting to know where I was. It amused me. Want to know where I was? I was at latitude 44.97873, longitude -113.44588, also known as "the middle of freakin' nowhere". (I had NO signal on the cellphone when we got out of the car and started walking...I guess the top of the hill there managed to be in a spot that did...) (The faint 'x' in the middle of this image is where we were...) But now I'm back to the usual near non-stop schedule. Ugh. Is it the weekend yet? Current Mood: tired (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 12th, 2005
9:49 pm	More later. Funny cellphone story and stuff, but I'm way too rushed to post right now. But, no, spending a couple of days playing in The Big Room didn't do me in. More in a day or two. Meanwhile, I need to go to bed now, so I can get at least a few hours of sleep before I have to get up again to go to the airport early enough to catch the first flight back to work (and then onto a full workday. Ouch.) Current Mood: tired (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 9th, 2005
8:53 pm	Bizarre pairings... First....Gyoza and Mayonnaise. Works surprisingly well together. Second... A pairing of a logo and a slogan so profound, so insightful, so amazing that it has Changed My Life. About a week ago during my interminable commute, I ended up behind some hickmobile pickup with the slogan/logo in question on the back window. The logo was one of those dopey "Raiders" things - a grimacing skull with a helmet and crossed cutlasses behind it. The slogan around it? "One Nation Under God"... I understand it all now. All these years of Zen Agnosticism unbelief, and suddenly I recognize that I have been wrong. I hereby renounce my heathen ways and convert. And I declare myself first ArchPriest of the First Orthodox Church of Nobeard, the Zombie Pirate God... Otherwise, I'm freakin' tired. And I've got to go to bed early so I can get up early so I can get done at work relatively early so I can get to the airport so I can get to see my wife for the weekend... At least I've discovered some useful "podcasts" (that term's popularity is a serious marketing coup for Apple, I think) of IT-related speeches and presentations floating around, so I have something moderately educational to listen to. Hey, maybe I should replace this journal with an "audio blog", then my own cadre of screaming fans could listen to the dulcet tones of my voice bestowing my wisdom upon all while going about their own commutes... I suppose since I'm sure nobody can get enough of my mindless blather, I can also mention that there are some things I think are really spiffy that are coming out Real Soon Now: Nokia 770 Mapping Hacks Car PC Hacks Just thinking about them's giving me a nerd-on[1]... Okay, it's not bedtime. [1] - I hereby claim credit for inventing this sure-to-be-famous-soon collquialism... Current Mood: thoughtful (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 25th, 2005
10:16 am	Busy Busy Busy Lots of driving around. I'm about to return to So. Cal. today again, after spending a few days frantically getting stuff done in Idaho. Still don't know what I'm going to be doing this weekend... So, for the two or so people who wanted to know: I ain't dead yet Like the humble electron, it is not possible to know where I am and where I'm going at the same time[1] If all of this effort ends up having been worth it, it will end up having been worth quite a lot indeed. If not, I'm going to be ticked. Yeah, I know, that's probably a horrible description of the principle, but nobody will know whether Heisenberg is spinning in his grave or not unless they exhume him... Current Mood: rushed (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 25th, 2005
10:44 pm	Long Commute The only problem with the long commute is that it means I don't get much goof-off time before or after work. Oh, well. It's nice up here otherwise. And I supposed I'll have plenty of time on the weekends to work on upgrading to Homeix Mobile 1.1 (which will be the version with network wiring...) (Comment on this)
Saturday, April 16th, 2005
12:06 am	I hereby dub it... ...Homeix 1.0. And now it, and I, are going back to Southern California. Again. Serious logistical hassle, but we're getting there. And what's really sad, is that I'm looking forward to CLEANER air there than here in Idaho. There's got to be a better way for farmers to get ready for planting than piling up all of the leftover plant material and lighting it on fire. I'm absolutely sick of them demanding to store their crap in my lungs... And now, bedtime. When I awaken, far too early in the morning, I'll be driving maniacally on ahead to book a spot at the RV park before The Mrs(tm) arrives with Homeix 1.0. Wish me (good) luck. If anyone's reading this, that is... Current Mood: annoyed (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 7th, 2005
12:02 am	Trailer-trash nerd? So, what shall I do to properly nerd-out a trailer that I'm living in (or shall be if all goes well in the next few days)? Directional antennae? Built in public wireless network server? Computer-controlled plant-watering system? Continuous-fermentation device for yogurt?.... Current Mood: rushed (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 31st, 2005
8:24 pm	Brief and minimally-informative update: In the immortal words of Alexander Haig: "I'm in control here" Okay, slight exaggeration - this place is nucking futs. Very busy. But, nonetheless...here I am. And now Catie wants to look at having me set up in a trailer park, coincidentally enough, right near Magic Mountain... Current Mood: busy (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 27th, 2005
12:12 pm	Where am I? I've been tempted to devise a "where the heck am I" webpage, complete with satellite photo maps and everything, considering how much travelling I've been doing. And now it's back to southern California even yet still once more again. Hopefully "for real" this time. We shall see. Not much else to say at the moment except "time to go!". A mere 13-14 hours and I should be there... Current Mood: busy (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005
6:43 pm	Shocking Developments! "Good Eats" has actually been, at least temporarily, unseated as my favorite cooking show! Only barely, but still... My new favorite cooking show for the moment is now "Deep Fried Live!", starring Tako, the Octopus. Highly recommended. Even though it's a great deal more "silly" than Good Eats, and substantially shorter per episode, it actually IS a "cooking" show, with real Honest-to-Dionysus information about cooking stuff. Unfortunately, there are only 8 "episodes" (around 5 minutes each) plus the 30-second teaser ("30-second Sushi"), and the most recent show appears to have been about a year-and-a-half ago. On the other hand, the site was updated in the last couple of months, and the "What's New" section appears to promise that there really will be new episodes coming, so there's hope. Besides, since it's free ("Free as in Free Beer", you can't legally redistribute copies of it as far as I know), I can't complain too much. In other news, I'm back in Idaho again for at least a few days. We'll see what happens after that... (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 30th, 2005
11:52 pm	"Illiteracy is cool" - Marketing makes you stupid... Okay, several marketing memes whose use guarantees that I will avoid doing business with the associated company unless I genuinely have no other real possibility: Making your company or product name allegedly "cool" by mis-spelling it with a "Z" on the end instead of an "S". ("Trendz"). Moronic drunken, drug-snortin', and/or just stupid marketing execs will be trying to make incontinence "cool" any day now by advertising "Dependz Undergarmentz". This goes especially for using MULTIPLE z's on the end (presumably because the chooser of the name is such an unimaginative twit that when they discover someone else is already using "Fanz" or "Carz" in their name that all they can think to do to differentiate themselves is to add another "z". I guess if one "z" is cool, then TWO must be not just cool, but "Xtreme"(see below). Describing your products or company with the word "extreme" for no comprehensible reason. Doubly so if you spell it "Xtreme". (the local Albertson's(tm) supermarket had this "Xtreme Value" promotion thing going on. I keep wondering what's so "Xtreme" about e.g. $0.25 off the price of a bottle of salad dressing...) Those idiotic "fish-eye-lens/Dopeyface/Bobblehead people" advertisements. You know - they "blow up" the size of the person's head in the image like one of those "bobblehead" dolls, often with the person making the most idiotic face possible. Urgh. McDonalds(tm) recently did a television ad with all the characters done in "bobblehead" style. If McDonald's is doin' it[1], you KNOW it's got to be crap[2] Use of the word "leading" or "leader" in the marketing materials. I think some government surplus warehouse must have sold off a massive overstock of the word "leading" to marketing people all over the world. Now EVERYONE is "Industry leading" or a "leading provider" and so on, to the point where phrases containing those words are literally meaningless. Well, not LITERALLY, I guess it DOES now mean "we have a typical stupid marketing department"... In other news - I'm off to Southern California again. Fun fun fun. (Work work work). Hopefully will be productive, but we'll see. [1] - Speaking of "doin' it" (ahem) another post elsewhere on LiveJournal mentioned seeing an animated .gif advertisement for McDonald's cheeseburgers. It included the phrase "I'd hit it". (For those who don't know, that's a sexual euphemism indicating that the speaker finds the subject sufficiently sexually interesting...). Though I suppose marketing to bizarre sexual fetishes is more imaginative than usual. ("Check out those buns" - ha!) So THAT'S what they mean when they say "I'm lovin' it(tm)"! I'll leave production of "supersize" jokes to the minds of any other perverse readers out there. [2] - Quite honestly, I consider McDonalds(tm) to be a "leading" (ha!) perverter of my country's culture, or what's left of it. Their whole style is to "culture" what "Kraft(tm) Singles" are to cheese. (That's not a compliment, if that wasn't obvious...) Current Mood: busy (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 22nd, 2005
4:46 pm	Me Mighty Muscular Mule of Something-beginning-with-"M" Getting there, anyway. I've actually gone to the extent of getting a membership at a nearby gym so I can go use the weight machines. I'm metaphorically kicking myself for not doing it sooner. Strength-training workouts feel GOOD. Add to that the fact that I'm a nerd, and determined to use every nerdly resource available to me to boost my workout's effectiveness. It occurred to me today that at some point I could put up a "Lose Fat and Build Rippling Muscles with Mozilla Firefox" website. No, that's not a joke - using the "BioBar" extension to quickly search PubMed for information has been an integral part of my exercise planning thus far. Finding out things like "do any of those supplements really do anything?" from someone besides a marketing person with an obvious bias, for example. (Searching PubMed, I can only confirm *2* of them having any effect that is verifiable under controlled conditions. The rest appear to be either useless or only do something in unusual cases [e.g. real, genuine deficiency or disease - for example, "Vanadyl Sulfate" DOES appear to possibly improve insulin response in diabetics, but has no effect on healthy people].) Hmmmm....O'Reilly and Associates has already published a book in their "hacks" series (HIGHLY recommended - I think their "Hacks" series has been one of the most informative sets of books I've run into) called "Mind Hacks. Wonder if they'll do one on "Body Hacks"? After all, that's basically what I'm trying to do... Somehow, the notion of getting moved to Santa Monica (still "probably" going to happen, but still not confirmed) and ending up being the only nerd hanging out at "Muscle Beach" amuses me to no end.... P.S. Where is everybody?.... Current Mood: accomplished (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 18th, 2004
1:27 pm	Rollin', rollin', rollin'.... Now in Auburn, about to make a run to Apple Hill (Hooray, our favorite cider place is open ONE more day...), down the hill to the Sacramento area to meet some friends for lunch and run a few more errands, then on the road to Arroyo Grande. Just one last little thing to finish up and I'm on the way. WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Current Mood: busy (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 15th, 2004
3:02 pm	What does everyone want for xmas I still have to figure out what to get people. And I'm going to be on the road starting tomorrow and going through mid-next-week or so. At least it looks like my schedule is likely to include the ability to swing through the San Luis Obispo area Saturday-Sunday, if people down there can put up with me being nearby... Current Mood: rushed (Comment on this)
Monday, December 13th, 2004
5:49 pm	Oh, NOW I remember what else I wanted for Xmas... An Octodog Maker. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 20th, 2004
11:40 pm	WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEkend. Hooray! Weekend here! Let's see, someone was asking about stuff I might want for xmas. Here are some examples: Ultraviolet LED's (Yup, they make 'em now) "Secure Digital"-type flash cards (I have several devices that can use them now) A wide variety of the cool stuff on ThinkGeek Dead-tree versions of the Sluggy Freelance, Bruno the Bandit, or Schlock Mercenary online comics This guy's CD Bookstore gift certificates O'Reilly and Associates books or gift certificates (if they offer them - haven't checked) A subscription to 2600 Gift certificates for American Science and Surplus if they offer them Probably a whole mess of other things. Maybe gift-certificates for places like "Big 5" or "GART Sports". And in case I hadn't gotten around to mentioning it before - carrying around an extra 35 pounds all the time is hard work... Oh, yes, and the music comes from this strangely addictive flash cartoon. The music goes perfectly with the cartoon. His other one ("Dad's Home") is also quite funny in an absurd sort of way. Current Mood: bouncy (1 Comment |Comment on this)