alternate category: Let's Try and Gain Some Perspective, Shall We?

"Tsunamis shatter celebrity holidays"

Sorry to spoil the surprise, but I've been working on a site redesign, and it's almost done. However, we've hit a snag: Catherine. That's right, my crazy girlfriend doesn't like part of the design I put together -- specifically, the logo. We've decided to do the fair thing and let you guys settle it.

So I present logo 1:

And logo 2:

Please let us know in comments which you prefer. We're really just concerned with the fonts -- don't worry about the colors. The design is intended to be flexible, letting me drop new color schemes and backgrounds into the design whenever I get around to it. You'll only have to suffer with the light blue for a couple of months, probably.

some of you know that i have a coworker and friend who is sri lankan and had been taking an extended holiday in colombo. we finally had an email from him this morning:

I am using one of those very rare moments with power supply to reply your letter. My mother and I are safe although I have lost many friends and relatives along with quite a bit of property that I had here. However I am much better off compared to many others who have suffered tremendous losses. I am not going to write a long letter as I might lose power while doing so.

i really have nothing to say about the tsunami, as the entire thing is so enormously tragic as to eclispe my ability to think about it. i can't even imagine it, really. 25,000 people, maybe as many as 40,000, gone.

anyway, here are some links about various things i've found through blog browsing about the tsunami:

And the horrific dystopian future won't be, either. Oh sure, I'm all about the merciless, unblinking machinebrains, with their cold calculations and algorithmically-precise contempt for humans. But it's going to take more than building SkyNet for the Terminator movies to come true. So toward that end:

• Scientists are working on a robot powered by a bacterial fuel cell. They envision building flying machines that can power themselves indefinitely by feeding on insects and fruit.


• Not scary enough? Well, this is a little old, but Japanese researchers have figured out a way to power devices with human blood.

Progress!

good news: alton brown of good eats is bringing his 2005 book tour to our area on january 18! if you haven't heard of mr. brown you should read this salon.com article, "TV chefs who don't bite." an excerpt from the piece sounds like it could have been written about tommy, who is an excellent cook and in love in a non-gay way with with brown:

How did my engineer boyfriend learn to cook so well? Certainly not from watching the food shows the cable TV channels dish up in abundance. The personality-driven recipe files of Emeril Lagasse, Nigella Lawson, Rachael Ray, Jamie Oliver, even Jacques Pepin entertain us, but they don't teach us much cooking. And "Iron Chef"? That's just a neo-feudalistic game show that happens to involve food.

Nope, Leonard and I aren't much for food shows. It's the geeky cooking shows we devour in search of explanations, technique, equipment tests and, yes, entertainment: Food Network's gimmicky-in-a-good-way "Good Eats" (which sometimes runs as often as three times in one day) and PBS's consumer-reports show "America's Test Kitchen" (check local listings), which explain the science and engineering behind good food. Leonard got his awesome sweet potato recipe from "ATK's" "Thanksgiving III" episode, and I'm looking forward to finding out what menu items from its holiday dinner show -- as well as from "Good Eats" episodes on cookies, fudge, cake and cheesecake -- will end up on his table later this month.

...Using more science than his "Test Kitchen" counterparts, Brown moves smoothly between theory and practice in every scene. Both shows throw out conventional wisdom when a cheaper, better or faster option seems obvious. Brown goes further, improvising ingredients and even equipment more often. Why buy a grill when you can make one from hardware-store parts? And at every step, we learn the chemistry and physics of the process, and thus how to vary the instructions to produce a different result. The "Test Kitchen" is a dedicated committee, but Brown is a crabby and brilliant tinker.

i appreciate this article for two reasons: it's about the european smart car and how it's starting to make a foray into american markets (yay!), and it contains a lovely little dig at tom cruise that was totally unnecessary in an article about cars:

"[The Smart Car] is the Tom Cruise of the automotive world, a teeny-tiny star with eye-catching looks."