2006 – Page 20 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Who you callin’ bird brain, bird brain?

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Bird-tacular II

Ricky and Lucy have been raising two babies in the yard. They have taken to escorting them in close to the feeders in an attempt to teach them how to feed on their own.

For now Ricky has been flying to the feeder and then to a nearby tree where the infant awaits hungrily. Every now and then the infant attempts to land on the feeder but has not been successful that we have seen.

Of course the whole family is quite skittish and getting a good shot is difficult as I am having to shoot out of the back window and use the highest digital zoom settings on my camera.

We are also seeing some juvenile House Finches and many young sparrows as well.

Yesterday as we were in the yard we noticed a huge Swallowtail butterfly swooping and diving in the yard. Photographic evidence later revealed she was probably laying eggs on our plants.

Bird-tacular!

We have placed 2 feeders in the bird sancuatry and are experiencing some great bird activity.

Last week we noticed a bird we had not seen before.
He has a bright red head and cowl and was hanging out with the sparrows.

Click for full size

Turns out he’s a House Finch and much more common than I would have expected, having never seen one before. A tiny bit of research revealed that they like thistle, so off to the hardware store to get a thistle feeder. After only a week we have 2 mated pairs of House Finches visiting on a regular basis.

As it stands we have the usual batch of Sparrows and Doves, the occasional Blue Jay and our mated pair of Cardinals, Ricky and Lucy and now House Finches. In the past we have noticed a Ladderback Woodpecker in the neighborhood but he has yet to visit since setting up the bird sanctuary.

Still waiting to see if we get our annual interlopers, the baby Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, that have raided the pool the last few years.

Strike out against media blackout of hero Stephen Colbert!

Bush - Colbert In case you missed Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner you can see it in all of it’s glory here

This amazing event has been largly ignored by the mainstream press but there are some snippets out there.

Crooks and Liars (on of my personal favorites)

Was he snubbed?

Michael Scherer at Salon.com

The “truthiness” hurts.

Dan Froomkin from The Washington Post on Stephen Colbert

“The traditional media’s first reaction to satirist Stephen Colbert’s uncomfortably harsh mockery of President Bush and the press corps at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents Association dinner was largely to ignore it”

New Republic, on Stephen Colbert:

“more evidence of a new Stalinist aesthetic on the left”

Scott McClellan on Stephen Colbert:

“We’ll let others be the entertainment critics… I know better than to insert myself into that one.”

Jon Stewart on Stephen Colbert:

“balls-alicious”

Columbia School of Journalism professor Todd Gitlin on Stephen Colbert:

“It’s too hot to handle. [Colbert] was scathing toward Bush and it was absolutely devastating. They [the mainstream media] don’t know how to handle such a pointed and aggressive criticism.”

A Bush aide, on Bush’s reaction to Colbert’s performance:

“I’ve been there before, and I can see that he is [angry],” said a former top aide. “He’s got that look that he’s ready to blow.”

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Stephen Colbert’s performance:

“He is the president of the United States, and he deserves some respect.”

Colbert, on the audience’s reaction:

“very respectful silence”

Over thirty thousand thank yous and rising!

Thank Stephen Colbert speaking what so many of us are thinking

Code monkey like Fritos

Code Monkey get up get coffee
Code Monkey go to job
Code Monkey have boring meeting
With boring manager Rob
Rob say Code Monkey seem to work a lot
But his output stink
His code not “functional” or “elegant”
What do Code Monkey think?
Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write god damned login page himself
Code Monkey not say it out loud
Code Monkey not crazy, just proud.

Johnathon Coulton is writing, recording and posting a song a week as part of something called A Thing A Week. This offering is “Code Monkey” and it’s a delightful tribute to software programmers.

Also of note is his “Flickr” song. If you have ever browsed Flickr (or any other photo hosting site) you will appreciate this song/video.

Lastly, Chiron Beta Prime reminds me a LOT of They Might Be Giants.

Thing A Week is available as a Podcast if you are so inclined.

Blowing off some steam

Prior to the announcement of the buyout I had made plans to see Southern Culture on the Skids at the Continental Club on Thursday. This band is hard to describe but imagine a trailer park version of the B-52’s and you come close. I make it a point to see them each year when they pass through town and they never disappoint.

As it turned out, the evening was a great chance to unwind and de-stress quite a bit. Plenty of good people in attendance and some I had not seen in a long time.

The show was as good and better than I had hoped.

SCOTS

More pics of the show in the gallery

I love the smell of acquisitions in the morning

There’s nothing like coming to work and opening your e-mail to find a message from the CEO announcing that the company you work for has been sold. The deal is for nearly $500 million in cash, not that any significant portion of that is coming my way.

This is my fourth buyout in 10 years. It’s never pleasant but at least I pretty much know what to expect in the coming months. For many of my co-workers this is a new experience. They’re all buzzing with questions and concern. You can smell the fear.

Time to spruce up the old resume and perk up my professional ears. It always pays to be prepared. Of course I might get to stay on with the new company. They have offices all over the world and who knows? Maybe I can move to another state or even another country.

As always, the future remains unwritten. For now I choose optimism.

Google-spike

I’m enjoying this while it’s still novel.

Today’s Helpline Blog item was a Q&A about Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer entitled Trying to eliminate Internet Explorer. Apparently Google News bundled this blog entry with the news release regarding Microsoft’s release of Internet Explorer Beta 7.

This resulted in ginormous spike in the number of page views in less than 20-30 minutes and an explosion of comments that I am slowly but surely reviewing and publishing.

Forgive an old man his dated colloquialism but I have to say one thing….

NEAT!