The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard – Page 144

We finally found a hotel in Barcelona we like.

The Hotel Pulitzer is a bit pricier than we originally wanted, but it’s well situated in the city center and within spitting distance of the Placa de Catalunya.

The reviews at Trip Advisor give it an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5. It was also the winner of the 2006 Trip Advisor Traveller’s Choice Award.

Even with it’s designer price-tag, we’re still in under budget for hotel accommodations for the entire trip so we went ahead and booked it for the 8 nights we’ll be there.

That’s the last of the hotels for the trip. Yay!

We also booked the flight that will take us from Granada to Barcelona. This is bugging me a little because the carry on restrictions are very tight in Europe. It’s 10kg (22 lbs) and that’s not per bag, that total per person. My camera gear comes in at 4 lbs alone so I may have to check my backpack which fills me with dread thinking it could get lost or stolen at the Barcelona airport.

If I end up having to check the backpack I will remove a few items and add them to my carry on and just hope for the best knowing that Barcelona is a big enough city to allow me resupply if the need arises.

I also found some great shirts for the trip. 100% silk and very wrinkle resistant. In terms of clothing I think I am all set.

The next phase of planning is the Eurail pass. We need to go over the options and see what we need and then purchase them online. That will probably be next weekend.

Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat

As Cynthia and I were pulling into the driveway yesterday after work, we noticed a dead squirrel in the road right in front of our house. Had it been next door or down the street I probably would not have given it too much thought, but since it was smack dab in front of our place I felt it prudent to dispose of the corpse.

I collected a shovel and a trash bag and proceeded to bag it up and then put the bag with the trash on the side of the house.

This morning I noticed he bag was gone. A cursory search and I found it on the other side of the driveway, up against the garage.

It was empty.

Now there’s either something roaming our neighborhood that is hungry enough to eat roadkill and skilled enough to sniff it out of and remove it from a Glad trash bag or there’s a really pissed off, undead squirrel living in our little corner of suburbia.

It’s hard enough keeping normal squirrels out of the bird feeders.
What chance do we have against the undead?

Oh Hai, I has tribble

If you’re amused by LOLcats and cat macros you may have occasion to ask yourself

“What if LOLcats had a TV channel? What kind of shows would be on it?

According to Stephen Granade the answer is clear:

They would show Star Trek…

The full episide can be found here and is called LOLTrek

Map of online communities

XKCD (A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language) offers up a map of online communities done in a fantasy or “D&D” style.

Click on the image above or the image below to be taken to the full map. It’s well worth it as there are any number of excellent (if not obtuse) geek references as well as at least one cartography joke for those of us who enjoy that sort of thing.

Via Maproom

Jay Lee 2.0

At our recent annual kick off event in Florida I started promoting Jay Lee 2.0, the kinder, gentler Jay Lee. This coincides with the recent update of my photo used at the Houston Chronicle.

Since I started writing for them nearly 7 years ago this has been the picture used in the paper and, more recently on the web site and blog.

Great picture, but not so accurate some seven years later.

Dwight started talking to me about going by The Chronicle building and getting a new head shot. I finally got down there a few weeks ago and Houston Chronicle staff photographer Smiley Pool did the honors.