Eddie Izzard

Went to see Eddie Izzard at the Orpheum in Boston last night.

We wanted to grab some food before hand, I didn’t expect it would be so hard to find in Boston. Most of the places were either boarded up or completely packed with people. We finally picked (and by “picked”, I mean “settled on out of desperation”) a generic place called the Hub Pub, which had decent but unremarkable food, but at least was relatively empty and quiet upstairs.

After food, we walked over to the Orpheum. It’s old, and not really in a good way. The paint is peeling, the sound system is not great, and the seats have zero legroom. Our seats were not very good, either – I spent the whole show on the edge of my seat, leaning forward and to one side to peer at Izzard between the heads of the people in front of me.

The show, however, was fantastic. The combination of not-stellar audio and Eddie Izzard’s delivery occasionally made me miss a line or two, but it was a great show nonetheless. He has a rambling, stream of consciousness style to his show, branching off into asides and then eventually jumping back to the main thread. Kinda like a funnier, British version of Robin Williams. But where Robin Williams sometimes seems out of control, Eddie Izzard’s mannerisms and delivery give him the feel of a very funny guy who is slightly drunk or slightly high, trying to tell you something at a party. My face hurt a little from all the laughing.

This morning, I made this quick sketch based on one of his jokes during the show. He has a complicated lead-up to a bad pun, and when the audience groans, he’s like “fuck off – you people are saying to yourselves, ‘oh: God, Creme-Brullee, Badgers – I’ve heard *that* one a thousand times!'” Brilliant stuff.

Perhaps tonight when I get home, I’ll make a proper version of the design, and put it on VistaPrint or CafePress as actual merchandise.

Earth Day Checklist

Someone made a list of “50 Ways to Help the Planet“…

Here it is, checklist style, with the ones I do checked off, and the inapplicable ones crossed out.

CHANGE YOUR LIGHT (I switched several lights to compact florescent, however I use dimmers, so couldn’t switch them all)

TURN OFF COMPUTERS AT NIGHT (I use sleep mode – I measured, normal operation is around 220W, sleep is 4W)

DON’T RINSE DISHES (I usually don’t)

DO NOT PRE-HEAT THE OVEN (hmm, have to try that I guess)

RECYCLE GLASS

DIAPER WITH A CONSCIENCE (no babies)

HANG DRY (I’d try this, but I dunno… seems like outdoors it would expose my clothes to animals or theft, and indoors it would take a lot of space)

GO VEGETARIAN ONCE A WEEK

WASH CLOTHES IN COLD OR WARM

USE ONE LESS PAPER NAPKIN (I find realistically, I only need two napkins at lunch. If I have leftover, I take it to my desk to use later)

USE BOTH SIDES OF PAPER (though I try not to use paper at all)

RECYCLE NEWSPAPER (I don’t buy them in the first place)

WRAP PRESENTS CREATIVELY (I sometimes recycle wrapping paper, though not always)

RETHINK BOTTLED WATER (I have a metal cup I use at work, when I do use plastic, I reuse them often)

BAN BATHTIME! (I always take showers)

BRUSH WITHOUT WATER RUNNING

SHOWER WITH YOUR PARTNER (sadly, I don’t get to do this often – even if I could, I don’t think it would be time-efficient on a daily basis…)

TAKE A SHORTER SHOWER (I generally take 10-15 minute showers)

PLANT A TREE

USE YOUR CRUISE CONTROL (I do, when I’m taking long trips)

SECOND-HAND DOESN’T MEAN SECOND-BEST (yeah, I do tend to buy a lot of stuff…)

BUY LOCAL (maybe this summer I’ll see if there’s a farmer’s market nearby)

ADJUST YOUR THERMOSTAT

INVEST IN YOUR OWN COFFEE CUP

BATCH ERRANDS

TURN OFF LIGHTS (mostly – I do leave the kitchen light on at night, but with the dimmer way down. And there’s one light in the basement that stays on, for navigation purposes)

GREENER LAWN CARE

PICNIC WITH A MARKER (the idea here is to carry a sharpie to mark disposable cups for reuse at picnics…)

RECYCLE OLD CELL PHONES (yeah, I need to do this, I have 2 or 3 kicking around)

MAINTAIN YOUR VEHICLE (plus I inflate my tires to 42/40 for better gas milage)

RECYCLE UNWANTED WIRE HANGERS (didn’t know I could – I just chucked ’em)

CHOOSE GLASS BOTTLES OVER ALUMINUM CANS

TELECOMMUTE (though not often, it’s discouraged at Staples, but I do about once a month)

KEEP YOUR FIREPLACE DAMPER CLOSED (there’s a breeze around my fireplace that should really be fixed for heat loss)

CUT DOWN ON JUNK MAIL (I did several no-junk-mail requests – seems to have helped)

CHOOSE MATCHES OVER LIGHTERS (not that I use fire much)

LET YOUR FINGERS DO THE WALKING—ONLINE (I still like having a paper phonebook sometimes)

GIVE IT AWAY

GO TO A CAR WASH

PLASTIC BAGS SUCK (yeah, I should start using reusable bags)

FLY WITH AN E-TICKET

DOWNLOAD YOUR SOFTWARE (eh, 50/50 on this one, sometimes I like a physical CD and manual)

STOP YOUR ANSWERING MACHINE (I don’t get a lot of messages… I really should transfer everyone over to my cell number, except I get crappy reception at home)

SKIP THE COFFEE STIRRER (though I do occasionally use a stirrer for making a white russian, but that’s like once a week)

FIND A BETTER WAY TO BREAK THE ICE (well, started to do this, this winter I used a lot of sand)

USE COTTON SWABS WITH A PAPERBOARD SPINDLE

PAY BILLS ONLINE (whenever I can… a couple places don’t do that)

STOP PAPER BANK STATEMENTS

USE RECHARGABLE BATTERIES

SHARE!

Rabbit Ears Redux

I’ve decided to try getting HDTV over-the-air with an antenna.

I should be able to hook a decent antenna to my Tivo to record HDTV shows… between that and content websites like Hulu.com, in theory I could ditch the $100/month cable bill. Granted, I’d miss some premium channels like HBO and Cartoon Network, but might be able to get some of that through alternate means.

So step one was ordering an antenna… it’s kind of confusing, but I went with one that’s mentioned a lot in a positive light on forums, the Channel Master 4228 rooftop antenna.

It looks really huge in that photo, but is in fact about 3′ x 3.5′.

The real adventure will be installing it on the roof.

I’m still a bit confused if this antenna will suffice, or if I will need a second one for VHF reception, but I figure the only way to find out is just to jump in and try it.

Grr…

Another HPV story, these just make me mad – basically HPV has been identified as a major cancer-causing agent for a number of different types of cancer, but efforts have only focused on protecting women, not men. Women have screening tests and a vaccine. Men have… nothing.

According to the article, when asked about making a vaccine and test for men, makers of the vaccine said “cervical cancer is really the focus.” In other words, “we don’t really care about male health.”

What does the CDC have to say to men concerned about HPV? Here’s what they say on their website:
“There is currently no vaccine licensed to prevent HPV-related diseases in men.” and “There is also no approved screening test…” and “HPV is very common.” Ah, yes. Very helpful.

So basically what they are saying is there is a virus that causes cancer, and lots of people probably have it, but men have no way of telling if they have it, and only women should be protected from it anyway. Very nice. Very proactive. Fuckers!

They don’t even have important information about throat cancer (like HPV is a 10x greater risk than SMOKING!) on their site – apparently the CDC doesn’t have time to be current on, you know, Disease. Certainly not Control (the only advice they offer men is “not having sex is the only sure way to avoid HPV” — so clever of them, guess they can cancel skin cancer research and just tell people to live underground out of the sun). Maybe they should just be called “Center“.

Overall the CDC, drug companies, and medical industry’s response to HPV show that they learned NOTHING from the outbreak of AIDS. Imagine if they found a vaccine for AIDS, but decided to only test it and release it for women. Well, that’s what they’ve done with HPV.

Thing is, the current vaccine for women would *probably* work fine on men, too. But no one has bothered to do a study to find out. Because apparently no one cares.

Back in 2006, Bradley Monk, a professor at University of California-Irvine published an article in a medical journal where he recommended using the vaccine on men as well as women, saying: “To have a vaccine that prevents cancer and not use it would be one of the greatest tragedies.”

Guess no one listened to him. Two years later, still no work on testing it on men.

Sigh.

Spring Spring Spring!

OMG it’s sooooo nice out today! Sunny and warm, like winter is truly over…

However, in a cruel joke, I hear this weekend will be crummy.

Ah, well, I’ll enjoy it while I can.
I ate out on the patio at lunch, if I can I’ll get a walk in this afternoon.

Flickr Video

Flickr just added the ability for paid users to upload 90-second videos along with photos.

To test this out, I uploaded a 6-second clip of me circa 2005 (not sure when in 2005 it was taken).
Amazing what a difference 2-3 years can make!

I’m tempted to recreate the clip sometime in my current incarnation and put them side-by-side. =)

More lazy programmers

I downloaded the Photoshop demo installer from Adobe, and IT WON’T INSTALL!
Reason?

Adobe doesn’t support case-sensitive file systems!

I didn’t know it would cause such problems to install with case-sensitive turned on, but apparently there are a lot of lazy fucking programmers out there.

Sigh… there is no way to switch to a non-case sensitive filesystem, the only option is to wipe the system and install everything from scratch, which I’d rather not do.

Only other options are to put in an additional HD with non-case-sentitive FS selected, or create a disc image to install onto…

Bleh. None of those are good options.

Lazy programmers suck.

For the record, I do not believe “FILE.TXT” is the same as “file.txt”.
Adobe and H&R Block, however, think they are exactly the same.