Maposaurous

Was chatting at work about picking up a portable GPS, and… Just watch the greatest ad ever made:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Memorable:

• Wednesday, half day, goodbye lunch for another employee which shifts ever more responsibility on to me. I will miss her though.

• About 4:30 that afternoon, I’m sitting in the ER having a massive panic attack. (No, the above isn’t a trigger, that scene is played out like twice a week and if I’m at peace with anything, it’s that.) While freaking at the ER — feelings of going crazy, imminent death, profuse sweating, and BP so high I’m unable to articulate full sentences, I wait an hour or two as a colorful parade of street drunks go right through the VIP line, no waiting required. Cuz I “look” normal, nervous pacing and rapid short breathing aside. I keep muttering to Mason, “just 1mg of Ativan and I can turn the corner.”

• Nurse finally calls. “Probably panic attack, just need a mg of Ativan,” I’m begging. BP machine doesn’t work; the 5th take finally gets a reading. Much to her surprise, it’s spectacularly high. As is my heart rate. Blood O2 low, too, from all the rapid shallow breathing. Hey, guess he’s not lying! I’m asked to pee in a cup and strip down and get into a gown. I’m ushered into a room.

• Space limited. Room divided by curtain, crazed ramblings coming from the other side. I try to remain as quiet as a mouse. I’m offered a Turkey recipe from behind the curtain, which I don’t even acknowledge. But to her mind-altered credit, she was topical, even if delivered as “Hey, fuck hey there, you, oh my fucking god, I’ve got the best, [hack hack hack], best fucking Turkey recipe.” I kept quiet. She was snoring less than a minute later.

• See Doc. Obviously knows his stuff. Two minutes later Ativan arrives. 2 more minutes and I’m starting to relax and my BP had dropped 40%.

• Given Rx for Ativan. Met with Doc no more than 1 full minute. Discharged, Mason’s obviously terrified about my well being, by taking a nap. I think he’s snooring.

• Since tomorrow’s Thanksgiving, force myself to go Turkey shopping, after a stop by the Walgreens pharmacy to stock up on Ativan.

• So… Thanksgiving was nice. Relaxing. Cooking on Ativan, fun, if not especially efficient. That’s my little 12-pounder to the right. Delicious!

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

I like Anthony Bourdain…

…and his unrelenting pursuit of all things pork, smoking, and booze. But, sweet Jesus, I’ll never get this image outta my head:

Slicin’

These “perpendicular” drives out today, basically the Seagate and Hitachi’s >= 750 GB, seem to be less than reliable. I swapped out my boot drives on my Quad Power Mac with two 1TB Hitachis, and put ’em in a RAID mirror to save myself the pain of doing backups. It took all of 1 day for problems to appear. I’ve RMA’d the drive, which had given me some issues before, but the lesson here is RAID mirrors are your friend. I’ve had similar odd behavior from a Seagate Barracuda 750 GB. These drives tend to run hot, and pressing them into any kind of major labor seems to wilt these precious little flowers. I’m a little annoyed that most manufactures now offer “Enterprise” class drives, supposedly giving you 24/7 reliability, which makes me wonder what the non-Enterprise drives lack. Apparently reliability. 950 GB of free space, 50% availability! Rock on.

Oh, and now that TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD officially support eSATA drive expansions, I have one sage piece of advice that will save you a ton of money: if you build your own, absolutely purchase a drive rated for DVR use. The Seagate DB35 or Hitachi CinemaStar series. The run quite a bit more silent (good in the living room), but also produce less heat, and seek slower, which doesn’t thrash the head in 24/7 DVR use.

Toothpaste Tubes

It’s official: the GOP is 100% gay.

After the two men apparently had sex, Castagna allegedly left the hotel room with Curtis’ wallet, the report says. Curtis agreed to give the man $200, which he left at his hotel’s desk, only to be confronted with a demand for an additional $800, the report says.

Spokane Police Detective Tim Madsen wrote in his report that Curtis wanted to keep the whole incident quiet. At one point, Madsen told Curtis that “the toothpaste was already out of the tube.”

Hayward Ablohmie

CNN:

Hayward from Escondido wrote this:

We drove by a huge wall of flames in our Hummer. Thank God we made it out.

Email From: Hayward Ablohmie
Escondido, California

[ via Atrios ]

Treachery

QotD:

This dude should really just come out of the closet. He’s full blown gay and this vagina based treachery isn’t fooling me for one second.

The Retarded Beluga is in Town

AIRBUS brought the world’s ugliest (and largest) plane to SFO today.

More here. Kudos to ‘Telstar Logistics’ for finding impossible angles that almost make this thing look majestic.

I work on Airport Blvd and there was a whole mess of gawkers lining the shore by the east peninsula shore to see this ungainly beast land at SFO for the first time. Singapore’s to be the first carrier to start flying these beauts next year. What sounds more fun than being enclosed in a metal tube with 580 other people for 15 hours?

AIRBUS needs to sell 450 to break even; orders currently stand at 165. Freight buys and intra-Asian traffic are obvious targets, but no US airline (the largest market) has been swooned by the superjumbo. US carriers are looking at the Boeing 787, with it’s faster cruise speed and more spacious/luxo interior. Think less passengers, more frequent flights. It’s also not ugly, despite the 70s-esque blue gradient paint job. Order commitments for the 787 stand at 396.

Technorati Tags: A380, AIRBUS, Boeing, sfo, travel

For Sale: Vintage 1950’s ICBM Underground Launch Facility

Larsen Air Force Base Complex 1A Titan ICBM Facility. All yours for $1.5M