The Kujira Crown has a mysterious problem with its plug contacts corroding at a high rate - enough to affect performance after just two or three weeks. I originally thought it could be fixed by using colder plugs, but that hasn't helped at all. As it turns out it doesn't seem to be caused by the engine running hot at all - the Crown's been parked for a month since I haven't renewed insurance on it yet. I pulled the plugs once and cleaned them a few weeks ago and only started the car to keep things running a couple times during that period. However, I took it for a spin around the neighborhood after the battery died last week and noticed the low end was really weak and sputtery, so I pulled the first plug. Corroded green again. Back to square one.

I pulled the rest of the plugs today in anticipation of insuring and using the car again next week, and found water on the threads of plugs number three and five. I hope that doesn't mean something too bad. I'm drying everything out with a fan and under the sun this afternoon. Perhaps it is not too much to ask that this solves the problem.

Not nearly as good as the Daft Hands video of yesteryear, but any day is a good day for DP.

Google Reader now allows you to create feeds for any site; even ones without syndication (RSS, Atom, etc.): Follow changes to any website

I was still hanging stubbornly with Bloglines until mid-last year, but they had so many feed errors it was really a no-brainer to move onto GR. There are a few Bloglines features I miss in Google Reader, but really, it's a far superior product.

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UPDATE: Trying to be a smartass, I added the Wikipedia's Random Article link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random), but it ends up subscribing the recent changes link instead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges). I'm going to continue experimenting with some other uses as well.

First Person Tetris

The room is waaaay too clean.

One cries and needs to be held while walking - not sitting, not laying down, not even standing still! - and eventually cries loud enough to wake the other one. They keep us awake for long stretches but somehow get rest themselves by alternating crying times.

On a happier note, Max seems to have gotten over his separation anxiety at when we drop him off at nursery school. I dropped him off the past couple days and noticed he was crying less, and only fake crying at that. Today Nam called to say that when she dropped him off, he walked into the school himself and shut the gate on her!

Dictionaries have been removed from classrooms in southern California schools after a parent complained about a child reading the definition for "oral sex".

These people are gonna die when they find out about that Internet thing.

Specifically, the very first and the fourth photo in his first set:

The ceramic water buffalo that he used to think was a god and later broke.

His sister, who he loves and hates and loves and hates.

And here's the best autotune vid I've seen for some time:

Perhaps the greatest Youtube tool since Autoban Stupid Video Response: twoyoutubevideosandamotherfuckingcrossfader.com/

Yes, somebody sent me a bunch of animated GIFs this week.

(thx Colin)

I just got the most ambiguous printing error, ever:

Network printing over simulated WiMax FTW!

dope.

WARNING: 24 spoiler alert

I must say, season 8 is kicking off a lot better than last season. I don't know why I hated season 7 so much, but I have absolutely no desire to see it again so I can remember why. I liked seeing David Aceveda and Kara Thrace on TV again, but I feel their new characters are empty and shallow (and, oh yeah, already dead).

Chloe and Kim totally ganged up on poor Jack and now he's on the path to dodge 10,000 hollowpoints and kick terrorist bootie yet again... Here's to a kickass season and hoping that President David Palmer comes back from the dead to run the country better than the sissy cowards that succeeded him.

A few months ago, I saw the ugliest car ever made, in person. I was buying stuff at the fresh market in downtown Sarakham, and there was a white model parked close by. I read the logo, Ssangyong, and wondered what ugly planet it had been beamed down from. I even waited an extra few minutes just to see what kind of blind person had been conned into buying something so obviously atrocious. No luck, though.

My girls.

Conan must emigrate to Comedy Central.

He has enough money already, now it's all about the power.

That is all.

Rémi Gaillard

This is what I've been working on the past couple of weeks in between teaching. It culminated in the actual competition yesterday, which went well except for the poor planning and execution of a couple events/aspects. The guilty parties won't even admit there were problems, which is part of the problem, of course. At least, that's the feedback from some of the school administrators who attended. Both from what I saw and the feedback survey, everyone else did really well; props all around.

Our next event is the annual International Day. Preparation begins next week.

Which means that sick mommy is quarantined with sick toddler in the big bedroom and that Mina is keeping daddy busy. All night. She is fun to watch when she isn't crying, but I guess that goes for all babies.

Mina got a lucky bracelet from the temple for New Years.

He threw up everything four times today. I thought he had gotten a bit better after he came with me to our faculty's new year dinner and he chowed on steamed fish, but he threw it all up again after we came home. Oops. Had to strip sheets off of two king size beds and start drying mattresses with fans.

We keep making him rehydrate, but dehydration is a fear since he throws up so much; we'll take him to the clinic tomorrow.

Mina is being no more or less cooperative than can be expected of a soft, pink, newborn potato lump.

I wish this news had come out before George Lucas was on the Daily Show last week because it might made his weak argument that the target audiences of the first three and last three movies are different, so it's OK that the last three he made sucked a little easier to swallow. Let's put this in perspective: The sequel to the review ripping the shit out of the movie is going to be more hotly anticipated by the original fans than the sequel itself was (the fans had seen the first one by then and knew it was all a sad downhill slide after the appearance of, say, Ewoks).

BTW, the creator was interviewed by heeb magazine a couple weeks ago.

Japan's greatest gift to the world of delicious beverages: The Kaku Highball

Tell me you wouldn't try that.

This time it's a systemic flaw that Facebook admits to; the gist of it is that if someone knows your e-mail address, they can find you even if you've restricted search privacy.

Rogue Marketers Can Mine Your Info on Facebook

Don't be fooled by the title, anybody can mine your info this way thanks to the new privacy settings.

Yesterday I got food poisoning for the first time in a couple years; it was probably a bad spot of ground pork or chicken I had for breakfast. I started feeling queasy in the late morning and had Nam pick me up after she picked up Max from a half-day at nursery school (we're sharing the Cefiro until Nam stats working again in a couple weeks because the insurance ran out on my Crown and I figured I could hold off on re-insuring until we really need two cars again - this whole week she's been dropping me off at school, dropping Max off at preschool, and I've been walking home). Luckily, Nam and Max didn't get sick.

Some other crazy things happened yesterday in my fever state; I'll get around to describing them later. In the meantime, I'm not nauseous today, but I can't stray far from the bathroom.

Try this: Normalisr (time based charts of your last.fm data)

Max went to nursery school for the first time today. Mommy doesn't start work for a couple more weeks, so she's going to take him every day this week just for a couple hours in the mornings. He starts going every day from next week... This is such a trip. Time flies by so quickly. It sounds like he had a great hour or so with the other kids today singing, clapping, and even falling off a slide and bumping his head. Mommy kept out of sight until it looked like he wanted to go home. When he saw her, he cried. That was enough for the first day.

Meanwhile, Mina is growing so fast its kind of scary - she can partially lift her head up off the bed from a face down position! It took Max months to do that! She is one month old tomorrow.

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Max's nursery school is called Anuban Ruk Rak. We chose it mainly because we know the people running it (the mother of an English teacher at Nam's uni). The secondary reasons were that there are ample outdoor areas, they let the kids play with and in the dirt, and it's kind of old so it's not filled with snotty yuppie tadpoles. Moreover, the owner tells parents up front that she believes a light swat on the hand or (diapered) bottom is sometimes the only way to dissuade them from doing dangerous stuff. Wow! Common sense being embraced at a school? I feel like Max is growing up in the fifties (did they have nursery schools in the fifties?)!

Two fascinating reads:

Using Menu Psychology to Entice Diners

Sitters Vs. Standers - The Great Wipe Hope

Q: So just how kick ass is this year going to be?

A: Soundgarden reunion.

This is my year! I just have to follow the basic karmic rules, and everything I want will be mine!

Here is a bad example of following karmic rules:

I don't remember who showed me that video originally (Adam?), but I think it was a couple years ago...