A Cry for Help

This picture, which is all over the place for the past couple days, is actually the street I lived on during my last year in New Orleans. Orange circle to be exact. The middle of the picture is a wide, park-like median that runs down to Lake Pontchartrain. It’s a very nice area when not [...]

Ultra Laser just called to check in from Baton Rouge, where he and 60,000 others are without power. He was looking for news about New Orleans, since he has only a crappy radio and second hand stories from people in his hotel. He’s heard that his suburban neighborhood could be uninhabitable for a good while. [...]

I mentioned last week that I was reading (and loving) Seth Godin’s books Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside. These are fundamentally books about marketing, but there’s a lot more, even for someone without a product to market (though, really, aren’t we all constantly marketing ourselves?) Purple Cows are the “things” that make a company, [...]

As you might imagine, I’m fairly worried about by home away from home, New Orleans. Everybody who’s even visited the city knows about the almost certain city-wide devestation that lies but a Cat-5 hurricane away. And while Ultra Laser and I joke about bringing the grandkids on a scuba diving tour of our old apartment, [...]

The headline read “Rhode Island fares well in national study of obesity.” Apparently, our little state has the third lowest obesity rate among adults. Well yeah, but look at the competition. Being the skinniest guy at the Krispy Kreme Konvention isn’t exactly Kate Moss-ish (she’s still our culture’s yardstick of skin-and-bone-ism, right?)
Still, we should be [...]

My friend Kelly, not known for her eco-friendliness, was complaining to me about the paper cups our local coffee shop uses, and how she prefers Dunkin styrofoam. I told her that she should just bring a reusable plastic mug/cup, since they’re just as heat-retaining as styrofoam (I didn’t bother making a comment about the tradeoff [...]

And thou canst bear false witness the next day, apparently. Pat Robertson’s Church: it’s everything a dishonest, blood-lusting Christian could want!
I was willing to go with the State Dept’s line about wacky private citizens saying wacky things, all the while snickering in my snooty blue-state elitist way, but then he had to go say “I [...]

… and no one to talk to.
As one of the millions of sheep who would gladly sign their surfing habits, social security number and/or soul to Google, you can bet I downloaded the internet behemoth’s newest offering: Google Talk. 900kb and a double click later, I’m all set up with my new “buddy list” open, [...]

I spent the night moving, so nothing good to read tonight. Tomorrow afternoon, though, I think I’m going to talk to the (RI) Secretary of State, Matt Brown, about replacing My Favorite Republican® in next years Senate race. If you want me to ask him something, leave a comment. (Short notice, I know.)
And so you [...]

Now that the Sox have put their last late-game of the season to bed with a W (in extra innings, no less), I can put myself to bed too. But first, today’s post!
I mentioned yesterday that I read a library copy of Freakonomics. I’ve got about seven more books out, so these late night [...]

I finally reached the top of the library queue for a copy of Freakonomics this week (I reserved it in April!), and since you only get 10 days with high-demand new books I sat down to start reading it tonight.
And I just finished it. This is partly because of the late Sox game (and partly [...]

I heard from a friend of a friend that Dunkin Donuts sells certified fair trade coffee, but downplays this fact because it will not appeal to the average customer (or make them complain more about the price of getting their fix). I couldn’t imagine that this was true, but it turns out that there is [...]