Cult Barbeque Products - just had dinner with our friends Steve & Jamie, and learned that Jamie gave Steve a Big Green Egg for Christmas. Anyone else out there hear of this thing? It's the "original ancient Kamodo cooker" based on an idea that is 3000 years old (yeah, I think I remember reading the hieroglyphic account of this when I was at the Louvre). They even have a user forum.
10:41:28 PM
Rick Klau is back - he's got a new computer and he's beaten it into submission. I forgot to mention that I met Rick and his lovely and charming wife in Disney's Animal Kingdom over the holidays. Here's a picture of him and his son Ricky.
4:28:37 PM
Maganese injury claims - I noticed in my referrer logs for this site (i.e. the page that shows me how people get to my site, which you can see here) that someone hit my site by searching for "toxic mold". That intrigued me, but when I pulled up the Yahoo search that the mysterious visitor used I found this link for a site called amanganeseattorneyforyou.com. I'm sure there are sites like this for other supposed ailments, but I wouldn't have known of them but for my mysterious websurfer who is off to find a lawyer who can help him with his toxic mold problem.
2:55:32 PM
Welcome to Cloud Travel - Looks like my friend Chris Cloud has managed to pull himself up by his bootstraps and start a weblog that is really cool blog site devoted to travel. He has a great guide to New Orleans, that is broken down into segments like Executive Summary, or 12 Best City Pastimes. He even has some one page summaries of locations like Newport, R.I., and Normandy, France.
As he explains in his about section, he likes to get good travel advice without indexing 437 pages of Fodors. I'm so happy that Chris was able to get this up and running. I know he has to tweak the site a bit, and maybe I shouldn't make the formal announcement before he cleans up the site. He can start by removing the picture of the blind-drunk guy waving the wine glass like it was some sort of scepter. And, for the record, I deny I am in that picture or that I have ever even seen the person in that picture.
2:11:18 PM
What makes a good browser? - I never thought much about browsers until I recently decided to try Mozilla. There have been some hiccups, but overall I like it. But throwing myself into a new browsing environment caused me notice what I "had to have" and what I missed etc. I notice that Doc Searls has created a quick list of necessary browser features (in the context of his "non-review" of the new Apple browser). He says he is put off by the Safari's (the name of the new Apple browser) lack of these features.
No form auto-fill (or form management of any kind)
No way to turn off anti-aliasing
No image icons for graphics files drag-copied to a directory
Link URLs don't appear anywhere during mouseover.
No cookie management.
Auto form filling is key, and Mozilla seems to have that built in (but it also supports Roboforms, which is a powerful form-filler that I used with Internet Explorer). I agree that having the URL's appear somewhere during mouseover is key, at least for blogging. I use this feature all the time, but I know that most people don't even know that browsers do this. Mozilla does a good job with cookie managment. But the "tabs" feature of Mozilla is really great (just ask Phil Windley). That's where you can open a link in a new "tab" that is placed at the top of the browser window. The only thing I don't like (and I'm sure there is a way to do this that I haven't discovered yet) is I got used to using SHIFT + Click to open links in a new window. The "open in new tabs" feature in Mozilla is great but it requires right-clicking and then selecting. I don't like to use the mouse unless I have to, and while using it to click on something is okay; having to then choose something pisses me off. Okay, I admit it. I weird.
1:04:49 PM
Proper literary etiquette for Judges - Sam Heldman has some good thoughts about what sort of commentary is appropriate in a court opinion. Judge Kozinski, a well respected federal appellate judge in California has made some comments about Al Gore and Monica Lewinski. Sam's post raises some good questions. I know that down here in the Fifth Circuit Judge Brown (now deceased) used to write opinions in the form of clever stories. At first I found this endearing and novel. After awhile I began to wonder what the litigants might think of having their conflict reduced to wispy and clever repartee. I don't think it's wrong for a judge to make her opinion lighthearted, but the topic deserves commentary and I'm glad to see Sam raising the issue.
12:06:14 PM
