tim merritt [dot] net

I have a nephew who shouldn’t see this until after Halloween.

In case you didn’t already know.

Jason Kottke pointed to “this fascinating Reddit discussion, I won a $30 million lottery jackpot and have spent the last 5 years traveling the world. I find myself contemplating what I’d do with a fortune when I see the tens of millions in lottery prizes on the billboards around town. I try not to spend too much brain time on it; I haven’t bought a lottery ticket in years. There is some entertainment value in it, but it’s distracting as well, and even vicarious greed is greed and thus needs to be avoided.

The Reddit poster seems credible to me. If he’s a pretender, he’s good at it. I won’t comment on his values and choices, other than to say I appreciate that he’s not miserable as many lottery winners apparently become. I really appreciate his pointer to Wikitravel as an travel information resource:

Started as a beach traveler but became organized about it after I ran out of beaches. I tackle sections of continents at a time now. Wikitravel has all the information guides have for free.

“Ran out of beaches.” Oh, what problems to have! Anyway, I poked around Wikitravel, and looked at the page for Boulder, Colorado – Ellen and I are going there in October – and found some really good tips. Favorite!

Strange Horizons Fiction: Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs, by Leonard Richardson.

Jill and Kevin’s Wedding Entrance Dance. Certainly blogged by half the web, more than 12 million views, I’m behind the curve, blah blah. I felt terrific watching this. I’m this happy being married to Ellen!

Clark’s Trading Post needs a new Wolfman! Auditions are this weekend. The Union leader has a story here. I know Janine and Janne used to drive by Clark’s and scream “Free the bears!” and that Janine at least has taught her kids to do the same….

I found the link at Making Light, a website I read pretty regularly. It’s a group blog mainly written and edited by a couple who are both editors at Tor Books, one of the biggest SF publishers. Another of the regular contributors is Jim MacDonald military officer and a current Nationally Registered Wilderness EMT-I who lives in New Hampshire and often writes at Making Light about life in the Granite State. He’s an EMT (and publishes fascinating posts at Making Light about emergency care for lay people), a published SF author, and all-around Smart Person.

Chamblee MARTA Station, 12:50 p.m.

I just wrote this post from my phone.

...

Because I could, that’s why. Sheesh.

I’ve got more to tell, and show, about the trip I took to New Orleans last month with some folks from my church. We worked on a house, mudding and sanding drywall, painting the porch, and more. We stayed at Olive Tree Village, formerly a church and now a center for housing volunteer work crews from all over the country staying in New Orleans and helping Presbyterian Disaster Assistance with the ongoing Katrina recovery effort.

Of all the disasters of the last few years, one reason to keep New Orleans in mind is that it’s a great and unique American city, and it deserves far better than the sham “heck of a job” of recovery it’s received. Do what you can for New Orleans – it makes America a better country. Even if you don’t do it for New Orleans, do it for somewhere hit by disaster. It’ll make you a better person.

This guy was there, always keeping a helpful eye on sanitary conditions. He never complained and he had a drink of water ready whenever anyone was thirsty. So say hello to SinkMan.

As I said, more to come on the trip, but I thought you might want to meet him.

I sent Stefan “a link to David Foster Wallace’s introduction to the 2007 edition of Best American Essays. I have enjoyed his magazine pieces, and own two of his books, so I sent the link unread with a promise to him to come back to it later. Stef sent back a grumpy rant about the piece, and without getting into the nature of his complaints, what impressed me most was the closeness of his reading and the concentration he must have brought to bear. It forced me to realize that I don’t as a matter of course bring more than minimal attention to what I read – I’ve been scanning, not reading, and my mental muscles are weak. They need to do some weight lifting, and so do I.

Yes, “Tim” is an anagram for TMI, “Too Much Information.” Email messages unread: 68. RSS items unread: 625. Current browser tabs among 5 windows: 11. Too. Much. Information.

So where to cut back? I don’t want to lose more sleep. I would have trouble giving up reading political coverage during this run-up to an election year, especially when the Republicans are fielding such a bizarre misguided flip-flopping fear-mongering group of candidates. And the Democrats, ah the Democrats… they’re so amazingly timid about really pounding on the most incompetent regime America’s seen in my lifetime, and on the Congressional Republicans that have enabled it. George W.Bush makes Nixon look like a smart progressive on most issues. Who’d have thought we’d pine for Nixon? Ever? And in a situation like this, how can I keep from following it?

But back to Too Much Information. There’s always something new just a click away, whether it’s one of those emails, or in a feed, or on a site I haven’t checked this last foru minutes, or something. And I have this blog, see, the one you’re reading? Having a domain, and a blog, implies a commitment, and I have not kept that commitment. I have a camera, too, that camera implies another commitment, to take and publish pictures. I have not kept this commitment either.

Will Richardson writes and lives the Read/Write web, and I do not. Too much reading and not enough writing/photographing/publishing. I’ve allowed the too-many opportunities for something new to become data smog and I have to filter more of it out. I guess that output would become more of the smog for someone else, but the exercise of doing it myself would be better for my mind and my health.

I made a Brilliant Button with Brilliant Button Maker at LucaZappa.com, and now will litter this and my other site with them. An example:

This pleases me in odd, but not disturbing, ways.

A Food Timline, which seems to have explanations for when what food was discovered/exploited/domesticated.

Ivan Day’s Historic Food, with sections on several types of food throughout the ages, including this interesting and in places digestively dubious page on English puddings.

Andrew Barnett, writing in a Beards thread in the Textdrive forums, called this his “near-favourite blog post evah: We Face Follicular Armageddon. Just hurry up and go read it, but don’t drink anything while you do.

Thanks to Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden for the link, a B Kliban Picture Gallery: Cartoons In Order Of Increasing Difficulty.

B. Kliban’s cat cartoons were very popular in the 80s, but his other cartoons were surreal and subversive. Just the thing for me, anyway, trying to find my way through early adulthood.

Click to find out why this man is running away. Simple rules, simple pictures.

Driving Will home from wrestling practice just a few minutes ago, we came up behind a car with a New York plate, in a frame that’s worth a post:

I wish I’d thought of 30 Days of Pork. Proof that bacon is a starter meat that leads to harder uses of pork. I also wish I’d thought of Serious Eats. I need to take my serious eating to a whole new level.

Making Light pointed to this (and gave credit for it as well).

He’s an old friend from the College of Business, and he wanted to see what blogging is about. Hi, Roy!

This is an old link I should have posted ages ago, from the UK’s Observer Monthy Music (“OMM”): Tom Waits on his cherished albums of all time: ‘It’s perfect madness’

In the first of an occasional series in which the greatest recording artists reveal their favourite records, Tom Waits writes about his 20 most cherished albums of all time. So for the lowdown on Zappa and Bill Hicks, step right up…

Here’s that take on Bill Hicks:

bq.15 Rant in E Minor by Bill Hicks (Rykodisc) 1997

Bill Hicks, blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer and brain specialist, like a reverend waving a gun around. Pay attention to Rant in E Minor, it is a major work, as important as Lenny Bruce’s. He will correct your vision. His life was cut short by cancer, though he did leave his tools here. Others will drive on the road he built. Long may his records rant even though he can’t.

How to Get Six Pack Abs – WikiHow

Yeah. I’m soon to be 48 years old… but we all have to have goals.