Congrats, Deanna. It's great to have you back in New York.

Tags: Friends

1. I was the best man at the wedding. If I'm the best man, why is she marrying him?
2. It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.
3. What is a date really, but a job interview that lasts all night? The only difference is that in not many job interviews is there a chance you’ll wind up naked.
4. You know you're getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It's like, "See if you can blow this out."
5. Men want the same thing from their underwear that they want from women: a little bit of support, and a little bit of freedom.
6. Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them's making a poop, the other one's carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge.
7. Now they show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you've got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn't your biggest problem. Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash.
8. That's the true spirit of Christmas; people being helped by people other than me.
9. There's very little advice in men's magazines, because men don't think there's a lot they don't know. Women do. Women want to learn. Men think, "I know what I'm doing, just show me somebody naked."
10. According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.
11. Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.
12. The Swiss have an interesting army. Five hundred years without a war. Pretty impressive. Also pretty lucky for them. Ever see that little Swiss Army knife they have to fight with? Not much of a weapon there. Corkscrews. Bottle openers. "Come on, buddy, let's go. You get past me, the guy in back of me, he's got a spoon. Back off. I've got the toe clippers right here."
13. Why do people give each other flowers? To celebrate various important occasions, they're killing living creatures? Why restrict it to plants? "Sweetheart, let's make up. Have this deceased squirrel."
14. Why do they call it a "building"? It looks like they're finished. Why isn't it a "built"?
15. People who read the tabloids deserve to be lied to.
16. Seems to me the basic conflict between men and women, sexually, is that men are like firemen. To men, sex is an emergency, and no matter what we're doing we can be ready in two minutes. Women, on the other hand, are like fire. They're very exciting, but the conditions have to be exactly right for it to occur.
17. The big advantage of a book is it's very easy to rewind. Close it and you're right back at the beginning.
18. I have a friend who’s collecting unemployment insurance. This guy has never worked so hard in his life as he has to keep this thing going. He’s down there every week, waiting on the lines and getting interviewed and making up all these lies about looking for jobs. If they had any idea of the effort and energy that he is expending to avoid work, I’m sure they’d give him a raise.
19. To me, a lawyer is basically the person that knows the rules of the country. We're all throwing the dice, playing the game, moving our pieces around the board, but if there is a problem the lawyer is the only person who has read the inside of the top of the box.
20. Men don't care what's on TV. They only care what else is on TV.
21. The idea behind the tuxedo is the woman's point of view that men are all the same; so we might as well dress them that way. That's why a wedding is like the joining together of a beautiful, glowing bride and some guy. The tuxedo is a wedding safety device, created by women because they know that men are undependable. So in case the groom chickens out, everybody just takes one step over, and she marries the next guy.
22. My parents didn't want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty, and that's the law.
23. I will never understand why they cook on TV. I can't smell it. Can't eat it. Can't taste it. The end of the show they hold it up to the camera, "Well, here it is. You can't have any. Thanks for watching. Goodbye."
24. Somebody just gave me a shower radio. Thanks a lot. Do you really want music in the shower? I guess there's no better place to dance than a slick surface next to a glass door.
25. See, the thing of it is, there's a lot of ugly people out there walking around but they don't know they're ugly because nobody actually tells them.
26. What would the world be like if people said whatever they were thinking, all the time, whenever it came to them? How long would a blind date last? About 13 seconds, I think. "Oh, sorry, your rear end is too big." "That's ok, your breath stinks anyway. See you later."
27. You know what I never get with the limo? The tinted windows. Is that so people don't see you? Yeah, what a better way not to have people notice you than taking a thirty foot Cadillac with a TV antenna and a uniformed driver. How discreet. Nobody cares who's in the limo. You see a limo go by, you know it's either some rich jerk or fifty prom kids with $1.75 each.
28. You can measure distance by time. "How far away is it?" "Oh about 20 minutes." But it doesn't work the other way. "When do you get off work?" "Around 3 miles."
29. Are there keys to a plane? Maybe that's what those delays are sometimes, when you're just sitting there at the gate. Maybe the pilot sits up there in the cockpit going, "Oh, I don't believe this. Dammit..I did it again." They tell you it's something mechanical because they don't want to come on the P.A. system, "Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to be delayed here on the ground for a while. I uh..Oh, God this is so embarrassing...I, I left the keys to the plane in my apartment. They're in this big ashtray by the front door. I'm sorry, I'll run back and get them."
30. I once had a leather jacket that got ruined in the rain. Why does moisture ruin leather? Aren't cows outside a lot of the time? When it's raining, do cows go up to the farmhouse, "Let us in! We're all wearing leather! Open the door! We're going to ruin the whole outfit here!"

Ah to be 8 years old and in search of Ice Cream.

Can you ever believe that a commercial like this got made... and aired... often?

Tags: Long Island

Thanks, Kelly. This made my day.

Tags: Geekery

I'm a big fan of the Bullrun. As if you couldn't tell. But when I say the Bullrun, I mean the road rallye of epic proportions. Not the television show of the same name. In my opinion, it cheapens the Bullrun brand and completely undermines the experience of the Rallye.


I'm proud of David and Andy. I think they are great event organizers. I think they are excellent TV producers. They developed Bullrun into a brand that I was proud to be a part of. But maybe I'm too narrow minded to see how the Bullrun show and the Bullrun 1000 plays in to their vision of the ultimate high-end automotive lifestyle brand. As for me, I'll be running the Unlimited Class in 2007.

ANYWAY, enjoy this review from the New York Times. Reposted by permission. (Thanks, Whit!)

Petrosexuals, Start Your Engines (and Your Foul Mouths)
March 13, 2007

By Susan Stewart

There is a lot to be said about the profound and intimate relationship between men and their cars. Don't expect "Bullrun" to say any of it. This new reality series, which has its premiere tonight on the Spike channel, follows a 4,000-mile Montana-to-Mexico road race with 12 teams of drivers competing for a $200,000 purse. Imagine that "The Amazing Race" was hijacked and taken to a chop shop, where class, human interest and wit were stripped from its chassis for resale to, say, "Hell's Kitchen 3," so that all that was left were outtakes, unenlightening car talk and lots of swearing. Then you would have "Bullrun."

With the former professional wrestler Bill Goldberg as its host, "Bullrun" is the television spinoff of the real-life road rally of the same name, in which entry fees run more than $17,000. Participants, who sometimes refer to themselves as petrosexuals, take their socializing almost as seriously as their racing. (In 2004 Paris Hilton dropped the flag for Bullrun.) In 2007 rally girls in Whitefish, Mont., wearing red mini-dresses and black fishnets, wield the flags for the staggered start of "Bullrun." One is knocked over, which is only the start of the insults for the few women bold or stupid enough to venture into this decidedly male domain.

Two are a team: the sisters Dimi and Drea, driving a Scion and burbling about bonding as they amble along behind faster cars. Some drivers call the sisters names behind their backs that might prompt talk of litigation if this were a reality show about, say, a corporate law firm. But Dimi and Drea are great sports. One lends a male driver a tampon to plug his leaking radiator, proving that women are good for something after all. The other woman in the race is Morgan Alsop, 23, driving a Trans Am with her father, Mike. These two are attractive, cheerful and delightful to behold, until she accuses him of noxious flatulence, he tells her to grow up, and she runs over an animal.

Sometimes watching "Bullrun" is as tedious as being on a road trip with your own family.

And sometimes it's worse.

The first leg of the journey, from Whitefish to Athol, Idaho, is a series of missed turns, dangerous moves and witless dialogue. When the hottest car in the group passes an opponent, the driver of the fast car chortles: "They've never seen a Lamborghini. We thought we'd show them what the taillights looked like." Some automobile aficionados will understand and love all of this. For those who see a car speeding down the road and think only, "There's a car speeding down the road," "Bullrun" works the way all reality shows do: by appealing to basic urges. In this case, our primal competitiveness and our deep-seated propensity for cathartic violence: there's always the possibility of a flameout, either emotional or literal.

As Mr. Goldberg says on his Web site (billgoldberg.com), "One winner, but a whole lot of roadkill along the way."

Tags: Cars, Bullrun, Ferrari, Lamborghini

I got swept up in the moment with the GT3 and did not make it back to Manhattan until well after the Daylight Savings Time Change. Sorry...

Tags: Family, Porsche, Cars

I love my Aurora MX-950, but the folks who run the company make it really hard to download the configuration software for the Aurora Universal Remote Control.

Tags: Geekery

Sadly, the Glen Club suffered a fire recently. It's a great place. Beautiful views of Watkin's Glen International Raceway....

Tags: Fire, Cars

It's alive!

Tags: Next New Networks

Watch Fast Lane Daily every day.

Tags: Next New Networks

I'm not gonna say "I told you so", I'm just gonna send you a T-shirt.

Tags: Friends

From a January 2001 article by By Mr. Bad & Crackmonkey

1. 
   
2. That won't scale.
3. 
   
4. That's been proven to be O(N^2) and we need a solution that's O(NlogN).
5. 
   
6. There are, of course, various export limitations on that technology.
7. 
   
8. The syntax is idiosyncratic.
9. 
   
10. Trying to build a team behind that technology would be a staffing nightmare.
11. 
    
12. That can't be generalized to a cross-platform build.
13. 
    
14. Unfortunately, the license would contaminate our product.
15. 
    
16. If we go with that idea, we're going to have Don Marti camped out in the front lobby with 300 angry software jihad supporters.
17. 
    
18. Our support infrastructure simply can't handle the volume that change would involve.
19. 
    
20. I had one of the interns try that approach for another project, and it scrambled the CEO's hard drive. So I think it's going to be a hard sell.
21. 
    
22. Yes, well, that's just not the way things work in the real world.
23. 
    
24. I like your idea. Why don't you write up a white paper and we'll review it at the next staff meeting?
25. 
    
26. Unfortunately, we're an all-FORTH shop. Otherwise, it's a nice idea.
27. 
    
28. I think you need to stop taking this so personally. We need to think about what's best for the project, not about our own little pet theories.
29. 
    
30. Oh, I played with that approach back as an undergrad. Got a D, too.
31. 
    
32. I was reading about that on BugTraq yesterday.
33. 
    
34. Yes, I believe that's the approach Windows NT is taking.
35. 
    
36. That's totally inefficient on modern hardware.
37. 
    
38. Well, yes, but it really reduces to the knapsack problem in that case. Do you have some kind of heuristic, or are we dealing with an NP-complete case?
39. 
    
40. Have you LOOKED at the number of I/O requests that will create?
41. 
    
42. We can't afford the transaction overhead.
43. 
    
44. Yeah, or we could all just plink away on Amigas or something.
45. 
    
46. What? I don't speak your crazy moon-language.
47. 
    
48. Hmm. Didn't they just go bankrupt? It's OK, I guess -- there's some German company who's picked up the existing service contracts.
49. 
    
50. No, no, no. We're really working on an N-TIER architecture, here.
51. 
    
52. No, no, no. It's fairly important that the database be in THIRD NORMAL FORM.
53. 
    
54. No, that would break object encapsulation.
55. 
    
56. I don't think that's altogether clear. Please write it up in UML for me.
57. 
    
58. I think there's a problem with your drive geometry.
59. 
    
60. Can you generate some USE CASES that would justify the change?
61. 
    
62. How is that going to impact the schedule?
63. 
    
64. RAM is cheap and all, but...
65. 
    
66. It would probably be best if we deferred that until version 2.0.
67. 
    
68. I like it, but it is too point-oh for my tastes.
69. 
    
70. If you make this change, I will fork the code.
71. 
    
72. Yes, well, unfortunately the economy is going away from anything remotely like that. Our investors would kill us.
73. 
    
74. Jakob Nielsen wrote an interesting hit piece on that.
75. 
    
76. Yes, yes, we've all read DJB's RFCs on the subject.
77. 
    
78. This is all covered in Knuth, and we don't have time to go over it again.
79. 
    
80. This one is in the FAQ: http://www.linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/#your_dumb_technology
81. 
    
82. I don't have time for this extropian nonsense.
83. 
    
84. Well, I guess we could start the QA cycles again from square one. That would require a press release, though.
85. 
    
86. You used to program in Pascal, didn't you?
87. 
    
88. Why don't we make a generalized solution including both options, and let the administrator decide with a config-file setting?
89. 
    
90. You've obviously ignored the various namespace issues.
91. 
    
92. I don't think you're considering the performance trade-offs.
93. 
    
94. What kind of benchmarks have you been running?
95. 
    
96. Let's table this for now, and we'll talk about it one-on-one off-line.
97. 
    
98. This really doesn't jibe with our core competency.
99. 
    
100. This sort of thing should really be outsourced.
101. 
     
102. I remember that IBM had a project to do that back in the 70s.
103. 
     
104. Um, hello? We're using VON NEUMANN MACHINES HERE.
105. 
     
106. We need this to fit on a single floppy.
107. 
     
108. Yes, but can this be embedded in a toaster, for example?
109. 
     
110. We need something that my mom can use.
111. 
     
112. Users won't want to click through that many layers of hierarchy.
113. 
     
114. The packaging costs will be prohibitive.
115. 
     
116. OK, but what about internationalization?
117. 
     
118. Look, would you just get off your Be obsession for FIVE MINUTES and talk serious design with us?
119. 
     
120. That's a good idea -- you should do that on your home page.
121. 
     
122. Yeah, Linuxcare tried that with the Sourceror project.
123. 
     
124. Ho, man! Are they still AROUND? That's so cool. I thought that whole idea was discredited years ago.
125. 
     
126. What you're not seeing is the difference between an 'is-a' and a 'has-a' relationship.
127. 
     
128. There is no hope for the widow's son, Boaz.
129. 
     
130. Yes, but we're standardizing on XML.
131. 
     
132. That doesn't fit into the MVC model.
133. 
     
134. Well, that's great if you have an AI running the thing.
135. 
     
136. Well, they're going to do that with the next version of Perl, so we should probably wait.
137. 
     
138. Well, they're going to do that with the next version of OS X, so we should probably wait.
139. 
     
140. I heard that the only real application for that technology was child pornography. How did you hear about it?
141.