bogen.org

If you’re not a regular over at homestarrunner.com you probably missed the one of latest episodes of “Strong Bad Checks His E-mail.

Fortunately, it is not too late to find out exactly how to create perfect death metal [Flash animation with sound] the Strong Bad Way.

Bruce Schneier has opened the floodgates for people to respond with their own ideas on How To Survive a Robot Uprising. Some of the ideas are absolutely hilarious (at least, they are hilarious to the highly technical).

It’s January 2006. What on Earth have we been doing with our time?Sarah is in Arkansas this week at Buffalo River National River. She is working for the National Park Service gathering data as part of a larger project. She’ll be back Friday afternoon.

Ira is still in the fridge.

Dalla is grumpy because Sarah is gone.

We’ve been shopping for a new (to us) car the last few weeks. It’s been a slow and rather bothersome process that will probably be finished sometime in March. We’ve set an upper limit on how much we want to spend, and what features we want in the car, so that has limited our list of potential vehicles somewhat. While we’d like to purchase another wagon, there simply aren’t many wagons being manufactured any longer. Also, we aren’t yet sure if we’ll buy new or used. Ultimately, buying a late-model used car may save us a fair chunk of change.

Winter in Madison this January has been unbelievably mild. We’ve had a couple of days with temperatures in the forties and one day where we even saw the thermometer hit fifty. There is, of course, almost no snow left on the ground.

Sarah’s curling team from the first half of the seaon finished in a tie for first place. Now they have to play a championship game to determine an outright winner. She is playing on a new team in the second half of the season. In addition, we are curling together on a league team that plays on Sunday night. So far, that team is 1-1. My curling team won the first half of the season after compiling an 8-1 record which puts us into the playoffs regardless of our second half record.

Sarah bought me a trainer for my bicycle as part of my Christmas gift. The idea was that I would ride the trainer on days when the winter weather was just plain unpleasant for bicycling. However, since the trainer arrived I’ve only ridden it once because the weather has been so kind.

We bought our house a little over two years ago and now we know several other couples or families that want to move into our neighborhood. In addition, home prices around us have climbed quite a bit the last couple of years. It’s odd to be living in a suddenly desirable neighborhood. We love our location and weren’t in any hurry to move even before this area became popular.

Tonight I biked over the university to hear E.O. Wilson speak. It’s clear that his eighty years on this planet have taken something of a toll on his speaking ability. He still is sharp and has plenty to say, he just has a bit more trouble saying it.

Yes, it’s hot. See-through-time-and-space hot. Unless you’re a chili-head you have no business messing around with this sauce. If you find Tabasco sauce hot, you should expend copious amounts of effort to avoid Dave’s Insanity Sauce.

While this sauce is hot, it lacks much of the bright, fruity flavor common to Desert Pepper XXX. This sauce tastes more like the peppers were first roasted before being sauced. Or, perhaps the sauce has some liquid smoke or similar ingredient in it.

While I enjoy the heat of Dave’s Insanity Sauce, I like the flavor of Desert Pepper XXX better for most situations.

Once again, Wisconsin residents are watching the Republican-controlled Legislature square off against the Democratic Governor and the vast majority of the state’s citizens on the subject of concealed carry.A bill allowing concealed carry was passed (again) this year by the Legislature. Even though the NRA…err…I mean the bill’s Republican sponsors actually crafted something marginally citizen-friendly this year, they still built in plenty of protections to make sure the bill is difficult to repeal.

For instance, the state will not be allowed to track crimes committed by those who have concealed carry permits. In addition, the state cannot release the names of those who have concealed carry permits. Even the police cannot learn who has a concealed carry permit except in one instance: a traffic stop. So, if a policeman stops a car on the highway, that officer can learn whether or the owner of the car has a concealed carry permit. If the officer is called to a house for a domestic violence dispute, the officer is forced to walk into the situation blind.

All of this concealment is meant to make it nearly impossible to gauge whether or not people who have concealed carry permits are committing crimes. The logic there is that we won’t be able to make that analysis, and hence, it will be nearly impossible to overturn the law once it is passed.

The NRA…err…I mean the Republican-controlled Legislature did the bidding…err…I mean their job with the help of some Democrats this year. A bill was passed and sent to Governor Jim Doyle.

As he claimed he would, Doyle vetoed the law. After his veto, he issued a statement explaining his veto that contained this particularly insightful passage:

The bill does not create a single job, help a single Wisconsin citizen afford health care or improve schools for a single Wisconsin child. The Legislature should spend more time trying to get jobs into our communities instead of more guns.

From a governor who isn’t particularly eloquent that’s a nice bit of speechifying.

Unfortunately, it appears that the NRA…err…I mean the Repulican-controlled Legislature has the votes this year to override Doyle’s veto. Last year, the override failed by a single vote. This year, unless something dramatic changes, the override will likely succeed. By this time next year we’ll likely have a bunch of vigilantes running wild all over the state and the NRA can set their sights on the three remaining states that don’t have concealed carry laws: Kansas, Illinois, and Nebraska.

Damn. That really pisses me off.

IT Conversations recently released an interesting and informative interview with Scott Ritter, the man charged with finding and destroying Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Ritter maintains, among other things, that the US had a policy of regime change in Iraq as far back as the first Bush administration and that weapons inspections , from the US point of view and for political reasons, could never be seen as completed. Whether or not you believe Ritter’s point of view on those matters, the actual mechanics of surveying a country for weapons of mass destruction is interesting and worth listening to the interview.

LL Bean is recalling a series of safety kits that they sold under a variety of names.

From the text of the CPSC recall announcement:

Hazard: The products have a flashlight that relies on a powerful magnet and copper coil for manual recharging. The magnet adversely affects the polarity of the compass rendering it unreliable. The magnet could be powerful enough to disrupt a heart patient’s Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator (ICD). The product’s packaging lacks appropriate warning information.

Yep. That’s a safety kit, alright. If you’re lucky, it merely renders your compass worthless. If you’re not lucky, you end up with a heart attack.

Last week, I watched one of the most gripping movies I’ve seen in years. Der Tunnel, known as The Tunnel in English is a taut, dark thriller that does an exemplary job of conveying the primal emotions that often drive people.The Tunnel is a German film and is available with English subtitles. At just short of three hours it requires an investment of time, but that investment is repayed several times over.

East Germany’s construction of the Berlin Wall and its effect on the lives of common people forms the backdrop against which the movie plays out. The lever on which the plot tilts in the determination of those same common people to overcome the obstacles placed in their way by an uncaring and totalitarian regime.

The emotions that drive people are communicated to the audience amazingly well the movie’s cast. Not once do you get the impression that a particular actor is on the set simply because they want or need the paycheck. In addition, the cinematography is well done as the claustrophobic nature of tunnel building is well conveyed by the dark, constricted photography.

The film is inspired by historical events, but it does not claim to be non-fiction itself. Many have decried some of the films’ plot points and seemingly convenient last-minute rescues. However, there are times in life when we are rescued by coincidence or happenstance. We don’t then turnaround and start squawking about unbelievable it was that we were just rescued. Sometimes, those things just happen. In addition, the movie is fiction. Fictional works get to manipulate their reality to better the drama. That’s one of the advantages of writing fiction.

In short, I would recommend this movie to anyone who is looking for a smart, tightly-wound thriller. It’s been days since I watched it and I am still thinking about it.

It’s clear that many people do not understand when, how, and why to employ the turn signals.

The complete lack of turn signal use by many people is a well documented phenomenon. Instead, I want to address inappropriate or useless use.Many people are taught in their drivers education classes that one should signal a lane change by using the appropriate turn signal. What many people fail to understand or remember is that the turn signal should be activated before starting the lane change. Throwing down the turn signal for a few click-blinks when you’re half-way across the center line doesn’t do anyone a lick of good. Once you’re out of your lane, we can see that you’re headed into another lane. There’s no real mystery there. A few quick blinks of your blinker doesn’t tell us anything we don’t know at that point except that you have no idea why and when you should use the device in question.

Similarly, activating a turn signal once you’ve started a ninety-degree turn to the left or right is, again, a waste of effort. Everyone can see that you’re in the midst of a radical change of direction and a few quick flashes of the blinker gives us no new information.

What is lost on many people is that the turn signal is meant to give us a chance to give you feedback to your intended action. For instance, if someone is driving in your blindspot and you throw on a turn signal a few seconds before starting a lane change, the other driver has a few options available to them. They can:

• Panic
• Lay on the horn
• Drop back out of your blind spot
• Some combination of the above
• Continue chatting blissfully unaware on their cell phone

In any case, they at least have the option of reacting to your upcoming move before two metal behomoths trade paint at seventy on the Interstate.

That, of course, is the point. A turn signal is supposed to signal your intentions not your current actions. We can all see your current actions; what we want is information about what you’re planning on doing in the near future so we can react appropriately.

The following article was published in the Boston Daily on Wednesday, January 11th, 2006.

CAMBRIDGEPORT [AB] – Amy S. Bogen of Lawrence St. learned today that the 1992 blue Buick Regal sedan that was the inspiration behind the 2002 pop hit "My Black Mouse" (Words and music by Diane O’Meara – former lead singer/songwriter for the group Diane LoPiccolo) has been donated to the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans (NESHV). Bogen, the car’s owner, said she was shocked and dismayed to receive a phone call from a local towing company, informing her that they would like to pick up the car sometime during the day on Thursday, January 12, 2006.
In a recent interview, O’meara recalled fondly the creepy dream about the Buick that turned into a mouse, which she rode around the mountains. "Most people are confused when they hear the part of the song where the Buick’s wheels become paws and I ride this new little mouse into the wilderness. But, what they don’t know, is that I omitted some scenes of the dream from the final version of the song," explained O’Meara. "See, early in the dream, I meet Rick Moranis, and he shrinks me and the Buick to be in proportion with a 20g mouse. But, I didn’t think that was relevant to the song. I really wanted the song to describe the transportation aspect of the dream. Plus I’ve never been a big fan of Rick Moranis. Someone once told me he used to date Natalie Merchant, and that John Mayer sang at his wedding. Like I would write about [Moranis] in my song! That’s CRAZY."

Bogen donated the car via the NESHV website on Monday night, after three failed attempts to sell the car on Craigslist – Boston. Miss Bogen only received one response from the Craigslist advertising she posted on 1/5/06, 1/6/06 and 1/9/06, and the respondent, a Slavic man from the Boston area, was only interested in a driver’s door for his 1993 Buick Regal, which is a strange coincidence, considering that the only damaged door on the Lawrence St. Buick is the driver’s door.

Although her Buick has been sitting motionless on Lawrence St. attracting parking tickets since mid-September, Bogen still feels a sense of loss at this sudden development. "I think of this car as part of my family. I admit I have been an absent-minded caregiver, which has resulted in the exaggerated deterioration of the Buick’s body, electrical system and mechanics, but that never stopped the Buick from bouncing through Cambridge to Target, the free dryers laundromat or just across the street to avoid a street-cleaning violation and tow," Bogen commented. "This car inspired a musical masterpiece, and it breaks my heart to think it will be refurbished and sold at auction, with the proceeds to benefit homeless veterans. I mean, I don’t have anything against homeless veterans, but I hope the sale price of the car is enough to buy them more than a couple of cans of soup for their food pantry. I almost wonder if it would be more helpful to donate the car as shelter, to take one of these poor veterans off the streets. Except for the leak in the windshield, it would make a fine home. The front seats fully recline and the radio still works."

Bogen often fondly remembers the memories she shared with the Buick, which included a cross-country drive from Colorado to Massachusetts, transportation to the 1997 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally for pop singer Diane O’meara, Tom the Cat and herself, and numerous adventures around the Boston area, cutting off BMWs, Audis, and Mecedeseses’ without a second thought.

Bogen does admit that the Buick is an unneccessary expense. In the past few months, the car has cost almost $500 for insurance and parking tickets to maintain it as an on-street storage unit. "I’m pretty sure I could rent a storage unit for less than $100 a month, but it definitely wouldn’t be as convenient as the Buick, which is parked across the street from my apartment. The only drawback to the Buick storage is that the car can’t be locked, so nothing valuable should be stored in it," Bogen shared, weeping. "It’s hard to believe that tow-away day has finally come, after all the times the rear brakes were replaced. I just kept thinking, ‘Maybe if I replace the rear brakes one more time, the car will be happy and we can work out our differences.’ But sometimes relationships don’t work out the way we expect." Bogen’s psychiatrist, Dr. Susan Winthrop, agreed. "It will be hard for Amy to part with her car, but this is a necessary step on the road to recovery. Most of my Buick-owning patients eventually realize that the electrical system will die, the carpet will rot, the doors will stop working, and the struts will rust through. You just can’t change fate. The only solution is to deal with the resulting pain."

Other Lawrence St. residents feel quite differently about the Buick’s departure. "That piece of sh**’s been taking up a parking space for the past 2 years. In a city where parking is tight, such as Cambridge, people don’t take kindly to wasted parking spaces," commented resident Eric Grant. "Not to mention that the Buick attracts so many Indie Rockers to Lawrence St. that some residents have been forced to rent Handy House port-a-potties for their front yards. And I can tell you that no one is going to miss the greasy smoke from the tofu sausage vendors that followed the tourists when Amy moved onto our street in 2002."

"I think Amy’s making a smart move, getting rid of her car," agreed Attorney Bill Mahoney of 24 Lawrence St. "Once her initial grieving period ends, she’ll find that she’s freed from the guilt she experienced watching her vehicle rot in the street. I have a driveway, so street parking spaces aren’t as valuable to me, but I can already feel a change in the attitude of Lawrence St. residents. And, rumor has it that the blonde chick that drives the Audi TT convertible leaked info to the Cambridge police about a certain rusty blue Buick on Lawrence St. that doesn’t have a current motor vehicle inspection sticker. I’ve already seen a few of my neighbors wearing ‘Stop Snitching’ t-shirts, and I’d hate for the Buick to be caught in the middle of that argument."

As for O’meara, she’s not too worried about how the end of the Buick will impact the popularity of "My Black Mouse." "’My Black Mouse’ was an instant hit that inspired a generation, and even if the Buick isn’t able to remain on Lawrence St. as a monument for the song, it will always be remembered as the inspiration that inspired the inspiration for a generation. Not to mention all of the spin-off hits that followed ‘My Black Mouse,’ like ‘Walls of Webs’ and ‘My Wet Dolphin.’" O’Meara is scheduled to perform "My Black Mouse" this Saturday at the Hall of Mormons in Salt Lake City, UT where she is a PA student at the UU. Although the Hall of Mormons does not serve alcoholic beverages, O’meara insists that she no longer needs a buzz to perform for strangers. "Ever since my marriage to Seinfeld’s architect Geoff O’Meara, I’ve felt confident performing sober in public, and it’s not because the Mormons don’t serve liquor. Being married to Seinfeld’s architect has been a life-altering experience. Did you know that Jerry and Jessica each have their own bathroom?"

Bogen adds, "I have had the pleasure of owning and driving a national Indie Rocker icon while being close friends with Seinfeld’s architect’s wife. Anyone who can’t see through the Buick’s body rot, dents and flat tires to the rusted core of the transmission or the ripped upholstery of the driver’s seat, well, I just feel sorry for those people. Tonight I’ll be emptying my on-street storage unit, and tomorrow morning, I’ll open the back door, reach around the front seat to the driver’s door handle and push open the driver’s door from the inside, so I can leave the key and the title on the front seat. Then, I’ll probably drink a Nespresso and walk to the bus stop." She doesn’t plan to leave the lyrics of "My Black Mouse" in the Buick’s glove compartment. "My week as an Indie Rocker was over 3 years ago," says Bogen. "How much longer do I have to pretend that I give a sh*t about Ryan Adams?"

So ends a legend.

Tonight, I uploaded some pictures I took during our Christmas trip to the Photo Gallery.

In Wisconsin, we take our drinking seriously. Some points to consider:

• Our current state Attorney General was busted for drunk driving during her current term. Patrol car video footage of her failing a variety of road-side sobriety tests was widely circulated by the state’s various media outlets. That doesn’t seem to have hurt her chances for reelection as she is tied or in the lead in most polls.
• Former UW-Madison students, frustrated by how long it took beer to come out of the tap, invented a beer tap that dispenses beer four times faster than a standard beer tap. In addition, the device delivers a consistant layer of foam (or head) on top of each beer. Only in Wisconsin would we be seriously concerned about how quickly beer comes out of the tap.
• Fully 35% of Korbel’s brandy is shipped directly to Wisconsin every year. That’s 140,000 cases. 10% of the brandy produced by Korbel is shipped directly to Madison alone.
• Milwaukee has more bars per capita than any other large city.
• The average Wisconsin resident drinks three gallons of alcohol yearly.

Having said that, you can imagine why I was amused by a picture I found on the back of a wine bottle recently. After some contemplation, I decided that the picture was a warning not to drink from bottles and glasses the same size as my car.