Erik’s Blog

This is a test of Textmate’s blogging bundle. Let’s see if it works.

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Ah, the joys of owning stock in a company that has filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors and folks like me.

Sorry, Dana, but you’re ruining my day.

[Update: They’re off, they’re on, they’re off… NYSE.com still doesn’t acknowledge the ticker “DCN” but Yahoo Finance and The Motley Fool are once again listing info on the stock. WTF? There’s no new news today, so I don’t know what’s going on. Perhaps it would be best if I simply stopped looking.]

Not that it matters much now that Dana Corporation has gone all Chapter 11 on us and my few $thousand in stock is worthless, but the CFO, Robert Richter, the guy who (as far as I’m concerned) is responsible for the crappy accounting that killed the stock, has “retired.”

Isn’t that like being “suicided?”

Anyway, ding dong the witch is dead and all that… My stock is still worthless, though. It’ll be interesting to see if the stock is cancelled (a common occurrence with Chapter 11).

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts…

Okay, I finished this book a fairly long time ago and forgot to report on it. No, really. I’m reading The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan now. This book is major history.

Nonetheless, I’ll give it a quickie review. There were shining moments but for the most part this book was merely okay. As with other Eggers books, it’s definitely worth a read. But read something a little bit better first. I still think you can’t go wrong with The Better of McSweeney’s Vol. 1. Give it some thought.

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p> (By the way, I’ve seen three different covers for this book. The one in the image above was unknown to me before I decided to write this review. Another version has a flat, solid black cover with a paper band around it and a vertical Moleskin-esque elastic band along the opening edge. My book is the paperback version and has yet another cover. That’s kwazy.) [3/5]]]>

Why is this a blog entry? I’m trying to push some of the negative blog posts down where they’ll eventually leave the page. Enough negativity!

For a limited time, McSweeney’s Store is selling issue #14 of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern for a whopping $3 plus shipping.

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p> Come on, $3 for an issue of MQC. What do you have to lose?]]>

this video in the Miniblog section, but sorry, it’s too damn good not to highlight.

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p> I can think of a number of people that should see this, like, ASAP. I can’t name names, though, because it would get me in trouble.]]>

I bombed in a group presentation.

The overhead light in my car remained on for four hours because I shut my seat belt in the door.

The one day I need Internet access in the art building at the U of U, I can’t get it.

My laptop battery died while I’m trying to finish up PowerPoint slides.

Looking at what’s on my plate for the next two weeks, I see no end to the fun.

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p> Remind me again, when is life going to reach a state of semi-normalcy? Any ideas?]]>

Of course, sheep are singing their praises. After all, why should everyone else pay for smokers’ health problems?

A reminder: if you endorse this, you’re endorsing being screwed for doing any of the following:

• overeating
• eating unhealthy food
• drinking, even casually
• living with a smoker
• not exercising
• coming down with a chronic illness
• coming down with a terminal illness

If you endorse employers screwing employees who smoke, you are giving your blessing to be screwed yourself for any of the items listed above, just to name a few.

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p> So think before you throw your support behind this. It could (will) come back to bite you in the ass.]]>

In light of the recent debacle with the Danish newspaper and the editorial cartoon of the prophet Mohammed, does this sound like a good idea to you?

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p> I didn’t think so.]]>

this article.

First, unless I’m mistaken, all web sites that are funded even partially with government money are required to adhere to accessibility guidelines (Section 508 of… ADA standards? Something like that?). I can only assume from this article that grants.gov is not concerned about folks with accessibility issues that use Macs.

Second, I thought we were through with the Microsoftization of the Internet. Didn’t we go through this a few years ago? Have folks simply forgotten? Do folks really not care about the large percentage of potential customers (and, in the case of grants.gov, tax paying citizens) who don’t use Windows?

I’ve been noticing a growing trend among our more clueless, focus group driven web entities to move everything to Microsoft technology. Not only audio, mind you, but video as well. A few years back I could get both in formats that worked just fine on non-Windows machines. Nowadays, every other site uses Windows Media with DRM for their video and some music services use the same for audio. There is no Windows Media Player for Macs that includes Microsoft’s DRM technology. What a surprise, huh?

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p> Let’s fill the entire Internet with Microsoft SQL server error screens, unviewable video, audio that won’t play for any but a select group of potential customers, and inaccessible web sites. Wouldn’t that be special?]]>