Mark my calendar for... 2005?

September 20, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Back in the summer of 2001 Kathy and I took a road-trip that sent us from Michigan to South Carolina, up the coast to New Jersey, and then back to Michigan. While in New Jersey we made the short trip up to New York to catch a Yankees game. We met my cousin Brent at his apartment in Jersey City and he took us into the city. Before we left the apartment, though, I started glancing at a little book he had laying around called Letters to Wendy's. Sometime later (probably that fall, definitely once I was out in LA) I decided to purchase a copy of my own. That was tougher than I expected. The recently deceased Midnight Special Bookstore had never heard of it, even when I got the author's name -- Joe Wenderoth -- for them to search the computer with. USC's bookstore special ordered it for me, but I think it didn't end up coming in until a few months later. In the mean-time I was able to order the book online somewhere.

Turns out the book's gotten a little more popular and a little more available since then (as you can see from the amazon link). Today, listening to KCRW (though it was KCRW Music after noon, therefore it really happened on-air Friday), they mentioned Joe Wenderoth coming to talk at Redcat. I quickly went to the website to check it out. When's he coming? February of 2005. How in the world am I going to remember that long? There's no chance. Somebody remind me in January, if you don't mind.

blogrolling goes boom

September 20, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Blogrolling, the service that many blogs use to keep a list of what other sites have recently updated, has been having some trouble over the weekend. Apparently Thursday they did some maintenance, declared everything working, and then disappeared for the weekend while users showed up and left comments saying that their sites were broken. All I know is that the roll at LA Blogs has been the same for several days now.

This makes a convenient time for me to mention my number one complaint with blogrolls that use blogrolling: why do some sites show up as updated when they haven't changed at all? I'm not going to name names, but there are a few sites on the LA Blogs roll that I find particularly guilty of this. Now, I'm not trying to charge this to malice or an attempt to tweak position to get more traffic. More likely it's just a poor job of implementing something having to do with the pings that let blogrolling know the site has changed.

Basically, blogrolling just looks for a ping to come in saying "this site's been updated." That's it. Now I'll grant you that making sure content has changed is a sticky proposition. You can't checksum the page content, 'cause it could well have some dynamic element that's different for each load. You can't require an RSS feed to timestamp the latest entry without greatly limiting the pages supported. So yeah, I'm complaining without a solution to the problem. But still, there has to be something better. Surely someone with more time to devote to the problem can come up with a smarter solution than I could.

of course, i'm at work

September 20, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Why does the cool stuff always happen the days I'm not on campus?

7 a.m.: The Discovery Channel films an episode of the television program "Big" until 1 p.m. at Hahn Plaza. The show displays oversized items in order to educate people on how they work. They will be displaying a giant working espresso machine and serving cappuccinos and lattes to passers-by.

Amazing. (From the DT's Upcoming Events)

rail-based development

September 20, 2004 by Eric Richardson

The Rail Volution conference is going on right now, and there were a few press items that came out of the weekend. Most, like this article in the Pasadena Star-News focused on current development happening around LA rail stations. An article from Friday hits a lot of the same topics. Gold Line development gets most of the Star-News buzz, but there are also several Red Line projects taking place right now.

The conference sounds interesting, but the $400 registration fee was enough to keep me on my side of town.

LA Blogs: Friday Insight

September 17, 2004 by Eric Richardson

Another set of Friday Insight questions from LA Blogs.

  • How many hours a week are you stuck in your car?

Probably six or so. Maybe more once you count in random errands. Not much more, though.

  • What music is in your car, right now?

UNKLE - Psyence Fiction

Over the course of the day today I listened to:

DJ Andy Smith - The Document II Jim Bianco - Handsome Devil Saucy Monky - Celebrity Trash

  • What do you do while stuck in traffic? Eat? Sing? Primal scream?

Usually my time in the car is my time to call people. I consider myself very good at driving while talking on the phone.

  • If you could give citations to other drivers for bad behavior, who/ what would you ticket?

People who go slow in the carpool lane. Don't ruin it for everyone. If you want to go slow there are other lanes for that.

  • What's your favorite place/freeway to drive in LA?

The carpool ramp between the 110 and the 105 that sweeps up into the sky and gives you a great LA vista.

  • What's your least favorite?

Anywhere on the 405.

  • What's the craziest thing you've ever seen another driver do?

Ummm... Apparently nothing all too crazy. I'm having a bad time thinking of anything.

Actually, the other day I was driving home and a pickup truck had a bunch of wood in the back. It accelerated after a light turned green and basically half the wood came off the back. The guy obviously knew -- you could see him deciding what to do. He ended up just keeping on driving.

  • What's the craziest thing you've ever seen left on the side of the road?

Maybe I don't spend enough time on the freeways or pay attention to the shoulder too much. I suck at this question.