The Onion: Everything's Great In Iraf

Check out the latest In The Know that I'm in. Don't know why people are complaining about the war, everything's fine in Iraf....


In The Know: White House Announces 'Everything Is Great In Iraf'

My New Last Name

I had to get a fax from someone at a hotel today at work. The woman I talked to sent it over. I just printed it out. It was addressed to...

Mr. Nate Chuckle

How you get from S-H-E-L-K-E-Y to Chuckle is beyond me. But I like it. So from now on, I will be known as Mr. Nate Chuckle.

How To Be An Adult(sort of)

I am going to do some home improvements this weekend. Shocking! Goign to paint my bedroom and buy some new furniture. And get rid of the old stuff. I've had this stuff for like 10 years. I think it's time.

I'm going to get some of the new stuff from IKEA. In the midst of surfing the IKEA website, you'll encounter Anna. Who is this weird little assistant program. She's sort of like Julie the computerized voice of Amtrak, but she's just on-line and as far as I know doesn't have a voice. She just types back at you.

I wasn't sure at first if she was a computer program. And then I decided to ask her more and more strange questions, getting downright cheeky.

Me: What's shaking?
Anna: I'm fine, thank you for asking.
Me: Any plans for the weekend?
Anna: I'm very sorry but I can't really talk about things like that at this time.
Me: But later, like when you get off work, right?
Anna: This is a very delicate area, so I'd rather not about this sort of thing. Please ask me something about IKEA instead.
Me: Sure, I get it.
Anna: Well, if you say so.
Me: So do you guys ever do it at IKEA after hours?
Anna: The IKEA business idea is: "We shall offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them."
Me: Do you think there is a negative connotation to IKEA furniture?
Anna: I wouldn't call it thinking, but I take your input and formulate a response from my knowledge base.
Me: So everyone can dip into your knowledge base?
Anna: It might be nice to talk about that sometime, but for the moment let's get back to talking about IKEA.
Me: Hard to get, I like it Anna
Anna: That's me! How can I help you?

It's a lot like Memento, isn't it?

You see, Anna IS a computer program but she has a little bit of AI in her program so that she learns as she goes along.

Then I discovered this guy had done the same thing. I like his conversations. Check them out.

Disturbing Spam

I was glancing at my little spam catcher inbox this week and noticed this email name:

JerryinoperableJudd

How sad is that? Poor Jerry Judd. I realize that the only way that you can make yourself feel better in the face of your inoperable(tumor? disease?) is to send emails about a fantastic and fictitious real estate deal.

Pickle Day!

This was my second year going to the Lower East Side International Pickle Festival. It's a fun little thing to do on a fall afternoon. There's about 10 or so pickle vendors showing off their wares. I have to say this year was better than last year. I think there were some new entries.

This is McClure's Pickles from New York by way of Detroit.

A close-up of their signage.

This is what a pickle line looks like with the front of the line...

And the back of the line...

And the selection of pickles that I purchased for home. Note the folksy spelling of watermelon.



Yum! [Note: Neil Casey claims to love pickles and even wears a Rick's Picks shirt. But he was nowhere to found. What a poseur!]

The Two Towers

[Seen from Houston St]

The Return of Kenny Mayne

It's football season again. So, I did another bit of silliness for Kenny Mayne and ESPN this week. You can see it on Sunday Night Countdown this Sunday. Time TBD. This time with Rob "Spidey" Webber and Will "57" Hines. Enjoy it! If I am able to post a copy of it, I will.

In other news, Kenny wants me to plug his new book he's writing. You can read about it here at www.kennymayneiswritingabook.com

Kenny is limited in his ideas of how to name websites.

Super Discount Psychics

The street level stores next to my apartment building are interesting. On one side is a little manicure nails p