Category Archives: Cool Stuff

Something that doesn’t fit in any other category but it was so darned cool I wanted to tell both of my readers about it!

Job Opening: Horsemen Wanted, multiple positions available

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Strangely, I was thinking about the whole “Horsemen of the Ablogolypse” a few days ago. Maybe it was a premonition (I was trying to remember who they all were, and I forgot Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan). Tonight, Steven Den Beste reminisces about that, thanks to an Andrew Sullivan-inspired link to the past. Now given that Andrew has gone over to the stupid side, and Steven’s retired to anime-blogging for the most part, that means we need a new Plague and War. I’d take nominations, but even with Ike and Brendan Loy helping me, I don’t pull that kind of traffic!

Still, I can speculate. Emperor Darth Misha I? (But would he be Plague or War?) Could Jane Galt finally make the grade? Could Bill Quick get promoted from the B-team? What about Bill Whittle? Michelle Malkin?

I’m just not feelin’ it here…. especially given that DenBeste was one-of-a-kind. I mean Whittle’s the second coming of Samual Clemens, but he’s a little wordy, and definitely short on science skill. Maybe we can give him Sullivan’s old spot?

The Dream Lives

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Guy decides to start over with just $25 and a few clothes, then see if he can bootstrap his way out of poverty. Ten months later he had a truck, a furnished apartment, and nearly $5,000 in savings. This was despite a fake background that didn’t include his college degree, which he kept secret.

So yes, the American Dream still lives. Via.

Spam-o-rama!

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In an email from the IT Department the following was included:

The Spam filtering system is blocking over 8.4 million messages a month. This is about 84% of the 10 million plus messages the City receives from the Internet a month. ITD’s goal is to provide the City of Houston with reliable and functional Enterprise Messaging System.

I have to say that the software is doing a spectacular job. I have had not one false positive or negative since this software was instituted last year. If you’re responsible for this kind of thing for your company and want to know more, it’s apparently tagged as “Proofpoint Protection Server”

A Little Something New

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So for the last couple of weeks, I’ve mentioned a little project that I’ve been working on that took time away from blogging, and that it was related to possibly supporting and expanding the Houblog “empire.” Well, several days ago, I quietly premiered it without saying anything. (Mainly because I was feeling under the weather and not up to writing even a short post.) If you’ve been wondering, and even if you haven’t, that little green flashing box over to the right is definately it: The Houblog Store is now open for business!

Items for sale are a fairly eclectic mix, reflecting the subjects of this site: Houston, immigration, rail, and animé. I’ll be adding more things as I go along, but for now, I can only have one of each type. If you see something on one style of shirt that you’d like to see on another, drop me a line and I’ll see if I can accomodate you. If business is brisk, I’ll expand the line a lot more.

Just Say No to Chiropractors?

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Steven DenBeste writes a serious and lengthy (for Chizumatic) two-page post on the perils of being a science fiction author, and trying to predict the future inasmuch as you are using the technology to establish the setting. He compared the bleeding edge of the past to the present; it is a weighty epistle, probably one of the more serious I’ve seen him post on Chizumatic. (“I thought he gave up serious posts there?” I said to myself.)

I should have seen it coming. (20060511.1310 post.)

(remainder of post removed by request.)

Ensuring my Fame and Fortune

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So the subject of who is a big dog in theHouston blogsphere came up the other day over on BlogHouston. We touched on a few things in passing, like PajamasMedia, political blogging, group blogging, etc. but it seemed that the leading candidate for “local, but well-known blogger” was Laurence of TBIFOC. I was left wondering… what has he got that I don’t? Aside from fame and fortune, multiple blogs, and a wife?

Duuuuuhhhh! He’s got cats! And having cats means catblogging! How could I have been so dense?

So here we go: the first-ever (probably also last-ever) Houblog catblog.

This is Lulu:

“Human, stop playing with that electronic device and bring my food!”

She’s a half-wild cat whose original owner (about two neighbors back) moved, but she chose not to. Since then, she’s lived off the generosity of our next-door neighbors. But then they moved also, and the new neighbor was more interested in trying to piggyback on my wireless network than in adopting a cat. (Shortly after I locked him out, I noticed a new network broadcast showing up on my wireless cards. I ought to return the favor.)

So anyway, now it looks like our turn to play “adopt-a-stray,” and we’ve been feeding her for a couple of weeks now. It’s the only way she’d let me get close enough to snap this picture; Lulu is normally very skittish.

So, now that I’ve catblogged, my fame and fortune are assured. I’ll just be waiting here for all the links, advertisers, endorsement offers, and singing gigs to come through. Well, ok, I’ll turn the singing contracts down, unless it’s to do the national anthem at the All-Star game. You may thank me later. Or thank me now by hitting the tip jar, that always works!

So. . . . here I am. Yep, just waiting here for the money to start rolling in. . .

Still waiting . . .

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Internet meets Video on Demand: Cable Loses

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Ok, I know I said I was sick, but I ran across this, and as the implications of the price point seeped in, I went, “Holy packet loss, Batman!” and tripped out. I’ve known about “Video on Demand” (VOD) for some time, and it’s seeped into my awareness in the last few days (while I had nothing better to do than surf) that it was even available over the internet. I figured, yes, if you have a huge hard drive, a broadband connection, are geeky enough to hook your TV to your computer, and are willing to blow $20 for 30 minutes of programming, sure.

Boy was I wrong. Way wrong. The following excerpted news article (after the break) was posted over at the Anime News Network today:

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One Good Joke Deserves Another

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Steven Den Beste has a different sort of blond joke here.

If you’re looking for a more run-of-the-mill joke, the Chronicle published a newspaper again today. . . . and Bennet Roth now informs us that anonymous aides to equally anonymous Republican ‘House Leaders’ think that putting DeLay back in as Majority Leader might not be a good idea, what with the ‘Black Jack’ scandals being sure to make him look bad. (How it isn’t going to make other Republican — and Democrat — leaders look just as bad is a mystery he doesn’t explain.)

Well, thanks Chronicle. Seeing as most political pundits I pay attention to were of the opinion that DeLay wasn’t getting his job back before the news broke, truly, this was front page news again. On the bright side, considering the quality sourcing (almost as good as your average CIA leak), the Chronicle is being nothing if not consistant with today’s press standards. Or as Instapundit put it the other day:

If bloggers had made these kinds of mistakes, Big-Media folks would be pointing them out as evidence that the blogosphere can’t be trusted. But where were all those editors, filters, and fact-checkers?

Personally, I think they were out having lunch with Cindy Sheehan and Ronnie Earle.

The Houston Chronicle… all the rumors fit to print.