I don’t quite get it. So there’s *less* cold water flowing south from the Arctic than there was 50 years ago… and yet England’s still getting colder?? Climate change is so weird. Everytime I hear something like that, I’m reminded of all the chaos theory my high school calculus teacher tried to teach me. Butterflies flapping their wings and all that, you know. The ice caps are melting, so water levels should rise. Then there’s the greenhouse effect, which should make everything get warmer. And yet now suddenly the Gulf Stream might change, meaning the winters get eleven degrees colder. So random. It’s hard to fathom on a day like today, with the sun shining and an entire beautiful weekend stretching before us. I’m sure I’ll feel differently in the pits of January next year, though.

If you’re running Mac OSX, you might be interested in a Register article about the real differences between Cocoa and Carbon and why rewriting the Finder isn’t necessarily a good idea.

It’s a horrible thing to contemplate, but I have to admit that I was morbidly curious about how she did it. I mean, I’m sure that by the age of five I would’ve known what it means to be “dead.” (I’ve got memories of nightmares as evidence.) Did she start with the young ones, or the old ones? And she did it one at a time? If Mom kept bringing my lifeless, wet siblings out of the bathroom wrapped in sheets, I’d be pretty damn freaked out. As it turns out, I was pretty much right. She evidently had to chase the eldest boy around the house. This is just so sad.

Sad day. John Lee Hooker (who I always think of singing outside the Soul Food Cafe in “The Blues Brothers”) and Carroll O’Connor (aka Archie Bunker) have passed away.

HA! Do you have a personal site? You should do the 2001.DESIGNER.SITE.CHKLST. It’ll analyze your design and tell you how much of a wanker you are. And it’s so funny (in a web design, nerdy kinda way) that I spewed Coke out my nose.

I’m still laughing at the Date My Sister Project that Gael linked. I showed it to my sister, who responded that she wouldn’t mind if Snookums and I launch a similar initiative when she gets to London. Heh.

In U.K. theater news, Mark Ravenhill has a new play at the Royal National called “Mother Clap’s Molly House”. The play intertwines both a contemporary storyline and one set in a 1726 London “molly house” (gay meeting place). Sodomy is somehow involved. The religious right are, predictably, already up in arms. I saw Ravenhill’s first big production, “Shopping and F***king”, back in 1998. I wasn’t a big fan, but it wasn’t because of the anal sex or the toplessness. I just thought it was a sucky play. It should’ve been called “Shopping, F***king, and Ramen Noodles”, because that’s the vision of my generation that it presented. And no amount of loud music and neon lights can paper over juvenile, sucky writing. But anyway, I still don’t see any problem with nationally-funded theater doing avant garde productions. I’m probably going to try to see his new one, just as an act of support for the RNT.

A Korean theater hit called “Cookin’” is coming to the U.S. “The show… features the high-tempo slicing of four chefs who have an hour to prepare a glorious wedding banquet.” They do comedy and use their utensils as percussion implements. It’s like “The Iron Chef” meets “Tap Dogs”! They don’t mention who gets to eat the food at the end though. I would hope the audience does.

Can you place this quote?

Oh, he’s very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads–they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.

Of course you can. Brigita found a great story about the enduring popularity of the film. The best part is that Edie McClurg, who played Grace, is quoted as saying that she wished they wouldn’t edit out her “dickhead” and replace it with “airhead” for TV. “I wish they’d just go back and play the real movie on cable,” she said. Ha!

I was a bit alarmed to read a story on Slashdot about car rental companies monitoring speeding via the car’s GPS system. Whoa. Did I speed at all on our trip? I’m sure I did; you can’t drive in Chicago without speeding. You’ve got to go 20 mph over the limit just to avoid being rear-ended. I’ll be watching my credit card statement…