pinchy dot org.

I tried asking Jeeves “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?” The first link it returns is to a copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Ohhhhhh…
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
FOUNDING FATHERS!
Absorbent and yellow and porous is he
FOUNDING FATHERS!

Update: Perhaps I should have explained that a bit. See, there’s this cartoon on Nickelodeon called SpongeBob SquarePants, and the italicized text above is from the show’s theme song. I know about the show because many of my coworkers have children.

My room has been a disaster for months, partially because I haven’t bothered to file any of my bills or bank statements for, oh, about a year and a half. I decided to do something about that this week.

The project is going well—my room is noticeably tidier, and if for some reason I need to know how much I owed on my credit card in March, I should be able to find out in less than an hour and a half. It’s taking a lot of time to get organized, though. Meanwhile, unread magazines are piling up, and I have a couple of DVDs at home that I haven’t had time to watch. Oh, yes, and I’ve bookmarked 11 Web sites that I ran across but didn’t have time to read.

Apparently I need an extra three or four hours in my day. If someone could arrange for that, I’d be much obliged. Also, I would like a pony.

I’m back from my whirlwind Thanksgiving vacation. It started with a few days at my parents’ house, where I stuffed myself silly and admired the ever-expanding vegetable garden in back. Then I went down to Santa Cruz, just in time to enjoy a power outage. I capped things off today by spending part of my afternoon soaking in a hot tub at Well Within.

Back to work tomorrow. New posts soonish.

My roommate and I went up Page Mill Road last night to see the Leonids. The turnout was amazing. Cars lined the road all the way up to the top of the mountain.

And the meteor shower was spectacular. The meteors came in waves; there would be none at all for a few minutes, and suddenly three would pierce the night all at once. I spent about an hour watching meteors and imagining an indulgent god, tossing fireworks from the heavens for the amusement of his children.

There’s currently an Eames-designed exhibit at San Francisco’s Exploratorium. I have got to get up to the city.

Christie has another take on the all-new pinchy.org: “[Y]ou could also say it’s like when a character is killed off because the audience is losing interest, but then the producers bring him back on the show a few seasons later with a new haircut and a gay partner or something. They’re thinking, ‘Let’s see if the audience will like him better this time around.’”

Actually, you and Brian are both wrong. It’s more like the show was cancelled for low ratings, but the producers hired a few new writers, filmed some different opening credits, and got a network exec really drunk, and the exec foolishly decided to put the show back on the air.

If you have more theories about the new pinchy.org and its possible relationship to bad sitcoms, you should definitely click the little “Comments” link and put those theories in writing. Meanwhile, I’m working on some less self-referential posts, but they’re taking a while to write. Bear with me while I pull my thoughts together.

People seem to be happy that I’m updating this site again, which is gratifying. The content has been more popular than the design, which, thanks to my careless use of inline CSS, is all thraxed up in old Web browsers.

Brian had my favorite take on the new site:

I’m glad pinchy.org has returned – it’s sort of like the new season of a
familiar television show, only the writers have been instructed to “sex it
up” to improve ratings.

Lawrence Lessig on the threat that new laws pose to the Internet as we know it:

Changes to the Internet’s original core will in turn threaten the
network’s potential everywhere—staunching the opportunity for
innovation and creativity. Thus, at the moment this transformation could
have a meaningful effect, a counterrevolution is succeeding in
undermining the potential of this network.

Finished watching The Films of Charles & Ray Eames – The Powers of 10. If I taught a sixth-grade science class, I would definitely make my students watch The Powers of Ten.

The DVD also included a short film, made after Ray Eames died, that showed what was in the Eames studio before its contents were packed up and sent to museums. Unfortunately, the murky quality of the film doesn’t do justice to the Eames’ work, but it still gives a sense of the catholicity of their interests and the extent of their genius.

The Library of Congress has a great exhibition of their work (more photos). If you can recommend a particularly good book about Charles and Ray Eames, please do.

The U.S. military is dropping food packages and cluster bombs on Afghanistan. The packages and bombs are both bright yellow, and they’re nearly the same size. The only real difference is the shape—the bombs are in cans, and the food is in boxes.

I am absolutely stunned.

The military is using radio broadcasts to warn Afghanis about the potential confusion. Meanwhile, Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) spoke about the issue before the House (click the link next to “Food Aid for Afghans”).

McKinney concluded her remarks with the following statement, which about sums it up:

Mr. Speaker, not only do innocent Afghans have to worry about the Taliban, not only do they have to worry about landmines left over from the last war, not only do they have to worry about starving to death and the approaching winter, now they have to worry about bombs that look like food.