carwreck.com: around Boston harbor...

I get nervous when I hear about really, really rich people who are the heads of really, really big money grubbing companies who go and give lots and lots of money for genetic research. Maybe it's just paranoia, but these kind of folks already think they are above the law. Do you think they also want to be above the laws of nature?

As my current supply of Claritin runs low, I wonder if I should look into the the new over-the-counter Claritin instead of going through the hassle of renewing my prescription. I've heard about the new OTC version, but haven't really looked into it yet. Well, lo and behold, what do I see on this morning's CNN.com but an article about this exact dilemma. How convenient.

Update: 29 Apr 03 - I went and asked for a renewal of my Claritin prescription and the pharmacist laughed at me. So I went to the aisle where the new over the counter Claritin was and saw a CVS generic Loratadine (says that it compares to Claritin on the box) which was many times less expensive. I picked that up and have been trying it for the past week or so. Though I changed from a two-a-day Claritin to a once-a-day (claims 24 hour operation) it does not work nearly as well as well as I expected. Maybe I'll switch back to a twice-a-day version and see what happend. In the meantime I suffer from terrible sniffles again.

I'm listening to the public safety radio frequencies right now and there are tons and tons of people needing medical assistance and ambulance requests at numerous first aid stations along the route. I worked as the radio operator at a first aid station last year and were somewhat busy (about a mile last the top of Heartbreak Hill) but this year sounds much, much busier. I think there were five or six people transported by ambulance last year and I've already heard at least fifteen ambulance requests today. Crazy.

I went for drinks at Sissy K's with Lukas the other evening. We met up with a bunch of his former coworkers, most of who keep weblogs. I had begun to know a couple of them from their websites so it was nice to put faces to names. The conversation revolved around weblogs for a few minutes and, as you might expect from a bunch of enthusiastic techies, voices were raised to be heard over the music (which seemed to be getting louder and louder). At one point it occurred to me that a couple of people at a neighboring table were talking about us. I heard the work 'weblog' mentioned so I tuned in a little closer to hear what they were saying. It was something along the lines of "Oh, those are the kind of guys who do all that weblogging stuff..." The comment was somewhat derisive. Oh well.

Since I abruptly woke up at 5:30 this morning, I've been catching up on some online reading and thought I'd share some links.

I've heard a few stories recently about how much fighting goes on at baseball games. It's absurd. Here are some other baseball fans being complete idiots.

Here is an earnings forecast from CNN/Money which talks about seven of the major players which are set to announce earnings this coming week. What I thought was most interesting were the "Why It Matters:" paragraphs which describe what these companies need to do in order to stay afloat.

Enough for now...

Now this is damn funny.

And now, the Iraqi information minister talking doll

Osama bin Laden in a pink dress?! Iraqi Dis-information Minister?! Haha!

A day in the life of Ethan...

Congratulations to my friend Keith for completing everything to get his H1B visa! Now he can stay in the US for another three years and continue working at his dream job doing some of the dopest motion graphics stuff around. Rock on!

Seventy seven on the weather station here at work! It's so awesome outside. This makes taking the boats one at a time over to the fuel dock feel like a stroll through the park...

Good day; good week; good spirits. Can't ask for much more.

I went to the FinalScratch Tour at Guitar Center last night. KNS was a great host and was pretty damn knowledgeable about everything. He answered all of our questions very well.

So there was a guy from Stanton in FL and the local Stanton rep in attendance. They were offering the PC version (FS 1.0) at a deep discount (unpublished, lower than the Minimum Advertised Price). They also said that anyone with FS1.0 will be able to upgrade to FS 1.1 (dual platform, Mac and PC on one install CD) for a modest price when it comes out "soon." It was a deal I couldn't refuse.

So I guess I'll install FS on one of the many decommissioned PCs I have in the basement and use it that way for the next month or so. When I get my hands on the Mac version though... :-)

I was very interested in seeing how they had improved on some of the failings of Traktor. The main thing is how horrible the file browser is. Unfortunately it looks like they didn't really change it. Otherwise the new software looked very slick and I'm excited to get it soon.

How is it that, whenever I do any work to my car, when I get back in the car it feels like a whole new car? It's quicker, more nimble, faster to respond, and generally more fun to drive. This tends to happen any time I do work on the car. This happened again yesterday after I turned some wrenches on the car for an hour or so after work. The car was more fun to drive. I guess this makes total sense considering the jobs I completed were huge performance modifications: I put four new mudflaps on the car and adjusted the headlights...

I'm speechless. The new Radiohead is simply breathtaking. Amazing. I really don't know what else to say. Intricate, twisting, wandering and searching. Yet SO much to digest. It's kind of like eating corn and then picking it out of your teeth for the next few hours. No, maybe more like getting some chocolate stuck in your molars and slowly melting it with your tongue.

I can't wait to go and buy the album.