tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63071842008-05-07T15:51:28.662-04:00IanBlogger559125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-30540065005129551802008-05-07T15:49:00.002-04:002008-05-07T15:51:28.697-04:00

First Peppermint Patty Why is this so fucking good? I should eat these more often. Yorks are so my favorite candy. How come its been so long since I've had one of these? Mmmm. I feel completely justified buying an entire bag. Second Peppermint Patty This is starting to not be so delicious. Ok, I lied, its still delicious. But its very sweet, and making my mouth burn like peppermint. Third

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-28957598566398985712008-05-04T11:20:00.001-04:002008-05-04T11:20:00.795-04:00

Cossack Vodka Originally uploaded by ianmac47Cossack vodka from the ancient liqour cabinet in my grandfather's house.

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-88781366149308357522008-05-02T14:21:00.003-04:002008-05-02T14:34:23.005-04:00

Am I the only one to notice that Hell's Kitchen contestant Matt looks a strikingly similar to Sam the Eagle?

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-30754215097072227012008-05-01T15:05:00.002-04:002008-05-01T15:18:57.936-04:00

London is looking a like New York these days. Its fast displacing New York as the center of world capital. And while New York keeps down zoning neighborhoods, London keeps building new skyscrapers. So perhaps its fitting then that early polls indicate the next mayor of London is to be a New Yorker. Boris Johnson, that funny looking newspaper man no one took very seriously, might just have pulled

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-51077634604917380942008-04-28T11:51:00.007-04:002008-04-28T17:04:56.101-04:00

The country folk are aghast over Vanity Fair's publishing of naked bare back photos of Hanna Montana. Television gossip shows began creating a scandal last week. One blogger quoted by the The Times suggested "Bonfire anyone?". Yeah. They could do that, or they could just not buy the issue of Vanity Fair.

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-48981266205620642182008-04-25T14:06:00.003-04:002008-04-25T14:22:12.016-04:00

Hours after Erik sent along this video of the Peel P50, a micro car from some fictitious Utopia of the past, I came across this bizarre little tricycle on east 13th Street. This is not exactly a car, but not really a motorcycle either. Obviously, I thought to myself, I'm taking a picture of this. As I was snapping away, a scrapping looking homeless fellow jumped out declaring "$10 a picture.

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-13554165242479815832008-04-22T13:51:00.003-04:002008-04-22T14:36:31.245-04:00

The informative video played for our benefit yesterday morning stated a fact I can hardly forget: 95 percent of the world's jury trials occur in the United States. Or, put another way, nearly every other nation on earth employs an alternative system. One nation that still has jury trial system is Australia, a nation founded as a penal colony. We're in good company. I received my notice a few

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-41058700698018603812008-04-17T10:27:00.003-04:002008-04-17T10:33:27.148-04:00

This year there is a regional matzah shortage. The Manischewitz matzah factory down the street from me closed last year to make way for high rise condominiums, but the new factory in Newark wasn't finished in time, meaning there isn't enough matzah to go around. Apparently though, many people end up with a surplus of matzah. The flat bread practically keeps forever, but if you happen to be

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-73707285703639418262008-04-14T15:15:00.002-04:002008-04-14T15:25:41.101-04:00

An artificial intelligence programmer has created software capable of writing academic books based on statistics gleaned from the internet and databases, obsolescing academic researchers, technical manual authors, and their editors. But as though that wasn't enough, the software also writes game shows. So far bloggers are still safe, but I for one welcome our new robot overlords.

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-17602526920498868692008-04-10T12:47:00.002-04:002008-04-10T13:05:18.914-04:00

Yesterday as the conductor came around collecting tickets, he stopped to chat up the woman in front of me. Usually, nothing is better than a little eavesdropping to pass the time. In this case though, the participants flirted so awkwardly I wasn't sure if the passenger was flirting with the conductor, or the conductor was flirting with a passenger, or if they were both flirting with each other.

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-35676761715797172632008-03-11T09:33:00.004-04:002008-03-11T10:55:09.434-04:00

The NY Times mentions that Hulu.com is finally being made available to the general public. I signed up a year ago and was invited to join the beta version. Hulu, for those of you not in the know, is a streaming video website created by Fox and NBC Universal to stream television and film, supported by ads, and thus providing a free video on demand service. The real reason this service was

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-13301884943176343212008-03-08T10:14:00.002-05:002008-03-11T10:33:51.936-04:00

DVDs were a great follow up to VHS tapes. VHS tapes were bulky, broke easily, didn't play in a computer, and took up plenty of storage space. The DVD on the other hand, is compact, maintained picture quality over years of use, and was easily played in a college dorm via a computer. But now DVDs are obsolete, and not just because high definition discs are going to replace them. Physical media, DVD

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-9977175982286666462008-02-27T09:46:00.003-05:002008-02-27T10:18:57.224-05:00

A brief editorial in the LA Times suggests taxing intellectual property as a solution to protecting valuable intellectual property while allowing less valuable property to fall into the public domain. The concept is simple: create a cost for maintaining copyrights so that non-revenue generating copyrighted material falls into the public domain. At first glance, this seems like a great idea.

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-75125670961398467042008-01-23T11:00:00.001-05:002008-01-23T11:00:49.388-05:00

Best new word of 2008.

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-85307290942102916232007-12-02T14:23:00.000-05:002007-12-02T15:34:07.464-05:00

The BBC television show The Office was wildly entertaining. When an American adaption was announced, I eagerly awaited its arrival. I watched the first six episode season which aired on NBC four years ago. I missed the following season, mostly because NBC made horrible choices in creating their programming schedule. A few months ago, TBS began running back to back reruns of The Office on

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-21140889499868077062007-11-13T17:39:00.001-05:002007-11-13T17:39:54.655-05:00

The elevator to my office runs at a pace befitting a convalescent home. The three level trip takes an ungodly long time, and on arrival the doors take their sweet time opening. The stairs are an impossible alternative since both the entrance and exit to the stairwell are locked. All this leads to some awkward conversation. The office on the second floor is filled with an odd assortment of

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-67666923354947198612007-11-09T10:07:00.000-05:002007-11-09T10:51:24.007-05:00

German immigrant Henrik Kohl arrived in the United States in 1864, settling in southern New Jersey. He and his seven sons were moderately successful farmers expanding their total acreage over the next decade. Mostly they grew cabbage that they shipped to markets in Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore. In the post civil war boom, commodities like vegetables proved quite profitable. In the

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-49395123556788359002007-11-06T09:57:00.001-05:002007-11-06T21:16:26.066-05:00

Beginning in December of 2004, Google, in its ever expanding quest to index content, began scanning and indexing the texts of millions of volumes of books from partner libraries. Google allows users to search the database and identify those books relevant to their research needs. In one sense, the google book search project is not a new concept. Proprietary databases have existed for years.

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-67036392680840919712007-11-05T12:16:00.000-05:002007-11-05T12:30:11.971-05:00

I was just solicited by a French woman seeking my support to stop home foreclosures for all the poor people who took out loans they can't really afford. Perhaps you've heard about the subprime loan market meltdown, the immediate threat of millions of hardworking people facing foreclosure on their little piece of the American Dream. Evict away, I say. You see, as much as I sympathize with the

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-8551015640257325182007-11-05T11:44:00.000-05:002007-11-05T11:46:40.270-05:00

Downtonwn Hackensack: Sometimes I wonder if I somehow missed the atomic apocalypse, and the people left wandering the streets are radioactive savages. They look the part.

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-71503131110731156752007-11-02T09:35:00.000-04:002007-11-02T09:36:11.112-04:00

There's nothing like having good fashion sense when you're expecting the police to beat the shit out of you. Today's tip is brought you courtesy of the Buddhist monks of Myanmar who learned you don't show up to a political revolution wearing flip flops.

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-21256457181960146002007-03-20T11:46:00.000-04:002007-11-02T09:38:23.152-04:00

Congress is preparing to decide whether or not they should allow XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite radio to merge. The two companies represent the entire industry of Satellite radio, a subscription only service that gained a whole lot of notoriety when Howard Stern left terrestrial radio for Sirius. Stern highlighted one of the benefits of satellite based subscription radio: the lack of

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-42777783842696931902007-03-12T15:26:00.000-04:002007-11-02T09:37:26.419-04:00

Let's be honest, one of the coolest functions of the soon to be released iPhone is the use of a fully functional web browser to surf a fully functional internet. Steve Jobs even showed off one of our favorite time wasters, NYTimes.com. But of course there is the flip side of all this: mobile data charges. Mobile data services are still quite expensive, even when customers buy an all you can

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-20900904676699162232007-01-29T08:43:00.000-05:002007-01-29T13:53:48.434-05:00

I am writing to regretfully inform you of the death of your husband, Mr. Mouse, recently killed during his heroic service. I have had the pleasure of serving alongside Mr. Mouse for a number of weeks, and let me say there are few mice among us as brave as your husband. Last evening while on patrol, your husband came upon an enemy trap. Mr. Mouse had discovered a stockpile of oats that would

Iantag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6307184.post-35025980924232959562007-01-23T10:29:00.000-05:002007-01-23T11:15:57.458-05:00

I've always been into tea. When I was nine or ten I insisted on having a tea party, though this was more about being an Anglophile and wanting to have fancy chocolates and cucumber sandwiches than the tea. And for a while in high school, tea was the drink of choice. But by college, I hardened into a full fledged coffee addict and the whole tea thing sort of went away. I think part of the

Ian