Albert? Is that You?

Damn, a frog just jumped on our second floor window. No, a real, real frog.

Albert's the default voice on my ibook. Apple Mac peeps will know what I'm sayin'. Maybe.

What did you say?

Applied Minds just invented Babble™ for Sonare Technologies™, a new company of Herman Miller. It makes a conversation in open space -- say, your office cubicle or in a hospital area -- virtually incomprehensible to those in hearing distance and perfectly private.

Applied Sciences even maps the chemical signature of blood proteins -- to identify candidates for certain cancer treatments -- since most treatments only work for 5% of the population -- matching candidate to treatment.

What do I want for Christmas (ok, so I'm a heathen, but still...)? Applied Minds is also behind the Touch Table, a map that uses your handsignals for movements. To zoom out, place both hands (or just two fingers) on the table and spread them apart (If I saw this demo'd, I'd've cried.). Zoom in? Yeah, push your hands together. You touch points -- grab the earth, turn it on the screen, navigate, zoom into the location you want, get a historical view of the same location... in real time. You can even take a pen and draw on the map when you're pointing out information for those around the table. You can imagine my pool of glee regarding this fascinating invention. I happen to read maps for fun and even the new Google Maps Satellite pictures have given me plenty of entertainment. If this wasn't enough, they've now built a 3D version where the screen actually deforms so you can feel the hills and valleys. Watch the video (41MB) on NorthropGrumman. Cry all you want.

[just edited the links; NG originally posted information in 2004; sometime between the original posting her and April 2009, they updated their site and moved the links. The zooming thing is now in the hands of the masses by way of the iphone...)

We interrupt your day to promote: Parsnips.

I roasted some delicious vegetables today. Parsnips ought to get more credit. They're sooo good.

Actually, what I made was a lazy version of a very complicated but super delicious squash casserole recipe I have. One of these days I'm going to post it but someone should make it for me (I just hate peeling acorn squash)... Or better yet, I'll make it and you peel the squash...

World Jump Day

World Jump Day is July 20, 2006. It really should be called World Jump Moment, as jumping will take place at 11:39:13 GMT exactly.

If 600 million peeps jump at precisely the same moment, we could drive Earth into a new orbit, thereby (in their words) "stop global warming, extend daytime hours and create a more homogenous climate." 155,094,135 people have already registered. Go and find out how.

While you're at it, take a photo for the Fakefunk Jump Project run by Souris.

To be or Not to be... productive

It's been a bit difficult trying to get my priorities straight, between caring for dad, managing the house (updating their wills today), doing work for Lannam, and doing work for AXA Realty. In between, though, I'm cooking for dad which I'm enjoying -- I haven't done it really since I lived in GV in NYC. Tonight we're having typical summer dinner with Vietnamese influence: barbeque chicken with corn-on-the-cob, tossed mango salad and some tomato-garlic rice on the side. My mom had some amazing five-minute recipes she used to just toss together for us as kids. I wish she'd get her cookbook done soon!

Otherwise, I have a handful of other things keeping my ADHD head busy. There are hilarious things to scan and send to family that have risen from the storage closets of the old house, my 2004 taxes to file, photos to print, copy to write, clothes to wash, and decisions to make.

And I want to move back to this.

I am in the midst of a right-hand-left-hand debate over whether or not I should move to Santa Monica or go back to my beloved New York.

And I discovered this week: Santa Monica is comfortable like a couch is comfortable. New York is comfortable like chicken pot pie is comfortable.

And who can't love my old 'hood, snow and all?

Personal Hell Perspective

If there is a personal hell, mine would be a place described as the ultimate suburbia in which all homes in all developments look exactly the same -- and yet, ugly-the-same -- where I must go shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond, wear clothes from Old Navy, and eat at T.G.I. Fridays, and where the temperature runs around 90F.

This is what I'm talking about.

"Some rich man came and raped the land, nobody caught 'em,
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes and, Jesus, people bought 'em.
And they called it paradise, the place to be,
they watched the hazy sun sinking in the sea."
- The Last Resort, by the EAGLES

Mars is starting to look pretty good.

I just finished reading a book. In the last two years, I've started about 17, but I shamefully admit I only finished one in Santa Monica. Yesterday, I drove my dad to Columbus, Georgia where my oldest sister lives, and where her husband, an Army Ranger, is stationed at Ft. Benning (where dad himself was trained in 1957). After the combined stress of helping my parents pack up and sell our childhood home and then take my dad through minor surgery, and then have my mom leave town and be left to care for him post-op, and then driving 13 hours to Georgia... I arrived at my sister's where I just chilled. It just so happens that this sister of mine maintains my library [it should be noted that in my former life, I did in fact complete books more often]. So I sat and read Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters. One of my favorites.

Wanted: Comfortable digs on Mars.

Craigslist, the imminently useful classifieds collective, is beaming 138,179 ads to outer space.

This is not a hoax. It is for real.