Bob ARRGH PET PEEVES

Hey kids, it's time again for me to air my grievances on the internet! This is healthy, I assure you. Fortunately, my grievances are often small in nature, and I can typically ignore them without falling prey to acute hypertension.

Today! On the pet peeves show: ungrammatical facebook status entries. "Real" examples:

• Jane Doe OMG her flight got cancelled!
• Alan Smithee is it naptime yet?
• John Q. Public is SIGN THIS NOW!!!
• Dennis Kucinich RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE TOMORROW/starstruck from the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.

I'd like to say that these people lack basic understanding about how facebook status updates work, but I don't actually believe that. They are just lazy. They do not care. Is it so difficult to spend an extra second or two making sure your status makes goddamn sense?

Of course, none of this actually matters. My complaint has no redeeming value as social commentary or parody. But that's exactly what makes it a problem! These assholes have turned me into the guy sitting in his basement penning a manifesto and preaching revolution on the "social networking intersphere" or whatever the fuck they're calling it these days. I have become what I hate the most. Next thing you know I'll be "twittering" my progress in getting facebook to change their whole status setup.

On an unrelated note, I was looking up some foreign book titles at work on Google Translate, and apparently the "auto-detect language" feature recognizes Slovenian and Hungarian, but is unable to translate them. I like a computer program that knows its limits.

Mankind is Noodlekind

I must give "mad props" to my dad for this one. He randomly called to tell me today is the 50th anniversary to the sale of the first instant ramen. I hate to fall into college student stereotypes, but I really do eat a ton of that stuff, and hell if I don't enjoy it, too. I've even made some improvements to the process. Real Actual Things™ I have done:

• Once ate ramen out of large ziplock bag with tiny hole cut in one corner
• Once cooked ramen in original plastic packaging using only heat from desk lamp
• Once left ramen leftovers in pot outside dorm room door for 3 (three) weeks.
  

That last one probably wasn't my brightest moment, but you get the idea.

That post title up there is a quotation from Momofuku Ando, inventor of instant ramen. As a culinary innovator himself, I think he'd be proud of my tinkering.

Interblag

I changed some things. Perhaps you noticed. Sundays are so boring that I can afford to spend an hour and a half tweaking xml, and that makes me a little sad.

If you want actual content, here's a video of some tech they're working on at the University of Washington. It is hella cool.