BYBS: A Decent Red

Image from the Chateau Julian site

While I might not be able to pick out a really good wine from a flock of mediocre ones, I can (hopefully) tell utter swill from something decent.  I found this red for the unassuming price of $12 which seems pretty reasonable to me.

As an aside, I am very aware of all the trouble that alcohol can cause.  This post is not so much in praise of alcohol as it is "Hey! I found a relatively good price!"

The label reads Chateau Julian Bordeaux Red Wine, product of France. The bottle I had was 2008, the one shown here seems to be 2007.

BYBS: A Beautiful Fall Day

Photo by Dru! at Flickr

There are days where it feels like the weather is trying to say "it's great to be alive!"  I had one of these this past week and while the scenery was not as nice as this, it was inspiring.  I find it somewhat odd and yet encouraging that a sour grape like myself can find inspiration from the world.

BYBS: Google Chrome Developer Tools

Developer tools displaying the JavaScript for Yahoo!

Since I have a complete lack of ideas for this week (note that I'm not talkin about good ideas, those waved bye-bye to me a long time ago) I decided to blog about something that I use every day.  In particular, the JavaScript debugger that Google created with their chrome browser.

I know, I know, you are now shouting at your monitor "But Firebug kicks Chrome's butt!"  To that I say everyone is entitled to their opinion, and besides, I need something to blog about next week!

This is a tool that I use every day.  It is the culmination of years of evolution in the whole area of JavaScript development.  And believe me, these things have come a long way since the early days of the web where debugging was putting pop-ups in your page.

I realize this wont make a whole lot of sense to someone who has the fortune to not be involved with software development; but trust me, this is a good thing.  Now that decent tools have been available for a number of years, it is the way of things that a new medium will come along for which there are no good tools.  Like I said, I need something to blog about next week...

BYBS: Zombies

I know when it's my turn to be torn apart by zombies I will want people to
photograph the event.
Photo by Laughing Squid

As with many people who happen upon a scene of flesh eating zombies who are about to turn someone into a Big Mac, my first thought was "Hey!  Maybe I can make this into a blog posting!"  OK, so maybe that might not be most people's first thought, but up there in the top 10 would be "Maybe I can make this into the topic for a short story!"  This posting is about both so I get double blog-scrabble points, even though it's not a Sunday so it's not quite a BYBS posting.

Where was I?  Oh yes, flesh eating zombies!  Well, the story idea is this: what if zombies were actually tastee critters?  Like most of my good ideas, this one isn't mine: it was already the topic of "Ultimate Survivor," a flash spoof of the Survivor "reality" TV show that Kev created on the long neglected site of Killfrog.com

Note: that site is sick, sick, sick, as one might imagine if it shows up on this site, so if you visit it please remember that I warned you.

At any rate, if zombies did make good eatin' then they would actually be in a rather poor situation.  True, there are an awful lot of them, at least according to most movies, but they are usually rather slow, stupid and uncoordinated.  Therefore, it seems to me that in our, erm, "consumer" society they could end up on the defensive rather quickly.

So my story centers on a bunch of zombies who hole up in a mall, with hordes of normal people trying to eat them...

BYBS: Dogs

We think they're cute and they're thinking "You're next!"

Image by diegodacal@flickr.com

Filed under one of those things that I’m glad about but that make no sense are dogs. They are critters that seem to delight in the presence of people no matter what mood you are in. Being my lazy self, I don’t have a pet, but I have recently visited some people that do so I can take advantage of theirs. Now mind you, this friendly critter could be contemplating something else entirely…

(dog): “Hey, got any food?”
(human): “He’s glad to see me!”
(dog): “I’m not glad to see you, I’m just hungry!”
(human): “Oh look, he’s licking my hand, even though I don’t have anything to feed him.”
(dog): “I’m getting ready to bite your hand if you don’t come up with something soon…”
(human): “Here’s a little something…”
(dog): “Finally! OK, you’re off the hook for a little bit, but this is just a down payment.”
(human): “He’s wagging his tail.”
(dog): “The things that make humans happy...”