Caution: Singularity Ahead [DEFUNCT]

So we're visiting my parents in Calgary for the last time (they're moving to Nova Scotia) In May. And of course, it snowed. Wheeeeee.

So I'm walking to work today, starting from my house in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood. I start off on Greenwich and turn a half-block later at the intersection with Columbus ("Nu-cle-ar wessels?") I follow Columbus several blocks. Further on I pass Fresno Alley on Grant (Yellow Pages house - now a bar called "The House") I turn off Columbus just before I get to Pacific ("Double dumb ass on you!") I pass by a newspaper stand and what's the cover story? Two humpback whales are stranded in San Francisco Bay Too geeky not to share.

The Exploratorium had a Pirate Party for its annual Member Appreciation Night. We went all out and rented costumes from the ACT , which is conveniently on Market Street. Lots of fun. Fortunately there was free food and drink (beer and wine, can't be a sober pirate). Our costumes were a hit (although there were lots of other great ones there), and we were the subjects of much photography, although Caspian was playing shy. A swaggering gait was natural once we were pirated up. Also entertaining: we got to POFA (mmmm, tasty) by taking the 30 Sansome from our house (it goes right there) dressed in full regalia, which was entertaining for all involved. On the grounds of POFA we ran into some tourists who took their pictures with us. So who knows where we'll pop up on the ol' interweb. Incidentally: ran into Zero Linden (from work) and his family, but we only crossed paths the once which was a shame. It was very crowded.

This is so very true: Why would you wanna watch TV when you can watch a snail crawl for hours on end? You gotta see an Apple Snail in action. 'nuff said. PS: Yes, my hair is blue.

Not a terribly exciting day, but pretty relaxing. I took Nika for a walk first thing (that's 10am), and we headed straight north to Fisherman's Wharf. Rather than diverting to the usual directions (either towards Pier 39 or Fort Mason) I just kept going through the parking lot. Little did I know there's a submarine parked there open for tours every day, and a " liberty ship " (assisted at the landing at Normandy in WWII). Huh... well then, there's something to do with Caspian when he's back. The next pier over from that is just a tiny little spur that's got a big bell on it (which used to be at the Embarcadero Ferry Building ), but no docking positions. It was completely empty except for Nika and I - the whole pier. A nice sit in the sun, watching the bay, all to ourselves. Nice. Home again, after grabbing some pearl tea (for me) and some bloodworms (for the mollusc ). I puttered around for a bit at home, then took Nika up to Michaelangelo playgrou...

Su and C are out of town on a road trip with Grandpa, and I'm taking it easy. Slept in 'til 10:30 today. Yay! The weather was crappy so I stayed around the house, and got sucked into a project to the exclusion of all else. Ages ago, someone asked about coding up the Traveller trade rules (from Merchant Prince ) into a simulation, which turned into a long debate about languages and platforms. Given the desire to make the result useful to everyone, I thought it was a no-brainer to do it in JavaScript with a web interface. I even went so far as to extract the source code of the canonical implementation - "TRADER" - from an Apple II disk image and take a peek at the code. Pretty damned elegant, actually. So earlier this week I started translating from Applesoft BASIC to JavaScript . As I went, though, I kept changing directions - for example, did I want it to be a verbatim, mechanical translation, or did I want to optimize things to take advantage of JavaScript's s...

Caspian has a persistent imaginary friend - "Robot Bunny". Robot Bunny came about a few months ago, and has gone on walks with us (often needs to be carried), is featured in drawings, and in comparisons to the Ostara Bunny. He wrote a letter to Ariel (the Little Mermaid, upon whose lap he sat and chatted with at Disneyland) telling her about Robot Bunny. Last night, when asked "who moved that (something)?" he said that maybe Robot Bunny had done it. He long ago figured out how to turn the white noise generator ("soothing rainstorm") doodad we have in his room to its radio setting, and we'd often wake up at 7:00am to the scratchy sounds of whatever band he'd tuned to. We just got Caspian a pair of speakers and Susan's keeping the MP3 player in his room so he can listen to more appropriate music. He woke up at 6:00am yesterday... fortunately he kept it pretty quiet after one... suggestion. He now also wants music on more frequently. Caspian i...