|
Audio stream of the All Things Considered story I was in today
|
May. 3rd, 2008 @ 08:57 pm
|
|---|
|
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90160617
I didn't get as much airtime as I expected; my half hour of interview was edited down to, oh, 45 seconds? I dunno. Part of that was my fault; when they asked me for suggestions of who else they should talk to, I recommended a few other people, and they DID interview those people, and hey-presto, I was just one of several voices. And they edited out the part that actually linked my quasi-amusing anecdote to how I came to actually *apply* the term 'spam' to mass posting via discussion group and email, but hey, I doubt anyone at home really cared that much. It was fun anyway.
Current Mood:  accomplished |
|
All Things Considered
|
May. 2nd, 2008 @ 07:20 am
|
|---|
|
If anyone cares:
I will be part of a segment on the history of Internet spam this Saturday on the NPR radio program, "All Things Considered" (which generally airs around 5 pm local time on your local public radio station).
http://www.npr.org/templates/stations/schedule/index.php?prgId=2&showNav=1 takes you to a website where you can look up your local NPR station.
I may get a decent chunk of time. The interviewer told me the story would be presented in a "let the subjects tell the story in their own voices" format, as opposed to a Q&A format.
Hopefully I won't sound like a nut; they produce their programs to take out a lot of the ers, ums, and long-winded rambling, so with any luck I'll sound like I know what I'm talking about.
Current Mood:  amused |
|
NPR
|
May. 1st, 2008 @ 07:43 pm
|
|---|
|
An interviewer from NPR Weekend All Things Considered will be interviewing me for a short segment on spam. She'll be calling me tomorrow morning. Whee!
Pro: NPR segments are cleaned up, edited, and produced with anything that would make the interviewee sound like a complete babbling moron taken out. (I once heard them play an interview's "before" and "after" version as part of a segment on how they make the show. Night and day.)
Con, or in any case less Pro: I'll probably get twenty seconds, if that, actual airtime. But hey. It's NPR!
Current Mood:  geeky |
|
Lake Champlain Is Rising, Man, and I Don't Wanna Swim
|
Apr. 19th, 2008 @ 11:08 pm
|
|---|
|
With apologies to the Tragically Hip.
Lake Champlain is past flood stage and is still rising, albeit slowly. If we'd had our usual April rains, we'd be looking at some serious high waters and closed local roads. As it is, the Burlington waterfront is awash in lots of places. Carole and I felt well enough (we're both almost completely over our horrible, yucky, persistent colds) to go out today in the nice unseasonably warm 80-degree weather to get some sun and take some photos of the flooding.
See 'em here: http://www.furrs.org/images/risingwater2008/default.htm
Current Mood:  tired |
|
Ack
|
Apr. 4th, 2008 @ 12:52 pm
|
|---|
|
I have a rotten cold today. Came on suddenly yesterday. In the morning I was sniffling a lot and wishing I'd taken a double dose of Sudafed. The sore throat kicked in during the early afternoon and by late afternoon I was just feeling dreadful.
Last night I got up in the middle of the night and took extra Sudafed and drank most of a two-liter bottle of mandarin orange seltzer; I felt that stuffed up and dehydrated. Fortunately, I was able to get back to sleep despite the Sudafed.
Today's no song-and-dance story either. I'm working from home because I feel so awful and because I don't want to get co-workers sick. I'm bummed because a) I hate being sick, and b) I'd hoped to get some serious exercise in this weekend. Unless I'm just being a hypochondriac I can see that this weekend's going to be equally rotten.
Current Mood:  sick |
|
BBC Belfast
|
Apr. 1st, 2008 @ 07:11 am
|
|---|
|
It's been too long since I've done radio. I was interviewed by the BBC Five Live program at 6:50 PM EDT last night for about five minutes. I think I rambled too much and had to be cut off at a couple spots, but that happens when you've got X amount of time to spare and you're more interested (as a radio producer) in keeping it 'interesting' as opposed to 'correct, complete, and thorough'. I'd practiced beforehand, anticipating their questions, but I still felt sort of spun around when it was all over.
The producer, however, wrote back when I wrote her to ask how I'd done and said I'd done much better than a typical British person would have; wasn't stuffy and reserved and hesitant -- and those were her words. When she saw that I'd CC'd Carole on my 'so, how'd I do' email she added a postscript and said "Carole -- he was fab!"
Fab. I can die happy now. I'm "Fab".
Anyway, someone connected with BBC Belfast heard the programme, which was on just before midnight British Summer Time, and this morning called me to ask me to be on their drive-time show this afternoon (their time). It'll be about 1 pm EDT. Apparently they just loved me.
Huh. I guess I really don't know what plays well on radio.
Current Mood:  puzzled |
|
Maple-a-go-go
|
Mar. 29th, 2008 @ 08:26 pm
|
|---|
|
We all but bathed in maple syrup today.
Details here.
Current Mood: cheerful |
|
Harlem Globetrotters
|
Feb. 28th, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
|
|---|
|
The Harlem Globetrotters are great if you're a ten-year-old kid. Otherwise... not so much.
I went and saw them tonight in Glens Falls, NY. I didn't have far to drive as I've been in Glens Falls all week training; it was something to do. And I'd been looking forward to seeing their show for, oh, 30+ years, ever since all their Saturday morning cartoon exposure and Gilligan's Island appearances and stuff back in the 1960s and 1970s.
The fact that I left at halftime tell ya anything?
I'd sort of thought that it'd be excellent basketball with excellent tricks mixed in, like the Globetrotter game snippets I saw on ABC back in the day. The reality fell a bit short of that: elaborate and not-very-funny comedy routines that would've been booed off the stage at your local Holiday Inn's comedy club night, mixed in with very short bursts of actual basketball. When the Globetrotters put up a trick shot that was supposed to wow us with their mad basketball skillz, the shot went in maybe a third of the time.
What broke the camel's back was the third repetition of the following:
Something happens and a referee turns around and says "Who did that?"
A Globetrotter player points to a Washington General and says "The short white guy in the number 9 jersey."
The referee says "Who?"
The Globetrotter player repeats, slowly and much louder, "THE SLOW WHITE GUY IN THE NUMBER 9 JERSEY."
The referee announces "FOUL ON ... er, THE SLOW WHITE GUY IN THE NUMBER 9 JERSEY. TWO SHOTS."
The Globetrotters run around in amazement all holding up FOUR fingers and saying they should get FOUR shots.
The referee says "TWO shots."
"FOUR SHOTS"
"TWO shots."
(This goes on for a couple of minutes with the Globetrotters mugging to the crowd, demanding that the crowd back them up in their demand for four shots.)
Eventually the Globetrotter players ask a babe-in-arms in the audience how many shots they should get. The baby looks blank and the Globetrotter players say "EVEN THE BABY DOESN'T KNOW HOW MANY SHOTS WE SHOULD GET."
Audience roars with laughter.
Sweet zombie Jeebus, but that was a waste of money.
Current Mood:  irritated |
|
Water In The Basement
|
Feb. 11th, 2008 @ 11:45 am
|
|---|
|
For the last five or six months we've had water in our basement, coming in from behind the wall where our oil tank is set into the wall.
( Read more... )Current Mood:  ecstatic |
|
Ash Wednesday
|
Feb. 6th, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
|
|---|
|
I just went to my first Ash Wednesday service ever, held in the chapel of the hospital I'm training in this month. Every time Ash Wednesday has rolled around since I began attending church back in 2000, I've been on the road, traveling and training, at the start of Lent, and while I've always had the option of attending some local Methodist church's service after work, I've never actually done so. When I found out I could do it on my lunch hour, I thought, why not?
I might also go tonight. One of my students was wearing a Cross-and-Flame pin (the Methodist logo) and I immediately thought to myself "You know, I bet she's in the choir." (She was.) You can recognize choir types once you've been around them enough. I chatted with her and mentioned that I might want to hunt up a local church and next thing you know she'd brought in printouts of the web sites of the UMC church nearest my motel, the church nearest the hospital, her church a few miles away, and the schedule of hospital Ash Wednesday observances.
I was a little surprised that the Ash Wednesday service here at the hospital consisted of a few words from the hospital's staff nun (it's not a Catholic hospital, but their chapel seems to be run by a Sister Mary Irvine), a recitation of the Lord's Prayer, and then us queueing up for the anointing with ashes. Everyone else left immediately after their turn receiving ashes on the forehead, but I stuck around to meditate/pray for a few minutes, then left. The nun kept on anointing people who dropped in and there were a few more coming in as I was leaving. I guess that's nice, get your ashes and still have time to get lunch.
Current Mood: okay |
|
Joe Stalin
|
Feb. 4th, 2008 @ 04:34 pm
|
|---|
|
Carole's hair
|
Jan. 7th, 2008 @ 07:15 am
|
|---|
|
Carole was blonde when she was a little kid. She turned brunette when she got older, but with her blue eyes and fair complexion, I keep visualizing her as more blonde than she is.
On Saturday night, while we were watching a DVD, I looked her and randomly said "Tomorrow we should get your hair dyed ash blonde." Curiously, she looked at me and said, completely seriously, "Absolutely."
Her stylist said her hair was too red underneath to simply and easily go truly blonde, but she could use that super-harsh stuff they don't dare get directly on your skin to give her blonde highlights. We said "Okey-dokey."
 
Stupidly, I didn't take a picture of her after we left the hairdresser and her hair was completely dry and natural-looking. But rest assured, we both like the way she looks. :)
Current Mood: chipper |
|
Apple/currant/brandy/molasses pie, judged...
|
Nov. 22nd, 2007 @ 08:30 pm
|
|---|
|
( Read more... )Current Mood:  very full |
|
Thanksgiving
|
Nov. 22nd, 2007 @ 07:47 pm
|
|---|
|
( Read more... )Current Mood: full |
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jayfurr's journal
