Category: about me

Pure Vanity.

You can be sure if it’s Slashdot…it’s wrong

Westinghouse logo

I read this article today about Toshiba buying out Westinghouse Electric.

I shouldn’t be surprised that Slashdot gets it wrong again. Really wrong.

First of all, Westinghouse hasn’t made blenders since around the time I was born. They sold off the appliances division to a separate company, White, which renamed itself White-Westinghouse. The confusion arises because White-Westinghouse used the same W logo, but any Pittsburgher can tell you they aren’t the same. The same holds true for other “Westinghouse” brands like Westinghouse Digital Electronics, the makers of the LCD panels referred to in the article. They have nothing to do with Westinghouse or Westinghouse Electric. The brand name was licensed to them recently when the CBS/Viacom media empire realized they had a merchandisable brand name they weren’t using.

[ore theorizing after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 0

Taking football seriously

My obligatory Superbowl blog entry:

“You can’t believe how seriously these people take their football.”
—overheard, “Gridiron City”

The quote above comes from an op-ed in today’s New York Times. The answer is, “Yes, I can believe,” because, like Holly, I grew up in Pittsburgh, and they do take their football seriously there.

The article does a great job explaining why: the rise of the perennially bad Steelers came during the middle of the decline of the Pittsburgh steel industry.Continue reading →

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ID as nominal philosophy

LA Times reports on a California lawsuit concerning “Intelligent Design.”

Since Intelligent Design as a science was universally shut down, the idea this time is to nominally call Intelligent Design “Philosophy of Design” while teaching it as a science or religion course. It’s a lot like a long car trip with your older brother in reverse: you agree upon a line you cannot cross and then he puts his finger over, then his arm over, an escalates until you start fighting again. Amusing stuff.Continue reading →

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Relationships and Politics

A friend of mine went out on a date with a SUV-driving, Fox News-watching conservative Republican. I wonder if he shouts at his television set or gets angry when people impugn his man?

I made the mistake of commenting:

Reminds me of an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm which I never saw because the last time I had television was when a room mate would watch Fox News on it. With a name like “GB”, I guess his political leanings are understandable. Does he go by his middle initial, “W”?

My brother once told me that he thought young Republicans were pathetic because as you got older you can always get more conservative—I blew that idea out of the water by getting more liberal…

You should’ve taken a picture of him for posterity before his species becomes extinct.

Bad Terry, never comment your political leanings on someone else’s blog! Bad! Bad!Continue reading →

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What I’m having for Thanksgiving

If anything should be indicative of a my right-wing gen-x background, it should be this simple fact: I did cross-ex debate in high school. One result of that is my Thanksgiving meal: a burger at Jack-In-The-Box.

The University of Pittsburgh tournament is held on Thanksgiving weekend. This is not a big deal normally for a Pittsburgher such as myself, except that for those last three years in high school, my family shared Thanksgiving with my relatives in Chester, New Jersey. I have nothing to show for this except a bad junk food Thanksgiving habit.Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 6

The Worst “Best Man” Toast

I was Best Man at my brother’s wedding last week. I think that perhaps the only reason was because Mia asked Ken to make me Best Man—Ken knows better. While my family does love me, they know that I am highly erratic at best.

Let’s put it this way: When I was seven years old, my Mom took me to Kennywood. The parking lot is just the other side of the freeway and there is a short tunnel under the freeway to get to the entrance on the other side. That day, my mother gave me a ten dollar bill in the parking lot. When we got to the other side (about 20 yards later), I had lost it. We went back and looked for it and it was nowhere to be found.

Is that the sort of person you should be entrusting your wedding rings to?
Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 30

Holiday Cards

The company I work for started offering printed holiday cards. I really like the holiday list maker we built, but I’m not using them. The selection is poor. (Luckily, that is offset by allowing you to upload your own photo, which I recommend you do.) I’m uncertain they got the color calibration correct on their dye-sublimated printers. (That is a problem I’ve found with even photo printing services, so it is unfair to blame our partner.)

But really, it’s just not me.

three holiday cardsEven though I almost never send holiday cards, I am always on the lookout for great Christmas cards and buy them when I find just the right one. Potion Brand is a wonderful example of cards done right, in a way you just can’t get through a service: square cards, vellum envelopes, sparkle! I bought a couple boxes and I’m sending them to the people at work this year just to remind everyone at work what a real holiday card looks like. Perhaps I’ll get a few boxes for next year for everyone else.

Update: The cards didn’t arrive in time. I guess it goes out next year.

Posted on by tychay 1