Buy my car

My civic is for sale, and it has it's own website at mattmullen.net/civic. I even outfitted it with mp3 and bluetooth cell phone support.

What I'm Reading Now: The Graveyard Book

I'm reading Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, because I enjoyed Coraline so much. Opening line: "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife." Wikipedia calls the genre "Fantasy, Horror". I wonder what the expected age of the audience was.

they aren't lying - these blends are unique

This chocolatier features sweets like "stracciatella" truffles (wikipedia calls stracciatella egg-drop soup), pear flavored chocolates, or chocolates filled with pistachios or chili peppers.  wild.

http://www.lindtusa.com/category-exec/category_id/7/view_all/1

I met Cory Doctorow tonight

I had a blast at the EFF book reading [ http://www.111minnagallery.com/2009/03/eff/ ] tonight in San Francisco, and got to meet Cory Doctorow afterwards.  I'm tired now, but maybe pictures posted tomorrow.

What I'm Reading Now: Paycheck

Paycheck, by the insane, but talented Philip K Dick.  Good or bad, I don't have any intention of watching the Ben Affleck movie based on the plot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BOOQdiGVCo

Cory Doctorow is coming to SF on Monday

Cory will be in SF Monday night for an EFF fundraiser.

link: http://www.111minnagallery.com/2009/03/eff/

I wonder if he'll sign my book.

brilliant Married to the Sea

This was a pretty great Married to the Sea comic from earlier this year:

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/mtts-archives/mttsarchive-jan09.php

What I'm Reading Now: The Invisible Man

I think the problem with H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man is that it's called The Invisible Man.  This spoiler in the title removes the authors ability to build suspense and slowly reveal clues to the reader as to the curious condition of the oddly behaving protagonist.  My review so far: boring.

Faraday bags

This is a great product for the paranoid - these handbags block RFID transmissions.  I should get one for Rachel.

They should make RFID blocking backpacks, toolbags & briefcases, too.

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5260703

The layers are a lie

I scratched my head when I saw a cake icon light up in Adobe Acrobat today. The mouseover text explained.

I don't usually expect this level of snarky-ness from Adobe. I usually only see this in open-source applications.

This is going to be a lot of work

This wikipedia article is about 1001 albums to listen to before you die.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1001_Albums_You_Must_Hear_Before_You_Die

This seems like just a monumental amount of work.  I'm thinking I'll need a google doc list to check off what I've heard, and it will take years.

American traders: Obama to blame for economy?

I like to watch the djia at google finance at least once a week, but one thing keeps confusing me: the 'discussions' section seems to be completely filled with people bitterly attacking the current president for every job loss, DOW slide, or other negative economic condition.

I'm confused because these people often know their stuff: if you corner them and ask what caused the economic collapse, they can tell you the story of bad lending, low-rated mortgages combined into larger packages and sold with high security ratings, they might talk about big swings in the giant pool of money by China & India, but all of these things will cover the last 6 years of the housing market.

I can't figure out how they reconcile years of factors leading to a problem with the last 5 weeks of Obama's tenure as President. Shouldn't they be mad at banks for doing terrible risk management, or previous presidential administrations for lack of oversight & regulation of banks?