Dave Mancuso dot Com

I missed Saturday and Sunday postings. On Saturday I drove down to Philly to see my brother Joe–he’s in from Guam to visit us, and he’s in Philly until Wednesday. It’s difficult to articulate, but on Saturday I was treated to a full and joyful day of true Mancuso family life, from family bantering to Joe’s amazing demonstration of persuasion, intimidation, and sheer force of will to attain a five dollar discount on a DVD player (we were right, they were wrong, they gave us the five bucks off).

On Sunday we spent an exhausting but fun day with friends, the Stiles and the Williams families. I had a great time with each, and I just wish we could have spent more time with each of them (these were mutually exclusive activities). Joe and Laura Stiles’ little daughter was christened early in the morning, and things went flawlessly. I really enjoyed the church, and it was fun to let the Mass responses flow out of me almost subconsciously. There are little things that I forget about Catholicism, skills I never use as a Methodist, like the practiced flip of the foot to fold out the pew kneelers. Of course, my wife couldn’t follow the ceremony at all, so I had to squelch my push to convert back to Catholicism…

The picnic afterwards was a lot of fun–one of the last times we’ll see the Stiles up here–they’re moving away soon (no Brad, not because of me–I think). I have a feeling that we’ll stay in touch, though, and not just because of the awesome pizzelles that Joe had at the picnic. Actuallly, the pizzelles disturbed me greatly–they caused me to blow my diet big time. Eight times, in fact–I think I made a huge dent in the pizzelle supply there. Terrible, terrible.

We had to cut short the picnic to get to Mike’s surprise birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. It was great to see Mike and the family, and the kids had a great time. Unfortunately, this place uncovered my wife’s shocking addiction to Skee Ball. Don’t worry, I’m looking for help for her. I really think that if she had unlimited tokens that she’d still be there now, rolling the balls.

I’m using as one of my web browsers the program Safari (I use 5 browsers regularly–Internet Explorer, Safari, Mozilla, Camino, and Firebird). Unfortunately, several internal company builds of the Safari beta software have leaked out into the Internet. Dave Hyatt on his Safari weblog has asked that people not comment on the leaked builds, and people have in some cases reacted with hostility.

Personally, I’m surprised that Dave hasn’t been under pressure from his employers to yank this blog. I’m glad it’s here, but I don’t consider Dave under any obligation whatsoever to keep it up and running. I think that fact that it’s up at all is a tribute to openmindedness in the face of real world politics. Apple’s trade secrets are one of the only weapons it has to survive and prosper–I would expect no less of them than to enforce it vigorously. For anyone to expect anything else is naive at best.

Back on Memorial Day, we had a picnic with relatives. We offered my father in law a hot dog with sauerkraut. He looked at it and said “A dog with a skirt? Sure thing.”

I’m not extremely well-traveled, but still, I’ve never heard this one before. I wonder if it’s a PA Dutch term or just one I’ve missed?

At least I haven’t told my kids to “red up your room” yet (this apparently means “ready up your room” or make it ready, if I have my PA Dutch translation correct). I’m from Philly, where we drink glasses of “wood-er.”

And Mike, you can call it “Filthydelphia” all you want. They still make hoagies and cheese steaks that’ll kick your hometown’s sorry tail all over the place.

🙂

Wow. President Bush fell off a Segway. That’s amazing. The thing is virtually impossble to fall from–it anticipates your movements and leanings with several gyroscopes. His name is George Bush, not Gerald Ford…

He got right back on though, and then cruised around successfully with George Bush, Sr. on another Segway. Two Segways to ride around. I’m jealous.

I guess sometimes it’s good to be the king.

The second DVD that will come out for The Two Towers will have extra scenes that bring it to over 3.5 hours of running time.

The movie cut version of The Two Towers will be released in DVD on my birthday (August 26), but I’m holding out for the extended edition–it will be released in November. It looks like they have some pretty cool extended scenes. They even promise to explain why they trashed the character of Faramir so awfully (in my opinion, anyway–he was a much more noble and wise character in the book).

Amazing–look at this 360 degree set of view of Parma. (You’ll need Quicktime to do it for Mac or Windows, but it’s worth it. Oh, you’ll probably want a fast Internet connection too).

This one’s mostly for my dad, who works with a cool airline carrier who owns a brand new fleet of 737s. The guy at this site is making a full replica of a 737 cockpit, complete with original components. Wow. I could never put even a plastic model together without using too much glue. What’s next, the rest of the plane?

This one is great–I laughed all the way through the page. It’s a joke send-up about the Nigerian email scam. Brad showed it to me this morning and he’s posted it on his site.

Alyssa may have to rethink her review of Finding Nemo. An AP news story talks about how fish who are flushed don’t actually make it to the ocean–they get chlorinated and shredded by powerful machines. Man, they don’t even make it as fish sticks. Thanks to Metafilter for the link.

There’s a good review of blog post writing clients at MadCow Studios and Frequency shows up as the strong favorite.

I can’t wait until the next version comes out.