Ted, Ted, Ted » Funny

Topical songs make the world go ’round

ted — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:09:08 +0000

A couple of songs that have been bouncing around in my head for a few months. I finally recorded them so I could get them out of there and start thinking about something else for a change.

“Summer” in San Francisco

ted — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 23:45:58 +0000

In honor of the nicest time of year in our fair city — not the four weeks between September 15 and October, which is when 100 percent of the nice weather takes place, but the fraction of that period when the hipsters embark on their annual migration. To the tune of “Summertime.”

Burning Man, and the parking is easy
Not an artist to be seen around here
Coffee’s scarce, and Valencia’s a ghost town
And all the bikes on the street have gears

One of these mornings you’re gonna rise up singing
You’ll spread your wings, and you’ll pack your van
But until that morning, it’s gonna be a bit crowded
And we’ll all just park wherever we can

Goodbye to all that

Ted — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 18:45:04 +0000

Dept. of FWIW: Here’s what I wrote to Amazon and Paypal after I’d slogged through to their respective “Contact us” pages:

I was disappointed that you decided to participate actively in the state’s efforts to limit our freedom of speech by attacking WikiLeaks. Although I have found your services useful, your behavior in this instance makes me wonder what other actions you may take, or may have already taken, that might affect my privacy or free speech rights. I cannot continue to be a customer of a company that I can’t trust with something so central to my life. Please cancel my account immediately.

Bums working

ted — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:18:12 +0000

If you suspect (like me) that the best we can hope for from Obama is Lyndon Johnson without the expletives, and that that’s not nothing, this is for you. This is one op-ed that won’t get in the paper. The best restatement of the high-liberal paleo-Keynesian we’re-all-in-this-together ideology that I’ve seen this century. Complete with gratuitous anti-Soviet insinuation to inoculate against red-baiting. As a bonus, makes a great deal of sense, and will never ever be read by anyone named Geithner.

Best User Guide Ever

ted — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:29:14 +0000

This is what we’re up against. Perfectly intelligent people can’t tell a white paper from a user guide.

How-To Guide

ted — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:25:50 +0000

I try not to be surprised when an amateur comes up with a better how-to guide than I’ve done in a while.

The W3C’s new SEX 1.0 specification – O’Reilly XML Blog

ted — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:26:34 +0000

I usually don’t go in for April Fool’s kind of stuff, but this is moderately funny, in a mildly geeky way.

Go immediately to this site

ted — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 21:02:42 +0000

This is currently the best site on the web. (It acceded to the position after this one abdicated recently.)

Roy Edroso teaches writing

ted — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:03:20 +0000

Hear hear.

Dim like me

ted — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:53:19 +0000

The Boston Globe today:

Researchers with access to closely guarded college admissions data have found that, on the whole, about 15 percent of freshmen enrolled at Americas highly selective colleges are white teens who failed to meet their institutions’ minimum admissions standards.

When I was a white teen, by golly, you had to get into your not-so-selective institution by your own bootstraps.