Chili Con Dedo

From the Washington Post:

A woman said she bit into a partial finger served in a bowl of chili at a Wendy’s restaurant, leading authorities to a fingerprint database Thursday to determine who lost the digit.

Employees at the Wendy’s were checked and the fingertip didn’t come from any of them, officials said, adding that the well-cooked finger may have come from a food processing plant that supplies the company.

Health officials said the fingertip was approximately 1 1/2 inches long. They believe it belongs to a woman because of the long, manicured nail.

“1 1/2 inches long”? I should hope that there wouldn’t have been any need to check the employees to see if it was theirs.

And Then We Were 10

My business domain, moshplant.com was registered 10 years ago today: 17 March 1995.

It predates PHP. It predates MySQL. It predates Flash. It predates Shockwave. In its lifetime, it’s run on a variety of servers, but mostly Macintosh machines in my office that were connected to the Internet using standard phone, Frame Relay, and SDSL lines. We ran databases with FileMaker, Butler SQL, and Tango; ran a webcam back when they were still black and white; and jumped through all sorts of hoops to do things that anybody with a hosted domain can do today without even thinking about it.

The Web. It’s been a long, expensive decade.

St. Nicholas Day!

St. Nicholas Day is sort of a special day here in the Moshofsky/Plant household. It’s my birthday, it’s Barbara and my wedding anniversary, and we decided by fiat that it’s the birthday of our over-the-fence boy kitty, Jackie Chan.

Happy Holidays!

Stan the Man in Portland

The last time I saw Stan Ridgway was during his “Mosquitos” tour 15 years ago. That show was in the same decade as his peak of popularity with Wall of Voodoo, “Mexican Radio,” and videos on MTV, and it was at the old Starry Night (now Roseland) venue.

I don’t remember how big the crowd was, but I’m pretty sure it was bigger than the 80 or so folks who turned up at Dante’s on 3rd & Burnside last night, or the 30 who saw him at the WOW Hall in Eugene the night before. What’s wrong with people??!!

Ridgway came out on stage alone for the first several songs. He was joined later by his wife Pietra on keyboards and Rick King on guitar. The set consisted mostly of old favorites: “Salesman,” “Factory,” “Call of the West,” etc., with a few deviations from the Stan-dards: “Go Ask Alice,” “Down in the Boondocks,” and a fantastic turn on Mose Allison’s “Monsters of the Id” (which is on Stan’s new “Snakebite” album).

And after the show? You get to meet Stan.

Tribute

Three years ago today, a man dragged my 83-year-old grandmother from a bed at her caretaker’s home and shot her.

Margaret Baker was someone whose interest in books and writing inspired my own. The intelligence she passed down through my father’s side of my family is something I’ve been exceedingly thankful for all my life.

Fresh Off the Press

OGREMAR, Indiana (DP) — Citing a “vast weather conspiracy”, as evidenced by the dual attacks of thunderstorms and tornadoes and the release of “The Day After Tomorrow” on Memorial Day weekend, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge today announced a “war on God”.

“There is no doubt that these storms were ‘Acts of God'”, Ridge said. “The Homeland Security Department has determined that God is determined to strike again in the U.S. — and possibly elsewhere in the world — most likely before the elections this fall. We intend to prevent those attacks wherever possible.” Ridge did not respond to repeated questions for specifics about Homeland Security’s anti-God plans, but did say that God is suspected to have operatives “all across this country, in virtually every city and town”.

When asked why Attorney General John Ashcroft wasn’t in attendance at the press briefing, and whether he concurred in the prosecution of a new conflict, Ridge said, “He got the memo”, then abruptly ended the meeting.