Ice, Solder and Fletch

There is simply no elegant way to cough with an ice cube in your mouth. And yet, sometimes you must.

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I am about to go solder six 0402 size capacitors onto the circuit board I am testing. I have never worked with 0402 size capacitors. They are small enough that you could probably fit a good 5 or 6 on the back of a ladybug. I know people do it. I’m just not sure how.

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I am a fan of the Gregory McDonald mystery novels, which most folks know from the Fletch movie adaptation1. The humor style of the books is different from the movie, largely because Chevy Chase is just being himself, doing his own thing. I like both.

I used to own every Fletch, Flynn and Skylar novel, and re-read each many, many times. They are not great literature (Mr. McDonald is a bit heavy-handed with getting a theme across at times) but I like the writing style and his plots are often rollicking. It got to the point, though, where I decided I had just read them enough, and they had to go. I considered bundling them all up and selling that whole batch on eBay, but in the end we gave them to our friend Sarah for a garage sale.

The last thing I had read of his was Skylar in Yankeeland in 1997.

Lo and behold, on a whim, I did a search on Amazon for him today, and he published Flynn’s World in 2003. I’ve been waiting 10 years for a new book, and I only had to wait six! Sheesh.

And on further investigation, I see Fletch Won, the first of the Fletch prequels, is slated to be a movie in 2007. IMDb says rumors are Zach Braff is scheduled to play the lead. I’ll go with that.

1 Though not the Fletch Lives sequel, which had nothing to do with the book series storyline, largely because the ending of the original movie was different from the book (and much inferior, IMHO).

Evolution of the Onion

Kansas Outlaws Practice Of Evolution

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55807

“If Earth’s species were meant to change over successive generations through physical modifications resulting from the adaptation to environmental challenges, then God would have given them the genetic predisposition to select mates and reproduce based on their favorable heritable traits and their ability to thrive under changing conditions so that these advantageous qualities would be passed down and eventually encoded into the DNA of each generation of offspring,”Olathe public school teacher and creationist Joyce Eckhardt said. “It’s just not natural.”

Brilliant.

Book Log – Going Postal

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

I read this a while back. I’m not sure when, but the mass market paperback came out a year ago and it’s sitting on our bookshelf with creases and dog ears, so that coupled with a vague memory of the plot makes me think I’ve read it. But I didn’t see it on the Book Log when I went looking for it a moment ago, so here it is.

I think I enjoyed it. Why not? It’s a Discworld novel.

Book Log – Thud!

Thud! by Terry Pratchett

This is another in the wacky Discworld series. Why can’t dwarves and trolls just get along?

Like M&Ms, this is very much like the last one I ate. Sugary, enjoyable, but I wouldn’t want to live on them.

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On the To Be Read pile:

*The Ancestor’s Tale: A pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution by Richard Dawkins
*Darwin’s Children by Greg Bear
*Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond
*Can’t Wait To Get To Heaven by Fannie Flagg
*Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
*Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty
*A whole slew of Janet Evanovich books given to for early Xmas.

Book Log – Shiksa Goddess

Shiksa Goddess (or, How I Spent My Forties) by Wendy Wasserstein.

This book was recommended by one of the Motley Fool folks on their Eclectic Library discussion board. Non-fictional Essays are more or less my favorite type of book, so I was sold.

I’ve never seen a Wasserstein work on stage, nor do I think I’ve read any. In fact, before I read this book I knew two things about her: 1) She was a somewhat famous playwright and b) She died in January 2006.

While the essays were well written, nothing in there jumped out at me as amazing. Some stories are sad, some amusing. There was somewhat of a black cloud over the reading, as her sister died young and she is writing about how her mother was terribly concerned about Wendy’s health. Here I am, knowing she would be dead 5 years later (at the way too young age of 55), so even her optimistic essays get a tinge of unintentional melancholy.

She seems a nice lady and in fact writes an entire essay about her own niceness, and how she often uses it to her advantage. The one essay that made me think a bit was about gov’t funding of the arts (Wendy was for it, and I remain on the fence). So, since she got me to think a bit, I’ll call the book a win.

So. Here we are.

Given that the Dems are going to “change things”… does anyone have a suggestion on what they should do in Iraq1?

‘Cause I’ve got no blessed idea.

On other fronts, I’m with Robert Reich. (hat tip to for the link).

1 Not having gone there in the first place, while true, is not an acceptable answer.