Via silent-tristero, I discovered this article in the LA Times on a recent study on dialects in America. You might think that it’d be mostly common sense but, there were some surprises as well:

Work on the atlas already has begun to unveil some surprising facts about the state of North America's dialects, such as the sharp boundaries that exist between them. Some linguists have argued that pronunciation patterns should vary along continuums, the way the northern prairie gradually becomes the southern desert. Labov has found that dialects tend to abut sharply, more like cold and warm weather fronts.

“When you drive from Akron down to Columbus, Ohio,” he said, “you’re crossing one of the great American divides [from the Northern to the Midland dialect], even if you're not aware of it.” [...]

The article also links to the web version of their dialect atlas. There, you can see, for instance, that Oklahoma City is part of the South Midland dialect — the same as Cincinnatti — not the Southern dialect. And, El Paso is part of the West dialect — same as Sacramento — not the Southern dialect either.

I’ve recently discovered Monster Garage on the Discovery Channel, and it’s excellent. It’s similar in some ways to Junkyard Wars, but maybe even better (if that’s possible).

The premise is that a team is given a vehicle, $3,000 (for buying parts) and a challenge. For instance, in one show, they had to turn a Eddie Bauer edition Ford Explorer into a working garbage truck that had to be able to grab trash cans and empty them into truck. In another challenge, they had to turn a Lincoln Towncar limousine into a working fire truck.

But, the catch is that the vehicles have to appear stock from the outside (until the machine goes into action, of course). So, in the example of the of the fire-truck limousine, the team had to build a retractable nozzle that would come out of a panel in the roof of the limo.

And, the team members are incredibly smart people — world class gearheads, hot rodders, and mechanics. Their skills, from welding to hand-machining parts, were truly impressive.

Anyhow, Monster Garage airs Sundays at 4pm EST / 3pm CST on the Discovery Channel. Check it out.

Jason was musing about a peanut butter and bannana sandwich that he had the other day. He seemed to quite enjoy it, so I asked him about it:

Alex: Seriously, are they any good? I’ve never tried peanut butter and banana together, so I have no idea :-/. Neither product is particularly sweet, though I imagine the slight saltiness of the peanut butter might act as a sort of “seasoning” to the banana?

Jason: Well… I like it. It’s probably just something you have to try and see if you like it yourself. Actually it’s pretty similar to the old stand-by of peanut butter and jelly, except the jelly part is a bit firmer and not quite as sweet ;-)

Alex: So, how much peanut butter do I apply? Just enough to cover the bread, or do I slather it on?

Jason: Um... somewhere in between, I guess :-/ …probably another “personal preference” thing.

Alex: And, about 1/4“ slices for the banana, eh?

Jason: I’ve found that slicing the banana once lengthwise, and then each of those pieces in half, gives you four pieces that fit nicely on a slice of bread, and is easier than cutting it into many coin-shaped slices. Not sure if that makes sense... wish I could do banana-slicing diagrams in ASCII.

Alex: I’m not used to typing “banana”, and you wouldn’t believe how many times I ran into the banana problem during this e-mail <g>.

So, that covers the exposition. Fast forward to the present: I’m jonesing for a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich. And, I’m stoked because I see that there’s still a banana left on the countertop. So, I trod downstairs and open the fridge — but, there’ no peanut butter! Feh. My hopes are dashed. (Well, ok, there was a smidgen of peanut butter left, but still not enough to make a sandwich)

So, if I go to Kroger tomorrow or within the next few days, maybe I’ll buy some more peanut butter. I'll have to ask Jason which kind he prefers. Really, I haven’t had peanut butter since I was a kid, primarily because of its high fat content (16g/serving, yikes!). However, most of that (13g) is actually unsaturated fat (the less-bad fat) and peanut butter apparently has no trans fatty acids either (the hella-bad fat). So, maybe I’ll have to give peanut butter another chance.

Thinking it over, I recall Jason saying that I could add condiment x to make the peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich even better. Now, what was it? Salt? Sugar? Cinnamon, or something? Maybe I just have peanut butter on the brain, but I just can’t think of it at the moment. Hmm.

Update: In the comments, Jason mentions that condiment x == honey. Aha.

Cool, it looks like GI Joe is returning to Cartoon Network in July. (link from TiVo forum)

Oh, and Battlebots season 5 is apparently starting in August. (link from this thread)

I saw Minority Report yesterday, and it was generally quite enjoyable. I still hold that “PG-13” and “good action movie” are two mutually exclusive concepts, and this was no exception. The key here, of course, is that Minority Report was more of a sci-fi flick than a pure action movie.

Favorite bit: the cereal box. In some ways, it reminded me of Eddie Valiant’s reaction after he hits the fire hydrant in Toon Town.

Least favorite bit: the snot. As Americans like to say, that was “uncalled for”. I thought it was unfortunate that the film used the “gross is funny” philosophy of humor from time to time. See also: the scene with the floor grate.

Overall, it was a good movie, and I’d recommend it. The story is intriguing, and the effects are impressive. At many points, the CG cars looked like models to me, in the way that they accurately reflected ambient light. And, for CG, I can think of no higher compliment.

Experimentalist composer John Cage is famous for his piece 4’33”, which is just silence of just that length. Recently, Mike Batt composed a piece of minute-long silence for an album. But, Cage’s lawyers didn't take kindly to that.

Mike Batt, the man behind the Wombles and Vanessa Mae, has put a silent 60-second track on the album of his latest classical chart-topping protégés, the Planets. This has enraged representatives of the avant-garde, experimentalist composer John Cage, who died in 1992. The silence on his group’s album clearly sounds uncannily like 4’33”, the silence composed by Cage in his prime. [...]

Stupid lawyers. (Link from Adam Shand’s Word Up mailing list)

Looking over CNN.com, I found this article on “What to do with all those wireless minutes?”. And, I can relate to much of what they speak about.

A more extreme solution for using free wireless minutes has been to ditch the wires altogether and use cellular for all calls, whether local or long distance. But less than 2 percent of Americans have ditched their regular phone and gone all-wireless, according to Diercks.

Ah, that would be me ;). Actually, I’ve arranged with Jason to split the landline with him. Previously, I only used my mobile phone for all calls, but I figured that the quality of a landline may be handy for job interviews and such.

One way to address such issues, at least partly, is to attach a cell phone to a docking station that connects with a regular telephone to mimic the experience of a normal call. Such devices can also come with a special antenna to improve wireless reception indoors.

“If they didn’t have quality issues in the home environment, people would optimize their cell phone minutes,” said Mark Isaacson of WHP Wireless, a Melville, New York-based company that makes one such device, the CellSocket.

Another base station named VoxLink is produced by Vox2 of Northborough, Massachusetts. Both products, which sell for $100 and up, only work with a limited but growing number of cell phone models.

Those devices sound quite convenient — almost giving the best of both worlds, if you will. But, given my current state of (non) employment, I’m trying to cut down on my spending. So, I won’t be buying either the Vox Link or the CellSocket at the moment.

I “resigned” from my web publisher position at AIVIA today. If you need a front-end web coder, please contact me (the link is on the right). I’m proficient in (X)HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

I’ll post links to my resume and portfolio once those are up to date.

Some bloggers are going to see Minority Report this evening, the new Tom Cruise / Steven Spielberg flick. It was well received by critics, and it'd be kinda tempting to go.

Chicago Sun-Times / Roger Ebert:
This film is such a virtuoso high-wire act, daring so much, achieving it with such grace and skill. Minority Report reminds us why we go to the movies in the first place.

Film Threat / Clint Morris:
Where Minority Report succeeds is by dishing up a little bit of everything � to see no one leaves the theater disgruntled. There are helpings of science fiction marvel, there�s some interminable tension and a real human story underneath it all. The specials effects are damn impressive to boot.

Salon.com / Andrew O’Hehir:
It's a dark and dazzling spectacle.

And, I’m not just cherry-picking the reviews, either — those are all reviewers that I feel I can trust. However, my long-standing boycott against the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is still intact.

The reason for my boycott is that, under pressure from the MPAA, the Norwegian government earlier this year indicted teenager Jon Johansen for writing software to enable DVD playback on Linux.

In exemplary cases over the past few months (Lord of the Rings, Episode II, and the like), I would make donations to Johansen’s legal defense fund. However, I'm now in a bit of a moral quandary. Up until now, my procedure has been to avoid MPAA films if possible, and make matching defense-fund donations if I do attend a movie.

Thinking it over, I could tweak the “boycott” such that I would instead be a “matching-funds consumer” (or something). That is, under this new idea, I would attend movies as if I had no “boycott”, but continue making the matching donations. That would allow for the entertainment value of the movies, of course, but it may also mean net-positive monies towards The Good Guys. That is, though I would pay (say) $8 for the movie and $8 to the EFF, the money would act as $8 gross revenue for the movie industry but $8 net revenue for the defense. Hmm, not bad.

Man, principals can be tough.

Apparently, there was an American version of the brilliant John Cleese sitcom Fawlty Towers called “Payne”. Starring John Larroquette, the show was faithfully “ported” to America, even down to the bumbling butler.

It only aired from March 1999 to April 1999, but I’ll have to see if my TiVo can find any reruns for me.