Dallas city council members have voted 10-3 to ban smoking in restaurants, effective March 1:

City leaders snuffed out smoking in restaurants today, passing an ordinance that exempts stand-alone bars, pool halls and tobacco shops that have separate areas for smoking.

The ban approved 10-3 by city council members also bans smoking in various public places, including hotel bars and lobbies, country clubs, bingo halls, hospitals, libraries, schools and transit system vehicles. Many of those places already ban smoking or had areas restricted by the city. […]

I’m not sure how I feel about this one. I think it’s pleasant that I might be able to better enjoy restaurants without smoke, but I don’t think it was the right decision for the government to dictate that.

I found this handy site listing the tv air times for tennis and it confirms that the Australian Open men’s final is on Saturday (at 9pm CST, which I suppose is mid-day in Australia).

I might normally be inclined to TiVo it and then just watch it the following day (sans commercials, natch). But, if you’re a tennis fan, we could watch it together over a few brewskies or something.

The SS American Star was grounded off the west coast of Fuerteventura in 1994, and has been rotting there since. I wasn’t sure what to expect at the site, but it’s a surreal view of a deteriorating corpse of a ship.

The pictures fascinate me, but I just don’t know why. Perhaps it’s the nature of destruction that wouldn’t normally be seen with a ship that size (somewhat like the curiosity in seeing the Enterprise crash-landed into a planet, I suppose).

(Link from MetaFilter)

I was listening to the Classic Rap channel on Sirius Radio (live audio feed here) yesterday. Somewhat with the same idea as “classic rock”, the classic rap channel plays tracks from rap of years past.

They play artists such as Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, and old-skool Beastie Boys. So, I was listening on my way downtown, and on comes the Sugerhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”. I was rather amused by the innocence and yet genuine humor of the lyrics:

Have you ever went over a friends house to eat
and the food just ain’t no good?
I mean, the macaroni’s soggy the peas are mushed
and the chicken tastes like wood.
So you try to play it off like you think you can
by sayin that you’re full.
And then your friend says “Momma, he’s just being polite
He ain’t finished. Uh uh, that’s bull”.
So your heart starts pumpin and you think of a lie
and you say that you already ate
and your friend says “Man, there’s plenty of food
so you pile some more on your plate”.
While the stinky food’s steamin’, your mind starts to dreamin’
of the moment that it’s time to leave.
And then you look at your plate and your chickens slowly rottin’
into something that looks like cheese.
Oh, so you say “That’s it, I got to leave this place.
I don’t care what these people think.
I’m just sittin here makin myself nauseous
with this ugly food that stinks.”
So you bust out the door while it’s still closed
still sick from the food you ate
and then you run to the store for quick relief
from a bottle of Kaopectate […]

I had heard parts of the song before from movies, but never before in full (what a treat). And, I’m even more amused just trying to imagine someone like Puff Daddy signing lyrics like those today ;).

I went to 8 Minute Dating last night, which was held at the Cape Buffalo Grill (a couple exits up the Tollway North). The idea is that eight guys and eight girls each have eight 8-minute dates (four dates, an intermission, and four more dates). At the end of the night, each person writes down who he/she would like to see again and, if there’s a match, they’re e-mailed each other’s contact info.

I first heard about 8 Minute Dating from a segment on Fox News. I was at the gym and I just happened to see it one one of the overhead tvs. I thought it sounded like fun, so I decided to give it a try (I had heard about speed dating before, but I wasn’t aware of any in Dallas until now). A few clicks and $28 later, I had a spot.

I didn’t really know what to expect, going into it. This group was for people 25-35 (with me falling at the bottom end of that). Most of the dates were very pleasant, though a couple girls were around 30 (a bit old for me) and there was this one crazy girl that couldn’t stop talking about NASCAR ;).

The site guarantees that each person will find someone that he/she would like to see again. As it turns out, there was someone that interested me, though I haven’t heard if she has picked me as well.

Update: Nope, no matches. Maybe next time.

If you’re running recent builds of Mozilla (20030116 or later) with the Spellchecker XPI, you’ll find that it crashes on spellcheck. That would be bug 2916 and, fortunately, the issue is known and a fix should be out soon :).

As mentioned on the OpenOffice.org announce mailing list, OpenOffice.org 1.02 has been released:

OpenOffice.org 1.0.2 is available for download. It is a “micro” release and does not include new features. Rather it incorporates many bug fixes. Reports indicate that it is faster and more robust. For a full report, please read the Release notes. […]

As mentioned, this is a maintenance release, so the changes are just in the way of bug fixes. Looking over the list of bugs-fixed, it appears that the fixes are mostly for the Calc component or Max OSX-based. And, I’m curious as to whether this release (1.02) is more current than the current “Developers Release” :-/.

I’ve signed up for SXSW, including the discount for the DFW Bloggers (South by Southwest is a film, music, and technology festival in Austin). However, I now need to find a room. So, if you’re looking for a roommate, let me know.

I'm looking forward to so many of the panels there:

• Joe Clark will talk about “High Design, High Accessibility” [Sat, March 8th]
• Lawrence Lessig will elaborate on the Creative Commons Project. [Sun, March 9th]
• Katherine Parrish will discuss barriers to participation in Internet communities. [Sun, March 9th]
• Davezilla will school you on how to make your site funny. [Mon, March 10th]
• Eric Meyer, Tantek Çelik and Jeffrey Zeldman will de-mystify CSS. [Mon, March 10th]
• Ben and Mena Trott will lead a discussion titled “Beyond the Blog.” [Tues, March 11th]
• Josh Ulm will dissect the latest trends in web design. [Tues, March 11th]

I see that SimCity 4 has been released. Ahh, such memories of youth, playing that game (and its silly code-key on that red paper). I’m curious whether the game logic has changed much since the original, or whether the graphics are the primarily updates. Oh, I see that IGN has a review:

For the most part, gameplay follows suit with the earlier SimCity games, but this time around you can build on slopes and hills, which is a necessity for a landscape like San Francisco. Slopes have their drawbacks, though. While residents like the view from hills, industrial complexes won't locate on hills because they prefer flat, wide-open spaces.

Another nice feature is the addition of automatic roads when you built a block. Since all buildings must have street access, the game automatically builds side streets around your defined blocks. This really saves you time since you don't have to plot out your road system before laying down blocks. […]

(Link from MetaFilter)

I’m going to a concert this evening (Sunday) at The Canyon Club, part of the Bronco Bowl Entertainment Center. Their site offers these directions from Dallas:

1. Take I-30 west to Hampton Road exit
2. Exit Hampton Road South
3. Turn Right (west) on to Fort Worth Avenue at the first stop light
4. Bronco Bowl Entertainment is located half a mile from Hampton Road on the left (south) side of the street.

For those that have been to The Canyon Club before, do those directions make sense? Or, is there anything else I should know about getting there?

Oh, the bands — almost forgot about that part ;). The headliners are Nile and Napalm Death, but my main interest is in Dark Tranquillity.

I don’t have any Napalm Death albums, but that's primarily because other albums have taken purchasing precedence. My non-deceased friend Brian Wagner quite liked them and I don’t recall disliking the band when he played them for me. Well, I’ll just have to give them a listen and try to form an opinion.

Before reading about them on the show annoucement page, I hadn’t even heard of Nile (which is a bit surprising, since they’re the headliners). However, a quick search of the reviews at Metal-Rules.com turns up some positive results:

While hard-core death fans, particularly those into complex pay-attention, you�ll-be-tested-on-this kind of metal, will probably take to this CD immediately, the album will probably grow on just about everybody given enough listens. The intricate secrets locked within the music will take a good number of listens to unlock. […]

— Metal-Rules.com review of Nile’s Black Seeds of Vengeance with rating 4.5/5.0

Hmm, so I don’t quite know how to take that. I enjoy some death metal, though there are metal subgenres that I prefer even more (such power metal, in particular). Well, since Dark Tranquillity are not the headliners, at least they won’t be playing last. So, if any of the post-DT bands aren’t good, I can just go home without guilt.