Vincent Gable

After I saw duckling’s jumping out of trees (from Planet Earth), I had to try some down pillows. And they are great, except that the tips of the feathers eventually work their way out of the pillowcase and poke you. The pokes are so disruptive that they ruin sleep more then a slightly-less-comfortable pillow. I’m sure there’s a good metaphor in there somewhere.

Last weekend I watched National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. I don’t recommend it.

But there is one, unintentionally, interesting scene. About one hour and 17 minutes into the movie, the police rush into the Library of Congress (chasing the man who kidnapped the president of course). Interestingly, there were no (fake) guns in any of the scenes inside the Library of Congress. The actors rushed in pointing their fingers!

Look carefully at this policeman’s hands, he’s holding them in a “low ready” position as if he were carrying a pistol, but there’s nothing there.

I guess they thought nobody would notice, and according to google, they were right so far.

If anyone has a high-definition copy of the movie, and can extract that one scene, I would appreciate it. A picture just doesn’t show it all (although a grainy video is worse).

Laptop’s built-in microphones, even on pretty cheap laptops, do a surprisingly decent job of recording talks. At least that’s the word on the street.

My last year in college, there were five fast-food restaurants within walking distance of my apartment. Now I won’t say I’m a connoisseur of the stuff, but I’ve had my share of drive-through-dinners (especially when coupons are involved). And I must say Burger King really stood out with their poor quality food. Unfortunately, they are now the only drive-through restaurant within a mile of my current apartment.

Now, I agree that the Whopper is a pretty good burger — better then anything from McDonalds (but a little less tasty then a Sourdough Jack). And the Cheesy Tots do have their moments. And I have to give props to my local BK for carrying Dr. Pepper, unlike every Taco Bell I’ve been to in the Midwest. And I really liked the creepy/hilarious “The Burger King” commercials. (And don’t forget the Video Game.)

But outside of hamburgers… Burger King is just bad. Almost all of their “chicken” products are mechanically separated meat. Their Original Chicken Sandwich is made of MSM, and has noticeably worse taste and nutritional value then the equivalent offering from Wendy’s, made of whole chicken. Burger King is the only restaurant who’s coupons I’ve thrown away.

Then there’s the health of it all, where Burger King gets low marks: “Fried foods from Burger King are alarmingly high in trans fat, according to The Center for Science in the Public Interest. A regular-size order of Chicken Tenders with a large order of French fries has 8 grams of trans — more than someone should consume in four days.“.

The QuickTime 7.5 update appears to have broken sound in VMWare Fusion, and also in some code I’m working on. I will know more once I have fixed the issue in my own code. But for now, I advise waiting to update QuickTime to version 7.5.