We don't have a lot of Mexican restaurants in Calgary - if you don't count Taco Bell, anyhow. Salt 'n' Pepper and the Tecate Grill... there may be a few more. Julio's Barrio is a Mexican restaurant that is in the old location of Red Robin's in… more »

My wonderful wife got me one of these for Christmas, and I've already been playing with it. I've done 5 of the 130 projects so far - most of them are not that hard - and have been finding it rather interesting, though I obviously have not learned… more »

Totally distracted thought, but I've noticed that the toilet bowl water sloshes around a fair bit whenever it's windy outside. What I haven't been able to figure out is whether that has to do with what the wind does to air pressure inside the house,… more »

My coworker Debbie and I share a student at our online school-- a young man who is travelling internationally right now and recently landed in India after months in Germany. I teach him Chemistry 30, and Debbie teaches him Pure Math 30. I recently… more »

Sometimes, it's just really tough to pull a meal off in short order, and there's weird stuff in the fridge. I'm an experimenter, though, and sometimes, they turn out to taste pretty good. So here's a recipe invented last night. If you actually try it… more »

It's a bit nerdy, but here is a page that contains an excellent video of a presentation Ken Miller did regarding Intelligent Design and 'irreducible complexity'. It's a really well-done presentation. I wish science classes had been nearly that much fun… more »

Judge Jones put a lot of thought and effort into this. The judgment, found here, is a staggering (to me) 139 pages long, yet it is easy to read, thorough, and utterly definitive: the Dover School Board was religiously motivated, and violated the… more »

There was something that happened in a security patch Microsoft put out that was wrecking our clip art objects that we store in databases. Since more and more people were applying the patch, we were understandably worried. It was, albeit harrowing at… more »

Dena and I own most of the set of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, and I'm a tremendous fan of the old Henson movies Labyrinth and Dark Crystal, so we were terribly intrigued at the thought of a new movie with a Neil Gaiman story and the Henson crew… more »

You know, not long ago I would have thought it utterly likely that this would have been a rant. But no. more »

I was reading an interesting news article summarizing the life and times of Mirecki, the professor at the center of a firestorm in Kansas where he was to teach a class talking about mythologies including Intelligent Design, had to drop the course and… more »

If you keep entering contests, you're bound to win something else :) Ritchie - I’m writing to tell you that you won yesterday’s quip contest. Congratulations! You are a funny guy. You should be receiving a free Quip It! game and two… more »

Just a quickie link here to a page that lets you track down most botanical gardens worldwide. I was trying to track down some botanical gardens for my parents (currently in Qatar) to visit, and was a little surprised that Qatar had no such things - at… more »

While I was chatting away in World of Warcraft, while I was on one of the interminable transport rides, someone asked exactly what computer programming was all about. It was an intriguing question to try to answer in a non-trite manner. So, before my… more »

Now, regular Diet Coke is gross. It's just... gross. So when I started seeing some Splenda-based Pepsi products and the like south of the border, I got kinda excited. Then I see Coca Cola Zero show up here, and the sweetener is... aspartame!?? I was… more »

In following my typical spider-web of links when I get going on a reading spree, I came across a link to a pretty interesting article in Reason Magazine. Give it a read-see. You can skip a lot, but do not miss the Irving Kristol quotes. I've read a lot… more »

Ever since realizing that they have brought back those however-many-in-one electronics kits, and realizing that I totally missed out on the experience as a child, and that perhaps I could finally understand what the hell Keith is talking about when he… more »

Just realized something today. The only two accidents I've been in of any note, both of them involved concrete dividers. more »

Okay, it's a piece of hardware, but in many ways, it is totally a toy. Running around Christmas shopping, it can be utterly tempting to give yourself a Christmas present. Well, I succumbed :) I picked up a Wacom Graphire[4] Graphics Tablet. I've… more »