ran dry

My red pen just ran dry as I was correcting papers and it got me to thinking – I’ve never used a new pen until it ran out. Of course, I’ve had them stop running prematurely and finished up partially-used pens, but I can never seem to keep pens around from start to finish. Other people take them, or they just disappear magically, perhaps into the wormhole that most of my socks eventually seem to drop into, as well.

Also, I cannot remember how long it’s been since I’ve written a letter by hand. I used to do it every few years just for the novelty, but now… I’m definitely going to make the kids do it, though.

Chris Pongpitaya’s Supercar Knockoffs

…Because nothing says genuine 911 like a spoiler the size of a Cessna wing (and judging by the height of the hood, front wheel drive as well).

(thx Mark)

This video intrigued me so much, I had to dig around a bit. Here’s the juicy bits:

UPDATE:
Here’s some alternate contact info I found; I have no idea if it’s correct.

Chris Pongpitaya Schoenes Co.
229/3-4 Soi Akamai 7, Sukhumvit 63
Bangkok 10110 Thailand
Phone +66 2392 4177

Deleting Gmail Trash

Today is Mother’s Day in Thailand since it’s the Queen’s birthday, and the Queen is mother to all Thais. Nam and Max went to Khon Kaen with my mother-in-law and I spent the day watching Mina. She basically slept on me all day, only waking to feed and put everything within reach in her mouth before throwing it on the ground.

While she slept, I trashed several thousand mailing list messages in Gmail that I’ve no longer got time or interest in keeping up with, and hit the Empty Trash Now link. The following message ran across the status ticker thingy up top:

Oops… the system encountered a problem (#793) – Retrying now…

Gmail continued to suffer from Excedrin headache #793 for a few minutes, after which the beautifully empty trash page appeared with this message in the middle:

No conversations in the Trash. Who needs to delete when you have over 7000 MB of storage?!

Cheeky.

—

On a related note, I don’t really like the new Gmail interface (mainly, the Compose mail button sticks out like a wart), but I can live with it. If you can’t there’s a way to switch back to a much older version of the interface, albeit without Labs support.

Sickly Gecko

Yesterday when looking for tools to make a gated baby fence, I found the smallest gecko I’ve ever seen. He was hiding under one of my tool bags and was suffering from some gross mold that had eaten away part of his body. Less than an inch long, the thickest part of his body was about 1/16″. He was too weak to run for very long, so I trapped him on a scrap of paper and put him outside on the window ledge where lazy insects like to congregate. I fear he wasn’t long for this world, so I hope he got a nice last supper.

The Boobie Mushroom and Leafy Mothra

Both recent finds when all I had was a crappy cell phone camera.

The boobie mushroom is the size of a large charsiu bau and appears after a heavy rain.

This is the first time I’ve seen this type of mushroom here and one can only wonder if licking the nipple would be deadly or not.

The leaf-winged moth AKA Leafy Mothra

I found Leafy Mothra in our driveway and captured it in an empty mustard jar for Max to see. He was duly impressed, as the entire body was blaze orange. Leafy Mothra was about 2″ long.