YetAnotherPersonalHomepage

Interesting… a new New York City BSD users group has formed: NYCBUG (pronounced, nice-bug). I guess it fills the void left by the defunct FreeBSD Users of NY (FUNY). Best of luck.

We took friends visiting from the Netherlands to a food joint you probably won’t find in the "Where to eat" lists: Hiram’s Hot Dogs. We try to go when the weather warms and we can put the top down on the Volkswagen and eat our dogs with the sun beaming down but braved bitter cold to share this little place with our friends. This dive eatery off Lemoine Avenue in Fort Lee, N.J. has been in the business of serving Thumann’s hotdogs since 1928. My father-in-law went as a kid to Hiram’s to get these oil cooked dogs and not much has changed- the menu is still just hotdogs, hamburgers, french fries, onion rings and soda or beer. Have them straight or with cheese, chili or red-onion sauce. There is a steady buzz from the open kitchen, six small tables crowded with a counter with another handful of seats and covered pots of self-serve saurkraut and relish sit on the counter by the door (ask for chopped white onions). The walls are covered with clipping and photos, the restrooms in the back are accessible only from outside and it fills with a clientele that cuts every which way across the social, ethnic and economic strata of New Jersey. The place is full of strongly held and voiced opinions (ask anyone behind the counter about the Rangers, for example), but the main one is that Hiram’s serves the best dogs in New Jersey.

The blog spam is getting really annoying. Every few days I’m getting a half-dozen or more bogus "comments" consisting of a perfunctory word or two and a link to some site selling V!@GR4, video poker or some other marginal crap. I guess they are hoping to make it into the search engines or lure in the casual reader. I cull the messages immediately but there has to be a better way. I’m not thrilled with the pending queue implementation (the idea is good, though) but the discussion of James Seng’s solution is promising. In order to comment you must enter the randomly generated string displayed for you.

BMW has a new GS for 2004. No price or availability yet. Read about it here (onewheeldrive.net). Specs are unofficial, of course. Pretty nice that they shaved over fifteen pounds off it (depending upon the specs you believe, I’ve read dry weights for 1150’s of 530lb/240kg, so it might be more). Looks like part of the savings was in the alternator, down 100 to 600 watts. Wheels, front and rear travel and seat height are unchanged. Displacement, torque and compression are up. ABS might be different. See here (cmgonline.com) for a little info and photos and photos from UK spy articlehere (smugmug.com).

Maybe I’ll get lucky and it will push down the resale value of the older models enough that I can buy one. Yeah, didn’t think so.

A happy and healthy new year to everyone!

Our ringing in the new year was very low key. We decided to stay home on amateur night. The crowd restrictions in Times Square and it being Terror Alert color "marigold" or "citrine" or some-such are a handy excuse. We made snacks and appetizers, watched a DVD and just before midnight turned to NY1 to see the ball drop and opened a bottle of Belgian-style spiced ale. Sleeping late on a weekday was nice and we’ll meet friends later today.