Tapdancing Goats » Uncategorized http://www.tapdancinggoats.com A parfait of physics, Linux, LaTeX, and coding tips large and small. Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:58:43 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Last Easter http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/last-easter.htm http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/last-easter.htm#comments Tue, 13 Mar 2007 13:36:00 +0000 Alex Midgley http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/last-easter.htm This is what I started to write last April.  Apparently LJ has a draft saving feature now.  Unfortunately, I didn’t finish it, and it’s not worth finishing now.

It’s been awhile. I don’t feel like covering everything that’s happened just now, so instead I’ll just outline what I earned during Easter.


  1. Catholic Easter mass takes forever


    My sister received full communion into the Catholic church the night before Easter, so I got a cool, three for one bonus: Easter mass, confirmations, and baptisms. Sweet! I can’t tell you how excited I was, but the three (four?) hour ceremony exceeded all my expectations.

  2. There are kids who don’t enjoy hunting for eggs on Easter


    This is the first Easter that Connor is aware of, and my niece was with us too, so we had a lot of fun getting ready.
]]> http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/last-easter.htm/feed 1 Rent http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/rent.htm http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/rent.htm#comments Thu, 08 Dec 2005 03:00:00 +0000 Alex Midgley http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/rent.htm I’ve been listening to the Rent Broadway cast recording on Launchcast for awhile, and I just don’t get why it’s so popular. Granted, I haven’t seen it, but the music really sucks. It’s sort of operatic in that the characters are singing normal dialogue, but there is no leitmotif, or even any recognizable melody, holding it together. What am I missing?

And I’m incredibly impressed with how much Livejournal has improved in my absence. Much better than the crappy Expression Engine we use at Transbuddha.

]]> http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/rent.htm/feed 0 Taylor sucks http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/taylor-sucks.htm http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/taylor-sucks.htm#comments Wed, 23 Nov 2005 01:05:00 +0000 Alex Midgley http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/taylor-sucks.htm Taylor is a bastard, and his series is making my life hell.

]]> http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/taylor-sucks.htm/feed 3 “Back to You” and other dumb Segways http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/back-to-you-and-other-dumb-segways.htm http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/back-to-you-and-other-dumb-segways.htm#comments Fri, 01 Oct 2004 00:34:00 +0000 Alex Midgley http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/back-to-you-and-other-dumb-segways.htm Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza recently saw the opening of a retail store for the worst invention ever, the Segway.

The Plaza, the nation’s first planned shopping center and essentially an outdoor mall, is a mess of winding streets and tastefully disguised parking garages. Aesthetically free of stoplights or stop signs, drivers are expected to slow down as pedestrians dash across four lanes (or saunter and chat across four lanes, as the wealthier visitors are apt to do). The Plaza is a good example of our irrational dependence on cars. People have to walk to get to the stores anyway, so why let cars in at all? They could more than double the building space if they made people park on the periphery and walk in. Around 20,000 people live within walking distance of The Plaza, yet it has not one grocery store, not one pharmacy. This is a strong symptom of the lack of community in the area. People don’t want to gather in The Plaza because it is a dangerous, uncomfortable place for pedestrians.

Cars make distance travel, from the supermarket twenty miles away to a cross-country move, trivial, but that ease of mobility severs the ties that a person has with his area. Who cares if the corner market goes out of business when the supermarket is only ten minutes away. From this loss of local investment to streets scarring the landscape, cars are toxic to community. The Segway has been touted as the cure for our ailing communities, but it is, in fact, the worst invention ever.

Read the whole article here

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]]> http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/baby.htm/feed 10 Disturbing ads http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/disturbing-ads.htm http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/disturbing-ads.htm#comments Sat, 26 Jun 2004 05:59:00 +0000 Alex Midgley http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/disturbing-ads.htm Apparently, public brutal beatings are frowned upon in Calgary. A couple of ads used this cultural quirk to cast shame on domestic violence. Click here and here. Please note that these ads are so graphic that they were not allowed to air on Canadian TV.

]]> http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/disturbing-ads.htm/feed 1 A few announcements http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/a-few-announcements.htm http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/a-few-announcements.htm#comments Tue, 22 Jun 2004 19:45:00 +0000 Alex Midgley http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/a-few-announcements.htm I’ve started “working” at this site, which is mainly a blog right now, so I’ll be posting funny things, weird things, basically anything for the public, there. I’ll still post stuff here, but it will be for me, or stuff that is too bizarre for TransBuddha. It’s a cool site worth checking out; register and comment! We’ll be adding a lot of features to the blog, and rolling out a line of animations, videos, all kinds of fun content.

My bike got here, and it is awesome. It is beautiful, fast, and so responsive. This reminds me that I haven’t posted pictures of our apartment.

No baby yet, but we’ve had a few false alarms.

I’m borrowing my dad’s new digital video camera right now, so I may inflict video upon you if I can get it to transfer to my computer correctly.

I made some fudge using this recipe from the great show Good Eats on Food TV. It is wonderful, and it was very easy to make. Just some stirring and watching the thermometer. I have a digital thermometer for meat and frying, and I rigged a black paper clip to hold the probe at the right level in the mix. It was pretty cheap too; I think the chocolate is the most expensive ingredient. I recommend both the recipe and the show.

]]> http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/a-few-announcements.htm/feed 7 Coolest office ever! http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/coolest-office-ever.htm http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/coolest-office-ever.htm#comments Sat, 12 Jun 2004 01:06:00 +0000 Alex Midgley http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/coolest-office-ever.htm An office prank gone horribly awesome.

]]> http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/coolest-office-ever.htm/feed 2 Death http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/death.htm http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/death.htm#comments Fri, 11 Jun 2004 23:10:00 +0000 Alex Midgley http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/death.htm Could you imagine having Bush give your eulogy? I wonder if Reagan wanted to hold on for another seven months to avoid that.

Ray Charles died this week from liver disease. He never saw it coming.

]]> http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/death.htm/feed 3 Je suis en colère http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/je-suis-en-colre.htm http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/je-suis-en-colre.htm#comments Wed, 09 Jun 2004 07:13:00 +0000 Alex Midgley http://www.tapdancinggoats.com/je-suis-en-colre.htm I’m having a lot of trouble with the different French “ooh” sounds. For example: Tu veut manger l’oeuf pour le petit déjeuner has four different versions of “ooh.” I think I can make some semblance of each one, but switching between them is a bit of a tongue twister for me. Throw in the weird R, like cruche, and I’m gone. I think I’m doing pretty well with the nasals, but don’t even get me started on linking. Sure, it makes the language sound a lot more fluid, but it also makes a billion homonyms, depending on context. Sometimes I think there was some Norman conference ages ago on how to make the language as difficult to understand as possible. They had to review each word to make sure it sounded like at least fifteen other words depending on what came before or after it. There must have been subcommittees assigned to issues like, “How many meanings can we assign to the letter ‘a’,” and “Changing the meaning of words by appending a silent ‘t’.”

No wonder a sack of bile is called a gall bladder.

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