The Daily Parker

After almost exactly 5 days (actually 5 days and 20 minutes), I'm unpacking, laundering, rehydrating, and figuring out where I put the gifts I didn't get a chance to hand out before leaving.

Regular updates resume presently.

Oh, and:

I'm at the Peet's Coffee in Half Moon Bay, Calif., while the rest of the family slowly starts their days. In the past hour I've heard the following:

• "All meditation techniques are awesome."—60-something woman
• "What I really need is someone who's good at syndicating real-estate investments."—the same woman three minutes later
• "If you eat something that only eats vegetarians, that's still vegetarian."—man of unknown vintage wearing dark sunglasses and a pony tail, trying to work out why the Jewish clerk didn't have (a) Christmas dinner or (b) crab meat yesterday

I think the clerk had more difficulty working out how crab meat got involved than how someone living outside San Francisco in the 21st Century failed to grasp the relevance of Christmas to non-Christians. Apparently the latter happens all the time.

Then there's this Captcha I just encountered, which did its job so well it prevented a non-automated system (me) from proceeding:

(This may have been the vendor's attempt at Hanukkah humor.)

Every time I visit San Francisco, I stop here:

Today I only left with 400 g, which unfortunately I'll have to leave with my family. Well, unfortunately for me; knowing them, it won't last two weeks in the house. That's an acceptable outcome.

I'm still banging away at software today—why is this damn socket exception thrown under small loads?—so I only have a minute to post some stuff I found interesting:

• Chicago and the State of Illinois are planning the largest urban park in the world in the mostly-abandoned Lake Calumet and South Works areas of the south side.
• It looks like the far-right has hijacked Hungary's government, in the way that right-wing governments do, which should remind everyone who lives in a democracy how fragile the form of government can be.
• The Atlantic's Ta-Nahesi Coates has one of the best definitions of bigotry I've encountered: "The bigot is never to blame. Always is he besieged--by gays and their radical agenda, by women and their miniskirts, by fleet-footed blacks. It is an ideology of 'not my fault.' "
• I have tentatively decided that Facebook's Timeline feature is cool, while at the same time recognizing how it once again makes it harder for average users to control the privacy of their data on the site.

More updates as events warrant.

In the past day I've seen two movies, both adaptations from really good novels: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Incendiary.

The former, adapted from John le Carré's 1974 novel, brought me right into the Cold War and had me transfixed by Gary Oldman's performance. After next weekend—when I think I'll have a couple of hours of free time—I'm queuing up the 1979 version with Alec Guinness.

The latter, adapted from Chris Cleve's 2005 novel, disappointed me. Except for Michelle Williams' superb acting, it missed the point of Cleve's novel so completely I wonder if director Sharon Maguire read the novel or the Cliff's Notes. Perhaps the novel's dark and disturbed ending didn't test well? It wasn't a happy novel; it wasn't supposed to be. Maguire made an entertaining Bridget Jones' Diary, so why'd she miss so badly here?

I'm juggling a couple of clients today, so I can't write entire entries on any of these:

• My favorite steakhouse in Chicago, Morton's, will get bought out by a company in Houston. The deal closes in February, so I'll have to get in there once I finish digesting my Christmas dinner. (Could take weeks.)
• Christopher Hitchens died last night; Andrew Sullivan has posted great stuff about him today.
• The President will sign the Defense Authorization Bill into law, even though it contains almost-certainly-unconstitutional provisions.

OK, back to the mines...

A client visit up in Manitowoc, Wis., ended a little earlier than planned today, so I was able to:

1. Avoid rush-hour traffic in both Milwaukee and Chicago;
2. Pick Parker up tonight instead of tomorrow; and
3. Snap this photo from the roof of the Lincoln Park Whole Foods:

So I thought I'd take another look at Sebastian Gutierrez' film Girl Walks Into a Bar the other day. But before the film started I saw this:

Not knowing what to make of these options, I chose the two minutes of proselytizing and went to make my lunch. When I got back, the movie was on its way without interruptions, as promised.

What the LDS church hopes to accomplish through this PR campaign escapes me for the moment.

If you don't know Hyperbole and a Half, set aside an hour and read every one of Allie Brosh's posts. Since it's December, though, start with this one:

By the time I was done reinventing her, Mary carried a cane, walked with an exaggerated limp and was completely covered in BandAids.

She was also blind.

I started reading the blog last night when I got home for dinner and finally stopped 90 minutes later because my face hurt from laughing.

Apparently they came from China:

While the descent of dogs from wolves through domestication is non-controversial in genetics, determining the region in the world where this occurred has been more of a question. Earlier studies had suggested a Middle Eastern origin for dogs.

A new study focusing on the lineage of the Y-chromosome indicates that dogs originated somewhere in eastern Asia, south of the Yangtze River.