Secretary of Treasury: Warren Buffett
Secretary of Technology: Lawrence Lessig
Secretary of State: Colin Powell
Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates
Attorney General: Marissa Chun
Secretary of Homeland Security: Tom Kean

Aaaaand just for fun:

Secretary of Transportation: Darrell Waltrip
Secretary of Commerce: Kanye
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Samuel L. Jackson
Secretary of Labor: Ché

Nobody reads this crap.

More specifically, the kind that is spontaneous and manifests itself out of pure apathy and laziness.  In Chicago,  having a system map from the CTA is like a right of passage.  It’s like a small piece of cred that you wave around to look legit.  I’ve had one of these for about 5 years now, having always intended on getting it framed or something.  Well frames are ridiculous exepensive, so I started thinking about other options.

Stainless Steel/Sheet Metal would be nice because it is more authentic to the look of the holders for these maps on the actual train.  I also thought of a simplistic idea where I bind the top and bottom edge with 1/2″ PVC piping.  What took so many of these options out of play was that I didn’t have the necessary tools for the job (like a router for instance. $200!)  Further complicating things was my lack of available work space where I could make a huge mess, and I did.

I ended up settling for the kitchen table.  We have a nice sized table about 5′ x 11′ that was given as a hand-me-down.  I was completely prepared to fuck this entire thing up with some stupid mistake.  I haven’t done any woodworking in a long time, and the experience I do have is severely limited.

I managed to find all my supplies and raw materials at Home Depot, which was rather surprising.  I spent a good 30 minutes before trying to find some kind of hobby store with a better selection of wood.  HD has plenty of wood, but most of it is construction wood that isn’t quite precision-cut and rather rough.  I wanted this to look nice.  Despite not having the tools, I originally wanted to do this somehow with sheet metal.  Even though I knew I couldn’t pull it off, I decided to inquire about sheet metals.  It turns out this is where the depot is lacking.  They basically have one endcap sized space with samples on it.  I’m sure you can probably get giant sheets, but there was no information or clear pricing around it.

So. 3 hours later I whip up this bad boy and mount it in the living room.  The trains in chicago also curve the map in their mounting, which is what I was going for.  Later on, I’ll probably give it a nice lacquer finish so the two types of wood don’t look ridiculous right next to each other.  I’m way proud of this quick project right now, especially because for once it went smoothly most of the way through.  Later on, I’ll have to fix the miter on the top mounting.  That one needs to curve a little differently to look natural.

The raw materials cost me right around $20 with a 4 foot length of wood left over.  For that price I’ve got a quirky, one-of-a-kind CTA poster frame.  It doesn’t get much better than that.  I was inspired to make this thanks to this DIY Frame Instructable.

All yew fellow scallywags if you know what’s good for you ought to live in the moment.  Yew’ll never know the day may come you get run through with a cutlass, you’ll know my sword by the sharp pain in your back b-).

• Our returning champion: The Cook County Dept. of Revenue!  Since your chances of being ticketed after not moving your car for 9 days straight are about as good as you blinking in the next 30 seconds.
• Time Sheets
• The guy giving me the stink eye on the El this morning (to be fair, I was trying to figure out if his girlfriend was a tranny or not)
• That nobody in my office has inboxes, therefore if I need to give them some paperwork and they’re on vacation, It ends up getting lost on my desk somewhere.
• I’m somehow the world’s worst bike restorer because I got a flat 1 week after restoring an otherwise perfectly good bike, COMPLETE with new tubes and tires.
• My apartment is still stuffy despite the temperature yesterday hitting 60°.

Congratulations to the US economy and Utiliy Companies on beating the list on the count of the word ’superficial’ not applying to them.

To say last night’s live performance of NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! was damp would be an understatement.  All in the good name of Public Radio entertainment however, my efforts weren’t in vain.  As you can see below, the entire panel of the show was sympathetic enough to stick around after the show and greet everyone who had the tenacity to further risk infecting themselves with an inevitable cold.

However the rain served as a line in the sand between the fans dedicated enough to risk health to see this live performance and those listeners more casual.  A point that Peter Sagal reminded the crowd of frequently by chiding us with declarations of insanity.  The panel of Mo Rocca, Paula Poundstone and Tom Bodett was fresh and comical as usual.  With the media scrutiny over Alaskan Governor and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin this week, Paula from time to time would rattle off other American women that were passed over, but still qualified for the slot.  One candidate named was a little girl who dug halfway to China.

Sickness has been held at bay for now.  Hopefully it will stay that way through the weekend for the Flugtag.  THAT event will have motion pictures with it’s update.

I saw Wait Wait last year, and have a lot of anticipation for that event tomorrow.  And the greatest part of all this?  Every last one of these events are FREE.  Free as in beer.  F-R-E-E free.  If I’m not careful, I’m going to end up being the freegan savant when it comes to city events.

That’s not always a bad thing as it seems like my plans are extending more and more into the future.  And being the lunatic with illusions of granduer that I still am, it’s good to save as much money as possible.  OOOOOH OOOOH!  I just remembered I have an old polka record that will work quite nicely to accompany some flugtag montage.

After all, the web has a small indirect amount of responsibility for our meeting.  Far more could be explained in detail - especially since ratings aren’t a concern - just know that it wasn’t a site employed specifically for dating that was responsible.  Feelings?  There’s plenty; too bad I’m not good enough with metaphors to pass editorial scrutiny.

There was also an internet humor sighting in the real world over the weekend that makes me thankful that my phone has a camera on it.

I must admit that it was my car parked at this meter despite this instance of failverload not being mine.  I was a little worried though and moved my car.  Back to my head in the clouds now.

• Waiting in line forever at lunch only to receive poor customer service from the McWorkers.
• The random ‘people’ that decide to follow me on twitter.
• Not being able to teach my co-workers to technologically fish, only to feed them.
• That those videobloggers I most enjoy seeing have been slowing a lot in the last 6 months.
• How much bureaucracy and effort it’s going to take for me to get a parking permit.
• That many of the things I used to do with my free time are now gathering dust.
• That my family is taking all the fun out of being an irresponsible uncle.
• Those that just recently became parents.

More to come as they manifest.  Hoping to do this periodically.  For the obverse, vist Stuff White People Like.

Nationally, iPhone is in a market share battle with WinMO and Blackberry where each has a take of roughly 30%.  Unfortunately in finding this data I ended up being disappointed in a few websites because they sourced data from a study of the internet browsing world in which iPhone’s competitors were Windows, Mac, Linux, Playstation & SunOS.  Hardly a disciplined source.  But that is neither here nor there.  What I am getting at is for the development community to so heavily favor one manufacturer whose market share is ±7% that of it’s competitors is a poor move.  The smartphone-buying public is on the cusp of a mac’s exodus and no other company has done anything about it.

Windows Mobile Development has tried to patch the dam with bubble gum by trickling out a few new toys like it’s 6.1 update and occasional new features for LiveSearch.  The disparity being seen lies solely in that of the 3rd party.  By comparison on the iPhone there are gorgeous, well thought-out applications that allow you to get in a sono-physical light saber fight via phoneSaber or get the GPS-accurate location of your friends on Loopt just to name a few.  Do the smartphone guys not have fun?  I can personally refute that they do.

Browse any site offering software for windows mobile phones and you have found the most UI-depraved caverns of the internet.  Freewarepocketpc.net has software - as described - free, and the honest truth is that the for-profit competitors have done little but polish the porta-potty toilet seat that is WinMO applications.  As iTunes has proven more than once now, a centralized store for digital content could seem to help.  It serves as a reverse garden wall where the best applications by production standards get a featured spot for users to consider.

So here I sit at an impass: can I elevate my social status by buying in to the the fastest growing, most popular mobile phone in history whose service agreement sleeps with the devil in the form of AT&T or do I stick with my utilitarian approach of A phone with GPS & EVDO that I can infinitely customize to my hearts content and sacrifice aesthetic?  While the rest of the world is asleep to the dilemma at hand, those that shop smart know that this battle is far from over.