WombatNation

The main security blog I read is Matasano Chargen, which is educational and amusing. Today Wes Brown posted a basic intro to SIP and SIP security issues in the context of a story about Mario, Princess Peach, Luigi and Bowser. Fear the turtle.

This Saturday there’s an Oktoberfest celebration in the Dimond district from 11 am to 6 pm only about 6 blocks from our house. Obviously, we’ll be there. Local brewers Linden Street, Pacific Coast Brewing, Trumer and Triple Rock will be pouring their beer, plus there will be beer from New Belgium and traditional Bavarian brewer HB.

The Dimond district has a long history of having beer gardens, though sadly it’s been a long time since the last one closed.

There will be free valet bicycle parking (Biergarten Radlparkplatz) at Fruitvale and MacArthur provided by the East Bay Bicycle Coalition. Since I plan on getting the commemorative beer stein with 4 beers (only $20!), it’s probably better that I won’t even have to bike home.

I’ll be ready to order my bier and bratwurst and toast my fellow drinkers appropriately (Prost!), since I brushed up on my German a few weeks ago for the visit to Vienna as part of our vacation. I actually managed to have a few short conversations on that trip, so those three years of night classes weren’t all for naught.

We take a train from Budapest to Vienna this morning. Budapest has been fantastic, though the weather was not always so great, chilly and rainy at times.

We had a wonderful stay this week at the Danube Guest House. Bob and Zoli have been the perfect hosts. They were gracious, helpful, informative and kind. Our room was large, well furnished and very clean. Breakfast was simple, healthy and delicious, especially the croissants, and the Krups espresso machine reminded me of my beloved Capresso machine at home. Staying at the Danube Guest House is an incredible value, especially given the great location of this B&B in central Pest. Highly recommended.

Like always, soccer is playing an important part in our trip. Two nights ago after dinner at Mosselen Belgian Beer Cafe (great beer selection, but not as good as The Trappist back home in Oakland) we watched the last few minutes of several Champions League matches at Champs Sports pub just a few doors down from the Danube Guest House. Last night after dinner at Menza we watched the second half Everton versus Standard Liege in a UEFA cup match.

Tonight is the big highlight, though, as we have tickets for Rapid Vienna versus SV Reid in Vienna. Rapid Wien is in first place in the Austrian Bundesliga and scoring a lot of goals, so it should be exciting. Fortunately, it looks like the earlier forecast of rain and cold has changed to partly cloudy and cold.

Saturday morning we leave for two weeks in Hungary, Vienna, Slovenia and Croatia. We also sneaked in a twenty-three and a half hour layover in Amsterdam on the way home. They wouldn’t let us make it more than 24 hours without charging us more.

Our niece is spending the fall semester in Budapest, so we start out there for about 5 days, probably doing a few day trips out to places like Szentendre. We spent a few days in Budapest two years ago before the World Cup and loved it, so we’re really looking forward to going back.

She’s got a great apartment in Pest near the Erzsébet bridge (yeah, yeah, I should either use hid or Elizabeth, not a Hungrish combination) and found a new, cool sounding B&B nearby called the Danube Guest House.

We head for Vienna on Friday, where we’ll see an Austrian Bundesliga match between Rapid Vienna play SV Reid that night. We only got to spend one day there on our World Cup trip, so another two days well be nice. I’ve been practicing my German again in anticipation. It’s nice to be able to read most of the signs and the explanations at museums in the native language, even if most everyone speaks very good English. And my chants at the soccer match will be more believable in the right accent.

Sunday we take a train to Bled, Slovenia. Lake Bled is a gorgeous sub-alpine lake with an island in the middle and a castle on a cliff. It’s a relatively easy walk or bike ride around the lake, you can rent rowboats to take out to the island, and they have wonderful pools and spas.

Then we’re off to Ljubljana, Slovenia, and then to Zagreb, Croatia. Unfortunately, we can’t stay in either city as long as we would like.

I took Nick to the vet yesterday and it turns out that Dr. Braun and his wife went on a similar itinerary this spring. Just how often do you find yourself getting recommendations for restaurants in Zagreb from your vet (all of my dedicated Croatian readers aside, of course)?

I normally can’t see myself riding a recumbent, but this one would be pretty cool.

And going back to my previous post that mentioned wooden bikes, this one looks pretty heavy, and that’s just from all the spokes.

And topping the recent discussion here of belt-driven bikes is this cable-driven bike that you have to row.

I’ll be in Amsterdam for just under 24 hours in two weeks, but unfortunately I don’t think I’ll have time to make it over to Eindhoven for the exhibition.

The Daily Show on Wednesday was brilliant. Jon Stewart and his team did a fantastic job of letting Karl Rove, Bill O’Reilly, Dick Morris, and Nancy Pfotenhauer demonstrate their extreme hypocrisy by playing recent videos of them completely contradicting videos of them from the last few months to a year ago. Palin provides a message for Clinton on sexism that she should take to heart herself.

Rove gushes about Palin’s great experience as being the mayor of the second largest city in Alaska. But when Obama was considering Tom Kaine, Rove ridiculed Kaine’s experience as the mayor of such a small city. Let’s see, Richmond, Virginia, has a population of over 200,000. Wasilla, Alaska, comes in at 9,000. Hmmm, so being the mayor of a city of 200,000 counts for almost nothing, but being mayor of a tiny remote village makes you ready to be Vice President. Rove belittles Kaine’s having only been Lieutenant Governor followed by three years as Governor, but lauds Palin’s two years as Governor. He claims a selection of a person with only Kaine’s experience would mean Obama isn’t concerned about whether his VP is capable of being the President. Somebody send that man a calculator, because Rove needs to run the numbers to find out that by his own standards, McCain made a far worse selection than the person Obama passed over.

Bill O’Reilly gets all sensitive saying that Bristol’s pregnancy, like any other teen pregnancy, should remain a private issue as long as American taxpayers don’t have to support the cost. But then here’s some video of him ripping into Jamie Lynn Spear’s parents and calling them pinheads for letting her get pregnant. No way American taxpayers paid for that pregnancy. Wow, double standards from O’Reilly? Never expected to see that happen.

Next up, Dick Morris claims that criticism of Palin is “deep sexism” and shouldn’t be tolerated. But what about when Hillary Clinton was under attack? Hmm, I think I transcribed it right when he said, “When a woman wants to be President, she shouldn’t complain based on gender.” He says a lot worse, too. Maybe there are special rules for VPs. Jon nails it on the head when describing Morris, though.

Nancy Pfotenhauer, McCain’s senior policy advisor, attacks Clinton for “playing the gender card”, acting like it is an affront to all women. But, then Palin shows up and suddenly Pfotenhauer is pulling a gender card out of every sleeve. Her Palin message seems to be 1) Play the gender card 2) Whine about sexist attacks. Pfotenhauer claims the attacks on Palin are one of the most outrageous examples of double standards she’s ever seen. Jon’s got some footage she needs to see.

Then we get some nice video of Palin attacking Clinton for complaining about sexist attacks, saying “work harder, prove yourself to an even greater degree, …” Hey, before you complain any more about sexist treatment of yourself, listen to your own recorded statements. And while you’re at it, make sure Nancy and Dick listen in, too. And stop flip-flopping on the bridge issue. Just admit you once supported it, but reserve the right to get smarter and change your mind. Unlike the current President who reserves the right to stick to stupid decisions, no matter how overwhelmingly the arguments build against them. Except, of course, when he regularly switches to worse decisions, cutting off his nose to spite his face.

The University announced they were trimming some of the contested oaks this morning. Well, I’ve heard from someone on site that they’ve “trimmed” seven of them to the ground. They’re now trying to get the rest of the tree squatters out of the trees.

While I consider myself an environmentalist, I’m with the University on this one. Most of the faculty, staff and students also seem to have had more than enough of the squatters and are looking forward to them finally being gone. Not that the squatters are going to disappear tomorrow, though, just because the University cuts down the trees they planted and have legal permission to remove.

So after fixing the flat I got biking to work today (fortunately, it was a slow leak, so I could ride in before fixing it), I’m talking to Stephen about bike innovations. After talking about the bike another friend of mine designed and constructed completely, or at least 99%, out of wood, we start talking about gearing and chains and whether it makes sense to build an automatic shifter with a battery that gets recharged by pedaling. Then we start talking about alternative drive trains.

Now, I can’t remember the last time I said penny-farthing. Probably while watching the intro to a Monty Python show ages ago. Among other drive train variants, I mentioned that a penny-farthing was direct drive.

Thirty minutes later I’m biking home. I turn off Buena Vista onto Grand and coming up the left side of the road is a guy on a penny-farthing bike. Perhaps, finally making it home after Burning Man. Sometimes life is weird like that.

In a comment on another post, a friend pointed out a fun game from Language Trainers Group for guessing accents . You listen to someone read a few lines from a poem and then you answer a multiple choice question to identify their country of origin. For a couple of them, you can get bonus points for guessing which city the speaker is from. And if you’re not from that country, it’s very likely to be a wild guess.

I got about half of the 16 right. I would have gotten nearly three quarters of them correct if I had always gone with my first guess. I was too suspicious that the obvious answer wasn’t the right answer.

My mother stayed in Biloxi at a friend’s house very close to hers in north Biloxi. She just went back home and discovered the only damage to be limbs down in her yard. Fortunately, her house is in one of the best places to be in Biloxi in a hurricane.

Winds in Biloxi reportedly reached just below hurricane strength. One of my mother’s friends who evacuated to Mobile can’t get back because the roads are closed. Highway 90 is impassible due to sand and debris blown/washed up onto the roadway.

She has heard rumors that Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian got hit pretty hard. The new Bay St. Louis bridge was closed due to the water level and the continued high winds. There is no access to the city from the east.