Text — Lightbulbs

Q: How many jerks who ask stupid questions does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Change it to what?

Text — Law & Order: Too Close for Comfort

My dad’s name is Vincent D’Onofrio.

There’s an actor, you may have heard of him, named Vincent D’Onofrio.

Both were born in New York.

We’re regularly asked if we have any relation to the actor. Other than being fans of his work? Nope. Although if I’m asked if my father is Vincent D’Onofrio, I say “Sure.” Because he is. 

They’re roughly the same age, though my dad landed a bit before the actor, so he was first. 

The other day, my folks received a card from a Reverend in Illinois. It read, “Congratulations on the birth of your new baby, Luca!”

I have a brother, his name is Luca. He’s 19. My folks couldn’t figure it out. My brother was wondering who on earth this person was. So he looked her up on the interwebanet, and had my mother gave this Reverend a call.

After the greetings, mom asks “Do you know us?” The Reverend says she heard that there was a new baby and though it would be nice to send a card. 

“Perhaps you think that this is the actor’s family?” says Mom.  

That was it. The Reverend was quite embarrassed.

It turns out that the other Vincent D’Onofrio had a baby. Named him Luca. (My brother was born 19 years prior, so he was first.)

And get this, there’s a reason why the actor named his son Luca - our families shared the same pediatric dentist in midtown Manhattan. At one point the office was sending bills our bills to the actor’s address, so he saw the name “Luca D’Onofrio” plenty of times. 

Regardless of who was first, there are now two fathers/sons in New York named Vincent and Luca D’Onofrio. The world is one crazy place.

…

If the actor Vincent is reading this: 

Hey, stop copying off our test!  

Text — The Goog

Got invited by my friend Tanya to a cocktail party for Outward Bound, hosted by Google here in NYC. While what Outward Bound does is very interesting and a great cause (as well as a lot of fun) it took place at Google! The Google! So let’s check it out.

Here’s Tanya after a beer. At Google.

The party took place in the ginormous Google dining hall. They have expensive food, boy. Those shrimp? They’re no joke. Those other things are buffalo wings and they were awesome.

Here she is in the restaurant area, next to where the sweets would usually be. Google employs a full complement of chefs, at least ten on any day, given the number of different “food areas” they have.

This bear is outside the door to the dining hall. His placement leads me to believe “Don’t be evil” means “Please clean up after yourselves, nerds.”

When you work at Google, you get whatever you want for lunch. If it’s not being served at either of the two “main” restaurants, chances are you can cobble it together using a variety of components from the restaurants as well as the gen-pop sections of the dining hall.

But who’d want to, when you get celebrated chefs from around the world visiting at least once a month?

Seriously, each of them gets a hanging sign in the hallway - their name, when they came and what they made. Incredible.

Text — Lased

Went down to Adafruit last night to get some lasing taken care of. As usual, Phil Torrone (of Make fame, and for myself, his older hardware hacking adventures & gadget reviews) was a great host - beer and everything!

Everyone needs one of these Epilog machines in their home and/or office for random laser cutting and etching needs. Better to be prepared, right?

Sizzling from the power of light.

The design was created by our creative director Steve Tze, originally for the company shirts that we sported at Macworld this past January.