04.27.07
The Anticipation Is Killing Me
I highly recommend that you go watch the new Harry Potter trailer. It gives me shivers. 
04.16.07
Everyone Is Right Sometimes
I like to read politically-extreme blogs on occasion - I find the results of the Internet and anonymity to be generally amusing. Anyway, if you ever read any far-left blogs, they play up a stereotype of a flag-waving, bible-beating, pickup-truck-driving man, all ready to rip your civil liberties right out of your body and stomp all over them. Like most Internet commentary - this blog included, no doubt - I wouldn’t consider such blogs (or stereotypes) worth much beyond their entertainment value.
So, when I was walking back from class a few minutes ago, I actually saw a guy driving a truck with a sign on the front that said “Jesus,” as he held a large American flag out the window. And I thought to myself: they were right - he does exist.
04.12.07
So It Goes
R.I.P., Mr. Vonnegut. I never cared for your politics, but you could write a helluva novel.
04.10.07
Questions Kids Ask
We all know that one of those stereotypical things that kids are curious about is “why is the grass green?” Turns out, the reason that grass is green is because purple was already taken.
Hmm… Good thing that we don’t have purple grass, otherwise Jerry Falwell might rally for the complete deforestation of the planet.
What A Wild Ride It’s Been
It’s been a while since I wrote here. I’d love to say that I’ve been away because I’ve been doing Terribly Important Things, but that just wouldn’t be accurate - no, largely, I have been avoiding writing because I’ve been playing a lot of video games as a means of escape from what has been a relatively blah semester.
I say “relatively” because, honestly, the semester hasn’t been all bad, and plenty of people have had way worse. It’s just that several things all came together in a perfect storm that encouraged escapism rather than trolling other blogs for news stories to comment on, heh.
Speaking of such things, here’s a link to the IDS article describing how my fiancee and I spent our Saturday night a couple weeks ago. (Yes, if you’re wondering, I was getting ready to hop off of WoW when a guy broke into our apartment.)
Anyway, the semester is winding down. Classes are almost over, and there’s a lot of really great stuff on the horizon. Indeed, although it’s been a long spring term, I’ve got a lot to look forward to - including getting back to blogging. So, while I’ve got several months of ideas backogged, some of which may turn into posts and some of which may just sit and collect dust, I’m all about taking requests. If there’s anything you’d love to see a rant about, if there’s a bad movie you’d like to see a review of, whatever - just leave a comment or drop me an email. Otherwise, you’ll just have to deal with the standard mix of recipes and politics that are the raison d’être of this blog.
12.14.06
It Won’t Work But We’ll Do It Anyway
Senators Charles Schumer - whom you may recall is the Senator who keeps trying to reinstate the draft - and John McCain have had enough of sex offenders using Myspace, and so they’ve come up with a Great Idea for a federal law to solve the problem. They want to require sex offenders to submit their active email addresses to law enforcement officials so that these officials can create a nationwide database, and then sites like Facebook and Myspace will cross reference the email addresses of new members with that list. Any offender who submits a fraudulent email address could be facing some jail time.
Now, this sounds like a great idea, right? Umm, just one problem: it’s ridiculously easy to get an email address. Or ten email addresses. And it’s not like the cops are going to come by on a weekly basis to see how many email accounts you have. Besides, since sex offenders can quite easily trot down to the local [restaurant/cafe with free internet access] and never get caught anyway, what exactly is the purpose of this legislation? That’s right, kids: it’s a little thing I like to call “grandstanding.”
Just like the CAN-SPAM Act, which has been about as effective as bullspit in a bucket at keeping SPAM out of my inbox, this proposed legislation will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem, but it just might make some people happy that their Senators - at least one of which is a potential presidential campaigner in 2008 - are doing something “for the children.”
12.11.06
Chris Rock = Clairvoyant?
Check out this clip from the first episode of the Chris Rock show - it’s from about ten years ago. If you’re in a hurry, skip to about 3/4 the way through and check out the title of the videocassette he picks up. Babadadum!
12.10.06
From The Yeah, Right Deparment
A new law proposed in Congress would make it illegal to program and record music from digital radios and transfer those songs to MP3 players.
Now, my irritation with the record industry aside, I must ask: how exactly will this law be enforced? I mean, sure, if you’re distributing pirated music, you can expect to be caught, but otherwise this is far too similar in practice to time-shifting with a VCR. I don’t think the FBI is going to start busting down doors to check your iPod or grabbing everybody with white headphones off the street to see if they’ve been recording stuff off of the radio.
Side note: How 1980s is this? Recording music off of the radio? Why not just buy the music on iTunes?