Just for the Fun of It

As long as this post has eight words (which it did before the beginning of this parenthetical phrase), I have hit 10,000 words in posts on this blog!

New beta feature

The subscription feature at the top of this page is brand-new. If anyone wants to join and help me work out the kinks (eventually I plan to help my wife add this feature to her blog), please feel free!

Also, this is a test message to see how well formatted text transmits in the emailed posts.

Bedding Officials Demand Thread Recount

*SATIRE SATIRE SATIRE SATIRE*

I wish those Floridians could learn how to count... threads, votes, SOMETHING.

*SATIRE SATIRE SATIRE SATIRE*

Macs help Sky Captain save the day, win converts

Cool... I knew that the whole "Sky Captain" movie was made with computers and bluescreens, but I didn't know it was all done on macintosh computers. As the proud owner of a new 15" Mac Powerbook G4, I applaud the moviemakers that made that decision.

According to visual effects supervisor Darin Hollings, "Kerry [Conran, the director] was such a proponent of the Mac that he wanted to make the entire movie in Cupertino."

P.S. For those of you saying "huh?", Apple's headquarters are in Cupertino, CA.

Bush, Kerry Line Up for Key First Debate

Though I already pretty much know who I'm going to vote for (well, "for whom I'm going to vote," of course, but though I love being correct that just sounds stuffy), I'll definitely be watching the debate tonight.

The stupid thing is that the two campaigns came together to form a 32-page memorandum outlining what will and what will not be acceptable in the debate. One thing (brought up by Kerry's camp, I'm sure) is that there will be no direct questioning allowed from one candidate to the other. They also don't want the TV stations to show one candidate's face while the other is talking... but most stations have said that "they'll report what they want to report, how they want to report it."

Basically, "hang you and your stupid debate bylaws." I couldn't agree more.

Critics Argue Tougher Admissions Threaten UC's Diversity

Sure, diversity is great... but entry into a university should be based on merit, not ethnicity. This is like Congressman David Dreier's commitment to being an "internationalist" when all it means is that he's just in favor of increasing the flow of illegal aliens into our country.

He's got the worst score, based on his voting record, than any other Republican in terms of controlling the flow of illegals (betterimmigration.com) - even worse than some notoriously open-border Democrats such as Hillary Clinton. Even if you usually vote Republican, the best choice based on this number-one issue facing the state of California is his Democrat opponent Cynthia Matthews.

Anyway, back to the topic of the linked article... it's about EDUCATION, not about RACE. Educate those who show the most promise; don't just let people in because "we need more black kids." Nothing against African-American students, of course, but all students should be held to the same academic standards when determining their eligibility for university admission.

New German Mobile Phone to Detect Bad Breath

Since Germans think it extravagant to shower more than once or twice a week, what's the big deal with having such meticulously clean breath?

Michael Moore Threatens To Sue Local University

What's with all of the whiny liberals lately?

Open Source Software Goes to Work

Hurrah for Open Source software! OpenOffice.org starts up pretty slowly on Mac OS X, but it's usable. The biggest reason I'm linking to this article, though, is that there is a list of open-source alternative software packages (sadly, most are for Windows) listed on the bottom.

And any article advocating Mozilla Firefox can't be all bad. :)

For Businesses, It's Slow Going With Windows XP's SP2

I don't know what the big deal is about SP2, anyway... if you have decent firewall and antivirus protection already, SP2 is just an unnecessary hassle. I'm sure I'll get it eventually, but I'll wait until the details are ironed out a bit more.

Poll Finds Bush Lead Surging Among Likely Voters

This is pretty much a "duh" article - since Senator Kerry's main campaign slogan seems to be "Vote for Me Cuz I'm Not Bush." He keeps saying what he's going to do, without giving specifics about how he intends to enact these lofty promises.

Of course, Dan Rather and CBS aren't helping him at all... just shut up about those memos already! You've already made big enough fools of yourselves, and anything you do to try to pull out is just digging the hole deeper. Cut your losses, and move on.

Roy Horn Says Tiger Bite Was Bid to Help Him

Huh. Apparently Roy contends that the bite that nearly killed him was an attempt by his animal friend to save him. He apparently was having dizzy spells, and the tiger Montecore attempted to save him from falling off the stage. "It was unfortunate that his teeth hit my carotid artery," Roy says.

Just "unfortunate," eh? He was clinically dead for about a minute.

New Car Gadgets May Distract Drivers

Really? These new additions to your dashboard all look cool, but of course they'll all be distracting.

Microsoft Sings a New Tune With Windows Media Player 10

Eh... WMP10 looks cool, but I still like Winamp better on Windows. I like the automatic ripping qualities of WMP, but I miss the ability to show the currently-playing song name in the titlebar of the currently-active window.

Of course, I prefer iTunes on Mac OS X, and I'll very much enjoy owning my very first Macintosh computer (a 1.33GHz PowerBook G4) soon.

Shakespeare in quarto: view the British Library's digital copies online

Freely viewable online copies of Shakespeare's works is now available!

(this post is dedicated to my wife, who at one time had an online alias of WillShakesFan :)

Actor Bids Fond Farewell to C-3PO

Anthony Daniels (C-3PO in the Star Wars films) will be the only actor to have appeared in all six episodes of Lucas's blockbuster science fiction saga. He laments the overuse of special effects in the prequel trilogy (as do most fans), but saying goodbye to this character, who is pivotal in both his career and the film series, was a teary occasion.

Foxx Gets Oscar Buzz as Music Icon Ray Charles

I was excited to see "Ray," but even more so now that I find out that Jamie Foxx studied music in university. Great article; I can't wait for October 29th to roll around.

The Life of Jos Claerbout

Whoa. This is one of the most amazing Web sites I've ever visited. It's a tribute in memoriam to a young man, Jos Claerbout, who inexplicably died at the age of 25 from sudden cardiac arrest. His father, a Stanford professor, has encapsulated what can be verbally described of his excellent life. Based on what I've read (which is not much, as I've just spent half of one lunch break on it so far), I can unquestionably categorize his life as one of the most authentic I've ever known. In completely the sense that Kierkegaard meant when he talked about "authenticity."

Read it. It's great.

Whoa!

Well, I may be a bit more erratic about blogging in the near future (yeah, yeah... like I've been very consistent the last week or so anyway). I got the opportunity to orchestrate a bunch of "Schoolhouse Rock"-type pieces for the San Diego Symphony. This project is going to take up most of my time (I intend to go for it), so I'll be cutting out a lot of extraneous activities from now until February when they get performed.

By the way, most of these "extraneous activities" are Internet-related. :) I'll be cutting down on newsgroup posting, and probably delete my KoL account entirely. I'll probably give up reading fark.com, too. (The reason I didn't put a Fark link on the left is because I link to a lot of the same stuff.)

Anyway... back to my regular job. I'm working at home for the rest of the week, which is cool. No stupid commute!

Joswiak: 'True to What an iMac Has Always Been About'

What can I say? The new iMac is cool. In this article, Greg Joswiak describes in detail the innovations in this recently-released Macintosh computer.

Hollywood Puts Focus on Fall Films, Oscars

This is a good article that describes most of the films coming out this fall. However, the reviewer/reporter who wrote it doesn't have a very good grasp on the use of the comma... so if you ignore approximately every third one in use, it might actually read smoothly.

New iMac tries to play it cool

I know, I know, another iMac story. I blogged this one only for the quote at the bottom (regarding the computer's big "chin" under the screen):

"It's sort of the Jay Leno of computers, but otherwise it's beautiful."

Red-Light Cameras Debut In Escondido

I don't have a problem with running red lights, but it's at least nice to know that two of the intersections near my home (Valley Parkway & Center City and Escondido & Second) are getting red-light cameras. I drive through Escondido & Second every day on my way to work, so I'll just have to remember to be especially careful there.

Windows XP Service Pack 2: The 10% Problem

Only "10%," eh? Most of the people to whom I've spoken who have installed SP2 ran into big problems. Of course, most of the people I talk to are tech-geeks who have tweaked their systems to at least some degree before installing the update.

A Microsoft guy said something in an article about "well, I'm doing fine with it," but who wouldn't if you've got the guy who wrote all of the code just down the hall? As of this point, I think that XP users should just leave well enough alone and stick with SP1a until all of the kinks have been worked out. Generally, if you've already got a firewall and related security parapernalia set up and running, there really isn't anything new provided by SP2 anyway.

Apple's New iMac Computer Is All Display

The outrageous-looking new G5 iMac is basically just a thick studio display with a wireless mouse and keyboard. While technically the "world's thinnest desktop computer," according to one of Apples marketing execs, I think it just looks like a laptop on steroids.

Which then makes me wonder: how long until IBM finally makes a G5 chip that will go in the Apple PowerBook? This is the first time, ever, that Apple has put its pro-grade chip (in this case, the G5) into a consumer-grade computer (the iMac) before all of the pro-grade machines (of which the PowerBook is one) have it. Some speculation I've heard is that Apple should now have a G5 PB in 6-8 months.

I'm still holding out for tha G5 PB with OS X 10.4...

TV Review: Father of the Pride

I watched this show last night, and it was great. The Reuters review I linked to does a better job explaining it than I could (or, at least, than I care to take the time to), so read it.

And next week, watch it.

Schwarzenegger Energizes Republican Convention

I really like our governor's politics, and his speech last night was no exception. In response to his obvious charisma that he displayed at the Convention, I've heard that many people are relieved by the fact that he was not born in the US... because otherwise he could have gotten the Republican nomination for president.

In light of the great work he's doing in California, I support the effort (and something is currently in the works) to add to the Constitution an amendment repealing the necessity of natural-born citizenship in Presidential candidates.