Monthly Archive for August, 2007

Do us all a favor, Len Dawson…retire

[len dawson]

If I hear Lenny Dawson butcher the name of one more athlete I’m going to take my 19″ Toshiba TV and throw it out in the driveway and run over it with my Buick LeSabre until I feel better.

I don’t know why KMBC 9 News in Kansas City doesn’t just kick this old, alcoholic codger to the curb and get someone in there who can at least get the cue cards right.

/rant

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Best Ask A Ninja Episode…Evar

If the video doesn’t appear, click here.

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Phone company de-regulation

The hugeness of AT&T is starting to bug me.  I liked Southwestern Bell — they was much better before AT&T borged them — at least from a customer service POV.

I ran across this picture a while back and with AT&T’s acquisition of Cingular and the extreme re-branding, it makes me think that the customers are really starting to get the shaft.

Then, I read this article today and I’m even more convinced.

I’ve griped about this before, but rural America is really at a disadvantage in terms of broadband Internet services.   Hopefully the phone companies neglect of country-dwellers will open a large market for the power companies offering broadband over power lines.

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Final-Yi!

[yi signed]

Well it’s about stinkin’ time that the Bucks get the deal with Yi done.

My thoughts:

I hope Yi doesn’t sport that jerk-smirk all the time.  That’s the last thing the NBA needs.
That looks like a Robert “Tractor” Traylor sized jersey.

Is Sen. Kohl a shrimp or what?

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Couric trotting off to Iraq, Syria

[katie couric]This is going to be really bad. She’s terrible on the evening news and she’s going to be terrible in the Middle East.

Who’s not going to see this as a really dumb publicity stunt?

I felt it would be really important for the American people to get a big picture of what is going on, in terms of northern Iraq, in terms of Sadr City (and) the Anbar province. People hear all these things and I think it’s really hard—as some people get Iraq fatigue—to keep a healthy and understandable perspective of what is going on. My goal is to provide that.

Yeah, the “Big Picture.” Riiight.

If you want the “big picture” check out Michael Yon’s blog.

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My thoughts on Vick finding Jesus

[mike vick bobblehead]I saw the clips of Michael Vick’s post-hearing statement. Here’s the transcript if you missed it.

My first thought when I heard his statement was: Hmmmph.

I would have liked to hear more details about his remorse. All of the generalities didn’t really settle right with me. He seemed sincere, but I don’t know. He did after all lie to the NFL and the Falcons management.

Side note: Dogfighting is bad, but can you imagine how bad this whole thing would have been if the Feds had caught him gambling on the dog fights?

I want to apologize to all the young kids out there for my immature acts and, you know, what I did was, what I did was very immature so that means I need to grow up.

A lesson we all need to hear.

I’m upset with myself, and, you know, through this situation I found Jesus and asked him for forgiveness and turned my life over to God. And I think that’s the right thing to do as of right now.

Um, I don’t think we find Jesus, Jesus finds us. Hope it still seems like the right thing after “right now.”

Hey, Paris Hilton found God in jail.

I think the jury’s still out, er..uh, oh wait.

Well, you know what I mean.

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Replacing Google?

[gorilla]In this video Michael Scoble discusses the social-based model that Facebook, Techmeme and Mahalo are using for ranking good content. Scoble calls them SEO-resistant.

Aside from privacy concerns, this is one of the gripes about Google these days — that SEO companies are abusing the system with shady methods for increasing traffic for paying customers.

Take a look if you’re interested.

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Wil Wheaton Indicted for Role in Robot Fighting Ring

[wil wheaton]Actor and Internet personality, Wil Wheaton, has been indicted by federal prosecutors on charges of promoting and hosting a robot fighting ring. Prosecutors allege Wheaton kicked and electrocuted robots that weren’t performing well, as many as fifteen robots. “He just blew their circuits,” said US Attorney Bob Schrumpkin… read more

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Target And Lowe’s: Doin’ fine.

[home depot, you can do it, we won’t help]

This doesn’t really surprise me. Good for Lowe’s and Target.

I can’t stand Home Depot. Tomorrow is not soon enough for them to get the Lowe’s built in my town. It’s going in right across the street from Home Depot.

I’ve done a fair amount of work on my house and have purchased well over $3000 of home improvement stuff over the last few years. Nearly every time I go into Home Depot — normally late morning on Saturday, there’s one or two registers open and 10 people in each line. Aside from the fact that there aren’t enough registers open, the cashiers don’t know what the heck they are doing.

Don’t even get me started about the Tuff Shed (which is real nice, BTW) we bought during a Home Depot promotion a few years ago. My wife did a masterful job explaining basic math to at least three people whose only argument was “well, this is what the computer says.” I wanted to rip someone’s face off.

(BTW, it’d be unfair of me to not give some props to the ONE guy at Home Depot that is really helpful. I don’t even remember his name, but you can’t miss him — balding dyed black hair, goatee, big silver loop earrings and some tattoos… you’ll know him when you see him. Last I noticed he was working back in flooring.)

And about Wal-Mart…all you have to do is spend a few minutes reading Behind the Counter and Consumerist you’ll know what I mean.

Oh yeah, they’re building a Target in my town, too.

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Spriglet #8:Hack the buttons on a Dell SK-8135 Keyboard

Dell SK-8135

Just bought a new Dell SK-8135 keyboard off of eBay.  I have one at work and like it a lot.

It has some buttons on it that are sort-of configurable — if you don’t mind poking around in the Windows Registry.

Start -> Run -> regedit

Browse to:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey

  • 7 =  Browser home button - this will launch the default browser (which should be Firefox, BTW)
  • 15 = Mail button  - this will launch the default mail app.
  • 16 = Music note button - this will launch the application associated with the .cda extension.  I changed this one to .mp3, which is associated with iTunes.
  • 17 = My Computer button
  • 8 =  Calculator button

Make your changes, reboot and you’re good to go.

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For the hard drive click, freezing does the trick

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Came home last night to find my external hard drive unresponsive. It was making the dreaded clicking sound.

I used it primarily for backups, but there were still a few important files on it — archived Media Center videos, MP3s and some pictures.

I had read about people freezing their hard drives as a way to restore them temporarily.  I decided it give it a try.

I stuck it in a ZipLoc freezer bag and placed it on top of the Minnesota corn in the Cool-Whip container in my deep freeze.

After about an hour, I took it out and hooked it up. No change.  I stuck it back in the bag and put it back in the freezer.

So I get it out this morning and hook it up. Click. Click. Click. Whirrrrr. Click. Click. Sigh.

Then surprisingly, I heard this.

Boom, it was back. I frantically copied off about 3 GB of data. Not a hitch. Couldn’t believe it.

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My Top 10 Alternatives to Dog Fighting

[Rock, Paper, Scissors]

If you think about it, dog fighting is really a competition of egos. It just happens to be brutal and inhumane.

So it got me thinking… What other competitions would be suitable alternatives to dog fighting? Here’s a my top 10 (in no particular order):

  1. Cyberathlete Professional League / Cyberathlete Amatuer League
  2. Battlebots
  3. Competitive Rock-Paper-Scissors
  4. Robocode
  5. Power tool drag racing
  6. US Air Guitar Championship
  7. Adult spelling bee
  8. Whistling competition
  9. Competitive Paintball
  10. Bocce Ball

If you see any of these in a rap video, don’t forget to give credit where credit is due.

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Where are Yi?

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C’mon.  Yi know Yi want to play.

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Al Gore’s Zero Emissions Makes Zero Sense

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Pretty good article here.

Surely what’s missing from the Global Warming Movement is common sense.

(The picture is just to drive home the point.)

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Other NBA Refs Could Face Gambling Discipline

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It didn’t surprise me to read that there could be other NBA referees caught in the F.B.I. dragnet.  While they may not face criminal charges, they could be slapped down by the N.B.A.

Stern could face some serious credibility issues after his emphatic statements about Donaghy being a “rogue, isloated criminal.”

I hope this all gets resolved by the beginning of the NBA season in October.  I really don’t want any shadows over what’s shaping up to be an interesting year in the league.

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Spriglet #7:Toggle case in Microsoft Word

Here’s a nice trick if you want to toggle the case of a selection in Microsoft Word.

  1. Open a Word document
  2. Highlight the text with your mouse
  3. Hit Shift-F3 multiple times to cycle through the different cases

lowercase:

the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

sentence uppercase:

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

uppercase:

THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG.

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DirecTV to Sell Powerline Broadband

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This is welcome news.  Now if they can get some competition going to drive the prices down.

I would bet there’s a fairly large rural market for broadband internet service.  Even if this pushes the traditional DSL and cable providers into the rural areas, it’d be good for country dwellers like my parents.

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Donaghy pleads guilty

barkleygamble.jpg

Of course it this could get worse if Donaghy starts talking.  The big question now: is it isolated to Donaghy and his old high-school buddies or is it a bigger problem?  It could be, as David Stern has said, that he’s the only ref with a problem.  It would be really bad if there were more in on it.

I’d like the NBA to trot out Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan and have them talk about the dangers of gambling.

Sure, those guys have money to blow.  Problem is that the gambling industry is built on the backs of normal people who get sucked in and lose everything.

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10 Reasons Why You Should Have Kids

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I have to restrain myself when I observe people (like this blogger) talking about someone else’s or treating their own children as an unwelcome burden. These days children are treated like noisy little pets, neglected, or spoiled so much that they’re controlling the whole family. It’s obvious (at least to me) which parents don’t care about their children. Attitudes like those in the above blog post make it worse. Those attitudes are passed along one way or another. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My family is more important than my career and my entertainment. I honestly can’t remember feeling the need to escape from my children. That being said, I certainly could do less of “my thing” and spend more quality time with my children.

One of the best decisions my wife and I have ever made was for her to stay home with our kids. It wasn’t easy and there were times we didn’t know what the heck we were doing. Ultimately there were no good reasons to let anyone else raise our children.

I don’t buy a lot of excuses that people make about parenthood.

What is it really?

Not enough money in the bank? Career not in the right place? Kids scare you? Dirty diapers not for you? Like your 8 hours of sleep every night? Cramps your style too much? Kids are way too gross? Feel inadequate?

Here’s my 10 reasons why why you should have kids:

  1. You get to choose what values you pass along to your children.
    Don’t like that your parents forced you to eat brussel sprouts? Here’s your chance.
  2. Kids are fun and it only gets better as they get older
    Yes, my son did say: “Superman wears a cape with Velcro on it so that when he goes the bathroom he doesn’t get poop on it.”
  3. Children bring joy into your life that you can’t measure.
    The first cry. The first steps. The first words. The first “I love you, dad”, etc. Good times…no, really good times.
  4. It is very satisfying when they understand something you’ve been trying to teach them.
    It’s priceless when they do or say something that you taught them without any prompting — especially in front of someone who’s not part of your family.
  5. Responsibility brings maturity
    Life takes on a new seriousness when you are responsible for children.
  6. You’ll never have enough money or be totally prepared
    Stop kidding yourself.
  7. Your parents love grandchildren.
    Why not nip those questions in the bud?
  8. Your kids may just be interested in something you’re doing or something you know…
    And be convinced that you know everything there is to know about it.
  9. At some point, your children will actually help you.
    Personally, I’m looking forward to my son being old enough to mow the yard.
  10. Your parents did.
    Nuclear families are what makes society work.

Have anything to add, Faithful Reader?

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Selig shows Bonds what he really thinks

bonds1.jpgbud_selig.jpgI think it’s pretty obvious that MLB Commissioner Bud Selig doesn’t like the whole idea of Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s HR record.

What does he do instead of attending the game last night? He meets with George Mitchell, former Senator and chief steroid investigator.

I’m thinking that Selig may have the last laugh.

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Another reason I won’t cheer for Bonds when he breaks the record

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Here’s another reason why I won’t be cheering for Bonds when he breaks Hank Aaron’s HR record.

Bonds is a cheater.

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Wenger Giant Swiss Army Knife

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Wenger Giant Swiss Army Knife

Sorry…call me a purist, but if it doesn’t say Victorinox on it, it’s not a real Swiss Army Knife.   Good ole Wikipedia… Apparently Wenger and Victorinox were competitors until Victorinox acquired Wenger in 2005. Guess that’s the end of my rant, huh? Good thing I check, check and re-check my facts.

I’m a little nostalgic about Swiss Army Knives. I got a really nice one when I was a kid. My grandpa engraved my name on it. Still have it.

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Walking is worse for the environment than driving

cow-fire.jpg

I guess I should drive more and become a vegetarian.

Will someone please tell me how all of the carbon-neutral bunk is different than the myriad of studies that come out every year that say chocolate is bad for you or chocolate is good for you? Same for coffee…and wine.

h/t scott

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Gmail hacking at Black Hat

 blackhat.jpg

As an avid Gmail user, I read this article with some interest.

One way to avoid being a victim of this type of hack, is to use Gmail with the https:// URL instead of plain http://.

While there is no explicit option in Gmail’s settings to do this, there are a couple other options you have:

  1. Create a shortcut to https://www.gmail.com and only use that to get to Gmail.
  2. Install Greasemonkey script that will auto-redirect you. One like this.
  3. Or better yet, download Lifehacker’s Better Gmail Firefox extention. It includes a force https:// option.

I use #3.  Options #2 and #3 only work for Faithful Readers who use Firefox.

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Obama, Clinton in new flap, over nuclear weapons

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Fight! Fight!

LOL.

It’s just going to get better, folks. Hehe.

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