Happy New Year!

Christmas closing in...and I'm tired

Christmas is just around the corner, and I'm tired. Nothing to do with Christmas though, I'm just tired. Things are going well with the new house, although slower than I'd like, due to a combination of winter weather closing in and a decided lack of liquid funds to make things happen. We're all in good health though, and that's one of the most important things. We're all thankful to GOD for being there for us, and watching over us.

I wouldn't be surprised if I don't make any more posts till sometime in 2010, so I'll just go ahead and say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Settling In

Well, we're finally pretty much all moved in to our new house. 90% of the boxes have been emptied and we've even started hanging pictures up on the walls. I haven't exactly kept up this blog all that well during this process, Getting a house, and moving in was a much more intense experience than even I (a person who hates change) has been able to handle. But we did make it through it, and we're really happy here in the new house.

The garage is one place where I hadn't been able to make any progress, until today. I got out there and cut a padlock off the garage door track that I don't have a key to, and found that the garage door opener works fine, which was good news. I did discover though that whoever wired the electrical up for the garage apparently didn't know what the heck they were doing. There's a light switch in the back hallway of the house that when flipped up, turns on the power for the garage and four lights on poles in the back yard. That's crazy! Why would you want to turn on four yard lights every time you want power on in the garage? I'm going to have to track the power lines down and try and split those yard lights off from the garage so they can each be turned off and on separately.

I still have a couple of minor plumbing issues I have to tackle yet, I was hoping to take care of them in the next couple of days, but I may have to wait another week to do that. All in all though, everything has gone pretty smooth and it feels really good to be a homeowner.

Creeping closer to closing on the house

Well, I was contacted today by my realtor, and the title work is finally complete. The only thing holding us back at this point is some miscellaneous paperwork that the mortgage company is waiting on. I did some digging myself and sent them what they hopefully need. If so, then we should be closing by next week. If not, there could yet be a slight delay waiting on a credit bureau to get them the final papers they need. Either way, we're almost home, literally!

Star Wars The Clone Wars

The first season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars was all right, it was good enough to keep me watching, but didn't really wow me. Season 2 has now reached it's second episode and the show has improved considerably! The character models appear to be more detailed, and the lighting and textures have been improved as well.

The storyline seems more mature as well. In the first season, there were an awful lot of stories that seemed, light-hearted, and to be brutally honest, silly. This season's shows I've seen so far are much darker, with a much more mature theme. I'm looking forward to seeing how this season progresses!

Fantastic news!

I've been pretty lazy lately about posting new info here, but it's been pretty busy lately in my defense. I've finally got great news to impart. Our offer on our dream house was accepted! Not only that, but since then I've gotten my mortgage paperwork in and now we're only waiting for the appraisal to be done which is happening tomorrow afternoon. Then it's just waiting on the underwriters to finish all they're paperwork. We've got a tentative closing date of October 21st. There's a slight threat of the closing date getting pushed back a little further though. Hopefully that doesn't happen though, we're really looking forward to getting moved in and starting what we're calling "part 2" of our lives.

House hunting....house buying...I don't know....

Well, house hunting has pretty much come to a stand-still. The good thing though is that we have an offer in on our dream house once again. We won't know until late this week whether or not we'll have any luck this time and get it. We've all got our fingers crossed, so cross yours as well for us.

If we don't get the house this time, I'm stepping back from looking for a house until next spring. I've about had my fill, and frankly, we've run out of nice homes in our price range anyway. I'm really, really hoping that we'll get the house this week. All of us want this to happen. So wish us luck!

House hunting goes on...but at a slower pace

Unfortunately, we're still in the "house-hunting" phase, and the pace is going to be slowed down. We've pretty much gone through all the houses that are worth a close look in our price range and the pickings have come up slim. I'm still holding out hope that our "dream house" on Sherwood Terrace will come back on the market and that we'll be able to make another offer on it.

We were looking at a house this morning with our realtor that I was marginally hopeful about, but it turned out to be a dud. This house was listed as being a 2, possibly 3 bedroom a little less than 1100 square feet. The possible third bedroom was described as a "loft" that could possibly be a 3rd bedroom. The loft turned out to be a partially finished attic of about 240 square feet that a normal sized adult wouldn't be able to stand up straight in! I don't see how anyone could consider this a "possible bedroom".

The listing agent who described the property said that it had, a newer roof, newer vynil siding, newer windows, newer furnace, newer water heater, and the remodel is complete. Notice there's a lot of "newer's" there and not "new"? And I think by "the remodel is complete", they meant, "this is as much as we're doing, and we're not doing any more!" I found light fixtures and thermostat's hanging by their wires, wiring for the furnace wire-nutted and taped together instead of being properly in junction boxes. Holes in the walls that had been painted over without being spackled first...and the list goes on. In the back yard behind the detached garage were six old car tires and about a 6 yard dumpster's worth of trash.

We left this house realizing that we were starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel. So we're now basically hoping that our "dream house" comes back on the market and waiting for some new listings to come on the market. Wish us luck, looks like we'll need it!

Tip for Netbook Users

I'm a pretty big proponent of netbooks, but recently I'd found a problem that was plaguing me. It wasn't really a netbook problem, so much as it was a firefox problem. I've found that it's much nicer to access the internet on a netbook through firefox when you use full-screen mode. That is, by pressing the f11 key you can maximize firefox so that it hides the upper and lower tool bars so that you get your internet pages covering the entire screen space.

The only drawback to doing this is you can't access your bookmarks. When you move your mouse cursor to the top of the screen, it drops down a minimized version of the toolbar that does not include the file toolbar. To access my bookmarks, which I use frequently, I would have to drop out of full view mode by pressing the f11 key, access my bookmarks, then press the f11 key again! Not very handy to say the least. I have finally found a firefox add-on that will alleviate this problem.

Compact Menu 2 takes all the components on the file toolbar (file, edit, view, history, bookmarks, tools & help) and puts them in a single icon that looks like a small blue ball that sits to the left of the navigation buttons. By clicking this icon, while in fullscreen mode, I can now access all my bookmarks anytime I want!

J.R.R Tolkien's children use the U.S. court system to blackmail New Line Cinema

The estate of J.R.R. Tolkien has just settled out of court with New Line Cinema for an undisclosed amount of money. Here's the gist of the background...Back in (I believe) the 1960's, Mr. Tolkien owed quite a bit of back taxes to the government. To pay off his debts, he sold the rights, including film rights to "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "The Hobbit". Eventually those rights were passed on to New Line Cinema who with Peter Jackson brought the world the wonderful "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, which as we all know garnered many oscars and hundreds of billions of dollars. New Line Cinema is now on the verge of bringing us two more films which will together tell the story of "The Hobbit".

Now, in February of 2008, quite a few years after all this has gone down, and has proven to be quite a cash-cow, J.R.R. Tolkien's two surviving children who are 80 and 84 years old, decided that they are being cheated out of their share of the money that's being made off of the their father's work, regardless of the fact that he "sold" the rights to these works and was fairly compensated for it. The thing I really hate about this is that there was probably very little chance they would have won any settlement in a court trial, after all, Tolkien had sold the rights. They knew though that since New Line Cinema was going into pre-production on "The Hobbit", that any court action would snarl up the shooting of the upcoming movies and cost the studio hundreds of millions of dollars even if they won. So it was just a ploy to get them to settle out of court for enough money to make the old greedy bastards happy!

It's a shame that the U.S. court system is basically just used by most people these days to "blackmail" people and corporations out of money simply through the threat of a protracted court case. Shame on the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien, if the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy of movies had been a flop, they'd have never even considered trying to sue for a share of any of it's money.

Still House Hunting

Well, the first house we made an offer on didn't pan out. Since then we'd put in an offer on a second home, which we just loved...unfortunately the house got pulled off the market and is now in "limbo". We're hoping it may get re-listed soon and we can make our offer again, but until that happens, it's back hitting the bricks to look at more homes. It's the extended holiday weekend though, so we've been slowed down to a stand-still until it's over with, and we can get back to work! Wish us luck, house-hunting has certainly proven to be frustrating.

House Hunting

I've been pretty quiet lately on the net. I've had to be, my wife and I have been house hunting. 19 years of living in the same mobile home has finally worn thin, and it's time to move into a real house. This process can take awhile, but we've gotten to the point of making our first offer on a home. Hopefully by early next week I'll know something, and hopefully it will be good news. We found a really nice two bedroom home that would fit us perfectly. So wish us luck and maybe I'll be announcing our moving plans here soon!

Tired of being sick...

I came down with some sort of flu about a week ago, and I'm still not feeling right. I've missed 3 days of work and can't miss anymore, so I'll be going to work tomorrow whether I feel like it or not. I pity anyone who has to come into contact with me in case I'm still infectious. My wife has been sick with it also for most of that time. My son has lucked out and not gotten it, but somehow we infected his girlfriend...I feel bad about that 8^(

I don't know if it's the swine flu or not, but I'm still not going to see a doctor. I'd rather my body fight it and build up a natural resistance. That's the problem today, too many people fall for the line that they've got to get immunized for protection, that's why so many viruses and other "bad" things are becoming drug-resistant. Our bodies own defenses are the best immunity we have, and unfortunately it's got to be "tested" every once in awhile or it can't put up a good enough fight!

Now, I'm not saying there isn't a need for immunizations, there is. The young and the old in particular need help with their bodies defenses. Your average, generally healthy person though doesn't really need immunization boosters, GOD and evolution has given our bodies the ability to develop immunity on our own.

My Fathers Day Gift

I've had this recliner on layaway for about a month and a half, and my loving wife has helped me get it out today so that I could enjoy it come Father's Day! It's really comfy and I may never get out of it!

Take the Zombie Survival Quiz

You have a 68% chance of surviving a zombie outbreak

 

You will probably end up killing a few zombies and saving some innocent people, but you would die just before it was over

Zombie Survival Test
Take More Quizzes

Buried Treasure - Part II

Well, turns out unfortunately that the vintage VHS camcorder that was found at work wasn't in working order. At least the battery/battery charger didn't work, so hence, no working camera either. We were sorely disappointed. I wasn't able to get the VHS tape out of the camera either, although I haven't been willing yet to break the camera o get it out. Maybe I'll go that far this weekend. After all, I wouldn't be willing to pay a penny for this thing even if it did work! Updates on what's on the tape when I find out myself...

Buried Treasure - A blast from the past

A co-worker found this "ancient" camera at work today. Apparently, someone threw it into a dumpster there, and someone had dug it out thinking it might be something worth keeping. They then "rightly" decided it wasn't and threw it on the ground where he later found it. In it's day, it actually probably was a quite expensive and nice video camera. It has a I.D. plate on the bottom of it that dates it's manufacture to October of 1987! And yes, it is a full size VHS camcorder, the kind that uses VHS tapes! It's a complete kit, a gorilla case with foam inserts, camera, battery, cables, and editing dock etc.
We've got it all layed out on this table in the shop letting it dry out, as it had been raining and everything was soaked. When it's dried out, we're going to try charging the battery and see if it works. It does have a tape in the drive and we're curious to see what might be on it. I'll report back on what results we get if any in a couple of days.

Homeless in L.A.

Obama on National Security 5/21/2009

Today, President Obama has re-affirmed my belief that voting him in as President of the United States of America was a good and sound decision. Today, he did what he does best...he instilled in me a sense that he can lead this country back onto a path of true justice and good moral standing. He spelled out, in simple to understand terms that what has transpired over the last eight years was flawed and wrong in it's execution, if not it's intentions, and that the U.S. government would once again operate as a single and whole entity rather than just the Executive branch operating as the sole executor of the will of the American people.

In hearing in recent days the assertions that Mr. Obama ordered the closing of the Gauntanamo Bay prison without considering the problems it would cause, I was hoping that he would respond to these accusations. He did, with style. You could tell that those who were making these accusations simply wanted to pretend that "Gitmo" doesn't exist. They wanted us all to just "leave it alone", and let those detained there simply fade into obscurity and eventually die of old age! That cannot be allowed to happen, and President Obama has made it clear that he will not let it happen.

Facebook Sucks

Facebook sucks! That's the long and short of it. I got on Facebook against my better judgement since quite a few members of my family were on it, and it did make it easier to stay in touch with them. During the "entire" week that I was on it though, my virus scanner alerted me to more viruses, trojans and worms during that week than it had for the entire previous year! On top of that, several of my accounts got hacked, not very seriously though thank GOD!

In the end, my netbook was so compromised by Facebook, I had to reformat the hard-drive and re-install the operating system. Well, actually it was my son that did that for me, and he did a great job. Now it's simply become a matter of getting all my software back up and running. So, make sure you steer clear of Facebook at all costs, it just isn't worth it. If you want to stay in touch with family and friends, just use email and a secure chat program!

Reigning Scrabble Champion

Tonight, my wife, son and his girlfriend all sat down and enjoyed a couple of games of Scrabble.  It was nice to have a traditional “game night” in the living room that didn’t involve video games or violence.  Well, it could have led to violence when I swooped in and won both games, barely taking the second one from my son who was sure he’d won. 

Which gives me three consecutive wins in Scrabble in our household.  As reigning champ, I have thrown down the gauntlet of challenge to them and defy them to find a game to beat me at.  ROFL!

Technorati Tags: Forcemaster2000,blog,Scrabble,game night,family,fun

So what’s up with global warming?

By now, anyone who reads this blog should know that I believe the whole global warming thing is just a big conspiracy to herd society into certain directions and to line the pockets of special interest groups…but I’d still like to know what the government would put forth as it’s evidence for global warming.  I mean, what’s up with the extremely cool extended spring that we’re experiencing?  If global warming is such a threat to our well-beings, why aren’t we all sweltering right now in tropical heat? 

As I sit here writing this on almost the exact middle of the month of May, it’s a balmy 64 degrees fahrenheit.  When I left at about 7:30am to take my son to work I was actually wearing a sweater.  Let’s face it people, there is no such thing as global warming.  There is only climate change, which happens all the time and cannot be altered through human intervention.  So the next time someone asks you open up your wallet and fork over hard-earned money to save the polar bears, or reduce your “carbon footprint”, tell them to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine, you know, right underneath those expensive solar panels you just had installed on the roof of your house.

Technorati Tags: Forcemaster2000,blog,global warming,weather,hoax,government

Starting a new diet

I started a new diet Monday, I’ve decided to shed a few pounds for summer, and for my health.

 

I'd be popular at picnics!

Created by Recipe Star

CinemaNow is still around!

I'd been wanting to see the movie Wall-E for awhile now. I missed it in the theaters, and have yet to see it. A lot of the reason for that is that we don't rent DVD's anymore, or buy them for that matter. What's the point in buying something that you might watch once, then never watch again? What I wanted to do was rent a movie download over the internet, but lately, that hasn't been too easy.

My favorite site for renting and downloading movies was MovieLink. Unfortunately it was bought out by Blockbuster, and although they claim to have incorporated it as it was, it's just not the same. Blockbuster has a pathetic lineup of movies available for download and they're just not worth it. My next choice I looked into was Netflix. I really don't want to deal with another monthly subscription though, and apparently you can't actually download movies to watch later, you have to watch them as streaming movies, and I really don't like that. So, I googled for any other choices out there and what showed up in the search? Cinemanow! I'd been a registered member there way back in 2005 and 2006, but frankly, I didn't even know they were still around. I went there and sure enough, they were still running, not only that, they've got a surprisingly big library of hit movies including a lot of new releases that have just recently come out.

I wanted to rent Wall-E, and sure enough they had it available for download, unlike Blockbuster who only had it available as a rent-by-mail item. I needed to be logged in though and figured I'd have to re-register. I took a chance though and tried to sign-in with what I was pretty sure used to be my username and password. Lo and behold it logged me in and still had my user history intact! I couldn't believe it, I hadn't even rented from there since July of 2006! I rented Wall-E and tried to start downloading it and found out that I needed to have some software installed called media-manager. So I started installing it and unfortunately it tried downloading the movie as soon as it thought media-manager was installed even though it hadn't finished yet. Long story shortened, it messed up the download and Cinemanow thought that I'd successfully downloaded it and wouldn't let me re-download it.

At this point, I was a little irked since I'd already paid my $3.99 for the movie. My only options were to either forget it and quit, or call Cinmeanow's customer service number. Now, I've had a lot of bad experiences with customer service phone calls in the past, so I wasn't looking forward to that option. I decided to try it anyway. Wow! Was I ever surprised. My call was answered in under one minute by a courteous, English speaking American citizen. I don't remember her name, (and I wish I did), but within a couple of minutes she had my account brought up and walked me through everything without any problems whatsoever. She wound up giving me a promotional code for a free rental so that I could re-download the movie. This was the best customer service I believe I've ever received over the phone. I told her so and she said that I'd made her night!

So I want to give a big shout out about Cinemanow and anyone reading this should go register and rent a few movies from them. A great website like that should get plenty of traffic that way they won't go the way of the dinosaur and leave us with nothing but a couple of ugly, lame sites for renting movies!

Chrysler readying for bankruptsy?

MSNBC is reporting that according to a New York Times report, the Treasury Department is readying to file bankruptcy for Chrysler. Now, aren't we all glad about those billions of dollars that were given" to Chrysler so that bankruptcy wouldn't be necessary?! Gee, maybe they should have just been left alone to file bankruptcy in the first place, and save we taxpayers a few billion dollars.

Antarctic ice increasing, not melting away....

I've been hearing this now for the past month, the Antarctic is not melting away, it's actually increasing in size. Those behind the global warming agenda have been skewing the numbers to convince people that global warming is the direst threat ever to face mankind. Well, the numbers just don't add up. Check out this STORY at Information Liberation.

Hopefully the truth will find it's way into the mainstream consciousness so that we'll stop reacting to these doomsayers, and start being pro-active.

Animal intelligence

This is something I've believed in for years, but mainstream media and scientists have refused to accede to the realities set in front of them. There has been evidence for years that animals are much more intelligent than we've been led to believe. I found this very interesting article on the subject earlier today at Information Liberation

I think many people refuse to see animals as intelligent because it opens a whole host of questions that "the bible" can't adequately answer.

Turn off the News;

I just did the best thing I could to alleviate stress and make my life better...I turned off the news. Why listen to it. It's just a bunch of propaganda being spewed out based on what the corporations and the government want us to believe. Global warming, who to be afraid of today, weather that can't be predicted more than 12 hours in advance....it's all just a bunch of hooey. That's right, I said hooey!

Pepsi Throwback

I'm sitting here in the living room watching Primeval on the Sci-fi channel and enjoying a 20 ounce bottle of Pepsi Throwback. Haven't heard of Pepsi Throwback yet? Pepsi is "temporarily" making some of their classic products like Pepsi and Mountain Dew with the classic formulas from the 60's and 70's that made them famous. Basically speaking, they've taken out the HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) that we've been forced to use as a sweetener in just about everything for the past 30 plus years and gone back to using natural sugar as the sweetener.

I can definitely say it has a "crisper" taste to it than I'm used to, and that's a good thing! It doesn't taste as "syrupy" as I've come to expect Pepsi to taste. Unfortunately this is only supposed to last for a few months, unless maybe enough people cry out that this is so much better, Pepsi will be forced to shelve the old corn syrup and keep giving us the good stuff!

TV SUCKS...WHY?

It's Easter Sunday, and TV sucks! It doesn't even really matter that it's Easter, TV sucks all the time anymore. Why? For as long as there has been television programming, and movies, why does TV have to keep re-showing the same crap all the time? Why have I been seeing the same twenty or thirty movies being played over and over and over and over again! My GOD! How many times do they have to replay Batman Begins? How many times do they have to have a Battlestar Galactica marathon?

The real problem is that there are only a few wealthy people/organizations that own the rights to too much of the media for the last 50 years or so. There might be 150 channels out there, but 99% of them don't have any "rights" to show some of the great things that have been produced over the years. So we get stuck with the same few things they do have the "right" to show, and sucky reality TV programming.

In my opinion, the whole concept of copyright needs to be re-thought. I think the copyrights to anything, should last no longer than twenty years. Once you create something, you get the exclusive rights to it for twenty years, then after that, it's fair game. After all, twenty years gives plenty of time for a whole new generation to come along, and for the most part, they're not going to care about what was created by the generation before them anyway. Just because a new medium comes along and someones work gets transcribed to it, does that automatically mean they should be entitled to make people pay for it all over again just to see it on the newest device? I think not.

I hate to think about the fact that I've had to buy the original Star Wars movies on just about every medium they've come out on. VHS, DVD, digital, etc. etc. If I've bought them once, shouldn't that give me the right to see them from then on in whatever format they're in? I mean, it's not like the content changes...well, in the case of the Star Wars movies, I guess the content does change since George Lucas can't seem to leave well enough alone, but you get my point, right?

A new face for an old tactic!

The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia has found a way to put a new face on an old tactic, one that can be sinister in it's uses and I find it highly offensive. Doug Strachan, Creative Innovations Manager for the City of Atlanta Department of Aviation has re-written three classic R&B songs with new lyrics that utilize subliminal persuasion to encourage visitors to the airport to "clean it", and to visit their concession and souvenir shops. Although subliminal persuasion is around us all the time thanks to a world that worships marketing, it just seems wrong that everyone involved in this should seem so happy about this endeavor. Here is a LINK to the actual story at CNN

37,000...Really?!

Great site for Great Tea!

I've recently discovered the enjoyment, and great benefits of drinking tea. In my explorations I've discovered a great website called "Design a Tea". It's a great site where you get to literally design your own flavored tea. You get to pick from one of four base teas, Black, Oolong, Green and Rooibos. There is an explanation of the benefits of each kind of tea. You then get to choose one or two flavorings you'd like to add to your tea. You can then choose whether you would like your tea leaves loose, or in tea bags. You then get to customize your purchase with a name/description that will be placed on your container. You get a small bag/10 tea bags for $4.75 or a large bag/20 tea bags for $8.50.

Pictured above is my first purchase, black tea with cinnamon and raspberry flavor which I named ForceMaster's Cinna-Berry. It tastes fantastic, and the personal service I got from Brian and folks at Design a Tea was incredible. I highly recommend their site to anyone who enjoys tea or would like to start drinking tea for the natural health benefits it offers!

Obama overturns Bush's environmental folly...

Tuesday, President Obama righted a great wrong perpetrated by former President Bush in the final days of his administration. Bush had basically circumvented the Endangered Species Act by modifying the law saying that government agencies could determine for themselves whether something they wanted to do like build a dam, or clear a forest was going to harm an endangered species without having to consult with the U.S. Fish and wildlife service or the National Marine Fisheries Service. Putting the decision-making process in the hands of bureaucrats instead of scientists.

This was one of the more heinous acts committed by the Bush administration, and I'm glad to see that President Obama has wasted no time in making this right!

LINK to the original story on CNN

Thoughts of the moment

The wind is howling outside right now. The last couple of days have been spring-time warm, but it's supposed to be back to cold, winter weather starting tomorrow. I guess that's the voice of winter that I'm hearing right now as it reasserts itself. I'm feeling antsy tonight, hopefully it's just the weather change. I'd hate to think that it's just winter getting to me, because I don't really like any of the other seasons that much anymore, so it's not like the changing of the months will help me out any!

I need to recharge somehow. I wish I knew how I could do that. My wife wants us to go off on a "real" vacation this August for our twentieth wedding anniversary. I'd like to do something special for a big occasion like that as well, but I just don't know how we're supposed to be able to afford this. I'm sure that's bringing me down, I just don't know what to do about it. Does anyone know what to do about it?

No doubt this was designed for "Fat-cat" Wallstreet executives so they could literally think about how they're "pissing on the world"!

New HDTV! Yeah!!!!

From Blogger Pictures

We've finally managed to get an HDTV in our home. We went out this morning and bought this 37" Vizio television. It has a beautiful picture and was simple to get set up. My son and I had it out of the box and everything hooked up and working in about 15 minutes. Games on his PS3 look absolutely awesome. I've become a big fan of both Burnout Paradise and Grand Turismo 5, I can't wait to play them on this big, beautiful screen!

My new website is up

I've got a new website up and running, you can find a link to it on the right side of the page, LIKE IT or NOT!

I'll still be keeping up my Blog, but my posts here may now direct you to my website for more in-depth coverage on a subject. Reviews of books, movies, games, hardware and just plain thoughts on what's going on in the world.

Obama ends question of torture

A great resource for netbook users

If you use a netbook, or are thinking of getting one, here's a great forum with news and resources for you...

Netbook Forum

I've been using my Acer Aspire One netbook for about a month and a half now, and love it. I've been remiss in getting a review of it up on the internet, but plan to rectify that soon...watch this space for an upcoming video review of one of the handiest gadgets I've seen come down the turnpike in a long time.

Why only for poor children in "other" countries?

You're looking at an image of the XO-2. The second generation of the "one laptop per child" project. You know, where the poorest children of other countries are supposed to be able to get an affordable laptop so that they can learn and keep up with the rest of the world. The new version is a dual screen, touch-screen laptop that will be touted as an e-book reader that can hold up to 500 e-books. But which will also be able to be used as a computer with a virtual keyboard. My question is, why does this have to be targeted as something for children of "other" countries. Why not the children of this country?

Something like this would have been fantastic when my son was in school. He had to carry about 30 pounds of books back and forth to school every day. With something like this, at the beginning of each school year, he could have just downloaded all the books he needed for that year, and had one small, lightweight thing to carry from class to class. He could have taken notes on it, accessed encyclopedias...etc. Everyone knows that the public school systems in this country suck. Think about how much money, resources and time something like this could save our country if all our school-age children had access to something like this!

Ricardo Montalban dies at 88

A great actor who will be missed sorely! I don't know if I'll remember him better as Kahn from Star Trek II: the Wrath of Kahn, or from all those wonderful adventures I lived vicariously on Fantasy Island!

December to remember...

A Sad Ending...

Well, the Colts' season has come to an ending, and it was as climactic as it was disappointing. The San Diego Chargers defeated the Colts in an overtime 'squeaker'. Nearly all the Colts games this season came down to the finish line, and were decided by mere points. Last nights' season ender was no different, actually going past the finish line before coming to an ending. The final score was 23 - 17. I will say that the game was a fantastic one. It was a nail-biter all the way, with several lead changes. Both teams played extremely well, unfortunately the Chargers played just a hair better, or they were luckier. ;)

Cartoon version of me

I started messing around the other night with a photo of myself and came up with this...I think it looks quite a bit like me. My wife said I looked sad, and my son said I looked demented!