Month: February 2005

Teens Fined For Being Nice

Leave it one grumpy lady to ruin everybody’s fun.

A Colorado judge ordered two teen-age girls to pay about $900 for the distress a neighbor said they caused by giving her home-made cookies adorned with paper hearts.

[…]

The girls baked cookies as a surprise for several of their rural Colorado neighbors on July 31 and dropped off small batches on their porches, accompanied by red or pink paper hearts and the message: “Have a great night.”

Nevermind that all the neighbors thought it was very sweet, and sent letters to the judge that thanked the girls for their kindness. Idiots.

February 7, 2005

Enjoy The Super Bowl

I’m actually working today, so I will miss most of the Super Bowl (feel free to e-mail me funny commercials), but I came across this image, and hopefully this shipment wasn’t on the way to your hometown, otherwise, you might be a little short on beer:

Enjoy the game, everybody!

Update at 3:55: Forget it, if everybody else got to go home early, I should be able to at least watch the game. So I ran a coax cable about 100feet from the upstairs balcony, and brought a TV downstairs. So I’m watching the game for a little bit, anyway. Saw GoDaddy’s commercial, and it was pretty entertaining.

February 6, 2005

Howard Hughes Invented Video-On-Demand

Well, sort of. Great story, just the same.

Thanks Barney for the link.

February 6, 2005

RIAA Sues Dead Woman

Man, these guys are a bunch of idiots.

“My mother was computer illiterate. She hated a computer,” Chianumba (the Daughter) said. “My mother wouldn’t know how to turn on a computer.”

Chianumba said she faxed a copy of her mother’s death certificate to record company officials several days before the lawsuit was filed, in response to a letter from the company regarding the upcoming legal filing.

[…]

“Our evidence gathering and our subsequent legal actions all were initiated weeks and even months ago,” said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy. “We will now, of course, obviously dismiss this case.”

Well cripes, I should certainly hope the case would be dismissed. What kind of research are these idiots doing? Obviously the RIAA has far too much money on their hands if they can pay folks to track down and sue the pants off these non-existent crooks.

February 6, 2005

More Gay Cartoon Characters Revealed

I mentioned earlier how everybody was in a hoopla over Buster Bunny’s Lesbian Adventure and, despite that controversy, OPB was still going to air it (albeit at a really bad hour). Really, though, none of this is that big of a deal as we all grew up watching gay cartoon characters.

February 6, 2005

White House “Journalist” A Puppet For Bush?

We all know this has probably happened in other Presidential administrations, but here’s the latest example:

The Bush administration has provided White House media credentials to a man who has virtually no journalistic background, asks softball questions to the president and his spokesman in the midst of contentious news conferences, and routinely reprints long passages verbatim from official press releases as original news articles on his website.

Jeff Gannon calls himself the White House correspondent for TalonNews.com, a website that says it is “committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news coverage to our readers.” It is operated by a Texas-based Republican Party delegate and political activist who also runs GOPUSA.com, a website that touts itself as “bringing the conservative message to America.”

Thanks Barn for the link.

Update on 2/13: This sums up the whole situation pretty well.

February 6, 2005

You Want To Be A Consultant?

Print up this great guide from somebody who has been a software consultant one for most of their life. It’s a must-read for anybody who is considering going into technology consulting.

February 6, 2005

The Best Of Freeware

I’ve always been a sucker for good freeware, and generally support freeware programs that I get a ton of use out of. I probably have a couple dozen freeware programs on my system here that I use all the time, but after digging through this wonderfully sorted collection of freeware, I can see myself downloading some of these and replacing the pirated borrowed software that I have on this system.

February 5, 2005

My Wife Wants A Kitchenaid Mixer

If I’m going to spend a bunch of money to buy one, I think I should see if I can buy her this one.

February 5, 2005

Future Proof A/V Receiver

Four-grand for a component for your surround sound system isn’t cheap, but you can probably rest fairly easy knowing that the likelihood of you needing to ever replace the the thing is pretty slim.

The company calls (the Onkyo 7.1 channel TX-NR1000) “future-proof,” a marketing term that basically means “we’ve thrown in every feature, connector, and port we can think of, including some nobody is ever going to use.” The really useful thing about this unit, though, is its modular nature. If it turns out that they really didn’t think of everything, you can pop a new module into the back of the box and be on your way.

February 5, 2005