A bit of fun

Try this game - HomeRun. Yeah, I know it's not written in english, but it's pretty easy actually. Click the sign that says "Start", then keep the drunk guy from falling over by moving the mouse left or right. You won't see a mouse pointer, so it's tough to gage how far left and right you are moving.

For some funny reading, try The White House (it's a parody site - the REAL White House URL is whitehouse.gov). Some pretty funny stuff on there, but may not be appropriate for all - viewer discretion is advised.

Go me!!!

I made my post about the Batman Begins trailer way, way, WAY before it was posted over on Slashdot. I rule.

If you are a Blade fan, you may want to check out the website for Blade Trinity, the final movie in the series. Watch the trailer, check out the downloads (desktops, AIM icons, etc.), and hope (like I am) that Jessica Biel doesn't suck up the place. Hee - the spellchecker wants to replace "Biel" with "bile". That's kinda funny!

Batman Begins trailer!!

Go to http://batmanbegins.warnerbros.com/ - click Trailer - Enjoy!!

Slight change to the site

You'll probably notice that Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added back in, I finally got around to setting it up in the new template I'm using. So - comment away!!

Hope is on the way!

Watched some of the Democratic National Convention last night, and caught all of John Edwards speech accepting the Vice Presidential nomination. He's quite the public speaker, isn't he? Very charismatic, very engaging. I first noticed it during the primary, whenever he spoke in public he was projecting this sort of "down home" vibe - kind of an appeal to the everyday people to connect with him because he has been where they are and stands for what they stand for. Don't personally know if I buy all of what he's selling, since I don't ever really trust malpractice attorneys, but he's damn good at selling it. Cute little kids too. We'll see if his vision of the One America he wants to help us reach holds out once he and John Kerry get elected in November (boy, am I optimistic or what?)

The problem for the Democrats is the divisiveness within the party - a case in point was Al Sharpton's speech at the convention last night. He strayed from his "approved" speech - which I don't have a problem with at all, he made some great points and had some valid observations and calls to African Americans across the country to make their vote count, and to slam the Republicans who seem to thing those same votes are for sale - "Mr. President, the reason we are fighting so hard, the reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to vote wasn't gained because of our age - Our vote was soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of (civil rights activists) Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner, soaked in the blood of four little girls in Birmingham. This vote is sacred to us. This vote can't be bargained away. This vote can't be given away. In all due respect, Mr. President, read my lips: Our vote is not for sale." He received a few standing ovations during his 24 minute speech (he was scheduled for only 6 minutes), and got great responses from the conventioneers for statements like the preceding and this comment, "The issue of government is not to determine who may sleep together in the bedroom, it's to help those that might not be eating in the kitchen." Fiery stuff indeed, but here's the problem. The Democrats can't afford to even have the hint of division - the margin of support between Kerry/Edwards and Bush/Cheney is so close right now, and we can't afford to have another Presidential election like the last. Hopefully the Democrats can pull together the different elements developing within their party, like the delegates who still stuck with Dennis Kucinich during the roll call. A lot is riding on their ability to show the public what Kerry and Edwards are all about - and convince people to get out and vote. Not much time left till November guys - you had better really get on it.

Some people have no sense of humor...

Well, that didn't take long. The Richmond Organization, which owns the copyright on Woody Guthrie's tune "This Land Is Your Land" (on which JibJab's "This Land" is based (See post below)) is suing the creators of the site. Read the article here. No sense of humor, I tell ya...

Hee hee!!

Got the link to this from my sister - This Land starring George Bush and John Kerry. Very funny stuff!!!

Short post today, feeling sort of out of it. If anything else strikes my fancy I may post it up, otherwise I'll update again tomorrow.

Hey, this tastes a little funny...

Ewww. Read this. I'd rather starve, personally.

The CRN Test Center recently evaluated Windows XP Service Pack 2 Release Candidate (RC) 2 - and 3 of their 5 test machines no longer worked, blue-screens of death appearing after the install completed. Whoopsie. Sounds like SP2 RC2 is still not ready for prime time, hopefully this gets corrected soon - because that service pack is desperately needed.

Or maybe she WILL come back some day - update on the Linda Ronstadt/Aladdin controversy

The chairman of the prospective new owners of the Aladdin Hotel and Casino, Planet Hollywood Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Earl (a partner in the group that won the right to buy the Aladdin in bankruptcy court) has responded to the controversy - read the article here. He's also offering to take Michael Moore up on his offer to join Ronstadt onstage. It's also noted in the article that the Raelians, "a group whose religion revolves around beliefs about extraterrestrials and cloning, named Ronstadt an honorary priest or guide, a title that previously has been bestowed upon celebrities such as Moore, Madonna, Sinead O'Connor and George Michael." So she's got THAT going for her.

On a more personal note - this is my 100th post! A small milestone to be sure, but worth noting I think. It's quite a bit of fun to write this blog, and I think it won't be long till I've written my 500th post and beyond. That's all for now, more to come later maybe. 

NASA releases pictures from the Apollo 11 mission

A large number of pictures taken from space and from the surface of the moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts have been digitized and are available online here. This was just linked on Slashdot, so site response may be lousy right now. You can view the thumbnails, but I haven't been able to pull down a full-size image yet.

New Look

The page IS different - you aren't seeing things. I changed templates, decided I liked this one better than the old one (with some help from my wife - thanks honey.) I've added most of the little extras I had on the page into the new template, but haven't added the Haloscan comment/trackback scripts in. Blogger hosts commenting now - and I may just stay with that instead. The drawback would be that any comments added thru Haloscan under the old page would be gone. Haven't decided for sure yet - and I'm sure I will change other things - so leave comments for me and let me know what you think of the new layout. Your input is appreciated!

Well, I guess she won't be coming back some day...

Singer Linda Ronstadt removed for the Aladdin Hotel & Casino following a concert Saturday night after expressing support for controversial documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. Whoa. Sounds like someone touched a nerve, eh? This really shouldn't have surprised them as she's been making the same dedication at EVERY show. Since her recent summer tour began.  And here's a great response from Michael Moore via his website - an Open Letter to Bill Timmins, President Aladdin Casino and Hotel. God, that's a great response.

Fallout of the Download.Ject/Scob worm

The writer of this article raises a valid point. Now that the problem is (hopefully) fixed, why can't we know which sites had a problem? Sure, they are afraid of lawsuits - but isn't hiding the truth from the world just as bad? I guess the watch word for Net users these days is "suspicion" - be very cautious of what websites you visit and what they might be doing "behind the scenes" while you are there. As always, be sure you are updating Windows, running anti-virus scans at LEAST once a month, running a firewall or behind a router, and using spyware/adware/malware detection and removal utilities like Spybot and Ad Aware.

It's a start...

I'm not normally one to cheer for Microsoft, but this is good news - Microsoft awarded $3.95 million in a lawsuit against spammer accused of sending millions of messages trying to lure e-mail users to a Web site that illegally used a Microsoft trademark. Now if they were just as diligent in securing Windows, that would REALLY be something. I do remember this, the spam wanted you to go to windowsupdate.com (Microsoft's ACTUAL Windows Update website is http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com) and download a toolbar that they claimed would download Windows updates for you. I never really understood why someone would think that was necessary, since Windows Update isn't that hard to use, and if you have Windows XP it can be setup to download and install updates automatically. But getting rid of the big spammers is a good thing, so I guess it all works out in the end.

Awwww, that's...umm...sweet? I guess?

I guess it's true love - John Edwards and his wife celebrate each wedding anniversary by going out to eat - at Wendy's. Alrighty then. My wife and I celebrate each of our wedding anniversaries in Las Vegas.  Yeah, our choice is better.

A bit of fun

Got this link from my wife - Escape! Very simplistic design and graphics, but it's a lot of fun - and it's addicting. Enjoy!

Another big Vegas merger...

It was just announced today that Harrah's Entertainment Inc. will buy Caesars Entertainment Inc. for $5.2 billion in cash and stock. To quote the Tim and Tom Connection, "That's a lot of cheddar, a lot of salad." Harrah's operates 28 casinos in 13 states under the Harrah’s and Showboat names, and has about 41,000 employees. Caesars owns 28 properties worldwide, including Caesars Palace, Bally’s Las Vegas, and Paris Las Vegas, and employs 54,000. This merger will make the new company the world's biggest gambling company. So, now most of the properties in Las Vegas will be controlled by only two companies. As long as both deals are approved and go through - of course. Fewer comp cards to keep track of is a good thing, I suppose!

Emmy award nominations

The Emmy nominations are out - and Arrested Development got 7 nominations! I love that show! And The Amazing Race (the best show EVER!!) got 4 nominations, including Outstanding Reality-Competition Program, the award it won last year. It'll win again - I did mention it's the BEST SHOW EVER, right? The most nominations overall went to Angels In America, with 21.

Steve Ballmer bets that Xbox can take Sony in the next-gen console war

Well, I certain don't have the same rosy outlook that he does, but - Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, predicts victory in the next-gen console war. Well, we can only hope that he's got his "Developers, developers, developers!!" on board.

Apple has confirmed the next iMac will utilize a G5 processor while speaking to analysts and members of the press during it's 3rd quarter fiscal year '04 conference call Wednesday afternoon. It also states that the reason why the new iMac won't ship till September is because IBM is having manufacturing problems. IBM makes the G5 processor for Apple, and could not supply enough processors to Apple for an earlier launch of the new iMac.

*Yawn!!!!!*

Feeling tired today? Be sure to visit tired.com and tell them about it. The site has received 32,000+ messages so far (read the Slate article here) and they don't show any signs of slowing. But seriously, who ISN'T tired? Heck, I'm tired every day!