Well, this just might be some of the coolest news ever. We may finally have an actual picture of a planet outside of our solar system. (in the picture, it is the red “blob”)

Up until now, we have discovered 130 or so instances of what we think might be planets, but never been able to prove it for sure. This one is over 200 light years (about 1,174,917,984,840,791 miles..in other words, no place we are going soon) away and circles a brown dwarf star near the Hydra constellation.

This was first discovered last yeat, but follow up study had to be done to make sure the two objects in the picture were locked by gravity, and it appears they are now. Of course, there are those who have to say this is all wrong:

Dr Chauvin added: “Given the rather unusual properties of the 2M1207 system, the giant planet most probably did not form like the planets in our Solar System.”

Lynne Hillenbrand, an assistant professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, told the Associated Press news agency: “The claim of an object being a planet is subject to one’s definition of planet, and there are different camps on what that definition is.”

I don’t care, I think it is a planet and that is it just further proof that there has to be something else out there besides us. While it is highly unlikely that this planet has life as we know it, the concept that there is no other life in the universe, to me, is just plain silly. Even if it is a one cell ameoba, there is life elsewhere.

After 5 consecutive losses, Net Worth was down to 1 member to Magna Corps 3, so Trump allowed the remining Net Worther, Alex, to steal someone and he chose Tana. Which is kinda funny since it left Craig and Kendra as a team, and they hate each other. Yay…strife!

So the task this week was to go to Hanes and design a limited edition t-shirt celebrating 50 years of t-shirt culture. The next day they would sell the shirts at some “hip” clothing store called Scoop. Each team was given a well known pop artist to do the artwork, Burton Morris for Net Worth and Romero Britto for Magna.

Here’s where things go wacky. Magna had the better shirt, they contacted a mailing list of 3000 fans of Britto’s work, priced somewhat reasonablly (I would never pay that much for a t-shirt personally), they really pushed the limited edition aspect of the shirt and overall did a much better job. So, they won, and Craig and Kendra go on to the final three, good for them.

Now, Net Worth…this team seems to be cursed for some reason. No matter who is on this team, they have lost for 5 consecutive tasks. That’s just insane. That is neither here nor there really, the two people on the task this week are 100% responsible for their failure. Their marketing was non-existant, they over priced and Tana became obsessed with Be Dazzlers.

Tana became convinced that because she once bought a Be Dazzler for $10 and went to the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and “bedazzled” shirts and made $10,000 (man there are some dumb people in this world) that this meant they HAD to bedazzle their shirts. So called all around and could only find the studs she wanted 45 minutes away on Staten Island. Excuse me? YOU ARE IN NEW YORK CITY YOU IDIOT! Just run down to the fashion district! No no no…jump in a cab and drive all the way out to Staten Island because I am sure there are no studs ANYWHERE on the island of Manhatten! ARGH!

They over priced, they did no marketing and they wasted oodles of time…they deserved to lose. When it came down to it though, I applaud Trump for seeing that Alex did a lot of things just to make Tana look bad. He played poorly this week just so everything could be blamed on her, and he did have the worse record of the two, so….buh-bye Alex.

So the final three are Book Smarts Kendra and Street Smarts Craig and Tana. I hate to say it…I’m rooting for Kendra.

Well what can you say? Reward was the always fun auction, just wish there had been more bad “prizes”. Was a little too easy on them I think.

Immunity was just boring. Break ceramic tiles *yawn* Ian won, good for him…whatever.

The heartbreak though, in a vote of 6-to-1, my Stephanie was banished….I really can’t talk anymore…I’m too choked up.

Thanks to my good friend Brenda (who actually clicked on a link for once!) she noticed the Desktop Apprentice is sold out! From the Staples website:

Due to high demand, we’ve run out of the new Staples Desk Apprentice. We are producing more and we’ll be in stock in about 6 to 8 weeks. If you would like to be notified by email when we have more, just enter your email address below.

Thank you for your patience and we’ll be in touch soon.

This means they either made only a handful or are there are a lot of people out there with large desk spaces!

The first trailer for Serenity just hit the web.

If you are not familiar with it, it is a film sequel to the TV series Firefly. If you aren’t familiar with Firefly, buy the DVD set NOW! Only 10 of the 13 episodes aired, but all of them are on this DVD set. If you want to learn more without watching the show, check out this site. I will tell you now though, you are just cheating yourself.

Seems the Boston Herald asked office workers what they thought of the Desktop Apprecnitce from last weeks “The Apprentice“.

But what do reviewers have to say…let’s decipher shall we?

“It looks like one of those fortresses from the Lord of the Rings,” said John Goll of Goll Insurance in Boston.

Well…not so much a review as an observation?

” “We don’t have any desk space that is big enough to accommodate this,” said John Welby at Prime Mortgage Financial. “

Ok, that’s a bit more of a review, it’s big. (duh…it can hold entire reams of paper in the CENTER of it)

Stephen Walker found the item aesthetically upsetting as it sat on the counter of South End Photo.

“I think it’s kind of ugly, kind of cheesy,” Walker said. “I would pass right by (it) if I was walking through Staples.”

What is with everyone being concerned about the “look”? Who cares what it looks like, does it do the job it was designed to do?

The company is touting the product’s “360-degree swivel base.” But David Brown at Guidance Mortgage was unimpressed by a lazy susan for the workplace.

“What this does for you that a non-rotating piece wouldn’t, I don’t know,” said Brown.

Um….allow you access to all 4 sides easily? I know…darn me for using logic.

“Just classify it as useless,” said Insurance Agent Vicky Funderburk.

Again…WHY???????????

Ugh…journalists are turning into a lazy lot I tell ya. It would seem that Jesse Noyes, the writer of this article, really didn’t want to do this assignment, so he took the easiest route possible. Just little sound bites with no explanations.

Mind you, I am not defending the Desktop Apprentice, but I am however attacking lazy journalism.

A little while ago I complained about the evil known as Rachel Ray on The Food Network. Now even the magazine section of your local store won’t be safe from her! Hide your children…seek shelter!

“Fans of Rachael Ray, take heart. If watching her 27 times a week on one of her three Food Network television shows or reading her 11 cookbooks is not enough, you will soon be able to get another dose from the newsstand.”

27 times a week? My eyes and ears bleed at the mere thought. 11 cookbooks? Those poor trees!

“Ms. Ray has teamed up with Reader’s Digest U.S. to publish a food and lifestyle magazine called Every Day with Rachael Ray. Kitty Morgan, the editor of the magazine, said the magazine’s style and tone will reflect those of Ms. Ray.”

It will have nails-on-chalkboard laughing?

“She’s got this high-energy, down-to-earth approach. That is exactly what we will be trying to translate. It will be accessible, casual, very much fun.”

And painful….oh so painful.

Post the names of 20 musicians.
See who can guess which is your favourite track by each.
Once someone guesses right, bold the musician and include the track.

1) The Mighty Mighty Bosstones:
2) Flogging Molly:
3) Madness:
4) Danzig:
5) Tori Amos: Cornflake Girl (guessed by mittens83)
6) The Kinks:
7) Depeche Mode:
8) Johnny Cash: Ring Of Fire (guessed by sulelew)
9) Dexie’s Midnight Runners: Come On Eileen (guessed by mittens83)
10) John Cougar Mellencamp:
11) The Violent Femmes:
12) Guns N’ Roses: Paradise City (guessed by sulelew)
13) AC/DC:
14) Brian Setzer Orchestra:
15) Prince: Prince: Purple Rain (guessed by sulelew)
16) The Doors:
17) The Ramones: I Wanna Be Sedated (guessed by sulelew)
18) They Might Be Giants:
19) The Clash:
20) The B-52’s:

Some of these bands I only like one song, but it is such a great song they made the list!

Now sources are saying that Nintendo MIGHT debut the Revolution at E3. Fraid of missing the hoop-la are we?

I admit I have a Game Cube, but of all my systems, it gets played the least. The controller looks like something Willy Wonka would have dreamt up with all it’s vividly colored buttons. So if Nintendo is going to want to play in the new herd of systems, they are going to have to step it up. The console wars have already had one big fatality with Sega and the Dreamcast (which I actually liked, and still play), could Nintendo be next?

I used to love Staples, we had one in Kirksville for 3 years, and then it went away…darnit.

Anyway, this weeks Apprentice involved designing an improved product for Staples (in case you wondered why I just ranted about them) that would better organize an office. Yay…something near and dear to my heart!

So with the teams set at 3 Manga Corp members to Net Worth’s 2, they went about trying to figure out an exciting new product. Manga went to the Staples office, talked to the executives and then went to a Staples store to talk to actual consumers about what sort of items they needed.

What did Net Worth do? They tried meeting with the Staples executives via phone, which didn’t work out. They then tried cold calling office managers to talk to supply buyers via phone. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

So Manga Corps came with a lazy susan based filing system (named the “Desk Apprentice“) that I actually think is pretty darn nifty. Net Worth came up with…well…I guess you could it a desk. It was just darn silly and impracticle. So any surprise who won? Yeah, didn’t think so.

So since Net Worth only had two members left, Alex and Bren, it was a rather tame Board Room. Both of them were horrible, but it came down who took risks. Bren took no risks and showed no gumption, Alex did. So even though he made poor decesions, Alex was gutsy and Bren was fired.

So we are down to four, Alex , Craig, Kendra and Tana. Of these four, I am most impressed by Tana, but lets see what happens.

Here it is boys and girls….the Xbox 360 (or Xbox 2 if you prefer)

It sure as heck is a lot nicer looking than the old Xbox

The 360 didn’t have to do much to be more attractive, that’s for sure. All the stats aren’t out yet, but first thing I notice on the 360…where are the controller ports? The rumors have been circulating like crazy that it would have wireless controllers from day one. Wow if true.
I am sick and tired of fighting with all the cords for my different controllers. Now one has to wonder though, will they be battery operated or rechargable? Either way, can’t wait for this one.

And at E3, Sony is supposed to unveil the Playstation 3, but looks like no joy on the Nintendo Revolution for awhile yet.

Pretty good episode. Reward challange was nice to see them making the tribe fight each other for the reward. Always good to split up the power, make them question each other.

The real drama was in the immunity challange. Nifty will power challange with the first person out being deserted for a night on an island by themselves. That lucky person was Janu, who dropped out after only 6 minutes. Could someone tell me how this women is a Vegas Showgirl? She has NO stamina! Oh well, she went off to her little island, took 2 & 1/2 hours to make fire and did a little dance. Yay for her. Tom won immunity again, the rest of the tribe better watch out for him. He is a power to be reckoned with.

So as the tribe prepared for tribal council, it seemed like instead of voting out the original target of Janu, a lot of folks thought it would get rid of my darling Stephanie, whom they now viewed as a threat. NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Not my Steph! She could sense it was coming also, and the only one seeming to fight for her was Tom.

So at tribal council Steph couldn’t hold her disgust in, she knew everyone was aiming for her, but then the Survivor Gods smiled down on our little Steph….Janu started saying she thought everyone should vote her out, she wanted to go and it was the smart call on their part. Steph took up the “Boot Janu” banner and helped lead her to say more. Finally Jeff asked her if she just wanted to lay down her torch if she felt Steph was more worth of staying. She said she felt Steph should stay, so she would walk away.

Well Steph asked for a rewording of that and Janu gave it to her. So there ya go boys and girls, Janu threw herself out of the game and saved Stephanie. The Janu fan club line starts forming to the left!

ARGH! I am so sick and tired of “junk faxes”! In the past 24 hours, not only has the company fax machine recieved 5 of them, 1 of them errored out 3 times causing 3 seperate error reports to be printed!

Here is a sample of what these lovely things advertise, if you have never been lucky enough to see/recieve one:

“Pre-Approved Health Plans”

“Wall Street Profit Alert”

“Acquisition Stock Alert: XXXX” ( I took out the ticker symbol)

“QUALITY HEALTH CARE IS JUST A PHONE CALL AWAY!” (emphasis their’s)

“REFINANCE NOW!!!” (again, their emphasis)

True, each of them has a “removal line” listed at the bottom, but funny, every time I call one of those, a whole new wave of faxes comes in. Gee…you don’t think they sell that number to other folks do ya? *innocent, wide-eyed look* Or the other trick they pull (the stock ones do this the most) they just change the name at the top of the sheet in hopes you will think it is another company.

I also really enjoy the ones that make it look like they clipped an article from a newspaper, and then put a post it on it that says something like “Here is that article I was telling you about …WOW! - J”. It will appear hand written like they are sharing some hot tip with you. UGH!

These things annoy me even more than spam e-mail because these suckers use MY paper, MY ink and tie up MY fax line with their garbage. Sure they pay for the phone call, but I’m the one paying for the paper and ink!

I did find one good site about keeping track of the worst junk fax offendors though at junkfax.org, worth a look.

AH….you know, filing for something as important on a trademark on your new companies name should be a lot easier than it is, but instead it is an enormous pain in the behind. Instead I get to tear my hair out and run screaming into the night. Class? What class do I fall into? Someone explain the freakin classes to me *sobs like a little girl*

How Will You Die??
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Cinematical

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the monster that Jack Valenti built to enforce his letter-coded rating system, has demanded that writers of online fan fiction discontinue the use of said rating system to classify their work.

Well it appears that the AMPAS has a lot of time on their hands, or WAY too many lawyers on the payroll. They have nothing better to do that to go after fan fiction writers who would DARE to use such a commanly recognized system.

See, this is one thing I am going to be curious about, because this system has been used SO many places, I am not sure their copyright would hold up anymore. I believe you have to defend it against EVERY instance. So technically, if a tv show says “Oh, you can’t go see that R rated movie!”, it is never followed by “Rated R is copyright the AMPAS.”

Sorry folks, but I really think this has fallen into the prublic domain.

You can see the original article in The New York Times

Ok, can someone explain the logic in this ban to me? Lighters are banned even from checked luggage….fueled or not! Fueled I can understand, but not fueled? And inside the plane no non-fueled either? I used to (and I new stress used to) to take my cigar lighter with me to Japan just to have a flame source. Oh well.

So that aside, the article says:

The genesis for the ban was Richard Reid, who tried unsuccessfully to light explosives hidden in his shoes on a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001. He used matches.

But the article goes on:

The ban does not include matches. Passengers still may carry aboard a plane up to four books of safety matches. Not allowed on planes are “strike anywhere” matches, which can be struck using any abrasive surface.

Ok, so the guy who inspired the ban used matches, so you allow people to still carry matches? How does that make ANY sense? It doesn’t. The article says they are not included in the ban because they can’t be detected. Well boo-freakin-hoo. One flame source is as good as another. You are allowed to carry up to 4 books of matches though. Sorry folks, but that will cause a pretty big flame if you ignite all 4 at once.

I understand the need for security after 9/11, but they are worry about such tiny things that do nothing but tick off the travellers. I am SO happy I don’t fly anywhere near as much as I used to.

And instead of even more bans, how about we concentrate on making the security screening more effective? I know…that would be silly.

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