It’s True! It’s True! We finally know who Deep Throat is! *squeals*

Well according to this article, Woodward will now niether confirm or deny that Felt was Deep Throat. However, back when the Vanity Fair article was being written, John D. O’Connor, the author, talked with Woodward about being included in the article.

“Felt, 91, purportedly said he wanted Woodward, who, with Carl Bernstein, relied on Deep Throat in his reporting, to cooperate.

But Woodward was concerned about Felt’s mental state, in talks and a visit with him, and, ultimately, he did not go along with a joint exposure plan.”

So if Woodward really met with Felt, and later said he didn’t feel comfortable with it, this is basically saying Felt *is* Deep Throat without saying it.

I’m as giddy as a school girl! We may finally know the identity of the greatest anonymous source in journalistic history!

Could this really be it? Could we finally know who “Deep Throat” was? According to this article, Deep Throat was W. Mark Felt, 91, who was second-in-command at the FBI in the early 1970s. Now, he is stepping forward on his own, but so far neither Ben Bradlee or Carl Bernstein will confirm or deny. (Info on that here)

The odd thing is, I can not find any information about Bob Woodward saying anything yet. As the man who met with Deep Throat all those times, he is really the one who needs to comment, and so far nothing. So I will be watching closely for any information about his comments.

You can read the whole Vanity Fair article here, but I will warn you it is an Adobe PDF, so be prepared for Acrobat to launch.

*taps the mike* Hello? Can anyone hear me? This is a blatant ploy for more comments to be posted! If you are reading this blog, at least leave a comment saying “Howdy!”. I am beginning to think I am doing this for no one but myself! So come on folks! Give me a shout out!

With Survivor and The Apprentice over, you thought you were probably all safe from reality tv coverage on my blog…NOPE! Welcome to Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen!

For those of you unfamiliar with Gordon Ramsay he is a 3 Michelin Star chef, has been voted the best chef in England for 9 years and is ultra-famous for his temper which was documented in Boiling Point and Beyond Boiling Point.

Normally I am not fond of shows all about yelling and tempers, but the thing about Ramsay is that if you actually listen to his anger, listen PAST the yelling, he is ALWAYS right. It is about food safety, a better dining experiance and making sure that people live up to their potential in the food service industry.

All that being said, Hell’s Kitchen is taking 12 contestants into a resturant run by Ramsay where they will be put through tests. Split into two teams, each week one team will lose and Ramsay will send one aspiring chef home. The pot of gold for the winner is a resturant of their own.

In episode 1 we were introduced to all 12 contestants and each had 45 minutes to prepare a signature dish to introduce themselves. Only 2 received begrudging compliments from Ramsay. The contestants were than informed to get ready to start their first test. They were informed that they would be running a resturant that very night.

Here is where Gordon’s perfectionist side comes in. If even one dish in an order does not meet his standards, the whole tables orders are chucked and started over. Now obviouslly the people in the resturant were in on the whole concept, because NO ONE wait around for over 2 hours for their entrees. It was amazing to watch just bungling these 12 contestants were, but was amusing at the same time.

Long story short, some people never got their food, the red team lost and Carolann was sent home for her lack of motivation.

This show will air each Monday at 9 EST/8 CST. Next monday will have a rerunning of the first episode before the new episode. You can tune in at 8 EST/7 CST for the rerun. I’m already hooked!

The Indianapolis 500 normally holds no interest for me, but I admit that the idea of Danica Patrick intrigued me. She is not the first woman to run the race, but she seemed to have a real shot at winning this race, so it got my attention.

Then came the disgusting comments of some of the male drivers. This article points out some of the worst ones. It seems some of the male drivers felt she had an unfair advantage by weighing only 100 pounds. Well, guys, I hate to tell you, there are no rules governing how much a driver should weigh, so you really have nothing to say. They did anyway though:

“NASCAR’s Robby Gordon said he would not race against the petite Patrick because he believes she has a weight advantage at a mere 100 pounds, IRL officials said they were not considering changing their rules to level the playing field.”

He wasn’t the only one though:

“I’m not bragging about it, but I think that’s an advantage for sure,” Kanaan said. “Forty-five pounds is probably like 10 gallons of fuel, so it’s like we’re qualifying with 20 gallons of fuel and she’s qualifying with 10.”

Folks, if it’s not in the rules, it’s not in the rules. Lose some weight yourselves if you think it is such an advantage. Sure, guys are heavier by nature, but that doesn’t mean you should be all chauvenistic . Gentleman, (and I use that term lightly) this is the 21st century, grow up.

And as a post note, congratulations to Ms. Patrick on coming in 4th, the best finish by a woman in this race.

*very computery geekiness warning*
For years now, all work has been concetrated on making computers faster (3.0 GHz, 3.2 GHz…whatever), well, since it doesn’t seem possible at this time to increase the clock speed of the chips, why not slap two chips into the same core instead? Works for me! Intel is now shipping the consumer version of it’s dual-core chip, for now called Intel Pentium D, this week.

What this will do is allow the computer to more effectively run multiple programs at once. You, the end user, will really not see any difference, but “under the hood” of your computer, it should make a world of difference. That difference though is going to cost you (from the linked news story above):

“When purchased in volume, Pentium D prices range from $241 to $530 with speeds from 2.8 gigahertz to 3.2 GHz. Supporting chipsets range from $38 to $42.”

Yowza! What I am personally hoping for though is a drop in price in plain old single core chips. If that does happen, we will hopefully see laptop and desktop prices drop some. Laptops need to desperately.

And for you AMD fans out there, they are supposed to announce their dual-core’s next week.

This is an interesting story. Let me say, the fact Shaq wants to help law enforcement is a noble pursuit, it is just the idea of Shaq…all 7′1″, 325-pounds of him…being “undercover”.

And I really applaud his training to go after child predators online, but can you picture Shaq in a chat room typing:

My name is Theresa and I am just 13…could someone please explain all these new, odd feelings I am getting? Will some older man help me understand?

*shudder*

But good for him wanting to help out!

This is a subject that won’t win me any fans I figure, but it has been eating at me for awhile, so…deal with it.

I despise tipping. There, I’ve said it. Let me say first though, that no matter how much I may not like it, I still do it as it is expected by society. That doesn’t mean though that I don’t think it has gotten out of control. I believe tipping should be a reward for good service, not just be expected carte blanche, sadly it is becoming that way. Observe the reciept from one of the local restuarants

Ok, as some people I have shown this to have point out to me, this is for the people who can’t do the math for themselves. (my feelings on that are a whole nother entry onto itself) I view it as a little nudge…a little reminder…”Don’t forget to tip…we’ll even figure it out for you!” No you won’t. I will decide the value of the tip…I will decide who should be tipped…and I will tip in the amount I see fit.

According to Wikipedia.org (anyone notice how much I like that site yet?) defines tipping as:

A tip (also known as a gratuity) is that amount of payment to certain service sector professionals which is in addition to the advertised bill or fee. These payments and their size are a matter of social custom.

There are no standing rules or obligations concerning whether to tip (tip is both a noun and a verb), who to tip or how much. It varies from being considered rude to offer a tip (the other may find it degrading, as if (s)he is a beggar) to being considered very stingy not to give a tip. To give a very small tip might be considered even worse than giving nothing.

See? Even this says there are no rules and no OBLIGATIONS. Do not just assume that the mere act of showing up at my table and taking my order, obliges me to tip you. I don’t expect you to kiss my feet to earn the tip, but I expect at least a normal level of service from you. Are you keeping my coffee cup from reaching bottom? Are you smiling? Are you checking on my meal is? Did you get my order right? None of those things are too much to ask in my opinion.

And why is tipping so widely expected HERE, as in the USA? Other countries don’t do it as much as us, if at all. Also from Wikipedia:

In Sweden, a tip of the lowest denomination may be given as a sign of approval to a waiter who has given exceptionally good service, but never anything else. In Finland and Taiwan tipping is also practically unheard of except when a customer wants to show appreciation for exceptionally good service.

In Spain, expected tips at restaurants are usually from 5% to 10% of the total amount. But nothing happens if you don’t leave any tip as waiters are already paid.

I can add to this that tipping is unheard of in Japan. The bellman at my hotel, sadly, have gotten used to Westerners tipping them, but I refuse to give in there. Nowhere else in Tokyo do I ever run into it though. Not cab drivers, waiters, doorman, elevator operators….no one.

So here we are in the USA and everyone and their brother expects a tip. Waiters, bartenders, doormen, cab drivers, shoe shiners, hairdressers, delivery men, movers and on and on and on. What is it about the United States that we have to do this? Why do these other countries not view tipping the same way? What is it in our mindset that makes people think they should be rewarded for just doing their job?

I am sorry I don’t have the answers, but I sure have the questions. I won’t stop tipping, I like recieiving my order, but it doesn’t ever mean I have to like the practice.

It seems two English folks wanted to live out their Star Wars fantasies, and thought filling a fluorescent tube with petrol (gasoline to those of us in the USA) was a darn good way to make a lightsaber. And as with any stupid act nowadays, they video taped it. Mark Webb (20) and Shelley Mandiville (17) are now in the hospital in critical condition. It seems Mr. Webb has burns on 40% of his body, no listing of how bad Ms. Mandiville’s burns are.

You can read the news story at Sky News, The Scotsman, BBC News & ITV News.

The only reason these people won’t be up for a Darwin Award is that they lived.

My little town (Kirksville,MO, for those who don’t already know) has one major problem: Wal*Mart.

Wally World has been here FOREVER, since pre-1979 for sure when I moved here. We were an early store for sure as our store number is 189. Around 1992 we were upgraded to one of the first Super Centers. Even since then, we have lost four grocery stores to them. Numerous mom and pop stores have closed and in general just caused havoc ever since then. Over the years I have kept trying not to shop there. The internet made that easier, but no matter how hard I try, I always end up there every once in awhile. Though every moment I am there I despise it.

So my question, Target, is opening 600 new stores this year. Where’s ours? This town is ripe for competition, yet nothing. We are getting a brand new, fairly large Home Depot, but still no Target!

Come on guys…lots of us want to give up Wally World…come here…PLEASE!!!!

For those of you with Ebay or Pay Pal accounts, you have probably seen these stupid emails that tell you things such as:

Become an eBay Power Seller

You have added a new credit card home address!

Account Access Limited!

When you open them up, they look official (some more than others) and they will ask you to click on a link to verify your information for “your safety”. Let me assure you folks, clicking on those links will NOT be a good thing for you.

These types of emails are known as “phishing“. Wikipedia.org defines phishing as “In computing, phishing is the act of attempting to fraudulently acquire through deception sensitive personal information such as passwords and credit card details by masquerading in an official-looking email, IM, etc. as someone trustworthy with a real need for such information.”

Boiled down, this means these are bad people trying to get your informtion from you. The best idea is, if you get an email saying something is wrong with your account, go to the site on your own, NOT through a link in the email. See if there are any messages waiting for you when you log in. Again though, do NOT click on the links in the message.

Now, if you get one of these, you should forward them to the companies they are spoofing. The email addresses for forwarding them in the cases of Ebay and Pay Pal are spoof@ebay.com and spoof@paypal.com. When you do this though, you need to include in the body the “headers” from the email you recieved. Headers look like this:

Return-Path: Received: from rly-xg03.mx.aol.com (rly-xg03.mail.aol.com [172.20.115.200]) by air-xg01.mail.aol.com (vx) with ESMTP id MAILINXG11-45e428c07ed204; Wed, 18 May 2005 23:28:49 -0400
Received: from smtp107.mail.sc5.yahoo.com (smtp107.mail.sc5.yahoo.com [66.163.169.227]) by rly-xg03.mx.aol.com (vx) with ESMTP id MAILRELAYINXG38-45e428c07ed204; Wed, 18 May 2005 23:28:45 -0400
Received: from unknown (HELO User) (pfeffertlkjhgfd@24.110.206.119 with login)
by smtp107.mail.sc5.yahoo.com with SMTP; 19 May 2005 03:28:38 -0000
Reply-To: From: “PayPal” Subject: You have added a new credit card home address!
Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 05:28:34 +0200
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html;
charset=”Windows-1251″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
X-AOL-IP: 66.163.169.227
X-AOL-SCOLL-SCORE: 1:2:411626833:13153337
X-AOL-SCOLL-URL_COUNT: 1
Message-ID: <200505182328.45e428c07ed204@rly-xg03.mx.aol.com>

I know, it looks like gibberish, but it tells the security teams alot about where the email came from. (And btw, this came from a spoof I recieved, so I could care less who see’s all the info!)

Also keep in mind, spoofs can come in many forms, I even get tham about my bank account…at banks I have never dealt with.

So, long story short, never click on a link in any email unless it is a very trusted friend, even then, make sure they really sent it.

Absolutely nothing to report. Slept for 10 hours, which is unheard of for me, but boy does it feel good to be rested for once. Otherwise nothing really to report. Several entries planned for this week though.

If you haven’t seen Star Wars Episode III:Revenge of the Sith, spoilers follow:

This is not so much a review, as a nitpick session.

1. Why did Padme name the twins Luke and Leia? Did the names mean something to her? She didn’t know she was having twins (in that advanced of a society?), so were those the names she had picked just in case?

2. If Midichlorians are such a huge deal, why didn’t they do a count on Luke and Leia so we would know powerful they were?

3. Obi-Wan turned off the recall signal, does that mean some other Jedis lived?

4. Wow, Yoda drops the bombshell he has been talking to Qui-Gon. The reason we never saw this was…….? And hence, no explanation of Force Ghosts.

5. It seems the origin of Darth Vader’s armor can best be summed up in….his pants caught fire? One of the greatest screen villians of all time, and his big origin shot can be summed up in his pants catching fire.

6. Why no memory wipe for R2-D2?

7. Is there a limit to what size of ship can land on a planet? It seems no. And I am not thinking of the crashed ship, but the new Star Detroyers.

8. Exactly how long does it take to build a Death Star? 20 years for the first one it seems, so when did they start building the second?

9. Obi-Wan delivers Luke to Owen and Beru, he and Owen do not talk. So why is there so much animosity on the part of Owen towards him in Episode IV?

I am sure there are more. I enjoyed the movie, but it wasn’t all I had hoped for.

I watch CSI each week, and normally I don’t say anything because it’s not THAT exciting of a show. (sorry folks, it’s the same thing each week) Well, I had some reservations about the scheme of Quentin Tarantino directing the season finale, but boy did it work.

Following the story of CSI Nick Stokes (played by George Eads) being kidnapped by a man who blames CSIs for putting his daughter in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. Once kidnapped, Nick is buried alive in a coffin and it is up to Gil Grissom (played by William Peterson) and the other CSI’s to find him within 12 hours or pay the $1 Million ransom. Coming together with the money through CSI’s Catherine Willows (played by Marg Helgenberger) casino owning father. Grissom goes to pay the ransom, only to have the kdnapper blow himself up without revealing where he had Nick hidden.

I don’t want to recap the entire episode, but just say in general, I was really impressed. Instead of focusing all on process, we got to focus on people. Sure, there was some process shown, but in general this was much more a chance to interact with the characters and see how they relate to each other and do truly form a team.

And boy could you see the little touches of Quentin all over this epiosde. From Nick being buried in a coffin (think Kill Bill Vol 2), the use of a Dukes Of Hazard board game (Tarantino is well known as a collector of board games), use of music, black & white shots and even to a lawyer named “Boots”, this was very much a Tarantino production.

An all around exciting, nail biting and character driven 2 hours.

So here we are folks, time for Donald Trump to pick his third apprentice. As with last week, it was of course down to Kendra, from the original book smarts and Tana, from the original street smarts team.

Well honestly, there is not much to recap this time. It was pretty obvious from the opening moments Trump was ready to hire Kendra, and that is just what he did. She will be “overseeing” (yeah, right) the renovation of a hude mansion in Florida.

Congrats Kendra, you earned it. See you all next season!

E3 is rocking the video game world this week with announcment galore! The console wars are back, and badder than ever.

Microsoft - Nothing new here, we already know all about the Xbox 360, so you may move along. The only update being that it is backwards compatiable to Xbox 1. Thank goodness. Expected release by end of 2005.

Nintendo - The Revolution is here, and boy is the name appropiate. While the Playstation 2 was the first backwards compatiable system, the Revolution is moving the bar higher. Using emulation and downloadable content, you will be able to download 20 years of Nintendo games and play them all from the Revolution. The NES, the SNES, the N64 and the system will accept Gamecube discs. Wireless controllers and Wifi enabled. Yowza! Expected release sometime in 2006.

Sony - The mama of all the systems, the Playstation 3 was unveiled. Wireless controllers (but boy is that controller ugly), Wifi eneabled, backwards compatiable with Playstation and Playstation 2. 256MB system RAM 3.2GHz, and 256MB GDDR VRAM at 700MHz, 6 USB ports and a 3.2 GHz Cell Processor rated 2.18 teraflops. (non-geek speek “Holy damn!”) Expected release in early 2006.

So, yay, lots and lots of gaming goodness, but now, reality begins to set in. How much are these suckers going to run? The only rumored price so far is around $465 for the PS3. Um…I’m sorry, but I do not need to take out small home loans to buy my gaming systems. While all these new features are wonderful, I do not plan on shelling out that much money on systems. That is just insane. What mother is going to tell little Johhny “Oh of course you can have the new Playstation, we don’t need groceries this week!” That is just insane.

So while I am excited, I am also way cautious of what all these new sytems are going to cost.

So much to write about this week! YAY! Let’s start with one of my favorite subjects though, bad journalism.

You all know I must be talking about the Newsweek article that reportedly led to 15 deaths in riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now, Newsweek is retracting the story, and commenting on the why of what happened. The most important part is:

Two weeks ago, in our issue dated May 9, Michael Isikoff and John Barry reported in a brief item in our Periscope section that U.S. military investigators had found evidence that American guards at the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had committed infractions in trying to get terror suspects to talk, including in one case flushing a Qur’an down a toilet. Their information came from a knowledgeable U.S. government source, and before deciding whether to publish it we approached two separate Defense Department officials for comment. One declined to give us a response; the other challenged another aspect of the story but did not dispute the Qur’an charge.

I really am not going to comment on the subject of the original story, that is for everyone to figure out their feelings on their own. What I am commenting on though is the journalistic ethics on display here.

First mistake - They had one source on this story. They took a no comment, and a comment on another section of the article, but not the Qur’an portion as a confirmation. That is a weak, weak basis to a story. On a story of this magnitude you do not run it without at least two confirmations. This is a story with the ability to set major actions in motion, and it did, but they ran it with one anonymous source. Yes, good chance they knew the source, good for them, it will still a major accusation with only one confirmed source, that is just a bad choice for any writer.

Second mistake - Read this portion

“Last Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told us that a review of the probe cited in our story showed that it was never meant to look into charges of Qur’an desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them “not credible.” Our original source later said he couldn’t be certain about reading of the alleged Qur’an incident in the report we cited, and said it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts. Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we. But we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.”

Well, your source now wavers, never a good thing, but the biggest insult? One sentence. One lousy sentence for 15 lives killed over something that could never be 100% confirmed without a doubt. “But we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.” Just look at that sentence. It is empty…meaningless. It should read something more to the effect of:

We at Newsweek deeply regret the violence that our lazy, lackluster reporting skills caused. We will no longer run a story based on one source and assume lack of comment does not constitute a confirmation. And the writer of the article, Michael Isikoff, will be made to pay for his screw up.

Oh yeah, did I mention no discipline is planned for the writer, Michael Isikoff ? Well none is planned. Nope, apparently you are no longer punished when you fail your job miserably and cost 15 people their lives. Good to know.

It is time for the media to stop being concerned with who gets a story out first/ I would much rather have accurate reporting that results in no deaths thank you!

Well, Survivor Palau is over, and what an ending! The final four consisted of Ian, Jenn, Katie and Tom, and backstabbing flew!

Ian told Katie and Jenn that if Tom lost immunity, they should vote him out. Well….he won. So good-bye Jenn. But on her way out, she let it be known what Ian had planned. Oops! Unhappy Tom! They went ahead and voted Jenn out, but boy did Tom let Ian have it and said that he did believe that Ian had turned on him. Ian didn’t know what to say or do.

So, final immunity was the usual endurance contest, this time on floating buoys. Katie dropped out at 5 hours, a few hours later, Tom tried to make a deal with Ian, Ian wouldn’t listen. So at the 11 hour mark, Ian made a counter offer, to win Tom’s respect back, he would step down ONLY if Tom took Katie instead of him to the final 2. No one could believe what they were hearing, not even Jeff. Finally Tom agreed, Ian stepped down. Probst so no need to waste time, so they had tribal council right there. Tom made sure Ian was serious, he was, good-bye Ian.

So, the final 2 of Katie and Tom faced off against the jury, the questions, as always, were brutal. But in the end, in a vote of 6 to 1 (yes, Coby) voted Tom the winner of Survivor Palau. Way to go Tom!

The lid is off, the details are out, and the Xbox 360 appears to rock my socks….with one exception. …still no word if it is backward compatiable! What the…?! Oh well, let’s look at some of the spiffy features:

Memory:512 MB of 700 MHz GDDR3 RAM

This is going to make a HUGE difference in load times and size of levels. I am blown away by this amount of RAM in a game system.

Storage:
Detachable and upgradeable 20GB hard drive
12x dual-layer DVD-ROM
Memory Unit support starting at 64 MB

Well it would appear they are thinking ahead. The hard drive being swappable is great, and the memory units START at 64 MB. Nifty, so obviouslly they have thought ahead to games requiring larger save spaces. Nice to see them thinking ahead.

Input/Output:
Support for up to four wireless game controllers
Three USB 2.0 ports

Wireless controllers out of the box, faboo! Thats the way to go! I am tired of these wires running everywhere. Three USB ports though has me wondering what they have planned.

Online (broadband only):
Xbox Live out of the box
Built-in Ethernet port
Wi-Fi ready: 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g

Nice! You can use ethernet wire or wifi right out of the box. .11a support though? Wonder why they bothered with that. Nice to have options though.

Lots more interesting features, make sure to click on the links above!