Okay, look, there are certain things I really never want to hear about ANYONE, let alone a senator.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, Larry Craig, a Republican senator from Idaho, was snapped up in a sting operation in the Minneapolis Airport attempting to stop gay men from hooking up in the bathroom. Apparently Senator Craig made some of the signs of wanting to pick-up the undercover officer in the stall next to him. He opted to please guilty to make it go away, but now it has come back to haunt him… and us.

See, the audio of his questioning (transcript here) by the police has been released to the public and it is being played on every media source you can think of. Over… and over… and over.

There is no denying this is a noteworthy story that deserves to be followed, but could cut the damned audio? Especially the following highlight.

DK: Okay. Did you do anything with your feet?

CRAIG: Positioned them, I don’t know. I don’t know at the time. I’m fairly wide guy.

OFFICER: I understand.

CRAIG: I had to spread my legs.

OFFICER: Okay.

CRAIG: When I lower my pants so they won’t slide.

OFFICER: Okay.

I understand how it plays into the facts of the case, but really, do we have to hear it on EVERY news broadcast? No.

My city of residence, Kirksville,MO, enacted a smoking ordinance on July 1st, 2007 that finally prompted me to write an entry I have pondered for ages.

Smoking bans are bad for your economy and a violation of people’s rights.

Now, let’s be clear before I go much further, I am a REFORMED smoker. I quit smoking several years ago, I do have the occasional cigarette here or there, and the rare cigar, but I am no longer a full-time smoker.  My annoyance with bans such as this comes entirely from a business perspective and a freedom of choice angle.

Why do I feel the way I do? It’s fairly simple, but I know not a very popular stance, and I expect a lot of people will tell me I am wrong-headed on this, but I still want to express myself.

It hurts the economy - The people who say smoking bans help the economy are always the people most for it, and they extol the claim that the non-smokers will swarm to the bars because it is the smoke that keeps them out.

Could someone please explain to me then why I know of 42 bars that closed in the Lake of the Ozarks region within 2 years of their enacting a smoking ban? My uncle, a talent booker of musicians for bars and clubs, informed me of this, and every bar informed him of the same reason: “We just lost too many customers after the smoking ban.”

What a lot of people don’t realize, although smokers could have told you this, alcohol boosts the the effects and desire of cigarettes. In a 2004 Duke University study, this was documented.

In tests on human volunteers, Duke University Medical Center researchers have found that even small amounts of alcohol boost the pleasurable effects of nicotine, inducing people to smoke more when drinking alcoholic beverages. The findings provide a physiological explanation for the common observation that people smoke more in bars. The findings also explain statistics showing that alcoholics tend to smoke more than non-alcoholics, and that smokers are more likely to be alcoholics.

If you remove the ability to smoke in a bar, what reason do the smokers have to go to the bar? They know their desire to smoke will be increased while drinking, so why should they patronize an establishment that doesn’t allow it?  There will be other places they can go, so though they may been a regular at a bar, if they can’t smoke there, some of their drive to be there, leaves.
When you add in the lowered standards to qualify as a drunk driver, currently a Blood Alcohol Content of .08 in Missouri, where is the incentive for smokers to even leave their homes to go to the bar?  If they go, they can’t smoke, and with the BAC that low, they can barely drink.  They instead will stay home to drink or attend parties at a friends house, reducing the number of patrons in a bar.

It violates people’s rights - Non-smokers talk about how smokers in a bar are violating their rights by forcing them to inhale their second hand smoke. Well, here’s the problem with that idea: Who forced you to go into the bar? Did someone hold you at gunpoint and force you into the smoke filled bar? No. You chose to walk in there, just the same as the smoker did.

The same goes for employees who work in a bar and talk about how they are being forced to inhale the second hand smoke. Really? Did someone force you to apply for that job? Were you not aware at the time you applied it was a smoking establishment, or did they somehow conceal that fact from you? No. You chose to apply for that position and you chose to accept the job.

If you don’t like the fact a bar is smoky, why not go some place that’s not? Oh wait, there aren’t smoke-free bars most places because smoking and drinking go hand-in-hand, so the non-smokers had to force THEIR world-view on the bars by voting in laws, removing the freedom of choice from smokers, and dictating to businesses what they can and can’t allow.  I am sure there will be non-smokers who say a smoke-filled bar removes their choice to go to the bar, and they would be wrong.  There is no law prohibiting you from entering the establishment, you CHOOSE not to enter the establishment.  Just as the smokers now choose to leave the bars and the owners have to hope their departed regulars MIGHT be replaced by the non-smokers who wanted an option.

My town even took the rule a step further about what a business owner can allow in their business, one they built from the ground-up.

Can a business allow smoking in a private Office?

No, smoking is allowed only outdoors and ten feet away from (Sean’s note:That’s how it appears on the page, I didn’t cut it off)

 

Hold it… you can’t even smoke in YOUR office? Your private sanctuary, the office where you do your work. That’s just lovely, and not even remotely totalitarian!

I support non-smoking in restaurants - I am defining restaurants as places like Ruby Tuesday’s that have a bar in them, but the majority of their floor space is specifically geared to food service. Food is an essential of life, going to a bar to drink is not. Drinking alcohol is a completely voluntary action, as is smoking, and hence, you are aware of the conditions in a bar before going to the bar. A restaurant is a different creature. If a bar serves food, that does not qualify as it is not their primary business.

Hypocrisy - Now here’s the thing that kills me about my city’s ban.

Is smoking prohibited in all bars and restaurants?

No. Smoking is not prohibited in facilities owned and/or operated by a membership association or under the control of a membership association if such facility is used primarily for its members. This would include the El Kadir Shrine Club, the Loyal Order of the Moose, the Kirksville Country Club and the NEMO Fairgrounds.

Yes, these are privately owned establishments, but why are they treated differently than say the office of a bar owner? You can tell the owner of an establishment he can’t smoke anywhere in his own business, but you can’t tell that to something like the Shrine club? Why do I see membership at these clubs going up?

Let me state this again, going to a bar is a completely voluntary activity. It is not an essential of life, your body does not require it to function, so why should a smoking ban extend to a bar? I just don’t get it.  And as the above sign from a local bar indicates, where are the non-smokers that wanted this ban so bad?  Are they racing into the bars?  Doesn’t appear so.

I know smoking is unhealthy, that’s why I quit, and it is also why I realize I should have never started, but it was all my choice.  I stopped going to bars because they quite frankly bored me.  I voted against the ban, but it still passed, and I do realize that was “the will of the people”, but of those who voted for it, that wanted this to happen… how many of you have patronized those bars now that you got what you wanted?

So, that post about Even More HD-DVD Temptation? Seems quantities were limited.

I thought about it all night, was going to order the HD-A20 today, and… deal was over for the Toshiba players. You could still get it on the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player, but I don’t want to go that route. So it appears I will be waiting for another similar offer to come along.

Oddly enough, the Sony Playstation 3, 60GB model deal is still on as of this writing.  Hmmmm.

Not that I think a lot of you go hunting around in my archives, but all posts older than 30 days now have Google Adsense ads in them and will continue from here forward.  I figure 30 days ad-free is more than fair, and this is all about the search engine traffic.  Since I just added it, and I always believe in ebing upfront about the site with everyone, thought I should let you know.

Here they come…

I’ll be covering the announcement for MAC.BLORGE.com, but I’m sure I’ll have commentary over here. I’m predicting full screen video with touchscreen, no clue on storage… I’m hoping huge.

The HD-DVD/Blu-ray war just got a bit more interesting over the Amazon way.

Right now, if you buy a Toshiba HD-A2, HD-A20 (pictured to the left), or an HD-XA2, not only do you get the free five mail-away movies they’ve been offering (which the choices are fairly lackluster, I will admit), Amazon will give you three movies instantly for free, and their selection is pretty nice.

But, where is the format war in all this you ask?

They have a similar deal running if you purchase a Sony Playstation 3, 60GB model. Get three movies instantly for free, and then you can mail in for five more.

Oh no, this doesn’t make this decision any harder at all!

The free instant movies last until September 23rd, the mail-aways are good until October 31st.

One of my all-time favorite sci-fi films is the 1951 classic, The Day The Earth Stood Still.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, a UFO lands in Washington D.C. and an alien and his giant robot emerge from the saucer. As one would expect of the Cold War era, we don’t take too kindly to aliens landing in our capital, so we promptly shoot the humanoid alien, Klaatu. That’ll learn ‘em! What follows is learning that the boy and his robot have come to Earth to teach us new lessons while making peace. The deeper story is don’t be so quick to distrust the unknown.

It was such a great example that not only could films make a commentary on the modern day political climate without being over bearing, but you could also have a sci-fi story about more than just laser beams. It was a commentary on so many aspects of 1950’s America, and it was a well-crafter film to boot.

So, now in 2007 we have to remake it… with Keanu Reeves.

Look, I’m not going to claim the original was the pinnacle of storytelling, or even the best acted film around, but it is a classic that is very specific to its time and place and cinematic history. It is not going to be an easy film to update to modern times, and if you overdo the special effects, you’ll kill the heart of the story. Of course, none of this is to mention the inclusion of the little wooden boy known as Keanu.

Say what you will about Keanu, he can’t act. He may be a nice guy, but seriously, he couldn’t act his way out of a wet paper bag that’s been pre-cut. He made *one* film I can stand to watch more than once, and that was Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure because, let’s be blunt, he was playing to his strengths.  The role of Klaatu carries with it a certain weight, a vibe of “Oh you cute little humans, let me help you, you little scamps”.  Keanu does not have that skill.

I know, I know, I’m pre-judging a movie again, but dammit, this is one of my all time favorite movies, LEAVE IT ALONE!  I don’t want it remade, re-imagined, re-diced, updated or any other damned word, and I certainly don’t want it to star the block of wood known as Keanu!

I noticed something this morning when I started my computer at work that annoys the hell out of me: IM programs.When did it become so insane that I have to have four IM programs open at all times? I’m not even counting Skype in all this, though I always have it on, but I meant just true, dedicated IMing programs!Before I go any further, yes, I am aware of Trillian, I tried it, I hated it.I constantly try to convince friends to switch from one program to another in the vain hope I will be able to dump one IM service from the rotation, but just as I make inroads to that end, someone else pops up. Most recently, I thought I was freed of MSN, but oh no, two friends decided to jump from AIM to MSN this past week. Those bastards!The sad thing is, each messenger has their pros and cons, and I honestly am not 100% love with any of them, but they’re all necessary to me. So, here are my brief thoughts on each, something I have planned for ages, but just never gotten to.AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) - One of the older instant messenger’s out there, and it does show that age at times. Sluggish, crash-prone, but it gets the job done… sometimes. I think the problem is that everyone has just come to accept it as the standard, and AOL, to their defense, hasn’t seen a lot of reason to mess with “success”.

Google Talk (Gtalk) - The newest kid on the block, and probably set to become one of the more popular ones since it integrates with Gmail seamlessly. I know it’s labeled as a “beta” (is there anything made by Google that isn’t labeled as a “beta”?), but it is still sporting a very “Web 1.0″ feel to it. I mean, I know it’s silly, but it doesn’t even have emoticons yet? I do love the fact it saves all your conversations, if you like, to your Gmail account for easy reference later on. Yes you can log conversations with all the programs now, but the centralized saving maks retrieval easy and searchable.

Windows Live Messenger (MSN) - My feelings on this one swing radically. One day I’ll love it, the next I want to see it burn to the ground. And the sad thing is, I’m not sure I could even tell you why. I just really don’t like the feel of the program for some odd reason. I do like the ability to add emoticons (some of mine have gotten pretty odd), and voice clipping is nice a short voice burst, but overall, something about this program just never feels right.

Yahoo Instant Messenger (YIM) - Oh Yahoo… I think they just can’t decide where this one is going honestly. It works, but it just feels like the forgotten step child of instant messaging sometimes. Yes, it has a lot of the same features as the others, but they just don’t feel as well executed for some reason. I try to avoid this one the most, but I still end up on it quite often.

Now, true, I didn’t cover ICQ, but I haven’t used it in years. I know there is a seeming “geek street cred” to using it, but it just never appealed to me much.

I think when it all comes down to it, it’s all about personal preference, and what feels best to you. For right now, I’m really liking Gtalk, but that could always change by tomorrow. Secondly I would probably go MSN, then AIM, and lastly with Yahoo. But, again, it’s all about what feels right to you.

A while back I was going through my Google Anayltics stats and noticed a lot of people surfing in here searching on information about Armando Montelongo. I had done an entry on him back in December of 2006, but it wasn’t what people were looking for.

I saw they were being a bit more specific were looking for stories about an episode of Flip This House they were calling “The Cathouse”. As I missed the episode when it originally aired, I finally hunted it down and discovered it was really called “Little House of Horrors“. Everyone had discussed how this was like the must see episode when it came to the Montelongos. Eh.

All the hoopla was over the fact that it seemed the Montelongo brothers finally called it quits with David, the “nice” one of the two, saying he didn’t want his name associated with this particular house.

See, Armando, in his usual fashion, was going for the cheapest way to flip the house he had purchased, the problem was, this time it was a bio-hazard. No, I am not exaggerating, it truly was a hazard. Who ever owned the house before him had not exactly kept it, honestly, I won’t even tell you the details, they were disturbing enough to watch. The house was a disaster, and unsafe for people to enter, let alone live in it.

After learning what would would need to be done, he tried skimp out on the clean-up since he only had $3,000 left in the budget. He got a quote for $18,000, talked them down to $13,500, and went with it. Even after five dumpsters were taken away, the house still had damaged walls, roach excrement, and a foul smell. Instead of pulling out the dry wall, he wanted to paint over it, and that’s when David and his wife walked out. Eventually Armando did have to rip out everything, but only when he learned the walls were filled with rat nests.

Here’s the thing that got me, according to everything I can fine, this really was the end of their partnership, but talk about going out with a whimper. “I don’t want my name on this project and I’m walking away.” Um… okay… really… that’s it? That was the WHOLE “fight” to dissolve the partnership? And apparently the brothers don’t even talk now. Over… one house. Okay, that makes PERFECT sense.

Anyone else thinking there’s a bunch of stuff we didn’t see? Yeah… I thought so too.

Since then, Armando has gone on to start ArmandoMontelongo.com, where for ONLY $997 he will teach you his “secrets” to flipping houses without even using your own money! Yes… it’s called “kiting” loans and it’s about as dangerous as can be if you have no clue what you’re doing. Oh… and low morals about people’s health safety helps too.

As I said back in December, I have no clue how anyone could buy a house from these people after seeing them on the show.  They do shoddy work (to my untrained eye), have no concern for the quality of work, and generally treat everyone like they’re there to serve at their pleasure.

Oh, and that brings me to another point: How does any contractor end up working with them?   How did the bio clean-up people afford to cut their estimate (which they swore they couldn’t do it for less then $18,000) by 25%?  I mean, I’m in business, I understand negotiation, but 25%?  Yeah, sure the fact the folks getting advertising on a national cable channel doesn’t help with that at all.

Today I was writing up an entry for TECH.BLORGE.com and it struck close to home on one of my favorite subjects: Internet speeds.

It will be difficult to talk about this without crossing over with my published piece, but at the same time, I have to be polite over there, here I don’t.

ConnectKentucky is an impressive initiative by the state of Kentucky to bring DSL connectivity to every corner of the state.  I applaud this, and considering they were one of the last states to get power to every home, it’s to be saluted.  All that being said, there are people in the United States Congress who feel it should be copied nationally.

Okay, let me say why this is good for Kentucky, but bad as a national policy.

Imagine you go out to buy a new computer and the sales person tells you that today, in 2007, you should just settle for Windows 98.  Wouldn’t you look at them and tell them to go fly a kite?  Wouldn’t you wonder why they are trying to sell you an outdated OS?

That’s what DSL is.

On a good day, DSL gets up to 1.5mbps, and while that may be good enough for most people, as a national standard it’s a joke.  As I touched on previously, we are already lagging behind significant portions of the world in speed.  I then went on to mention in another post that Robert X. Cringely on PBS.org has been discussing that at the rate things are doing, we will never regain our broadband superiority.  At first I thought he might be overstating things, but now I have to agree.

I understand it would be horribly expensive to put in fiber optics in a nation of this size, but to build in obsolesce as the standard just seems like a silly waste of money to me.  “Well, this is good enough for the country that invented the Internet, suck it up and deal with it.”

Personally, I think this is a horrible waste of money, far worse than if were to spend a ton of money on what it would take to put it in the latest technology.  It is self-defeating and not-worthy of the supposedly most technologically advanced nation in the world.

Please make sure to contact your your state Representative or Senator and express your feelings on this subject.

I talked about this in February, and it is still going on…

Yes folks, I can STILL meet women from Russia who just want love!

Isn’t Galina lovely?  Why, she almost makes me want to give money to “A Foreign Affair” to fly me to the Ukraine to meet her.

These have been coming in for a year or more on my AOL account, and no matter how many times I got through their unsubscribe system, it never happens.  So, every week I am treated to these wonderful emails showing me all the lovely ladies I can chose from.

Beyond the fact I want to toss a Maltov Cocktail at the server that sends me these emails, one has to wonder how many idiotic men fall for this farce.  What makes them think that if they are having such horrible luck with the women in this country that these women are truly in love with them and not just using them to come to the USA?  I mean… seriously, they fall for this?

Well, obviously some do since I keep getting these stupid emails.

I know by now I have to be boring some of you, but please indulge me.

The following started off as a comment to Roy on this post, and I decided to expand upon it.

As much as I love Japan, it is an anomaly when it comes to technology. I can remember on my first trip over there in 2000 thinking to myself “Laser Disc was actually this popular here?!?” I loved my LD player, and I picked up a ton of discs, heck, it was the only place I could pick up Song of the South. They also embraced the mini-disc, which was never more than a whimper over here.

Honestly, I just want the war settled. I have an HD TV, I *want* HD content to watch on it, and I *know* the second I pick a format, whichever one it may be, the other one will win. Now that I have an Xbox 360, the temptation to go HD-DVD is far greater, I won’t lie.

The sad thing is, I remember the Betamax/VHS war, true, I was young, but I remember it. Beta WAS the superior format, but VHS won for whatever odd reason. Between the two new formats, I have heard very, VERY convincing arguments for one being better than the other, but from film aficionados/buffs, I tend to hear more favorable things towards HD-DVD.

The price point, as silly as it may be, will end up playing a major factor in the war, and HD-DVD is winning that side hands-down right now. The Toshiba player I am looking at is currently $238 on Amazon, the cheapest Blu-ray is $456. When Christmas rolls around, and it’s time to add an HD player to your new HD TV, people are going to look at that and go “Wow… well, I dropped a ton on the TV, I’ll go for the bargain player” without giving two thoughts which one may have the crisper blacks.

Sony has made some very critical strategical errors:
1) Pricing
2) The name is nonsensical (HD-DVD is pretty straight forward, what the hell is a “Blu-ray”? I’m speaking from a Joe Consumer point of view mind you)
3) Where porn goes, so goes the format

#3 is what ended up winning the Beta/VHS war, and now, the porn industry has chosen HD-DVD because it’s cheaper to produce. Initially they wanted Blu-ray, but Sony said “No thanks” as they didn’t want their name associated with it.

In short, the war isn’t over, I’m still not sure of my “side”, I know which way I’m leaning, but I’m taking my time to ponder it for a little while longer.

This helpful article lists Sony’s other failures:

Betamax
Memory Stick
Universal Media Disc (UMD)
Mini-Disc
Professional Disk for Data
HiFD
Super Audio CD

I truly feel that Sony’s biggest enemy is themselves. They end up with a successful product like say the Walkman or the Playstation, and they lose their damned minds again.  Blu-ray IS a solid product, but, the cheapest way for me to get into a format I am uncertain of is an overpriced gaming console?  Gee… thanks Sony.

And then articles like this one appear today where the executive vice president and chief technology officer for Paramount, Alan Bell, makes very valid points is to why HD-DVD is a more stable format than Blu-ray.  And as you can see from the above list, there are reason to be weary of Sony saying they have the new solution.

*sigh*

Can’t someone just settle this?  Is it really too much to ask?  I just want to make the leap to HD dammit!

Oh, this is too funny. Me thinks someone has heard from his corporate overlords and was told he was being an idiot.

Yesterday I mentioned how Michael Bay was all up in arms over Paramount going to HD-DVD only? He was proclaiming “…No Transformers 2 for me!” and how he was unahppy with the switch over.

Well, funny how things change:

Last night at dinner I was having dinner with three Blu-Ray owners, they were pissed about no Transformers Blu-Ray and I drank the kool aid hook line and sinker. So at 1:30 in the morning I posted - nothing good ever comes out of early am posts mind you - I over reacted. I heard where Paramount is coming from and the future of HD and players that will be close to the $200 mark which is the magic number. I like what I heard.

As a director, I’m all about people seeing films in the best quality possible, and I saw and heard firsthand people upset about a corporate decision.

So today I saw 300 on HD-DVD, it rocks!

So I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!

Michael Bay

Oh, this is too funny. Me thinks someone has heard from his corporate overlords and was told he was being an idiot.

The only thing about this that saddens me is it brings him back to ruin another Transformers movie.

As some of you may have heard yesterday, Paramount and DreamWorks SKG have announced they will no longer be supporting Blu-Ray. While I wasn’t sure if this would push me one way or the other, when I heard via Roy that Michael Bay is upset by this, and may not direct Transformers 2 because of it… I immediately started shopping for an HD-DVD player.

I am down to either Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD Player or the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player. I am leaning towards the stand alone player because I don’t like one device being dependent on another.

Any one have any thoughts?

How odd that stories I wrote in August of 2005 are becoming relevant again in August 2007. First it was school uniforms, and now we’re hearing rumblings about the Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA).

As I said, I first touched on this back on August 20th, 2005, and… well, two years to the day, I’m back to it. There is a movement for a national petition to lower the legal drinking age, and I have to say I support it.

There are a couple of reasons I think this is a good idea:

A) Demystifying - There is a mysterious quality to alcohol while you’re under 21. I know I certainly fell victim to it when I was younger, and I actually feel my drinking DECREASED once the “taboo factor” of it was removed.

While you’re under the legal drinking age, there is more of an urgency to acquiring the alcohol, a sense of cool factor, almost an elation of triumph in the illegal activity.

B) Why is it the last hurdle? - Why is such a simple act the last hurdle to adulthood? Let me borrow from I said two years ago:

It seems silly that drinking is the last of the hurdles into supposed adult hood in this country. Let’s look at some of things you can do at other ages:

15 - Driving with a permit in some states
16 - Driving with a restricted license
18 - Driving with a full license
18 - Enter legally binding contracts
18 - Vote
18 - Join the military
18 - Take out a loan
18 - Get a credit card
18 - Smoke
18 - Get married without parental consent
18 - Buy a rifle or shotgun
21 - Buy a handgun and handgun ammo

So essentially, you can put yourself into debt for life with credit cards, smoke and give yourself cancer, join the military and go fight a war where you can kill or be killed, buy a rifle, drive a 2 ton coffin on wheels or enter into a contract that could change your life…..but don’t you dare think about having a beer while doing any of these things. Getting married, but you are under 21? Sorry, no champagne for you.

And, surprise, surprise, people agree with me. (as with all online polls, the results are suspect, but still interesting to read.  This is a vote happening on MSNBC.com, and as you can see, the clear majority feels that in some way the drinking age should be lowered.  I fully admit there are probably some kids mixed in there, but it does make one wonder.  A more scientific Gallup poll showed that 77% of people opposed lowering the drinking age, but as someone who has taken one of their polls, I don’t agree with the way they word things.

Anyway you slice it, it still seems silly that people who are old enough to decide to head off to war can’t have a beer.  “Well, Johnny, you’re old enough to pick up a gun and be shot by an Iraqi, but put down the beer, you’re not responsible enough for the decision yet.”

The logic of this country astounds me sometimes.

From the MSNBC article, I do like the idea of  drinking education, it won’t work, but I like it.  I think one of the biggest problems with drinking here is we are never taught moderation.  You look at countries like England that allow children to drink with their parents in a restaurant from the age of 16, and that makes sense to me.  You can start to teach your kids about the responsibilities and the effects of alcohol, but instead, here in the USA, you kind of get thrown into the deep end of the pool and are expected to know how to swim.

We have the highest MLDA of any country in the world, and that just seems wrong to me somehow.

As I now spend my weekends catching up on my writing assignments, I leave the TV on some pretty odd shows during the afternoons. Enter Bridezillas.

Could someone please explain to me how:

A) People can get this out of control over something like a wedding? Yes, it is a “special day”, but does that excuse people turning in to super idiots?

B) How do these people sign off on letting themselves being shown on this show?

C) And here’s the one that kills me… how do they know in advance they’re going to be a Bridezilla? hmmm wouldn’t want to say it’s a set up or anything.

The only good thing to come out of today? Folgers is running a special promotion called The Wakeup Special where you just go to their site, fill out a form and get a free sample of their new coffee.

I must admit to having a… “slight”… coffee addiction.  Actually, to the point my friend who is a registered nurse has started complaining to me that I may be doing too much caffeine.  I mean really, who could ever saythatIamdrinkingtoomuchcoffeeandgettingjitteryandramblingonandonandonIdon’thaveaproblemIcanstopanytimeIwant… okay… maybe she has a point…

I stumbled on a story for TECH.BLORGE.com last night that I spent far more than my normal amount of time on. You can click the link to see the final product.

Earlier this month a new website popped up named WhyFirefoxIsBlocked.com. It boils down to a guy hates Firefox because of *one* extension, Ad Block Plus because he can’t figure out how to write a script to get around it and still show his oh so precious ads on his site. And as a wannabe web designer, you know it makes sense to build a website about your hatred of the second most popular browser on the market. Just says to me that your kung-fu is lacking, but what do I know, I only run eight websites.

His reasoning why this isn’t an insane move, and actually makes sense from a financial point of view?

Demographics have shown that not only are FireFox users a somewhat small percentage of the internet, they actually are even smaller in terms of online spending, therefore blocking FireFox seems to have only minimal financial drawbacks, whereas ending resource theft has tremendous financial rewards for honest, hard-working website owners and developers..

Really? “… a somewhat small percentage”? That fascinates me. Looking at the statistics for this site, I show Firefox accounts for 37.89% of my visitors from July 18th - August 17th. Over on AnimeUSA.com, for the same time period, it was 35.77%. So, with either of my two main sites, well over 1/3 of visitors are Firefox users and that amounts to “a somewhat small percentage”, nice to know.

Apparently his ads are so precious to him, it is better to block Firefox and reduce the number of eyeballs on your content. It is supposedly the content that draws a person to a website, but this gentleman seems to have it reversed and seeing his ads are that much more important. He does goes into a long winded argument about how blocking ads is tantamount to theft and violates copyright laws, and just like you shouldn’t skip television ads, you shouldn’t skip his ads, so it’s better just to block you and yada yada yada… he goes on and on about it.

In the course of writing my story, I contacted the owner of the site to allow him the opportunity to expand his thoughts, but all that garnered me was personal insults for my lack of ability to read,  and insults to the majority of Firefox users (the general comments are documented in the article… not the personal ones).

“Based on the emails and phone calls from Firefox users over the past 24 hours, Mozilla could serve their users best by offering literacy classes, since not one person who has emailed or called has demonstrated even a basic level of reading comprehension,” Carlton said.

“I’m sure there are some intelligent Firefox users out there (I know a few) but I am baffled why Mozilla seems to be most vocally represented by foul-mouthed crackpots and deadbeats.”

Wow… I wasn’t aware my use of Firefox says things about my intelligence. Good to know. Course, with Firefox users making up “a somewhat small percentage” of Internet users, he couldn’t have been contacted by THAT many people… right?

Be sure to drop by his blog at JackLewis.net (there’s some long story behind the name I don’t care to repeat), unless you’re using Firefox, then you just end up at WhyFirefoxIsBlocked.com because you really need to see his 500 Amazon Associate links and Google AdSense ads.

For the record, I am a Firefox user, but I do not have Ad Block Plus installed, and yes, I am foul mouthed, but only in person.

While researching my article for Mashable today, I stumbled across some articles by Robert X. Cringely on PBS.org.  It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who feels we as a country are being shafted in the amount of money we pay for our Internet connections.

As some of you may remember, I touched on this subject back in May and mentioned how our speeds are so much slower than the rest of the industrialized world.  Well, Mr. Cringely did a whole series on this subject and talked, of course, far more intelligently on it than I ever could.

Long story short, the U.S. is unlikely to ever regain its broadband leadership.  How sad is that?

AllOfMP3.com has had their day in a Russian court, and unsurprisingly, they were found not to be in violation of Russian copyright laws.

The site, now defunct, was owned by MediaServices and has been cleared of wrong doing in an action brought by EMI Group Plc, NBC Universal and Time Warner Inc. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI… think an international RIAA) has said they will appeal the ruling.

It is amazing how much strife a little web site selling MP3s can cause.

Essentially the problem is the record companies are saying MediaServices, which since the closure of AllOfMP3.com has reopened as MP3Sparks.com, never had permission to sell the albums and collect royalties on the music.   Denis Kvasov, the former head of MediaServices, claims they did pay royalties to ROMS, a Russian royalties organization which in turn should have gone to the recording companies.  Again, the record companies say they didn’t have permission.

Caught up in all this is Russia trying to enter the World Trade Organization and the United States saying no since AllOfMP3 was a perfect example of Russia’s lack of defense of copyrights.  But, if you look at a list of the members of the WTO, Hong Kong and China are members.  Do you have any clue how many bootleg products come out of those countries?  DVDs alone number in the hundreds of thousands, but yet they are in the WTO.  Why?

This whole thing is a mess, but the short version is, AllOfMP3.com/MP3Sparks.com  are not illegal in Russia, leave it alone, move along, and stop using it as an excuse when you have the biggest pirate country of them all in the WTO already.  It’s a lame, shoddy, excuse of a reason to keep Russia out.

This is the current Detailed Sellers Ratings graph for my eBay account.  Please note that I have a 4.5 out of 5 stars for “Shipping and handling charges”.

You have no clue how much that pisses me off.

Let me give you an example of just how bad shipping has gotten.

I shipped a 2 pound box to Blandon, PA 19510 this morning via UPS Ground service.  Now, mind you, I am a daily pickup customer, so I get a discounted rate, but even at that, it came to $6.95.  If I had gone Priority Mail (which I hate as their “tracking” is a joke), it would have been $6.20.  Mind you this customer has not left feedback yet, but this is just one example of an average package.

So what was my “high” shipping charge as one customer put it recently?

I charged $6.50.

Yes, by going UPS, I lost $.45, and if I had gone Post Office, I would have made $.30, not exactly a princely sum.

There are times where the differences are a bit more extreme, but not knowing where a winner will be, and them all wanting a clear statement of shipping up front, we make our best guess, as you can see, we’re usually close.  The problem is the general consumer has no clue how much shipping rates are climbing too, and it’s only getting worse.

I have attempted negotiating with UPS for quite some time, but I do “too much residential” business to qualify.  Oh noes!  I ship enough, just not the right type of enough.

As much as I despise the postal service, it looks like I will end up having to use it more, and even at that, it’s not like I will be pocketing huge sums when you add in expenses like tape!

*sigh*