Adam Ostrow over at Mashable.com was the one to bring the “beta” coffee offer from Joffrey’s Coffee to my attention.

The idea is simple in that up to 10,000 bloggers can go to their site, fill out the form, and not only will you get some free coffee, but you’ll also get a link back to your blog from them. The links are a little momentous to pick through, but Google should pick it up and count it as a little bit of link love for you.

The free coffee you’ll receive is a new flavor named “Jamican Me Crazy” which is a blend of caramel, vanilla and coffee liqueur. I’m not one to thrill to flavored coffee, but it’s free, and I’m a sucker for free. Hopefully it will be good, but if it’s not, I’m out 30-seconds of my time filling out their form.

Last time I looked, they were still under 1,000 slots filled, so there is still plenty of time for my readers to run over and snap up one of those 10,000 spots.

I have mocked the idea of “beta” tests before, and this one is such an obvious gimmick to get bloggers to talk about it, and… wait… aw man! I fell for their obvious marketing gimmick! -sips coffee- Curses.

Before I even begin this, let me stress that my dislike of Oprah Winfrey has nothing to do with her being African-American.  I bring this up because the last time I made an off-hand comment about Star Jones, I had to spend the next day explaining how my dislike had nothing to do with her ethnicity.  Same goes for Oprah, she annoys me, as does 99.9% of the population in some way or another… I’m very equal opportunity in my dislike of people.  It’s a thing.

So, I have been home sick all this week (I won’t disgust you with the details), and naturally I have caught more daytime television than I normally do, and a couple of times I have found myself coming across Oprah.

Now, I already dislike her for the mere fact that she unleashed Dr.Phil and Rachael Ray onto the daytime television world, but seeing her actual show… I get it even less.  What is the allure of this woman?  Is it the fact she feels compelled to yell her guest’s names?  (William SHHHHAAAATTTTNNNNEEEERRRR)  Or perhaps it’s the fact that her audience screams like Howler Monkeys whenever she says they’re going home with something?  I mean, honestly, how many of the women in her audience were THAT excited to be going home with the remastered DVDs of the first season of the original Star Trek series?

I think where she totally lost me (not that she ever “had me”) was her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls.   While it seemed like a good idea on the surface to give underprivileged girls in Africa an education, there has been numerous controversies over how the girls are allowed to interact with their families, not to mention the allegations of sexual and physical abuse by an administrator.  If you’re going to set up a program such as this, it is your personal duty to make sure every person is fully vetted, and safe guards are put in place to protect against such things happening.

I’m all for people doing good deeds in the world, and I’m all for them having success, but I would like someone to explain to me WHY she is successful.  When I have talked to Oprah fans, they always say things like, “She’s so wonderful!”, but when you ask them “Why?”, they kind of look at me blankly like, “Don’t you get it?”

Er… no… I don’t.

I don’t get why she can put her stamp of approval on a book, and it sells millions of extra copies.  Because that was such a good thing in the case of A Million Little Pieces.  I just don’t get so much about her.  So, here it is Oprah fans, leave me a comment and tell me WHY you love her, why she is the greatest thing ever, why does she make you her fans into rabid Oprah-zombies?

It happened the other night, I was watching Big Brother After Dark on Showtime 2, and I realized I have officially become old.

As regular readers know, I have been a faithful viewer of Big Brother since season 1 (though I skipped season 2 as I hated the format change), and each season I complain about “the hamsters”, the Internet nickname for the Houseguests. Well, this year, I think the casting people finally went too far.

There has always been a sense that the producers hoped for “wild and crazy” times, and, true, we did get a streaking man last season (Zach), and back in Big Brother 4, we got full on sex (David & Amanda), but this season… let’s see, where do I even start?

The concept alone, “Til Death Do Us Part”, pairs each contestant with another one, and they work together, get nominated together, evicted together, and, oh yeah, have to sleep in the same bed. Now, this wouldn’t be so bad if they hadn’t matched everyone up with their “soulmate” that the producers picked for them.

We have Natalie, the former stripper/Hooters Girl, who had a boob job that looks like 2 oranges were shoved in to her chest. She has had two abortions, but attends church regularly. (I’m not making a judgment call on her abortions or church going, but don’t the two kinda contradict each other?) And thus far this season she has… er… “orally pleasured” her partner in the game, Matt, at least twice. (they’re pictured to the right here)

The most infamous Houseguest so far this season has to be Adam. Up until today, Adam worked in public relations for the United Autism Foundation. Notice I said “up until today”, because when Adam leaves the house, he will discover he has been fired from his due to referring to people with Autism as “retards” while in the house. It may have been excused as an off handed comment, but when some of the other Hamsters called him on such a comment, he said he could call them whatever he wants because he works with them. This comment also led to Lowes pulling ads from the show, so I’m sure CBS is none too thrilled with him either.

This is not to mention the massive make out party in the pool between Adam, Alex, Chelsia (who was topless), James (who was naked), Joshuah, Matt, Natalie (who was topless), and Sharon. This was all preceded by a strip off between Chelsia and Natalie which set off the entire night.

Yep, it’s official, I’m old. All this did was make me shake my head and wonder about these “kids” today.  This isn’t to mind all the talk of rampant drug use discussion (marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy), not in the house mind you, just in general, and you have to wonder where casting finds these people.  True, you have to be a fairly large narcissist to go on a show such as this, but this whole cast just takes the cake for insanity.

And I know what you all will say, “Sean, just stop watching!”, and I’m trying, but it’s like a train wreck!  I can’t not look at the gore!

Steve Ballmer is a moron.

I’m not sure why Microsoft allows their CEO to ever interact with the public because all he ends up doing is embarrassing himself or the company. This time he decided it was a good idea to imply that iPod users, such as myself, are nothing but thieves.

While at a gathering with the media in London this past weekend, the ever-present subject of Digital Rights Management (DRM) came up. For those unfamiliar with the term, DRM is a form of file encoding that dictates where the file may be played, and locks the music to a given device or account holder. It has been a highly controversial part of the technology world for several years now, and most consumers wish it would just go away as they believe when they legally purchase a file, they should have the right to play that file where and how they choose.

In general, content creators such as music companies and movie studios have disagreed. Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, wrote in an open letter, entitled “Thoughts On Music“, that the music industry needed to abandon DRM, and it seemed they are following him.

So, while Mr. Ballmer was being asked about DRM by the press, he said:

“We’ve had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is ’stolen’.”

Excuse me? You reach this conclusion how? See, here’s the flaw, iTunes Store just became the second largest music retailer in the United States, behind only Wal-Mart. Now, mind you that iTunes Store purchases can only be played on Apple products such as the Apple TV, in iTunes, and, oh yeah, on iPods. On Christmas day alone Apple moved 20 million songs via the iTunes Stores, in theory, on to iPods.

Mr. Ballmer went on to say:

“Part of the reason people steal music is money, but some of it is that the DRM stuff out there has not been that easy to use. We are going to continue to improve our DRM, to make it harder to crack, and easier, easier, easier, easier, to use,” he said.

However, Ballmer conceded it isn’t going to be an easy battle to win. “Most people still steal music,” he said. “We can build the technology but there are still ways for people to steal music.”

Those are wonderful sound bites for the media, and they’re good for scaring corporate business partners, but again I would ask for proof.  I mean, I would hate to speculate that Ballmer/Microsoft are attempting to scare content providers that they are screwed without DRM, and that said DRM could be provided by them.  Microsoft would never go that route.

-cough-

Are we to believe this “easier, easier, easier, easier, to use” DRM will play on iPods?  Somehow my gut tells me we will hear it won’t work with iPods, but boy howdy, it sure will work on the Zune, Microsoft’s joke of an MP3 player.

Any way you slice this, this was a poor choice on Ballmer’s part, something he is not unfamiliar with, and insulting the 42 million plus iPod owners isn’t going to win you any fans.

No matter what you may think of YouTube, the idea that Pakistan could take down the site globally is frightening in it’s ramifications for the Internet as a whole.

The whole debacle started on Friday when Pakistan ordered access to YouTube be blocked due to videos including the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that caused such a stir last year.  When the telecoms did as the Pakistani government ordered, all traffic requests for YouTube were sent to a virtual black hole where the data was discarded.  The problem became global when somehow their traffic redirect got sent out to one of the twenty largest data carriers, PCCW of Hong Kong.

As this was a new request for a data reroute, from a known source, PCCW updated their databases accordingly, and that sent the data out to smaller data centers, propagating the problem on a global scale.  Todd Underwood, vice president and general manager of Internet community services at Renesys, told the Associated Press that, basically, Pakistan accidentally told the world they were YouTube, and hence all traffic for YouTube was directed to their black hole of data.

This whole situation scares the living heck out of me.  If a global redirect was accomplished this easily, what is to stop cyber terrorists from doing something bigger, and grander?  Redirecting the IRS website for when you pay your taxes?  Redirecting government traffic during a national emergency?  Sending cat lovers to a dog lovers site?  The potential problems this makes one ponder are endless.

As I’ve mentioned before, my company warehouse is only 300 feet from my house. That being the case, I have a tendency to wander back and forth during the day, which makes it difficult sometimes for people to guess which location I’m at, and hence which phone number they should call.  I’ve often thought it would be nice if I had a phone number that rang both places, but never really wanted to invest in another phone line, so I’ve allowed everyone play “Guess where Sean is!”

Well, leave it to Google to buy an emerging technology called “GrandCentral” and solve all of these problems for me.  I only learned of this service yesterday, and I have to admit caught me completely off-guard, but it is revolutionary for people who are constantly on the go.  Well… if you live in the United States at least.

What it does is allow you to sign up for an account, pick a virtual phone number for the area code of your choice, and once you’ve picked the number, you enter your work number, home number, and cell phone number.  When someone calls your virtual number it will ring all three of them at once, allowing you to choose which line you want to pick up if you are near two of them at the same time.

What kills me is the number of features that come along with this:

• Did you pick up on your office line, but need to leave?  Hit a button on the keypad and move the call to your cell.
• Is someone about to tell you a phone number or directions, and you have nothing to write on?  Hit “4″ on the keypad to record it to your voice mail.  (yes, the other party is notified you are recording them)
• Customize the ring the caller hears on their end.  Doesn’t serve a real purpose, but it’s fun.
• Voice mail sorted by caller.
• Set which phones will ring by individual or group that you placed them in your address book.

GrandCentral is currently in a private beta, invite-only mode, and all features are, for the moment, free.  Things such as the call record will be considered “premium services” when the site launches, though there is no indication when that will be.

So far, only playing with it for a day, I’m thrilled with it. Will I still be thrilled when I have to pay for all/parts of it?  It will depend on th pricing, but I’m thrilled with the concept.

Now, am I a total tease?  No.  I have three invites if anyone wants them.  Just leave me a comment on this post and I’ll set you up with an invite.

The Mafia has had a broad history in film and on television, and one thing that has always bothered me is how fans always seem to focus only on the violence in the stories. True, the mob life is a violent one, but there is so much more to it then just that. Just like anyone else in the world, these are people with dreams, hopes, families, and failings, but it seems to get lost sometimes in the shuffle. So, I’ve gathered up five scenes from various works that revolve around the mafia that I feel best demonstrate how the lifestyle is about more than just killing.

I will warn you there is a lot of strong language in these clips, but it is unavoidable.

Donnie Brasco (1997)

Donnie Brasco was based on the true story of an FBI agent infiltrating the mafia to bring down certain members from the inside their own organization. Given the subject matter, and the angle it was approached from, the world of the mafia was a bit less glamorous than most portrayals we see. This scene about how Al Pachino’s character will introduce Johnny Depp’s Donnie Brasco is fascinating for displaying the subtleties of the mafia hierarchy, but when Pachino asks Depp for money, it shows that not all mafia members always have a wad of cash on them, and wear gorgeous ties. It was nice to see a work cut back on some of the “glamor” that always permeates these works.

Godfather, Part II (1974)

“You broke my heart, Fredo,” says so much about the mindset of a mafioso. ‘The Family’ comes before family, and this scene demonstrates it probably the most clearly when John Cazale’s Fredo has betrayed Al Pachino’s Michael in Godfather, Part II. While for most Italians there is nothing more important than their families, for someone in the mob, there is nothing more important that “the family”, and if it means that a member of your blood does wrong, then that’s the way things are, and they too must go.

Goodfellas (1990)

Martin Scorsese is arguably one of the greatest living filmmakers, if not one of the greatest ever, so picking one scene from all of his mafia moments is next to impossible, but it had to be done. The “Then He Kissed Me”/kitchen walk scene from Goodfellas is powerful and amazing as a moment of artistry, and as an example of showing how a mafioso of the time period was treated like a prince. Ray Liotta walks through like what is happening is perfectly normal, handing out $20 tips like candy, having a table added to the dance floor for them, while Lorraine Bracco looks on in amazement. Finally she asks, “What do you do?”, and it dawns on the audience just how odd and surreal this life truly is to an outsider.

Married to the Mob (1988)

Perhaps a mob comedy may seem like an odd choice for this list, but a husband/wife argument between Alec Baldwin and Michelle Pfeiffer over their child knowing where a gun is, and how their house is a mish mash of things that fell of trucks, seems to fit. Life isn’t always easy for the wives of mobsters, and while The Godfather Trilogy showed this from a dramatic point of view, this scene seems to be a bit more “real”.

The Sopranos

Maybe not a scene not a lot of people would have thought of for a moment from The Sopranos, but Frank Vincent’s speech as Phil Leotardo about what happened to his family name, and his brother, says so much about Italians, and part of what caused the mob culture to continue here from the old country. As someone who spent years trying to find out what our original family name was, I can relate to some of what goes on here.

What exactly is my name?

Well, it’s Sean P. Aune… not Sean PAune… which I get a lot due to the domain name and my email addresses. And the “P.” is for “Patrick”. I’m used to people screwing up the pronunciation of my last name, but it’s when people screw up my first name that I go “Really? Have you never heard of Sean Connery? Sean Penn? Sean Young… okay, yeah, bad example.”

So, for the record:

Sean – pronounced “Shawn”

Aune – It depends on where you are. We pronounce it “ON…e”. The Word “ON”… the letter “e”, not “one” like the number. It’s a Norwegian name, and they pronounce it “Ah-v-knee”. Apparently in Norway it’s as common as “Smith”, but not so much here.

Now, why am I a pretentious bastard and insist on using my middle initial? That was a decision I made when I opened my business, and it carried forward in to my writing career. “Sean Aune” just looks too short to me, and with people messing up pronouncing either one or both of them, I wanted something in there they could at least identify. That, and I’m proud of my Irish heritage, but “Sean Patrick Aune” would just be too much to go by, and in a domain name?  It would be awkward at best, so SeanPAune.com it was.  I’ve also purchased SeanAune.com, and it points here as well, but it will always be known as my full name with middle initial.

In all the times I’ve looked around the web, I’ve only ever found one other “Sean Aune”, and he’s a Canadian. The funny part is I found a news piece about his being the captain of a Curling team back in the 1990’s, and apparently still plays. I find this amusing only because I happen to love Curling and would love to play it someday.  What an coincidence.

The Parents Television Council is back… oh how I have missed them. Mind you, my true love is the American Family Association, but they have been oddly quiet lately. (Call me? I miss your nuttiness)

For those unfamiliar with them, the PTC is one of those groups that is convinced they know what’s best for you when it comes to what you see on television. They, and their ilk in the AFA and similar groups, feel that they are the guardians of morality on television. It boils down to that only G rated fare should be on television, and anything beyond that shouldn’t even be allowed to air because no one should be exposed to such material. The last time I wrote about them was in December of 2006 when they were all upset over a video on the Internet… you know… not on television.

At least this time they are sticking to the medium that is in their name, “television”, and taking on CBS over the airings of the critically acclaimed series, Dexter.

True, Dexter is the story of a serial killer who only kills murders who can’t be brought to justice, all the while he works as a forensics expert for the police. Yes, the subject matter is a bit grim, and it is about murder, but you know that makes it so different from CSI… and CSI: Miami… oh, and CSI: New York… and Cold Case… or any other number of shows about murder that treat us to graphic depictions of violence. True, Dexter aired on Showtime originally, and these episodes have been cut own for over-the-air broadcasting, but the PTC say it wasn’t enough and are calling for a boycott of the advertisers who supported the show.

Mind you, Dexter is airing Sunday nights at 10 EST/9 CST, after the “watershed” hour for adult material to be aired. It does carry a TV-14 rating, and they warn of the content of the show. All of this means nothing to the likes of the PTC though, they won’t be happy until every show has been sanitized to within an inch of its life. They are saying this is magnified by the issues of mass killings all over the country, and how insensitive it is of CBS to air a show about a serial killer when there has been so much tragedy.

Um…

Don’t get me wrong, I feel nothing but sympathy for the families that have been touched by those senseless, violent actions, but a serial killer and mass murderer are very different creatures psychologically. Also, add in that in the case of the recent shooting sprees (Kirkwood, MO and DeKalb, IL) were committed by people with known mental conditions, it is highly doubtful they were influenced by things such as television shows. I think it’s tasteless of the PTC to even bring them into their “argument”, but I have come to expect arguments from them to not always be connected to reality.

As I have said more times than I can count, you have the ultimate control over what you watch; if you find something offensive, you simply turn the channel. You control your TV and what is shown on it, and when you allow groups to force their morality on to the airwaves, we all lose and art suffers. Sure, there is some stuff that should never air, I would have problems with a show glorifying bestiality, but I also know I can turn the channel any time I want. I mean, if I wanted to rally behind getting something offensive off of television, don’t you think I would have forcibly had Rachael Ray

While it’s not clear if anyone has actually requested a refund for buying an HD DVD player yet, Toshiba is making sure every one knows it’s not going to happen. They also said there won’t be any “sweetners” because the equipment still has an “inherent value” in that it can play CDs, DVDs, and your HD DVD collection.

Even as an owner of an HD DVD player I have to say this is the right decision on the part of Toshiba. As I said back when I wrote about why Steve Jobs was wrong to give a refund in regards to the iPhone, if you are an early adopter of technology, you have to expect things like this to happen. I knew exactly what I was getting in to with buying the HD DVD player when I did, and I didn’t expect any hand holding as I took the leap.

Steve Jobs explained it best in his open letter to iPhone whiners customers about wanting a refund when the iPhone dropped in price:

Second, being in technology for 30+ years I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy. There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you’ll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon. The good news is that if you buy products from companies that support them well, like Apple tries to do, you will receive years of useful and satisfying service from them even as newer models are introduced.

It’s all part of the technology “game”. If you want to play the “game”, then you need to expect to lose once in awhile, it can’t be helped. Sure, it feels nice to “win”, as the Blu-ray adopters did, but it’s not going to happen every time, the law of averages simply says that if you are an early adopter, you will “lose” sometimes.

I think this speaks to the current technology environment, though. There are so many innovations happening in so many fields that it is becoming more common for people to be early adopters of something or the other that never have been before.

Somewhere along the line there is a disconnect happening, a sense of entitlement that doesn’t make sense to me.  When you buy a car, do you whine when the next model comes out?  Do you whine when there’s a price drop?  No, you expect it and you deal with it.  So why do consumers feel they are owed something, or are somehow slighted, when there are changes in gadgets?  It makes no sense to me.

In short, yes, HD DVD is dead, and there will not be any new discs coming out in the format, but you still have a very nice DVD player that will upscale your standard definition DVDs to near high definition quality.  You bought into it, you knew the risks, you deal with it.  And, again, I have no clue if anyone did actually ask for refunds, but I sure hope no one did.

We all dream about getting to our destinations faster, but isn’t there a point when we go too fast?

Reaction Engines in Oxfordshire, England are working on a hydrogen-fueled concept plane that would have a sustainable speed of 3,800 miles-per-hour.  In loose translation, you would be flying at Mach 5, and could get from England to Australia in five hours.  According to the reports by the BBC, not only is it fast, it’s huge!  It is expected to measure 156 yards long, twice the size of current jumbo jets, and carry 300 passengers.

What worries me (beyond the dangerous fuel… size… and speed) is that in none of the pictures I’ve seen can you spot windows… anywhere.  Not even for the cockpit!  How are they going to pilot this thing?!?  “Well, you’re going so fast anyway, just point in the general direction you want to go, and pray.”

While I love my trips to Japan, I’ve never been a fan of the 10 & 1/2 hours it takes me to fly there, and 9 hours coming home, and of course I’ve dreamed of doing it even faster.  I think there is a line you have to draw though where you just say “People aren’t meant to go this fast inside of an atmosphere.”  More power to them developing it, but I don’t see my behind sitting in one of their seats.

As was speculated the other day, HD DVD is dead.  Toshiba has made the official announcement in Tokyo just a few minutes ago.

Oh well,  I should have known I would be the curse that would kill it, but what ya gonna do?

Now… bring on the clearance sales so I can pick up some cheap final discs!