Friday, June 29, 2007

John Street did what?

Why did the Philly mayor leave the iPhone line?

OK, why does my hometown have to make national news for this kinda stupid crap?

Mayor Street gets in line for an iPhone and then leaves prematurely when he's reminded that the City o' Bro-Love is going to hell in a hand-basket right under Street's reading glasses? There are soooo many things wrong with this story.

1) No self-respecting tech-geek who gets in line at 3am for a new gadget leaves the line early unless it's in an ambulance. Seriously! You act all nerd-core, but you're a fan-boy!

2) When you are asked why you are standing in line for anything instead of being at work, always say, "I took the day off for this." Never ever say something stupid like, "I can do my job where I am." quote

3) OK, John...sigh...I know you're the dumbest mayor since that guy from D.C. BUT for crying out loud, learn to spin! You want an iPhone? You want to sit in line for it? Make it a frackin' publicity stunt! Get the news people out there with you and talk about how you want to lead a technological revolution. Talk about your plans to cover the city in WiFi hotspots. When some punk kid asks you about the murder rate, talk about how technology can lead us into a bright future.

4) When you are the most powerful man in one of the top 10 cities in America, you find an intern to sit in your place. It's better to have a story out that you wasted an intern's day in line than your own.

5) Dude...did you see what you're wearing? If you're gonna wear a hat in public, show some pride! Put on a Phillies cap! Seriously, do I have to think of everything?

6) Finally, after this stunt, just stick with your iPod. After your term is up, you won't need the "phone" features...nobody's gonna call you!

Update: John got his iPhone! And apparently he did use a bit of suggestion #3. Someone must have sent him these suggestions on his now "obsolete" blackberry. Lord, this story almost makes me glad I moved to the south...

Clueless Middle-American Commentary

Deep down I still have a child-like vision of the world that my parents created for me: Everyone is equal. Everyone is welcome. Things like race, gender, sexuality, income make no difference to God and shouldn't to you. When you feel lost, lonely, frightened, just hold out your hand and Jesus will be there. Only hate hate! Stand up for what you believe in. And finally, all faithful Christians are liberal democrats.

OK, so neither of them every came out and said "all faithful Christians are liberal democrats," but it took me until college to find a reasonable counter-example. This is not to say that all liberal democrats are Christian. But, that the example of good Christian fellowship in my life have almost always been liberal democrat and the examples of wrong, anti-Christian behavior have too often been conservative republican. And so admittedly, I think the jury is still out on this subject. But I digress...

On to the point of this little rant. The news has been bombarding us with a lot of ethics questions lately. The Supreme *cough* Court has recently issued some bombshells on abortion & race. My sister recently posted in her blog about the treatment of "practicing homosexuals" by religious conservatives.

At some point, while I was sleeping, moral conservatives re-claimed the mantle of Christianity in America. And here's my problem with that...I see little, if any, of what my parents taught me in the collective example of the public face of moral conservatism. In fact, I find a lot of what I'm seeing to be immoral, judgmental and downright wrong.

Don't believe me? Check out this article for an extreme example: The Other Jamestown Party.

The most amazing part to me is that this country is becoming amazingly bipolar. Perhaps not since prohibition & the roaring 20's have we seen such a vocal group of moral conservatives matched up against such a glut of self-destructive over-indulgence. The dark paths in life are so obvious yet we are so oblivious to them. We as a society seem to be stuffing our faces on the objectification of women with our increasing acceptance of pornography in our every-day lives. Gambling too has become so commonplace that people have become anesthetized to it's slippery slope. Remember the 7 deadly sins?

The truth is that our country needs those moral conservative voices to wake us up. But it's up to us to see that these voices are wrong. They are not the voice of God's desires. They are the voices of our fears. More and more, I've begun to wonder how we can take these self-righteous causes of the moral majority and turn them into the righteous cause of Christ. I'll leave you with this one insane example (something I've suggested before) for the simple purpose of getting those neurons firing.

The abortion debate would be moot if we did a better job of protecting women's rights in the first place. Teaching young men & women about their sexuality and their responsibility should not be the role of the Government. It should be the job of *gasp* the church! Is not the human body a "temple" and isn't sexuality a gift from God? And, this isn't a call for another abstinence program. Young people who are given the tools to make good decisions usually do. Yes, that means that sometimes they won't. That's also part of God's gift called free will.

Think about that. Think about all the other hot-button topics that divide us. Ask yourself: Is everyone welcome here? Do we treat everyone equally? Do things like race, gender and income mean something to me? Why? What can I do to build a better tomorrow?

OK, this was a much longer and jumbled post than I expected. Yet, I'm hitting the publish button anyway.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Pain, Fatigue and Depression

I'm going to vent for a moment. Feeling a tad frustrated and need to re-focus.

The longer I live with Fibro, the more I find I can narrow my symptoms down to three general categories: physical pain, physical fatigue & emotional depression. Usually, but not always, they attack me in that order. I spend days/weeks in pain, then days/weeks exhausted and then emotionally drained from it all. And always, there's the worry that I'll get to the end of the cycle with all three attacking me at the same time. The trick is to respond as quickly as possible to the first phase to mitigate the second phase and negate the third. Not always as easy as it might sound.

Unfortunately, I spent the last two weeks of this month in a lot of pain. Consequently, my sleep schedule (that I've been working so hard on) has completely unraveled. So, not surprisingly, this week I'm frustratingly exhausted. It wouldn't be so bad except that my brain is going a mile a minute, but I have no energy to channel all this mental activity. Last night was the first sign that I'm starting to hit phase 3. I got really, really frustrated cooking dinner. I was so tired that I was dropping things, burning things and generally making a mess. Thankfully, Slick "tagged-in."

So, what to do? Well, the trick is to keep up a balanced attack. I've got to keep exercising, keep eating right, keep trying to sleep like a normal person and keep doing my basic chores like dinner. But, I've also got to focus on doing very relaxing activities that are still mentally stimulating. So last night, instead of my usual Tuesday night World of Warcraft session, I quietly listened to the Phillies game and read some of Marley & Me.

It's days like these when I'm reminded of the lyrics from a Sheryl Crow song: "No one said it would be easy, but no one said it'd be this hard."

This is not a complaint. It would be easy to get down on myself or God for the way things are. Instead, I'm grateful. This condition could really suck if not for the grace of God. I've got Slick to see me through. It's not every wife that encourages you to leave a good job to stay home and focus on yourself. I've got family and friends who never call me a slacker for leaving my job or undependable for canceling an activity for being too tired. I've got faith that I'm on the right path. I believe that I'm learning to manage this condition. And (a little shout out to my father) I've learned from example that the important things are not easy. Important stuff takes work and dedication.

Whew...I feel better! Thanks for reading.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

RIAA...working hard to kill music...

I went to Pandora today and got the below message. It seems like a lot of big entrenched American industries are failing to grasp hold of the ever-changing world around them. Much like the auto-industry, entertainment as a medium is changing dramatically. People are starting to flock to different choices and starting to ask about cost. There's a lot of dangerous old-school companies trying to derail the free-market growth of the internet. Television and music execs need to embrace these mediums and figure out reasonable rates or be doomed to the downside of product elasticity. People will pay only so much for a product...even a good product.

This is evident in Nintendo's re-emergence in the console wars. Sony & Microsoft have really incredible machines, but the Wii is innovative AND so much more cost effective.

A Day of Silence
Hi, it's Tim from Pandora,

I'm sorry to say that today Pandora, along with most Internet radio sites, is going off the air in observance of a Day Of Silence. We are doing this to bring to your attention a disastrous turn of events that threatens the existence of Pandora and all of internet radio. We need your help.

Ignoring all rationality and responding only to the lobbying of the RIAA, an arbitration committee in Washington DC has drastically increased the licensing fees Internet radio sites must pay to stream songs. Pandora's fees will triple, and are retroactive for eighteen months! Left unchanged by Congress, every day will be like today as internet radio sites start shutting down and the music dies.

A bill called the "Internet Radio Equality Act" has already been introduced in both the Senate (S. 1353) and House of Representatives (H.R. 2060) to fix the problem and save Internet radio--and Pandora--from obliteration.

I'd like to ask you to call your Congressional representatives today and ask them to become co-sponsors of the bill. It will only take a few minutes and you can find your Congresspersons and their phone numbers by entering your zip code here.

Your opinion matters to your representatives - so please take just a minute to call.

Visit www.savenetradio.org to continue following the fight to Save Internet Radio.

As always, and now more than ever, thank you for your support.



Monday, June 25, 2007

Clinton Campaign Is DOOMED!!!

It's come to my attention that Hillary Clinton has picked her campaign song (thanks to what has to be an incredible hoax by the users of YouTube) Celine Dion's "You and I."

So many things to say, but let me just cut through all the obvious crap and say this.

Isn't it a Canadian Airline jingle? No really, isn't it? So, not only is it a crappy Celine Dion song, but it's also a crappy Canadian Airline jingle. Couldn't they at least have picked a crappy jingle for a company from the USofA?

2007 MLB All Star Teams

Who would I pick? Glad you asked...

AL
1B: D Ortiz, BOS
2B: B Roberts, BAL
SS: O Cabrera, LAA
3B: A Rod, NYY
C: J Posada, NYY
OF: I Suzuki, SEA
OF: M Ordonez, DET
OF: V Guerrero, LAA

NL
1B: A Pujols, STL
2B: C Utley, PHI
SS: J Rollins, PHI
3B: M Cabrera, FLA
C: R Martin, LAD
OF: M Holiday, COL
OF: A Soriano, CHC
OF: A Rowand, PHI

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Phillies Radio

Yesterday, I complained about wasteful spending. Hopefully, I just found a good use of $15. That's the cost of a complete season of MLB Game Day Audio. Now, Slick and I can listen to Phillies games for the rest of the season. Not bad! I setup the laptop w/ some speakers. We can listen anywhere in the house.

Pandora

OK, this is kind of cool.

Pandora

It's a free internet radio from something called the music genome project. Basically, you put in a song or artist that you like and it spits back similar music. It even tells you a blurb about the song and why it was chosen. You can have several channels in order to explore different music styles that you like.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Nickle & Dime Me Until I Die

So, first a little back-story:

One step on my simplification and efficiency plan is to look over stuff like our various phone services. See we never ever use the house phone. In the 2.5 months I've been at home we've averaged one real inbound call a week and zero outbound. 99.999% of the calls on our house phone are of the telemarketing variety. 99.999% of our personal calls are done on our cell phones. Slick has insisted that we need a land line for emergencies. I've kept it so I don't have to give out my cell phone number to people. In other words, out of a concern that we can't dial 911 & don't want SPAM on our cell phones, we've been paying $35/month for phone, long-distance & voicemail. Does this sound stupid to anyone else?

Today:

Today, we went to Verizon Wireless and got new local phone numbers. (All part of the plan) By the time the saleswoman was done, we walked out with 2 new phones for free, 300 more minutes a month, and a smaller monthly bill. That's right, our bill will be smaller. Yes, now we have a brand-new 2-year contract, but so what. Verizon Wireless has provided great service for us. They rock!

Anyway, we get home from shopping and I find out that our house phone is dead. I've got to call service. That's right, I'm now calling for service on something I never use, but pay $35/monthly. While I'm on hold I find that they have all these really cheap basic plans. Cool, I'll just switch to one of those. Right? Wrong! Only if I have DSL! I can cut out voicemail & long distance and pay $25/month, but I can't go lower. I nearly canceled our phone service right there.

So, today was a mixed bag. I've got a nice new phone and we cut $20 out of the monthly bills. But, I've also got to wait for a Windstream service person to call me (on my cell phone) to set up a time to come fix my land line...the one I never use. How stupid does that sound?!? I tell you how stupid...

I think the house phone is going by-by!

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Hail - Close-up


What's that pinging sound?

Hail? WTF??? My sister just reported hail at her place in CT just last week. And now, Charlotte? Wow! And not just a little hail. These were 1/4" to 1/2" stones.

I've got at least one more shot for you after this one.
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Sunday, June 10, 2007

Success Measured in Belt Loops

A few people have asked how things are progressing with my pain and fatigue management. All things being equal, I think things are going well. I know that this isn't an over-night process. Progress and milestones are important. So, here's one:

I have a 2-year old belt that I got for work. It's clearly worn down at two loops. I am one loop smaller than both of them now. So, the nutrition plan is going well and I'm making progress with the exercise regiment.

There's still a long way to go, but I'm feeling positive.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Tour de France - Mort!

I've always had a soft-spot in my heart for Cycling. I used to ride my bike every day in highschool. My fibromyaligia makes it difficult for me to cycle now, but that hasn't changed my love for cycling or my love for it's biggest race the Tour de France. Over the last few years, I've stood by the tour and one of my favorite athletes, Lance Armstrong. But today, enter the straw that broke the camel's back. This may be my last tour stage.

Tour de France punishes Riis after doping admission

Sigh! Riis, for those who might not know, was the first guy to win the tour after the Miguel Indurain era. Riis, along with Ullrich and Pantani, was one of 3 single tour winners after Indurain and before the Armstrong era began. You may or may not recognize any of those names other than Armstrong, but let me speak plainly for a moment. Every tour winner since Indurain has now been suspected of, involved in or suspended for drugs or doping. EVERY ONE!

Riis - You just read the story
Ullrich - The 1997 winner and Armstrong's biggest rival was suspended for the 2006 tour in the Spanish doping scandal.
Pantani - The 1998 winner's entire career was marred by drug allegations. He died of cocaine poisoning in 2004.
Armstrong - The 7-time tour demi-god and cancer surviver...I'll have more to say in a moment.
Landis - Hero and goat of Lancaster Co, PA. (My wife is from the area) What a great story this guy was. A hero in the making. The comeback story of the decade. The savior of the tour...may have killed it with his own doping scandal.

Back to Armstrong: I have been a defender of Armstrong for years. His story has been an inspiration. His LiveStrong organization is a champion for cancer hope. His first tour win was moving beyond words. Yet, the body of allegations and the sheer volume of other cyclists exposed for drug use makes me believe that the angry mob of French journalists are right. Even if all of it's a lie and Armstrong is innocent, cycling is so corrupted by this that it doesn't deserve my respect or attention. And so, the Tour is dead to me. I have no reason to ever go to France now.

And so we come to Baseball. Baseball is the sport of joy in my household. I rank missing Phillies games as one of our top 10 reasons we dislike living in the south. Slick, who hates spending money, nearly caved for the baseball satellite package. If it had been a better deal, who knows.

Baseball is also experiencing a lot of flack for the drug scandal. I'm really torn about all of this. I suppose that I've found myself looking the other way. What does it tell us about the integrity of our society when we do everything to win? What does it teach our children when their heroes are willing to subject themselves to dangerous chemicals to hit a ball farther?

Baseball, you're on notice! My relationship with you is a long and special one. But, relationships are based on trust and respect. I don't trust you any more baseball. And if you don't shape up, you'll lose my respect and eventually my support.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Phillies

So, not having cable, it's hard for me to really pay attention to sports. I still read ESPN and listen to the occasional sports-talk. Still, this wouldn't be much different than normal since I can't see most of the Phillies games anyway. So, ask me how they are doing? The glass is half-empty (or full depending on your view-point.)

The Phillies are at .500. Today, their win-loss record is about as symmetrical as they come. This kinda thing can easily happen in the first month of baseball. But the first week of June?!? It's almost kinda odd. And when I say odd, I mean planets in alignment odd. Look...

Wins/Losses - 29/29
Home Record - 15/15
Road Record - 14/14
Last 10 - 5/5

WTF? Anyway, nothing more to say, it was just odd enough to mention.