RandomFailure

The one thing that’s particularly troublesome about this whole Lewis (Scooter) Libby thing (see an article from the Washington Post) is that a grown man has no problem being called “Scooter” by the President of the United States (see the President’s remarks). That should have been everyone’s first clue.

Or, to quote Eddie Vedder: It’s evolution, baby! Get the song:

But in the headline of the day: Groups ban Kan. from science books (see the article in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer). At first glance, I thought: Wow! Pretty harsh comeback – eliminating the state of Kansas entirely. Then I thought about it again and it would have been far funnier if it was: “Groups ban Kan. from geography book.” Wipe them clean off the map.

Anyway, the story is about national science school curriculums and how the organizations won’t let Kansas schools use their copyrighted materials. Not nearly as exciting as the headline would have you believe… However, this is only an Inky gaffe; the article directly from the Washington Post does not have this silly headline.

It was announced today that a whole mess of people will be taking Howard Stern’s radio spot once he leaves for satellite (see story). The thing I can’t figure is how a dumb-ass like Adam Carolla manages to have a career. This guy is marginally funny at best and desperately needs a sidekick to be able to play off of to even get to that level (paging Dr. Drew…).

OK, I know that it’s not possible to jump from the observation deck of City Hall. But after the indictment that was handed down today (see story or read the indictment for yourself), maybe Councilman Rick Mariano should have gone somewhere to jump (see the story from last week). Pretty tasty stuff for a city that has been wracked over the past year and a half on various public corruption cases.

From the “This sounds kinda fucked-up file”: the Belgian branch of Unicef has produced a short film to air on local television to show how war affects the lives of children. (And if you read Dutch, French, or German, you can go directly to the Belgian Unicef page.) Read an article from The Telegraph from the UK, which also has a picture from the short. Basically, the Smurfs get bombed into oblivion, or to put it another way:

The Smurfs really get smurfed by some smurfing Smurf-haters for apparently no smurfing reason.

Well, the video iPod is finally here. And the Mac rumor-mongering crowd has probably wet its collective pants several times over. But since I already have an iPod that’s only a year old, I feel no need right now to get a new one. Unless of course, it’s a Nano – those are just plain cool.

The most telling reason for me comes from this quote from Steve Jobs: “It’s never been done before, where you could buy hit TV shows and buy them online the day after they’re shown.” (Emphasis added.)

Why the hell would I want to buy a TV show that I can watch (or record for viewing later) for free? Seems kinda silly to me. Other reasons why I’m not compelled to buy a video iPod: screen’s too small, I have doubts about the long battery life (video is a battery hog; wait until you start trying it on your cell phone), no really “gotta have it” reason. The movie studios have learned their lesson from watching music get traded on the Internet for free, and they’ll be damned if they’re going to allow it to be easy for anyone to get movies online, even if you pay for them.

The one thing that has gone unmentioned is the potential for accidents while watching videos on the new iPod. While you can plug it into your car and listen to music while being able to concentrate on driving (an admittedly difficult task for some people), imagine how bad it’s going to be when some brain-dead jackass causes an accident because he was watching a rerun of Lost. I can almost smell the lawsuits (a drawback of being a lawyer).

I do generally detest this stuff, but there’s so much going on lately, that I figured a comment or two (Showbiz Show-like) wouldn’t kill me.

First, it’s Bennifer (or J. Fleck or whatever). Next, it’s Brennifer (or Brangelina). But, now I can’t stand it: Nick and Jessica!! Or maybe not. You decide. See an article on this. Not that you couldn’t see this coming. I saw an entire 5 minutes of their stupid show on MTV, and the look on Nick’s face (other than blank, abject stupidity) screamed “What the hell did I marry her for?!?” Oh, yeah, I remember: she’s kinda hot.

Tom Cruise still trying to prove he’s not gay by getting Katie Holmes to break her virgin vows before marriage. See this article from Australia. Just what the world needs – another crazy-assed Scientologist.

Well, that’s all I can stomach. Good night.

Thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court decision this spring stating that it is a violation of the Commerce Clause to permit in-state wineries to ship to state residents while prohibiting out-of-state wineries from direct shipping, PA has a chance to permit direct wine shipments, which would make me (and many other people) very happy. I bring this up now, because a recent Advisory Notice from the PA Liquor Control Board now prohibits all direct shipments of wine. While the state legislature will address the issue at some point in the near future, I am not hopeful of having direct shipments to PA residents for two reasons:

1. The state is too used to receiving all the lovely tax revenue derived from alcohol sales. The entrenched state store system is also a problem, with the political boondoggle that’s turned out to be. See the rules for Direct Shipping to PA residents.
2. Invariably, some state legislator will bring up the argument that “with direct shipment, minors will be able to buy alcohol.” Someone please put this specious argument to death. What minor is going to sit around and wait a few weeks to buy wine? It’s not like they’d be direct-shipping Mad Dog. Besides, the shipping companies (e.g., FedEx) require a proof of age with the signature. And if the kids have fake IDs, they’ll use them anywhere.

Lovely night I had last night. I finally get some time to settle in and watch some TV I recorded, get comfy on the sofa, and fire up the Comcast DVR box (which has generally been good to me). Maybe you can guess where this is going: about 2 minutes in, I hit the opening credits, and want to fast forward through them. Get to the FF2 speed, and the box shuts itself off. Then restarts itself, TV shows all snow then a weird color gradation pattern (from black on the left to white on the right), and then “resets” itself twice and returns to the TV channel I had on. Calling Comcast and having them remotely reset the box doesn’t change anything. So we resort to the tried and true method of turning off the power for 30 seconds (this is merely one step above percussive maintenance). Turn the box back on and the same thing happens. I get frustrated as it’s already 10:30 and decide to call it a night.

I try it again this morning. I turn everything on, but no cable box response. So I unplug it while I go shower. I retry yet again, and this time get an error message on the LED on the front of the box with a “d1″ code on the right, and the LED on the left snaking through a “0″ pattern one segment at a time. I call Comcast again, and they tell me that the box is dead. But they can’t a technician out to replace the box at any time that I can actually be home. (Gotta love that.) But, I do have the option of exchanging the box at their offices, which are open 8:00 to 6:00. Guess where I’m going to be before going to work in the morning?