Author: paul@digitaldendrite.com

This is going to seem trite, and already covered all over, but this article has really brought it home. Who owns your wireless signal? If I want to share my wifi signal with the entire building, what’s wrong with that? I only have so much bandwidth, am PAYING for that bandwidth, and should be able to parcel it out as I wish.

Odds are, though, that these “filters” could be gotten around with a MAC address clone anyway, but the point is, should they have to be? I don’t like this, and can see where it’s just a fat company wanting to get fatter.

This is from the NY Times, a list of the top 1000 movies of all time.
I love lists like this, but there are some odd choices, both that should and maybe shouldnt be on the list.

Desperately Seeking Susan? Should any Madonna movies be on a list like this?
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn? I loved it, but I never thought it would make a critic’s list.
Starman? The goofy movie with Jeff Bridges as a really confused alien?

As Greg just commented, though, “Um, well, 1000 is a lot of movies :)”

I’ve seen 238 of them, or 23.8%. Geez, I’d have estimated that I’ve seen more, but there you go.

Check out this weather-by-phone resource.

A free call, apparently, and you can get any weather info you want. Now, would you pay a little bit to get it RIGHT, though?

….imagining a phone call…

P: What’s the weather in my area?
Them: Go outside.
P: Ok.
Them: are you wet? If you, I believe with a high probability that it’s either raining or snowing. Thank you for calling. *CLICK*
P: *grumble..*

I so totally can’t wait for the HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy Movie. Here’s the first “Teaser trailer” i’ve seen. Not much meat, but better than nothing!

For those familiar with Joseph Heller’s wonderful book Catch-22, you might remember a scene where Hungry Joe keeps having nightmares about Huple’s cat being on his face and suffocating him. Then he wakes up to find that it’s true. Well, in that spirit, Kim told me that she woke up 2 nights ago, trying to catch her breath and being unable to. She felt like there was a huge weight on her chest.

Turned out that Katie had popped into our room at some point, crawled into bed, and lied down right on her chest. After a short while, her 40 lb weight started to take it’s toll, untill she finally popped up, gasping. Katie slept right through it–as did I.

So much for Huple.

My 6 year old is a piece of work. She never ceases to amaze me, and frequently just cracks me up. The other day, Kim and I were horsing around with the kids, especially Katie, who loves playing rough and tumble, and Ellen joined in. However, it quickly proved to be too rough for her, and she started whining and asking us not to play so rough. It quickly degenerated to her throwing a bit of a fit because she felt excluded, blah blah blah…

But, the point of all this isn’t that. The point is that the next day, she shows up with the following…campaign slogan, for lack of a better term:

Now, realize that she wrote it on her own, with no help, so the spelling of “rough”, which is amazingly hard, came out “roth”, but that’s her slogan. She came up with it, and handed it out.

Sadly, she couldn’t raise a simple majority, so her measure was defeated…but she ran a nice campaign.

The “Show Me State” just showed me that they’re 70% idiots.

Let me see here. Amendment to the constitution. Um, my reading on that is that it’s all about the state, right? All about what changes we should make to the running of the government?

If that’s the case, why would this:

Vicky Hartzler, a spokeswoman for the Coalition to Protect Marriage in Missouri, which pressed for the amendment with church functions, yard signs and a “marriage chain” of rallies across the state, said she hoped that the outcome would send a loud message to the rest of the country: “Here in the heartland we have a heart for families, and this is how deeply we feel about marriage.”

This:

In Ladue, Lindsay Goldford, a 20-year-old college student, said her Christian background and beliefs were the basis of her support for an amendment. “When you look at marriage, it’s between a man and a woman,” Ms. Goldford said. “Biblically, homosexuality isn’t in the plan.”

And this:

Mary Klostermeier, 77, said she saw the need to bar gay marriage. “I guess I’m in the old school,” Ms. Klostermeier said. “I’m just a very religious person.”

Be relevant? It’s nice that Ms. Klostermeier is religious. Good for her. However, what does that have to do with an amendment to the state constitution? I sort of remember reading something about the separation of church and state. Or was that a different democracy we live in? The one where a marraige is a legal union between two people, regardless of whether they do it in a church, temple, mosque, town hall, or on an ocean liner heading for Darkest Peru.

The continued meddling in secular institutions by religious groups is one of the most irksome parts of what goes on in law in this country. That the impetus frequently comes from the highest lawmakers in the nation just make matters worse. If there’s a SECULAR reason to ban gay marraiges, let me hear it. If not, and this is addressed to all of you religious zealots who would meddle in the affairs of others that you consider “morally corrupt”…

SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Thank you.

…out of the mouth of a 4 year old. Such as this morning, when I’ve heard Katie start about 30 sentences with the line “According to my research…”

How much research can a 4 year old actually do? Does she have a lab somewhere tha I don’t know about, with assistants and all kinds of specialized equipment? Where did the funding for all this come from?

Should I be worried??

OK, I’m a burger fan, but this here…this is incredible. This is a meal that weighs what my CHILD weighed when she was born.

Sometimes, you just wish things were a joke, or they’re so awful, you can’t believe they’re not. This is definately one of those times.

You’d think, though, that it shouldn’t be RED, wouldn’t you?

Is it made of tomatos or tomatoes?