…. and two years later (rimshot!)

I find it amazing that I come to this blog almost two years later and it’s all here.

So two years later……. school’s out for Summer. Again.

Ike took a long month out of many lives. I almost died from an arterial nosebleed. We had to start school four times. I got a No. 2 haircut. I’ll be divorced in about 90 days. I’m tired and overweight and my butt hurts. I’ll be 60 years on my birthday. With luck I’ll have dinner with my one true lost love. And I am still just what I am.

Of immediate concern/interest. Read Connelly’s “The Scarecrow”; Lee Child’s, “Gone Tomorrow”; now reading “Into the Storm: The Destroyermen”. Ordered Casca #1: The Eternal Mercenary, $6.50, which is a steal if it happens. Watched Gently, a new Brit police detective. Also watching The Shield, Season 7; Dragnet ‘67-’68-’69; Adam-12. 40 years ago and more innocent times.

I’ve come to believe the height of the American Civilization was the period between ‘69 – Man On The Moon and ‘84 – The Fall of Communism.

-30-

iPhone Used As A Literary Prop In “Requiem for an Assassin”

In the latest volume, “Requiem for an Assassin”, of Barry Eisler’s continuing series following the expert assassin John Rain, the Apple iPhone (and AT&T) gets serious product placement and extensive use one month a few days before its actual release day. The book was released, according to Amazon.com, on May 22, 2007, and the present advertised release date for the iPhone is June 29, 2007. Mr. Eisler seems quite versed in the usage of the the iPhone, which of course makes the writer wonder if he has been playing with a beta?

Whatever, the book is a tremendous read. But a word of warning: read all the books in sequence or you miss out on a great backstory.

The Top Five Mac Disk Utilities

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=693649&rl=1

This is an excellent article/review of utilities to help Mac users in case of a catastrophic HD failure. And I speak from experience.

Global Warming Cha-Cha-Cha

So they say the Earth is warming up and we’re all gonna die (the latter by implication). Enviro-nazi’s seeking to control the bio-sphere to their specs and conditions. Short-term thinking, bad science, unproven theories. Alarmist Heddy Hen’s, the sky is falling; the sky is falling. Anybody putting themselves in the same wagon as Albert “The Big Liar” Gore  should tell how they invented the Internet.

Let’s look at it: if it isn’t happening then what is their motivation? And if it is happening, then it’s way too late.

Should we worry? How ’bout NO! Humans have survived as a race. We will continue to survive. Humans adapt; they improvise; they overcome. (Respects to the USMC.) This will continue until the big one. You know. The asteroid with our name on it. The one that will hit in 2012.

Until then: Have a good time!

A MacZot Call: HoudahSpot

My review of HoudahSpot as seen on MacZOT.com

– HoudahSpot is an amazingly fast file finding tool to be used as a replacement for Apple’s Spotlight. Using preferences and query statements the user can find just about anything presently on your Mac. The program provides three templates and an excellent Help File to get you started, because unfortunately search parameters and exact functioning are not for the intuitive minded user. But if you do not use Spotlight because of its shortcomings, then HoudahSpot predents a cost-effective alternative. –

NOTE: If you’re seeing this on June 16, 2006 head over to MacZOT, you might be able to get a Free copy of HoudahSpot

Search easily in Tiger, Mac OS X, with HoudahSpot

Try A MacZot!

I can recommend www.maczot.com as an interesting filter for Mac software. I have made a couple of purchases including a Mystery Zot and a great game, “jets and guns”. Give it a look.

MacZOT.com Fans want Pzizz because ‘According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep deprivation and its effect on work performance may be costing U.S. employers some $18 billion each year in lost productivity. Another study pushes this cost to over $100 billion.’ – link to full article

The End Is Near….

The end of another school year is eleven days away. For teachers this a special and sometimes melancholy time. It’s harvest time and we find out the results what we have sown. Teaching is a complex business. It is constsnt improvising, adapting, and overcoming the weaknesses of our students, and the inherent weaknesses we as individuals bring to the table. It is fighting or rather manuvering with the great bureaucracy of school adminstration. You must learn what is possible and what is not. You kludge, you cajol, you sometimes beg.

The Blog As A Social Endeavor

Is the act of blogging a social endeavor? Are you communicating with those who read as discourse, or instead are you insuring that your single voice will find no disagreement, no rejection: an ultimate act of self-protection.

The Decline and Fall American Professional Football

This will be a multi-part, ongoing rant about the state of American Professional Football (APF).

APF has been destroyed by the media. Incredibly long, long games due to far too many commercial breaks. Over-analyzed games. Over-announced games. Sideline reporters and reporter-ettes. ESPN. Touchy-feely, in-depth, boring features about players I have no interest in knowing about. Emotional baggage is just that and we all have it. Don’t share, Please, don’t share.

Did I mention sideline reporter-ettes?

Competitive balance. Read mediocrity.

The tolerance of players such as Terrell Owens, or Randy Moss in his hayday, who think they are bigger than their team or the game itself.

More later.

Random Is Good!

The site digg.com is great fun and turning into the prime example of the “smart mob’ mentality. Together with Boingboing.org, the two make a useful snapshot of the technicrati (sic) cutting edge on a daily basis.

Moving into the third century of this Republic, there are three groups that are holding the threads of our civilization together: government/military, law enforcement, and teachers. They are the framework that allows everything to function. With politicians and the elite ruling class becoming more amd more corrupt almost on a daily basis; with the entrenched political staffers and bureaucrats putting their own personal short-term interests above the nation’s; with police being overwhelmed by the shear complexity of the society they are trying to protect; with teachers being put into the position of trying to educate a populace to is rapidly becoming uneducable; when these factors are placed into the context of history, I get that thousand-click stare and thank God for my 20″ iMac G5 2.0 gHz, my TiVo, and the library.

Ted Kennedy and the liberal socialists in this country can kiss my ass. There is a special place in Hell, Karl, Vlad, and Uncle Joe have got all warm for you. Julie and Rose say hi.

I’m taking a break from politics until the new year. No Rush. No Hannity. No Fox. In fact as little “news” as possible. A glance at the newspaper. A little coffee discussion. It’s gonna be the way it’s gonna be.

Heights: a miserable little film, about miserable little people. Films about urban dwellers are all the same.

The Devil’s Rejects: an absolutely reprehensible piece of trash that has all the makings of a faux cult classic (because it was purposely put together to be that way), which will expose the dark side of your pysche. And it ain’t pretty.