Month: November 2007

Posted on

Effects of Writer’s and Stagehand Strike Beginning to Show

We’re Struck Dumb – washingtonpost.com
This is a great article by Robin Givhan the Washington Post talking about the writers strike affecting broadcast media and the stagehand strike affecting Broadway.

According to the article:

In a complicated, multilayered world, we need simplistic, linear storytelling, jokes that call out for a rimshot and one-liners that require no sense of irony or familiarity with world events. There is a place for silliness that splashes across the surface and provides easy, painless amusement. And there is something cozy and reassuring about entertainment that can be summed up in a tiny, simple word: fun.

We are losing our outlet to just sit and re-charge our brains. No sitting down and laughing to Jon Stewart or Leno, I need my new episodes of the Office, and it would be nice to go to Broadway and have a sing-a-long to Abba at Mama Mia. No wait a minute. See what the strikes are doing to my brain?

The good thing is that I now have alternatives compared to previous strikes. Video podcasts/netcasts are plenty and there is great content out there. If this strike goes on, I may not go back to watching all the shows before. I will just watch for free the shows the independent content producers are developing.

We need to get the producers together with the respective writers or stagehand union and settle this thing. Otherwise there won’t be an industry to come back to and the television networks will roll-out endless garbage like American Gladiator.  Wait, they are already doing that.

Posted on

Apple Having Post-Thanksgiving Sale?

It looks like Apple is having another post-Thanksgiving sale in their retail stores and online.
I am interested in seeing what mark down items they have.

According their website, the sale runs from Midnight PST to 11:59 PM PST on November 23, 2007.

Good Hunting?

Posted on

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just want to wish everyone out there a Happy Thanksgiving.
It is a great day to enjoy your family, relax, and remember all things that you can be thankful for.

The thing that I am most thankful for is my family.  I have a wonderful wife and two wonderful kids (who are nuts!, in a good sense).  I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Posted on

Twitter

Well I am trying Twitter to see how it works.
I have resisted it so far, but the ease it provides to publish quick thoughts and rambles makes it easy to use.

I am still going back and forth trying to decide if Twitter or Pownce is better, but for now, it is Twitter. Who knows, I might use both.

I have installed Twitter Tools by Alex King and will be using that. It looks the most functional and provides the best services.

Let me know what you think and let me know if you prefer Twitter or Pownce and why.

Posted on

Homeowners Association going to far, trying to force homeowner to remove American flag

Homeowners Associations have a place, but sometimes they go too far, including this one.
According to a story on the 9 News Website, HOA says mother of fallen soldier has to take down flag, the homeowners association at Strawberry I at HeatheRidge is forcing her to take down her American Flag. Their reasoning, it is on a common element.

Mary Sims is the person flying the flag and she refuses to take it down. She is flying it in honor of her son who was a military recruiter and was killed in an accident. Her husband is a civilian working in Iraq for the Department of the Defense.

According to Colorado state law, a person’s right to display the U.S flag shall not be infringed “anywhere on an individual’s personal or real property.” State law though, does make some exceptions when it comes to personal displays of the flag.

According to the law “an owners’ association, the state, or a political subdivision may adopt reasonable rules and regulations regarding the size, number, placement, manner of display, and lighting of the flag, and the location, size, and height of flagpoles.”

Sims says that if they force her to take down the flag, then everyone else needs to take down wind chimes, because they are in the common area.

To me this is ridiculous. The American Flag should be able to be flown when and where a homeowner wants to. No one should be able to tell Sims or anyone else where or how to fly her flag. She lost a son serving her country and her husband is serving his now.

I fly my flag everyday that I can.  My homeowners association does not care how much or where I fly it.  I am glad I don’t live where Sims lives.

9 news tried to contact the board members of the association and no one would return their calls.

Posted on

DIA de-icers get faulty training : Airlines & Aerospace

DIA de-icers get faulty training : Airlines & Aerospace : The Rocky Mountain News
This is a report that aired this evening on CBS 4 News and was put together by Brian Maass.

This is appalling to me.  I fly a lot, including in the winter, and rely on de-icers to make sure that my flight is safe.  I also rely on the airlines and Federal Air Administration to ensure that my flight is safe.

Because they were not checking up on their contractor, Servisair, they passed everyone by giving them the answers.  That is not acceptable.  It shouldn’t take an investigative report from the CBS affiliate in Denver to uncover this.

The company should be checking up on their instructors, including planting people in the class, to make sure they are following the rules.  In addition, the FAA and the airlines (who hired Servisair to de-ice planes) should do independent checks to ensure that make sure Servisair is doing their job.

I must let you know Servisair was appalled by what they saw on the tape and suspended and eventually fired the person who administered the tests and called everyone back to take a refresher course and re-take the tests.  But to me, it is a little late.

Let’s just hope that there are no problems this year with de-icing planes.

Posted on

How To Avoid GTD Failure

Cranking Widgets Blog has a wonderful post, A Roadmap to Spectacular GTD Failure, that, as he puts it, “if you want GTD to over-promise and under-deliver, follow these simple steps…”
I think my favorite one is:

Make sure your filing system consists of unholy amounts of papers and crap strewn around your entire physical life – My office is too full of stuff to make room for a filing cabinet! I’ve had this “unorthodox” filing system for years and it’s only let me down… well, a couple of times. But who has the time to organize when you have as much stuff as I do!

I try to practice GTD, but I have been allowing too many distractions to come in, I have let my email become my filing cabinet, and I have not done a review.

Continue reading “How To Avoid GTD Failure”

Posted on

Screw Cap or Cork, You Decide

On today’s CBS Sunday Morning, it focused all on food.
One of the stories caught my attention, Time to Pop A … Screw Cap?  The story focused on the number of wines migrating from using the cork to using rubber, glass, or gasp, a screw cap.

Some statistics caught my attention from the story.

“This year, 95% of all New Zealand wine will have screw caps, as will 50% of Australian wine. Only 5% of U.S. wine bottles have screw caps, but the number is growing.”

The problem is a chemical called TCA.  It taints the flavor of the wine.  This is because the quality of the cork has declined over time.

Continue reading “Screw Cap or Cork, You Decide”