Archive for January, 2004
Boy, I haven’t had a good genetically modified U.S. chicken in almost two years. Have you?
Mark Morford of the SF Chronicle explains why “you shouldn’t eat them either”:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/01/30/notes013004.DTL:
bq. … U.S. genetically modifies billions of its chickens and injects them with hormones and chemicals and toxins and feeds them ground-up chicken parts mixed with chicken feces and saws off their beaks …
Trust me when I say you really shouldn’t be eating your garden variety chicken off the store shelves. At least eat the politically correct “range free” chickens. Don’t do it for the range free chickens because they live a higher quality life than the “crammed in a cage” chicken, do it for yourself.
January 30th, 2004
This week’s “Friday Five”:http://www.fridayfive.org/comments.php?id=117_0_1_0_C…
You have just won one million dollars:
1. Who do you call first?
My wife, duh. If she happens to be with me at the time, my Dad.
2. What is the first thing you buy for yourself?
A new Apple Powerbook, what else?
3. What is the first thing you buy for someone else?
I buy my wife and kids a trip to Fiji for a month.
4. Do you give any away? If yes, to whom?
Pay off our debts and give enough to my children for college without triggering the gift tax 
5. Do you invest any? If so, how?
I buy a house with a sizeable down payment. Hey, I still want the tax write off so I don’t buy it outright. The rest I invest in the stock market.
January 30th, 2004
I’ve signed up for Blizzard’s WoW (”World of Warcraft”:http://www.blizzard.com/wow/) beta, their latest game based on the Warcraft universe. Wouldn’t it be grand if I got selected to play? Cough, cough, I think I’ve come down with a cold… 
Go “sign up”:http://www.blizzard.com/register/wowbeta and see if you too can join the lucky few who get to play one of the most anticipated games of the year earlier than anyone else.
January 30th, 2004
Another good example of why I’m vegan is a new film titled “Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions”:http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/entertainmentstorydisplay.cfm?storyID=3545438&thesection=entertainment&thesubsection=film&thesecondsubsection=general. Even on my worst day, I didn’t eat three fast food meals but eating greasy pizza everyday for two years certainly wasn’t a good idea.
We all love to eat food, hell, I’m addicted to soy ice cream now because I still need that sweet taste in my life.
What this guy did is almost suicide. Eating McDonald’s for a month straight, 3 meals a day. After all he went through, McDonald’s still comments like nothing is wrong:
bq. McDonald’s has finally been forced to comment. “Consumers can achieve balance in their daily dining decisions by choosing from our array of quality offerings and range of portion sizes to meet their taste and nutrition goals,” it said in a statement last week.
Quality offerings? WTF are those? Range of portion sizes? Too big and really too big. Bastards.
January 29th, 2004
I give you “Pimps At Sea”:http://www.bungie.com/products/pimps/pimpsatsea.htm. Damn Bungie, you can still make a great game. Halo can’t hold a candle to Pimps.
January 29th, 2004
Eric poses the question of the day, “How much do you pay for a haircut?”.
The simple answer for me is as little as possible. I dislike getting my hair cut greatly. The main reason for this probably stems from childhood where my mother would force my brother and I to Supercuts to get a free hair butchering from their “trainees”. To this day I can still remember getting a complete hack job of a hair cut and having to go to school the next day with a sizeable chunk of hair missing. Thanks Mom!
As I’ve grown older cutting my hair hasn’t been a big priority in my life. I’ve gone from having no hair at all (super easy) to growing it past my shoulders for the full on rock star affect. I think I even have some pictures to share somewhere (I’ll have to dig those up).
Now, nearing 30, I know full well that my days are numbered when its comes to the full head of hair department. With this in mind, getting what hair I do have cut seems criminal. Honestly, once I wake up in morning gasping with a mouth full of hair, I’m cutting it all off for good. Sorry honey, but I can’t take having half a head of hair.
All or nothing baby!
January 29th, 2004
But you can’t hide from the geo-political outsourcing machine. “Wired discusses this topic”:http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/india.html and as many of you know, I do follow this kind of stuff very closely but do not discuss my opinions on this topic openly due to self censorship. “Thanks to James”:http://james.seng.cc/archives/000287.html for the article!
Update: Ok, I can’t take it. I do have to quote one thing from the article.
bq. “Don’t you think we’re helping the US economy by doing the work here?” asks an exasperated Lalit Suryawanshi. It frees up Americans to do other things so the economy can grow, adds Jairam.
Simple answer, NO. And sweetheart, what exactly are those other things? Tossing lattes at Starbuck’s? Flipping Indian raised cattle at McDonald’s?
Argh!
January 29th, 2004
Robert Scoble, a Microsoft employee, has posted some interesting “insights” into why you shouldn’t buy an iPod. His “first comments”:http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/01/26.html#a6361 were related to Microsoft’s WMA technology and how it’s superior to Apple’s use of AAC (an “open audio format”:http://www.dolby.com/company/is.ot.0011.TechOverview.03.html created by Dolby, Sony, AT&T, and Fraunhofer IIS). I’ve posted quite a few comments on his thread and to save you from having to read through more than 130 comments, I basically said both formats suck because of the use of DRM (Digital Rights Management) and both can be easily defeated by re-ripping purchased songs back into the standard MP3 format.
Robert then goes on to talk about how fellow MS employees have contacted him about his comments and that they own iPods. Robert then “attempts to remind us of 1989″:http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/01/28.html#a6418 when Apple was in control of the computer market.
Where does market share come into play here Robert? You do realize that 5% of the computer market is LARGER than what the primo auto makers have? Why do I care that Windows is the dominate platform? Shit, MS makes software for the Mac, they seem to know the Mac still has a very rabid following and is able to turn a profit selling software for it. You never did respond to my comment about Ultimate TV Everything Microsoft touches does not always turn into gold and the same can be said for Apple (the Cube).
As for the iPod even if it’s market share went below say 10% it would still be firmly planted in the market when you have 500+ crappy WMA devices that seperately would never have more than 2% of the market.
You MS tools think that anything less than a market leader is a failure. Tell that to Porsche, Ferrari, etc. whom have no where near 5% of the auto market yet still manage to do just fine.
The whole topic of Mac vs PC is really quite boring. I choose to use a Mac. I always have and always will. I shouldn’t have to be forced into a platform I don’t enjoy using and I shouldn’t be forced to use a “crappy MP3 player”:http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/dj?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs (”here”:http://accessories.gateway.com/AccessoryStore/Consumer+Electronics_381930/Audio_381931/Default.htm?seg=hm, “here”:http://us.creative.com/products/category.asp?category=3, and “here”:http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/shop/_templates/cat_list_Rio.asp?cat=53) if I don’t want to.
January 28th, 2004
Added a few new albums this evening. With Aiden turning one over the weekend, the “first birthday album”:http://www.snapturtle.com/gallery/aiden1stbday is now showing. The second year Aiden album with the “first month entry for January”:http://www.snapturtle.com/gallery/aiden012004 is also showing in the gallery.
Someone mentioned that I hadn’t posted the Christmas photos yet. With the move and all I didn’t blog very much nor did I have a lot of time to go through the photos for posting. Maybe over the weekend if I’m not too tired
January 26th, 2004
Just thinking about all the crazy possibilities with the “Mars rovers”:http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/ and the “new pictures”:http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/all/opportunity.html from the “Opportunity” lander make me giddy.
Landing “near paved like bedrock”:http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20040125b/Pancam_Postcard_WedgeV_bw-B22R3_br.jpg? Are you kidding me? Oh wait, all you conspiracy theorists think Bush planted it… don’t you?
Go NASA! And say “Hi” to Fred Flintstone for me.
January 26th, 2004
Previous Posts
Twitter
