Otherwise, we'd have to invent him

Check out this masterpiece from Iowahawk.

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I spend lots of time bashing Microsoft, while simultaneously extolling the virtues of Linux. However, I've been careful to avoid the blanket Windoze comments because, by and large, Microsoft has done a decent job making computers accessible and usable to pretty much everyone. However, Bill Gates' baby tends, at times, to act like a baby: crying, whining and generally acting immature. Case in point in this decision by Microsoft. Excerpt:

In a move that's sure to draw fire from opponents of digital rights management technologies and anger customers, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) said it will disable consumers' ability to play songs purchased and downloaded from its defunct MSN Music service on new devices after Aug. 30.
"As of August 31st, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers," Microsoft said in an e-mail that was sent Tuesday to former MSN Music customers.

That means consumers who purchased songs from MSN Music and who want to port their library to a new device -- in case of, say, a hardware failure or desire to upgrade -- won't be able to do so after the end of August.

Given the life of today's computer hardware and mobile devices, Microsoft's decision effectively places an expiration date of about three to five years on song libraries that MSN Music customers thought they had purchased for life.

Microsoft did not provide a reason for the decision.

I guess saying "I'm a stupid fucking dumbass" doesn't play too well in a press release. However, in this case, I'll assume that that message is implied.

Update: Crikey! That Puppy Blending fool sure gets around the Innertubes.

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Marcel Gagne links to several free to download video games that do not require the latest video card. In fact, I'll posit that you can use an old 1-meg video card and still play these games. So have at it.

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Someone asked me how I celebrated Earth Day. He seemed quite offended when I told that I burned 100 gallons of kerosene and 200 pounds of coal while running the AC in all of my cars and my house, with the windows wide open. Also, I ate a crapload of beans so that I wouldn't ignore the methane production. After all, I can't have a bunch of bovine farm animals leading the way, because that would be just wrong.

In case you were wondering, the person in question avoids eye contact with me now. I'm at a loss to explain as to why this is the case.

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Whipping up on Andrew Sullivan, while fun, has become somewhat boring because (a) he's too predictable and (b) he makes himself such an easy target. However, it's worth noting when someone lands a haymaker on Sullivan's glass jaw. From Ramesh Ponnuru comes this little gem:

Andrew Sullivan comes to the aid of John Derbyshire, with whom he is well-matched in argumentative style and malice. Sullivan, adducing, as is frequently the case, absolutely no evidence, intuits that I "basically want Vatican II undone." The accusation is false, baseless, presumptuous, and sort of insane, which is another way of saying that it does not stand out on Sullivan's blog.

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The Sarah Connor Chronicles has officially been renewed for a second season. Good. It's rare that a new show I like actually gets picked up, but this time quality programming and decent ratings prevailed.

Tangentially related update: Related only in that it deals with fantasy/scifi TV. Turns out that Wizards First Rule will be made into a weekly TV series. Really? Is it going to be broadcast on the Playboy channel, or maybe the BSM/Torture Channel? I loved that book, but the whole Mistress Denna thing isn't something that I see looking good over the air.

Update to the tangentially related update: Okay, Terry Goodkind is sure that it's happening, so it must be true. Oddly, considering some of the subject matter, Disney is one of the partners in this 22-episode television adventure. Anyway, excerpt:

Dear Readers,

Now that the announcement about the TV series has been officially released, I would like to take this opportunity to put it in perspective and fill in some of the details. (Please keep in mind that some of this might change as things evolve.)

The first season will be 22 one hour episodes, on Saturday evenings, probably at either 8 or 9 pm. Since this is a syndicated program you will need to check your local listings for the station in your area.

The first season will cover the story of WIZARD?S FIRST RULE. Along with exciting opportunities afforded by the air time in which we have to tell the story, the TV series also brings unique challenges. All film formats ? TV series, mini-series, or feature films ? must, to a greater or lesser extent, alter the novel in order to translate the story from words to pictures. A feature film has severe limitations of time, requiring major parts of novels to be cut out. Sam Raimi knew that a feature film of WIZARD?S FIRST RULE could never work to tell the story. That?s why he wanted to do a long format TV show. I?m especially pleased that we are going to be doing 22 one hour episodes to tell this epic story ? much more time than a mini-series would have afforded. That said, there must still be changes, yet within those changes lie exciting opportunities.
...
With Disney now on board we have some of the most gifted people in the world working to make this project not just exciting but successful.

All this said, I would like to interject a note of caution. In projects of this nature involving vast sums of money there are always things that can go wrong. For example, while the rights to many books are sold or optioned very few of these ever see the light of a bright screen. Many books, even though there is initial enthusiasm, in reality are simply not a good fit for film. Announcements of book rights being sold are quite common; having such rights ever end up as a finished product is actually exceedingly rare. Because so much money is involved in the production of films there are countless stages at which a project can be stopped cold.

Well, I'll wait until they start casting before I decide to add it to my viewing schedule.

Final update: Check out Amy's Commentary here for why I think that the book isn't what the people at Disney think it is:

Why did several people in the book group strongly dislike Wizard's First Rule? One reason given was that they felt this book was not well written (or poorly edited), that there were too many misspellings and too much bad grammar. Another felt parts were needlessly crude. There was also the complaint that the story was too derivative of other fantasy books, not very original. The reason discussed most, however, was an episode three quarters of the way into the book - the long torture scene involving Richard Cypher and Mistress Denna, the Mord-Sith. Richard suffers at the hands of leather clad Denna and her rod- like Agiel. The S&M aspects of their "relationship" didn't appeal to me, and several group members found it extremely disagreeable, enough so to sour them on the entire book. This scene was unexpected and intense, but not - in my opinion - gratuitous. They didn't agree. One person was extremely uncomfortable reading this scene and could only skim it. Richard's encounter with the Mord-Sith may be important in later books, but I think such a traumatic scene should've been better foreshadowed.

From the people who make Dreams Come True™ comes this whimsical tale of a guy who gets tortured almost to death, complete with graphic descriptions of blood and pain. For the record, the sex is just glossed over, so Disney might be happy. Torture good, sex bad.

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Very interesting and useful article entitled The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Linux Users. Excerpt:

If there was one habit that one should strictly abide by, it’s probably this one. Most of us come from a Windows background, and we have the notion that more power is better, so we login using our administrator accounts. Well let me tell you my friend, that this is a major reason that Windows is plagued with viruses and insecurities, half the world is currently running ‘root’ accounts!

With great power comes great responsibility, and with ‘root’ powers you should be aware of the consequences of EVERYTHING you’re doing, and even then, mistakes happen. [ed. note: That is the funniest and most horrifying Unix/Linux story ever]I remember my beginnings with SUSE Linux, there were lot of administrative tasks I needed to do but had no idea how to go about them without the GUI, so I so innocently log out and login onto the ‘root‘ GUI. The default wallpaper of the ‘root‘ GUI on SUSE were lit fuse bombs tiled beside each other. Back then, the symbolism totally flew over my head, coming from a Windows background, I wasn’t really doing anything wrong.

But what are the dangers of logging in as root?

1. Well imagine youÂ’re on the trapeze without a safety net, frightening isnÂ’t it? Well thatÂ’s effectively what you are doing when you login as root, you can inadvertently hose your whole system
   
2. You are at the risk of running malware. Any program that is started under root mode will automatically be given root privileges
   
3. If there is a common security hole that hasn’t been patched yet, you could be totally “pwned”
   
4. ItÂ’s common Unix convention, never run anything in root mode unless absolutely necessary. If a non-admin program asks for root access, you should be suspicious
   

Generally, instead of logging onto your root GUI, use any of the following techniques:

• Use “sudo” or “su” , and kill the session when your done
  
• If you donÂ’t know how to do it in the command line, use “gksu” or “kdesu”. For example, press alt+f2 and type “gksu nautilus“. Close the app as soon as you finish
  

Lots more good advice to peruse.

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Karl Rove, meet Dan Abrams. Dan, meet the guy who just made you his bitch. Excerpt:

It boils down to this: as a journalist, do you feel you have a responsibility to dig into the claims made by your guests, seek out evidence and come to a professional judgment as to the real facts? Or do you feel if a charge is breathtaking enough, thoroughly checking it out isnÂ’t a necessity?

I know you might be concerned that asking these questions could restrict your ability to make sensational charges on the air, but donÂ’t you think you have a responsibility to provide even a shred of supporting evidence before sullying the journalistic reputations of MSNBC and NBC?

People used to believe journalists were searching for the truth. But your cable show increasingly seems to be focused on wishful thinking, hoping something is one way and diminishing the search for facts and evidence in favor of repeating your fondest desires. For example, while you do ask Siegelman what evidence he had to back up his charges, you did not press him when he said "We don't have the knife with Karl Rove's fingerprints all over it, but we've got the glove, and the glove fits."

The difficulty with your approach is you reduced yourself to the guy in the bar who repeats what the fellow next to him says – “The glove fits! The glove fits!” - only louder, because it suits your pre-selected story line ("Bush Justice") and you don’t want the facts to get in the way of a good fable. You have relinquished the central responsibility of an investigative reporter, namely to press everyone in order to get to the facts. You didn’t subject the statements of others to skeptical and independent review. You have chosen instead to simply repeat something someone else says because it agrees with the theme line your producers slapped on your segment, created the nifty graphic for and promoted in the ads before your appearances.

Dan, I realize that you're an intellectually stunted, Democratic sycophant little ass-kisser, but even you should realize when you're punching out of your weight class. Tell you what, though: I'll match you up against my 5 year old son. And don't worry: I'll tell him to take it easy on you.

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Dr. Helen links to a PMSNBC article wherein some ball-busting harpy sees fit to publicly malign her husband as a useless turd. Dr. Helen is having none of it. Excerpt:

I have some advice for your long suffering husband, Jeremy. Next time you need something fixed around the house, your wife needs help lifting something, or you need a blowjob, resort to yelling and complaining. Threats are also effective, as long as she knows you mean business. Huff and puff and complain to all of your friends about her inadequacies and let the world know what a loser she is. Then crow about your newfound equality. Finally, call yourself a hero and write a lousy piece for Men's Health or some other men's magazine about your loser of a wife and see how your married life takes off after that. For deep down, even if Jeremy won't admit it, my guess is, just like the women mentioned in the article, he is seething inside. It's no wonder he won't scrub toilets for this woman.

Update: From Ace, of course:

Men and women simply have differing opinions as to what constitutes "clean enough." Quite frankly, doing half of what you ask in this regard is already quite a compromise, because, honestly, It looks fine to us, honey.

No, we're not just saying that. We mean that. It looks fine to us, honey.

Sink's got a bit of orange-ish mold growing around the drain? Shrug. Last time I looked it hadn't grown tentacles and began reaching out rip my face off. It's just the wonder of nature. Circle of life. Chain of being. Didn't you always say you wanted to go on nature-walks, hon? Well there you go. I made you your own private nature walk right in the head.

Soap scum building up along the rim of the tub? Um, it's soap, baby. Scum or not, it's soap. That means it's pure cleanliness, cleanliness in diatomic elemental form. Clean up the soap? What, are you crazy? That's counterproductive. If anything we should be trying to plaster the whole house in soap scum.
...
Feminism seems to be teaching women that narcissism, unpleasantness, selfishness, and hectoring, nagging, domineering, insufferable behavior are somehow virtues to be praised.

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5 people crash land on a island in the middle of the ocean. There are 4 men and one woman.

The men constantly fight over who gets the one woman, so they decide they will switch who her "husband" is every week. Everything works out fine and they are all happy.

10 years later, the woman dies.

1st day: Things really aren't to bad
2nd day: Somethings missing, but it's still alright
3rd day: Now things are starting to get not so fun
4th day: It's starting to get really bad.
5th day: Really.....really bad.
6th day: Absolutely horrible.
7th day: They bury her.

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July 18 marks the return of Psych and Monk with new epsidoes. I'm still not clear how they're going to deal with the loss of Stanley Kamel, though. Monk freaked out when he thought his psychiatrist was simply retiring.

Oh, and you might have noticed that NBC is attempting to drum up interest in Psych and Monk by showing reruns on Sunday evenings.

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Today, the lovely and talented Rachel Lucas celebrates her [computer error] birthday. Go buy her something. Better yet, give her some cold hard cash.

I'd ask y'all to give me something, but (a) it's not my birthday and (b) I don't have any links up for PayPal or Amazon. Besides, I'd feel bad at the number of people who'd swallow their tongues from laughing hystericall, so consider it a public service on my part.

Update: Okay, Rachel publicly posted her age, which I already knew. However, I will continue to be a gentleman and not mention that she's now 36 years old. Yeah, I'm good like that.

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The NBA regular season bores me a little because, by and large, lots of players take nights off and snooze their way through the winter. This season was better than most because

1. The Celtics reemerged as an elite team.
   
2. Both the Lakers and Celtics finished as #1 seeds in their respective conferences, potentially setting up a possible ratings bonanza Finals.
   
3. The Western Conference was just so damned good, top to bottom.
   
4. Some teams were a pleasant surprise, especially, but not limited to, the New Orleans Hornets.
   

And now the Spurs and Suns have squared off in the first round. While it's somewhat disappointing that this meeting didn't occur much later in the postseason, it is a matchup between two heavyweights. Saturday afternoon's game was one of the best games that I've seen all year. It featured one highlight reel moment after another: Michael Finley coming off of a screen to nail the game-tying 3-pointer at the end of regulation; Tim Duncan?! hitting the game-tying three at the end of the first overtime; and the off balance, falling out of bounds, game-tying 3-pointer hit by Nash that, unfortunately, did not force a third overtime, owing to Genobli's game winner with 1.5 seconds left. The only bad thing that I have to say about the game is that no one sucker-punched that thug Bruce Bowen. While it's entertaining to watch the NBA turn a blind eye to a player cheapshotting his way through the playoffs, it's not as much fun as watching someone break that asshole's jaw. Not that I'm advocating violence or anything. That would be wrong. But if an accident were to occur right in front of the Spurs' bench and a few premier players happened to stand up and get suspended for a game or two, well that would be just too bad.

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Maybe, just maybe, the Pope should stick to what he knows, such as spiritual matters, rather than lecturing me on the virtues of accepting whatever pronouncements the dictator-fellating fuckwits at the UN have to say about pretty much anything, including, but not limited to, global warming. Excerpt:

Countries that act unilaterally on the world stage undermine the authority of the United Nations and weaken the broad consensus needed to confront global problems, Pope Benedict said on Friday.

From your mouth to God's ears.

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Jonah reminds me of the Greatest Play In Baseball History.

Thank you, Rick Monday.

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That this movie won't suck

So the title for the second X Files movie has been released: The X Files: I Want To Believe. Because no one remembers the poster in Mulder's office, I guess.

I liked FTF. It was a pretty good bridge between seasons 5 and 6 and a decent story in its own right. However, I'm still unclear as to where this movie will go, especially given the way that the series ended. For those of you who didn't watch the series finale, well, go rent it. Or rather, don't. Starting around season 7, the X Files started sucking. A lot.

If it sounds like I won't go to the theater on July 25, don't kid yourself. I watched the pilot when it aired and there's no way that I'll miss the movie. I just hope I don't want my money back afterwards.

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I'm still picking up the pieces of my jaw after watching Tuesday night's episode of Boston Legal. Sure, the show is a liberal wet dream of how the world should be, but I love watching William Shatner. Anyway, for those of you who watch the show, the character Jerry - odd, goofy, the show would get along just fine without him- got a new girlfriend. Now Jerry is an odd guy, not bad looking I suppose, but he goes around purring, hopping and growling, all the while holding his hands flat on his pants. Okay, the writers gave him Aspberger's Syndrome to make him sympathetic, instead of pathetic.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Anyway, Jerry's character has issues which make bonding with a woman problematic at best. His last girlfriend left him for a toaster, or iPod, or some other inanimate object. Seems she had issues, too. Plus, she wasn't very attractive. However, his latest squeeze, Dana, borders on the thermonuclear side of the hotness scale. I checked around at ABC.com to find out if anyone knew who the heck she was. Turns out that her name is Rachelle Lefevre. The pictures at IMDB do not do her justice, so I looked elsewhere. If you watch Boston Legal, see if you agree with me that Dana is not only out of Jerry's weight class, she borders on being outside of his species. If you don't watch, just enjoy the eye candy.

Rachelle Lefevre #1

Rachelle Lefevre #2

Actually, none of the pictures do her justice. Wait until someone uploads photo captures from the 4/15/2008 episode. I should have been wearing a drool cup.

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Via Jonah comes the Worlds Hardest Game. Somehow, I thought that was figuring out what women want. Oh wait, that's fiction, not a game.

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Believe in evolution? Oh sure, there is a lot of evidence to the contrary. How else do you explain the success and/or popularity of Carrot Top or Keith Olbermann? Okay, that isn't really a fair comparison. To Carrot Top. Anyway, Cracked.com reviews what happens when nature decides to replace aggression with passivity and intellgence with Keith Olbermann.

Damn. I did it again. Oh well, excerpt:

#4.Smilodons (Sabre-Toothed Tigers)

Used to be ...
Anyone who has seen 10,000 BC (and escaped with their IQ intact) knows about Smilodons. With eight-inch blade-like teeth, these cats were the top predators of the late Pliestocine, and were the last dominant predators before our ancestors came along. They traveled in packs, the sight of which would make our ancestors crap their pants from miles away.
...
The Crappy Evolutionary Spin-off:
You're probably thinking tigers here, but actually marsupials are all that is left of the classic Sabre-Tooth Cat (the felines were another branch on the evolutionary tree) so, sadly, the closest genetic connection remains adorable Koala Bears, Kangaroos and Opossums. The most common of these is the Opossum, most often seen in their natural habitat (the local freeway) in their instinctive 'bloody smear along the road' stance.
...
Though there is one marsupial still holding its ground: the Tasmanian Devil. The usual response to a natural sighting of these godless killing machines tends to be "HOLY SHIT A TASMANIAN DEVIL LET'S GET THE HELL OUT OF HE-(screams of agony)." It feasts on the dead and dying and leaves nothing but crushed bone and echoes of blood-curdling screams in its path.

I recently explained to my son that the Tasmanian Devil was real, although it in no way resembled the funny, stupid critter he had seen on Bugs Bunny.

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It travels fast, but I'm pretty slow these days. I blame Bush. Anyway, Jen Lars is back posting at, um, Jen Lars. I'm glad that the link in my blogroll is active again. Welcome back, Jen.

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