I received today what has to be one of the most bogus marketing attempts ever. In the mail I received a thing from Microsoft. On the front it says: "Nobody told me there was a virus attached to that email" and below it - Solutions to this and other IT challenges inside.
I open it up and what is inside? Demo versions of Windows XP and Office XP. Most people (myself included) would consider these products to be the beginning of IT challenges, not the end.
Um, thanks but no thanks Microsoft.

Ah, it's working again!
I'm quite fascinated by this whole Northern Snakehead situation in Maryland. The whole issue surrounding non-native species introduction is interesting to me. I remember when I was in Australia a number of years ago, they were having (and continue to have) problems with Cane Toads. These are poisonous frogs that kill a lot of native animals. The whole problem with non-native species is that native species haven't built-up any defenses against them and therefore get whiped-out quickly.
Apparently this fish not only eats almost any other fish, but can actually breath out of water and can travel on it's front fins accross land. How cool is that? They say that some guy had a couple and decided that he didn't want them anymore, so he dumped them in this pond. Now the pond is under guard so that no fish will escape to the Petuxtent where it will kill all the native fish. If this happens it'll be a really visible lesson about how careless people can be when the choose and then dispose of a "pet".

There seems to be posting problems with blogger these days. I'm just writing this to see if it's fixed.

So we're driving in the car the other day and my daughter says, "Why don't you smoke?". My wife, seeing the opportunity to pounce on this issue early in our child's life, says "Because it's dirty, ugly and makes you sick." The reply is "But Uncle Don smokes." Ah yes, throw it back in our faces. Mom says, "Yes but Uncle Don is old enough to decide whether he wants to stink of smoke and get sick and maybe die from it." "When I get bigger I'm going to smoke."
At least it'll be 12 years or so before the neighbor's oldest kid can buy her smokes. We've got time to fine-tune our spiel.

I think Bob the Builder is going to single-handedly convince millions of our children to become construction workers (not that there's anything wrong with that).

There was a parade in our fair city last week and I watched it on TV with my 3 yr. old daughter. It's a big parade with lots of marching bands and floats, horses, baton twirlers, even the lonley Maytag repairman (I guess he had nothing better to do). Asked what her favorite part of the parade was my daughter replied, "Bob the Builder!". My daughter also has a Bob the Builder construction hat and a tool set. Apparently Bob the Builder is the number 1 pre-school TV show in the WORLD! It's certainly a nice break from Barney and the Teletubbies.
I've often wondered where children's story writers get their ideas. I try but always end up with something that borders on the bizarre, like a dinosaur who goes to the video store only to discover they're all out of Barney videos. It's tragic actually, but my daughter doesn't seem to be quite as captivated as she is with Mortimer. She'll probably read my blog someday and think it's just as bizarre.

You have to read this article at SatireWire today, it's even funnier because it could all be true with the way our government chooses to do things. If the hyperlink didn't work go to www.satirewire.com/news/july02/canada_invasion.shtml

I think it's kind of funny that I thought I had lots of things to say and lots of time in which to say it. Now that I have gone ahead with a blog...not enough of either.
I do have something to say about this whole Worldcom thing. Does anyone care? Probably not, but this is my blog and I'll say whatever I want (I don't think anyone reads it anyway).
Having worked for more than one public company in my life, I think that people in the investment community are getting their just desserts with Enron, Arthur Anderson, Worldcom, et al. Companies do well, investors buy stock, up goes the price, money comes in and the companies spend it. That's the whole free market system, I know and I'm all for it, but I'm getting to my point. Investors started to get greedy in the late 90's. If a compny didn't show exponential growth quarter on quarter, investors stopped buying stock, driving the price down and subsequently crippling the companies. These companies might still have been showing a profit, but that didn't matter because if it wasn't 200% it wasn't enough as far as the investors were concerned. At this point the investors start driving the business plan because the company will do whatever it has to in order to get people to buy its stock again. It doesn't matter if it's good for the long term health of the company or its employees, it only matters that the stock price goes up. Some companies handle this well and adjust their business model or lay off employees or whatever, and the investors flock back when they start seeing potential for massive profits again. Other companies do things that aren't so good, i.e. Enron, Worldcom, and friends. They screw the company, the employees, and the investors. The compnay dies, the employees may or may not find jobs ( and lose their entire retirement savings), and the investors go on to kill other companies all the while fattening their wallets in the process. That is why I think they should get screwed once in a while too.

Had a great long weekend, but then ended up having more work to do to catch up.
Tony Pierce (http://www.tonypierce.com/blog/bloggy.htm I haven't got links working here yet) said, on July 1, that Canada Day is the day Canada celebrates it's independence from America. Uh, thanks for playing Tony (of course nothing you read on his blog is true apparently). Canada has never been part of "america" (I assume he means the U.S.A.). Canada Day celebrates the signing of the Britich North America Act, which basically allowed Canada to have its own federal government. A sort of sudo-independence I guess.
I usually find his blog quite entertaining, however I couldn't let this pass.

Hey, does donating blood count as helping a stranger?

And I do know how to spell wierdest.

I gave blood today for the first time. That's right a blood donation virgin. It wasn't that bad...had to admit I was a little nervous. I'm not afraid of needles or blood or anything like that but my body tends to take control and do unexpected things. Like the time I almost passed out when my wife shut her finger in the car door. Anyway no problems this time.
Wirdest part of the whole thing? I went with seven others from our office as part of a blood drive. 4 of the 8 of us have type AB blood. AB is the rarest blood type, only found in 3% of the population. We also have a very high percentage of lefties but there doesn't seem to be a connection between being a lefty (I'm not) and having AB blood. There must be a way to get a government grant to study something like that. Oh well, maybe next week.
Have a good weekend!

The Friday Five, I can do this:
When was the last time you...
...Sent a hand wirtten letter? Whoa, too long ago to remember; probably when I was about 8.
...Baked something from scratch or made something by hand? Does yardwork count? It's probably been a few years since I baked something from scratch. I did build a fence a couple of years ago.
...Camped in a tent? That's easy, last weekend. Yup the whole family, we have a "fit everyone and the dog" size tent.
...Volunteered your time to church, school, or community? It's sort of ongoing, I'm president of a community choir that I sing in. That ends this year though, so I guess I'll have to find something else.
...Helped a stranger? Hmmmmm, that's a toughy. I donate lots to charity if that counts. Otherwise I'm a little low on the helping strangers scale.

Okay, here comes my very first public (assuming someone else reads it) rant.
There is a debate among many people in our city about protesters and the issues surrounding many of the violent protests of the last few years. Namely world domination by big multi-national corporations.
I'm going to get this out of the way before I go any further: Everyone should have the right to freely speak their mind in whatever legal forum they wish. As I am doing here.
An aquaintance came to me yesterday after having left work to join a protest that was passing the office. Organizers were dissapointed in the small number of people who actually showed up for the protest and this person remarked on the apathy of our citizens. Without thinking I said "well I'm sorry but I guess I'm one of those people". She said " Don't apologize to me, apologize to your children". I was quite taken aback and, as usually happens, I thought of a bunch of whitty and snide comments after the fact.
It got me thinking however. Where does someone get off telling me to apologize to my children for the fact that I actually stood up for my beliefs. I didn't go protest because I didn't agree with the protest, not because I was to afraid or didn't care. This person joined the protest when it was convenient for her and on work time. Was she going to take the morning off to go to the protest from the beginning? No. What does that say about her motive for protesting? Was she just doing it because everyone else was, and if so how does she explain that to her children (she doesn't have any of course so there's no reality check necessary)? This is also a person who sells a service to companies and would love to have some of these evil (my word not hers) mulit-national companies as clients.
I feel it just goes to further my belief that a lot of these protesters are hypocrites who are protesting because it's popular and they don't really have a grasp of the true issues. This isn't always true of course. I'm always impressed when someone can get up and speak knowledgeably about an issue and give some feasable alternatives to the help fix a problem.
I will unapologetically teach my child that she should stand up for what she believes using whatever means she feels necessary (always legal I hope). However she should always have a solid understanding of the issue and the problems all sides need to address.
There, I feel better now.

...there, that's better.
Send me feedback and check the links. I'm sure I'll have something to say a little later.

Just testing to see if my template changes worked. I can't bear to push the button...

Ahhhh, panic! In Blogger, the posts show who posted them. I'm trying to keep this somewhat anonymous. OK I freaked for second. Ready to throw in the towel.
Go to my actual blog and lo and behold, no names. Whew!
Yeah, I know it all makes sense to me now.

Hey, it worked!
Uh oh, writer's block. Think, think, think...

So here I go. I've been reading various blogs for a little while now and I thought that I'd give it a try. You know how we all think we're funny and intelligent and have interesting things to say? This is my test to find out if I am. I hope, of course, that the answer will be that I am, but I'm fully prepared to find out that I'm not. I guess I'll only find out when you have some way of sending me feedback. I'm sure I'll figure that out soon and when I do I'm prepared for the worst. Oh yeah, you'll notice that this isn't all lowercase. That may be a big no-no in the blogging world, but the thoughts in my head aren't all lowercase and so they won't be here either. If you're going to write, you might as well do it properly (my grade 6 L.A. teacher would be happy to hear me say that).
This blog will be very short on personal details. There are many reasons for this, the primary one being that my wife (there's generic personal detail #1) and my mother-in-law would both have a huge fit. I also (on a much lesser scale) have reservations about publishing personal details for all to see. As a systems administrator (generic personal detail #2). I am very well aware of how information can travel and tranform on the www and I'd rather that didn't happen to my personal information and more importantly my family's.
OK, here goes I'm going to make my first post...