The Missing Link

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End of Marty Ball in San Diego

It did seem odd that the Chargers would lose both their offensive and defensive coordinators at the same time. Both got head coaching jobs. Two other assistants also left, and despite their 12-4 season, the Chargers fired Marty Schottenheimer today. The timing seems bad since most of the other coaching vacancies have been filled at this point, so you either will get a guy who hasn't been a head coach before or a retread who didn't get any of the other jobs. Maybe Bill Parcells will change his mind and give it one more shot with a team that has a great chance to win next year. I don't think it's the right move to fire your coach because he can't get along with the general manager, but maybe the owner felt the general manager was more important.

AstroCamp and behavioral issues

One of the things that was very clear after spending 2 days with about 50 5th graders is that when even a very small number of the kids have behavioral issues, it can really have a huge impact on the entire group. I don't think I could deal with the stuff I saw during the two days on a day to day basis, and it did seem like the teachers involved had become immune to some of the stuff and just dealt with the more serious transgressions. Lots of kids in the group need medication just to get through the day -- or, more accurately, they have been giving medication to get through the day. I wondered how much of the bad behavior had a biological basis to it and how much was psychological or of some other origin. Some kids were just disruptive all the time, constantly seeking attention in one way or another. It drove me crazy. And in almost every case, the behavior could be related back to the parents or absence of parents. It's easy to get upset with the repeated bad actions of the child, but it's probably the absent parent who bears much of the responsibility.

ArtText or TypeStyler

One thing I have not figured out is why it has taken so many years for the OS X version of TypeStyler to be released. It's still not out yet and I'm sure they have long since lost many customers because of this. It's been "coming soon" for years now. I really liked the program years ago when I used Mac OS 9, but that was about 7 years back. Today on MacZot, you can get a new competitor to TypeStyler, ArtText, for 33% off -- $19.95. I will give it a try and if it can do most of what TypeStyler did, I'll buy it. Too bad for TypeStyler, but how long can you wait?

AstroCamp photos

I took 1250 photos in 48 hours at AstroCamp. There have to be a few good ones in there! Actually, I've got them all imported in to iPhoto and tagged and I've rated about half of them. I'm hoping to have enough variety to make a nice poster using about 80 of them. I will also upload the good ones so other people can have a look. This is going to take a couple of days, but I think it will be worth the effort. The challenge was in getting pictures of each of the 4 student groups since I was spending all of my time with one group. I think I managed to do it, but maybe next year the school will allow me to go up and just take pictures on Saturday without being a chaperone. We'll see.

Return from Astrocamp

Our AstroCamp weekend in Idylwild wrapped up today. We made the bus trip back down the mountain in the rain. In fact, it rained all day today and was cold which made the last day a little rough. Overall, it was a good experience for most everyone involved, although there were more than a few meltdowns by a small number of students. Oddly enough, most of them were by students in my group of 12.

AstroCamp

Day one of AstroCamp is coming to a close. We had a nice bus ride up here and enjoyed some fun activities. Getting hoisted up about 40 feet in the air and then dropping and flying along a line was a good one although it hurt a bit when the harness dug into my thighs. I got some great pictures of the students doing this one as well as a couple of others. I need to clear my memory cards tonight and recharge my battery so I can take more pictures tomorrow, which should be a long day.

Shouldn't that be "enigmatic"

Another one of those "rush to be first" stories with a strange error. From the home page of SFGate.com, under a picture of Anna Nicole Smith:

Anna Nicole Smith, the pneumatic blonde whose life played out as a tabloid tale, died today at age 39 after collapsing at a hotel. Famous for being famous, she went from being a dancer and centerfold to billionaire's widow and reality TV star. Talk about it in NWZCHIK.

According to dictionary.com, and my own common sense, pneumatic isn't normally used in reference to someone's personality.

Top 5 definitions of pneumatic from dictionary.com:

1. of or pertaining to air, gases, or wind.

2.	of or pertaining to pneumatics.

3.	operated by air or by the pressure or exhaustion of air: a pneumatic drill.

4.	filled with or containing compressed air, as a tire.

5.	equipped with pneumatic tires.

Steve Jobs and DRM

I read Steve Jobs' essay on DRM and iTunes yesterday. Innocuously titled "Thoughts on Music,"it was interesting and certainly not what you would expect from a CEO of two huge media companies, but then I don't think Steve Jobs is the typical CEO. He's the only one I know who laid me off, but that's beside the point. I didn't interpret his essay as a call to end DRM. I don't think that is going to happen. With the pressure from a couple of countries in Europe to remove the iTunes DRM to make the music available to other players, this essay was just a way to deflect that criticism and put it where it should be -- on the backs of the music publishers.

Podcast plus PDF

I knew that iTunes supported PDFs, but I hadn't really used the feature or thought about how it might be useful. Until today, that is. I set up my first podcast on my work blog and went to iTunes to subscribe to it, just to check that it was working. When I did, I also got the PDFs I had attached to previous posts on my blog. Since I am creating materials and making them available in PDF to various people, this is a nice way to distribute them. I only need to figure out how to be sure that people subscribe, but I don't think that is too difficult. At least in theory.

BeeDocs Timeline

BeeDocs Timeline is an interesting program (Mac only). It makes the creation of timelines very simple, so it's a big timesaver. You can use it for free for up to 10 items. We have used it several times for school reports and it works well. You don't really get much more with the paid version other than a much longer timeline. At almost $40, it's a little out of my price range, but today you can get it for $24 at MacZot. I think the developer is working on a new application which will extend the features of Timeline quite a bit, so I'm going to wait for that and continue to use the free version.

PE.com commuting blog

One of the local newspapers recently started up some blogs written by a few of their reporters. One is the Commuting Blog, written by Phil Pitchford. Phil only has a two mile commute, but he does cover transportation, so he knows the freeways even though he is smarter than many of us who still have to use them to get to work.

Phil's not getting the traffic that Steve Lopez gets on the Bottleneck Blog at the LA Times, but commenting on the Bottleneck Blog has slowed down quite a bit since that first entry which got hundreds of comments.

Really hot weather

They should have held the Super Bowl around here instead of in Miami. No rain and it was over 80 degrees yesterday. Today may break a record with the forecast for 87 degrees. Tomorrow it will start cooling down and by the time we leave on our school field trip on Friday, it will probably be cold again in the mountains.

Prince at Super Bowl

For a guy who is getting close to 50 years old, Prince looks good and moves incredibly well. His music was also good and he had a number of guitars including one with that weird symbol he used to use for his name. I thought the halftime show was good, considering it was in the rain and you can't really get good audio from something like that. Is Prince a football fan? I guess he might be a Vikings fan, but he doesn't look like a guy who would have played much football, although of course that has nothing to do with being a fan.

Super Bowl - Colts win

At least this Super Bowl was competitive for a little while. The Colts dominated but the score was close until late in the third quarter. The commercials were typical for a Super Bowl -- beer, cards, GoDaddy.com, and a bunch of other stuff that I don't remember. Nothing really jumped out at me. No Apple/iTunes ad. I'll have to go back and watch them again. There were some funny ones like the Taco Bell commercial with the two lions. That might have been my favorite

Senora Ross' grading scandal

The LA Times has a story today about 20 USC students, mostly athletes who were denied credit for a summer Spanish course. They took the course at a local community college from Señora Ross, who, to put it nicely, had a liberal grading policy. There were 5 B's and everyone else got an A.

"I've never given an easy grade in my life," she told The Times in a recent interview. "You come to my class and work, and I see you want to learn, I'll give you an A. I see some lazy ass, coming late all the time, acting like he doesn't care, I won't give him an A. I'll give him a B."

I really like her teaching philosophy, though:

"Ross, meanwhile, remains feisty and unbowed, stoutly defending teaching methods she has used for more than 40 years.

"The most important thing in learning is that everyone likes the teacher," she said."

I thought the most important thing was that the students learn something in the class.

Ginobli -- turnabout is fair play?

After the very strange 1 game suspension of Kobe Bryant for hitting Manu Ginobli in the nose after a jump shot earlier this week, it will be interesting to see what happens after tonight's Suns - Spurs game. Ginobli just nailed Amare Stoudemire in a very personal area with his knee. It sure looked like a very unnatural basketball move, so if Kobe Bryant's hand to the nose was enough for a suspension, this move should at least be reviewed. I liked the commentator's statement "that every man in American can feel the pain right now".

Disable Snap

Those Snap previews get to be a pain in the neck after a while, especially when they are very slow to load. Lifehacker points out today that there is a download on the Snap site which will disable the previews. It's a cookie, so it only works until you clear your cookies, but it does the job. I tried out the Snap functionality for about two days and then turned it off. For a while I got emails from them asking why I didn't have it working on my site. I think it turns out to be one of those things that seems pretty cool at first but just quickly becomes a pain in the neck and on sites that use it I find I don't even look at the previews.

Classmates.com - service or fortress?

I have a free account at Classmates.com and every time someone I might have gone to school with visits the site, they send me an email reminding me to visit the site. When I do, it's just one wall after another where unless I pay for a real membership, I can't do much. Can't get someone's email address, look at their photos, see how they answered some survey, etc. It seems that the whole purpose of the free membership is to try to get you to pay up for the full thing. Some people I went to high school with are setting up a reunion and one guy posted a message and said email me to get the details. Can't do it without a full membership. He can't show his email address.

Bottleneck blog - one hit wonder?

Steve Lopez' Bottleneck blog about LA traffic is up to an incredible 602 comments on his first post, but comments have steadily declined since then. Subsequent posts have 116, 52, 19, 5, 0, and 2 comments. I guess he made a big splash and then dropped back to reality. Or maybe that first question was just so good that nothing could match it. I'd still be happy with 5 comments on anything I've written. On the other hand, googling "Bottleneck Blog" comes back with the original site at 1 and 2 and this site in 3rd. Maybe nobody else wrote about it...

Blogger Bug

Blogger isn't in beta any longer, but there are still some bugs. I've got one blog which will not convert to the new blogger. The first time I tried to convert it, I was locked out of all my Blogger blogs for a couple of days, which was not good. This must have had something to do with my participation as a beta tester for Google. The blog that won't convert was "upgraded" during the beta testing and then put back to the old version, but something must not have gone right because each time I've tried to move to the new Blogger, things have gone wrong. Now I can't even try as the system locks me out of the upgrade. I guess I'll have to leave that blog in old Bloggerland.

A Crowded House at Coachella

The Coachella Valley Music Festival is coming up in April and people are already getting excited about it. It's one of the top ten Google searches for this past week as tickets went on sale. It's a huge event over 3 days. Australian band Crowded House are reforming after ten years' of non-activity and their first appearance will be at the Coachella Valley Music Festival in April. I get them confused with the British band Madness who did a song called "Our House" and really they aren't very much alike. One group wears funny hats and the other one is from Australia and they didn't do that "Land Down Under" song but did have some other catchy songs.

Tennis and golf dominated by two guys

It does seem like Roger Federer and Tiger Woods win all the big ones in their sports, like they did today. I don't think I remember a time when tennis and golf were dominated so much by one person in each sport. Women's tennis had Steffi Graf and golf has had Annika Sorenstam more recently, but men's golf and tennis, especially the major events may be a little predictable. It's always a bunch of other guys trying for second place, or so it seems. I don't mind much and if Tiger Woods isn't playing I probably won't even watch golf. I think it might be better if one of these guys was a jerk, but they aren't, or at least don't appear to be. We may have to settle for another 5 years of this.

Stanford - UCLA men's basketball

I had a feeling that Stanford would give UCLA a good game today. It didn't look good in the first half as Stanford couldn't put the ball in the basket. The second half was a different story as Stanford played much better on offense and defense. Those two Lopez guys are already pretty good but in another year they should be unstoppable. I'd like to see them both on the court at the same time, although they are both playing the same position, so that may not happen too much. It was nice to see Stanford beat UCLA, something which used to happen frequently but hasn't been so common lately.

Haircut

One of my sons had gone a long time in between haircuts. His hair was pretty long, which was fine with me, but his disdain for showers was the problem. His hair wasn't too clean and no amount of suggesting that he just have it trimmed so he wouldn't have to worry about washing it every day was going to change his desire to have long hair. This situation went on for a couple of months and although he did get it trimmed, resulting in a mullet, there wasn't a lot of joy related to his hair. For me, at least. The other day I came home from work and was surprised to see that he had decided to get a haircut. Not just a trim, but a crewcut, similar to what his brother has. In fact, I thought he was his brother at first glance. The good thing about this is that because it was his decision, there is no more complaining about his hair. Now, we'll see what happens when it grows back enough to where he needs another haircut.

How not to remove Palm Trees

I cut down two 30 foot tall palm trees in my yard about 3 months ago. It was a huge amount of work, but dealing with the palm fronds and stumps is turning out to be even more work. I am able to get a small amount taken away each week with the trash, but at this rate it may take a year to remove the two trees. Plus, I've got at least one more tree that needs to be cut down before it knocks down my fence. I got one estimate on removing what's already down and it was around $500 which seemed a little too much. I may need to just rent a dumpster and get as much of it hauled away as possible. Those are $75 each.

First black coach in Super Bowl

I don't get why Lovie Smith is the first black coach in the Super Bowl. Tony Dungy is also black, and the Super Bowl starts at the same time for both of them, so aren't they both the first black coach in the Super Bowl. It seems ridiculous that because the Bears game ended first that Lovie Smith is first and Tony Dungy is second. It makes no sense. It's about the Super Bowl, not which team was in first.

Steve Nash not an all star starter

How can Steve Nash not be a starter in the all star game? He won the MVP award the past two years and his team is one of the top two this year. No starters from Dallas or Phoenix. I think the fan voting is a little off this year. Tracy McGrady is a great player, but I don't think he deserves to start this year. And Shaq? Not even close. Injured most of the season, with lower productivity anyway.

slow blogging week

I have had a busy week at work and haven't been keeping up as well with my blogging. I still haven't gotten around to either of those 5 things memes I'm supposed to do. Five things people don't know about me and my five favorite movies are the ones I need to do. Very far behind. Maybe tomorrow...

Backing up

I'm waiting to get the file recovery software today so I can try to salvage what's on my laptop's hard drive. I hope that goes well, but you never know. What I really need to do is have a good system in place to back up my files regularly. I've got too many 300 adn 400 GB drives which are practically full and I'm not doing any regular backups. Greg Keene at TechDigs.net does an extensive job laying out the options for backing up your files when you've got lots of files. It's a little daunting, but something has to be done, in my case. It's no fun to lose your files when your drive goes bad.

Burning CDs

I'm using my laptop to burn 16 CDs to give out in class tonight. It's going to take about 45 minutes to do it. Years ago, at Apple, I had access to the first commercial CD writer, made by Kodak. It cost $10,000 and took 45 minutes to write a blank CD, which had less capacity than CDs do now. Those blanks were $10 each, so when you had a write error, it was a little more painful than it is today. The CD Writer was also huge -- bigger than two VCRs are today. Now, of course, CD-RW drives cost very little and come with almost every computer. Blanks are around 10 cents each. Quite a difference. People sometimes say that CDs aren't reliable as archival media, but I still have the CDs I made in 1993 and they are still working. Of course, I didn't leave them in the sun or flip them around, so they are in good shape.

Bush plan to reduce gas consumption

I'm a little skeptical of President Bush's plan to reduce the amount of gasoline used by 20% in 10 years. Not that it can't be done, but I think this guy and his buddies are the same group who lowered clean air standards and did nothing to put pressure on US automakers to improve gas mileage. If it wasn't for Toyota and Honda, I don't think any of the US carmakers would be selling hybrid cars or looking into electric cars. We'll see what happens. It would certainly be a good thing. Maybe car sharing, like they are doing in the Bay Area, would be a good thing to promote. There are three car sharing companies in San Francisco, which is pretty impressive. I don't think car sharing is viable everywhere, but it does look like a way to save money. I'd just like some kind of mass transit where I live, something that seems unlikely to happen.

Scrivener for OS X

It does seem that there are quite a few outliners/word processors/note-taking/clip management applications for the Mac. I have trouble keeping up with them and don't seem to get around to spending enough time with new ones to change what I'm working with. Scrivener 1.0 was released yesterday and it has some unique features. In addition to the full screen, distraction-free mode which has become popular in order to help people focus on writing and not on browsing the web or checking email, it has a kind of note card mode which allows you to organize your thoughts on a project and view them on a virtual corkboard. I'm not clear on what kind of functionality you get with this, but it's worth a look.

Lane Kiffin new Raiders coach - bad career move

The Raiders have their guy - Lane Kiffin from USC. He's younger than nine current players and the youngest coach in the modern era of pro football, 31 years old. I guess he doesn't subscribe to the Sporting News, which has a scary looking picture of his new boss on the current cover. I don't know if Lane Kiffin is going to fix the problems facing the Raiders. He's got to improve their offense, but after the bed and breakfast guy, that shouldn't be too hard to do. I just wonder how hard it will be for him to get guys like Randy Moss and Jerry Porter to play hard for him. There are just too many knuckleheads on the Raiders. I just hope he's got an out clause in his five year contract.

Pechanga Comedy Club

The local casino here in Temecula -- Pechanga -- is opening up a branch of the Improv comedy club in March. Shows will cost $20 and it might be fun. I am not familiar with any of the names on the list of performers, but they are up and coming talents, not stars. If they were already stars, they would be perfoming in the theater, along with the Moody Blues and the Fab Four. Actually, not all of the performers are on the county fair circuit. The Chinese Acrobats and David Copperfield are showing up next month. Not on the same day.

Parcells retires, AP publishes first draft

Bill Parcells retired from coaching today. I'm surprised he lasted a whole season with Terrell Owens, who should be the next to go. Looks like the Associated Press was in a rush to be first with the story, as they included the following two paragraphs:

Parcells won two Super Bowls with the Giants. He came to Dallas four seasons ago energized by the challenge of restoring glory to "America's Team." He went 34-32 and definitely left the Cowboys better than he found them, but his tenure ultimately may be remembered for the lack of a playoff victory.

He came to Dallas four seasons ago energized by the challenge of restoring glory to "America's Team." While he definitely left the Cowboys better than he found them, his tenure ultimately may be remembered for the lack of a playoff victory.

How about a little proofreading before you press the Publish button?

Some of the fault lies with CNNSi, who published the story as-is. ESPN and SFGate edited the AP text so the duplication isn't there.

Sunday football

I was hoping to see the Colts against the Saints in the Super Bowl, but I'm at least half wrong. And it's not looking good for the Colts. I think the weather worked against the Saints a little bit, but not enough to change the outcome. I'd like to see the Colts come back in the second game and make it competitive. It's going to be tough to outcoach Bill Bellichick however. If the Patriots make it to the Super Bowl, I think they would be the favorites considering their experience.

Bottleneck blog -- 458 comments

The LA Times/Steve Lopez started a blog about LA Traffic last week -- the Bottleneck blog. There are 3 posts now, but the first one has 458 comments! I wish I had that kind of interaction on one of my blogs. Obviously traffic in LA is a serious issue for just about anyone who lives or works there. An entire page of the comments on the Bottleneck blog was published in today's paper. Some were good. A few were weird or ridiculous, but it's pretty clear that something has to be done about traffic and maybe the blog will lead to some change, either in transportation or in who gets elected.

Credit Union not in the 21st century

I had a charge refused on an online purchase I made with a credit card from my credit union on Wednesday. Then it happened with another online purchase on Friday. After that one, I went online and checked my account. Everything was up to date and there was nothing to indicate a problem. Today I tried the card in a store and it was also refused. In this afternoon's mail, I had two letters from the credit union letting me know that both my credit card and ATM card had been cancelled because some company which processes some of the transactions had stored account information when they shouldn't have. Both of my cards were in the range of numbers which were compromised. They are in the process of replacing the cards for many people who have accounts there, something which may take more than a week. The question for me is why did they rely on snail mail alone to notify people. There's nothing on the website and there have been no emails indicating there was a problem. They do have a recorded message if you call them, but it seems to me that they should have covered all the possibilities.

KFI - The Tech Guy

I like to listen to Leo Laporte on KFI on weekends. He's on from 11-2 Saturday and Sunday, but the station doesn't come in at my house although it's okay in the car. I can get it online at KFI640.com. While the content of the show is usually pretty good, there's just not enough of it. Each half hour is good for about 18 minutes of content and he may take 3 phone calls. Lots of commercials and news.

PayPerPost convention

PayPerPost is going to have a conference for their bloggers and advertisers in Orlando June 8-9. $200 to attend. It might be fun but I don't think I'll be able to go. Too far away and too expensive to get there for me, but maybe once there are more details on what's happening I'll be a little more interested.

Steve Sarkisian

When it looked like the Raiders were going to hire a new coach -- Steve Sarkisian -- he woke up from this bad dream and realized what he would be getting himself into. He withdrew from consideration today, leaving the Raiders empty handed and backpedaling, saying that he was never offered the job. Maybe not, but who cares. So we know it won't be Sarkisian or James Lofton coaching the Raiders next year. My money is on Rob Ryan, the Raiders' defensive coach. At least the defense was good, so why not reward this guy and let him find an offensive coordinator so the Raiders can double their wins next year.

Walking across America

I read a book about a guy who walked across the US many years ago. Not something I would do myself, but it's still interesting to see how many nice people there are out there. A couple of weeks ago, Matt Gregory passed through Temecula. I saw him at the Temecula public library. He is walking from Bellingham, WA to Miami. I guess that's going to take a year to do. Right now, he's in Yuma AZ. He's doing the walk to raise money for cancer research. Check out his blog.

#84

I thought maybe Chris Webber had an advertising deal with 84 lumber when I saw him in his new Pistons uniform. Or maybe he's going to play tight end for the Detroit Lions next season and keep that number. Actually, his nephew had a dream that Webber was wearing #84 for the Pistons and that's why he chose it. Sounds funny, but apparently it's true.

Lakers keep winning

Anyone who thinks Phil Jackson isn't a great coach hasn't watched the Lakers this year. They have almost the same team as last year yet they are doing much better and beating teams like the Spurs and the Mavericks. I am not sure why they are so much better since Lamar Odom has been out and they have also been missing most of their big guys, but the guys they do have are much better and Maurice Evans is an excellent player who has really added quite a bit. I think Radmonovich will do better as the season goes along and the Lakers are going to stay near the top. I don't think they can beat the Suns in the playoffs however.

Mystery box from PayPerPost

I got a nice surprise on my front porch this morning. Some books I ordered were left there sometime yesterday along with a mystery green box from PayPerPost. I didn't order anything from PayPerPost, so they must have sent it just because they like me so much. :-) Inside the box was a big foam finger. That's going to look nice next to my painting of dogs playing cards... I also got a huge pen and a t-shirt which was folded up so small that I didn't know what it was. I was going to throw it into a bucket of water because I thought it was something that would expand in water. I also got a job search audio course from Trump University and a couple of other nice things. Thanks!

American Idol

I don't usually watch the American Idol show, but last night I saw some of it. They were in Minnesota so lots of people did Prince songs, although not very well. The thing I don't get about the people who show up at the auditions is how they can be so unaware of themselves in terms of their singing. I can't sing at all and I wouldn't pretend otherwise, but some of the people who show up are absolutely terrible. Yet when they get some honest feedback, some of them act like it's a big shock. Of course, the show relies on these kinds of people in the early stages to keep it interesting. That's obvious since they spend so much time on the characters who don't make it.

At work chatters

Once you get that Internet addiction, it can be hard to break the habit. SFGate has a Q&A column for business questions and today's item is about a co-worker who chats online all day long and doesn't get her work done. The recommendation is to enforce the policy that the computer belongs to the company, not the worker, and the use of the computer can be monitored. Also suggested is to install keylogger software. I bet there is a way to block chatting also, but wouldn't telling the employee that their chat sessions will be recorded be a step towards ending that?

Beckham getting a raw deal in Spain

Sounds like Beckham is not going to be playing in Spain again. When your boss calls you a Hollywood actor and says you didn't have any other offers, you probably aren't playing much before you leave the team. If he really didn't have any other offers and he can't play much, why are the LA Galaxy making him the highest paid team athlete ever? Somebody's story doesn't add up.

T-shirt at Saints game

In a brief crowd shot during yesterday's Saints-Eagles game, there was a Saints fan with an interesting t-shirt. The shirt exposed her stomach, which is probably why she was on camera, but the camera operator didn't pay much attention to the message on her shirt. It said "Fuck Da Eagles". I'm guessing that's not allowed on television and someone may be paying a fine, but I could be wrong. A few other people caught it too -- here, here, here, and here.

Beckham advertising starting already

There is a banner ad in the LA Times sports section featuring David Beckham in today's paper. That didn't take long. He may not be on the team for another 5 months, although since the Real Madrid coach says he won't be playing for them again, who knows? Maybe Beckham will show up early and play with the team the whole season.

Disappointing end to Chargers' season

The Chargers should have won today. They blew it in the fourth quarter by wasting two timeouts and getting two stupid 15 yard penalties. One timeout was wasted when they challenged a call where there was no reason to challenge. The guy clearly fumbled, so wasting one of your 3 timeouts was not wise. The second timeout was wasted when they called it following a long stop in play after an injury. They had plenty of time to call a play and be ready to go, but for some reason, they called timeout. This really cost them at the end, because with two more timeouts, they could have run at least two more plays and thrown the ball over the middle and gained more yardage. The result would have been a much closer field goal attempt. 54 yards was too far away.

The two penalties were ridiculous. One bailed out the Patriots after they had failed on 3rd and long and the other gave the Patriots good field position after the Chargers had to kick off from the 15.

They beat themselves and gave Tom Brady a chance to come back, which he did. Disappointing.

Sign Spinners

I see people standing on corners spinning signs just about any time I drive around Temecula on a weekend when it's not dark. They are usually promoting a real estate development and sometimes they get pretty excited and put on a show. It looks like a boring job, although if you have an iPod and enough to eat, I guess it could be bearable. This morning I saw something I never imagined I'd see -- a woman with one of those signs with the name of a church on it. Now, I don't think it was for any purpose other than locating the church because I don't think too many people out driving around are going to spontaneously decide to go to church. I guess they might consider it for the future if it's in their neighborhood, so maybe that was what she was doing. She didn't have an iPod although she was wearing sunglasses.

Adam Carolla + Danny Bonaduce = problems

There's a great op-ed piece in the LA Times by Meghan Daum today about Adam Carolla. He's the guy who hosted Love Line with Dr. Drew for many years, then moved on to The Man Show with Jimmy Kimmel and now has his own morning radio show in LA. To say that Meghan Daum thinks Adam Carolla is a great host is an understatement, but she does make some really interesting points in her piece. I have listened to Love Line many times when he was hosting and he really does have some good analogies which are pretty insightful. His junior college riff is usually pretty funny. I feel sorry for him now that he has been paired with train wreck Danny Bonaduce. What did that guy ever do besides the Partridge Family anyway?

What happened to the weather?

All the weather forecasts around here said heavy rain on Thursday and Friday with snow as low as 1500 feet. It never even rained! There were some very dark clouds this morning and it was cold, but no precipitation. I'd like to see it warm up a little bit but otherwise it has been pretty nice for January.

What happened to my page rank?

Google has been updating page rank this week. I don't know if it's done yet or not, but my other site went from 1 to 3 and this site hasn't moved off zero. When I checked with that PR predictor site, this one was supposed to be higher - 5 -- than the other one, which was also a 5, but slightly lower before rounding up. This site gets more traffic although the other one has a few more links coming in, but not many. I will wait and see but I hope this one gets up from zero.

Bad weather coming

There is a big storm headed this way, I think. At least some thunderstorms and cold weather and possibly snow at pretty low elevations. Tomorrow will be a good day to work from home and avoid the crazy accidents that always happen when it rains. I drove home at the speed limit today and everybody passed me. It will be the same tomorrow

Curriki

I didn't know that Scott McNealy, the CEO of Sun, was so interested in education and in helping teachers. He set up Curriki, a site for exchanging lesson plans and other educational material. It sounds good. I need to get back and look at it more.

ScreenSteps

I took a brief look at ScreenSteps today and watched one of the tutorials on the website. It looks like an interesting way to streamline the production of step by step tutorials. It's also an alternative to screencasting. What's not clear is how much it's going to cost -- right now it's a beta which expires in less than two weeks. It might save some time since it integrates screen capture with a template for presenting the tutorial. The template I saw isn't a format I would normally use, but it might be flexible enough to work. Works on Windows and Mac.

MacWorld Discounts

Dealmac has around 50 deals on Mac software and hardware you can get even if you aren't going to MacWorld. Most are only good through tomorrow, though. One I liked is 30% off Profcast, an application which helps you convert a presentation into a podcast. It's a good deal at $21. I bought it myself.

Beckham coming to LA

I was reading in the LA Times today about how David Beckham would probably end up staying in Europe because the quality of play in MLS isn't high enough. That seemed odd, since he's not playing much for Real Madrid and he got booted off the English team. So I clicked onto CNNsi.com and the headline was Beckham coming to LA Galaxy. I guess $250 million is enough to make you not worry too much about the level of competition.

Apple, Inc.

The Apple iPhone is a very big deal, but changing the name of the company is pretty big, too. With the iPod, AppleTV, and iPhone, the company is doing more than computers. Reminds me of the VP who cancelled my video project because Apple "is a computer company." Good luck to Apple! I think I'll have to wait and see what the phone contract includes as far as paying for Internet access before I buy one of those phones.

Bring on Boise State

I know it's not going to happen, but it would be nice if Boise State had a shot at the national championship. They haven't lost and if there was a real playoff system for college football, they might have a chance to play their way to the title. Even though I'm a Gator fan, it still doesn't feel right that the championship isn't really decided on the field. Sure, they beat #1, but now you've got two teams with 1 loss and Boise State, which may end up #3 or #4, who knows, with no losses.

Gators looking good

I wouldn't call myself a huge Florida football fan, but when they have a good team, I like to mention that I'm a graduate of UF. I was hoping for the best against Ohio State, but never imagined that the Gators would just run them out of the building, as they have in the first half. Florida's offense hasn't been stopped much at all and they get the ball to start the second half, so things are looking good. Urban Meyer has called some excellent plays and the defense has been incredible.

MacWorld Keynote tomorrow

Less than 24 hours to go on the MacWorld Keynote. I'm expecting a few new items from Apple -- probably the new iPod, maybe the phone and maybe a TV and the media streaming device, plus a few software updates. That might be too much to expect, but we'll see what happens. The last few of these have not lived up to expectations, which tend to be very high because of how closed Apple is about new products.

Student Awards

One of my sons got an academic award at school today. He's been working pretty hard and does well in school, so that's great for him. I thought it was ironic that the two students who got the citizenship awards were the only two in his class who he'd had trouble with over the past couple of months. He had come home complaining about what each of them had done on different days. Both were incidents which had to do with honesty. Hmmm...

xPad

Odd timing but xPad was yesterday's Mac freeware application of the day at FreeMacWare.com. At least it didn't show up on MacZot again. I'm not sure that such a small program has generated this level of news and commentary before. The developer, Garrett Murray, wrote a bad contract, the purchaser, Brian Ball, exploited it, and now everyone is talking about an application that had been dormant for 2 years. I don't think the developer had much interest in updating the software -- I read his own statement to that effect on his site not long after version 1.0 of xPad came along. So it seems to me he got an offer that was probably a little inflated and took it without thinking that the way he'd written the contract, he might not get what he was expecting. Brian Ball may or may not have ever intended to fulfill the contract, but the way it was written worked out perfectly for a speculative venture. He could find out whether or not he could sell it and bail out if he wanted to, limiting his risk. He did that, but the way he did it -- not answering emails, continuing to sell the application beyond the time he'd paid for it -- is the crux of why most people are not happy with him. In the end, it's the same story you see again and again. The initial problem wasn't huge, but the failure to communicate honestly about it blows things up into something much worse. It will be interesting to see if MacZot can attract other developers who are willing to sell their software at a discount after this. It's already pretty clear that many customers won't be going back to MacZot.

Raiders fire Art Shell, again

Art Shell only lasted one year with the Raiders this time. He's probably better off without all the headaches that go with trying to coach the Raiders. His big mistake was hiring that guy from the bed and breakfast to run the offense. Things have changed in 12 years and it didn't make sense to hire a guy who had been out of football that long.

Who wants this job anyway? Until Al Davis steps aside, whenever that might happen, the Raiders aren't going to come back. They've got too many malcontents on their roster and they keep adding more of them. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if they went after Terrell Owens for next season.

LSU - Notre Dame blowout

JaMarcus Russell, the LSU quarterback, looked like a guy who belonged in a better league with larger players. I don't think I've ever seen someone throw the ball as easily as he does and have it go so far or so fast. He just flipped his wrist and the ball zoomed across the field 30 yards and when he was stationary, 40-50 yards was no problem. I believe the story that he can throw it 85 yards. I wonder if he won the Punt, Pass and Kick competition.

MacWorld Expo

I went to MacWorld Expo for 13 years in a row and then decided to stop going a couple of years ago when it had gotten pretty small. Things are going better now for Apple, but I'll be staying home again this year. One time I flew to Oakland, took BART to San Francisco, spent the day at MacWorld and then flew back home, but that is pretty exhausting -- about 7-8 hours of travel plus all the walking around. If the keynote is online, I'll probably watch that and look for some discounts from the vendors. Maybe I'll be able to go back next year.

Boise State wins

That Boise State game was incredible. It looked liked they were going to fall apart in the last few minutes and blow it, and when Oklahoma ran back the interception for a touchdown with a little bit more than a minute left, it seemed like the game was over. I almost turned it off at that point. The 4th down hook and ladder play for the tying touchdown was a great call, but when Oklahoma scored so easily in the first OT, again I figured it was over. Boise State didn't look good on their possession and had to scratch for a first down. Eventually they scored and the two point conversion was an amazing play. I hope Boise State breaks into the top 5 after that win. There really does need to be a playoff system because a team like Boise State doesn't have much of a chance the way things work now.

Bowl games

I remember when I was a kid, you had to watch all the major college bowl games on the same day, New Year's Day. There were other bowls that came before January 1, but the important ones were all on that day, starting in the morning and ending pretty late at night on the east coast. Now, they have all kinds of bowl games and the important ones seem to be played one per day. I guess there are three more games this week, starting at 5 PM on weekdays for the first two anyway. I think I'd rather see a playoff system so that you wouldn't have all these teams sitting around for 4-6 weeks waiting to play the bowl game.

Apple's phone

I was listening to The Tech Guy with Leo Laporte this morning when some guy called in with all kinds of details on the upcoming Apple phone. You never know how solid this kind of information is, but Leo seemed to find it credible. The guy said the phone will come in 4 GB and 8GB versions at $275 and $335 and will include Bluetooth 2 and some kind of accelerated data transfer technology. He also said it would be made out of zirconium. The caller said he had a friend who works at Apple -- don't all these guys with the rumors? There were more details but I am not much of a phone person so I didn't write anything down. I listen to Leo's show once in a while and I've never heard a call like that before, so maybe it had some real inside information. We should know in 9 days.

Navigation system getting irritating

The navigation system we have had in our car for a few weeks performed pretty well on our trip this week, at least as far as providing directions to known destinations. It's not very good when you are looking for a particular kind of store, as entering text is slow and it presents you with all local stores first and you have to scroll through several screens to get to the point where you can expand your search. It doesn't seem to have a search function, so you can't look for "Del Taco" or something like that. Maybe you can and I just can't find it.

One thing I am tiring of is the warning message that shows up every time the thing starts up. Don't try to calculate your position while driving... I got it the first 10 times and now it's just an irritation. Maybe it can be turned off.

IKEA Winter sale commercial

I don't watch too much television, so I don't see lots of commercials, but I did notice the IKEA Winter sale commercial this evening during the Lakers game. At one point, almost every piece of furniture in our house larger than a desk lamp came from IKEA, and the closest store was 350 miles away in Burbank! Eventually I got tired of the text free directions they provided and the time it took to assemble some of the furniture, plus we had very little room left for anything else, but I have never gotten tired of browsing the store or the catalog. In fact, we went to the IKEA in Tustin yesterday. Once I visited 4 IKEA stores in one day and rented a car to take everything home.

Anyway, the unique thing about the IKEA commercial is that in the process of making the point that sofas and families come in many different varieties (I think they use another term, but I can't remember what it was), the commercial ends with a shot of a couple sitting on the floor in front of a sofa with their child. I don't know if this is a first for television in the US, but the couple in the shot are two men, something I don't think I've seen before in a TV commercial. I don't know if this is an LA only commerical or if they show it everywhere there's an IKEA store nearby.

Time Goes By

I'm starting to think about resources for a one day class on blogging that I'll be teaching in February. The course is open to anyone, but should have a good number of "older" people because it's being offered at a location which has a number of programs targeted at people over 50. I'm not sure that over 50 is really old any more, but that's what it is.

One resource I think is a good one for this class is Ronni Bennett's blog, Time Goes By. She talks about aging and ageism at work and in the media, among other topics.

MacAppADay seems to have run out

MacAppADay shut down for about 5 days and they seem to really be creating a problem for themselves by promising certain things and then not delivering on them. Today's free app isn't an app at all. It's a 3 month trial membership to beta test a new site for creating web pages. Since the site hosts your content, it seems like you won't have access to it after 3 months unless you pay, which makes this one a little different than all the other freebies which were actually applications you could use.

Mostly bad customer service, with one exception

On our short trip to Long Beach, we had various encounters with bad customer service. Restuarants, Costco, the Aquarium. I don't have time to go into detail as I'm still on the road, but there was one exception. The Hyatt really surprised me with their response to a problem. I'll write it up later.

Disclosure problem for bloggers

and it's not related to PayPerPost! Microsoft gave a bunch of bloggers laptops with Windows Vista on them, presumably to write a review. At least one blogger didn't point out that the laptop was a gift and that got him into some trouble, at least in the comments on his site. Then MS decided the laptops weren't gifts after all, and everyone has to give them back! Sounds like a PR disaster all around.

We visited the Aquarium of the Pacific

I guess I was spoiled by the last Aquarium I went to -- the Monterey Aquarium. The Aquarium of the Pacific isn't bad, but it was smaller than I figured and was pretty busy today. It was a little bit of an adventure just getting the tickets. Costco advertises discount tickets, but they didn't have any at our local Costco, so we drove to Long Beach and stopped at the Costco there. Turns out they only sell the tickets in the summer. Plan B was to go to the hotel and order the tickets online at the hotel and then pick them up across the street at the Aquarium. I would save about $16 that way. Well, the Hyatt doesn't have any free Internet access. I could have sworn that when I upgraded to a nicer room it said "high speed wireless Internet". Actually, it did, but they left out the $9.99 per day fee. They do have one free access station in the special room for people who pay more money for their rooms. Since I did that this time, I was able to get in that room and buy the tickets. We walked over in very strong winds and I went to the kiosk to pick up the tickets. They expect you to bring along the confirmation code -- 15 digits -- even though when you purchase the tickets online they do not say that you need the code to pick them up. It just says swipe your credit card. Anyway, I got the tickets and we joined the crowd inside.

Aquarium of the Pacific

We are making a trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific tomorrow. It should be interesting. I haven't spent much time in Long Beach since I lived there about 13 years ago and it has changed quite a bit. I think the area around the Aquarium has been developed. The Hyatt hotel was being used to shoot a movie with Arnold Schwarzenneger when I lived there. They build some kind of device on the outside of the building for a particular shot which seemed to take weeks. I don't remember the movie, but I don't think it was very good.

MaternityCard can help with having a baby

Having a baby is a complicated matter. I didn't realize how much went into it and how expensive the Cost of Having a Baby could get until we had our first child. We went through some training classes and got a tour of the hospital where our son would be born and learned what to do when the time came. I remember looking at the intensive care unit and assuming I would never have to deal with that, but our son had some serious complications which kept him in the hospital for 8 days after he was born, and he spent some of that time in one of those isolation rooms. It was very stressful and it would have been even more stressful if we didn't have a good medical plan covering the expenses.

I think anyone who is having a baby would benefit from the kind of services provided by MaternityCard. For a monthly fee, they offer a comprehensive maternity service package which includes everything you need related to have a baby. They guarantee their services will pay for themselves or you will be refunded the difference plus $200, which is a nice deal.

MaternityCard works with with a very large network of doctors, obstetricians, hospitals and medical facilities to make sure women who are expecting a baby receive the best care available at the very best rates. Their services extend to the first two years after your child is born and will cover checkups, immunizations and any other medical costs. It's good to have that kind of coverage just in case you need it because you never know what may come up.

Christmas gift

I didn't buy any hi tech stuff this Christmas, at least not for myself. I got 4 of those stick people animated cubes for my sons, but I'm not sure those are going to get a lot of use. I'm saving my money for the Apple streaming device which may or may not show up at Macworld. I hope it will be worth the wait.

Jeff Garcia fan

I always liked Jeff Garcia when he was with the 49ers. We lived in San Jose at the time and he did too, plus he was from San Jose and his dad was his coach. I felt bad for him when the 49ers let him go and also when he had to endure some of the stupid comments made by Terrell Owens. Glad to see that Jeff Garcia is doing well and it was quite a contrast to watch the post game comments he made compared with Terrell Owens, who only complained about not getting the ball. Garcia is a team guy and he shows that in the way he plays. Owens has always been a me-first player who disrupts the team whenever things aren't going his way. I don't expect him to be back with the Cowboys next year and maybe other teams will wise up and see that as good as he can be on the field, his other antics make him not worth the effort.

MacSanta ended at 9 PM EST

I got my answer on that one as the coupon failed to work on the last application I tried to buy, CSSEdit. I can get it later for full price if necessary. It probably would have been a good idea to indicate the expiration time on the MacSanta site, as there was really no way to know which time zone they were using. One other minor gripe -- Rogue Ameoba was behind the site, but they didn't offer the discount on their Fission & Audio Hijack Pro bundle. You could either take the bundle discount or the MacSanta discount, but not both. Other vendors did allow the use of the MacSanta coupon with their bundles.

I went back and checked and at least on some of the sites, the coupon was still working, so maybe there was something wrong with the CSSEdit site to begin with, although the MacSanta site does say the deal is over.

Lean and mean on PayPerPost

I am running low on open opportunities on PayPerPost. It's Christmas and things have been slow for a while, but there are a few remaining opportunities that I haven't done. Not many, but a few. Some of them are in the list 2 or 3 times and I don't think it looks good to have the same one every day. I think at this point there are only 3 that I could do. I was all set to finally break down and do that old one about moving to Scottsdale, Arizona -- 10 words for $2.50 but it disappeared! Finally... Let's hope things pick up again soon, although for the sake of the PayPerPost staff, they should probably have the rest of the week off.

MacSanta closing up shop

I am not sure if MacSanta ends at midnight Pacific Time or some other midnight, but I'm trying to get all my purchases done by 12 EST. One thing that is frustrating is that for a number of the apps there is not a clear way to use the discount. It doesn't always work in the coupon field and sometimes I've had to go through the process 3 times to get it right. Not to mention that not everyone takes PayPal and that sometimes if you use PayPal you can't use the coupon. Strange.

Chargers win

The Chargers didn't look too good against the Seahawks today in the second half, which was when I was watching. They did manage to pull it out at the end, so they have the best record in the NFL now. I think if they can avoid playing games in bad weather they should make it to the Super Bowl as long as Philip Rivers can limit his mistakes. He didn't have a good game today but he made the big play when it counted.

One thing that bugged me watching the game was hearing Dick Enberg and Randy Cross keep saying that guys were dropping balls and Rivers had a poor completion percentage and they never once mentioned the fact that it was raining the entire game. Gee, I wonder if that had anything to do with it.

MacAppADay takes 3 days off

MacAppADay is off until the 27th, when presumably they will finish off the week with a few more free apps for the Mac with something special on January 1. The special might be a bundle for purchase. Fine by me. Although MacAppADay is taking a break, there is no holiday among the commenters who keep finding more things to dislike about a site which is giving stuff away for free. The complaints range from not liking the fact that the free applications aren't upgradeable to the site's claim that they would give away an application each day in December and haven't lived up to that. Maybe those people should find other stuff to gripe about. Sure, you don't get the same rights with the software that you would get if you bought it, but who can give away 5000 copies of their software for free and stay in business? Many of these applications are things I had never heard of before, so I can't imagine that they have a huge customer base. It's been a good way to learn about new applications, along with MacZot and MacSanta.

Costco moves stuff around

I drove about 20 miles to another Costco beyond the one in my town to pick up something that was only available there. It was a gift certificate to a local spa. I looked all around the store but didn't find it. It wasn't in the area with the other gift cards. Finally I asked a manager and she said it was in the Christmas gifts section. I went back there and didn't find it. I looked around some more and asked another manager. He said they had moved it this morning but he didn't know where it was, so he would just get the product number for me and I could pay for it that way. Sounded good. He had to deal with a problem in the digital camera display so I had to wait there with him. As he did that, I noticed that the gift card I was looking for was stacked up behind the digital cameras! I'm not sure anyone would have looked there. It wasn't even on display. Maybe they really do want you to walk all over the store so you'll see everything else they have.

LA Times customer service - are they people or robots?

My copy of the LA Times wasn't delivered this morning, so I called their missing paper number and requested a replacement. That didn't show up, so I called back again and was routed to customer service. I'm not sure where the customer service people work, but "Mike" seemed like an automotan. He asked for my name, address and phone number, the same information I had already entered in the automated system. He also asked why I was calling, so I told him I didn't get today's paper. He was having trouble finding my account. I told him it might be under my wife's last name, which I gave to him. He found it. Then he said "please give me your address." I said, "it's the same one I just gave you," but I had to recite it again. Then he said "How can I help you today?" -- as if we had never spoken. I told him I had not received my paper and was calling to see if I could get a copy delivered. He said he would make sure I got my paper and that was the end of the conversation. The paper never arrived.

MacSanta stops at 104

The MacSanta site seems to have topped out at 104 companies, selling way more than 104 applications. 20% off is a nice deal and I've got my list and will be trying some of them out over the weekend. Last day to buy is Monday with the discount. I don't expect to see any new names on the list, but you never know. I guess GeeThree never heard my pleas because they didn't show up on the MacSanta list.

Baseball injury was really a video game injury

Remember in the baseball playoffs when the Tigers couldn't use their flamethrower, Joel Zumaya? He had wrist and elbow problems. Turns out that it didn't have anything to do with baseball:

The Tigers believe Joel Zumaya's right wrist and forearm inflammation came not from throwing his 103-mph fastball but from excessively playing Guitar Hero, a PlayStation 2 game where participants simulate popular songs with by tugging on a guitar-shaped apparatus. GM Dave Dombrowski told WXYT it was the video game that caused Zumaya to miss three ALCS games.

From Jon Heyman at si.com.

MacSanta hits 100

MacSanta has 100 companies now in the 20% off promotion. I have a long list of stuff I'm going to buy in the next few days and maybe some more items if I have time to try them out. I'm still looking for GeeThree to show up on the list...it's not too late! GollyGee is there already with their GollyGeeBlocks, so some of the GeeThree iMovie plugins would make a nice addition to the list.

Boinx joins MacSanta

I didn't think it would happen, but Boinx software, maker of iStopMotion as well as some other great software, is now on the MacSanta list. That means I can save a few dollars when I buy iStopMotion as a gift. Maybe it's just a coincidence that I mentioned this twice already on my blogs, but probably not. Boinx had a link to the MacSanta site on their blog, so it seemed like a good chance they would get on the list.

NC school district bans book about penguins

Another politician helps keep the world safe from gay penguins..."And Tango makes Three," a story about two male penguins who raise a baby penguin, was banned by the Charlotte Mecklenburg School District. According to the Winston-Salem Journal, there were no complaints about the book from any parents, and Superintendent Peter Gorman either screwed up or make a mistake. He received an email inquiring about the book from a local politician:

Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James, a Republican, had e-mailed Gorman to see if the district had the book.

"I am opposed to any book that promotes a homosexual lifestyle to elementary school students as normal," he said.

After that, Gorman wrote a memo which led to the book banning. Either he caved in or he didn't write a clear memo.

The ban came in a Nov. 30 memo from district administrators to school principals and library staff. Gorman said parents and a Republican county official had asked him about the book.

A miscommunication between Gorman and his chief of staff, Robert Avossa, led to the book being banned with neither a written complaint nor an advisory committee review at a school as required by district policy, Gorman said.

"I screwed this one up," Gorman told The Charlotte Observer.

BrooWaha

The LA Times has a story today about BrooWaha which is an amateur online newspaper. It looks like a newspaper online, although I'm not sure that's a requirement. The paper covers the LA area. There are more and more of these local news sites which rely on user generated content rather than paid professionals. I think it's a good idea. In my area, there isn't much newspaper coverage and almost no TV coverage, so it might be a good thing around here.

More MacSanta

That MacSanta site has quite a list of applications, although still no sign of anything from Boinx. I'm hoping for an iStopMotion discount but maybe that's not going to happen until right after I purchase it...Some of the software on the list includes Voodoo Pad, Yojimbo, Fission, RapidWeaver, Sandvox, Tinderbox, and even Nisus Writer Express, something I gave up on long ago in favor of Mellel. That transition to OS X didn't go well for Nisus from what I remember.

MacSanta fills the void

MacAppADay is shut down today while they move to a new server and the last couple of applications on MacZot haven't been too interesting to me, so it's been a slow couple of days on the Mac shareware front. However, MacSanta showed up yesterday with 20% off on a number of applications, so that looked pretty good. Today, the MacSanta list seems to have tripled and I think there are 3 or 4 items on there that I'd like to get. There are now 63 companies listed. ScreenCasts online just got added in the past few hours. That's one I'm going to jump on. It's a good list and a good deal.

Bonehead drivers

I live on a small street that has an even smaller (1 lot length) entry street perpendicular to it which has a stop sign. Anytime I'm outside I can watch as people blow right through the stop sign where you have to go left or right. So typically they don't look at all and hardly slow down. This evening we were driving over to the library when some clown came right through the stop sign and turned left right in front of me as I was turning left. He stopped when I blew the horn and waved as if he was thanking me.