Check out the photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrs_helm/tags/rodeo2007/

I don’t remember where I read it, but I really liked someone’s description of someone else as generating more heat than light. I sometimes catch myself being exactly that way. I’m reacting to a situation, heating things up, but not really solving things…not really shedding any light on the problem. So, are you generating more heat than light, lately?

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On Hatrack’s Uncle Orson Reviews Everything, author Orson Scott Card reminds us of the differennce between discreet (able to keep a secret) and discrete (distinctly separated). I’ve got a method for remembering these:

• keep and discreet both have a double e

• in discrete, the e’s are separated

***
Card also gives a good review to the movie “Surf’s Up”. (He was surprised he liked it.) I had a bit of a different reaction, but I think it was because of the expectations I had going into it.

You see, (as anyone who knows me well knows,) I am a Beach Boys fan. I’m also a fan of Instrumental Surf Music (you might think of Wipeout or Tequila). So, I had a playlist all set up and was telling my youngest son what songs we could expect to hear. I was disappointed. There was a punk version of Wipeout (the scene in the cave slides). I think I hear a little bit of The Jetty in the first scene with the boneyards. But that was it. The producers picked a rag-tag collection of newer music. I did like some of it, but it wasn’t what I had expected.

As for the storyline, I’d describe it as “pretty good”. I thought it was pretty obvious how things would turn out, but I won’t give that away here. There were lots of funny parts - my son was repeating parts of the movie days later. There was a lot of what I call “bathroom humor”, and I don’t care for that. In one case, it was even inaccurate: you pee on jellyfish stings, not on Sea Urchin stings. And really, they didn’t have to use pee. They were in their house by then, so they could’ve used vinegar. It was a cheap joke. They did a great job of believable animated water, but the surfing wasn’t very interesting. Part of the plot line was the difference in the surfing styles (long board vs short), and I thought they’d really play that up as part of how the competition played out. But they didn’t. Another suggestion would’ve been to change out the nieces and nephews (who served as a sort of Greek chorus, people “in the know” about the thing -I-won’t-give-away, and a cheap source of potty humor) - and replace them with a bunch of “old timers tourists”. They could’ve still been “in the know” and provided potty humor, but they could’ve provided some of their quips in the form of tributes to surf songs. Some of their comments could’ve been lines from the Beach Boys songs, or - if you can handle taking it a step farther - they could even have done a little barbershop quartet. Dorky, but hey - those kids were dorky, too.

Anyway…it was a cute kids movie with no major plot flaws and nothing to be offended over other than the bathroom humor. An excellent all-family choice. But, maybe one to wait for the rentals on.

Speaking of Orson Scott Card, I bet he likes this one. Software that attempts to simulate the populace of the entire world. Seems like we’re definitely creating life from science fiction.

***

Speaking of Science Fiction, Cory Doctrow has a new free online book: When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth. I’ve liked his stuff in the past, and I fully expect to enjoy this novelette as well. If I don’t, well, it is free science fiction, so what’s to complain about?

***

BONUS: Two links that look interesting and I haven’t checked out yet:

http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com/2007/06/imagining-tenth-dimension.html



http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wwdn/~3/127463347/radio-free-burr.html

************I can’t belive I was almost suckered into buying that “Ice Cream Ball” from that catalog…

Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

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Creative people go through 100 bad ideas before they get to one good one. This happens in music. In art. In fashion. In literature. If you want to see how productive an artist has been, you don’t look at what’s on their sketch board or monitor or desk. You look at what’s in the garbage can.  -  Nathan T Freeman (http://www.lotus911.com/nathan/escape.nsf/d6plinks/NTFN-74CHTS)

From the department of the really obvious: Comparison Shopping Saves You Money The OFT (some UK business thing) estimates that by searching more effectively, shoppers could save £150m to £240m each year. The report also suggests that shoppers are hindered by “unexpected additional charges which are sometimes added in the latter stages of a purchase.”

Well, DUH! This isn’t just the case online, either. Comparison shopping when shopping in the real world saves lots of people money, while others who do not do so pay more. And unexpected additional charges happen all the time. (Can I tell you how many times Radio shack, and even Kmart, have offered to sell me an extended warranty on a $40 electronic? Heck - it was only $40! why would I want to pay $10 fo rthe warranty and then another $10 to ship it to be fixed? I’ll just buy a new one (probably a different brand) if it breaks once the manufacturer warranty is up!

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Did you know you can Massage away dead pixels? “Nonconforming or stuck pixels can be a nuisance on an otherwise functional laptop LCD. The pixels usually remain green or red without lighting up properly with the other pixels on the display. Unfortunately, manufacturers will not replace an LCD for just one or two stuck pixels; in fact, some require as many as 10 to 18 dead pixels before they’ll take action. There is a solution, though. Take a soft material, like a felt cloth, and gently rub in a circular motion around the stuck pixel. Performing this trick will usually get the pixel to light up properly. Once you find the right location and pressure to illuminate the pixel, hold your finger there for up to two minutes, and voila, no more stuck pixel. “This is a new one on me. And since eldest was just complaining that Gameboy has a dead pixel, I think I’m going to try it out. However, I wouldn’t go willy-nilly suggesting it to just anyone, and these screens can be easily ruined by too much poking and prodding.

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My mother and 5 other dear members of my extended family are on their way to Guatemala today. They’ll be there for about a week on a mission trip for the Baptist church. I don’t know all the details of what they’ll be doing, except that they’re taking medical supplies down. This won’t be the first mission trip for most of them. But, I still worry about them.

Spam says > My response
10 new uses for olive oil > I bet it works great for frying up SPAM.
apolitical inhumane > …and annoying
Can you imagine that you are healthy? > I’ll imagine me healthy. You imagine you doing something other than spamming.
capitalist velour > Sounds like the next Bond girl.
cuss telecommunications > I’d rather curse email marketing.
Dive Into The Elite Singles Scene > Thanks, I’m happy with the Exclusive Married Scene
Double your sales with 100 free sales leads > You need to go back to school for math. First of all, that’s only doubling sales if we assume that (a)I only had 100 customers to begin with and (b)100% of the free sales leads become customers. Highly unlikely that either of those would be true, don’t you think?
Do you want Xanax?> No, but I might need some if this keeps up…
Get Rewarded for Your Time - Business Study > I have a way to get rewarded for my time. It’s called a REAL JOB.
He’s also a real writer, not a hobbyist who chose to lift a pen. (Sender Name = Cervantes)> Ok, there wasn’t a link in this one that tried to sell anything or lead anywhere suspicious. This just verifies my suspicions that someone (spies, spammers, someone) uses spam as a form of underground communication. Now they’re arguing about writers.
Indicate Interest. > No. I have no interest.
Inserts t into a. > Doesn’t work that way. You need to get out more.
Just launched new web site for proven self-investors > If you can proved you given money to someone for a work-at-home scheme before, and you still aren’t a millionaire, we’d like you to give us some money, too!
nick inhibited (Sender=Band-aid) > That’s cute.
We could help you find the right gym for you > Great, because it’s so hard to figure out which one is closest to my house or least expensive. Those two phone calls really killed me last time.

HTML is a text markup language, not a display description language. If your work tells the browser what the page looks like but never quite gets around to telling it what it means, then, as a developer or designer, you haven’t really done your job.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/10/wisc.shooting.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstoriesSooo sad. When will people realize that killing everyone is not the answer? If you are miserable, get help. Check yourself into an institution. If you must, kill just yourself. But don’t kill other people. It isn’t a punishment to them, and it doesn’t teach them a lesson. It only makes other people, who are often innocent, miserable. And killing children is just horrendous.

Another in the ongoing series where I talk back to those prolific spammers.Who Date Time Size Subject