I love my little Macbook.  It’s so cute.  And this coming from a guy who has Windows experience back to 3.1, and whose primary job responsibility is to support and manage a Windows domain and hundreds of clients.  So why is my Macbook so nice?

For one main reason: it’s polished. That critical “step-back” after everything is done to say “what can we improve now?”  This is something that Microsoft and companies who build Intel PCs are seriously lacking.

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One of my favorite songs of all time is the timeless hit “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” as recorded by Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer (although written by Frank Loesser). Despite it’s popularity during the winter holiday season, I have found it quite enjoyable all year round because of it’s theme.

The duet is one of music’s best, second only to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s version of Summertime.  While the characters in the song do not have names, the female voice is called “The Mouse” while the male is “The Wolf”.   Here’s where it gets interesting.

The song is a back-and-forth duet of the male persuading the female to stay with him for the duration of the night after their date; her indecisive protests clarify that while she is obligated to go home, she is tempted to stay. That was the polite interpretation.

Upon closer inspection, the wolf employs classic teenage bargaining techniques in order to guilt his prey into staying “the night” and slowly persuades her through potentially-ruffied alcohol.  While the song ends before you know her decision, the wolf’s final statement is a lingering “Ahh, do that again…”

Some of my favorite lines:

• The Mouse, “Say, what’s in this drink?”
• The Wolf, “What’s the sense in hurting my pride?”
• The Wolf, “How can you do this thing to me?”

The thickly-veiled references to sex were very popular throughout music during and before the 60s, but this is the first reference to date rape I can find.  I just hope you think about this song and its intended meaning when your mother and father get up to the karaoke machine, eggnog in hand, and share the mic with this holiday classic.

Sometimes I wish a natural disaster would occur just so people would be distracted and I could get items on eBay much cheaper.

For those of you who do not know, Gary Gygax, the father of D&D, died at 69.

Like many great people throughout time, he did not invent something from scratch. He created the world of Dungeons and Dragons from the archetypes that J.R.R. Tolkien imagined. This in no way diminishes his achievements, for millions of lives have been affected.

To me, and plenty of other kids who preferred brain over brawn, he gave us an outlet for our creativity. He created a world where the only limit was your imagination. A world where guidelines were given, you fleshed out the details, and was created with a simple 5-word magical incantation; “You are in a bar…”

I’m sure there will be many other posts like this (but this one is mine) around the Internet today, and my self-serving nature merely wants to contribute. Boring you with details on how he affected my life would be completely pointless; those of you who played Dungeons and Dragons understand, those of you who didn’t, won’t.

To Gary, let’s just hope the deity you meet in the after-life isn’t begrudging you for being left out of Deities and Demi-Gods.

The Internet would be better if two related technologies would work together:

1. Google needs to get their ass in gear and present their Single Sign-On (SSO) package.
2. Forum Coders and Popular Websites need to embrace this technology.

I’m TIRED of having to create a new sign-on for every stupid shitty website (including THIS one) I want to post information on. Read the rest of this entry »

Classic Calvin and Hobbes, read and enjoy.
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Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch by Russia, essentially the beginning of the Space Age. It’s times like this that makes one marvel at the capabilities of human ingenuity.

When one considers the hundreds of years it took to go from using stone to bronze to iron, and the thousands of years to just get to the Stone age, it really shows the human potential when you consider the Industrial Revolution was only a mere 150-year span.

In a paltry 50 years, we have a (relatively) stable space program with regular human flight, created a world-wide electronic data network, developed nuclear power and even gave blacks the right to vote.

And now, I can’t help but think what will happen in my lifetime (hopefully another 50 years). Will commercial space flight be available? Will everything be Internet-ready? Will there be a black President?

You can ask my half-black friend, I’m not a racist. I have seen most episodes of Def Comedy Jam (when Martin Lawrence hosted), can name a Hip-Hop artist other than 50 Cent or Snoop Dogg, and even enjoy fried chicken and watermelon.

That opening paragraph is normally the battle-cry of someone riddled with White Guilt. Someone who believes they have to justify their actions to lesser people who will judge them. I have no such quality, therefore you will not get an apology for this post. If you are someone who cannot differentiate between statements of fact (”Mexican immigrants, on average, have lower incomes than Natives.”), observation (”English people have bad teeth.”) and stereotypes (”Chinese people have trouble with our ‘R’ sound.”), all of which are not inherently racist, then scram. I’m only talking to people with open minds.

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