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Today’s scandal is two fold.

First, Katie Couric has had some work done. Maybe they should label the picture, an Artist’s rendition of Ms. Couric.

What’s better than that is that the New York Post printed the story without any recognition to tvnewser. The beautiful thing about blogs and the Internet in general is that the information is all out there free to share. The issue here isn’t that the tvnewser blog didn’t get recognized, the issue is that the mainstream media has discounted bloggers as ‘amateur journalists’ who lack credibility. By lifiting a blog story the New York Post’s credibility becomes the one in question.

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OK, unless you live under a rock you have probably heard about the Pluto planet controversy. Other than destroying my childhood memories, I really couldn’t care less. What I do like is the results of the Eyewitless News: Save Pluto photoshop contest.

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So, my trip out the west coast is over. This was my first trip to California, and I found it very different than I imagined.

The first thing I noticed was the traffic. Everyone always talks about how bad the Southern California traffic is. Personally I thought it was FANTASTIC. If you don’t live here in Northern Colorado, you might not understand. Our community has an incredibly high traffic cop to driver ratio. In fact I got pulled over myself just a couple weeks ago. Out in Cali it’s completely different. Everyone out there drives with a flagrant disregard for any kind of personal safety. No one even seems to notice the lines that the state so generously painted on the streets. In fact I think California could improve their budget if they just saved all that pigment. Traffic cops were nowhere to be found. It’s a free-for-all and I had a blast (of course my sister, the untrusting individual that she is, didn’t enjoy the roads as much as I did).

The other major eye-opener in San Diego was the lack of Beautiful People™. TV, Movies, popular culture in general creates this image of Southern California as being full of sun-kissed, large breasted, scantily clad, bleached blonde women and statuesque surfer men with rippling muscles wearing wetsuits during the day and Armani at night. This was just not the case. Perhaps different areas fit this stereotype better, but San Diego, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, even La Jolla just didn’t give me this impression. On the contrary, population was (generally) split into two different categories. One was the same kind of 30-40 something parents running around in mini-vans and SUVs with their kids that we have in Colorado (this includes the tourists). The other were beach bums that haven’t changed clothes in the last 5 years. You know the kind - the people that are working on (or have) killing all their brain cells with pot. Sure, there was a mix, large hispanic population, plenty of flashy/expensive cars, but overall the biggest difference from here were the bohemian style beach culture. Not what I really expected at all.

Overall, it was a great trip. I’ll probably post more comments, stories and pics in the near future. For now I’m just glad to be home.

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I’m not a member of the anti-President Bush club, but I do enjoy good humour.

A canadian college setup this site making fun of Yale’s most famous graduate.

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Looks like MS Word is now the authority on how popular a word is. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) wants to use the word ‘pluton’ to describe a planet that isn’t really a planet (or something - like anybody really cares). Appearantly this is an issue because ‘pluton’ already has a meaning to geologists (geek death-match here we come).

What I think is funny is this statement from Owen Gingerich, an astronomer at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and chair of the IAU committee that created the definition.

“Since the term is not in the MS Word or the WordPerfect spell checkers, we thought it was not that common,”

What kind of moron takes MS Word spell check as an authority on ANYTHING. At least Google the word, or look it up in a dictionary.

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Well, I haven’t posted anything lately. Off to California tomorrow to see Kara and Joe and I’ve been busier than a one legged man at a butt-kicking contest. Did have a couple posts I wanted to make before I left though.

As I’m getting ready for my trip I’ve been watching the current state of the airline security closely. One of the most amusing things I’ve seen is the TSA’s restriction on gel-filled bras. I won’t succumb to the cheap shot of making fun of them for requiring everyone to pack a gel-filled bra. My question is who is making sure no women are WEARING gel-filled bras. Does every woman with (appaerantly) large breasts have to prove they are real? Can I look forward to a plane full of braless women because their gel-filled undergarments have been confiscated? Most importantly, how can I get the bra inspector job? (I’ve wanted that since Jr. High).

So much of this airline security is just theatre and this is just a ridiculous example. For a critical view of our nations security policies I would highly recommend you read Bruce Schneier’s monthly newsletter.

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From the let’s-all-be-good-sports department there is this article about a coach for a 9-10 year old baseball team walking a good hitter so a cancer survivor could come to bat. The coach is under fire for allegedly ‘picking’ on this cancer survivor kid.

The kid’s father put it like this

“It made me sick,” says Romney’s dad, Marlo Oaks. “It’s going after the weakest chick in the flock.”

Now, other than the fact that the kid’s dad called him a ‘chick’, I don’t understand the problem here. They didn’t ‘go after’ anyone. It’s a championship baseball game. The coach used valid baseball strategy to walk the better hitter and bring the worse one up to bat. Doing anything different would have been a disservice to his team. Personally, I would have done the exact same thing.

There is a valuable lesson to be learned here for Romney Oaks, and the rest of us. The only way we can be winners all the time is if we rely on someone else’s pity. How terrible would it have been if the Sox had won that game soley because a coach felt sorry for Romney? How lucky was Romney to have an opportunity to win that championship game?

This young cancer survivor may have sobbed himself to sleep that night, but I’m guessing he wasn’t alone. I’ve been a 9 year old boy and losing a game like that probably caused lots of tears in pillows that night. Romney and his teamates weren’t discriminated against, abused or even treated poorly. They went into that game as competitors, played their best game and lost fairly. Rather than crying about the coach’s call Romney’s father should be teaching his son how to get back up and compete again. Life is full of dissapointment, it’s the individuals that can face their failures and try again that are the heros in life.

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This just keeps getting better and better.

Now the New York Times is getting into the act with this obviously staged photo of a man killed in Tyre during an Israeli attack.

In fact, the Times actually issued a correction stating the man was only injured. Hmmm… looks like he’s doing a pretty good job of holding on to his hat for an injured, unconcious man.

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OK, this one is for the techies out there. Found a great bash tutorial the other day and thought I’d share it.

It doesn’t have just the standard lame stuff, I actually learned quite a bit. Things like

!xyz:p will print the command that would be executed rather than executing it

and

!$ is the “end” of the previous command

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My Grandmother had her 84th birthday this July. Anyone who knows her will testify that she’s not like any other 84 year old. Until just a few years ago she was still employed full time at the post office. She still would be, but she had some health problems, so now she’s retired. My grandfather is a farmer, and they still live on the farm - their home since the 1940s.

We all took her out to the Country Buffet (CB), since it’s her favorite place. It’s just about what it sounds like and wouldn’t be my choice, but hey, it wasn’t my birthday.

A good time was had by all. Unfortunately, we didn’t get too many good pictures of her.

I forgot my camera and Lindsey’s was full from their trip to Iowa, so what you see here is pretty much what we got.

As usual, John was a major hit. Going to be a low blow when he gets a little sister and isn’t always the center of attention.

After we finished eating Mr. Clay the balloon guy showed up. Since his dad was out of town I took John over to have a balloon made.

It was amazing. We stood there for at least 20 minutes, waiting for John’s turn. He was totally riveted to the balloon man and his creations. For those of you who don’t know, John is more active than most two year olds, the boy never stands still. While waiting for the balloon he stood there holding my hand with only the occasional nervous jump.

Finally our turn came. Since John doesn’t talk much, he couldn’t make a request, so I suggested a surprise. Mr. Clay proceeded to ask me how big our car was. Since Lindsey’s Tahoe was at it’s full 8 person capacity, recommended not getting too carried away.

The Balloon man proceeded to make the HUGE hat you see here (not sure what he would have made if I told him we had enough room). I remember thinking that John wouldn’t wear that. He can be kind of difficult that way, but I was wrong. The Balloon Man put it on his head and John wore it all the way home. He was completely fascinated by the whole experience.

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