Right up my alley. Rodney Branigan plays some excellent striaght ahead modern folk with a flair that is all his own. Most notably, his guitar style extends to a one man duet. Check out the MPEG of this amazing performance.

Look for Rodney in our soon to be released music section here at Green Scissors. Good stuff. I would love to see him live but it seems he decided to come to Kansas on one of the few days when I will be travelling out of state. Damn and blast!

NOTE: His site only seems to work in IE. Firefox lets you see some things, including the download.

kuro5hin offers a simple 12 step plan for corporate types. A Twelve Step Program For Identifying and Eliminating Organizational Change. I*m pretty sure I*ve been through this from both sides before and he is eerily accurate.

Step 8: Search for experts. Almost by definition, any new idea is not going to have a significant number of people who are experienced practitioners. We are reminded of advertisements in the San Jose Mercury News during 1997 looking for people with five years of experience in Java. [4] Subject matter expertise sounds like something that is needed, even if it really unneeded and impossible.

Just got a new Palm Zire 31 over my lunch break. Since I left Sprint for Cingular and gave up my (very cool) Palm/Phone I have been jonesing for full color Palm goodness. Well, the Zire is it. Reasonable price, plenty of memory, SD card slot, great color screen. And if that wasn*t enough! Its also an MP3 player.

Life is good when your a geek. Little things make you happy.

So I was shopping for a glare screen for one of the monitors at work and I came across this.

From Office Max, this Kensington True Color, Anti-Radiation, Contour Filter offers the following features:

# Ideal for graphics and other applications where color representation is critical
# Reduces VLF/ELF E-Field non-ionizing radiation 99.9% to protect user from possible health hazards
# Reduces static charges to decrease risk of data loss and dust buildup

I had no idea I was at risk for data loss through monitor seepage! What can I do to prevent the bits from just falling out of my hard drive? Is there a patch? A case? A special cream? And what about all this VLF/ELF radiation? I mean, really, that*s what submarines use to communicate underwater. Am I in danger of recieving unauthorized submarine transmissions? Should I alert the government?

Sheesh.

After the November election, I declared a bit of a moratorium on my anger. I reasoned that I had spent, oh, 48 months or so in a constant state of being angry with the world, and I needed a break. I felt beat up and felt like I couldn*t maintain that level of frustration and anger indefinitely. So I took a break and avoided most political discussions, something which I*m sure led to a decrease in my blood pressure.

The break is probably why I missed this article from Reuters when it was posted on January 2. In it, we discover that some legislators believe it to be “A bad idea” to detain terror suspects for life without any evidence of wrongdoing. Gee, that*s nice. It*s good to know that our government officials are taking the difficult stand that it might be a bad idea to imprison people for life without evidence or a trial. What a fucking joke.

So I guess what I*m saying is this. Break time*s over. Now I*m pissed again.

Well, the chess engine is up and running. If you want to use it you will need to register. My son helped me test it out a bit and I am pretty excited about it.

The only piece not working just yet is the email notification. No emails for anything. So when you register go ahead and enter an address. I will be working to get the notification piece working sometime next week.

The thing I love about this system is that you can be playing a game via email (games are canceled if there are no moves for 14 days) but if you decide that you both want to get online and just finish the damn thing you can. You can even sit down and play two people from the same computer (requires both folks to enter thier password).

Anyway, enjoy, and if anyone has image files for different chess sets, let me know. I can add them.

I love Stuart Davis. Love his music, love his writing and especially love the passion with which he explores the human condition through careful introspection. All of that mystical wonderment and contemplation works great when you are young, single, and have a job that allows you to expres it. But I was curious to see how getting married and having a kid would affect the Punk Monk. Well folks, domestication hasn*t dimmed the bulb of enlightenment any. Its just taken the search to new locales and topics. What has Stu discovered lately? That it shits in the box.

i*m going to cut to the chase. suddenly -very suddenly- i had to go to the bathroom, and it was, as a German pre-school teacher might say, “Numer Zwei”. this was the variety of onset that does not allow for getting in a car, or walking to a convenience store, and certainly not for knocking on your neighbors door. i would never, ever do that. at this point in the story, i*m going to leave my body and employ 3rd person. now i*m just looking at “It”, what It did, what happened to It. that*s not me down there. i*m just replaying what happened to It, It is a biological machine. It has to evacuate waste, but It can*t use Its own toilet because the construction worker has covered up that toilet and is spraying texture base on all the walls what are Its options? not many. perhaps only one. one resolution to Its conundrum, and no one*s going to swoop down and solve this colonic riddle for It. it*s up to It, and only It. It goes out to the garage. It is desperate. It feels ashamed, embarassed- feelings that usually carry a vague sexual charge. but not this time. this sensation is arousal*s antonym. It has to hurry. It is experiencing a great pressure. It grabs a mid-sized cardboard box. it grabs toilet paper. It squats in a sad, shadowy nook which will hereafter be known as The Corner of Vile Secrets. Eyes askance, lips curled inward, making sounds that prove It is still more animal than angel

MSNBC reported yesterday that an asteroid will be named after late author Douglas Adams, author and all around amazing human being. And it seems that the naming was pre-destined.

One prospect stood out: an asteroid given the provisional designation 2001 DA42, discovered by the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research project, or LINEAR. It*s a relatively unremarkable space rock, orbiting 224 million miles (358 million kilometers) from the sun in the main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. But its name held triple significance.

Not only did it memorialize the year of Adams* death (2001) and his initials (DA), but it also referenced the number 42 — which is absurdly meaningful in the “Hitchhiker” saga as the “answer to the Ultimate Question.” (The problem was, no one ever knew precisely what the Ultimate Question was.)

We proposed the name to Brian Marsden, the Minor Planet Center*s director and the secretary for the naming committee — and Marsden was tickled by the idea. “This was sort of made for him, wasn*t it?” he recalled Tuesday.

It makes me feel better to know that, even symbolicly, Adams is trapsing through the vast vacuum. I*m sure he has his towel.

For some reason, this quote from Brian Murphy*s column really makes me giggle.

Meanwhile, last week*s Dan Marino-Boomer Esiason smackdown on network TV — wherein Boomer called Peyton Manning “this generation*s Dan Marino” — produced this tart retort from reader Daniel Montalto: “Who, then, is this generation*s Boomer Esiason? Kerry Collins?”

Well said, grasshopper.

And no, it wasn*t one of those dreams that they tell you about in health class. Really, you people need a new hobby.

I was out front last night when I saw a big ole lumbering cat. Not unusual since we have a few strays in the neighborhood. Until it wandered through the light and I saw that it was an opossum (English majors, please help with this one. Since the pronunciation makes the “o” silent it should be “a opossum” but I can*t bring myself to write it. Conversely, I am deeply offended by anyone who writes “a honor” simply because it begins with a consonant. I may need therapy for this, but I digress).

So this little guy (who goes about 12-15 pounds if I am guessing right) ambles in from the open lot next door, across the parking lot and we spend a few moments staring at each other and contemplating our respective positions on the food chain. I looked away for a moment and he decided to split. Thing is, I*m pretty sure he scooted under someone*s front steps. So if you live in my area, please beware of the Porch Opossum for he may eat your children during the night.

Sweet dreams.