31 December 2004

I did it... I bought the supa sweet Sony

Nice camera, according to my research the best one on the market for the price. Has double the resolution of many cameras that are similar price. I'll let ya know how it works out! Marcela and I will be havin' lots of fun with it... we are already making silly videos with it... 8-)

30 December 2004

New Year's Hangover Cures.... 8-)

I know most of us will be needing some of these ideas... basically, drink lots of water, 1 glass of water to each drink, eat an ibuprofen or asprin BEFORE bed, (NOT tylenol, as acetiminophen is bad with alcohol) and take a nap the next day... 8-)

From ‘hair of the dog’ to vitamins, methods to minimize your hangover

Anyone have any other cures?

Good luck,
Charlie

27 December 2004

Happy Monday...

Hope you all had a great weekend... a fun link to start the week!

Time lapsed movies... the balloon is great!

This is so difficult to argue with... Why Women Live Longer Than Men.

Have a great day!
Charlie

20 December 2004

Oh, this could be a sweeeeet new hobby!

GeoCaching. This looks so super fun. Anybody know anyone doing this? I so wanna buy a GPS and start! Doing it around Austin, would be a fun start, but when we go on our honeymoon, and go down to Buenos Aires etc. We'll be able to do this too and find some great stuff! it's in over 200 countries now! supa kool!

Who wants to start with me!?
Charlie

_________
What is Geocaching?

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

The main site... GeoCaching.com

Other Geocaching sites I'm investigating:
http://www.geocacher-u.com
http://www.brillig.com/geocaching
http://www.cheaperthandirt.com

A rough map of the amount of caches around Austin and San Antonio.

Interesting, I didn't know you could get health insurance quotes outside of a company

I found this health insurance quote site, so you can get affordable health insurance, not as part of a company.

Charlie

18 December 2004

17 December 2004

Engineer buys battle tank instead of water tank!

I'm guess that very few of us have bosses this kool... hilarious!

[World News]: London, Dec 17 : Ben Nicholson, an apprentice engineer was told to order a water tank, but he went ahead and purchased a three million pound Challenger battle tank instead.

Ben, 24, was very scared after he realised his mistake and feared that he might lose his job.

In reality, however, Ben had been set up by his manager Nik Smith.

Smith had told Ben to order a bitumen-coated tank and gave him a list of phone numbers, including one for defence contractor BAE Systems.

However, the BAE staff soon found out that it was a 'fun plan' and they played along and sent him the invoice.

16 December 2004

So why do people still write checks in grocery stores?

I guess this has been discussed alot in several blogs, but I just don't get it.
How come people still feel the need to delay the people behind them, take the effort to fill out all the fields on a check and the check register... when they could use a check card and be done with it? Quicker, easier, and actually costs less?

Adding up the time and printing costs of checks... they don't make sense anymore.
ATM/check cards don't charge a fee, although "credit" cards do, in interest and in "processing fees" to the merchant. But ATM/check cards are free... what's the deal? nostalgia? Anybody have any insights here?

Charlie

The Hassidic reggae stylings of Matusyahu.

On Jimmy Kimmel's show... they had a Hassidic rapper/reggae on the show... here's the video... it's really good, a little bizarre and fun too!

"The Hassidic reggae stylings of Matusyahu."

Link to iTunes Album of his... (spelled differently, Matisyahu)

14 December 2004

Oppose FBI Spying on Free Speech Activities

Email your congressional representatives!!! NO to expanded domestic spying by the FBI.

Do you want FBI agents following you or your neighbors into your churches, synagogues or mosques and documenting what goes on there? Recently released documents indicate that FBI agents have been spying on innocent people under guidelines relaxed by Attorney General John Ashcroft. Ashcroft restructured these guidelines -- without consultation with Congress -- to allow FBI agents to spy on religious and political activity even if there was no suspicion of criminal activity.

Ashcroft's new guidelines revoked long-standing protections from government abuse and there is evidence that the FBI and local police are using this opportunity to spy on environmental, political and faith-based groups. This spying is not only unnecessary but also invasive of personal privacy. The police should not spy on individuals because they attended a rally supporting better funding for their child’s school or they expressed discontent with the government’s policy toward Sudan.

The original Attorney General guidelines were implemented in response to FBI excesses in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In fact, between 1960 and 1974, the FBI kept files on one million Americans, and investigated 500,000 so-called “subversives” such as Martin Luther King, Jr. -- all without a single court conviction. By rolling back the protections in the original guidelines, we are re-creating a situation we know from experience resulted in abuse.

Bush monkey portrait sparks protests

Bush monkey portrait sparks protests
A portrait of President George W. Bush using monkeys to form his image has led to the closure of a New York art exhibition over the weekend and anguished protests over freedom of expression.

Sale of Wild Horses to Slaughter Legalized

Nice, now Bush is trying to balance the budget by killing and selling wild horses... what a man.

Wild horses and burros could be bought or sold for slaughter under a provision in the $388 billion spending bill that President Bush signed into law on Wednesday.

The new law lets the animals be sold, potentially for use as meat in foreign markets, if they are more than 10 years old or, if younger, after they have been offered unsuccessfully for adoption three times. It also requires any money from sales to go to the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management adoption program for wild horses and burros.

13 December 2004

Yaaaa --- End of the line for Ford's mammoth Excursion?

Automaker to stop producing much-criticized SUV in 2005
U.S. sales of the Excursion, which was launched in 1999, are down 25 percent so far this year. The Sierra Club, which dubbed the Excursion the "Ford Valdez" after the infamous Alaskan oil spill, called it an environmental disaster because of its poor fuel economy rating.

Nice, that rocks! Glad to see it go!

Europeans take dim view of Bush re-election

Germans, French also have negative opinion of Americans, poll finds
(CN) hell, I have a negative opinion of most Americans... 8-) (/CN)

The president was not the only one viewed unfavorably. Americans generally were seen in an unfavorable light by many in France, Germany and Spain, countries not supportive of U.S. Iraq policies.

‘Disappointment and surprise’
The predominant feelings about Bush’s re-election in the European countries are disappointment and surprise more than anger,” he said, noting that anger about Bush’s re-election was higher in Spain.

“Above all, they appear to be worried about the consequences of this election,” Corman said.

12 December 2004

Rumsfeld's fig leaf falling

The fig leaves are tumbling from the cover story Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gave to a soldier's query on Wednesday about the lack of armored vehicles available in Iraq.

"It isn't a matter of money. It isn't a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It's a matter of production and capability of doing it," Rumsfeld answered when pressed on the armor question in Kuwait.

But that appears to be simply not true. Cox News Service reported Friday that both the company that makes Humvees for the military and the company that adds armor to the utility vehicles could make plenty more, if the Pentagon would ask them.

Also apparently not true are the assurances President Bush had given just the day before to families of Marine casualties during a visit to Camp Pendleton, Calif. "We're doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones..."

11 December 2004

Smoking 'is bad for your brain'

More research has been published linking smoking to health risks - with a study suggesting the habit affects IQ

Researchers from the Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh looked at how the cognitive abilities of smokers and non-smokers changed over time.

They found smokers performed significantly worse in five separate tests.

"It would appear that the well-worn cliché that 'smoking stunts your growth' may be true when it comes to intellectual development."

10 December 2004

New J&J drug hits 'off switch' on TB

EXCELLENT News!!!

New J&J drug hits 'off switch' on TB
Compound blocks energy for killer disease
Friday, December 10, 2004
BY KITTA MacPHERSON,Star-Ledger Staff

For the first time in nearly 40 years, scientists have produced a drug that in lab tests appears to cure tuberculosis, a disease that is one of the world's worst killers.

The antibiotic, called R207910, was developed by a team of Johnson & Johnson scientists who worked quietly on the project for a decade in locales ranging from Raritan, N.J., to Beerse, Belgium.

They unveiled the patented work last night in an electronic edition of Science magazine. The compound, which appears to work better and faster than existing treatments, acts like a switch to cut off the energy supply of the mycobacterium that causes tuberculosis.

"This is dynamite stuff," said Lee Reichman, executive director of the New Jersey Medical School National Tuberculosis Center in Newark. In his 2002 book, "Timebomb," which details the early 1990s global resurgence of killer TB strains, Reichman castigated the pharmaceutical industry for ignoring the disease and failing to develop new treatments.

"I admire J&J for doing this kind of research," Reichman said. "This has phenomenal potential."

09 December 2004

A funny HKa flash...

Heh, this is hilarious... Happy Hanukkah!!!

Time to lite the next candle! Yaaahya!

08 December 2004

One Thousand Dead, Ten Thousand Wounded

By mid-November, 10,369 American troops had been wounded in battle in Afghanistan or Iraq, and 1,004 had died — a survival rate of roughly 90 percent. In the Vietnam War, one in four wounded died, virtually all of them before they could reach MASH units some distance from the fighting.

Today in Iraq, real-life Hawkeyes and B.J. Hunnicuts have stripped trauma surgery to its most basic level, carrying "mini-hospitals" in six Humvees and field operating kits in five backpacks so they can move with troops and do surgery on the spot.

A terrible number of people hurt and dead... If you know one of them, please tell me about them, for InGratia.org.

Troops put tough questions to Rumsfeld: Defense secretary gets his own “talking to” from disgruntled GIs

“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?” Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.

Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question.

“We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north,” Wilson said after asking again. Wilson's unit is about to drive into Iraq for a one-year tour of duty.

During the question-and-answer session, another soldier complained that active-duty Army units sometimes get priority over the National Guard and Reserve units for the best equipment in Iraq.

all of it...

Isn't this nice...

Two thousand years ago, Iranian women could be great warriors. Today, after centuries of religious enlightnment, they can't even attend a soccer game.

TEHRAN, Iran - These days, Iranian women are not even allowed to watch men compete on the soccer field, but 2,000 years ago they could have been carving the boys to pieces on the battlefield.

this is soooo crap

When he came out of a Contra Costa County Mayors' Conference meeting in Walnut Creek awhile back, Martinez City Councilman Bill Wainwright was surprised to see a ticket on his windshield.

He was even more surprised when he saw what it was for.

Wainwright had been tagged for having too small a car.

Seriously. The city parking lot where he had found a spot has two rows of slots reserved for vehicles 6-foot-5 inches or taller, according to a sign posted in the garage. Wainwright, with his Acura, was too short to park there.
more...

03 December 2004

geeze... who cares about terrorism & our children's environment?

Sport utility vehicles continue to be popular in Texas, with the state adding 1.8 million registered SUVs in 2002, more than any other state except California.

"Altogether, SUVs traveled nearly 315 billion miles on the nation's highways in 2002, up 100 billion miles from 1997," says Louis Kincannon, census bureau director.

"Collectively, SUVs made the equivalent of more than 650,000 round trips to the moon in 2002."

About 77 percent of all trucks were used for personal transportation in 2002.

and most SUV's and big trucks get what? single digit and just over single digit gas milage? Don't they know all of bin Laden's money comes from the oil/gas that they burn?

The Drug War Toll Mounts

Now I'm not a drug advocate, but some of the points and numbers in here are amazing. And no one is daring to question it for fear of looking like a crack-head. A civilized society should be able to discuss anything.

_____________________________________________
The Drug War Toll Mounts
by Radley Balko


In Washington, D.C., a 27-year old quadriplegic is sentenced to ten days in jail for marijuana possession, where he dies under suspicious circumstances. In Florida, a wheelchair-bound multiple sclerosis patient now serves a 25-year prison sentence for using an out-of-state doctor to obtain pain medication. And in Palestine, Texas, prosecutors arrest 72 people -- all of them black -- and charge them with distributing crack cocaine. The scene bears a remarkable resemblance to a similar mass, mostly-black drug bust in nearby Tulia five years ago.

These examples aren't exceptional. They're typical. America's drug war marches on, impervious to efficacy, justice, or absurdity. Drug prohibition was nowhere to be found in Election 2004. There was no mention of it in the debates, the conventions, or the endless cable news campaign coverage.

Today, federal and state governments spend between $40 and $60 billion per year to fight the war on drugs, about ten times the amount spent in 1980 -- and billions more to keep drug felons in jail. The U.S. now has more than 318,000 people behind bars for drug-related offenses, more than the total prison populations of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain combined.

Our prison population has increased by 400 percent since 1980, while the general population has increased just 20 percent. America also now has the highest incarceration rate in the world -- 732 of every 100,000 citizens are behind bars. (land of the free eh?)

02 December 2004

Austin ordering 5 hybrid gas-electric SUVs

Nice, Glad to see this... I can't wait to pick up a hybrid.
____
Austin ordering 5 hybrid gas-electric SUVs

City looking to bolster its environmental image as well as save money, increase fuel efficiency of its fleet.

Austin already owns 28 Toyota Priuses, smaller hybrid sedans, and 277 cars that run on clean-burning propane. The cars make up 7 percent of the city's fleet and are scattered among city departments, from Austin Energy to the Austin Water Utility.

The hybrid Escapes run on gasoline and an electric motor. At 31 to 36 miles a gallon, they're more fuel-efficient than their gas-only counterparts, which get about 22 miles a gallon.

01 December 2004

Crowd Beats Man Accused In DWI Crash

I can't say I disapprove of this... maybe a few more people will get the idea that it's dumb as hell to drink and drive.

A Queens crowd pulled a man from a car and beat and kicked him because he crashed into young woman - pinning her between the car and a building.

Police say the car was stolen moments before from a nearby supermarket and the driver was charged with driving while intoxicated. His name was not immediately released.

Eye witnesses told police the car apparently swerved to miss a school bus at 110th Street and 174th Avenue at 3:15 pm yesterday, when it slammed into 18-year-old Roshonda Belt. She's listed in serious condition. Her friend - who was pushing a baby carriage - was grazed by the car - and the baby was unhurt.

HERE