I hate making resolutions...

But I've got this compulsion to make lists. Lists of anything. Lists of songs that I like, want to buy. Lists of books to read. Lists of places to visit. So I am compelled to make a list of resolutions (that in all honesty I cannot say how well I can follow through on).

So here's my list of resolutions, the ordering and number are completely arbitrary, for the coming new year of 2008:


1. Work on my hero theme. Everyone deserves one, well almost everyone. I might as well have one, I've always got some weird made-up song running through my head, I need to purge that thing.

2. Make more playlists for my ipod. Why? Just 'cause it's overdue. I need to get rid of some embarrassingly cheesy songs too (don't ask).

3. Ditch the idiot box (TV), except for watching Heroes and Battlestar Galactica (hmm... it looks like I'm making excuses already). This is completely doable since the introduction of hulu.com where hopefully I can watch these shows. This makes my desire to have a flat-panel television a bit of a waste of money. I need to wean myself of my addiction to news, which is not going to be easy in the election year. But all of these people are a bunch of blowhards and I plan to just continue to focus on researching their past actions (via internet) and not on the BS that they have to spout now for CNN and The New York Times.

4. Blog more. There's something just so cathartic, therapeutic about putting words down in a journal. Since my handwriting has gotten to the point where even I have a hard time making it out, typing has taken its place. And why not journal in blog form.

5. Use the other idiot box less (laptop). This looks like it counters the previous resolutions, but it doesn't. Like the majority of people, my time is so limited that getting every daily task done takes the patience of Job. A lot of my time is used up in ADD surfing episodes. Better use of search bots and feeds can help to greatly reduce my wasted time online.

6. Travel more. I used to not have a problem with this. I have been a workaholic, but I always had a specific time (outside of holidays) dedicated to travel for simple pleasure. My attachment to work has gotten much worse over the past few years; haven't figured out why yet, but it's not healthy. I've got family and friends spread out and I've got no excuses for not taking advantage of that.

7. Work less or at least spend less time obsessing over it. I don't think this one needs clarification. I need to get on the life-work balance bandwagon.

8. Do something new every month. Sometimes I can have a pretty short attention span and I don't like complacency, so I always look to try at least one new thing a month. It can be anything, something as little as trying a new bar/nightclub to traveling somewhere completely new. I like to get well out of my comfort zone, every once in a while.

9. Be green. This actually is not too much of a problem for me since I don't own a car and I recycle both at home and work. My green practices could use some perfecting though; use less water, use less packaging. Note to Trader Joe's: do you have to plastic wrap most of the produce?

10. Spend less. Our economy is in the toilet, no need in my following it off the cliff. This may actually be a little difficult since I've had my eye on a new laptop upgrade to a Mac; but since Jobs always likes to buck the trend of reasonably-priced hardware, he may be helping me to decide.

11. Vote. I think every list of resolutions should have the equivalent of an easy "A". This is mine.

I Am Legend... And I Am Scared ****less!

Holy cow! I have to get this out now, maybe it will help me sleep. No spoilers. I promise, but if you want to move on to another blog, I won't hate.

Ok about the movie, it had me

f-r-e-a-k-e-d o-u-t!

I only can say that there are few horror movies that wig me out to the point where I am in a movie theatre, surrounded by people, and still had to cover my eyes for a couple of scenes. I had the major heebie jeebies. I can't say I will see this movie again, not because it wasn't good, 'cause it was, but because I was scared witless and am still a little shaky (3 hours after the fact).

If you go to see it, please, for your sake, go with one or more people.

News Alert: Women are responsible for global warming!

This story comes straight from the WTF file. The Telegraph reports that a British scientist has submitted a theory about a major contributing factor to global warming --- and it is women. Well to be more specific, women who love men who love (and own) fancy racing cars such as Ferraris. The U.K.'s Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Sir David King, says that if women did not admire expensive gas guzzling cars then men would not buy them and therefore would not contribute to carbon dioxide emissions.

Uh huh. I... I don't even know what to say to that. Other than it is complete and utter crap. Men do a whole helluva lot of things, that women are not attracted to, like farting and burping, and it hasn't discouraged men from committing these acts one bit. This study's conclusion seems to me to just be all in line with the "don't blame me for my behaviour, blame someone else" thinking that is becoming more rampant. Don't blame the car manufacturers who know exactly the type of effect their products have on the environment. Nor the car owners who drive a block to the grocery store for a quart of milk. Oh and at top speed. Nor those who just like to drive nowhere really, really fast.

It's a pretty damn juvenile argument, I must say. It's the "my dog ate my homework" theory.

Facebook's motto is apparently "Do Evil"

So your friendly neighborhood social networking site, Facebook, decides to try a radical ad model, with the help of its users. Unfortunately, it forgot to ask the users first. Facebook launched a new ad program called Beacon, which shows its users' actions on other sites to all in their network to see. As long as users are asked for permission prior, this shouldn't be a huge problem. Well, Facebook decided not to. Instead, they forced users to opt-out instead of opt-in. So, users are surprised to log into the social site and see a trail of what they'd done on completely unrelated websites. Bummer deal to the user who searches for the latest soft-core movies on Amazon.com and this shows up on their Facebook profile for all of their coworkers and other network contacts to ogle.

Of course, this ad model doesn't sit well with most of the savvy online community. There has been a bit of a backlash by Facebook users, which is well-deserved, and also by those concerned about the loss of privacy. This probably also is starting to concern those advertisers who would not want to be on the receiving end of the users' wrath. So, Facebook has decided to do an about-face and default users to the opt-out. Problem solved, right? Nope. But users still continue to report privacy violations, such as, saved recipes from Epicurious.com showing up under their Facebook profiles.

This isn't the first privacy bumble by Facebook. Back in the spring, there was the problem of "not-quite" private Facebook profiles. If I didn't have a network of colleagues, friends and family who use it with some regularity, I'd have ended my relationship with this (anti-)social network long ago. I am convinced that it is a flavor of the month site, just another useless MySpace clone, so I am looking forward to when my contacts abandon it (hey people I do still read emails) and move on to the next bleeding-edge site.

Read more at Wired News about Facebook's insidious, ill-conceived user privacy-tracking antics.

You sure you want to lend him your car keys?

Be extra careful about whom you let borrow your car. Ryan Holle, now a 25-year-old, is serving time as an accomplice to burglary, assault and murder. His exact action in this? After getting inebriated at a house-party, he lent his car to his housemate and his friends, who planned to steal a safe from a known marijuana dealer's. One of the miscreants beats the dealer's 18-year-old daughter to death with a shotgun from the home. At the time of the murder, Ryan was 20 and back at his house.

Based on an old Florida law doctrine, he is serving a life sentence. This is all because his car is considered the catalyst for the execution of the crime. The prosecutor's theory? Without Ryan's car, the robbers would not have gone to the dealer's home and the drug dealer's daughter would still be alive. Basically, he is just as guilty as those who were actually present. Did he help plan any of it? Doesn't appear so. Was he there? Nope. A couple of details that I've gotta mention. First, living together, he'd lent his roommate his car numerous times prior. Second, he had heard them talk about robbing the dealer, but says that he didn't take them seriously.

This makes you think before you hand over your keys to your friends. At least, if you're in any state that still has that law doctrine on the books.

The NYTimes has the full details on the case.

Mom gives a lesson in cyber-bullying

This story sounds straight out of some weird juvenile novel or dumb daytime judge tv show. Two 13-year-olds (Megan Meier and another unnamed teen) stop being friends. Lori Drew, the other teen's 46-year-old mother decides to set up a MySpace account, to find out what Megan's been saying about her daughter. Not too big of a deal, right? Hold on, it gets stupid from here.

The MySpace identity that Lori creates, with the help of then 18-year-old teen (Ashley Grills who used to work for her husband), is that of "Josh Evans", an imaginary 16-year-old teen boy. Josh targets Megan and strikes a friendship to woo her. They have a friendly online relationship until "Josh" turns on Megan, becoming abusive, telling her that the world would be better off without her. Megan who has a history of clinical depression, which Lori and her daughter were well aware of, commits suicide after being dumped by her friend's mother -- err Josh, whatever. Creepy.

The prosecutor decides that no charges will or can be charged against the mother regarding Megan's suicide. There is no evidence that suicide was her goal and what they did to her does not constitute cyber-stalking or anything criminal. The fact that a 46-yr-old woman (along with the 13- and 18-year-olds) posing as a teenage boy is chatting up a 13-yr-old sounds like something that would usually lead the cops to your door for attempted child molestation.

Here's the skinny on the legal footnotes to this crazy mess.

The world is going crazy

So many idiotic things are going on, well, at least it seems like with a higher than normal frequency. So here are a couple of moronic things going on overseas (I'll hit the idiocy that is happening on the domestic front shortly).


Firstly, a young Saudi woman was sentenced to 90 lashes for being caught unchaperoned with a young man, which came to light because a gang of males had been arrested for repeatedly raping both of them. Then only her sentence was increased to 200 lashes including six months of prison for speaking out to the press. This hurt the judges feelings, I guess. Apparently, the rapists were given light punishments, considering the types of offenses committed, while the girl and her companion are severely penalized for defying Shari'a law (unrelated males and females are not allowed to be alone without guardian or chaperone). The couple is judged a pair of fornicators (or attempting to become ones) even when there is no proof that anything has occurred. Meanwhile, the men who penetrate the bodies of an unrelated female (and not to forget the male, for that matter), especially when it was against their will, get off with what amounts to a slap on the wrist. Of course, she and her companion knew the law, but the fact that the Muslim-extremists are so blind to the double-standard of the practiced Islamic religion. The sexual perverts get off with little penalties, while the rape victim is victimized by her "protectors". Wow... this is making my head hurt. Here's a link to the original BBC news article.


Another case of punishment not fitting the crime, in Sudan, a British teacher allows her students to pick a name for the class teddy bear. The students come up with "Muhamed", authorities find out and the teacher is (initially) sentenced to 40 lashes, 6 months of imprisonment, a fine and of course deportation. People protested the sentence, which has now been reduced to 15 days, no lashes and deportation. Again, here is someone who knows that she is in a country whose government is known to be unrelenting in its enforcement of the Islamic religion. She should have known better, but the intent was not to spread anti-Muslim sentiments which I understand to be the principle rule used when deciding punishment. Now there are protests by Sudanese people who are calling for her head... Read the BBC article.