Note to Bill Clinton: Shut your trap

Would someone please tell Bill Clinton to shut his mouth. I understand the desire to stand by your spouse in his/her run for an office, but his interference is costing Hillary an audience. Truthfully, I haven't or hadn't made up my mind about which way I would vote with regards to a Democratic party candidate. Hillary sounds like a war hawk. Obama has less experience on the Capitol. Neither one sways me one way or the other. Well that was the case until Bill decided to get in the spotlight with his foot in his mouth and attempt to sling mud on Obama's name. He has crossed the line between supporting spouse and running candidate. Who's running for office? Is it him or Hillary? Oh and Bill, no you were never the first Black president. You bent over for the Republicans and didn't back up your people when it counted. Remember Surgeon General Joyce Elders and Attorney General nominee Lani Guinier?

Frankly watching their behaviour during the debates and the caucus stumping has put them on my bad side. The Clintons like to play the gender card, while accusing Obama of playing up his race, even though most of their speeches has them introducing the topic into conversations. I don't care to see either of the Clintons back in the White House. Here's a man who couldn't keep his pants zipped up (and don't give me that he's only human crap --- we have big brains for a reason) and a wife who didn't have enough sense to leave him or keep his ass in check (blacklights are good at spotting invisible stains on trouser openings and underwear; watch Forensic Files and learn a thing or two).

I'm ready for someone new and not yet jaded/corrupted, someone like Obama. He may be inexperienced, but with the right people behind him (just make sure you do background checks on your people to weed out the embezzlers and other con-artists), he cannot do worse than Bush -- well, unless there's a conspiracy to screw him over, as well as the public (which is totally possible).

If against all common sense, Hillary becomes the candidate, I cannot say for sure that I will even vote Democratic.

Open letters to Bill to keep silent

Read more about Bill's case of foot-in-mouth disease:
Newsweek: Democratic Party wants Bill to shut up
ABC Network Blogs: Sharpton tells Clinton to shut it

Back from hiatus

Let me just say to the women out there, protect your knees in sports at all costs. My knee dislocation, which apparently is becoming more and more common in women athletes, escalated into a torn ACL, a few months ago. I've just had it repaired/replaced along with some other work in the knee. Coming back from this injury is taking all the strength that I have in me. No, seriously. I feel so tapped out, I can't take it. I will be so happy to be walking unassisted once again.

Happy New Year!

Here's a prayer for a more peaceful, fruitful and healthy year.

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.