I think I’ve come up with the perfect solution for Michael Vick’s career. Vick should join the WWE under the name The Rottweiler.
The public outrage that would ensue would only fuel his infamy as a bad-ass wrestler.
Food for thought.
I think I’ve come up with the perfect solution for Michael Vick’s career. Vick should join the WWE under the name The Rottweiler.
The public outrage that would ensue would only fuel his infamy as a bad-ass wrestler.
Food for thought.
A few weeks ago I got a call from Angela Haupt, a reporter for USA Today. She wanted a few quotes for an article she was writing about phantom cell phone vibrations. Thanks to Google, a short post I made in 2004 makes me a leading expert on the topic.
The article went up on the USA Today website, uh, today under this question-mark-heavy heading: Good vibrations? Bad? None at all?. I’m not sure if/when it will be in the print-version of the newspaper.
I should have recorded the phone call so I could listen myself say this again (I don’t remember saying it, but it does sound like something I would say):
“I’d be sitting on the couch and feel my phone start to vibrate, so I’d reach down and pull it out of my pocket. But the only thing ringing was my thigh.”
It’s nice to be part of America’s most colourful [sic] newspaper. I look forward to being stepped over as people leave their hotel rooms all over the nation.
A good friend of mine, Peter Rukavina, has been writing on his Ruk.ca weblog (in various incarnations) for about eight years. I’ve always enjoyed reading what Peter writes. Over the years, Peter has written a variety of posts about Tim Banks. Tim is the President and CEO of the APM Group, a development and construction company.
While the things Peter wrote about Mr. Banks were seldom flattering, they were not unreasonable. In November of 2005, Peter wrote about how Banks had asked the Mayor of Charlottetown to remove Councillor Kim Devine from a planning committee because she had what Banks called an “obstructionist attitude.”
Last month, a few of us were on our way to a public meeting about a downtown development plan hosted by the City of Charlottetown. On our way to the meeting, Peter snapped this photo of an illegally parked vehicle that was easily recognized by most of us as Tim Banks’ car (the vanity license plate bears the company name, APM). As a courtesy, Peter did not include Mr. Banks’ name when he posted the photo. Many locals would recognize the vehicle, but without a name, it wouldn’t show up if people were to search for Mr. Banks’ name online.
Apparently Mr. Banks was not pleased about this. As Peter recounts in some detail, Mr. Banks walked up to him in a coffee shop, confronted him about the car photo, and then “took a swing at the full cup of coffee in my hand, spilling it across the counter and over my newspaper and breakfast.”
Peter notified the police about the incident, which is completely appropriate. I’m saddened to see a good friend and good writer have to fear this kind of repercussion to having written online. If a traditional newspaper journalist had published the photo and was similarly assaulted, this kind of behaviour wouldn’t be be considered acceptable, nor should it be in Peter’s case.
This may not be of interest to many readers, being a local incident. However, I do think it should be of interest to anyone concerned about the ability of people to write and publish without fear of intimidation, no matter the degree.
An interesting quote from an article about the legal battles surrounding government adoption of open document formats in the US:
“Microsoft sees what’s coming. Things like Word and Excel are sort of like a drug now getting ready to go generic.”
— Florida Rep. Ed Homan
Of course, no one dies if they don’t get their monthly dose of Microsoft Word. Still, the comparison is interesting.
One of the many secrets of a successful marriage is to have a relationship in which one partner does like black jelly beans and the other does not.
Suggestion for a distributed open-source system to fight badness:
The system allows you to enter the name/location of a person who needs to be punched in the face, somewhere in the world (a known spammer, for example).
Then, you see if there is anyone near you that needs to be punched in the face. Punch them.
I’m not sure if it will scale.
Now that Conan O’Brien is locked in for taking over the Tonight Show from Jay Leno (it’s old news, I know), I have a prediction the other late night show.
In a few years, I predict David Letterman will hand over his show to Jon Stewart.
I’ve never understood MySpace. Apparently the kids love it, but it has always seemed like noise to me.
Then it dawned on me.
MySpace is rock-and-roll and I’m a middle-aged parent in the 50s.