Widgets are Cool

Somehow, someway, I got a subscription to PC Magazine (I suspect it came with an order I put it to Newegg last year). No matter how it happened, I've been enjoying it. I used to subscribe for years, but eventually dropped it in favor of this little thing called 'the internet'. Now I realize how nice it is to get interesting PC info dropped in my lap twice a month without me having to hunt for it.

As a prime example, the last issue was the 'Utility Roundup'. It had a bunch of things designed to make your computing life easier, and I saw a few items that I wanted to check out in more detail. Once of these was Yahoo Widgets. It's a collection of 'widgets' for your desktop that are useful, fun, and nice to look at. I can tell that the search for newer and better widgets is going to be an ongoing obsession for a while.

Check it out.

Hello. I am an American, and apparently, I'm stupid. Or a sheep.

Thanks to the uninformed masses concentrating on things that aren't important, the Dubai Port World deal has been 'modified'. They will turn over control of the six U.S. ports to a 'U.S. concern'. I have no idea what that means, and frankly I don't care.

I need to understand how it is that the American people can get so worked up over this issue, yet completely ignore things that will actually impact their lives. If folks would get this hot and bothered over warrentless wiretaps, the Patriot Act, and dumb-as-nails foreign policy I doubt those issues would survive. Instead, the sheep of American take the media line, and get worked up over what exactly? Who pays the longshoremen? The logo on a building? The Dubai Ports World detail would have had a negligible impact on port security - it's abysmal even without an Middle Eastern Company controlling terminal contracts - yet everyone reacted as if we were giving Osama Bin Laden a free pass to import anything he wanted.

Hey! Wake the fuck up! I supposed everyone forgot about the Department of Homeland Security and the United States Coast Guard. Not a great endorsement of public confidence in those agencies, eh?

I can easily see why President Bush was taken off guard on this one. It's a non-starter, a throw away, a non-issue. But Democrats need an issue, any issue (or non-issue) that they can whip into a froth and then claim that they are "tougher on terrorism" than the GOP. Partisan politics at it's best. Republicans got on board the protest once their offices started getting deluged with e-mail, phone calls, and letters from their constituents - you know, the people who elect them.

It boggles my mind. Really.

From the "Need Another Mideast Problem" Department

There are reports coming out that indicate that Iran is designing, manufacturing, and smuggling effective IED's into Iraq for use against U.S. troops.

This is bad. With a confrontation brewing over Iran's fledgling nuclear program, it appears that they are finding ways to strike at American troops without a direct confrontation. I do not want to see an armed conflcit with Iran, but it may come to that in the future. The question will become, "are we capable of fighting Iran while still in Iraq and Afganistan?" I can't answer that, but I will be following these issues more closely.

The Magic Kingdom. Best. Visit. Ever.

My wife and I have been Disney fans for years. As corny as it may sound, we honeymooned at Disney World in Orlando, and we had a great time. We typically go at least once a year, and as we had kids it gained another level of enjoyment. I've never had a bad time in any Disney park or property, but last weekend was possibly the best ever.

We headed down to my folks on Friday afternoon, after picking my son up from school. My parents live about an hour from Disney, so we were planning on staying with them, and then all of us would go to the Magic Kingdom on Saturday. We were starting the day with breakfast at Cinderella's castle, which my daughter had been looking forward to for three months.

We got to the park very early; in fact we were the first car in the parking lot. Literally. As I was getting the stroller out of the back of the minivan, and thinking that wearing shorts was a bonehead move (it was about 55 degrees at the time), another family pulled up. A girl got out of the van and asked if there was better parking. Looking at the Transportaion and Ticket Center only 50 yards away, I chuckled and replied that this was as good as you are ever going to get. In your whole life. Trust me.

Breakfast was awesome, complete with live Princesses, which of course made my daughter's decade. She's three and completely entranced with all the Disney Princesses and getting to meet the 'real' Cinderella, Snow White, and Belle was a real treat. My son probably couldn't have cared less, but they gave him a plastic sword. To keep. Boredom issue solved.

When we got out of breakfast, the park had just opened, and we were already in the middle of it. We enjoyed a couple of hours of almost no crowds, and it was wonderful. We walked onto to Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear (twice) and the Indy Speedway with almost no wait. It was great.

Space Mountain was a great moment.

My son has never shown any interest in roller coasters. He's five (and a half) and decided this time that he wanted to try it. I held my breath (not the whole time, I would have passed out) and took him. He, my wife, my Dad, and myself walked into Space Mountain, through the empty queues, and onto the ride. He didn't have time to change his mind, which was probably a good thing.

I'd like to take a minute to say that Disney has restored the glorious *darkness* of Space Mountain. When I was younger, riding Space Mountain was like riding a roller coaster blindfolded. Part of the thrill, hell, most of the thrill, was the fact the you had no idea what was coming next. At some point, Disney screwed the pooch and lightened up the ride. You could see the track in front of you, and you had an inkling where it was going. Since the ride itself is tame compared to other coasters, it spoiled the effect some.

So, when we finished the initial climb last Saturday and hurtled into comparative blackness, the realization that they had restored the ride to inky darkness again made me laugh with glee... until I remembered that my five year old in the seat in front of me has occasional issues with the dark.

Shit.

Oh well, nothing to be done now, right? I reached over his seat back and grabbed his shoulder, and tried to listen for his screams of terror over the laughter and bedlam that is a typical roller coaster ride. About halfway through, I realized he was laughing and screaming, in other words, he was having fun.

When we got off, I asked him how he liked it.

"Awesome!"

"Do you want to ride it again?" After all, opportunities to walk onto Space Mountain are rare, and the Disney veteran in me was screaming to get back in line.

"Uh. No."

So we moved on. No harm done and I was secretly proud that he had taken it so well. I was also thrilled that Disney came to its senses all these years later and returned Space Mountain to it's proper lighting level.

Later in the day, we worked our way around the park to Tom Sawyer's Island. This place bores my wife to death, but my son has realized its huge un-politically correct potential (forts, caves, guns, and cannon!) and was thoroughly enjoying running around unfettered and armed (remember the plastic sword?). We got to the fort, and as we were standing in the ramparts, shooting fake rifles (complete with great sound effects) at real trees, we see the Thunder Mountain Railroad sweep by across the river.

"What was that train, Daddy?"

"That's the Thunder Mountain Railroad. It's a roller coaster."

"Can we ride that?"

That's my boy. "You bet we can."

A trip to the Fastpass machine, and a Mickey Ice Cream Bar later, and we were climbing into Thunder Mountain. Three minutes later, my son was hooked.

"That was awesome! Can we ride it again? Please!"

Thanks to his grandmother not wanting to ride, and his sister being too short, we had two more Fastpasses. That enabled he and his mother to virtually walk straight back on and ride it again. I think he enjoyed it even more the second time. In fact, I think he would have ridden all afternoon had we been able to. He had to settle for two more rides that evening once we got more Fastpasses.

So my son loved Thunder Mountain, and at least enjoyed Space Mountain. I couldn't get him on Splash Mountain - he didn't want to get wet. My daughter got to meet Princesses and ride all her rides and by the time we left the park twelve hours after arriving, they were both dead tired. But I could tell it was that I-had-the-best-day-evar! kind of tired.

Which just made my wife and I smile all the more.

HDTV, digital cable, Blu-Ray, and my pressing need for... what exactly?

In the past couple of weeks, I've started doing research into HDTV, LCD TV's, plasma TV's, digital cable, and other shiny(!) technologies. For a huge amount of money, I can get a new flat screen TV, digital cable, and new DVD player... and have absolutely nothing that I want. My biggest problem, hands down, is the fact that I do not want to pay $80+ per month for digital cable with HDTV server. Add in the fact that HDTV and my TiVo aren't going to get along very well until the Series 3 TiVo's come out (another pile of cash, I'm sure) and it's just another reason to not upgrade.

This whole scenario can be summed up as: I'm unimpressed.

TiVo is TV to me now. Not just a digital video recorder - TiVo. I've gotten very accustomed to my TiVo setup, complete with TiVoToGo, TV on my Treo thanks to TVHarmony, TiVo in my bedroom thanks to Radio Shack, and archiving to DVD. These features are more important to me than 1080p resolution, or just about anything else. I want my TV, my way. Whenever and wherever.

I could get digital cable now, without HDTV, and could even splurge on a flat screen TV in either LCD or plasma. However, I'd have to install a cable box - and I hate set-top boxes. Once again, TiVo Series 3, with its built in CableCard and HDTV tuners will eliminate the need for a cable box, but that is still months away, and won't be cheap.

I think that's the crux of my complaint - none of this is going to be simple or cheap. And I feel it's all unnecessary. What happens to my perfectly good analog 27in. TV in my den in 2009 when HDTV becomes the standard? I'll probably have to have a set top box to convert the digital signal to something the TV can use - and did I mention that I hate set top boxes?

And I haven't even started on Hi Def DVD players, be it Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. Manufacturers have announced that retail Blu-Ray DVD's will sell for $29.99 for some titles and $39.99 for premium new release titles. What? $40 for a freaking movie? That is totally ridiculous. And how long before I'll have to buy a new DVD player? And what about the three I have now?

All in all, I'm frustrated by the evolution of home entertainment. I feel it's 'progress' for the sake of profit alone - in other words, a way to soak the consumer for every dollar the manufacturers and media companies can get.

And one day, I'll probably buy in. Damnit.

A Fine Example

In the years since 9/11, a war has been raging in this country. Not against terrorism, or drugs, or... Iraq. Those things have been happening, but the war I'm referring to is the ongoing war the Bush administration is waging against my rights to privacy and other civil liberties. This slow and inexorable assault has included warrantless wiretaps, the Patriot Act and the Bank Privacy Act.

Cloaked in the guise of 'national security', a Rhode Island man had $6,522 that he sent to a credit card company held up because the payment was out of the ordinary. This action was taken by the credit card company under the provisions of the Bank Privacy Act, and occurred simply because the payment was much higher than the amount the man normally paid on his account. I can only assume that the action was taken because the transaction looked like money laundering.

I understand that money laundering is a crime, and that it could be used to support terrorism. Fine. Got it. However, the fact that banks and credit card companies are acting as surveillance proxies for the U.S. Government bothers me.

Is the illusion of increased national security worth the price we pay in privacy and freedom? I think not, but I'm not in charge. I guess all I can do is vote.