DisSuggs4u

My friend Charles asked a very good question in response to my previous post:

So how/where/with whom do we discuss and/or do something about this?

I did not respond to him right away because I was struggling with trying to squeeze my response into the comments area.  Eventually, I decided that it should live in its own post.  So, here goes… (Continued)

This morning, I wrapped up** a very good book — The Assault on Reason by Al Gore. In it, President Elect Mr. Gore discusses his opinions and viewpoints on various topics from the media, to the climate, to technology, all of which are woven together throughout the book into the common thread of democracy and how the lack of reason within our government in recent history — as well as a shift in the way Americans receive and process information — has become a threat to the overall democratic process.

(Continued)

Interesting. Today, I was able to log in to my AIM account again, which I had been an issue I was dealing with. So, it appears that the monkeys at AOL have removed the curse caused by associating an XDrive account with and AIM account.

This pleases me.

Am I so pleased that I will continue to use XDrive or recommend it to friends? No. (Continued)

This completely made my day. The climate crisis does not stand a chance once The Tap cranks their amps up to eleven and rocks the CO2 right out of the sky.

(Of course, one could argue that Spinal Tap is a partial contributor to the warming of the atmosphere. After all, there must be some effect from all of those drummers spontaneously combusting.)

Even the biggest elephant never forgets — And the sun never sweats. No, the sun never sweats…

Awesome.

So, a little over a week ago, I went prowling the interwebs for an online storage service which would make it easy to share large files with friends/family. My search led me to a couple of candidates and from them I chose XDrive.

Since I am an AOL Instant Messanger (AIM) user, I thought this would be a great fit. So, I signed up for an account and then proceeded to upload files for testing. Everything was going great… or so I thought. (Continued)

So, all of the talk from US news outlets and water coolers is revolving around the shootings that occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech yesterday. Over thirty people were killed when some nutjob with a pistol decided to chain a campus building shut and then off a bunch of their fellow students and teachers before feeding himself a lead salad.

All of the reactions to this event I have seen or heard have been similar to:

• “Can you believe it?”
• “This is just horrible. How can a thing like this happen?”
• “I am in complete shock. What a tragedy.”

Truth be told, it is sad and unfortunate that this occurred. And I truly feel for the family and friends of the victims of this heinous act. It will take a very long time for their psychological wounds to heal, if the ever do.

I, however, am not all that phased about this — primarily because I tend to look upon things of this nature with more of a holistic perspective. (Continued)

I’m a huge fan of trivia, and for some strange reason I am able to not only consume it in large amounts, but also recall it at will. This “talent” does not really do much for me in my daily life, but it does help grease the wheels of conversation when the need arises.

(Of course, there is a fine line between being “interesting” and “a know-it-all jerk.” The key, as with many things, is knowing when to quit.)

You can imagine my delight when one of the internets’ tubes I was riding brought me to a new source: I Did Not Know That Yesterday! It is a great site, and is written with tongue-in-cheek/sarcastic humor, much like one of my favorite magazines.

Now, if only there was some way I could make money off all this useless trivia.

Oh, knowledge, how I love thee…

Yesterday evening was the grand conclusion to another NFL season. As is usually the case, it was the only NFL game I watched all year. In general, I am not a very big professional sports fan — other than professional cycling — and usually occupy my time doing other things. However, my wife and I make a special case for the Super Bowl wherein we head down to the Alamo Draft House to watch the game on the movie screen. This year was no different. (Continued)

Four years ago today, I walked into a HealthSouth outpatient surgical center here in Austin, TX, to have surgery performed on my lower back — specifically, a partial discectomy to repair a herniated disc between the L4 and L5 segments of my lumbar spine. The surgery itself lasted just under an hour, the nurses had me up and walking around five hours later, and I literally walked out of the hospital nineteen hours after they stitched me up.

While back on my feet, I was not cleared to work for another two weeks, and it was half-days at best. It took two months of therapy and exercise (mostly walking) before I was back to anywhere near “normal.” Seven months after that, I was finally released from therapy and able to ride my bike again. The biggest bonus: over the course of the experience I met and grew to know better the person who would become my wife. (Continued)

It is currently 28 degrees (F) outside and snow has started falling. For many parts of the world, this is a common site during the winter months. However, in this part of Texas we only have three seasons: a week of “winter,” a couple of months of “almost summer,” and then many oppressive months of summer heat.

So, you can imagine that when weather like this hits our city there is nothing less than pandemonium. The grocery shelves go bare with people stocking up on food. I mean, it could be a whole day or two before they are able to leave the house again. You have to prepare for the worst, I supposed. It’s like Y2k all over again. (Continued)