So Gratuitous, It's Hilarious

This advertisment featuring Paris Hilton is hilarious. I don't know how else to react. She's washing herself and a car... oh, and it's an ad for a hamburger.

You know, I don't even think she looks that good in the swimsuit.

What did she ever do to be famous anyway? Near as I can tell, it's that she's the daughter of rich parents.

With this post, I've also realized that along with technology, entertainment and sports that fast food also seems to be a highlight of this blog.

Recent Musical Additions

I've recently splurged on a ton of new music for a variety of reasons.

Dave Matthews Band - Stand Up
It's taking me a little while to warm up to this album, which has a more smooth jazz feel to it than some of the band's past work. I think my feelings for this album are similar to those I had about U2's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb." When I first got the U2 release, I was cool to it, but now I realize that I enjoy it quite a bit. Familiarity with Stand Up will probably improve my reaction.

Audioslave - Out of Exile
I don't have it in hand yet, but I have heard it online two or three times. The sound doesn't seem as edgy as the first release but there are some songs that I definitely like on it.

Alice in Chains - MTV Unplugged
The fourth digital album that I've purchased, this time with credits from the Pepsi/iTunes promotion. I've always liked grunge-era Unplugged recordings (particularly Nirvana's) and this one doesn't buck the trend. This is already one of my favorite Alice in Chains albums if not one of my favorite albums overall. My only complaint is that they didn't perform "Man in the Box."

Brad - Welcome to Discovery Park
Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam is in a band "on the side" called Brad. A friend of mine gave me a mix containing a song called "The Day Brings" off one of their albums and I thought it was great. After listening to some samples on iTunes and discovering that I could get the CD "used" on Amazon.com for $0.69 + shiping, I decided to splurge. The result is a nice mellow CD. Vocalist Shawn Smith has a great, distinctive voice.

Liberal Bias or Database Software?

You decide. The Times had as its top story in the National, Washington, Science and Health sections that President Bush was threatening to veto a stem cell bill that was currently in Congress. Is this a database software issue, where the story was considered to be a part of all four sections? Or is it part of a liberal conspiracy to call out the President on his position on this issue, which is right of center?

MyGoogle

Looks like Google is adding a personalized homepage feature. Just part of their steps to becoming a portal services company. I'm still sticking by my prediction of Google IM.

Google also has what I consider to be a creepy serivce - the search history. Now I can track how many times I vanity search!

LifeDrive

I've had an idea for something like the LifeDrive, and I suppose it was only a matter of time before it got made. When it starts playing video and music, it will totally catch on.

Two Links

I will post two links
Audioslave's new CD
Google's new portal

Flashback to Episode 1

Interesting quote from George Lucas, who was asked whether or not Darth Vader should have been born "bad" in the first place.

"No," Lucas told The Associated Press. "That's why most people got upset about 'Episode I.' They said, 'Well, he should be a monster.' But he's not a monster. He has sort of heightened skills and awareness, and he's smarter than most people, but at the same time, he makes rather bad decisions."

Really? I thought most people got upset about Episode 1 because of "Jar Jar Binks," "bad acting" and because it was "boring."

A Quick Star Wars Episode 3 Post

It was good. Most of my nitpicks will spoil the movie so perhaps I'll deal with them another time. Overall, high action, and they cut the awful chatter that plagued Episode 2 short for the most part.

Fewer Updates

There will probably be fewer updates the next three weeks or so. I'm heading off to China on the 27th and will not be back until June 9th. In the meantime, it's a bit busy and so sadly there won't be too much happening.

One update you should expect to see is a non-spoiler review of Star Wars: Episode 3, Revenge of the Sith, which I will be seeing on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Also, down the line there should be a "Best" and "Worst" of the KFB in the works, another Yankees game in June and some words about the PS3 and Xbox 360. You can't wait, can you?

Eight Isn't Enough

Whoa!

Eight in a row? Sure, it's against the A's and M's but still, they're back at .500, and Tino's been hotter than hot. I would like to see how they respond with their upcoming games against the Mets and Boston.

Eight home runs in eight games? What a hot streak of hitting! Tino Martinez has sure made me look silly for saying to my friends that they would need to find someone to take his spot in the lineup by the end of the year.

Bad Start to Fantasy Baseball Season

At my fantasy draft, in the third round, when the team ahead of me selected Tim Hudson over Carlos Zambrano (the two best pitchers available at the time), I asked them, "Why Hudson over Zambrano? They're pretty similar in my eyes." The response was, "We just don't trust Dusty."

Maybe that's why their team is in fifth place and mine sits in sixth. Is it any surprise that after a 136 pitch game that the following happened?

From ESPN.com
Zambrano retired his first nine batters before running into trouble in the fourth and eventually leaving the game with what trainer Mark O'Neal called "tennis elbow." Baker said Zambrano will be re-evaluated Sunday.

Zambrano is my best pitcher and my team is dead last in K's. Dusty Baker may have been a bigger factor than I had thought.

Stand Up - Dave Matthews Band - Part 1

A future part will contain a bit of a review of the album.

This part will address the issue of the copy protection that is widely discussed all over the CD. I picked up the CD at Best Buy for $10 but I had a $5 coupon, and it made the CD $5, which is a great deal. But I was a little concerned that copy protection would make the CD unplayable on my iPod. The label says that the CD will only play on an "appropriately configured computer" and iTunes is not considered part of the "appropriate configuration."

So I put the CD in my computer and crosed my fingers hoping that iTunes would be able to play it and rip it. It did, no problems at all.

I was overcome by relief. I was curious about this issue and so I went to the website that the CD lists for help, http://www.sunncomm.com/support/bmg - here's what they have to say about the iPod:

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Can I transfer MediaMax digital audio files to my iPod?
Apple's proprietary technology doesn't support secure music formats other than their own, and therefore the secure music file formats on this disc can't be directly imported into iTunes or iPods.

While these discs aren't currently compatible with iTunes or iPod, we are actively working on an acceptable solution, and have reached out to Apple in hopes of addressing this issue. To help speed this effort, we ask that you use the following link to contact Apple and ask them to provide a solution that would easily allow you to move content from protected CDs into iTunes or onto your iPod: http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html

Even though there is no direct support on the disc for iTunes or iPod, SONY BMG has worked out a way for consumers to move content into these environments, despite the challenges noted above. If you'd like more information on how to move content to iTunes please CLICK HERE.
---

Well, I'm here to report that this is not true. Wondering why, I found this article that talks about using the shift-key to disable the copy protection. That's not what I did, but I have autorun disabled as a security default, and I think that did the trick.

Now a question is, have I done something illegal? After all, I own the CD, don't I have the right to turn it into MP3's? Seems to me it should be fine. It's the same thing I do with all my CD's, put it on the computer and listen to it on my iPod instead of a CD player. I'm still old school, preferring the jewel case and liner notes to having the digital copy.

The next part of this will contain info on the music.

Secretary of State Rice Goes to Iraq

I guess we can say that one sign of a country's safety is whether or not visiting officials from other countries have to announce their visits there or not.

Iraq? Not at that level of safety yet.

Filibuster

Changing the filibuster rules just to get some judges nominated is probably not a good idea. On the other hand, the filibuster is sort of a silly concept.

Regardless, here's an amusing article about an ongoing filibuster happening at Princeton. What I find particularly amusing about this is that most people complain that the government never gets anything done. But now, many people want to keep alive something that slows the government down. If that's the case, then the government must be doing something that people don't like.

Strange Days in NYC

There's a lot of strange news from New York City these days, with a wall crumbling onto the highway, horses running free in the streets and a fire on a train bridge all within the span of about a day.

Happy Birthday Blog

Happy Birthday Blog
Kitchen Fresh for one whole year
Hope it does not rot

A Brief Technology Rant

In this article, Bill Gates says that the iPod won't be able to sustain its music dominance. He said, "You can make parallels with computers: Apple was very strong in this field before, with its Macintosh and its graphics user interface -- like the iPod today -- and then lost its position."

Well, Mr. Gates, if you were to make parallels with computers, then you'd have to also include the fact that a certain company tried to copy everything interesting about the Macintosh and apply it to PC's. Does this mean that the same company plans to try and copy everything about the iPod?

Then, this article goes on to suggest that the cell phone will overtake the iPod because of all the great Microsoft media playing software that will be integrated into phones. I've had enough of all this "great Microsoft software." My phone is for making calls. It serves its function at an adaquate level. Do I really need Microsoft crap on it too? Could you imagine having to deal with phone viruses and trojans? The less my cell phone is like a computer, the better.

To The New York Times

Stop stealing story ideas from my blog. I know this thing is pretty amazing, but still, you can come up with your own angles!

Your graphic from May 12, 2005
My post from March 15, 2005

Expensive Toast

So a man tries to sell a piece of toast that he made a "drawing" on and when it gets a $15,000 bid and when the buyer doesn't pay up, he gets angry.

This is understandable, except I've sold a few things on eBay before, and you always have the option of selling to the next highest bidder, so I'm not sure exactly why this was such a problem for the seller.

"-at" Animals

I have just written a post about not liking cats, and then one about seeing some bats (who I find to be particularly frightening). Add "rats" to the list as well. I don't like rats. I believe that's 3/3 for "-ats."