I watched the first quarter of the Superbowl, and was less than thrilled. Apparently there have been a few scores since then, but … *yawn* … I’m not sure I care.

i saw the commercial in which the kids sued by the RIAA for downloading music (losers sued by losers, apparently) are promoting Pepsi, which is promoting iTunes. It’s all rather convoluted.

It seemed kinda cool at first, but after reading the Tune Recycler web site, it appears that there some rather significant misinformation floating around about this whole situation.

Sure, the RIAA are slime, but it’s not entirely clear to me that iTunes is much more than the RIAA’s sexy marketing arm. Kinda like the Microsoft Booth Babes.

But, given that I seldom buy music anyway, I can’t say I’m too terribly concerned one way or the other.

But, if you do drink Pepsi, consider giving your bottle caps to the Tune Recycler. It seems like a Good Thing to do.

I went over to help Basil move some stuff, but ended up having not nearly as much time to help as I thought I would have. He gave me two book cases. One of them was too long to fit in the Jeep, so I had to take the top down. So, there I am, 3 degrees below zero, driving the Jeep with the top down and a bookcase sticking out.

I can now say authoritatively that it is a Bad Idea to drive with the top down when it is below zero. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Fortunately, I didn’t have very far to go, and stashed the bigger bookcase in my Dad’s garage.

The other one, I brought home (having replaced the top on the Jeep) and it is already full.I’m glad I got two. But for the first time in more than a year, I have no books sitting on the floor. Just barely.

I wonder if I can bill phydeaux for all the time spent on the silly things he recommends and that I waste hours on. (I’d put more here, but they appear to have been mentioned in IRC, and I can’t find them. 😛

Some day, I will do this. 55-day safari from Nairobi to Cape Town. I remember seeing the folks that were on these trips. They always looked filthy, tired, unkempt, and happy.

I discovered Ken’s List o’ Books today. Like I need anything to add to my list, which isn’t even complete, since I got that 13-volume set of classic literature last year. Sheesh.

I suppose it’s ok to be doomed never to finish my reading list. I suppose that’s better than the alternative, which would be having to read every piece of tripe that makes it onto the New York Times list.

A while back, I posted something about the Time Cube folks. For some reason, there’s been some discussion there, between one of the Time Cube fanatics and some other guy. It’s interesting reading.

What’s fascinating about this stuff is that, if you really read it, they’re not saying anything even remotely original. They’re saying, if I understand it, that at any given time, it’s noon somewhere, midnight somewhere, sunrise somewhere, and sunset somewhere. Well, yeah, we’ve known that for several centuries, at the very least.

But, by phrasing things in confusing circular sentences, they make it appear either more elevated, or more insane, depending on your perspective.

Take this sentence, for example:

If you had not been educated stupid, you would recognise that the Earth rotates between the opposite parameters of North and South poles.

OK, so what are they saying here? That the earth rotates, pivoted at the north and south pole. Yeah. Every first grader knows that. But, by phrasing it as they have, they are intentionally causing you to react negatively to it. Why? I can’t imagine.

The vast majority of their points are like this. They say obvious things, and then claim that the whole world disagrees with them. Fascinating reading, really. What we seem to have here is a scientist with no original ideas, but with an irrational feeling that the whole world is against him.

And, if his presentation ever lacks clarity, it’s because words themselves are evil and stupid. This works both ways, too. If you to happen to understand what he’s saying, then you really didn’t understand, because you are evil and stupid. This permits him to evade having to explain anything, and it evades anyone discovering that he’s not really saying anything profound.

Couching the entire debate in terms of everyone being STUPID AND EVIL, and putting everything ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS, they manage to elevate a few trite statements to the realm of religious warfare. You know, it really makes me wonder if this guy isn’t just a psychologist doing an elaborate experiment.

Nah, he’s probably just a looney.

I might just need to get one of these and start taking it to meetings.

Nathan has some cool mittens/gloves, and then MHG went and posted something about his. So I just could not resist any more, and I got some.

These are the most wonderful gloves (or mittens) that I have ever had. They are mittens when I need them to be, and then I can use my fingers when I need to. And they are warmer than any mittens (or gloves) I’ve ever had.

Today was Sarah’s first day in her new swimming class.

While there there was another class going on with much smaller kids. One little guy suddenly plunged headlong from the side of the pool and disappeared from sight. About 1/28 of a second later, his father plunged in after him, fully dressed, complete with his pager, cell phone, and WinCE handheld computer. He came up with the kid, crying but unhurt, while the life guards were still trying to figure out what was going on.

After things calmed down, he borrowed a towell and disappeared into the changing room.

I spoke to him afterwards, and asked him if his hardware survived. He said that none of it had. but that he didn’t regret what he did. He’d thought about what he might do in a situation came up, and so when it did, there was no need to hesitate, and he knew exactly what he needed to do.

Way to go, dad!

There. I said it. EBay is of the Devil. It’s an evil, wicked, unholy addiction. The entire site is geared to get people to buy stuff that they don’t need or want, at completely unjustified prices.

Oh, wait, that’s how our entire economy works. I forgot.

I’ve been looking for a decent compass that didn’t cost a fortune, and I found a “Military style compass”, which I bought for $0.01. Which makes me wonder, what’s going to be wrong with it when it shows up? Will it be the size of a pencil eraser? Will it point SSE? Will it even arrive?

Next, why do they assume that if I just bought one X that I’m sure to want 48 more Xs? I suppose they must have good results with this approach, or they would not do it. Perhaps a lot of collectors shop on ebay. Dunno. I just know that the few times I have gone shopping on ebay, I’ve ended up with stuff that I didn’t really want, and paid way too much for it.