As of right now, I’ve only had a few sprinkles… but it looks like that’ll change:

Well this is another first for me: a tropical storm wind warning.   From the National Weather Service:

TROPICAL STORM HANNA LOCAL STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA
1207 PM EDT SAT SEP 6 2008

…TROPICAL STORM WIND WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 AM EDT SUNDAY…

…WINDS…
SUSTAINED SOUTH WINDS OF 10 TO 15 MPH ARE EXPECTED TO RAPIDLY SHIFT EAST AND INCREASE TO 25 TO 35 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 50 MPH BETWEEN 7 AND 10 PM TONIGHT. THE STRONGEST WINDS WILL BE MAINLY BETWEEN 10 PM AND 3 AM. THE WIND SHOULD SHIFT TO THE NORTH AND START TO DECREASE BETWEEN 4 AND 6 AM.

…PROBABILITY OF HURRICANE/TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS…
FOR HARTFORD CT…
THERE IS A 36 PERCENT CHANCE OF WINDS 34 KT /39 MPH/ OR GREATER… MOST LIKELY TO BEGIN BETWEEN 8 PM SAT AND 8 AM SUN.

…INLAND FLOODING…
TOTAL RAINFALL THIS WEEKEND OF 3 TO 6 INCHES…WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS UP TO 8 INCHES…IS EXPECTED. THIS COULD LEAD TO FLASH FLOODING OF URBAN OR LOW-LYING…POOR-DRAINAGE AREAS. MINOR RIVER FLOODING OF A FEW OF THE LARGER TRIBUTARIES IS POSSIBLE TONIGHT INTO SUNDAY.

(Nod: Patrick)

Variety reports:

Columbia Pictures is getting serious about scaring up a new installment of its blockbuster “Ghostbusters” franchise.

The studio has set “The Office” co-exec producers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky to write a script for a film designed to bring back together the original cast of Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson.

I couldn’t believe this when I read it. One of my favorite movies growing up.

Just Another iPhone Blog is reporting that EA is developing NINE new iPhone/iPod Touch games:

• Yahtzee Adventures
• Mini Golf
• Lemonade Tycoon
• Mahjong
• Monopoly: Here & Now The World Edition
• SimCity
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’09
• Need for Speed Undercover
• Sims 3

I’ve been wanting a Yahtzee game, and I can’t believe the Sims and SimCity are coming.   My only concern is battery life!

Well, it’s been a long while since I’ve posted anything. After a long hiatus, I’m back.

Depending on how you came into the site, you probably noticed some changes. The root of my site is no longer my portfolio. Since I am not regularly updating it (and in fact haven’t updated it since last year), my portfolio is a separate section. My blog has now taken over my website.

In the coming weeks, I will be abandoning my hand-coded blog in favor of a WordPress-driven blog. This will give me more flexibility and freedom. My hand-coded blog has worked for me thus far, but it’s time to move on.

So, I’m back, and welcome back to you, too.

Well, I was supposed to leave today for Paris by way of Newark. The problem is, however, Newark was blasted with snow. So here I am, still at home, not going anywhere today. I’m supposed to leave tomorrow now by way of Houston. And the Houston to Paris flight is 12 hours and 25 minutes. Oh am I looking forward to that!

The good thing, though, is at least I didn’t get stuck in the Newark airport for two days. Yikes!

So here’s to snow-free travels tomorrow!

I should (or at least I’m hoping I will) have access to The Internets whilst in France, so I will keep the blog updated with my adventures.

I love YouTube. :-)

Who knew Matt Damon could sing and dance.

Update: Some back-story video clips via Coming Soon:

During the third season of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” the host started closing his shows with, “Apologies to Matt Damon, we ran out of time,” even though the actor was never scheduled to come on the show. Damon finally appeared as a guest in September of 2006, but after a lengthy introduction by Kimmel, the actor sat down and Kimmel said they ran out of time which “infuriated” Damon. Kimmel then sent Guillermo, his sidekick, to the red carpet at the Ocean’s 13 premiere, and also “bumped” Damon from The Bourne Ultimatum by putting Guillermo in the role. On Thursday (1.31.08), it was payback time for Damon, as Sarah Silverman (Kimmel’s real-life girlfriend) showed a clip on the show featuring a song with Damon.

One of the best political messages I’ve ever seen:

By now, you’ve probably heard of or most likely received the viral email claiming Barack Obama is a closet Muslim, and that we all should take heed at a possible Obama presidency. I received this email yesterday. Here it is:

Who is Barack Obama ? Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHIEST from Wichita, Kansas. Obama’s parents met at the University of Hawaii. When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia. When Obama was! 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a Catholic school. Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, “He was “once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school.” Obama’s political handlers are attempting to make it appear that his introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary, at best. But,in reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son’s education. Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran. Let us all remain alert concerning Obama’s expected presidential candidacy. The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from “the inside out”. What better way to start than at the highest level – through the President of the United States being one of their own !!!! Please forward this to everyone you know. Do you want this man leading our country?…… Very interesting and something that should be considered in your choice. If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts…this is very scarey to think of what lies ahead of us here in our own United States…better heed this and pray about it and share it.

Since most people when forwarding emails don’t put all their recipients’ address in the BCC field, I had several email addresses throughout the forwarded email chain. So, I decided to send an email to everyone on the list. Here was my response:

Most of you receiving this email do not know who I am. Who I am does not matter; what I have to say, however, does. If you do not know me and wonder where I obtained your email address from, I obtained it from a forwarded email-chain.

The scurrilous email in question purports that Senator Barack Obama is a Muslim intent on destroying the United States from “the inside out.” Interesting, though, that each one of the many fallacious claims are not supported by any evidence or citation, an obvious red flag.

The email is meant only to scare people, and in forwarding it to others and not verifying its contents, we have validated the intent and purpose of this email. If we have two minutes to forward these types of unverified and unsupported emails to our friends and family, surely we have two minutes to perform a simple Google search.

Performing a quick search on “Obama Muslim” is highly enlightening. The first search result, curiously, is a sponsored link (meaning the site it links to paid for the link to be there) from the Obama campaign website. It is ridiculous that the campaign has to spend time and resources refuting these inaccurate claims.

If the numerous quotes and facts on the campaign website are not enough to dispel the rumors, though, then the following two articles are. Snopes, a website dedicated to verifying and debunking urban legends and myths, debunks the original email.

The second article deals with the so-called “madrassa” Obama attended in Indonesia. A CNN reporter actually visited the school to prove this claim false. Watch the reporter’s story and read the article.

Finally, the claim that Obama was sworn into the U.S. Senate on the Koran is also unfounded. Obama was not sworn in on a Koran, but Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota was.

This Obama email smear is the same disgusting type of smear campaign that was waged against Senator Max Cleland in Georgia while running for reelection in 2002 and Senator John McCain in South Carolina while running for president in 2000. Cleland, a Vietnam veteran who lost two legs and one arm in the war, was accused of being anti-American; McCain, who has an adopted Bangladeshi daughter, was accused of fathering an illegitimate African-American child. In both of these previous cases and now, too, in the Obama case, the unidentified accusers are incapable of mounting a substantive issues-based campaign against their targets, so instead, the accusers resort to despicable and monumentally false character smears.

Perhaps we can write this off as “politics as usual.” Sure, this is what hardball politics has come to in the United States. But we owe it to ourselves and to each other to put an end to this type of politics and instead engage in a new kind of politics. Instead of politics of fear, let us embrace politics of hope.

Please, in the future, instead of spreading lies and validating shameless fear tactics, spread truth; spread hope. This country and this world could use a heavy dose of both.

JibJab does a 2007 Annual Report on Humanity:

For anyone deciding who to support for president, the New York Times has a handy candidate guide to help you out. Check it out!

“They said this day would never come.” Well, it came. Obama bests Edwards by 8, Clinton by 9.

Because we’re all crooks according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), our music overlords. In a brief dated 7 December 2007, a lawyer for the RIAA argues that copying music from a legally purchased CD to the purchaser’s personal computer amounts to a “unauthorized copy.”

Back in 2004, recording labels started placing the new FBI Anti-piracy warning on CDs:

The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Interesting, though, that no one bothers to explicitly define what an “unauthorized reproduction” is. The RIAA website, the brief above, and one other specific site the RIAA FAQ section links to simply mentions “unauthorized” copying, but conveniently neglects to define it. RIAA Faq section:

11. How is downloading music different from copying a personal CD?Record companies have never objected to someone making a copy of a CD for their own personal use. We want fans to enjoy the music they bought legally. But both copying CDs to give to friends and downloading music illegally rob the people who created that music of compensation for their work. […]

For more on what the law says about copying CDs, click HERE

Clicking on “HERE” leads you to this site. From MusicUnited:

It’s okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes. It’s also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R’s, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) but, again, not for commercial purposes.Beyond that, there’s no legal “right” to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as:

• The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
• The copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use in fact, it’s illegal to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.

More covering-their-asses obfuscation: “won’t usually raise concerns.” But this statement from MusicUnited directly contradicts the December RIAA brief. Our copying-to-our-computer-for-personal-usage (like uploading music on an iPod) nonetheless amounts to “unauthorized” copying, thus apparently USUALLY raising a concern.

It seems to me that the RIAA’s crusade against personal usage amounts to ice sculpting with your fingernails. Illegal downloading is going to continue, but the RIAA should pursue legal action against the companies and websites that facilitate this and the heavy downloaders who engage in this (not those who shared 24 songs). To pretend that legal copying for personal use is “concerning” is just as dangerous as it is ridiculous.

Happy New Year! May you enjoy a healthy and prosperous new year!

Why biofuels like ethanol are not the solution to the looming energy crisis:

The nation’s corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer. And when that nitrogen runs off fields in Corn Belt states, it makes its way to the Mississippi River and eventually pours into the Gulf, where it contributes to a growing “dead zone” a 7,900-square-mile patch so depleted of oxygen that fish, crabs and shrimp suffocate.

Wow.

The song is “Wizards in Winter” by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Star Wars Holiday Special in five minutes!

Internet Explorer has a shoddy record with following web standards, and that includes the proper displaying of PNG images. BUT, rest assured, there is a hack work-around to enable PNG to work properly in IE6: AlphaImageLoader. I haven’t tried this yet, but it looks pretty interesting.

Do you like to make crafts? Do you like pop-up cards? If so, then check out this tutorial on how to make a Christmas tree pop-up card. I tried it out, and the card is super easy to make and the instructions very easy to follow.

(Nod: Talking Points Memo)

(Nod: AmericaBlog)

(Nod: The Daily Dish)