Microsoft SURFACE. Bill Is Smart, Very Smart.

VERY COOL... But Billy G. demos the unit better...
To See Bill Gates demo the unit on the Today Show, click here.

This IS the coolest gadget since sliced bread. And NO, it hasn't been done LIKE THIS before. Perceptive Pixel makes you stand up while Tom Cruising, and won't let you set your scotch and soda down on it, and make your brother-in-law pay for it.

High-Tech Tattle-Tale Device Hits NYC Theaters

Every moviegoer has his or her theater etiquette pet peeve.

Whether it is a cell phone ringing or a baby screaming, there's always something that has the potential ruin your movie going experience.

Regal cinemas say you can now silence those interruptions with the Regal Guest Response System -- a virtual remote control to mute that annoying patron who's ruining your silver screen sanity. Theatre employees at Battery Park Stadium now handle that duty without patrons missing a second of film. A hand-held pager is given to a random member of the Regal Crown Club Loyalty Program who's attending each movie.

"If any situation does arise they can just press a button which goes directly to the pager which the manager will have and they'll signal it and they'll go right into the theater and handle the situation, this device can be used for more than just reporting loud patrons," Dematteis added. "It also can be used to report problems with the picture, sound and even piracy."

Regal Cinema says its never pinpoints the guest reporting the problems, and the successful program is now being used in 114 theaters across the country.(FROM WCBS-TV.COM)

Jet Powered Semi Truck Smokes P-51 Mustang

Time: 1:42 (Race begins 1 minute in.)

Life Changing Invention - Involving BEER

I wonder if Fed Ex can get me this by Sunday..
This rates a close 2nd place to Tivo for invention of the decade....
(forwarded to me by JT... keep the good clips comin', y'all...)

Tried Any of THESE blogs?

43Folders | 5 Blogs Before Lunch | ABC News | Blog Maverick | Boing Boing | Counterterrorism Blog | Daily Gut | Dave Barry | Deadspin | Diet Blog | Dlisted | Fimoculous | Financial Times | Fox News | Freakonomics | Gawker Media | GigaOm | Give Me My Remote | Gizmodo | Glitterati | Healthbolt | Hotline on Call | Instapundit | Lifehacker | Medgadget | Media Bistro | Paid Content | Pajamas Media | Perez Hilton | Pink Is The New Blog | Political Mavens | Popsugar | Power Line | Reuters Oddly Enough | SportsBlogs Nation | TechCrunch | Venture Beat | Wonkette

Season Finale Reviews - (Warning: Spoilers)

By now, everyone has caught up with their favorite TV shows in their Tivo Now Playing List, and I can comment on stuff....

LOST was.... AWWWWWWEEEEESSSOOOOOMMMMMEEEEE
That's AWESOME, for the ALL CAPS deficient readers... I got a little glassy when Charlie put his hand up against the glass and floated away.... Here's an interview with him about his thoughts on leaving the show... This was the BEST episode since the pilot.. Hurley running the Others down, Sayid snapping the guys neck..! I've wanted the Others to meet their doom in horrific ways, and they did! And the FLASH-FORWARD of Jack caught me off guard....
--------------------------
I will miss The King Of Queens, consistently the funniest show on TV, but I understand everyone needed to move on.. Douglas Heffernen was quite the character... let's wrestle!
---------------------------
I will also miss THE CLASS... I forgot to mention that show when I ranted about all my other shows getting cancelled... How the hell do you cancel a show that is either 2nd or 3rd in its timeslot and is from the Producers of Friends? Frakking idiots!
---------------------------
Heroes was above average, but still a letdown...
--------------------------
Desperate Housewives was nice, and it wouldn't kill me if that uber-slut was still swinging from the rafters when next season fires up.
--------------------------
24... All I can say, is they cleaned up the slate, so Jack Bauer could end up ANYWHERE next season... Even Chloe could be gone.. That's fine... The show needs a new set of problems and characters.... Jack is just fine..
-------------------------
There are a few good shows coming on this and next week in case you go into TV withdrawal.... First and foremost is Traveler.. I saw it back in September (I have a client in the show)... The pilot was almost as rivoting as Lost.. It's on Wednesday nights on ABC... FIND IT..
ON THE LOT was pretty interesting.. Creature Comforts looks like a fun show.
Monk will start up again in about 3 weeks, as will Entourage (HBO). I'm beyond hooked on Battlestar Galactica... Now I know why it won a Peabody Award.. It's not a sci-fi show this time.... it is a drama that just happens to be in space... Netflix it to catch up.... Savor the last 5 episodes of Studio 60, on Thursday night.. We won't see writing this good again until ???

Steven About To Graduate 6th Grade

Where does time go?... sunrise, sunset... yada yada yada,,,, I made a quick clip showing a few shots of Steven from 2003 (2nd grade) to 2006... What about 2007? That'll be up here on Saturday....

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

If these two mortal enemies can... than any 2 can.

Clean FM channel finder for iPods

(From Gizmodo)
I hate (car) FM transmitters for iPods, but I think Belkin's new service might make me hate them a little bit less. The company today launched a website that tells you what FM stations are the cleanest (i.e. least active) in your area. I'd like to see this combined with Google Maps, so that I'd know when and where to switch channels along an 800-mile road trip.
--------------------
I caught the premiere of "On the Lot" a new reality show from Survivor creator Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg... I'm already hooked. 35 wanna-be directors vie for a shot at a contract with the Dreamworks Team.
---------------------
Season finales of Heroes and 24 were.... okay... not dreadful or rockin...
I hope Lost is better...
-------------------

Random um...Ramblings

These bricks appear to connect to the top AND bottom of a stack of bricks, without going up or down... (cue spooky music) Yoiks, Skoob!!! Let's get outa here!!


I got a heads-up from a relative saying
THERE IS A SCAM going around, where a man or men, will ask what perfume / cologne you wear and offer you a "similar scent" for much less, and produce a card for you to comparison sniff...
If you do, you'll get woozy and weak, as it IS ETHER. Don't fall for it.
------------------------------------------
ANN COULTER, On Jerry Falwell:
".......Actually, there was one small item I think Falwell got wrong regarding his statement after 9/11 that "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians — who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle — the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

First of all, I disagreed with that statement because Falwell neglected to specifically include Teddy Kennedy."
------------------------------------

If anyone reading this has ANY of these chairs / sofas, please don't invite me over... We just won't get along....

The Popular Science Awards are out this week for new gadgets / inventions...
Click here, to see VELCRO 2.0, and INFLATABLE SATELLITE DISHES.

Steven will be planting trees at the park tomorrow, on ARBOR DAY, to earn community service hours (No, he didn't get a DUI) his school requires 16 hours per school year...

Mercedes builds the WORLD's UGLIEST CAR, based on a tropical fish. Great drag coeeficient of 0.06 which, I read, is close to perfect, alongside a water droplet.

Easy Modification turns $5 flashlight into $95 flashlight

$10 Police Flashlight Hack! - video powered by Metacafe


from Lifehacker.com

Open Letter To CBS, NBC & ABC

Dear Dipshits!
You've screwed me over for the last time... I've endured cancellations of Surface and Invasion, both excellent, riveting OFF-BEAT dramas in 2005, lived thru HBO cancelling Deadwood,
wept (on the inside) at NBC being too freaking stupid to put Studio 60 on, on its NATURAL night, (WEDNESDAY AT 10!!! Same as West Wing..OMFG smell the coffee!!) and now find out CBS nukes Jericho, because they've "overloaded on serialized dramas."

For years, everyone yammered on about how every issue in life is neatly wrapped up in 30 or 60 minutes, and accuse the networks of dumbing down their content for us, and demand more challenging programming... So you suits at the nets give it to us.... and then, when we miss a week here and there, making the show drop 2% week to week in viewership.... you panic and pull the plug... and replace the show with a show that ALWAYS fares worse!!
You don't have the slightest clue what the hell you are doing... Admit it.

Go ahead and put new dumb-ass shows back on that insult our intelligence.. We have no attention span... Fans of Drive, Threshhold, and other non-typical shows should realize NBC WILL CANCEL current darling Heroes next season, when it drops more than 10%, because they are chicken shit suits... nothing more...They do NOT care about quality, they only care about numbers. You risk getting the rug pulled out from under you when you watch a series on an alphabet net... Super glue your tuner on the SCI-FI CHANNEL and USA... They stand by their shows...Yes, bring us more SKATING WITH THE CELEBRITIES...

Flat Tax Calculator

If you're wondering what you would pay in taxes with a flat tax, click here.
Single mom, with one kid, making $24,888 a year pays $635
Married high-middle income with one kid: makes $156,000 pays $21,437

24 Producers To Change The Show...

With ratings in decline, and fans suffering from plot vertigo, the doom sayers of the media have begun picking the carcass of the once indestructible 24. While I pretty much agree that, despite its intensely cinematic beginning, season six has kind of lost me, I'm willing to give 24 the benefit of the doubt. Yes, the main plot ended early and some, including producer David Fury, consider that a mistake, but let's face it, the idea that all global political / terrorist crises last exactly 24 hours tests the bounds of reason.

24 has become a cliche of itself. Jack Bauer killing friends, or family, has become an expectation anticipated with mockery. The parade of ludicrous deaths has become more of a low rent cabaret of cartoon violence. The character turns have become so telegraphed, they exemplify satire in the theater of the absurd.

And the season is varnished with missed opportunities. Morris having to deal with contributing to a second nuclear explosion would have made much more interesting grounds for character development than having him half heartedly teeter on the brink of 'falling off the wagon', particularly since his alcoholism is something we have no experience with.

But fear not, hope is on the way. Both Fury and Howard Gordon acknowledged, in separate interviews, that 24 was due for a complete remodeling. In a New York Times interview, Gordon went as far as to say "I don't dispute it's been a challenging season to write for us, but it's reinvigorated our determination to reinvent the show. This year could be seen to be the last iteration of it in its current state." A statement that defies the fact that the producers knew their formula's days - or hours - were numbered.

Ten Things NOT To Say To A Cop

NEVER SAY TO A COP
1. I can't reach my license unless you hold my beer. (OK in Texas )
2. Sorry, Officer, I didn't realize my radar detector wasn't plugged in.
3. Aren't you the guy from the Village People?
4. Are You Andy or Barney?
5. I thought you had to be in relatively good physical condition to be a police officer.
6. You're not gonna check the trunk, are you?
7. Gee, Officer! That's terrific. The last officer only gave me a warning, too!
8. Do you know why you pulled me over? O kay, just so one of us does.
9. I was trying to keep up with traffic. Yes, I know there are no other cars around.. Tha t's how far ahead of me they are.
10. When the Officer says " Your eyes look red, have you been drinking?"
You probably shouldn't respond with,"Gee Officer your eyes look glazed, have you been eating doughnuts?"

1/2 Price Solar Energy by 2009.. Thank You

A new mechanism for focusing light on small areas of photovoltaic material could make solar power in residential and commercial applications cheaper than electricity from the grid in most markets in the next few years. Initial systems, which can be made at half the cost of conventional solar panels, are set to start shipping later this year, says Brad Hines, CTO and founder of Soliant Energy, a startup based in Pasadena, CA, that has developed the new modules.

Concentrating sunlight with mirrors or lenses on a small area cuts the costs of solar power in part by reducing the amount of expensive photovoltaic material needed. But while concentrated solar photovoltaic systems are attractive for large-scale, ground-based solar farms for utilities, conventional designs are difficult to mount on rooftops, where most residential and commercial customers have space for solar panels. The systems are typically large and heavy, and they're mounted on posts so that they can move to track the sun, which makes them more vulnerable to gusts of wind than ordinary flat solar panels are.

Soliant has designed a solar concentrator that tracks the sun throughout the day but is lighter and not pole-mounted. The system fits in a rectangular frame and is mounted to the roof with the same hardware that's used for conventional flat solar panels. Yet the devices will likely cost half as much as a conventional solar panel, says Hines. A second-generation design, which concentrates light more and uses better photovoltaics, could cost a quarter as much. He says that a more advanced design should be ready by 2010.

The Soliant design combines both lenses and mirrors to create a more compact system. Each module is made of rows of aluminum troughs, each about the width and depth of a gutter. These troughs are mounted inside a rectangular frame and can tilt in unison from side to side to follow the sun. Each trough is enclosed on top with a clear acrylic lid. Inside each trough, a strip of silicon photovoltaic material runs along the bottom. As light enters, some of it reflects off the inside surface of the trough and reaches the strip of silicon. The rest of the incoming light is focused on the strip by a lens incorporated into the acrylic lid.

The TIVO :30 Hack

TIVO 30 Second Skip

TiVo provides a “secret” (shh, don’t tell) code for enabling a 30 second skip. This "hack" temporarily changes the behavior of one button, making it jump :30 instead of jump to end of show.....

TiVo Platforms:

• Series1, Series2, Series3, DirecTV

Directions:

• Play a TiVo recording
• On your remote hit Select, Play, Select, 3, 0, Select
• Press the ->| button each time you want to go ahead 30 secs.
  
• Live life commercial free
• 4 more "hacks" that don't void your warranty, etc... avail here..
  

Good Talk Radio Available

Now streaming on the web... good radio talk shows....
Dennis Prager http://www2.krla870.com/listen/
A Democrat until 1990, He has converted many liberals to Conservatism using calm, clear passionate logic. He is a must-listen for any friends you have who HATE conservatives, such as Rush. He is the antidote to the pompous windbag, Thom Hartman, on Air America.


Michael Medved http://www2.krla870.com/listen/
He allows a ton of people who disagree with him on, creating pretty lively arguments.. discussions.

Bill Handel www.kfi640.com

-----------------------------------------------------------
Wanna see Time's List of the 50 Coolest Websites?
http://www.time.com/time/2006/50coolest/index.html
-----------------------------------------
Once Again.... By Popular Demand...
the LIBERAL MIND.. spelled out so a fifth grader can understand.

What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice. Those who occupy this world are “workers,” “minorities,” “the little guy,” “women,” and the “unemployed.” They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” U.S. Imperialists,” “the oppressors,” “the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”

The liberal cure for this endless malaise is a very large authoritarian government that regulates and manages society through a cradle to grave agenda of redistributive caretaking. It is a government everywhere doing everything for everyone. The liberal motto is “In Government We Trust.” To rescue the people from their troubled lives, the agenda recommends denial of personal responsibility, encourages self-pity and other-pity, fosters government dependency, promotes sexual indulgence, rationalizes violence, excuses financial obligation, justifies theft, ignores rudeness, prescribes complaining and blaming, denigrates marriage and the family, legalizes all abortion, defies religious and social tradition, declares inequality unjust, and rebels against the duties of citizenship. -- Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD

Special Bulletin

Special Bulletin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Pentagon announced today the formation of a new 500-man elite fighting unit called the United States

Redneck Special Forces.
These Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas boys will be dropped off into Iraq and have been given only the following facts about terrorists:

1. The season opened today.
2. There is no limit.
3. They taste just like chicken.
4. They don't like beer, pickups, country music or Jesus.
5. They are all gay.
6. They are DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for the death of Dale Earnhardt.

The Pentagon expects the problem in Iraq to be over by Friday.
(Sent in by Jan via Bill Y.)

Research & Development

COOL: 3D Printers Almost Ready To Invade Our Homes.

COOLER: Plug in Hybrid Chevy Volt Scheduled for 2010.
Pictured below... looks a tad cooler than a Prius.











The last news heard from the General on the plug-in hybrid Volt was they were having some serious problems with the battery systems -- i.e., they hadn't invented them yet. So I guess many are a little dubious of the claim this week made by Automotive News they're eyeballing a 2010 date for a vehicle to hit the streets.

COOLEST:

A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind.

No Special Hardware - Use any USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod/MP3 player, etc

No Additional Software - Just download the portable app, extract it and go

No Kidding - It's that easy

Consider the Possibilities...

• Carry your web browser with all your favorite bookmarks (surf at the airport on a Zune)
  
• Carry your calendar with all your appointments
• Carry your email client with all your contacts and settings
• Carry your instant messenger and your buddy list
  
• Carry your whole office suite along with your documents and presentations
• Carry your antivirus program and other computer utilities
  
• Carry all your important passwords and account information securely
  

Consider the Convenience...

• Have your favorite websites handy to recommend to a friend or colleague
• Have your presentation AND the required software ready to go for that big meeting
• Have your password with you if you want to bank online while traveling
  
• Have utilities handy when visiting family or friends that are having PC problems

I recommend the VLC Portable Media Player. Ever gotten an email with a video that your PC can't figure out how to play? Open it with VLC.. It WILL play.

Santa Clarita Named Calif. Best City

Santa Clarita Voted Best Place to Live in California

CNN Money has a list out of the top 100 places to live in the Unites States. Santa Clarita is number #18 on the list and the highest ranked California city. Simi Valley came in at #35. The overall winner was Fort Collins, CO.

One thing I noticed is that Santa Clarita’s leisure and culture category shows that we are below average as compared to all the other ‘best places to live’. We need more movie theatres, bars and restaurants. We need more stuff to do around here.

I'm fortunate to have lived in both Ft. Collins and Santa Clarita for a combined 14 years.. No wonder I've rarely HAD to take a vacation.

Regardless, this is a great place to live. It’s a friendly community that is clean and safe. I wouldn’t want to raise my kids anywhere else. As a resident of about 9 years, I have to concur with CNN.

Criss Angel: Master Magician

Looks like David Blaine has competition.

USEFUL SITES UPDATED: Gas Prices

If you haven't checked lately, I've begun adding some useful LINKS to keep you coming back here daily offer a public service. The latest add, found below on the right of the screen...... is Best GAS Prices.. I checked in Denver (80217) prices ranged from 2.92 to 3.33, (41 cent swing!)
In Valencia, CA it ranges from $3.33 to $3. 57

Prisoners Train Dogs For War Vets

This is the first GOOD idea to come out of Massechusetts in about 30 years...
Check out this story... See, I don't ALWAYS bring bad news to the table...

Don't Call Islam Violent, Our We'll Kill You

From Mark Steyn's Website:

As Tasnim Aslam of the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad helpfully clarified, “Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence.” So don’t say we’re violent or we’ll kill you. As I wrote in National Review at the time, quod erat demonstrandum.

But that’s a debating society line. Islam isn’t interested in winning the debate, it’s interested in winning the real fight – the clash of civilizations, the war, society, culture, the whole magilla. That’s why it doesn’t care about the inherent contradictions of the argument: in the Middle East early in 2002, I lost count of the number of Muslims I met who believed simultaneously (a) that 9/11 was pulled off by the Mossad and (b) that it was a great victory for Islam. Likewise, it’s no stretch to feel affronted at the implication that you’re violently irrational and to threaten to murder anyone who says so. Western societies value logic because we value talk, and talks, and talking, on and on and on: that’s pretty much all we do, to the point where, faced with any challenge from Darfur to the Iranian nuclear program, our objective is to reduce the issue to just something else to talk about interminably. But, if you don’t prize debate and you merely want to win, getting hung up on logic is only going to get in your way. Take the most devastating rapier wit you know – Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward – and put him on a late-night subway train up against a psycho with a baseball bat. The withering putdown, the devastating aphorism will avail him nought.

The quality of your argument is only important if you want to win by persuasion. But it’s irrelevant if you want to win by intimidation. I’m personally very happy to defend my columns in robust debate, but after five years I’m a bit bored by having to respond to Muslim groups’ demands (in America) that I be fired and (in Canada) that I be brought before the totalitarian-lite kangaroo courts of the country’s ghastly “human rights commissions”. Publishers like hate-mail; they’re less keen on running up legal bills defending nuisance suits. So it’s easier just to avoid the subject – as an Australian novelist recently discovered when his book on a, ah, certain topical theme was mysteriously canceled.

That’s the advantage of madness as a strategy. If one party to the dispute forswears sanity, then the obligation is on the other to be sane for both of them. Thus, if a bunch of Iranian pirates kidnap some British seamen in Iraqi waters, it is the British whom the world calls on to show restraint and to defuse the situation. If an obscure Danish newspaper prints some offensive cartoons and in reaction Muslims murder people around the planet, well, that just shows we all need to be more sensitive about Islamophobia. But, if Muslims blow up dozens of commuters on the London Underground and in reaction a minor talk-show host ventures some tentative remarks about whether Islam really is a religion of piece, well, that also shows we all need to be more sensitive about Islamophobia. Do this long enough and eventually you’ll achieve the exquisite sensitivity of the European Union’s Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia. In 2003, their report on the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe found that “many anti-Semitic incidents were carried out by Muslim and pro-Palestinian groups”, and so (according to The Daily Telegraph) a “political decision” was taken not to publish it because of “fears that it would increase hostility towards Muslims”.

Got that? The EU’s principal “fear” about an actual ongoing epidemic of hate crimes against Jews is that it could hypothetically provoke an epidemic of hate crimes against Muslims.

And so the more the enemies of free society step on our feet the more we tiptoe around. After the release of the Royal Navy hostages, the Right Reverend Tom Burns, Roman Catholic Bishop of the Armed Forces, praised the Iranians for their “forgiveness”. “Over the past two weeks,” said the Bishop, “there has been a unity of purpose between Britain and Iran, whereby everyone has sought justice and forgiveness.”

Really? In what alternative universe is that? Maybe the insanity is contagious. As the columnist Jack Kelly wrote, “The infidels Allah wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.” And so these twin psychoses – Islamist rage and our determination never to see it – continue their valse macabre on the brink of catastrophe.