David Sarno for the L.A. Times:

Despite a flurry of lobbying by arch rival Microsoft Corp., the council agreed to shut down the city’s in-house messaging system and transfer e-mail operations for its 30,000 employees to Google’s nationwide network of servers.

And Councilman Tony Cardenas:

“The city of Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the nation, made a world-class decision today to support a state-of-the-art e-mail system.”

My school supplies all students with an email address powered by Google. There have been zero problems up to this point.

Among the biggest drawbacks to any smartphone meant to rival the iPhone is that none of them can use iTunes to manage music.

Salling Software’s got a pretty cool looking piece of software that addresses this problem. I haven’t tried it, but the idea is really appealing. And it might help convince my dad to get a Droid.

Marguerite Reardon for CNET:

It’s clear that the Droid is targeted at people looking for an alternative to the iPhone. And Verizon is planning the biggest media campaign it has ever launched for the device.

Which is all well and good, but advertising does not make a good product. If this phone’s a dud, especially after all the hype, I think it might relegate Android to permanent also-ran status, no matter how good future phones can be.

Not that I hope this happens. It’s actually the first phone besides the iPhone that excites me. I want my dad (who has to use Verizon because no other company gets reception where he works) to get one of these guys.

Also worth noting: to the best of my knowledge, there is no phone-free Android device available. That is, Apple’s got the iPhone, but it’s also got the iPod Touch. A no-phone Android device might be cool.

From the N.Y. Times:

One of their television ads warns that in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2003, some teachers answer “thoroughly and explicitly” when students ask about gay sex.

Oh my goodness. Teachers answering questions. My policy as a parent is that if the girl can ask a question, I can answer it. What I hear the opposition arguing here is this: if parents wont educate their kids, it’s not the place of teachers to educate the kids, either. So let’s use the Internet!

I also postulate that the word explicitly was used simply to generate horror. As the son of a teacher, and the friend of a bunch of teachers, I find it extremely unlikely that any contentious teacher would talk in terms of porno to a student, no matter what the question is.

Why it keeps this battle going is beyond me. Not to belittle the crappiness that gays are going through, it reminds me of the battle between Arial and Helvetica: People can use either, and most people wont notice. However, the people who will notice will be stoked that Helvetica was chosen. So it goes with gay marriage: it wont affect non-gays either way, and it’ll make gay people very happy. Can somebody who cares explain why it’s worth fighting against gay marriage?

Cynthia Ozick:

If we had to say what writing is, we would define it essentially as an act of courage.

(iTunes link) Two songs: Land of the Dead and Twilight of the Dead. Excellent artwork. And the songs are cool, too! They sound good next to both Michale Graves and Glenn Danzig era Misfits songs. Twilight, though, is the better song.

Historically, the human story is conflict, and its record is written by the winners. We are therefore living in a very special and unique time. For History is written as it happens — or it has been for the last 158 years, anyhow.

The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages (Amazon link) is a humbling chronicle ¹  which tells at least three histories: that of the world, that of graphic design, and a record of what the editors thought was the big news of the day.

Never before in human history have we had such a unique view of the past as we do now. Armed with nothing more than this book, we can travel back in time through 160 years of the most important events the planet has on record. We can look back over 160 years of forgotten people and incidents that were important at the time, but were eventually ground to dust in the gears of history’s clock.

We also have a history of one of the United States of America’s most important news reporting institutions. The book is fascinating if only to flip through the montage of pages watching the column width change, the typeface evolve, watch the experimentation with engravings lead to photos eventually becoming commonplace.

The older pages, when the newspaper was still new and figuring out how to be a newspaper at all, are my favorites. For instance, the text, “Vote for Roosevelt; don’t throw your vote away on Hewitt,” decorates the right-hand side of October 26, 1886’s front page. It’s written in the largest type the New York Times had ever seen, excepting the logo.

May 19, 1889 saw the first paid ad on the front page. The ad was placed, somehow appropriately, by R.H. Macy & Co.

While maps and other line-art had graced the front page over the years, the first full-blown photo appeared on April 16, 1912. The Titanic had sunk. A huge photo of the ocean-liner sits front and center, under a huge headline; below the fold is a photo of Captain E. J. Smith. It’s this page, I think, that really led to modern newspaper design, though the Times wouldn’t revisit that design again for months.  ² 

The whole photography issue is kind of underscored by the fact that November 11, 1918 marked the end of the Great War, and there was no photo, no map, no art of any kind on the front page. Only text, and a four-line headline.

One could probably base an academic career on nothing but the history of the New York Times. There’s at least one community college class held in these pages, and I could go on and on listing firsts for the paper, pointing out unique little idiosyncrasies over the years.

The book is not only physically huge, but comes with three DVDs loaded with other, extra content. Full articles, front pages that didn’t make it into the printed book, and other goodies. The book itself is broken up into quite a few different eras, often with a thoughtful introduction by somebody associated with the Times, and always with a thumbnail view of some of the more notable front pages of the era with a little description of why they’re notable.

The book and accompanying DVDs are a quality product from the binding and paper selection; from the print-quality PDFs and simple navigation; all the way down to the history it chronicles. I’d love to take (teach?) the potential class. It’d be the most unique history class our college has ever seen.

.

.

·   ·   •   ·   ·

.

Fairfax County Police spokesperson:

Because this was being spun into a national story, and the idea you can’t be naked in your own house– we wanted to come forward and say in this case our officers believed there was probable cause the law had been violated.

A lot of new stuff has come to light, man. Also, re-read that quote. It’s junior college at its best.

Fake ad that points out exactly the problem Democrats are having right now in the House and Senate: they are wimps, and it makes me ashamed. The ad is hilarious, though.

It’s old news, but I thought I’d give my 2¢ anyway.

VW’s got some new cars, and as part of their ad campaign, they released a free version of Firemint’s Real Racing that’s got the two new VW cars (three colors each; wow!) and three tracks to race on and that’s it. The game is absolutely badass, and I’ll buy the full version on payday.

I think it’s pretty cool that both companies did this. Firemint’s gonna make $7 because I like this short version of their game so much so much, and I’d never have had any idea VW had new cars without this little trick.

It’s from Best Buy, which is too bad, but a package like this is killer anyway.

Disclaimer 1: As with any general rule, there are exceptions. I am making a blanket, general rule here, and acknowledge that it does not apply to everybody.

Disclaimer 2: This opinion is falls apart if you don’t believe that evolution is what really got us here in the first place.

With that out of the way, here we go.

Guys get turned on, sexually, in a very real, reactive way. That is, we look websites we wouldn’t want our moms to see ¹  and parts of our anatomy change, temporarily, until we satisfy that change’s function.

We also do the strip club thing. By we I mean dudes in general. My two experiences at the strip club left me with anything but a temporarily changed anatomy. The point is that there’s enough demand for strip clubs that there’s a trip club within 50 miles (45 minutes) of anywhere. Strip clubs featuring young ladies with little or no clothes.

Same with prostitution. You could go to any town anywhere and have a date tonight, no problem.

Lastly,  we tend to think in terms of, “I’d do her,” without bothering with, “could I do her?” and we do it with every girl we meet. Hell, we do it with every girl we see. Chicks in those amazing pants at the gym, checkout clerks at the grocery store, girls walking down the street.

Ok, so here’s the point: porn sites, strippers, prostitutes, grocery checkers. Actual women do not think even remotely the way that we do. How many girls do you know for sure have masturbated in an empty room, alone, looking at pictures in a magazine or on a computer? How many girls have gone to a strip club and walked away turned on ² ? And how about the percentage of dudes-for-hire that get hired by girls? There might be one, somewhere. As for checking out every single guy that a girl comes into contact with, I don’t buy that for a second. I never get checked out by girls. Guys, yes ³ ; girls, no.

So how on earth is it that we guys ever get laid at all? We have no idea what actually turns girls on. We may think we know, but we don’t. Every single time, it’s a shot in the dark (no pun intended) and a whole lot of hope.  But we obviously do get laid sometimes ⁴ . And the human race DID have to get perpetuated somehow. So how to reconcile the difference between guys getting turned on (insert panting sound-effect here) and girls getting turned on?

Well, this is where I say that whatever passes for girls being horny developed as a defensive measure: sex had to happen to keep the race going, and it was gonna happen because guys are simply larger and stronger ⁵  than girls.

When I sit down and analyze it, it’s the only explination that makes sense.

.

.

·   ·   •   ·   ·

.

From CNN:

[Justice of the Peace] Bardwell told Hammond’s Daily Star in a story published Thursday that he was concerned for the children who might be born of the relationship and that, in his experience, most interracial marriages don’t last.

I called that one, with my bitchin’ slogan of, “Yes on Prop 8: Interracial Marriage Next!” I can’t believe this crap still happens in California of all places.

My 14-year-old self is so very angry he didn’t think of this first.

Armed only with what they can carry, they set out to secure an apartment building and rescue survivors scattered amongst the shattered remains of civilization.

Only listened to the first part of the first episode, but my first impression is of a very high quality production. I’ll be following this one to its conclusion.

I was driving home a month ago and saw a sewing machine on the side of the road. It had all the parts, so I grabbed it.

The sewing and vacuum repair shop lady said that it’s a high-quality machine, and I’d be better off spending less money to repair it than twice as much buying a new machine. So a week and $77 later, we’ve got the sewing machine at home for my wife.

We had a frustrating day with it, but then I found a manual that I paid $4 for (it’s an awesome lower-resolution-than-it-could-be scan, but it’s readable and the pictures are discernible); the site I bought it from was gonna ship me a CD, but I asked for an email instead. Awesomly, they obliged, and we saved the cost of postage, the waste of a CD, and we were able to get the manual printed and bound in no time.

There were still some frustrations. Simply not knowing how this vintage machine works is frustrating in and of itself; there are also, even after the repair and overhaul, some broken and missing parts. However, my wife got some good, legit stitches sewn into some throwaway cloth, and the end of the frustration is in sight.

I bring all this up as a reminder of a couple of clichés to the people I care about: nothing good is easy; and where there’s a will, there’s a way.

But not: make love, not war. It’s not enough to make love and avoid killing people, you have to make something good that wasn’t there before. ¹ 

Now get to it!

·   ·    •   ·   ·

iTunes link. The app is free, and my first impression of it is that it’s excellent. I think it’s a very creative and well-done interface. It doesn’t feel crippled or cramped to me. So far, I’ve used it for cropping, adjusting exposure, and adjusting color manually. It comes with some built-in color adjustment, “filters,” which I haven’t really been able to use yet, and you can also add frames like old-time photographs used to have.

I purchased Best Camera (iTunes link) a couple weeks ago for $3, and was very happy. But Photoshop.com Mobile has really depreciated its use on my phone.

In a letter sent to Google on Friday afternoon, the agency asks the Web search giant to explain how its application, Google Voice, works and why it is blocking calls.

I’d like to know how it works, too. And why I’d want it. And why it’s such a big deal with the iPhone. Anecdotally, Google Voice seems like nothing more than phone over the Internet. That’s not compelling to me and my iPhone because I already pay for phone service that works pretty well. So WTF.

New CEO Scott Flanders says the idea is to attract readers in their 20s to a magazine where the average reader’s age is 35.

Heh-heh! Playboy’s CEO is a Flanders.

My daughter is 8, the perfect age to be totally enthralled by the Star Wars universe. I own episodes 4, 5, and 6 on DVD (including the original theatrical releases as bonus DVDs, which is rad), and we just finished episode 5 together. That’s the one with the snow and with Lando Calrissian, and where Luke gets his hand chopped off.

Well, the girl knows about the prequil films, and since I don’t own them, we’ve requested them from the library. I checked NetFlix to see if the movies were available as streaming films for my Roku, but they’re not. However, while I was at Netflix, I saw that episode 3 averaged 3.9 out of 5 stars.

What the hell.

That movie was absolutely terrible. I’ve written about it before. Well, while at Netflix, I wrote another review of episode 3, and felt I should share it with you here, too. So:

The worst, most disappointing movie in the Star Wars canon. Its only redeeming value to the Star Wars universe is the story. Bad acting and terrible, TERRIBLE CG outweigh the story, however, making this movie a, “watch once, then destroy,” kind of event.

The animated movies and the Ewok movie were better. While Hayden Christensen’s (the petulant little weenie who played Anikan Skywalker) acting is actually somewhat believable, if you squint, the CG throughout the movie is a total joke. The backgrounds were made by people who missed both perspective and lighting classes during art school. Also, R2D2 flies at least once in this film. The bad guy, General Grievous, is a droid with a cold.

Overall, the movie feels like it was made by people who had never seen the original Star Wars movies, but had them described to them by a couple enthusiastic 12 year olds.

I watched half the movie once while I was about 5 beers to the wind, and only made it halfway through. I watched again sober, while babysitting some sleeping kids (and I forgot my book), and had I not been a captive audience, I wouldn’t have made it through that time, either. Bah.

From USA Today:

The case tests government’s ability to ban images of vile or abhorrent conduct, not the conduct itself. The dispute has drawn wide attention because of public concern about animal cruelty, as well as the interest in preserving free speech rights.

I am so glad it’s not my job to decide this one.

As an aside, consider the word, “justice.” What does it mean? More than two millennia ago, Plato wrote quite the big book about it, and he concluded that Justice is that which makes a person more just. People sitting on the Supreme Court of the United States have that title: Justice. Their title is nearly impossible to define, and I suggest that their job is that hard, too. We need them, and I admire every last member of the Court, but I do not envy them.

From the New York Times:

“We believe this is a poison pill, poisonous enough that we refuse to be blackmailed into voting for a piece of social agenda that has no place in this bill,” said Representative Todd Akin of Missouri, a senior Republican member of the committee.

And:

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, called the legislation radical social policy.

“The idea that we’re going to pass a law that’s going to add further charges to someone based on what they may have been thinking, I think is wrong,” Mr. Boehner said.

I wonder how they’d feel if somebody beat the stuffing out of their kids simply because their parents are noted Republicans. The Republican party is peopled by assholes.

From my mom:

I wonder how the conservatives are going to react to this.  Maybe the Nobel Peace Prize is a socialist, elitist idea?

I just watched the movie Helvetica with my 8-year-old daughter, Jaylyn. We’ve been talking a lot about fonts lately. She understand serifs. She knows that I don’t like Arial but do like Helvetica. During the movie, she was fantastic. She noticed fonts that weren’t Helvetica, and she noticed furniture that was poorly designed.

When the movie was over, she asked me to show her Helvetica and Arial together, so she could see the difference.

This proves once and for all that this kid is my kid.