Recently in Funny Category

In 5 hours the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire will begin showing on the movie theatres here in Winnipeg, and I will not be there, no matter how much I wish. Sadly, my hours at work are so low, and my bills are so high, that I have not even a dollar to spare to go see the movie, never mind the $5 that is the cheapest price for movie theatres showing it now. I can only hope that the money is available before the movie hits the cheap dollar or two theatres in the city here. I also want to see Walk the Line, the move about the life of Johnny Cash, but Harry Potter is higher on my must see list.

This could also be titled 'I want my own beautiful Linux powered fembot', but that was too long. I have watched this about 5 times already, and I have not stopped laughing yet. Those who run Linux, or are geeks in favour of open source, will love this, as it is how every closed source company tries to portray the community. Very funny.

The irony I am seeing, that makes me laugh loudly right now, is how different the US reaction is to their case of Mad Cow, and the fact that on Wednesday my mother and I both predicted that the US cattle industry would blame Canada, as we are the closest country to them that has had a case of Mad Cow. Today I see that the US government has indeed traced the cow back to a cow from Canada, though the details about the cow differ greatly which makes me wonder if this is just using Canada as a scapegoat. On CNN for their coverage there was a couple of back to back emails from Canada, and between the two, you easily see the POV of Canadians. The first was showing sympathy that the US will now go through what we did. The second was pointing out how different the media is taking it now that the case is from the US. How true, both of them.

Orbitz likely thought it a good omen, a flight booking service doing it's IPO on the 100th anniversary date of the first flight, that of the Wright Brothers in the Kitty Hawk. Well, the site's IPO on the stock markets turned out pretty much the same as the other attempt to play off the 100th anniversary, the reenactment of the first flight of men, both of which failed miserably. The IPO looked at first to have some wind beneath its wings, climbing to just over $30, but then it returned to earth, settling on a resting on wheels $26.05, just 5 cents above it's opening. The reenactment of the Kitty Hawk is described as "When the muslin-winged flyer attempted take off, it dropped off the end of a wooden track and stopped dead in a mud puddle. The pilot dropped his head in chagrin, but later laughed." by KSL News.

This link, courtesy of Obsessive Blog, Linus's Top Ten SCO Barbs (LinuxWorld), is a hilarious roundup of some of Linus' top quotes when it comes to SCO's 'blathering' about their so called Intellectual Property and the infringement by, in no specific order, Linus, FSF, IBM, the Open Source community, Eric S Raymond, Bruce Perens, Novell, Red Hat and so many others I cannot name, not excluding those still using Linux in ignorance of Darl McBride's many erroneous claims. A funny read, and if you think that is funny, do a Google News Search for SCO Linux. Some good pearls that show what happens when people like Eric S. Raymond and Linus Torvalds get mad.

I blame Aine in this. I do, and if you want to blame her too, her blog is listed on the left. See, we were talking about wishlists, and how my Gnomedex benefactor gave AJ a sweet gift of the majority of his Amazon wishlist. Well, Aine, helpful as only the Evil Queen can be, mentioned TheThingsIWant.com, an awesome service that is an all in one wishlist service, and, get this, it's FREE! I have already added my Amazon.com, and Amazon.ca lists, and ThinkGeek, MLH, and a few other stores will be added as time allows. If I can find a bit of code that allows the user to choose the list or not list view, I may even add the list to the side, though I will need to very soon consolidate the links as they are looking more than a little cluttered. Aine, blame Aine for the list!

Yet another company has no announced plans to go into online music, and this time the move is not simply because of the pioneers in the market at Apple. The reason Coke is getting in to online music is because Pepsi has a deal for a load of songs from iTunes music store. The songs will come courtesy of a partnership with OD2, a British music-download company, and Coke says it will launch in January with 250,000 songs supplied from each of the five major music labels. Coke, of course, is launching to Europe in January to beat Pepsi, who "will join forces with Apple Computer iTunes download service in a 100-million-song "under-the-cap" giveaway beginning in February. The Apple service is not available in Europe." Let the wars begin!

The RIAA, in response to a request for more information on it's plans to handle file traders by Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, has told him they only plan to go after heavy users of file sharing networks, though they do not say how they define heavy. "The RIAA told Coleman: "We will approach these suits in a fair and equitable manner" and that it was "in no way targeting 'de minimis' users" wrote Cary Sherman, the group's president, in a letter the subcommittee released Monday. "RIAA is gathering evidence and preparing lawsuits only against individual computer users who are illegally distributing a substantial amount of copyrighted music." Sherman added that his group "does not condone any illegal copying and does not want anyone to think that even a little illegal activity is acceptable." Sherman did not specify how much illegal distribution constituted "a substantial amount," and an RIAA spokesman declined to quantify the phrase."

At last years Gnomedex I told one of the speakers, Doc Searls, that he and Dave Winer are those who inspired me to begin a blog. It has been a long time since I read Dave's blog, so I was surprised to hear Mike McBride ranting that he had been invited to a conference on blog's that Winer is hosting out at Harvard Law School at a cost of $500 per person for like two days. While I do not agree with The Register about the supposed obscurity of RSS(not sure what the second protocol would be), as I feel RSS is a very important protocol for the future of web publishing(I note that they do not appear to care about RSS site wide), but I do think the idea of paying $500 USD to attend a conference, including meals, travel, and hotel, is ridiculous. I'll save that entrance fee and hit Gnomedex in 2004.

I am going to do something uncharacteristic of myself. I am going to literally rant about work. I left the phone, due to it's slowness, at 9 PM tonight. I was in charge, and being the first person off, it was the proper thing to do. I then, out of interest in the views of someone else, sat and talked to them for about an hour about different stuff. The three people left on the phones then asked me why I didn't just stay until 10 and let one of them go at 9. Ok, let's see. I, a rep who has tried his best to be nice to no avail, is being lectured by one rep who can't follow a rule, or be on time, but never gets lectured about it, another who held a grudge towards me for 6 months without once telling me what was wrong, and another who seems to pride herself and telling me I am wrong, interrupting me, and disrespecting me as often as possible. Yeah, uh huh. Whatever.

Ok, so I will admit that I stole this from Admiral_Justin in #lockergnome just now, but it is far too funny to pass up. This is a sample of what it would be like if the current Unix like OS wars were to occur totally in IRC. The only thing missing is the odd auto kick when user BillG or Microsoft enter the room. I can see progression of all of the news stories that have happened over the last few months, from SCO buying Caldera to them suing IBM and spamming Linux users. I mean the companies are so totally embodied in this thing, it's not funny. From the UnitedLinux effort to the constant insult of people being called lamers, it just works too well. Any real geek will get a good laugh at it.

On the 2nd of the month, the world press was reporting this story, that Microsoft was looking into the iLoo, a portable toilet for concerts and other outdoor events, with a wireless internet connection. The headlines resembled 'Finally the net goes the last mile, to the toilet' and the like. Then, earlier this week, the skeptic's when that story came out were rewarded by the mix of stories, some from MS saying the story was a prank, and others yet saying that no, it wasn't. Yup, Bill seems to have learned more than style from Steve, he also seems to have learned proper disinformation about new product lines to control rumors, and if that fails to totally mess up all the rumor mills. Whether the iLoo is true or not, it is a good showing by MS to throw the news sites into a fit.

Also in the news, The Register reported that while Bill Gates was in Watertown, South Dakota last week with an NBC crew and Tom Brockaw, because The Gates Foundation has sprung for some computers for the local library, and NBC wanted to interview Bill for it, and do a promo type of story. Well, when the group was finished their coffee, they got up to walk out. This didn't go well with the waitress, because they had not paid for the coffee. The Register has posted an update saying the Redmond giant and the sop manager have denied this happened, that Gates was not to be charged at all, but this story apparently made it all the way to CNN. Too bad, I had a long line of jokes in que.

Attendees and exhibitors at the InfoSec conference were warned on the 30th that there was the possibility of a trojan spreading around the supplied wireless network, causing a significant drop in it's connection speeds. However, one white hat found a more plausible and likely source of the drop, and possible the source of the trojan if there is one. The cause is the 49 wireless access points available on the conference floor, and the fact only 8 of them were adequately or even remotely protected by any kind of security, all of them WEP. That means 41 AP's were completely unprotected. "2600 members at the show believe some of networks they found are test systems while at least one is a honey pot, deliberately set up to lure hackers."

Ok, so I was off on Wednesday of last week, and a buddy from work, let's call him DJ Dizz, as well as hs friend, we'll him DJ Khemlab, host a weekly show that day on BlizzardRadio.com, called 'Dinner and a Mix, whose site may soon be hosted from my account, or my server if I go the self hosting route(highly unlikely at this point). Well, on my day off I decided to tune in for one of the few live shows I am able to catch, and since they have no show archive server, being a small operation at this point, I am not able to listen to the show. Back to my story though. So Dizz, when he is sure I am listening, intros me to the listener's, telling them I am 'the newest little raver' and that I am going to this show on the May Long weekend.

I do not know how to accurately say that I am the least likely person to be a raver. I am a country fan, and have several pics of me in a western style hat. I like my music. I usually turn the speaker on my PC right down when they are actually playing music on his radio show, as it is so totally not my style. Ask Jim. He can likely attest I am not the techno/house/style du jour kinda guy. Hell, this thing he wants me to go to is an all night thing, and I am honestly not sure I will be able to stay awake during the whole show. How'd I get roped into this? I said I was willing to check anything out once, except drugs. Oh, and I also told him some personal shit, and now he thinks the rave scene can help me. We'll see, as I have nothing else that weekend.

Late last week CNN was discovered to have declared several world leaders dead, including Fidel Castro, dictator of Cuba. The Register reported about the blunder on Friday, while Wired reported the same thing on Thursday, but a much lengthier article though the Associated Press. "Although the mock-ups -- essentially templates that were to be used when a subject dies -- were no longer accessible to the public, the search engine Google still had a reference Thursday to Reagan's, titled "Ronald Reagan Remembered." Another website, The Smoking Gun, also had copies of mock-ups for Reagan, Bob Hope, Fidel Castro, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Gerald Ford and Dick Cheney."

The shameful campaign on the net(no, mine was just as shameful, but it failed)for a young lady(broad definition of the term, I assure you), to get a breast enhancement was announced by The Register this week to have been successful, with the young lady having the operation. While I am not surprised that Maxim linked to her(just their kind of story), and I feel the same about the fact she admits she is a 'skank' which is a change from my last visit when she tried to defend her plea, I am surprised she even got a dime. one person not to long back, claimed I was helping her by linking to her site, and I simply replied that I had hopes my readers would not waste their money on such ludicrous and useless stuff as this person. Sad state of affairs, I say.

I am watching a movie called Deep Core, which has Wil Wheaton in it, and I laughed my ass off when I saw him detonate an explosion. The look on his face was priceless, like he somehow enjoyed blowing things up with loud and violent explosions. Mind you, any geek would. I also note that Terry Farrell, who played Dax on another Star Trek series, Deep Space 9, is also in this, in a big way. This is a pretty good movie, and look a lot like the basis for The Core, the new release that Frantic worked on. I am also eagerly awaiting another work that is soon to be released that they had a big hand in, It's called X-Men 2.

In what has to either a very bad joke, or a delayed April Fools prank, Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it plans to try to knock Google out as the number one search service. "We do view Google more and more as a competitor. We believe that we can provide consumers with a better product and a better user experience. That's something that we're actively looking at doing," said Bob Visse, director of marketing for Microsoft's MSN Internet services division. I think that if Microsoft wants to add another losing, or increases the loses of the department that handles the MSN portal, that is fine by me, but it is a bottomless pit unless they use their monopoly in browsers as a tool, something they were already convicted of using to violate antitrust laws.

The MORE option below will give you the low down on a former coworker, who was always shunned for admitted drugs and alcohol abuse, as well as rampant theft, who was reported today to have been the person that was spotted and followed by a Winnipeg Sun employee, who followed the robber to a place where the police could capture him, and the person is now in jail. Who ever said call center work wasn't interesting? I tell you, this was the story of the day today around my work.

Marijuana is not something I am in support of for personal reasons, and no, I will not get into a debate over this, it is my opinion and not up for discussion. That said, I have to laugh at this article from The Register that describes how the Dell Dude, more professionally(isn't that a moron oxymoron?) as Ben Curtis, was arrested the other day on marijuana possession charges. The Register makes good points about it quite possibly being character research, as anyone who is a tech watcher knows, the character of Steven has got to be stoned!

I really am not trying to be funny, but if this is not the shortest political campaign ever, I would love to know what is! 10 minutes. That is all the server set up to host the Jobs for President campaign lasted, though to be honest the recruited person had no interest in political office, just in living life and running Pixar and Apple. Either way it was very clear that the campaign was well known for it's short life, all of 10 minutes(no word if the 10K hits were Slammer) with a great amount of hits. Please, folks, let's avoid the Gates for global ruler campaign, we don't need all the crashes, which we all know Bill is best at!

Meanwhile this article, purely frivolous in the face of little else of interest at the show, speaks of a model on the Linux World site, who also appears to have done a little modeling for Microsoft as well. This has apparently led to great frustration that a promoter of one free product would dare do something for the free product's competitor. Hello? It's a free economy, Linux World should have checked her past work, or maybe that modeling is why she got this gig? The irony is added to by the fact that right next to the article, a huge glaring VB.NET ad. Irony seems to surround this young lady.

Ok, Microsoft points t it's tech partners and retailers of Windows all the time. For those in the US, Future Shop is one of the largest national electronics retailers, from games to DVD's to, well Windows XP. These are two things you should know before I mention what I will. Alta Vista, that search engine that never really took off much, now has a feature that will show you all sites that link to a site. Here, for instance, is mine with about 2,300 results. While this is Doc's with almost 30,000 returns. All very nice and pretty.

Well, I noticed by referral that if you put in fututre shop.ca in the same way, you get several links. Microsoft is the 4th link. That is fairly respectable, unless you are looking to 'Go to hell' with Google. Well, if you click this here link, you'll see that I am not #1,000. I am not even #100. I am in the enviable spot of being the 2nd one in the linked to list for Future Shop's website. I doubt google would put me there, and I think now that Alta Vista's redesign put far too much weight to blogger's, but I will not complain to being a higher link than Microsoft in such a prominent list. A list of 4,000+. My day begins ok.

Perhaps this site will give Microsoft a hint as to what exactly happens when you piss off a penguin. We may blow up, but next time we will bit back and if you don;t leave us the fsck alone, we just may get really mad. It is not coincidence that a lot of Linux guru's, like :dave: and other's, are gun enthusiasts. ;-) Not that I am threatening you, BillG, just a friendly warning. Is there such a law as aggravated cracking?

So, Anil Dash has a post with a link to me, that shows my blog's comments were spammed. This is true, it was spammed a short while ago, in a post about the Blog outages of both Blogger and my own site's input interface for a short time recently, but I used it for my own benefit, you see, in that I changed the referral link to my own, so if there is click through, I will make the cash. No one will make money off my blog besides a)Moveable Type, b) :blogo: and c) GoDaddy. These all deserve their due, I might add.