Retrophisch

And I thought they wanted you to stay over on Saturday night

Earlier this evening, I booked a round-trip flight, on American Airlines, from Baton Rouge to DFW for my grandmother. It’s for the first weekend in August, to celebrate my son’s birthday.

Initially, I was looking at mid-morning flights out of Baton Rouge on Saturday, August 5th, and a mid-afternoon return flight from DFW on Tuesday, August 8th. I found great times for each, but the total ticket, even with a supposed senior discount, was $361, after applicable taxes and fees.

I changed the flight out of Baton Rouge to Friday, August 4th, same time of the day, and the price dropped to $260.

So apparently the new savings comes in with the Friday stay-over…

Miscellany

Photojojo has a review of the Lensbaby 2.0, a $149 retro novelty lens for digital SLRs.

From the “Things That Make You Go ‘Huh?’” Department, Tom gives us Mr. Martin Heidegger. After reading Heidegger’s quote, I have the mental equivalent of wanting to get a bad taste out of my mouth…

In line with my smart-aleck nature, there are more good t-shirts I want, but I would need to perform a serious shirt purge first.

Veto the line-item veto

I’m sure, like Jeff and Mark Alexander, I fall in to a distinct minority of conservative-minded folks in that I do not approve of the line-item veto.

Jeff gives a great example of the sort of situation fiscal conservatives point to as their case for the line-item veto:

Congress has embraced the notion of passing ten-thousand-page omnibus bills that provide an appropriation for buying missiles, invest taxpayer dollars in education, reform the health-insurance, and by the way also fund half a dozen wasteful squanderings of the federal treasury. And if the President wants to veto it, he has to veto it all. Nuts, right?

As Jeff goes on to say, yes, it is nuts. But members of Congress need to stand up and defend their reasons for why they want these “wasteful squanderings” included along with the legitimate items in such bills. (Though I will quibble that the government has no business in the health insurance business, either.) Equally so, the President—and this is any president, not just the current one—should get the message out to the American people why he’s vetoing the entire bill, despite all of its good and legitimate items.

More communication is the key. As Jeff puts it, the American people need to be made smarter as to the machinations of their government. The two parties seem to enjoy playing politics, so why not extend that to budgetary items? If Congress sends you a spending bill with bridges to nowhere in it, you veto it, tell the American people you vetoed it because of the bridges to nowhere, and mention you’d be happy to sign it when it comes back without the bridges to nowhere within. Likewise, if Congress sends a spending bill without any largesse—stop laughing, this is a hypothetical after all—and the President still vetoes it, Congress has that handy two-thirds majority thingy from the Constitution.

Like net “neutrality” legislation, I think the line-item veto is a mountain that’s actually a molehill. We have more important areas to concentrate on, like keeping those who wish to kill us outside of our borders.

Lee is going to hate me for sharing this…

Just downloaded the 214 MB Mac OS X 10.4.7 Intel Combo updater at a rate of 1.6 MB per second. That’s a big B. As in megabytes.

Fiber optic rocks.

About those WMDs in Iraq

Oh, by the way, there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. A lesser man might say something like, “Suck it, mouth-foamers”, but I’ll refrain from engaging in such childish behavior.

Doyle Redland

If you’re not listening to The Onion Radio News, you’re missing a good chuckle.

No MySpace for me

Lee perfectly sums up my feelings on MySpace.

Miscellany

I love the build names for Ubuntu Linux: “Breezy Badger”, “Dapper Drake”. Are they all alliteral?

[Via Paul.]

Though I don’t do nearly enough of either, I love hiking and camping, and could see myself as a flashpacker.

Stephen H. Wildstrom has the latest idiotic move by the recording industry, which is suing XM Satellite Radio over its Inno portable receiver/recorder. Even though there’s no way to get the XM-specific music files off the Inno (yet), and despite the millions and millions of dollars in royalties XM already pays the music industry, the Inno is obviously a threat to the future of music as we know it and it must be stopped.

In other news, consumers welcomed more artists as the latter left the major music labels…

Entrepreneurs should check out the WSJ’s StartupJournal.

It’s not my kid, so it must be okay

Tony Blankley:

At journalism conferences, the question is often brought up whether a journalist should see himself as an American first or a journalist first. Often the consensus is that they are journalists first.

I wonder how many of them would report a story if it would mean the death of their own child. And would any of those reporters who would be journalists first in even that appalling instant cheerfully mis-report a story in order to cause the death of their child? I suspect virtually none would.

If only they loved their country’s young and willing warriors as much as they loved their own children.

But the journalists today are too swept up in their own dance macabre to even notice the murderous consequences of their own malfeasance — or to hear the demands of simple decency.

We’re at war with whom, exactly?

A majority of those who support the war on terror have long noted this war is with the fringe element of radical Islam, not the entire Muslim world. The Bush administration has made this point in countless speeches on the issue, to the point of nausea whenever the President says “religion of peace”.

Yet what are we to think about this, that it is only “radical” Islam we are fighting, when those supposedly in the mainstream of the Muslim faith, knowing of the spreading of jihadist propoganda in their midst, and perhaps even knowing of jihadist plans of attack, fail to alert the authorities regarding these matters? Is that not tantamount to collusion, and if so, does this not mean we are finding ourselves at war with the entire Muslim world?

No, Virginia, we can’t arrest illegal aliens

From the You’ve-Got-To-Be-Kidding-Me Department, if you’re an illegal alien, get thee to Virginia!

Apparently, so long as you’re not commiting a felony, you won’t get detained and possibly deported. No state law “to make arrests solely on the basis of a person’s immigration status”? Is this a Twilight Zone episode? Is Alan Funt hiding in the bushes somewhere with the camera? Do not law enforcement officers make arrests based on federal law as well as state law? The state of Virginia may not do the prosecuting and deporting, but surely they should be doing the arresting, no?

“I’m sorry for the delay, Mr. Atta. Despite your expired visa, your paperwork for your radiation-materials transport van appears to be in order. Drive safely, and have a nice day.”

Why don’t we just give up right now and hand over the nuclear bomb the jihadists want to wipe us out with, complete with AAA road maps so they can miss the construction on their way to the District?

Reason #37 to Avoid Internet Explorer

Per Paul Stamatio, as if you needed thirty-six other reasons.

Miscellany

It’s not a full-scale semi truck, or even a VW Beetle, but it is a real-life Transformer.

[Via Firewheel Design.]

Brent informs us that Mississippi is very dog-friendly at its rest stops.

As Lee said when he pinged me via IM, “What a waste of a Countach.”

For some reason, I can’t believe John blogged iStache.

World Cup wussies?

So I’m sitting here watching Spain play Saudi Arabia in the World Cup, and we’re having more and more of the pathetic overacting by the players when they get tackled/kicked/knocked down. Can we stop this sad display, manly football men of the world?

Look, I know it hurts like hell when you get kicked in the shin, but I thought that was the point of wearing those pads inside the socks that pull up to your jock strap. Yet these guys get tapped on the shin, they go down like a load of bricks, and writhe around as if their opponent just sliced off their lower leg with a sword. Razor’s right; enough already. I’ve watched the team of thirteen year-olds my friend Gary’s stepson plays on, and they whack at one another more than these “top players in the world”, with less faked agony.

If you want soccer to catch on more in the U.S., show us you all can act like men and take your licks.

This goes double for the eliminated U.S. team.

Miscellany

I must have a Gnome-be-Gone. Must.

[Via Uncrate.]

Why is it I’m learning about Pete’s Famous from Brent, rather than my parents, who have lived in the Birmingham metroplex for a decade? (I can actually answer this one; my parents bring their lunch to work, and don’t go out.) I wonder how far Gus’s place is from their respective offices?

Eric Blair:

Of course, I could see this eating into the PowerMate’s market. I mean, who needs a flashing knob to notify you of email when you can have a flashing keyboard?

One reason I turned off that particular functionality of my PowerMate was the distraction of the blinking light…

Presenting the iCarta. iDon’t think so.

[Via Firewheel Design.]

Happy Father’s Day

So, fellow dads, how’s your day going? A pretty quiet one for us here at the Phisch Bowl. It was nice to sleep in a little, then off to church, and Mi Cocina for lunch (Sunset Fajitas!). Both the little phisch and the missus crashed for a nap, and in addition to doing some online reading, I’ve enjoyed one of my Father’s Day gifts: the fifth season DVD set of Seinfeld. Season five is notable because it includes my favorite Seinfeld episode, “The Marine Biologist”, which I watched, along with the episode’s extras, a few minutes ago.

A pair of homemade gifts from the little phisch: a framed handprint he made at school, and a pocket-protector card he colored in Sunday School this morning. As usual, these will take prominent spots on the refrigerator and study whiteboard.

I’m usually the one who gets our little guy down for his naps, and today was no exception. As he drifted off, and I looked at his peaceful face, it was one of those Hallmark moments where your heart feels like it’s about to burst. Since becoming a father, I have learned more about how much my own dad loves me than I ever thought I knew.

Likewise, having had those thoughts parents have, since becoming a dad my relationship with God has deepened, as I understand more how wrenching it was for Him to give up His only Son for the world.

My fellow dads, I hope you all have a great day.

Dad, I love you. Thanks for always being there, and setting the example you did.

Killing .Mac, part 1

I renewed my .Mac subscription last year, though I did so with reservations. That was the last time I will renew, and come October, I will be .Mac-less for the first time since the service was the original, free iTools. With every feature “update”, I am finding less and less value in the service for myself. I am not alone in my feelings, and Khoi Vinh sums up a lot of how I feel. Your own mileage may vary.

I thought I would begin the process of replacing the features I use with .Mac, keeping in mind the sum total of the replacements not exceed .Mac’s annual price tag of $99.95. Steven Frank offers alternatives, and I will likely touch on many of those as well.

Anti-Virus
To begin the replacement process, I started with virus protection. When McAfee began to have issues with Virex 7.5, before and after the introduction of Mac OS X Tiger, I went looking for another anti-virus solution. Granted, we have yet to have a serious virus infection of the OS X community, but it never hurts to be prepared.

I now use ClamXav to fend off the nasties. The only downside to ClamXav is a lack of protection from Visual Basic-based macro viruses, which infect Microsoft Office documents. Personally, though I own Office, I use its components rarely, so this isn’t a showstopper for me. If the applications of Office are some of your mainstays, however, you might want to investigate Norton AntiVirus or VirusBarrier.

It should be noted that Apple no longer includes any anti-virus package with .Mac, so even if I were to pay for NAV or VirusBarrier, it wouldn’t be counted against the $99.95 cost of .Mac.

E-mail
Besides the former use of Virex, another feature I’m using with .Mac is the @mac.com e-mail address. At the last revision of the .Mac feature set, Apple increased the default storage limit to one gigabyte. This is shared space; it is utilized by your .Mac e-mail, as well as any files you upload to your account.

Contrast this with Google’s Gmail, which gives you, currently, 2.7 GB of space, and counting. (Google slowly increases the storage amount each day.) My Gmail account has become my main e-mail account, with my account on my own domain coming in second. The Gmail web interface is much faster, for me at least, than the .Mac web interface, though with both accounts I use the POP protocol to route the mail to my local e-mail client.

So for now, I’ve replaced the anti-virus software Apple no longer offers, and I’ve replaced the e-mail service with one that offers more storage and a faster user interface, both at no cost. More on my personal quest to rid myself of .Mac in a future post.

Pong Vader

Jajah

Guy mentions the web telephony service Jajah, which looks interesting, especially when compared to Skype. Unlike the latter, Jajah doesn’t require you to download any software, and you use your own phone.

This is just about as dead-simple telephony as you can get. You enter your phone number, then the number you’re calling, then hit the Call button. Your phone rings, you answer, then it rings the number you’re calling. That’s it.

So, like Skype, you can call internationally really cheap. Unlike Skype, you can dial Guadalajara, then chat on your mobile with the golf pro who took three strokes off your game, all while you drive to your local course.

Personally, I’ve never had much use for Skype. I haven’t called internationally in ten years, easy. Calls within the borders of the U.S. are covered adequately by my mobile phone plan. And if I were calling internationally, I may not want to be tied to the computer when doing so. Should I have the need, I can certainly see myself favoring Jajah.

Miscellany

You know, I find it quite amusing, given Al Gore’s connection to Steve Jobs (Gore serves on Apple’s board of directors, in case you didn’t know), that at the same time An Inconvenient Truth is released, so is Cars.

Since Textpander has become TextExpander, and now comes with a thirty-dollar price tag, all of its little quirks may send me back to TypeIt4Me, of which I am a registered user already.

The biggest quirk? If I misstype an abbreviation with Textpander, but backspace and fix the abbreviation’s spelling, it won’t trigger the full text. TypeIt4Me does. With Textpander, I have to delete whatever part of the abbreviation I’ve typed, and start over.

I really like the FIFA World Cup smiley-faced logo. It’s just so cheery.

When you see “Fédération Internationale de Football Association”, does Monty Python and the “Department of Redundancy Department” come to mind, or is it just me?

Earthquake survivor assistance still needed

Associated Press:

Many of the nearly 650,000 displaced by Indonesia’s earthquake are living with deteriorating sanitary conditions, forced to wash with dirty water that infects wounds and spreads skin disease, doctors said Sunday.

Please consider donating to any of the many organizations providing relief assistance. We like the package and plan from World Vision, which has put together individual kits for survivors.

Miscellany

If you ever see me wearing the Beer Holster, you have permission to slap me silly.

Headline of the Day:

“Jon Lovitz Says Income From Subway Commercials Allows Him A Certain Creative Freedom”

Ratatouille looks hysterical.

“You know, if you can sort of muscle your way past the gag reflex, all kind of food possibilities open up.”

Now I can’t wait until next year, and it’s just now opening weekend for this year’s Pixar release…

Miscellany

I so want a t-shirt of Vader playing ping pong, but the only guy size they have is small, and I’m a 2X. If you want a different size, be sure to clink on the link to ask for a reprint.

(An e-mail reply from Brian at Oddica says to expect them in the next week or so; he’s a 2X, too.)

[Via Uncrate.]

An interesting factoid I learned today: a grouping of owls is called a “parliament”.

I realize you want to get your DVD to market pretty quick, since DVD sales have skyrocketed, but when you have a built-in marketing date—“Remember, remember, the 5th of November”—why in Spielberg are you releasing on August 1st?

“It’s going to be a good day, Tater”

“Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Killed in Bombing Raid”

I wonder if the F-16 pilot who dropped the Zarqawi-killing bombs gets to collect the $25 million bounty. That would be a nice retirement package.

We were content to kick your BLEEP, but now you’ve made us mad

I love how my friends are able to succinctly sum up current events.

Fourteen

About this time fourteen years ago, my beloved and I were dancing our first dance, or cutting the cake, or visiting with the numerous friends and family members who were generous enough with their time to spend it in celebration with us.

A lot has changed in the world in fourteen years. A lot has changed within each of us. If you had told me fourteen years ago how our lives would be today, I would have thought you insane. Yet we have a really great life. Sure, there are a few things I wish could be better. I wish my mother-in-law would have had more than nine months with her only grandchild. I wish my Granddaddy would have been around to see his first great-grandchild, and my Pappaw would have seen his tenth or eleventh. (There are so many great-grandchildren on that side of the family, it’s hard to keep track.)

We’ve had our ups and downs, but all of that plays in to shaping the kind of people we are today, and the life we have together.

I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I love you, Kelly. Happy Anniversary.

Never forget

I don’t need anything else special to remember my wedding anniversary. Circumstances of life dictated that forever shall the day of our wedding be shared with that of the invasion of Normandy, and the enormous sacrifice made there by so many. Yesterday marked the second anniversary of President Reagan’s passing, I can think of no better words to remember D-Day, than those spoken by him on the fortieth anniversary of the invasion:

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young that day and you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here?

We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love. The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge—and pray God we have not lost it—that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force of liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer… You all knew that some things are worth dying for.

On the Horizon at Panera

As if the free wifi at Panera Bread wasn’t enough of a reason to frequent the joint—that is, beyond the yummy food—the little phisch and I learned today they now carry Horizon Organic single-serving milk boxes, and Yogurt Tubes in place of chips, for the Panera Kids meals. Kudos, Panera!

On Corporate America’s sad view of the family

My father taught me to never raise my hand to a woman.

But if I had been the one sitting across from the female HR person who told a mom she had “wasted” the past 19 years of her life raising her three children, I could very well have forgotten those lessons from my father.

Outrageous.

Holy Smoke Resignation, Bertman!

After taking over from the legendary Skip Bertman, LSU baseball coach Raymond “Smoke” Laval has resigned after five years at the head of the program. Under Smoke’s leadership, the Tigers amassed a record of 210-109-1, 88-60-1 in the SEC. LSU won the SEC Championship in 2003, and played in the College World Series twice, in 2003 and 2004, out of four NCAA Tournament appearances.

Lest anyone think this was about LSU not making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in, well, a long while, this is what Skip had to say about his friend, and the search ahead:

“I think hiring a new coach is not as easy as people might think. The coach that resigned had the most wins in the Southeastern Conference in the last five years, more than any of the other 11 coaches. He had the most wins totally in the last five years over every coach except for the coach at South Carolina. He’s the only coach besides the South Carolina coach who has been to the College World Series more than once. No other coach has won the conference more than one time in the last five years. I think that’s a lot of pressure. The standards here are high and the pressure is great.”

It would be tough on any coach having to step in to the incredibly big shoes left behind by Skip Bertman, and Coach Laval has done the best job he can. We wish him well in his future endeavors, and will always consider him one of our own. Thanks, Smoke!

Miscellany

O’Reilly has a web site devoted to Lightroom.

[Via John.]

Though I do not speak, read, or write either, I still think it very cool that Gmail now supports Arabic and Hebrew.

The World eBook Fair is a month away.

[Via AWAD.]

ATPM 12.06

The June issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available.

Mirko von Berner celebrates the new MacBook in this month’s cover art. Wes Meltzer waxes nostalgic on the Mac blogosphere’s round-up of the MacBook, as well as noting Apple’s new commercials, Microsoft Vista delays, and other blog posts of interest to Mac users.

Mark Tennent has a triple dose of MacMuser for us this month: Mac vs Windows network printing; the value of iDisk; and how black is the new black. In this issue’s FileMaking, Chuck devles in to FileMaker scripting. Sylvester ponders the modern technological conundrum of the digital lifestyle not always being all it’s cracked up to be.

Chris Lawson offers us another dose of photos from last year’s Oshkosh AirVenture event for this month’s desktop pictures section. This set features some of my favorite prop planes: the P-51 Mustang, aptly named “Gunfighter”; the P-40 Warhawk, defender of Chinese airspace in the days before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor; the P-47 Thunderbolt; Supermarine’s Spitfire, defender of Britian’s skies; and the venerable DC-3.

In this month’s Cortland, Todd lands a date and a job interview on the same night, but neither is what it seems. Plus, Chad is taken down a notch by the Boss Control Squad.

Paul reviews photo manipulation newcomer PhotoComplete, while Wes has a double-shot look at products from Waterfield Design. If you’re not a briefcase type, such as moi, you may want to give the Racer-X a look; it could change your feelings about briefcases. But if you go with the Racer-X, or any of Waterfield’s other cases, you’ll want to use their SleeveCase in conjunction with the larger bag. My PowerBook rides in a SleeveCase, no matter what other bag I use, and I second Wes’s recommendation, though unlike our Mr. Metlzer, I prefer the full flap on the SleeveCase.

What happens when worms gear up with mil-spec hardware and wage war? Worms 3D, of course, which our Matthew Glidden puts through its paces. Eric runs Yojimbo through the wringer to close out the June issue, available any way you like.