Tim and I picked up our tuxes yesterday.

If you've never planned a wedding, then you won't understand why it's such an exhaustive process. You see, everyone has a perfect image in their minds about what a perfect wedding should look like. And it almost never does look that way in the end result. And if you've never planned a gay wedding, then just give up right now. It's all the stress of a straight wedding with an extra layer of "what? two grooms? how does that work" piled on top.

It's like a lot of little committee meetings to make things happen for what's supposed to be one of the biggest days of my life. We've got family drama, church drama, national institutional drama and any other kind of drama you can think of. Fortunately, we don't have Tim and Paul drama, except the good kind.

I'm very happy to be marrying Tim. I'm disappointed that neither my mom nor my dad will be coming. Many members of my extended family will be here, and others have sent regrets. I could bore you for weeks with the politics that go on in the Adams family.

My cousin Janne said something to me that I found very heartening. She stated quite simply "It seems pretty clear from the posts I see on FaceBook that you have chosen to marry into a loving family. I am very happy for you." My immediate family has been completely silent on the matter.

So while I won't have my mom to give me away, I will be surrounded by very close friends and lots of my church family. I'll also be surrounded by my new and very loving family, the Ungers.

It's often been said that we don't get to choose our family. I am very fortunate in that I have been able to do just that.

This is an ad that I saw tonight. I was initially drawn in because of the pretty picture of sushi, but then noticed it was targeted to either Portland or Atlanta, I'm not really sure which, so I clicked on it.

Of course, it's for a service I already use, so my click just cost guys running the ad money for nothing, but then I figure they don't really care anyway, if they can't even match the name of the city in their headline to the name of the city in their copy.

Maybe it's just me tho.

The thing that made me laugh was when I inadvertently started controlling the Mac Mini with the Ginourmous new iMac's Snow Leopard screen sharing. The window opened up just like I'm showing it here.

I didn't change the desktop pictures to make this happen, it's just something I stumbled across that made me laugh. I am such a creature of habit…

Purple is the screen on the iMac, green is the screen on the Mini. I wonder if the MacBook Pro opens in the right place too. I guess I'll have to save that for another day!

How cool is that?

Does that mean that The USA is beginning to regain some of the respect that it used to have?

Is that why conservatives believe it's the apocolypse?

What a cool thing to wake up to this morning!

The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian: Nobels fredspris) is one of five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel. According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

The only other US Presidents to earn this award were Theodoore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter (22 years after his presidency).

Here's why:

A friend of mine just married another friend of mine and they registered at BB&B. I thought "oh cool, I like that store." While I'm there, I'm sure I can find lots of things I could buy for my house, as indeed I have in the past.

Once I purchased a set of cookware there. I've bought sheets, shower heads, towels, kitchen stuff, floor stuff, wall decorations and even bedroom stuff. I've bought dinner plates, silverware, and glasses. I've bought all sorts of things for my bed, bath and, well, beyond. I don't go there every week or even every month. When I do go, I usually don't spend more than a couple of hundred bucks. I doubt my patronage is keeping their doors open.

But still, I used to like to go there.

When I got invited to the wedding, and saw my friends had registered there, I was excited. It seems I get coupons for BB&B about once a month that are good for 20% off. I thought, wow, that's a deal. I can go buy stuff for the wedding and save 20%. Sweet.

So I waited until the last minute, literally 6 hours before the wedding started, and went to the local store. The store clerks printed out the wedding registry showing the items that still needed to be purchased and were in stock at that location.

We quickly narrowed the item down and went and pulled it off the shelf and then proceeded back to the register to ring it up. On the way I read the small print on the coupon. "Not valid on ___________ or ____________ or ______________ or _________________"* and you could pretty much fill in the blanks with any name brand item that they sell – up to and including the item I was buying.

So I didn't save my 20%. That's ok. My friends are worth the money I spent (I'm not saying how much because they read this blog…). I had in fact budgeted to spend a little more than the list price turned out to be, so I should have been happy. Instead I was all pissy at BB&B for prepping me to save 20% and then yanking the savings out from under me at the last minute. It's like ordering coke and getting iced tea.

So even though I am happy to have purchased the item, and actually spent a little less than I budgeted, BB&B has made me a disgruntled customer by offering me something and then slapping so many conditions on it that I couldn't use it. The irony is that without the coupon I would have gone to exactly the same store and spent exactly the same amount of money and left happy.

Instead, I left disgruntled and I decided to take Bed Bath and Beyond off my list of places that I shop when I need stuff for my bedroom or my bathroom or my beyond. I'll still go there, but not on purpose, and not deliberately, not when I'm in the driver's seat, and definitely not often.

I'm sure the marketing department at Bed Bath and Beyond is trembling in their fluffy slippers.

*Not valid for the purchase of gift cards, All-Clad, Alessi, BabyJogger, Baby Planet, BOB, Bugaboo,DKNY, ERGObaby, kate spade, Maclaren, Maxi-cosi, Miele, Monique Lhillier, Mountain Buggy, Mutsey, Nambi, Nautica, Orbit Baby, Orrefors Kosta Boda, Pediped, Ed Hardy,Lhuiller, Vera Wang, Versace, Richard Ginori, Riedel, Swarovaski, Stokke, Waterford, Wedgewood Bumbleride, T-Tech by Tumi, Tempur-pedic, Wusthof, Margaritaville, DKNY, Ergobaby, McLauren, MaxiCosi, Uppa baby, Peg Pergo, Phil & Teds, Quinny, NettoCollection, CUBkids by Netto, Robeez, Shooting Starts portrait studio, Svan, Tommy Bahama and the Sharper Image,. Wedgwood, Lenox, Waterford, Vera Wang, Nambe, Riedel, Orrefors Kosta Boda, Viking, Oreck, Capresso, Miele, kate spade, Michael Aram, Versace, ALessi, Richard Ginori and Frette Home Products (where available). See Store for details.

the most amazing part to me is that it's in HD. they must have edited it on a Mac.

The problem with non

here's a quick quote:

Take a look at the top 100 twitter users in terms of followers. Remember, this is a free tool, one that people use to focus attention and galvanize action. What? None of them are non-profits. Not one as far as I can tell. Is the work you're doing not important enough to follow, or is it (and I'm betting it is) paralysis in decision making in the face of change? Is there too much bureaucracy or too much fear to tell a compelling story in a transparent way?

I find it fascinating. I would recommend anyone, not just non-profits, to take what he says to heart.

Here's another excerpt:

Please don't tell me it's about a lack of resources. The opportunities online are basically free, and if you don't have a ton of volunteers happy to help you, then you're not working on something important enough. The only reason not to turn this over to hordes of crowds eager to help you is that it means giving up total control and bureaucracy. Which is scary because it leads to change.

I like most of it, it's a good solid upgrade. Thank you, Apple, for giving me the option to organize my iPhone Apps on my Mac. I've already overhauled where everything sits. And thank you for giving me a method to keep my iTunes on my laptop synced with my iTunes in my living room. Good move.

Two things I see that are disappointing, though, are:

1.iTunes 9 does not appear to be a 64-bit app. That means it's not using Grand Central Dispatch, and I will (probably) still see stuttering video when iTunes is downloading podcasts and other files in the background. boooo. boooooooo.

and

2.iTunes 9 changed the background color on the screens with icons to white (see the screen shot above). I know that Apple is all about making the iPod/iTunes ecosystem recognizable, but come on. Most of the time when I'm viewing videos, I'm in a dark room and the screens that used to be black (good for viewing in a darkened space) have all turned glaringly white. Bad bad bad. now when the TV show is over and the mood is all set, iTunes jumps back to a BRIGHT WHITE screen and messes with my old-man eyes. boooooo x 2. So if anyone sees a hack or a way to change that background color, please let me know!

So I'd give it a solid 6 or 7 (out of 10). The new features are nice. I'm still playing a bit with the genius mixes, and I'm sure I'll be comfortable with the store soon enough. I'll keep my fingers cross (but won't hold my breath) for an upgrade soon that fixes my only two complaints.

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

Looks like November 14 is going to be the big date here in Portland.

You should plan to come. Send me email if you want to be included on the social event of the season…

So say goodbye to good gas mileage. Say hello to Tim's Jeep. I've started calling it "our Jeep." I don't think he minds.

Today I did my first commute out to Troutdale from The John Ross and it wasn't horrible. It's actually kind of fun.

I suppose that'll wear off at some point. In the meantime, I've re-applied all the right tunes to my iPod Nano for the upcoming Jeep rides.

BTW, if you are interested in buying a used Prius that's in pretty good shape, leave me a comment and I'll be in touch.

So the question remains. Is that Nessie, a giant octopus, a frowny face, or just a boat? Hmmmmm.

I guess it takes all kinds.

Read the whole story over at the MailOnline website.

Sad but true. Try not to cry. School is starting for people and the summer is coming to an end.

I believe that the study of these tapes will never (and should never) end. With the recognition and acceptance that these creatures do indeed speak and understand a complex language, a greater effort will be made to collect voice recordings and our analysis of the language will improve.

He's convinced that Bigfoot is intelligent enough to have a language, like dolphins, or children.

Prior to today, I've seen "Cryptozoologists" on various cable tv channels. They always strike me as crazy hermits who believe in Operation Cloverleaf. I mean the guy they always quote on The History Channel really does look like, well, let's just say he looks a little odd.

Crypto-Linguist Scott Nelson's picture looks like he could be the guy next door. In fact, he has pretty impressive creds from the Navy. There was also that former policeman in Conroe, TX, who claimed the ridges on the plaster casts of Bigfoot ran a different direction than the ridges on a human's foot. And don't forget the siting out near Multnohma Falls where over 80 people saw a Bigfoot trying to cross Interstate 84. 80 people including an Oregon State Trooper.

I love living in Bigfoot country. Everyone here knows someone who thinks they may have seen Bigfoot at one point or another. Someday I hope we can prove they really do exist (Bigfoots, not the people who've seen them). Right across the river there's a county in Washington that even has a law on the books that makes it illegal to shoot a Bigfoot.

One of these days I'm actually going to make it to one of the Bigfoot events around here.

Back in the 1970s it was a mass of chemicals and pure cane sugar. Tasty.

Now, in the U.S. at least, it's loaded with chemicals and High Fructose Corn Syrup. Some people maintain that HFCS is contributing to the obesity problem in our kids – partially because the same amount of HFCS has 10% more calories than cane sugar.

I believe it tastes different than the Cokes of my childhood.

So I started pondering the whole issue, and you know how dangerous that can be. It's like I'm supposed to be studying for a calculus test or something…

Remember when Coke phased in New Coke as "a better tasting Coke"? then within a couple of years they went back to "Coke Classic" that never really tasted like the original Coke, but still tasted better than New Coke?

I am wondering if the Coca-Cola Company wasn't just yanking our collective chain as they corrupted their formula with HFCS.

Fact : in 1983 – Coca-Cola began taste tests of New Coke in an effort to retire the old formula.

Fact: by 1985, you couldn't get original Coca-Cola any more. It was all New Coke, and everyone hated it. So the Coca-Cola company re-issued the "original" Coca-Cola as "Coke Classic".

Fact: 1985 – Return of the Jedi was released at the movie theatre where I worked and we still had some of the original coke syrup to compare to the new "Classic Coke" in taste tests with our patrons. We got some free local publicity from that one. Ironically, the Coke Classic tasted sweeter than the original Coca-Cola in side-by-side taste tests.

Fact: Soft drink makers such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi use sugar in other nations, but switched to HFCS in the U.S. in 1984 (thank you wikipedia for that). Notice how that fits right in the middle of the switch to New Coke and then to Coke Classic debacle?

Hypothesis: The whole bait and switch thing with New Coke and Coke Classic was just so they could slide HFCS in on us when we weren't looking.

Dammit. I wish I had been paying more attention back then.

Oh and here's another fun fact: According to Coca-Cola authorities, the best Coca-Cola is made in Skopje, Macedonia, where the company has granted the Skopje Brewery its "Best Bottling Company" award. (also from Wikipedia)

Even though they know Coke is better with cane sugar, they continue to flood the biggest market with HFCS.

Tim and I went to see District 9 last weekend. For those of you who don't know, it's a film about aliens. Space aliens. And cursing. And guns. and bombs. and bloody explosions (the aliens had a really cool gun that would explode a person like a balloon and blood would fly everywhere – including all over the camera). I'm not so offended by this stuff. I think it's a lot of fun to watch.

But it was very violent, in a video game sort of way.

The movie did an excellent job of exploring race relations on this planet. It highlighted the worse parts that come out whenever we start dealing with refugees and not trusting folks who are different. And it did it in a non-preachy way, since the different folks were crazy space monsters.

So, did I mention the exploding guts and space monsters hopping on everything?

So why would those friggin morons bring their less-than-two-year-old baby to the movie?

People. Please. Babies do have eyes and ears. And they will remember the movies. In some cases they won't know where the imagery came from, but they will remember.

When I was growing up, I had a recurring nightmare. I'd always wake up terrified. It scared me so much that I wouldn't even tell anyone about it.

When I was in my 20s, I happened to watch a movie called "Rosemary's Baby." Maybe you've heard of it. I was astounded and amazed that the recurring nightmare was a scene from the classic film about demon spawn.

So I called my mom and asked her if I ever saw that movie and she sheepishly replied that she and my father had gone to see it in the drive-in theatre, and I was supposed to have been asleep in the back seat of the car. So there you go. I was only 2, and it scarred me for life.

So somebody shake those stupid people down when they start taking their babies to movies like District 9, which is destined to become another classic, but probably shouldn't have tiny children watching it.

It's a site where people can register to win games and software that would otherwise cost actual money at the iTunes App store.

When a developer creates an app, they get 100 free download codes that they can use to distribute for reviews or to family and friends or whatever. In this case, whatever became a website where they give some of them away for free.

All you have to do in return is nothing. Except they do ask you to review the game online in the App store if you have a moment.

I've been very lucky and should probably stay quiet so my odds will stay high, but it seems like I'm downloading something free almost every day.

So here's the site: http://www.appgiveaway.com

You can go there and read all about it, register, and start winning Apps from the iTunes App Store, too. It's a great deal!

She has a new website and I promised her I'd put a link to it here on Cliffdweller so that Google could breeze through and take a look at it.

You, human, are invited to do the same.

Her link is kellylenox.com.

And if you go there and hire her, tell her I said, "Hi." Wait. Did I grammar that correctly? Should there be a comma or not? or what about the capitalization. It's so hard to know. If only I knew an editor person to ask…

…an editor person like Kelly!

Alas, the iPhone wouldn't do that one thing. And that one thing wasn't even Flash related.

So I logged into Apple's support site and found the page where I could submit a complaint. And you know I love to complain.

A couple of hours later, I actually received this back from Apple Support:

I see that you ran into some trouble while trying to … on your cell phone.

Like what?

After years of correcting people who dared to use the generic "laptop" to refer my MacBook (and PowerBook before it), and after years of correcting people who used generic terms like "PC" for my Macintosh(es), I was appalled by someone at Apple actually just referring to my hand-held computer as a generic cell phone.

Anyone with an iPhone knows it's not just a cell phone. Anyone except the support team at iTunes.

The files do show, though, that not all the sightings and reports were without foundation. Bright lights seen across Devon and Cornwall, South Wales and Shropshire in the early hours of 31 March 1993 by 70 police and military witnesses were documented in more than 30 sightings reported to the MoD over a six-hour period. The reports said it was very big, shaped like a catamaran and was completely silent. The MoD's UFO desk, known as section (AS)2a, asked the RAF to replay its radar tapes but nothing unusual was detected.

While they do maintain that there's no such thing as alien life or UFOs, they do pose some interesting stats. Like how more UFOs are sighted when The Xfiles are on TV…

So is the MoD on to something, or are they just shilling for Hollywood's District 9?

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet — which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration — and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

I couldn't've said it better, so I'm not even going to try.

I could post that SUVs really aren't safe, even tho they're bigger than the other cars. The video here shows it looks pretty much like a one SUV accident with no smaller car involved. But I won't. Here's where I'm going with this post:

I find it annoying that CNN felt it was necessary to bleep out certain words on the home-spun video. It's true that I probably know what the words are, but isn't it just a form of sugarcoating the whole thing to make it seem less human? I mean, it's not like the shouting was scripted. It's how the people in the middle of the country react to stuff. Why can't we play the full record on TV?

If I've said it once, I've said it a billion times. Treating some words as "adult" or "dirty" serves no purpose except to elevate those words. The words only offend because people have all signed on to believe they have special power. They don't. They're just words.

Personally, I am way more offended by the miss-use of grammar than I am by what Sponge Bob Square Pants once referred to as "Sentence Enhancers." [insert dolphin noise here]

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you. They should be the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what books my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your Profile page, paste rules in a new Note, cast your 15 picks, and tag people in the Note, upper right-hand side.)

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, – the only great HP novel, JK Rowling
2. The Delicate Dependency, Michael Talbot, super cool vampire novel from the 80s
3. Green Eggs & Ham, Dr. Suess
4. Geography Club, Brent Hartinger
5. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, Douglas Adams
6. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Charles C. Mann
7. Illusions, Richard Bach
8. Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, Heather Brewer
9. Chronicles of Amber, Roger Zelazny
10. Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis
11. The Great Brain series, John D. Fitzgerald and Mercer Mayer
12. The Henry Reed series, Keith Robertson and Robert McCloskey
13. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, Robert C. O'Brien
14. The Trumpet of the Swan, E. B. White
15. A Separate Peace, John Knowles (as referenced by Lisa Simpson!)

The latest one is on the Fandango website. You know, Fandango, that site that lets you buy movie tickets from home with no human interaction. Then you print the tickets with your ink and paper, take it to the movie theatre and don't even go to the box office. You just go straight up to the guy tearing the tickets, give him the piece of paper that no one but you has ever touched, and he or she lets you in. It's a great system and Fandango makes out like a bandit. literally.

Fandango charges you $1 per ticket. so for a family of 5 going to Harry Potter just got $5 more expensive, plus printer and ink, but dangit, it's convenient.

And now they're advertising on their website that if you purchase something from one of their pals, you get a free ticket. They don't even say "Free" (with quotes as opposed to without). And they don't even hide the surcharge in the fine print.

So, if you play along, you can have a Free ticket for $1.00. Well, $1.00 plus whatever you have to pay in order to meet the qualifications of the Fandango Partner.

Hence this: I'd like to offer my free webservices to anyone who is interested. Please note, that while my web expertise is free, I charge $85 per hour plus $1 per keystroke. And normal billing charges will apply.

We went to the moon! And haven't done jack squat since. OK, that's not really fair, we've built a space station and sent the space shuttles up dozens of times. But we haven't been to the moon in over 30 years.

Hmmmm.

Anyway, here're a couple of links so you can check out the story for yourself:

• The Boston Globe: Remembering Apollo 11
• The New York Times: Mission to the Moon

Of course, the RAZR only did about 1% of the things I do every day with this computer in my pocket.

I facebook, blog, google, sync files with my mac, read and respond to emails, check Grindr every fifteen minutes, play Harbor Master and Air Traffic, check directions on my interactive map, read websites, take photos and put them on flickr, call people and SMS every day. Only those last two were available on the RAZR. And those are the only two that have been working all day today on the iPhone.

It all started when I realized MobileMe wasn't syncing over the air this morning. It ended with me moving my whole iTunes/iPhone ecosystem to my laptop and blankung the iPhone.

Now I have 11 pages of every single app I've ever downloaded on my humble little iPhone with no good way to arrange them. So I'm beginning to wonder why there's not better App layout management in iTunes, where I have quick access and a ton of screen real estate to work with. Instead, I have to tap n drag, often across several screens.

Fix it Apple. You have smart people working for you. Make it more mac like and less 'quick fix' like…

I'm just sayin.

Oh, and they're removing Fareless Square on the busses. Again, Portland's uniqueness is being thrown out the window for some bureaucrat's idea of a way to raise x jillion dollars. "If all those people were paying $2 apiece then look at all the money we'd get!" This seems like an actual reason to start yelling about Sam's inability to do the right thing.

Here's an idea… Let's start charging sales tax too! The recession is only a recession if you pay attention to those out of town newspapers and ignore all the people who can't make ends meet here because of the sucky economy. Let's just raise all the local taxes and screw the citizens!

Oh wait. Let's be sure we don't tax the good people who ride their bikes. We like them. Let's keep giving them a free ride and let them have big chunks out of the roads even tho they don't pay for them. 'cause we like bicycles and biklers. It makes us feel young to see them ride by.

So maybe it is time to move out of Portland, altho I'm not sure any of the burbs have any clearer vision about a bright and shiny future.

There are two ways we humans learn things, through individual learning and through social learning. The former is the first guy who ever poked at a cactus to find water; the latter is all of the people who learned that you can get water from a cactus because the first guy told them and all of the people they told and so on. Human societies benefit from a mixture of these two types of learning.

It goes on to explain why when people quit innovating, societies crumble.

So my initial thought is about this blog post. Does my reposting what Josh wrote help contribute to the social learning and eventually the end of society and civilization as we know it? If I have to come up with my own personal innovative thoughts every time I post, then I think we're all in trouble!

Maybe I'll just sit back now and listen to iTunes some more.

Read Josh's whole post over at How Stuff Works: Be a Lazy, Unimaginative Schmuck, Destroy Civilization — Simple as That

full disclosure: I don't actually know Josh

BTW, just for grins, I took the whole thing with my iPhone…

'nuff said.

Can you believe it was a year ago when we saw our first movie together? We were supposed to take the whole group to that show from Pixar, but it was sold out so we all settled on that other lame movie instead.

But it wasn't lame. It was crowded and we had to sit off by ourselves.

And we've never looked back (except to see when that actually happened – June 27, 2008.)

Happy 1st Anniversary Timmy. I love you. When are we getting married?

I don't know why, but it's like I'm on mission to take everyday snapshots around town and name them things that make me think a bit. This one rang a little too true for me though.

What does it bring up?

It digs up thoughts for me about isolation and over-protectiveness. I mean, here's an empty store, the doors locked and the curtains drawn.

I presume the curtains are drawn in case someone rents it out and they start to develop a store inside so they can keep it a secret until they make the big splash.

Why is springing surprises on people at the right instant important? I don't know. Ask Apple, Inc.

But the irony for me is not the curtains. It's that the place is empty and yet it still has the shoplifting alarm thingy poised to catch anyone who dares to steal anything from the empty store.

Now I can come up with 50 or more reasons why it looks like this, why those alarms are still there. But that's not the point.

The point for me is simply stated, but very complex: our society values stealth and security over simplicity and truth. The truth here is that the store is empty. There's a recession going on and it went out of business. And now the Mall Management is hiding nothing, literally, so we can't see there's nothing, and they'll punish us if we try to steal nothing.

For some unknown reason that reminded me of America. Hence the name of the photo.

Let's all do nothing but be sure that we don't share the glorious secret with anyone, and let's punish anyone who tries to steal it from us!

I know I sound cynical, but I am kind of just that today.

All I can say is "You Go, Alyck!" I had no idea we were in any competition, but now that I do, it's on. Of course, Alyck has a substantial lead since he already had 34 followers to my 20 before I even knew we were racing. So I guess I'll just have to catch up.

You can see my tweets in the side bar right under the photos from Flickr, or you can choose to follow me here:

twitter.com/pumasalad

So there you go. If you're not using Twitter you just don't get it. But you will. Someday. I promise.

We can see giant snow capped volcanos from here (yes, there's still a little snow on both Mt Hood and Mt St Helens), and even though it's late June we don't even have air conditioning on in the house.

So I'm sitting there trying to figure out if it's the laid back-ness of it all, or if I'm gonna get any ice cream, or what exactly is so Texas-like about the moment.

Then I swat a mosquito and it all comes racing home, just like that scene near the end of Ratatouille where the food critic sits down to eat. It's the bugs. I think I may have donated around a pint to the local economy while we were sitting out there.

Still, it was pleasant. And I was with my partner just enjoying the Oregon-ness of it all. So I guess it's worth a few bugs here and there for moments like these.

Gizmodo has an article talking about the new phones and the speed. Here's an excerpt that made me laugh:

Like we said before, the iPhone 3G will still run most of the games for the near future. That 40 million unit potential market of iPhone/iPod Touch devices is too big to just ignore and put out an app just for 3GS phones, so your old phone will still be able to keep up. But developers are like alcoholics. If you put more system resources in front of them, they can't help but use all of it just because they can. Also, they drink a lot.

Read the whole article, and watch a video of side by side iPhone 3G and 3GS showing speed related issues over at Gizmoodo.

Gizmodo: iPhone 3GS Review

About the new 3D experience: OMG! It costed $14 APIECE to see it in 3D at a matinee show on Friday. I've seen Star Trek 3 times for the same amount of money I spent on 2 tickets for Up today. It's way too expensive. And it's not worth it at all. Sure, it's the best 3D experience ever at a movie theatre (technology and all that), but it's still just a 3D movie. I felt like my head was crooked all the way through, and the cheesy plastic glasses, while lightweight, became uncomfortable about 20 minutes in.

It ain't worth it folks. I hope this 3D fad passes soon just like the last one did somewhere around 20 years ago.

About Up: It was good. It wasn't great, but it was good. I don't want to spoil anything, but I don't have to because everything is in the trailers. Of course, where they showed you stuff in the trailer, they expanded upon greatly in the actual film.

I giggled. I laughed. I smiled. I got all choked up and almost cried at one point. But that happens in every movie, especially Disney ones – they have the formula down pat.

It wasn't Pixar's best, but it's still better than almost anything from Dreamworks. I'd place it somewhere between The Incredibles and Wall•e, just next to A Bugs LIfe.

For reference, my favorite Pixar films are Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo.

So it's worth going to see, but it's not worth paying the 3D tax.

Well, yesterday at Kah-Nee-Ta, a Native American resort, where I was walking down the road with Henry and Tim and Reilly, I managed to fall off the edge of the road. Again, I was wearing sandals, and again I appear to have broken two toes. Only this time they're the ones on my left foot.

Oweee.

Oddly enough, when I collapsed in slow motion, I managed to skin my left hand on the palm and on my knuckles. How does one manage to skin both sides of one's hand?

So anyway, I'm still alive and kicking, but only with my right foot because it hurts too much to move my left foot. My toes are all swollen and blue. It looks really nasty.

The irony of it all is that Paul's Law reads "You Can't Fall Off The Floor", but apparently that doesn't apply to perfectly level, paved roads.

"You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons"

So, let me get this straight. If I were going to use my music collection to create "missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons," it would violate my license agreement and Apple could revoke my use of iTunes.

That's harsh.

That makes Apple the first target, doesn't it? If they don't invalidate my license then I can keep making "missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons" until I can't makes no more.

Since iTunes is the perfect tool for that anyway.

Sheesh, talk about lawyers and broilerplating gone bad…

Torture is wrong, and it pisses me off. Why can't we stop?

"So it's ok to waterboard a guy over 80 times, but God forbid the guy who could understand what that prick was saying…
…has a boyfriend."

Bill Clinton's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy must end. Obama said it makes no sense. He's squirling out and doing nothing to end it. How do we put enough pressure on him to make it happen?

It's a side scroller where you don't do much besides walking along and hacking up the enemy. Chop chop!

It's the first game from Kris' own Pocket Monkey Games. It's fun.