Google’s Nexus One phone sparks flood of complaints.

Just eight days after Google opened its online store to sell the new Nexus One smartphone directly to customers, its support forums have been overloaded with complaints [...]]]> Actually spent a little time this evening going through my Google Reader and looking for interesting things to share.

Technology / Science News

Google’s Nexus One phone sparks flood of complaints.

Just eight days after Google opened its online store to sell the new Nexus One smartphone directly to customers, its support forums have been overloaded with complaints on a variety of issues. They stem from coverage and delivery problems, network compatibility, dropped calls and operation woes.

Malware: Android Apps Threaten Mobile Security

Google’s Android Market relies on customers to flag dodgy apps, leaving businesses and other customers’ smartphones open to attack by rogue apps until Google acts, sometimes days later.

Malware banking apps have already been removed from the Android Market, where it seems anyone can post what purports to be a banking application.

The future is here and it’s a damned freaky/scary sex robot (…just, ewwwwww)

At the other trade show in Vegas last week, the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, a company called True Companion threw a coming-out party for Roxxxy, a 5-foot 7-inch, fully functional rubberized “girlfriend” with a personality, of sorts.

Astronaut pee clogs the space station – I can only assume they’re drinking Mellow Yellow and not Mt Dew…

Engineers trouble-shooting a problem with the station’s $250 million water recycling system, which processes urine into clean water for drinking, believe the cause is a high concentration of calcium in the astronauts’ urine, which clogs the system.

The Phoenix Mars Lander may have survived the Martian winter (but not really).

Nasa’s Mars Odyssey orbiter is set to listen for possible radio transmissions from the Phoenix Mars lander, to check if it has survived the Martian winter.

AAAAIIIIGGGHHH!!! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIIIIEEEE!  IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!!! HOLLYWOOD CALLED IT – IT’S A DANED ASTEROID AND IT”S GOING TO KEEEEEELLLLL US ALLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A weird object that left some observers wondering if it was a piece of space junk is most likely just a small asteroid, and will zoom close by Earth Wednesday, NASA scientists say. It may be visible to seasoned amateur astronomers as it passes harmlessly by the planet.

Oh.  Well.  Never mind then.

Scifi

Star Trek Online enters open beta

The open beta of Star Trek Online begins today and runs through January 26th, a week before the February 2nd launch date.

The channel formerly known as ‘SciFi’ Presents Marathon of 1960s Sci-Fi Cult Classic, The Invaders Monday, January 18

(The former SciFi Channel) is bringing back the 1960s sci-fi cult classic, The Invaders, for a special 11-episode marathon on Monday, January 18, from 8AM-7PM (ET/PT). The series, which starred Roy Thinnes — who claimed to have seen a UFO during the filming of the series — ran for two seasons on ABC from 1967-68.

Weird artist re-creates famous sci-fi scenes—with face paint!

Lucky Batman! All he had to deal with was Two-Face. Who knows whether he’d have been able to handle James Kuhn, a wacky artist with hundreds of faces. Kuhn loves painting his face so much that one day he decided he’d do it up differently every day for a year—and when that wasn’t enough, he did it all over again!

Firefly to live on FOREVER! FOREVER I TELL YOU!  BROWNCOATS REPRESENT!

Joss Whedon’s beloved Firefly/Serenity is long gone, but you can’t stop the signal: Fans can look for more adventures of Capt. Mal Reynolds and the crew of the doughty ship in a series of short stories coming soon from Titan Books.

Oh. Yeah. That too.

I’m done.

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Galactic Hookup Spawns Celestial Offspring comes from Wired (but it’s all over the web). Basically, Hubble caught a photo of galaxies colliding.  I wonder what happens to the stars and planets when galaxies collide and merge?  Man. Wouldn’t that be a great story [...]]]> Another quick round up of stuff I found interesting on the web today.

Galactic Hookup Spawns Celestial Offspring comes from Wired (but it’s all over the web). Basically, Hubble caught a photo of galaxies colliding.  I wonder what happens to the stars and planets when galaxies collide and merge?  Man. Wouldn’t that be a great story to write?

“I looked up into the bright sky, full of stars, and knew that we were all so very screwed.”

…okay, so, maybe it needs some work. Everyone is a critic!  Sheesh!

Nice picture on that link.

Dungeons & Dragons Online is now free (and people are playing it again). This is from Ars Technica – talking about how the game has new life thanks to it being free.  Yeah, well – DUH!  That’s why newspapers are failing but blogs and Internet based news sources are THRIVING.

I’ve never played this game cuz I don’t think they have a Mac version, which is stupid.

CNET tells us that Barnes & Noble makes October 20 event official.  Speculation is that this will be the launch of a new e-reader from B&N. I don’t mind all the competition out there – quite the contrary – but I sure wish they’d all settle on a single format.  I don’t want e-readers to become like cellphones – exclusive to a certain carrier and if you switch, everything you bought goes away.  That’s just stupid.

I have a lot of DVD’s (We’re talking a LOT here.  Like, tons.  Way too many.  A whole case, thingie with these doors and lights and stuff – full, top to bottom.  A little overflowing…  God, I need a life…) and if my DVD player breaks I can just go out and buy another one – any brand I want and it’ll work with the DVD’s I already have.  THAT’S what e-readers need to be.

Comic Book Resources has a nice little roundup peice on the 2009 Harvey Awards held at the Baltimore Comic-Con.

Yeah, I got nothing.  Just a good article.

According to GameLife, the guy who wrote ‘Saving Private Ryan’ has been tapped to write the Warcraft movie for Blizzard.  This could mean that the movie won’t suck.  Could also mean that the sequences where the Orcs are enslaved by the humans and sent to camps in Ashenvale will be so intense that any Orcs in the audience will become visibly upset and will have to leave the theater…

Life, Doctor Who and Combom has an amusing video with Rowan Atkinson (whom I love – he is fantastic) as ‘Spider Plant Man’.  worth a looksee.

SFSignal.com asks the question: Does the SciFi label still apply?

Yes.  But not at BestBuy (I plan to blog about this later on this week – BestBuy has removed ‘SciFi’ from it’s shelves, relegating titles to ‘Action’, instead).

Also at SFSignal.com – Tube Bits.  Um… There’s a photo on that page.  Wow.  I don’t remember THOSE costumes in Stargate: Universe.

Rachelle Gardner has a great post on her blog: Protocol – When an Agent Offers to Rep You.  Excellent reading for anyone who is looking for representation and wondering how to handle stuff that comes along.  She always has good advice – well worth your read.

In the ‘odd but interesting’ pile – both from Wired.  Hunting Arctic Asteroid Impact With Hovercraft & 35 Years of the World’s Best Microscope Photography.  Both are very interesting, if a bit off.  The overcraft thing – I keep seeing G.I. Joe in my head – loading up some hovercraft to chase Zartan through the artic tundra or some such.  Don’t ask me why.  And the microscopic photography is very cool, yes strange all at the same time.  Makes me think of Spore.  or that ‘Fantastic Voyage’ (I think that’s the one) where they shrink the ship full of doctor’s and scientists and then inject em into the President (I think) to save him from something that can only be removed from inside his body.  OR, that ride at Disneyland where you are shrunk down and enter the unseen world of the body (which, come to think of it – was probably tied to that movie).

Worth a looksee.

Sam Raimi said something! About Spider-man 4!  And it didn’t piss me off!  Thanks to Slice of SciFi for that link.  And for this one: Actress Jolene Blalock will join the cast of the syndicated series “Legend of the Seeker” for the upcoming second season.

Raise your hand if you think she’ll have a skin tight outfit that pushes her boobs up and barely contains them inside some sort of lace up bodice!  Go ahead – it’s okay!  We know it will…

I think I liked her better on Stargate as a warrior/leader versus her run on Craptaprise.  I promise I’ll reserve judgement on this until I see who she’s playing and how they are interpreting the character.

Probably.

AND SPEAKING OF WOMEN WEARING NEXT TO NOTHING.  20 awesomely hot Slave Leia costumes.

What is it about Princess Lea in the gold bikini that so sets off us males, eh?  I could probably do a blog post on it but I’m kinda busy going through the photos right now, so, maybe later?

Lastly, I offer you this: You can own Firefly’s Serenity for just $2,495. The link!  Not the replica!  I don’t have $2500 to throw around, and if I did, I’d totally have to get a TARDIS first…

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Ars Technica

Ars Technica has a lot of interesting articles each week. Sometimes I link em on Twitter, sometimes I don’t.  Last week, they talked about advertising and file-hosting sites.  It [...]]]> I find these things interesting, and thought I would share em by compiling a list here today.  The names were NOT changed to protect the innocent.

Ars Technica

Ars Technica has a lot of interesting articles each week. Sometimes I link em on Twitter, sometimes I don’t.  Last week, they talked about advertising and file-hosting sites.  It piqued my interest because I mostly hate advertising on websites – this got my brain working and thinking.  Note that I haven’t done any much (I sometimes have an Amazon thingie…) advertising on this site. I especially hate the kind of ads that pop up as your mouse passes over text – those really annoy.  Anyway, FireFox has a lot of neat plug ins that interrupt the flow of advertising to the consumer – things to block flash and ads and whatnotall.  One file-host site doesn’t like a new plug in that bypasses their site altogether, allowing people to download directly from the site instead of visiting pages with endless ads on them.

I really wish we could find a happy medium. Advertisers want to blanket us with Coke and Pepsi ads (among other things) while we just want it all to go away because we’re on overload.  When a page takes four times as long to load because of all the ad crap – we have a problem.  When we can’t get to the content we want because the ads keep interupting us, that’s a problem too.  When the content GOES AWAY because the advertisers have left and the content creator can no longer afford to operate, guess what?  We have another problem.

CNET is another favorite of mine for news.

Last week they talked about a couple of things I wanted to point out.

The 5 best (and worst) game preorder trends.  I found this interesting because the only game I have ever pre-ordered has been the expansions for World of Warcraft.  Nothing else has ever interested me enough to pre-order it.  Of course, I also tend to buy my console games used once they’ve come down considerably in price (which is why I’m usually behind the trends). This article is amusing and worth a read. Talks about what gimmicks work/they like (like getting the game ahead of the actual release date) and what doesn’t work/they don’t like (getting in game special stuff or crappy trinkets). Check it out.

The other is about Adobe bringing Photoshop.com to the iPhone, which is just neat.  Apps like this, which allow you to enhance the photos taken by your camera phone, are just nifty.  And Photoshop is pretty much the leader in this field now (sadly. I prefer some competition).  Looks like a cool deal.  Need to get that on my iPhone…

Comics should be good.

I can’t say enough nice things about this blog. I love the classic stuff and the contemporary stuff they cover every day. I usually can’t keep up with their updates.  Really worth some time on your part to check em out if you’ve ever cared about comics.

Life, Doctor Who and Combom

If you are a fan of Doctor Who, present or past, you really should check out Life, Doctor Who and Combom.  This is another site where I can’t keep up with all the updates.  If it’s Doctor Who related, it’ll show up on this blog.

Some more individual items for you.

“Fiction: In Blood 2009″ from @authormancuso. Warning for graphic violence/gore.

GameLife has a story on Sega’s SG-1000 (Sega’s 1st Game System) and gets extra points for showing Golgo 13 – a game I had for the NES.  Trying to remember his name…  Duke Togo? Something like that. 007 only Japanese.

The NY Times has a puff piece, but still very nice, about a woman on A Quest to Read a Book a Day for 365 Days.

I have never particularly cared for Batgirl.  Since finding the DCU blog ‘The Source’, however, I find myself intrigued.  Almost enough to venture to a comic book store again.  Almost.

Ya know what? I don’t want to grow up to be Sam Raimi.  Not that it wouldn’t be cool to be all rich and stuff and know Bruce Campbell and Xena.  But, I don’t want to be the guy who puts Sandman above Venom because ‘in his day’, Sandman was the big bad and Venom hadn’t been invented yet.  When I think of Batgirl, I think of Barbara Gordon (who became Oracle when Joker shot her in the spine and put her in a wheelchair for the rest of her life).  So much has changed.  Need to stay up with the times.  The Source helps with that.  And I have to say, it’s much better than Marvel’s blog – which is all selly.  The Source feels more low-key, which is probably why it sticks in my brain.

HOLEY SUBLIMINAL MARKETING, BATMAN!

…I am so sorry.  I really am.

~P

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#1 Sam Kane

Synopsis: Sam Kane is a detective with the Denver PD – it’s her first week as a Detective and she’s already screwed up. Her partner’s in [...]]]> I decided an update was in order on my various writing projects.  Woot, right?  I know you were really curious what’s been going on so here it is.

#1 Sam Kane

Synopsis: Sam Kane is a detective with the Denver PD – it’s her first week as a Detective and she’s already screwed up. Her partner’s in intensive care and her Captain is about to rip her a new ass when in walks Jack Mayfair, a mysterious man with transfer papers that will change her life forever…

Learning that you are a latent Wizard is one thing, beginning your training and being tossed head first into a world of supernatural surprises like vampires and werewolves is something altogether different. Sam has to cope with who she thought she was, who she’s becoming, and what’s just around the next corner.

Well, if you follow the blog or the podcast, you know that I finished up the rough draft of ‘Sam Kane’ a while ago.  Since then, I’ve been slowly going through and editing.  I should probably emphasize slowly.

It’s a little shy of 110k words right now, and I need to cut it down to 100k.  That was always my goal with this book and I want to stick to that number.  With that in mind, I’ve been doing a lot of tweaking to the book.  There were some very weak points that I knew were weak when I wrote them that I am either changing, rewriting or deleting altogether.  Has to be done.

There is also a couple of chapters that need to be totally ditched.  I wrote them, I felt good about them, but now in hindsight – it’s just too much.  Too long, too much crap, too much talking – it all has to go.  Sounding cryptic, aren’t I?  Okay – let me try to explain and I know it’s hard given that only one person other than me has actually read the entire piece front to back.  Still, I’ll try.

I’ve a character that I wanted to do more with, so I did more.  I wrote several chapters where it’s him basically telling a story – a long story (keep in mind that my chapters themselves aren’t very long).  I wanted to build him up as a stronger supporting character and I did that, but now I am realizing that it just doesn’t work.  The story he tells is too long.  The book itself is very fast paced and then you hit this section where this old man talks and talks and talks…  It doesn’t work.  I see that now.  So, the whole thing needs to be redone.

My intention with this book was to have it, despite being 100k words, feel like it goes by so fast (and the one person who has read it cover to cover said that it is very fast paced).  Everything happens rapidly over the course of a week (then it became two weeks and I need to get it back to being a single week).  I need to stick to that, which means I need to make changes and those are slow in coming.  My goal is to have the changes done and the manuscript’s 2nd draft/version ‘complete’  by late September.

Fingers crossed!

#2 Flash Fiction

I wanted to bring a new piece of Flash Fiction to the blog every week either on Tuesdays or Thursdays – I still haven’t made up my mind on that yet.  As you can probably tell, that hasn’t happened.  It’s not for lack of trying.

I’ve written a dozen or more pieces and few of them have found their way onto the blog.  The rest, I struggle with them.  I read them and I know I can do better, so I don’t publish them.  Which is probably stupid.  I should just put them out there for folks to read and get some feedback, but I tend to be a bit OCD on the subject.  It has to be worth your time!  It has to be perfect!

My favorite piece to date has been ‘Welcome to Solar City’.  If you haven’t read that yet, please click the link and check it out.

I’ve tried to explain it before and sometimes I do a decent job and sometimes I don’t, but I’ve always had this notion in my head of ‘The New Universe’.  This is the place where my stories take place.  There is a past, a present and a future to this universe.  Most of it is still in my head, but it’s really clear in my head if that makes a difference.  The different things I write, they fit into the grand scheme of things.  ‘Welcome to Solar City’ is part of the future.  I hope to visit there often (I have ideas..).  Lots of tales to tell in that city (Oh, yes, I have ideas…).

#3 Short Stories

I’ve found that when I get an idea, I have to put it down on paper (electronic paper).  Too many times, I’ve had a fantastic idea that I didn’t write down and then lost it because other things came up and it got pushed out of my brain, which frustrates me to no end.

I have two such ideas at the moment and I’ve put both down on paper, as it were.  The first is something with a working title of ‘Stargazing’.  It’s set on a world from that future I mentioned above and could be considered a prequel to a novel I have planned at some point.

The second has a working title of ‘Witchcraft & Satrys’.  It’s…different.   I like my comedy and this has some in it.  This is further along than the first idea mentioned above.

The third are my boys, ‘Malachi and Madrighan’.  They are almost always my comic relief, sort of a throwback to the old sword and sorcery movies of the 80’s that were just so terrible you had to watch them.  They are brothers born of different fathers who have been assured by their mother that they are, in fact, twins.  They are better than fair with a sword so they travel the world getting into trouble, selling their swords to whoever can pay which rarely ever works out well for them.  But they’re together and having fun, which is all that really matters to them.  Well, that and getting paid.  And eating.

This story, with a working title of ‘The Business with the Troll’, is the closest to being ready for publication here on the blog.

Any of the short stories that get published will most likely be serialized.  Keep an eye out on twitter or here cuz I hope to be publishing ‘The Business with the Troll’ in a week or two.

#4 Podcast

I know, I know – haven’t done one in a couple weeks.  Truth told, I’m still pissed at PodBean.  I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.  As soon as I know, you’ll know.

Well – that’s it for this little update.  Hope it whet your appetite for some new fiction coming down the pipe soonish…

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Technology

Judge orders Microsoft to stop selling Word (patent infringement)

Facebook launching Twitter-version of site?

Apple Stuff

Books/publishing

In the fifth episode of the All Things From My Brain podcast, I talk about the Palm Pre losing it’s iTunes sync functionality, how India plans to issue biometric ID cards to its 1.2 BILLION citizens, how the Kindle and Amazon are once again in the news with BAD [...]]]> Episode #5: All Things from My Brain

In the fifth episode of the All Things From My Brain podcast, I talk about the Palm Pre losing it’s iTunes sync functionality, how India plans to issue biometric ID cards to its 1.2 BILLION citizens, how the Kindle and Amazon are once again in the news with BAD PRESS, about Galaga coming to the iPhone in both retro and new forms, how Farragut films is bring Star Trek back to animation, how the family of Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkein are suing New Line Cinema cuz they ain’t been paid, about G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Iron Man 2 & Green Lantern: First Flight, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Buck Rogers in the 25th century, Flash Gordon, and The New Universe book projects currently on my plate.

[podcast]http://www.atfmb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/AllThingsFromMyBrain005.mp3[/podcast]

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Guess what I did this weekend?

I created a podcast!!

I decided that I have a face fit for radio… Or Podcasting…

Anyway, spent the weekend working on this – hoping that I’ve worked the kinks out and it’ll be much much easier to do these moving forward.  We’ll have to see about that.

There’s lot’s of ways to [...]]]> So.

Guess what I did this weekend?

I created a podcast!!

I decided that I have a face fit for radio… Or Podcasting…

Anyway, spent the weekend working on this – hoping that I’ve worked the kinks out and it’ll be much much easier to do these moving forward.  We’ll have to see about that.

There’s lot’s of ways to access the podcast at this point:

• You can click this link and it’ll take you to the feed.
• You can click the podcast player in the right sidebar and play it in the browser.
• You can click the link in the left sidebar to the feed.

I’ve submitted it to iTunes so as soon as I have a link for that, I’ll put it here somewhere.  In the meantime, you can add it to your iTunes by clicking on Advanced, then Subscribe to podcast and just paste the feed link in.

I’m really excited about this!

In this inaugural episode of the All Things From My Brain Podcast, I introduce myself and then talk about: the podcast and the blog, I also talk about reboot mania gripping Hollywood, the new iPhone 3GS and the new 3.0 OS, Tweetdeck on the iPhone, the new Ghostbusters game released this week, Microsoft’s new .NET Firefox addon that you probably didn’t know about, Torchwood: Children of Earth, Primeval, Doctor Who and the new Spaceport America.

If that sounds interesting to you, then what are you waiting for?  Click the link!

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The Associated Press is reporting that these staffers are getting together to launch a new site for news: InDenverTimes.com.

Now – I wanna say right off the bat that I think this is great and I wish them well.  The closing of an institution like the [...]]]> Some former staffers from the Rocky Mountain News think you might.

The Associated Press is reporting that these staffers are getting together to launch a new site for news: InDenverTimes.com.

Now – I wanna say right off the bat that I think this is great and I wish them well.  The closing of an institution like the Rocky Mountain News is very sad and I was sorry to see it go and to hear about the folks who found themselves out of work.  I have my own thoughts about why newspapers in general are closing their doors and their lack of love for the Internet is high on that list.  That these folks are trying to build something online to, well – not replace the Rocky Mountain News, but to give an alternative source for news in the area – I think that is fantastic.  More power to them.

Having said that, I think their approach is all wrong, just like most newspaper attitudes towards the web is wrong (they want to clamp down on information from the ‘free press’).  These folks want people to subscribe for $5 a month.  There are a couple things wrong with this model:

First off, the generation who is used to waking up in the morning, sitting at the table sipping their coffee and nibbling at breakfast while they read the paper – they are not going to pay $5 a month for an online paper.  I’m sorry, they just aren’t going to do it.  They want that physical paper in their hands because that’s what they are used to having and they don’t want to change.  They don’t want to stare at a computer screen or at their phone – they want that tactile sensation of holding the paper between their fingers, the smell of the newsprint on their hands, it’s what they know.

Second, the people who would welcome a local online news source aren’t gonna wanna pay for it – like me (and many of you), they get tons and tons of news on the net already and get it for free through Google news and RSS feeds and a whole myriad of other sources, so why would we pay for this service?

Lastly, look at what is successful on the web and what isn’t.  Why not create an ad supported free site and then offer a ‘premium’ edition in six months with a nominal subscription fee?  Get people interested in the site, get them using it and then later on, don’t clamp down on things and say, “oh – you have to pay to see what we’ve been giving you for free…”  NO!  Keep the ad supported version and then launch the premium area with less ads (but with better positioning within the articles or something).  Add content that no one else has and that isn’t syndicated for your premium area – make it worthwhile to invest that $5.

Fear of change and the desire to hold onto the way things used to be is what’s killing newspapers across the country.  It’s atrophy.  Be different.  Change and show the rest of your industry how it can be done.

~P

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Never Defend Yourself

Israel continues to pound the Gaza Strip.  All I can say is: It’s about damned time.  Sheesh!  Everyone is making this out to be a bad thing, that Israel is the bad guy, that there needs to be a cease fire.  Guess what [...]]]> Just a few things that caught my eye today over lunch…

Never Defend Yourself

Israel continues to pound the Gaza Strip.  All I can say is: It’s about damned time.  Sheesh!  Everyone is making this out to be a bad thing, that Israel is the bad guy, that there needs to be a cease fire.  Guess what people?  There’s been a one sided cease fire for what – three years now?  One sided because in the time since Israel gave over control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians, thousands of rocket attacks have poured across the border into Israel.  One report I read said it’s been something like 6000 rockets!!

Frankly, I’m surprised they’ve waited so long and I hope they don’t back down until Hamas is done for.

What the hell is going on with the Democrats?

Is it just me, or has the time from election to inauguration day seemed longer this time around than any other election in recent history?  I mean, the election itself felt really long, but with all the scandal’s coming out in the past couple of months, it just feels a lot longer than it actually is.

First we had the Blagojevich (thank you copy/paste) mess and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should know all about his trying to sell President Elect Obama’s Illinois Senate Seat to the highest bidder.  The guy has more nerve than a lot of these politicians – he even went so far as to nominate someone for the job after everyone told him not to.  I can’t believe that the guy nominated, Roland W. Burris, A) Accepted the position in the first place and B) Showed up for work.  Wow – I mean, just, Wow.

Then we have the same basic thing happening in New York, where Hillary Clinton is leaving to join the Obama administration as Secretary of State and her seat is up for grabs.  Caroline Kennedy says that she wants the job, but I read somewhere (Dangit – I can’t find it now) that basically said she was hurting for the job because her contributions to the DNC were low.  Um, what?  How is that different from Blagojevich holding a private auction?

Now we have the Richardson thing.  He’s being investigated for possible corruption over political donations that may have landed certain companies certain transportation contracts.  Not good.

Is it just me or is it just the season or what?  I mean – is there a lot more of this stuff turning up all of a sudden?  Considering that Democrats have won some crucial victories throughout the country this election cycle, it seems that all this stuff turning up is really tarnishing the luster of those wins.

Steve Jobs isn’t sick. Or, he is, just not what you think.  Or maybe it is.  Or maybe it’s not.  …it’s all so very confusing, but according to Mr. Mac himself, there’s nothing seriously wrong except for a hormone imbalance causing him to lose a little weight.  So, he really, really, really doesn’t want people panicking and dumping their stock in Apple.  Um… Okay.

The New York Times, seeing that, like most newspapers across the country, their revenues are dropping drastically because no one reads their paper anymore, has taken the first logical (insane Troll logic) steps towards rectifying the situation: they’re now selling ad space on the front of the paper.

Forget that no one reads their stuff because it’s all slanted and partisan!  That can’t possibly be why so many people go online and find their news from alternative sources (like I do!), thus causing a decline in readership, which then affects revenues from advertisers who seek out alternative areas to spend their advertising dollars on!  No, no – the problem is that they don’t have ad space on the front page of the paper!  Yep, that’ll solve -ALL- their problems…

And, to end this little bit of news on a lighter note: There’s a New Doctor Who coming our way.

Young Matt Smith (Yes, I said -young-) has been chosen by producers of the BBC Show to replace David Tennant after 2009.  Tennant, arguably one of the best Doctors to come along since Tom Baker played the iconic role back in the 70’s, is leaving the show after propelling it to new heights and popularity with the reboot of the series.  The show’s been on, what?  43 years?  44?  Something like that.  It -needed- a reboot (and a real budget – it got both).

Tennant is doing some specials in 2009 that we probably won’t see on SciFi on this side of the pond for a while, then he’s out and the new guy is in for the 2010 series (season, we call it over here).  I have mixed feelings about this.  I really, really like Tennant in the role and I’m very sad to see him go.  The new guy?  The interview posted on youtube isn’t promising.  I immediately didn’t care for him.  I’m hoping that will change once I see him flying around in his T.A.R.D.I.S.

~P

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