Random thoughts and blaming people for stuff…

Steve Jobs kicked Adobe in the junk today about Flash. See, you guys, that’s why he gets on the cover of the magazines even though he’s a college dropout who got fired  from the company he founded, then came back and saved it. He’s not afraid. Corporate wonks are always afraid of something – shareholders, publicity, something. I don’t think Steve is afraid of anything and that makes him way more powerful. I don’t know how he got that way but if you could bottle it, you could sell it for millions of dollars an ounce.

John Noble makes Fringe. Yes, I think it’s the Avika Goldsman touch, too – he’s a helluva writer, and the showrunners and writers do a very fine job of leading us along without it feeling like the plot is being dragged out too long. I can watch the show just to watch John Noble. It’s like  when John Spencer and Martin Sheen could just sit the the Oval Office set on The West Wing, speaking the dialog written by Aaron Sorkin, and keep me engaged because it was great dialogue delivered by two great actors. And tonight’s episode, done as a sort of 40s film-noir/musical, is really nutty. It’s got a touch of Princess Bride in it, too. (But it’s not a kissing book, sorry to say.)

I don’t like to gamble, but I’m glad others do, because that pays for cool places in Las Vegas where I can go and see great shows for a reasonable amount of money. The Horseshoe Casino in Hammond is like that, too – The Venue is a nice place, and I’m sure they could never have financed it on ticket sales.

I also don’t like reality shows, but if putting some of them on TV means that more money can go to shows like Chuck and Fringe and CSI, I’m cool with it, and I thank those fans and advertisers, because all three of those are awesome.

And on the subject of Chuck: when most shows lose the sexual tension between the stars, the shows die. (Remember Moonlighting, back in the day? Crashed with a huge thud.)  I think this one won’t. Characters are too likable, actors are good, writing has been better than that. And Adam frickin’ Baldwin.

The crazy leftists who went nuts over the immigration law in Arizona just proved they are crazy leftists. There is no logic to their arguments – again. The Arizona legislature and governor did what they had to do when the Feds didn’t do their jobs. I think there will be more examples of this over the next couple of years as more state legislatures show some spine and take over the responsibility while the Federal government plays around doing all of its crazy Socialist crap.

And airlines that won’t fly to Arizona? We still have kind of a free market system, folks: people will still want to go to Arizona, and the airlines that will still go there will get the business. So there. It’s not like they can close off the state.

It’s not that I have anything to do with it, but I would like to apologize for the public ravings of the Mayor of Chicago. He’s done some real good for the city, and I really think he has the best interests of the people at heart. He just comes up with really looney crap a lot, like trying to take the US gun manufacturers to court in The Hague. He really needs someone to say: “Yer Honer, I tink dat’s a silly idear. Better not say dat one to da newsies.” (You need to know how to speak Chicagoese to get the whole effect.)

If topless women cause earthquakes (did I hear that right?), then when an asteroid is found to be in a course to strike the earth, we just aim all the women at it and have them uncover – and ZAP! the asteroid breaks up into little tiny pieces.

Feel free to use that idea to save the world. I don’t want any compensation – just credit for coming up with it, okay? You read it here. It’s Jeff Waggoner’s Topless Women Earth Defense System (TM).

How accurately can topless women be focused? Can the Army use them to, say, knock down a mountain in Afghanistan where the bad guys are hiding? That would be cool. Maybe  a few thousand surrounding the mountain? See, that’s the kind of study the Federal Government should be funding, right?

Heh. I just checked the category box over there for “science.” Heh.

Tomorrow my son should get his iPad. I have fired up my Insanely Jealous But I Won’t Show It face to make sure it will be working. If someone wants to buy me one, that would be cool. Thanks.

3G version, as much RAM as possible, please.

Things I can’t figure out:

As a free market capitalist, I believe greed on a collective scale is a good thing. On the other hand, individual greed is usually bad. I’m still working on that.

I would like us as a nation to be compassionate to the poor and helpless, but we can’t keep moving the marker for what is poor and helpless. The farther that marker moves, the more we are being taken advantage of, for a variety of reasons. I know that “regular” Americans would never want to march on Washington with violence on their minds. For the first time in my 55 years, I am afraid I may see that in my lifetime. I am also afraid I may be one of those people. I truly do not understand how the Democrats in Congress and in the Obama Administration can push through an agenda so completely opposed to the will of the majority of American.

Why do they still make regular Oreos when Double Stuf are so much better? Who eats them? People in denial?

Losin’ weight, exercisin’ and busy

Not much from me because I’ve been on this OptiFast diet for 24 days now…I think I’ve lost about 30 pounds already. That, and the exercise I am doing (with a personal trainer, yet) is making me pretty tired. No time or energy for witty or pithy thoughts lately. And school this year ends about a whole week earlier than usual, on June 2, so things over the next few weeks are pretty compressed.

Besides, what’s there to say? US politics? Same old same old. Space program? Obama has put the kiss of death on that, too. I’ve not had time to work on the second novel, or even on a new jazz band tune. The Princess Cecile sits there, in pieces, waiting to come together. There are other models I would love to get to, but they will also have to wait a few weeks. Pretty soon it’s time to get outside and put down some train track! At least I can bend over and do it now!

Update on…well, stuff.

First, I’ve been on a diet called Optifast for the past week. How it works, and what you should do while you are on it, is complicated. You really need to see a doctor to do it. My wife and I are going to do this as a way to  kick-start a whole new eating plan. Maybe this time we can permanently change our behaviors about eating. I hope so.

Second, I’ve got a cold along with the diet, so I don’t have much energy. This is the first day I can remember in a long time where I’ve done practically nothing. Oh, I went to the gym (exercise is part of the diet program, of course), but with the cold the trainer cut back on the stuff, thankfully. Otherwise I read a few things and surfed teh intertubes a bit.

I’ve not posted much because I was away for a week helping my  Mom and Dad over our school Spring Break – and my daughter and granddaughters went along, which was great fun – then had a busy week this past week back at work.

I don’t even know how to comment on this crazy Obama downward spiral of stupidity. I used to think he was controlled by some bunch of liberals behind the scenes, or George Soros, or somebody. Now if I activate my Conspiracy Theory Gene I have more of a Manchurian Candidate thing going on. Control of as much of the economy as possible, lower our protections from outside attack, alienate any friends we have overseas, like Israel.

I’ve been reading James Patterson’s “Women’s Murder Club” series. I’ve been reading them on my iPhone, using the Kindle app. None are very long, and all are pretty good. I’m on number 7 now. I can read them on the phone in odd moments.

Speaking of the Kindle, once the iPad drops in price, which I think it will within the next 18 months, the Kindle is a goner. So are all the other e-readers in the current crop. I got a chance to spend some time with an iPad last Wednesday, and it’s frackin’ gorgeous. It’s just too much money right now. So was the original iPhone at its introduction. I think I can wait for version 2, or at least version 1.2!

I’m beginning to see a number of applications for the iPad in education, but the thing is still too expensive for kids to handle, too.  It’s “droppable” and certainly not easily repairable. But it will be very useful, for kids from grades school through college.

I’m really encouraged by why I’ve been hearing and seeing about the Tea Party movement. Fox News is becoming less “fair and balanced,” I think, but I can’t argue with that. These are desperate times, and maybe Roger Ailes really is trying to help to save our nation. God, I hope so. He certainly has given Sean Hannity free rein on his show. I’ve not watched Glenn Beck, so I can’t comment on his show. I hope we can retain this momentum through to the November elections.

I’ve been chipping away, though slowly, at the Michigan Confederacy novel. I think I have the main plot points mapped out. I am building a cast of characters – mostly the starship crew. The backstory is mostly sketched out. About 7K words so far. I just got a major point figured out yesterday, and there’s really only one more that’s hanging out there for me to figure out.

In the book, I also have to have a good justification for why the Chinese don’t have a larger presence in space. Hmm.

Too much cold to think farther today. Signing off. Everybody have fun.