But holy crap, what’s going on in the Garden State?

Barstool Sports - The dangers of over-spray-on-tanning. Honestly, what’s the deal? This page has pic after pic of bad spray-on tans. So, are they going for the bad spray-on look? On the one hand, I hope that’s the case, but I’m afraid they just don’t know how bad it looks. Are they going for a cross-racial look? If so, it’s not working.

Maybe they just don’t have the money to go to where it’s really sunny. And what’s with the grim expressions? Are they still pissed about the Sopranos finale? Were they Patriots fans?

Are they just unhappy to be from New Jersey? If that’s the case, come on. There are much worse places than Jersey. There have to be. But man, they look unhappy.

Maybe they don’t like having their picture taken. Maybe somebody just told them how bad the spray-on tan looks.

I don’t know.

Technorati Tags:
Funny, New Jersey

Love this…

WordPress Dash.

Handy.

With no apologies (at least from me) to Stephen Covey, a great blog post for Sci-Fi fans of all ilk…7 Habits of Effective Spaceship Captains.

BTW, though I’ve mellowed a bit, I’m still a solid Picard man.

And, according to his blog, here’s why:

“When I am this party’s nominee, my opponent will not be able to say that I voted for the war in Iraq; or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran; or that I supported Bush-Cheney policies of not talking to leaders that we don’t like. And he will not be able to say that I wavered on something as fundamental as whether or not it is ok for America to torture — because it is never ok… I will end the war in Iraq… I will close Guantanamo. I will restore habeas corpus. I will finish the fight against Al Qaeda. And I will lead the world to combat the common threats of the 21st century: nuclear weapons and terrorism; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease. And I will send once more a message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that says, “You matter to us. Your future is our future. And our moment is now.”

Barack Obama’s words. Here’s my problem. If you had told me that Ron Paul said exactly the same thing, I’d believe it, because those are his beliefs, too (if I may be so bold as to put Obama’s words in Dr. Paul’s mouth). The difference is, Paul has several orders of magnitude more experience than Barack. Obama, on the other hand, has several orders of magnitude more charisma than Paul.

Want my vote, Barack? If you get the nomination, grab Ron Paul as your running mate, and you will win.

In a landslide. Okay, maybe not in a landslide, but you’d win. Okay, maybe not win, but you’d get my vote.

That’s all pointless speculation though, because the Democrat Party Machine won’t let it happen. And that’s very, very, sad.

On the other hand, if the GOP has any brains at all (which is by no means a sure thing) they will do likewise. Ron Paul as the VP candidate is so much more doable for them, but unfortunately, they’ve so marginalized the only candidate with a lick of sense and complete integrity, that’s as much of a fairy tale as a Barack/Paul ticket.

Sad.

Technorati Tags:
Election, Obama, Ron Paul, Politics

First of all, I must say after a full day with my MacBook Air, which arrived on Monday morning, a full day before it was expected (I ordered the day after the Keynote), I love it. Worries I had:

• The 13″ screen that I was worried would be too small after my years with 14″ and then 15″ iBooks and Powerbooks. Non issue. It’s so incredibly bright and sharp, I prefer it now. My aluminum 15″ Powerbook now looks big, dim and clunky.
• The sluggish iPod-hard drive performance. Non-issue. After reading the reports that the performance of the Air is pokey, I realize that must be in relation to state of the art MacBook Pros, because it screams next to my last generation Powerbook G4.

Okay, those were the only two, and as you can see, they’re both non-issues. I agree with Steve - The keyboard on the MBA is the finest they’ve ever produced. Wonderful keyboard. Heat buildup is minimal, performance is great and my Sprint EVDO USB modem installed flawlessly in seconds.

But I have discovered a possibly serious design flaw. I’ve noticed it twice. Because the corners of the MacBook Air don’t sit flush with the table underneath, a “shelf” is created between the front corners and whatever the MBA is sitting on. When you’re working while wearing long sleeves that aren’t tight enough to be flush against your skin, that excess sleeve can catch on the raised corner and when you lift your hand you can flip the MBA backwards.

So, I’m faced with a decision. My response? All my long-sleeve shirts are going to Goodwill today. Who needs long sleeves? Obviously not a popular choice in the testing labs of Cupertino!

Technorati Tags:
Apple, MacBook Air, Macintosh

Let’s face it, he’s a very, very, smart guy. But more than that, he knows how to live right, and how to follow what’s important to him. We should all be so wise. A couple years ago, Jobs got a death sentence. A pancreatic cancer diagnosis, which is almost always quickly fatal. Except when they did a biopsy, the dx changed to that of a rare curable form of the disease.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

I’m always quite comfortable in Jobs’ “Reality Distortion Field” and an unabashedly proud fanboy. I didn’t order a MacBook Air the day of the most recent Keynote at MacWorld, but instead a day later. Among fanboys, that almost makes me a Doubting Thomas.

Now, reading Jobs’ entire Stanford University Commencement address from 2005, you may think his philosophy runs completely counter to the Apple fan culture. But it’s not. The great thing about Apple products is, they inspire and help you create great things, they don’t demand that you spend huge amounts of time learning to use their products. That’s the difference. To really get Windows or Linux PCs to do what you need to do, you have to learn a lot about how they work, what drivers you need, how to install and uninstall, etc…

Apple stuff just works. And when your computers just work, you can do whatever you need to do with them. Simple, right?

Here’s the video of the address.

Be a little more aggressive a driver?

Don’t get me wrong. I despise reckless driving, but traffic conditions today often demand focus and confidence. We live a left-turn away from my son’s school, so when I take him in the morning, it’s a left onto a busy thoroughfare to get there, and another to get back home. The wait for both of those turns is always much longer than the actual moving time.

Today, coming back, there was a small black Nissan with a skull and crossbones in the back window that was sitting in the median, halfway done with the traffic-entering process, passing up easy gap after easy gap. I couldn’t believe it. Then, when this pinhead finally gets a break in the traffic big enough to merge the Nimitz into, he takes off like he’s in Fast and Furious and on the bumper of a car ahead of him.

WTF?

If you’re going to adorn your car with the international signal that you’re a pirate, act like one. A friendly pirate, preferably, but show some stones.

EDIT: Oops…Guess it was a she. Saw the car again the next day, driven by a one of the fairer sex.

Tonight was a happy night for me. House, delayed as have been many shows by the writer’s strike, returned with a new episode. It was a good one, though seeing a Christmas episode at the end of January was a little strange. More good news, another new ep coming after the Superbowl on Sunday.

Also, fans of Jericho who brought the show back after CBS canceled it are joyous at its return on February 12. Count me among the joyous, by the way. It’s a short season, some 5 episodes, all in the can before the strike happened.

After a long dormant period, KevinGossett.com and KevinGossett.net are back up and resolving. I’ve blogged under my own name before, and still maintain No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, but it’s been a few years since this domain had content and purpose.

This blog is for both personal and professional reference and does not in any way reflect the attitudes or opinions of my employer. So don’t expect any nonsense.

Okay, expect nonsense.