America did it again

Posted on May 13, 2004 by joestump

Americans have reached an all time low in retardation. They voted Latoya London off of the show last night. Latoya was clearly the best singer on the show. Diana is coming into her own, though I still think she’s annoying as hell. But, rest assured Latoya will have a CD and, I believe, it will fare better than anyone who wins. Disgusting is really the only way to put it. This show has made me realize that most of the people that surround me in this great nation are idiots. Well, the show and all those naked pictures of Iraqi prisoners being forced to fondle themselves that no one seems to care about.

Just call me Mr. Chef

Posted on May 11, 2004 by joestump

Most of my family knows that I like to cook. Cooking is, for the most part, a national past time in my household. Both my mom and dad are great cooks who have signature dishes that are repeatedly requested by family and friends. Growing up normal kids would whip up mac n’ cheese, while I cooked french toast and no bake cookies. I guess the gene had passed on to me. Of course, anyone can be a decent cook just by following the recipe, at least this is what I thought until I met Lauren.

Last night I was at my computer with Josh working through some client work that is due this Friday when I smelled something burning. I turned to Josh and asked if he smelled the burning as well – he did. I then yelled out to the kitchen about the burning smell, which Lauren apprently didn’t hear over the droning of the A/C. I figured she had it under control and the burning soon ceased.

When Josh was leaving Lauren asked if we had smelled the burning smell coming from the kitchen. We had. She then informed us that she had burned Jell-O.

A running timeline of Iraqi Abuse fallout

Posted on May 6, 2004 by joestump

Washington Post displays new Iraqi prison photos

A group of naked men are bound together on the floor of the prison; a hooded, naked man is handcuffed to a cell door, and another man is bound naked and arched with his arms behind him over the top bunk in a cell. That individual is wearing womens panties over his head.

The new collection included more than 1,000 digital images ranging from scenes of mundane military life to pictures showing crude simulations of sex among soldiers.

Bush Privately Chides Rumsfeld

Bush is “not satisfied” and “not happy” with the way Rumsfeld informed him about the investigation into abuses by U.S. soldiers at Baghdads Abu Ghraib prison or the quantity of information Rumsfeld provided, the senior White House official said.

The president was particularly disturbed at having had to learn from news reports this week about the scope of misconduct documented in an Army investigative report completed in March, according to the official, who refused to be named so he could speak more candidly.

White House rejects call for Rumsfeld resignation

A call today from a Democratic senator for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign over the Iraqi prisoner abuse crisis was followed by the White House reiterating its support for the Pentagon chief. When asked whether President Bush wants Rumsfeld to say in his job, White House spokesman Scott McClellan replied: “Absolutely.”

Bush sorry for humiliation of Iraqi prisoners

President Bush on Thursday said he told visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan that he is “sorry for the humiliation suffered” by Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Aide: Rumsfeld to apologize to Congress

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to apologize directly to Congress and the American people for not keeping lawmakers informed about the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, a senior Republican aide told CNN. But the source said some Republicans are privately saying an apology may be too little, too late.

Wedding / Move creeping up

Posted on May 3, 2004 by joestump

Lauren and I spent pretty much all day Sunday working on wedding related stuff. For starters we registered at Bed, Bath and Beyond. You can find a link to our registery online by clicking on the “Wedding” button to your right. It’s kind of funny because all of the stuff, except for a few, will mainly be used by me. I’m excited at the thought of getting some real cookware. Lame, I know.

We are also gearing up for “the big move” out west. As one might guess Lauren and I can’t make up our mind about where to move, which can be a problem when you get to choose out of so many great cities (San Francisco, San Diego and Seattle top the list).

Right now we are taking a closer look at Seattle. From what I’ve heard from people who have actually lived there or spent time there is that it doesn’t rain all year round (just a few months in the winter) and that it’s an amazing city. What I like about Seattle is that I can get a two bedroom out there for about the same price as I can here in Ann Arbor. It also means Lauren and I could buy a lot sooner than we expected. Before any decision is made, though, I will be taking a trip out to Seattle and San Diego to check out the scene and visit a few friends. I’ll update with more when I can.

John Stevens Fan Mail

Posted on May 3, 2004 by joestump

It seems my recent postings about my aggrevation involving John Stevens from American Idol upset a few of my readers out there. Instead of replying to all of the messages/email I received over the two posts individually I figured I’d make a single rebuttal here. First let’s look over some of the better ones.

“with (sic) all that is going on in this world today, I just dont understand how someone can have so much hate. John Stevens seems like a great kid and even though he maybe wasnt cutout (sic) for THIS competition, he does have talent and can sing. He is just a kid you guys. Give him a break.” (Posted by lisa Garrison on Apr 29, 2004 at 05:43 EDT)

“Talk about an asshole have you looked in the mirror lately? He might not have the best voice on the show, but his personality is one of the better ones, which is more than I can say about yours. You hide behind a website. We cant even see your face, too ugly is it? And did it ever occur to you that this is only a reality tv show, what is up with you?” (Posted by Jill on May 2, 2004 at 07:54 EDT)

“so (sic) john (sic) isnt (sic) the greatest singer, hes an amazing person. if (sic) he put out a swing album rite (sic) now, i (sic) would buy it and i (sic) know alot (sic) of other people who would to. maybe (sic) he just doesnt (sic) appeal to you but he doesnt (sic) suck. and diana degarmo (sic) is such a good singer. youll (sic) have to wait a long time before she gets voted off” (Posted by Anita on Apr 28, 2004 at 10:01 EDT)

“I just wanted to express my opinions about your site and your john stevens (sic) bashing views. I would hope that you would keep in mind that this young man was only 16. He had the balls to go in front of God and everybody to do what he likes to do. He took criticism with an open mind, which you might want to have too.” (Email from Tiffany)

First off, I didn’t know any girls except my Mom and fiancee read this site. For that matter I didn’t know anyone read this site, though I do get a whopping 100 hits or so a day (Google here I come!). At any rate here is my rebuttal(s) in a nice easy-to-digest format.

For the last time: not once did I say John Stevens was a bad person in *any* of my posts. Go ahead and look them over again … (waiting for you to look them over) … see! Not a single mention that John is a bad person. In fact, I think he’s probably one of the nicest guys I’ve never met personally.
Having said the above, I’d like to point out that his singing talent is both underdeveloped and singulary. He’s only truly good at singing Rat Pack type songs. As I’ve said to others who watch this show; he’d have won if this was American Idol 1955, but it’s not. He consistently garnered unfavorable reviews when singing any other type of music and, in fact, barely got good reviews when it was his genre of music.
I completely agree that John took every thrashing from the Judges like a man and with a great attitude (Who wouldn’t? He’s having the time of his life for sure). Simon said this much during his last review.
I’m not an asshole for expressing my opinion on his lack of singing abilities. By attacking me personally you make yourselves no better than what you say I am.
You can view my pictures online in the section at the top of this page clearly marked “photos”.

At any rate, there is/are my argument(s). Thank you to all who responded. I think it’s funny that I regularily blog about hot topics such as gay rights and the war in Iraq without so much as a peep from my readers (all 10 of you), but when I say a guy sucks at singing the whole damn site lights up. Odd.

Note: (sic) means “Thus; so. Used to indicate that a quoted passage, especially one containing an error or unconventional spelling, has been retained in its original form or written intentionally.”

A Review of Google Mail (aka gmail)

Posted on April 30, 2004 by joestump

Thanks to a friend I was recently invited to take part in the closed beta of Google Mail (aka gmail). As soon as I logged in the first thing I noticed was that Google’s email had a simplistic interface, which I like. I had been hearing lots of things around the Internet about how Gmail didn’t have traditional folders and how it had keyboard shortcuts, etc. This all turned out to be true. The UI of Gmail is drastically different than anything I’ve ever used for email before. It’s foreign to me and I’m not sure I really like it. At any rate, here are a few screenshots and some explanation as to what is going on.

Gmail introduces the notion of “Conversations”, which are groupings of messages that were replies to each other. There are rules in the RFC that allow for such relationships to be built, but are completely dependent on whether the MUA replying uses the correct headers (In-Reply-To if I recall correctly). I can only assume Google uses these headers to relate messages into conversations. In this screenshot you can see numbers next to names – those are the numbers of messages in that conversation. Many who have used the famous MUA mutt will think this is simple threading, but it’s not. Google takes it a step further and lays out your conversation in reverse chronological order with all of your messages inline too. This is there response to removing the traditional Sent folder – simply put your replies right under the messages you replied to. I’m not completely used to the notion of conversations. It’s a highbred of threading and message boards that I’m not sure I really like yet. I can see it becomeing difficult to navigate, but with a Google indexed INBOX searching should quickly take care of that.

The other thing Gmail introduces is the notion of Labels. Labels are very much like folders, but messages aren’t moved into these psuedo folders. That’s one of the strange things about Gmail – everything stays right in your INBOX unless you move it to your Trash or Spam folders. As you can see in the first screenshot I have a few things labeled “JCS Solutions”, etc. that are sitting right in my INBOX.

Labels are cool, but when combined with Filters they are extremely cool. These are simple procmail type rules that allow you to add labels to email that match certain criteria (ie. subject has [PEAR-DEV] in it). This allows you to automagically apply the Label “mom” to email coming from your mother. You then have a list of Labels in the lower left hand side of the screen that show you how many new messages for each Label you have in your INBOX. You can then click that and view it as if it was a folder. The combination of Labels and Filters are VERY much like the auto-updating playlists found in iTunes, which I find to be extremely cool.

The two other cool features in Gmail involve crazy ass amounts of JavaScript. The first are keyboard shortcuts, which follow closely mutt’s keyboard shortcuts. This makes browsing a much quicker process. The second is type-ahead searching of people’s name in your INBOX. It works just like Outlook where if you type in a part of an email address it pops up a list of email addresses that match the text you have typed in so far.

Gmail is still beta though. I expect them to polish the interface quite a bit before they make it publicly available for consumption by all. For starters you can’t define a signature, which I found odd. Also, it appears that if you receive a message and then create a filter based on it Gmail does not apply the filter to the message once received. In other words labels and filters are applied as the message is received. My other worry is how I could backup or archive my own email. My only hope is that this either becomes a paid service or publicly available to download your email as an mbox file.

And, yes, I have 1000MB (1GB) of space available.

Wishes do come true

Posted on April 29, 2004 by joestump

Every so often something happens that almost makes me believe that a God exists. Today that thing is the fact that you idiots out there finally woke up and voted John Stevens off of the show. Now, if we could only get Jennifer Hudson back we’d be all set for the “All Diva Showdown”, which is how things should have been. Of course, this should not be a shock to any of you. It is a well documented fact that I think John Stevens sucks. Now if I could only get Diana DeGarmo voted off we’d be all set.

UPDATE: It looks like I’m not the only one who has wondered why John Stevens has made it this far. Here is a whole thread about how bad he is. Of course, you can Google for more people who share my opinion. Also, I’m going to use this update to remind you that, while I think John Stevens is a good person, I do not think one could say he is a good singer. Please note the difference as this is a talent contest, note a good person contest. See the comments in this post for people who disagree and agree with me.

Why I'm an ITMS Whore

Posted on April 26, 2004 by joestump

For those of you who don’t know ITMS stands for iTunes Music Store. It’s the online music store that Apple’s visionary Steve Jobs launched about a year or so ago. It features single tracks for 99 cents and full albums for $9.99. Lately, I have become increasingly reliant on ITMS for all of my music needs. In fact, I’ve gone so far as to accept ITMS Gift Certificates as payment for services rendered. Combine this with the Pepsi caps giveaway and I’ve gotten a lot of mostly free music over the last few weeks.

My purchases range from Guns N’ Roses Greatest Hits to Billy Joel and Michelle Branch. I’ve also been trying to buy legal copies of the music Lauren insists on downloading illegally. I’d rather she just use my ITMS account, but there doesn’t appear to be any reasoning with her.

The reason I like ITMS so much is the obvious: it’s on demand. If I have a tune stuck in my head and I forget how it goes I click on the ITMS tab and download it. I also like the fact that I don’t have to go anywhere, which facilitates my already abundant laziness. If you combine this with the fact that Lauren can play my tunes across the network through her iTunes and, with my amazing 40GB iPod, I can listen to my tunes at the gym and through the radio in my car you can easily see why I use ITMS all the time. So let’s recap:

ITMS is on demand – purchase whatever you like, whenever you like a’ la carte.
You don’t have to go to the record store anymore.
With an iPod you can take your tunes anywhere.
It’s cheap and legal.

Yup, life is good with ITMS. In fact, I would say I’m enjoying music much more now that it is around. I listen to more music and find myself actively seeking out music much more than I did before ITMS invaded my life.

I hate you for voting for John Stevens

Posted on April 23, 2004 by joestump

I can’t even describe how much I hate all of you assholes who keep voting for John Stevens on American Idol. It’s clear that he completely sucks. The best comment he’s been able to garner from the judges is that he’s a nice kid. The top three singers were in the bottom three the other night. THIS IS NOT A FUCKING POPULARITY CONTEST PEOPLE! Vote for the person with the best voice.

It looks like I’m not the only one who feels this way. I do think, though, that the “Three Divas” could have been splitting votes. What I liked best about the results show was that John Stevens clearly looked shocked that he was in the top three. He KNOWS he sucks! So, back to the topic, YOU SUCK FOR VOTING FOR HIM!

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