Author: cosmo

With today’s mail delivery we’ve officially gone floor-to-ceiling on our Christmas card display.

Laralee always wonders why I insist on sending 200+ cards every year, and I tell her that it’s because if I don’t, then no one will send us cards. And that would mean the card wall is really bare and boring. We can’t have that.

I was poking around a client web site and found their blog entry entitled “People You Can’t Stand on Facebook”. I guess it’s adapted from a recent GQ article, but it was one of those classic funny-because-it’s-true lists.

Here’s a funny spam message.

Wow, Best of Longmont 2009! In the Internet Host Services category! Who knew that my little company was even in the running for such a prestigious award?

Hmm, maybe I should put this little image on my corporate web site to impress visitors…

Phase one of the Christmas odyssey is complete. Today we wrapped, packaged, and addressed all of the gifts we’re mailing to friends and family. Laralee will brave the post office tomorrow, and they’ll be on the way.

Next is phase two: the Christmas cards. I’m putting together my list and checking it twice, and printing out hundreds of address labels. On Tuesday my professionally-printed custom cards (!) are due to arrive, and we’ll spend the evening stuffing envelopes. The post office loves that we spend a hundred dollars a year on stamps alone. And I’ve grown to love the pre-sticky envelopes, which may cost five times more than old-school lick envelopes but sure make up for it in ease.

Finally, phase three: gifts for the kids. For some reason we don’t get everything picked out, bought, and wrapped for our own kids until sometime in the evening of the 24th every year. But we’ve got some good ideas this year, and now all that remains is putting the plan in motion.

Ho ho ho!

Today Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, said this:

To which Bruce Schneier, renowned security expert and relentless crusader against government intrusion into our private lives, responded:

It’s interesting to note that Bruce said this back in 2006. It was true then, and it’s still true now.

‘Tis a wee bit chilly this morning.

(That’s a minus sign on the left.)

I just read a great article by Seth Godin about why those who use trademarks, copyrights, and patents to intimidate and litigate themselves into positions of power are, in the end, doomed. In the Digital Age it’s increasingly difficult to truly protect your ideas, and the costs of doing so are mounting ever higher.

Amen, brother. Now hand me my scissors.

Two months ago, Laralee asked me if I could grow a beard… more to see what it would look like than because she finds it irresistably sexy or anything. I figured I’d never really had a beard, so why not. Plus it was an excuse to be lazy and not shave as much.

Two months later:

Sadly, I just don’t get much along my jawline except a bit of scruff. I feel like a sixteen-year-old hoping to get some facial hair to prove to the girls that I’m a real man.

So I decided it wasn’t really making me look like a rugged mountain man, and figured I’d shave it off and go back to the ol’ goatee that I’ve had for about fourteen years now.

Maybe when I’m older I’ll get a distinguished-looking salt-and-pepper beard going, and women will swoon. Until then, it’ll be the goatee.

Thus spoke James Madison two hundred years ago. Too bad Obama is walking the same path as Bush, dragging us deeper into the quagmire that is Afghanistan, ignoring the lessons of the past decade and the wisdom of men long dead.

I really enjoyed the 2003 remake of The Italian Job. It had a good plot, exciting action scenes, and was well cast. And hey, Charlize Theron.

So for a while I’ve been thinking it would be fun to see the original 1969 version of the movie. I’d heard that version included the thrilling Mini Cooper chase scene, and it stars Michael Caine so it must be decent.

Umm, no.

Laralee and I watched it last night and I have to say that’s an hour and a half of my life I’m never going to get back. I can’t believe Michael Caine was even asked to play a role in a movie after that, it was so awful.

Let me put it this way: Benny Hill (yes, that Benny Hill) is one of the co-stars. The plot was so full of holes that you could drive a Mini Cooper– no, make that three Mini Coopers– through them. The Italian Mafia was supposed to be a bunch of scary bad guys but in fact just had dark suits and bad hairdos, eventually coming up with some kind of plan to steal the gold from Caine and his buddies but mysteriously disappearing from the final part of the movie. The Italian police were more like the Keystone Cops with their idiotic hijinks and complete ineptitude. The computer that controlls Turin’s traffic lights apparently makes a bunch of crazy hums and beeps when it reads the 18″ tape reel with the hacker program on it… which had to be installed by a highly skilled programming genius hired just for the job, because no mere grunt could possibly have switched the tape like he did.

The high point of the film was when the prison warden, who is involved in the whole gold heist for reasons beyond mortal comprehension, struts around the prison while all of the inmates bang their food trays and sing. I kid you not.

By the end of the movie I was really hoping the gold would slide out of the back of the bus and take everyone tumbling down the rocky mountainside in a flaming ball of destruction. Heck, maybe that’s what happens– the movie ends right at that point, and you never know.

Note to self: sometimes the original is much, much worse than the remake. Do we dare watch the original 1960 version of Ocean’s Eleven?