Further proof that Peanut Butter is the world's most unpopular cookie.

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Don't look now, but Venezuela's turning into a dictatorship:

President Hugo Chavez is set to assume unbridled powers to remake Venezuelan society as the National Assembly prepares to grant him authority to enact sweeping measures by presidential decree.

The assembly, which is completely controlled by Chavez supporters, is scheduled to meet Wednesday in a Caracas plaza to approve a so-called "enabling law" that will give Chavez special powers for 18 months to transform 11 broadly defined areas, including the economy, energy and defense.

Chavez, who is beginning a fresh six-year term, says the legislation will be the start of a new era of "maximum revolution" during which he will consolidate Venezuela's transformation into a socialist society. His critics, however, are calling it a radical lurch toward authoritarianism by a leader with unchecked power.

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Here's Charles Trenet singing "La Mer," a song which I've long enjoyed. Bobby Darin's "Beyond the Sea" is based upon it, but "La Mer" is far superior.

See below for the translated lyrics. I thought it was a love song, but it's an ode to nature's beauty:

The sea
Which we see dancing along the clear gulfs
has silver sparkles.

The sea
has changing sparkles
Under the rain.

The sea
To the summer sky's confuses her white sheep
With angels so pure.

The sea
Shepherdess of infinite sky.

See
Next to the ponds
Those tall wet reeds.

See
Those white birds
And those rusty houses.

The sea
Has rocked them like a baby
Along the clear gulfs
And with a love song.

The sea
Has rocked my heart for life.

Here's the wikipedia entry on Trenet, who died in 2001. An interesting fellow.

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Here's an entertaining compilation from NPR of the most-viewed YouTube videos. I hadn't seen the one below before, despite the fact that it's been viewed 40 million times.


Make that 40,000,001.

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Remember anonymity?

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Here's a good example of how many of my household projects turn out. This is the top of a shelving bracket I installed in my garage. To the right of it, you can clearly see the hole in my wall where the original screw pulled out of the sheetrock.

So, I shifted it over about an inch and tried again. That screw pulled out of the sheetrock as well, but I didn't feel like shifting the bracket over a third time. So, I just cut an L-bracket with my hacksaw and screwed it into the top of the bracket and then into the wall. The screw didn't pull out of that one.

Ah, a job well done.

Look, there's a whole wikipedia entry on this type of work!

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A good friend of mine from my hometown sent me the following story today. I never knew the guy he's talking about, but it's a compelling story. Enjoy:

I went to school with a dude named Wayne Perry. Fat kid, not good looking. His dad was a milkman. His mom wasn't pretty, but she was nice. He was always picked on by all – in every facet of his life. He asked for it some with his dumbness, but he wasn’t a bad sort.

He tried to hang with me and my childhood friends, and his mom was friends with ours so we were kinda forced to hang with him on occasion as 13-year-olds. I fondly remember giving him a bloody nose in a pillow fight (I had the feather pillow).

During high school, Pugsly – as he was nicknamed – never faired better. He never had a girl or even close. No girl even liked him as a friend. He played football as a freshmen, but his leg got broke, and he was really never in good enough shape anyway so he never made it. He never made good grades. He generally was an outcast everywhere. I was in Boy Scouts with him, but generally we all picked on him then too.

Now Pugsly didn't come off low in confidence even though he had little to be confident about. He tried to stand up for himself, and usually was deemed irritating doing it. Even the teachers had little patience for Pugsly. Mr Klass, a history teacher, actually gave him the name Pugsly.

I remember as freshman running the mile at the end of the year – Pugsly ran it in a blazing 13 minutes. The whole way as he jogged, a Toyota Tercel with football players in it drove along beside him berating him the whole way. He just never got a break.

Pugsly had three younger sisters, and they did a lot better. Their parents even treated them better. I remember Christmas, Santa looked after the sisters very well. They had toys and love. Pugsly (no genius, as before stated) got one present. It was the big thing for a gift back in ’84 – Trivial Pursuit, if you get the picture. Him getting that was like giving a blind man a picture book. I remember riding the school bus with him, and as he got off, all the kids calling him names thru those slit windows on the bus.

Understand, Pugsly never spent time feeling sorry for himself, he just tried to get along in a society that hated fat, irritating people. When in freshman algebra class, someone brought in one of those huge copper pennies. The ones that are the size of your hand; I have seen them at convenience stores. Looks just like a real penny, cept it weighs a half-pound. Well, as it was passed around and everyone was saying how neat it was, Wayne Perry blurted out “you can tell it aint real!” That was Wayne.

Also, I remember once, there was a teacher’s lounge with a drink machine. In those days, no student could go buy a can drink from it, it was off limits, but having a can drink on the bus ride home was like a great thing. Well, Wayne had snuck in, and purchased two drinks and hid them in his book bag. In our afternoon class with Mr. Klass, a mean Catholic school-brought-up type guy, Wayne had the book bag under his seat. Right before school let out, for some reason – call it Wayne’s luck – one of the can drinks burst and leaked allover the floor. We all waited for Mr. Klass, a famously mean dude to literally beat wayne with a pointer stick, but Mr Klass had to even laugh at the poor Wayne Perry luck.
Wayne was the type – at least as a adult – that was gentle, and would give a guy the shirt off his back. You get a flat tire? Wayne would stop and fix it probably. Fast forward, after high school. Pugsly got a job driving a cement truck. I saw him on the road once in a while, and he would blow that horn and wave. He was a friendly guy in the face of all the crap he went thru. He had no grudges as an adult, just a desire to fit in and be happy.

I never talked to him much after high school. I then heard he had met up with a chick. She was about 10 years older than us. She already had two kids. She was big, and not pretty, I heard. The people that told me about her also told me of her nickname, The Ghela Monster. That’s the name of those poisonous big, orange dessert lizards. I saw her, and with her red cheeks and thick glasses, I kinda understood the Ghela Monster moniker.

Well, I heard the consistent rumors of Pugsly being happy. Pugsly and the Ghela Monster then had a child together. I could nearly see Pugsly showering his child with the love and affection he never really got as a kid. I knew he was happy. I looked forward to seeing him at the 10-year class reunion back in ’97. I wanted to know him 10 years after school, and make sure he knew I was his friend. I wanted to, at least, myself show him some decency and compassion that I never had, nor seen done to him.

I never got the chance.

In that summer of ’96, Pugsly was at a softball game for one of his young stepkids. He was out there volunteering when he fell from a massive heart attack. He died out on that field that day at age 28. I never had the chance to say I was sorry for never being a better friend or human.

Well, today on his birthday, Jan 25th, I can’t help but think of Pugsly – a.k.a. Wayne Perry. I know my friend is in heaven.

Live life daily, and treat people with humanity, cause one day you won't be able to go back.

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Because the French love Pop-Tarts.

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Good article in the Christian Science Monitor regarding parents who bring their kids to R-rated films:

The movie industry now is considering amending its ratings system to include this new and specific admonishment to parents: Many R-rated movies are unsuitable for young children.

The exact wording has yet to be decided, but the change is being made in response to "complaints from people who go to R-rated movies and are disturbed to see young children in there," says Kori Bernards, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The admonishment is part of the industry's broader plan, announced last week, to try to make the rating system clearer and its process more transparent.

I had trouble enjoying one of the "Lord of the Rings" (rated PG-13) because of the 4-year-old sitting in front of me.

I'd say this mother's quote pretty much sums up my feelings: "It seems very obtuse of parents to think that has no effect at all."

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Back in 1994, I bought a 10-pack of paper clips from Viking Office Supply. I'm not sure why I thought I needed so many paper clips. I have four boxes left.

I'll need to buy more paper clips in 2018.

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Ooof. Just read the lengthy wikipedia entry on the Church of Scientology. Here's an interesting bit:

The Church of Scientology maintains a large base on the outskirts of Trementina, New Mexico whose stated purpose is storage for an archiving project: engraving Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's writings on stainless steel tablets and encasing them in titanium capsules underground.

Allrighty then.

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Great slogan. But who's being quoted?

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Straight from the stuff-I-never-imagined-I'd-ever-hear category: David Lee Roth singing Van Halen's "Jump" with a bluegrass band.

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My former Boston Herald colleague Jules Crittenden is going the full-fledged blogger route. Good reading.

When a blogger goes out and gets a real banner logo for the top of the page -- you know he's serious. I've yet to make the move.

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Last night's Colt-Patriots game was the best football game I've watched in years. Despite living in Boston for several years, I found myself rooting for the Colts. Peyton Manning is too nice a guy and too funny in those Mastercard commercials to be deprived a role in the Superbowl.

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Could no one tell the owner of this restaurant in Roswell, Ga., that Le Gout-T may not be the best name?

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Quite a hub-bub has erupted over a meteorolist who disagrees with the global warming alarmists. Here's what he said:

I have been in operational meteorology since 1978, and I know dozens and dozens of broadcast meteorologists all over the country. ... I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global-warming hype. I know there are a few out there, but I can't find them.

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Just saw "United 93." A powerful film.

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Here's a heck of a read from a blogger who went to Iraq. Robust assortment of mistakes that we made and where we can go from here.

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Farewell, burr mill

Yesterday was my last day at the day job. I worked there for about a year but have decided it's time to move on. I will miss the superior coffee.

I will now dedicate my time to gaining full-time employment as a journalism instructor, editing on a freelance basis, and building my boat. I'm teaching mass media and intro to news writing again at Georgia Perimeter College and find that I enjoy it greatly.

I also forecase an increase in blogging frequency. Stay tuned.

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Here's an account of CBS News' interview with President Bush. A pretty good read -- he appears to be very candid and culpable.

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During a trip over the weekend, I caught a great radio station from the mountains of North Carolina. Click here to listen to a live feed from WNCW 88.7. Eclectic collection of bluegrass, Celtic and great vocal songs -- I listened to this station for more than an hour and never heard a song I didn't love.

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Yep, Brad's not in charge.

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"There are Klingons in the White House."

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I remember reading about ball lightning when I was a kid -- it was one of those unexplained mysteries. Well, no more: Scientists have created it in a lab:

Ball lightning could soon lose its status as a mystery, now that a team in Brazil has cooked up a simple recipe for making similar eerie orbs of light in the lab, even getting them to bounce around for several seconds. Watch a movie of the boucing balls here.

Thousands of people have reported seeing ball lightning, a luminous sphere that sometimes appears during thunderstorms. It is typically the size of a grapefruit and lasts for a few seconds or minutes, sometimes hovering, even bouncing along the ground.

Now, what about spontaneous human combustion?

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Here's an enlongated commercial from Kodak on their embrace of all things digital. Pretty funny.

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Yeah, I've been getting a lot of "image spam" lately:

At first, they seem like your average junk email, containing share tips or an advertisement for Viagra, along with a small, slightly garbled picture.

But this, experts say, is the spam that could bring the internet to a virtual standstill this year.

To bypass anti-spam software, the emails use an image instead of text.
In the past six months, this "image spam" has seen a massive increase and now represents 35 per cent of all junk email, according to security software firm F-Secure.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer, said: "Image spam is taking up 70 per cent of the bandwidth bulge on account of the large file sizes every single one represents."

Who are the tiny fraction of people who actually respond to spam? Obviously, someone out there reads their spam mail and then makes monetary decisions based upon it -- otherwise no one would bother spamming.

As Bugs Bunny would say, "What a bunch of maroons."

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Finally a Web site that deals with this silent malady: MenWithCramps.com

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Great article on the life and death Cpl. Jason Dunham from the WSJ. He died in Iraq saving the lives of his friends by placing his helmet over a hand grenade.

He will be awarded the nation's top military honor, the Medal of Honor, on Thursday, the first soldier so honored since Vietnam.

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So, I opened my bill from Comcast yesterday and noticed a charge for $3.50 labeled "Channel Guide." What's this, I thought. Are they charging me for the cable guide that pops up on the tevelision screen when I'm flipping channels?

But, when I opened my mailbox today, I saw an issue of a new magazine, the "Comcast Channel Guide," with Samuel L. Jackson on the cover. I called Comcast and they were "more than happy" to cancel the charge on my bill and stop the subscription. Seems like a pretty sleazy way to sell a magazine subscription.

Just another reason that I'll drop Comcast as soon as I can get some competition for my cable Internet access.

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Here's the answer to a question I'd never considered: If tripe is the stomach lining of a cow, then how can human stomachs digest it?

Hmm. Great question. I dare you to not click on the answer. You'll wonder for the rest of your life how tripe is digested!

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Blue Origin, the private space travel company founded by Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, is looking for employees. Check out the company's Web site which includes a video of its innaugural launch. Blue Origin's four-legged craft launches and lands on its feet. It looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

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From a Howard Kurtz column on the media's newfound love for Gerald Ford comes this gargantuan understatement:

The lesson here is that a media consensus, no matter how widely shared, may suffer from the tunnel vision of the times. The blurry snapshots of journalism sometimes look very different in history's rearview mirror.

In 20 years, what items of today's media consensus will we realize was wrong?

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Interesting article in USA Today on wikinomics:

When Rob McEwan became CEO of Goldcorp, he and company geologists knew that their property contained untapped resources "thirty times the amount Goldcorp was currently mining!"

But with 55,000 acres, nobody at Goldcorp could figure out where to look for the buried treasure. To avert a wild goose chase, McEwan shared on the Web Goldcorp's geological data going back to 1948 and offered $575,000 in prizes to those who could come up with the best way to find and extract the gold.

Participants in the contest found 55 drilling targets Goldcorp had not identified. Eighty percent hit pay dirt. "In fact, since the challenge was initiated, an astounding eight million ounces of gold have been found" and in four years Goldcorp's cost of production dropped 600%.

Tapscott and Williams say Goldcorp took advantage of a new economic paradigm they call wikinomics: a word combining economics and Wikipedia — the online encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute. This model of wealth creation is based on collaboration and sharing the authors call peering.

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Mahatma Gandhi:

You should be the change that you want to see in the world.

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