Note to self: do not join the clueless Authors Guild. I echo Gruber's sentiments regarding the decision of the Authors Guild to sue Google over Google Print. For one, an author can choose to exclude his work in a fairly simple process. Second, as an aspiring author, were I to publish a book, I would love to see it read by as many people as possible. If Google Print helped me accomplish that, so much the better.

My employed friends almost daily remind me of the travails of life in corporate America. I'd still like a job, thanks.

An unsolicited copy of the premier issue of Men's Vogue arrived in the daily post. What. The. Hell. ???

The time has come. We made the decision to transition our two year-old to a "big boy bed." Not an actual bed with a frame and headboard, mind you; we're just throwing the mattress on top of the box springs on the floor. Parental common sense: it's fewer inches they will fall when they roll themselves off the edge. Parental common sense, part deux: it's shoved in to the corner, cutting the number of edges available for rolling off in half. So we took advantage of the Labor Day sales this holiday weekend and went mattress shopping. I thought I would pass along some helpful hints, should you find yourself in this situation. (Which you will, eventually, unless you enjoy self-induced spine curvature because you're still sleeping on the mattress you took to college with you nearly twenty years ago.) Forget comparison shopping. Mattress stores will sell the same brands, but it will be impossible for you to compare models. Why? Because the mattress manufacturers and retailers are sadists, that's why. Manufacturer X has a nice medium-range mattress, which is in demand by three different retailers. So Manufacturer X has three separate tags identifying this mattress for Retailers 1, 2, and 3. Therefore, when you are in Retailer 2, and looking at Mattress X2, you have no idea it's the exact same mattress as the X1 you saw at Retailer 1. And so on. So forget comparison shopping. Throw the price guarantee back in their face. All three of the retailers whose doors we darkened offered some form of a price guarantee: matching, 110% of the difference, etc. It's totally laughable, because of the lack of comparison-shopping ability consumers have when it comes to mattresses. They know you're not going to find the Sealy Posturepedic X95J Super Sleeper any where else, because it's not called the X95J Super Sleeper any where else. It will be called the F4 Dream Cushion, have a different fabric covering it, and you'll be none the wiser. So when the sales person mentions the price guarantee while you're browsing, you can laugh and tell him he is full of it. Hire a babysitter. I'm sure a neighbor would've been happy to watch our son for a couple of hours, but I didn't think about this until after the fact. Consumer Reports recommends lying on a mattress in the store for 15 minutes to get a definitive feel for its comfort. Obviously the anal-retentives at CR have never gone mattress shopping with their Thomas the Tank Engine-obsessed two year-old in tow. One is unable to lie on a mattress for 15 seconds as the aforementioned two year-old tears up and down the aisles, running his Thomas and Percy trains over the mattresses as he goes. In the end, buying a mattress is still a gut call. We didn't want to go cheap, but we didn't want to spend a grand on a set, either. We were looking for something in the middle, that would get him to his teenage years. Hopefully, we have succeeded.

George Carlin is a better narrator for Thomas the Tank Engine.

Nothing proves more how the mainstream media has gone off their collective rocker than the fact that this week, ABC's 20/20 is devoted to the myth of Dracula.

Since when does Liar, Liar qualify as science fiction? I just saw an advertisement on SciFi declaring they will be showing it next week. I didn't realize they were so desperate for time fillers...

No, that is not a typo in the title. I mean "BS," not "BCS," though some would argue they have become one and the same. I mention this because a few moments ago I flipped on the idiot box to channel surf while relaxing for a few minutes. The satellite receiver had been left on NBC, which is showing the AVP Nissan Manhattan Beach Open, the women's final, to be specific. They were just coming back from commercial, and noted that in attendance was a large portion of the USC Trojan football team. Then there was the magical BS moment: "It's hard enough for a team to win a national title, much less three, which no team has ever done before..." said spokesbabe to Trojan quarterback Matt Leinart. She was, of course, referring to the fact that USC is ranked #1 in the pre-season polls, and the Trojans will be the frontrunners for another national title in NCAA football. She is, of course, wrong, as is any other sports broadcaster, to suggest that USC may become the first team to win three in a row. USC did not win the national championship in 2003. Let me say that again, for the many Trojan worshippers out there, including those infesting sports broadcasting. USC did not win the national championship in 2003. That honor went to LSU, which defeated Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl to win the BCS National Championship. The whole point of the BCS, despite its myriad shortcomings, is to have a clear national champion at the end of the college football season. The whole point of the BCS is that there will no longer be a shared national title. One champion. One. LSU was the national championship team for 2003. USC was the national championship team for 2004. USC will not become the first team to win three national titles in a row, should they prevail in 2005. Was USC denied this opportunity, by virtue of Oklahoma being ranked higher in the standings at the end of the year, and getting the shot against LSU in the Sugar Bowl? Undoubtedly. Just as Auburn was denied the opportunity of a national title by virtue of Oklahoma being ranked higher at the end of the 2004 season. Chalk it up to a bias toward Oklahoma in the poll voters. (I note with amusement that now, having gotten it wrong two years in a row, Oklahoma doesn't even break the Top 5 in any of the preseason polls.) I've said it before and it bears repeating: If USC and its worshippers want LSU to share the national title with them for 2003, then USC must share the 2004 title with Auburn. Leinart and Co. will be going for their second title in a row this year, not their third.

The company Michael Dell said should be sold off and the money given to its shareholders is kicking his butt:

Overall customer satisfaction with the PC industry is unchanged from a year ago at 74, but changes within the industry give Apple a commanding lead. The PC maker maintains big improvements from 2003 and 2004, holding at 81 for a second year. Apple’s sales are up 33%, net income has grown 300% and its stock price has nearly tripled over the past year. A slew of product innovations and an emphasis on digital technologies and customer service have been very successful for Apple with a high degree of customer loyalty as a result.

Dell is a different story. Based on a strategy of mass customization, the #1 PC maker worldwide has been a leader in customer satisfaction for several years. This quarter, it suffers a sharp drop in ACSI, down 6% to 74. Customer service in particular has become a problem, and service quality lags not only Apple but also the rest of the industry. Customer complaints are up significantly with long wait-times and difficulties with Dell’s call-center abound. Still, competitive pricing as a result of Dell’s direct-sales business model keeps overall customer satisfaction slightly above other competitors, with the exception of Apple. Whether Dell’s declining satisfaction will have a negative impact on the company’s stock performance remains to be seen; however, ACSI history has shown that changes in customer satisfaction often signal similar changes in future financial performance. Apple’s stock price is up 35% for the year-to-date, whereas Dell’s is flat. [Via MacInTouch, emphasis in quoted text added. --R]

I am attempting to return a product to a manufacturer. I have reviewed the product for publication, and the company would like it back. The company in question has graciously allowed me to ship the product back to them using their FedEx account. They asked I ship it ground, to minimize the expense. I have no problem with that. Then things got interesting. I can't simply ask FedEx for a pickup at my residence, because it seems they require the pickup to be from the account holder's address, which in this case is in California. I'm in Texas. So you can see problem #1. So I looked up the nearest FedEx Ground shipping locations from my home. Look at that, there's about half a dozen in the Town of Flower Mound. After hitting about three of them, I learned this little tidbit: FedEx does not provide these third-party providers with airbills (ground bills?) for Ground shipping. To ship Ground from these third-party shippers, it has to be on their assigned FedEx account, for which they already have plenty of pre-printed bar-coded stickers, courtesy of FedEx. These shippers are not equipped to ship in the method I require, from me to the company, on the company's dime. Now you can see problem #2. This morning I had a doctor's appointment on the other side of the city. No problemo, I pondered, I'll bring the box with me, and I'll stop by the main FedEx site on the grounds of DFW International. It's on the way home. I arrived at 10:19 AM. Problem #3: The customer service desk doesn't open until noon. In the past, I've always been quite pleased with the level of customer service I've gotten from FedEx, but it is ridiculous how hard they're making it to ship this product back to its manufacturer. My wife is looking into getting a bill of lading for FedEx Ground from her company's mail room. Should that fail, it means another drive out to the airport for me tomorrow. After noon, of course.

Anyone else out there annoyed by the pinkie commercials being run by McDonald's for their new "premium" chicken sandwiches? Does anyone actually eat sandwiches or burgers that way?

Earlier today, I applied for an IT&S Manager position with a local hospital. Late this afternoon, I received a reply:

Christopher,

I appreciate your quick response. The hospital insists that all candidates have a healthcare background in a hospital setting.

I am sure that your experience and background will generate interest in the IT industry. Unfortunately, I am unable to assist you, being focused entirely in the healthcare industry.

Good luck,

Name removed Now, this is for an IT position, mind you. So they want their IT people to have a background in the healthcare industry. I can understand that. It makes sense to a degree. However, and someone correct me if they know of some cloning procedure to which the rest of us are not privy: people are not born with, nor enter the workforce, with any particular experience whatsoever. For me to obtain a "healthcare background,"it stands to reason that someone has to take a chance and give me a shot, does it not? It's the age-old catch-22: "We're looking for someone with experience in this area." "How am I supposed to gain experience in this area unless someone gives me a chance at it?" It's not like I can up and start my own hospital tomorrow to gain a "healthcare background."

I am quite proud to say I did not watch a single second of the incredibly vapid, colossal waste of time and public airwaves that was Live 8. Rick Moran, on the other hand, did watch it, and gets what Geldof and crew do not:

The idea that “raising awareness” of Africa’s plight will save starving children is absurd. In order to save those children, you don’t have to snap your fingers, what you need is wholesale regime changes in 2 dozen or more countries where governments use starvation as the weapon of choice against rebelious populations. Africa’s problem is not lack of food. It is not a lack of arable land, or water resources, or agricultural know-how (they’ve been farming in Africa since before the Egyptians got themselves organized). At bottom, Africa’s problem is, well, Africans. Embracing the socialist doctrines of the old Soviet Union and Cuba during the 1970’s and 80’s, the grandiose schemes and huge development projects undertaken with some of the $220 billion in western aid that has gone to the continent since the 1960’s proved to be boondoggles of the first magnitude.

Dam building for electricity that nobody needs or can use is just one small example. What isn’t known and probably can never be calculated is the out and out theivery of aid funds by African leaders, their families, their extended families, their cronies, and the western companies who are forced into kickback schemes in order to win contracts with this human daisy chain of graft and corruption.

[...]

Which makes Live 8 about as relevant to helping solve Africa’s problems as the activities of the masked anarchists who are gleefully running around Edinburgh smashing windows and torching automobiles as if to prove the efficacy of corporal punishment denied them when they were children. All something like Live 8 does is alleviate whatever guilt those who organize and participate may be feeling about the problem. Personally, I'm making a difference in Africa, one child at a time. His name is Emmanuel, he lives in Tanzania, and though he is five years older, he shares a birthday with my son. I don't share this to get a pat on the back; I share it to say you don't need a bunch of celebs cavorting on stage, "raising awareness," to personally make a difference. Not to mention that Geldof and crew would never tell you about Compassion, World Vision, the Barnabas Fund, Mercy Ships, or myriad other organizations which have been making a difference for years. How many meals could be provided, through organizations already on the ground, by the multi-carat diamond necklace Madonna was wearing, if she weren't so busy flipping off the world? Angelina Jolie aside, when was the last time any of these spoiled celebrity brats spent time helping in a refugee camp? They are the ones with the supposed influence, and certainly the funds, and the best they can come up with is a concert to "raise awareness"? Let's see Geldof, Madonna, McCartney, and the rest put their money where their mouths are. [A wave of the fin to Jeff for pointing to Rick's post.]

I am pretty ambivalent with regard to Lance Armstrong. Like a majority of Americans, I'm not a gearhead, unlike my pal Dan (who needs a new blog title). I did cheer for Armstrong when he battled back from cancer to win the Tour de France. I booed him over essentially choosing his career over his family. Like the large majority of professional athletes, Armstrong is nothing more than someone you can admire for his professional achievements, but should be avoided for pretty much anything else. Via the aforementioned Dan, an interview with the latest Armstrong biographer, Dan Coyle, confirms this:

VN: What is your personal take on Lance Armstrong?

DC: As his teammate Jonathan Vaughters once told me, there's a pattern with Lance: he gets close to people, and inevitably something goes haywire. I must admit, the closer I got to him, the less I found myself admiring him. Now that I have distance again, I find myself admiring him more. Let me put it this way - he is a good hero for my 10-year old son, but I wouldn't necessarily want him to date my daughter.

VN: One former teammate once described him as "one of the unhappiest men I've met." Do you think Lance Armstrong is happy?

DC: He is more driven than happy. As Floyd Landis puts it in the book, "Lance doesn't want to be hugged, he wants to kick everybody's ass." Armstrong may not want to psychoanalyze himself, but I'd be happy to do so. From the myriad things I've read here and there about him, I would say Lance is a poster child for why involved fathers, or father-figures, mentors, are so important in a child's life. In some ways, Lance is scared to love because he didn't get that love only a father can provide. He has a void in his heart that he has only been able to fill with his desire to dominate and win in the sport of cycling. Personally, I think I'd rather be around someone who's happy.

One of the local semi-independent stations is showing Ronin this evening. Now, being one of my favorite action movies, because it is a thinking-man's action movie and not a mindless blood and gore fest, I figured I would keep it on while I languished away the hours working on my wife's XP box. (Bad, XP, bad!) Those of you who haven't seen the movie can skip the rest, because I'm going to talk about a specific plot point, and it contains kinda-sorta spoiler info. I realize there's a lot of editing that has to go in to a film like this, to put it on non-cable television during "family hours" on the weekend. In addition to filtering out the curse words, and especially bloody scenes, the broadcasters have to be concerned with a time factor as well, mostly so they can get enough advertising in to cover the cost of showing the movie. I can appreciate all of this. But then they go and cut what I consider a central tenant of the movie. Maybe it's because I am a fan of this film, and have seen it a few times. Maybe persons who have never seen it before won't miss the scene because they don't know to miss it. The scene I'm referring to is at Jean-Pierre's, where Vincent (Jean Reno) takes Sam (Robert De Niro) after the latter has been shot. While recovering, Sam watches as Jean-Pierre paints miniature samurai warriors for a diorama he has created. His hobby, as he explains to Sam. We see Jean-Pierre put the latest dry figure on to the diorama, and we cut to the next scene. They completely cut out the rest of the scene with Jean-Pierre, who explains to Sam about the 47 Ronin, and what ronin were: masterless samurai. The 47 Ronin were despondent over failing their master, who was killed by a rival warlord. So, in time, they gave their lives in an attempt to kill the rival. The term ronin in the case of the movie is supposed to refer to agents who have left the fold of their respective agency, like Sam. I always thought this scene was rather important, as it goes a long way toward explaining the title of the film, even if not directly. It's a shame it was cut for the television broadcast.

Ben Shapiro:

Social liberalism seeks to promote a "live and let live" society wherein all types of deviant behavior is tolerated and accepted. Those on the left have thrust their notion of a "civilized," amoral society upon all of us. The fact of the matter is that "live and let live" directly contradicts the notion of communal society; we all have to abide by certain rules to live together. An amoral society minimizes the rules under which we live together; any change in those rules is bound to affect all of us.

And it has. By discarding traditional morality in favor of amoralism, we have catered to the lowest common denominator.

[...]

We have successfully defined deviancy down; the deviant is now considered normal. Meanwhile, we have defined deviancy up; the normal is now considered deviant. And the effects upon my generation -- the porn generation -- have been disastrous. We are apathetic about morality, and that apathy translates into nihilism and narcissism -- and in the end, into generational self-destruction. Like it or not, the porn generation is the future of this country.

It is a sad, sad, sad indictment of our American culture when the trial verdict of a washed-up has-been, who hasn't put out a decent record in more than a decade, is the top news story of the day.

I'm sorry for another post from Best of the Web, but Taranto and company are simply on today:

Still, by way of comparison, recall that three years ago Palestinian Arab terrorists occupied the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Priests reported that "gunmen tore up Bibles for toilet paper," according to the Daily Camera of Boulder, Colo. The Chicago Tribune noted after the siege that "altars had been turned into cooking and eating tables, a sacrilege to the religious faithful."

Christians in the U.S. responded by declining to riot and refraining from killing anyone. They had the same response 15 or so years ago when the National Endowment for the Arts was subsidizing the scatological desecration of a crucifix and other Christian symbols. This should also put to rest the oft-heard calumny that America's "religious right" is somehow a Christian equivalent of our jihadi enemies. This goes hand-in-hand with what Jeff has been saying.

PETA kills animals. I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

Bruce Bawer:

...[A] study by a Swedish research organization, Timbro, which compared the gross domestic products of the 15 European Union members (before the 2004 expansion) with those of the 50 American states and the District of Columbia.

[...]

After adjusting the figures for the different purchasing powers of the dollar and euro, the only European country whose economic output per person was greater than the United States average was the tiny tax haven of Luxembourg, which ranked third, just behind Delaware and slightly ahead of Connecticut.

[...]

If the E.U. was treated as a single American state, it would rank fifth from the bottom, topping only Arkansas, Montana, West Virginia and Mississippi. In short, while Scandinavians are constantly told how much better they have it than Americans, Timbro's statistics suggest otherwise. [Via Political Diary.]

Thank God. Doug Giles:

Now, for all you Backstreet Boys who are wondering if, if, you are one of these metrosexual males from whom women, men and small animals are running, I’ve concocted a little test to help you shed your proclivities toward abnormality and begin to saddle up and ride in a more masculine direction. Are you ready? If you start to hyper-ventilate, just take a break and control your breathing. Here we go. Now did you think I was going to ruin it by posting Doug's test? That's why the article is hyper-linked, for crying out loud. Go. Click. Read. Laugh.

Today's MDJ provides good background information on Apple's quarterly financial conference call coming later this afternoon. Matt & Company's analysis of the stock "analyst" situation is spot on:

If Apple beats its own estimates by 10%, those results are merely "in line with analyst expectations." If Apple's estimates were spot on, then the company didn't live up to those "analyst expectations." In a sane world, the market would punish the analysts for missing their forecast, but that's not where we live. The analysts would blame Apple, not themselves, and issue feverish research notes accusing the company of "underperforming" and "bursting its bubble." The stock price, in turn, would summarily fall. [Emphasis added. --R] So like many segments of our society, the "analysts" will play the blame game if Apple's figures don't match up with theirs. It's not their fault their projections were wrong; it's Apple's fault for failing to meet the analysts' expectations, even if Apple's figures fall in line with Apple's projections. Much like how a certain Mr. O'Grady and other rumor-mongers blame Apple when new product specifications fail to match up to their caffeine-driven imaginations. MDJ's taking-to-task of the anaylsts continues: Still, one shouldn't ignore the possibility that Apple will post a solid quarter that looks "bad" simply because it doesn't meet the fantasies of analysts who are busily inventing video iPods, media servers, and Apple-branded cell phones in their feverish little heads. The exuberance has placed Apple in the uncomfortable position of needing to beat its own guidance by 10% or more just to keep up with expectations. UPDATE, 7:55 PM: It's all moot, at least this time, as Apple blows away everyone's projections. [Via Matt D..]

Is there any doubt left that Chris Kattan is a third-rate hack whose career at Saturday Night Live only lasted as long as it did because he rode the coattails of the vastly more talented Will Ferrell? This was reinforced today when, while channel-surfing, I came across this tidbit: "Coming up next, SNL veteran Chris Kattan re-enacts a classic Ellen scene..." In my defense, I only settled on Ms. DeGeneres's show because at the time she was interviewing Sandra Bullock, the second-most beautiful woman in the world.

Earlier in the week, we received a post card-based customer satisfaction survey from Comcast. We get ultra-basic cable and our high-speed Internet access from Comcast. I was looking forward to letting them have it, as we have been very displeased with their level of service the past few months. First, bad Comcast, bad! for not having a way to complete the survey online. This would undoubtedly have led to my being able to write more than I was able to on your flimsy little post card. Second, out of the four scores--Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor--Comcast failed to rate the top spot in any category, got a Good for it's Field Tech experience, and rated a Poor when it comes to overall Customer Service experience. My comment:

A way to speak to knowledgeable techs on the phone would be nice, since some of us know way more about how our high-speed Internet access works than the customer service reps. This would lead to faster problem resolution. Also, outages every other week are likely not winning Comcast many fans. That's all I was able to get on the card, because Comcast decided it needed to put its logo in the bottom right quarter of the card, eating up valuable writing real estate. I have gotten to the point where I start out any phone conversation with a customer service rep with something like this: "Our high-speed Internet access is down. I've reset the cable modem multiple times. The cable television is much fuzzier than normal. It's not a problem with the lines in my house, you have an outage." To which the customer service rep still insists I reset the cable modem again. Which I don't, even though I tell them I do, since I've already done it, as I stated "multiple times." In the past, well, ever, every time our access has been lost, it has been due to an area-wide outage. It has never been due to the lines in or connecting directly to our house. One would think this sort of thing would be noted in account notes. Then the customer service rep could see the outage history and reasonably conclude that I know what the hell I'm talking about when I call. We have some new neighbors just down the block who reported that they signed up with Verizon for local phone and fiber optic, which VZ has been laying all over town. Many of us in the neighborhood have been waiting for some sort of notification from Verizon that they were ready to offer us high-speed access via fiber, so we could dump Comcast. Where's that number?

Further proof that (a) I don't know much about and don't care to know much about "modern" art, and (b) that some people have too much time on their hands: Contraband. What rubbish.