Cats make me laugh

CNN joins in on 'pushing' the Zune - sort of

CNN is hit or mishttp://beta.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifs in my opinion, but this little clip of their Zune review is definitely a hit shall we say. Watch it through to the end for the real humdinger!!

Gay Marriage in South Africa

South Africa has become the fifth nation in the world to advance human rights and dignity to all its citizens, no matter whom they love. This is an amazing advance for a country where just two decades ago was steep in apartheid. I must admit when the news stories first came out about the possibility of this legislation passing I was quite skeptical - perhaps its my 'american' impressions of what Africa is really like.

Appendectomy

One sure fire way to ruin a weekend: have a bad meal at Thai restaurant, set off appendicitis, and have surgery. I had never gone under the knife before or stayed in the hospital overnight - so this was all sorts of a new experience for me to say the least. But the worst it over, it wasn't just blocked gas like I had thought for much of the day on Saturday, for the pain that is. The bill hasn't arrived yet and all expectations are for a big headache. Bill, coming for the land of universal health care to the north, is quite upset knowing a bill is coming for something he'd normally not know how much it cost. And just before Christmas too - no Nintendo Wii for this household.

Ah well, now I have plenty of time to catch up and get ahead on the homework front. I got an extension on the final, but I don't want to prolong that any longer than necessary.

Update: I did want to mention the fine treatment Bill received while he was at the hospital with me during this process. I think we've all read some of the horror stories about partners and boyfriends not being able to stay at each other's side in the hospital. Having not been a patient in a hospital before, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Much to my relief the staff treated Bill with respect just as I would have wanted. We were both impressed that his presence was such a non-issue for everyone at the hospital.

One step at a time.

Rumsfeld Resignation

Original link via TUAW.

Rural Minnesota

I'm in rural Minnesota today, on the old homestead. Last night I went out with some old friends to a little bar/restaurant in a tiny little village. The whole place was full of hunters in from a long day and trekking through the woods trying to shoot stuff. Deer season is in full swing around here, and boy I sure don't miss it. (Full disclosure: I've been on those hunting excursion in the past when Dad still thought I could be a 'real' boy) I get nervous when I go into realms of super-manhoodism - I wonder if one wrong look on my part will change my life for good. I've never had any such problems, but I've read enough horror stories in the news to know better. Of course, I'm a nervous kind of fellow anyway, so that doesn't help all that much.

But I'm actually down here doing some last minute volunteering for a friend of mine running for re-election. I'm looking forward to Wednesday morning to read how all of the elections come out. I don't pay much attention on election night - I learned my lesson during the Gore/Bush election. I went to bed and everything was just fine, then I woke to hear my roommate shouting in glee as it was reported Bush won the election. This has certainly been an interesting election year - the republicans certainly seem to have a lot of skeletons in the closet, including themselves in some cases. I've been fortunate to be off most politicians lists this year - hardly a brochure in my mailbox and not a single phone call. Its been nice!

Ford Surprises

I am certainly no fan of Ford vehicles - the Mustang is a weak exception. Lately though Ford has been showing off its CUV concept - the Fairlane - and this morning Autoblog is reporting the production model will be almost identical to the concept model seen above. I'm not saying you'll ever see me owning one of these, I'm committed to Mini, but this is certainly an attractive new model. Its got a little bit of a Land Rover look to it, but I especially like the concave lines along the side.

Scrybe: Online and Offline

I just read this morning's downloadsquad review of the scrybe beta. Its yet another online office productivity suite of applications, but this one looks like its really going to stand out. First of all, it will work with Safari, which Google Documents (formerly known as Writely) isn't able to do yet. Secondly, and most importantly of all - you can go offline with just a couple of steps and no software to download. You just set your browser to 'work offline' and then log in to the system and go to work. I imagine it keeps a copy of all your work on your computer and keeps them in sync when you're online. This is huge, now there is really no reason to use Word or any other desktop application - unless you're a hardcore word processor I suppose.

I've signed up for an invite, can't wait to start trying this out. I have been using Google Documents quite a bit lately, its just so convenient.