Strange
Day

This is just fuckin’ disturbing.
Maybe I’m slow and I missed something everyone else knew long ago. But in playing around with a flash presentation on the Post web site, and went into the flash document settings. I’m sure it’s intended to be a legitimat feature, but the window that pops up asks you if the web site can have access to your web cam and microphone.
I was able to recreate this on about half the flash presentations I tried on various web sites.
No… no potential there for invasion of privacy. I’m sure noooooo one would find a way to make the default setting for this to be “on”.

Wait… you’re telling me that Robert Blake is still alive?
Frankly, Tony WIlliams can stick his party animals where the soft money doesn’t flow.
Enron is dead — hand me a shovel.
AOL is deathly ill — hand me a garrotte.
Trains, planes, the Shrub, and the Catholic Church are all crashing.
Why the hell should it take half an hour of channel surfing to find out… well… anything… in the morning. I nearly sprain my thumb on the worn-out remote trying to flip past morning shows before they exhibit another picture of whats-her-name’s colon. And if you subject me to one more traffic report from some bubbly bimbo with a cute name in a helicopter, I am going to cause my own jam by pitching the TV into the traffic outside my apartment.
We live in an age where we can watch live footage of military assaults on foriegn capitals live via television or ‘net. But all I see on every channel when I wake up in the morning is Barry Manilow singing in the middle of some New York street. (Do they have morning shows in LA?)
How much would you be willing to pay to see, unedited and unnarrated, the sun rising over a carribean rainforest? Or maybe morning prayers at a buddist shrine in Japan? Sunset in the desert?
You get the idea.
The more massive our technological capabilities become, the more massive amounts of crap we shovel with them.
I would pay every cent I have just to get that fucking body-builder infomercial off TV; replaced with a half hour of footage of someone hangliding through the Grand Canyon.

I thought when I heard the first motorcade pass my apartment, that it was the start of a long weekend. These meetings always bring in hundreds of diplomats and VIPs, roveing around town in their limos.
But this time… nothing. One motorcade and that was it.
Until the same thing happened before me one too many times.
You would be walking down the street, and see a police car or two. They weren’t apparently in sequence or after someone. They’re just waiting at the streetlight. Near them is a large white passenger van with tinted windows but no markings. And close by is a white compact car with the emblem of a private security company on the door.
Did it finally sink into someone’s thick head that maybe the police escorted motorcade may actually make for a larger target?

A note to all salespeople, on how not to be my friend.
When you come in to my job trying to sell us new telecommunication service, I will very likely not be interested, since I have sat through too many of those presentations, and been screwed over by too many ignorant salespeople.
Even so, I will politely tell you that we are not looking for any new service at the time, but that you can take our card and let us know about any new products or promotions you have, by mail.
At this point you ask me if I am really authorized to make decisions about my companies telecommunications service, or would the owner have the final say.
Dispite the fact you are being an obnoxious prick, I will tell you that the owner and I jointly make those decisions.
After you ask me if I’m sure, I will politely show you the door and walk away.
At this point you, the salesperson, will turn to the receptionist and ask if I was really the person authorized to be making decisions about the company’s telecommunications service. Since she is much more tolerant than I am, she will again tell you that I am that person.
We’ll all laugh at you after your gone.
Then, an hour later, you will call up the owner directly, and ask him if I have the authority to make such decisions, or if you, the salesperson, can deal with the owner directly.
Thankfully, the owner is a relatively intelligent and nice guy, and I’m sure he politely told you to fuck off.
This is how not to be my friend.