Update: In November 2006, just days before the start of the holiday shopping season (Coincidence? I think not.) Wal-Mart issued a statement saying that they have chosen to “remain neutral” in social matters and will not give money to organizations with political motives. The AFA has lifted its boycott, but I’m still not spending my money there. It is possible to not shop there. Trust me.

Since dear old Sam Walton died, Wal-Mart has gone from a “Made in the U.S.A”, grass roots, apple pie company to the most (deservedly) vilified corporation in America. 1) Wal-Mart pumps billions of dollars into the sweat-shop industries of the worlds largest human rights violator (China). 2) Wal-Mart unashamedly destroys small town economies. And now, as if conservative Christian Americans needed any more reason to hate the company, 3) Wal-Mart jumped on the homosexual band wagon.

“In an unprecedented push, Wal-Mart Stores has hired a gay-marketing shop, joined the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and begun discussions with activist groups about extending domestic-partnership benefits to its employees.”

According to an article in Advertising Age, Wal-Mart has jumped in with both feet wanting to cash in on the lucrative gay market.

“The steps being taken by Wal-Mart are the strongest signal yet that the company may be taking a permanent stand on the side of gay rights, despite the inevitable lambasting from right-wing conservative groups, such as the Family Research Council and the American Family Association.”

In other words, Wal-Mart is shouting from the roof tops, “Hey middle America! We don’t care what you think. We’re going to make our money any way we can. And we are confident that you will continue to buy our cheap Chinese crap because you’ve already proven to be a bunch of ignorant cattle. So screw you, America! Have a nice day and come again!”

So, have you had enough yet? I have. Until now, I’ve “avoided” Wal-Mart, which is to say, I only shop there when I’m not sure where else to go to find what I need. (Where else do you go when you want to buy a Frisbee or a 50 gallon trash can?) Well, no more. I’m done. (My wife’s going to hate me for this.)

You might be thinking, “How can you not shop at Wal-Mart?” Well, if that’s true, then Wal-Mart is right and we really are a bunch of ignorant cattle. The reason Wal-Mart is what it is today is because we’ve all been to lazy and cheap to face up to their crappy business practices. “Moo!” I say! “Moo!” I will moo no more!

Join me! Let Wal-Mart know that you will moo no more! Contact your local Wal-Mart and the Wal-Mart corporate office:

Rob Walton, Chairman
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
702 Southwest 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716
Primary Phone: 1-800-925-6278
Fax: 479-277-2473
E-Mail: Rob Walton, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

It’s official. I am behind. (No, I did not say, “I am A behind.”) It’s crunch time at work. I am taking the lead on Alt-N‘s new web site design. Not only are we re-designing the look of the site, we are re-writing it ASP.NET, implementing a new content management system, and re-designing the commerce portion of the site to use a new, custom designed web service model for Microsoft Commerce Server. Dave is truly on the bleeding edge with his modifications to MSCS and I’m just hoping to keep up with him.

Anyway, all this is to say my blogging will continue to suffer at the bottom of my priority list for at least another two weeks. Maybe more.

I have lots of personal news to share and even more topics I’d like to blog about, but I just don’t have the time. I will do my best to squeeze out a couple of posts in the next few weeks, but I can’t make any promises at this point.

Keep the internet warm for me. I’ll be back soon.

I love math. In college, I graduated with somewhere around 24 hours of math credit. (Don’t get me wrong. Differential Equations is strictly the realm of masochists, but I did manage a B.) So it always intrigues me when I talk to people who genuinely hate math. How could you hate numbers. Of all the things in the universe, numbers are the most honest. 2 + 2 always equals 4. Well… unless your dealing with a number system with a base less than 5. Or… if you’re doing integer addition with non-integer values. Or… Oh, never mind. Here is WBQotW #74 (base ten).

If all good things must come to an end, then numbers are not our friend!

When discussing Liv Tyler’s acting prowess…

She has the screen presence of an attractive lamp.

Ouch.

No matter how hot a girl looks, somewhere someone is tired of putting up with her.

Man, has it been crazy around here. The dinner theater is over. I went to a Promise Keeper’s event last weekend. Deadlines at work are looming large, and I’ve got three website proposals to write. (Yeah, I’m moonlighting as someone who knows how to make web pages.)

But life is good so I’m not complaining. I was just letting you know why this week’s white board quip is about two weeks late.

The problem with the rat race is even if you win you’re still a rat. – Lily Tomlin

Which Programming Language are You?

Which OS are You?

(Pilfered from Dave)

Can I just tell you, I hate Microsoft! I know that I work in an MS shop. I know that I develop software in an MS language that runs on an MS server. I know that a lot of MS stuff is really cool and makes my life easier. But I still hate it!! (And I always discourage people from using the word “hate”, but I really do hate it.)

Here I am, minding my own business, a relatively intelligent guy, smart enough to know that if I get an exe file emailed to me from free@porn.viagra.com that I should not open said exe file. I am also smart enough to know that if my colleague sends me an exe file (related to my job) that he just told me in person that he was sending me, I can trust that it is not a malicious file and I should be able to open it.

But just in case I’m too stupid to know the difference, MS Outlook refuses to give me access to the file. Oh, it’s there. The file exists on my hard drive. It’s just that MS; being the high and mighty, omnipotent and omniscient big brother that it is; says, “Ah ah ah! You can’t touch that file. It might be dangerous.”

So what’s a guy to do? Google it, of course. And high on the list of search returns is an article from Microsoft’s own knowledge base that explains how to hack the registry in order to overcome this “security feature”.

*Long, angry, migraine inducing sigh*

If you know how to edit your registry, then you are probably safe in reading this article in which MS tells you how to hack MS in order to get around MS’s *%^$%#!@? draconian iron curtain “feature”.

I’d better stop writing before I compromise my Christian witness.

It’s been almost nine months since I posted “Who’s Your Favorite MythBuster” and that post is still responsible for the most inbound search engine links to my site. So far this year, I’ve had almost 300 hits from people searching for “Scottie Chapman” alone, not to mention all the variations of “Kari Byron” and “Silver Paint”. (Hee hee. You noticed how I just threw all those top search terms into this post to boost my traffic? Sly, man. Sly.)

Well, I’m still a huge MythBusters fan. I am painfully jealous of Steve at “The Sneeze” who has personally interviewed Adam Savage and seems to keep in touch with him.

I wasted a few minutes today over at the MythBusters official web site taking a few of the MythBusters’ Quizzes. I only got a 60 on the sports quiz and eeked out a 70 on the word myths, but nearly aced the candy quiz with a 90/100. Imagine that. Can you believe I know more about food than about sports.(</sarcasm>)

Anyway. Head over there and take some quizzes. Then come back here and let me know how you did!

Do you SUPPOSE the correct word is SUPPOSED to be “SUPPOSEDLY”? “Supposubly” is NOT a word just because Joey Tribbiani used it!