I can’t even tell you how pumped I am to learn that Texas has a “report a litterer” web form. I’m going to be on this thing every other day!!

Rarely does a commute go by that I don’t see someone flick a cigarette butt out of their car. It infuriates me. I ride my bike to work from time to time and when you have ride down the side of the road, even for just a few miles, you really get an idea just how much litter is generated by those disgusting butts. There are thousands of them. When a good gully washer comes along, all those butts get washed into our lakes and rivers. I’m getting all worked up just thinking about it.

You best not be flinging your butt when I’m on patrol bucko! I guarantee you’ll be getting a nasty-gram from the state on my behalf.

Cleanly stolen from Dave.

I still don’t have a DVR, but this week, I got one step deeper into entertainment geekdom. I signed up for Netflix. I’ve now reviewed over a hundred movies (just a star rating, no write up) and my queue is up to 50 DVDs (most of those are TV shows, my “poor man’s DVR”). I just learned this morning about the “Friend” feature. Now we can all be Netflix friends and share our ratings and queues! Wheee! (Just don’t ask to borrow any of my clothes. That can ruin a friendship!)

Friend me!

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that Tammy and I are using the same account. “The Sound of Music” is not my favorite all-time movie, but it is hers. Don’t want you to think anything weird about me. I’m learning how to set up separate profiles, but I haven’t got it all straightened out yet.

I just want to say that FireFox 2.0 rox my sox off. The best feature by far is the built in spell checker. It works much like we’ve come to expect from MS Word with little red lines and right-click to get possible correct spellings. No more copying my blog post into Word to spell check it before posting.

Which brings us to this week’s white board quip:

Do witches run spell checkers?

I’ll never forget the time I insulted a witch and she turned me into a noot. (I got better.)

I’ve had a sticky note on my desk for months with a list of movies I’ve seen and need to review. Get ready for another movie review purge.

Amistad – An eighteenth-century court-room drama about a slave ship mutiny. Well told story (though slow at times) that gives an honest (read violent and brutal) depiction of the slave trade. Mild nudity and and disturbing images are not for the kiddies, but I would recommend this for any high schooler who wants to get in the mood for a paper on slavery. I haven’t seen Amazing Grace yet, but I would think these two movies would make a good double feature. 3 grins.

I, Robot – I admit I have not read the book, nor anything by Isaac Asimov (who coined the Three Laws of Robotics), but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Faced paced and a real nail-biter of a plot along with some stunning cgi ranks this one among my favorites. 4 grins.

Lost In Space – I had high hopes for this movie despite the fact that it had a “Friends” actor on the bill. It started off well, if a little formulaic. But about 30 minutes into the movie, the plot jerks became annoying. The action sequences (which were not bad in and of themselves) ended abruptly and were not well balanced with the long, boring dialog sections. In the end, a great concept with good effects and tolerable acting was hamstrung by a plot line that could have come from junior high creative writing student. 2 grins.

The Terminal – Reviewers slammed this one so bad that I waited to watch it as a 99¢ rental. I think the reviews could not have been more wrong. I really enjoyed this movie. The DVD extras make it that much more fun with stories of the incredible set (the whole terminal is one giant set, but looks exactly like 80% of the airports in America) and the antics of the cast and crew. Tom Hanks turns in one of his best performances, better than Castaway IMHO. Most of all I like the messages of this movie: Doing what’s right is more important that doing what’s easy. If you want something badly enough, it’s worth waiting for. And most importantly, American’s have forgotten what it’s like to have morals and a strong work ethic. (No one in the airport can wrap their brain around this guy’s patience, drive, and ethical standards.) 5 grins.

More movie reviews on the way including a couple of this year’s computer animated heavy hitters.

It’s pretty cool that I got nominated for the Blogger’s Choice Awards (I now have 6 and 3 votes in the two categories, including my votes for myself.) but that’s not nearly as cool as this.

Alt-N Technologies, the company for which I an a senior web developer, has been recognized for a very prestigious award and now stands among the giants.

Alt-N, Bank of America, Bell Canada, Microsoft, PayPal and TRUSTe Honored for Leadership in Online Safety

BOSTON, MA — (MARKET WIRE) — April 19, 2007 — The Authentication and Online Trust Alliance (AOTA) announced the winners of the first annual Online Safety Leadership Awards. The winners, honored in an awards ceremony on the first night of the Authentication and Online Trust Summit, have all demonstrated a commitment to preserving and improving consumer trust in online channels.

The categories and winners include:

• Long term Commitment: Bank of America
• eCommerce: PayPal
• Public Education: Bell Canada
• Technology Innovation: Microsoft Corp.
• Early Adoption: Alt-N
• Non-profit Leadership: TRUSTe

“We are honored that our commitment to rapidly transform online safety concepts into real-world products for the small-to-medium business community has been recognized by AOTA,” said Arvel Hathcock, founder and CEO of Alt-N Technologies. “We will continue to expand our promotion of online safety features to the MDaemon email server user community by deploying additional safety functionality such as backscatter protection and email certification in 2007.”

I’ll link to the press releases as soon as they’re published.

UPDATE:
AOTA press release
Alt-N press release

Recently, Jess at Apropos of Something linked to an article on Cracked entitled “The Top Ten ’80s Robots (We Expected to Exist By Now)”. Great read, btw. Johnny Five was number ten on the list. Well, lo and behold, the guys at MIT are getting real close to Johnny.

Check out this latest research project. The robot’s name is Domo. Get it? Mister Roboto? Dang those nerds are funny. Domo can recognize human faces and voice commands, can identify objects, estimate their size and make intelligent decisions about how to manipulate them. Domo also has the ability to sense touch, necessary for safe interaction with humans. But most importantly, Domo has human-like eyes, just like Johnny Five.

Fortunately, Domo does not have a shoulder mounted laser cannon nor a homicidal tendency triggered by attempts to turn him off. (“NO DISASSEMBLE!!“) No report yet on whether or not he has a cute Indian side-kick with humorously bad English.

…why I’m not a big fan of RINO Giuliani, aside from the fact that he’s in favor of gun control, he’s also pro-abortion and supports tax-funded abortion.

Clicky clicky.

I’m puzzled why so many conservatives like Rudy so much. 9-11 made him a rock star, but it didn’t change his politics. I still don’t have a favorite candidate, but I’m very interested in learning more about Fred Thompson.

The U.S. Supreme court ruled today that the ban against “partial birth abortion” passed by congress in 2003 is constitutional and the law stands. This is only the first step on the long road to saving millions of lives thrown away in this country.

Less that 10% of the abortions performed will be effected by the law. “Partial birth” is only used in late term abortions (when many of the babies could survive outside the womb, if given the chance).

There have been over a million abortions a year performed in the U.S. for the last thirty years or so. Over thirty million lives tossed out with yesterday’s paper because they were an inconvenience. We have a long way to go to stomp out legalized infanticide, but today, we made a step in the right direction.

Please send all hate-mail to my email address (darkmanwork@hotmail.com) where it will be conveniently filtered and thrown away before I see it… kind of like an unwanted child.

This is so cool. SYNS has been nominated for “Best Humor Blog” and “Best Blog Design” at the Blogger’s Choice Awards. Friggin’ awesome! (Thanks Ghosty for the nods.)

You have to create an account to vote, and it’s kind of a pain, but your vote would sure be appreciated!

Vote early! Vote often!!

Do you have a Ben & Jerry’s near you? If so, you MUST do your duty (No, not “do your dooty”. Gaw!) and pay your favorite dairy hippies a visit today, April 17th. Why? Must you ask? It is, of course, “Global Free Cone Day”.

Good luck getting through to the B&J web site. Looks like the publicity tanked the servers. Some network ninja out there is having a very bad day and thinking to himself, “Stupid dairy hippies. I should have taken that job at Blue Bell.”