This is just too funny. You simply must visit Angry Alien Productions for:

˜ The 30-Second Bunnies Theatre Library ˜
... in which a troupe of bunnies parodies a collection of movies
by re-enacting them in 30 seconds, more or less.

Link via Wong P Hu.

Yesterday the on-board ethernet adapter on my primary desktop went south, and I really did not want to go out in the cold, dark, rainy night to get another one. I thought surely I had an old card lying around in a drawer somewhere which would have done for the time being. Well, I found a lot of old cards -- even a couple of ISA cards! -- but, alas, no ethernet card. I did, however, find some historical postcards (unused) that my great aunt had brought back from a trip to Europe in the 1930s. They're pretty interesting, I think. Which means: I finally have a use for Flickr, and that makes me one happy, photography-challenged geek!

So far half of them are up in my Malmaison set. View the set as a slideshow. I'll get the others up before too long, as well as add a nifty Flickr flash badge here -- as soon as I can be bothered to make the code they supply validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict. It's probably quite simple, but I'm currently hungry and generally lazy.

The most recent Science Friday podcast covers this year's Ig Nobel Awards. Definitely worth a listen. Visit the Science Friday page to get more information.

Everywhere I turn I see Sudoku, so I decided to check it out. It's pretty addictive: the Rubik's Cube all over again, with me obsessing to get better and better (right now I'm pretty slow). Speaking of which, there's so little time in a lunch break and so many puzzles at Web Sudoku, so I'll catch you later.

Saturday I turned 35. Do you have life benchmarks? I do. They're not always what they're cracked up to be, but I persevere all the same. The two big things on my list which are slated to occur this year are:

• Decide on whether or not to get a Ph.D and take the appropriate steps if I decide I indeed want to go that route
• Start seriously saving toward retirement

Up until Saturday, these seemed like age-appropriate -- and distant -- things to tackle. Now that I'm 35, I realize I'm not ready to tackle them. Although maybe that gives me the answer: If I'm not chomping at the bit to go back to grad school, have only a vague notion of what area of study I would pursue, and professionally am not required to obtain another degree, then I don't want or need a Ph.D. And if I've gotten this far in life without saving for retirement, it's probably time I get serious. Ya know? Or I could wait until 40....

The Wizards of Winter video is just toooooo cool. I wonder how it was done -- and how long it took!

I used to think nothing of hopping on a plane. September 11th changed that: I haven't flown since then, and I currently have no intention of doing so. While we are more aware these days, I don't think the current security measures make us safe; instead, they suck up our time and potentially violate our privacy. Fortunately I don't have a need to fly, and my friends and colleagues pleasantly accept this attitude as just another of my "eccentricities." While my unwillingness to fly may be "eccentric," my beliefs regarding our safety are apparently shared by at least a few others. This from Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow:

Aussie Senator: air security is meaningless

Amanda Vanstone is an Australian Senator who gave a stupendous speech to the Adelaide Rotarians about how meaningless airline security procedures are, arguing that they're in place to "make people feel better as opposed to actually achieve an outcome." I fly about 300,000 miles a year, and I couldn't agree more. Senator Vanstone is the first high-placed public official to say what we all know -- the crap we face at airports does squat to make us safer.

Read the rest at Boing Boing.

The Adopt A Turkey program encourages you to "feed a turkey, rather than eat a turkey, by adopting one." You can actually adopt a turkey -- no doubt a violation of at least 10 current Condo Association rules and inspiration for the creation of at least 10 more -- or you can sponsor one for $20. I, of course, went the latter route and am sponsoring Whisper (shown right). Given the number of turkeys consumed in this country every Thanksgiving Day (AKA Turkey Day), I suspect my action is the functional equivalent of removing a single drop of water from the ocean to ward off the effects of global warming. But I decided to support this group nonetheless because I like their message.

Order of events:

• Complain about persistent cough (8/2005)
• Barium swallow (8/2005)
• Chest X-ray (10/2005)
• Chest CAT scan (10/2005)
• Abdominal CAT scan (10/2005)
• Abdominal ultrasound (11/2005)
• Follow-up Chest CAT scan (1/2006)

And as of today, drumroll please:

• Liver biopsy (TBA)

I'm all tested out...

A week ago I had a nasty surprise. I had gone down to my office instead of telecommuting and afterwards went out to dinner so I didn't return home until close to 9 PM. Feeling somewhat disconnected from the world, I booted up my primary computer to see what interesting things I had missed in my absence and was promptly told by ZoneAlarm Security Suite that I was infected by spyware. Not one of those silly tracking cookies it typically finds, but honest-to-goodness spyware: a key-logging trojan no less! I had the WatchDog II client. I asked ZA for more information and didn't like what it had to tell me. I Yahooed it and liked those results even less. Apparently WatchDog II is really good spyware. Great....

Given my extreme security paranoia, I was utterly stunned that I had managed to get infected in the first place. "How could this be?" I kept repeating to myself. Well, actually, I swore a lot, but there was no doubt from the obscenities that I was surprised (among other things). After all, I use a security suite and keep it up-to-date. It has spyware protection. I use Norton Anti Virus, which includes various and sundry anti-nasty protection, and keep it up-to-date. I use WinPatrol Plus on top of this so that anything that tries to sneak by me and my security suite is caught. WinPatrol is kept up-to-date. And I regularly scan my computer with Adaware which, as you might have guessed, I keep up-to-date. Plus, I don't go to the kinds of sites where you might inadvertently acquire nasties; I don't download software from companies with whom I am not familiar; I am extremely careful with email attachments; I don't fall for phishing schemes. I should not be infected. And yet I was.

I deleted the file in question before examining its origins. That, admittedly, was a stupid knee-jerk reaction. It would have been nice to see where it was and scan it with some other products. Oh well.... Officially it was gone, but new, clever nasties come out all the time, and I have a lot of personal information on this computer. How could I be certain I was truly clean? Well, when in doubt, reformat and start over. Yes, another knee-jerk reaction, but I prefer to be safe rather than sorry.

So I started from scratch, reinstalling, repatching, reupdating, reconfiguring, all the while periodically checking with ZoneAlarm (and Microsoft AntiSpyware and Adaware) to be sure I was still clean. Given that I started this a bit after 9PM, it was looking like an all-nighter since I needed my system operable for work the next day. Lo and behold, a few hours into this process, after I installed the software that came with the TV tuner I bought the previous weekend, I was once again infected with WatchDog II! At least this is what ZoneAlarm claimed. Aha! So I hadn't done anything foolish after all. I felt better, but still wondered why this was happening: Was it a false positive, or is Norwood Micro (yeah, I am cheap) up to no good -- intentionally or otherwise?

This time I quarantined the item. It happens to be the software associated with the tuner's remote control named, conveniently enough, remote.exe. Is that why ZoneAlarm identified it? Because WatchDog II is a client-server combination that, perhaps, has a component named remote.exe? If so, that's pretty sloppy detection on the part of Zone Labs. Or is this Norwood Micro product indeed infected? I contacted both parties: Norwood Micro by phone; Zone Labs via email to their spyware folks with all of the relevant info from my registry and their product as well as a zipped up copy of the offending executable. Norwood Micro claimed that this was the first that they had heard of it and would research it further. I still haven't heard back. Zone Labs has yet to acknowledge my email. They've both had a week.... Now that I've calmed down, I'm leaning towards the false positive scenario. But I do wish someone would get back to me with a definitive answer so that I can relax and use my remote.

UPDATE: Zone Labs never got back to me, but Norwood Micro did. It is indeed a false positive and a fix should appear in the next "weekly update" of the security suite. Yea! Thanks James!! While I paid next to nothing for this TV tuner, I like it a lot more than the costlier one it replaced due, primarily, to stability. Being able to use the remote safely makes it even better.

I don't know which is scarier, the fact that A Day In The Life of Miss McDonald exists or that it gets as many comments as it does. I came across this fan blog via the same way I seem to come across all fan blogs: Micro Persuasion. Steve recently reported upon another McDonald's fan blog and a Target fan blog, and mentioned several others prior to that.

What I don't get is why these things exist. For instance, I like Trader Joe's and shop there fairly often. It's an excellent place for a lazy vegetarian (aka me) to stock up on prepared meat-free dishes. In fact, at this very moment, I happen to have some TJ's Cream of Asparagus soup in the oven changing states from comical frozen cylinder to tasty dinner item. TJ's is awesome! Awesome enough to motivate me to dedicate my time and other resources to it? Heck no! (No offense, Tracking Trader Joe's. ) I have favorite stores and restaurants. There are some gadgets I'm really jazzed about. I wouldn't buy anything other than a Volvo (used ones, mind you, at least until I win the lottery). And I think The Simpsons is the best television show EVER. But to create a fan site/blog about any of those things is an entirely different matter....

Are these fan blogs truly inspired by extreme loyalty bordering on devotion? Or is it just a way to get attention, either from the world at large or from the company in question? And, either way, what are the implications? Maybe as an experiment I will create a fan blog and see what results....

I came across the SHOK site via The Writing On The Wal.

What is SHOK?

SHOK (Stop Hurting Our Kids) is an ad-hoc group of parents from all corners of America who are compelled to speak out to protect innocent children from Wal-Mart - the world's biggest seller of children's toys and bicycles. From Louisiana and Georgia to Illinois, West Virginia and California, these parents are speaking out to warn families across the country about the dangerous Wal-Mart bikes that have seriously injured their sons and daughters.

SHOK has a petition at their site which you can download, distribute, and return.

I just made two new TagClouds (see the "Miscellaneous" section under my blogroll): one from all of my feeds and one strictly from this blog. I think I need to write more to get better keywords/tags pulled from my content. And there are some minor keyword issues such as "butt exercise" being derived from "get off my butt, exercise more", and phrases like "I dunno" and "oh crap" working their way into the list.... But all things being equal, tag clouds are a cool way to see what you and/or your favorite content providers are talking about and to access articles on the topics of your choice. And, best of all, it's a free service! Check TagCloud out for yourself.

Check out the Governator, Sesame Street style. Very funny, though I think he sounds more like the Cookie Monster than he does Ernie....

via Boing Boing.

This from BetaNews.com:

Potentially trying to avoid a PR disaster after suing a 67 year-old Wisconsin grandfather for $600,000 because his 12 year-old grandson downloaded four movies, the MPAA has offered Fred Lawrence a deal: pay $4,000 over 18 months to settle the case. But Lawrence says he doesn't have the money.

[...]

Lawrence added that he's currently looking for an attorney to defend him in the lawsuit and still doesn't understand what file sharing is.

If Lawrence is successful in fighting the lawsuit, the MPAA could legally turn around and sue the child.

Unbelievable! The MPAA, like the RIAA, is so out of control. Does anyone want to start a fund so that concerned parties can help this gentleman get a really good legal team? I'll certainly chip in.

Just got the results from my abdominal Cat scan: They saw the same "lesions" on my liver that they saw on my liver when they did the chest Cat scan, but still don't know what they are. It's a shame to have wasted all of that good radiation.... Plus, now I get to have an abdominal ultrasound to see if they can, in the words of the person who called me, "figure it out."

St. Joe's should create the hospital equivalent of a frequent flier program. I would be eligible to move to the first of the registration line for every test for a year. This would be especially helpful given all of the people I wind up behind who don't know where they should be, or what test they are having, or when the last time they ate was. Amateurs! And this latest test should give me enough "miles" to get an upgrade to a first class Cat Scan. I can see it now: After fluffing my pillow, the nurse would hold up a bag of designer contrast dye with its label turned towards me so that I could approve. I would eye the bag and then indicate its acceptability with a slight nod. Then the pure gold IV needle would be inserted into my arm and pleasant music would be piped in to entertain me while I'm being zapped. The recorded voice that barks respiratory orders: gone. In it's place: a more soothing, almost apologetic voice that quietly suggests things like, "if you wouldn't mind holding your breath for a mo', it would be ever so lovely."

And I ought to be: Comcast increased their speed again for free (thanks guys!), Go Daddy increased my storage, bandwidth, and MySQL databases, plus gave me more email accounts than I could ever hope to use -- all for free (thanks guys!) And I'm so lovin' my new Gateway laptop with its 64-bit AMD 4000+, Gig of RAM, 100 Gig HD, 6-in-1 card reader, and 15.4 ultrabright widescreen display: It's nice to have desktop power and quality from the comfort of my couch.