god, reality and everything

I had a dream a few nights ago that people were all in an uproar because God had known the winners of a reality TV show before the end of the show. They--whoever they were--said that they shouldn't have allowed God to have chosen the contestants in the first place. I thought this was ridiculous because even if they selected someone to choose the contestants, many would argue that God was still the selector and determiner of the outcome due to his overall control over, well, everything.

Maybe I've just been watching too much reality TV. And, if you think about it, we are all part of God's reality programming. He just happens to be the show creator, director and viewer.

work computer

It takes forever to turn this baby on anymore.

I thought I knew what to do, the proper moves to make. But apparently the tried and true is tired out. And I wait and wait impatiently for it to warm up.

I haven't threatened it with going out and getting a new, younger, faster and prettier (beige is so out) model. But, trust me, I've been thinking about it.

new name

We just found out what the new name of our company is. Groan.

We're very excited about our new name because it's a great name that conveys a positive message and reflects the broad spectrum of media solutions we offer our customers.

Now, I'm not saying that I envy the job of trying to come up with a name for such a large organization, but I am hinting that I think I could have done a better job.

We ask everyone in the organization to enthusiastically embrace our new name. Carry it positively to the marketplace and avoid the inclination to say "why didn't we name it this or that." It was a very tough process and many excellent names weren't usable due to trademark issues. We were thrilled to find a name that says so much about our business and our goals--and that sounds great and that we can be very proud of.

The new name is kind of touchy-feely. Are they trying to sugarcoat over the fact that this is a money-hungry corporation? Change the name, but the company is still the same. It's corporate culture. It's money culture. And I'm the pee-on who helps make it all happen.

Hmm... I wonder if this post shows how ready I am to "enthusiastically embrace" the name? Well, from here on out I will. Yay! Go team!

the new yorker

Christmas came a little early for theCallowQueen thanks to kcprogrammer.

I'm a bit giddy.

Now I just have to be patient and wait until Jan. 16 for my first issue to arrive.

Right, I can do that. Everyone says patience is one of my best traits...

camera lover

Baby Series, Photo Two
Originally uploaded by theCallowQueen.

I've put up the beginning of a series of photos I took recently of my roomie’s nephew, Dominic, on Flickr.

And these pics knock down the ones of l42 on main window--which I'm sure she likes. But, for the rest, do not fear, I have new l42 photos to add. I just need to get around to doing that...

news bites

THE KING KONG CRAZE: Production costs ballooned from $185 million, to $207 million (some say closer to $230 million), as Jackson added fight scenes between Kong and dinosaurs and other action filler. In the end, the critics liked--but didn’t necessarily love--what Jackson had wrought. Meanwhile, the film’s dramatic trailers, with a snarling, leaping Kong, may have put off some female moviegoers, Hollywood insiders believe. (Source: Business Week Online)

COMMENTARY: I saw the trailer and wasn’t impressed. It was that snarling, leaping Kong that made me think the movie was yet another over-produced remake. And while the reviews were lukewarm, I didn’t know it from watching TV. The media’s latched on to this big ape as being the next “Titanic.” Goody. Just what we needed. They laud the behemoth movie at every turn. It was number one at the box office, trouncing Narnia and others, they say. But it also made quite a bit less than expected. And Jackson spent much more than he was initially given. I’m not going to see it.

APPRENTICE UNDER FIRE: Moments after Randall Pinkett was selected by Donald Trump to be the “Apprentice,” he made it clear he didn’t want any company. During the live broadcast, Trump, after hiring Pinkett, asked if he should hire Rebecca Jarvis, too. “It's not ‘The Apprenti,’ it's ‘The Apprentice,’” Pinkett said, shooting down Jarvis’ shot at a gig with Trump.

“I was surprised, because I think most people would have said hire Rebecca, too,” Trump said. “It shows he’s certainly an independent thinker.” … However, Jarvis won’t be out of work long. The folks at Yahoo offered her a job yesterday. (Source: New York Daily News)

And more from TVGuide.com:
TVGuide.com: The less-cynical fans have noted that your exact response to Trump was that he should not hire Rebecca “tonight.” Was that your way of saying, “Hey, I believe in her. Let’s just not give her a job at this particular moment, OK?”

Randal: I absolutely believe in Rebecca. The premise of the show that evening was to hire the Apprentice. I encourage Mr. Trump to bring Rebecca into the Trump organization--I think she would be a great addition--but competition is competition. I hate to see my favorite sports team lose, but I don’t expect them to share the title. Again, I have tremendous respect for Rebecca; I just think it was a situation where you had two very strong candidates. Mr. Trump could have easily made the decision himself if he wanted to hire both of us last night.

COMMENTARY: Fine, Randal won. I was good with that. But I found his attitude disgusting and completely out of character with the man we’d previously seen. My initial thought was that Randal was worried for the first time that The Donald would choose Rebecca. I know now that he had a good hint that both of them could be potentially hired. Remember, he did say to the eliminated candidates, “If you believe that I should be the sole and single Apprentice tonight, candidates please stand, please stand.”

He is welcome to his opinion. But I found his tact and lauded niceness lacking. Worse, in the end was Trump. First, he should have been clued into the fact that Randal wasn’t on the Apprenti bandwagon with the “sole and single Apprentice” remark. Second, he let a new hire decide for him. Who’s the boss? It was his decision, and when confronted with a unexpected response from Randal, he wilted. Sad. Sad for The Donald, who puts out a my-way-or-the-highway image. Sad for Randal, who lost all the credibility he’d gained throughout the show. Happy for Rebecca, who now has limitless job opportunities.

NO MORE IE: Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates. (Source: Microsoft’s Mactopia website)

COMMENTARY: Yawn, not surprised. And good riddance.

GATES, GATES AND BONO: For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are TIME's Persons of the Year. (Source: Time)

COMMENTARY: I really hate Microsoft. Really. I’d add them to my boycott list with Wal-Mart if their software weren’t so deeply entwined in the passage of information. But the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provides great service, as well as a great tax write-off for Bill.

GOOGLING AOL: Time Warner has picked its partner--it’s going to marry off its AOL unit to Google for a dowry of $1 billion for 5% of the company, plus a share of ad revenue. That has the Google gang smiling, the jilted Microsoft suitors scowling and a lot of conventional-wisdom purveyors scratching their heads. Not only will Google retain AOL's pay-per-click dollars that make up 10% of its revenue, but it will forge a relationship with a huge content producer. The question is how Google, which has prided itself in the past for being a content-neutral guide to the Web, will be able to work with an Internet property that spends a lot of its energy rounding up proprietary stuff. In the meantime, Google CEO Eric Schmidt gets to bask in the glory of besting Bill Gates...

Microsoft … desperately wanted to pull AOL’s paid-search ads away from Google, but without a deal, Microsoft's search capabilities will lag further behind. People familiar with Microsoft’s thinking say that it didn't lose the deal over dollars--it certainly could have matched any financial offer--but that it had proposed a more complex deal than Google's offering. (Source: Forbes)

COMMENTARY: NOOOOO! First Flickr was bought by Yahoo! Now this. Sigh. I love Google. I fully support it. I know that it is on it’s way towards becoming a dominator and pain--at which time it will be added to my boycott list. But I had hoped it would take a slower course. I hate AOL. More important, AOL is stupid and unnecessary. Really, why do people still use AOL? What’s the point?

word of the day: sneakernetting

sneakernetting, verb. The act of updating or transferring content on a non-networked or offline machine by physical visits rater than remotely.

Example: Since I don't have access to the Internet at home, I've been sneakernetting my photos to my computer at work to upload them on the Internet.

Caveat: This is a made-up definition by theCallowQueen. The term sneaker-netting popped up in one of the articles I'm editing. I tried to search on the Web to figure out just what the heck it was and if that hyphen was needed. I'm still cloudy on both counts.

sob sob smile

l42 and Sanzo Pose
Originally uploaded by theCallowQueen.

A photo from theCallowQueen's archives in memory of her dear friend lizalou42 who will be leaving next month to teach English in Japan.

Much love!

merry presents day

So this weekend I went with the girls to Pier 1 Import's outlet center in Independence. I bought a lot of stuff really cheap, which is good. I came home with three bulging bags that I plopped down on my bed.

I looked around my bedroom and felt overwhelmed. Stuff. Ugh. So much stuff. And these three bags do nothing but add to it. Sure, most of the items I bought at Pier 1 are giftable. But as I put them away in my now overflowing gift box, I was wondering if it was possible not to have a life that is stuff-centered.

Yesterday, I went through my closet and cleaned out a drawer. I threw out a bag-full of stuff. Three bags in. One bag out. I'm not exactly winning the battle here.

Maybe it's the holidays that is magnifying my frustration. I hate the perversion of Christmas into Present day. The weeks between Thanksgiving and Present Day are Crazy Shopping Season. Yet, I do it. Over lunch I'll probably be over at Micro Center trying to find the perfect present for my dad.

December is a busy month. There are social gatherings, sure. But it feels like to much time is spent shopping for others instead of being with others.

That's it. Next year, I'm crocheting scarves for all of you. Merry Present Day.

red eyed

I have a bottle of Louis Jadot Beaujolais-Villages sitting on the edge of my desk. It's a good inexpensive wine, by the way.

My co-workers walk by, eyeing it greedily.

I fend them off.

This baby is mine. And I will protect it, so I have something to give my fellow movie-watchers tonight.

It is a bit mean of me, I suppose, to taunt them, but I couldn't leave the bottle in the car to freeze. And, frankly, I do enjoy taunting.

snow day

I woke at 7. It was one of those full-bodied, I-was-sleeping-soundly-and-rudely-awakened-by-my-alarm. I got up. Stumbled to the kitchen. Ate a brownie and peered out the window. My car sat coldly under a thick layer of white. The lot hadn't been cleared. But cars were smoothly gliding down Antioch.

I decided to call work's emergency weather line. My managing editor had told me the day before that in the many years she's worked here (13-plus would be my guess) that they'd only closed the office a few times due to snow. But, hoping for a bit of luck, I dialed the number.

Shocked at what I heard, I repeated the message.

The office was closed! And I, being so sure that I'd be trudging into work the next day, had not brought anything home to work on. I was free for a day! I went back to bed.

I heard those poor, miserable work-bound souls scraping off their cars under my bedroom window. I put in my earplugs and went back to sleep.

I rolled over. The bright sun reflecting off the white snow put so much light in my room that it pierced through my eyelids, waking me from my luxurious sleep. I put on a sleeping mask and rolled over.

At 11 a.m., I decided I needed to roll my lazy @ss out of bed. But it was wonderful. Just wonderful.

I lounged on the couch and watched a marathon of "America's Next Top Model." (Yes, I'm admitting to it. If I'm going to waste time, I want to really waste time. Oh, I miss those days of watching marathons of old "Real Worlds.") I was semi-productive. I did label and stamp the newsletter to mail out today.

Then, around 2 p.m., it was time to face the world. I took the broom and my keys and went out to tackle my snow-iced car. Before I could open the car door, I needed to get rid of the snow on the roof of the car that would fall onto my driver's seat. I loved the feeling of the snow as I pushed it off. It was soft, dry snow, which is the best kind. It moves when asked and requires little scraping. I got into it. Then I realized I wasn't holding my keys.

I searched the snow and saw no evidence of them. Shite. I had an appointment in 20 minutes. I began sweeping the snow around my car. Nothing. I retraced my steps, sweeping. Nothing. Shite. Shite. Shite. I was nearing full panic mode. I swept deeper and deeper into the snow. Finally, I found them deep down in compacted snow. Whew! And I even was able to make it to my appointment on time (OK, a minute late--but that's on time for me).

That evening I bumped the heater up an extra notch (thanks, roomie, for not getting mad), and snuggled under a blanket with my boy to watch "The Apprentice" (and enjoy delivered Wheat State pizza). I'm really torn this season. I like both Randal and Rebecca. Randal was my favorite by a smidge, but after last night's episode, I'm leaning a little more toward Rebecca. I think The Donald should hire them both.

be safe kids

The roads are horrible today (and the drivers are worse). So drive safely, because I love you and I don't want you to die. (And because I'd miss out on receiving Christmas presents if you did meet a snowy demise.)

Take care!

if i were a coder

I wouldn't have spent this last hour (and perhaps a bit more) trying to adapt this code. I added the ability to create a link from my blog to others (in case someone ever chose to use the function). And then I decided I'd like it to have the same show-hide function that my comments have.

So I went back to the original hack I applied to the comments and tried to do the same for the backlinks. I was so proud of myself. It worked--or so I thought until I actually republished my blog. It seems to work on the first post on my main blog page and on each individual blog entry page. But it's not working on the older entries on my main blog page. Harrumph!

Hey, I've got a boyfriend who's a programmer. Hey, kcprogrammer, help? You'll earn major usefulness points ;)

thecallowqueen in slate

Breathe, girl. Remember to breathe.

I was checking to see the pages people came from to get to my blog this past week. Ten of them had come from the same place and it wasn't from a friend's blog. (Thanks to my friends, by the way, for providing those useful links!)

So, I went to this site that had funneled potential new readers my way. My jaw dropped. One of my comments from my last "news bites" post was used in Slate's "Today's Blogs" for Dec. 1.

It's not a big mention, and it's toward the end. But, oh my, I can't believe it. I felt famous for a good minute on this one.

You can read the article and search for theCallowQueen here.

Addendum: theCallowQueen also found that Newsweek used an excerpt from a past "news bite" commenting on it's article about "The best 100 schools in America." You can see the mention here. And here's the original post.

christmas rock the house

Loud music came flooding out of my boss' office earlier this week. It sounded like he was having a Christmas rave in his office. Here's what I heard and what he was watching: http://media.engadget.com/videos/lights.wmv (Windows Media Player required to view).

He was all excited about it and wants to do the same thing to his house next year.

He says that the guy who set this up has each section of lights on a different switch and he had to program it switch by switch. It must have taken him forever. The song is quite long. I wonder what the neighbors must think of him.

news bites

NICK-JESSICA SPLIT: The pair who went from middling pop singers to A-list celebrities through the TV show "Newlyweds" about their life as a couple, said in a statement on Wednesday they were separating after three years of marriage. (Source: CNN)

COMMENTARY: Yet another failed Hollywood marriage. Anyone surprised? Oh, and there are rumors that she’s pregnant with either Nick’s or Bam’s baby. Spicy! >rolls eyes< And did anybody notice that I went to CNN for this news bite? Good, old, trusty CNN.

TAFF PLEADS GUILTY: In court Monday, Taff admitted for the first time that he knew he was wrong in using the campaign dollars for a home mortgage loan at the time he made the loan application. … In August 2004, Taff narrowly lost the Republican nomination in the Kansas 3rd Congressional District to Kris Kobach, a law professor. Kobach lost in November to U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, a Democrat. Two years earlier, when Taff was the GOP candidate against Moore, Taff came closer than any other contender had come to upsetting Moore. (Source: Kansas City Star)

COMMENTARY: OK, this Taff thing is small potatoes compared with the fraud problems coming to light in the higher echelons of the Republican Party. Whatever. This is here. My mom wanted me to vote for Taff. Ha! She also wanted me to vote for Kobach. Ha! Three cheers for Dennis Moore!

HE FOUGHT THE LAW--AND THE LAW WON: The life of Nguyen Tuong Van ends today. … On December 12, 2002, Nguyen Tuong Van, then 22, was caught at Singapore airport with 396.2 grams of heroin strapped to his body and hidden in his bag. He was headed for Melbourne hoping the drug deal would settle his brother's debts. … Now, 396.2 grams of heroin is a lot, given you only need to be holding 15 grams in Singapore to get the death penalty. … 396.2 grams. That translates into about 26,000 fisted forearms. That's a lot of wrecked lives. …

In an endeavour to save his life, the media, deathpenalty opponents and Nguyen supporters have played on the image of "little boy lost" to recast Nguyen's public persona from convicted drug trafficker to a condemned young man -- a fallen angel with a kind heart and a lot to live for who made the tiny mistake of trying to pass through sovereign Singaporean territory with half a kilogram of smack under his shirt. … Those defending Nguyen have dusted off stock arguments against the death penalty, the favourite being how "statistics show it doesn't act as a deterrent". This sounds like logical argument, but isn't. (Source: The Age. Read the full article here.)

COMMENTARY: This was third from the top on Google News. Part of me is like, “Hello! It’s Singapore. What was he thinking? If you can’t buy chewing gum because they’re afraid of you mucking up their sidewalks, why would you think they’d be okie dokie with you transporting heroine?" The sympathetic part of me is like, “The death penalty? That’s really harsh--the ultimate harsh.”

It reminds me of Star Trek: The Next Generation when they visit a new world and Wesley unknowingly goes into a restricted zone. The one punisment served for every crime: death. So Picard has to do all of this moral-legal wrangling to save the boy and not break the Prime Directive. And, so I don’t seem like a complete geek, my first thought wasn’t of Star Trek, it was of that American kid who was caned for spray-painting cars in Singapore. America was in an outrage then. What would be the media coverage if it were an American this time and not an Australian?