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Fireworks Illegal to Possess?
I grew up in Minnesota where fireworks were illegal, so I have never really been into, or cared much about fireworks. The ones you can buy are usually lame and expensive, so I have never bought any. In North Dakota Fireworks are legal and have just recently started going up for sale. I just read this:
FARGO – Police here have issued a reminder to residents that it is illegal to possess, sell or use fireworks within the city limits.
WTF? So if I was to buy some fireworks to shoot off out in the country on the 4th I couldn’t bring them home? Where would I put them? I totally see not being able to sell or shoot off fireworks in town, but it’s illegal to just possess them in town too? I see how they would be illegal to possess them in Minnesota, but not in North Dakota where they are legal. So if you buy fireworks, make sure you don’t drive through town with them. I hate stupid laws that make no sense and can’t be enforced.
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Bodies
On Saturday we went to see the Bodies Human exhibit down in South Dakota. It’s probably the smallest of the three exhibits of this type, Body Worlds, and Bodies… The Exhibition being the two larger ones, but it was still pretty cool. Some of the exhibits were really creepy. There was one body that was cut into one inch cross sections, and there was a head that was cut that way too. It was creepy seeing just a sliver of a head with a face on it.
I had mixed feelings while I was walking through it. It was cool seeing the bodies, but it also felt kinda disrespectful for the bodies. There is also a lot of controversy about where the bodies came from. There was no mention of where the bodies came from, but they were all asian. The bodies are all prepared in china, and they aren’t good about keeping records, so nobody really knows where the bodies comes from. Some people accuse these companies of using homeless people, mentally ill individuals, and executed prisoners, but I don’t think anybody knows for sure where the bodies come from.
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OJ and Dead People
I hate it when I have tons of stuff to blog about and no time to blog. Then when I find time to blog, like now, I got nothing.
One thing that I was going to blog about was OJ coming to town. A co-worker of mine was actually at the bar that OJ was at. I guess he was in town to visit his girlfriend’s family, who live in the area. It was the big news on Wednesday. They talked about it all day on the radio, and it sorta made national news. I didn’t really see what the big deal was, but whatever.
Today we are heading down to South Dakota to check out Bodies Human tomorrow. It’s going to be a little creepy to see real live dead people, but I think it will be pretty cool.
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Here Be Dragons
One thing that drives me crazy is all the misinformation that is spread. So many people believe things that aren’t true just because they are told it’s true. It’s not that these people are dumb, it’s just that they haven’t learned how to think critically about things.
Brian Dunning, host of Skeptiod, a ten minute weekly podcast, has created a must see video. It is titled Here Be Dragons, and it is a nice introduction to critical thinking. You can watch it below, or go to herebedragonsmovie.com to view it at a higher quality.
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Edit Your Pictures Online with Picnik
There are so many new and cool webapps that is hard to actually find a use for them. I have played around a little bit with Adobe’s Photoshop Express. It’s pretty cool and amazing what you can do on the web these days. Yesterday I use Picnik for the first time. Picnik is another online photo editor. I like it better than Photoshop Express. I have a Picnik extension added to FireFox, so I can just right click on an image and send it to Picnik. I used it for the image in my post yesterday about Netflix. I found an image, resized it, and added a drop shadow in a matter of seconds. It really makes it easy to add images to blog posts. I don’t add images very often. In the past it’s been kind of a pain downloading the image, edited it, and then uploading it. Picnik makes it kinda fun. You just edit the picture on the web, then I downloaded and dropped it into MarsEdit. Easy peasy. -
No Profiles on Netflix?
I have been a Netflix user for years. I probably only watch one movie a week, so they are making money off of me. It doesn’t really bother me that I am not getting full use out of my Netflix account. The main reason I like it is that I never forget what movies I want to watch. When I hear about something that sounds good I just add it to my queue and I get to it when I get to it. I am years behind, but I don’t really care.We have the “two at a time” plan. It works well for us because of multiple profiles. I have my queue and my wife has hers. We each can watch the movies we want on the schedule we want.
Now, for some stupid reason Netflix is getting rid of their multiple profiles option on September 1st. That’s going to make me look at other options. I have never looked at Blockbusters online rental options because I was very happy with Netflix. Coming September that might change.
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New Theme
It seems like I am changing my blog template more often than my underwear. For my last template I wanted something simple, and something that brought all my social network posts together. Shortly after I released that one, Chris Pirillo came out with his WicketPixie theme. It is pretty cool because you can enter all your social network links and it will automatically get the favicon and integrate them into your blog. You can visit my “social activity” page and see all my social network activity. I still have some CSS tweaking to do. I ran out of time last night, and wont have much time to play with it for a while now.
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XBox Withdrawal
I don’t really believe in superstitions. I have some, but I don’t really believe in them. Nothing bad has ever happened to me on Friday the 13th, but I am always leery about them. Well, this past Friday the 13th was a bad one. Our XBox 360 suffered the dreaded “Red Ring of Death”.
Someone on Twitter suggested that I try the wrapping it in towels so it overheats trick. Supposedly overheating it melts some solder points and then fixes them. I was pretty skeptical about that, but I thought I would give it a try.
I was right, it didn’t work, so we will be sending it back to Microsoft to get fixed, so we will be XBoxless for four to five weeks. It’s not going to bother me that much. I don’t play it all that often, but the wife is going nuts already.
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How Many Computers are too Many?
My wife’s desktop PC and laptop are both getting a little old. She always ends up getting my hand-me-down computers. I am happy with my current computers, so I just bought her a new laptop. She figured she could replace both of her computers with a laptop.
So that means I am going to inherit two more computers. I currently have five computers at my desk. Is that too many? I think I will turn her old PC into a Windows Home Server, which will go into the closet, and I think I will run Ubuntu on her old laptop. I have always wanted a Linux based laptop. I always seem to find a use for my old computers. I think I have only gotten rid of three of my really old computers. Yeah, I need help.
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Time Management
I am subscribed to enough feeds in Google Reader that I always have something to read. Many days are wasted reading feeds all day. This week I am starting to use my time more wisely. I am only going to read my feeds a couple times throughout the day and that’s it. I don’t get any more read when I am reading then constantly.
I am also scheduling time in my day to read. I like to read, but never seem to get any done. I can’t read when the wife is home because she is always calling for me to do something, or making noise distracting me. I use to read before I went to bed, but I am finding that harder to do. When my eyes get tired it’s hard for me to read. Now I bring my iPod to bed and use that time to listen to audiobooks instead.
So far after two days, I am really liking my days off schedule.
5:00 AM: wake up. (yeah I know I am crazy waking up that early on my days off, but I hate wasting time sleeping)
5:00-8:00: read feeds and listen to podcasts
8:00-9:00: read my book
9:00-noon: blog if I have anything to blog about and work on whatever computer projects I am working on
noon: eat and catch up on feeds
afternoon: work on household projects, or play xBox, or watch Netflix movie
3:00: get caught up on feeds before the wife gets homeI know it sounds kind of stupid to schedule some of this stuff, but it’s stuff that I want to do and I work best if things are scheduled.