I've been using gmail for a couple of months and have been pretty happy. I have found that one of it's greatest uses is as a temporary storage area for storing larger files. Someone has actually taken this usability and created an actual FS from it - gmailFS. I haven't had time to test it yet, but if anyone is interested and doesn't have a Gmail account yet, I have 6 invites available. Just let me know if you want one.
I am really tired and have the song from the museum scene at the end of The Thomas Crown Affair running through my head - anyone know what the song is called or who sings it?
Take a look at what Oprah did today.
Netflix has finally listened to what many of their users have been asking for and have added general as well as personalized RSS feeds. I find the Recent Rental Activity and Recommendation feeds to be very helpful, but the Rental Queue could use a little work. I usually set my newsreader to only show unread posts which means if I click on a movie in my queue then it will no longer show up. I am also not thrilled about the way it resends all your entries when change the order of your queue. As a first try at it though it's pretty solid. Even more important is the reaffirmation by Netflix to listen to their customers requests and do their best to respond.
It's been 3 years since the horrible day when the world changed and we lost our good friend Mark. His smile will always be with us.
I read this headline and my first thought was - HUH? Even if it stated that the world favored Bush, why exactly do we care? When it comes to choosing a leader of OUR country we need to do what is best for US (no matter who you favor) and not what the world may prefer. If we were to follow the world public opinion poll then we might as well cede control directly to the UN.
Can anyone attempt to explain why when one does a search for "zell miller on hardball" my blog entry from a few days ago comes up near the top on both Yahoo and Google? I mean am I really the #1 resource that Google can find? I understand the whole concept of ranking pages based on the number of links to that page, but as far as I know there are only a few people out there linking to me. What gives that I should have my highest number of hits in a single day this past Friday all doing searches for the speech Zell gave? (It is also interesting that half of the people searching were actually looking for "Zen" Miller which only appeared in the comments - Thanks OSP!)
I think a lot about a line in the REM song “Losing My Religion” - “Life, it’s bigger… it’s bigger than you, and you are not me” - I feel this way a lot. There are people who go through life not realizing what they are capable of. What makes one person able to grow to a position of importance more than any other person? Are they really any better than the next person? I don’t think so. I think they just recognize what REM are saying here – that if you simply realize how big life is and what one can really accomplish then you can do anything.
One of the best lines I have read in a long time! Take a look at the last line in this article.
Last night our president made what is probably going to be one of the most decisive speeches of his political career. Plenty has already been written taking the speech apart piece by piece and either supporting or trashing it. I was just really impressed by two points.
1. Not simply sticking to war rhetoric. Many people have said that the only reason they like Bush is for his response on Iraq and terrorism over Kerry's "plan". I like the fact that the war didn't come up until 2/3 of the way through the speech. He talked about actual issues that we face everyday in America. Whether people actually listened to that part or remember it this morning is a different question, but at least he talked about it.
2. Laying out his "personal issues" - sure he has been attacked for his way of talking, walking, and thinking but he knows his shortcomings and did a masterful job of bringing them right out into the open. He is most definitely not a "bumbling idiot" as some have described him. He knows exactly what he's doing and I think we are going to see some strong directed attacks on the issues from him and attempts to avoid the "personal politics".
There is a reason he is the current president and it is not just because of his Daddy or money - I think he makes a pretty solid cleanup hitter for the Republican Party and brought home the points made during the previous 4 days of the convention.
No matter what - I think the next 60 days are going to one of the more intense campaigns than we have seen in this country in a long time.
Did anyone happen to catch Zell Miller on Hardball after the amazing speech he gave? Chris Matthews was in his typical style firing the tough questions at him and Miller stepped right up to the plate and fired back. My favorite exchange was:
MATTHEWS: OK. Do you believe now—do you believe, Senator, truthfully, that John Kerry wants to defend the country with spitballs? Do you believe that?
MILLER: That was a metaphor, wasn‘t it? Do you know what a metaphor is?
MATTHEWS: Well, what do you mean by a metaphor?
MILLER: Wait a minute. He certainly does not want to defend the country with the B-1 bomber or the B-2 bomber or the Harrier jet or the Apache helicopter or all those other things that I mentioned. And there were even more of them in here.
You‘ve got to quit taking these Democratic talking points and using what they are saying to you.
MATTHEWS: No, I am using your talking points and asking you if you really believe them.
MILLER: Well, use John Kerry‘s talking points from the—from what he has had to say on the floor of the Senate, where he talked about them being occupiers, where he put out this whenever he was running for the U.S. Senate about what he wanted to cancel. Cancel to me means to do away with.
MATTHEWS: Well, what did you mean by the following.
MILLER: I think we ought to cancel this interview.
You can read the transcript of the interview here. (It begins about a third of the way down)