This is a *great* patent. You may no longer sport a comb-over without paying a licensing fee to Frank J. Smith and Donald J. Smith of Orlando, Florida. See the full patent by clicking on the image on the left. The rush is on to patent the mullet, the spike, the caeser and the florence henderson.

Method of concealing partial baldness

"Patent number: 4022227
Filing date: Dec 23, 1975
Issue date: May 10, 1977
Abstract: method of styling hair to cover partial baldness using only the hair on a person's head. The hair styling requires dividing a person's hair into three sections and carefully folding one section over another."

This movie, Amazing Grace, looks awesome. It's the true story of the events surrounding the abolition of slavery in England. It draws on the life stories of John Newton the slave trader who penned the song, "Amazing Grace", and William Wilberforce the abolitionist politician who pushed to outlaw the slave trade in England. For all the mistakes Christians have made in history, this is a story about which we should be very very proud.

What's really cool is that it doesn't end with the story. The movie is promoting a movement called "The Amazing Change" campaign which aims to eradicate slavery in the modern world. One of the many things Christians should be all over.

"Making fiends, making fiends, Vendetta's always making fiends, making fiends, while Charlotte's making friends"

This is a very clever flash movie series. It has an emo gloss, but has an uplifting underlying theme. It's a little bit like the Simpson's in that regard, but otherwise has no aesthetic relation. Apparently it's been picked up for a series on Nickelodeon. The same sort of start that the Lonely Island guys got on SNL. First become hugely talented, then do stuff on the Internet that rocks, then get hired by the big shots.

It's just one of those things on the Internet that makes me happy. Click on the image on the left to see the show.

From: Planned Parenthood

"More recently, vegetable seedpods, plugs of grass, and crushed roots were used in various parts of Africa. Wads of seaweed, moss, and bamboo were used in Japan, China, and the South Sea Islands."

Congratulations Nate!

Our minivan is dying. We need at least one car in order to survive here in Orange County. So now I must buy a new car. It makes me sick to think that I'm about to drop $25,000 - $35,000 on a new minivan just so that I can survive around here. Given that I could buy an entire South African orphanage that would sustain 12-25 orphans indefinitely for $75,000. It literally makes my stomach get tied up in knots.

On the one hand how can I possibly justify spending this amount of money, but on the other hand what choice do I have? I spent about $4,000 last year in maintenance on the current car. Depreciation on a new Honda minivan runs about $2750 a year and total value of the car falls off linearly over time. So there isn't any point in even buying a cheaper used minivan. In the long run it will be cheaper for me to buy this hypothetical new car.

How can this be okay? This is horribly wrong. I am trapped in a situation I hate and I can get out of it. It makes me crazy and I have no choice. I have to participate in this mind-numbing march of consumption or I can't get my kids to the doctor, I can't get to church, I can't get to a grocery store that sells gel-free diapers.

There is a great bumper sticker that says, "If you aren't outraged you aren't paying attention". I'm feeling that today.

The Chinese seem to have evolved past Chinese checkers. In a really random YouTube video, click on the image on the left to see it, you can see the fun that Chinese families are having today! This game apparently must be played next to a dangerous precipice or the incentive to win is gone.

There is "some" back story on this blog, but it isn't really enough to explain what the heck is going on with "Smack the Lion"

These two shots of espresso, which I pulled this morning, are unacceptable. They will be immediately relieved of their duties and a replacement will be sought through our normal channels. That is all. You may return to your normal web-based activities.

The OC Register put together a nice slide show with audio about some good friends of ours, the Hermes, whose daughter has a really lame skin disease.

Click on the image on the left to see it.

Gas is $0.35/gallon in Iran.

The source for that comes from this article. Curiously the article also suggests that the recent crash in crude oil prices is an economic attack on Iran from Saudi Arabia. Iran depends heavily on the profit from oil exports to subsidize it's economy (including it's gas). With a drop in oil prices, the pressure on the government is ramped up. Presumably this is because the government is being so belligerent regarding nuclear technology and generally making Saudi Arabia nervous.

I did a quad this morning. I bought my four things in four separate purchases. I feel the coupons rolling in.

Reference this blog entry.

I've been a customer of TD Waterhouse then TD Ameritrade for several years. In that time I grew increasingly unhappy with their services. There were tons of nickel-and-dime-you-to-death fees and assorted issues getting things to work right. Not everything was bad. They had good support for online trading. Oh, except for that day when I couldn't log in. That was the moment when I realized that I needed to change brokerages. Not being able to trade on a moment's notice is really bad in today's world. I even heard a news report that said that the electronic exchanges now view 10 seconds as too much delay in one's ability to act on information.

So, I am switching all my services to USAA, which I've blogged about before. They do a good job at almost everything they do.

In a bizarre attempt to make me a happy customer once again, TD Ameritrade just sent me a combination flashlight and multi-way screwdriver kit. This is very confusing to me. Maybe it's a metaphor and I'm supposed to fix the login problems with their website, because that's what would make me a happy customer again.

What better way to await the arrival of one's offspring than by watching a zombie comedy? We saw "Shaun of the Dead" last weekend. I really thought it was great. Most of the pregnant people in the room were grossed out. Basic premise: British slacker and friends fight off zombie hordes.

Although most of the time the Focus on the Family's public face bothers me, they have a really good movie review site called, "Plugged In Online", which in the review of the movie makes the following comments:

"In the end, though, Shuan isn’t really about zombies. It doesn’t reveal how the zombie infestation started, and it doesn’t offer any sci-fi fixes to the problem. Instead, the story is always about Shaun’s struggle to be more than a zombie himself. Writer/star Simon Pegg told moviecitynews.com, 'In our film, if they're anything, [the zombies] stand in for apathy, and urban living, and becoming ... an anonymous automaton in a collective, where you don't have any identity.”"

Mars Hill also has a good film and theology deconstruction of the movie, here.

Albertson's has all kinds of ridiculous incentive programs which make it impossible to figure out how much something really costs. Loyalty cards, an additional in-store loyalty kiosk called "avenu", coupons in the aisles, coupons at the check-out. Uggh.. I hate it.

This morning I wondered if I could find a programming bug in the loyalty program by splitting my grocery cart purchase into 50 or so individual purchases of 1 item. I wonder if there is some code which counts "transactions" rather than "items purchased" that could be exploited.

If I get a chance to try it, and I see some wacky thing happen to my personalized incentive coupons that get mailed, emailed, printed and otherwise thrust at me I'll report it here.

Aaahhh... Pat Robertson. I have a soft spot in my blog heart for ridiculing everything P.R. does. (See here).

In this, his latest stunt on CNN, Pat warns us of a terrorist attack in late 2007 that will kill lots of people. Yawn, it's a scary possibility, but hardly that big of a revelation and honestly, that's like saying there is going to be a tornado which hits a trailer park this year.

More importantly are the following interesting tidbits from the article:

"In 2005, Robertson predicted that Bush would have victory after victory in his second term. He said Social Security reform proposals would be approved and Bush would nominate conservative judges to federal courts.

Lawmakers confirmed Bush's 2005 nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. But the president's Social Security initiative was stalled.

'I have a relatively good track record,' he said. 'Sometimes I miss.' "