Today Apple released iTunes 4.9 which includes support for free podcasts which you can download from within the iTunes program. iTunes will check every day, every hour, or whatever you tell it for new shows from many different sources — currently 3000 — that include ABC, public radio, ESPN, and even the San Francisco Chronicle.  When iTunes finds a new show from one of the sources you’ve subscribed to, it downloads the audio to your computer.  iTunes will also synch programs to to your iPod if you’ve told it to. Nice!  Even on its first day, there are many news programs and [...]

Today’s bright and shiny oddness is a meme that tries to decide what I might be interested in by … Step 1: extracting my interests.COMPLETED. Step 2: extracting users who share my rarer interests Interests Processed: gay square dancing, challenge square dancing, COMPLETED. Step 3: extracting *their* interests . COMPLETED Step 4: Counting and sorting interests . COMPLETED […]

We arrived at Mission and 9th just in time to see the Dykes on Bikes Women's Motorcycle Contingent start off the parade yesterday.  We schlepped ourselves and our offerings to David's office with a front window on Market Street where we watched the whole parade.  Yep.  The whole thing. Most of us didn't believe that the Pride parade ever ended.  We'd never lasted on the streets until The End. But at 2:04 the yellow safety monitors walked by signifying the finish to great show. The photo gallery has pictures of squaredancing (including a few pixels of fuzzygruf),  grandees like Mayor Newsom and the Widow Norton, local [...]

We got the car back from the auto body shop Thursday morning. The shinny new hood opened, closed, and rested in place perfectly. It was ready when promised and the guy that wrote up the order even called me during the day Wednesday to let me know I could pick up the car whenever I wanted. Matt's Auto Body isn't like the cluttered shops I remember.  There was no hemming and hawing about parts availability or wondering if this spring went with that hood assembly. The estimate was done on a computer that suggested parts and gave the estimator diagrams of what [...]

The dishwasher we bought from Sears last month came with a $50 mail-in rebate.  I know that most people don't bother to send in for the rebate (one Consumers' Union statement I saw said 60% of rebates go unclaimed).  But, I filled in our forms, copied, pasted, and mailed certified with return receipt.  The result?   A Sears 50-Cent Check I called the 800-number and everyone was nice, helpful, and unsurprised.  They promised another check to make up the balance. It came. The Second check

The US Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns ate beef for lunch today before greeting the press with the news that a second case of mad cow disease had been confirmed.  This animal was born domestically, and not imported from a contaminated Canadian herd as the previous mad cow one was. While I agree that there's no evidence of wide-spread contamination of the beef supply, the Ag Secretary's public statements don't give evidence of a well functioning logical mind.  Not mad, maybe.  Just shallow and short-sighted. Human health was not at risk, Johanns said to the press. Because, he reasoned, the [...]

The Supreme Court today blessed (5-4) the conspiracy of big business and big government to act against individuals.  (Text of the decision.) The Court decided that it is perfectly Constitutional for a government to take your home from you and to hand the property to other private people the government likes better, people who will make their own money from it. What an dangerous stretch of governmental authority in furtherance of concentration of economic wealth!This horrible alliance of corporate and governmental greed is stunning.  It’s the kind of act that induced our forbearers to call for a new government of, [...]

The Goat finished previews and opened Wednesday. The Chronicle loved it. They published a rave review yesterday after a   feature story on the ACT/Albee feud was printed earlier in the week. My applause for the production isn't dependent on validation by the Chronicle, but I am glad to see them join in. The evening deserves full houses and an extended run.  Their stories should help.

Friends last fall took a romantic trip to sunny, peaceful Aruba.  They went to the same crime-free paradise that is suddenly horrified by the disappearance of the 18-year-old high school student Natalee Holloway.  The island whose Prime Minister is personally involved in searching for the Alabama girl.  The destination resort who reports only one homicide for 2004.  The place with baking tourists on the beach eager to cluck-cluck and say they're concerned for Natalee but feel so safe themselves. Except in real life Aruba is a dangerous, crime infested place.  They have done great with their PR machine, and precious [...]

... or, the shortest distance between two points is a ... See the latest earthquake map at the US Geological Survey .