Over on CNET this morning, there’s an article that explores the question of whether internet movie piracy helps or hurts box office receipts. This isn’t new, but I guess Michael Moore’s relative lack of upset over piracy of his health care documentary, Sicko, prior to its release, has given the question some new life. So far it doesn’t appear that piracy has hurt Sicko’s sales at all. This isn’t the whole story, but I’m sure that a filmmaker like Moore is more interested in getting his message out to as many viewers as possible, rather than just the bottom line.

The other truth is that we’ll never see an article in a mainstream publication that comes right out and says that piracy is a good thing. Fact is though, internet piracy is not going to go away, so anyone selling anything that can be digitized needs to figure out how to make money in such an environment. As far as movies go, I think the only films that will be truly hurt by it are bad ones. Once the word goes out that a film sucks, it’s over at the box office. Even computer geeks appreciate the in theater experience over being huddled around a computer monitor. And even large flat screen televisions are not likely to kill off the movie cinema any more than VHS movie rentals did.

Now for the obligatory, don’t pirate stuff!

Bumming around YouTube this morning I ran across yet another video featuring an attractive woman and largely about nothing, entertaining, but still about nothing. This one has the double bonus twist of hitting two of my weaknesses, cute Asian girls, and British accents. I like accents in general, but British accents are probably my favorite because of all of the Monty Python, Dr. Who, and Benny Hill I watched in my younger days.

This has a been a morose, depressing day for me. After spending a good portion of it unconcious, I finally got out of bed, read some news, got incensed about immigration reform, then I took a silly test, the results of which you will find below. I mostly did it for the Matrix graphic!

Your Score: Androgynous

You scored 66 masculinity and 63 femininity!

You scored high on both masculinity and femininity. You have a strong personality exhibiting characteristics of both traditional sex roles.

Ugh, had to turn the ol captcha back on due to spam spam spam spam spam. Desu desu desu….sigh…

Monday’s tend to suck enough already, but having a fight in the car on the way to work is just the worst. It’s a no win situation as most stupid arguments are. And this one was no different. I should have been smart enough to avoid a fight like that. Oh well, live and learn I guess…T_T

It looks like Paris Hilton is going back to jail! I neither love nor hate Paris Hilton since I really don’t pay any attention to the things she has been a part of. But the rich and famous getting special treatment in the courts is not unique or surprising. It just happens, unfortunately for Miss Hilton, that her case is getting an extra helping of attention probably because she is hated by quite a few people. She is the epitome of the spoiled rich girl, and as such, a lightening rod for attention of all kinds. I would hope that the rich and famous would take a lesson from this and learn to live up to a higher standard. Instead of being the jealous envy of the not so rich and famous, why not be a shining example worthy of emulation by all?

Most of all though, I hope that Paris herself will learn something useful from all of this. After all, she’s really the one with the most to lose.

I spent a little time with the TiVo last night looking at some new things, at least to me, that I had missed before. There’s the TiVoCast, which has show downloads from the internet kind of like Democracy TV. And there’s the Amazon Unbox service for movies and TV shows via Amazon.com. But the thing that remains conspicuously AWOL is a video playlist! All I want is to be able to say program an entire day of TV watching. Why oh why is that soooo hard for them to do? I can only guess that the media powers that be don’t want people to become their own program directors. It doesn’t really make sense to me at all. I’m not talking about skipping commercials. I really don’t care about that anyway, being from the generation that used such breaks to go to bathroom or, *gasp*, talk to family members! So what is so bad about me stringing together a few hours of recorded programming? I can only guess that maybe they are afraid I’ll totally ignore their new shows or something…But wait, isn’t that what I’m scheduling anyway? Again, it makes no sense.

They say that life’s a bitch, well I guess then time’s a bastard! Another college reunion has come and gone for me. It was good to see a few familiar faces again, now with kids! But today I am sad. I’m sad because there was one person I was hoping to see who did not come. And with the passing of time, I realize and have to accept now that I’m probably never going to see or talk to her again. My time in this world is running out, and there is nothing I can do about it.

I’m certainly not planning on dying tomorrow, and while I believe that there is more to my existence than this physical world, I am no less saddened by the unavoidable end of my life here. At some point, one realizes that his or her shining moment on the stage is passing. Someone else is going to get the leads from now on leaving you with the roles of mom or dad, uncle or aunt. It isn’t all bad, indeed, to play one’s role well is something to aspire to always. Still I miss the promise of that early lead, and still crave the spotlight. Well, the sun has not set yet, so maybe I’ll get a few more curtain calls before the fade to black.

To paraphrase Captain Picard, if I’m going to be damned, it might as well be for what I really am! Sometimes I really wonder why I got married at all given the no win situations one can often encounter in such a union. I guess sooner or later every man gets the classic “Does this make me look fat?” question or some variant from which there are no good escapes. Today my turn came when my wife asked me to answer some survey questions for an MBA class she’s taking. These questions were all of a personal sort and to my eye designed to be answered by someone who has worked with her. I knew right away that there was probably no escape from pain!

Now I could either just fudge a lot and answer the questions in an overwhelmingly positive way or I could act answer the questions as accurately as possible as the trained ex-physicist I am. I ultimately chose the latter simply because I try to be as honest as possible whenever I can. It’s just easier to keep your facts straight when, well, they’re really the facts. So honestly, I told her, I’m not qualified to answer the questions because I don’t work with her and thus have not observed her in the working environment. This of course, went over like a lead balloon much as expected. But at least I can still live with myself, even if it means sleeping on the couch. It probably won’t, but it sure does feel like it right now.

Usually when one thinks of open source and the GNU General Public License, software comes to mind, not soft drinks! While Coke and Pepsi jealously guard their secret formulas, Open Cola’s formula is open source and GNU licensed. I think I’ll try to get my son, who has developed a great love of cooking, to whip up a few batches of Open Cola the drink of a GNU generation!

The weather outside is pretty good today and for the most part I had a good lunch walk. Then I made one fatal, mood altering decision. I decided to pop into the Virgin Megastore to look for bargains since the store is closing in a month or so. I frequented this store regularly for the last 5 years and have never had anything but good service, but nothing will turn me off a retailer faster than being treated as a criminal!

Today I entered the store at the same time as another patron, and the theft detector went off. I was sure that I did not have anything in my bag that would set it off, but I stopped anyway when asked. The other guy did not stop, nor did they make any effort to get him. Key difference? The other guy was Asian, while I am African American. So I asked them, why aren’t you stopping the other guy? I was told that they could only get one guy. So of course stop the black guy. Naturally I was upset about being singled out like this, even if the guy stopping me was black too.

So I showed him what was in my bag and declared, “I’m out of here!”, and left that store for the last time ever. The detector did not go off.

My fortune cookie fortune said that my dearest wish would come true. I’m not one to argue with the wisdom of fortune cookies, but I don’t even know what my dearest wish is.

Hello spring! Spring has finally made an appearance in Chicago. I spied the most spectacular black woman in a yellow skirt and top in the nearby Trader Joe’s yesterday. That was one time I did not mind waiting a short time longer in line!^_^

Having just passed the 500th blog posting here (sake for everyone!), I found myself pondering what is perhaps the biggest question of my existence during my lunch time walk. My wife and I are raising our kids with the goal of helping them grow up into the people they were meant to be. But in all of this time, I never asked myself, have I become the person I was meant to be? I almost stopped in my tracks because I really don’t know. If I can’t answer that question for myself, then it certainly begs the question of whether I can answer it for anyone else, including my kids.

But maybe that’s the whole point. I can’t see the endpoint because I’m not there yet. All I can do is make the best decisions I can based on the information I have on hand and some fundamental principles that come out of my spiritual and philosophical beliefs. I may be completely wrong in the end, but I won’t know that until this story is over, I hope.