And if you plant it too close to pussy willows do you end up with cumquats?

Larry the Cable Guy knows.

Posted by: Jim at 08:17 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, the RIAA is offering an "amnesty" (note the scare quotes) to people who are currently sharing copyrighted materials. No, I'm not linking to it because if I did there's a chance one of my loyal readers might actually go and apply for it. That would be a bad thing. You see, it's a negative sum game. The amnesty is not available for people who are currently being sued and all you really have to do to avoid being sued is stop sharing (which you must do anyway to qualify for the amnesty). The EFF has some other recommendations on how not to get sued.

Applying for this RIAA amnesty will only identify you as a copyright violator, there is no guarantee that the RIAA will keep that fact to themselves and the RIAA is not the only group out there pursuing action against copyright infringers. If you were one of these other groups, wouldn't you pay some cashola for a list of confirmed and admitted copyright violators?

Some folk are a bit vocal (and humorous) about how you would be screwed by applying for the amnesty.

I don't share or download tunes. Not that I'd feel particularly bad about it, music just isn't that big for me. I used to be way into music and I have a massive CD collection but I haven't added to it in about 10 years. I got pissed because it would cost close to $20 to get the one song I wanted, along with 19 crapful songs, so I just stopped buying new. I then got into the BMG thing where you get 12 for 1 and did that for a couple years, cancelling my membership each time I met my obligation and then joining again for the big special when i wanted some CDs. That got old as their selections never really changed and I pretty much had everything they offered. I started buying used but that didn't last long either as the CDs I wanted to purchase generally weren't there. Eventually I just stopped buying music, period.

Over a couple years my music fetish atrophied and died. By the time file sharing came out I was just over it. I played with Napster a bit but even that was more effort than I was willing to put into what was once my favorite hobby. Too many downloads aborted, too many bad files. As far as the whole file sharing shebang goes, Randy Nieland sums it up nicely:

Posted by: Jim at 07:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Normally Mondays are not heavenly. Normally they suck with the inexorable draw of a black hole. But not this Monday, oh no! This is the first Monday of football season. Not only is it the first Monday of football season but every single game had results that proved God is an armchair quarterback.

Buffalo mauls New England 31-0
New England was supposed to be the measuring stick that the new Bills would be measured against. They grabbed the measuring stick and used it to repeatedly bash Tom Brady over the head.

The Texans burned Miami 21-20
The underdog Houston team upset the 14 point favorites, thus becoming my second favorite team in the NFL this week. If you wish to know why any team beating Miami becomes my second favorite team you only need to know that my favorite team is Buffalo and has been since I was 3. Miami did rude things to the Bills for a goodly portion of my life. We hates them, my precious.

The Falcons crushed Dallas 27-13
This is important two ways. First, Atlanta is my adopted home team. I'll be rooting for them every game they don't play Buffalo. Second, we hateses the Cowboys. See the Texans blurb above for the reason why.

The Dawgs roughed up Middle Tennessee 29-10
I'm not a huge college ball fan. I spent most of my formative years up north in a city with no real college teams so I never caught the bug. But when in Rome do as the Romans do. When in Georgia, worship college ball or die. Luckily for me my adopted home has The Bulldogs, the best damn team in the SEC.

The Hornets embarassed Auburn 17-3
Georgia Tech is the "other" college team down here. They get my nod after the Dawgs. The Tigers were supposed to be the shiznit this year and started the season ranked #6. Even though they were blown out in their opener they were still ranked #17 and favored to beat Georgia Tech. Freshman QB Reggie Ball (yes, an actual freshman starting at QB) showed them why they were such idiots to withdraw a scholarship offer to him. Yeah, the QB they could have had has effectively ended their season in its second game. Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?

Posted by: Jim at 07:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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