Friend.peer

Buried unceremoniously in this post from Phil, which he got from someplace I never heard of, quoting someone else I never heard of, who puts in the line what happened to this guy, is a link to fellow Atlanta blogger Daniel Taylor, aka Dreaded Purple Master.

Taylor is funny as a crutch. Why I followed that particular link I'll never know. He has apparently been writing forever, reads stuff I read, watches the one TV show I watch, and lives just a couple of miles from one of my favorite parts of the city.

I don't know him, and would likely never meet him. I just find it insanely cool that this blogging business leads to this sort of thing.

And I was a gen-yoo-whine blogging skeptic. Someone pass the crow. Maybe I'll even make it to one of them Blogger Meet-Ups real soon now, ya hear.

Update: I've been brought up short and had it pointed out to me that had I spent more time watching the 70s TV show Happy Days I would have known the phrase "funny as a crutch" was not a compliment. Well, what do I know. I'm from Texas.

So here's to Daniel Taylor -- funny as whoopie cushion; funny as a 24-hour Jonathon Winters TV marathon; funny as a Gallager Sledge-O-Matic skit; funny as a ... well, you get the point.

My New Scanners Are In! My New Scanners Are In!

By 10:3O AM EDT I had decided I needed this software and a barcode scanner. Readerware suggests a CueCat and suggests eBay as the place to get them. By 11:00 AM I had scrounged eBay, found a likely source, and did a Buy It Now! for 2 CueCat USB scanners for a total of $8. I paid via PayPal

By 4:00PM I had an e-mail from the seller saying he had the money and would ship that afternoon if he could find a Post Office open. At 10:30AM this morning my new CueCat barcode scanners arrived!

This is as close to instant gratification as I can stand to get. I'll be a book scanning son-of-a-gun by tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks again to Jim McGee of McGee's Musings.

A Dark Period In American History. Light on the Horizon.

I usually (not always) vote Republican because, when faced with the rather sad choice of the two major parties, the Republicans are more aligned with my economic and market ideals.

I have to say I am ashamed to have voted for this administration, and I believe history will record this as one of the darkest eras in American politics. Not since Joseph McCarthy have we seen our government so turn against its own people.

This administration has turned its war strategy inward and completely lost its way. It's disappointing, disgusting, and despicable. We have an excellent description of the suspect -- and it does not take a rocket scientist to know where we should be looking to find them.

Thankfully, not all 535 Congressmen are totally vapid (even though they voted almost unamimously for the egregious Patriot Act.) And there are even a few who aren't completely preoccupied crafting protectionist laws for their Hollywood buddies.

Some are showing the stones to stand up to the Ashcroft marionettes that appear to have taken over the White House. Is that a streak of light I see on the horizon?

TIPS gets axed. Good news. TIPS got the boot, thanks to Dick Armey.

"Mr. Armey believes there are other and better ways to involve citizens in the protection of the homeland," said Richard Diamond, the congressman's press secretary. "There are traditional ways of pitching in, helping out, like becoming a volunteer firefighter."

Link (Thanks, Tobias) [Boing Boing Blog]

Holy Sh#t! Guess Who's Tracking Your Downloads

Ugh. I wish this was a surprise. But there's no conspiracy here. Really.

One thing I don't get about the EFF.  Why don't they blow the trumpet on comScore? This company has tricked millions of people into "download accelerators" and other trojan horse software that tracks their traffic, credit card usage (it actually captures numbers), and more -- all in the name of so-called research. Most of the download accelerator software providers they use are front companies.

Hey, this is one of the worst violations of privacy I have ever seen and nobody knows about them.   You know why they don't?  Here is the address of the company:

Reston Office (headquarters):
11465 Sunset Hills Road, Suite 200
Reston, VA 20190
Telephone: 703-438-2000
Fax: 703-438-2051
Yahoo Driving Directions

If you don't get the implications of this, ask someone what government agency is based in Reston VA. BTW, comScore just bought Media Metrix and now own the online consumer data market. [John Robb's Radio Weblog] [Ye Olde Phart]