techno.blog("Dion")

Air America Radio launched today.

It is a radio station that discusses views from the left.

I love how Al Franken’s show is called “The O’Franken Factor”. As well as Al, you can listen to Janeane Garofalo, Randi Rhodes, and more.

It is nice to hear radio that goes against Rush, Newt, and all the other right-wing crap.

As the election gets closer (well it is a long way off, but they drag it out here in the states) people start to talk a little more about politics.

My brother had the obvious idea of making voting day a national holiday. We WANT higher turn out, so lets enable it as much as possible!

Traditionally it is people of lower classes that don’t make it to the polls, and anyway to help them vote is good in my book (especially as it will help get this pseudo-president out of power).

Here in Boston, St Paddy’s day comes with a day off work, so surely election day could be :)

ps. I am looking forward to my first paddy’s day in Boston!

Have you ever realised the power of being there? It can be such a simple thing… to be somewhere for someone. Maybe you show up for some sporting event, and your nephew sees you in the crowd, supporting them. Or maybe you go visit some family that you haven’t been too in awhile, even though you don’t really feel like it.

If I look back at moments in my life, I realise that the simple ability of making the effort to be somewhere can mean so much, and doesn’t always take that much!

I was reminded of this “power” over the weekend. My brother made if over to my neck of the country on his way to a business trip. He has a sore back at the moment, and it would have been easy to either: a) cancel his trip, or b) get in and out for his trip. However he made that extra effort, and we got to have a really nice time just hanging out together.

Thanks to everyone who has made that little effort for me in the past, and I hope I will do the same for you.

Cheers,

Dion

I was just listening to BBC Five Live radio, and Martin Freeman (who plays Tim in the best comedy for a long time, The Office) was on talking about his new role as Arthur Dent on the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie.

I know that things slowed down when Douglas Adams sadly passed away. It is great to show that the ball keeps moving and I can’t wait to see the final movie. With today’s technology we will finally be able to see something realistic ;)

If you haven’t heard/watched the office then you owe it to yourself to search it out. In the US you will have to head to BBC America to check it out. Or you can wait until next years comedy season and watch a poor version for the US market. No doubt it will be as crud as the US version of “Coupling”. *sigh*

Carlos (Brasil) Villela has written up a review of his 2 weeks in England.

He is spot on with some of the generalizations. Two points:

- Indian food: He has hit this on the head. Indian food is the BEST food out there and is cheap in England (since it is on every corner ;) ). Luckily there are some (albeit few) good Indian restaurants where I have lived in the US.

- TV Licenses: I *wish* I could pay a few bucks and get NBC, CBS, etc with NO commercials. I would definitely be willing to do that. Well, I guess I would be willing to do that.. but now I have TiVo I can skip past the commercials anyway. In the US it is nuts… the amount of commercials has steadily grown and now reaches 20 mins / hour. That is just crazy.

Thanks Carlos, this has gotten me in the mood for my trip back home to the UK in March!

Oh man, this is a good one. There is a new movement out there: God Hates Shrimp. Gotta love satire, and it is SO easy with a president like “we” have here.

12 Reasons Gay Marriage Will Ruin Society (not) is another good one.

“Keep your laws off of my body”

So, in England the bar of chocolate known in the US as “Snickers” used to be called “Marathon”. Unfortunately the name was consilidated and the name changed in the UK to “Snickers” also. I was surprised to see a commercial for “Snickers Marathon” on the telly today. How bizarre that the market has demanded such a thing! What would this new bar be called if it was still a Marathon? “Marathon squared”?

The same fate has happened to many other brands too. Opal Fruits has now become Starburst, Oil of Ulay -> Oil of Olay, etc etc.

I like differences, and we are getting fewer and fewer of them in the western world.

I was playing with the new Yahoo! Search today. It seems pretty nice. I searched for “TheServerSide” and up came a line entry:

RSS: View as XML – Add to My Yahoo! [Beta]

So now My Yahoo! is an RSS aggregator! It is about time, and is a great addition. The service is in beta, but seems to work well, and it is cool that it is tied into search results!

I am going to be dissapointed again aren’t I? :( All the reviews are painful. You know it is going ot happen, but you just HOPE that they pull it out after the second movie. I was hoping that you would find out that Neo & Co are actually machines themselves (else how could Agent Smith be around etc), and Zion is actually a Plato’s cave for machines that we humans setup after WE BEAT THEM. But it seems from the reviews that there isn’t anything really special like that… just lots of “great action”. Oh well. I guess I will still see it.

I was very interested to see that tonights Democratic Presendential Debate was conducted in English AND partly in Spanish. This is a big deal, to recognise hispanics, and Espanol so openly in politics. Many of the democrats spoke in Spanish at different times, trying to appeal to that voting constiuency. Wise move. There are a LOT of them!

I also happened to be in Boston last night, and went to the John Kerry rally, mainly just to see what one is like in the US. It is quite weird to be at such as “RA RA” kinda deal, but Kerry was actually a good speaker (unlike the current bloke in charge) and was quite humourous at times. “Trickle down economics? We are TIRED of Bush Trickling down on us!”.

I still can’t believe that Bush is in power, and REALLY pray that someone else gets in next year. It will be tough, but if enough people open their eyes SURELY they will see what a moron Bush is, and how evil his policies have been. Look at Iraq, look at your economy, look at healthcare, look at education. I seem to remember him saying: “Leave no child behind”… and then he has the cheak to try to stop a program like Head start??? Just after all the studies show how IMPORTANT education is before kids get to school!!! It is truly mind boggling.