Checking In

Hi All:

Sorry, between books, a documentary movie deal and other projects it's been busy. Plus my mom was recently diagnosed with Myeloma so that's meant at least two trips to the oncologist a week.

The good news is she seems be responding to treatments quite well. They have come a long way since the 80s and even the 90s. I have to tip my hat to the folks at Interlakes Oncology they have been all been wonderful.

In news from around the world:

This is kind of a sad setback for Nasa: with the ballon crashing...

I also found Steven Hawkings comments about alien life a bit narrow minded. Yeah, Mr. Hawkings is way way way smarter than I am but as a SF writer I have a more optimistic view of alien contact. I like to think any race / civilization advanced enough to travel here would be advanced enough to be peaceful, at least mostly peaceful. We can't assume aliens will act as violently as human explorers. At this that is my hope.

On a more earthly level. I really like ABC's Modern Family. In fact I like the entire lineup of ABC's Wednesday night comedies. Those combined with In Plain Sight, make a nice evening of must see viewing.

Speaking of "must see" I remain hopeful that NBC will renew Chuck. This has been a strong year for the show.

I am also glad to see Smallville coming back for season 10. Yeah, yeah. I think it's fun.

Still not to sure what to make of the New Dr. Who. I do Mr. Tennant as the Dr. I do hope Rex is Not Your Lawyer gets picked up for the fall 2010.

Last Giveaway Winner

Hi:

The last giveaway winner was Sheri. Who now gets to pick a working daze mousepad or clock once she give us her address. The email to send your contact info to is: johnzakour@yahoo.com. I sure hope you live within the continental US as that makes shipping so much easier.

I used Numbers to pick a random number to pick the winner. I am really surprised google doesn't have a random number generator.

I'm still a bit cranky this Monday as I generally feel sad when I watch how our politicians bicker and fight. This us against them mentality can't be good for the country. We have a lot of challenges ahead of us. We need to find ways to meet these challenges in ways that let us adapt to changes while still preserving the basic core that made our country so strong. We also need to think globally. We all share the same world. Things would be a lot smoother if we all learned to work towards common goals instead of trying to stop or beat the other side. We're all really on the same side.

Wow, so much for the rant.

Baseball season is almost here and the Ipad is almost out. Woa...

Grumpy This Week

Okay, a lot of things have me grumpy this week.

A new study published shows that the I-Phone maybe addictive. To this, all I can say is, Duh.

Buzz Aldrin the 2nd man to walk on the moon is going to moonwalking on Dancing with the Stars. Sigh. I wish I was making that up. Buzz, why why why? What does anybody gain by watching an 80 year old man shake his grove thing on national TV? Sigh. Grumble.

Speaking of 80 years Betty White is going to appear on SNL. I actually can't be grumpy about that cause I think it will be cool. As long as she doesn't dance.

I actually thought Avatar had a shot at best picture. Sure it wasn't the best screenplay or story but it was an experience.

Sarah Palin doing comedy on The Tonight Show. Wow, I hope she choses standup as her new career. I support that.

Roy on Facebook

Roy is now on facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/WorkingDazeComicRoy

Roy was tired of all the partisan ways. It's like if one party came out in favor of "love" the other party would start a "Pro Hate" campaign. Roy is hoping enough people will friend him to unite the world under a common cause geekdom.

Thoughts of the Week

The Winter Olympics has been fun. I am glad NBC is showing a fair amount of live coverage, though I wish they'd show the skiing live. Everything doesn't have to be in primetime. I am amazed at how some of these winter athletes can master their sports without dying! Shaun White can really fly on a snowboard. Curling has been interesting to watch it's kind of like winter's version of bowling. It's the one winter Olympics sport I think I could actually do.

Tiger Woods is talking about his "ordeal" this week. Talking about it in a closed controlled environment of course.

Reading this article on CNN about abuse of zero-tollerance policies at schools. So schools are arresting kids for doodling on desks... What a misuse of police resources and it seems kind of lazy on the schools' part too. Part of the problem with society today is we always let somebody else handle it. Yes if it's a violent crime the police should be called, but for writing on a desk, not so much.

Evan Bayh is resigning basically saying he is sick of congress not being able to get anything done and all the strident partisanship. Well duh. Like I read on yahoo I believe, one party could proposal a puppies are cute bill and the other party would immediately start their anti-puppy campaign. It's time we remember we'll all on the same side here.

Sarah Palin is mad at the Family Guy for making a not so veiled reference to her mentally challenged son. I actually, agree the son should be off limits. But truthfully I think Family Guy was busting Sarah not the son.

A tribute to my mother inlaw

Hello all:

My mother inlaw passed away this week. I wrote a tribute to her at TheMacGamer. (I write a World of Warcraft column for them.)

More "Thinking" Such As It Is

So, the Apple Ipdad doesn't support flash. Wow, as much as I am not a fan of flash as it has seemed to cause a lot of "hiccups" on my Macs over the years, I think this is a booboo from Apple. A lot of people who buy Ipads (snicker) will be expecting to be able to run utube and hulu on them. I believe both sites are still heavily reliant on flash.

Yes, eventually sites will switch to HTML 5.0 which allows videos to be imbedded without flash but that move is "awhile" away. Currently I think only Safari and Chrome support it. And Chrome is still in beta form on the Macs.

In a way this is kind of good for me as I promised my wife that my 27 inch Imac would be my computer buy this year. As the Ipad currently stands I don't want one.

Hopefully the next version will have a web cam (then it becomes a great skyping machine) and by then the flash / HTML 5 thing will be more settled. Then I will want an Ipad to replace my macbook.