My internet connection died today around 2pm and was out for about 6 hours.  That’s annoying and it happens fairly often (for much shorter durations), but it’s no big deal.  At that point, however, what I don’t want to see is a commercial on TV for Adelphia’s "always on, lightning fast" internet connection.  Anyway... now it’s out again.  (I’m posting this 2 hours after writing it.)  I called them and got a recording saying that I don’t need to stay on the line, because they are aware of a problem affecting service in PA, NY, VT, NH, Mass (yeah I’m not sure of the abbreviation for that one (MA?  MS?), and I can’t exactly look it up right now...), RI, CT, and Maine (MA?  ME?).  So whatever the problem is, it would appear to be formidable, having ensnared 8 states so far in its death-grip... I mean, having taken 8 states offline.

And you know, there’s something very wrong with the world when Tropicana makes a "light and healthy" version of orange juice.  Normal Tropicana orange juice contains... orange juice.  Nothing else.  Not from concentrate.  Nothing added.  You know what’s "light and healthy" about this new version?  Less sugar and carbohydrates.  Give.  Me.  A.  Break.  Maybe if you are having problems with your health/weight, you need to FREAKING EXERCISE, and maybe orange juice isn’t your biggest problem.

Moving right along, I’m sick of commercials that portray white men as imbeciles.  When was the last time you saw a commercial that made fun of a woman?  Or a black person?  Right, never, because in the make-believe world of politically correct American media, the only person whom you can make fun of without getting sued is the white man.  (Because, of course, the white man is the cause of everything bad that has ever happened in the universe, and must be in a perpetual state of apology for that, and all women are perfect, as are all people with dark skin.)  Anyway here are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.  Note that I only watch an hour of TV per weekday (The O’Reilly Factor), plus American Dreams on Sundays, and Newlyweds on Wednesdays.  So all these are from that little bit.

Mastercard commercial about gym memberships, where the guy can’t open the pickle jar, and the girlfriend does it for him, convincing the boyfriend to start going to the gym.

Progresso soup commercial where the kid(s) just moved out, the husband is about to make condensed soup, and the wife says in her best you’re-so-dumb voice, "What are you making?  Condensed soup?  The kids are gone, we’re moving on."  She then pulls out a can of Progresso soup instead.

Tampon commercial where a guy and a girl are in a small rowboat on a lake, the boat springs a leak and magically the guy doesn’t notice it.  The girl says "...the lake," the guy says, "the lake," then the girl pretends that she actually said "the leak" and points down at it.  The guy says he’ll handle it, turns around and fumbles around for something; meanwhile the girl grabs a tampon and puts it into the hole, stopping the leak.  The guy turns back around with a small plastic cup that looks like the lid to a can of spray-paint, presumably as his solution to the problem, only to find that the girl has already stopped the leak.

Lending Tree commercial where a kid gets accepted into an ivy-league college, and the dad starts selling things to raise money for it.  He comes home with some strange man who is going to be renting the kid’s bedroom while he’s away, and the wife says, "Honey, I’m getting a home equity loan to pay for college."

Earthlink commercial where the wife switched to Earthlink because she "needs answers fast" and "needs to stay on top of things around here" as her clumsy husband keeps botching various things out in the yard.

And just to be clear, I don’t mind being made fun of, not one bit.  What I mind is the whiney babies who would scream and cry if a non-white-male were to be made fun of in a commercial.

I thought it was cool that I am visitor # 53808 today ;~]

Yes, I have it.

This new theme is called Spring.  It’ll probably be tweaked a bit more yet; I may remove/change the photo behind the body of the page, and I may put a random short quote on top of the header image.  Please let me know if there are any readability issues.

Also, Andy suggested it’d be a good idea to add a preference for disabling the slidey pop-out menus.  I agreed.  It’s there.

JoAnna (my wife) and I saw "Passion of the Christ" yesterday.  I guess it was so much better than I expected because I didn’t want to trust what people were saying because I figured people wanted to be supportive.

Powerful and emotional.  I don’t cry easily at the movies, but this will more than choke you up.  I wouldn’t be too concerned about the violence/gore.  I was expecting another "Saving Private Ryan" and it was nothing like that at all.  Probably different because everything was focused on Jesus.  The violence is not an issue.  It was that the movie put you right there.  I got very emotional.

"There were pieces of human bodies all over the bus and all around the bus," said Jerusalem city councilman and opposition leader Nir Barkat, who was driving across the street at the time of the blast and helped treat the wounded.  "Would that the whole world could see the horrors that were in that bus," he said, his hands, trousers, and shoes covered in blood. ... "People were screaming ’mommy’ and ’daddy.’ There were body parts everywhere, including some hands and feet scattered outside the bus," medic Reuven Pohl said. ... Deploring the world’s "double standards" for criticizing Israel for building the security barrier, Barkat said that "Our right not to be blown up is more important than the quality of life of people whose lives will be disrupted as a result of... the fence."

- JPost and Cox & Forkum

I created a prefs page for you.  Right now, there’s just one preference you can set: you can choose to have the list of "who’s online" displayed in the status bar of your browser (the small line of text in the bottom of the window).  For most of the themes on my site, the list of who’s online is displayed in an iFrame right on the webpage, but for the new "simple" theme, it’s not.  There’s still an iFrame, but it’s hidden.  So this preference allows you to get that same functionality back, displayed in the status bar instead of on the webpage.

Add to Uncommon Skills section of résumé:

• Can spell English words

• Can park a car straight in a parking space

I snagged some fancy sliding menus from youngpup.  Just in time, too; I was getting tired of having to click through multiple pages to get to the one I want on my site.  (Update: they’re only on the simple theme.)