"That can't be all the beer, can it?"

He sounded really worried that the two endcaps, featuring mostly Bud, Coors and Keystone, was all the beer in the store.

"The rest is on aisle 8."

"Aisle 8," he repeated with a sigh. "Excellent."

And off he went.

Was surfing

some random blogs, something I haven't done a while, and was upset to find 4 spam blogs in the 20 or so that I visited. I flaged them, and hopefully Google will have the good sense to remove them.

This is kinda fun....

The UPC Database online. Plug in a UPC and see what it belongs to. You can also add UPCs that are not in the database. It knew what my copy of H&R Block TaxCut was, but I had to add the Brita filters we just bought (though it did know that it was form the Brita company). There is also and interesting (to the geekish type anyway) explaination of what the numbers in a UPC mean.

In the news

Google just launched Chinese version of it's search engine. In a major concession to Chinese government, it is self-censoring. For a company who's unofficial motto is "Don't be evil," the fact that they bent over in the name almighty dollar raises some interesting moral/ethical questions. By the way, I checked it out and tried some very risque image searches and it was like the internet was scrubbed clean. Check it out yourself

Genealogy

I have long wanted to buy some genealogy software and begin tracing my roots. Recently, I came across some info on my great-great uncle, Rev. William Ferree, S.M., Ph.D. (1905-1985), that clinched it for me. It turns out, in addition to being a Catholic Priest, he was a professor of philosophy and greatly interested in social justice. here is a short bio of the man, and here (.pdf)is something he wrote in 1948.

I'll be posting more as I come across it, I think.

Just had my first case of comment spam

so I implemented some a couple of things so ensure that never happens again. If you care to leave a comment, you now have to enter a word verification before it will be published (something a spam-bot can't do) plus I'll have to approve them all on a comment by comment basis. It's not like I have a deluge of comments on this narcissistic little webpage, so it won't be any trouble.

Merry Christmas vs Happy Holidays . . . Who gives a rats ass?

The above debate has occurred, with precision, this time every year, but this time around people on both sides of the fence seem especially boisterous, if not exceptionally intelligent.

My two cents follow:

1. The Tree. I find it fascinating that self-described Christians are fighting so hard to keep the ancient Greek work for 'mesiah' attached to a pre-Christian Druidic symbol for spring and the sun. News flash: Christmas trees are not part of any Catholic/Protestant/Christian/etc. dogma that I am aware of. I'm not completely up to date on my bible, but I missed the part where God spake "Thou shalt cut down a connifer and erect it in thine dwelling, and having done so, decorate it with lights and shiny bits in honor my sons birthday." (An aside: all the evidence in the bible points to Jesus being born in the spring. We celebrate it in the dead of winter because it was easier than getting the Druids and the Celts to change their honly days.)

2. People wishing you a "Happy holiday:" It is simply rude to assume that when someone wishes you happiness in this season, that they are doing it because they hate Jesus and want him out of Christmas. Most likely, they are simply whishing you happiness, at worst, they are trying to be PC, and still wishing you happiness. (For all you non-believers out there, the reverse applies. I mean, seriously. They're not trying to convert you; they just want you to be happy.)

3. Store use of the C-word in advertising: If you are truly in touch with your faith, the spirit of the season, and meaning behind Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection, then you should be appalled at the very idea that some multinational corporation should use his birth to encourage nothing more than crass comsumerism. Imagine the outrage if Jews saw an ad saying "Yaweh says shop Sears for all your hannaukah needs," or if Muslims saw Wal-Marts new slogan "Make like Mohammed and shop Wal-Mart this Rammadan." Christians should not be fighting for stores to continue what basically amounts to blasphemy, or at least, taking the Lord's Name in vain.