Category: Miscellaneous

I went into the bookstore this morning to take my semi-annual gouging. While browsing the new media books to find the required purchases I noticed a book titled The Animator’s Survival Kit. I own this book. I paid $42 + tax at the local Chapters Bookstore. The bookstore was selling the same title and edition for $80 new and $60 used (of course they didn’t have any used copies). What is even more bizarre is that they had price tags on the back of them for $42. So they mark-up their books right? It’s a free market, why not? Right? Well maybe so, but they have the nerve to display a giant poster explaining why books are so expensive and where percentages of the cost go…. 75% to publishers and the rest of the 25% broken up between the University, the Student Union, the Bookstore, ect. Well even if the bookstore ordered the books through Chapters and got the same selling price as was available the general public (and it’s unlikely they would not get a discount) the most they should possibly have raised the price to would be about $56. That’s $4 less than the price they would sell a used copy for. Sick.

I noticed that for the last few months that IE 6.0 has stopped letting me view source on webpages. I finally did something about it today, if you are having the same problem follow this advice:

1. Make sure notepad.exe is still located in your \Windows directory and is working right. If it is missing or got replaced by a 3rd party app, restore it from your Install-CD. The View Source command does tie into Notepad.exe, with Notepad missing or being defective, it can’t work.

2. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools|Internet Options|General and delete the Temorary Internet Files. While you’re there, make sure you Temporary Internet Files folder isn’t too big, we noticed the problem occurs more often the bigger our folder was. Reduce it in size if you have this problem frequently.

3. If that is still not working, go to the \Windows\Temoprorary Internet Files folder on your harddrive and delete the files manually – incl. the index.dat file.

These steps cleared up the problem for me, at least temporarily.

They are the celebrity judges that will choose a winner from 1 of the 15 finalists in MoveOn.org’s anti-Bush political ad contest. Since the liberal advocacy group started the contest last October they have received more than 1000 ads all recorded in an effort to unseat President Bush.

I’m stranded in Utah. Truth be known we probably could have left this morning. Yesterday morning though, we would have been lucky to get out of the driveway. The snow just wouldn’t stop. Power was out for some of the houses and traffic lights in the valley but luckily the power has been on here except for one or two quick blackouts and then right back on again.

I didn’t want to write about the so called Walmart Stampede where Patty VanLester was apparently trampled by frenzied shoppers. I figured the story was a bit suspicious. Whether or not she was trampled isn’t as interesting to me as the coincidental fact that this is not the first time for something like this has happened to poor unfortunate Patty VanLester and her sister. They should have learned over the years not to shop at such dangerous and negligent stores.

Update: November 29th, 2005, I hate it when newslinks go stale. I’m sorry I never copied the articles and placed them here. Anyway from what I remember about the story (this happened in 2003) she was trampled when the doors opened and customers rushed inside to be the first to purchase items that were on sale for the first [so many] buyers. This same thing happened to her previously in another store where she fell, got trampled and sued.

I don’t know much about the newest Walmart Stampede other than what I saw on the news the other day. It didn’t look like anybody got seriously hurt, but I had to wonder if this new batch went down on purpose in the hope of a lawsuit.

Via Fark:
“Man steals cop’s gun during fight, runs away, changes his shoes, gets shot, refuses to die, so police run him over with a truck.” I wish the article would have been more specific as to why they hit him with the truck but anyway I am posting this for two reasons, one because I am going to Salt Lake tomorrow and secondly because I used to live a couple of blocks away from where it happened.

I’m done my net.art final project. It’s not much but let’s not forget what’s truly important – it’s done.

The swim team likes to say, “It’s Milner-Time” right before I swim. It’s kinda my nickname – if you can call it that. It’s a good thing they don’t speak latin or my new nickname might be Colymbosathon ecplecticos. It’s a sub-one-percenter (less than 1% of the people reading this will get the joke).

You know, this phone is what I really want for Christmas, but a new DVD burner would also be cool – and probably a lot less money. Just posting this in case anybody that cares wants to know what I would like for Christmas.

I just finished my final script for Writing for New Media. It’s not an entire story, just a couple of scenes. I need to run and print it now, but I’m really getting close to be done for REAL!