David's Tangled Thoughts

Capt. L. sent me an email about a week or so ago asking me to join him on Facebook on a page dedicated to protesting the new Spartan logo. Current logo on the left. Proposed logo on the right. I got the email the day the news broke about the new logo and immediately joined. I like my old familiar logo and I am not a fan of the new one. From what I have read, MSU teamed up with Nike to “update” the logo for $ome reason. The majority of the people commenting on the State News, and all of the alumni that I talked to, do not like the new logo. A few did, though, concede that change is good. After all, MSU has gone through many different logos. Still, this isn’t the change that many of us would support. One supporter, though, is men’s basketball coach, Tom Izzo. In an article that I read today, Mr. Izzo seemed “disappointed” over how much of a fuss the logo change is causing. In that article and elsewhere, it is suggested that what Tom Izzo wants should be what Tom Izzo gets. Baske

When the iPod Touch first came out, there were a number of people that I knew that wanted one. The only arguments that I can remember were over the price and that the touches had nowhere near the storage capacity of the more classic iPods. It took a few months but I managed to scrape up some cash and buy a first gen iPod Touch and I have loved it ever since. Now the iPad has been formally introduced and I’ve decided that this isn’t a product for me. At least not yet. I need the iPad to primarily serve as a mobile interface with my computer. Whether I am connected directly to my computer network via Wi-Fi or through a cellular data network (3G). My computer is a desktop and if I am in my living room and I want to look something up, I take my iPod or my BlackBerry out of my pocket. I don’t bother going all the way to my room. And that’s fine for just looking at stuff on the net. Sometimes, though, I want to access files of my computer. There might be a song drifting through my

Verizon sent me an email this afternoon informing me that they have lowered their all-you-can-talk plan from $99.99/month to $69.99/month. Instead of making me excited, it kinda ticked me off. You see, other small carriers have extremely better plans even if they aren’t national carriers. Walmart actually has their own phone (through Tracfone) that offers unlimited talk, text, and data for $50/mo and it’s non-contract. So I am glad that Verizon is lowering their prices, seemingly in response to the competition, but something smells fishy. Forget the fact that I am on a family plan but before I modified my plan, I would say that I had a bare bones plan: 39.99: 450 minutes. (Unlimited night, weekends, and in-network mobile) 5.00: Text plan (250 txt messages) 29.99: Unlimited* Data (BlackBerry) For each category above, I got the lowest offered. That was sufficient for my usage. I could use with less talk time and more texts but bottom line was that it was enough. Now Verizon is dang

I apologize for my absence. It hasn’t been due to any writer’s block that’s for sure! But other websites have held my attention for the past couple of days along with some extra work. One site I have been spending a lot of my time and pulling my hair out over is PinoyExchange. One of the political issues being talked about in the Philippines is Charter Change (or what they call Cha-Cha). There is talk of transforming their government from a Presidential System to a Parliamentary one. There’s a-hole of a poster that makes strong arguments for a model change but he can’t hold back the insults to those who disagree with him. Broadly speaking, I do think that a Parliamentary system would be better for the Philippines but I get kicks out of poking at his posts because I think he’s got too much faith in that system and I don’t think he is taking a look at all the dimensions of how government is implemented, ran, and supported. A number of new stories that I wanted to share have come

We’ve been in sub-freezing weather since just before Christmas. Now that the Ice Festival has started, so has a heatwave. Yesterday I thought I had better go that evening to see the ice sculptures before they started to melt. Seeing that my friend Stacey was in town from her job in Maryland, I thought I would ask if she wanted to join me. The big event that was happening when we got there was the fire and ice show. Very basically, a group of ice sculptures would refine these big stacks of ice surrounding some combustible material. This would be done to some music, lights, and a bit of fooling around. One of the guys looked just like my friend Brian from MSU. Although MSU Brian has lost quite a bit of weight. All that politicking around tends to do that to some people. :-P You might think that lighting up some ice blocks would make this a quick show but it really does last a while. When we left, the flaming guitar was still intact. We passed a tent that had a murder mystery di

Hey Doc , I’m guessing that you’ve already heard something about this but I only heard about it this morning via Gulf Stream Blues . KFC has pulled an Australian ad that depicts a white Australian in the midst of blacks supporting the West Indian Cricket Team. Trying to relieve an awkward situation, he presents a bucket of fried chicken to his neighbors. Apparently the ad was pulled after Americans caught wind of it on YouTube. For an American who doesn’t see the context of the ad, this would seem racist since fried chicken is associated as part of the black stereotype. Having just written that, it seems so ridiculous but there it is. What’s even worse is that it was a white man providing the chicken! You can read this situation as just being an awkward situation and him trying to make nice (which is what I think they were going for) or you can read it as a white guy who can only calm down the black people by giving them chicken (which is what is being seen here). So we’ve got A

So much for transparency! Not that I ever believed them in the first place. h/t PoliJAM for posting the video.

Although I believe that I am using this audio ad and pictures legally under Fair Use, Michigan does not protect me from SLAPP lawsuits but I wanted you to hear the radio ad that I first heard a couple days ago which absolutely infuriated me. Check out this article for more.

I bought into the hype and decided to see the new move, Avatar . From what I understood, it was supposed to a bad ass movie with state of the art special effects. It was even going to be shown in 3-D! I thought it was a yawn-fest. It is a visually pleasing movie. The world of Pandora looked lush and wonderful. I was impressed with the plant life with its bioluminescense than with the animals which to me, were mutant forms of dogs, horses, and rhinos. Computer generated images aren’t quite up to the believable stage but this movie brings it close. Special effects with the human tech was very believable, however, and I kinda want one of those power suits for next Christmas! My main gripe with the movie was that once you know the basic plot, it is entirely predictable. For a while, I was scratching my head thinking that this was like some movie I watched when I was young. After reading another critical post that mentioned FernGully , then it hit me. Also the moral of the story, I