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I have graduated from college.
Yes. If there?s anybody out there who wants to buy me a beer for the cause, I?d be more than happy, but don?t make a toast just yet.
I?m going back in the fall.
This time though, my pockets are pretty well empty ? so unless I find a reason (and enough loans) to go to graduate school, I won?t be setting foot on another university any time soon.
I plan to attend Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn two nights a week to learn Arabic.
When I announced this decision to my best friend, he raised an eyebrow and asked two questions:
?Why??
and
?Do you realize you?re going to be the only white person there??
Well boys and girls, the reason why I?m going to tell you.
I plan to take the course precisely because I?ll probably be the only white person there.
‘
As far as I see, with the latest findings on bombings of Madrid (excluding the current Iraqi Abuse Scandal), Islam is getting a boat-load of bad press these days.
We all know about how Muslim men treat the women, and we know a little bit about the crazy sub-Islam terrorist clans, but I feel that I don?t know enough about it to really have any opinion what-so-ever on anything.
In a nutshell ? I just don?t understand.
Last semester I thought I was interested in possibly writing a screenplay ? and still am ? so I took a television communications course.
To be honest, I didn?t learn anything in that class. I passed, with an A-, but I didn?t learn so much about television production as I did about Islam.
The professor brought a Muslim cleric on the set to be a guest on our ?show? ? don?t worry, I?m not going to plug our old program. I don?t know which station or what channel it was on and it only broadcasts in select portions of Michigan. I believe it interests a whopping 50,000 viewers.
That one show in particular, however, interested me for two reasons. The first reason was that I happened to not have a job that day ? meaning I wasn?t running a camera or working any other equipment so I was able to sit back and watch everything.
And also because of what the cleric had to say genuinely intrigued me.
I did not know that Islam is divided into separate sub-groups like Christianity. I didn?t know that these sub-groups represent different forms of worship ? and are as different as, say, Protestants and Catholics.
And more importantly, I had not realized that there was a rational side to the religion at all.
I learned through listening to the cleric speak, that I know nothing.
Which irritated me.
For the last two years in sporadically writing for this Web Site and the former Cheesehole, I?ve vented my thoughts and opinions on the current war without showing any regard to having any knowledge what-so-ever on Islam and the reasons things they are the way they are.
I don?t think very many other Americans have ever tried to understand either.
Yes, dear friend of mine, you?re right.
I?ll probably be the only white person there.
Thanks for helping me figure my classes anyway.
: )
July 4th, 2005
I never knew it was so hard to buy a car.
I was ready to buy a Crossfire until the dealer offered me 7% financing without even running my credit.
Next up, I tried to order a Saturn Sky. Sure no problem, wait time is currently greater than 1 year.
Ok, next up, Pontiac Solstice… Sure wait time is a few months, and for $500 down.. we’ll let you know what it will cost after it’s built.
Ok, G6… same thing, but for some reason it was cheaper than the solstice… which doesn’t make sense because the G6 retails for $8,000 more.
I wish I could just buy a car without having to be taken for a ride by the dealership too.
May 6th, 2005
Detroit loves hockey. No wait, I love hockey, Detroit loves winning; and as long as the hockey team wins, Detroit loves hockey. Unfortunately, Detroit (and every other major city) may be without hockey for quite a while.
As we know the collective bargaining agreement between the players and the owners expires after these playoffs, and it doesn?t appear that a new deal is anywhere in sight. But what does that mean for us, the fan?
Regardless of what happens by the bargaining agreement, hockey as we know it is over. If it takes too long, interest in the game will fade, tv sales will slump, and owners will make even less money.
If it?s resolved too quickly somebody will have given in. Either tickets will rise, causing attendance to drop, ratings to drop and owners to lose money, or teams won?t be able to afford as many high priced players??? attendance drops, tv slumps, owners lose money.
Whatever happens, hockey doesn?t seem profitable anymore.
So long Brett Hull, Brendan Shanahan, Steve Yzerman, Chris Chelios and others (Boyd Devereoux, Mark Mowers, etc). We can?t afford you anymore.
What happened to the good old days? I remember when players had to PAY to have themselves put on a trading card. When it was an honor to be in a video game. Now, they demand millions for that right.
I?ll never forget when Martin Lapointe left Detroit after his breakout season. He left for $1million dollars more, but what good is 1 mil, when you already have 10 in the bank? Do you even notice it? Does it make a difference?
Hockey as we know it is over. It?s no longer about the love of the game anymore, and that?s sad, because Detroit loves winning, and if there?s a lockout nobody will win.
May 4th, 2005
This Bill will effectively outlaw internet gambling.
It’s rumored that the house is trying to not allow credit cards to pay internet gambling sites, and may even require ISPs to block access to them.
If this happens, Big Brother will have won. This bill will allow the Govt to tell us how to spend our money, and what websites we can visit.
Screw the protecting the children crap.. If you let your child use your credit card, it’s your fault.
The lack or personal responsibility in this world scares me.
Freedom isn’t what we want is it? We want the govt to tell us what to do.
We want to swim into the net with the rest of the school, because the ocean is lonely by ourselves.
I love big brother.
March 6th, 2005
I want to talk briefly about Google, MSN, and Yahoo, and what they’re currently doing wrong.
First up, search for “NBA Draft”. You’ll notice the #1 site (#5 on google) is for the 2004 draft predictions.
This is clearly not relevant, and shouldn’t even be anywhere on page 1. The same was true for any NFL draft searches prior to this weekend.
Search seems to have a problem with date relevancy. How do you tell what’s relevant forever (internet slang, abraham lincoln, great wall of china, mesotheliomia, etc) and what’s relevant depending on time (NBA draft, mortgage rates, american idol, world series of poker)
It’s hard to tell just looking at a created date and a page updated date, but you guys have much more information than that..
You know how frequently the search volume changes. For example, you should be able to see that “nfl draft” searches peak in april, and that should signal a “hey this is current events, date is important” type flag. Matt Cutts, if you’re reading…. that’s for you.
Now, Bill Gates.. If you’re reading I’ve got some advice for you on how to crush Google (sorry Matt!)
Google is in an uproar about having MSN search the default (and Google not listed) in the new IE. But that’s thinking small..
What about an MSN search built into the desktop of Vista? Surely the lazy Joe 6-packs would use that over pulling up a browser right?
Speaking of desktop, it’s time you made that more web enabled anyway… but that’s another topic. For now, work on sorting out whether or not my searches are time relevant or not..
I don’t really care much about the 2004 draft prospects.
January 6th, 2005
Dear Little Caesars..
I would love to order your Pizza Kits and help out my fellow employees kids (ok ok i’d love to just eat your pizza, it’s good.)
But please price them consistently.
3 large pizzas, already cooked, in store costs me $15.
yet, when I cook them myself, it costs me $17.50
can you explain that?
January 6th, 2005
Slashdot has an article about how to stop phishing attacks, and it seems that the author is onto something.
What if below your Amazon login box it told you the last time you’ve logged in?
It’d stop phishing sites dead. They wouldn’t be privy to the real customer information that the legit site has.
Of course, slashdot readers got TOO technical and figured this would have to be done as a browser extension or what not, but it’s not that complicated.
Just set a cookie. Sure it won’t work for users who delete their cookies, but it WILL work for the majority of users; the same ones who fall for phishing scams.
Listen up future web2.0 companies. Don’t show me the standard login form, customize it for me! It’ll add personalization, value, and stop phishing.
January 1st, 2005
Please, for the love of God, anybody who’s thinking about implementing the next web2.0 or social website, do NOT include a “tell your friend” feature.
I’m so tired of getting the “XXX wants to be your friend”, “YYY wants you to join this website”, “here’s that picture i took of you last weekend, but you gotta join this site to see it”, and “ZZZ has invited you to be a member of” type emails.
I’ve recieved 70 of them since 1am when I went to bed, and 8:00 am when I opened up my email.
MySpace, it’s time we stop making it a competition to gather friends. Take away that little “Ryan has 21 friends” message, and don’t tell me how many friends I have.
That will stop all the little kids from adding complete strangers and accepting the friend invites from 40 year olds too. Kids judge each other by how many friends they have. Take that away and there won’t be any incentive to add people they don’t know.
Won’t that make the web better for everybody?
January 1st, 2005
Does anybody know if there’s any guidelines one has to follow for calling a product “low fat”? Does it just have to have less than the competitor?
Ever wanting to not lose my girlish figure I bought some low-fat pop tarts this morning for breakfast.
I thought, cool.. I normally eat 2 regular poptarts and a diet coke every morning, now I can have 2 low-fat ones. I feel good, I love life.
As it turns out, a low fat poptart has 1g less fat, and 10 less calories than it’s regular counterpart.
What’s the point?
Can I make a 15oz beer and call it “low carb” *compared to a regular 16oz beer.
Maybe I could sell it for more too.
January 1st, 2005
As Web2.0 continues to evolve, it seems more and more sites are going towards a user created content model.
It works great from the webmaster point of view: Simply put up the infastructure and let your users create your content for you, and collect advertising revenue.
In fact there seems to be an influx of these type of sites. Fark, Delicious, and Digg are the 3 big ones that come to mind. Then there’s craigslist and google groups which are a whole different idea all together.
But there’s a flaw here. What’s in it for the user? Why should they submit content to you?
In the case of Craigslist and Delicious, it’s because the sites provide a valuable service without the obtrusive ads.
But what about the smaller sites? the Digg, the Shoutwires, the Farks of the internet? What motivates a user to contribute to them?
Theoretically, wouldn’t that user be better off posting his original content on his own site with his own ads?
As blogs become more omnipotent, and everybody and their mother gets one, I think web3.0 is going to take the selfish attitude of “what’s in it for me?”
January 1st, 2005
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