Bush to be sedated....

CNN.com

Asked about the decision to transfer power, Bush said, "I did so because we're at war, and I just want to be super cautious."

Am I the only one irked every time he says this? When did Congress declare war?

smattering.org >> the friday five

Since all the tech companies have shut down early in anticipation of next week's "holiday," I actually have time to do the Friday Five:

When was the last time you...

1. ...sent a handwritten letter?
Years. I don't know what I'd do without e-mail and instant messaging. Luckily, most of my family is pretty tech-savvy, too, so that's how we keep in touch.

2. ...baked something from scratch or made something by hand?
I made some capellini a few weeks ago -- everything was hand-prepared, except maybe the noodles. (No, I didn't squeeze out the olive oil or milk a cow for the cheese, but let's get real.)

3. ...camped in a tent?
College, I think. Not something I enjoy all that much.

4. ...volunteered your time to church, school, or community?
This is something I need to do more. That last time was Feb. 14, when my church undertook a "kindness project" in downtown San Jose. I signed up to pass out food, but ended up on the team passing out flowers.

5. ...helped a stranger?
I helped an old woman cross the street in San Jose a few months ago, at her request. No lie. A few months before that, I helped another elderly woman get her car out of a tight parking spot. She actually trusted a complete stranger to get in her car and back it out of the parking space. We have a lot of retirees around the area I work.

Bush's lucky Enron break

Bush vows investigation into WorldCom scandal

Why is Bush so suddenly interested in a federal probe about accounting fraud? Because WorldCom contributed to Democratic candidates.

The chickens come home to roost

Bush Facing Test in Fight to Avert a Financial Crisis

Of course, he'll find a way to blame this on terrorism and not his government giveaway to the rich.

Argh.

Within minutes of my implementing the new system, it goes down. The error is completely on their end, so I can only assume it will be fixed soon.

New comment system

I added a new comment system that's easier to customize and manage. Unfortunately, that's means all of the old comments are gone forever. Easy come, easy go, I say.

Planet Replay receives a subpeona

Now the movie industry is dragging ReplayTV enthusiast-matching site Planet Replay into its lawsuit against SonicBlue. With uncertainties at the workplace, this may not be such a bad time to start boycotting movies.

Who's next?

Charmain, a secretarial-type assisant for our special events coordinator, got the pink slip today.

I don't know what to make of that. She was a part-time employee, so the move isn't going to save much money. What's even scarier is that she was plenty busy, so it wasn't like they were getting rid of deadweight or anything.

I guess I shouldn't worry about things I can't control. The only thing I can do is keep applying like crazy to other jobs.

No news is ________ news.

No big news today; Mr. Bernhard just wanted to sit in at our meeting and hear our story lists. They're really trying to shift our coverage of "hard news," or at least their very narrow definition of the term. Typically, that means news not found anywhere else -- even if that's because it wasn't a big enough deal to warrant coverage in competing publications. Needless to say, this is not the sort of thing that gets me excited -- and contradicts just about everything our editors have been telling us since we got here.

But if that's what they want, that's what I'll have to do. That sort of news is a lot easier to do, but is completely irrelevant in this market.

Dia dos Namorados

For those of you who don't know, today is Dia dos Namorados, or the Brazilian version of Valentines Day. and if you're dating a Brazilian, that pretty much makes it Valentines Day for you, too.

Closure?

Here's an excerpt from an e-mail everyone in the newsroom received this morning:

Wanted to let you know that Kent Bernhard plans to sit in on our staff
meeting tomorrow morning, via conference call.

I'd like to please ask that everyone make a special effort to get here
for a 9 a.m. sharp start time.

Kent is vice president for editorial forparent company American City Business Journals and almost never sits in on a newsroom-only meetings -- at least, he hasn't during my time here or at the Phoenix business journal.

Even if this doesn't mean layoffs or salary cuts, his presence augurs big changes for the job. On the bright side, at least we'll end the agonizing uncertainty. I'll keep you posted.

Damn dirty apes

Police hunt 'criminal' chimp
World domination always begins with a few minor burglaries.

Perhaps I was a bit too hasty...

It turns out the parking snafu was an adminstrative mistake brought on by our accounting system going down last week. It's fixed now, but that doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet. Stay tuned...

More photos

These are from our trip to Napa last weekend.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

It may be worse than we thought. Today when I left the parking garage, I and other Business Journal employers discovered that our employer has not paid the monthly parking garage fee.

Sarah L. had to complain loudly to get her reimbursement check, which hadn't been paid in nearly three weeks.

And Andrea overheard an editor asking our payroll department why a freelancer hasn't been paid.

Those are the types of things business reporters look for when trying to determine whether a company is about to go under.

Trillian is back!

Trillian has finally fixed a minor but annoying bug with Yahoo Messenger, which means I'm once again universally connected to all the IM services at once. Woo-hoo!

(Yes, I am a geek.)

Suit filed over ReplayTV features

Well it's nice to know that someone is looking after my rights as a consumer.

Six months...

It's official -- Andrea and I have been dating for six months now. Happy semi-anniversary, sweetie!

Apple bites

I've never really been a big partisan when it comes to operating systems; I championed the Mac operating system in the 1980s and still use one regularly at work. At the same time, I have the lastest versions of Windows XP in my laptop and home PCs. As far as I'm concerned, people should use whichever operating system feels right for them and lets them do the things they want to do.

But it really irks me when some igorant Mac user -- particularly one who doesn't know much about computers to begin with -- starts popping off about how superior his beloved Apple is. I'm talking about the little smirks when a Windows machine crashes (because as we all know, Apples NEVER crash -- I reboot my iMac twice a day for the fun of it), the snarky comment when a Web news outlet issues a new Windows virus alert (like most software developers, virus writers ignore the Macintosh) and the clicking tongues when Microsoft attracts more antiturst scrutiny (Steve Jobs, apparently, is not a control freak who wants to control every aspect of computer from hardware to software to retail experience).

Every system has its strengths and weaknesses, and people will naturally have different opinions about the best system for them. But why do Apple users have a fervor unmatched in the Windows world? Because when you're in the majority, you don't have to be so defensive.

Buying a Mac doesn't just mean paying more for your computer. Buying a Mac means you're stuck with one vendor for your machine, the operating system, nearly all of the software and most connected peripherals. So this is freedom from a monoploy? Buying a Mac means having to adjust the memory allocation for each application separately. This is user friendliness? Buying a Mac means having to make sure your printer fonts match the ones installed on your computer. This is simplicity?

Don't get me wrong. Apple makes some elegant, brilliant computers and software. That's something that no single company in the Windows world has yet duplicated, simply because of the split hardware/software nature of the PC arena. And OS X is a nice operating system, pretty to look at and rock solid to use. But I, like 97 percent of computer buyers, want choice. I like choosing from dozens upon dozens of different computer systems, made possible becuse Microsoft embraced the concept of licensing the operating system. I like being able to find software for almost every whim, made possible because users flocked to the idea of a low-cost PC and created a wide audience for Windows developers -- who in turn created a vast array of software. I like having a wide array of peripherals that extend the life of my machine and make it more useful over time.

So you like your new Apple iBook? Good for you. It's a well-designed machine, and is probably worth its premium price.

But for most of us, the world is a lot bigger than four computer models, or for that matter, a single PC manufacturer. Isn't that what Thinking Different is all about?

Crap, crap crap

Well, the bad news is filtering in. Both of the editors in that videoconference look extremely upset, and I just heard that our sunscription levels have fallen nearly 30 percent in the last year. This is not good.