Think This // After Hours

I love Scott Adams and Dilbert. First off, the comic strip alone is a complete riot. Some things that I find amazing about it are that all or almost all of it is based upon whatever Scott Adams receives via email. It’s pretty much as if the strip writes itself these days. I like that I can get it emailed to me for free every morning by signing up to receive it at Dilbert.com. What amazes me even more is that he was afflicted with a strange muscle control disorder a couple of years ago and had to draw the strip with his left hand. Nowadays, he draws the strip using a special computerized drawing tablet that allows him to use bigger pen strokes and less pressure, and this appears to have helped him continue with the strip. The entire ordeal was detailed in a Washington Post article from 2005.

Aside from the riproaring comic strip, he post to the Dilbert Blog about every other day. The blog often has nothing to do with Dilbert but are amusing observations that Adams makes. He’s usually quick to get his humorous point across, which I like as it is therefore a low-cost committment (same as reading a comic strip) for me.

In addition to the Dilbert comic strip and Dilbert Blog, he puts out a riotous monthly Dilbert Newsletter. This one is well worth signing up for and it too, is largely driven by user contributions. Of course, Scott Adams writes books as well and I just finished reading (well, listening to the audio version) Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel. The audio version is read by Adams himself. I’d recommend this one if you’re ever interested in a quick, funny read.

Lastly, something many people may not know is that years ago, Adams hired some special food engineers to create flavorful burritos that provided a whopping amount of nutrition in one shot. I personally haven’t tried one of these as I haven’t found any locally. The Dilburito.com website highlights some of these burritos. As a recent convert to vegetarianism, I’m especially interested in a quick but nutritious vegetarian meal such as these.

[Scott's family website and blogs can be found at www.Yanoff.org.]

A few days ago I received an email from my friend who lives in Israel. He started a new organization to help poor holocaust survivors - ”Helping Hand Coalition.” One of the ways they are raising awareness is by producing a film “161154 – Chai Life.” This is an amazing true story of a holocaust survivor. Here is his shortened story: 

CHAI “Life”

This is a true story of Izak Goldfinger. In 1939 the Second World War is raging and Hitler is terrorizing Europe with war and ethnic cleansing. Itzhak Goldfinger, a 14-year-old boy from Poland, suffers the gravest penalty for his ‘crime: He is born a Jew… In the following 6 years he survives 11 Nazi labor and concentration camps. At the end of the war his body barely alive, is found in an open mass grave on top of a pile of corpes. Minutes from death, Izak fights for life.

How did Izak find the will to survive for 6 years in the most degrading circumstances the world has ever seen?

It is a miracle that he survived and lives to tell this story. These are the memories of a man who has seen it all. Memories for future generations, so that they will be reminded of the terrible things people do to each other.

In the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz / Birkenau, Izak gets a number tattooed on his arm. A rabbi tells him this number has a special meaning. The numbers correspond with Hebrew letters; those letters spell a word; this word will help Izak to find the strength to survive through his terrible ordeal.

Watch a trailer of this documentary movie. WARNING: This trailer contains shocking WWII images of death and starvation.

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I love my iPod. I listen to it on the bus or on my bike as I commute to work. I listen to it in bed to help me fall asleep. Sometimes, I hook it up to our stereo and listen to it while the family eats dinner. I also love iTunes. As first, I didn’t understand why I needed another specific jukebox-style piece of software to manage music. However, I really like the interface. You can add any column you want, you can easily change MP3 tags, even on a mass scale, and the ability to keep the music on your computer in synchronization with your iPod is an asset.I’m a big fan of the podcasts as well. I’ve tried a few of the “song of the day” podcasts out there and enjoyed them. However, I found the music they played to often be obsure and by unsigned acts that I had a hard time finding elsewhere, so I abandoned those podcasts. I currently listen to:

• Grammar Girl (http://grammar.qdnow.com/)
• Mr. Manners (http://manners.qdnow.com/)
• Frank Deford (Sports commentator on NPR)

What I really love are the little details that separate the iPod and iTunes from other music players that I have tried. Being a numbers junkie, I love to sort the list by the number of times I’ve played various songs, just to see what my listening habits are. I like that it tracks that. I can also sort by the number of times I’ve skipped a song to see if the song is no longer worthy of my collection. I also really dig the ratings as I can create smart playlists based on those ratings.

Speaking of smart playlists, that’s possibly my most favorite feature of the iPod and iTunes. Beyond just plain playlists of songs, smart playlists allow you to create a playlist with rules that filter which songs you hear. There’s even a site, SmartPlaylists.com, where people share ideas about smart playlists they’ve created.

Currently, I have the following smart playlists created in my iTunes and iPod:

• “Lost Friends” – this randomly plays anything with a play count of less than 1. This helps me find stuff in my 4,000-song collection that I haven’t been listening to
• “Unrated” – this plays anything without a rating. This allows me to listen to songs and rate them as I listen to them. I made this one such that the songs with the lowest playcount are played first, so it’s like a less-random version of “Lost Friends”.
• “4-Star Random” and “5-Star Random” – These play anything I’ve rated 4 and 5 stars, respectively, at random. This is when I want to really listen to the best stuff in my collection.
• “Children’s Random” – Since I’ve labeled all my kids’ music with an artist of “Childrens”, I created this playlist to play those songs at random.
• “Sleepy – Random” – This is one I listen to when I’m trying to fall asleep. I created a regular playlist called “Sleepy” where I’ve put some of the more mellow songs in my collection. Since I haven’t found a way to may a regular playlist always set to play songs at random, I created the smart playlist to pick songs from the first playlist and play them randomly.

Today is National Day of Prayer. Pray for our government, for all the officials, federal, state and local. More about the National Day of Prayer – official website or Wikipedia entry.

“… NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 3, 2007, as a National Day of Prayer. I ask the citizens of our Nation to give thanks, each according to his or her own faith, for the freedoms and blessings we have received and for God’s continued guidance, comfort, and protection. I invite all Americans to join in observing this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.” – George W. Bush (read full text of the proclamation)

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The Atheist’s nightmare is….a bannana. Actually, this is a famous argument that shows how God created fruit for us to eat.