When Kanye West’s song “Gold Digger” hit the airwaves, it was an instant hit.

Of course, when that happens, the parodies ensue.

Everyone has a few Christmas songs that they don’t like, nay, despise, that play on the radio this time of year. I have never really liked the campy “Feliz Navidad”, although part of that is probably by nurture — I don’t think anyone in my family likes it all either. I also like neither “Jingle Bell Rock” nor “Mistletoe and Holly”, both of which make me think of middle-aged dads from the 50s or 60s wearing cable-knit sweaters, strutting around their wood-paneled living rooms in their argyle socks, playing guitar and trying to look hip as bevies of family members and friends look on.

A new one to my list, however, is one that I am surprised I’d never heard before this year: “Dominick the Donkey“. It’s perhaps the most absurd Christmas song I’ve ever heard.

Hey! Chingedy ching,
(hee-haw, hee-haw)
It’s Dominick the donkey.
Chingedy ching,
(hee-haw, hee-haw)
The Italian Christmas donkey.
(la la la-la la-la la la la la)
(la la la-la la-la la-ee-oh-da)

Ugh.

What songs do you dislike?

If you haven’t checked out the weblog I have linked over there called Inhabitat, you should check it out. They spotlight really cool home and living ideas which are both stylish and eco-friendly.

I like this recent entry. It’s just too bad that so many community covenants in the US limit homeowners to setting aside more than x% of their yard for vegetation use, much less do they allow it in the front yards. People have hyperbolic beliefs and care a little too much about perceived value of homes and not enough about sustenance.

People are bitching about the way that Randall refused the opportunity, as offered by Trump, to allow Rebecca to be hired as well. Last year that one dude was exempt from the boardroom and brought himself in anyway. Trump thought it was stupid to do such a thing and fired him for the stupidity.

Likewise, I think he would’ve told Randall something to the effect of, “wtf? I give you this chance, you won fair and square, and yet you still bring her on? I’ve changed my mind. Randall, you’re fired.”

Dear WebStats4U:

Yeah, I know. You changed your name. You keep talking about all these big improvements to your service, how it’s better than ever. I know you used to serve up pop-up ads when I went to go look at my stats, but that never bothered me much, because I usually use Firefox.

But what do you do now? In the past week or so you’ve started serving up pop-up ads through my own site?

In that case, fuck you very much.

Edit: Seems like I’m not the only one pissed. Meanwhile, I might have to check out Google Analytics.

Meet “Infosnacking”, Webster Dictionary’s Word of the Year.

From the article:

Say what? Webster’s New World College Dictionary has anointed infosnacking as its 2005 Word of the Year, despite its near-total absence from everyday use. Has it been in The New York Times? Nope. On CNN? Apparently not. Popular slang? Have you ever heard it, or used it?

“It hasn’t caught on yet,” admitted Mike Agnes, editor in chief of Webster’s. But the word of the year isn’t about popularity, he explains; there aren’t even any plans to add it to the dictionary.

I, for one, have heard it. I used to hear it probably at least once a day for a while, at The Old Place.

Funny, that just made me remember that it’s been just over a year since that day.

I will somewhat ashamedly admit that I was buying Christmas lights as early as October. However, I did so for good reason.

For the first time, I found exactly what I was looking for — LED Christmas lights, ones without the ugly plastic balls/lenses/whatever you want to call them, around the LEDs. I’ve wanted some LED Xmas lights for a few years now, never could find them, until last year. I wanted ones that looked more like normal small holiday lamps, though and unfortunately, last year’s crop all had the ugly lenses around them.

Phillips has a whole variety of them this year, though. Some have lenses — and some of the lenses are shaped to look like traditional bulbs. However, they have just plain LED-only ones and they are great. Bought up a bunch of those.

We have four strings of white icicle lights along the top edges of the front porch and garage, three around the hand rails to the front porch, and then two coloured sets on our Xmas tree. We didn’t buy any blue-only LED ones because the wife has an aversion to blue Xmas lights.

Really, these things are a lot cooler than the traditional bulbs, and use about 10x less electricity too — they are expensive, but I bet we save on electricity costs. A nice, pure-ish white, perhaps a tinge of blue. Compared side by side, traditional lights look downright yellow. Maybe I’ll post a picture at some point. Strangely, I haven’t seen anyone else in the neighbourhood with them yet — strange because they were disappearing off the shelves when they were first stocked.

We got ‘em at Target. Go take a look for yourself!

From here:

Q. How do I add color, graphics, & sound to my Profile page?

A. Adding color, graphics, and sound to your profile page is easy and requires only a basic knowledge of HTML (the programming language used to create web pages on the Internet). Simply go to “Edit Profile” and enter the desired HTML coding where appropriate.If you do not know HTML, you can reach out and make a new friend by asking someone who has color, graphics, and/or sound on their Profile page how they did it. People on MySpace are friendly and always willing to help, so just ask! This is a great way to meet new people!

This seems goofy, first of all… is there not one place you can go, one template location to change layouts?

Can someone explain what they hell they mean by this? It seems straightforward anyway…

You may enter HTML/DHTML or CSS in any text field.

So anyway…whatever. Next I enter some CSS in a text field:

body {
margin:0px 0px 5px 0px;
background: #fff;
}

…and it just spits out the raw CSS. This is the behaviour I would expect in the first place — but then, once again, where else do I enter this stuff? Do I have to wrap the CSS in HTML? I have looked all over and not found anything other than the text fields. Pretty shitty documentation all around. Give me a freeform CSS template form or something, for cripes sake.

Update: so yes, it appears you have to wrap the CSS in STYLE tags. Still a bad configuration.

5-December-2005

Dear Governor Easley:

I am writing you this letter to bring to your attention to a quality control issue about which you may not be aware, concerning the North Carolina Department of Transportation, specifically the Division of Motor Vehicles.

I am a relatively new resident to the state of North Carolina; I moved to Apex in February of 2005. As expected, I went to the DMV to turn in my old Virginia driver’s license, take the written test, and obtain my new North Carolina license. I received this on February 17th, 2005.

Unfortunately, less than a year later, the license has faded beyond recognition. Anyone looking at this license would be wholly unable to discern that it is me in the photo and my license number has faded to near-illegibility. This, however, is by no means any fault of mine. Rather, it is a quality control issue that occurred at some point during the time I got my license. When going through security at Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU), the guards have remarked that they have seen this a lot, where newer North Carolina licenses have quickly degraded beyond recognition, so obviously the issue I am facing is not a one-time thing.

Indeed, I travel a great deal on business – it has been every week, Monday-Friday since mid-March – and need to show my license when passing through security at RDU and others around the country. Today I was challenged regarding my ID. This has now happened a few times during my travels, but this is the first time it has occurred at RDU. Upon this event, I decided it was finally time to call the DMV and obtain a replacement license.

I spoke with a polite woman named Melanie at the DMV call center and explained the situation to her, asking if I would have to pay the required $10 DMV fee to get a replacement. After speaking with her supervisor, she responded stating that despite the quality defects, I would nonetheless be responsible in paying for a replacement, and that I would have to bring it in to show an examiner before a replacement would be made.

Obviously, you might understand the issue at hand here:
• I do not feel that I, or anyone in my situation, should be subject to a $10 replacement driver’s license replacement fee when this is a readily-known DMV quality control issue for license production;
• Furthermore, I should not have to take time out of my extremely busy travel schedule, to “prove” to the DMV that my license has seen this degree of degradation, in order to get a replacement;
• Finally, as the DMV refuses to supply to me at no cost a valid replacement for my poorly manufactured license, I am riskily put in the position of liability when my state-issued ID fails to identify me, be this at an airport or by an officer of the law in the state of North Carolina.

I anticipate that I have made clear the issues that I, and others, am facing with regards to the North Carolina DMV, and trust that you will take this issue into consideration. Thank you very much for your time, and I wish you and your family the best during the upcoming holiday season.

Regards,

Courtenay S Welton, III

cc: Division of Motor Vehicles

Someone on DKos pondered what it would be like if George Washington met George W. Bush. Most of the comments were obvious, GW would lay the smack down on GWB, would criticise him, etc.

Here’s what I think.

You know how people say that if Jesus came back today, he’d be arrested?

Well, if George Washington came back and met Dubya…

* He’d have his phone wiretapped under Patriot Act provisions for being a person exhibiting anti-authoritarian behaviour, as exhibited by his actions in the Revolutionary war.

* He would, in fact, have his military record and heroics smeared. Pictures of him crossing the Delaware river would be questioned as exaggerations.

* He would be criticised as a maverick and would be considered generally unfit for association with those in the White House, ironically due to his non-partisan leanings.

* His ‘family values’ would’ve been called into question. “‘Father of our Country’ indeed, Mr. Washington!”

* He would be attacked as unpatriotic and on the wrong side of “if you’re not for us, you’re against us” due to his opinions on ‘entangling alliances’

* He would be lambasted about being a Deist.

* Finally, after everything was said and done, he would arouse suspicions for his use of hemp, and would eventually be arrested for marijuana possession.