Personal Made Public

So I thought that when radio stations decided that the Black Eyed Peas needed to change "Don't Phunk with my Heart" to "Don't Mess with My Heart" they were just silly.

However, MTV has trumped them by being silly and stupid. Gwen Stefani has a drug reference in Luxurious:

We've got hydroponic love and we'll smoke it.

So how did the brilliant censors at MTV handle this?

They dropped the word "hydroponic". Excuse me?

Okay, all censorship is dumb, but I have to classify this one as particularly brainless, clueless, ineffectual, and stupid.

If this nation is to be wise as well as strong, if we are to achieve our destiny, then we need more new ideas for more wise men reading more good books in more public libraries. These libraries should be open to all—except the censor. We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.

John F. Kennedy

Mass media: radio, television, and the internet, are our modern libraries. Who let the censors in?

Posted by Kevin at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Now that Thanksgiving has given way to Black Friday, I feel the holidays are upon us: enough so that we started decorating today. Besides hanging the first 900 or so of the bulbs that go on the outside of the house, I put up the tree. Since we have a bit of asthma in this household we use an artificial tree with integrated lights.

Unfortunately, two strands of lights were out. These strands are supposed to stay lit when a bulb goes out, but that didn't happen. Making matters worse is the fact that integrated lights can't be strung out in a straight line across the floor for orderly testing.

The first thing I did was go online to learn how these "stay-lit" strands work in the hopes of learning how best to troubleshoot my problem lights. I found a site that gives a good explanation of the shunts used in the bulbs to keep the strands lit (learn for yourself here). One page I found put me on to a device called Lightkeeper Pro which has the ability to kickstart inactive shunts into service on dead strands. $17 or so at Lowes Home Improvement. Worth it? Well, if it works it could save me hours of bulb-swapping. The Lowes website claimed they were in stock here in Chapel Hill, so off I went (convertible top down, of course -- it's just barely below freezing here in NC at the moment).

Once I got home, I plugged it into the burned out strands and BANG: it worked like a charm on both strands. The burned-out bulb was then a cinch to find and replace. I figure I saved several hours of stress and frustration, so I'd say YES, definitely worth $17!

Kevin says: THUMBS UP for Lightkeeper Pro.

Posted by Kevin at 10:08 PM | Permalink

I have bad luck with B strings, but it gives me a chance to strip down my Strat and give it a little cleaning and some polish. It also lets me play photographer with an unusual guitar shot.

Posted by Kevin at 01:32 PM | Permalink

Good grief! It's been over two weeks since I last put pen to paper, er... pixel to page, perhaps?

It's just been really busy. The big time suck was caused by a grinding noise from our Powerbook's hard drive. Fortunately, I had upgraded us to Tiger less than one month earlier, so we had a recent backup of everything.

This was my first experience rebuilding a modern Powerbook.

Piece. Of. Cake.

I should have upgraded the drive sooner! The new one is a 5400 rpm Seagate 100GB notebook drive. It replaces the original 4200 rpm 60GB drive. It's extremely quiet and the extra speed makes the Powerbook feel like a new machine. Definitely worth the $200.

Meanwhile, my big project at work that has been the bane of my existence for months finally rewarded me with the big breakthrough I needed. If it hadn't cracked I think I would have...

Anyway, I think I'm back now, so hopefully there will be more in the way of content again in the near future.

Posted by Kevin at 07:57 PM | Permalink

1 - A writer / artist / other creative type

2 - An entrepreneur

3 - An architect

4 - A designer

5 - An engineer

6 - The owner of a coffee shop or pub

Life's too friggin' short, isn't it? I need a few centuries of youth to do everything I want to do.

Posted by Kevin at 07:12 PM | Permalink