Via Matt Haughey’s awesome PVRBlog, here’s a link to Engadget’s story about the poorly-kept secret of TiVo’s impending download service, along with screenshots of the service in action.

Can’t!

Wait!

I wanted to share with y’all an interesting column from today’s LA Times (subscription may be required).

It’s written by a historian lamenting the creativity- and discovery-smothering impact technology could have on us all. Not that I completely agree with him, but he raises an interesting point near the end of his essay:

I worry that as these cyber-conveniences stream through our lives, they atomize us. I worry that in their magnitude and pervasiveness, they hasten our transformation from social actors into solo consumers. Finally, I’m concerned that this growing exclusion of serendipity from our lives and learning could leave us short of the sort of broad knowledge of how things happen, the way things work — in our neighborhoods and the world at large — that citizens of a democratic republic require.

This essay is not completely unlike another one I read through a professional assignment I’m working on. Quote from this writer:

We live in a country founded on principles of individual choice, individual responsibility, and individual freedom, but we live in an economic environment which conditions us to think and behave like a herd of sheep. A mass market economy needs mass market thinking to make masses of money. It promotes a mentality that buys into an array of false concepts which it can then package, make generic, and sell to the largest possible audience. How are we to nurture the individual creative spirits of our young people when a large part of our culture promotes conformity, seducing us with the security of the well fed, distracting us with a vast web of superficial electronic entertainment.

Now, before anyone jumps all over my ass about the creative process inherent in developing new technology, etc., etc., I’m not saying that I think technology is sending us into certain world destruction. But I do think both authors raise a valid point that some of our newer technologies may have a stifling effect on creative thinking. Of course, this problem extends much, much further beyond technology–we’re becoming a society that for the most part, wants someone else to do all our thinking for us. That’s scary.

Anyway, read ’em, they’re both worth a ponder for the day.

Found in the postscript to today’s story about the 27-year sentence for 270 Sniper Charles McCoy:

Another Franklin County jury might still hear about McCoy’s crimes.

Miami lawyer Jack Thompson stood beside Brent Knisley yesterday and said he plans to file a wrongful-death lawsuit on behalf of the family against the makers of violent adult video games, the kind that McCoy often played in the basement of his mother’s home.

Many of them involved shooting at cars and innocent victims; some were confiscated from McCoy’s Las Vegas motel room.

As part of the plea, McCoy has agreed to talk with an FBI profiler and members of the central Ohio task force that hunted him to discuss his crimes and the effect, if any, the video games had on his conduct.

Hooray! Let the witchhunt begin! Of course it was the video games, don’t you see? There’s no way that it could have been the result of McCoy’s admitted failure to take prescribed medication for his long-diagnosed mental health problems, or his (dare I say it) family’s reluctance/failure to keep, y’know, tabs on their mentally troubled son who had bought guns the year before. No, clearly, the guys who were coding up MAX PAYNE at Rockstar back in 2002 and 2003 should have KNOWN that those particular algorithims would someday force a troubled young man to fire a gun off of an overpass, striking and killing a woman riding in a passing car! Rockstar’s nefarious plan to destroy American civilization is public knowledge, after all, since Senator Clinton’s stunning revelation that kids could find out about sex from video games they shouldn’t have been able to buy without parental consent in the first place! It’s so clear! Rockstar Hates America! To the ramparts! Boil the oil! Bring the pitchforks! Litigate! Litigate, I say!

…

God, I hate lawyers. [/irony]

Thanks to my wonderful aunts for putting together such a great Ware/Pyatt reunion. The Wares were my Grandfather’s family and the Pyatts were my Grandmother’s family. As both reunion’s numbers dwendled we merged them with great success.

It was great to see everyone and to see all the kids together. My Aunt Marsha (at the far right of the picture) put together games for the kids (and adults) and although Carl and I didn’t “win” I think he gets my prize for best effort with the shortest legs!

Thanks ladies, it was a great event and lots of FUN!
More pictures here.

The first I heard of cornhole was two years ago at my friend Amy’s wedding in Cincinnati. She had planned a festive outdoor reception, complete with lawn games–including the aforementioned sport.

Who knew throwing little corn-filled bean bags at a wooden board could be so much fun.

I got to play a little cornhole again this summer when I went to Cincinnati for my friend Mya’s baby shower. Our little group attended a cancer fundraiser for her family, and they had a cornhole tournament set up. After practicing for about a half an hour, my friends Amy and Fork entered and were promptly knocked out of the tournament by two cornhole sharks.

Anyway, when a friend sent me a notice about the Congressional election in Cincinnati today (which, sadly, I knew absolutely nothing about until he sent it), I headed over to the Enquirer webpage to get the skinny.

Except the headline that caught my eye wasn’t about politics at all.

Turns out cornhole is about to get some national attention.

So the question is: Is the nation really ready for cornhole?

Photo above: my friend, Fork, takes a practice chuck at the cornhole board as a warmup for the tournament while Amy (left) and Mya (right) heckle.

Welcome to the family Cloe Louise!

Born 7/29/05 just after 1:00 in the afternoon.
7 lbs. 6 oz. (same as her aunt!) and 20 1/2 in. long

She was born with her eyes open and is a very content and very good little baby girl. Mommy & Daddy are doing well and getting adjusted to their new job.
More photos here.

Following Sarah’s lead, here’s a set of our photos from the great May/Dahlberg Hilton Head Vacation of 2005. It was a wonderful week, bookended by four looooonng days of car travel, which is the kind of hardcore traveling I haven’t done in I don’t know how many years. I really thought that two back to back days in the car would be too much for Carl, but he came through with flying colors — at least until the blanket-and-juice-related meltdown forty-five minutes from home on the way back to Columbus on Sunday.

As it turns out, Hilton Head is HOT in the summer. Who knew? (It’s not like it’s hundreds of miles closer to the equator than Ohio, or that it’s on the coast, or that’s it’s JULY, or anything.) The one day that I played golf, Matt and I were making like the Wicked Witch of the West on the front nine. I’m pretty sure I filled and drank an entire cup of water on every hole. Kind of killed my enthusiasm for doing anything outside of the air conditioning, after that — I had wanted to rent and ride bikes at some point, but between not really having a schedule conducive to extended bike rides and the sheer physical assault of going outside to slow roast, I don’t really feel like I missed anything.

Well, except for the beach. We went on Monday morning with the kids, but that was all for us. Carl seemed to enjoy the beach part of the beach, but not so much with the ocean. Don’t know if it was the size and scope of the water, the sound of the waves — which were barely knee-high at all, but to a toddler, might as well have been mountainous walls of water — whatever it was, he was Out, and we didn’t get another chance to try again. Next time, maybe. The backyard pool was much better — he wasn’t completely comfortable with it, but he didn’t mind it by the end of the week. I’m half afraid he’s going to look at me this week and say, “Swim in the pool?”, and I’ll have to figure out how to tell him that Mommy and Daddy don’t exactly have an in-ground heated pool and jacuzzi sitting in the backyard…

So yes, wonderful week, sorry to see it end, but I think we’re all happy to be home and getting back into our normal routines.

Mostly.

(And there’s more photos of all sorts of other stuff from the last month or so right here.)

*Sigh.*

It was a very good vacation, at least, if too short.