I wish I would have waited to by my 30GB iPod Photo since Apple has decided to get rid of the 30GB model and only go with 20 and 60GB models and make the 60GB only $399. Kind of dissappointing.

I am listening to Adam Curry’s podcast at Gnomedex and he is bringing up some great, amazing points.

He talks about how normal people are quickly becoming the media and how they will soon be the media. Really great points and insight into the future and where we’ve come from. I really enjoyed the podcast and it just shows that we are going to start seeing more and more podcasts and with iTunes 4.9 getting podcasts is a lot easier.

Everything will start becoming very interesting over the next few months and years. I can’t wait to see where it all leads.

I am sure that most Americans watched the President speak at Fort Bragg or if they didn’t they caught a recap of it on a national network. To be honest, I am not a fan of Bush’s public speaking, it’s not his best quality. However, I don’t see that as a reason to bash the guy. Not everyone can speak well in public places, so what.

About Iraq and terrorism. Those who don’t believe that there was and now is a terrorist presence in Iraq are horribly misinformed. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has had a presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria since before the Iraq war. He was actually a “competitor” to al-Queda till he decided that to further his cause he needed to partner with bin Laden.

We have people talking about how poverty/AIDS need to be dealt with yet the suffering of a people is no big deal. Last time I took a philosophy or political science class I could have sworn they taught me that poverty in the U.S. and the world is a necessity and cannot be stomped out. For society to work, there has to be an inbalance, it’s basic. The level of inbalance is dependent on the type of society and the level of autonomy the people have over their own lives. A movie star can think whatever they like about helping a few hundred people in a village in Africa but their actions, no matter what amount of input/cash they have from the outside are not going to affect the entire world. Am I say it’s wrong to help the needy? No, of course not. Help them any way you can but saying that it should be the “number one priority” is a little much.

People will say that helping a single child is a “huge victory” and you know what, that’s fine. It’s kind of like a bunch of people saying that finding a single rocket in Iraq that contained nerve gas. The only difference of course is the people who heard about the rocket being found shot it down as not being a big deal and saying things like “It’s just one rocket”…

If you are against the campaign in Iraq, ask yourself why. Is it because it’s cool to be different and rebel against something? Attacking Bush’s words is the manly thing to do. Why not attack policy with fact? Respecting morality does not necessarily mean “believing in Jesus”, it means not killing innocent women and children because you believe in chaos. There is a difference between fighting American troops and blowing yourself up outside of a school.

Can there be a free society in Iraq? Yes. Why is this so difficult for people to understand? A free society does not mean free from crime or terrorist problems. It means freedom from oppression, which, last time I checked, under Saddam the Iraqi people weren’t very free from oppression. As an example the Israeli’s and for the most part the Palestinians live free from oppression yet they still deal with terrorism everyday. The Iraqi people want to govern themselves, they have made that very clear. The only thing standing in their way is the simple fact that there is a number of people who want chaos and death to the rule country. They will have no power if a government comes to place, so their best bet is to try and stop it. This isn’t about terrorists fighting Americans because if it were, there would be a lot less Iraqi deaths and a lot more American ones. They are killing people who want to bring structure to the nation, policemen, governors, ambassadors, and people standing in line to sign up for a government job.

These people don’t want a structured government to come to Iraq because it can and will (if you know anything about Middle Eastern politics) stir up problems in other nations. People in other countries will realize that it is possible to have a free society in a very religious part of the world where there are religious rules and regulations. They will stand up for themselves and there are people who do not want that.

And please, for the last time, would people please stop saying that this is a “Christian vs. Muslim” thing. I’m tired of it. You know and I know that this is not about religion.

I am the type of person who likes my weekends laid back and filled with reading, watching tv, and just enjoying myself. This weekend was definitely one of those.

Saturday night was spent with a good sized group of Shell interns downtown. We went up and down Main street checking out the different types of nightlife. Sadly, I wasn’t able to take any pictures as most of the people were pretty spread out.

Sunday turned out to be a lounge around type day with me spending my early afternoon at the baseball fields watching my little brother’s baseball game and talking to some folks I have not seen in 3 yrs.

I then spent yesterday evening watching TV (Family Guy) and messing with my new Motorola WR850G wireless router with Elizabeth.

Just my kind of weekend. No working out, no physical labor, no staring at computer screen (unless I wanted to). Just an all around good time.

I have been reluctant to post anything about Guantanamo Bay and the detainees there. My reasoning behind this is the unknown of what happens there. No matter what the news reports, what the committees find, and what the government says, we’ll never truly know the nature of what is taking place there. To add to that we will never really know if the men held there are innocent or guilty, though a lot of them were captured engaging U.S. and Pakistani troops.

The subject is a touchy one and frankly I’d like to stay away from it. I believe the men there deserve a trial, eventually. We don’t need to try these men quickly by any means. They are not subject to the rights given by the Geneva Convention because they were not in uniform, they tried to blend in with the civilian population, they did not carry their arms openly, and they did not wear a recognizable distinctive sign. They should not be tried as U.S. citizens because:

1. They aren’t U.S. citizens
2. They were arrested on foreign soil by U.S. soldiers

To me their status is in limbo and that’s the best way to describe it.

People say we should set them free or be better to them. Why? Because if we were in a similar situation we would want to be set free… No, I’m sorry, if I committed a crime and attacked innocent people or reigned a country with tyranny then no, I wouldn’t expect to be treated great or even well for that matter. When you commit an act then you have to face the consequences whether good or bad. If I go out and shoot someone then I better be prepared to face the consequences.

Patrick has hinted at starting a podcast. I say go for it Patrick!

I have been listening to a few podcasts lately and I’m excited to see where the one at Pro-PHP goes. I do have a few quirks with podcasting though. A lot of podcasters feel that their background music/noise is ok… It’s not. Give me some introduction music and a little soothing background music but at least check the audio levels before you upload the file. I am listening to your podcast to hear you. I could care less about what elevator music you chose this week.

If you are going to be interviewing someone on your podcast please make sure that you have good software to record the conversation. I know it is hard to conduct interviews with people who are far away but I have listened to a few podcasts where the interviews were conducted over Skype and they were horrid. I couldn’t understand a single thing in some of them and sadly they were people who I really wanted to hear interviewed.

As soon as iTunes 5 comes out and the ability to add podcasts becomes a lot easier the number of podcasters is going to jump significantly. If you want listeners make sure that you create a professional, fun and enjoyable, and creative podcast. People won’t stop listening to you if you’re good.

Weekends go by much too fast. Working a 9/80 schedule I was supposed to have Friday off but things don’t always go as planned. A meeting was scheduled for mid-Friday morning and so I made my way into work, forced to fight the traffic.

Instead of fighting my way home, Elizabeth and I went to the Galleria and looked around. I of course visited the Apple store and with Elizabeth being a fellow Apple nerd had no problems tagging along.

I have spent the rest of the weekend eating mexican food and relaxing. I saw “Batman Begins” this evening and have to say that it is definitely worth seeing. I won’t give any spoilers or ruin anything but it was amazing. From what I’ve read this is the start of a whole new take on the Batman series. Hopefully we’ll see new characters like Clay Face and Madhatter!!

Caffeine has been one of my downfalls for a while now and over the last few months I have been trying to wean myself off of it. Progress has been made but I have always had an addiction to Iced Tea. Coffee was not hard at all to give up, plus I can drink decaf and be just fine, but Iced Tea has a completely different flavor when it is decaffeinated, well, to me at least.

I also have trouble with sodas. With Pepsi being one of my favorite drinks it’s hard for me to just give it up. Over the last few days I have been drinking decaffeinated versions of it as well and while the taste is a little different, it’s not half bad.

So why am I trying to get off of the caffeinated stuff? Lately I have not been sleeping well and I attribute it to using caffeine to keep myself alert most of the day. I have also been drinking everything but water lately and I think I need to get back to the basics and drink more of that, maybe it will make me feel better. Mostly it’s just to have a goal this summer. Give myself something shoot for before I head back to Lubbock and see if I can keep doing it when I get back up there and in my routine.

I am still waiting for MySQL 5.0 to be released before I actually move my data over to PostgreSQL. The reason is the simple fact that PostgreSQL has the advanced features I want and MySQL has implemented a few in its recent 4.1 release, but it just left me wanting more. When 5.0 is released I will evaluate it to see if it fits my needs and has the features and the speed that I want. If it doesn’t then I will be making a switch to PostgreSQL.

My reluctance to switch is the overwhelming use of MySQL on most hosts and by a lot of small/medium application developers. With 4.1 I am able to implement a true relational database with foreign keys and CASCADE statements, I just want more…

I have been looking for a few more blogs to add to my list of daily reading and I’ve compiled a list of the new sites that are now in my bookmarks folder.

• Lunar Adventures – A great blog by fellow Texan Andrew Kaufmann.
• DonnieJeter.com – A simplistic but interesting blog by moleskine addict Donnie Jeter.
• JohnZeratsky.com – A great read for designers. John and I have had a few conversations about an easy to use centralized calendar application.
• NicholasJon.com – I really like the look of this blog and the content is great.

I am always looking for new reading material. Any suggestions? E-mail me! s [at] badice dot com.