"Beautiful Jam" in the 2/18/71 Dark Star

Here is the connection..

Don't need no stinkin' badges...

Free from the hinderance of Constitutional protection
(Click on the map)

This is why we can have faith and hope...

Here is a man who really needs a job!

Zune Failure: Frightening on too many levels...

Microsoft Blames Leap Year For Zune Glitch

Early on Wednesday, thousands of Zune users found they could not use the 30-gigabyte model digital music player.

By Reuters
InformationWeek
January 2, 2009 08:00 AM

NEW YORK - A malfunction of some Microsoft Zune music players was caused by an error in the way the device accounts for leap years, Microsoft said.

In a statement on the Zune website posted late Wednesday, the company blamed "a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year," adding: "The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009."

FIRST AND FOREMOST: How do I explain that her bought-with-her-own-hard-earned-money Zune just stopped working. It wasn't dropped or electrocuted or otherwise abused - it just stopped working. Look in to the eyes of a beautiful young daughter and just try to explain. Now you know why this is first and foremost.

Second: These are the same people who want us to trust them with our most important (expensive) information technology? These MicroFOOLS who neglected to accommodate something so basic as leap year? Well, I suppose it might be an easy thing to miss IF we weren't reminded every four years by a little social event called the PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION!!! Oh, oh, isn't there something about the Olympics in there too?

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To my daughter's credit she handled the 'event' very well. Perhaps it was because last Wednesday wasn't a Zune intensive day. Or, perhaps she didn't try for hours and hours to access a help line. Or, perhaps my daughter has never had the misfortune to reach a 'Helpline Specialist' who is clueless and can only parrot back the flipbook rote responses. (Bonus: My daughter has never encountered the megalithic business concern who really doesn't give a crap about individual users - even though the megalith is more than willing to exact a pound of flesh for such an obviously questionable product.)

A New Year's Resolution: Reverse Hyperbole

"We are all going to die."

Well, of course, so what?

We live our lives with no more concern or regard for this understatement than we give thought to our next breath. So then why is it we have a near cataclysmic reaction to the news that some one close to us is dying. Is it because the eminent death of someone close represents a significant loss in our life. It reminds us of our own mortality? Because we are taken by surprise?

Then this should come as no surprise...

I am dying.

Perhaps not a quickly as some might like. Not as theatrically as some might expect. Not as hideously as possible. I am just plain dying. My life is ending.

I can assure you that this is not a volitional act. I didn't just up and decide to die. Nor am I in any way accelerating the process. I don't have a time-table. In fact I don't know if it will happen any time soon. I just know that it is happening.

Knowing it is happening has begun to shape my thinking about the 'right now' and the future. Here is an example...

Instead of living as though I can conserve my life, preserve the longevity of it, I recognize the need to live it as though I won't be around tomorrow.

Lest we all become unduly morose let me illuminate this perspective with a very short story.

I once knew a man. He insisted that it didn't matter where he ate lunch. He would say, "the next meal is pretty much the same as the last."

I was always disquieted by this. First, for me taking food is our most sacred ritual. Second, what if this were to be my last meal? Should I not celebrate the richness and fullness of my fleeting life in this last breaking of bread?

So this is my resolution. I resolve to live out the rest of my days as if I were dying. To grasp at each and every straw as though it were my last. To fill my days with the exceptional not the average or mundane. I resolve to enjoy the living of my life knowing that it will end instead of contriving to save my life by abstaining from all of its riches and excesses.