Insurance
Man insurance is a pain. I recently had to convert from one plan to another. My old plan doubled in price in six months. I'm single, and not too old yet. I will have to pay $80 a month for a $2000 deductible and lousy coverage. All the coverage is crappy, so you might as well get the cheap plan. Some of the guys here at work say they only work to pay their insurance.

Nice try
Wired has a story “Seeing-Eye Computer Guides Blind” that describes a new device, or collection of devices, to help blind people get around and read in real world situations. After using my computer and ReadPlease software to read the text of the article online I decided this is a nice effort. It sounds like something that will be useful when they get the bugs worked out. One thing I learned in the article that surprised me is only 10% of blind people can read braille.

Horror movies
I find myself viewing horror movies. I like them even though they rarely scare me any more. They have gotten offal formula and predictable. watched documentaries describing people's love of getting scared. I believe it is because of our politically correct lives we are forced to live every day. That is probably where our like of violence in movies and video games comes from too. Many moons ago, people lived in a society that understood violence. Between hunting and no local police force people had to rely in their own strength and wits. I think I will put up with the PC world for a bit longer. I know I have lost those wits. I never had the strength.

Star Office
Star Office is starting to get on my nerves. When you type it will just change font or size without reason. When you apply styles, the fonts and sizes don't always change. Why have styles if they don't change the font or size? The spellchecker grays out the choices when you start typing to correct the misspelled word. I use Star Office to make my blog entries. It does a decent job of creating HTML. I've never found a WISIWIG editor for HTML that did what it said on the box. Every single one of them, ever, screws up some of the formatting.

Crawfish Boil
I have a Crawfish Boil at a buddie's place tomorrow. A bunch of people I know are going to be there. I hate people. I almost wish I could show up and there wouldn't be any one else there. There is an old movie called The Omega Man where one guy is left alone in the world. It turns out there are a bunch of zombies running around, but until then, the place is a nice neighborhood. Every one has a girl friend but me. What is wrong with me? I'm going to go to the event tomorrow and I'm going to take a bunch of pictures to compensate for talking to people. Every one else has a significant other to talk to or about, I have pictures to take. I am so goddamn sick of being me.

Talk Radio
I like talk radio, but I hate it when they talk to regular people. I like the interviews. I like the commentary. I like the news. I can't stand Joe Six-pack bitching about some political nuance that he heard about on Sesame Street. I listen to talk radio for the information and the opinions of professional radio people and experts in whatever field those being interviewed represent. They always let some hillbilly ask a question that makes every one look at each other. I just feel sorry for the fool they make of themselves.
In contrast, I like the BBCs approach of taking text messages and email on the air. At least you know the people writing in are semi-literate.

What a day
We went out for lunch this afternoon. It is a beautiful day. The humidity is low and the spirits are high. All we talked about was the rift between direct employees and contractors.

TV
I was just thinking how I'm watching a lot less TV than I used to. The thing is, the tube is on in the background and I'm not paying attention to it. It freaks me out when look over and it is half way through an infomercial. The only thing I sit down and watch now is The Simpsons. It seems like all my favorite TV shows are off the air. Buffy, soon Angle follows, Family Guy, SG1 (is only on cable now), Futurama, Gosh, there are a dozen others. I would like to see a Starship Troupers series. I'd like a dark Sci-Fi series.

Attitude
I work for a company that is a gigantic corporation. At least, it is big to me. This company works with other companies all the time. It seems like this company doesn't do anything except pay other companies to do work. It is difficult to get other people to do things they are supposed to do. they spend more energy and time avoiding work than just getting the job done. Their objective is to get this company to pay for everything without doing any of the work themselves. The golden rule of business is make it more work for some one to avoid what you want them to do, and make sure they know it.

By the way
Definition
The term "By the way" refers to last minute or after the fact changes made by people on a project. They come after design is frozen, sometimes after the product is delivered.
Signs of pending By the way
When people give vague or incomplete instructions or specifications, it means they don't know what they want. They have every intention of waiting until you give them what they asked for and then bitching. This is a constant problem at my day job.
Solution
The first thing you can do is get everything in writing. This doesn't help, if you don't have recourse. I have no recourse at my day job to tell people "That is exactly what you asked for." I can only add more time to the project. I've caught myself adding days to projects when people ask for stupid crap. It isn't like they are being charged any different. I'm still doing work. it is just their stuff that gets bumped. I would rather work on some one's project who knows what they need and asked for it. I figure they deserve better service.

Low intensity conflict
The BBC has a story on bird sized drone planes. They are touted for "flying through windows" and snapping pictures. I remember a Sci-Fi flick many moons ago that had a fly on the wall that buzzed around and followed people from room to room. How far off can those days be?

Online Gambling
Internet gambling is a fuzzy industry in the US. The World Trade Organization wants the US to open up the market to allow foreign casinos to compete in the US market. The trouble is, that would allow any one any where in the US to gamble. There are many "dry" states (like Texas) where there is basically no gambling. Texas has a horse track, but that is about it. I know a couple of people who have made wagers online.

X-43A
I just caught this article on CNN about the X-43A. NASA will have a real test flight soon. This is the one that uses scramjets. This is cool because they are an old idea that's time has finally come. NASA has pictures on their site. This thing might make it possible to travel from New York to Tokyo in an hour or so.

Crazy fiction
I wrote a little set of fictional rules of gravity. Some of the rules conflict with each other. I also drew up a chart (with many misspelled words) diagramming why the jump to warp is bumpy one, two and three. I hope those links work, they are tiff files. I was very tired when I wrote this, so take it with a grain of salt.

Crazy reality
The funny thing is there are some news stories popping up about gravity and experiments to use gravity to move things around. It is an interesting time. The last time things were so poised to jump forward in the recent history of humans was just after World War II. I've always thought that war speeds innovation. It forces the sacrifice to move forward. People die when corners are cut, but the survivors learn. Of course, the Right brothers flew for the first time well in between wars. We just celebrated the hundredth anniversary of their flight. It would be appropriate to go from props to jets, to anti-gravity in such a timely manor. The atlatl comes to mind. I remember reading that the atlatl rushed South from the Baring Straight to the tip of South America in a couple thousand years or so. That was miraculous for the expansion. It was the spread of a better idea. The atlatl was such a great improvement over the spear that the old ways all but died out. The bow and arrow come to mind as well. The canoe turned into the sailing ship. Which, turned into the battleship. From the first ape that caved in the head of a rival with a rock to nuklear weapons we have come a long way. I say we have a long way to go.

Songs
From
http://www.kexp.org/playlist/playlist.asp
Camera Obscura, Suspended From Class, Underachievers Please Try Harder, Merge
Carina Round, Motel 74, The Disconnection, Weapons of Mass Entertainment/Interscope

NASA
NASA has a story about a new experimental plane called X-43A. So, they are finally using scramjet engines. I have been hearing about scramjet engines since I was a kid. They made their way into Science Fiction a millennia ago.

Camera
I got a new camera. It is a five megapixl so the pictures will be huge from now on. Just kidding. I'll shrink them for the web a bit. That size of picture gives you more room to play on the computer.
The camera is a Canon S50 (black). It is not only a capable camera, but looks snazzy too. It is made from aluminum and feels like it is tough to boot.

Music, Money and my two cents
I hear a bunch of hype about Time Warner Music being sold off because of digital piracy. Yet, music album sales are up. Singles are in the toilet. Online piracy does a much better job of telling people which bands they like and don't like. I know a couple of people who are either in, or dream of being in the music business. I've known several people over my life who have had the dream of start-um. The one thing they all have in common is money. Kid Rock is in it for the money. The Grateful Dead were in it for the tour. One of the Sex Pistols, I think, said "I can't do anything else worth a damn." How about open source music.
I sure do complain about this allot.

Gunslinger Girl
This was a creepy Anime series It is a bunch of little girls who are trained to kill without remorse. It did, however, have the best intro music I've ever heard on any Anime. The music has what sounds to me like a German woman singing in English. It is a good song. I wish I could figure out who the group is.
So, Alexis, any other good series I should grab?

ReadPlease continued
This software has changed the way I surf. I never used to read the whole story on news sites. People have complained all over the place at the incomplete stories offered by the press both online and in other media. TV and Radio always seemed to fall short except for NPR really. I don't have cable, so I only have the inept broadcast news to watch on TV. I never really noticed the shortness in online news, that is, until now. Now that I read all the stories and all the content of the stories, the establishment really is leaving stuff out. It isn't due to some conspiracy. They just want to keep the story under three minutes. I'm sure every one is doing the same thing I am and reading news all day, waiting with itchy mouse finger breaking news. I love those big red boxes CNN puts on their site for breaking news. Now, I follow the links on slashdot and read the articles. I go to sites like GeekNews and Portal of Evil just for the articles haven't brought myself to the Onion yet.

More on ReadPlease
I have been reading news non stop. My goodness, I think I am newsed-out. I am a news junky. That is saying allot. I am, however, well informed.
I also figured out a way around ReadPlease reading stuff twice. That drove me nuts. If you drag and drop text into the ReadPlease window, it will not read it twice, at least so far.

http://www.radioparadise.com/modules.php?name=songinfo&song_id=35132
Artist:Louis Jorda
Song:Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby
Album:Louis Jordan & His Tympani Five

Black Market
Question
As much as people and governments are worried about dependencies on oil and the health of the country, why doesn't the government hike the taxes on gas and tobacco products to make the public find other alternatives? Because, the public will find other alternatives.
Economics 101
First of all, there are high taxes on gas and tobacco. More than half the cost of tobacco and nearly half the cost of gas at the pump is tax. The government has a hard time telling people to stop smoking because the government depend heavily on the tax revenue the addiction brings to the coffers. The same is true with gasoline. Alternative fuels will not take over the market until they are economically superior to gasoline. Until governments can receive the same amount of revenue by replacing gas, we will use gas. That is it. There just is not any more to it.
Now, think about increasing the taxes on tobacco. If the government doubles their revenue on Tobacco, it will take twice as much effort to get government to get rid of tobacco.
Again, the same goes for gas. Europeans keep saying "jack up the taxes on gas and people will find alternative fuels." Well, that is not entirely accurate. Economics professors will tell you that people will find alternative means of obtain gasoline, not alternatives to gasoline itself. That means a black market.
To be honest, I bet if OPEC jacked up the price of crude oil for a long period, with no end in sight, the motivation for alternative fuels would finally com about.
Music Industry
A totally new example is what is happening to the music industry in the western world right now. They are watching their means of existence crumble from under them. For the last sixty or eighty years, the entertainment industry put most of their time and resources in charging for recordings instead of live acting. Live acting has been around since before written language. People have charged to entertain ever since we have stood up on two legs.
Well, this is a new example,except perhaps for what the automobile industry did to hors drawn carriages, or maybe what the steam ship did to the sailing vessel. Now, that is a clean alternative fuel.

Random Gripe about taxes
Consider when you go to the pump the next time that nearly .60 cents of the cost is tax. Add that cost to your income tax and sales tax. Oh, and don't forget property tax. Then there are the eight taxes on your phone line. It just makes me ill. Now they want to add hidden VAT (Value Added Taxes) to everything you buy including food. VAT taxes are particularly nasty, because they are in the cost (to the consumer), not listed separately on the ticket at time of purchase.

Lunch after
My friend and I went to Chili's instead of the Alamo Draft House. We ate good food and had a good time. I kind of missed going to the movies and having a beer. It is St. Patrick's day. I did have a Guniess at Chili's. That counts.

Songs
http://www.radioparadise.com/modules.php?name=songinfo&song_id=2134
Artist:Ray Wylie Hubbard
Song:Conversation with the Devil
Album:Crusades of the Restless Knights

http://www.radioparadise.com/modules.php?name=songinfo&song_id=31053
Artist:Richard Thompson
Song:Beeswing 
Album:Action Packed

Potential Constitutional Amendments I like
Entertainment Content
People get the content free until the industry can agree on a method and provide that method to get said content to consumers.
No Lawyers need apply
Lawyers and those who have attended law school may not participate in public office except to cast their vote as a citizen. (they know too much.)
Overall tax limit
No citizen has to pay more than 50 percent of their annual gross income in taxes, regardless of governmental entity requiring the taxes, or when the taxes are due. The citizen chooses who does and does not get the taxes they pay should there be an over charge.

ReadPlease
I've started using a new software called ReadPlease. I've used it once before, but it sucked then. I think they have a nice product now. There are still a few foibles.
Old vs. new
The old version used an engine from Microsoft that insisted on displaying this stupid character at the top of the screen that read to you. I remember thinking this was childish and an unnecessary resource hog.  The new version doesn't force you to use the little character. Everything else seems to be the same. I did notice the company is owned, or partnered with AT&T in some way.
My impression
I need software like this. It has been a while since I used any reading software. The difference in my surfing habits occurs instantly. I catch myself actually reading long emails. The last several days I have read more news stories all the way through than in the last six months. I've read short stories online. I'm reading instructions for stuff. I may even, if I can stand myself after, read the DND books. Don't hold your breath.
Problems
Sometimes it reads things twice for no apparent reason. The copy feature (copy into the clipboard and the software automatically reads the text out-loud) gives an error that says “cannot read from clipboard”, but the silly thing seems to work just fine. The delay between sentences (when the software hits a period) is different from the auto-read feature and the play button. I don't get that last one at all. You would think the software would just read based on the same settings regardless of how it is initiated. Every single one of these problems existed in the previous version.

DND
Not playing DND is killing me. I miss my friends. They plaid weekend before last. I sat here and couldn't get anything done all day. I miss it terribly. It is just so much work. If I can find the online text copies of the books it might help greatly. I can have the above software read it to me. I may have to rethink my abandonment. Adam, our DM, said he will let me come back.

PC-Mall
I had to re-order my camera and the USB notebook drive reader from PC-Mall. The FedEx deliveries insisted on a signature. I got a call from PC-Mall today asking me to join a frequent customer group. I should have asked how much I've spent there in the past few years. I've bought all kinds of crap from them. Let's see, three wireless hubs, a couple of cables, several mice and keyboards, a laptop and a computer, more than one digital camera, about six hundred blank CDs or DVDs, and I think I bought my Sony Clie there. I would want to keep me as a customer as well.

Lunch
Tomorrow afternoon I'm going out with a friend of mine to the Alimo Drafthouse. This friend and I went out on a real date about ten years ago. We have never kissed.

Song
This song rocks. I have heard it a couple of times and it always makes me smile.
http://www.radioparadise.com/modules.php?name=songinfo&song_id=33407
Artist:Kirsty MacColl
Song:In These Shoes?
Album:Tropical Brainstorm

Yawn
Man it was hard getting out of bed this morning. I normally get up at about 4:30 to get ready for work. I don't leave the house until about 5:30. I need that time just to screw my head on straight. This morning was more difficult than normal. I had some magic meat packets at a friend of mine's house. I was tossing and turning all night. I got up at 1:00 am and downed Maalox and a glass of water. This morning when I tried to stand up out of bed, I nearly fell right back down. I was dizzy with sleepiness. I wander if the people below me hear me stumble around in the morning. I probably sound like I'm trying to dance or something.

Campy
I've always thought Campy was when you act like you are trying to seem serious, but really you are not taking anything seriously. I hear this term all the time describing movies and stories. I bet there is no agreed definition.

The Art Teacher
A buddy of mine told me an anecdote. So, my buddy has this art teacher in one of the k12 years. My buddy asks the teacher 'Tell us about the drunkest you ever got." Kids are like that. They don't take into account that just telling a story like that could get the teacher fired. Anyway. The teacher describes this episode where the teacher and a friend drank themselves silly and tried to get in the car to drive home. The only trouble was, neither of them could find the steering wheel. When the duo came to in the morning, they found they had both inadvertently gotten in the back seat of the car.
Now, this is an art teacher. I'm thinking this story was concocted to cover why two drunk guys would be found sleeping "together" in the back seat of a car in a bar parking lot. Trouble is, I'm the suspicious type.

Magic 8 ball
Some one at my day job has a Magic 8 ball on her desk. It is bright green. It is fashioned after the Muppets. When you get an answer from it they are like "morpmorp" (Swedish Chef) and "waka-waka" (Fazzy bear).
My colleague is in training this week. I snuck over and shook the ball. "Will I get laid this weekend?" I closed my eyes and waited to hear what cute, goofy response it would come up with. It said "No." Piece of shit.

Anecdote cubed
So, my buddy (a different one) tells me a story about this guy who had no idea how to tell a story. This guy would look my buddy in the eye and tell him stories like "So, man, I was in the airport and I had to go to the can and I finally made it and I'm like 'ahh'." My buddy would look at this guy like he was nuts every time he told one of the pointless stories and the guy just never got it.
This guy told a stupid story about an airport bathroom (anecdote 1). My buddy told me the story about him telling the story (anecdote 2). I'm telling you the story about the whole thing now (anecdote 3). ... a true story by the way.

Some days
Some days, I hate being me. I just had to cancel two PC-Mall orders because the Fed-Ex deliveries require signatures. PC-Mall puts a sticker on them that requires it. They want you to come pick it up. That defeats the whole purpose of Fed-Ex. I'm so pissed I can't think straight. I want to scream at the people for their lack of compassion. I called PC-Mall and they say there is nothing they can do. I call Fed-Ex and they say there is nothing they can do. If I knew a good lawyer, I know exactly what I would do.
If I were born a hundred or more years ago, I would not be expected to pass an eye test to get into society. If I couldn't see as well as every one else, I would just get a job where it wasn't important. If I were born a hundred years from now, I bet they would have something to fix my eyes. Thanks God. You picked a fine time to make Kelly.

Texas Memory Systems
A buddy of mine made it on SlashDot. His company, Texas memory Systems made a huge RAM disk for the US government. I've known my buddy for ever. It is cool catching his company in print. They have had write-ups before in trade rags, but this is SlashDot, the big time.

Other stuff
I had a bunch of depressing stuff about women using me and something goofy about a school in Europe teaching Elvish as a credit. None of that makes any difference when something real happens like the story above. It is nice to have something real happen that puts things into perspective.

Tired
It is difficult to come to grips with the fact that you are just going to be alone for the rest of your life. I have had opportunities. I have squandered, or simply let them go. A bunch of names come to mind of women who seemed to like me. There have always been problems. I just didn't learn the proper skills somewhere along the way.
There are allot of things I can't say here. I've typed about ten lines and had to remove them all. They might hurt others or cause some one to try and help me. I don't want help. I am tired.
God answers all prayers. Sometimes the answer is no. There are two things God has not granted me. The first is love, and the other I cannot say here. I am tired of hearing myself complain.
I slept all day today. I will sleep all day tomorrow if I can. At least my dreams are a distraction.

Audio book
I'm listening to the old testament on my computer. Man, those guys knew hoy to party. This book is all wine, sheep, sleep with my daughter, make the slaves do the work ... Everything is seven this and seven that, bags of silver and so on.

Chameleon Card
Slash Dot has an article on this little device called a Chameleon Card that mimics all your cards. It can remember your credit cards (all magnetic cards), bar codes and RFID devices. I want to focus on the RFID functionality for a moment. We use RFID of some kind at my day job to get in the building and access security stuff. This Chameleon Card, as far as I can tell, has the ability to copy the RFID in the security cards just by holding the handheld device close to the RFID and hitting record. That means I can catch some one at lunch, or talking in the hall and hit the record button from inside my pocket and record the CEO's magic code to let me in to high security arias. Now, there are other security measures to prevent this kind of shenanigans. The Chameleon Card just seems to make it easy to bypass one of the most basic and first line defenses.

Portable Documents
Ever since computers came into being people have been trying to agree on a universal document format. Something that all computers and all people of all languages could agree with. This is a utopian idea. Adobe came up with PDF (Portable Document Format) a million years ago. This was supposed to answer the call in the eighties. Adobe intended the PDF format to be how the Internet communicated. I've worked with PDF and I can tell you, it is far too complicated and prone to failure for such long distance linking of information. Then came GRML. HTML and XML are subsets of GRML. This language was intended to cover all written human language. It falls a bit short, but it tries very hard. HTML is a very small part of the whole GRML concept. PDF has little to do with it. GRML is not maintained by a company. Adobe and Microsoft have nothing that supports GRML, or HTML in true compatible form for that matter.
Microsoft insists it has a generic document format called “.DOC”. This is also known as a Microsoft Word document. Microsoft loves it when companies include Word documents on their software distributions and CDs. Well, Microsoft Word has a few tricks that have bitten companies in the butt. There is this thing called “Track Changes” that keeps you modifications around even after the changes are accepted. Someone can go back in many cases and view the progression of information. There have been incidences where purchasing departments have let it slip who else is being considered for the contract, and how much each vendor is asking. There have been incidents where people received how much other people were getting in a bonus, or who was getting disciplined, or fired. Well, here is a story about how SCO has been bitten by what Microsoft insists is “not a problem”.
The moral of the story is multi-fold. (1) Screw Microsoft and their tyrannical obsession with tacking over the world. (2) Use a file format that you know only contains the information you want when you release it to anyone. (3) Do not be a SCO. (4) Do not assume things are innocent just because “everyone” uses them.

Who cares what ten year olds think?
Five Live (BBC) had a show on this morning, their afternoon, that went into what ten year olds worry about and do for fun. They had interviews with a bunch of kids and they all said they worry about world peace and the environment and crap like that. People wrote in, via email and phone text message, how great these kids sound and that they have hope for the future. What about the zit they obsessed over for a week a couple of months ago? What about what their friend heard a rival say last Tuesday? The teachers wouldn't bring along a delinquent to the radio. If you want to know what what ten year olds are worried about, ten year olds are the last ones you ask. Find out what they spend time doing. Listen to what they complain about. Pay attention to their spending habits.

Information Protection
In the UK a guy named Ian Huntley (BBC story) killed two ten year old girls and tried to dispose of their bodies at a school. He worked at the school as some sort of janitor. It turns out he had several run-ins with the law of a sexual nature and the police had not kept his information (BBC story) because they thought they were supposed to get rid of information after a period of time due to information protection acts.
Let me tell you, the British people are re-considering the protection of people's information after this. It turns out no one had told the police how to comply with the law properly. They should have kept some of the information along the way even with the laws in place. The trouble is, police were afraid of infringing on some one's rights. When the school attempted to run a background check, there was nothing in the record that would prevent Ian from working so close to children. Every one I've heard from has said this could have been prevented.
I'm quite torn about my information. I want companies to lay off selling my information to each other. I want the government to be careful and make sure there are checks and balances in place to protect me from misuse of my information. I want my rights protected. I want people like this guy caught and put away.

Pessimism
I am a pessimist and I am tired of people giving me shit about it. I have been a cynical pessimist all my life and I don't feel like changing now. Telling me that things are going to be all right or to see the bright side of things is like looking a leopard in the eye, pointing at a lion and saying “Lions don't have spots and they seem to do well.” Fuck lions.

Twitch
I have a twitch in my lip. It has been hitting me off and on for a couple of days. I've had this kind of thing before in my fingers or legs. I know it is because I'm not eating right or something. I am so paranoid. The thought that it is Multiple Sclerosis or something will not leave my head. Can you imagine assuming the worst all the time. It is no wander I can't find a mate. No wander I can't make it through a university. No wander I am mad all the time. Pessimists should get disabled rights.

Spring
It sprinkled on my commute in this morning. It was a pleasant rain. The drops were so small they felt like snowflakes and disappeared the instant they touched anything. It was before dawn and yet the roads were thick with people in their cars. It's funny, I'm the only one on foot most of the time. Some people jog through the neighborhood I pass on my way to work. There are others on the bus, but not like the cars. There must be a hundred cars just on my short commute.

Something I learned today
Working two jobs is like trying to juggle oiled epileptic octopi.

Guest author
This is from my buddy Adam in response to a post yesterday called LOTR.
<Adam>
Some bits of info: Tolkien hated allegories (he states as much in his introduction to The Lord of the Rings). No one in his stories is supposed to be someone from real life. That said, certain philosophies do make its way into the story. Clearly the ending of the books shows that the "everyman" in the novels was not Frodo, but instead, Samwise the gardener; after all Sam is the one that ends the story going home to his wife and kids. I think that Tolkien wanted to demonstrate that greatness is not something that you are born with or destined to do, it just happens. People of character respond well in times of duress. Another theme that runs rampant is industrialization versus nature. Tolkien grew up in a time where it appeared that industrialized society would destroy his British homeland. His books reflect that. Lastly, the fact that all the Middle-earth nations desperately attempted not to go to war parallels both WWI and WWII where Europe and others were slow to rouse when threatened.

Man, can I go on about that story. I am such a nerd.
</Adam>

I am a rarity
There is a story on CNN griping about the small number of bloggers and those bloggers who blog not blogging on a regular basis. I try to virtually put pen to paper every couple of days or so. Unfortunately I'm not very interesting. I had a paper log I kept many years ago. The last line in the couple of binders says something like "I've written about life for a while. It is time to live it." I stopped writing in that log since then. These days, I believe I can accomplish both. You let me know how I'm doing.

Harry Potter
I finished the audio book for Harry Potter book five. It is the best one so far by my measure. I'm looking forward to the war between wizards. Harry is fourteen now and will have to take responsibility for his actions. There are love interests showing up. It has been interesting watching Harry and his pals grow up. I can't wait for the next book. I hope the audio book shows up quickly. The audio books are twenty hours a peace. I covered three of them in about two weeks.
I read the first two books, as appeared to listening to the audio book. They took months each. I borrowed one from a friend (Robin). She dropped me off and as I walked back to my apartment from the front entrance, this ten year old kid does this check slide to block the sidewalk and says "That's a good book." I had to tell him twice that I hadn't yet read the book because he wanted to talk about it so much.

LOTR
I filled out a survey on slashdot a couple of weeks ago on "what is your biggest limitation as a geek" or something like that. The only entry I failed was "you haven't seen the LOTR series yet". Well, Now, I have no excuses. I am 100% complete geek. Some of the other questions included "Have a significant other", "Don't run Linux" ... My goodness.
Anyway, I loved the movie of course. I did like the last little bit of the movie. The part back in the shire shows that Frodo did not win anything. Even though the war was won, Frodo suffers from shell shock and cannot return to his old life. Sam is able to make it work. Frodo leaves with the Elves. One must remember that J. R. R. Tolken went through World War I. He had to come back to a world at peace. I don't know what Tolken planned on doing before or after the war. I wander if he saw himself as a Sam or a Frodo. Perhaps a bit of both.

Songs
http://www.radioparadise.com/modules.php?name=songinfo&song_id=35014
Artist: Jem
Song: Come On Closer
Album: It All Starts Here...

http://www.radioparadise.com/modules.php?name=songinfo&song_id=2008

Artist: Lucinda Williams
Song: Can't Let Go
Album: Car Wheels on a Gravel Road