Art, Empire, and Liberty

Things are a little different now. We're almost all moved in (there are still some things at the rental house) and we're all basically exhausted all the time. I think a big part of it is that now instead of five steps to get anywhere we actually have to walk across the house sometimes. All this walking is even making the dogs tired. I'll try to get some pictures up soon. Anyway, I know I haven't posted in a while and all of you are anxiously awaiting some new information. I've got quite a gem this time, plus I have some news that made me very happy.

First I thought I'd share this website with everyone. It's not that special, but it provides at least 10 minutes of fun. I've always found it very entertaining to watch someone create a piece of art, and it turns out an invisible person is pretty fun to watch, too. It's a part of art.com and it's called artPad. You can also make your own pictures and post them so that others can watch a replay of your creation. Have some fun with it. Unfortunately there's no way to search through the "paintings" so there's you can't share them directly with me or anyone else.

Speaking of sharing things with others, I came across something very.....interesting. We all know that a new episode in the "Star Wars" saga is coming out on May 19 this year. What you may not know is that our dear Lord Vader believes that satin shirts and "disco hair" are signs of a weak-minded being easily bent to his will. Oh the power of the dark side. You can find out more opinions and stories of the evil Skywalker's escapades in his very own weblog. Who knew he had the time to keep a public log of his day-to-day life while attempting galactic conquest?

Finally, it was rumored that a law was going to be passed prohibiting all fast-forwarding and skipping of previews and warnings (such as the anti-piracy warning) on all DVDs. Some of us have a hard enough time making it through the commercials and previews in the theater, but I'm sure that none of us want to be forced to watch five or so minutes of junk every time we pop in our favorite DVD. Well, on to the good news: not only is this law not even close to coming into effect, it turns out that a bill in favor of the exact opposite has been passed. The U.S. government is in the process of forcing DVD player manufacturers to enable each machine to freely fast-forward, skip, rewind, and do whatever else there are buttons for on the remote. This means that the scary "CANNOT PERFORM FUNCTION" sign won't ever show itself when you just can't handle watching the three minute Universal Studios montage for the four-hundred and seventeenth time. Plus, this means one step closer to equal rights and freedoms for DVD players everywhere!

-J

PS - Ever heard the word "jank" before?