Barry Bonds? Steroids? Noooooooo Waaaaaaay!

Sports Illustrated has a photo gallery of Bonds' expanding physique.

If we can absolutely prove Bonds' drug use, his name should be stricken from the home run record. He doesn't deserve to break Aaron's record.

Then again, how do we know Aaron didn't use steroids? Just throwing the question out there.

Another thought. Bud Selig, baseball commissioner said it would be impossible to remove steroid users from the history books. Well, uh, if we focus on Bonds where's the difficulty? If Pete Rose can be punished for gambling, Bonds should be punished for drug use. The commissioner should be asking the umpire for some new balls.

So, Who Likes Cube Farms?

CNN.com has a story in which Robert Probst, the person who invented the Cubicle, thought it was a bad idea.

After years of prototyping and studying how people work, and vowing to improve on the open-bullpen office that dominated much of the 20th century, Propst designed a system he thought would increase productivity (hence the name Action Office). The young designer, who also worked on projects as varied as heart pumps and tree harvesters, theorized that productivity would rise if people could see more of their work spread out in front of them, not just stacked in an in-box.

The new system included plenty of work surfaces and display shelves; partitions were a part of it, intended to provide privacy and places to pin up works in process. The Action Office even included varying desk levels to enable employees to work part of the time standing up, thereby encouraging blood flow and staving off exhaustion.

But inventions seldom obey the creator's intent. "The Action Office wasn't conceived to cram a lot of people into little space," says Joe Schwartz, Herman Miller's former marketing chief, who helped launch the system in 1968. "It was driven that way by economics."

Businesses saw the cubicle as a way to cheaply build offices and cram people into those big rooms.

The upshot: A company could recover its costs quicker if it purchased cubes. When clients told Herman Miller of that unexpected benefit, it became a new selling point for the Action Office. After only two years on the market, sales soared. Competitors took notice.

That's when Propst's original vision began to fade. "They kept shrinking the Action Office until it became a cubicle," says Schwartz, now 80. As Steelcase, Knoll, and Haworth brought their versions to market, they figured out that what businesses wanted wasn't to give employees a holistic experience. The customers wanted a cheap way to pack workers in.

Propst's workstations were designed to be flexible, but in practice they were seldom altered or moved at all. Lined up in identical rows, they became the dystopian world that three academics described as "bright satanic offices" in a 1998 book, Workplaces of the Future.

Designer Douglas Ball, for instance, remembers the first installation of cubicles he created for a Canadian company in 1972. "I thought I'd be excited, but I came out depressed," says Ball, now 70. "It was Dilbertville. I'd failed to visualize what it would look like when there were so many of them."

My entire career, until I started work here in the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State, has been spent in cubicles. Probably the most extreme use of cubicles I've ever seen was during my tenure at Gateway Computers in North Sioux City, South Dakota. There was one huge office just packed to the gills with a "cube farm." It was insane to see that many people packed into one room.

In the movie, Office Space, the hero used a drill to dismantle his cubicle. I just love that scene. If you haven't seen thise movie and you are an office place veteran, you owe it to yourself to see this silly movie.

My office may be in a computer network server room but it has four real walls and a door.

Office place nirvana.

The Mysteries of Airfare Pricing

I received the usual junk mail from Expedia.com about upcoming special airfare rates and there was this list:

From State College (SCE) to:
Atlanta (ATL) - $336.00
Boston (BOS) - $354.00
Denver (DEN) - $424.00
Atlantic City (ACY) - $680.00

My guess as to why flying to Atlantic City, which probably isn't more than 40 minutes by air, is so expensive may be because it's a direct flight. Or, they might do something inane like make you fly to Harrisburg, Pittsburgh or Philadelphia then hop on a connecting flight to Atlantic City. Which wouldn't surprise me.

I'm using frequent flyer miles for my next trip to St. Louis. Can't fly out of State College, need to drive to Pittsburgh, there's only two possible flights and they go to Atlanta, GA first before connecting to St. Louis.

When will airline companies get more consumer-friendly?

White Tea

Wen-Yi sent me some Ten Ren white tea to help keep me healthy. I've never had white tea before. Imagine green tea without the "grassy" taste but with all the healthy benefits. After an initial taste that told me this was really good stuff, I added a little bit of lemon juice and really love it.

On the other hand, I tried sugar-free Red Bull this morning. I don't drink coffee and I've sworn off regular soda because of all the sugar so maybe this would be the kick I need some mornings. Nada. The taste is one that is truly acquired. I'd much rather drink Coca Cola's Vault Zero or sugar-free Mountain Dew MDX. I really like the taste of Vault Zero. There's even a website devoted to Vault fans called Vaultkicks.org.

Obviously, I should, and will, choose white tea over soda.

Get BSG Free

You can get a free episode of Battlestar Galactica from the iTunes Music Store when you purchase the March 6 issue of TV Guide. The episode can be viewed either on your computer or iPod (the one that shows video).

I am normally not a huge science fiction fan but BSG is fantastic and, in the words of one reader at The Unofficial Apple Weblog, makes "Star Trek look like Sesame Street."

Another reader hit the nail on the head with this comment about the show:

Battlestar Galactica is one of the best shows on television. If you're staying away from it, because you are old enough to remember the campy 70's version, or because sci-fi is for kids, you are missing out! It's one of the best written shows I've seen since The West Wing!

It's more of a character driven drama, than a sci-fi show. It has more in common with Law and Order or ER, than Star Trek. Star Trek was a space opera. Law and Order is a Drama in a police setting. ER is a Drama in a hospital setting. Battlestar is just another Drama, but on a military space vessel, about real people dealing with survival.

It's got great actors like Edward James Olmos, and Mary McDonnel, and an amazingly talented young supporting cast.

I concur. It is set to be recorded automatically for me every Friday night on the SciFi Channel at 10pm.

Speaking of which, I need to ensure my DVR is set to record The Sopranos when it returns March 12, this Sunday, at 9pm. Welcome back Tony, nice to see ya!

Theatre Or DVD, That Is The Question

During the Oscars ceremony last night, the president of the Academy of Arts and Sciences went out on stage to talk about why the movie theatre is a better venue for watching a movie than at home on the DVD player.

Sure, that may be true at some top tier theatres across the country but don't tell me that if you haven't watched a movie in either of the two Carmike Cinemas here in State College, PA. The seats are worn out and uncomfortable, the heat is jacked-up, the floors are messy, the screens have tears and are very worn out as well as too small and the sound systems stink.

Then there's the people who are in the theatre. Some don't turn their cell phones off, talk during the movie or kick the back of my seat. Getting out of your seat to go to the bathroom can be a chore if the entire row is filled.

Additionally, tickets and concessions are overpriced and the popcorn is stale.

After seeing all three Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies, my biggest complaint is the lack of an intermission. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was close to four hours long, which really tested the patience of my bladder. Maybe I should show my discontent with this by bringing a big cup, filling it up during the movie and leave it at the manager's desk with a note thanking him for making us endure a four hour movie without intermission.

You don't have to spend a lot of money to set up your own home theatre. The reward is ability to have an intermission, watching with your friends, great sound, good climate control, healthy and fresh concessions. Best of all, if you have a family, things are cheaper. Not only that, if you have a nice widescreen TV, the video quality can be better.

Here's another plus for a home theatre most people don't think about. If you are hard of hearing or deaf, the DVD usually has closed-captioning. I've only seen one movie, ever, at a theatre, offer closed captioning for the deaf or hard of hearing and that was only at the 2pm showing.

The idea of a simultaneous theatrical and DVD release of a movie is a good one. I don't think theatre sales will suffer because for some movies, like Dances With Wolves or the Lord of the Rings trilogy, viewing on the big screen is best. Scary Movie 3 can be relegated to the DVD rental or viewing via one of the premium cable movie channels unless you want to just get out of the house.

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The Problem With Headlines

CNN.com offered this as a headline for a top news story today:

Croat Serb leader commits suicide

This is another one I found at Newsvine.com:

Former Serb Rebel Leader Commits Suicide

While the second headline is a little bit more accurate both show the problem of headlines for news stories. Because of lettering constraints (usually in the traditional print medium), headlines may not be able to tell the proper story. Maybe the headline should have read as, "Convicted Balkan War Criminal Commits Suicide."

Incidentally, it was Foxnews.com that offered the best history of that scumbag's man's role in the horrible war in the Balkans.

Airport Security. It Works

When I recently flew to St. Louis, I made sure not to take my Swiss Army Knife and nail clippers, even though the Transportation Safty Administration has said such items can be packed in checked-in luggage. I just wanted to play it safe and would be unhappy if my Swiss Army Knife was confiscated.

I read the following news story and have lots of questions:

A 30-year-old Madisonville man was arrested at Louis Armstrong International Airport after security screeners found five knives, 44 rounds of ammunition and 8 grams of crystal methamphetamine in his baggage.
Screeners on Concourse B said they found the knives, bullets for a 9 mm and drugs in the lining of a bag belonging to Louis Bayhi III, along with several lighters, a can of lighter fluid and a "glass smoking device."
Jefferson Parish sheriff's deputies said Bayhi was taken into custody Friday night and questioned but did not make any statement.
Deputies booked him at the East Bank Lockup in Metairie with possession of methamphetamine.

So many questions. Did he think he would honestly get the stuff through customs? Where was the pistol? All this just to celebrate Mardi Gras?

Oy!

Blogging The Olympics

I watched less of the Winter Olympics than I thought I would. Probably because there weren't enough stories about the venues themselves. Fortunately, some folks who are over there for the events have been blogging away and providing great info on Torino, Turin and Italian culture.

One blog is run by a NBC Sports crewmember, Little Lost Robot. I love his stories about venturing into the marketplace, behind the scenes stuff with the NBC crew and a great video of his driver.

When I visit Italy, I hope to head up to Torino.

Cold And Flu Supplies

I feel so guilty that during the past three weeks, I have gone through so much "facial tissue."

I say it that way because I use Puffs instead of Kleenex. The type of tissue you use can really make or break your comfort level while enduring a cold, fever or flu.

While I was in St. Louis two weeks ago, I had to use the tissues provided by the hotel which eventually irritated my nose. Wen-Yi gave me a packet of tissues to use and those were much better. The packaging said Kimberly-Clark Taiwan and the rest of the text is in Chinese script.

As mentioned last week, I've found that I really like the new Tylenol Cold & Flu Severe and Tylenol Cough & Sore Throat medicine. Both are in liquid form and offer an unusual almost instantaneous cooling effect in the sinuses. 

In the past, I've used Alka Seltzer Plus Cold, orange flavor, but the Tylenol stuff seems more heavy duty.

I need to restock on Puffs very soon. I hate killing trees to help me sneeze.

Hmmm...that rhymes.

Blogger Widgets!

Google showed support for the Mac by posting some new widgets. One for sending quick posts to your blog, another to read email and yet another to view your Google search history.

Get the widgets here:

http://www.google.com/macwidgets/

Freedom of Speech Will Not Be Stopped

The Danish cartoons Muslim extremists are protesting against can be found here:

Outsidethebeltway.com

michellemalkin.com

Both of these sites said they were victims of Denial of Service attacks to their websites because they continue to keep the cartoons posted at their websites. While that's a denial of Freedom Of Speech, I certainly wish that was the only thing the Islamic protesters were doing. At least people wouldn't be losing their lives in a DOS attack.

WInter Olympics Torino 2006 Opening Ceremonies

I watched most of the opening ceremonies for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino Italy last night.

My point of reference for the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies is the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. Many people consider that to be the best Winter Olympics to date. The opening ceremony celebrated the history and folklore of Norway in a very imaginative way.

Here are some of my observations:

- As a guy, all the stuff with fire was pretty cool but I still don't understand what it had to with the Games or Torino Italy.

- Same goes for the Ferrari spinning around on the ice. Nice car but yaaawwwwwnnnn...

- NBC News anchor Brian Williams helped with announcing while the atheletes marched into the stadium. Instead of focussing on the atheletes or Olympic trivia, Williams noted the Muslim cartoon issue when the Danes walked out, China's human rights history and other political tidbits. It's a freakin' sports event. The Cold War is over and hey, let's focus on the athletes. TVSquad.com had the same opinion. Time to flip over to Battlestar Galactica.

- Oh hey, Alberto Tomba ran in with the torch. Finally, something related to Italy! Hopefully he wasn't partying the night before.

- Yoko Freakin' Ono? Uh, She's not Italian and she doesn't have anything to do with the Olympics and yet there she was, talking about world peace and John Lennon. Good thing I was chatting on the phone with my friend, Wen-Yi, at the time. Couldn't figure out who it was that then sang Lennon's "Imagine." I was too busy enjoying a nice conversation with Wen-Yi.

- The dancers climbing onto a wall and forming a huge dove was pretty cool.

- I loved the fireworks.

I watched from 8pm to 10pm but then I had to decide between watching the ceremonies or flipping over to the SciFi Channel to watch Battlestar Galactica. After hearing Brian Williams talk about current world events rather than Olympic history I focussed more on BSG.

As compared to the Lillehammer Games, I'd score these opening ceremonies as a C-. Hopefully the sports events provide the magic the opening ceremonies didn't.

Blogging The Commute

Saw this at TUAW.com this morning. Some guy has a video blog of his daily commute between his home in San Francisco and Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, in the morning and in the evening.

If you look closely at when he leaves work in the evening, you can see, as he drives on Mariani to turn onto de Anza Blvd, a building across the street with slanted concrete in front of the windows. That's the building I was in while working on Apple's eWorld project. My apartment was a few blocks behind that, on Stelling Road.

A side note, that building, now owned by someone else, was the first business building for Apple and was known as Mariani 1. The original Mac OS X project, Copeland, was on the second floor.

MacGyver Returns

Ever since the clever Mastercard commercial featuring Richard Dean Anderson reprising his MacGyver role was released during Super Bowl XL has been talked about quite a bit, especially on the internet.

If you aren't familiar with the show, MacGyver was this pretty darn resourceful guy who could do things like make a laser out of gum wrapper, a pin and his ever present Swiss Army Knife. When someone adapts and improvises things using various odd parts, that person is said to have "MacGyver'ed that."

Wikipedia.org has a great list of all the things MacGyver made on the show. This is one of the many reasons why I like Wikipedia.

By the way, all but one link in this post goes to a Wikipedia.org page. It's that cool a website.

The "Peaceful" Riots

The riotous protests by Muslims to the published cartoons featuring the image of Mohammend continues.

Michelle Malkin is all over this and includes a transcript from a Danish television interview of Alan Dershowitz. Like her, I don't always agree wth Dershowitz but he is on the money with his comments on the whole debacle.

The Iranian prime minister is calling on people to rename Danish pastries as Mohammed pastries. Go for it. I'd rather they did that than burn buildings or kill people.

It may not be PC to say this but man oh man, some people need to learn to relax.

Retro TV

Hill Street Blues has finally made it to DVD with the release of the first of six seasons last week.

So far, I've watched the first four episodes. Hill Street Blues was probably one of the finest television series ever and still holds up today. The only parts that look dated are the hairstyles (big 80s hairdos), eyeglasses (again, big was in) and the cars. The acting was brilliant and the scripts were superb.

I also bought the first season of The Rat Patrol. This series was only on TV for two years, 1966 through 1968. I watched it during 4th and 5th grade, while our family lived in Tempe, Arizona.

Also while living in Arizona, I would sneak out of my bedroom around 10 pm at night and watch reruns of The Wild, Wild West with Dad. The first season of that show will be released on DVD in June.

The final two seasons of M*A*S*H will be released on DVD this year (May and probably December).

With all these releases of old TV shows, it's no surprise that this segment of the DVD market is the most successful. Nostalgia always sells.

In my humble opinion, these are the best shows that have been on American TV:

M*A*S*H
Hill Street Blues
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Seinfeld
The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Pickles for Valentine's Day?

Slashfood.com was pushing pickles as a very romantic gift for Valentine's Day. Be it Pickle of the Month or a four month subscription to receive all of the flavors in Van Holten's Pickle-in-a-pouch.

Seems odd? Well, the writer of the story confessed to giving his sweetheart a jar of rollmops for Valentine's Day. Yeah, nothing says hot romance like a jar of herrings.

Observations From Super Bowl XL

Seattle has the "12th Man"? Uh, no, Texas A&M does, see ya in court, Slick.

Best ads were probably Mastercard's "A Narrow Escape" (featuring Richard Dean Anderson reprising his "MacGyver" role), Hummer's "Jennifer Loves the Robot," Budweiser's "Clydesdale American Dream," FedEx's "Stick," and Aleve's clever Leonard Nimoy ad.

Adelphia earned major bonus points for adding ABC HD to their lineup the Friday before the game. Pennsylvania, Steelers, Super Bowl, people wanting more HD channels on Adelphia, pretty much something that had to be done and by 5pm Friday February 3, it was a done deal. By the way, I watched the second half on ABC HD (my parents don't have HD) and it was friggin' nice.

As one sports website said, the Seahawks had enough good moments but not enough of them.

The problem with the Seattle Seahawks team colors is that the dark blue is nothing compared to the very noticeable Steelers yellow. The yellow Terrible Towels versus that odd muted yellow-green tinsel thang the Seahawks fans waved. The Steelers fans were far more noticeable.

Aretha Franklin was doing a duet with Aaron Neville for the National Anthem with Dr. John on piano? Very strange pairing but wow, Aretha certainly gives an incredibly emotional performance.

I missed the Rolling Stones halftime performance. But hey, with forty years of concert performances, I'm sure Mick, Keith, Charlie and Bill have the whole thing down and it was excellent. Still, to see a 63 year-old strutting around the stage like some teen sex symbol was odd.

Roethlisberger did score that touchdown in the first half. The football did touch the end zone. The ball briefly went onto the line before Ben pulled the ball toward his chest to prevent a fumble.

That play that had Randle El throwing the ball for a touchdown was probably the play of the game. It's one of those razzle-dazzle plays that rarely works but Randle El is a former quarterback and was able to beautifully pull the play together. I loved how Cowher and company gambled in this game to prove the old Bear Bryant saying, "Make things happen."

I thought Jerome Bettes would do something symbolic for his retirement announcement but when you are standing on a podium with so many millions of people watching and holding that trophy, that's enough. Bettes is a class act. Good luck on your future!

HMS Daring: iPod Enabled

Oh, so your new Honda Accord (as of 2005) or BMW allows you to connect an iPod to the stereo system? Bah! The British Navy has you beat.

The newly launched HMS Daring, is boasted to be amongst the fleet's deadliest ships:

Among the battery of state-of-the-art equipment is a new Principal Anti-Air Missile System, which can trace and destroy hostile objects as small a cricket ball travelling at three times the speed of sound. Its range is effective over a radius of several hundred miles.

Her PAAMS air defence missiles are the size of a public phone boxes, weigh
two thirds as much as a small car and from launch accelerate to a speed twice
that of Concorde in under 10 seconds.

Ah, but what about creature comforts for the crew?

HMS Daring's 230-strong crew should be happy too. She and her sisters will be the first "gender-neutral" warships to enter Royal Navy service, and the Hotel Facilities, as the living quarters are known, are the most opulent ever fitted in a British warship. Mess decks are replaced by individual cabins, each with their own I-pod [sic] charging points, CD player, internet access, five channel recreational audio and larger berths.

As TUAW.com put it, "I can almost hear the cries now, 'Damn the torpedoes, men, it's new music Tuesday!'"

Lord Nelson never had it so good.


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