As mentioned, I’m now fifty; about the only major change from two days ago is that I am no longer in a demographic where TV executives care what I think.

But yesterday was certainly an interesting day. It started out with a birthday kiss from my seven-year-old (how did she know that was exactly what I wanted?), and other gifts - Good Night and Good Luck (fortuitously released the day before) and the PlayStation2-based 24 - The Game. It should be noted there are two problems with this: 1) I don’t yet own a PlayStation, and 2) there’s no bloody way in hades I’ll ever be able to operate a controller with a bazillion buttons, all of which appear to control something. My idea of a video game is Pong. (Or Missile Command, which in my misspent youth I became quite expert at playing. For those of you born well after this game was gathering dust in warehouses, it had this really big trackball…)

The rest of the day was interesting, too; after seeing the Katester off to school, my wife took me out for breakfast to the local grocery store, where she ponied up for a coffee and two donuts (it was my birthday anniversary, after all). Lunch was even better; she took me out to the local elementary school which just happens to have the cutest little redhead in a grade 2 class…while we “enjoyed” nacho dippers, we were entertained by the “Katie and Ashleigh Show,” and I was honored to sit next to the Burpmeister, who serenaded me throughout lunch.

I am forced on pain of death to note here that even though Annie had late office hours, she still supplied a dinner fit for an old man, by bringing home takeout from our favorite Italian restaurant, Al Dente; by the end of that meal, I could feel the cholesterol coursing through my veins bringing her one step closer to that insurance policy…but darn, it was good…

Of course, today I’m “working off” the day by trying to catch up on all the things I let go while sitting around and reading a book (First Man by James R. Hansen, the biography of one of my personal heroes, Professor Neil A. Armstrong). As always, while I enjoy the day away from keyboards, email, and programming, I’m almost always grateful to get back to it.

Now if I can just get the BobEdwards.Info calendar of previous guests filled in for the last few days, and the OTR Digest issues filed and away, and…and…hum, there seems to be a lot I need to catch up on…

Birthdays have long ago lost their appeal…ever since my twenty-fifth, when a friend mentioned I was a “quarter-century old” and I went into one of the earliest mid-life crises ever recorded, I’ve been underwhelmed by them. I admit, the Ides of March is the only day of the year I refuse to touch a computer (which means this posting is being written the day before, and posted today by the computer - think of it as the digital equivalent of “tape delay”), along with the addition of some recent conflicts (is my cell phone a computer? the remote control?). But the truth is, my daughter gets more of a kick out of the day than I do…she makes me a card, she teases me when I shave off my beard, there’s always a stuffie ready for me…you get the idea.

But me, I’m a little weary of them. In the first place, they “celebrate” another year closer to death; especially this one, where I pass an arbitrary decade marker, and leave my forties behind forever. Understand, I’m not depressed about it (I had my crisis twenty-five years ago, and no, a “half-century” doesn’t seem to have the same crushing weight half that did so long ago), if anything, I’m a little bored, since I’ve been thinking of myself as being fifty for months now. I’m also a little sad that this year the Ides falls on a Wednesday, since Market isn’t open and I really enjoy an excuse to walk downtown on this day each year (ok, so I cheated and went down there yesterday when market was open…figures that Take Five, the coffee shop, had a broken espresso machine…).

But all in all, this day is just another in the string of ever-shortening days that connected together form my life. “Milestones” like this one are just arbitrary signposts we use to chart out that time, something that makes life seem a little less…ordinary. Heck, I go out of my way to make the day “special” each year regardless of the anniversary number by avoiding computers for the twenty-four hour period…it is literally the only day of the year I am not typing something on one of the little beasts. But even that is artificial and contrived.

Still, it should be something a little more than any other day…after all, it does mark my 18,263-rd day as a breathing human being (well, a little after eleven o’clock PM will start that day, anyway), and after watching how quickly my daughter has gone from zero to almost eight, each one of those days becomes a little more precious to me, even as memories. And it isn’t like I’m going anywhere any time soon, that metaphysical bus that can hit me any time I step off the curb notwithstanding…with a little luck I should have another 20-30 years to go (although if the rapidity of the passing days continues, it’ll seem like next week), and so should have time to accomplish more things than I have already (someone once told me the mark of a good life is not ever being satisfied with what we’ve managed to do with it). So as I type this the day before, I’m really trying to engage myself into making the Ides of March this year special, not only as one out of three-hundred-and-sixty-five, but a special one out of over eighteen-thousand.

But you know…the more I push, the more I realize something. It’s just another day out of whatever number of days fate allots to me. Maybe instead of trying to make today special just because my driver’s license says I’m fifty, I should begin today to make every day special.

After all, I’ve got a lot fewer of them to go than I did sitting on that wall twenty-five years ago when a friend told me I was a quarter-century old and I became, for a few weeks anyway, the old man I can’t bring myself to be today…

From the Philadelphia Inquirer: Pennsylvania seizes paper’s computer hard disks

Looks like this local story is going to grow quickly into a national one, pitting the state’s desire to solve an alleged felony (computer hacking) against the news media’s fear that taking the computers circumvents the First Amendment and the state Shield Law.

From USATODAY: Wallace to end role as ‘60 Minutes’ regular contributor

Love him or hate him, you have to admit he’s always provided riviting television…

From the Herald Sun: Irish coffee to get back that old tang.

Thank heavens it will be ok to add sheep dung to coffee in Ireland…

From The Morning Call Online: What is fitting for a criminal?

From the Philadelphia Inquirer: John Grogan | Sentence should end with a story

From the Associated Press: The chronology of the case against Tom Druce

Former State Representative Thomas Druce should be serving 10 years in a maximum-security prision for the killing of Kenneth Cains in his state-leased SUV and his subsequent cover-up, not being released from a country club tomorrow after “serving” only two years.

This morning Annie had office hours, so Katie and I got up early to go downtown to hit Central Market for some seafood and fresh fasnachts (yeah, yeah, I know they are supposed to be enjoyed only on Fat Tuesday). I like parking at a parking lot on the other side of the Codorus Creek whenever going to Market, so I get a little walk in…and on a beautiful morning like this morning, with a cute little red-head by my side, life was pretty good.

On the way up, we crossed Philadelphia Street so we could look at the Friends Meeting House, which is suggested to be the oldest house of worship still in use. I want to take a camaera next week when I head downtown and snap a few photographs of the structure and the surrounding grounds, so I can share it with you. And for those who don’t know about The Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, I urge you to see the Wikipedia article; Friends are probably best known for their absolute pacifism, the belief that all violence is unequivocally wrong.

Anyway, we looked over the building and Katie was reading the plaques around the building, when a very kind woman (who’s name I am embarassed to admit I cannot remember) told her she was going into the building to check for mail, and asked if she would like to see the inside. Katie shyly said she would.
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Note this includes all users who have a provider using Yahoo web-based email, including swbell.net, rocketmail.com, sbcglobal.net, etc., etc. Quite literally hundreds of subscribers were affected by this rejection, and did not receive the last issue.

If you are (or anyone you know is) using any of these providers and not receiving issues of the Digest, I can only suggest you complain loudly to them, and if they do not relent, consider a different provider. Understand there is nothing I can do if they continue to reject our email:

reason: 554 Message type not allowed. UP Email not accepted for policy reasons.

For those who told me I was worrying about the so-called “email tax” for no good reason…well, maybe there’s a darned good reason after all.

UPDATE March 10, 2006: Yahoo doesn’t appear to have rejected this afternoon’s issue, so I don’t know what the heck they’re up to.

From CNN: California court: Peeing in public illegal

Well, thank heavens…

I had to take my daughter to school today, and my goodness, it’s a beautiful day! Temps at 8:30 AM were in the mid 60’s, with a bright, warm sun smiling down.

I need to find an excuse to do some work outside…maybe I’ll even start (ugh) cleaning up the back yard!

From Wired: Build Your Own PVR, Then Trash It

It’s never been easier to assemble a versatile personal video recorder, but the entertainment industry is scheming to make DIY boxes less useful. One reporter builds a homebrew TiVo clone, but then laments the likely loss of future functionality.

Norman Corwin was interviewed for last week’s Weekend America, a show produced by American Public Media for the public radio market. Now I have to be honest with you, I’m not a great fan of this program - I find it simplistic and overly-cutesy…the closest comparason would be a lobotomized All Things Considered which drools on itself while presenting stories. I find Barbara Bogaev to be a lightweight interviewer, and Bill Radke nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is, although I did enjoy his KUOW program Rewind before he left to be a part of this mishmash.

All that said, though, hearing Norman Corwin is worth downloading Hour 2 from the podcast page (scroll down to the “Download” section) and fast-forwarding to 13:57 or so. (I wonder, listening to Corwin’s last comment, if he agrees with me about Ms. Bogaev…na, he’s far too much the gentleman to be so ignoble.)

From USATODAY: Alas, poor Edgar, we sort of knew him

Someone said it best a few years ago; 24 aint a show for wussies…

From CNN: Runaway bride dolls disappear as quickly as she did

Like the woman who inspired their creation, Runaway Bride bobblehead dolls disappeared quickly during a sports promotion in her hometown.

From The Detroit Free Press: Teens’ work gets teacher in mess

Yeah, that’s it…blame the teacher for allowing students to expose what other students were doing at MySpace.com. We wouldn’t actually want to do anything about the real problem, now would we?

Honest to my grandma, I am sick to death of bright, imaginative, and clearly inspiring teachers being beaten down by pea-brained administrators who wouldn’t know how to reach a student if their life depended on it. Education Administrators: Go push some papers and get the hell out of the way of teachers like Devon Fralick who have inspired their students to think greater thoughts and dream larger than you could possibly imagine. Just because you found yourself incapable of teaching (face it, that’s why you went into administration in the first place, isn’t it?) doesn’t mean the rest of the world should follow you into mediocrity.

A week ago or so, I asked whether there would be any interest in an OTR-Cast hosted here. I’ve decided against it, for a number of reasons.

1) Not a lot of interest. There were publicly two comments, and a bunch made privately, but I have to admit I’m not up for doing this for only 20 people or so.

2) Leeches. I’ve been giving some considerable thought to what I could post here, and I wanted to post shows not widely available. This leaves me open to the same nonsense I used to have to deal with back when I posted shows to the The Nostalgia Pages (you know, back before the word “podcast” was invented and promoted) - leeches who sell MP3 files they never encoded at a profit. Routinely, when I’d post something not in general circulation, it would only take a day or three for the shows to be posted on certain auction sites as “RARE!” “NEW!” and the like. Damnitall, I love this hobby, but I’m not in the mood to make money for the leeches who download shows freely given and feather their own nests with ‘em, giving nothing back to the hobby.
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From CNET: Congress raises broadcast flag for audio

From Ars Technica: New radio Broadcast Flag legislation seeks to control innovation, eliminate fair use

It is time for all of us to contact our Senators and Representatives and tell them what a terrible idea this nonsense is. As I’ve harped in this space before, the industry doesn’t give a rat’s tail about promoting new technologies, and is only interested in making money by selling you the same thing over and over and over and…

From CNN: Dirty politics this ain’t: Senator saves rival’s life

You can’t write this stuff; Maryland State Sen. John Giannetti saves the life of his primary opponent, Jim Rosapepe.

From BBC NEWS: Deal done on .com domain future

Great…the slime at Verisign keep their stranglehold on the .com top-level domain, and can raise prices whenever they choose. Certainly the US Department of Commerce will rubber-stamp this lousy deal, but it would be really nice to see them show a little backbone and reject it as anti-competitive.

From BBC NEWS: A bit of BitTorrent bother

“Newsnight’s resident ubergeek,” Adam Livingstone, answers complaints about the February 24th show, where it was suggested using Bittorrent to download copyrighted material is theft. This public response is amazingly accurate; for example, “First though, an apology. File sharing is not theft. It has never been theft. Anyone who says it is theft is wrong and has unthinkingly absorbed too many Recording Industry Association of America press releases.” And, “If copyright infringement was theft then I’d be in jail every time I accidentally used football pix on Newsnight without putting ‘Pictures from Sky Sport’ in the top left corner of the screen. And I’m not.”