Brian A. Thomas .com

Cup of Brown Joy by Elemental, a pretty cool video actually.

Tags: Cup Of Brown Joy, Elemental, Music Video

One of the funnier videos in a while

Tags: Clinton, Humor, obama, Politics, star-wars, YouTube

I have been an opponent of putting a windfall tax on oil companies, particularly in light of the fact that on profit per dollar basis, drug companies and banks make more than twice the profits of oil companies. However, in light of the current economic crisis, and the fact that they have risen diesel so much right before a bunch of new diesel cars come out, I have rethought my stance and think that we should put a windfall tax on them. This doesn’t mean I don’t think we shouldn’t put a windfall tax on the drug companies and banks as well, we should, but each of the three need to be separate bills. All three industries are taking advantage of average Americans, but the oil companies are the ones who probably need the biggest windfall tax of the three.
With gas at $3.60/gallon, diesel should be $3.71 (traditionally diesel has commanded a 2 to 3% premium in the United States over gas, though it is cheaper in most other countries), even if we say the new ultra low sulfur diesel costs a bit more to make then the old diesel (still cheaper than gas), we’ll allow it to be $3.78. Right now, with gas at $3.60, diesel is $4.35, a bit more than a 20% premium, not quite enough to offset diesel’s overall efficiency over gas, but almost. Clearly they are worried about the car companies coming out with diesel cars and are trying to scare average American’s away from diesel. After all, if people realized they can get better gas millage from a diesel than a hybrid, and have a lower CO₂ emissions with that… then that spells thin days for the oil industry, especially since bio-diesel can be made so effectively and without sacrificing food crop space the way Ethanol traditionally does, and as a bonus, doesn’t need as much oil as Ethanol does.
Anyhow it isn’t just the diesel issue, it is the fact that gas prices are hurting the average American, and the oil companies, their investors and boards are making a killing by raping American’s wallets.

Tags: banks, Diesel, diesel prices, drug companies, gas, gas prices, oil, oil companies, profit, windfall tax

Ari had an eye doctor appointment and it turns out he is far sighted.
The school was the first to catch that he might need glasses. The doctors did some testing, wasn’t sure, so they dilated his eyes, retested and confirmed that he is far sighted. He need glasses while at school, reading, doing art projects or any other up close detail work. If he’s just playing, he can go without them.

Tags: Ari, Glasses

I don’t wear watches, but if I were to wear one this would do the trick (click for a bigger image):

The time? 8:17. It gets its power via your body’s motion.
A cool ad for it:

Urwerk’s UR-202.

Price? Only $175,000…

Tags: UR-202, Urwerk, Watch

The next episode of the best show on TV is out.

I’ll avoid spoilers, but um… darn…

Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Hulu, The Ties that Bind

Ari made this pillow in school a while ago. He did all the sewing (they were impressed he spent the time to focus on it enough to complete the project, that isn’t too common at his age yet). He first sewed the designs, then he sewed the two sides together, stuffed it, and finished sewing it together. Clicking the photo will take you to the Flickr version…

Tags: Ari, pillow, sewing

It’s 4/20, the traditional day that those who smoke marijuana celebrate.
And while I may not do drugs myself, it is the perfect occasion to rail against America’s unjust and hypocritical war on drugs.
Actually, skip the rail, as I have already covered my thoughts and opinions on this stupid drug war of ours a ton of times.
Good Video Series on Medical Marijuana
Say Yes to Ohio Issue 1 This November… out of date since that was back in 2006 and the people of Ohio were idiots and voted no, even though it would have saved Ohio tax payers tons by using treatment programs rather than jail time for non-violent drug offenders… treatment programs that are proven to be more effective than jail… treatment programs that treat a ton of users for the price of sending one person to jail.
More Proof Congress is Out of Touch with Reality, not related too much to the drug war, but I touch on it some in that post. But it gets to the racial nature of the drug war… remember, drugs were made illegal because they (Congress) warned that black people couldn’t be trusted with them, that they couldn’t handle them the way white people do, and that they would rape white women if they had access to the drugs…
Cincinnati to Free Violent People to Make Room for People with Pot. Perhaps one of my biggest problems with the drug war is that we jail non-violent drug offenders, and to make room for them we let rapists, child molesters and other violent shit of the world go to make room for somebody who had a joint. Note, I am not saying not to jail violent drug offenders, but we shouldn’t jail non-violent drug offenders. We could treat a ton of drug users for the price of sending just one of those users to jail, which is the default answer (which Ohio Issue 1 above was meant to solve).
The Touch, the Feel of Pesticides in Our Lives more of an industrial hemp argument, but hemp is illegal due to the perception that it is the same thing as marijuana and would be used the same.
I thought for sure I had far more, but that is all I found… So I’ll provide a few more links
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). Cops, judges and the like who offer a great many reasons to end the war on drugs.
NORML, the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws. Read their links.
Wikipedia’s article on the War on Drugs. Fairly unbiased, but is a bit critical.
Traffic, a great movie about the costs of the drug war on families.

I could go on with more arguments and more links, but I’ll leave it well enough alone.

Tags: 4/20, marijuana, war on drugs

A video of an invention Ari made:

Tags: Ari

The next episode of Battlestar Galactica, the best show on TV is online (with limited commercial interruptions…)
I haven’t seen it yet but hope to today with Sara after she’s up…

Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Hulu, Six of One

I forgot to say, the best show on TV is back! Battlestar Galactica returns for its fourth season.
Here is the full episode.

A very good episode I thought.

Tags: Battlestar Galactica, He That Believeth in Me, Hulu

While responding to a comment in my Eggs are not Dairy post, I learned that the Food Pyramid, which came along after I left school, so I never really learned it, has itself been replaced by MyPyramid, which addresses several of the shortcomings of the old Food Pyramid.
For me, MyPryamid, based on a 2200 calorie diet is (each day):

• Grains: 7 oz, half being whole
• Vegetables: 3 cups (gag), specificly during the week should break down thus:
  • Dark Green Vegetables: 3 cups
  • Orange Vegetables: 2 cups
  • Dry Beans & Peas: 3 cups
  • Starchy Vegetables: 6 cups
  • Other Vegetables: 7 cups
• Fruits: 2 cups, go easy on fruit juices
• Milk: 3 cups obviously low fat
• Meat & Beans: 6 oz

Looks like the dairy industry still has too much pull over the MyPyramid… Anyhow, only 6 oz of meat… that’s not even a cheeseburger probably…

Tags: Basic Four Food Groups, Eggs are not dairy, Food Pyramid, MyPyramid, USDA

Got to love… “The pitch! And that happened. Apparently it was an S according to the board…” and many other great moments:

To be fair, the English commentator is doing a direct translation of the Japanese commentator… of course with how popular Baseball is there, I have to wonder how the Japanese commentator got his job. It appears that it was a singer/comedian, named John Mayer making fun of a Japanese broadcast, not doing a direct translation. The whole thing would be like me trying to do commentating for a Cricket match or something.

Tags: Baseball, commentator, Humor, Japan

No, not “Scooter” Libby, but scooters as in a type of motorcycle. I remember twenty years or so ago, thinking that getting a scooter would be a cool alternative to driving a car all the time. You would save on gas, insurance and all that. I never got one obviously.
Now they are coming back in vogue as gas prices sore. There is a nice article over at MSNBC title “Is a Motor Scooter in Your Future?” It covers lots of the pros and cons of switching to a motor scooter. I personally wouldn’t get rid of the car, but it may be a nice alternative to the daily commute when the weather permits. I personally wouldn’t feel safe taking Ari on it, but short shopping trips, or going to pickup McDonald’s or pizza might be worthwhile if I went myself.
Continue Reading »

Tags: motor scooter, Piaggio MP3, scooter

Yet Another Music Video of the Moment.
Blood of Eden by Peter Gabriel, accompanied by Sinead O’Connor:

Tags: Blood Of Eden, Peter Gabriel, Sinead O'Connor

From the Department of Misunderstood Lyrics that You Didn’t Know Were Misunderstood comes a contestant hopeful on Bulgaria’s, Music Idol (think Pop Idol or American Idol in Bulgaria) singing Mariah Carey’s “Without You”, but she has a curious misunderstanding of the lyrics. Here is her tryout (complete with subtitles):

After that she was invited back to sing it again, where she seems to have gotten a better understanding of the lyrics, but still sings “Ken Lee” at the critical moment… and a few other fun moments:

Valentina Hasan, the singer above, came from the second season, but just because it is cool, here is the winner of the first season, Nevena, singing a traditional Bulgarian folk song, Izlel e delio haidutin:

FYI: The bagpipe is a Kaba Bagpipe, and the song itself, not Nevena’s rendtion, is on the Voyager 1 spacecraft.

Tags: Bulgaria, Izlel e delio haidutin, Ken Lee, Mariah Carey, Music Idol, Nevena, Valentina Hasan, Without you

You may see Google AdSense ads appear in the menu with the “Support This Site” section. I am not seeing them yet on my computer, but I think my PC blocks them, so I can’t confirm if they will be there or not…
EDIT: They are there and my computer was blocking us from seeing them, so click away and help us pay the fees for our sites, and remember to buy your books, movies and music at Amazon, which also helps us (if you go via one of our links anyhow, just going there and buying doesn’t help).

Tags: AdSense, Amazon, Google

This one works for me, as does the full list, though I don’t know enough about Hitchhiker’s Guide to comment on that one and not sure which Galatica it is talking about here. I probably would fit more on Babylon 5 than Moya, but both would be good. The way the questions were going I thought it was going to be XFiles, but that ended up down there a ways.

Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in with? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Moya (Farscape) You are surrounded by muppets. But that is okay because they are your friends and have shown many times that they can be trusted. Now if only you could stop being bothered about wormholes. Moya (Farscape) 81% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 75% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 63% Heart of Gold (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) 63% Serenity (Firefly) 63% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 56% SG-1 (Stargate) 56% FBI’s X-Files Division (The X-Files) 50% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 44% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 44% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 31% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 31% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 25%

Tags: Farscape, quiz, Sci-fi

I saw a car transport truck carrying two Smarts, so the Smarts must be officially here. It looks like the Columbus dealer opened on the 20th of February, not sure about the dealer in the Cleveland area. These two were headed South, so my guess is they were heading to Columbus, unless Smarts enter the US from Canada then they could be going anywhere.

Tags: Smart

I was thinking of using Joomla! for another website that I was thinking of building, since that website wouldn’t be a full blog. Joomla! is more of a CMS, where WordPress is focused more on blogs, but works okay as a CMS. Joomla! can do blogs well enough however, and overall is more versatile than WordPress, at least as WordPress comes by default, and in its present state.
The problem I came to find is that there seems to be a lack of free high quality themes/templates for Joomla!, while there are lots of great quality themes for WordPress that are free. Unfortunately, premium themes are creeping into the WordPress community, but there are plenty of good theme authors who keep their themes free.
It seems wrong to me to charge for a theme, that is made for free software. Now, I have no problem charging for customization of said theme, or for official support for the theme. Of course if you are using your WordPress/Joomla! site to make a living, then paying for a theme is viable; however, for the vast majority, of at least WordPress users, who are using the s.oftware to run a blog or website that may not be profit oriented, paying for a theme, then discovering it doesn’t work for you isn’t good. This is perhaps why the higher quality Joomla! themes cost something, as Joomla! being a full CMS, is more likely to be used to make a for profit website than WordPress, though there are plenty of for profit sites using WordPress as well. Ads on the site, in of themselves doesn’t make it for profit, one could have have ads just to help pay for the site, such as this one, and if there ever is any extra, then all the better, but the site itself isn’t run to make money (in the case of this site, it is just to keep friends and family informed of what is going on in our lives, and for random thoughts from myself, such as this post since most of my friends and family probably wouldn’t care).
There is a trend to clubs, where you can get all the themes from the club for a “low” monthly/yearly fee, and this seems to be where most of themes are heading in both communities. Also, I only looked for a short while for quality free themes for Joomla! and there may be more high quality themes than I saw, but most of the ones I saw were blog oriented, and if blogging is all you want to do, than WordPress is probably a better platform anyhow. In the end, for me and my purposes, WordPress is still a better fit, not only for this blog, but for most of the other sites I have had in mind.

Tags: blog, cms, Joomla, themes, WordPress