Movies that "welsh out"

Hollywood has an unfortunate tendency to choose a happy ending over a good ending. On the few occasions when the good ending wins out, the film tends to be a box-office disappointment (often for other reasons; think of The Break Up, which was inexplicably advertised as a romantic comedy, and is still listed as such by Amazon) and/or eventually released with an alternate "happier" ending (consider Butterfly Effect , in which the original ending concluded the movie perfectly, but only an alternate "happier" ending has been shown on television).

 

While happy endings can make us feel good for a moment, it is tragedies that are remembered as great. Compare two of Shakespeare's best-known romances: A Midsummer Night's Dream with Romeo and Juliet . Compare Oedipus Rex or Antigone with a comedy like The Frogs or Lysistrata. Compare the end of The Lord of the Rings with the end of the Harry Potter series (more characters die in Harry Potter -- in fact, to my recollection, only a handful of characters die in LOTR -- but Harry Potter ends on a much happier note than the melancholy last chapters of LOTR). Compare Cool Hand Luke with The Shawshank Redemption. I am sure there are some people out there who like to have everything tidied up nicely at the end, but for me, movies, stories, and plays like that just seem false. Life isn't like that.

 

I bring this up, having just read Time's review of the new movie of I Am Legend. I Am Legend is a great book by Richard Matheson, and part of what makes it great is Matheson's willingness to consider the unthinkable. The reviewer's comment that "It's funny how filmmakers are drawn to Matheson's subject of post-apocalyptic annihilation, yet feel the need to "fix" the story and welsh out on its conclusions," really struck a chord with me.

 

I will probably see this movie anyway, I will probably enjoy the first hour, and I will probably be disappointed by the end.

 

If you're looking for some good movies that don't "welsh out" at the end, here are 20 that I've enjoyed.

 

Cool Hand Luke, Titus, Fargo, Dancer in the Dark, Moulin Rouge, Unforgiven, The Break Up, Touch of Evil, Dr Strangelove, Terminator 3, A Fistful of Dollars, Casablanca, American Beauty, Falling Down, Fiddler on the Roof, Seven, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Memento, Twelve Monkeys, and Nosferatu (1922).

 

And the "hall of shame", 10 movies that ended the wrong way. Interestingly, the first three are all really the same story (damn you, Pygmalion!). The last two are pretty good up until the very end.

 

Pretty Woman, Grease, My Fair Lady, The Omega Man, Gladiator, You've Got Mail, Waterworld, The Postman, and The Patriot, Mean Girls, and The Lake House.

l4m3

Merriam-Webster Inc. announced yesterday that their Word of the Year for 2007 is w00t.

 

There are so many problems with this it's hard to know where to start.

 

- When this announcement was made, there were still 20 days left in the year, more than 5%. That's like ending a football game with more than three minutes on the clock, or ending a marathon with 1 1/2 miles remaining!

- This decision was made by visitors to the Merriam-Webster website voting. Even if you accept that this decision should be made democratically, rather than by a panel of experts or by a computer algorithm, online voting like this just doesn't give truly representative results; does anyone really think that Ron Paul is going to win in a landslide, as many online polls suggest?

- No one but a n00b would spell it as "w00t." The word is "woot," and replacing the "o"s with"0"s is definitely n00bish. And if they're going with a democratic decision, they should have looked at this.

- Woot is not a new word. Consider that Woot.com was founded in July 2004.

 

Add to this that the folks at Merriam-Webster don't really seem to grok woot, and the only reasonable conclusion is that this announcement is l4m3.

How the mighty have fallen

As a former Ann Arbor resident (and still an area resident) who is not a University of Michigan fan, this debacle of a coaching search is delicious.

 

All season, everyone around Ann Arbor assumed that Les Miles would leave LSU and return to Michigan, the school that chose Lloyd Carr over him in 1995. When he made it clear that he was staying in Louisiana, we heard a lot of sour grapes comments, to the effect that Miles is not really that good of a coach, and that Athletic Director Bill Martin was never really interested in getting him. Then the news was that, from the beginning, Martin's first choice was Rutgers coach Greg Schiano. Everyone around here assumed that if Martin offerred the job, Schiano would surely take it -- what football coach would choose Rutgers over Michigan? Apparently Schiano would.

 

At some point, Michigan fans are going to have to realize that their program is only great in their minds, and only of consequence in the mediocre-at-best Big Ten. For all that they claim more national championships, more wins, etc. than any other program, nearly all of those championships came at a time when football was a very different sport. Michigan has only won one national championship in the last 50 years (1997), and they shared it with Nebraska. From year to year, Michigan is simply not in the top tier of football teams; compare their recent "success" to the real success of Southern California, Ohio State, Florida, and LSU.

 

I couldn't be happier to see Lloyd Carr's last game coming against Urban Meier and Tim Tebow. Carr is going to go out with a humiliating blow-out loss.

"Web users tend to be like sheep."

In response to criticism by MoveOn.org, Facebook spokesperson Paul Janzer wrote that, "Your feedback has made it clear that Beacon can be kind of confusing. To fix this, we are clarifying the way we inform you about a Beacon story before you decide whether or not you'd like to publish it on Facebook."

Janzer added that the site was working to make it clearer which retailers were participating in the program through "visual cues," as well as providing more information in help pages. The post makes no mention of discontinuing the program or bowing to MoveOn's demands for an "opt-in" system, where users specifically approve their participation before their purchases are broadcast to friends' pages.

In fact, the 46,000 users in MoveOn's protest group make up less than 0.1% of the site's user base, points out Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst with Forrest Research. That's far fewer than the hundreds of thousands of users who convinced Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to apologize and disassemble a more public version of the site's News Feed application in September of last year.

It's also less than the 436,000 users who have joined "Apple Students" fan group--a sign, according to Owyang, that Facebook's advertising tactic of associating users with brands will win out despite privacy protests. "When you look at how users actually care about personal information, the majority may be concerned, but are they going to do anything about it? Not likely. Typically Web users tend to be like sheep."
 

Found at Forbes

It's about time

For months, I have been wondering when someone would call out Hillary Clinton's "experience." She has repeated claimed that she is the most experienced candidate for President, and based on most polls, people have bought it. But let's take a look at her actual experience (from her official biography at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, with some additional information from CNN):

 

2001 to present: junior Senator from New York

1993 to 2001: First Lady of the United States

1983 to 1993: First Lady of Arkansas

1979 to 1981: First Lady of Arkansas

1976 to 1992: Attorney at the Rose Law firm (named a partner in 1979)

1975: University of Arkansas Law School faculty

1974: Staff worker assisting the House Judiciary Committee during the investigation of the Nixon administration

 

I, for one, have a hard time accepting that being married to someone makes you experienced at what your spouse does. Executives in the private sector are well aware of this; when was the last time your heard about the spouse of a former CEO taking over? In fact, this is a large part of the reason that so few family businesses survive, and of those that do survive, family members often recede to a more passive ownership role.

 

So it made me very happy to read that Barack Obama is finally calling Hillary out on this issue . "My understanding is she wasn't treasury secretary in the Clinton administration. I don't know exactly what experience she's claiming," Obama told reporters in Iowa.

 

It's about time.

Between a rock and a hard place

I never thought I'd find myself writing these words, but here goes...

 

Pat Buchanan is right.

 

Not about everything, probably not even about most things. But on this one issue, he could hardly be more right.

 

The recent hand-off from Alan Greenspan, the maestro of the Global Economy, to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke may turn out to have been a lateral far behind the line of scrimmage, leaving Bernanke holding the bag for a recession for which he is no more responsible than was the hapless Hoover.

 

Buchanan's point is that the Federal Reserve is now between a rock and a hard place. The softening economy, subprime debt going bad on the books of major banks, the inability collapse of the housing bubble, and the credit crunch, all taken together would normally make rate cuts a no-brainer for Bernanke.

 

But the Fed is responsible not only for the national economy. It is responsible for defending the dollar, which represents the real savings and wealth of the nation. And that dollar has lost more value in seven years than in any similar period in modern history. A euro, worth 83 cents the year Bush was elected, has risen in value to $1.47.

 

To put it another way, the Dow Jones Industrial Average spent most of 2000 around 10,000, and is currently a bit over 13,000. That sounds like a 30% gain, or about 4.3% a year -- not great, but not terrible. But when you account for the weakening dollar, the DJIA has actually lost 27%! Without getting deep into economic and monetary theory, the ideal solution to this would be to raise interest rates and reduce the monetary supply.

 

So Bernanke is faced with a no-win scenario. If he lowers interest rates, the economy is stimulated and people keep their houses, but we may be pushed into 1970s-style stagflation, or even an Argentina-style currency collapse . If he raises rates he fights inflation, but pushes the country into a recession, potentially a very deep one.

 

Personally, I think a recession would be far preferable to currency collapse, but for various reasons of political expediency, it appears that Bernanke is more concerned about avoiding a recession.

OMG! Racists in Ann Arbor! I am like so...

The title screams: Racism lives in Ann Arbor! But a more acurate title might be "Drunkenness lives at U of M!"

 

Late Saturday night, I was walking up to the ATM on Church Street and South University Avenue, when a SUV full of drunk men yelled at me, "Fuck you, Afghanistan bitch!" I kept walking, ignoring this eloquent comment. They targeted me because I was wearing my keffiyeh, a checkered Palestine solidarity scarf, which is not in any way related to Afghanistan. I'm white and Jewish, yet I still experienced anti-Muslim racism.

 

Aside from the absurdity of expecting drunk racists to understand the difference between a keffiyeh and a hijab (well, maybe in Ann Arbor we should expect this), I think it's a bit racist on the author's part to expect people to be able to identify her as Jewish on sight, in the dark, from a moving vehicle. As someone with Jewish ancestors, I find the author's implicit assumption that Jews can be recognized this way to be offensive.

 

Farther in, we get the author's suggestions.

 

Beyond changes on campus, we must establish truth and reconciliation commissions, modeled after South Africa's post-apartheid resolution process - a process that is now being applied across America in communities that are no longer willing to sweep ongoing injustices under the carpet. Without addressing past wrongs, power dynamics will continue to be asymmetric, and the racial hierarchy will remain unchanged.

 

[The author] is an Ann Arbor-raised, Detroit-based emcee and activist.

 

I guess calling herself an "activist" sounds better than saying that she doesn't care about any particular cause, she just enjoys complaining about things and protesting.

 

Don't forget to read the comments, most of them clearly had more thought put into them than did the article.

 

By wearing a keffiyeh, it makes a statement that you sympathize with Palestinian terrorism. The keffiyeh serves no religious function and is ONLY used to make a political statement.

So let me see, you're a white, Jewish, hip-hop "artist" who sympathizes with Palestinian terrorism. Question 1: Where can I get your CD? That should be, um, interesting.

OK, you certainly don't deserve to be shouted at or have stuff thrown at you. I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume your values are confused due to your age and lack of knowledge. But your ignorance makes me sick and your "Jewishness" is clearly out of birth and not based on your values. So don't go holding that out as a shield.

When one of the wealthiest people in the world says taxes should be higher, maybe we should listen.

Warren Buffett, the billionaire CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, is known for speaking directly, sometimes bluntly. "Dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise. Equality of opportunity has been on the decline," Buffett said, as the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on estate tax reform. "A progressive and meaningful estate tax is needed to curb the movement of a democracy toward plutocracy....In a country that prides itself on equality of opportunity, it's becoming anything but that as the gap between the super-rich and the middle class is widening."

 

Buffett earned his billions by understanding people and money. If the free market rewards good ideas, then every American with a net worth of less than $52.4 billion needs to listen closely to what Buffett has to say.

Everyone lies

TV's Dr. Gregory House has several rules for diagnosis. Number one is that "everyone lies." Number two is "I don't ask why patients lie, I just assume they all do."

 

Maybe political pollsters need to adopt a similar approach. In a recent Rasmussen poll, nearly half of respondents said it was very or somewhat important to elect a president with military experience. In the last four presidential elections, voters have chosen candidates with no meaningful military experience, even though in each case the major party opponent did have that experience. Voters chose draft-dodger Bill Clinton over World War II veterans George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole, then chose George W. Bush, who didn't even show up for his National Guard duty, over Vietnam veterans Al Gore (passed up the National Guard to serve as an Army reporter in Vietnam) and John Kerry (Bronze Star, Silver Star, and three Purple Hearts). Kerry''s service was actually mocked by Republican opponents, who took to wearing adhesive bandages with small purple hearts on them. Of current presidential candidates, only Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter and Republican Sen. John McCain have significant military experience, both in Vietnam, but neither are performing particularly well in polls, and it is likely that our next president will have little or no military experience.

 

I see three possible explanations. One is that voters really do want this in a president, the tracking polls are wrong, and McCain and/or Hunter will garner many more votes than current polling suggests. The second possibility is that, while voters do want this in a president, there are other experiences and qualities that they place a greater value on. The third possibility is that this poll is simply wrong, and voters don't really care about a presidential candidate's military background or lack thereof. Any of these possibilities suggest problems with the poll, which should lead us to also question the accuracy of tracking polls.

Running up the score

Although I am a Green Bay Packers fan, I am also a fan of Bill Belichick. I think he might be the greatest NFL coach ever, and I think his team has a very good chance to go 19-0 this year. Not only do I not see any problem with his team running up the score against opponents, I think its actually the right thing to do. The players are professionals, being paid to do a job. The offense's job is to score points and the defense's job is to prevent opponents from scoring points. If the offense is on the field and not trying to score, they are not doing their job, and if a coach is not calling plays that will help them score, then that coach is not doing his job.

 

The same issue arose in college football this weekend, in an incident that got national attention when Wyoming coach Joe Glenn "flipped the bird" toward the Utah team after the Utes attempted an onside kick while ahead 43-0. Glenn was reprimanded by the Mountain West Conference on Monday, and rightly so. We hear enough stories about bad sportsmanship, trash talking, and on-field brawls, that a head coach should know better than to behave like this. If a head coach, a professional, an adult with years of experience, behaves like this, what can we expect from the unpaid 19- and 20-year-olds playing the game?

 

The only thing in this incident that I disagree with, is Utah coach Kyle Whittingham's later comment that the onside kick with a 43-0 lead was a "bad decision." Winning is never a bad decision, and neither is winning big. Utah was not playing a "warm-up" game against a I-AA opponent, this was a conference game. Whittingham should not apologize for his team's ability to score; if anything, Glenn and the Wyoming team should apologize for their poor performance on the field.

 

As a Kentucky fan, I have been on the wrong side of a blowout game many times. While its certainly no fun, every time I see my team lose badly, I know that it's not the fault of Steve Spurrier, Tim Tebow, Les Miles, or any other opposing player or coach. They did their job; it was my team that wasn't able or prepared to compete. The right response is not for the loser to blame the winner, but for them to make changes and adjustments so that the next time the teams meet the tables are turned. That's exactly what Bill Belichick did after losing to the Colts last winter, and that's why he is such a great coach.

News flash: headline lies

Less than 24 hours after losing their reelection efforts, Ecorse's mayor and city councillors voted to slash their successors' salaries . The 5-2 vote Wednesday night cut council members' annual pay from $15,000 to $5,000 and the mayor's compensation from $69,000 to $12,000.

 

What you had to read well into the article to learn, is that the council was voting to adopt a decision by the Local Officers Compensation Board. Under state law, the Compensation Board members, appointed by the mayor for five to seven year terms, meet every other year. The commission's decision is binding unless two-thirds of the council members and the mayor vote to reject it.

Detroit population grew 4% from 2005 to 2006

The US Census Bureau has adjusted its 2006 population estimate for Detroit, accepting corrected information supplied by the city.

 

The original estimate indicated that the city's population had fallen 8.5% in six years, from 951,270 in 2000 to 871,121 in 2006. The revised 2006 estimate of 918,849 means that the population has only fallen by 3.4% in that time. Because the city did not challenge census estimates prior to 2006, the 2005 estimate of 883,465 will stand, and official records will show that Detroit grew by 35,000 people (4%) in 2006.

"I think it's a ridiculous law because people are going to drink whether there are games involved or not. They're at a bar."

That was a University of Michigan student's comment when the Touchdown Cafe's liquor license was suspended for 5 days because of bar patrons playing beer pong.

An unusual example of common sense

Lansing, Michigan Mayor Virg Bernero (for whom I worked as a full-time intern several years ago) has suggested that the region would be stronger if his city merged with East Lansing. Even more surprisingly, East Lansing Mayor Sam Singh seemed open to the idea if Lansing resolves its budget issues.

Regardless of whether a merger actually takes place, the two cities are pressing ahead with plans for regionally combined services, including a consolidated 911 emergency dispatch system, a regional communications center that would handle such things as televising public meetings, and a fire station that would be staffed by firefighters from both cities.

Merging these two cities would be a great start, but my dream politician for Michigan would do something about the townships (like get rid of them!). Charter townships are a developer's dream, and a breeding ground for suburban sprawl, and rural areas no longer need such a small unit of government.

More evidence that the Bush/Cheney administration will say anything to get what it wants

As if the almost weekly changes in stated justification leading up to the invasion of Iraq weren't enough, now we get this flip-flop.

Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney justified ignoring an executive order on the grounds that he is not part of the executive branch. This week, he argues that he is exempt on the basis of executive privilege.

Just one more instance of the Bush/Cheney administration acting as though they are above the law.

Reasons not to use U-Haul

If I wasn't already avoiding U-Haul (due to bad experiences several years ago), I this investigative series by the Los Angeles Times would start me on a boycott.

Quote for the day

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

- Chief Justice John Roberts, in the 5-4 majority decision that race cannot be a used as a factor in determining what school students attend.

What other mistakes willl John Edwards make?

As I've written previously, I do like John Edwards, but I'm starting to question whether he would really be a good president.

His admission that he made a mistake in voting to authorize the invasion of Iraq is well-known; less well known is his 2001 vote in favor of a change in bankruptcy law that consumer advocates say made it harder for families to get out of debt, about which he wrote in 2005, "I can't say it more simply than this: I was wrong."

So what are we to make of a presidential contender who is repeatedly -- by his own admission -- wrong. It would be one thing if these were relatively inconsequential or obscure votes, but these were not. The bankruptcy bill was controversial at the time, and was extensively debated, and though not as heavily debated, no one disputes the significance of the Iraq war vote.

I still like John Edwards, but if he was wrong on these important issues, what else will he get wrong?

John Edwards' prescription for disaster

Generally, I like John Edwards. I think many of his ideas are on the right track, and I wish I was able to see him speak while he is in Detroit today. Despite that, one of his health care proposals is so far off the mark that it has to be addressed.

First, his good idea: requiring health insurance companies to justify their rates by forcing them to spend at least 85% of premiums collected on health care. A handful of states, including New York and Florida, already have such laws, and this idea is ready for nation-wide implementation.

But Edwards' idea for controlling the cost of drugs would be a disaster. Edwards' plan would remove long-term patents from breakthrough drugs, allowing generic drugs to be produced much sooner. Unfortunately for Edwards (and for all of us, if this piece of his plan is implemented), removing long-term patent protection removes most of the incentive for pharmaceutical firms to conduct expensive research and development. Not only would patent removal lead to a decline in R&D (and hence in new drugs brought to market), but since branding would be the only difference among firms' products, we would probably see an increase in drug advertising -- exactly the opposite of what we should be working toward.

How to fix college basketball

When you really dig down, the root of the problem with college basketball is the relationship with the NBA. The NCAA likes to talk about "student-athletes" while universities build palace-like arenas (and now practice facilities), pay coaches millions of dollars, and charge ticket-holders professional sport prices. The NCAA has not been able to decide if they are an amateur athletic league for students or a professional minor league, and they are trying to take the best (for them) of both.

My (unrealistic) proposal is to split the top tier of NCAA basketball (division 1-A) into a semiprofessional or professional minor league and a league of true student-athletes. Teams opting into the professional league might maintain some relationship to their schools, but would drop any pretense of academics; they would essentially be "basketball schools." They might implement some rules regarding player age or experience, but players would be paid like the professional athletes they are. Teams opting to remain amateur would operate more like the "lower" NCAA divisions, limiting or even eliminating athletic scholarships (and certainly banning athletic recruiting); players would be students who happen to enjoy the sport but are not on an athletic career path. With such a division, basketball players seeking a professional career would no longer be forced into pretending they want a college degree, the NBA could have a real "developmental league," and university administrators could spend more time and energy on improving the academic quality of their school.

The biggest problem I see with implementing such a system is that the schools that must be convinced are the schools with the most to lose, schools such as my alma maters of the University of Kentucky and Michigan State University, schools like North Carolina, Duke, Florida, UCLA, and Louisville. To ensure a smoother transition, and to make this proposal more palatable to these schools, they should be permitted to keep a substantial stake in their teams. For example, the "University of Kentucky Wildcats" might become the "Kentucky Wildcats," a minor league professional team owned and managed by the University of Kentucky. Or they might create the "University of Kentucky College of Basketball" (OK, School of Basketball in the College of Athletics).

Detroit Public Schools

Maybe my math is wrong, or maybe the Free Press got their numbers wrong, but it seems to me that with a budget of more than $10,000 per student, Detroit should have great schools.

The problem with NCAA basketball

The events of the last week at the University of Florida are emblematic of the problems inherent in the current arrangement of the NCAA.

First, after announcing his departure and signing a contract with the NBA's Orlando Magic, Billy Donovan asked to be released from that contract to return to Florida. The Gators welcomed him back with open arms, and for most practical purposes it is as though he never left.

In returning to Gainesville, Donovan accepted a six-year contract worth $3,500,000. At the same time, Florida football coach Urban Meyer received a six-year contract for $3,250,000.

Compare this treatment of college coaches with the treatment their players receive; if a player even retains an agent, it is unlikely he will ever be allowed to play college basketball again. At best he might be allowed to return after sitting out half of a season. And don't even think about paying your players; the "student-athletes" are supposed to be grateful for their college scholarships -- scholarships they only need so they can play basketball for a few years before entering the NBA.

Coming soon: How to fix basketball.

Running off

Kentucky holds its Gubernatorial primary election today. Despite approval ratings which rival the President's, incumbent Governor Ernie Fletcher is expected to win the Republican nomination easily.

The Democratic nomination is a different story. It seems to be a relatively even four-way race among Steve Beshear, Steve Henry, Bruce Lunsford, and Jody Richards. In the most recent polls, Beshear has held a modest lead, followed by Lunsford, Henry, and then Richards; however, the four have traded the lead throughout the campaign, and none have even come close to achieving majority support. If no candidate reaches 40% of the vote, a runoff will occur, forcing the candidates to spend money that could otherwise be banked for the general election.

This creates a peculiar dynamic, in which front-runners try to steal votes, not from each other, but from the other candidates. Imagine Bush and Gore attacking Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader, respectively, rather than debating each other. (OK, so Gore did attack Nader, that's exactly the point!)

The problem is that, too often, political candidates argue that we should vote for them because they are likely to win, rather than because they are the best candidate.

The much bigger problem is that, all too often, this tactic succeeds.

The new twist in delayed flights

I haven't flown in several years, and I have never been a frequent flyer. It seems like airlines are doing everything they can to keep it that way.

From long lines to check in, to delays and cancellations, to lost luggage, flying has never struck me as an attractive way to travel. If it didn't have the virtue of being far faster than any alternative, would anyone ever fly?

Things have apparently gotten much worse. Not only are flights being delayed, seemingly in record numbers, but there is apparently a new trend of people being forced to wait on the plane for hours. Consider this story of 180 people trapped on a 757 for 10 hours.

Passengers on the flight say they will always remember the pizza. After about five hours, a flight attendant announced that “an American executive” had ordered pizzas to be delivered from the airport. Five boxes arrived.

Flight attendants, who, according to one passenger, had been “missing in action most of the time,” cut the slices into tiny pieces — 70 in all. Flight attendants said that only those who “really needed it” should take one, a passenger said.

Via This Is Broken

Biased financial reporting

Most financial reporting is absolutely terrible, not worth the electricity it takes to transmit it. There are many, many problems with financial reporting, but for this morning I want to pick out a subtle bias.

This is an image of Google Finance before US markets open in the morning.

Here's a close up.

By showing marks descending only to -0.25% but rising to +0.5%, it is implied that market declines will be less (and less likely) than increases. While this is true on a long term (multi-year) basis, for a single day it is false.

If even such a basic (and presumably objective) tool as a chart is so badly biased, what does this say about the state of financial reporting?

I'm back!

After a hiatus of more than a year, I am back and ready to blog!

I am setting a goal for myself of at least one blog post every week through the end of 2007.