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Looks like Mars might still have little Martians. Little Martian bacteria, that is, hanging out under the soil and producing methane. Cool! (Excuse me while I get my geek on.) :)

The tribulations of running a game store are recounted in nine Books by Keeper of the Retail Faith/Game Store Owner Gord. Highly entertaining acts of idiocy, unless you were experiencing them. :) Sample story: “What did you call my son on the phone today!” “I labelled him a petty thief.” “No one calls my son a thief!” “Actually, I labelled him a petty thief. Would you prefer aspiring criminal, or the more accurately descriptive incompetent law breaker?” ...

A pastor asks why so many churches urged their members to go see The Passion of the Christ but aren’t urging them to see Hotel Rwanda. Having seen neither movie yet, I couldn’t tell you what their relative merits are. However, I can make a guess as to two reasons why: First, The Passion had a truly amazing marketing push behind it. To talk about it as a purely grassroots hit movie is to ignore the accomplishments of Mel Gibson and the distributor in promoting this film as a must-see for Christians. There is a common mistake made when talking about evangelical Christians. Despite the talk about cutting ourselves off from the world, we are very much aware of it and are exposed to the tools used in the rest of culture. In other words, it’s hard to separate “religious” church and/or school life from the “secular” world of working and shopping. The evangelical community has always had a large community concerned with marketing to it, just like any other niche market with special interests. ...

The more I heard about “Gannon’s” story, the more I thought it had to be made up. But, then again, I would have thought that about using taxpayer money to pay columnists to support your agenda as well. If we spent the 90’s ragging on the Clinton Administration for mysteriously finding files years after they were needed, then you’d think we’d have more time for what’s turning into a political/media scandal. ...

Okay, it was done back in 1951, so the verbage in the story probably didn’t seem as bad at the time. (Either that, or the writer was pretty sure his younger audience would find it hilarious, kind of like an older audience does now.) ;)

Seems to be an accurate statement. :) Courtesy of User Friendly, a great web comic.

Some interesting lists of 100 going around out there right now: The 100 Most Annoying Things of 2004 92 CLEAR CHANNEL’S MEDIA MONOPOLY It’s official, they now own the broadcast rights to that guy down the street with a Mr. Microphone saying, “Hey Good Looking, I’ll See You Later!” 91 THE IRISH they come here and take all of our good jobs (EDITOR’S NOTE: Sorry, this was left off of “The 100 Most Annoying Things of 1804” list and I had to find a place for it) ...

I am happy. I am happy that I was able to share the day with my Valentine, a bright, beautiful, brilliant woman who makes life better than I ever thought it could be…who makes me better than I ever thought I could be. Happy Valentine’s Day, Lorrie. I can only aspire to bring as much happiness to you.

Yeah, Highlights used to upset me too, before I dropped my subscription. ;) Courtesy of the inimitable Fafblog

Technology has the unfortunate quality of tempting people to use it, no matter how deleterious the effects. The growing ability to keep everyone under some sort of surveillance is a good example. Just today, I ran across a couple of stories that really creep me out in terms of what kind of society we are building. The first story is a classic case of how good motives don’t necessarily excuse ill effects. A school in California tags its children with RFID badges and scans them wherever they are in the school. Apparently this gives them a good way of keeping out trespassers, keeping an eye on the kids, and taking accurate attendance. (Hmm, that doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult. I’m thinking it’s a matter of convenience in collecting data, kind of like the idea of checking out an entire cartload of groceries at once by running it under a scanner.) ...