Now here's something you don't hear everyday:

"I think I'll go shopping over lunch ... I need buyer's remorse."

Quote of the day

I overheard a woman today:

"I don't have a problem with polygamy ... as a concept."

When "Senseless" doesn't begin to cover it

A good friend of mine was killed this weekend in an act of utterly senseless, pointless, non-directed, moronic, stupid, childish, pathetic violence. I don't even know where to start. It's hard to rant in multiple directions at once. Al ... I'll miss you. We all will.

For every innovation ...

... there's someone that want's to capitalize on it, and some government agency that enables said capitalization. For example, take U.S. patent No. 7,000,180. While it was originally filed back in 2001 (well before AJAX became the "acronym du jour"), it was finally granted this Valentine's Day by the beloved U.S Patent Office ... and it could well screw up web technology innovation as we know it, as it's broad enough to (potentially) require any AJAX-like technology to pay a license fee back to the patent owner. Brilliant ... just bloody brilliant. So, what do we learn from this? Simple:

• Patent everything. Then, even if you have no success yourself, you can stifle everyone else's.
• Technology isn't about thinking outside the box. It's about who has the most legal paperwork on file.

Mother Nature 2 ... Weathermen 0

Woof. For the second time this year (once last month, and now this month) a predicted "wicked snow storm that will blanket the Twin Cities with at least 6 inches of snow" ... never happened. Last month, the storm missed us by a few dozen miles to the north. This time, a few dozen miles to the south ... and all they really got was "a dusting". Man ... I'm in the wrong line of work: You get paid, yet are consistently wrong. On the other hand, they got the temperature right ... once again, Minnesota temperatures are more what we all expect up here this time of year: low double-digit, single-digit, or any-digit as long as it has a '-' in front of it.