one of my biggest and most consistent complaints about modern society has to do with the rampaging corporate behemoths who are destroying the fabric of America. i constantly rail against those monsters of society (Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Starbucks, etc.) who have grown so large that they've lost whatever "soul" they might once have had, and who, no matter how much good they do (Wal-Mart = zero, McDonalds = zero, Starbucks = some fair trade, some shade grown, most neither), the good will never outweigh the bad.

so i was heartened, while making my usual 'net rounds this morning, to find this article by Ted Turner about media conglomerates and how the relaxation of the media ownership regulations (over the past 25+ years) has all but destroyed innovation and competition in the industry.

the problems with modern media is but another microcosm that exemplifies the greater ills in our society today. put it up there alongside the epidemics of: multinational corporations, greedily sucking up more market share to destroy the little guy; right-wing moral crusaders, wishing to force their ways of thinking on all of humanity; and the bureaucracy of health and medical-malpractice insurance, where only a select few can afford to receive coverage or care from the dwindling number of doctors who will be left because their premiums are still skyrocketing. these examples being but a few.

the things that're infecting us (as a national—if not global—culture) are legion. i keep trying to enumerate them, to define them, but i keep finding more things or having to revise my original conception. i think the biggest thing, socially, right now, is that we're infected by the need to be right. we all pick things that we put a stake in, and claim them for ourselves. when confronted by others who have staked their claim with something that opposes or deviates from ours, we have to stand up, call attention to ourselves, and let the world know that we know we're right. it's becoming increasingly less likely for people to admit they're wrong, and attempt to understand others, than it is for them to immediately shut off and ignore whatever arguments the other side may be making, for the sake of not polluting their own steadfastness, but in the name of righteousness.

until we can all put aside this particular greed of ours, this greed of intellectual/spiritual/political/physical/etc. superiority, and learn to really listen to and learn from each other, and to attempt to understand each other. the fabric of our society will continue to wear, until the seams can't hold any longer. i'm not predicting the downfall of society just yet, but if we don't take steps, things *will* only get worse.

still, i think this greedy righteousness may simply be a smaller symptom of a greater affliction. at the moment, the words to describe that affliction elude me. but we'll find it eventually. we have to.

y'know, i really should have known about this for a long time, considering it's been kicking around in some form or another since apparently 1996-ish. i don't think i even realized that the "6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game had been around since 1996, but then, the most of 1994 – 1999 is kind of a fuzzy memory at best. those were dark days. well, ok. 1996 – 1999 were dark days, 1994 – 1996 were actually kind of fun. if i miss any part of my past life, it's that part.

anyway, back to the subject at hand. a buddy at work was telling me that he used to hang with Roger Clinton back in the day, and then, somehow almost randomly (as is our wont) we wondered what his "Bacon number" was. that's when my co-worker mentioned the Oracle of Bacon and i just looked at him in bewilderment…

it was one of those moments where you just sit there and think to your self:
"of course there's an online site that has a database on which you can run '6 degrees of kevin bacon' queries… so, if it's so obvious, why had the thought never even occurred to me before now?"

of course, now i know i've a Bacon number of 4, which probably isn't that impressive (2 for Roger Clinton, 3 for my co-worker, making me 4), but now i'm also trying to think of whether i know any actors personally or not…

hmm…

i've been hanging out with my sweetheart all night, so i've only got a few minutes to get today's post in under the wire. and what should i see upon ascending the stairs to the technological sauna that is our family room/computer area, but Paul the inimitable Puffin playing some funky weird game based on the struggle between good and evil. i'm sure you've all seen this, 'cause if i'm seeing it, then it has to have been making the rounds… but anyway, any port in a storm is what i always say.

how 'bout this: http://www.emogame.com/bushgame.html

enjoy!

so, no luck on cancelling the insurance. i'm locked in until at least next June… unless i find a better job.

but, i've figured out a way to equalize the situation a bit—i'll just tell them to pay me more money to make up for the crappy health insurance.

also, here's a classic 2000 style weblog link to pad out this post a bit. i'm sure you've seen it making the rounds, but i wanted to point out what a great list of 10 reasons for despising Bush (though not necessarily 10 reasons for loving Kerry) this guy came up with.

personally—and, strangely enough i don't think i've really commented on this before—i'm not a huge fan of Kerry. but honestly, i think my cat could run this country better than Bush. and i mean Harriet—the crazy one. so, i'm firmly in the ABB camp, and so will vote with conviction for Kerry, because however good Kerry might not be, Bush is much much less good. (how's that for an f'ed up sentence?) in fact, if Kerry is good (which he is good, just not great), then Bush is most decidedly anti-good.

well anyway, enjoy the list of discretions.

holy shit. i feel like a circus dog who's been performing three shows a day…

i went 10 rounds with my employer and the various intermediate companies between me and my health insurance today, and damn, am i pissed off.

first off, the policy that my company offers (and on which my acceptance of the job hinged) is complete and total shit. well, let me qualify that—everything about the policy seemed pretty good except for the fact that the bastards won't pay out more than $5,000 per year (which point they did not elucidate during the enrollment process at all). so, if all i need is preventive care, i'm golden, but the moment i have an accident or fall deathly ill and require any kind of hospital stay or any involved procedure, i'm bankrupt. it's completely ridiculous, and the single worst medical insurance plan i've ever seen.

and now that i've signed up to have it taken out pre-tax, they say i can't cancel it. and the private insurer i've talked to in the last couple days says she's not sure if i can have two insurance policies at the same time, so not only can i not drop the worthless policy, i also can't sign up for one that will make sure i'm actually covered.

so, i'm going to have to get back in the ring tomorrow, and see if i can convince them to let me cancel. i'm debating restarting the job search right now, and just get the hell out any way i can. if anyone has any ideas, i'm all ears right now.

wish me luck.

for some reason i'm always suprised when news from Louisville finds its way out of the local scene. now, obviously, we (and the rest of the area) just made headlines because of the craziness of the past week, and there are certainly enough idiots and looneys wandering about that someone surely should be able to hit the national news circuit at least once a week. nevertheless, i'm still surprised.

as it turns out, i just read about this particular idiot (or collection of idiots) in the CJ the other day, but to see it on a liberal progressive rallying center like the Talking Points Memo makes me grieve the tarnished reputation of my beloved city. it's not like the rest of the world didn't think we were a bunch of barefoot imbeciles already…

don't get the wrong idea, world, Louisville's is a very diverse population, the majority of which are thoughtful, involved, caring, and mostly intelligent. even some of the conservatives. we're mostly bad drivers though, it seems (myself most decidedly not included), so if you decide to come for a visit be very very watchful. and be assured that idiots like the ones mentioned in the above articles are thankfully few & far between.

i keep having these ideas to enhance different things around here, and i've always got a thousand projects running around in my head, begging to be let out, so sometimes i get a little caught up in them… some might say obsessive about them.

the first thing i want to point out (and the thing that kind of triggered the whole landslide of enhancements i'm going to tell you about in a minute) is that, in my galleries i've added a directory for images taken with my phonecam. the directory is called, appropriately enough, "phonecam".

this is all the result of, after having fought with it for a while, i've finally managed to get a cable and software to sync my phone to my PC (since Sprint refuses to supply such things in order to make you more likely to buy their PCS Vision services). anyway, i finally got it working, so i'm attempting to be dilligent about taking at least one photo with it every day. now, i'm not promising i'll get a new photo uploaded every day, but i should at least be able to take five seconds to take a picture every day. i've debated creating a sub-folder within the phonecam gallery to house the shot-a-day pics, where i could pick just the best photo from the days with multiples, but i've decided not to do it for the moment. if anyone wants to weigh in, input would be welcomed… i'm not a good decision-maker.

so, anyway, the ability to upload phonecam images brought a couple of gallery script bugs to light, so i spent some time fixing those. fixing those bugs reminded me of some of the little enhancements i wanted to make, and the enhancements reminded me of entirely new functionalities i wanted to add. so, a couple weeks later, i've got the bugs fixed, the enhancements done, and the new functionality added. all while streamlining the code so that i've got a single code-base that works for the bipolar galleries as well as brian's joycamproject.

the bugs were boring, and inconsequential. one of the enhancements was simply adding a pagination function to the gallery pages so that you can now navigate directly to a page, instead of having to click "next" or "prev" to go through all the pages in sequence. nothing really groundbreaking, but a very useful enhancement. the other major enhancement was adding a "fit image to screen" link, so that if the image is larger than your screen resolution, you can force it to resize to fit within your screen dimensions—cool.

the new functionality is much more fun, though really nothing quite groundbreaking either. i noticed on heather champ's site that she's got a "send as ecard" link… well… i thought that was a cool idea. so, a little searching online, a little download of open-source code (phpPowerCards), some judicious yet extensive re-writing of that code, and voilá— x:13design postcards are born. basically, you can just browse the galleries, view an image, and if you want to send a postcard, just click the aptly named "send postcard" link down there on the bottom left.

i haven't taken the time to add any anti-abuse code to the script yet, as for one: i'm not quite sure how, and two: i'm running out of free time at work to do it… but, if anyone has any specific ideas as to an easy to implement anti-abuse bit of PHP code, please let me know. also, if anyone gets spams sent by this script (i'm not anticipating it, but it's possible) then please let me know ASAP, and accept my most sincere apologies.

anyway, get thyself to the gallery and check it out again, like it was the first time.

speaking of paris, one of the things i enjoyed the most while i was there both times was the metro. i'm not entirely sure why it fascinates me, but there just seems to be something inherently captivating about it. perhaps it's the unique character of each station, the interesting people you'll see, the performers (which we saw much more of this time around than i did last time), or even the occasional ride where you'll pop out of the tunnels and ride around above the city for a while…

none of those is exclusive to the paris metro i'd imagine, though i don't recall seeing any performers in the metro in D.C., and i don't recall the stations there having any particularly unique character. anyway, i stumbled across this site earlier today when adding a creative commons license to my gallery. one of the most recent posts talk about a particular section of transfer tunnels, and he's even got a really cool pictorial tour from one end to the other.

i'll get back to talking about *our* trip soon, i kind of wanted the shock from the fact that i posted the other day to wear off a bit before i put another monster out there.