christopher takes on the world...

I'm really amazed and the negativity you see and hear everywhere. Granted, the economic situation is bad, but I'm watching the news and they are talking about what kind of gift cards to buy for Christmas and suggesting you buy people gift cards from local gas stations and convenience stores because "they are likely to still be here" and these stores "will have things people will need." It's like they are planning for a repeat of the Great Depression. I think this is going to be the first serious recession since the early 80's but I'm not stocking water and canned goods. I talked to Chris online today - his uncle bought land out in Smithville, Texas in case things get really bad so the family will have a place to go.

I'm living in a town with one of the nation's highest unemployment rates, and things are slow, but am I really missing something here? The sky's not falling... at least not yet.

Had a quick trip to the bay area this weekend for a Drupal conference. Saturday night I finally got to hang out with Cate after too damned long. That was awesome! She's doing well. We hung out with my friend Kristin and her new girlfriend Mary, who is spunky and fun... Unfortunately I have a nice little hangover today. It was worth it, though! San Francisco was so clear.. the most clear and beautiful I've ever seen it. I think I finally understand the attraction. Too bad days like the last couple of days up there are the exception, not the rule.

I got home today and suddenly it's Winter in Las Vegas! Was almost cold at the airport... nice for a change of pace, though. We had a mild but longer-than-normal Summer so cool is good.

...best keep your ass in the kitchen.

Women's rights activists everywhere are pissed, no doubt.

"Math is Hard!" Barbie for (vice) President!

Auto-fill highlighting. hate it. it overwrites any style -by default- with a horrible yellow highlight color with inline styling which means you have to jump through hoops to override it in a way that takes control away from the user.... just so a page you've designed will look the way it should. what's worse, it is turned on by default for people that install the Google Toolbar, which most anyone concerned with SEO has to have because it's the only way to get quick, constant PageRank information as you browse. It could be of use to people with some visual impairment and that sort of thing - great - but if they don't even know the feature is there and that it is turned on it really isn't helping too many people. It's a small nightmare for designers who experience it for the first time... I thought I was losing it. There was no style causing that ugly yellow search input box... in fact my style was specifically setting it to something else. And yet, there it was. I had to remove FireFox Add-ons, one by one, until I figured out what was inserting that inline style that I was seeing in FireBug. What a Microsoft-y move, Google. Ick!

...but Cheney and the Bush administration is right on this whole Russia situation. It's unfortunate that they have largely lost their credibility in foreign policy matters and won't be as able to rally the West to stand firm against this neo-authoritarian Russian government. Their actions the last couple of years can not be tolerated by the rest of the free world... Overflying U.S. warships with Russian bombers? there was a day that would have incited WWIII.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/07/europe/EU-Italy-Cheney.php