I say this quite often, but never this eloquently: Too many people go to college.

I was meeting with sheet metal contractors and their union representatives in Seattle. I learned that they could not find enough people to fill their apprenticeship program. Here's their deal: they need people with solid arithmetic and algebra skills, and good work habits. The person is paid to work as an apprentice, taking some classes at the same time. Classes are free. After 3 to 5 years, the person becomes a journeyman sheet-metal worker. The compensation package is then about $50 an hour, which is both wages and benefits. That works out to about $65k wages and $35 k benefits per year. And the person has no college loans. The bright, ambitious ones can go into management. Yet they cannot fill the apprenticeship program openings. Nobody wants to do blue collar work; everyone has been told to go to college.

Total geek humor.

On hearing news that Peter Jackson wants to make a movie of the Hobbit, but wants to make it as two seperate films, writing new material to stretch it out a bit, presumably to double the films' take at the box office.

My suggested titles:

1) There
2) Back Again

There being most of the story, Back Again would probably be mostly filler.

I heard an interview of Bill Lockyer last night on the CBC radio show As It Happens.

It left me with the distinct opinion that he is not only batshit insane, he may well actually be evil. After the interview it appeared to me that he actually believes in the foundations of his lawsuit against six carmakers, and it might not be the mere election year stunt that it seems at first blush.

Press coverage of this matter hasn't done it justice. You need to hear him talk about this topic for a while to really understand how far Mr. Lockyer has gone round the bend.

In some sort of environmentally friendly vehicle, I suppose.

Wired was nice enough to provide a primer on how to hack ATM's.

Horrible, wonderfully horrible news. Bjork and the Sugarcubes reunion concert planned.

Icelandair has just learned that the famous Icelandic alternative band, the Sugarcubes, is planning a reunion performance in Reykjavik on November 17, 2006!

The concert celebrates the 20th anniversary of Bad Taste (Smekkleysa) Records, the Icelandic record label created by members of the band. All of the original band members will be performing, including
international superstar, Bjork!

The concert will take place at the new, high-tech Laugardalsholl Arena. Please exchange your voucher for tickets at the Laugardalsholl ticket office. (Laugardalsholl Arena address - Engjaveigur #8, 104 Reykjavik.)

If you are a Sugarcubes fan, you don't want to miss this once-in-a-lifetime event!

From $699 per person including airfare from several US airports...

Here's the most bizarre end note (of 23!) on the product spec page for the Lexus GS350h.

[18] The SmartAccess system may interfere with some pacemakers or cardiac defibrillators. If you have one of these medical devices, please talk to your doctors to see if you should deactivate this system.

I've heard of breathtaking cars, but heart stopping cars, that's a new one to me!

Reminder: Don't use what you deal!

Goofy arrest story from Simsbury local free paper.

Police said they arrested Stephen Campbell, 19, of 63 Mountain Ave., Bloomfield and a companion, after Campbell became unusually nervous during a routine car stop on Iron Horse Boulevard.

"An officer was using radar and pulled a car over and the driver seemed nervous," said Capt. Peter Sevetz. "He seemed so nervous in fact, the officer finally asked him to get out of the car."

Sevetz said Campbell complied with the request - but left the car in drive rather than park, causing him to have to jump back into the rolling vehicle.

"He then attempted to get out again but left the car in neutral, so it still rolled away," Sevetz said. "He jumped back in again and stopped it. When the officer asked why he was so nervous, Campbell replied it was because he had just smoked some pot."

This makes the news because my town, Simsbury, CT is a sleepy little bedroom community where hardly any crime of note ever happens. (Other than the attempted robbery of a 12 year old of their halloween candy and the occasional unexpected hooker in the driveway.)

Phew! I just bought a Toshiba PC a few months back and I'd been wondering about this.

Toshiba PCs not affected by Sony battery issue.

Sony is one of the suppliers of battery packs used in some Toshiba notebook PCs. We have investigated with Sony whether those PCs that employ the subject batteries are affected with the same problem that caused the recent recalls issued by Dell and Apple, and have found that the system design and the protection system of Toshiba notebook PCs differ from those of Dell and Apple. We have found no evidence that the problem reported by Dell and Apple in their recalls applies to our notebook PCs. Sony has confirmed to us that there is no such problem as cited in the recalls of Dell and Apple with the battery packs supplied to Toshiba.

In keeping with this week's Star Wars themed posts, I present an excerpt from Fragments from the Mind's Eye, the blog of Pablo Hidalgo, a Content Manager at Lucasfilm.

On the Internet, Everything is a Big Deal

An online community is by definition a niche community. It is only a small segment of a larger whole, and as such, can never speak definitively for that whole.

In other words: Internet buzz is still only anecdotal and more often than not, doesn't really mean anything.

...

If Internet buzz actually meant anything, Serenity would have been a blockbuster and not a box office failure

...

The Internet isn't so much bringing everyone together. It's basically allowing us to continue our niches, clubs, and segmented audiences online. But if you ever hear anyone say "EVERYONE online is talking about it," or that something is an Internet sensation, it has enough real-world weight as saying that everyone at your high school is saying it.

A quick review of Lego Star Wars II for the Game Boy Advance, which I'm about half way through: Fun animations, great cut scenes but the game play is not as challenging as the original.

Yikes! Five of the top 25 videogames on Amazon right now are versions of Lego Star Wars II for various game systems.

Han shot first fans will be happy to know that in Lego Star Wars II for the Game Boy Advance Han shoots first.

Happiness is ...
A new Red Stapler.


It's a Swingline.

I needed a new stapler at work, and the supplies clerk just couldn't understand why I was so excited by the red Swingline.

I guess I need to loan out my copy of Office Space again.

Some pretty damn funny jokes in this Wired article about jokes via cell phone.

"OK, this guy walks into a bar. The bartender sees that he has a big bulge in his pants. So the bartender says, 'Hey, it looks like you have a steering wheel in your pants.' And the guy says, 'Yeah, and it's driving me nuts.'"

...

Finally, Griffin collars a 22-year-old from Columbus, Ohio. The man breaks into a sly smile and launches into a story seemingly tailor-made to push phonertainment to the edge of a mobile carrier's comfort zone and beyond:

"These two Middle Easterners come to America. They get separated from each other, and about a year later they get together to see who had become more Americanized. So the first guy says, 'I'm picking up my son from baseball practice, and then we're going out to McDonald's. And then I'm going home to watch some NFL football. How about you?'

And the second guy says, 'Fuck you, towelhead!'"

What a great story for labor day: 100-year-old Briton keeps on working 'to avoid boredom'

"Buster" Martin, a mechanic for a south London plumbing firm who has 17 children and 70 grandchildren and great grandchildren, tried giving up work at the age of 97 but couldn't face the boredom.

"Boredom is a big killer of men," he told the Daily Telegraph. "I went back to work because I like to keep active," adding that if he ever retired he would become "the most miserable sod you have come across."

...

"I have never in my life owned a phone -- they are a bloody nuisance," he said. "You can be sitting peacefully indoors and they start ringing. I hate them."

Given this fact pattern:

"I heard the car coming because it had loud exhaust. He was going 100 miles an hour, he started to lose it sideways. He went airborne, snapped that utility pole in half. It was a convertible. He got ejected. There was beer cans everywhere. It was raining beer cans out of it," says Freeman Heath, witness.

"The telephone pole tore his convertible top right off. He went flying out of the car. The driver's side was just smashed," says Melissa Hepple, witness.

How do you suppose the local police would make the following statement?

Southington police won't say if speed or alcohol were factors. They're still trying to figure out exactly what happened.

Hmmmm, maybe the title of the story will explain what happened?

Off-duty Police Officer killed in car crash

I went digging for this because the Fox News coverage mentioned that the accident happened at 2:00 AM, "as the officer was driving home after his shift." Most police departments do their shift change quite a bit earlier in the evening than 2:00 AM, so I was wondering why the Officer was driving to his house so much later than the likely time of his shift change. He could have been working overtime, but the Fox News coverage was so lacking of what should have been basic information I had to go digging to try to find out what time he got off of work.

Instead of finding when his shift ended among the other coverage, I found the above eye-witness report.