I think that I need to think less and do more. I’m not sure where the idea got into my head, but the phrase “You will be judged on your output” seems to be stuck in my head. It occurs to me that my output is very low right now, but that the amount of effort going into that output is very high. It seems as if I could generate much more output from the same amount of effort. Odd that.

Say Hi To Maple Dorothy Congrats to you both.

Dan Gillmor: How a Nation Forfeits its Meaning I feel like plausible deniability is being asserted by the administration, and it is the same kind of slickness that the same group of neo-conservatives who are now such staunch supporters of GW complained about during the Clinton administration. The difference this time is that peoples lives, and everything our country stands for, are at risk. Bush and Rumsfeld are in charge, and, if they are not, then shame on them for that instead and in addition to these atrocities. I can’t believe that people are not more outraged by this whole incident. It goes against the very moral core of this country to do stuff like this. I’m embarrassed, frankly, and I would like to see the people responsible for this be punished severely to send a message. As this year goes on, the Bush administration continues to do a fantastic job of driving moderates like myself towards the other party. Mistakes happen, but it’s the slick nature of their response to mistakes that leaves a sour taste in my mouth. See also: The Misunderestimated Man.

Wilco has a preview of their new CD, A ghost is born, up on their site. It’s due to be released on June 22nd. I was pretty disappointed that they cancelled their set at Coachella, but considering the circumstances, there wasn’t much else they could do.

Based on this post it looks like Blogger is about to unveil a new version. No details of what this new version might entail beyond a redesign and “additional features”, but they haven’t released a major version since Google bought them.

I’ve been meaning to mention that my brother Chris' most recent band, Husky, has their debut EP up on the iTunes Music Store. (iTMS link) Check it out, “Jukebox” seems to be the song that is turning people’s heads.

MLB is putting the Spiderman logo on bases and pitching rubbers? That is messed up. Where do you draw the line? Personally, as a lifelong baseball junkie, I am mortified by this decision. This, in my mind, was what seperated baseball and football from NASCAR. Update: The Yankees are refusing to go along with MLB’s plan. Good for them, like I said previously, you have to draw the line somewhere.

Back from Coachella. I really enjoyed it. More on that later.

Mark comments on the death of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan . In this age of the bling bling and atheletes who seem more interested in “getting theirs” than anything else, Pat Tillman did what he thought was right. Having said that, my thoughts are with his family, as they are with the families of all the servicemen that we have lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gmail Gems (Hints and tips for Gmail users.)

Roger Ebert reviews Shaolin Soccer.

The Onion A.V. Club interviews the brilliant Ricky Gervais from the BBC’s “The Office.”

Apparently, this guy wants a gMail account. I just got one through the generosity of the blogger.com folks. Nothing to report yet. Oh, and I did not lie to that guy, nor is that a picture of me.

Jon Hicks has a fascinating look behind the redesign of the Thunderbird logo. I have been using Thunderbird on Mac OS X for a few months now, and have been extra happy with it since they made pinstripe the default theme a couple of weeks ago.

Friends of the Beltline. This would be good for the city, no matter which way you dice it. Seriously.

I had been holding off on a new Powerbook for the last month or so. My first-generation 12 inch has been feeling a bit overcrowded from a resource and speed perspective recently, and I had been thinking that I would go up to the 15 inch. Apple, of course, updated their line this morning. I would buy another 12 inch, if they offered the Radeon video chipset for it because I love the form factor. They however, decided to limit the chipset to the NVidia. Time to start figuring out if I can afford the 15" that I want.

Well, it has been seven weeks since my last cigarette. I’ve executed on my game plan almost perfectly so far. I knew in advance how hard it would be, but until you are actually in the withdrawal symptoms, it is difficult to gauge just how hard they are to cope with. I accidentally went down a stage in the patch system two weeks early, and that may be what is causing some of my current discomfort, but I only have one more week of patches left. I will be very happy when this discomfort stage is over, and I am already feeling much better than I was a couple of weeks ago. I’ve managed, so far, to keep my weight gain to a minimum. I’m hoping that, as soon as I am through the extra hunger stage, that I can trim off the four pounds rapidly.

Kevin Byrd took a trip to the Atlanta Botonical Gardens over the weekend and took a lovely picture. I took my parents there a couple of weeks ago when they were in town. If you live in or visit Atlanta, I think that the gardens are a must see.

Well, here we go again. Tonight, the Yankees begin their regular season series with the most hated Red Sox. I predict that the Yankees will win ten out of the nineteen meetings during the regular season.

RIAA’s Nasty Easter Egg. Seriously, you have to be kidding me. Okay, let me give you an incentive to go back to “sharing” your MP3’s with your friends.