blog.vanillacokehead.com

Just read about a shooting spree in Indianapolis last night in which 10 people were hurt – looked through Google News and noticed most of the headlines included the words, “Indiana Black Expo”.

I question the need to emphasize that these shootings happened in the vicinity of a “Black Expo”. This isn’t the first time media outlets have emphasized that shootings happened near events that are predominantly attended by African-Americans.

Do news outlets need to emphasize the “race angle” when shootings happen at events such as “Black Spring Break” or “Black Homecoming”? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a similar emphasis when shootings happen at events predominantly attended by whites – or Hispanics – or those from other ethnic groups.

It just makes me go, “hmmm” when a crime-related news story trumpets the angle that an incident happened near or at an event predominantly attended by those of a particular ethnic group.

I saw LeBron James’ decision to go to the Miami Heat coming in the one or two days leading to it. Between the rumored desire for close friends James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh to play on the same NBA team – and the reports James had put down an offer on a house in the Miami area - to me the writing was on the wall. Sure, I’m bummed; but such is the life of a longsuffering lifetime Cleveland professional sports fan.

I agree with folks such as Terry Pluto who have criticized the way LeBron James turned this into a long, drawn out soap opera. The whole thing could have been done quickly, easily, and with more class than it was. James turned the whole saga surrounding his choice of where to play next season into an egopalooza – sure he tried to make it “for charity” and about having the best prospects to win an NBA title; but in the end, it was about LeBron.

From the beginning of his decision making process, I never faulted LeBron James for wanting to look for the best opportunity to win an NBA Championship. Any professional athlete worth his or her salt wants the best chance to win and be part of a championship team.

The way LeBron James turned this decision making process into an ego-driven, drama-laden, excruciatingly drawn out soap opera showed a marked lack of class.

It reminded me of when I was active on LiveJournal a few years ago – and a user decided to unfollow me there. The person wasn’t just content to just unfollow these people. This person listed – in a public post – all the people who were gone from her friends list; she also requested said people to unfollow her. It was insensitive. It was crass. And it was an unnecessary public manifestation of what should be a private, personal decision. I had no problem with being unfollowed – I had a problem with this LJ user turning it into a spectacle.

Terry Pluto made a great point when he said that “Twenty-five year-olds are usually not the most mature people on the planet.”. I know this first-hand. Nearly 20 years ago I was an emotionally immature, hot-headed, wet-behind-the-ears television news photographer in Jackson, Mississippi. I shot off my mouth first and asked questions later. I took things way too personally. I didn’t fully realize then the consequences of my actions and utterances. It took me another 10 years to start to mellow out and mature emotionally.

I look back at how I acted in my 20s and realize what I might have done differently. I have a feeling that in 10 or 20 years LeBron James might just look back at “The Decision” he made in 2010 and wish he had handled it differently.

Perhaps the City of Cuyahoga Falls should have heeded this classic advice from “The Odd Couple” while hammering out details of the financial arrangements to redevelop the old State Road Shopping Center property.

The financial arrangements involved forging an agreement between the City and the Cuyahoga Falls Board of Education to reallocate property tax dollars to help fund the acquisition, demolition, and site preparation of the shopping center to allow for the proposed Portage Crossing development to proceed. The project entails replacing the 50-year-old shopping center with new construction for retail and other use.

The progress on Portage Crossing ground to a halt a couple of weeks ago when the school board rejected the proposed agreement to reallocate property tax dollars between itself and the city. After negotiations and adding some assurances for the school board, the two groups came to an agreement on splitting the property tax revenue Portage Crossing should generate once the project is developed.

One comment from Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart made me shudder – saying that the Cuyahoga Falls Board of Education held the project hostage:

“It’s unfortunate that the School Board held the project hostage for a couple weeks…”

With all due respect, Mayor Robart, excuse me?

Perhaps the city should have examined possible missteps on its part before pointing fingers at the school board.

It appears to me that the city assumed that the school board would just “rubber stamp” the agreement to reallocate property tax revenue between itself and the city. The school board was correct to say “wait a minute”, review the agreement, and work with the city to make sure the agreement was in the best interests of everyone involved.

Don’t get me wrong – I want the proposed Portage Crossing project to proceed – and succeed. But I also give the school board credit for having the political courage to slow things down a little and make sure the agreement is in everyone’s best interest.

A public entity making sure an agreement involving tax dollars is in the best interest of its constituents is not and should not be characterized as holding a project hostage. The Cuyahoga Falls Board of Education did its job – and did it well – in this case.

This question has had me thinking for a while.

I’ve noticed that many drivers take situations during which they’re expected to yield to others as opportunities to be obnoxious.

The most common situations are when drivers merge onto a freeway – more often than not, they ignore the onramp’s YIELD sign and cut in front of others or use the onramp as a passing lane.

Another frequent situation is when drivers passing parked cars don’t wait for oncoming traffic as they’re supposed to – and force to wait drivers going the opposite direction and having the right of way.

A third example is when people enter a street – there are often times when they just pull in front of other drivers and don’t seem to care if they’re slowing down traffic.

I wonder why drivers tend to not want to yield to other drivers. Is it competitive nature with drivers? Is it arrogance? An entitlement attitude? A ‘do unto others before they do unto you’ impulse?

(afterthought: maybe the “alpha personalities” out there take advantage of those who drive defensively)

Whatever it is, it’s annoying as hell. No wonder ‘road rage’ is so common.

As you may or may not know, kid 1.0 (aka Emma-Grace) had her first communion yesterday. To celebrate, my wife Trish and I had planned afterward to have dinner for about 15 at Dontino’s, a small Italian restaurant near the church.

Trish called Dontino’s a couple of weeks ago – and was told it would be no problem for them to accommodate us – she was told to call an hour or two ahead to give them a heads-up.

When Trish called, she was told by a Dontino’s staff member that they couldn’t seat all of us together – that we’d be split into two groups. Nice to see they kept their word.

Luckily Trish had called a couple of other places – and we resorted to “Plan B” – which probably ended up better after all. Our party of 15 – and the money it would have brought Dontino’s – ended up at a nearby Bob Evans location.

I called the Bob Evans – the manager answered and was more than happy to host us. She said they’d keep a side room for us – and when we arrived after mass things were all ready. The servers and manager bent over backwards to make it an enjoyable meal and a wonderful family and friends experience. They even gave Emma-Grace her meal for free in honor of her special occasion.

I was more than happy to generously tip the two people at Bob Evans who took care of us.

In short, Bob Evans ruled and Dontino’s drooled.

I’ve been a fan of Opera Mini for a while. It was the primary browser on my first smartphone, the Windows Mobile powered T-Mobile Dash; Mini blew the doors off the default browser, Pocket Internet Explorer.

While some pan Opera Mini for having a somewhat different user interface, its speed more than makes up for it – and the learning curve isn’t that bad.

I’ve used the Android version of Opera Mini 5 for a couple of weeks – and it’s the fastest web browser on my T-Mobile G1. While the standard issue Webkit-based Android web browser is no slouch, at times it chokes on certain web sites. And Opera Mini is noticeably faster than the other web browsers I’ve tried on my G1: Dolphin Browser and the alpha version of Skyfire.

Here are my raves about Opera Mini 5:
1) It starts up more quickly than the stock Android web browser.
2) Its server-side data compression makes web pages render the quickest of any browser on my G1, even on a slow data connection.
3) Its “Speed Dial” start page gives users a quick way to get to their most accessed web sites.
4) Opera Mini uses the “Opera Link” online bookmark storage: handy if one also uses the Opera desktop browser. It was VERY HANDY when I migrated from Windows Mobile to Android.

Here are my rants about Opera Mini 5:
1) It needs an “out of the box” way to be made a phone’s default browser. There’s a separate app to do this; but this is a glaring omission.
2) The app needs to be more multitasking friendly. Right now, Opera Mini relaunches every time a user switches to it from using another app: major annoyance.
3) Opera Mini needs the ability to share web pages just like the stock browser does. It needs to be able to seamlessly pass links to other apps such as SMS, Twitter and Facebook clients, and email programs.
4) In addition having Opera Link, it needs to be able to import or use the same bookmarks accessed by the stock browser (as Skyfire and Dolphin already do).

Opera Mini is a very promising alternative web browser for Android. It’s a few tweaks away from becoming my default browser. Its deficiencies primarily center around how it works with other apps.

I just drove by a restaurant, people dining outside.

me: (to Emma-Grace) “look, they’re dining al fresco”
wife: “who’s Al Fresco?”
me: “I think he was a running back for the Giants.”

Earlier tonight, I updated Adobe Reader on my laptop to the latest version – then as usual I went into the Registry Editor applet and took out one registry key that ALWAYS gets added when this program is updated.

I disabled the “speed launch” startup task that Adobe INSISTS on adding to the registry.

I have a simple missive to Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, RealNetworks, and nearly every other software maker:

Code your primary executables so they launch quickly – and STOP SLOWING DOWN MY PC’S BOOT TIME WITH STARTUP TASKS!!!!

There are some apps that justifiably run at startup: mainly security-related programs such as antivirus, anti-spyware, and firewall apps. Most of the time, though, startup apps are about as useful as tits on a bull. Yes, I’m talking about the goodies left with installations of RealPlayer, QuickTime Player, Microsoft Office, and other software.

When my mom got a new major-brand PC a couple of years ago, of course it was loaded with crapware – and about half of said crapware had useless tasks slated to run at startup. One of the first things I did for Mom was trim almost all the startup entries from the Windows XP “StartUp” folder and “Run” keys from the registry.

I’m taking a wild-ass guess that the folks at software makers who “drink the marketing Kool-Ade” might have a role in slowing down the startup times of PC users and cluttering up the system trays of PCs the world over. I’m guessing said misguided marketing souls insist that apps put icons into the system trays of users to remind said users to use said apps.

As a result, many PC system trays resemble the the front of the uniform shirts of highly decorated NYPD officers. Said PCs probably also take forever to reach a usable state after booting up.

• has a mild case of insomnia and is heading back to bed to try sleeping it off… #
• wonders when @TMobile_USA will again allow online changes to calling plans. Seems that part of their web site's been down since Christmas. #
• sees @mssinglemama 's point about the Doritos #sb44 ad – how it might perpetuate stereotypes of single moms. http://bit.ly/aJng8a #
• @cedarcreek_ @AnneKinLA how about putting Nancy Grace and Bill O'Reilly on the same cable news show? Oh brother! #
• @TMobile_USA the site itself works; section to change rate plans and features unavailable. Ended up calling 611, got taken care of. thanks. in reply to TMobile_USA #
• doesn't think @uakron prez Proenza will brag about this on TV soon. Neighborhood near campus one of nation's worst. http://bit.ly/ak9AUs #fb #
• is chuckling at the budding pi**ing match between a Sacramento news anchor and Howard Stern. http://bit.ly/bc3RBF #fb #
• can see TV stations doing school closings but not closings for "who cares career college" or "no one gives a rat's a**" company… #
• sees Heidi Klum has maternity clothing line: http://tinyurl.com/yzew62g – is the slogan, "during pregnancy, you're either in or out!"? #
• just saw the neighborhood Catholic church cancelled kids parish school – parking lot will be safe tonight from maniac parent drivers. #fb #
• @QualityFrog my daughter used to go to this parish's religion school – and the parking lot reminded me of the Indy 500. in reply to QualityFrog #
• thinks he'll transmit a live stream of his drive home tonight on Qik: will tweet later when going live. http://qik.com/ranchjunkie66 #fb #
• sees some NYPD-style thuggery from VA sheriff's deputies: suit claims man beaten in jail for burping. http://bit.ly/a1ZjeD #
• thinks y'all should head over to http://qik.com/ranchjunkie66 right now to see his snowy commute home in Akron OH tonight. #fb #

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• has a mild case of insomnia and is heading back to bed to try sleeping it off… #
• wonders when @TMobile_USA will again allow online changes to calling plans. Seems that part of their web site's been down since Christmas. #
• sees @mssinglemama 's point about the Doritos #sb44 ad – how it might perpetuate stereotypes of single moms. http://bit.ly/aJng8a #
• @cedarcreek_ @AnneKinLA how about putting Nancy Grace and Bill O'Reilly on the same cable news show? Oh brother! #
• @TMobile_USA the site itself works; section to change rate plans and features unavailable. Ended up calling 611, got taken care of. thanks. in reply to TMobile_USA #
• doesn't think @uakron prez Proenza will brag about this on TV soon. Neighborhood near campus one of nation's worst. http://bit.ly/ak9AUs #fb #
• is chuckling at the budding pi**ing match between a Sacramento news anchor and Howard Stern. http://bit.ly/bc3RBF #fb #
• can see TV stations doing school closings but not closings for "who cares career college" or "no one gives a rat's a**" company… #
• sees Heidi Klum has maternity clothing line: http://tinyurl.com/yzew62g – is the slogan, "during pregnancy, you're either in or out!"? #
• just saw the neighborhood Catholic church cancelled kids parish school – parking lot will be safe tonight from maniac parent drivers. #fb #
• @QualityFrog my daughter used to go to this parish's religion school – and the parking lot reminded me of the Indy 500. in reply to QualityFrog #
• thinks he'll transmit a live stream of his drive home tonight on Qik: will tweet later when going live. http://qik.com/ranchjunkie66 #fb #
• sees some NYPD-style thuggery from VA sheriff's deputies: suit claims man beaten in jail for burping. http://bit.ly/a1ZjeD #
• thinks y'all should head over to http://qik.com/ranchjunkie66 right now to see his snowy commute home in Akron OH tonight. #fb #

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