Today marks a very special occasion.  (Well, by the time most people read this, it’ll be yesterday, but I’m going to publish this just before midnight so it’ll technically be correct on the day.)  Twelve years ago, on September 12th, I had just come home from Rosh Hashana services.  After being offline for two days, I was ready to spend some time on the computer.  I signed on, figuring I’d waste a couple of hours and then go to sleep.

Little did I realize that, at the same time, B was on her computer.  She had forgotten that she even had a chat window open.  When she noticed it, she glanced at the people in the chat room.  My name must have caught her eye as did the “Nice Jewish guy looking for a nice Jewish girl” tagline that I had added a couple of weeks prior.  She sent me a message.

As we conversed, I knew right away that there was something different about her.  I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew that something special that made her stand out from other ladies I had met.  Not only did we like many of the same things, but I didn’t feel nervous around her at all.  That was very odd.  I usually would get so nervous that I’d say or do something wrong that I’d freeze up and do nothing.  With B, however, I didn’t worry or freeze up.  Talking to her (and later being around her) just felt natural and right.

Long, late night chats became long, late night phone calls.  This turned into a face-to-face meeting that we couldn’t bear to end.  (We drove my parents, who had accompanied me to the outlet mall but then made themselves scarce, crazy by continuously delaying leaving by “just 5 more minutes.”)  Those all-too-infrequent meetings turned into a marriage proposal (aka squashing bugs) which B accepted.

All because of a forgotten open chat window and an entry into a chat room “just to kill some time.”  Happy Day-We-Met-Online Anniversary, B!

I’ve been thinking a lot about fairies.  You see, NHL recently discovered The Fairly Oddparents thanks to Netflix/Roku.  And by “discovered”, I mean I showed it to him knowing full well that he’d be hooked.  Of course, being the TV geek-in-training that he is, he immediately went on a quest to watch all of the episodes there are.

If you aren’t up to date on your NickToons, here’s the quick run-down.  Timmy’s a little boy who has it rough.  He’s unpopular in school, has parents who frequently ignore him and has a babysitter who terrorizes him for fun.  Luckily for him, he’s assigned two fairy godparents – Cosmo and Wanda.  Their job is to help him be happy until he’s good enough to not need fairies anymore.  At that time, he loses his fairies, loses his memories of them, and they get re-assigned to a new miserable kid.  They grant him wishes with comical results while trying to keep their existence a secret.

At one point, while listening in on one of the episodes, I wondered about the guy who did the voice for Timmy’s dad.  It’s a pretty distinctive voice and I wondered if I had heard it anywhere else.  Being a TV Geek, I loaded up IMDB and browsed on over to the Fairly Oddparents page.  I didn’t see Timmy’s dad right away, so I looked up a few of the other voices.  That’s when I noticed two things.

First of all, Timmy’s parents and godparents are voiced by the same people.  Cosmo’s voice and Timmy’s Dad’s voice are by Daran Norris while Wanda and Timmy’s Mom come from Susanne Blakeslee.  This adds quite an interesting wrinkle to the show since his fairy godparents often act as replacement parents (for better or worse) to Timmy.

Secondly, I began to notice a pattern with some of the voice actors.  A few of them also voice characters in another series that the boys like: Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!

This series, aimed at a younger set, is about the adventures of a yellow being (exactly what he and his friends are isn’t clear) named Wubbzy who likes having fun, his friends Walden (who likes reading/studying/science), Widget (who likes building things), Daizy (who likes gardening).  All of these characters, except for Widget, share voice actors with Fairly Oddparents characters.

Wubbzy might be fun loving on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy, but on The Fairly OddParents, Grey DeLisle plays Vicky, the babysitter from hell.  While Wubbzy would love to play a game of kickety-kick ball, Vicky would love to play a game of kickety-kick Timmy.

Timmy Turner is your average kid with a miserable life (save for his fairy godparents).  He likes the usual boy activities such as watching TV, playing video games and reading comic books.  His voice actor, Tara Strong, also voices Daizy, the aforementioned gardening lover who also likes rainbows and lollipops.  They do seem to share an affinity for pink, however.

Carlos Alazraqui voices Denzel Crocker, Timmy’s fairy-obsessed teacher.  Mr. Crocker, when a boy, had Timmy’s fairy godparents.  Since growing up, however, he’s become a man obsessed with 1) proving that fairies really exist and 2) using their magic to take over the world.  He’s deduced that Timmy has fairy godparents and constantly tries to lure them into traps.  He’s actually been successful a few times, but Timmy always prevails and Mr. Crocker’s memory is wiped, though the crazy remains.  Meanwhile, over on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, Carlos plays Walden, a well-adjusted figure interested in books, science and art.  No sign of craziness at all.

I debated whether or not to share this information with NHL.  On one hand, he would surely appreciate the linkages between the two shows.  On the other hand, would it spoil the magic of the shows to know that people give voice to these characters?  I decided to tell him.  As expected, he loved the linkups and was curious what others there might be.  Given his recent excitement over seeing the “last” Fairly Oddparents episode (the last one available on Netflix, at least), it hasn’t reduced his enjoyment of the show at all.

Have you spotted any interesting cartoon crossovers?

Don’t forget to enter my Hot Wheels Nitro Speeders giveaway!

Last year, I sat my boys down on the HeroMachine website to let them make their own superheroes.  Since it’s been so long, I decided to let them back on to see how they would make their heroes this time.  As with the last time, I guided them through the setup.  I might have nudged them here or there but the general look and feel of the superheroes was up to them.  For example, I might push to make tops and bottoms match in color, but if they decided to change the color palette, I wouldn’t refuse their superheroic demands.

I also purposefully didn’t show them their superheroes from the previous year.  I didn’t want them to simply recreate their old heroes.  I wanted to see what more recent influences might being to their heroes.

Let’s start with JSL.  Last year, he made this hero:

He named his superhero “FireGuy.”  So what did he make this year?

Meet Super Agent JSL Buzz Lightyear.  Breaking down the name first, the “Super” part comes because, to JSL, a superhero must, obviously, be names super-something.  I’m not sure why he thinks that.  Most of the superheroes he knows don’t have names that begin with “Super.”  “Agent” comes from Agent P, from Phineas and Ferb.  We had recently watched the Phineas and Ferb movie so he wanted to be a secret agent.  Buzz Lightyear comes from his favorite Toy Story character.

The shield is based on the one that his favorite superhero, Captain America, has.  The color scheme incorporates his favorite colors.  I’m not sure if there was a particular rhyme or reason behind the rest of the outfit, though.

Next up, was NHL.  Last year, he made Disco Man, so named because he had “disco eyes.”

This year, NHL made Toolguy/Mathman/Cordman.  Yes, you read that right.  This superhero has three names.  I tried to get NHL to shorten it, but he was adamant that it needed to be all three and include the slashes.

The name is based off his love of building things, his love of math, and the fact that his superhero has a whip.  The head was based loosely on Hulk.  For the body, NHL insisted that his superhero was part-robot and so it needed to be grey.  In retrospect, I wonder if this comes from Perry the Platyborg from the Phineas and Ferb movie.  It was interesting that NHL picked out the same tail that he chose last year.  He also chose the same eyes at first, but then changed his mind.

Have your kids used HeroMachine?  If so, what kinds of superheroes have they made?

I’ve been signed up with Google+ for a few weeks now and it seems like an interesting service.  I’ll admit that I don’t use it as often as I use Twitter.  That’s mainly for two reasons.

First of all, I can update Twitter via SMS message, Seesmic Desktop program, API-powered tweet from my blog, Twitter.com or a bunch of other sites/services.  Google+ can be updated only from the Google+ website.  Assuming Google has an API planned, the amount of third party tools supporting Google+ should skyrocket upon its release.  Google has also been testing SMS updates, albeit in India which doesn’t help me.

The other reason I haven’t used Google+ much is more thorny.  You see, on Twitter and here I go by “TechyDad.”  When I first signed up for Internet services (decades ago), I didn’t really care about privacy and thus used my real name.  After I became a father, though, and after B began TheAngelForever.com, I saw the value of anonymity (even partial anonymity).

Being “TechyDad” means that I can mention things in general without worrying that some stalker might track down where I live.  And remember, I’ve had an Internet Stalker before.  As worried as I was when the whole thing went down, I was comforted that it would be extremely tricky for her to pinpoint my address.

Proclaiming my real name to everyone via Google+ negates this anonymity.  Had Google+ been around during my Stalker episode, I would have worried that said stalker would take my real name, run it through some phone listing/lookup tools and (even though we’re unlisted) find our home address.  If someone who is even slightly unhinged finds that out, they might decide to pay you a visit.  Harassment over the Internet is bad enough.  Harassment that spills into real life is a whole different class of bad.

The thing is, though, Google could solve this easily.  They already have a Nicknames field.  Let people specify nicknames for themselves and assign those nicknames to circles.  Then, let people decide whether or not those circles get to see the user’s real name.

Suppose John Smith has three circles: Family, College Buddies and Blogging.  His family would likely want to see him as John Smith.  His College Buddies could see him under the nickname “Dunk” (earned during a college basketball game) but would also be able to see his real name.  His Blogging circle members, meanwhile, would only see him under the nickname “Dunkers Shame” which he uses to blog about various embarrassing things he’s done in his life.  His real name would remain hidden to everyone in this circle.

Under this setup, everyone wins.  Google would know people’s real names.  People who want complete anonymity could hide their name from everyone except Google.  People who want partial anonymity could have multiple identities for multiple circles.

There are bugs to work out, of course.  For example, what if one of John Smith’s College Buddies is also in his Blogging circle.  Would he see updates by “Dunkers Shame” or “Dunk”?  Would his real name be visible?  Would we need to set up a circle hierarchy?  (Name preferences from Circle 1 override name preferences from Circle 2.)   I’m sure Google could solve this dilemma.

Until they set up some kind of pseudonym/nickname feature, though, and let people hide their true names, I just don’t see myself using Google+ much.

Three weeks ago, Twitter began to buzz about a change in TwitPic’s terms of service.  The change appeared to give TwitPic the right to sell posted photos to third parties without the approval of and without sharing the revenue with the person who posted the photo.  Needless to say, people didn’t like this and began moving to YFrog and other image hosting sites.  TwitPic attempted to explain the TOS change but this didn’t satisfy everyone.

I have to admit, I was one of those people who weren’t quite reassured.  I switched over to YFrog.  However, then I began to think.  YFrog said they would never do what TwitPic did, but how could I be sure.  Perhaps a year from now we’ll all be talking about some big scandal about new YFrog TOS changes.  Or maybe YFrog will go belly up.  What would happen to my photos then?

In addition, I began to think about traffic.  When B was at Disney Social Media Moms, she saw Chris Brogan speak.  She relayed some of what he said to me including that you should treat your blog like your home base and Twitter, Facebook, etc like outposts.  Perhaps it was time to move my “photos shared from my cell phone” operation back into my home base.  After all, wouldn’t it be ideal to drive traffic back to TechyDad.com rather than SomeRandomPhotoSharingService.com?

I already had a pretty decent idea of how it would work.  I would create a super-secret e-mail address used only for posting photos.  A script on TechyDad.com would check this inbox for photos I sent and would make them into blog posts, uploading the photos and any additional text I provided.  Finally, an auto-tweet script would alert my Twitter followers of my uploaded image the same way that TwitPic or YFrog would.

While I’d have loved to have written the script myself, I decided to see if anyone had done a WordPress plugin.  Sure enough, I found Postie right away.  I figured others might want to do something similar with their blogs, so I’ll detail my basic steps below.   (NOTE: WordPress has a “Post By E-mail” feature, but you’ll see soon enough why I didn’t use this.) 

Step 1: Be Using Self-Hosted WordPress and install the Postie Plugin

None of this will work if you’re using Blogger or are hosted on WordPress.com.  There might be some solution for you, but I’m not sure what that would be.  Sorry.  If you do have a self-hosted WordPress blog, add the Postie plugin from the Admin control panel.

Step 2: Create a Post From Cell Phone E-mail address

You don’t want to set Postie to use your publicly available e-mail address.  There are protections against just anyone posting to your blog (more on these later), but do you really want to chance it?  So have your web host set up (or set up via their control panel) some kind of super secret e-mail address.  Something like thisisonlyusedby5551212topostpics@mysite.com.  Add that e-mail address to your cell phone’s contacts under a name like “Post Photo.”

Step 3: Configure Postie

In your sidebar, under Settings, click on Postie.  You’ll get a list of options to set up.  First of all, you’ll need to tell Postie just how to get to the e-mail inbox.  So give Postie the mail server, userid and password information.

Next, under User, you want to make sure that you’re the only one who can post.  This is where WordPress’s basic Post-By-Email function fails.  If a spammer were to guess the e-mail address, you might find your blog relaying a Nigerian prince’s pleas for help.  Make sure “Allow Anyone To Post Via Email” is set to No and set up the authorized addresses to be the e-mail address of your phone.  If you’re not sure about this, you could always send a TXT and Picture message to your normal e-mail address and see what e-mail addresses they come from.  (TXT and picture messages often display as two different e-mail addresses.)

Under Message, select the category that the messages should take.  I created a new one called Mobile Photos.  Text/picture messages received as e-mails can often contain signatures added by the providers.  (For example, “This message has been sent using the picture and Video service from Verizon Wireless!”)  Obviously, we don’t want that posting, so go under Advanced options and any signature as a new signature pattern.  You don’t need the whole thing, just enough to for Postie to recognize it and not confuse it with your own text.  (e.g. Don’t add in “This message” lest it cut you off when your post should say “This message comes overlooking a beautiful landscape.”)

You can customize the template under Image and fiddle with the other settings if you wish, but the basic functionality is there now.  Now, you should be able to take a photo, send it to your blog and have it posted.  The only thing you’re missing is tweeting it.

For this, I turned to the Twitter Tools plugin for WordPress.  Sadly, this plugin required a prefix for tweets.  Something along the lines of “New Blog Post”.  Of course, I didn’t want my Mobile Photo posts to be called “New Blog Posts”, so I went into the code.  It turned out to be a simple fix to make it stop using prefixes.  (I actually set it so that a prefix of a blank space would result in no prefix used at all since the application errors if no prefix is used.)  Since I don’t want to assume that everyone out there is comfortable coding, I’d simply recommend finding a prefix you can live with or using another plugin such as Tweet This.

Once this is set up, you’ll be able to completely replace the functionality of those Twitter photo sharing services.  Your photos will remain under your control, you’ll drive more traffic to your site and you won’t need to worry about some random terms of service changes (at least not with this).

If given the opportunity*, would you set something like this up for your blog?  Do you see an upside to TwitPic/YFrog type services that my Post-To-My-Blog solution doesn’t have?

* If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog, but aren’t techy enough to set this up,  I do freelance work on the side and might be able to help you out.  Send me an e-mail via the Contact Me form above.

Don’t forget to enter my Dinosaur Train giveaway.  You could win Dino Poop and Hatchers.

Things used to be so simple.  If I got a comment that was in Russian, I would mark it as spam.  If I got a comment promising me “extra inches” or “wealth”, I would mark it as spam.  If I got a nonsensical comment, I would look at the URL and, sure enough, spammy link goes in the spam bin.  Truthfully, I’d rarely mark these as spam myself.  Akismet takes care of this for me most of the time.  You get the picture, though.

Recently, though, the line between spam and normal comment has blurred.  At first, it was valid comments that appeared to somehow hijack CommentLuv.  Upon further investigation, this turned out to be spammers copying previous comments and using them for their own comments.  (Replacing the links, of course, to be their own spammy links.)  That was annoying, but once I was on to their trick they couldn’t get by me.

Now, though, the spammers have me in a quandary.  And I’m not even sure it’s spammers I’m dealing with.  You see, I’ve recently had a few comments on my blog posts that are completely on topic (referencing specific themes of my post or my kids’ pseudonyms), use proper grammar and spelling, and are (as far as I can tell) 100% original.  No copying bits and pieces to form a Franken-comment here.  This wouldn’t be a problem except that the links given trigger my internal spam-alert sirens.

Is that comment really a valid one about my blog post even if the site linked to reeks of spam?  Should I allow it to remain on my blog?  Should I take it down?  Should I remove the URL so that the comment remains but the link doesn’t?  So far, I’ve been removing them entirely, but I’m afraid of removing a valid comment from someone whose URL just looks “different.”

Have you encountered comments like this?  If so, what did you do with them?

Time for a serious blog post. For the last several months, B and I have been rather quiet about something that has been going on behind the scenes. What started with an innocent Tweet back to someone we didn’t know has now escalated into much, much more. I’ve become nauseous over this entire thing.

An individual believes that we are someone else, someone she knows. Thanks to this, she will not leave us alone. We have blocked her on Twitter and gone to other precautions to safeguard our family.

I can not go into a lot of specifics, but I wanted to let my readers, PR professionals, and companies that I have worked with know what is going on in general terms. Why now? Well, this individual has been threatening to contact you. Via blog contact forms and comments, along with other tactics, she has stated numerous times that she will be notifying you of our so-called "lying ways to get free items."

B and I have worked long and hard to build trusting relationships with everyone on our blogs and beyond. We hope that you will work with us while we try to get this matter taken care of.

Thank you for your support.

By now, everyone knows about the eBook on Amazon that caused an uproar.  (Don’t worry, that link only goes to a TechCrunch story about the book.)  I’m not going to refer to it by name, mainly because I don’t want those words linking up to my site in Google.  (I like getting readers on my site, but not readers looking for *that stuff.*)

When people have told Amazon to yank the book, they initially responded with the following statement:

Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.

Since then, they have removed the book.  However, some questions seem to linger.  Some comments I’ve seen have referred to this as a First Amendment issue.  Others described Amazon taking the book down (or people advocating the book’s removal) as censorship.  Still more are questioning how a book like this can get on Amazon in the first place.

Let’s start with the First Amendment issue.  Does Amazon’s yanking of the book constitute a violation of the author’s First Amendment rights?  Let’s look at the text of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Obviously, the relevant section here is “abridging the freedom of speech.”  At first, it might seem that Amazon might be violating the author’s First Amendment rights, but there’s a catch.  The beginning of the text says “Congress shall make no law….”  The First Amendment is a restriction on Congress and, as court decisions and later Amendments have established, other branches of government.

Last time I checked, Amazon isn’t part of the US government.  Thus, they aren’t bound by the First Amendment.  If you walk into a local supermarket and begin shouting about how much you hate their store, you’re sure to be shown the exit.  This is protected speech, but the store is private property and they are under no obligation to allow you to remain there.  Similarly, Amazon can let people self-publish eBooks on their website, but if they find something objectionable, they are well within their rights to remove it.

When you get right down to it, you’re playing in Amazon’s yard and you have to follow their rules.  This is a good thing. If Amazon was forced to uphold First Amendment rights, would it stop there?  Would other companies be forced to do the same?  Would bloggers be required to keep comments visible and not delete ones they find objectionable?

So the First Amendment doesn’t apply here, but what about censorship?  Surely, taking the book down would be censorship, right?  Not exactly.  Let’s look at the definition of censorship:

Censorship is suppression of speech or other communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body.

Amazon clearly isn’t a governmental entity.  Media outlet more generally refers to news organizations (e.g. CNN) and, while Amazon is a very large online shop, they definitely don’t control all online sources.  When you get right down to it, they are just a company that sells stuff and that means they get to decide what they will be selling.

Going back to the local supermarket example, local supermarkets often carry free newspapers or flyers for customers to take.  However, just because they carry these, doesn’t mean they are obligated to carry any and all that are given to them to pass out.  They can object based on a variety of reasons and the author is free to go to try another store.

Stores can also decide which products to carry based on guiding principals.  A Christian book store might refuse to carry Harry Potter books because they think it promotes witchcraft and an organics market might not carry chicken from a non-free-range poultry farm.  Neither of these are instances of censorship.  You might disagree with the reason for the store not carrying the item, but it isn’t a case of censorship.  Now, if the Christian book store got a politician to enact a state-wide ban on all sales of Harry Potter books, *then* you would have a case of censorship!

There’s another thing to consider here.  The topic that the book in question discusses is illegal.  Now, if it was an explanation as to why the author thought this should be legalized I would have gritted my teeth and begrudgingly admitted that the book, while disgusting, was legal.  Instead, this book appeared to have been a “how to” guide.  A lesson in how to do this thing and get away with it.  Amazon is well within their rights to keep this book out of their library just like they might keep “How To Kill A Random Person And Cover It Up” out.

So what about the final question:  How could Amazon let a book like this get on their site to begin with?  Amazon set up their system to allow people to publish their own eBooks.  Amazon doesn’t screen these for content before posting them for the same reason YouTube doesn’t pre-screen all of the videos its users post.  There simply isn’t enough time.  Even if they were to open an entire department, they would need to work constantly to read through each and every book to determine whether it should be allowed.  Remember, not every title would be so obvious.  Some books with “obviously bad” titles might actually wind up being innocuous (though, perhaps, poorly named).  The undertaking would be tremendous.

Of course, when Amazon was alerted to this book’s existence, they shouldn’t have released a “we don’t censor” statement and then pulled the book to no additional statement later on.  Instead, they should have released a statement that they were examining the situation (to help cool everyone down for a bit) and then quickly examined the situation.  Then, after determining that the book was objectionable and possibly illegal, they should have removed it with another statement referring to their policy on such matters.

If anything, I think the main source of frustration was with Amazon’s lack of a response.  In an era when “that’s odd” can inflate into nationwide cries of “boycott!” within an hour, taking a day to act and not releasing a detailed statement on the matter is a very bad PR move.  Other companies should look to Amazon and figure out how they would have acted, had they been in Amazon’s shoes.  Getting policies in place before an incident occurs can help to calm people down and turn them back into customers instead of a screaming mob.

Last year, I wrote about how I would love to cut the cable cord and stop paying for cable TV.  At the time, I assumed that DVD rentals/purchases (including services such as Netflix), in-home streaming (via purchased and ripped DVDs) and the Internet would pick up the slack from our loss of cable TV.  After all was said and done, I figured that cutting the cable cord would save us $15 a month.  Not much, really.

Later on, I actually won a Roku and tried out Netflix.  This resulted in a four part series titled Netflix, Roku and Cut Cable, Oh My!.  (Here are links to part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.)  During this series, I revised my estimates, including purchasing equipment to receive OTA signals and a TiVo box to record shows.  I also cut back on Amazon VOD and purchased DVD estimates.  At the end, I wound up estimating a savings of $40 a month.

Since it has been about year, I figured it was time for a follow-up.  First of all, our cable cord is still fully intact.  Despite our calculations of what we would save, it turns out that too many of the shows we like watching are on cable TV.  Still, our television landscape has changed dramatically in the past year and it doesn’t bode well for the future of the cable cord.

First of all, that three month Netflix trial turned into a paid-subscription.  Yes, this is $13.99 extra a month, but it is well worth it.  We get 2 DVDs out at a time and unlimited streaming.  Thanks to our Roku box, we can watch videos streaming from Netflix on our television.  The kids have taken to this the most and will watch the same shows over and over.  They even request “Roku” (by which they usually mean Netflix on Roku) over regular TV on a regular basis.

NHL and JSL have discovered classic cartoons such as Pink Panther and Rugrats and will watch their antics over and over.  (Note to Netflix and Nickelodeon: Please get more than just the first 4 seasons of Rugrats on streaming!)

Amazon VOD has gotten almost no use.  About the only time I’ve used it was when I had a credit to use up.  Even then, my purchase has gone unwatched since the boys love Roku so much.  Still, were I to cut cable, I could see buying Mythbusters this way, but not much else.  A season of Mythbusters on Amazon VOD would cost about $43.50.  At that rate, I might be better off waiting and buying it on DVD.  (I still wish Netflix could get the DVD season sets instead of the “random episode” collection DVDs.)

Paid rentals and DVD purchases have gone virtually extinct.  Yes, we’ll buy the occasional DVD, but this is a rare event.  Meanwhile, our trips to the library to take out DVDs have become a nearly weekly event.  The boys get excited to go to the DVD section and pick out 1 DVD each.  Then they can’t wait to get home and watch it over and over until it is time to return it and pick a new DVD.  This is quite a deal since it is essentially free.  “Essentially” because it is paid for via our taxes, but I can think of worse ways to spend tax money than beefing up our public libraries.  Besides, the boys almost always get books while there too.  We’ll leave with three or four DVDs and a big bag full of books.

Still, there are cable channels that we just love watching too much to cancel.  If these shows were available in a streaming model (say, via Hulu Plus, Netflix or some other provider), we would gladly subscribe to those and ditch the cable cord.  Until that happens, though, I don’t think the cord will get sliced.  Of course, as more content goes streaming and as we watch less and less non-streaming content, the cable cord’s lifespan seems more and more limited.  I’d probably be safe to declare that we won’t cut it in the next year, but I wouldn’t be as sure about the next 3 – 5 years.

I usually do a Wordless Wednesday on Wednesdays, but this one needs some introduction.  It’s no secret that I’m a geek on many levels, including (but definitely not limited to) a math geek and a computer geek.  So when I heard that Google was being used to make Venn Diagrams of religious stereotypes, I was intrigued.

The basic premise is that you type “Why is X so” or “Why are X so” into Google’s search box.  Google will, helpfully, supply you with terms that others have searched on.  The resulting terms are written down and charted into a Venn Diagram.  (For the math-challenged, Venn Diagrams are big circles which encompass the terms and perhaps overlap with other circles.)  For example, if you were looking to make a political version, you might use “Democrat” and “Republican” and get this Venn Diagram.

Of course, all of the terms stated above were made by Google users, not by me.  So please don’t pepper me with e-mails, comments, tweets or other forms of contact saying “How dare you call my political party Stupid!”  I’m only here to make the Venn Diagrams and perhaps point out some interesting features on them.  In this one, I’d say that the searches were likely done by members of the rival parties and that each party seems to describe the other with the same derogatory terms.

Then, I decided to move onto Moms and Dads.  However, I also thought I’d be ambitious.  Why not include Men and Women in the diagram?  Make it a four-way chart, like so:

Notice that, apparently, Moms, Dads, Men and Women are all described as “Stupid.”  Perhaps kids googling about their parents while each sex searches to understand the other?  Dads and Men are both mean, but dads are spared the “Selfish and Lazy” aspects of men.  Meanwhile, Women are “emotional, complicated and crazy” but moms are simultaneously “nosy and nice.”  (They are very sweet while they leaf through your stuff?)  Moms and Dads find common ground in being annoying.  (To each other?  Their kids?  All of the above?)

Around now, the computer geek in me took over and I decided to search for Microsoft, Google and Apple.

They are all successful (of course), but Microsoft and Apple are expensive while Google is simply “Big”, “Awesome” and… “Racist”?!!!  I’m at a loss for that one.  Any ideas where that could have come from?

Of course, this led to a comparison of the four major cell phone carriers in the US.

This must be the simplest of the bunch.  All of the carriers are thought of as expensive.  Verizon and AT&T are both seen as slow.  Meanwhile, Sprint and T-Mobile are both Expensive and Cheap.

The results of these searches were quite interesting.  Any ideas on others to do?  Perhaps I’ll do a follow-up post.