Renew Your Mind

I watched all 14 episodes of Firefly over the weekend. When Firefly was originally aired on Fox I saw one episode (The Train Job) and didn’t really get into it. I just thought it was western set in space and couldn’t identify with the characters. I ended up watching, “John Doe” that season as it had a close resemblance to one of my favorite shows, “The Pretender.” I think Fox made a big mistake by not showing the pilot episode first. After watching the Pilot I could better identify with the characters. The series ended up being much more than I expected. My only complaint was that the Chinese was horrible (my wife who speaks mandarin could understand less than half because the accents were all off) and if the cultures were so Asian and Western influenced, how come there were hardly any Asians? I enjoyed the series a lot and was glad that it didn’t have a hanging ending before being cancelled (like John Doe). Fortunately, there will be a movie coming out next year (April 22, 2005) called, “Serenity.” I hope the movie will tie up the loose ends or build enough momentum to kick off the series again.

800 pounds of falling excrement, can you top that?

The state of Illinois has filed a lawsuit against the Dave Matthews Band for allegedly dumping up to 800 pounds of liquid human waste from its tour bus into the Chicago River earlier this month.

The suit, filed on Tuesday by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, claims that a bus rented by the usually eco-friendly group was traveling cross town to the band’s hotel on Aug. 8 when it pulled up alongside a metal grating on the Kinzie Street Bridge. That’s when, the suit claims, bus driver Stefan A. Wohl emptied the contents of the vehicle’s septic tank into the river.

And that was bad news for Chicago’s First Lady, a passing tour boat filled with 100 people on an architecture sightseeing cruise that was doused by the falling excrement.

Gross, I’d expect more than a refund. How about free concert tickets?

Let me propose a radical notion: The weblog’s greatest strength–its uncensored, unmediated, uncontrolled voice–is also its greatest weakness.

Almost everyone who has a weblog strives to have an audience. Otherwise, he/she should just keep a private journal. Rebecca Blood has some good ideas on how to maintain a good reputation when using your weblog as your voice on the Internet. Most of it is common sense but it serves as a good reminder nonetheless.