Just a little note. So I just realized that something got messed up with my date system for WordPress, and it shows that I posted my Winter Break Boredom post today(12/20/09) when it should have been posted last Monday(12/14/09).
Winter is my favorite season. Why? Skiing. Everyone I talk to thinks that it is lame that I ski so, I’m going to go ahead and clear some things up here. I really enjoy freestyle/park skiing almost as much as I enjoy the everyday downhill skiing. Have I been out west? No. Will I go out west this year? A very strong yes. So for your amusement, I’m going to go ahead and post some videos up and the type of skiing I enjoy. Am I this good? Not at all. Maybe next season when I get my gear situated. The ski season has just begun in the Midwest and so far I have been out twice, soon to be three times. I plan on hitting the slopes as much as possible this year and working on some stuff that I feel I need to improve on (read: work on skiing switch(backwards)).Turns out that icy conditions left me with a tweaked up face and wrist and feeling pretty sore. I hit a box and my sub-par garbage bindings decided to give out as I landed switch(read: backwards) coming off of the box. While landing on some ice, my right ski popped off, causing my left ski to slide out from under me when the toe of my boot stuck into the ground. Resulting in me landing on my face and my left wrist. The result? Pain. I tore up my face pretty good and it still feels like I got punched a few times(yes, I know what it feels like to get punched). Hopefully It will heal up and let me sleep on my left side sometime soon.
My face after my slight mishap. Note the red spots all over(those were bleeding).
In other news.
I found this hilarious.
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WTVC-TV) – A 4-year-old boy, beer in hand, is accused of stealing Christmas presents from his neighbors. It’s a strange story, but also a sad one.
April Wright is 21 years old and is going through a divorce with her husband who is in jail. She says she is not sure how her 4-year-old managed to get out of the house, open a beer, and steal the neighbors presents from under their tree. Now she’s just glad he’s okay and says she won’t let it happen again.
The child, Hayden Wright, was found around 1:45 am Tuesday, wandering the streets of his neighborhood. In a police reports, officers said he was wearing a little girl’s dress and drinking a beer. The police report says the child had to be taken to the hospital to be treated for alcohol consumption.
April Wright said, “Biggest concern was him being out there, getting kidnapped, getting run over, the alcohol, having to have his stomach pumped.”
Wright says she woke up that night at 1:45 am and panicked when she found Hayden was gone. She says she put safety devices on all the doors so her kids couldn’t get out, but Hayden was able to break the safety device off the doorknob and get outside.
Once out, Wright says her four year old followed his father’s footsteps and was found on Blue Spruce Road, drinking.
“He runs away trying to find his father,” she said. “He wants to get in trouble so he can go to jail because that’s where his daddy is.”
The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office report says Hayden rang the doorbell a few houses down and the neighbor answered, finding the child holding a partially consumeed 12-ounce beer.
Wright said, “He got it out of my father’s cooler in the back and how he got it open I don’t understand because it was one of those tab beers.”
But it doesn’t stop there. The report said Hayden then snuck into a neighbor’s house through an unlocked front door, and stole five wrapped Christmas gifts. One was a girl’s brown dress which Hayden was wearing when police found him.
“Going to the neighbor’s house and taking their presents, very embarrassing,” said April.
She admits she was not just embarrassed, but scared, and rushed to the hospital that night with Hayden. She said she tries to be a good mother and loves her son, but now feels like a failure.
“Kids do things like this and it’s out of your control, you can do the best you can as a mother, everyone makes mistakes, it was an honest mistake,” she said.
Wright did meet with child protective services today who told her she will get to keep custody of Hayden.
Source: http://www.newschannel9.com/news/year-987196-old-christmas.html
I just have two questions for the mother here…
- How do you not hear your kid smashing the safety locks on the door knobs or handles?(must be a heavy sleeper?)
- How does the kid know how to open the beer without a bottle opener? (my best guess is that he was left home with daddy for a while..)
In all seriousness. This is really sad. It really is. At the same time its a prime example of terrible parenting! How can you neglect your son to the point where he wants to break out of the house, steal Christmas presents, down a brew(or half of one), and run around in a dress?! I’ll let the reader draw their own conclusions.
Microsoft gets sued for Bing name.
There are those who believe that Microsoft came up with the name Bing for its refreshed search engine after staring at the word “Bingo” for several days and then removing the last letter.
However, a small entity in St. Louis has decided that the name Bing was, is and always should be, theirs.
According to Ars Technica, Bing Information Design! has designs on some compensation from Microsoft, as it has used the delightful term, followed by a slightly less delightful exclamation point, ala Yahoo, since 2000.
Even to the most bleary eyes, Bing Information Design’s Web site does not immediately stir confusion with Bing the search engine. Bing Information Design is “dedicated to taking tough, hard-to-define concepts and boiling them down into simple, easy-to-understand ideas.”
So perhaps there might be those who would prefer a few pictures that would engender easy-to-understand ideas that might explain one thing: how could anyone confuse a massively promoted search engine from Microsoft with a minimally known company whose two founders “have over 25 years of experience in design, illustration, branding, information architecture and publishing”?
Bing Information Design’s lawsuit says that Microsoft’s Bing “causes confusion with regard to the relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant, confuses the public with regard to the origin of the plaintiff’s services and dilutes the value of the plaintiff’s trademark.”
The lawsuit also suggests that Microsoft knew of the St. Louis Bing and that therefore Bing deserves “actual and punitive damages, including having Microsoft pay for corrective advertising to remedy the confusion it caused.”
I am sure that many an ad agency would leap at the opportunity to create a campaign that says “Bing. The Decision Engine Decisively Not from St. Louis. And Decisively Lacking an Exclamation Point.”
A Microsoft spokesperson told Ars Technica: “We believe this suit to be without merit and we do not believe there is any confusion in the marketplace with regard to the complainant’s offerings and Microsoft’s Bing.”
It will be interesting to see what proof of marketplace confusion Bing Information Design’s lawyers might offer. Has there truly been consternation in Missouri? Have people walked into Bing Information Design’s offices expecting to find Steve Ballmer chewing on some ideas?
It will be also interesting to hear whose fine decision it was to put that lovely exclamation point after the Bing in the St. Louis company’s name.
One should always have sympathy with the small fish in the big sea. But is this a slightly gratuitous attempt by Bing Information Design to gain a little cha-ching? One awaits the full evidence with an exclamation point in one’s heart.
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10419357-71.html
I really have no sympathy for this little company, but I guess they are going to get what they wanted. Publicity. You don’t go after a multi-billion dollar company for something like this. Is there a copyright/trademark infringement issue here? It appears so. I could be wrong though. I am going to have to agree with Microsoft on this one. There really is no merit; the little family owned business is in a completely different market and has nothing to do with search(read:decision) engines! If this was an international company then I could see how the advertising could cause confusion, but this just sounds like a small “mom and pop” web design company looking for some extra cash during this garbage economy. If the word “Bing” is really messing up this little companies “marketing campaign” and causing “confusion” then I think that they might want to re-think how they market their service. This should get interesting.
