Eissler is a Turd

Kind of a crude title but I think that Woodlands' State Representative Rob Eissler deserves it. Many of you in Texas probably already heard about it, but just to refresh your memory: he wants to pass a Cinderella Bill that would prevent 21 year-olds from drinking for the first 6 hours of their birthday. In that article our SG president points out the obvious: what would stop them from going out the following night? Or even just an hour later? This has got to be one of the top ten most idiotic bills ever drafted. Why wouldn't their 21+ friends just buy them drinks so they can get piss drunk in the comfort of their own home? The enforcement is lacking and it will in no way reduce alcohol poisoning cases. He could raise the age to 22 and it would still happen. The Texan also reported an article about a Keg Registration bill, which aims to ensure that whoever provides beer at a party can be held responsible. That one is much less retarded, but still flawed in that it's easy to just pull of the sticker. All these attempts to regulate drinking are inherently flawed because they encourage more under the table stuff (cp prohibition early last century), are hard to enforce, and they're going to make people want to drink even more. If you let people screw up on their own, as sad as the turnout is, people will learn the lesson the hard way. The more important focus should be to prevent drunk driving, not drinking in general.

I have a few big movie items today. The big bomb was that Pierce Brosnan will no longer be 007! That's pretty sad because the Bond movies were already starting to go downhill for the franchise, and without him it just won't be the same. Martin Campbell will be directing Casino Royale though, which isn't half-bad I suppose. But damnit, why do they have to be such money grubbing pigs?! They could've given it to Tarantino, who would've easily gotten Brosnan on board, and it would be one of the best Bond movies ever made. For those of you who missed out on all that drama last year, Tarantino wanted to make an adaption of the novel truer to the book within 40 million, but MGM just wants pretty special effects. I do have some good news though: Jack Nicholson is on board to be the bad guy in Martin Scorcese's The Departed. That movie was already supposed to be good, but now it's going to own every other movie next year. But that's not all kiddos: during the big game on Sunday will appear a commercial for War of the Worlds including Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. As you all know, the current trailer is worthless and many of us are ready for more.

I do have a couple of more low-key movie items. Jurrasic Park 4 now has Jack Horner on the project and a script from Bill Monahan. Let's hope it turns out better than the last one! I mentioned the Ring Two yesterday and coincidentally FilmForce has an interview up today with the writer and it's surprisingly informative and terse.

There was actually some big news in video games today as well. Gran Turismo 4 finally got a release date: February 22! I talked about this game last month, but just to refresh your memory: it's going to pulverize every other racing game ever made. I haven't mentioned the PSP a whole lot, but now we finally have some solid information. It'll retail for $250 on March 24 stateside with a whole bunch of extra goodies like a battery pack and memory sticks and headphones and such. I think it's definitely a good deal and would get it if I had a job. How can anyone pass up FIFA 2005, Twisted Metal: Head On, and Metal Gear Acid?! Just take a look at it:





Shall I go on to some techie stuff? I think I'll start it off extra geeky with this chart of the history of programming languages. You're gonna need a pretty big monitor for that one. There's a rather short piece here about how open source programming shouldn't be about the money but about the code. That makes sense, but I think a lot of people who work on those projects do it as a side thing anyway. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. A supermarket native to Seattle has reported great success with their biometric payment system. The idea is that you don't give the cashier your credit card but rather your finger! They haven't had a single fraudulent transaction since and I hope it spreads because it sounds awesome. Some kid in Fort Bend was too nerdy for his own good because he was recently got caught recording his teacher's keystrokes. It's a good idea, but he definitely wasn't careful enough if he was selling the answers like a moron. Boys will be boys! And he'll be a boy at one crappy secondary school for a while.

There were quite a few new launches today and yesterday. Napster is starting a service that allows people to download songs on the go for $15 a month. The best part is that it's unlimited! Keep an eye out Sunday night for that ad as well. Amazon.com enstated a "Prime" program that offers subscribers free two day shipping on most items for an annual fee of $80. Doesn't sound like te best deal to me, but I guess the power shoppers may enjoy it. Yahoo announced an interesting new search feature called a contextual search. This means that it can bring up relevant results to what you're currently reading on a page. You could hilight text on the page and it would bring you results! Kudos to them!

I'm almost done here, just three random things. If you haven't heard of the webcomic Questionable Content, you should check out this brief article and then start reading it because it's really great! I'm an avid fan of it. I posted last week about a woman who got fired for what she had on her blog and today I found this great article about who owns weblog material when it's related to a company. I think that blogging is rising at a rate that's starting to frighten big companies. And lastly, bonds are now bringing in low yields because there are too many buyers for them! When there's no risk involved and bonds can be sold to anyone, it's hard to demand a high yield for them. It's just an interesting read. Some people blame the Fed for instilling too much confidence, but that's their job!

Since I accidentally did the wrong meme yesterday, I'll just do the Midweek Music Meme today:

What is your favorite style of music (and/or your favorite song) to listen to while relaxing or drifting off to sleep?
Probably jazz classics because they're so pretty and melo. I also like drifting off to Coldplay, but no song in particular.

Oh, and I read and appreciate all the comments people leave. So just because I don't respond don't think that I don't notice. It would just be weird for me to respond though if there wasn't a question posed or something that similarly merits a response.