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Will it be Smarty Jones's day?

The big event of the day comes late this afternoon when Smarty Jones goes for the Triple Crown - he's a good bet to win, but it's a rare one that can pull off the Triple Crown - tune in! (For an opinion on the race, read this article .) The race takes off at 6:38 ET, but TV coverage begins at 5:30 p.m.

Music Players
This looks like a pretty neat 20 Gig music player. Certainly different than most. I like the line-in recording ability, which makes it nice to record those old albums. Check out the specs and a review . Certainly not cheap, but cool!

Word of the Day
autochthonous aw-TOK-thuh-nuhs\, adjective:1. Aboriginal; indigenous; native. 2. Formed or originating in the place where found. Autochthonous derives from Greek autochthon, "of or from the earth or land itself," from auto-, "self" + chthon, "earth." One that is autochthonous is an autochthon. - Usage - For cultures are not monoliths. They are fragmentary, patchworks of autochthonous and foreign elements. This is the word that won the 2004 National Spelling Bee Championship for 14 yr old David Tidmarsh of South Bend, Indiana

Fiber to the Dorms!

Think I'll go to Case Western Reserve in my next life (of course larger brain will be required to get in, but that's another story). Fiber connectivity in the dorms! "Case operates the fastest and largest network in Higher Education. We have deployed more than 16,000 Gigabit Ethernet connections throughout the residence halls and campus buildings. This Gigabit-to-the-Desktop approach provides each user with 10 to 100 times faster connectivity then a typical Ethernet connection. All students have access to over 16,000 fiber ports throughout the university plus 802.11g campus-wide! "

Music
DALLAS - Eric Clapton will host a three-day festival this weekend featuring 60 guitarists, including B.B. King, Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck , Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, Joe Walsh , J.J. Cale , Bo Diddley, James Taylor , Jimmie Vaughan and Vince Gill . Proceeds go to Crossroads Centre, the nonprofit drug and alcohol rehabilitation center Clapton founded on the Caribbean island of Antigua, where he maintains a residence. The Crossroads festival, which will be held at Dallas Fair Park and Cotton Bowl Stadium, coordinates with the start of Clapton's U.S. tour, which begins June 9 in Oklahoma City.

Politics
George Tenet is resigning come July. "Tenet, who also faced fierce criticism over his agency's handling of Iraqi intelligence, including a now famous prediction that the case for war against Iraq (news - web sites) was a "slam dunk," broke the news to Bush at the White House on Wednesday night. "He told me he was resigning for personal reasons. I told him I'm sorry he's leaving," Bush said. LIfe in the fast lane - it was probably time for him to go - I can imagine he's had enough.

Audible in USA Today
Big article in the money section of USA Today about Audible.com and its drive to success. They're really the only player in town at the moment and with the ability of Ipod owners to listen in, sales are picking up. Audible continues to add new compatible players to its line up - the Creative Nomad MuVo being the latest one (free with 12 month membership). So if you have have an Ipod, or a Palm Pilot, or Pocket PC, or one of their compatible mp3 players, you're ready to start listening! It truly is a great way to increase your reading and in a whole new, different, and enjoyable way - you will be amazed at what good narration can bring to a book. So when you've grown tired of listening to just music, you can now listen to a good book - ya gotta love it. You can see some of the Audible selections I would recommend on the sidebar to the right.

DaVinci Code Fans
Did you like the DaVinci code? Lots of debate over that one - I started it as an audio book but then realized it was the abridged version, so I stopped. Audible now has it in the unabridged version so I will have to download and listen in. There is now a new book out by Dan Burstein entitled, "Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind The Da Vinci Code ". To read the transcipts of a recent chat with the author of this book, click here .

Feed Demon Revisited

If you're not yet using RSS feeds for your Internet browsing, then you're missing a tool that will save you boodles of time. Check out this good review of Feed Demon 1.10 It will save you a lot of time wandering around to various web sites, when you can visit them all with this one tool all while staying within the same window. "The highlight of the interface is the integrated browser and how seamlessly it blends in with the rest of the application. What makes the browser so great is that it has the capability to open new windows in tabs. This feature alone makes FeedDemon more useful than IE as a Web browser." This review actually covers Version 1.0, but if you pay for it, it is actually up to 1.10 RC5 (release candidate 5).

Word of the Day
pernicious Tending to cause death or serious injury; deadly:a pernicious virus . Causing great harm; destructive: pernicious rumors. Usage - "The murders have subsided, but a more pernicious trend worries him. The price of food -- particularly rice -- has almost doubled. ... "

Big Pipes

Music
Happened to turn on the Today show today and heard Renee Olstead belting out "Summertime". What a great set of pipes on this 14 year old prodigy. Boggles the mind how some folks can be so accomplished at such a young age (Charlotte Church, LeAnn Rimes, etc). You can hear her debut album and this incredible voice at her web site. You can buy her album for a good price here. Some of you may know her from her role on the CBS sitcom "Still Standing" (I don't watch sitcom trash, but if you do.... you may know her from there - suspect you will be surprised at her real talent here). Performing with Bill Cosby's All-Star Band at the 2003 Playboy Jazz Festival, she literally stole the show. At the age of four, Renee was approached by an agent at a tap dance recital. Since then, she has featured in many commercials, TV shows, and movies throughout America, of which "End of days" with Arnold Schwarzenegger, "Space Cowboys" and this year, "13 Going on 30" were a few.

Teenagers
Then, on the other hand, your teenager may represent some of the teenagers outlined in this NY Times article in this Sunday's lead article in the Magazine section. If so, my sympathies are with you!

Movies
Watched Runaway Jury yesterday with Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, John Cusak. Rachel Weisz - good flick of a John Grisham novel. Lots of interesting twists. Interesting that these two consumate actors had never acted together before, despite knowing each other since 1956 and having roomed together in a tiny NYC apt in their early days. The "extras" on the DVD are worth watching to learn more about the two of them and to watch them rehearsing and shooting some of their key scenes. Rent it.

Cheese rolling,anyone?


Bored - looking for something a bit more exciting? What? Did someone say "Cheese Rolling" ? Yep, those merry ol' Brits are up to it again. Now this little activity is sheer lunacy - watched it on CNN today - if you happen to get CNN, you might catch it on a rerun of the News, but if not, head to the Coopers Hill Cheese Rolling and Wake site . This little bit of inspiration takes place yearly in Gloucestershire. Have a look at some of the pics!

Open Source our Electronic Voting Machines!

Along comes an excellent idea to take the electronic voting machine debate out of the hands of the private companies (which can be bought and paid for) and post it on the Net as "open source" code. That way anybody can inspect it and discover the bugs and create an electronic system that really works. Read the article to learn more.

Political Polls
In an unofficial NY Times poll of its readers, Edwards gets 55% of the vote to be Kerry's VP, Wes Clark 37% and nobody else more than 1%. Who would you recommend?

Computer Specials
Scoop up a copy of Nero 6 Ultra Edition for $19.99 after $50 rebate from Outpost.com Good only through June 3rd, so if you want it, you'd better hurry. Rebate available at the link via a .pdf file.
(Nero 6 Ultra Edition wins PC World`s Best Buy Award - “Of the seven DVD Burning suites we examined, only Ahead’s Nero 6 Ultra Edition handled everything we threw at it – and handled it well” “Had everything you’ll need to do almost anything related to CD and DVD creation” PC World, April 2004)

TechTV
A true bummer, G4, which specializes in computer gaming, has taken over TechTV and has eliminated the extremely helpful "Call for Help" show. The "Screensavers" still survives, but "Call for Help" was especially helpful for us mortals. All in the name of greed. Bah, humbug. For some of Leo LaPorte's final comments, check out his blog on this topic

SP2 From Leo's Blog - "We now know why there was a delay in shipping Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. Security code in the update breaks 64-bit processors. Microsoft says it has licked the problem and expects to ship Release Candidate 2 this week with release to manufacture in late July. That should get it out to users by September. Sp-2 adds much needed security to XP and will be a must have download once it ships. "

Photo of the Day

This little fella is out for a stroll after a recent cloudburst (Casio 3000EX 1/524th@f5.6 30mm macro mode ISO 100)