June 2004 Archives

Check out this interview between George W and Carole Coleman from Irish network RTE:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/0624/primetime/primetime56_1c.smil

G.W. looks a little dumbstruck throughout the whole thing. Apparently his staff didn't prep him for some of the questions.

Someone at the White House didn't care for it either (source:http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1205871&issue_id=11063):
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The White House has lodged a complaint with the Irish Embassy in Washington over RTE journalist Carole Coleman's interview with US President George Bush.

And it is believed the President's staff have now withdrawn from an exclusive interview which was to have been given to RTE this morning by First Lady Laura Bush.

It is understood that both RTE and the Department of Foreign Affairs were aware of the exclusive arrangement, scheduled for 11am today. However, when RTE put Ms Coleman's name forward as interviewer, they were told Mrs Bush would no longer be available.

The Irish Independent learned last night that the White House told Ms Coleman that she interrupted the president unnecessarily and was disrespectful.

She also received a call from the White House in which she was admonished for her tone.

And it emerged last night that presidential staff suggested to Ms Coleman as she went into the interview that she ask him a question on the outfit that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern wore to the G8 summit.
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After seeing G.W., it is pretty apparent why the folks controlling his campaign keep him behind the camera.

Moore's movie has been out nationwide for about 24 hours now, and it looks like the vast majority of critic reviews are positive. My favorite quote comes from Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times:

“It is propaganda, no doubt about it, but propaganda is most effective when it has elements of truth, and too much here is taken from the record not to have a devastating effect on viewers,”

I won't be able to see the movie until Wednesday, since Josh dissed me last night to go see Dave Matthews, but will have a review of the movie posted shortly afterwards.

On occasion, I like to post some actual useful information on this site. A few days ago, I was extolling the virtues of Firefox, an alternative to Internet Explorer. One of the features that I liked was the Adblock extension, which allows you to create a list of images that you want the browser to not display. Unfortunately, the only way that I could find to populate your list was to block them one-by-one, and then the next time you visited, the ad would be blocked. I figured it would be much easier to find other people's populated lists and then import them into my list, and go from there. So I did a google search, and found a couple of sites that had lists. I've compiled them all, and am posting them here for others to use. (Note to the adblock developers: a text file import feature would be nice).

My Adblock list:
http://images.sportsline.com/images/gn_google.gif
http://www.msnbc.com/m/sitecal/cov/m_sitecal_ConcertSeries.gif
http://global.msads.net/ads/*
http://spe.atdmt.com/b/MSMSNMATCH46/*
http://cdn2.adsdk.com/CDN/39914/*
http://global.msads.net/ads/*
http://spe.atdmt.com/b/*
http://forums.nasioc.com/phpAdsNew/*
http://www.pennsylvaniagasprices.com/images/ads/*
*mediaplex*
*advertising.com*
*adloc.com.com*
yimg.com*.swf
*.dvlabs.com*
http://www3.sys-con.com/ads*
*.sys-con*
*www.zdnet.*ads*
*doubleclick.net*

I downloaded and installed the latest version (0.9) of the FireFox web browser and am absolutely loving it. The google toolbar and AdBlock extensions are awesome. Tabbed browsing is great, no more multiple IE windows open all the time. Could this be the death of Internet Explorer? I hope so :)

Looks like a fourth Shanafelt is on his or her way. Colleen enjoyed 11 months of non-pregnancy but Grandma Marie's (who had 14 children) genes kicked in to welcome the next member of our clan :)

Her due date is December 31st, so it looks like the baby will either be a nice tax break or a New Year's baby. My initial thought is that this one is going to be a girl.

In other news, my brother got engaged last week, so congratz go out to him as well. A September 2005 wedding is planned.

And finally, my buddy Matt and his wife Karen just had a baby girl yesterday! (I tried to send him an email, but it got bitch-slapped back to me).

Just noticed that I still had "A Walk In The Woods" as being on my "Now Reading" link below. It's been there since at least December. So, no, I'm not really that slow of a reader, I just forget to update that link. Currently, I'm reading Juniata, River of Sorrows by St. Francis's own Dr. Dennis McIlnay. Dr. McIlnay has taught several of the MBA courses that I've taken, and has proven to be an excellent teacher and writer. I've always had a thing for local history and am throughly enjoying this book. As a youth, I took several canoe trips down the Susquehanna and am looking forward to the day when Ethan and I can head down the Juniata.

Just returned from a week long trip to the ASCUE conference in Myrtle Beach. We had a presentation of our Portable & Mobile Classroom, which proved to be very non-aerodynamic on the trip down, dropping the MPG on the Suburban to a whopping 9. It cost about $150 each way to make the trip, I'm glad it wasn't coming out of my pocket.

Colleen & Ethan made the trip as well, but they got to fly. Thanks to Grandma & Grandpa for picking them up at the airport. I guess Ethan did all right on the plane.

I'm planning on posting some good pictures of the trip over the weekend, so stay tuned. Too tired to do it now though. Must get sleep...

Not too long ago, somebody jokingly asked me when I was going to get my voice over IP setup at my house. Apparently I have a reputation for being an early adapter of technology. However, I just checked out Vonage and it looks like my VoIP system may be just around the corner.

Right now, we pay about $20/month for local calling plus our calling card from Sam's which gives us 500 minutes for about $25. I have to buy one of these cards every three months or so. According to Vonage's web site, I can get 500 minutes a month for $20 using my existing DSL broadband connection. But first, I will have to see if Verizon will allow me to keep DSL if I drop the local number.

Some of the benefits of Vonage (according to their website):
1, Free caller ID.
2, Free call forwarding
3, The ability to have voice mail emailed to you as an attachement (very cool).
4, Easy setup
5, Free 14-day trial.
6, A local number

Definately looks tempting. After reading soime of the reviews on the web, it looks like they deliver on their promises.