Tarkblog

steven’s baby comment on VivBlog got me thinking about all the times Celeb and I have been asked when we’re going to have a rugrat.

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Right now, it seems that Iran and the US aren’t really on speaking terms. The US, the big bully of the world, is pressuring Iran to stop developing nuclear technology. Iran, the poor underdog, seems to think that it should. For energy, not for weapons.

Hmm, we have a conundrum.

Here’s my take on things: Iran is a regime. No doubt about it. It’s got an oppressive government. The people are probably good people, but they are led to believe that the zionists are out to get them. That makes them mad. And since they don’t have anything else to do, they rally and protest. They make bombs. They say mean things. You’d probably do the same thing if you were them.

But I don’t understand why the US has to stir up so much trouble. It’s obvious our presence in Iraq is detrimental to our relations with other countries in the area. If the Iranian president wants to run his mouth and say things about the US, why do we have to say anything back? Why do we need to constantly use negative words and tones when talking about Iran? Why not just say what we want and talk only to the UN? State facts, not negative ad campaigns.

I think Iran wants a war. Even if they are developing nuclear technology for energy, once they had it it’s not much further development to make a weapon out of it. Understandably, we don’t want someone like that having that kind of a weapon. Because it’s evident they don’t like us and would want to use it on us.

Why can’t Iran and the US hold face to face talks? Why do they have to doublespeak to other people about all of their differences?

I think that the Bush Administration needs to open their arms to some form of diplomacy, and I’m not talking the kind where they go around and tell other countries that Iran is bad and that that they (the other countries) need to get on board with the US. No, the US needs to reach out to Iran and be warm and show reasons why we don’t want them having the bomb. Open up talks. Be nice to each other. Stop all of this bickering.

Failure to do that, and I think we’re going to have another war on our hands. And this one is going to go much more miserably than the last…if that’s even thinkable.

Thoughts?

I’ve just started the formal request for KDE 3.5 stabilization. We are tracking it on bug #132213. A few other things of note (blockers):

* Stabilizing Qt-3.3.6-r1
* Stabilizing Crypto packages
* Stabilizing Printing Packages

I’m having a bit of an issue with Google’s personalized home page.

After I’ve already signed into gmail and I go to google.com, I get this . Today’s the first time it’s every happened.

I ran Ad-Aware and Sybot, twice; the second time I ran it in safe mode. Ad-Aware and Sybot found a couple of things but nothing major or unusual. I have also cleared out cookies, cache, history, files, etc. Caleb’s not having any issues with his gmail/Google acocunt.

Any ideas?

Last night was the 2st night of painting in the bedroom in the new house. Painting stops being fun on about the second day, I think.

The first coat only took about half a gallon, so I had assumed that we would only need the other half of the gallon for the 2st coat. To hedge my bet, I picked up an extra quart of paint and mixed it in, giving me 3/4 of a gallon.

This did not work out well at all. I ran through that whole 3/4 of a gallon just doing 2 of the walls. So, I sent Annie out to pick up another gallon and some food.

Not 5 seconds after she left, my phone rang. I figured it was her, being so close in time to her departure, so I dropped what I was doing and picked up the phone with my painty hands. It was a number I didn’t recognize.

I answered with my normal, “hello”. To which I hear a woman say:

“Allison?”

Now, perhaps people are just dumbfounded when they call a number and don’t get who they expect, but I assure you kind reader that I do not sound like an Allison.

Politely, I replied: “I think you have the wrong number”.

To which she, not so politely replied: “I don’t think so”. Not in a dumbfounded way, like she was lost. But in a coy, “I’m always right”, mannerism. Much like the first time you went shopping with your mom and put some stuff in the cart you just had to have, and she put it right back on the shelf and told you that she didn’t “think so”.

Double-you tee eff? Obviously, I’m not Allison. I’m not covering for Allison. And furthermore, her prefix noted she was calling from a cell phone as well, which meant she could very easily look at the screen and see what number she dialed.

I replied: “Well, I’m the only person here and I am not Allison”.

5 seconds of silence.

Then she hung up.

I thought about calling her back. I didn’t know exactly what I would say, but in my mind it involved bad words and verbal face pranking. Not that I was mad, per se, but more that in the 15 seconds I got to know this woman I concluded that she was just a downright Martha Stewart and I felt it was my duty to return some grief to her that she had previously laid upon the world.

I didn’t though. Instead we finished painting the bedroom save for a little bit of trim work for tonight.

In related news, Wendy’s new Freschetta sandwiches are mildly good, but not worth the $3.49 sale price. Naturally, my wife had a buy-one-get-one-free coupon.