Local banks are smelling blood. I bank with Old Second (Western suburbs of Chicago) and love them. For the same reason I prefer a local restaurant over Applebees, I prefer to bank where people know me and treat me like a customer - not an inconvenience.

What a charmed life he leads. And this couldn't have been done any better. The sounds behind the video are ethereal and slightly creepy/beautiful. Nicely shot video, great questions, excellent descriptions by Mr. Byrne, and that pure curiosity vibe I used to get exploring old buildings as a kid.

Nice work!

Punitive damages that would ruin most households and will barely show up as a line item on a major label ledger (and will likely never make it to the artists, anyhow) are shameful. Especially since sharing music is not new, just proliferating.

Also, why the distinction of removing funds from an education fund instead of just imposing a fine? (Either of which I vehemently oppose.)

Ever since my first record, I've despised the notion of buying an entire album to get a few good songs. The RIAA has used this method of teasing/withholding to build itself to a monster. And, now that the same masses that have propelled so many talentless idiots into stardom have begun taking matters into their own hands, they want to punish them instead of winning them back.

Luckily, I can still contact friends in MySpace and discover new music on Last.FM without major corporate intervention. Oh wait...

I don't understand why everyone rails against the CUSTOMER and nobody is outraged over the COPIOUS GARBAGE being released by major record companies every week.

Doesn't U2's manager see that iTunes has as much to do with the downfall of CD sales as anything? We, the people, do not have to buy the full CD anymore if half of it sucks.

BTW, are there new episodes of theITroom.com coming out anytime soon? Where would I find information on that? ;)

Ryan Seacrest.

How about spending top dollar for a new gadget after doing all the research and one aspect of it (battery life, for instance) renders it utterly disappointing after all.

I thought I was one up on all the sucker iPod owners a few years back when they all had battery issues and my brand new Cowon player supported video and ran forever. Today, I'm considering an iPod. (Not really.)

Can't you just bump up from Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Extreme to the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Mega-Extreme or Super-Mega-Extreme plan?

Heh - my friend Mike uses the term "batwing" for when his sack sticks to his inner thigh on particularly steamy days. :)

I haven't seen the film, but using my imagination, I would tend to agree with the studio suit that redacted photos might actually work (especially if they're very graphic) thematically.

This might sound tenuous, but in comedy - especially on the radio - I've always found that the bleep that replaces a curse word is much funnier than the unfettered word itself. 99% of the time, I am well aware of what the actual word is as well as its intent. The act of obscuring it in comedy makes it funny.

I suppose DePalma's point is to show the unfettered pictures, and the final artistic decision should go to him (not lawyers), but perhaps black bars further propagate the difficult nature of the pictures in this case.

On the other end of the spectrum, they've discontinued the "biggest boar" competition after one of the monsters died of heat stroke at the fair. My favorite champion hog weighed in at over 1100 lbs. and was affectionately (and appropriately) named "Balls".

Here's a race video:

Yeah, this is most certainly not equal to civil liberties being revoked by the Bush administration. The Bush regime assumes all citizens are potential terrorists and would like us to give up our constitutional rights. (Shouldn't be an issue if we have nothing to hide, right?)

In this case, Kmart reacted to something that actually happened and protected itself. She was detained which was probably less than convenient, but she did actively move shoes out of a box to put hers in the box. Why not just bring them to the register as is? I doubt she was in a hurry if she had the time to rack up a $800 bill. Just because she works for a prestigious paper and buys so much at a time doesn't mean she isn't a shoplifter. In fact, I'm still not convinced of that.

Lesson from this story, it takes less time to find a salesperson to help you than to try to explain why you switched the packaging of an item. And if you think Walmart and Target have different policies, you're mistaken.

Same thing on the layover at LAX (from Hawaii) and walking from the arrival terminal to our connecting flight - there was a perimeter of security guards with a small group of statues in the middle of them. We diverted our path thinking it was either some kind of gang or terrorist activity or something. Before the scene was out of sight, the security people dispersed. This was at roughly 1 a.m.

Seemed like something out of a Dr. Who episode and had us too edgy to sleep the next 5 hour leg.