What gets into the mind of a 16-year old boy that makes him kill eight people? What will we choose to blame this time around? We’ve already used heavy metal music and the video game, Doom, as scapegoats for the Columbine killings. Sounds like it’s the Nazi movement this time around. I’m sure we’ll be reading about this for the next few weeks as the press, parents and school officials toss the blame around hoping something will stick which will help everyone make sense of the massacre. The fact is that it doesn’t make any sense.

But I feel the same way as I did when I first heard about Columbine…..where are the parents or grandparents of these children? I don’t believe they turned into monsters overnight. Are the parents really so clueless as to not notice any red flags? Senseless.

Been keeping busy the past few weeks working on a new website for LearnKey. The old version had a lot of text and looked very busy. We’ve tried to keep things as streamlined as possible and leave some white areas. Sales for the website shot up last week and I hope it will continue.

Has there been more pathetic, incompetent, and downright uncharismatic leader than Bug Selig? Here’s a guy that’s so out of touch with baseball fans that he believes he can apply a bandaid to a steroid problem that’s been raging out of control for years and we’ll all just act like it never happened. As far as I’m concerned the shattered records of the past few years are a joke. I have little interest in spending my money to support a bunch of doping athletes which justify their addiction by whining they have to keep up with the next guy. I hope the senators rip them to shreds and expose Selig and these other baseball stars for what they are: total frauds!

“Do these guns look juiced to you?”

UPDATE
A few quotes from the hearing today:

“If a player answers ‘No,’ he simply will not be believed,” McGwire said in his opening statement. “If he answers ’Yes,’ he risks public scorn and endless government investigations.”

Hey, Mark, we’ll take this to mean you doped. We’re not fooled by your hipster glasses or your emotional, near tears acting. Answer the damn question and let us decide what to believe.

This just in from Captain Clueless: Mr. Bud Selig:

“Did we have a major (steroid) problem? No,”

Bud, Bud, Bud…do you really think we’re that stupid? Have you seen the neck muscles on Barry Bonds lately? Bud is the new “Baghdad Bob“.

I’m done watching Major League Baseball and I have lost every ounce of respect I had for Mark McGuire. I don’t care if Barry Bonds hits 900 home runs because now we all know he’s been juiced for years. Does he expect us to believe that he puts chemicals in his body and lotion on his skin and doesn’t know exactly what they contain? This whole notion that he unknowingly took steroids is a crock.

Stick it to this fraud of a league and send a message with your wallet. I’m sure Selig will assume everything will blow over and it won’t be long before ticket prices are raised at publicly funded stadiums around the country.

Olbermann: McGwire takes called third strike
Celizic: McGwire is the biggest loser
Verducci: Selig and MLB turned a blind eye

I ask this question after seeing so many people purchase a new PC only to have them slowed to a crawl by viruses, worms, spyware, and adware over the course of just a few weeks. I’d be very pissed off if I’d just spent $1000 on a new Dell only to find it nearly unusable after only a couple of weeks on cable or DSL. Imaging purchasing a new car only to find out that you needed to purchase anther few hundred dollars worth of add-ons and invest a few hours each week to keep it from crashing?

I’ve personally seen this very scenario happen to several friends of the family who recently puchased new PCs. These are not dumb people, mind you. These are regular PC owners that rely on their computers to manage their business, keep track of personal finances or just edit family video clips. Have we come to the point where we now expect every PC user to become an expert in Spyware or Viruses? What percentage of time to do you spend on your PC just keeping it working by running all these necessary programs like SpySweeper, Ad-Aware and then another backup program or imaging solution? I can’t think of another product in my life that requires more upkeep than my PC. When is enough….enough?

I’m still surprised at the number of companies that create websites that look fantastic but have no concept of the checkout process. Two companies that get it right are NewEgg and Amazon. Both sites are easy to navigate and find exactly what I’m looking for. Amazon has an uncanny way of presenting items I’m interested in purchasing. Both sites have an excellent tracking mechanism so I can trace my orders at any time. I used to save a few bucks bidding on items on eBay but it’s hardly worth the hassle anymore unless the item is rare or out of print. So many eBay merchants have no concept of customer service. Some won’t even reply to an email. I’m to the point of not giving internet merchants a second chance because there are so many companies that are willing to earn my business.

The same concept applies to grocery shopping. I used to shop at Albertsons until they began staggering rows of goods right near the checkout lines. If the store was busy and I needed to reach the cold medications I’d have to squeeze past a line full of shoppers and carts in order to reach the product I was after if it happened to be located off one of the shelves close to registers. What is the manager of Albertons thinking making such a boneheaded move? He certainly lost my business.