A co-worker of mine recently forwarded me the text below in an e-mail. If you’re inclined to believe the same, please copy, paste, and email to your friends as well:

Things you have to believe to vote Republican today:

1. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush’s daddy
made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy
when Bush needed a “we can’t find Bin Laden” diversion.

2. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with
China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

3. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest
national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

4. A woman can’t be trusted with decisions about her own body, but
multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without
regulation, especially so if they are paying women less than men.

5. Jesus is GOD (and all that implies, like omnipotent, omnscient, and He Created Everything!
He loves *You*…and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary
Clinton.

6. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in flowery
speeches while slashing veterans’ benefits and combat pay.

7. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won’t have sex.

8. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then
demand their cooperation and money.

9. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health
care to all Americans is socialism.

10. HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at
heart.

11. Global warming and tobacco’s link to cancer are junk science, but
creationism should be taught in schools.

12. A president lying about an extramarital affair is a impeachable offense.

A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is
solid defense policy.

13. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution,
which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

14. The public has a right to know about Hillary’s cattle trades, but George
Bush’s driving record is none of our business.

15. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you’re a
conservative radio host. Then it’s an illness, and you need our prayers for
your recovery.

16. You support states’ rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft
can tell states what local voter initiatives they have the right to adopt.

17. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but
what Bush did in the ’80s is irrelevant.

Feel free to pass this on. If you don’t send it to at least 10 other people,
we’re likely to be stuck with Bush for 4 more years.

Friends don’t let friends vote Republican.

We just got back from seeing this new flick, which opened today. We saw it at the Mann’s Graumann Chinese in Hollywood (just down the street from where we live), and I’ll have to agree with the critics: great effects which greatly contribute to the mood and atmosphere of the film, but the story is a bit too reminiscent of Indiana Jones or even something like Romancing the Stone. I thought Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow were excellent, and Angelina Jolie was on screen just enough without becoming too tiring. If we have time this weekend, we’ll check out Silver City starring Chris Cooper.

The Anycom BTM-100 Bluetooth mouse is just what I wanted for my Acer Tablet PC. It’s small, yet sturdy, comes with rechargable batteries, *and* charges over USB. So, I can connect this bad boy up to my APC TravelPower case’s USB ports and charge it along with all of my other devices. I’ve included a picture to show it next to one of my old business cards, for scale.

Check out the press release here:

http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/proom/pr/2004/monthly_ppu.html

I think this is BIG news. I’m definitely going to look into this for my own business, training, etc. Woo hoo!

Just got word of this post at http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=fwak&tab=weblogs&uid=130664522 where Mike Downey, one of the new product managers on the Flash team, is quoted.

Check out this new contest from Citizens for Global Solutions. Top prize is $1000!

http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=304&threadid=889989

Web site is at:

http://www.globalsolutions.org

A Statement of Work (SOW) is essentially a contract between a consultant and a client. I recently came across this one at Gantthead.com:

http://www.gantthead.com/deliverable.cfm?ID=68617

It’s very comprehensive, and looks a lot like the proposals we send out at Schematic. You can also find other Web-related business links at the Business of Design forum on FlashSupport.com.

While working on a project at Schematic, I was investigating the possibility of defining style attributes for component instances in an external CSS file. I got the following system to work:

1. Create an external CSS file, defining the style(s) and component-specific styles you want to customize. For example:

/* Filename: styles.css */
checkbox {
 color: 0x0000FF;
 embedFonts: false;
 fontFamily: Arial;
 fontSize: 24;
}

2. Load the style sheet into your Flash movie, retrieve the style name, and apply it to your instance:

import mx.controls.CheckBox;
var oStyle:Object;
var ccbTest:mx.controls.CheckBox;
var styles = new TextField.StyleSheet();
styles.onLoad = function(bSuccess:Boolean):Void {
  if (bSucess) {
 oStyle = this.getStyle(“checkbox”);
 for(var i in oStyle){
  ccbTest.setStyle(i, oStyle[i]);
 }
  } else {
    trace(“Error loading CSS file.”);
  }
};
styles.load(“styles.css”);

Last night, we went to see Michael Mann’s new film, Collateral, starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx.While both Snow and I found the film’s ending a bit unsatisfying and unresolved, we agreed that the cinematography was ace as always with Mr. Mann’s film. The LA mood was effectively communicated in all the driving scenes, perhaps a little too LA—got me a bit depressed to live in this city. I thought Mann’s attention to the realism of his characters was spot on, and while some might find that a bit tedious or drawn out, it was refreshing for a crime drama to focus on the lack of heroism (except for the end, which is where it got a little cheesy). It wasn’t quite as good as Heat, which is one of my favorite films and one of Mann’s best.

Today, B-Line released a version of the BLDoc tool, which can be used to document ActionScript 2 code. Chafic Kazoun and Sam Neff are the lead developers at B-Line. Check out http://www.rewindlife.com/archives/000191.cfm for more details.