I don't Tumble anymore, but I have friends who do. And their feeds are the only thing you really need to read on the whole wide Internet. I used this post at work today to emphasize that, in spite of all of our frustrations, I feel like our work in addressing the stigma issues that affect mental health is really making a difference.
"Let's treat every disease like depression" may well be the magnum opus of the millennials. They don't get much, but one thing they do really understand is that emotional states are real things.
My only wish is that the author of "Treat every disease" had offered her work under a creative commons license so I could properly share it with you here.

Does anyone wardrive anymore?
Anyway, with the disaperance of regularly available free-and-open wifi, I've had to rely more and more on known Wifi spots to slurp up my mail on my iPod when I'm on the road.

Sure, I could get a real smartphone. But I won't pay for a 3G data package. If I could get one of those fancy $14.95 a month plans for my iPod touch, I'd think about it, maybe. But that day's a long way off. So I wardrive.

Terminator fans will appreciate that last night, on my way home, I spotted SkyNet on Capital Drive in Brookfield.

Sadly, the only wardriving app I've seen out of the three-billion tip calculators on the itunes store is a $2.99 app. Which is $2.99 more than I'm willing to pay for any app.

G: Oh my god Delicious Orange Juice!
G: Mmmm!
*later*
G: My mouth hurts. I drank too much orange juice.
*later still*
G: Oh! I think I'm going to throw up from all that Orange Juice. And Garlic Bread.
*even later still*
J: What?
J: When?

For Ashe...

MathaisX and Arlen Walker gave a great "intro to git" talk at BarcampMilwaukee4.
Git is an open source version control system. I have read about writers using GIT to great success, so I wanted to see how I could use it.
I took terrible notes, and got distracted trying to play along, especially because I'm not a code guy. I mean, I'm pretty-- I don't compile from source. Couldn't get MacPorts to work on my MacBookPro to do the package thing, so I gave up. And, even when I was paying attention, I was quickly in over my head.
Today, moving a bunch of files around on my Ubuntu test server at work, I realized It would be smart if I put Git to work for me there. Thanks to the magic of apt-get, a half-hour later, It was done. I'm using Git. Sometimes, even open source just works.

If you're an idiot like me and think you might want to play with Git, here are some links:

• My Notes from BarCampMilwaukee4
• Getting Started First-Time Git Setup
• Helpful discussion as to what my the error message was about.
• Git Source

This fine Christmas evening, James, Jeni , Gaia and I watched James' brand new DVD of "The Goonies."
Yes. It's the classic/cult film. I don't need to sell you on it. Watch it now. Say the lines along with it. Goonies Never say Die. Do the Truffle Shuffle. Have your time, down there. Or whatever you need to do.

Then, point your browser over at theGoonies.org and watch "The Goonies Vacation." A brillant fan-film wherein the filmmakers tour some of the film's locations and shoot self-insertion peices of some of the best scenes in the movie.

Jeni: I ATE the Heck outta blueberry muffin
Gabe: Blueberry muffins ought to fear you.
Jeni: really they should
Gabe: There's a four star alert on you out on the blueberry muffinnet right now.
Jeni: I bet. I tore through that muffin like nobodies business
Gabe: It turns out I'm a sysop on Blueberry.muffin.net. Who knew?
Jeni: Goddamn narc.

Jeni and I are watching "The Secret Lives of Women," and one of those ladies -- literally -- thinks she's a vampire. I'm gonna say something I might regret later. But I have to say it; let me put it this way...

In the same sense that I do not believe in the Green Lantern, I do not believe in Vampires.

And that's not to say that I do not believe in Vampiric behavior, or that a man named Vlad the Impaler did, in fact, walk the earth. Nor is it to say that I do not believe that there is absolutely no secret corps of do-gooders sworn to protect the universe at the behest of a council of little blue midgets. I mean, there are more things in heaven and earth than can be described by today's science.

However, my point is more along these lines: There comes a time in a young man's life when he obtains a plastic replica power ring, slides it on his index finger, and finds a strange lump of disappointment welling in his soul as he realizes that even with just the right ring, he will never be a Green Lantern.

I'm just saying, when the 45-year-old dominatrix puts the fake teeth in at the start of the work day, somewhere deep in her belly, she's got to know that she's not fucking immortal.

I point this out to Jeni and she makes a face. So, I ask her, whats the deal with that face and she says:

"That sounds like the kind of story that might be a funny observation, but is probably also true."

Probably, my darling, probably.

Epilogue
And then This horrific commercial for the Trojan Vibrating Finger (Minimally NSFW) comes on. Oh. My. God. WeTV, have you no shame?

A follow up to the previous post: Netflix sent me a form letter telling me that I'm probably not going to get a response. Nice. I'm not going to bother to post it, because it's just a crappy canned form letter telling me to call their assy support service.

It suddenly occurred to me that I could try running IE as "Administrator" might give the netflix Drm component installer the ability to stick it's dcik in my PC and come up juicy. Bing Bang, boom. Vista's all sexed up and can play videos again. ANd might be pregnant. You never know.

DRM does nothing to prevent piracy and hassles the rest of us. I do believe that content creators deserve to be paid for their work, however, I don't think the front line consumer should have to pay for the brunt of it. This is a debate for another day. I'll just say this.

It was me, and not any sort of caring on the part of netflix, that has restored my ability to stream netflix movies on demand on my windows pc.

Thanks for nothin, Netflix.

Dear Friendly Folks at Netflix.

I'm having nothing but trouble with your view on demand services. I have a Windows Vista laptop with all the latest patches and service packs but it will not play your on demand videos. The system continually tells me there are problems with the DRM. I follow the instructions to reset the DRM, but I they never seem to clear up the problem.

Please consider abandoning the hostile DRM wrappers that make your service non-functional. Not only do they make it hard for legitimate, long-time customers such as myself to enjoy your service, they actively lock your product and service into a single delivery mechanism, which, I'm sure you understand, limits your firms abilities to respond to changing marketing conditions.

I understand that there are market pressures that prevent your firm from operating without DRM systems in place, but that doesn't mean your firm should only provide service to a single class of PC users. In that regard, I support expanding your streaming service to other set-top-boxes like the Playstation 3. I would consider even spending a small increase in my subscription fee for the ability to stream netflix movies to the PS3.

One thing, however, I do not support, is the addition of a premium charge for blue-ray disks. I will not pay an additional fee to include blue-ray disks in my netflix cue. Please do not enact one, as it will merely curtail my enjoyment of the blue-ray platform.

Thank you very much for your time, consideration, and timely response,

Gabe Wollenburg
Netflix consumer since March, 2004.

PS. Please note that a copy of this message has been posted on my blog at writelarge.com/openlettertonetflix