As I was walking home for my lunch break today, I noticed a car that had broken down in at a stop light, slowing traffic down and bringing out the worst in many Chicago drivers that happened to be stuck behind the car. As I walked by, a fire truck passed through the intersection, pulled over, and three firemen and a paramedic got out and helped the man push his car out of the intersection.

No one called the fire department – they were just on their way back to a station, saw someone in need, and helped him. They didn’t have to. No one would have thought anything of it if they had just driven on by, but they didn’t. It’s nice to see that people still help each other out. Is it possible I’m just surrounded by the only self-centered, egotistical people in the entire world here at Illinois Tech? Nah, I’m sure they’re everywhere, but thankfully, so are fire fighters.

Apparently, K-Mart has recalled some Martha Stewart brand matches because they “may ignite upon impact.” Nope, I am not kidding. It is really unbelievable that a retail store has to be this frightened of lawsuits to do this. Can we all just agree to stop being stupid so stuff like this can stop happening? Please? With sugar on top?

I’ve been meaning to write for awhile about my outrage over Comiskey Park (where the White Sox play; it’s only a couple blocks from my house) becoming US Cellular Field. When the change initially took effect, there were many radio personalities, especially sportscasters, who said they were going to keep calling it Comiskey. That lasted until someone (no doubt US Cellular’s lawyers) got angry and started suing people. At one point, I think (this has not been verified, so take it with a grain of salt), the FCC started levying fines when someone said “Comiskey Park” in reference to “US Cellular Field,” just like how they fine stations when they slip up and broadcast “illegal” words over the air.

Anyway, the outrage I feel at renaming a historic sports landmark to something as ridiculous as US Cellular field may seem unwarranted. But for all you baseball fans out there, how would you feel if Wrigley Field became Wrigley Juicy Fruit Gum Arena, or even worse, Spider-Man 2 Movie Coliseum? The problem is the perversion of our social culture by advertising. There’s an article over at k5 that nearly made me cry (out of agreement with what the guy was saying, not sadness or happiness). Finally, someone else who feels the way I do. I mean, one of the main reasons I built my own web server was so that I didn’t have to host my site somewhere where they advertise all the time. I use Mozilla Firefox as my browser so the pop-ups don’t bug me. If slashdot and k5 wouldn’t advertise, I think I’d like them even more. I absolutely hate static advertising. Why does everything have to revolve around money?

Interestingly, when I bring this up in conversation, most people I talk to seem opposed to the idea (though admittedly not as vehemently as I am). So why aren’t we fighting this sort of thing? Does our apathy and laziness truly run that deep? In the end, I am forced to ask the age-old question: Is nothing sacred?

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/5/5/165728/6687

Oh, and I am trying to buy the domain savecomiskey.org, and hope to develop a site where people can speak out against the evils of advertising. Maybe we could even buy out US Cellular’s share of Comiskey! Then we could call it whatever we want, right? I mean, money talks… If you’re interested in helping me out, drop me an email.

“Wow,” was all I could say after reading this article. For those of you who are unaware, a MUD is an online multi-user game. (There is a MUD FAQ at http://www.mudconnect.com/mudfaq/) Anyway, the game in question is Achaea, a text-based MUD. It seems that the creators of the game introduced a highly addictive substance, called “gleam,” into the game environment, and players’ characters quickly became addicts. The benefit of using gleam is an increase in the character’s dexterity, but players who are suffering from withdrawals after becoming addicts and trying to quit are paying a high price: it can take up to 25 hours of in-game time to recover from gleam addiction. Maybe people will learn from this virtual experience? Nope, didn’t think so…

Interesting stuff from some pretty big names. I haven’t read it all yet, but I’m hoping maybe some of it will provide some fuel to get my own creative juices flowing so I can write something of my own for Keygrips. Anyway, the link is http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/5/8/73755/86297. Enjoy!