Today's Post Brought to You (FINALLY!) by Jiteco

Finally, someone has recognized the vast reach and influence of Your-Not-So-Humble-Correspondent and is willing to remunerate him appropriately.  The other day, I received an e-mail from the good folks at Jiteco:

"Dear The Solipsist," the letter began (such formality!  Most people just call me "Solipsist"), "We would like to promote Camtica 4.3.49578 on your blog."  In exchange for such promotional consideration, they offered to GIVE me a full copy of the product!

Sign me up!

What's the product?  I have no idea.  Well, here:

Camtica enables you to create professional screen recordings, presentations, tutorials and more. You can record any desktop activity with voice, webcam and animated mouse clicks. The resulting video can be saved in various formats including AVI and WMV.

Why do you need Camtica?

* To create professional screen recordings, demonstrations, presentations, screencasts, tutorials and more

* To generate effective videos that help you train, teach, sell and more

* To create demonstration videos for any software program

* To show customers how to use your product
* To create on-demand interactive training, tutorials for school or college class

* To create a set of videos answering your most frequently asked questions

* To share your recordings on YouTube, Screencast.com and other videos sites

Features:

* Records entire desktop, selected rectangle region, dynamic region around mouse cursor, webcam

* Records anything on the screen including windows, objects, menus, full screen and rectangular regions

* Records desktop screen with audio and webcam together - personalizing your videos by including a webcam movie of yourself over * your desktop at any position

* Records video chats, Skype video calls, games, flash movies played on sites

* Mouse highlighting spotlights the location of the cursor

* Records video in many video file formats including AVI and WMV

* Supports various video and audio codecs

* Free support and advice

* Free lifetime updates and upgrades

* System requirements: Windows XP/2000/2003/Vista/Windows 7

It’s easy to use as one, two, three.

Sounds good to me. (OK, I still don't exactly understand what the product is, but, hey, FREE!)

Folks, this is big news.  For three years now, I've faithfully posted to this blog, enlightening you and bringing just a small bit of joy to your empty, empty lives.  And finally I have received that greatest reward to which any blogger can aspire: SWAG!  I think my New Year's resolution will involve the prominent mention of commercial products in every post.

Some may accuse me of selling out.  To them I say, I've been trying to sell out since early 2009!

A Pre-Emptive Review

There's a new movie coming out starring Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah.  As far as I can tell, the play dueling choir directors.  The movie is called "Joyful Noise."  It opens some three weeks AFTER Christmas.  Draw your own conclusions.

Thursday Trendwatch

Following the logic that the enemy of my enemy is, at the very least, my frenemy, the Obama administration announced that it would sell F-15 FIGHTER JETS (10) to Saudi Arabia for about $30 billion, which will quickly be returned to the monarchy in exchange for oil.  Still, the move makes sense when you consider that Saudi Arabia is a staunch American allies in the volatile Middle East, not like that nasty country from which most of the 9/11 hijackers came, Saudi Arabia.

With all that oil money, perhaps we could interest the Saudis in purchasing some shiny new American houses.  They could take advantage of ridiculously low FIXED MORTGAGE RATES (9), which, while finishing the year slightly above their all-time low, nevertheless present an irresistible opportunity to anyone with money to buy a new house.  So, y'know, nobody in America, but still. . . .

Coming in at number 8 on the Trendwatch is ALZHEIMER'S.

And, coming in at number 8 on the Trendwatch is ALZHEIMER'S.

Now, some sad news for all you fans of KATY PERRY AND RUSSELL BRAND (7) (the couple, not the individuals, 'cause God knows why anyone would be fans of either one individually).  They may be having difficulties.  I'm surprised.  Not that they're having difficulties, I'm surprised that they're married, but that just shows you the level of my pop-culture knowledge.  I suspect the trouble started when Katy Perry spent that "platonic" weekend with Elmo after her infamous "Sesame Street" appearance.  Just friends, my eye!

Fear not, though: The world of celebrity romantic entanglements continues to spin with news that ZOE SALDANA (6) is dating Bradley Cooper.  How he got all the way to Pandora, I'll never understand.

Today, for those of you who missed it, was DUMP GODADDY DAY (5).  The online domain-name company has found itself the target of boycotts because of its initial unwillingness (since disavowed) to oppose SOPA--the Stop Internet Piracy Act--which goes before Congress next month.  So, yes: Sexist advertising?  Fine.  Corporate legislative policy, which, frankly, would seem to have little impact on the legislation under consideration anyway?  Boycott 'em!  Incidentally, December 29 is also Pepper-Pot Day, a holiday on which we commemorate the soup that the Continental Army ate during the harsh winter of 1777-78.  Seriously!  More people should know about this holiday.  Maybe I'll start a website about it.  Wonder if the name Rememberpepperpotday.com is taken?  Where could I go to find out. . . .?

PIPPA MIDDLETON (4), having attended numerous weddings this past year, says she herself feels she is "undatable."  Has she considered that nobody wants to date someone named "Pippa"?

REGGIE BUSH (3), the Miami Dolphins running back missed practice today.  At the same time, he also speculated that he was capable of breaking various football records.  Not sure whether one of the records he's shooting for is most practices missed, but, if so, he might have a shot.

I'm going to skip right by number 2 (DEBRA MESSING), 'cause it's just another celebridating story, and I really want to get to number 1, which is ELLY MAE CLAMPETT.  This is why I enjoy the Trendwatch.  I mean, I can honestly say that I had not given Elly Mae Clampett a thought in the last, oh, ever.  And yet, here she is, a fictional character from a 40-year-old TV show, sitting pretty atop the Trendwatch at the end of 2011.  What can this possibly be about?  If I find out she's dating Tim Allen or something, I just quit!

Well, OK: It seems that Elly Mae--or more precisely, Donna Douglas, who played the character on "The Beverly Hillbillies"--has settled a suit with Mattel over its use of "her" likeness for a Barbie doll.  Next, she is going after the people who decided that her character's official outfit should become known as "Daisy Dukes."

Overheard at Target

"So, if it says 'Buy 4, get 1 free,' that means I get five, right?"

"Right."

"And the FIFTH one is free?"

"Right."

"OK, because I wasn't sure if that meant that the FOURTH one is free."

"OK."

"You could make that clearer, you know."

"I--  Well, maybe, but, did you WANT five?"

"Yes."

"So, why not just bring five to the register and see what happens?"

"That's what I did."

"OK."

"I must have stood in the aisle for five minutes trying to figure that out."

I weep for our generation.

12 Monkeys and a Few Thousand Concealed Handguns--and I'm More Worried about the Monkeys!

What is the world coming to when I find myself more worried about science than I am about right-wing gun-nuts?  I blame the New York Times.

First, I flipped to (well, OK, clicked on) an article entitled "Guns in Public, and Out of Sight," about laws allowing people to carry concealed handguns.  Now, being a firm believer in robust gun-control laws, I prepared myself to look down with liberal disdain on the benighted proponents of such barbaric legislation.  And the Times' reporter, true to the paper's liberal-leaning editorial policy, clearly intends for the reader to find concealed-carry laws dangerous and wrong-headed.  Then I read these paragraphs:

"The New York Times examined the permit program in North Carolina, one of a dwindling number of states where the identities of permit holders remain public. The review, encompassing the last five years, offers a rare, detailed look at how a liberalized concealed weapons law has played out in one state. And while it does not provide answers, it does raise questions.

"More than 2,400 permit holders were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, excluding traffic-related crimes, over the five-year period, The Times found when it compared databases of recent criminal court cases and licensees. While the figure represents a small percentage of those with permits, more than 200 were convicted of felonies, including at least 10 who committed murder or manslaughter. All but two of the killers used a gun."

Sounds worrisome, no? Well, actually, no.

Consider the numbers: "More than 2,400 permit holders" is of course vague.  We don't know how many more than 2,400, but we can assume that it is less than, say, 2,500, or the writer would have said "less than 2,500.."  Still, a couple of thousand convicted criminals running around just one state is no small potatoes.  Except note that "or" in "convicted of felonies OR misdemeanors."  Reading on, we see that, "more than 200 [i.e., less than 300] were convicted of felonies."  Well, OK, but still: a couple of hundred felonies committed by gun-wielding reprobates.  Except note that only 10 of these felonies were "murder or manslaughter."  And "all but two of the killers used a gun."

So another way of looking at this is that, over a five-year period, of the 2,400 crimes committed by people licensed to carry concealed firearms, less than 15% were felonies, and only five percent of these felonies involved the death of a victim--and 20% of the killings were not done with a gun anyway, making the whole concealed-carry permit somewhat irrelevant.  So even if we assume causation (which we can't), we can only conclude from this that concealed-carry gun laws led to eight homicides over a five-year period.  And note that the reporter stipulates that the 2,400 crimes committed by licensees represents "a small percentage of those with permits."

Obviously, any felonious homicide is unacceptable, but looking at these numbers carefully leaves one with the distinct impression that concealed-carry laws are hardly the threat to public safety that a liberal like me would tend to believe.

Well, OK, maybe I have to think more critically about my position on gun-control, but I can maintain my faith in science as an advancer of human well-being.  What;s that?  Oh, scientists have figured out a way to genetically alter bird flu so that it can be transmitted through the air?  And bird flu is about 50% fatal (compared, say, to the horrific flu pandemic of 1918 which killed about 2% of its victims)?  And they are thinking about PUBLISHING the information on how-to-engineer-a-world-killing-virus?

Look, I believe in the free exchange of ideas as much as anybody, but I would suggest that this is one piece of information that should, maybe, be guarded very very very carefully.  I mean, the fact that this genetic alteration can be done is scary, if not entirely surprising.  But you have to ask yourself who REALLY needs to know HOW to do this?  Considering that governments tenaciously guard secrets on things like how to make nuclear bombs, I would think that guarding secrets on something that is exponentially more dangerous to the human race is a no-brainer.

But what do I know?  After all, I'm beginning to think concealed-carry laws may not be such a bad thing.  Next thing you know, I'll be supporting Rick Perry for President.  The man does have nice hair.

Enter: The Lemur!

From today's Times comes the news that ordinary citizens are taking the law into their own hands ("Crusaders Take Page, and Outfits, from Comics").  Unlike tacky vigilantes of yore, though, today's citizen-crimefighters are doing things right: They are donning ridiculous costumes and patrolling the mean streets of metropolises like Salt Lake City, armed only with cellphones and an inflated sense of their own imperviousness to grievous personal injury.

I am inspired!

Our streets are not safe!  The police cannot control the city!  The time has come for ordinary citizens and self-promoting bloggers to enter the fray, casting aside concerns for personal safety and common sense.  Like the costumed heroes of Utah's Black Monday Society--ordinary citizens who have declared war on crime and apathy--I shall take it upon myself to uphold all that is good!

Now, all I need is a costume. . . .  Let's see.  Criminals are, by nature, a superstitious and cowardly lot, so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts.   I must become a creature of the night, dark, dangerous, mysterious.  Ah.  Of course.  I shall become a lemur.

Scampering around the city by night--not too late, though, 'cause I have to go to work in the morning--I shall harass and confound the criminals who plague our fair city.  I shall snatch sunglasses and baseball caps and run quickly up nearby trees or telephone poles, waving my trophies tauntingly while, below, frustrated felons howl in impotent rage.

Fear not, good citizens.  The Lemur is on the case!

Well, right after dinner, anyway.

Season's Greetings

Kenzaburo Oe, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, once said something in Japanese, which I do not speak.  I can only assume, therefore, that it was something poignant about Christmas.

My Christmas has been somewhat disappointing, as WOS refused to get me what I truly wanted:

I mean, the "Forever Lazy" even has a flap in the back so you can, y'know, do your business without excessive inconvenience!  WOS thinks they're stupid and embarrassing, though.  She did, however, get me a gift card to a major retailer, so I may be able to find one there.

Still, it's not about the gifts, right?  It's about family and togetherness and watching movies and eating Chinese take-out (well, for the New York Jewish contingent, anyway).  Wherever you may find yourself this holiday season, here's hoping you got whatever you wanted and enjoyed a pleasant and peaceful day.