Hail Who?

I'm going to start this post with an apology.
I'm sorry.
That is directed to anyone who might be offended by what I'm about to say.

A few weeks ago, on my way to work, I came up to a traffic signal (that over the years of driving the same route to work, I've learned that it's almost always red due to the timing). I glanced over at a billboard (actually you can't miss it), and much to my surprise I see the "Mother Mary" looking at me! No, it wasn't some weird trick of the rain water, or a reflection that made what "looked" like Mary, it was an actual billboard with Mary on it. She was pulling her shawl open (which at first I thought was her shirt!) to reveal a giant heart in the middle of her chest with some sort of crown and light emanating from it. Yes, I've seen this image a hundred times before (though I still don't know what the story is behind it - why is there a severed heart on the outside of her? Kinda gross). Then, in BIG letters it says "HAIL MARY, FULL OF GRACE" - in little small print at the bottom, it says something like "brought to you by God".
Well, everyday I drive past and look at this thing. All sorts of thoughts run through my head, such as: Why? Why did someone put this billboard up? Did they think that they might be offending other people? Did they care? It's not an advertisement for a church, so who benefits for this? God? Does God have his own Advertising Agency? etc...
In addition to these thoughts, I also got a little creeped out by the image. Mary does not look happy at all! I started to ponder the words too "HAIL MARY" - doesn't it say in the Bible, there shall be no god before me? If you "Hail" something is that the same as offering worship? I realize this is probably a Catholic thing. They seem to put a huge emphasis on her role. (I don't really agree with that, but I'm also not familiar with the catholics view on this).
ANYWAY - boy, I really rambled on there didn't I. But these have been my thoughts on all this.
The main reason I decided to post about it today, is because I looked over this morning and much to my surprise the message had changed! Someone (no it wasn't me!) spraypainted "Jesus" above the word Mary! And at the bottom where it said "Message brought to you by God" They painted "Why".
I know... what they did was wrong. If it were my Billboard, I'd be pretty upset. At the same time I think it's pretty funny and I totally agreed with the message of the "rogue Christian". Talk about a "moral dilemma" - Is it right to break the law in order to get the word of God out? I also wish that someone might go back later tonight and add a few more deities so that others are not left out... "Hail Buddah" "Hail Allah" "Hail Discordia" :)
I tend to think, this sort of thing is something maybe even Jesus himself would have done in his day. He was a bit of a trouble maker.
I'm going to try and get a photo of this before they either remove the billboard or paint over the graffiti.
(PS> the image above is one similar to the one on the billboard, its not the actual image).

religion God Mary Jesus graffiti billboard

Miss "Such as" South Carolina...

I feel so bad for this girl. I almost considered not posting this, but I also think it's pretty funny. It's like every sterotype regarding "blondes" or "beauty pageants" came true at this moment.
And if true, I find the original stat disturbing!

Turn up your volume first, or you may miss the initial question. The audio quality is not that great. Poor kid.

Fair Use...

I just read this post which I find interesting, yet something about smells "fishy" to me...
As TechCrunch reports... If you listen to the "copyright" info during an NFL broadcast, it can be interpreted as meaning that you and your buddies can't talk about the big Monday night game on Tuesday. It's ridiculous. Well a group (lots of groups here) called the "Computer and Communications Industry" has filed an FTC complaint about this broad (some say misleading) copyright statement. They say it's misleading because it does not tell the consumers that they have certain rights under the "fair use" section of copyright law.
Fair use is a tricky on in copyright law. It's been abused on both sides. For example... it is NOT legal for a teacher to copy a text book 25 times to hand out to her 25 students. But it IS legal for her to copy a bunch of pages for her to keep on file and use how she wishes.
I first ran into these issues of "fair use" when I was in art school. Several projects meant that we had to go look at other designers and artists work. Then we had to show which artists we liked, why, etc... kinda like a book report. Well, when I went to the local Kinkos to make some copies, they would not let me do it. They said they had a policy that would not let Anyone copy anything that even looked like it might be covered under copyright law. I tried to argue the "but it's considered "fair use"" - but the clerk didn't want to hear me, nor did they care. (I later went back that night when there were not that many people and did it anyway).
This is the reason why Every Library in America has a copy machine, where you can make copies of books.
So, it turns out a lot of big corporations are getting behind this fair use issue... and THIS is the part that seems fishy to me. Why are the Corps wanting to push this? In general, Micro$oft and Google and Yahoo, are very "anti-fair use". They are software companies with huge EULA's that people have to read through (and never do). I don't get it.
Well, if nothing else from the above article, I learned of a new website called "Defend Fair Use". I'll have to check that out.

copyright fair use nfl

FREE Music

I thought it was too good to be true when I heard this mentioned on the radio today... It appears as though they have been doing this for some time now, but this is the first time I heard about it. The Philly based radio station WXPN has been putting up FREE (LEGAL) MP3's on their blog. I just downloaded an unreleased song by Spoon (those guys who did that little yellow dancing robot video I just posted about a couple days ago). They have a lot more (many of them local artists) on the blog. I'm going to have to check this more frequently.
FYI - it's a pretty good radio station. I usually flip between this and NPR. Sometimes I don't know what goes on with their music programing though. At times they slip into these 15 minute long jam songs with a 60's feel to them. I just assume this is when the DJ has to go to the potty.
You can listen live on the internet too.

Harry Potter...

Well it was a little sad this morning... I finally finished the newest and LAST Harry Potter book. I'm not going to go into any details incase there are others like me who didn't devour it in the first week it was released :)
I will say this, I very much enjoyed this book! The whole series really. It's sad to see it go, but I'm glad at the same time. I hope JK puts her talents into a new book or even another series. And I feel good about actually finishing another book! I'm on a roll now! I just finished one of the books my Sis got me about meeting Jesus again for the first time. Certainly not the same as a Harry Potter book :) I learned some things in the Jesus book, but not everything did I agree with. In fact, a small part of me is disappointed to learn some of the arguments agreed with my thoughts. I had hoped Borg would have set me straight, but instead he confirmed some of my fears. It's too late to go into any details here, so I won't bore you. But Thanks Sis! I look forward to tackling the next one. BUT that leads me to my next dilemma... which book to start next! I'm trying to break my habit of reading more than one book at a time. I've got a handful of others started, so I may go back and try to finish one of those, or I've got about 5 NEW books waiting for me to read. Ugh. So many books and not enought time to read them all.

finally, (sorry a bit of a random scatter brain post here)... Today's Quote on google really rings true with me... Wait a sec... It's not on google... maybe I saw it somewhere else?
Anyway, I'll try to remember it exactly... Education is whats left over after you've forgotten everything they taught you in school. - Albert Einstein.

UPDATE: V just reminded me it was over on her blog that I read the quote! Doh! She also posted a funny (well funny and sad at the same time sortta thing) video clip of the Daily Show. Go check it out. And here's the ACTUAL quote:
Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school. ~albert einstein


PEAS

This Just In...

I almost thought it was a hoax when I saw the #1 spot on Reddit today...
Alberto Gonzales RESIGNED TODAY!!!
Man they are jumping ship faster than rats on a sinking pile of cheese (I just made that up, it doesn't make any sense does it). Rove is GONE, Alberto is GONE, Scooter is GONE (and in jail).
Only two more need to be kicked out now... Can you guess which two? :)
January can't come soon enough.
(There is one small glitch to this news though... Bush gets to appoint yet another to replace Gonzales. Lets see who he picks this time.)
This news just made my day!!!
I think I'll go home and celebrate by having a newly discovered beer that I really like... Amstel Light.

Rats, Tecnorati Tag generator is down :( and I'm too lazy to code it by hand. - cool i just another one here - thanks Frank.

alberto gonzalaes resign politics gone

Superbad

Yep, we went to see Superbad this weekend. I wasn't sure what to expect. I had heard it was funny and good but also pretty vulgar. I skipped seeing "knocked up" by the same people (apatow) because of all the vulgarity. But, I think Michael Cera is pretty funny. I've been watching the online show "Clark and Michael" and although not everything in the online show is funny there is usually one bit that makes me laugh (Clark had a Cameo in Superbad).
Was Superbad Vulgar? You bet it was! There is a trivia on imdb that says the f-word was used 186 times! Was it a great movie? No not really, it was kinda like the first comeback of the R-rated comedies from the 80's. I will expect to see a resurgence now of copy-cat movies. (I think theres a reason these movies faded away and maybe thats a good thing).
I'd like to think that I'm "above" this sort of humor, but I have to fess up and say that some of it just made me cringe and then laugh. The audience was really into it too.
I'll always give Judd Apatow a break because I really enjoyed the "Freaks and Geeks" dvd's. I just hope that Judd is not just pushing more and more to see how vulgar he can get.
Check your scruples at the door for this one, set your profanity filter on low, and just watch a raunchy goofy comedy.