Mostly True Tales

Make sure you check out the most watched video since October 10th on YouTube,

Hillary Uncensored Part 1

Hillary Uncensored Part 2

This is a 13 minute trailer for a documentary detailing the dirty fund raising techniques of the Clinton’s. I found it quite enlightening. This is kind of an old story that has, until now been swept under the rug. Yesterday, on Hillary Clinton’s Birthday, the full length film was released.

Clearly the Clinton’s are masters of fund raising without ethics, but they are also masters of damage control as we have seen many times before.

Hillary Clinton has a lot of skeletons in her closet. I think she is dirty, and a self-centered megalomaniac, motivated by a thirst for power and personal gain.

The thought of Bill Clinton, once again, spinning around in the executive chair, with an intern on his lap, turns my stomach.

Last night before I went to bed I got an email from Apple informing me that my copy of Leopard had shipped. The email came with a tracking number, which I immediately checked, and of course it was not in the FedEx system yet.

This morning, with coffee, I checked the tracking number again. At 8:50 pm last night, the package left Middletown, PA. Twelve hours and 5 minutes later, at 8:55 am, it was delivered. I felt like the King of the World! I had the package easily 9 to 12 hours ahead of everybody else! The Fedex driver told me he had 10 others, on the truck to be delivered in my neighborhood, and over 2000 came into the Earthcity depot this morning. OK, maybe not everyone else.

I figured it would arrive late, close to the official release time so, I planned to stay in St. Louis until Saturday morning. But, the package arrived at 8:55 am. I popped it in. While it did it’s pre-check, I loaded the car and prepared to leave for the lake. Once I was ready, I just sat my laptop in the car and let the installation continue as I drove. Here is your typical bad cell phone pic.

I’ve always been a sucker for new operating systems.

Apple is once again, about to rock the world with the release of it’s new operating system Leopard. I’ve pre-ordered my copy and hopefully it will arrive tomorrow even before it goes on sale at the retail stores at 6pm.

When Panther was released a few years back, my Brother and I went, and stood in line, along with several hundred other people, awaiting it’s 6pm release, and our turn to purchase it. I’m going to skip that whole hoopla this year, and hopefully, I will already have Leopard installed by the time it goes on sale to the general public.

Leopard sports a healthy dose of groundbreaking features that are guaranteed to impress and amazing just about anyone, especially Windows users. Apple has a guided tour of the new features found it Leopard than can be watched here.

It’s one thing to read about, and another to watch it demonstrated. Even as an experienced Mac user, familiar with the concepts of the new feature set, I was blown away. Windows users, will cry in their corn flakes.

The school pictures came home Friday, I’m just seeing them today. I am as usual, pleased, but of course I’m prejudice. The scans stink. I hope to replace them soon.

This is Bonnie, 10th grade, age 15, almost 16. I’m more proud of her than words can express. Now more than ever, I compare my life at her age, to her life now. I am amazed.

This is Sarah, 5th grade age 10, almost 11. Still a child, full of hope, innocence, laughter, and compassion. She is a beautiful person.

If you haven’t checked out the world of podcasting yet, you’re missing the boat. Regardless of your interests, there is probably a podcast for you. You don’t need an iPod to listen to podcasts, just iTunes installed on your computer. You can listen to podcasts on your computer, burn them to CD, or of course, listen to them on an iPod.

There are a lot of junk podcasts, but there are an equal amount of outstanding podcasts that cover the widest variety of interests. There are a lot of comedy podcasts, but I prefer the educational variety.

One of a few podcasts I am enjoying right now is Coffee Break Spanish.

That’s right, I’m learning Spanish. Coffee Break Spanish is a weekly podcast that teaches you Spanish in small 15 or 20 minute segments. The show is produced in Scotland by an excellent Scottish linguist named Mark. Mark is accompanied by a student named Kara who is learning Spanish right along with the listeners.

At the time of this writing, there are 42 episodes of Coffee Break Spanish available for download from iTunes. I am currently on episode 12 and perhaps progressing a little faster than one episode a week, but not by much. I doubt the day will ever come that I’m waiting for the next episode to come out.

The learning format is very interactive, you repeat after Mark and Kara repeats after you. Each show is meant to be listened to several times over the course of the week. Because I don’t have a decent iPod hookup for my car, I burn several episodes to a cd and listen to it while I’m driving. The show is fun to listen to and I feel like it is really working. I’m learning Spanish!

I’ve been making Coffee Break Spanish part of my daily routine. I find I can learn without really thinking about it. I can be cleaning house or doing something else while I listen to the show and find myself repeating after Mark without effort. The first time I hear a new episode, I might think, “Oh, this is getting hard,” but after hearing it a few times it becomes easy and second nature.

Lately, I’ve been supplementing the podcast by watching classic movies in Spanish. Most DVD’s have a Spanish soundtrack. It’s challenging, but great fun. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Young Frankenstein in Spanish (that’s Frankenstein Junior in español), it’s a whole new perspective.

Coffee Break Spanish is is part of the Radio Lingua Network which also offers podcasts for learning French, German, and Italian.

So check it out, broaden your horizons, stimulate your mind, learn a language. If you decide to learn Spanish, drop me a line, perhaps we can practice with an iChat.