It's my last weekend in California! After a great time with Dennis, Marsha, and Ron in Disneyland last weekend, I didn't know what to do this weekend. So, what did I decide on? Go back to Disneyland with my friend James! We had a great time. I did almost all the rides I did last time again, but I added in Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Tours, and the Fantasmic show. The Fantasmic show was really neat. They sent up these huge walls of mist and then displayed video over them (plus fireworks, live action, and ships). It was a great show. We also made the really good choice of riding Thunder Mountain at night, during the big fireworks show. Every twist and turn we would be coming out of a tunnel and then get hit with the sight of all these firworks going off. It was really, really fun. Tomorrow I plan on sleeping in and catching up with people on the phone. Check out my pictures from Disneyland starting on Page 8--that's where the new photos are. [cpg_album_rand:30,6]

Yes! It's Friday. I've got one week left out here in California before heading back East, but that doesn't mean the Music Fridays will end when I get home. Keep your eyes glued here. This week's choices are: Hot Hot Heat (Middle of Nowhere), Gratitude (Sadie), and Snow Patrol (Run). As always, enjoy. I'm glad so many of you read this each week.

Check out my new store for your chance to purchase 4x6 prints of my favorite photos. Browse cityscapes, landscapes, and some candid shots of people. At $.99 a photo, it's a bargain!

The US announced that it has made a deal with Australia, South Korea, India, China, and Japan to develop "clean coal" and work with existing wind power plants to reduce pollution. Bush insists that the pact has no effect on the Kyoto treaty, on which the US and Australia have not signed. The Kyoto treaty stresses climate control while this new pact focuses more on alternative fuel sources. Many are worried that it is the US' way of getting away from the Kyoto treaty. It doesn't help that the US produces 25% of the Greenhouse gases. Now, of course, when I mention the environment as one of the reasons Bush was a horrible President, his supporters will now say "don't you remember that pact?" Damn...well, I guess I still have the unsigned Kyoto treaty, oil drills in Alaska, and his inability to agree that man causes climate change.

Pierre Pettigrew, Canada's foreign minister, said the new initiative at least indicated that the US and Australia acknowledge the climate change problem, but added that they now should produce results. "I still have to wait for the meat," he said.

If you haven't noticed, big things are happening with TV. There's video now on mobile devices, the video iPod is coming, and the PSP is selling like crazy. Along with these trends is the idea that people aren't happy with how TV is currently being presented to them. They're tired of bad pilots and crappy reality shows. VOD, TiVo, and Netflix are giving the consumer more and more power. A recent article in Entertainment Weekly poses an interesting question:

What if they built a network where the schedule was determined entirely by viewer choice?

As you know, that's very similar to what I have been working on this summer. But even more interesting is that this already exists on the Web in the form of Channel101. The website has a bunch of shows created by independents that, for the most part, are pretty bad. One of the better ones is "Computerman" starring Jack Black. What I'm most excited about is that the website includes a link to the Nintendo Power Hour, one of the best shows ever created. If you're a Nintendo fan or even a humor fan, you'll love this. It's one of the funniest things out there.

...and I'm done reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Now, I know many of you are avid Harry Potter fans, so I will try to keep this review as uninformative as possible. The Half-Blood Prince ranks right up there with the other great books in the series. It's darker than most and sets the stage for, what I'm thinking, is going to be a 1500 page finale. As with every other post concerning Harry, if you haven't read the series yet, you need to start. I'm giving you a couple years to read them before Book 7 comes out. You don't want to be wondering why everyone is cancelling their plans on you when it comes out, do you?

As much as it pains me to admit this, I watched CBS' Rock Star: INXS last night. The story behind the show is that INXS is trying to find a new lead singer. Like all other talent-based reality shows, contestants compete to win the prize by trying to outpeform one another each week. I must say, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was refreshing to see people that were truly talented, unlike American Idol. Every one of them deserved to be up there and many were multi-talented (guitar, harmonica, etc.). Dare I say it...I would actually recommend watching this show!

Wired posted this interesting article on the Mars foundation, a group that is committed to the idea of living on Mars. Unlike other such groups, their plan isn't to stay and the leave...they really want to colonize it. Some of the more interesting ideas include having bamboo forests and robots builders. While there are probably a million and a half things wrong with this plan, they still seem to think they could get this going in 20 years. Even more exciting is that they're planing on building a test site outside a major city yet to be named. Maybe I'm just a dork, but this sounds cool.

Last Tuesday, I picked up my copy of the Half-Blood Prince at Barnes and Noble. I'm about 2/3 of the way through it. So far, I find it to be a lot better than the last book, but not as good as the Goblet of Fire. However, it's getting more and more interesting as I chug through it. Keep an eye out for my final opinion in a couple of days. Speaking of Goblet of Fire, the movie is coming out this Holiday Season. I have to say, I'm quite nervous. Books 3 and 4 are my favorite. The Prisoner of Azkaban was handled wonderfully and I hope the same for Goblet of Fire, but I can't help but think that the movie won't be very good if it isn't a PG-13 rating. The ending of the Goblet of Fire is absolutely intense and, in my opinion, won't be done justice by a movie with a PG rating. Needless to say, I'm very excited to see it when it comes out.

British PM Tony Blair said on Tuesday that he felt that Iraq shouldn't be an excuse for the two bombings that have taken place in London. He said that 9/11 was a wake up call for the world, but felt that

Do you know what I think the problem is? That a lot of the world woke up for a short time and then turned over and went back to sleep again.

I think he's half-right with this one. I don't necessarily think that Iraq is the reason for the bombings. But I do think that our actions (US and UK) add fuel to the fire. As Blair said, there's "no justification" for the bombings and rightly so. No act justifies the death of innocent people. As I've said before, unfortunately I think the US has made violence the language and the terrorists are responding (while not justification for the attacks, the US has killed hundreds of innocent civilians in Iraq). The thing is, terrorists have always been around. Just because the US hasn't seen another attack doesn't mean that we should go "back to to sleep again." We need to keep our security raised and be aware that they can slip through our defenses. With this President constantly bullying around other countries and starting wars, we are wide open for attack. And for those of you that think Bush is a capable anti-terrorist President, let's not forget that the current war has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with money. There's no Al-Qaeda in Iraq, but Bush says "we're winning the war against terror." Interesting connection, eh?