Here’s a few pictures from the Mom’s Club family picnic this last Saturday at Eaton Preserve in Plainfield.
Monthly Archive for September, 2004
Unfortunate Whale Speared by Cruise Ship via Yahoo! News
This is an interesting way to go fishing.
Tue Sep 28,11:13 AM ET
Oddly Enough - ReutersOTTAWA (Reuters) - It wasn’t until the U.S. cruise ship had pulled into port in Atlantic Canada that those on board made a gruesome discovery — the body of a large whale was impaled on the vessel’s bow.
Officials said on Monday that the 60-foot finback whale could have been stuck there for up to two days before “Jewel of the Seas” docked in Saint John, New Brunswick, on Sunday, after a cruise through waters where the giant mammals abound.
“The captain of the vessel was not aware there was a whale basically impaled on the bow … this is an extremely unusual case,” said Wendy Williams, a spokeswoman for Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Coast Guard officials quickly removed the body of the whale and towed it out to sea. The Royal Caribbean ship had been cruising the St. Lawrence river and the Bay of Fundy on the Atlantic coast, an area rich in whales.
Shipping routes through the Bay of Fundy were changed last year to protect the rare right whale. Finback whales are relatively common.
“This is the first ship strike (on a a whale) that I’m aware of in the past year,” said Williams.
This is an interesting take on sharing digital music, let’s just hope you have enough friends to make use of it.
Thu Sep 23,12:00 PM ET
Technology - PC World
Robert McMillan, IDG News ServiceA 60-person startup company called PassAlong Networks believes it discovered a way to encourage fans to legally share digital music: Cut them in for a piece of the action. This week, the company is set to launch a music download service and “sharing network” that will let customers earn free music by referring songs to friends.
Also this week, online marketplace EBay is set to begin offering PassAlong’s collection of 200,000 songs taken from the digital catalogs of a number of major recording industry labels. This will mark the first time that digital titles from the major label titles will be sold via EBay, according to PassAlong.
PassAlong will be participating in a six-month EBay digital music pilot program that was launched in July, EBay says.
EBay Interested
Songs will typically be sold at a fixed price of $0.99 per track rather than auctioned, but customers will be able to bid on certain promotional items, says Dave Jaworski, chief executive officer of PassAlong, based in Franklin, Tennessee. For example, on Thursday, EBay is set to auction two 15-minute calls with singer Avril Lavigne with bids starting at $1, he says.Music downloads from independent artists can already be purchased on EBay, thanks to arrangements with companies with IHoopla, based in Morgan Hill, California. And while Warner Music Group currently sells mobile phone ring tones on EBay, with PassAlong, the online marketplace will be now begin offering complete songs from major labels such as Warner, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and Universal Music Group, Jaworski says.
“This is a pilot program to determine whether the EBay community wants to use EBay to buy and sell digital music to each other,” says Hani Durzy, and EBay spokesperson. Though EBay does not typically restrict the sellers who can sell products through its marketplace, it has done so with the digital music pilot program, he says.
The songs will be available in the WMA (Windows Media Audio) format, Jaworski says.
Internet Referral System
Though PassAlong, whose founders include a mix of technology and recording industry executives, expects to be selling a catalog of over 700,000 titles by October, the company does not see itself strictly as an online music provider akin to Apple Computer’s ITunes or Sony’s Connect.PassAlong hopes to license its order processing and customer referral technology to companies like Apple and Sony, Jaworski says. “There will be a Passalong.com site and in that way it would be competitive, but our real focus is on driving people to our partners,” he says.
With PassAlong’s Internet-based referral system, users will be able to set up playlists and “pass along” 30-second clips of songs to friends using e-mail or instant message services. If their friend then buys a referred track, the user gets PassAlong Points, which can be used to purchase music from PassAlong’s catalog.
“To me, what’s fascinating is how they’re going to be leveraging the instant message channels,” says Mike McGuire, research director with Gartner G2, a division of Gartner, in San Jose, California. “That is going to tap into what is going to be an increasingly popular communication channel,” he says.
PassAlong will work with instant messenger services from America Online, Microsoft, and Yahoo, Jaworski says.
In October PassAlong plans to launch a service called Discover My Music, which will allow users to publish lists of the digital music they own, along with commentary. “The opportunity is for you to get involved as a tastemaker,” Jaworski says. “If people come and buy from your list, then you’ll get [points worth] 10 percent on any purchases made that way.”
Though the service could potentially earn PassAlong points for users with illegal copies of digital music on their PCs, it will ensure that when music is shared, it is shared legally, Jaworski says. “We can’t assess where you got [your files] from,” he says. “What we do is we say from this point forward, when you promote that song, you’re going to get a legitimate linka?| as opposed to getting an illegal file.”
“You have no incentive to be a promotion station in the illegal world,” Jaworski says. “Here’s an opportunity for you to switch to a side where you’re now going to benefit other people.”
Man Shoots Wife, Mistakes Her for Monkey via Yahoo! News
Here’s a new one to add to the Monkey Files. I don’t mean to make light of this woman’s death, but this story makes you ask yourself several questions. For instance, how can this guy confuse his wife for a monkey, come on, he must have just been looking for a reason to shoot her. After all there’s a big height difference not to mention one has a TAIL the other doesn’t. Also, what is a 68 year old woman doing in a tree.
Wed Sep 22, 8:44 AM ET
Oddly Enough - ReutersKUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian man shot and killed his wife after he mistook her for a monkey picking fruit in a tree behind their house, the New Straits Times said on Wednesday.The man, 70, is being held by police for causing death through recklessness after he fired a shotgun at what he thought was a monkey in a mangosteen tree on Monday, the newspaper said.
His wife, 68, had used a ladder to climb into the tree and was picking the tropical fruit when she was shot. She was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital, the paper said. The couple lived in central Malaysia and had raised 13 children.
The Animal Attraction - Dog IQ Test
Here’s something for all you dog lovers. At least my dog, Wyatt doesn’t respond to Monkey-Wrench or Movies.
Matthew is on his way to starting his baseball memorabilia collection, he recently added baseball number two. Although, this baseball wasn’t a homer hit right to us like last time. We did get it signed. Friday night’s game against Seattle, Lee the bull pen catcher was nice enough to hand Matthew a ball as they started to get ready to warm up. It was already signed by himself. Then later as they finished warming up, Cotts was walking along the wall signing autographs and He got his autograph too.