Tonight I was putting all my DVDs (and a few tapes burned to DVD) in order. I don't have a huge collection, but it's full of mostly movies I've enjoyed and thought were worth owning.

What I noticed was quite interesting. I have a facination for court-room themes. Here's a list of courtroom-related movies in my collection:

12 Angry Men 1957
Anatomy of a Murder 1959
Inherit the Wind 1960
Judgement at Nuremberg 1961
To Kill a Mockingbird 1962
And Justice for All 1979
From the Hip 1987
A Fish Called Wanda 1988
My Cousin Vinny 1992
A Few Good Men 1992
Philadelpha 1993
Primal Fear 1996
Red Corner 1997
Liar Liar 1997
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil 1997
Devil's Advocate 1997
Liar Liar 1997
A Civil Action 1998
The Insider 1999
Erin Brockovich 2000
Hart's War 2002

Each one of these movies has a 'courtroom' themes. What I find interesting is that I never realized I was drawn to such movies.

I have often wondered why I see younger and younger folks with cell phones. Is this just parental doting? Or is there a real need?

I'm a parent of two young children (age 5 and 2). My recent experieces have led me to doubt if I ever will dote on my children in such a fashion. I have come to the conclusion that cell phones should NOT be in the hands of children (younger than 21 who do NOT pay for the service).

Why? I have recently taken over many mondane tasks for my sister -- who suffered a stroke a few months back. Including her cellphones/bills. Her two children (16 y/o girl, 14 y/o boy) each have a cell on the plan.

Their usage has been unbelievable. Some 800+ text messages each (at $0.05 each), 100+ hours each on the phone. Staying on the phone until 2am, 3am or even 6am on school nights. It has taken some serious effort to cut them down to what I consider to be 'reasonable'.

The 14 y/o has lost his cell phone all together. Consistent lying and late-night usage on school nights we well as stealing a cell phone out of his grandmothers purse, left me what I consider no alternative. He is unable to use the phone responsibly.

The 16 y/o lost her cell usage for about 2 weeks (I shut it off). She's allowed 1000 minutes per month TOTAL. 300 text messages per month TOTAL. As much as I would like to remove her cell phone completely, she has shown enough self-control -- particularly when I check the usage every day and see how long and how often she has used the phone.

Between these two kids, they have cost me close to $400 on cell phone abuse. The 16 y/o is paying me back her share and I've enslaved my nephew on all saturdays and some sundays to work it off at $5/hour.

Post Script: My niece almost lost her cell phone usage for the remainder of the month. She went over her 1000 minutes by a half-hour. I told her as long as I see NO usage (other than checking voice mail), it'll stay on.

Two weeks ago, my sister had a stroke.

She's 49, mother of 2 children (16 y/o girl, 14 y/o boy), very active and independent.

I was the first to arrive at the hospital -- about 10 minutes after she arrived. This was about 30 minutes after the stroke. She was lucky that it happened in public and it was recognized quickly.

I can never adequately express the fear and anxiety I felt as I received the phone call from my neice. She said that she just got a call that her mother was taken to the hospital and she wasn't talking. I don't know why, but I immediately thought STROKE. When I arrived at the hospital, they were asking me questions about my sister that I knew she could answer. This increased my fears. They told me she was receiving an MRI and an asprin enema. That essentially confirmed it, for me.

Before my sister returned from her MRI, her Dr. approached me and told me that he suspected a stroke, and "a massive one, at that", he said.

They wheeled my sister back in. She looked asleep. I took her hand and spoke to her. She squeezed my hand.

Over the next 30 minutes, my sister regained consciousness. She couldn't talk, she was paralized on her right side and it wasn't clear if she was understanding anything that was said to her. I kept reassuring her that I'll make sure the kids would be fine, the bills would be paid, the pets would be fed, etc -- until she was better.

After the first hour, she was actually lifting her head and looking around. She was able to nod and shake her head in responses to questions -- but not always consistant in her answers.

I'll fast-forward a bit and skip where I passed the news to my mom and my sister's kids...

The first day saw the most dramatic improvement. She was moving her right side (albeit barely) and she was more consistantly nodding and shaking her head. From then on, she has make significant improvement every day.

As of yesterday, she can speak -- but her words are haulting. She's stuck on about 10 phrases. "Yes", "No", "I don't know", "I know", "Maybe", and a few others. She can fully understand everything spoken to her. She can't find the words yet, and she has trouble reading. She KNOWS the words, and can clearly identify their meanings when shown pictures of things and actions -- but when the words are put in sentences, she can't make out the meaning.

Also, she is nearly paralysis free. You can see a SLIGHT droop in her lip when she smiles and she's just a little weak on her right side. That's it. She's able to do EVERYTHING should could before (except drive -- but that's by Dr's order -- she'll need to be evaluated for that in the future).

I've taken care of all her bills and will continue to do so until her disability kicks in. Money will be a little tight for her, but I can supplement it as needed.

She's home now. Last week, she was released as an in-patient at a local rehab clinic and then released for home just yesterday. Her insurance will pay for at-home speech therapy and I'll be working with her on that, too. She's going to get annoyed with me pushing her to read/talk -- but hey. I have a thick skin. I post on slashdot!

Okay the other journal post was locked, so that goes out the window. If you want an account then post here. Sorry for the delay to the last few people. I'll be faster in the future. I've currently got 8 but knowing Google they will give me more in the very near future.

Jokes, funny stories etc. all welcome but not vital.

Gamecube icon because of fanboyism

I'm now officially scared of my Slashdot reading. I've been reading most the day and made a few comments (one even got modded up worryingly). So I'm sitting here with several porn links open, theres lesbian porn on TV (channel 4 in the UK) and I'm sitting here writing ajournal entry and downloading a movie... and I don't have a fucking clue why.

I'd rather read geeks comments on the Sasser virus then I would look at two hot girls fingering each other.... I'm starting to wonder if my sexual prefrence has changed to a /. icon rather then a male or female one o.o

Got like 3 spare Gmail invites, if you want one leave a message and I'll hand them out. Give a good reason as to wanting one (or leave a funny joke not taken from Bash.org) and I'll give them to my favourite replies.

If I get any more I will select the next people based on these replies and the next ones, so if you miss out this time you may get it the day after.

Just tesing my sig :)

Good to see the Slashdot editors still not editing. Like I said in a previous journal entry, I'll gladly pay for a Slashdot subscription when, among other things, I don't see any horrible, glaring grammar and spelling errors for a month. While it's been getting better (I've only been seeing obvious ones 1 or 2 times a week), I think today proves yet again that's only because the people submitting the stories have been getting better.

First, we find this gem:

Your Rights Online: DVD-Watching Driver Charged with Murder

Posted by michael on Tuesday July 27, @16:19

joke-boy writes "CNN reports that a driver in Alaska is being charged with second-degree murder for allegedly causing a fatality accident by driving while watching the movie 'Road Trip' in an in-dash DVD player...

Wrong. This should either read, "Causing a fatal accident..." or, "Causing an accident involving a fatality... ." The first one works better, but both would have been correct and worked better than what's there now.

2 stories later, we find this:

IT: Motorola Field Tests Wireless Broadband At 300Mbps

Posted by timothy on Tuesday July 27, @18:29

cft_128 writes "Motorola Labs just finished field testing its new ODFM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) wireless broadband technology that prove it can attain 300Mbps.

This one is a bit trickier, since you have that brief explanation thrown in there, but take that out and you can see the fuck up plain as day:

cft_128 writes "Motorola Labs just finished field testing its new ODFM wireless broadband technology that prove it can attain 300Mbps.

In case you missed it, field testing that prove it can. That should have been either, "fields tests" or, "technology, proving it can... ." The way it currently is, it's just a cluster fuck of bad grammar/word usage.

There was another one, but I can't find it right now. It doesn't really matter though, I think you get my point. And, Slashdot still doesn't get my money.

I will pay for a Slashdot subscription when I go 1 month without seeing on the main page:

1. Any clear, horrible grammatical errors. Things like "For those slashdotters who is not familiar" and the ever present "IBM are about to" are more or less unacceptable from any place with this many editors that says it is a news site. I catch virtually every single one of those mistakes, why can't they? I'm in college to be a History teacher, not an English teacher, and these are blazingly ovbious to me.
2. Any Dupes. I read Slashdot maybe 3-4 times a day, though sometimes as little as once every couple days, depending on my schedule. I notice every dupe story. I think there has been 1 I missed in the last year. Now, if I can do this, why can the editors not? Especially Taco. I mean, yeah, you've done some great work here, but is it really so much to ask for you to read your own creation enough to be familiar with what is and isn't posted on the front page? I have seen far more dupes from him than anyone else. And, then there's shit like this, which is about 192734% unacceptable. There is no excuse for that. It wasn't a big deal, but imagine if CNN was covering (as in today, Jan 24, 2004) the re-election of President Bill Clinton as if it was a breaking news story. See where I'm going with this one?
3. A story which I submitted a better, more complete write up for several days earlier that was rejected. Look, I've seen at least 3 instances where I submitted a story and had it rejected, only to see another, weaker write up accepted several days later, or see it included as a minor point to another story, at least 1 time with the editor more or less quoting me and taking it as his own work. Again, pure bullshit. I've also seen at least 2 times where a better write up has been taken, and I'm fine with that. I have no problem with my stories being shot down if a better version exists or they aren't really news worthy. I do have a problem with inferior stories making the cut and editors stealing my work with no credit.

So there are my 3 simple demands. Actually edit stories, check for dupes, and don't reject superior stories or just plain steal the content and not give credit. Easy enough. Or so you'd think. Let's just say I've more or less had these criteria in my head since the whole subscriber thing started. And I still have yet to give $1 to Slashdot. Until then, I will consider my payment to them being my constant metamodding and occasional modding. As well as my general contributions to our little slashciety.

I found this in a sig at MacRumors.com. I think it more or less sums up the difference between Panther, Longhorn, and their respective (future in Longhorn's case) users:

Panther-\Pan"ther\, n. A large dark-colored variety of leopard with fierce carnivorous instinct.
Longhorn-\Long"horn\, n. A long-horned beef cattle formerly common in the southwestern United States.

Which would you rather be at the end of the day? Think about it...