Seriously, go look at a prison and then look around you.If it truly resembles that, then go some where else cause where you are is no good. Don't take that as "Leave America" jingoism. It is okay to be pissed off at the world as there is a lot to be pissed off at, but you don't have to make it out to be worse than it is to make your point.

And I would say that you are prone to hyperbole as well. You are devaluing the barbarism of the past to speak of indignities today. You do us a disservice from how far we have come, even if we still have a long way to go.

"The deputy was holding a warrant to arrest Mr. Stearns for not paying $4,024.88 owed to a unit of American International Group Inc."

Wrong, the warrant was issued for not showing up to a court hearing as it says in earlier in the paragraph. This sentence is journalistic embellishment.

"Emmie Nichols, 26 years old, was arrested in June at her mother's house after lawyers for Capital One Financial Corp. won an arrest warrant against her for skipping a court hearing about $1,159.87 she owed on a credit card from the company."

Being arrested for skipping court dates != being put in jail because you didn't pay your debts. I am sure that there is fraud in the system, don't get me wrong but this sort of journalism feeds hysteria. Hysteria is the enemy of reason.

The real story here is not that students are getting denied their transcripts because they haven't paid their loans, it's that these companies are able to make these risky loans that are guaranteed by our (the USofA) government. The housing bubble happened for the same reason, and and this bubble is bigger and has very little real value to reclaim.

This will continue to happen until the finance people say things like "sorry, I am not going to finance your history degree to the tune of $80,000 as I don't think you will ever be able to pay it all back".

'It's worse than indentured servitude,' said NYU Professor Andrew Ross who completed his post doctorate work in Hyperbole at the University of Bologna.

Seriously, show me the debtors prisons..

My first exposure to your music was seeing the video for "Don't Lets Start" on a Dr. Demento video countdown on MTV in the mid to late 80s. Looking back, I don't really find that song all that weird, but then again I have spent all of that time being influenced by your music.

Were you always out to hit that weird nerve? Where you surprised to be picked up by the Good Doctor, who is perhaps best known for promoting parodies and songs that are humorous and/or ridiculous? Did this influence the evolution of your sound at all?

Thanks,
Matt

By that definition, we have only had maybe 3 or 4 winters in the 20+ years I have lived in Western Washington.

I would say something about fall in the Evergreen state, but my next door neighbor has an enormous maple tree, so that would simply be hyperbole. :-)

RM,

It seems like I have been doing this whole nerd thing forever. Occasionally, I am reminded that people have been doing it better and longer than I have. Thanks, jerk!

I thank you for helping to foster in me a love of open source software which has opened a number of doors for me, both professionally and personally. Though I have not been reading or contributing much lately do to other concerns (these kids ain't gonna raise themselves), I continue to hold you and this site in high regard.

Best of luck in whatever you decide to do. May there be many Tacos.
Matt

Pretending my previous experience doesn't exist is a futile experiment.

Unless I can be reinfected with the excitement I previously had I will most likely not change my habits. For something like Wave to be successful it needs to change your behavior and it missed its opportunity to do that easily with me.

To address, the demand issue, there WAS demand for it back when invites were difficult to get. Had they thrown open the flood gates then they would have had a better chance of being successful. The only time the invite only Beta has been exceptionally successful for Google has been with Gmail and Gmail wasn't really changing a behavior for most people.

I started using Wave in the Beta. At first my level of excitement was very high as I figured out ways that technology could be useful.

Unfortunately that excitement waned as I discovered I had very few people to share it with as invites were scarce and not many people I wanted to communicate with regularly had one.

Now the product is free and open but it has missed its opportunity to integrate itself into my routine. I think that Google might have lost a lot of community Evangelists on this one.

Your pants were totally asking for it, you felt the fabric they were made out of...