At risk of sounding either stunningly un-cool, or wantonly super-hip (in a kitchy retro kind of way), I have to say I’m really digging William Shatner’s new CD Has Been. It careens wildly from somewhat self-indulgent sillyness (his cover of Pulp’s Common People is an example here) to the confessional and personal Real, where he confesses that he is, after all, just some guy.

bq.Just because you’ve seen me on TV,
Doesn’t mean I’m any more enlightened than you.

There are some great moments in the CD. I especially liked the free-wheeling repartee on I Can’t Get Behind That, where they complain about all the crap that’s wrong with the world in a very funny way. Has Been, the title track, sounds like something out of a spaghetti western. Shatner lashes back at people who call him a has been, “what have you done?”

My cynical side (yes, gentle reader, I have one of those) says that most of this is due to the talented people he’s worked with, especially producer (and “collaborator”) Ben Folds. Joe Jackson, Aimee Mann and Henry Rollins also make an appearances, along with one of my favourite groups, Lemon Jelly.

I’m quite pleasantly surprised by Has Been – but, admittedly, it’s because after The Transformed Man, I’ve got very low expectations for Mr Shatner’s musical releases.

Without going into how much I dislike the term “lifestyle pets”, I’m passing along news of the first announced pet. A company called Allerca has announced a hypo-allergenic cat aimed at people with money who would like a bio-engineered cat. This cat won’t make you sneeze! Fantastic.

Next up are dogs that won’t piss on the carpet, birds that don’t squawk all night and goldfish that don’t die.

Legendary BBC broadcaster, music-lover, human, icon, John Peel is dead.

Not being English, I haven’t had much of a chance to hear him live on air. I knew of him mostly through his Peel Sessions series, where he’d pick talented artists to do interesting sets live in studio. I’ve got a fairly good collection of different Peel Sessions, and they’re all excellent. Rest in Peace, Peelie.

Here’s more proof that Steve Ballmer is from another planet. He thinks that having a sub-$100 PC will stop piracy.

First, there are sub-$100 PCs. They’re called “used”, and the more time rolls on, the more of them there will be. Problem for Mr Duh-veloper, none of them can run Windows XP. Boo hoo. They run Linux and *BSD reeeal good though. I’ve got one running a firewall, router, DNS, DCHP server and a proxy server, all on OpenBSD. It’s doing very well, thanks very much. So there. $100 PC. Done.

Next up is the question of piracy. Ballmer’s argument seems to be pitched at the consumer without much spending money, but who needs a computer. What’s stopping this consumer from saving lots of money on this hypothetical $100 bare PC, and then saving even more money by pirating Windows – just like they would have done anyway with today’s $500 PC? A penny saved is a penny earned, especially on a tight budget. If one is going to steal Windows, one is going to do it no matter what the PC cost.

Found this one randomly today. It’s a Starsky and Hutch drinking game. Fantastic stuff!

Following today’s news that Nokia accounts for up to 3.5% of Finland’s GDP, Finland’s government has announced a wide-ranging public-private merger with Nokia Corp.

Starting tomorrow, Nokia will assume operations of Finland. Nokia’s CEO, Jorma Ollila, will become President of Finland, and all Finnish citizens will become Nokia employees. Finnish social services will be administered by Nokia’s HR department.

It will be a civil offence to be found using a mobile phone by SonyEricsson or Siemens, while users of other mobile phone brands can be shot on sight. US mobile phone giant Motorola is expected to launch an official complaint with the World Court.

In addition, Nokia has announced that they will seek to officially rename the country after themselves. “Everybody’s heard of the Nokia brand, but the Finland brand hasn’t had the same kind of care and attention,” said Hirkki Hikkanlakken, PR manager at Nokia. “As you know, ‘finish’ is a verb in English, which can lead to misunderstandings. By eliminating a potential source of confusion, we can market Nokia much more effectively.” Calls to Turkey’s tourism department remain unanswered at press time.

To help ease the transition, Nokia announced that all Nokia phone owners who had returned the warranty registration cards would be eligible for 5 free nights of accommodation at any Finnish hotel. Just dial *#HOTEL from any Nokia phone to take advantage of this offer.

Bike

I bought a bike. I haven’t been on a bike in about two years, ever since I traded my Vancouver bike for three pints of Guinness. I rode it home from work yesterday, and thus realised a few important things:

1. It takes less than six minutes to ride home from work.
2. I am in worse shape than I thought I was.
3. I need to learn how to change gears.
4. Dandenong Road is one hella bizza road.

I named my bike Gerald. It just kinda fits. Bonus points to the person who comes up with the very obscure (and slightly incorrect) cultural reference there.

You give good blog.

Just in case your planet’s Gravity� system causes unexpected outcomes on your new iMac G5, the nice people at Apple have written a page about how to pick up and carry your iMac G5. Because it’s so bloody difficult. Yeah.

Thanks to NTK for this lil’ nugget

Here’s something for the cultural differences file. From my Western Juedeo-Christian upbringing, I’d interpret a satellite crashing into my home as “God’s throwing things at us!”. In China, it seems to mean good luck this year (except, one would assume, for the whole my-home-is-in-a-million-pieces thing).