automaticable

A couple of weeks ago I had a disheartening conversation with a friend of mine. Somehow we happened upon the subject of choice and gay marriage. My friend, being a conservative Christian, said that she not only supports the ban on gay marriage, but could never, ever vote to allow gays the right to marriage, even if the marriage was simply legal, making it more along the lines of a civil union. Her reasoning was that because she was morally opposed to gay marriage, she could not support a bill overturning the current ban. She willingly admits that she is fine with gays loving each other and would never discriminate against them, but what she doesn’t realize is that she already has.

My friend, by supporting the ban on gay marriage, is not defending her morals. She has decided that her moral conviction is more “right” than the gay population’s, and thus her will must be imposed on these people. Forget the fact that gay marriage has no bearing on her life whatsoever, and that taking away the ability for people to choose to make decisions, even if they may be the “wrong” decision, is closer to a Communist regime than a loving Christian society.

Well, my friend, I have some disappointing news for you.  California, by far the most socially advanced state in the United States (see: smoking bans, highway cleanup, medical marijuana, recycling, etc) and the state which the rest of the country inevitably follows socially, has just pronounced gay marriage as legal.  Not only is gay marriage legal, but, according to Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George,

…discrimination against gays, on the basis of their sexual orientation, [is] equivalent under the California state constitution to discrimination against racial minorities.

Overturning the ban on gay marriage is pretty big, but this quote is huge.  The gay community now has legal authority to go to court over discrimination based on sexual orientation.

I hope this is a signal to the rest of the United States that times are changing.  You will no longer be allowed to impose your impractical religious views on other just because you are morally opposed to the choices people make.  The great thing about this, conservative Christian right, is that you won’t even notice the difference!  The gay community will be happier (gayer, some might say).  They may also be allowed the tax breaks that straight couples get for being married.  But guess what.  Your life will not change.  All that changes is that the will of God will not be imposed on Americans any longer.

I have been ecstatic since I heard this news.  Not because I know anyone this will directly effect, but because I am a champion of choice, and California is a source of hope for everything I believe in.  I can only hope that choice is allowed to the rest of Americans as our country matures and becomes more loving, understanding, and accepting.

Slate (via Clusterflock)

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If you usually read automaticable through an RSS reader and have wondered why we’ve been so quiet lately…well, we haven’t really! Wordpress recently upgraded their software which broke our RSS feed. To be specific, the Wordpress 2.5.1 update broke all of the links pointing to our RSS feed don’t work, except /feed. Unfortunately, we’d been forwarding this to FeedBurner and Pheedo for all sorts of RSS magic. For now we’ve just disabled the FeedSmith plugin, which seems to fix it.

In layman’s terms– we’re back! If you are wondering what you missed, the list is below.

• Kyle wrote an article listing the Top 12 SOE Firefox Extensions. Check it out, it’s not just for SEO.
• He followed that up with a post regarding letters written to a journalist posing as a little boy from convicted serial killers.
• Kyle also joined Twitter. Let us know if you are on Twitter too!
• Following that was a review of the Iron Man movie that just came out.
• Brian opened the blinds right before finals began.
• Kyle announced his new SEO project revolving around Gibson guitars.
• Scott finished finals and is happier than a clam.
• And finally, Kyle reviewed the new Death Cab for Cutie album, Narrow Stairs.

So spend some time catching up. You know we missed you as much as you missed us!

A few weeks ago I wrote a post outlining predictions for the season 4 finale of The Office. After last night’s AMAZING hour long show, I wanted to revisit those predictions to see how I did, what I missed, and maybe make a few predictions for season 5. I don’t want to spoil the season finale for anyone who hasn’t had a chance to watch it yet, so I’ll put the rest of this post behind a break. For those of you who didn’t catch the hour long episode, you can still watch it online, legal and free, at both Hulu and NBC.

Continue reading “The Office Season 4 Finale: How’d I Do?”

Before I get started with this review, I want to apologize for releasing it a day late.  I’ve been a little unmotivated to write this review, and I think that sentiment stems from the type of album Death Cab For Cutie has released.  I was asked to describe the album in 4 words or less, and the only response I could come up with that seemed fitting was “Good, but not great.”  It is definitely more complicated than that because I actually do like the album, so make sure to read on for a full analysis of Death Cab for Cutie’s “Narrow Stairs.”

Continue reading “Review: Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs”

A few weeks ago I posted about how I had a couple of exciting announcements to make. Since then, 1 of the deals has fallen through the cracks. I was sad at first, but it has actually turned out to be a good thing for me in the end. The second announcement, though, is still going strong and I am ready to talk about it more publicly.

When I made the announcement I had just learned of a new SEO technique that sounded very promising. It is something that has very little risk, but presents a huge reward if implemented correctly. I am being vague here for a reason; if I gave away too many specifics on top of a link to the new site I am running, someone could come in and take away my competitive advantage. I’m sure any of you SEO gurus could probably figure out the gist of what I am doing by studying the site for a while, but the technique is fairly intricate and focused, so it wont be immediately apparent.

So what is this site? Well, it is a blog (well, not really…) called Review: Gibson Guitars. It fuses my interest in music and guitars with my experience with SEO, and is starting to look promising. I only have a handful of posts up there right now and I am working on getting a few more up soon. My goal is to make the site a great destination for people interested in Gibson guitars and guitar buying in general. So if you are interested in what I’ve been working on lately, or want to learn about guitars in general, go check out my new site about Gibson guitars!

I love seeing films on opening night, and with a movie as good as Iron Man it was a great experience. The audience was really excited, cheering and clapping whenever something amazing happened. Normally I am not into the whole audience interaction thing in movie theaters, but I think Iron Man was the perfect film to play along with.

So what made the movie so good? For a film based on a comic book, Iron Man took itself very seriously. There were no emo dance scenes a la Spiderman, anyway. Serious does not mean boring or dry though. Iron Man was funny; actually, it was hilarious at times. Robert Downey Jr. was the perfect match for this military mogul: smart, confident, and drunk. Speaking of smart, I don’t think there has been another comic hero movie where the main character’s super power was his smarts. At least not like Downey’s character, Tony Stark. Stark is an engineer capable of building amazing power sources the size of tennis balls out of scraps in a cave. He is an expert with computers, soldering, metalworking…pretty much everything needed to make the most powerful suit in the world. Convenient for him, huh?

I highly recommend this movie. It is action packed, but doesn’t focus on the explosions or fight scenes. As I mentioned earlier, it is also really smart and funny as well. I think those are the three elements that make for a great action flick. In the end Iron Man is about the struggle we as Americans go through having the most powerful military in the world. The best defense is a good offense, but what happens when our offense falls into the hands of our enemies?

I’m not sure how I feel about this, but I’ve taken the plunge and created an account on Twitter. I honestly do not see the value in constant reminders about what all of my contacts are doing, but so many people (especially bloggers) have been talking about it lately that I feel I will be left behind if I don’t at least check it out. Is this anything more than another type of away message or facebook status? I guess I’ll see soon enough.

So automaticable, do you Twitter? If so, find me! My screen name is: kwegner. I know, pretty original, huh? Anyway, I need some automaticable readers to become my Twitter tweeters, otherwise it is a fairly useless service. So come and find me, or leave your name in the comments!

*edit*  I guess it would make more sense to just send you directly to my profile.  Here you go: kwegner.

I just ran across this deeply disturbing page on Clusterflock. It links to a story about a journalist who posed as a 10 year old boy, Billy, who sent letters to serial killers such as Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez asking them if he should drop out of school. These letters were all sent in 1998-1999. Now, 10 years later, “Billy” has sent responses back, thanking these insane men for their advice and how it has helped him get into law school. One particularly disturbing response from Richard Ramirez:

Bill,
Greetings. Received your letter. Glad to hear my letter to you in ‘99 made a difference. When do you graduate? Yeah, get me a subscription to Radar Magazine. What is it about? Know any Asian girls willing to correspond? Send pictures. You can photocopy 5 on 1 page or send ‘em singular. Nothing scenic though. Send some of girls in bikinis. Do you go clubbing? Seen any good movies? Saw 3:10 to Yuma the other day. It was an OK Western. Didn’t do too good at the box office though. Do you have family? I’m youngest of five. That’s all for now. Take it E/Z write when you get a chance.
Your friend,
Richard

Ramirez, or the NightStalker, is focused more on getting pictures of girls in bikinis than how he has helped Billy succeed. Other responses are equally disturbing, as they ask more about Billy’s personal life than anything else.

Check out the entire story. It is absolutely enthralling. As an added bonus, there are also letters to other famous people such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Alan Greenspan, asking them all fairly humorous questions. Too bad most of their responses are canned and lifeless.

For the whole story, check out Radar Online.

Working on SEO projects can be difficult and time consuming, but with the right tools you can cut your research time down significantly. Firefox has made the job of the SEO expert not only easier, but more efficient at the same time. So without further ado, here is my list of the top 12 SEO Firefox extensions. Continue reading “The Top 12 SEO Firefox Extensions”

Season 4 of The Office is inching towards another season finale. So far the season has been an interesting one, starting the year with hour-long episodes (well, really 2 episodes back-to-back, but don’t tell anyone that) and a writer’s strike in the middle. Because of the loss of a few episodes during the writer’s strike I feel like portions of the storyline have been moved forward too quickly, as they lack the subtlety of other seasons. These not-so-sublte plotlines have brought me to the following conclusions:

• Ryan will be fired from corporate. His drug addiction (be it cocaine, speed, meth…who knows?) is an obvious sign of a downward spiral. His removal from corporate will be due justice for his pompous and superficial attitude towards the people gave him the opportunity to move up the ranks so quickly. Hopefully this will land him back in Scranton as a temp. I would love for Michael to be able to lay into him for being such a jerk.
• Jim and Pam will not get engaged. The season finale would have been an amazing time for Jim & Pam to get engaged if it had not been for Jim showing us the ring already. Something will happen to postpone the engagement. I do not believe J&P will break up, as they are the only real romance in the entire show. This isn’t a real prediction, but I’m thinking someone close to Jim or Pam will die and they will be too distracted to focus on romance. What show is complete without a good emotional death close to one of the main characters?
• Michael will get back together with Jan. She disappeared way too quickly without much explanation, and Michael has been failing miserably as a bachelor. Scott (the Wegner, not Michael) brought up a good point, too. Michael’s single life storyline is already getting played out a bit. They can’t keep relying on his social awkwardness with single women to keep the show interesting.
• The love triangle: Dwight, Andy, and Angela. Dwight just got his mack on with an amazon woman, so we know he has game. But we also know that the only person in the world that is right for Dwight is Angela. Andy has been a non-character for a long time, so it isn’t going to take much to convince the audience that it is time for those two awkward lovebirds to get back together. Andy has too much fun as a single guy anyway.
• Going back to the whole Jim and Pam thing, Roy has been gone for way too long. Maybe he will be the cause of putting off the engagement. I don’t think Pam will have second thoughts about Jim and go for Roy again, but there might be other elements of Roy’s story that will distract Pam long enough to keep an engagement out of season 4.
• This last point isn’t as much of a prediction as it is a wish. I want to see more of the secondary characters more! I feel characters like Creed, Kelly, Oscar, and Kevin have been left out for a long time. I know these are not plot-enhancing characters, but they added so much to the humor. Maybe they have been what has been missing since we came back from the writer’s strike.

Ok this is getting rather long. Agree, disagree, or just add your own opinions in the comments. You know you love The Office as much as I do!

Oh, and I realize that we are too close to the finale for ALL of this to come true, but I think a good portion of it will apply to the end of season 4.