msqr: July 2004 Archives
Jury duty
Yet another fun Ask the Pilot
I love Salon's Ask The Pilot column. The author, Patrick Smith, cracks me up and I have been interested in all things flying ever since I started commuting by jet for work. The latest installment carries the column on quite well, and if you've never read this column check out the previous ones!
What is msqr.us, anyway?
I thought I could bait you, the reader, into asking what in earth msqr.us is. Nobody took the bait, however, leaving me pondering the reasons. Perhaps you are not curious. Perhaps you are afraid to ask out of distrust: msqr.us could be a Newton server running foreign software for all you know. Perhaps you couldn't care less. All valid reasons, so here I'll attempt to dispel the myth of msqr.us, once and for all.
Fahrenheit 9/11
I finally saw Fahrenheit 9/11 a few days ago. On the whole, I think the film was pretty good, but I did have a few issues. For example I was annoyed by all the voice overs in the beginning where Mr. Moore says things like "What was Bush thinking when xyz?" and then fills in with some hypothetical answers. Cheap shots: the film is already exposing plenty to think about without Mr. Moore chiming in. And I was left wondering "Why are these soldiers raiding this house on Christmas?" as we only get to follow them along for the raid and the film never tries to explain why they're conducting it. Those annoyances aside, however, I felt the film was something everybody should watch, just to think about some things. I had forgotten, for example, that Mr. Bush was on vacation so much of his time in office prior to 9/11 (42% it turns out -- where can I get that kind of vacation package!) and I had no idea about the strong connections the Bush family has with the royal Saudi family.
m^2 debut
This website is an attempt to provide a medium of communication for my family and close friends. I keep wanting some way, other than email, for us to share thoughts with one another. I say other than email because of a few reasons. First, I myself am a terrible emailer, as just about anyone reading this can attest to. Second, a blog like this allows for a different way of communicating, sort of a "here it is, take it if you want but if you don't feel like responding that's OK" kind of way. Third, I see friends of mine using blogs successfully and keep thinking "My family is full of tech savvy folks, we can do that, too!"
So this is a start. This site isn't complete by any means. The plan is to make the site such that all of us can post messages. We're all adults (as the youngest I can confirm this) and we're all living different lives. Some of us talk frequently, some hardly at all. No need to pretend any differently. Anybody can post, anybody can response. One thing leads to another...
I'm having some issues with the software making this thing work, however, at a technical and philosophical level. But I'm working through the issues, never fear. In the end I'll post instructions on how you can make posts. For now you'll be limited to making comments to things I've posted (if you want something posted in the mean time, I can post it for you).
Finally, I've designed this site to my personal tastes. You could have your very own blog, however, if you desired. It's pretty easy for me to set up, it would just run on this website, say msqr.us/socalmagoffins or msqr.us/canadianmagoffins or msqr.us/ncmagoffins or msqr.us/notmagoffinsanymore or msqr.us/neverwasamagoffin. You could even put a picture of your favorite plant or animal on there, it's entirely up to you.
Or you can just use this blog, of which you may be wondering a few things: what is "m^2"? What is "msqr.us"? What is that background image? Perhaps those questions are enough to engage you in your conclusions, in the form of a comment? Click on "Comments" to continue...