Lindsey
7/31/03
Happy Anniversary Brent and Karen!

Amanda, I have no idea why is it tipping and by the way I meant Amanda not Gary. :)

We have a great thunderstorm going on right now. I just heard that it's even hailing at 48th and Hwy 2. I hope we lose power here and have to go home. ;-)

????? I don't have a pool... :-) --Gary

Later: The above link has been removed. Apparently the studio didn't want the trailer to be on the internet yet. --Gary

Commitment? No. You can cancel any time by just going to their webpage and clicking the right buttons. As to new releases, I would think so but I haven't actually tried that. (There haven't been any new releases I've wanted to see since I joined!)

If you juggled things right, I'm sure you could have a new release right away. You would have to (1) put it on your "queue," or list of movies, before its release date, (2) arrange your queue so it's your #1 choice so it gets highest priority, and (3) time it so you don't currently have three movies in your possession when the new release comes out.

Sounds complicated, I guess, but it's not really. For example, I already have "Seabiscuit" on my queue! It is nowhere near DVD, having just hit the theaters last week. But the minute it does come out, they'll ship it to me as soon as I return one of my previous movies. If I time it right, I could return one movie to coincide with the new release date so that would be the next one they ship. Netflix has shipping centers all over the country, so if my nearest one doesn't have the movie, it will be automatically shipped from another that does.

You're right, this is the one drawback of Netflix, and I pointed it out in my long note below -- that if you want a particular movie tonight you won't get it from Netflix. But in that case, hey, stop by Blockbuster! And if they even own it (maybe) and if no one else has rented it (maybe), you're in luck! :-) --Gary

Snitily Carr (an advertising firm) is already occupying first, second and third floor of the building I'm in. Southeast Community College will take some or all of the middle building once we leave. Not sure about the rest of it. I think St. E Hospital is taking the Child Development Center.

No fair. Non-kid-owner discrimination!! :-) --Gary

Another added benefit is that I'm not supporting Blockbuster's practice of censorship any more. Like Wal-Mart, Blockbuster refuses to stock movies they don't approve of. (The owners of both companies are strongly "fundamentalist," or Religious Right.) For some titles, Blockbuster will insist that the studios provide them with an edited version; so the movie you rent may or may not be the version you saw in the theater. And for still other movies, Blockbuster has suggested changes before the movie was even released, with the implied threat being they wouldn't put it on their shelves unless changes were made. These stories are all over the net, but here and here are a couple of them.

The preceding was an unsolicited testimonial. I am neither a stockholder nor employee of Netflix. And sorry this was so long! :-)

That's one of the perks of being president: When good stuff happens, it was you; when bad stuff happens, it was someone else. --Gary

OK, the people have spoken! Next time I have a slow day I'll phase out those outdated family photo pages. But hey, Amanda and Ryan (and everyone else!), don't think you're bogging down the site! I didn't mean to make it sound like we're that tight for room -- we'll always have room for pictures. So send 'em in whenever you have 'em. Except for my movie reviews, they're the best thing on the site! :-) --Gary

Lindsey emailed this directly to me, but I hope you won't mind, Linz, if I put it here on the Newsletter page so I can include everybody in my reply. Yeah, remember a few months ago when I mentioned I accidentally erased the entire website? :-) Smart, huh? I did and do have back-ups of everything so it wasn't too hard to get stuff back on the website. But when it came to restoring the pictures I kind of dragged my feet, thinking I would like to update and re-design the whole picture area. And I'm still dragging my feet, I guess. I'm actually thinking of maybe not having a picture area at all--just do a recent photos page and that's it. What would you all think of that? windstream only allows me a certain amount of space for our website, and because pictures take up a lot of space, sometimes I have to do some fancy juggling to fit everything in. (FYI, I do keep copies of every picture that has ever appeared on the website, so when I take them off that doesn't mean they're gone forever.) So would anybody mind if I got rid of the photo sections? Or do you have some other suggestion??? --Gary

Same here. Bee-yoo-tiful day! --Gary

That was the idea! :-) --Gary

Nice pictures, Ryan! But I think I would slow down on the piercings! :)

Ah! Thanks. --Gary

Way to go! If you need help picking out your first car, try here!
And Lindsey, what's a "grocery-go-getter"??? --Gary

You mean someone else was driving or you were driving? In a parking lot, or are you ready for the streets yet?? --Gary

Maybe this will help!
And speaking of pictures, check out these pixs of Gangsta T! :-) --Gary

You couldn't if you wanted to! :-) --Gary

WARNING: If you are politically squeamish, you may want to skip the next paragraph.

Got an interesting call last night, from some staff person in Sen. Chuck Hagel's (R-NE) office in Washington. He identified himself and said, "You wrote the Senator asking him where is Osama, where is Saddam, and where are the WMDs?" I had written such a letter, not only to Hagel, but to many other government officials; but I made a small correction: "I wasn't asking this of Hagel -- I was suggesting these are the questions HE ought to be asking BUSH!" The guy started in, well, you know, bla bla bla, and I interrupted: "I would be glad to talk with you about this [actually he was interrupting my viewing of "History Detectives"!], but I can save you some time if I say up front there is NO WAY I will EVER vote for Hagel, or Bush, or any other Republican." He said, "No, I'm not calling to get your vote -- I'm just calling to explain the Senator's position. If you would read some of his position papers, you would see that he has been critical of the President on several occasions...." I said, "I'm sure that would be the fair thing to do, but I don't care: In politics, I am not fair-minded any more. When you guys showed your contempt for America by sabotaging the electoral process, I vowed I would never again vote for any Republican, any where, any time. You guys actually made my life a lot simpler: I used to study the issues and examine all the candidates, but now all I need to do is look for an 'R' or a 'D' beside their names." He urged me again to check Hagel's position papers, but I told him it's a waste of time: "To the degree that he has made a compact with Bush, and to the degree he has allied himself with the Republican Party, that is the degree to which I will not support him." The guy bristled a bit at the word "compact," and told me again it might surprise me to learn how often Hagel has disagreed with Bush. I said again, "I don't care. As long as he's got an 'R' beside his name, he is not an American -- he's a Republican." I told the guy I appreciated that they followed up to my letter in such a personal way, and he said well, he is your representative and he wants you to know where he stands. I laughed, "Oh, he's not my representative! Do you think he's representing my position in Washington? My position is that if Jesus comes back and runs as a Republican, I'm going to vote for the other guy!" After a pause, the staffer said, "Well....goodbye." Woo-hoo, that felt good! :-)

Thanks, Lindsey. The contact page has been updated with this info. --Gary

Check the front page (and cool sites) each day this week. Wish it was real! --Gary

For what it's worth, this webpage will be in winter mode starting tomorrow! --Gary

Thanks, Erika. Get better soon! Have you beaten your high score in 'Bejewelled' yet? :-) --Gary