Oh my goodness.

The PetsCell™ will allow pet owners to talk to their pets as well as allowing owners to request assistance should they become incapacitated and require help. In addition, and perhaps more valuable, pet owners will have a peace of mind that if their pet is lost and someone finds their pet wandering the streets, with a simple press of a button on the PetsCell™, the auto dial function will dial the owners [sic] home alerting the owner to retrieve their pet.

The first selling point (calling and talking to your pet) is vanity. Whatever. Katie’s been known to call and leave a message at home for the pets, knowing that the incoming message is played from the speaker as the machine is recording it.
The second selling point sounds about the same as devices you can already buy for yourself: a small device that straps to your wrist with a button you can push to call for help. But if you want to use this device for that purpose, don’t put the collar on your cat. If you fall and can’t get up, he’ll just sit across the room and stare at you.
The third selling point sounds really stupid. If I understand it, it’s this: if your pet gets loose and someone finds him, they can simply press the button on the collar and you’ll get an automated telephone call. I guess it’s too difficult for the finder to read the telephone number off the tag and call you himself or to call the vet’s number on the vaccination tag.
The device claims to use GPS. Here’s what I need: if my dog gets out of the yard, I need a web page that will show me his current location so I can go get him. It appears that this device does not (yet) offer this feature. Well, actually, the company does not yet offer the product at all. It appears that they haven’t yet released any products.

It really irritated me when I heard people comparing the devastation caused by the recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean to the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on September 1, 2001. Rob Cockerham puts things in the proper perspective.

As I was stopped in traffic this afternoon, I looked over into the car next to me, and the driver was pulling ear hairs with tweezers. When he finally looked my way, I continued staring at him for a second, smirking.

Stephen Roberds, a popular professor at Southern Utah University, was just fired, supposedly for using ‘the F word’ in class.
This story causes a flashback for me. When I was in high school, my health teacher, Coach Mac, was fired, also obstensibly for using the F word in class. I was in the class in question, and she did indeed use the word in the context of a lesson–though she never actually said it, opting instead to say ‘firetruck’ (it was some lesson about cognitive development or the like where Coach Mac used an example ‘little Johnny hears this word…’). She was a great teacher, and I, along with most of my classmates, attended the school board meeting and spoke in her favor.
Unfortunately, Coach Mac’s use of said cuss word was just a front for the real reason she was being fired: she was a lesbian and girl’s coach. Of course, nobody ever stated that publicly, but it was common knowledge. I honestly don’t know if she did anything inappropriate, but most likely, some parent deduced her sexuality and complained out of general homophobia.
As I understand it, the school board could have (and could still today) legally fired her for her sexuality, but they were chicken shits. They chose to use a front case.
This really makes me wonder what is really going on in the case of Professor Roberds as well.

Pet strollers: “On your next adventure allow your pet to safely join in-whether over grass, beach, bumpy city sidewalks, or forest trails”

(via Kottke.org)

This afternoon I ran to Home Depot for a few items. When the man in front of me got to the register, he handed his debit card to the cashier. She looked at it and then asked him for an ID. He said it was his fiancee’s card. The cashier called the manager, the manager said he couldn’t use it, he pulled out his own card and paid. I was pleased to see that Home Depot was taking such security measures.
When I saw the cashier call the manager, I jumped to the next register. My cashier didn’t ask to see my debit card. I happened to walk out at the same time as the guy who was ‘carded’–who happened to be black. I told him, “They didn’t ask to see my credit card. You think it was racial profiling?”
He shrugged and answered, “Probably.” We parted ways. I got the distinct impression that it was a scenario he’s used to. Pretty sad state of affairs.

John Scalzi has compiled The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time (that never were). Funny, but some real ones were just as bad (I’m thinking the Star Wars Christmas Special).

The following line from a radio ad for life insurance caught my attention this morning on the drive to work: “Ask about our term life policies that guarantee your money back even if you don’t die.”
Pretty safe offer for them to make, I guess.

From a roundtable interview of new fathers at The Morning News:

I remember the first time we took our son on vacation, for instance. We spent our days making sure he was fed on time and always had a clean diaper and got plenty of naps—in other words, pretty much the exact same stuff we would have done at home. After about the third day it finally sunk in that, for the next 18 years, “vacation” just means “go to an exotic locale and still be a full-time parent.”