Philadelphia Race for the Cure 2007

Today was the Susan G Koman Race for the Cure benefitting the fight against breast cancer, in Philadelphia. There were 100,000 people there, over 50% of which parcipated in either the 5k race or the 5k walk. My mom, my sister, and I participated in the walk, with an “official” time of 1 hour 22 minutes, but when 50,000 people are on the same path you are, it’s hard to make good time unless you sign up as a runner and I’m not a runner. I’m pretty happy with it.

And I was blown away by the number of people who were there wearing the pink “survivor” shirt — over seven thousand survivors. Less than a month since my aunt’s death, and there were a few times where it was hard. The whole place was filled with so many determined people that it was hard to be angry or sad for very long.

We’re already talking about walking again next year, which means that I need to get into better shape, because Great Strides for the CF Foundation is next weekend (around here, anyway) and there is no way I can do two of these things back-to-back this year… but next year could be a different story.

Babble Thread?

Pour un babbler. Or is it une babbler? Wouldn’t it have been nice to have learned a foreign language reliably at some point in my life?

Media Rights Technologies and BlueBeat.com Issue Cease and Desist to Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and Real Networks

Am I reading this right?

Media Rights Technologies and BlueBeat.com Issue Cease and Desist to Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and Real Networks.

Under the DMCA, mere avoidance of an effective copyright
protection solution is a violation of the act.

MRT and BlueBeat have developed a technological measure which
effectively controls access to copyrighted material.

MRT asserts Apple, Microsoft, Real and Adobe have produced billions of
these products without regard for the DMCA or the rights of American
Intellectual Property owners, actively avoiding the use of MRT’s
technologies.

Therefore, Media Rights Technologies (MRT) and BlueBeat.com have issued
cease and desist letters to Microsoft, Adobe, Real Networks and Apple with
respect to the production or sale of such products as the Vista OS, Adobe
Flash Player, Real Player, Apple iTunes and iPod.

I am reading this right! It says You won’t use my toy in your product so I’m suing you waaaah!

I firmly believe the DMCA is a crock to begin with, but if the courts back this up, it’ll super-size the crock. We’ll have developers producing “security” products left, right, and sideways, all of which will claim their security is top-notch (even if it’s not) suing major companies because they don’t support their stuff.

Good lord.

Late Night Exercise

So yesterday afternoon I made the mistake of mentioning to my cousin that I need to get some exercise. I’m going to be more careful what I wish for.

Around 10:30 last night, JessieDog and I were talking a walk around the building (I live in a condo) when a very young terrier (I’m going to guess toy fox terrier based on the pictures) found us and came running over.

I say very young because he had that skinny lanky look of an adolescent, a really high-pitched yap, and he could jump so that his head was roughly the height of my shoulder. I know that last part because, knowing my dog quite well, my first move was to scoop JessieDog up and carry her back to the house, the whole time being hounded (literally) by the kangaroo dog that wanted desperately to check Jess out.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the boy would have hurt Jess… but Jess doesn’t like energetic puppies (or for that matter, human children) and her hackles were already going up from this pogo-stick interloper before I even had her in the air.

We returned my dog to the house and clipped a lead around the boy, who had a collar but no tags, and then I set out to see if anyone recognized him. Being a dog owner, I know most of the other dog owners (or at least their dogs) and unfortunately, there are four or five dogs in my complex that this boy could’ve been.

I learned a few things over the next 20 minutes. First, the boy is very friendly, but not at all leash trained. During that time I think I almost had him convinced to stop trying to pull… but not quite. Second, none of the neighbors I actually know (most of which were thankfully still up because the Phils are in Arizona tonight) recognized the boy either. Third, about 80% of my complex is in bed asleep with the lights out by 10:30 pm. And finally, walking a hyperactive puppy that doesn’t know where he lives is a damn good workout.

We did finally find the boy’s owner — turns out the dog’s name is Toby and the gentleman who owned him had no idea he’d gotten lose. I managed to not say anything rude about the lack of tags or lack of knowledge that they’d somehow not noticed this ball of yap had disappeared (wouldn’t the sudden quiet have tipped them off?), and returned to my own home where my own dog then gave me the thrice-over to try to figure out which pocket I’d hidden Toby in.

I’m a little bummed now – I love JessieDog but there’s nothing like a puppy to remind you how old your dog is. Still, I think it was more of a workout than I really expected at 10:30 pm. And it did impress one thing on me: it’s time to find out who one calls when one finds a dog in the middle of the night.