Where I've been:

First and most important: In the most anti-climactic championship in sports history, the Chicago Blackhawks won the Cup. We had a rally, and everybody was drunk. At the same time, we're having the Blues Fest and the Crosstown...I mean, BP Crosstown Cup. I think they changed the name to indicate what a disaster both teams are. I mean: nobody really cares this year. Although, if my White Sox win tonight, I may be able to muster the energy to carry a broom into work with me.

Ok so a potpourri of stuff:

-MS opens Free Office Web Apps - I don't really have much use for web based office applications. Truthfully, whatever niche need you ahve for a web driven spreadsheet app can be had for free in either Zoho or Gdocs. The free version of Excel is gimped to the point where it's pretty useless. Tables w/ structured references is about the only 'killer' feature it contains, which is a pretty big deal say if you're stuck on 03 in the office and shred through a massive data set in a pinch. I'm not saying the full version is going to suck, I'm just saying the free version does and is pretty well outclassed by the other web based spreadsheet apps.

-I noticed this post from Island Dog very briefly. It details how to sync up the very under appreciated One Note application w/ the web apps. I used to be really big on One Note. Till I learned about Basket.

-New version of Greenshot! - If you're not familiar, Greenshot is an open source screen cap program that let's you quickly grab a pic of windows, regions, whatever and then dump it into a file, stick it on the clip board, or open it up in a reasonably useful image editor. The office standard has been Snagit, but that costs money (I think a personal license is about 40 or 50 bucks), it's a bit of a resource hog, and it likes to get in your way with self-important features aren't really useful for anything.

-Apparently, there was a soccer game yesterday and apparently 90 minutes ended in a tie. It was probably a result of their special motivational speech. USA scored a lucky goal, and the British are losing their minds. One of the best parts of this, is that people overseas take this World Cup stuff really seriously. We don't.

-Neilsens says that smartphones will overtake 'feature' phones soon. See, what pisses me off about this sort of shit is that these were the same jackasses who used bad charts and apples/oranges comparisons to try to convince people that 'feature' phones (Neilsen's term for an old person phone) have app stores as vibrant as their smart phone counterparts. The two ideas can't possibly coexist.

-Speaking of smartphones, lifehacker has a really cool chart comparing iPhone OS and Android. Not like it matters, but some other dude made a similar chart comparing the iPhone, Android, and WebOS and he says that WebOS kicks everybody's ass. That's nice.

-I caught this somewhere on Slashdot. Some guy did a nice tear down of one of the over-the-top advertisements by anti-virus software outfits. Money shot:

If I only gave you the screenshot above, you could say this is a classic beginning of a classic phishing mail, intended to goad you into clicking and buying and whatever. Unfortunately, sadly, this email comes from one of the largest security companies in the world.

-Our friends across the pond are getting a little annoyed that Barry O is crucifying BP. I kind of agree that Obama is putting this over the top, but I'm really not known for giving a shit about what Europe thinks about American leadership.

-This made me smile:

For public employee unions - those representing police, firefighters, teachers, prison guards and agency workers of all kinds at the state and local levels - these are the worst of times.

Despite record high membership and dues, and years of unparalleled clout in state capitols, public-sector unions find themselves on the defensive, desperately trying to hold onto past gains in the face of a skeptical press and angry voters. So far has the zeitgeist shifted against them that on one recent weekend, government employees were the butt of a "Saturday Night Live" skit, and the next day, a New York Times Magazine cover article proclaimed "The Teachers' Unions' Last Stand."

Not like I have any beef with gov employees, but their Unions are quite a problem. If you want a government to function 'more like a business', no doubt declawing the unions are a good place to start.

-This did not:

The economy is sick, and all efforts to revive it that do not directly confront the staggering levels of joblessness are doomed. Even the meager job growth in the private sector last month was composed mostly of temporary work. Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, had the right take when he said, “These new data do not present a picture of a healthy private sector and offer nothing even closely resembling the job growth we need to dig us out of a very deep hole.”

-I'm not sure I'm ok with this. Gawker asks a germane question. Is this guy nuts, or what? What's not ok is the video featuring CNN's Don Lemon trying to goad this guy into having a break down. If you really believe the guy is a little slow, (which again, fine if you do) - why on earth are you trying to make the guy come out as full retard for your lame coffee table interview.