Hey Dan

This is a dumb company of the day story. A couple of years ago I joined a heath club. This is something I doubt I will ever do again. I sign a one-year contract with a health club near my house in Fort Worth. Then last November I moved back to Dallas. Well, I had a couple of months left on my contract. It was cheaper to let it run out then to buy out the contract. Therefore, I paid the monthly fee until February went the contract expired. I called when I saw the March charge to my card and asked to cancel. They only let you cancel in person, so it was another month before I made it over to Fort Worth again to cancel my membership. In May, I got no charge from them, so I figured that was that.

In June, I got another charge on my credit card and another one in July. Therefore, I called in July to the company that runs the membership billing and ask them to please cancel my membership. They had not gotten the paper work from the club. I faxed and emailed my request to them. They said they would have to bill me one more cycle because I need to give them 30 days notice. Well, all right… at least it is done.

Today I get an email from the membership company asking me to call them. It seems I owe them $180 in late fees for 5 months of missed payments, plus 2 month of payments. How can this be? Well the truth is simple and stupid.

I had not change my billing address with them when I moved. In February, they got a declined from my credit card company because they have the wrong address. Then the charge sat around on someone’s desk until a couple of months latter some one else in the company put the charge though manually. The same thing happened monthly since then. This meant that all charges were two months late and they applied late fees to my account. Since you cannot cancel an account with a balance, my account remained unclosed.

After I walked them though the idea that they could have call or emailed me at any time to fix this, they agreed to waive the $180 and 2 month of payments. Now they just need one more payment to cover the next 30 days. After all, they need 30 days notice to close an account.

Posted by Dan at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yesterday, my grandfather fell down and broke his hip. He was getting out of the car and fell. So, today he is going in for a hip replacement. It should be this morning. He lives in Oregon with Mom. She is taking care of him. He is in OK health and the surgery should go smoothly.

Posted by Dan at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

With the GOP conversion starting this week, it is time for a quiz.

Where do you stand politically?

Instructions:
Take the quiz and post you score as a comment.

Posted by Dan at 01:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

The Internet and I are both in our thirties. The Internet started in 1969, I was born in 1968; yes, there were computers back then. The Internet and I grew up together. The Internet was a quite kid much as I was. We bother learned to get around, talk, and what to call stuff in the 70’s. In the 80’s, we were teen’s discovered counter-culture and music and spent most of our time in school. In the early 90’s, be made the big steps that a young person does in there 20’s. We found jobs to do for corporations about the same time. At first, we did fun stuff, but did not really do anything memorable. Then things exploded, our live started to grow, we collected more stuff, we found things we did well, we became focused, and we learn a lot about ourselves. We turned 30 and as we did, we became more comfortable with who we were.

Today the Internet is a complex 35 year-old that has changed the world it lives in. Me, well I am an interesting 36 year-old who is pleasant company. I am happy with how both of us has aged.

Posted by Dan at 12:21 PM | Permalink

Am I weird?

The subject came up in my mind about while talking to a co-worker. Let me back up. On Friday, I went to get my haircut. I suspect the person who cut it and I had a miscommunication, because it ended up being a great deal shorter then I had intended. Short enough that it looks as if I joined the military. My co-worker was commenting on it and he said this is something I should teach K to do when we get married. I thought this was a strange suggestion. K is a very talented person; if she put her mind to anything, she could do it well including cutting hair. However, I cannot imagine handing her a set of scissors and saying, “hey, you now are in charge of my hair?” He seemed to it would be naturally her responsibility to take over that part of my life. That is just weird too me? My personal grooming is my responsibility. I cannot imagine asking her to take responsibility for that. I can see her saying ‘that looks good’ or ‘I like it better short,’ but I have to live with both her and my hair and should be able to find a way to be happy with both. Handing it over to her as something that is now her responsibility just seems the path of unhappiness.

Posted by Dan at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Being someone who loves words, I have quoted many people. Tonight on NPR the great John Waters quoted me, well said the same thing I have said. He most defiantly does not know I have ever said it. But still…

“I not opposed to public nudity, I for it. It just that cute people are not the one who want to get naked in public. Most people who want to be naked in public make me want to call the police.”

Posted by Dan at 07:45 PM | Permalink

Hey Dan has a new look.... but you knew that.

Posted by Dan at 07:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It is happening. Everyone knows that it would. Now it is. I am starting to go senile. I cannot, for the life of me, remember what I did last Thanksgiving. K and I were talking about holiday plans last night and she asked me what I did last year. My mind was blank. If I were searching for a Zen like state, I would have found it in my search for any memory of Thanksgiving 2003. I cannot even tell you if I was in this state. I went back and searched Heydan.com archives thinking that maybe it would jog my memory, no dice. So, if anyone out there knows what I was doing … please let me know and if you see me walking down the street in my underwear, please help.

Posted by Dan at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The world is still struggling with the concept of the Internet. Blogging alone is set to threaten mainstream media by upsetting the balance of broadcast rights and copyright. The International Olympic Committee has barred competitors, coaches, and others from writing firsthand accounts for personal Web sites. At issue is the fear that mainstream medias coverage, which they pay a great deal of money for, cannot compete with an Athletes personal blog about their day-to-day experiences. The ability of a single person to write events of their day for the world to see is testing our ideas about free speech, copyright, and broadcast rights.

One thing to keep in mind as Americans, free speech is not a universal right and that right does not travel with us. There are places where the free commerce of ideas that we enjoy is not a universal right. Therefore, the Olympic Committee is well within its rights to bar participants from speaking to the world. The problem is that how do you enforce this idea in a world of instant access to everyone. The Internet by design has made free speech available to the world.

Now here at HeyDan, the Olympic Committee is not worried about my readers turning off their TV’s and just reading the news from me. I enjoy a freedom that comes with the fact I get less then 50 hits a day and most of them are people I know. Imagine if the world watched your site and CNN covered it when you posted or even when you did not. It would change things.

Our morality is struggling to keep up with our technologies. The world will be a place where free speech and free access are truths guaranteed by technology. Unless we want to put the genie back in the lamp, we have to rethink how we deal with many many things. Blogs will change the world.

Posted by Dan at 11:29 AM | Permalink

Does any one else think that it is funny that RealPlayer and Apple are now in a fight over digital rights? The fight is over the RealPlayer Music Store selling files that customers can play on Apple’s iPod. RealPlayer cracked Apple’s FairPlay code and started selling music files that can be played on the iPod. Now, remember if you or I did this we would go to big people jail for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Now RealPlayer is dropping its prices… those bastards!

The Apple community is outraged. Portable music that can be played anywhere, what are you people thinking! It would be anarchy. Remember the days when you bought a CD and could play it in both you car and at home or even someone else’s house. We cannot let ourselves fall into that kind of chaos again. People cannot be trusted to own anything; we should only let them rent it, for a very short time, then take it away, and hide it. It is for our own good.

“This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do.”
--The Right to Read, Richard Stallman, 1996.

I have this idea. Make it easy for me to buy any music that I can play anywhere on any systems sold by anyone. We can call it a Free Market. Then prosecute people who steal or make copies illegally, instead of everyone.

“Fair use” is a crucial element in American copyright law—the principle that the public is entitled, without having to ask permission, to use copyrighted works so long as these uses do not unduly interfere with the copyright owner’s market for a work.

When the DMCA supports are eating their own over 99 cents of my money... it is time to take a long look at this...

What can we do? Learn:
EFF-Austin
Digital Rights Management and Privacy

Posted by Dan at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I was sick at home yesterday. While I slept most of the day, I was awake long enough to see the US women’s Olympic Fencing compete. The team won the first metals for the US in fencing in 100 years and the first metals for a US women’s team ever! Now I have from time to time picked up a sword myself. Unlike sailing or badminton, this is an Olympic sport I understand when I watch it. I can tell you how perfect the footwork is and how it is a battle of spacing and timing. With all the coverage a male swimmer who has not preformed as well as hoped has received, these women should get some well-deserved spot light.

Women's Individual Sabre
Gold: Mariel Zagunis (United States)
Silver: Xue Tan (China)
Bronze: Sada Jacobson (United States)

BTW: From Soccer to Cycling the US women’s Olympic team has been out shining the men’s with little in the way of coverage from the news media. You people with cameras and microphones, get out off the tour busses and pay attention!

Posted by Dan at 07:06 AM | Permalink

News from the town I grew up in. Man goes on book-ripping spree...

I wonder if this will make fark?

He had to rip Portland phone books due to the fact Roseburg phone books only have 35,000 names.

Posted by Dan at 09:41 AM | Permalink

For those of you who want to see what I can do with a camera and how a really talented editor can fix it.

The first public premier of Misty Dawn ( the found episodes) episode 1.

Date: August 19th Thursday
Reception: 7:00 p.m.
Showing: promptly at 8:00 p.m.
Where: Texas State Theatre on the square Waxahachie, Texas
Cost: 5.00 donation to pay for the theatre.

Go 20 minutes south of I20 on 35E to Waxahachie and follow the signs to downtown. Take 287 business not 287 to corsicana.
Everybody get ready for

Posted by Dan at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It was a very busy weekend. Friday night was filming for the next episode of Misty Dawn. We were shooting at a studio in a loft. It was a good shoot except we were all getting grouchy by then end. I can see my camera work getting better. It was a 2 camera shoot and I was on camera 2 most of the night getting ‘cut a-ways’.

Then Saturday went and saw AVP. It was good. Expect a short movie that is fun to watch. There is some good Alien vs. Human and Alien vs. Predator fights and lots of humans not doing so well. You should turn you continuity filter to the off position for maximum results.

Saturday night K and her singing group had a show. It was an outdoor and the vast number of people showed. It was very nice seeing every one. I got lots of grief about being cute from the curmudgeon husbands of K’s singing group. After the show, the group of us went to dinner at Café Brazil for some yummy food.

Sunday K and I went for the second week on our quest to find a Methodist Church we like. We are both members of Methodist churches that are far away because we have not found a church locally we like. It has been something we have both procrastinated doing. Now since we want to be married in one, the search has taken on some level of importance. Therefore, we have been searching for a Church. The last two Sunday we have caught an earlier service at one church then ran over to another to catch late service. Last week we had one church that had video screens, a big thing on our list of things we do not like in a church. The other one last week did not light either of us on fire. This week was two churches we liked. They are now the short list. We just have to decide which one.

After Church, it was out to do more Misty Dawn shooting. This time we were on location shooting a comic fight scene. We shot until about 9 or 10. As I left to go home, it hit me. The weekend was gone. Sigh…. Need to put more relax in my weekends.

Posted by Dan at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Cinema forced to cancel film screening

The comment was made that this was mob rule oppressing free speech. This made me think of the limits of free speech.

The fist amendment says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Amendment I - The Bill of Rights

Congress cannot make a law that curtails or interrupts your freedom to speak your mind. Therefore, can you say anything you want? The answer is no. There are many instances when you cannot speak your mind. If you are saying something, just to provoke someone to hit you. This is incitement and is ageist the law according to the Supreme Court.

“Speech likely to provoke an average listener to retaliation, and thereby cause a breach of peace, falls outside the protection of the First Amendment because the words have no important role in the marketplace of ideas the freedom of speech is designed to promote.”
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire

Because this form of speech has no value to the free flow of ideas it is not protected speech. This is why someone cannot yell “Asshat” to me everyday when I leave my house.

Now the question is would “Birth of a Nation” provoke an average viewer? What if the movie was “Fahrenheit 911” or “Gone with the Wind?”

Posted by Dan at 05:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

"Satire is making fun of people who are smarter than me. Irony is making fun of people who are richer than me. Burlesque is making fun of people who are smarter and richer than me while taking my clothes off."
-GiO, the queen of New Orleans burlesque. Interviewed by Andrei Codrescu

This is why listening to NPR on the way home is happy.

Posted by Dan at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Just when you thought this job would never come open again! Now you can make fun of Prince Charles, professionally.

CNN

I wonder, how married to the idea of bells they are?

Posted by Dan at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As many of you know I am seeing this wonderful woman. She is smart, talented, and beautiful. On Saturday night, I asked her to marry me…. She said yes. .

Posted by Dan at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)