Simple Podcast Manager v1 1 photo 261570 740 110 right photo The Simple Podcast manager is a podcast manager designed to work specifically with iTunes It has no bells and whistles but allows one to quickly and easily put a new podcast online I actually built this project as a favor for a client a few years back When we eventually stopped using the Podcast Manager in exchange for something else I decided I d go ahead and release it for public consumption It comes with no guarantees or warranties but it works well I ve released it under the GPL license so please do what you will with it Download from Freecode at a href https freecode com projects simple podcast manager https freecode com projects simple podcast manager a Download directly from Tar GZ a href files software packages SimplePodcast v1 1 tar gz SimplePodcast v1 1 tar gz a 32 530 bytes

RTF 316 Lucky Me Kevin Ludlow Paper II Lucky Me RTF 316 History of Radio and Television Amanda Lotz November 24 1998 As television moved into American homes in the early 50 s racism certainly came with it Although racism was something that was clearly evident in America around that time television had a unique way of presenting it to look like it was not a problem of the time From shows with white stars like The Rifleman to shows that had African American stars such as Amos n Andy racism was always evident in the script When looking at a particular text such as The Rifleman it is generally easy to pick out bits of racism throughout the show The reason it is so easy for us to pick it out is simply because we live in a period where racism although it exists is generally seen as wrong Although many civil rights movements occurred within the 50 s and 60 s African Americans were still segregated and viewed as an inferior race to many In the show The Rifleman Chuck Connors stars the show as the character Lucas McCain He lives with his boy Mark on a ranch somewhere in New Mexico Within the five years that it was on the air there were many shows that dealt with issues of racism towards not only African Americans but also Native Indians African Americans were commonly shown to be thieves and cheap laborers They were not stars of the show by any means and if they were to appear chances are they would be rebels of the town and Lucas would have to hunt them down Many shows also had Indian characters that were generally threats to the community Uniquely enough if they honestly were non hostile Indians who meant no harm to the community Lucas would side with them On the flip side the town would turn against them no matter what the situation was Native Indians were viewed as the lowest class of people in the area They were disrespected mocked and distrusted even when they did nothing wrong The townspeople in New Mexico often wanted to gun them down clean their town even though the Indians caused little havoc Chuck Connors was the dominant white male character that the society of that time viewed to be in control of everything He was on the side of the sheriff and of the townspeople and wanted justice to always be served He was a single father and did an excellent job raising Mark which made him the type of character that people wanted to be Perhaps it was because of this heroic character that the show became so popular Of course with so many people watching shows that constantly portrayed minorities as having unacceptable qualities it is no wonder racism was so out of hand Maybe if networks had shows that stared African Americans people would have viewed them differently on the other hand maybe it would make it worse Although a predecessor of The Rifleman Amos n Andy was a show that not only stared African Americans was centered on them as well Staring Alan Childress as Amos and Spencer Williams as Andy their show was a relatively popular sitcom derived from the even more popular radio show The shows were often focused on Kingfish played by Tim Moore He usually had some sort of idea or scheme to make his lifestyle better or more particularly to become wealthy Although the show was focused on the African American community it portrayed blacks in a terrible sort of way The general character on the show was a poor porch sitter who barely made enough money to get by on a regular basis The characters did not stand up for things that they believed in especially to white folk They were uneducated loud obnoxious and worst of all were portrayed to have the worst English grammar in society The women of the show were portrayed to be just as loud and obnoxious but also very demanding and general nuisances to their husbands In the episode of The Happy Stevens we are able to see exactly how a typical wife acted on the show Sapphire Ernestine Wade is constantly nagging at the Kingfish to act more like their favorite radio show The Happy Couple We see how Kingfish miserably tried to mimic the show the best that he can by using cheap imitations of The Happy Couple s ideas Such disregard for the Kingfish s taste would never have been shown had he been white The show was watched by millions of people across America from children to elderly people More importantly African Americans watched it too Although blacks were being represented on the television they would have probably been better off without being so Not only did people of the time get to see white folk make fun of African Americans they got to see African Americans make fun of themselves Although we are now able to look back at how racism was portrayed on television we must ask ourselves has it gotten any better I think that the answer is no Directors and producers have simply done a much better job of incorporating racism into shows without us realizing it Even in much more recent shows African Americans are still portrayed to be more deviant characters in society Take for example the popular seven year show of Designing Women One of the main characters of the show is Anthony Bouvier played by Meshach Taylor Anthony is portrayed to be a hard working and educated friend and employee of the Sugarbaker firm He was on the show from the beginning until the end and even though he was such a hard worker his past always seemed to come up He had served time in prison for a crime he had committed some time ago and many episodes incorporate racist humor on him Suzanne Sugarbaker played by Delta Burke often makes comments about Anthony that are shots against the African American community Of course she does them in a way that seems so natural and innocent that we can not help but realize that she is joking Although she is his friend and she means no harm upon him her views towards African Americans are openly expressed in a humorous way to him throughout her five years on the show Racism will most likely be a problem that occurs long past our lifetimes but is it really necessary for television shows to take advantage of it Most everyone is guilty of finding a great deal of humor in the racist jokes that we hear on television Many of us do not even view it as racism because it seems so naturalized on television It will be hard for the world to be completely non racist as long as television is part of our lives and racism is part of television I would like to think that I know how it feels to have an entire viewing audience laughing at me but unfortunately I will never know I am a white male who is supposed to find humor in it lucky me

Mushroom Finger Painting This was a digital finger painting I had the pleasure of doing one night in my Speedway apartment photo 270316 756 500 left photo

NYU Monologues 1 Comedy Writing Workshop D B Gilles Monologues 1 After being sentenced to life in prison as a conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing Terry Nichols has apparently asked for a new trial He told a judge that the explosion he was part of couldn t have been nearly as bad as the ones he feels every night while being slapped in the ass and called Little Bitch 2 Reporters are now saying that Hillary Clinton is only running for the New York senate to get back at her husband Rumors started flying after she was caught under a podium during one of Mayor Giuliani s speeches bobbing her head like a circus seal 3 President Clinton recently took the American Bald Eagle off of the endangered species list To commemorate the event the president had himself tarred and feathered and proceeded to run around the White House only periodically stopping to wave his bald ass in the air 4 The creators of South Park might see a lawsuit coming their way soon in regards to Kenny s character Psychological studies say that children are now finding it humorous when their friends that can t speak a damn word of English are brutally torn to pieces and left for dead 5 Yesterday Mayor Giuliani issued a brief statement to New York in regards to the power outages He said I will have anyone complaining about the shortage arrested anyone trying to do something about the shortage shot and I will personally sodomize anyone else trying to stop me from doing this 6 The government is asking that a mercury compound used as a preservative in certain infant vaccines to be removed from the formula They furthermore stated that the infants are already receiving plenty of the chemical when mercury thermometers are inserted into their tiny asses 7 Richard Gere has just announced that he will be having a baby with his new girlfriend Carey Lowell He settled for impregnating Carey after several failed attempts to run into Julia Roberts on a street corner and pay her for sex

NYU Monologues 2 Will Smith has once again teamed up with director Barry Sonnenfeld to create a biographical movie of the world s greatest boxer Muhammad Ali Smith will be getting paid 20 million dollars making him the highest paid black actor of all time for a single movie And why shouldn t he be paid that much considering his good looks incredible taste in music and a 130 pound figure which certainly resembles that of a heavyweight boxer In a recent lawsuit the United States is suing The Toyota company for an amazing 58 5 billion dollars It seems that the United States no longer wants to be laughed at for producing poor quality products while a competitive country sweeps the market year after year And of course in good ole American fashion why work harder and try to beat your competitor when you can just sue their ass In a related story Russia is warning officials that the Space Station mir could crash into the Earth if repairs are not made on it soon Unfortunately the Russians have no one to sue because the space station was built from their own parts which coincidentally are amongst the worst parts in the world just behind those of Taiwan and China The United States plans to also sue Russia simply for their incompetence The tobacco industry is trying to get back at the anti smoking campaign which has setup hundreds of billboards around the U S urging kids not to smoke They will be putting up billboards that tell kids If you don t start smoking now you will be laughed at become extremely obese and certainly never become the popular young lad that you d like to be To waste more of out money the United States will also be suing the tobacco industry once again for their Negative but very truthful billboard signs And finally after six years of work an extremely rare plant named the corpse flower has recently bloomed at the University of Washington greenhouse It s scientific name Amorphophallus titanum which means huge shapeless penis has shocked the nation simply because it looks like a huge shapeless penis If all goes as planned the Chia Pet Company will be selling a new model with seedlings to the rare plant The Chia Company plans to market their new model to all women who s husbands can not afford Viagra or just have too small of a dick to please them

NYU SNL Script 2 Comedy Writing Workshop D B Gilles The Tale of a Lonely Preacher FADE IN BLACK SCREEN ANNOUNCER There s a man out there that devoted his entire life to God Even during his youth he didn t participate in all of the things that his friends did He missed the late night drinking parties He missed smoking anything that could possibly be rolled in paper And he even missed all of the trips to the Stay Hard Big Boy strip club He certainly was a devoted man Unfortunately this loveable preacher Father JACK WHACKER was recently stripped of his robe after performing a sermon on tweaking females nipples with ice cold holy water As he was sitting at home a few days later drinking what was left of the communion wine he realized how miserable his life was In 47 years he had never once been with a woman INT JACK WHACKERS APARTMENT DAY JACK WHACKER God what ever should I do to relieve this burning desire GOD Ussssssse Yourrrrrrrr Handddddddd Confused Jack picks up the remote to his television and turns it on The news is on JACK WHACKER I don t understand how the news will help me GOD Beattttttt Ittttttttt JACK WHACKER somewhat annoyed Beat what God GOD God dammit Jack just turn the damn television to channel 74 Jack changes the channel The Spice channel comes on Jack is stunned at such filth JACK WHACKER But God this is Jack sits patiently in his chair An porno infomercial flickers onto the screen GOD Learnnnnnnnn from itttttttttttttt CUT TO TELEVISION SCREEN TV BOB Have you recently been kicked out of your church for a high level of sexual tension Well sir we ve got just the thing for you JACK WHACKER What can you possible have for me TV BOB Well for beginners we offer the do it yourself lesson You could probably figure this out your own bedroom but we d love to have your dumb ass pay us for a lesson CUT TO JACK WHACKERS FACE JACK WHACKER I don t understand this show one bit CUT TO TELEVISION SCREEN TV BOB Of course say you re at an intermediate level In such a case I would recommend the pop it in the ass kit We ll ship you the finest single hole mechanical bull straight from Texas No instructions necessary You just mount up behind it give it a good kick in the ass and let it do all of the work for you JACK WHACKER I ve always wanted to ride a bull TV BOB Finally for our most advanced sex machines out there we now offer the Baah Baah Bucking Sheep This is for all of you guys out there that really want a ride on the wild edge Complete with three holes and real sheep s fur for all of your sexual needs Order now and we ll throw in a free Sheep Sounds cassette tape CUT TO JACK WHACKERS FACE JACK WHACKER somewhat excited If God brought me to this channel then gosh darnit this channel will bring me closer to God I m sold I ll bet I ll be rewarded with the fruits of heaven when I order something from TV Bob I might even get to be a preacher again Jack Whacker picks up the phone and dials the number for TV Bob FADE OUT FADE IN EXT JACK WHACKERS FRONT PORCH DAY CAPTION Three Weeks Later A large wooden crate is dropped off on the front porch The delivery man rings the doorbell and walks away FADE OUT FADE IN EXT SOMEWHERE IN A CEMETARY DAY CAPTION The Next Day ANNOUNCER Jack Whacker died earlier this while engaging in sexual intercourse with an inflatable sheep The doctors have confirmed that 17 different veins popped in the abdominal and penile area while Jack was coming to a climax with the sheep An explosion equivalent to a half stick of dynamite was reported to have killed the helpless inflatable doll There are rumors that 3 rubber chickens were also injured in the explosion Although it might sound like a good idea to let yourself tense up for 47 years please learn from the late Jack Whacker and masturbate once and awhile if not daily And for god sakes be gentle on the sheep FADE OUT END 7 6 1999

American Healthcare A Moderate Approach I have decided to release a chapter of my book in the wake of the recent Supreme Court healthcare decision The particular chapter I am releasing is titled American Healthcare A Moderate Approach It is a thorough examination of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 or what is often referred to as Obamacare Like the rest of the book the chapter does not attempt to take aim at either side of the political aisle but rather scrutinizes the entire American political machine This is not limited to Congress but the American populous as well It illustrates how federally mandated insurance lines the pockets of multinational insurance and pharmaceutical companies while driving up medical costs for the average American consumer It explains how politicians have conflated the meanings of healthcare and health insurance using the claim of one to profit from the other The chapter also proposes numerous solutions that could be implemented to actually improve the state of healthcare without increasing the scope and power of the federal government strong Download the entire chapter strong ul li a href files downloads Balance AmericanHealthcare pdf Balance AmericanHealthcare pdf a 333 758 bytes li ul strong Read each section online strong ul li a href blog 2137 American_Healthcare__Part_I_Introduction American Healthcare Part I Introduction a li li a href blog 2135 American_Healthcare__Part_II_The_Healthcare_Divide American Healthcare Part II The Healthcare Divide a li li a href blog 2133 American_Healthcare__Part_III_Healthcare_vs_Health_Insurance American Healthcare Part III Healthcare vs Health Insurance a li li a href blog 2131 American_Healthcare__Part_IV_An_Unpredictable_Event American Healthcare Part IV An Unpredictable Event a li li a href blog 2129 American_Healthcare__Part_V_Impractical_Expectations American Healthcare Part V Impractical Expectations a li li a href http www kevinludlow com blog 2125 American_Healthcare__Part_VI_Practical_Healthcare_Proposals American Healthcare Part VI Practical Healthcare Proposals a li ul The chapter is 31 pages long and approximately 12 000 words Each section of the chapter can be read directly on my blog using the links above Alternatively the entire chapter can be downloaded in PDF form If you know of anybody interested in publishing this type of literature please have them contact me through my website

OS X 10 8 Terminal VIM xterm color It s not often that I make pure technology posts on my blog but I thought this problem demanded some attention after I couldn t find the cause much less the solution online I recently upgraded my MacBook Pro as I do every two years and ran into an extremely frustrating issue with the new version of Terminal I will stop and say that this is probably an extremely niche problem It is also almost certainly limited to software developers not end users That all prefaced this is pretty much limited to people who happen to use the Terminal program in OS X happen to run VI VIM as their text editor and happen to prefer syntax highlighting to be enabled This may even be limited to certain color schemes I prefer the evening scheme If these conditions are met then you ve probably noticed that your color scheme has more or less been destroyed as of recent at least destroyed in the sense that your eyes are trained to see certain programatic statements in a certain color and now that no longer applies I ve been using the evening scheme for over a decade now and can barely read it now on my new Apple But why photo 298975 740 0 center A basic PHP in VIM with the em evening em color scheme enabled using xterm 16color OS X 10 8 or just xterm color on previous OS X versions photo photo 298974 740 0 center A basic PHP in VIM with the em evening em color scheme enabled using xterm 256color OS X 10 8 the new default photo br style clear both The new version of Terminal has extended the Terminal TTY settings The previous version allowed the user to switch between em xterm em and em xterm color em amongst others The new version allows the user to switch between em xterm em em xterm 16color em and em xterm 256color em It just so happens that the old version of em xterm color em ran with 16 colors and the new version defaults to em xterm 256color em This is all fine and good but it doesn t fly very well with most of the VIM syntax schemes If you use standard Linux BSD color highlighting you may have also noticed that some of those colors are slightly different now This is also due to the change To fix the problem open up the Preferences in Terminal Select the Advanced tab and where it says Declare terminal as change that to em xterm 16color em You ll need to restart Terminal or at least open a brand new window for the change to take effect photo 298973 740 0 center The two different terminal declaration types in the new OS X 10 8 photo strong Updated Sunday June 24th 2018 strong After moving forward with yet another Apple OS X version and having to reconfigure my terminal settings I discovered that this newer version has the same problem whether the xterm color is set to em xterm 16color em OR em xterm 256color em I changed the setting to the oldest one em xterm em restarted Terminal and the problem seemed to be fixed Ideally you would be able to use the full color palette while using Terminal but if you are just using the older standard ANSI colors like I am it seems to work exactly the same as you would want it to This new change is specifically for OS X 10 13 5 High Sierra

My Poor Fragmented Ankle photo 34584 754 0 right Vance Kotrla and me taking a buddy picture just a few weeks before I landed on the ankle This photo would have been in early March 1996 photo Just a few weeks after my 17th birthday I participated in the 1996 Katy ISD Junior Varsity district track meet I was not very fast but that only partially mattered I was a pole vaulter I wasn t a particularly great pole vaulter but as it happens nobody else was either The two leaders in the district were me and a guy named Jim Davidson Incidentally he went on to marry Vance s in the photo high school girlfriend I like to think I was favored to win I always warmed up in my heavy sketcher boots the iconic 90s leather boots with steel in the toes It was certainly unconventional but my logic was that if I could get my feet moving in those the feather weight track shoes with spikes would let me fly It s unclear if that decision affected what happened next but my coach certainly thought so After just as handful of warmups I took to the vaulting runway again My speed was good the pole hit the vault box right on the mark and I launched a good eleven feet into the air It was almost perfect Unfortunately instead of landing on my back I came down straight onto my right ankle The weight of my body from that height essentially bent my ankle 90 degrees inward I laid on the pad screaming in excruciating pain I was eventually carted away to the trainer on the school s golf cart My dad drove me to the hospital shortly thereafter The hospital told us that I had a very bad sprain but no broken bones I wore a soft ankle brace for the next two months Jim Davidson won the meet Fast forward 17 years Apparently after almost two decades of recurring injuries from football soccer tennis baseball and running my ankle said go fuck yourself I literally just stretched my ankle at my desk and it never recovered from that stretch I was immediately in pain I assumed I had just contorted it strangely and it would be fine in the morning Not so much It turns out that there are three bone fragments apparently referred to as loose bodies floating around in my tissue Over the years the ligaments have been pulling away from the ankle bone forcing these loose bodies into uncomfortable positions It s not clear exactly what I did but the end result is that two of my ligaments are torn and at least one of the pieces of bone has turned itself inward causing all of the pain This was confirmed with an ultrasound Adding to my month of international traveling home rebuilding moving and job transitions I will now be doing all of this from a boot and having surgery before long the bone fragments really need to be removed Since I ve apparently been exercising on the ankle of a 65 year old for the past 17 years I m very curious to see what my ankle feels like in a few months Thankfully my sister has graciously agreed to care for me

How to Sell a Vehicle in Texas Having bought and sold a number of vehicles in the state of Texas over the past year a friend of mine recently asked me for some help with the process True to anything state related there s a network of forms and filings required If you screw up any of the process you can wind up being liable for tickets and accidents incurred by the vehicle This has actually happened to me twice now albeit I ve been covered by the paperwork I filed in both cases If you follow these five steps you ll be covered for any case that could arise from the sale and transfer through a private party strong Step 1 strong On the back of your title you as the seller have to sign the title over to the new owner He or she keeps the title and is then responsible for mailing it in to the title department Since I live in Austin I typically take this directly to them but I digress strong Step 2 strong a href http www google com url sa t rct j q esrc s source web cd 1 ved 0CCsQFjAA url http 3A 2F 2Ftxdmv gov 2Freports and data 2Fdoc_download 2F998 130 u application for texas certificate of title ei KXREU6nfJIqwygHk6YCYAg usg AFQjCNGgdTBORn9PxZ6XuXFpvXwz4j9adQ sig2 EeFX_ff4_pKdY8RG8_D8qg bvm bv 64507335 d aWc Download and fill out Form 130U a You as the seller need to fill out and sign the middle section and the buyer can fill out the rest Obviously you re supposed to fill out the actual sale price of the vehicle but since I strongly disagree with any form of taxation even more so when it involves double taxation as this process does I would encourage you to fill out whatever value you feel comfortable with em see the bottom of this post for more information em If you forget to sign this section you ll either have to meet with the buyer a second time or they will have to forge your signature in order to get the title properly transferred strong Step 3 strong It s a good idea to exchange an informal document so that you ve got something between you Just print out two copies and fill it out by hand Each of you should keep one copy At a minimum you ll want the form to include each of your names driver s license numbers and the VIN It s not required but is good for having a record of the sale strong Step 4 strong Once you have completed all of this fill out the a href https www txdmv gov sites default files form_files VTR 346 pdf vehicle transfer notification form online a This is to protect both the seller and buyer but mostly the seller It s easier to complete if you do so with the buyer there but it s certainly not necessary Be sure to print out the response you get from the state strong Step 5 strong Take all of this paperwork and file it away in a manila folder I find that most people are really bad at keeping up with paperwork but I ve twice had to pull out the Vehicle Transfer form to clear my name of tolls the buyer had accrued on my vehicles strong The Standard Presumptive Value strong Finally the SPV Standard Presumptive Value is an utterly bullshit mechanism that the State of Texas came up with for combating people who have set the sales price of the vehicle too low on form 130 U I note that this is utterly bullshit because I conducted a private study of the system about a year ago and discovered some alarming results After running statistics on about 20 000 vehicles I found that inexpensive cars were valued at or above their actual sales price and higher end vehicles were valued em well em under theirs The State of Texas actually has a a href http txdmv gov spv calculator calculator available online a so you can see how they appraise any vehicle As an example when I genuinely paid 900 for a used Camry the state taxed me as if I had paid 1 600 for it So not only was the state double taxing the car actually quadruple taxing since it had 3 previous owners but they weren t even taxing it at the rate I paid for the vehicle I was ignorant of the process when I made this purchase It happened again when I purchased a Toyota Tacoma for 5000 The truck was undervalued due to extensive damage on the back of it but since the state ignores any relevance of condition they deemed it to be worth almost 9000 They wanted to tax me accordingly but I fought against that To prove it was worth much less I had to get an appraisal from a certified dealer for 100 the state minimum that he could charge just to illustrate why I should be taxed less Worse still is that when I compared this with higher end vehicles a Corvette listed at 60 000 say the SPV would actually come in substantially lower than the actual vehicle value Again I m 100 opposed to any kind of taxation but even more so when it s designed to further fuck the poor as this system most clearly is intended to do strong How to Fuck the State of Texas strong In short go to the state s a href http txdmv gov spv calculator SPV Calculator a Type in the VIN and the mileage of your vehicle whether you re the buyer or seller The program will spit out a vehicle appraisal The state will take the greater of this number and whatever you fill out on Form 130 U and tax you at that value Obviously don t put a penny more than what the SPV comes back as