One of the main messages we should have learned from School of Rock, was that we need to “stick to to the man.” High school students in Austin Texas have stuck it to The Man. When The Man decided that high school students were too stupid to resist the temptation of candy treats, The Man took all of the candy out of vending machines. So what did these wonderful, enterprising students do to stick it to to The Man? They started an underground black market in candy. Bless their souls.

The Austin Statesman reports:

When Austin High School administrators removed candy from campus vending machines last year, the move was hailed as a step toward fighting obesity. What happened next shows how hard it can be for schools to control what students eat on campus.

The candy removal plan, according to students at Austin High, was thwarted by classmates who created an underground candy market, turning the hallways of the high school into Willy-Wonka-meets-Casablanca.

Soon after candy was removed from vending machines, enterprising students armed with gym bags full of M&M’s, Skittles, Snickers and Twix became roving vendors, serving classmates in need of an in-school sugar fix. Regular-size candy bars like the ones sold in vending machines routinely sold in the halls for $1.50.

“There was no sugar in the vending machines, so (student vendors) could make a lot of money,” said Hayden Starkey, an Austin High junior who said he was not one of the candy sellers. “I heard kids were making $200 a week just selling candy.”

Here are Mobile PC’s Top 100 Gadgets of All Time. Enjoy.

Jason Kottke, the owner of one of my favorite websites, has quit his job to blog full time. Personally I think he is nuts not to put advertisements on his websites, but that’s just me.

Could Barry Bonds have said it any more clearly that he has used steroids? ESPN reports:

Bonds angrily avoided inquiries about his role in baseball’s steroid scandal upon his arrival at spring training Tuesday, pronouncing himself weary but ready to resume his pursuit of Hank Aaron’s home run record.

He called reporters liars, and pointed to problems in the world he considers much more important than steroids, such as alcoholism and drug abuse.

Bonds was entertaining as usual. Asked directly whether he’d ever used illegal substances, he said:

“I’m not a child. You repeat those things to children and then eventually they tell you. I don’t.”

In Bonds’ first public comments since his grand jury testimony was leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle and reported in December, he had nothing to say about it, citing legal constrictions. But he had harsh words for the media and fans still consumed by the circumstances of his record-setting home run binge.

“You guys are like re-running stories,” Bonds said to more than 100 reporters in attendance. “This is old stuff. It’s like watching ‘Sanford and Son.’ It’s almost comical, basically. … Are you guys jealous, upset, disappointed, what?”
…
Bonds, dressed casually in a black shirt and jeans, was asked whether he thinks using steroids is cheating.

“I don’t know what cheating is,” he said. “I don’t believe steroids can help your eye-hand coordination, technically hit a baseball. I just don’t believe it. That’s my opinion.”

Bonds said the key to his continued success and strength, even in the later years of his career, has been “hard work, that’s about it.”

Last week I saw Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior. It was the most amazing martial arts movies I have ever seen. The only thing that compares are some of the Bruce Lee films. In this era of special effects and computer generated images, it was refreshing to see a martial arts film where all of the stunts were real (except for part of a silly chase scene). If you see it, don’t expect to see a real plot, instead, just get ready for some amazing fighting.

Eminent Domain abuse is pretty disgusting. I hope the Supreme Court retreats from a couple bad cases and rules that when the Fifth Amendment says that “nor shall private property be taken for public use” it means public use–as in a new road.

I was a missionary and lived in Ecuador from 1993-1995. It was a great experience and I met an incredible number of great people. It is sad to read about the continued problems in Latin America. Latin America just can’t get it’s act together. The NY Times reports:

EL ALTO, Bolivia – Piped water, like the runoff from the glaciers above this city, runs tantalizingly close to Remedios Cuyu

I don’t know if I’ve ever read anything by Hunter S. Thompson. But this article in the Post is the best obituary I’ve read on him.

Over the past few years I have liked Roger Ebert less and less. I didn’t realize until tonight that I don’t dislike Rober Ebert as a person, I just don’t share his taste in movies. Here’s a perfect example. Ebert gave Garfield the movie 3 stars, and Napoleon Dyanmite 1 1/2 stars, Bottle Rocket 2 stars, and Rushmore 2 1/2 stars. I haven’t watched all of Garfield, but from what I saw the movie was horrible. How could Ebert like that? Mabye he was selling our because he is friends with Bill Murray. Whatever is the case, I can’t abide with his choice in movies.

However, this interview in the NY Times makes me like him as a person a lot more. Enjoy.

According to this news story, the Motion Picture Association of America has shut down a website called Lokitorrent.com. The MPAA has posted the following at Lokitorrent.com:

This website has been permanently shut down by court order because it facilitates the illegal downloading of copyrighted motion pictures. The illegal downloading of motion pictures robs thousands of honest, hard-working people of their livelihood, and stifles creativity. Illegally downloading movies from sites such as these without proper authorization violates the law, is theft, and is not anonymous. Stealing movies leaves a trail. The only way not to get caught is to stop.

I agree that it is not right to download movies from the Internet. I have no problem with that. I do have a problemw with the MPAA’s hyperbolic statements that this “robs thousands of honest, hard-working peole of their livelihoods.” How many people in Hollywood have either lost their jobs, or would otherwise have jobs if there were no illegal downloading of movies? I can’t imagine that the number is in the thousands. Seconds, how in the world does downloading movies “stifle creativity?” Is the MPAA insane? I can’t even dream up a reason how downloading movies “stifles creativity.” I imagine that people are downloading popular blockbuster movies like Spider-Man 2, not obscure flicks like Postmen in the Mountains. The big budget blockbusters will always have big enough budgets for creativity, but the real creativity is in the small pictures, and I have to imagine that those aren’t the ones that are being traded around the Internet. So what in the world is the MPAA thinking by saying that this “stifles creativity?”