I run my own IM server based on the Jabber protocol. “Yeah, that’s great,” you say, but isn’t it just another closed, proprietary system that won’t actually let you connect with anyone else? Think again. All my friends on Gmail who have that chat feature built-in can now talk to me just by adding me to their chat list. My IM address looks the same as my email address, but that doesn’t mean it goes to my email.

Google did something right: they based their Gtalk service on open standards (Jabber/XMPP). And—this is critical—they opened up server-to-server communications. So when my friends want to add me as a buddy they type in what is essentially my email address, then Google’s chat server contacts my chat server and my chat server contacts me. This works with LiveJournal, Gizmo Project, and thousands of others that use the same open protocol. AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, and MSN are goin’ down! I hereby encourage everyone I know to switch to their favorite Jabber-based IM service (if they don’t have one already) so they can have one unified buddy list (and not have to run a zillion different programs to talk to friends scattered across different IM services).

This is a quick blurb about Disney’s Enchanted and my present-moment feelings on fairy tale endings in general.

I saw the movie Enchanted tonight. Going in I didn’t know what to expect: a childish film? A silly movie? I said that I thought it would be cheesy and I was going to see it to have Disney prove me wrong. That wish was granted: they did. It is a wonderful little film. The first half of the first act runs a bit long and the last half of the third act goes by a little too fast, but overall it was a lot of fun. I particularly liked Disney’s use of classic hand-drawn animation instead of the 3D stuff that Pixar popularized. I love Pixar’s stuff but their style wouldn’t have been right for this film.

I was able to log in to Gmail the following morning as if nothing had happened. Go figure.

I still don’t trust them and I will be using my own server for my anonymous emailing needs from now on, thank you very much.

Another reason why I really love running my own email server. Today I tried to log in to my anonymous Gmail account that I created for various identity-protection reasons and i was told that my account was disabled. Disabled. Instantly and without warning. Google sucks and if they ever want to get off my sh*t list they’d better do things right. I have a feeling my account was deleted because of some kind of automated message scanning thing they have going on and not a real live person ever looked at my account activity. That is absolutely the WORST way to run an email service. EVER. I’m a postmaster and proud of it and I would NEVER EVER do things the way Gmail does. But hey, it’s their free service and you play by their rules.

I got a spam with this in the subject line: Record Bathtub Earth Alphabet Foot Woman. I just thought it was funny.

If enough spammers send enough spam with enough ramdomly-generated subject lines, isn’t it only a matter of time until they come up with something funny, clever, or profound?

Organized religions and gangs: are the two that different? At their core how are religion and gangs similar and how do they differ? I would propose that the two are more alike than not.

The other day when I saw the headline “Students counseled after death” on the Denver Post website, I thought of Jay’s headlines and a lost list I last saw in an email a while ago. I don’t know if these links contain all of them, but they sure are funny.

http://skank.tanglebones.com/2005/05/23/best-newspaper-headlines-ever/
http://funnies.paco.to/Headlines.html (dead link, removed)