The Lewis Show

George would have never used his Twitter account I follow a few well thought out liberal and conservative pundits. I also follow a few that fly off the seats of their pants. They get paid, through the magic of the Internet, to talk about politics. There is a space for political speech. The United States and most of the civilized western world thrive because we're not jailed (for the most part) for speaking our minds. I'm only partially going to be referring to those people, but this is really for the rest of us. I've long ago learned to tune out of the vitriol that is their livelihoods. This has become probably one of the harder times to hold a reasonable debate on issues of the day. Not only are we confined by the walls of social media, but by an amazing renewed tactic. Intolerance. I know I've harped on that before, but it becomes very hard to debate someone when the straw man is built that declares descent is akin to being somehow bigoted towards...

Anytime I post about people's ills, I want to say quickly that I am no doctor. So goodness gracias, please do not take my rhetoric as medical advice. The last thing I want is for my wit to kill somebody. People seriously get sick and this is for the rest of us. I always have believed in the power of placebo. Not so much the power of the sugar pill itself, but the power of the mind. In fact, I'd probably put some Scientologists to shame with my strong belief that we can will away most of our ills. I'm sure I've on many occasions willed away a slight cold or escalated one on the occasional Monday. The Box That Says It All Boing Boing earlier this week posted a funny short piece about an Etsy user who is now marketing boxes of Extra Strength Placebos. I see this as utter brilliance and I also (as the writer) am kicking myself for not thinking about marketing this sooner myself. So this magic sugar pill will apparently cure all your ills as long as your mind i...

If there is an enigma wrapped in an enigma in Richmond for me, it has to be Staples Mill Road. Just some background for my readers who do not live in Richmond, there is one road in town that draws a significant amount of traffic. One would think that this Staples Mill Road takes you to a main downtown interchange or into the heart of the financial or business district. From what I know of Staples Mill Road, it does not really lead to anything. Being a resident of the north side, I've traveled up and down Staples Mill Road, endlessly trying to figure out why on earth so many cars venture to this road as a destination. During rush hours, this road is impassable and the curiosity has been killing me. So what is on Staples Mill Road that's unique to anywhere else in Richmond? Here's what I found: Train Station - The Richmond Amtrak station is on Staples Mill Road. From what I gather, we actually have two train stations, one downtown and on on Staples Mi...

Many years ago, when Europeans discovered a new world, a golden age of commerce sprang up like never before seen. The Spaniards hit the gold mine, literally, the French found luxurious furs, and the British found their next cash crop, tobacco. With wealth growing at a fever pitch, a scourge began to grow within the seas. Pirates. Pirates were a criminal element that used brains, muscle, and speed to find any weak link within the inter-sea commerce trade. They accomplished this by ripping off ships, ravaging port towns, and creating overall fear and havoc. With the passage of time, better technologies, and stiffer penalties, piracy as it was known in the 16th century slowly died out. It exists even to this day, but that is another topic for a different time. My mention of these pirates in this context has to do with modern "piracy" or the theft of music, movies, and other media and then distributed freely over the internet. Over the years we have seen many vehicles for t...

On this ninth anniversary of 9/11, we're reminded of both the good and the evil that still exists in our world. We remember the helpless panic watching the television during and after the attacks. We also remember the tremendous outreach and charity afterwards. We remember the families that live on today without loved ones. We remember heroes that bravely surrendered their lives to preserve life and comfort for strangers. In remembering the sacrifice, the sadness and the pain this date brings, we're reminded that we've once again forgotten one of the main virtues of living together in this human community. That virtue is respect. I enjoy the definition of respect as it is given in its Wikipedia entry: Respect denotes both a positive feeling of esteem for a person or other entity (such as a nation or a religion), and also specific actions and conduct representative of that esteem. For some reason today, be it elitism or because we live in such a politic...

The best part about blogging? This is my platform. I get to say some things no matter how trivial or trivia inducing they may be. I will admit this is pretty trivial, it's also smartphone market related in light of today's Apple press conference. Deep breath, and begin. Steve Jobs, Apple CEO and apparent lone spokesmen for the company came out today to apologize and offer free bumpers for owners of their newest line of iPhone hardware devices. The back story is here . Basically the antenna on these new phones face interference from human contact and apparently putting the antenna connection point on the lower left of the phone may have been a bad idea. These bumpers place enough of a barrier between the human hand and the air to prevent it from losing signal strength. To me, this sums up the problem most people have with Apple products. They work great on their own. They are used by creative people to do amazing things. Their fans love the way things work in OSX and now in...

We all remember The Pepsi Challenge. Coke drinkers were challenged to test Pepsi and Coke in a blind taste test. The people that choose Pepsi were then paraded in their ads showing that their product tasted better than Coke. Being raised in a Coke household, those ads didn't go over well. How dare people deceive regular people? Put a blindfold on anyone, my Dad would say, and they'd prefer the crap with double the sugar. Again, another topic for another time. Zoom ahead to 2008, Microsoft is trying to get the word out that their new operating system, Vista, isn't so bad. We've all heard from the elites in geekland that have the microphones and the volumes and volumes of blog readers about how horrible the OS is. The result of that is regular users which would have no problem with Vista have avoided it altogether. You even hear similar responses. How dare Microsoft deceive regular people into showing them that Vista is a stable platform. How dare them! I'll a...

So I decide to read a little about minimalism. If anyone knows me well, they know that I like to live a clutter free life. I don't have a lot of possessions, I don't have a single solitary icon on my desktop, my car is completely clean (with the exception of dire need of vacuuming), and I only find myself grocery shopping on a very tight list and not going outside of it. I don't know why I am this way, I have been surrounded my entire life with people that live and love their clutter. My parents have clutter that's older than I am by decades, my friends and my most cherished love of all (I love you, Janine), all are radical clutterists. The geek lifestyle even demands clutter. The one with the most toys, wins! So I wanted to see why they were all baffled by someone who swears to be a minimalist. You would think that anyone that dons the title is a space alien. I look at the design, architecture, and art, and I think what a bunch of neo modern...or post modern freaks...

Either you get the photo uploads working now, or I will take my 10 readers elsewhere! Love, The Lewis Show

As many of you know, since I received an Apple iPod for Christmas in 2006, I have been actively listening and watching several podcasts. Naturally I gravitated to the Tech TV refugees who are not podcasting since G4 pulled the plug on the network a few years ago. I've always respected these broadcasters but lately I'm starting to wonder what I saw in these people. They've always been Mac users and that's never bothered me but lately they've been making snide remarks about how awful using Windows has been. Some of them who were PC users have also switched over to Macs in what looks to me to be nothing short of a cry for attention. In school I first used Apple software. I used it all the way through high school in limited doses. I didn't go to a tech savvy school so I didn't touch a computer again until my Dad brought me a Tandy when I went off to college. Needless to say I was not impressed with Windows 3.1. I figured it out pretty quick though. I didn't...

When the wet stuff freezes on your windshield on contact that means it's going to freeze to other surfaces as well. This produces something commonly called "Ice" . Ice does not produce a lot of friction and as a result the laws of motion are almost completely suspended when there is an occurrence of "Ice". Travelling at speeds over 60 miles per hour or repeated hard stops do not help with this suspension of friction needed to stop these vehicles. Just a reminder dear Richmond drivers to just slow the F*UCK down when driving on an "icy" surface! Thank you, you may go back to the regular digging of your @ss!

Dear Richmond Driver: You cannot drive. You have no driving ability. You have entirely too much going on in your life to put my life in danger. Every single day I slam on my brakes, I swerve, and I'm forced to accelerate to near reckless driving speeds to avoid your distracted ass. How on God's earth did you pass a driver's test? I want to share with you all some important rules for driving. Many of you have no idea about how to preform these simple tasks, so I'm going to dumb this down as much as I can: Merging - This is the act of accelerating with traffic and merging with oncoming traffic. Now I know this can be tricky, and I know many of you think that there is no room to merge, but there's a simple reason for that. You are going 25 miles per hour and you are trying to merge with traffic going 65 miles per hour. That is why it seems like that car won't move over. That car does not have to move over. That car just has to keep the posted speed and allow for y...