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Our two week old daughter, Zoe Elizabeth and her new friend Roger Rabbit.

If you’re like me, there are times when surfing the web becomes a cumbersome activity. I’m referring to those occassions when for some reason (possibly due to consumption of a Subway sandwich) your keyboard is inaccessible. There are also those times when you might be juggling peanuts with your other hand and trying to surf the web becomes a “juggling act” in itself.

The Man in Blue, Cameron Adams, has stumbled upon (or created for that matter) a solution of sorts. Utilizing a combination of XHTML/CSS, Cameron came up with The Mouseboard, a keyboard controlled entirely with your mouse. It’s function is so that you, while juggling peanuts with your left or right hand can still surf the web without the perils of inaccessibility.

Another neat feature is not only does it perform straight surfing but it features a Google button for those times when you’re not entirely sure where to find chocolate-covered roaches.

I thank you, The Man in Blue, for your creative ingenuity.

As you may know, Congress recently passed the ‘CAN SPAM’ law which according to it’s best intentions purportedly meant putting a stop to the vicious onslaught of SPAM email messages.

Yet, could this have been passed at the result of simply looking good? Sort of like the Big Brother who could really care less of the situation, but to make himself look good he’ll intervene.

Techdirt writes, “It’s also becoming clear that the entire point of the bill was never to stop spam, but to make a few folks in Congress look good.”

According to the article, it is also noted that “the NY Times reports that the sponsors of the bill asked the FTC to sue a spammer the very first week the bill was in effect in order to make a big “splash” so they could pat themselves on the back.”

For the moment, I couldn’t agree more. SPAM is an issue that simply cannot be thwarted overnight. In order to get rid of SPAM we must create an action plan that would meticulously destroy spammers worldwide. Devising such a plan would not be easy and would result in many hours of research to combat the situation.

Could it be done? Yes, I believe so. There was a time when SPAM did not exist, when email was used as an effective form of communication, which granted, it still is used today. It’s just muddling through the murky waters to get to your legitimate messages that takes time.

You know what we need? Raid for Spammers.

I saw The Last Samurai the other night and must say that I was surprisingly impressed. That’s not to say I didn’t think I was going to enjoy the movie — it’s just that I’m not a fan of Tom Cruise persay. His previous movies haven’t exactly sparked or peaked my interest due to his bleak performances.

Despite this pit-nicking, his performance in The Last Samurai was intense to say the least. His range of emotion exerted in various sequences made for a stunning performance. Especially impressive was Ken Wantabe, a famous actor from Japan, who according to various resources has been playing samurai warriors for the past 20 years. He is Japan’s Tom Hanks respectively and because of his excellent performance you really feel for the character.

The movie, directed by Edward Zwick, is a mixture of intense, epic emotion and typical Hollywood writing (campy and witty dialogue and over-played emotion, etc.) However, what makes the movie shine altogether is not only the performances but the cinematography — which ironically the bulk of the film was shot in New Zealand and not Japan. This decision was partly due to the fact that Japan has dramatically evolved since the mid to late 1800s. Shooting on location in New Zealand allowed the crew to dress the scenes in accordance to that era.

While not as epic and rich as Return of the King, The Last Samurai still deserves a viewing, if not two. The interactions between the characters in addition to the Buddhist philosophy of the Asian culture make for an entertaining if not somewhat spiritual experience.