Microsoft got a patent for ‘pg up’ and ‘pg dn’.

The software giant applied for the patent in 2005, and was granted it on August 19, 2008. US patent number 7,415,666 describes “a method and system in a document viewer for scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document, such as one page, regardless of whether the zoom is such that some, all or one page is currently being viewed”.

The patent’s listed ‘inventors’ are Timothy Sellers, Heather Grantham and Joshua Dersch. However, Page Up and Page Down keyboard buttons have been in existence for at least quarter of a century, as evidenced by this image of a 1981 IBM PC keyboard.

If I believed in God, then I could also believe in ghosts and I’m sure that the ghosts of Edison and Tesla would team up to fry these turds, first with DC, then with AC.

But for every accommodating pal, there’s another who feels going under the knife is beyond the duty of bridesmaid. Becky Lee, 39, a Manhattan photographer, declined when a friend asked her — and five other attendants — to have their breasts enhanced. “We’re all Asian and didn’t have a whole lot of cleavage, and she found a doctor in L.A. who was willing to do four for the price of two,” said Ms. Lee, who wore a push-up bra instead.

Whiner.  I had my boobs done and I’m now the proud owner of a great set of man-boobs.

Samantha Goldberg, a wedding planner in Chester, N.J., recalled a bride who asked her attendants to get professionally spray-tanned for a Hawaiian-theme reception.  Alas, two women were claustrophobic and couldn’t bear standing in a tanning capsule. “They asked the bride if they could use regular tanning cream from a salon,” Ms. Goldberg said. The bride refused; she wanted everyone to be the same shade. The women ultimately declined to be bridesmaids. “Friendships of 20-plus years gone over a spray tan?” Ms. Goldberg said. “Sad!”

Yeah, I agree.  Those women should have been glad to have been asked and worn those grass skirts and coconut shells with pride.

Really.

I’m underemployed, recurringly housebound with insanely painful now-sporadic (when I have meds) gout, an enlarged heart, and other health problems, particularly including lifelong recurring severe clinical depression.

I know from depression.

I continue to live a simple life: my only entertainment spending continues to be Netflix and the library, and very occasionally, a $5 or $10 computer game.

I know that getting out of the house and getting exercise is one way to push back on depression. This guy has trolled for contributions before. I didn’t contribute then and I’m not contributing now. I make a bunch of money, but I don’t buy $5 or $10 computer games.
I think that he probably also suffers from unchecked narcissism. But I’m just guessing. Read the whole thing and tell me I’m wrong.

A woman who killed her preacher husband with a shotgun blast to the back as he lay in bed was sentenced Friday to three years in prison, but with time served could be released on probation in a little more than two months.

Mary Winkler must serve at least 210 days of her sentence but gets credit for the 143 days she has already spent in jail, Judge Weber McCraw said.

That leaves 67 days, and McCraw said up to 60 days of the sentence could be served in a facility where she could receive mental health treatment. That means Winkler might spend only another week in jail.

Mary Winkler practiced a ‘blame the victim’ defense.

Prosecutors claimed she had become caught up in a swindle known as the “Nigerian scam,” which promises riches to victims who send money to cover the processing expenses.

Winkler, however, testified during her trial that her husband hit and kicked her, forced her to look at pornography and demanded sex she considered unnatural. Jurors were shown a pair of tall, platform shoes and a black wig Winkler said she was pressured to wear during sex.

I’m with Paris. Yeah, the platform shoes is what pushed this over the edge. It was unfair.

Some days, modern parenthood feels like an ever-expanding spiral of anxiety. Is your child watching too much “Wiggles”? Will she be seduced by an Internet predator? Will video games inspire him to shoot up his preschool? As if this situation weren’t stressful enough, Eric Jackson, chairman and co-founder of World Ahead Publishing, wants conservative parents to contemplate one more nightmarish scenario: What if, God forbid, your indescribably precious offspring grows up to become … a liberal?With an eye to forestalling such heartbreak, last September, the Torrance, California-based press, which touts itself as “the West Coast’s leading conservative publisher,” launched its own children’s division, Kids Ahead. While the adult imprint focuses on titles addressing “serious and weighty matters” like Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine, Kids Ahead aims to bring the conservative message to the playdate set. The mission, explains Jackson, “is providing books for families who have traditional values, if you will, and who want to have books to use as a tool to pass on those values to their children.”

Thus far, the new imprint has only one writer in its stable: Katharine DeBrecht, the pen name of a mother of three whose authorial debut, Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!, generated major buzz–and sold some 30,000 copies–after receiving an on-air plug from Rush Limbaugh. In the wake of DeBrecht’s success, Kids Ahead is moving forward with an entire Help! Mom! series. Help! Mom! Hollywood’s in My Hamper! hit stores in March, Help! Mom! The Ninth Circuit Nabbed the Nativity! will be out in time for Christmas, with Help! Mom! There Are Lawyers in My Lunchbox! to follow. Jackson, meanwhile, is wading through a flood of manuscripts from other would-be authors. “Over the past six to twelve months, the number of submissions to us has just soared,” he marvels.

I’ll bet they soared. After all, it is an easy market to make. The parents who buy these books are already hooked on the hate they spread, and the kids who listen to them don’t have a voice in the purchasing decision.

Here is the book on Amazon.

I find solace in the knowledge that kids are like watermelon seeds. Hit them too hard on the head and they take off for parts unfound. When parents try to force kids to accept stuff like this, it backfires.

By the way, there are a lot of Ali G and Borat videos on YouTube.  Check Gore Vidal and Ali G on this one.

Jackson, a longtime civil rights leader and ex-presidential candidate, said Bonds has been treated unfairly by those who accept as fact accusations that he used performance-enhancing drugs.

“For some people, it’s about suspicion of drug use because they have no proof. For others, it’s a cover for other anger that they have,” Jackson said. “For example, the closer Hank Aaron got to Babe Ruth’s record, the more violence and hate mail he received.

I wonder if Hank Aaron would equate what happened to him with what has happened to Barry Bonds.

PriceRunner > Health > Games: Game Boy Advance (US) > Razor Freestyle Scooter > Compare prices

In which alternate universe is a GameBoy game something that should be filed under Health?