I mentioned this to people at work the other day, but haven’t seen another comment/post/blog about it, so I guess I’d better before I forget.

The president has an annoying habit of thumping his hands on the podium when he speaks. I don’t know if he’s always had it and I never noticed, or if having to say fairly nice things about the country brought it out of him… but recall the SOTU speech, and think of the pattern of hands… small gesture, fold, thump. gesture broadly, fold, thump. point, fold, thump. rinse. repeat.

Watch for yourself. I literally could not hear what he was saying for the last fifteen minutes or so. I think it was on purpose.

I hope his hands are sore from it now.

I use Juice to download a couple of radio talk shows in MP3 format. Every night before bed I copy Fred Thompson, Mark Levin, and Power Line (when they do a show) to a flash drive to listen to on the way to and at work. Yeah, if I was one of the cool kids, I’d have a fancy smart phone with MP3 player built in. (Someday I’ll break down and spend hundreds on a damned PHONE, but not today.)

Awhile back, my workplace banned the use of flash drives on our computers, so I had to find another solution. Combined with a cheap USB->FM transmitter for the car, I can still carry my shows to work and listen to them.

There was only one problem that I was having trouble with. Neither device has any sort of controls to allow me to navigate within an MP3. If I listened to part of a show in the car, when I got to work, I had to listen to it all again at my desk in order to get to the point where I left off. If I missed something, or wanted to something again, I couldn’t get there without starting from the beginning. Far from ideal.

Aside from replacing these devices with “smarter” players, I determined that best solution to my problem was to split the files into chunks. I started with Audacity, which worked well, but was completely manual. Later, I found AudioBookCutter, which seemed nearly perfect, except for a few minor annoyances. Today I happened across the Slice Audio File Splitter, and at last, my search has ended. Not only is this program given away for free, it remembers settings between sessions, allows custom output file names, and doesn’t nag the user to upgrade. There are a few simple tweaks I’d make (I sent them in as suggestions), but overall this program is the cat’s meow. If you need to split audio files into manageable chunks, Slice Audio File Splitter is the program you need.

[note: None of the links above were solicited; I get no reimbursement from any of them. I would generate an Amazon link from my Associate account, but it's never made me a penny, why would I want to break a trend? I wrote this article to share the knowledge of a fantastic find (IMO)]

Make no mistake (and damn do I hate that phrase), I have no desire to see the maggots housed in the cells in Guantanamo released anywhere in the world, let alone inside the continental United States. That being said, I just cannot resist the urge to point out another failure of Barry and Co.

Obama orders Guantanamo closure

Thursday, 22 January 2009
Mr Obama signed the three executive orders on Thursday, further distancing his new administration from the policies of his predecessor, George W Bush.

He said the Guantanamo prison “will be closed no later than one year from now.”

So Barry, it’s been a year. This ill-advised plan looks to be going about as well as your economic schemes. And healthcare takeover.

PLEASE keep up the good work!

Got this one from a friend who likes to forward jokes and such… gave me a chuckle, so I thought I’d share:

A teacher asked her 6th grade class how many of them were Obama fans.

Not really knowing what an Obama fan is, but wanting to be liked by the teacher, all the kids raised their hands except for Little Johnny.

The teacher asked Little Johnny why he has decided to be different… again.

Little Johnny said, “Because I’m not an Obama fan.”

The teacher asked, “Why aren’t you a fan of Obama?” Johnny said, “Because I’m a Republican.”

The teacher asked him why he’s a Republican. Little Johnny answered, “Well, my Mom’s a Republican and my Dad’s a Republican, so I’m a Republican.”

Annoyed by this answer, the teacher asked, “If your mom were a moron and your dad were an idiot, what would that make you?”

With a big smile, Little Johnny replied, “That would make me an Obama fan.”