LockerGnome has made a great post on why you should get rid of using Internet Explorer, and why it’s time to use an alternative browser, such as Firefox or Opera. Firefox, of course, being my favorite browser of choice. This isn’t from a cookie-cutter Microsoft hater bandwagon rider either, so don’t expect brainless reasons The negatives using Internet Explorer (and AOL, since it uses IE) are listed; security, standards support, and available options such as tabbed browsing, popup blocking, and themes.

“Using Firefox will not require any major shift in your daily browsing habits. It’ll import your favorites automatically, and you can benefit from the improved security starting the first time you open it. With the popup blocking enabled, you can breath quite a bit easier when browsing to unknown sites. Attempts to install garbage on your system that could have easily succeeded if you were using IE will simply be ignored by Firefox. Plus, the whole time you’re browsing you’ll know that you are doing your part to keep the soul of the Internet alive by choosing to use a browser whose developers actually care about standards.”

Have you ever gone to a site that requires you to register; enter your name, address, phone number, social security number, credit card number, the date when you lost your virginity, and so on? Do you find yourself entering in fake information to quickly bypass it, to protect your privacy, and to keep these website operators from handing out your email to spammers? Then you’ll find the BugMeNot.com service invaluable like I do. You can read the FAQ to find out more information on how BugMeNot works and what it does. If you are using the new Firefox 0.9 browser, you can install the BugMeNot extension which makes it easy to bypass those pesky registrations.

The post I made earlier about Firefox 0.9 was the release candidate, and was a way to find bugs to make the final 0.9 release stabler and better for mass consumption. The time has come, and 0.9 is now final and available for everyone to download and use at once. Why get excited about a browser? Because it is the future of the web. It supports web standards, which is better for me as a website designer, and better for you as a web surfer (me too) because you see the web the way it was meant to be seen and enjoyed. Don’t waste your time with Internet Explorer/AOL or the other browsers anymore, Firefox is the supreme.

New in 0.9 are these features (among the usual stuff, like popup blocking, tabbed browsing, and easy searching via Google):

• New Default Theme

  An updated Default Theme now presents a uniform appearance across all three platforms - a new crisp, clear look for Windows users. Finetuning for GNOME will follow in future releases.

• Comprehensive Data Migration

  Switching to Firefox has never been easier now that Firefox imports data like Favorites, History, Settings, Cookies and Passwords from Internet Explorer. Firefox can also import from Mozilla 1.x, Netscape 4.x, 6.x and 7.x, and Opera. MacOS X and Linux migrators for browsers like Safari, OmniWeb, Konqueror etc. will arrive in future releases.

• Extension/Theme Manager

  New Extension and Theme Managers provide a convenient way to manage and update your add-ons. SmartUpdate also notifies you of updates to Firefox.

• Smaller Download

  Windows users will find Firefox is now only 4.6MB to download.

• Help

  A new online help system is available.

• Lots of bug fixes and improvements

  Copy Image, the ability to delete individual items from Autocomplete lists, SMB/SFTP support on GNOME via gnome-vfs, better Bookmarks, Search and many other refinements fine tune the browsing experience.

While talking to Allison, I typed the word bogglingly. As in mind bogglingly great. Note to self: Alcohol + Me = Funny Words.

Jeffrey Veen has a great post about driving in the motorcade with John Kerry’s wife, and the Secret Service tagging along, thus allowing them to speed and break most traffic laws. It’s hilarious when he tells the part about how a young punk tried to cut the motorcade off in his sports car.

“The plane rolled up to our motorcade, the candidate’s wife and all her people dashed into various vehicles, and we all sped off onto the freeway. It was a blast. Although we didn’t have a police escort, we really didn’t bother obeying many traffic laws, either. The dark Town Car and Suburban of the Secret Service would flash their hidden police lights and tear across the lanes of traffic. And I hung on at the end of the line driving as fast as I could. Apparently the staff is quite used to this, as they kept encouraging me to drive faster, faster, faster. We were having a lot of fun.”

That phrase, “Noone is above the law”? Absolutely wrong.

A game that I’ve just gotten has been taking up my spare time lately. It is called Far Cry, and not only does it sport the best visuals of any game to date, but the gameplay is immensely fun. The game has you playing a guy marooned on a big, beautiful island, with a woman who hired you to take her there. Mercenaries shot the boat up, and you lose the woman and have to fend for yourself on an island full of men paid hard cash to protect the island from outsiders. Here’s a couple of tales that took place in-game:

Armed with just a simple pistol, I approached a 2-room hut, looking for ammo, since I was running low. As creep slowly inside, peeking around corners, and saw that the hut was empty. I found a clip of ammo and some grenades, and as I was heading out the side door, two mercs spotted me and yelled out for backup as they charged towards me, guns blazing. I ran back in the house, and lied down in the corner on my stomach, my pistol propped up where I expect their heads to poke through the door. The first mercenary was dumb, because he did pop his head in and I took him out with one shot. The second one hesitated before he dove in, but I got him too with my quick reflexes. The backup however, had other plans. I heard him approach the side door, stop for 3 seconds, then start creeping towards the front door. Since I heard him, I was prepared and aimed towards the front door. When he peeked in, I shot him in the leg, which made him dive out of the hut and away from my line of fire. 5 seconds passed as I was debating on whether I should get up and aggressively hunt him down, or wait for him to come in for me to shoot. He made the choice before I did. He tossed a grenade in the hut. My last words before I exploded into smithereens? “Fuck me.”

After I was finally able to get past that part, I approached an encampment, with about 8 mercenaries. One was firing on a target range. Another was doing push-ups. Two others were patrolling the area on opposite ends, and a third was on a watchtower, scanning for any movements. I swam underwater towards their encampment, and found another watchtower. I snuck up it and silently knock the enemy out cold with a wrench, so as to not alert anyone nearby. I took him gun, and as I was about to scan the area for enemies, the guy in the other watchtower spotted me and opened fire. As I was busy firing on him and ducking the oncoming hail of bullets, another guy snuck up the ladder and shot me in the back of the head. Arrrgh!

Suffice to say, I haven’t had to think in a shooter in ages, and I never had to this hard. I have to outsmart the enemy artificial intelligence, and they are truly intelligent. They will outflank you, trap you, smoke you out of corners, hide from you, and snipe you when you think you’re safe. This is the game where you wish you had eyes on the back of your head. Absolutely brilliant, and fun. Here’s a screenshot of the gorgeous visuals for you to feast on too.

I watched an Iron Chef episode that had foie gras as the main theme ingredient for the battle. The dishes were interesting, but I had no idea what foie gras is, or what it tastes like. After the show, I went on Google and saw this site explaining what foie gras is.

People that eat foie gras regularly should be locked up in a cage and force-fed corn for weeks until they keel over. Then offer them another plate of foie gras and see if they enjoy it anymore. That’s basically what foie gras is; enlarged livers from duck and geese that were force-fed corn until they died. Only the French would come up with something as stupid as this. We should dump French wine back on the streets again. If we’re going to eat animals for their meat, we should at least respect them a little more.