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For anyone who doesn’t live in Ann Arbor (A2 to the initiated), this town has one, ok two, huge problems. The first one is that residents (which around here means “non-students”) don’t like the University. Oh sure, they love football and being able to say they live in Ann Arbor, Home of The University of Michigan, but they really, secretly, hate the damned University. All that traffic, all those students, all that lost tax revenue. It’s enough to drive a socially-over-conscious-fiscal-conservative mad.

The second problem is related to the first. See, residents outwardly love the University so much, more and more students keep coming here. From everywhere. And (and this is the worst part), some of them aren’t rich. I know, it’s awful. So, some people in the city thought if they build affordable housing, more students will not only come here, but maybe talented people will stay or come and work here, too. I know, it’s crazy, but they’ve been told that it works elsewhere.

Enter the residents again. In order to build affordable housing, you have build affordable housing. Somewhere. Which leads to the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) scenario. Ann Arbor is Overrated (it’s a blog and a statement) has one of the best quotes ever to sum up everything that is wrong with A2.

What could happen if their concerns [on development issues] are overlooked? “What happens is that more and more affordable housing keeps coming, and the risk is that you could just create a ghetto of some sort,” [Judith Marks, the president of the West Liberty Homeowners Association] says (emphasis ours.)

Lovely. Someone in A2 has actually found a way to turn a liberal buzzphrase into a euphemism for “projects”. Read the comments being left on AAiOR for the reaction from some business owners about why the fight the neighborhoods are putting up is futile and ultimately counter to their desires. It’s a beautiful switlie to the collective snooty head of this town.

I didn’t know this, but they have made a new version of the Merchant of Venice (trailer at apple.com).

Stars Al Pacino as Shylock, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, and Lynn Collins. Opens 29 Dec 04.

Official site (gratuitous use of Flash)

It will be curious to see how the play gets treated in this ultra-sensitive, politically-correct world. Even in the best of times, the play has had its critics and apologeits; the loonies that come flying out of the woodwork with an all-star-cast movie should be entertaining.

Interesting aside; there is an open-source stock trading program at Sourceforge call Venice.

And it looks really cool. Note that this is not a commnet on the movie itself, just the visuals, but they are awesome. Check it out at Yahoo!.

Link

In the vein of yesterday’s post on insulting cultual icons, I present McSweeny’s second look at some of the best films.

Link

Here’s a list of way too many board games (yeah, they still make them). This list is heavily skewed towards fantasy/risk-type games, but it’s got a lot of other. Definately won’t find many of these at Meijer’s.

Link
Slashdot story

I’m an idiot. I neglected to enable commeters to actually, you know, comment. For the time being, posts that have comments turned on should allow anyone to post. However, if you aren’t registered with TypeKey, your comments are moderated, which means they won’t show up until I approve them. Sorry, but spammers are everywhere. If I get hit with a spammer, I may go to requiring a password from TypeKey, but I hope that doesn’t happen.

Proving once again that Barton Watson and his ilk are not representative of the West Michigan work ethic, soon-to-be-former employees at CyberNET spent their Thanksgiving weekend salvaging Roadlink USA’s computer system. For their efforts, Roadlink will give them contracts for employment.

Congratulations to the soon-to-be-former CyberNET employees. And thanks to Roadlink USA. A bright spot here and there for these people is more than welcome.

Link (Previous entry, 2, 3)

In the interest of full disclosure, I do not like the Beatles. Commence the hate now.

Done? Cool, because the Guardian today unleashed its writer on every huge act from James Brown to Bob Marley to, yep, the Beatles.

There’s sure to be something in this article that makes you nod with approval and then curse in disgust. Brilliant stuff.

Link

Amongst the clamour of people trying to associate themselves with the Van Andel family now that Jay has shuffled off this mortal coil, TV 8 managed to get inside a warehouse with a pile of goodies that Barton Watson kept for himself, apparently on the company dime.

The list of vehicles includes a Bentley, a Ferrari, a BMW, and… a Ford Focus??? I’m wondering if someone got wise to Watson and decided to help themselves to something, just nothing that would blip too hard on anyone’s radar.

Link to story (Link to previous entry, 2)

I’ve been using Avast as my primary anti-virus application for a number of years now with great results. However, in the last couple of months, Avast has upgraded the application (a common occurance), but broken something. My system is slower and, when I had the Network scanner turned on, noticably lowered my connection speed.

So, I’ve gone looking for a new, free, AV program, trying things out before I shell out for McAfee or Trend Micro (screw you Symantec and you’re resource-hogging applications). First up, AVG.