I'm Gina Smith

George Michael is laying off the bud .. a little. (Reuters)

I wonder what he means by a little. No more wake and bake? What? Reuters story below.

LONDON (Reuters) - British singer George Michael is trying to reduce his consumption of marijuana, the pop star told the BBC on Sunday. "I'm constantly trying to smoke less marijuana. I'd like to take less and to a degree it's a problem," Michael told BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs program.

"Is it a problem in my life? Is it getting in the way of my life? I really don't think," added Michael. "I'm a happy man and I can afford my marijuana so that's not a problem."

Previously Michael, who has sold more than 85 million records with hits such as "Careless Whisper," has admitted to a dependency on prescription drugs and has called marijuana much less harmful than alcohol.

Britain relaxed its laws against cannabis in 2004 but warned the country's estimated 3.5 million users the drug remained illegal and possession of even a small amount could still lead to arrest.

Michael infuriated mental health charities last year by smoking a cannabis joint during a television interview and saying, "This stuff keeps me sane and happy."

In June the 44-year-old Michael was banned from driving for two years and sentenced to 100 hours of community service after admitting driving when unfit due to drugs.

Police had found Michael slumped behind the wheel of his Mercedes at a road junction in London in October and the prosecution said he had a cocktail of both legal and illegal drugs in his system.

Michael revealed in Sunday's interview he has completed 50 hours of his sentence, helping people with mental health problems as well as drug addiction.

"I've also scrubbed down some very dirty rooms", added Michael, "and make chicken fajitas for some homeless people. I was quite good apparently."

David Stoddard -- Running Man.

I just heard this hilarious, folk piece on Acoustic Sunday on KFOG. Can't find the lyrics anywhere. If you have them, please send them along.

Just turned in my first grad school paper today. Now I'm lyric surfing! Happy Sunday and congratulations Bridge to Bridge runners!

George Bernard Show (on life)

"This is the true joy in life: the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." G. B. Shaw.

Tech news (The Week Ahead with Gina Smith)

Click here for my Infoworld.com video highlighting next week's tech news.

Throw out the Prozac. (Reuters)

And get moving! A feel-good story from Reuters today, excerpted below.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Regular exercise may work as well as medication in improving symptoms of major depression, researchers have found.

In a study of 202 depressed adults, investigators found that those who went through group-based exercise therapy did as well as those treated with an antidepressant drug. A third group that performed home-based exercise also improved, though to a lesser degree.

Importantly, the researchers found, all three groups did better than a fourth group given a placebo -- an inactive pill identical to the antidepressant.

While past studies have suggested that exercise can ease depression symptoms, a criticism has been that the research failed to compare exercise with a placebo. This leaves a question as to whether the therapy, per se, was responsible for the benefit.

The new findings bolster evidence that exercise does have a real effect on depression, according to the researchers.

Doctors may not start widely prescribing exercise as a depression treatment just yet. But for patients who are motivated to try exercise, it could be a reasonable option, the study authors say.

"If exercise were a drug, I'm not sure that it would receive FDA approval at this time," noted study author Dr. James A. Blumenthal, a professor of medical psychology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

"But," he told Reuters Health, "there is certainly growing evidence that exercise may be a viable alternative to medication, at least among those patients who are receptive to exercise as a potential treatment for their depression."

I'm back!

Been gone at a residential orientation for my grad school. Going for a PhD finally --in pychology. It'll take a million years, so don't expect tons of updates. But I'm back online, and wanted to share a poem Steve Wozniak sent to me today. (I'd seen it before and had given up on ever finding it again.) BTW, did anyone see Ryan Seacrest NOT recognize Steve at the Emmys? Clueless in Hollywood. Anyway, our book -- iWOZ -- is selling great in several countries, and it's going paperback next month.

Anyway, poem follows ..

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,

But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.

One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,

Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,

Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,

Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?

If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,

And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,

Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,

Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,

And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,

But though we say mother, we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,

But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;

Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,

We find that quicksand can work slowly,

Boxing rings are square,

and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,

grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.

We have noses that run and feet that smell.

We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.

And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,

While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down,

In which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother is not Mop?

Happy Birthday Keith Prewitt.

A brother, a friend, a confidante. And many more ...

Peter Frampton -- better guitarist than ever.

I saw Peter Frampton play tonight in Saratoga (Mountain Winery) and it was breathtaking.

Clearly, 32 years of practicing since his virtuoso Frampton Comes Alive has paid off. If anyone out there reading this saw this performance, I would love to hear what you think.

He played all the hits, of course, but also some incredible instrumentals from his new material, an unbelievable version of Do You Feel Like We Do, a Humble Pie hit that dwarfs the old and he ended, appropriately to a standing ovation, with George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

If anyone out there has videos or photos of this, please send along. This isn't an old hit maker rehashing the past. I have never seen a more incredible performance (and that includes a small Boston performance of The The.) If you thought young Peter was amazing in his 70s work, you will be impressed and amazed at how this guitar genius has managed to improve his skills 100-fold.

Thank you to Sheri Little for selling me her tickets. Holy cow. Before and after, everyone in the crowd was grinning from ear to ear.

Tomorrow, I'll include a link to his newest instrumental album. I don't believe there is a better guitarist in the world right now. Someone try to prove me wrong.

Amazing (and almost accurate) view of 1999 (circa 1967)

Click here for predictions of 1999 home and work life from the vantage point of 1967. It's from the '67 film, 1999 AD. (It reminds me of the old Monsanto Tommorrow Land display at Disney World!)

DNA research traces Phoenician past in Middle East. (Reuters)

I love this story. DNA research is blurring religious boundaries in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East. Story excerpted below.

BYBLOS, Lebanon (Reuters) - A Lebanese scientist following the genetic footprint of the ancient Phoenicians says he has traced their modern-day descendants, but stumbled into an old controversy about identity in his country.

Geneticist Pierre Zalloua has charted the spread of the Phoenicians out of the eastern Mediterranean by identifying an ancient type of DNA which some Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians share with Maltese, Spaniards and Tunisians.

A seafaring civilization which reached its zenith between 1200 and 800 BC, the Phoenicians' earliest cities included Byblos, Tyre and Sidon on Lebanon's coast.

But their link to Lebanon, whose borders were drawn as recently as 1920, has long been a subject of controversy in a country split between an array of religious communities. "Negotiating these waters is a very delicate job," Zalloua said.

Seeking to set themselves apart from their Muslim compatriots, some Lebanese Christians have drawn on the Phoenician past to try to forge an identity separate from the prevailing Arab culture.

"Whenever I use the word 'Phoenician', people say 'this guy is trying to say we are not Arabs'," said Zalloua, himself a Christian. But after five years of research, the scientist says his work has shown what Lebanese have in common. "We had a great history -- let's look at it," he said.

The genetic marker which identifies descendants of the ancient Levantines is found among members of all of Lebanon's religious communities, he said. "It's a story that can actually unite Lebanon much more than anything else."

The marker, known as the J2 haplogroup, was found in an unusually high proportion among Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians tested by Zalloua during more than five years of research. He tested 1,000 people in the region.