As is the tradition with the major portals, the Thanksgiving logos are starting to appear.

Check out the chart from Ars Technica. The Mayans called it the “Black Rift of the Sun.” We know it as the Blue Screen of Death. Not saying I believe in this stuff. But still, a weird coincidence. Much love to dear reader Steve for the warning.

Some guy in Austria was making a software program called iPodRip. We told him to change the name, because it violated our legal rights and basically he was stealing from us. So he changed the name to iRip. But now he’s all worked up into a lather and he says that nobody will be able to find his program anymore because everybody knows it as iPodRip and now all his word of mouth marketing is worth nothing and all the work they’ve done to get a good ranking on Google or whatever is also out the window and maybe he’s going to go out of business, wah.

But look. Is this my fault? I mean, let’s say you were making a good living robbing banks, or breaking into houses, and then the police made you stop, so you had to go get a job at McDonald’s. Would you go around complaining that now you were making less money and it was all the fault of the police?

QED, Austria dude. Go put your shrimp on a barbie.

The guys who write the Mozy blog sent Steener out to the mean streets of LA to make a point: your data is precious and you should back it up. And not just to a local disk, but to something far away too. Like Mozy.

BTW, is it just me, or is Steener looking better since she moved to LA? I think the sunshine is doing wonders for her.

Company is called Else, and used to be called Emblaze, but frankly I think they should be called Embarrassed. Because that’s what you’re going to be if you whip out one of these butt-ugly phones hoping to impress people. Engadget gives them a glowing writeup, which should be the first warning that this thing is gonna be a dud. From what I can see, the phone, which is called First Else (catchy!), looks like a Droid with a fan-shaped menu structure. Little advice on fan-shaped menus — been there, done that, and nobody likes them. Nor do people like learning a whole new way of doing everything. There’s a reason we use names like “Address Book” and “Calendar” and “Photo Album.” People want to pick up a new device and know how to use it. They want it to work like all the other stuff in their life. They don’t want some gadget that just fell from outer space. But hey, knock yourself out.

Namaste to Karl in Sweden for the tip.

So I was downtown picking up the tofurkeys for tomorrow and I ran into Larry and he’s like, Hey, good news on this Facebook thing, right? I’m like, What Facebook thing, and he goes, They’re rearranging the stock so they can finally get their IPO done, and goddamn I am going to make a killing on that shit. Then he sees the look on my face and he’s like, Wait — you didn’t get any? Really? Sorry, man.

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This is interesting. The Borg is poison to the Eurotards, so they hire their new Euro-stooges SAP to do their dirtywork. Haven’t these krauts ever seen The Empire Strikes Back?

We all know what happened to the Cloud City when the Empire came to town.

Attention News Corp. employees: get in the lifeboats while you can!

Google is going to give Murdoch the finger and leave Bing holding the MySpace bag. Well played.

Don’t buy a Kindle, don’t buy a Nook, don’t buy a netbook  – wait – the magic will happen next year – and the wait will have been worth it – why blow your holiday wad on junk, when the kul stuff is just around the corner? And if you can’t afford the Holy tablet (good, you don’t deserve it, do you?), get the friggin’ Chrome netbook. It’s time to let the air out of Ballmer’s tires now, doncha’ think?

Money quote: I’ve got a Dell Mini 9 that I never use because its keyboard is less comfortable than the touch-screen pad on my iPhone.

Next year, Farhad, your wish will come true, have faith!

The rest of you, we know money’s tight and you can’t wait ’til next year, so it’s MacMinis and Nanos for those stockings. And isn’t it time you got Apple TV for your living room?

Proposed “elective surgery tax” would contribute towards paying for health care. If this tax goes through, you’re going to see a lot more “natural” looks at the gentleman’s club down by the airport. The chests of North Dallas and Houstonian debutantes would evolve into something less than cantaloupes in a generation, to say the least for our sisters of the SoCal persuasion. Faces would age again. Ugly would be the new “40″.

Money quote: But the argument isn’t just that taxing plastic surgery is bad for the economy. It’s also that plastic surgery itself is good for the economy. Call it a … (rimshot, please) stimulus package.

[SFX courtesy of ilovewavs.com]