Intellectual Poison

New Cheddar X Questions are Up!
This week's questions have just been posted to the Cheddar X. Some good ones to think about and respond to.
I will likely have my responses up tomorrow as today's going to be rush all day. Loads of fun but I'll probably sneak in a post or two anyway.

The Cheddar X is, for those who aren't familiar with it yet, is a more or less weekly set of quetions put together from playas and from me. Things that we're thinking about that aren't the surface scratchers that the Friday Five pumps out every week. Its a free form sort of forum that welcomes input and participation.

The group seems to expand a little more each week and its a blast to read everyone else's responses. Check it out and join up.

We now return to the regularly scheduled rantings, freakish news stories, humourous forwards and whatever else tickles my type-it-up bone.

[Update: Go and check out Stiletto Philosophy for an excellent example of the Cheddar X done right!]

Thursday Morning News Wrap
Just a few of the news stories that have caught my eye this morning.
SBC Sues RIAA for Overly Broad Subpeonas and the RIAA comment? "We're very dissappointed that SBC didn't lie down and allow us to rape their database so we can launch even more completely stupid lawsuits that will kill any remaining good will towards the RIAA and will speed our inevitable demise because all dinosaurs must die out some day but we're taking as much of your money as we can steal before we go." Or something to that effect, I think it was shorter when they said it.
Bush Rejects Calls for Same Sex Marriages but he's got no qualms against pimping himself for the black vote even though he couldn't give the first damn about them either. But the idea of two men being married or two women is appalling to the simpering CIC? Whatever, I just wish he'd go back to Texas where his stupidity will just blend right in with the scenery and no one will give a damn about this narrow minded nimrod. But at least he's right in line with the Vatican, eh? Vatican Slams Moves to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage
The Economy's Up, Jobless Claims are Down so go out and get yourself another credit card and be a good little patriot and run up some consumer debt to get our economy going again. I still don't see very many decent jobs in the paper. But oh wait, what's this?
Defense Spending Driving US Economy, oh so that's what's doing it? The illegal oil war in Iraq is boosting the economy which means that none of the lower income levels are seeing any benefit, just fat fucks with more money than they'll ever need in ten lifetimes.

Which reminds me, why is called Defense Spending when we're obviously not using it for defense but for offense? Is it the same as that old Pro is the opposite of Con so Progress is the opposite of Congress? Yeah probably..

And finally, a humourous but poignant list of why golf is a better sport than most others. Thanks to Jay for sending it along to me. It does raise some interesting points.

Ever wonder why golf is growing in popularity and people who don't even play go to tournaments or watch it on TV?
These truisms may shed light on reasons why.
- Golf is an honorable game, with the overwhelming majority of players being honorable people who don't need referees.
- Golfers don't have some of their players in jail every week.
- Golfers don't scratch their privates on the golf course.
- Golfers don't kick dirt on, or throw bottles at, other people.
- Professional golfers are compensated in direct proportion to how well they play.
- Golfers don't get per diem and two seats on a charter flight when they travel between tournaments.
- Golfers don't hold out for more money, or demand new contracts, because of another player's deal.
- Professional golfers don't demand that the taxpayers pay for the courses on which they play.
- When golfers make a mistake, nobody is there to cover for them or back them up.
- The PGA Tour raises more money for charity in one year than the National Football League does in two.
- You can watch the best golfers in the world up close, at any tournament, including the majors, all day, every day for $25 or $30.
- The cost for a seat in the nosebleed section at the Super Bowl will cost around $300 or more.
- You can bring a picnic lunch to the tournament golf course, watch the best in the world and not spend a small fortune on food and drink. Try that at one of the taxpayer funded baseball or football stadiums.
- In golf you cannot fail 70% of the time and make $9 million a season, like the best baseball hitters (. 300 batting average) do.
- Golf doesn't change its rules to attract Fans.
- Golfers have to adapt to an entirely new playing area each week.
- Golfers keep their clothes on while they are being interviewed.
- Golf doesn't have free agency.
- In their prime, Greg Norman, Arnold Palmer and other stars, would shake your hand and say they were happy to meet you. In his prime Jose Canseco wore T-shirts that read "Leave Me Alone."
- You can hear birds chirping on the golf course during a tournament.
- At a golf tournament, (unlike at taxpayer-funded sports stadiums and arenas) you won't hear a steady stream of four letter words and nasty name calling while you're hoping that no one spills beer on you.
- Tiger Woods can hit a golf ball three times as far as Barry Bonds can hit a baseball.
- Golf Courses don't ruin the neighborhood.
- This is a slice of golf history I thought you might enjoy. I never knew why there were 18 holes before this. Why do full-length golf courses have 18 holes, and not 20, or 10 or an even dozen? How many of you
golfers know the answer to this one?
During a discussion among the club's membership board at St. Andrews in 1858, one of the members pointed out that it takes exactly 18 shots to polish off a fifth of Scotch. By limiting himself to only one shot of Scotch per hole, the Scot figured a round of golf was finished when the Scotch ran out.

Priceless Kobe Action
Just got this sent on to me by Jay and its gotta go up on the site immediately.
Enjoy! I know this made me laugh out loud which caused some looks in my office but oh well.

Spreading Wrongness
This is so WRONG with a big thanks to Metafilter for the link.
Warning, you'll wish you had not looked at the pictures on the other end of this link.

And no, I'm not kidding but I'm also posting the pic so I just don't know what to think.
Enjoy?

No Time to Blog
There's plenty to blog on today but there's just no time with a bunch of deadlines fast approaching.

But here's a very brief rundown on the new joys visited upon me this week.

- I've realized that there's a new noise disturbance for every day of the week now
- The old house that I'm subletting now, yeah, they're being evicted and the landlady is threatening to sue me for the lost rent, and there is plenty more to this tale to be told, it will get blogged
- More wedding joy and expense
- We're going to see Dave Matthews this weekend at the Shoreline which should be a good time
- Next week is LinuxWorld in San Francisco, I'll be there signing up developers for my company but this week is all about prepping for the show
- So far the reaction to the Save the Date mailing has been less than what P was hoping for but that's only one response and I don't think anyone will realize that these were made entirely by the two of us. Not printed for us, designed, refined and printed by us. And yes, she should be proud of how well they turned out

So there ya go, the thirty second run down on what's up.
Gotta go and get cranking some more though.

Land Scout
P and I are starting to take a look at real estate and its sickening to find out what people are expecting for houses out here these days. Still.
In the light of a recession that's abused this area pretty well there are still plenty of folks with cash (I'm guessing they cashed out of the boom before it crumpled). Which is great for them but it means we have a still over inflated housing market.

Think a million bucks for a two bedroom about a block from the beach with no yard, no privacy and no second story.

So, with the concept of buying a house pretty much ruled out by insanity, I've been digging into buying some land in the area and building our own house on it. So I am now a Land Scout, which sounds kind of cool.

Yesterday was the first trip we've taken to go and check out some land we're potentially interested in. Its up in the redwoods and would be workable but we couldn't get to the exact address as the realtor didn't have it handy. But the area is more vertical than horizontal so it will cost a ton just to get to the point where we can build. Its not out yet but its on the way.

And I'm tempted to look nationally to see if there's more reasonable housing available somewhere else where the job market is better as well. I mean, paying $50K for land isn't bad but if it costs another $50k to get it buildable then that's alot more expensive, eh?

But it's been an interesting experience that was mirrored for a while by a co-worker who was starting the process of getting a loan to buy a house. After having all the number run and figuring out what it would all cost him on a monthly basis he has since decided to keep renting for now. With fees, interest, insurance or home owner's dues and everything else it would have been costing him more than $3000 a month to buy a house. Now extend that out over 30 years and you've got one hell of a lot of money being paid for a house. Actually, the way it works is a $450K house will cost $1.08 million by the time its been paid off at those numbers.

That's insane.
So I think we'll start a little smaller and build it up from there. Get land (more than we need if at all possible), build a basic living structure or buy a double wide to live in while the house is slowly constructed. Sounds like fun, eh? Yeah, that's what I thought too. But it beats essentially setting fire to my monthly rent, doesn't it? Its got to.

And there's the other side, that once you own your own land, no one can tell you that you can't have dogs and cats or whatever else you want (within reason, of course). So now its just a question of where we throw down roots and start making a home. I can't wait.

By the way, go and read Gudy for more on the joys of home construction.

Blogging Birthday News
Everyone wish Wil Wheaton (yeah, of Star Trek: TNG fame) who also happens to write a blog. Well today's his 31st birthday, I think. Its a shame he pulled the comments from his blog because that was half the fun of reading up on him. Anyway, Happy Birthday, Wil!

Parking Lot Fun
Okay, this is only partly fun and is also partly a response to people that park their cars like drunk circus monkeys. And yes, this is a peculiar topic for someone who drives as irregularly as I do but its maddening to watch these self absorbed nimrods park badly enough to infringe on other parking spaces and then bolt.

It wasn't the regular bad parker girl who's the hair dresser with nice arms from downstairs and the pack a day habit. Though she did a stellar job, as usual of getting her car parked diagonally in a straight in space. If she's half as good a hair dresser as she is a parker then people are looking gooooooood!

Nope, today's lot abuser is someone in one of those Lexus SUV's that looks like a vitamin pill with wheels, the RX 300. And they aren't fully crooked but they did transgress over into their neighbor's space by a good foot or more. And I did get to watch someone try and get into the small space next to them. Luckily there was one of those electric golf carts cum energy efficient around town transportation (though they look stupid enough that I'd have to be drunk to get around town in one, I wonder if you can take them on the levee bike path?).

Anyway, today I wrote up a little note, printed it out in a 48 font and slipped it under their windshield wiper. I think it went something like this "NICE PARKING JOB, MAYBE NEXT TIME YOU CAN TAKE UP TWO FULL SPACES INSTEAD OF JUST BLOCKING OFF PART OF ONE."

And, with some luck, we'll be in our offices when they come back to drive away and will be able to record their reaction to getting noted. Keep your fingers crossed and we might get some good rage pics even. At least it gives us something to look forward to this afternoon.

[Update: Damn, just saw the woman come up, get in her car, see the note, take it off the windshield and drive away. No reaction at all. What fun is that? Though, if she parks her car more carefully next time then it was worth it but damn, I was hoping for some excitement. Stupid boring bad parking lady.]

In Other Righteous-Fury News
P quit her temp assignment yesterday at about noon. She'd just had far too much of the bitch in her office. One of the last straws this idiot pulled was to wait until P had left for the day and then she'd slip some of her files that needed to be filed into P's pile in the hopes that she wouldn't notice and would do her work.

Instead, P pulled them out in front of the boss and asked the bitch how they got into her stack. She denied any knowledge and then scampered her fat ass back to her desk to pretend to work.

Its been a long time coming and I'd asked P to quit a while ago because I could see how stressful dealing with her was getting. It was effecting her outside of the office as well as in it. So she finally cut the cord yesterday and is now unemployed and at home working on getting re-employed.

I'm tempted to find out what associations the bitch is in charge of at the property management office where P just quit. Then I can call her up and just scream at her for a little while before hanging up on her. And then doing it again and again. Sounds like good fun.

In Spite of the Glaring Reality
Telemarketers are Suing the Feds saying that the Do-Not-Call list that's grown to some 28 million signups in the first month or so since it opened up will destroy their industry.

Apparently the industry they were making a living in should have been destroyed a long time ago with the huge numbers of people registering to NOT get their stupid calls.

Do I feel bad for the two million jobs that are expected to be lost because of this? Yes, I feel bad for the people but I couldn't give a shit about the noxious buggers who call all the time with poorly targeted wastes of my time. Nope, we don't own the house we're in so thanks but no thanks on refinancing our mortgage. Nope, sorry, we don't have kids so I don't think we need Hooked on Phonics. Nope, sorry, I'm not interested in a "Free Vegas Vacation for Two" since there's no such thing as free and I don't buy anything from unsolicited sources as a general rule.

The telemarketing industry needed to be killed off, just as spammers need to be killed off. They help no one, steal huge sums of money legitimately and are like ants at a picnic, no one wants them around.

Boo hoo, telemarketing jackasses. Maybe you should brush up on your sex chat and move over to the you get called side of the telemarketing business?

And a Quote
How about a little wisdom from Bill Cosby to round out the day?
''I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.''

Crack Nicotine in Cigarettes
As if people really needed more ammo to not smoke, here's more ammo that they don't ever want to let their hooks out of you once you start smoking.

'Crack' nicotine in cigarettes varies widely which talks about a kind of nicotine, called free-base, that's 35 times more addictive than regular nicotine (which is no slouch in the addiction department without the boost).

Think about this for a minute.
Big Tobacco is adding more crap to cigarettes to make them even more addictive so that its even harder for people to quit smoking them. And how can this be legal? How can they be allowed to basically turn ciggies into crack? How are they allowed to get away with this? Simple, they have a huge lobby in the government, paid for with the souls of millions of dead smokers.

This is the same as Kellogg's adding crack to its Frosted Flakes so that you HAVE to eat more, you HAVE to buy more and you cannot live without them.

What in the fucking hell is wrong with a government that not only exposes its populance to these predations but encourages the big companies to feast on the lives of the very people the government is supposed to be protecting?

And what about the utterly filthy scum sucking fuckwad Big Tobacco execs who approved of this plan to add more poison to their products to sell more and kill more? There can be no karmic payback for the very indisputable fact that they have intentionally killed people by supplying more and more toxic dosages of nicotine and tar.

Death's too good for them, they should be violated in the most soul sucking way possible as a start to their retribution. And they should all be forced to smoke their product all the time until they die.

That's an interesting question, how many tobacco executives are addicted to the same product they peddle?

Other News
Maybe there have been some new developments in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case that I've not heard about yet. But a distrubingly large proportion of Kobe pic searchers coming to Intellectual Poison seem to be searching for pics of Kobe having anal sex with Katelyn Faber.

Not gonna find anything like that here, folks. Sorry but Homey don't play that. 'Sides, if I had a pic like that then I'd be peddling it to Hustler or Penthouse and making some cash off of it.

But the flood is a mere trickle of its former self. From an hourly high of 808 to the present stream of 88 per hour. Still a pretty substantial number but nothing like the whirling masses at the end of last week.

Somehow I just don't see the Bob Hope death news eliciting the same reaction from his fans as Kobe shagging a hot teenager while getting his knee scoped in Colorado. But maybe that's just me.

Motivating Liars, Frauds and Cheats
In a move that has pretty much completely befuddled me, Esquire Magazine has hired the most famous liar in recent journalistic history to write a movie review for them.
Disgraced Journalist to Review Another Media Fraud

Jayson Blair, the utterly disgraced and disgraceful fake reporter for the New York Times, has gotten a new job, writing a movie review for Esquire about a movie about a reporter who made up sources and facts. Oooh, Esquire's sooooo avant garde, so cutting edge to have thought of this.

Um, yeah, Esquire is about as cutting edge as my mortar and pestle.

This is among the dumbest ideas I've heard in a while. Not because Jayson Blair doesn't deserve to get a job and make money and all that. But because someone's letting him write again professionally. Because someone, in this case David Granger (Email Him), Esquire's editor-in-chief, is going to be pay him to write. And, in doing so, they will be encouraging legions of slackers to do exactly what Blair did, lie, cheat, fabricate, embellish and otherwise commit fraud against the people he is supposed to be reporting to. Another generation of short cutters, corner cutters and get rich quick fools who would rather gain noteriety so they can cash it in for a few precious moments in the spotlight and live on easy street from then on. And its not a bad plan really, if it works and Jayson Blair is proof that it does.

[Update: I got an email back from David Granger pointing out the same thing that Ethan does in his comment, that Jayson Blair is not being paid for this article, that money earned is going to two journalism charities and the fact that this is a one shot deal for which he is uniquely qualified. With all that borne in mind, I still think this is a bad idea because it still sends the message that you can be a fraud and still get a byline in a major national publication.]

Its not what you do that gets you on the national stage, its that you get your face and name on the national stage. Don't be surprised if someone makes Katelyn Faber famous for accusing Kobe Bryant of raping her? She'll show up in weird places and will become a household name or word, maybe she'll even be absorbed into the lexicon of America, they'll say people got Faberized or Fabered.

The thought is that it doesn't mean anything why you got your face on tv, just that you got your face on tv. That's why people will eat pureed pig's liver and all the other gnarly and horrid stuff they make people eat on Fear Factor (that and $50,000). Its why people submit stupid home videos. Its why there are always knobssitting behind home plate at baseball games waving at the camera the whole time.

So, take a few moments and write old dumb David Granger a note to let him know what a terrible idea you think it is for him to be condoning the utterly despicable behaviour of his newest hire. I'm dropping him a note but don't worry, there's no chance I'd read a shitty rag like Esquire in the first place anyway.

Many Steps on the Runaway Wedding Express
Okay, first things first, I'm no longer a dark brunnette. I'm back to good fun summer hair and am more blonde now than ever before. Pics are forthcoming.

Next, we took care of our catering needs in the middle of a loud and crowded Mexican market in Watsonville that took a good half hour of driving around to find. And that included one stop at a bakery (Panderia?) for some sugared rolls, funk cake, filled turnovers and Sprite Remix (read that, Sprite, why yes we are marketing this beverage to the minority demographics and, tangentally, to all the skinny white kids who love rap music but are scared of black people, for further research, go and read up on Mountain Dew Code Red Penetration into Depressed Urban Environments, maybe it'll come up on Google).

Anyway, a lady with a pad of paper taking notes as we talked over what we wanted, when we wanted it and how we wanted it delivered and presented. And so, in theory, we are done more or less done with the catering side of the game. Of course, there will be details to iron out, there always are, but the bulk of the mission has been accomplished and I think we can cross it almost all the way off our lists.

Which only leaves 97,000 other things to do and take care of.

Another big one is the mailing of the Save the Date dealies. What had been a somewhat lukewarm creative effort really became something much cooler than either of us has thought or hoped. The design and execution of the layout and formats looks great and we will have a large number to drop in the mail tomorrow.

Because P was thinking ahead, we were also addressing invitation envelopes with the same addresses. Saves time down the road and its yet another thing to X off the lists and that's almost as good as sex right now. Speaking of which, is it normal for a man's sex drive to get turned up or down pending a wedding?

And yeah, I'm very, very blond now. I will have to shave more often (bummer, more than once a week?) but it looks excellent and is especially nice combined with another excellent haircut from P who picked up some new clippers this morning. And that means she can start working in shifts at the salon across the street from her present work. Cool beans.

Okay, plans for this week include: reviving the near dead book project, three resistance workouts, three cardio workouts, at least one good trail ride, a night of creating reception favors (which will look bitchin' if I do say so myself).

A couple of quick food notes, P made up some fried green tomatoes today that were pretty nice with a sesame miso dressing. And, there is no better fast Asian food than Charlie Hong Kong's Spicy Dan's Peanut with Teriyaki Glazed Salmon. Assuming they don't cheese it up by not putting enough sauce on (apparently an epidemic that's been resolved by the purchase of better to-go containers), it is an incredible mix of peanut spice, cilantro, bean sprout crunch and noodle. The salmon adds another dimension of flavor and then the fresh lime squeezed over it all finishes it off to perfection.

Also, I've got a review of the Sony Clie NX70 Personal Entertainment Organizer in the works.

I'll be sad to see the end of the flood of hits from the Kobe Bryant picture fun from the end of last week but that's okay. This week will have its own excitement, I'm sure.

A Simple No Would Have Sufficed
Bush Nominee for Navy Secretary Commits Suicide

The Jackholes at AOL
Ahh, there's a nice name for the dumbfuck drown-'em-in-our-stupid-promotional-cds marketing tactic that AOL has employed for years now, Jackhole - a jackass that's knocked boots with an asshole to create a jackhole. Sending out millions and millions of their CDs exhorting people to try AOL again because its SOOOOO much better than before.

Well here's some news that each and every one of us who was with AOL once and won't ever go back knows. It still sucks. Its still like sitting in the internet's wading pool amid the piss and toe fungus. AOL is slow, its oppressive and expensive. And they cost more than they need to precisely because they flood everywhere with their garbage free sign up CDs.

And, as further sign of their stupidity, today's CD came in a DVD case in the mail that I had to go and stand in line to get (oh the joy of getting a package from Steve Case, I thought he forgot my birthday again). And I also happened to get a new PS2 game that didn't have a case. So I thought it would be cake to rip the AOL junk out and replace it with stuff I actually cared to protect (by the way, AOL cd's do NOT do well against cement blocks or concrete).
But no, the label is glued on the outside with perma-glue and crappy labels so that I could spend a month peeling and rubbing the stupid address label off. And the label inside the plastic cover of the case, now replete with AOL's New and Improved Lies 8.0 (faster dissemination of your email address to their spam affiliates to maximize their profit margins).

So AOL's going to generate another monstrous pile of trash that no one wants. I mean, how many of these stupid CD's they force on people are used? More than 5%? I highly doubt it. More than 1% might be pushing it. So they are losing money on nearly every CD they mail out (and let's not forget the cost to ship things), expenses that they pass on to the AOL user. And the burden of getting rid of the millions of CDs falls on the communities they inundate with their garbage.

Yet another reason to hate the once king of the pre-packaged and sanitized internet. That and they are going to kill off Netscape. But as long as I've got my Safari I'm a happy guy (though I do wish they'd get the password issues fixed soon as re-entering passwords again and again on some sites is a wee bit of a pain in the ass.

Cheddar X-tacy!
Its another week of the growing and glowing Cheddar X, the new paradigm for regular questions that moved to the deeper end of the pool. The shallow end has too much piss and the FridayFive stinking it up. Want a little more depth in your weekly question set? Or want to be able to submit your own questions to be answered? Join up at the Cheddar X!

And now, this week's questions.

1. What are you afraid of?
Regretting my life.
Using my skin as a brake pad on a low or high side on my motorcycle up in the hills and laying off the side of the road for hours until someone comes across me.

2. What was you worst fear that you overcame?
How about picking up and moving to South Africa in the last year of apartheid. Or, I'm not sure if I can count this, rolling over the rock waterfall up at Delaveaga Park and going over the bars and tumbling down the hill but since I've not conquered the obstacle I'm not sure if it counts.

3. What's the meanest thing you've ever done?
Ooooh, let's see. My last house mate in South Africa, basically started freaking on me because I was returning to the US and she thought I was going to skip out on bills and the like so she locked off the phone and started leaving piles of dirty dishes on my bed. One day she went to work and when she came home, I was gone and every single thing that was mine in the apartment was gone as well. I never spoke to her again either. It hadn't been helped by the fact that we started sleeping together a few weeks into living together. Then I got to know her boyfriend and realized I liked him and wouldn't bang his girl. She didn't take it all that well.

4. What is your favorite taste? (and it is a shame that Ryan's out of the pocket on this one because I know he'd dig on it)
Single favorite flavor? Damn, if I only had to have one I'd have to go with bruschetta made the way I like it, with lots of spice, lots of extra flavors, mozzerella and perfect crusty bread. If only it had meat in it too, then it would be the world's perfect food for me.

5. If you could relocate your life to anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
Several places leap to mind but they all share many of the same traits so I'm not going to name a place and will actually describe it. Near the ocean so I have beach access. Temperate meaning not too hot in the summer and not too cold in the winter. Not crowded. Not over priced and saturated with easy money millionaires (unless I'm one of them). Good mountain roads to ride motorcycles on, good mountain bike trails. Space to have several dogs, some cats and some other critters to play with.
CapeTown is one place that fits all of this. San Diego's another. Basically I need water, sun, sand, trees and some space to stretch out in.

Go and Get Some!

Acronum - the act of being overly teched out by all the abbreviations
and
Acrodim - someone who uses acronyms because they don't really know what they stand for.

And Leblanc and I came up with a fun new game, take a regularly used acronym like FTP and see what else it might stand for. My first guess was floating toilet paper and hers was fluctuating type protocol. Lots of fun to be had with this concept!

Some Good News from Maine
The news from my sister continues to be good and yesterday she was able to take her son, Nicolas, home from the hospital for the first time. Without a shunt and without an inflated head, though that might change we are hoping that he will continue to stabilize and improve. He's putting on weight pretty quickly and I'm taking that as a very good sign.

So thanks to folks who sent positive thoughts to them. They are not wholly out of the woods but each step is another movement in the right direction and its incredibly heartening to think of the deep and genuine relief everyone in my family is starting to allow themselves to feel.

Other Hoochie Big Booty Birthday News
Yep, its J. Lo's 33rd birthday today. I can only imagine what ol' Benny's gonna do for her today. I'm sure we'll see it on an upcoming episode on MTV or E! since both are just far too interested.

More Kobe News
The links to the Kobe pics are now in the nav bar on the left there, have at them. And let me know if they disappear from the site and I'll get it fixed.

But, is it a sign of guilt or payback for standing by him when Kobe Buys Wife $4 million Ring? Looks to me like the wife's getting her pay for not tossing him out after he committed adultery. So now we know how much she costs to keep.

I wish I could say this was a gift of love and respect but this is the most obvious payoff ever. And I'm going to interpret it to mean that he's definitely nursing a guilty conscience, for rape or for adultery is the question.

The Flood of Kobe Lookers
What happens when thousands and millions of people want to see what Kobe's accuser looks like?
You get more hits than ever before.
Intellectual Poison is, right now, averaging more hits in an hour than we'd previously hit for an all day high. As a result, yesterday saw well more than 1500 surfers hitting up the site. And today we're already well over a thousand hits and there's no slowdown in sight. [Update: Its not 9 am yet on the west coast and we're over 1500 hits already on the day, yeeha!] {Another Update: its 20 to 10 now and we just smashed through 2,000 hits on the day already!]
Is this what it feels like to be Layne?
Is it a shame that its almost entirely to check out the pics of Katelyn Faber that I linked to but hey, its news so surf on and check them out.

But what will happen I add another post or two to this and push the pics link further down the page? Perhaps I'll temporarily post them in the nav bar on the left.

Go Here for Kobe's Victim Pics
There are pics available of the woman who has accused Kobe Bryant of sexual assault. [Snipped content, see below.] And on another site, Colonel-Sanders, here's the best pic of her I've yet seen (she's the one on the left though I'm less and less sure its her). [Update: Apparently, according to this newstory the four pics at The Event Magazine are NOT Katelyn Faber as had been reported. As such, I've pulled all but the one pic left that is, if its to be believed, is really Katelyn Faber.]

All I've gotta say is that she's great looking in her pics, if they are to be believed. And that its a shame that her life has been forever mutated by this event and pending trial. People will hate her and love her for this without ever having any idea of who she is. Just sad really. And sad for the guy who gets to be the nameless guy in the vest with a tie and no shirt on, bummer that.

And to reiterate, I don't know if Kobe is guilty of raping her but all signs seem to indicate that the sex was less than wholly consensual.

Identity Theft: The Fastest Growing Crime in America
Identity Theft Soars, But It's Still A Low-Tech Crime
Alright, put your hands together for the biggest new crimewave to hit America (and likely other countries but they weren't covered in the study), yeah, its Identity Theft. There are some interesting forms of it too, from synthetic identity theft, where a false identity is created from stolen components; identity theft within families, which is usually kept quiet; and diabolical identity theft, where a consumer applies for a credit card or other account, runs up large charges, then claims to be the victim of an identity thief.

Now for the good news, most of the ID thefts are not online scams, they are the old fashioned freaks rooting in garbage and finding unshredded credit card reciepts, or by stealing purses or other means like it.

The big online ID theft is credit card fraud. And many numbers are traded in chat rooms like baseball cards.

One further monkey wrench in the works is the fact that lots of companies don't make it all that hard for a file to be started on someone and for the diligent ID thief to compile all the info they need to assume the ID of the mark.

This will sound alot like an echo from the post the other day but protect yourself! Get cards with fraud protection, get a credit report printed out for yourself, hire an agency to monitor your credit ratings to keep tabs on who's trying to do what with your credit. Because, once your credit's been screwed you have a serious uphill climb for a long time.

Cover your assets, shred bills once you're done with them, shred copies, use secure shopping practices and don't, above all else, give away credit information in a flippin' email!

How Do You Sell Tools?
Have some very, very hot models in bikinis and Daisy Dukes using them and add in a little slow motion camera work of the bouncing boobs of the woman working the trench compactor or jackhammer.
This came as a forward from Esther and just might make my all time favorite ads and I've not even heard the audio to the ad yet (stupid work computer has no speakers of its own).

Check it out: Quality Tool Ad, never knew angle grinders and belt sanders could be so sexy!

Unrelated but Mildly Interesting News
I just noticed that Kobe Bryant is the number one search right now and number two? Number two is Kobe Bryant's Accuser.
Interesting.
Her name's Katelyn Faber. And yes, I did find her email address, home phone number and lots of other information about her but I'm not going to post any of it here. I am totally against the bombardment and invasion of her privacy that this whole thing's brought on.

It seems like many, many people are allowing themselves to forget that she is the victim in all of this, not Kobe Bryant. He is the accused, she is the victim. She doesn't deserve to be violated as she has been after having been allegedly violated by Kobe in the first place. There are people mounting hate campaigns against her solely because she had the audacity to accuse their star basketball player of sexual assault. Hey folks, if he did rape her then he's a criminal and should be in jail, not winning yet another championship ring with the Lakers.

Consider if this had been your daughter who had been raped and now she was being vilified nationally? I would imagine that you'd have a very different perspective if you had a horde of reporters camped out just off the edge of your property.

And it will seriously delay and taint the judicial procedures.

How are they going to find a jury of Kobe's peers who aren't familiar with the case? Kind of an impossibility, eh?

But let's leave the girl alone, she's the injured party here, not Kobe Bryant, who is a liar and adulterer at the very least and is likely a rapist as well. But we can leave that for a jury to decide, think LA will riot if he goes to jail? Yep, so do I.

Big News for California Politics
Umm yeah, Gray Davis just might not be in charge of California all that much longer according to Rueters.
Calif. Close to Declaring Governor Recall Vote

Who's our best hope?
Umm, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yep, an action movie actor is likely poised to take over one of the largest economies on the planet. But its nothing too new, is it. I mean we had Rappin' Ron Reagan a while ago now and he was a dapper cowboy actor.

Yow, what's next? Cage matches in the Senate? Paintball wars to decide on whether laws pass?
At least we'll be able to say stuff that Mini-soda's been saying for a few years now, like "Our Governor can kick your Governor's ass," and "Our Governor used to be a Terminator and Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe, what did yours used to be?".

At least ol' ShrubCo wouldn't give California too much trouble anymore because I'm sure Georgie's a big fan of the Ahhnuld and probably scared witless (oh wait, can't be scared witless if you ain't got no wits to begin with) of the big lug.

[Update: Leblanc has very rightly pointed a much overlooked rule on the books regarding succession. The GOP that's pushing so hard to recall Davis apparently isn't aware that Davis' Lieutenant Governor will automatically succeed him so there's not gonna be any mid-term election. And all the effort and hot air is pretty much, for nothing. Thanks for the insight and the pin to pop this silliness.]

Cycling's New Tough Guy
And he wears spandex, rides a skinny tire bike and can grit his way through having a broken collarbone to win a stage in the most grueling cycling race in the world.

Today's Tour news: Armstrong Retains Lead as Hamilton Takes Glory in which Tyler Hamilton won his first ever stage of the Tour de France.

Back on July 6th, SFGate stuck a fork in him by proclaiming that Tyler Hamilton Will Likely Pull out of the Race because of the huge crash he was involved in that resulted in his collar bone being broken.

I don't know how hard it is to function with a busted collarbone but I've had plenty of other broken bones in the course of my life and not a single one them made anything easier than without it being broken. Its a testament to his mental toughness that he didn't quit as many predicted.

And it will not be the last time he's heard from on the international stage. Lance can't have all that many more tours in him and then it becomes left up to those he leaves behind.

You've gotta respect a man who battles on spite of pain, in spite of the knowledge that he won't win the Tour this year but he can still place in the top ten (he's currently 6th). He's an inspiration to many people and it seems like more people are on their bikes lately than before. Maybe the world's catching Tour Fever?

War in Iraq News
Not a whole lot of movement on the Kobe front right now pending his first court appearance but luckily ShrubCo has brought us the deaths of the number 2 and 3 most wanted Iraqi's, Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay (or however you want to spell their names since I've seen them both spelled at least three different ways already).
And, from all accounts, these were two of the most vicious and hate filled scum bag bastards on the planet.

One's favorite method of torture was to drop people into shredders, sometimes head first. And he also enjoyed using a chainsaw to chop of their feet.

These two were no benefit to anyone and the world really is a better place for their having been killed. The reporter with the word on how they died and everything got into some detail about how they made sure. One of the two had been shot in the face or had something go through his face and bash out a good portion of his teeth so they were only 90% sure it was him. The other one had no teeth missing from his manner of death and they were 100% on him.

It is heartening to know that they were attempting to disguise themselves which indicates that they were running scared before they were caught and killed. If Saddam is still kicking then I would guess he's not having a very good time with all of this. Although he must be enjoying the random violence and deaths that his loyalists are exacting on the occupation. Its not like it will stop the process but it is the same as sticking a burr under a horse's saddle, it'll piss it off even if there's not a thing it can do about it.

Okay, so how many does that leave free from the notorious deck of cards? A few and a few big ones like the Ace of Spades himself. But they're moving forward and that's the good part because the sooner its over the sooner we can move on to alerting the American public to the stew of lies, half truths and utter nonsense our current regime has seen fit to disclose.

A few monsters gone, many, many more remain.
What kind of a culture does one have to grow up in to enjoy torturing people and killing them? And so, on top of all his other crimes, I now have to pronounce that Saddam is a bad father as well. What kind of a sick fucker wants his children to grow up to be monsters like themself? What kind of bugger would inflict his own madness on those he should love and want to protect. But I guess when you've got such an utterly miswired freak of nature then it only stands to reason that his offspring will inherit a good portion of his insanity. Can you hear the marching boots now, Saddam? They're coming for you.

What? Was Vince Neil Busy?
Tommy Lee is the new face of BuyMusic.com. Okay.
So what's he got to say about people pirating music?
"When people steal music, it sucks" Oooh, insight from a deep thinking drummer.

Ooookay, perhaps it might have been a better idea to get a less dense corporate spokestar or, as the news story says, the provider of the "artist's perspective"? Translation: We paid him about $100,000 plus a percentage to come out and be our corporate shill. Isn't he rad?

Buymusic.com Parties Like It's 1999 which, I'm pretty sure, Tommy Lee thinks it still is. Or was he in jail for beating Pamela Anderson at that point. I have such a hard time keeping all the dates straight.

Anyway, BuyMusic's business model? Let's do the exact same thing as Apple did with its iTunes store only let's do it cheaper to more people and hire a rock & roller to sell it all to the kids. Will it work? Probably not but hey, let's give them a big hand for trying, eh?

Food and Shopping Among the Chronically Stinky
You know maybe I've got the next huge hit diet concept here or maybe I just live in a town where bathing's optional for most of the residents.

I was just out getting some lunch and doing a little shopping with the leftover time. I was in one of the cool little shops in downtown Santa Cruz that has all kinds of neat stuff you could buy and never find a use for.

Anyway, it was in one of these places where a couple of people happened to walk past me and I damn near puked because they smelled so overpoweringly strong. And it was nasty, at least a four or five day stink on this one big fat bugger with hairy shoulders and in a tank top so his odor could escape all the more easily.

How can these freaks NOT know they reek as badly as they do?
How can someone leave the house knowing they smell bad enough to make babies cry from forty feet?
How can they possibly rationalize smelling so offensive in public places?

If I owned a food shop downtown and one of these stinky bastards showed up, I would refuse him service and demand he get the hell out of my store. There's no reason anyone needs to reek as horribly as this man did.

Luckily, I'd already eaten or I would have had no appetite after catching a whiff of his nasty BO. I can't even begin to imagine how awful his house must smell if he smells that bad out in public. If stink were a disease then he died two weeks ago and no one told him yet. If stink were people then he'd be China. If stink were money then he'd be the richest man on earth. If stink were punishable by law then he'd never see daylight again.

Nasty bugger, I just feel bad for anyone that is related to him and can't run like hell when he approaches. And I can't even begin to imagine the hell his wife must go through being near him every day, if he was, in fact, married.

Sorry, No Kobe Rape Pics
I knew something was up this morning when I had twice as many visitors before 9 this morning than I normally get before noon.
And a quick check into the referall logs (oh the referall logs, those most favored histories of the blogger, the lifeblood by which they live) and it would appear that searches for Kobe Bryant rape pics and news has definitely taken over the hit lead from Stripperella+Nude+Pics searches.

[Update: Found out the woman's name, according to Binary Report (which has gone way overboard in printing her home address, phone number, email address and even a link to a satellite pic of her home), her name is Katelyn Kristine Faber and she's 19 years old. My guess is the Binary Report's intent is to allow thousands and thousands of NBA freak lovers to call her up and harass her. I can't condone any of it which is why I won't link to the site. People need to have some boundaries, eh?]

Sorry to say, searching campers, that I've no pics from the whole affair. Though Layne has mentioned that pro atheletes are becoming more and more offensive in their defense against this sort of thing happening. The starstruck hottie who gives it up to the star and then realizes that she had sex with him for nothing and wants a little something something to make it all worth her while.

Remember the good old days of groupies who'd bang the whole band just for the fun of it? Now they'll still bang everyone but now they want money or other forms of compensation.

And it does kind of suck to think about these guys who are the best athletes in their field, getting dogged and chased by gorgeous women who will have sex but only so they can get something in return. And isn't that the textbook definition of prostitution?

I did try and figure out what the "victim's" name is as they mentioned on CNBC this morning that all of this info was available online. But I couldn't find it, just lots of polazized folks who are defending Kobe, defending the woman or attempting to play the race card even though its completely inappropriate. This isn't a race issue as far as I can tell and the ever present race card ploy just knocks even more steam out of the race card ploy, everytime its misused it becomes a little less valuable in the places when it is appropriate to be used.

I guess my take on the whole thing is a little off center. And I'm not polarized at all really. My thinking is that Kobe's admitted the adultery which pretty much wipes out his squeaky clean public image. If his image was based on his being a good and honest family man then that's bullshit because he's an adulterer. So using his image as a defense fails because he's demonstrated and admitted that he's not as clean and honest as he's said he is. So he's both a liar and an adulterer. Did he rape the woman? Maybe, maybe not but the really huge thing right now before the court trial begins is that he cheated on his wife (who is pretty amazingly fine and either impressively or obstinately loyal for standing by him in the light of his despicable behaviour).

And then it becomes an issue of whether he forced her into sex or, as P thinks happened, they were in the act and she decided that she didn't want to be there and told him to stop. I don't think they'd gotten to the actual act but it doesn't matter either way, our laws say that a woman can say "No" at any time and the man has to stop. A law which is really kind of whacked when you get right down to it but let's leave that for another post.

The argument that she went to his room and should have expected some sexing is stupid. I've seen it in several places online and the mere fact that she went to his is implied consent at best. People can and will change their minds. What if he was being an utter asshole, is she compelled to sleep with him still because she already went to his room? What if he says, not only do you get to have sex with me but with my crew here too? Is she allowed to say "No fucking way" then? What if Kobe went to the 5th base (anal sex, come on people) and she wanted nothing to do with it? The problem is that there are far too many what if's.

But the facts are facts. Kobe had sex with her, this is a fact now as its been admitted by both sides. Kobe was married to someone else at the time, again its a fact. The "victim" has a recent history of depression and attempted suicide, fact but may not be particularly relevant here. Kobe has an sterling public image and that should be taken into account in the consideration of his relative guilt or innocence, yes, he had a sterling image but it was based on lies that have been exposed so his image cannot be used for his defense. Sure, he kept his nose clean until now but so what, he's an admitted adulterer and that means he's almost certainly done this more than once considering how long he's been on the national stage.

Do I really care all that much that a basketball player was banging some chick who worked at a snob hotel in Colorado? No, I really don't but I've been compelled to take part in the debate because there's an awful lot of conjecture and just plain idiotic logic being tossed around like it has some validity.

Is Kobe guilty of rape? I don't know. Is he guilty of adultery? Yep. Should he be judged on that aspect as well as the rape? Hell yes, he should. Just the same as if he was charged with murder but also robbed the guy too.

The Disease is Rampant Stupidity, The Cure? Simple
I'm not quite sure why spam persists. If nobody bought anything from spam then it would cease to exist by the simple and immutable laws of economics, if a project becomes financially inviable then it fails and no one does that anymore. Why are the scams that get people to enter in their credit card information, social security number and everything else the fledgling ID thief needs to get started successful? Because they need a tiny, tiny percentage of "hits" to profit. One out of a million or ten million that responds with credit cards, bank account numbers, home phone numbers and social security numbers like trained monkeys. Just one person can ruin it for everyone by letting the numbnuts know that it will work, that people will give you all the information you need to assume their identity.

What possible train of logic is permitting people to fill in their information into an email? Why on earth are these people able to get through the rest of their lives relatively unvictimized?

How do people actually fall for these scams?

Here, allow Intellectual Poison to help out. Here's a short checklist for you to use if you suspect something is wrong with an email you just got from support@ebay.com or something like it.

a. Do they ask for information that you have to use a password to change on their site?
If yes then its a scam and should be reported ASAP.
If no then continue on.
b. Do they tell you that your account is going to be closed unless you give them this information?
If yes then its a scam and these people are trying to invoke a fear of loss response to get you to give them your credit and personal information.
If no then continue on.
c. Are there numerous misspellings, grammatical errors and other flaws that might indicate that the writer had a less than college level knowledge of English?
If yes then its a scam and they figure you are too stupid to know the difference between meet and meat.
If no then continue on.
d. Is it from a company you've never heard of and/or have never done business with?
If yes then its a badly targeted scam and should be reported and deleted.
If no then you should be able to verify the validity of the email by calling them up or replying (WITHOUT YOUR CREDIT DATA IN IT, SPEEDO). Note, I don't mean replying to the email itself which is almost certainly spam, I mean to get in touch with the company being referenced in the scam spam.

How hard is it to figure out that someone's trying to weasel your personal information out of you? Not very if all accounts are to be believed. Identity theft is one of the fastest forms of crime on the internet and it makes sense really. Assuming another identity is pretty easy and is a regular part of the internet experience. Only thing is that these people are doing it offline and making alot of money by scaring, cajoling or threatening people out of their personal information.

There are ways to combat ID Theft, hire a company to monitor your credit balances and changes. Shred your reciepts before trashing them. Don't fall for obvious garbage emails that purport to be from a company you've done business with and keep an eye on that little lock in the bottom corner of your browser (or where ever it is in IE) that tells you when you're dealing with a secure page. Never, ever, ever give away any credit card information in an email. Its far too easy to steal and people have sniffers out there searching for sequences of numbers they can rip and use.

The other thing to do is think about what you're doing and not give away info to strangers you can't say when you wouldn't give away that info to someone you met on the street.

It ain't that hard folks. Think before punching in your numbers. Make sure your cards have fraud protection built into them and don't allow yourself to be easily victimized.

How To Make Blogging Even More Compelling?
Combine it with fantasy stock market trading so that each blog becomes its own company that can be traded (regardless of whether the blog owner wants it or not) on a fantasy site called BlogShares.

Right now, NorCal Bikers is trading at just under $41 a share. Intellectual Poison is doing decently well at just over $60 a share. And there are the big fellas like Plain Layne trading at $270 right now. Strangely they had not indexed Rambling Rhodes yet though I will be buying shares as soon as they are available, same thing for Gudy Two Shoes. As well as picking up shares in all of my other regular reads. Intellectual Properties is currently undervalued at $42.86 a share so I'm scooping up a bunch there. Jivha is in the process of being indexed. I also just put in an order to pick up a hundred shares of Stiletto Philosophy.

I'll hold off on buying and shares of the Fabulous Mint 400 until they're server issues have been solved and the blog loads up all the way or returns something aside from a Page Not Found error.

Its a cool system and has definitely taken quite a huge amount of time to put together. Its free too so that makes it that much better.
And, while they start you off with $500 to get going, it makes far more sense to claim your own blog and get rolling that way. I claimed NorCal Bikers and got 1000 shares of the blog to play around with. Changed half of that in and gained $20K in working capital to reinvest.

Can you tell I'm having fun with the whole thing? Yeah!
So now I'm on a mission to increase the number of in bound links to Intellectual Poison and to NorCal Bikers (the only two they've indexed of mine so far).

And there are real business concepts coming out of the whole thing, places like Blog Cooperative that offers up a new way to create and run a business. I need to do a bit more research on it to really understand it but it is well worth a look and might just get you out from behind that desk. Might might be a stretch but hey, any chance is better than no chance at all, isn't it?
The Blog Coop is a new venture and needs to get rolling by getting eyes and minds on the subjects at hand. Surf over and take a look to see if it works with your blog universe.

Another New Word Sighting
To be added to the New Words page when I get a moment to do so.

Phonytail - people with weaves or otherwise not their own hair mixed in with their own are sporting phonytails.

Can You Say Cluster Fuck Housing?
Some of you will groan when you realize what this post is about. That old house I moved out of almost 6 months ago now that I happen to still be on the lease of and am subletting. Oh yeah, just heard that one, Paul.

But, for those of you who aren't up to speed on this never ending joy. Let me give you a little background.

I used to live in a great beach house a block and a half from the ocean. It was a cool house because it had lots of decks, redwood trim inside, high ceilings and I lived there with three good friends.

All of that has now changed as we've almost all moved on to new places with our SO's.

But I'm still technically in charge of the place because I'm financially accountable for its monthly rent. And that's not the issue. The issue is that the owner, who is an 80-something widower who has early stage Alzheimer's or something else that makes her short term memory a bit like a bucket without a bottom, nothing stays in it for very long. She can be very nice and fun to speak with. But she can also be a very nasty, bitter old lady.

Here's the deal. I am on the lease as a tenant along with one other person in a house that held 4 people. Which meant that most people weren't going to be the responsible parties when push comes to shove. When it came time for someone to step up and take over the lease, I did because I wanted to stay in the house.

Now, the house is in reasonably good shape but has needed alot of things to be taken care of over the years that were not taken care of and are now coming back to bite the owner's backside just a little bit. She doesn't like spending money if she can help it and house repairs rate pretty low on her totem pole of importance. I would tell her what was broken and she'd decide not to fix it unless it had to be done (like the downstairs bathroom's seasonal back up problems that indicated an obstruction in the sewage system, not cheap but it had to be done or the house would have become uninhabitable).

But other things, like the dishwasher, the washer and dryer, the carpets, the plumbing, the dryer exhaust, the water heater and many other things were allowed to languish until they got to the state they are in now. Some have been repaired or replaced like the garage door opener and the water heater but most have not been attended to. And with the rental market being more than a little bit soft it isn't the easiest place to rent now because its so high and there's so much already wrong with the place.

I got in touch with the supposed property manager who's really just a friend of the family who sells and rents commercial real estate and was the original architect of the situation that got us in the house 8 years ago. Basically I left him a message saying I'm ready to be done with this whole situation and what must be done to get there. The reply message he left on my voice mail was dripping with condescension and whacked yankitude that I had to restrain my erase button impulse until he was finally done being a jerk.

So here's my schedule. I am on the lease until the end of October after which point I will happily tell the land lady and the property manager guy to fuck off. Until then I have to be a nice little worker fuck and be their little monkey boy. I love it when people threaten to sue me, makes me want to help them out that much more. Only problem is that, because of the land lady's repeat and unscheduled trips to the house, the current tenants want to get the hell out. No one wants to put up with their landlady showing up at any time of the day or night and demanding to see how clean the place is.

Which means that I am now responsible for keeping the fucking place rented out and cleaned up for a few more months. Which sucks balls because I've no interest and make nothing off of the deal. All I get to do is get paddled by the owner and her lapdog property manager who, to his credit, has no interest in doing this crap either as he's not getting paid for his time or effort but that doesn't mean a damn thing to me and he truly could have gotten his message across without being such a fucking whiny bitch condescender.

Anyway, in the course of finding out where my legal rights were, I came across California Tenant Law which has lots of good info on what you can do and can't do in a lease agreement or in a month to month. And what can be done with your security deposit and what cannot be done with it. Good information and there's nothing like fully arming yourself before going into battle. And that's what this whole thing is now, a battle. And one I intend to come out of unscathed.

I want her to break the lease and boot everyone out of that house, that would take care of my troubles in one instant. It wouldn't screw anyone over too badly either because they're all planning on jumping anyway. And then the landlady can rent it again to some idiots wanting to pay what she would like to get for a house that's falling apart because of her lack of re-investment in the house. Oh well, all I have to do is count the days until October 31 though and its all over one way or the other.

Fashion Moments in Hell
Maybe it was just me, maybe it had been some bad pizza with a few questionable anchovies on it that invoked my dreams of a parallel universe.

But I am pretty sure that the era of t-shirts that have been assaulted with a pair of scissors was far behind us.

Am I wrong, has that period of fashion inversion passed us all by?

Then could someone remind the middle aged Flashdance reject who just posted up in the parking lot in a Snoopy t-shirt with the sleeves all shredded up and looking, well, not to be overly hurtful even though I'm 99.9999% certain she doesn't read Intellectual Poison, but looking just incredibly unhip although the tight jeans weren't helping either. In fact, I kind of felt bad for her which is a definite sign of a serious fashion violation. Not quite as bad as wearing competing plaids or vertical stripes above horizontal stripes but it was so easily avoidable. Just pick another shirt, not the Snoopy shredded T, no, no anything but the Snoopy shredded T. Damn. What can I say though, she was driving a Nissan Pulsar that hadn't seen the back seat in at least two years with all the crap piled in there.

And one of my favorite things about my window above the parking lot is that I get to observe people when they don't think anyone's watching them. Like the guy who's gotta be in classes or something downstairs because he has his cigarette break at the same time and in the same place every day. There's the hairdresser with nice arms and terrible parking abilities, she has yet to get her Prelude into a single parking space and invariably makes someone go into contortions to get back to their car. I see the loads of crap that people carry around in their trunks, the cut t-shirt lady had to mash the trunk back down on all the cardboard boxes. I can, on occasion, be one of the first to see a new dent, ding, mangled fender or other "enhancement".

Quick Weekend Wrap
This was a pretty good weekend overall. Got to sleep in nicely on Saturday which certainly does help. Spent a good portion of yesterday on the beach pretending to be able to play volleyball. But I'd also gone out biking in the morning so I had a reasonable built in excuse. P was on the beach somewhere with one of her friends and her family visiting. I tried to find them but was unsuccessful. But we had a nice dinner out with them and their two little girls. And lots and lots of wedding talk, enough to drown a horse or maybe a pony. If this is the level of conversation two and a half months out then I can not even begin to imagine the intensity as we get to the final approach. But its still mildly fun and we get to shop and that's always good.
Tonight is a trip to CostCo for supplies. Ink cartridges, glassware and the linke. Oh boy!

And I am finding a renewed interest in getting back on my book track and starting that project up again. Its been languising for too long and needs to be revived. And this will be one of those times when I miss the folding keyboard of the Palm V, it made it really quite easy to write at high speed anywhere and the Clie just doesn't have it yet. But there might be a new model in my future so that'll get addressed soon as well. Only 40 minutes to go before the auction ends so keep your fingers crossed.

A Tough Name to Grow Up With
I was just watching my CNBC this morning and they announced a pending interview with a money manager who had plenty to discuss about short term bond yields and long term investment strategies.

Which is all well and good but he had the worst name I've heard in a long time.
Hugh Johnson, no bullshit.
Almost as bad as Dick Sweat or Mike Hunt or any of the other dozen or so names that no one should have. Or maybe his name is a goldmine because its about impossible to forget once you've heard it.

Only thing was that there was nothing huge about Hugh Johnson, he was a short, balding guy who almost certainly disappointed on his appendage-centric nickname.

Poor Hugh. Hahaha. But at least I got to start Monday with a laugh.

Squeaky Clean or Squeaky Mattress?
Yep, about the only time I pay any attention to basketball is when another star falls. Who's turn is it this week? Why that would be Kobe Bryant Charged with Rape. (Lots of Google News story goodness here.)

Makes you wonder that he admitted the adultery (i.e. sorry honey but yeah, I had sex with this 19 year old girl while you thought I was getting my knee operated on) but that he didn't force himself upon her.

Uh, okay. Let's see, you could have come clean when this first started up but you didn't. Strike one.

You could have admitted to your wife and the rest of the world that you did have sex with her which would have defused a huge amount of this issue but you didn't. Strike two.

What's strike three going to be? She's pregnant with your kid? She gave you HIV? You gave her herpes?
There's another one coming up and its going to pretty well take ol' squeaky clean Kobe from the penthouse to the cellar.

Or it might all be a fabrication by the woman so that she could squeeze him for money. Who knows anymore?

How close are we to having athletes carrying consent forms with their condoms when they go out?

I can see it now.

"Hey baby, you lookin' fine, want to get with a superstar?"
"Oh yeah, you so sexy. Let's go!"
"Okay but first I've gotta have you read and sign this contract saying any sexual relations between the two of us is consensual."
"Consensual? Yeah, I like the sound of that, sounds sexy. Gimme a pen." And they would proceed to sign away their rights.

At which point, the other side of the coin rears its ugly tail. If these women sign papers indemnifying the players of rape then what's to stop them from doing anything they want to the women. They've got no danger of being busted so they could then proceed to rape the women and get away with it.

Hmm, thorny issue. Perhaps athletes should do what most people do and try to not have sex with people they aren't married to? Nah, where's the Wilt Chamberlain style fun in that?

One thing I am aware of now thanks to all the coverage of the story is that residents of Eagle, Colorado are not the brightest bulbs in the bunch. It became a racial issue immediately and one of the town's 13 black residents accussed the police of trying to keep a "young brother down". Um, what? If he raped a woman then it matters not in the least that he's black or rich or a professional athlete, he's a rapist.

Why do people always assume race is a factor when a black man is charged with a crime? Yes, in many cases it is a factor but its asinine to think that black people are constantly arrested for no reason aside from their being black. And if there's any racism I've seen in this whole thing so far, its the black resident of Eagle quoted in some of the stories who's a racist by boiling everything down to black and white when things are for more involved than just the color of one's skin. But oh wait, I'm not allowed to accuse a black man of being a racist, that's prejudiced of me, seeing as how I'm white and all. But that's crap.

Hot Cheddar X-hibition
This week's Cheddar X has seen the addition of another new blog as the word spreads. My responses to this week's questions are below. Interested in getting away from the coma inducing Friday Five? Join up and take a bite out of the Cheddar!

1. What are your top three favorite smells?
In no particular order because I do like them more at different times.
Fresh basil, either just picked or still on the plant, I love cinnamon basil, holy basil, sweet, ruffles and every other variety I've ever come across and tried.
Tomato plants - there's something about the buttery smell they put off that just resonates with me. Seriously, I'll stick my face into one of our plants and just breathe it in for a little while. Its a truly fabulous odor.
The Sea Breeze off the Bay - there's something old and new about standing above the beach at the end of my street and inhaling winds that have blown in from across the ocean. The combination of the moistened air with the salt, dust and whatever else can be borne across the miles. The smell of the beach is one of those things that reminds me of youth, of the timelessness of the ocean, of days spent making sand castles, of launching my body into wave after wave, of the motion of the ocean, of the taste of the salt, of the hot sand leading to the cooling water.

Honorable mentions: fresh sack of NorCal chronic (sorry Mom, but it really does smell wonderful), fresh peppermint, fresh spearmint, fresh chocolate mint, onions and garlic sauteeing on the stove, P's skin before she's showered and its just her, hot chocolate, bike oil, gasoline, the air while pedaling in the redwoods on UConn up to the water tanks, jasmine, sage, lemon anything, lime anything, mangos, orange juice and freshly dried clothes.

2. What scents on men/women do you find most attractive? And what scents to you absolutely despise?
I don't know from scents on men so I'll pass on that one. But on women, I like those subtle perfumes that aren't overpowering, just there when you get around to noticing it. I should note that I could be horribly crude here and quote The Bloodhound Gang, "You know what I really like in a girl? Me!" but I'll abstain from going there. Light fruit, light spice, light musk, whatever is nice as long as the scents match up with the personality and are not too strong. People who lather on perfume and cologne really, really, really need to consider other people having to inhale the toxic vapors. A little goes a very long way, folks.

Smells I hate on people? Easy. Patchouli, three day or more stink, enough perfume to stun a charging elephant, cigarette stink, stale beer, basically olfactory evidence of last night's debaucheries afternoon. What else? Perpetual garlic breath or other distracting halitosis. I've been told that Americans are too smell-o-centric compared to Europeans but I don't really know how to respond to it, if we are then so what, bathe!

3. What was your worst nickname growing up?
Any variety of Orgy or Orgasm as a play on my last name that starts with "Org". Or "Noid" was another one I never really much cared for, especially since the knob who gave it to me was far, far more annoying than I've ever been (well maybe not ever).

4. What nickname did you want to have?
I went through a period where I wanted to be called Patch, I'd been forced to wear an eye patch all summer long and liked it (though I can not recommend taking mushrooms and walking through the woods with no depth perception, my face was scratched up for a week and a half). EB has been nice enough to remind me of a time when I was at Arizona State when I wanted to be called Adonis for some bizarre reason.

5. What was the last trick you pulled on someone?
It must have been on P and was something of the low level variety like telling her there was no more coffee or something stupid like that. But we had started to get into practical jokes in the office before Hardy quit. Maybe those will return someday. Although I know its horridly juvenile, I'm a big fan of the old joke, "Want to go and get some ice cream? Yeah? Then would you mind getting me some while you're out?" Yeah, our house is a laugh riot (or is that laff riot?).

6. What was the last trick you had pulled on you?
Same thing, P messing with me. Nothing serious and no malicious intent involved whatsoever.

Is This A Compliment or an Insult?

You're Exotic Dancer Barbie. You have some moves,
and will do anything for a few bucks. Take it
off girl, but keep it PG-13 please.


If You Were A Barbie, Which Messed Up Version Would You Be?
brought to you by Quizilla

Quality Forward and some Whack News
Okay, this had to get posted because its just too funny not to, click the pic for a bigger image of it. Thanks to Jay for sending it on! And one from Kim as well.


And a Criminal Wants Taxpayers to Pay for his Sex Change Operation.
Um, yeah, that makes lots of sense to me.

Song List Update
The top ten on the iPod has taken some serious shifts in the last month since the last update. Having the drive semi-die and then having every song reloaded upon it will tend to do that.
Anyway, this is the same list as is along the nav bar on the side but I dropped the mouse over song titles for the post. Anyone feel like making any musical suggestions based on this list? Or just have a new band that you're totally digging on and feel like sharing?

1. Dispatch- The General 16 times

2. Lovage- Stroker Ace 16 times

3. Lovage- Strangers on a Train 16 times

4. Something Corporate- I Woke Up in a Car 14 times

5. Tahiti 80- A Love from Outer Space 14 times

6. The Faint- Agenda Suicide 13 times

7. Latryx- Lady Don't Tek No 13 times

8. Mighty Lemondrops - Out of Hand 13 times

9. Modest Mouse- the fruit that ate itself 13 times

10. Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows 13 times


I believe that this will likely be one of only two posts on the day as there's a big list of things that I need to get taken care of before this afternoon.

One other thing though, before I get rolling on the work stuff.
My current new favorite thing? At the end of last week I got my George Bush bobblehead doll and now he gets to sit and stare at me while I work. The best part is that I can ask him a question and decide what answer I'm most interested in at that moment. Perhaps I should shoot a short video to demonstrate? [Update: Did you know how many bobbleheads are out there? More than you have any idea. Check out Toynk.com for a pretty impressive list. And they've got other uselessness to spend money on too, like this!.]

And keep an eye out for the new Cheddar X questions which should be going live at some point today. We've got a few new blogs joined up and the numbers are starting to grow!

Why Politicians Make Such Good Politicians
Because they can spin anything to look worse than it is.

Bill Would Put Net Song Swappers in Jail which is nothing new really. But here's the kicker, The Conyers-Berman bill would operate under the assumption that each copyrighted work made available through a computer network was copied at least 10 times for a total retail value of $2,500. That would bump the activity from a misdemeanor to a felony, carrying a sentence of up to five years in jail.

Which means that, if you download a song they are making a gross assumption that its been copied at least 9 other times. And since every song is worth $25 all on its own (neverminding the obvious fact that a CD with 18 songs on it costs $17) and all of a sudden you're now charged with a felony?

[Update: Doh, upon closer inspection of the numbers, I realized that they are counting each song's value at $250 a copy. How's that work? Not the math, that was just stupid thinking on my part.]

How in the fuck does this garbage make it off some asshole's drawing board? This is bullshit. The political equivalent of adding "violations" to a traffic stop to make it worse. Oh yeah, the burned out tail light? That's another $75, the under inflated tire? That's another $50. And its crap.

Want some more?

In a series of hearings on Capitol Hill last spring, lawmakers condemned online song swapping and expressed concern the networks could spread computer viruses, create government security risks and allow children access to pornography.

Not porn? Heavens no. We don't want children figuring out where babies come from, do we? Then they might ask all kinds of difficult questions that parents don't want to answer. By the way, kids can get access to porn one hell of a lot easier than using a P2P program, just do a search on "naked" and you'll find plenty of sites willing to let you get a peek. And they don't care if you're under 18. A side note here, why is the US so against the idea of kids seeing nudity and so for allowing kids to witness horribly sickening acts of violence like the evening news? Sex is a good thing and violence is the opposite of sex yet its okay to show to children because there are no titties involved? No wonder our fucking country is such a backwards moronic place.

And viruses seem to have no problem spreading themselves by exploiting Microsoft's numerous bugs and holes. I don't think I've ever heard of a virus spreading via peer-to-peer networking. And creating government security risks? How? Because our government "bots" are trading files online too? That's easy, police your own damned systems, you morons!

The two "architects" of this crappy bill should be publicly humiliated for attempting to sell this piece of shit.

Still Unsure of Bush's Track Record?

There are alot of people out there in the blog world and the real world proclaiming that Bush isn't as bad as Clinton was or couldn't be, shudder to think, worse.

To them I offer this simple, humble and humbling bar graph. And I ask, how can you possibly say that we're better off under this regime than under Clinton? ShrubCo is emptying the coffers not only for now but future presidents as well. He's practicing a really, really shitty tactic called Scorched Earth, basically making the next president's job that much harder by runnig up debts and ruining any remaining good will we might have in the world as he's screwing the US over but good. Nice work! [Update: There's a concurrent news story that discusses the government's reaction to these quite startling numbers. Its located right here.]



Yes, the bars were still red when Clinton got into office but he reversed the trend and created a budget surplus. In the span of a single year, Bush reversed that surplus by almost $300 billion. And is going another $300 billion on top of that. This is what is known as being an unfettered spending freak. In two years he went from having a $127 billion surplus to a nearly half a TRILLION dollar shortfall. Think about that for a moment.

Keep in mind that these are BILLIONS of dollars this fool is wasting. That's NINE zeros! These are tremendously huge sums of money that are being spent without regard to the future? Why? Because ShrubCo knows that it will be up to the Democrats to try and repair the damage they cause everytime one of the rabid little GOP monkey jabbers gets into the Oval Office.

While I understand that there are greater machinations at work here than just the President's personal wealth building agenda, he is still largely responsible for the fiscal health of this country. By his leadership we either live to excess or learn to live within our means. With the current business climate of corporate raiding and monstrous greed by top executives, we have found ourselves losing more and more money to thieves in $5,000 suits. We are a nation of excess, a nation that believes we have a right to waste as much as we wish to because we're the most powerful nation on earth. Our culture has been led astray by our "leader" (who I cannot say is my leader because I wouldn't follow him anywhere). We are morally bankrupt and well on our way to being financially bankrupt as well.

ShrubCo reminds me a frat boy, living in the moment and having a great time but never remembering that there are finals coming up, there's a life after college and he'll have to have some kind of plan. So far all I can see is the gross and overt theft of American billions. Or maybe its a covert redistribution of wealth from the poor back to the rich. Is ShrubCo the anti-Robin Hood?

Am I one of the only ones who can see through his smirking lies to the basic core fact that he is poison to our country? That this path he is leading us down is one of hatred and worldwide vilification? That his pals are making hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars by stealing America? That he is, in fact and deed, a criminal with no regard for the millions of people he has lied to and stolen from?

[Update: This is also being discussed over on Intellectual Properties and references leblancs remarks in the comments section.]

An Observation
How can it be comfortable to ride a bike with the seat angled up so sharply as to mash one's penis against the seat?

I just watched a guy go riding by on his BMX bike with the seat at about a 35 degree angle upward in the front. How can that be comfortable?

Oh yeah, I'm thinking about starting another page called "View from my Office Window" which would be a collection of pics taken from my window. You'd be surprised at the traffic and things I get to watch. Especially the wild cat and her kittens in the morning!

And go hit up Stiletto Philosophy for a short list of things that piss Carlene off! I'm right there with her on several points. And could write about a thousand pages on other ones.

Those Crazy Japanese Fashions
The Japanese continue to lead the world in funky and fresh fashions. Forget Versace, forget Polo, the real new fashions in the world are being created in Japan.

The Tiger Bikini Top was made in celebration of a Japanese baseball team's mascot who just happens to share the same name as Truckee, California up near Tahoe.

The top comes with shorts and a detachable tail (I wonder if the Japanese can make a non detachable tail by now?) and sells for a measly $80. I'm sure there are some jokes in here somewhere but I'll steer clear for now.

Sleep Warfare
P and I are battling. At night, in our sleep. The war is over bed space and bed covers. P is a turner who ratchets herself around all night long, pulling more and more of the covers to her side of the bed and off the side. Which means, I'm prone to waking up midway through the night without any covers at all. And an elbow or knee trying to force me off the bed.

How fun is it to wake up bare assed to the universe?
Um, not very. Especially when the main reason for being woken up is the delivery of some large and noisy equipment at the school across the street. I think it was about 3:30 this morning when the big old diesel truck pulled up. Yeah. That made things even more fun.

And I was given the opportunity to see how P works in the middle of the night. She had literally the entire comforter on her side of the bed, ninety percent of it on the floor and she's got a death grip on the remaining sliver. Its not an easy or simple task to pull it back over her though because she's gotten her legs involved and wrapped up in the bottom of it so that, in the pulling, she is woken up, startled and irritated.

But my ass is getting icy so she just has to deal with it. And how does she deal with it? A subconscious attack with her elbows, knees and other round but not soft parts. She will drive me across the bed before her splayed hard parts until I wake up, roll her over and point her weapons of massive sleep disruption the other way.

I can understand why people do move into seperate beds. Its so the bed hog can have their own bed to hog and I can get some sleep. But I know what would happen, she'd end up getting cold, getting into my bed and then stealing all the covers again.

So, basically, I need to come up with some way to deal with this. I now keep some extra blankets handy on my side of the bed so I can grab them but its bad for sleep to have to wake up, grab more covers and go back to sleep. Its not the best way to get rest. And I need my rest these days with late nights and work in the morning. I've considered tying her up but I don't think that'll work in the long term. We could get two smaller comforters and let her ball one up as she will but then I'm almost positive she'll take mine as well.

And I know she would just as soon I don't talk about this on the blog. But I need answers and hopefully someone out there has some for me. So far the best answer I've come up with is letting her sleep on the couch downstairs when she falls asleep there at night. But I like sleeping with her and don't want to give that up, I just want it to be more restful and less stressful.

I'm open to suggestions.

A Toon is a Toon But Stripperella Makes Me Swoon
Yeah yeah, I'm a cartoon pervert or something but hey, I like this drawing alot (and the two just added ones but the first is the best). And wish there were more to go along with it. Like an album of the pics. Which reminds me of a side question, has anyone else been watching the MTV Spiderman animated series? Its pretty good overall and I like the new style of animation even if everyone's got deer-in-the-headlights syndrome all the time.
So here's some Stripperella for ya's. Anyone got these sans clothing? Drop me a note and we can discuss terms.
And, in the meantime, check out the Google: Stripperella for some harder to find pics and images. Also, here's the Stripperella Game. Nice stuff!

Local News and a Baby Nick Update
I just got an email from my sister about my nephew Nicolas, who has been dealing with some health issues ever since his birth a few weeks ago. Here's the first post about Nick.
Anyway, the email today held some good news and that's why I'm posting it here.

Hello amazing support network~
Wanted to let you know the latest with the young
Langdon boy. His 4th temporary shunt had to come out
Saturday night (3 days in) because it was leaking.
Since then (3 days out), his head has not really
gotten any bigger. Monday's ultrasound showed his
ventricles are smaller, still somewhat big, but
smaller. We are big time crossing our fingers and
hoping that he might trully avoid the permanent.
Actually, my way of dealing with it is to try to not
get too excited by this good news in case it doesn't
last (as has been the case every time before)...but,
admittedly, I'm a little psyched. Also, as of last
night, he is 6 lbs. There is a rumor that if he gets
the hang of eating independently, he might even go
home early next week. So keep those good vibes coming
our way. I'll keep you updated as we get through this
newer (slightly more optimistic) wait-and-see period.
And now a word from the Big Brother Andrew...

bbb4444
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD****
AAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSDDDDDDDDDDFFFFFFFFFFFFFGGGGGGGGGGGGG


So yeah, I'm a happier camper in thinking that my newest nephew is making headway in clearing out his head!

Local News
Major props go out to Paul, my oldest pal in California, and Kim, his now fiance!
I will have to get the details when we get together next but I know its a done deal and that's about as cool as it gets! Paul is one of the greatest guys I know and Kim is just a truly cool chick and together they are great fun to be with and its all enhanced by the addition of the poster dog for the Weimerauner breed, Modoc. Nice work, Paul! You couldn't have landed a cooler and more down to earth lady than Kimmie.

Which reminds me, I've gotta write up that story of the night you two actually began this process all those months ago at Zelda's.

In Gee-I-Wanna-Work-Here News
In doing some research for the company I was on Fucked Company this morning trying to track down some rumours of layoffs that might affect our sector.

Instead of finding what I was looking for, I found this internal memo from Ebay. Makes you want to go and drop off a job app, doesn't it?

Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2003 10:30 AM
To: DL-eBaySJC-all-R
Subject: eBay internal communication - Talking at desks- Please read

It has come to my attention that several employees are talking at their desks during scheduled work hours. I must convey the importance of NOT talking at your desk, or to your desk partner. Talking greatly decreases work productivity, and company morale.

If you need to talk to someone, please schedule a meeting room where you can talk, or use the break rooms. If you are caught talking at your desk, you will be escorted into a meeting room and questioned as to why you are talking, and if it is relevant to your job. If not, you may be subjected to disciplinary actions.

We want you to work hard at eBay, and enjoy your work. Please contact management if you have any questions.

Thank you,

Jody Rivers
Safeharbor Manager.

Um yeah. No talking because that might negatively affect corporate morale which is to say that getting to know your coworkers is a bad thing. And any human contact on company time is strictly forbidden. Next up? Management tests out rubber hoses filled with lead shot as motivational thwackers.

And in Traffic-Will-Be-Getting-Better News
San Francisco is the fastest shrinking big city in America. Nearly 1.5 percent of San Franciscans became other 'cans last year as the city shrank by 12,000 people in the last 12 month period. Bear in mind that many more than 12,000 left SF last year but this number represents the total loss as many people still moved to the city even though there are no jobs to be had. Actually that's not entirely true, there are jobs but they aren't paying as much and it is a very expensive city to live in or near.

San Jose ranked number 220 with a decline of .6 percent or 5,740 people.

Which means it should be getting easier to drive into the city, find parking there and a place to live. But its still not easy to find work so good luck.

Is Tipping A Bribe or Reward?
Its something I've been thinking about for a while now. Whether you tip because you fear shitty service, spit in your burger and empty water glasses or whether you tip as a reward for doing a decent job of attending to your customers?

It will have to depend on where I am and who's manning the stove. Maybe I'm jaded, maybe I'm cynical, maybe I'm just a realist who can see what the social strata looks like. I tip different amounts to different places and for different reasons. Though I think its probably wrong, I bet I tip most to the best looking cashiers and least to those that are so stupid as to be openly rude. And in between there's a sliding scale that I refer to myself as the tip meter. Hit the marks, keep to a modicum of service and the tip meter stays even in the middle. Treat me like an asshole and the meter dips, treat me like a nice guy and the meter climbs.

I've actually considered making a prototype tip meter to try out but think it would be either somewhat or more than somewhat rude to any waitstaff forcing me to tip more than I'd intended and defeating the purpose of the tip meter altogether.

But there are those places where I tip solely to avoid having my food fucked with in the Slim Shady style of a snot burger or some asshole tossing off in the milkshake machine. One place I've actually stopped going to altogether for this and other reasons. Not that I'd ever had any proof because proof is hard to come by but it was a distinct feeling I got and once you get it, its damned hard to shake. And they put in like 24 flourescent lights in a small room so it feels like you're stepping into the sun or something. And they raised their prices, lowered their potion sizes and built a new building with a super sweet top deck that would have been an awesome place to have lunch but you can't get up there and its a total waste of a deck so they're not only spitting in the food or otherwise fucking with it, they're stupid and short sighted. Or maybe they couldn't get the build permit or something but that's not my issue.

Of course, all of this reminds me of the episode of Futurama where they find out that Slurm is actually an excretion from a giant slug queen (the episode also featured the only appearance in history of Slurms MacKenzie, the original party slug). Is it the knowing that makes it disgusting or just the fact that you're possibly eating someone else's snot? I think just the fact is nasty enough and that the tip is a sort of mental means of escaping that conclusion (i.e. they can't have spit in your burger because you gave them a nice tip even though that's utterly bunkum logic but its all I've got).

So which is it? Bribe or reward? Or does it have to broken down by restaurant?
Okay. Let's see, Costa Brava - bribe. Zachary's - tip. Rebecca's - tip. Noah's - tip. Taqaueria Vallarta - bribe and tip. Los Pinos - bribe. El Palomar - tip. 99 Bottles - tip. Charlie Hong Kong's - bribe now but used to be a tip and I'll never leave with my takeout before checking it to make sure its right. Fast food - who tips for fast food?

[Note: Carlene brought it my attention that I need to mention the way most of these places work, you order, you pay, and then you wait for your food to be cooked. Therefore, you will most likely tip before ever getting your food. Unless you want to wait for the food, eat it and then decide if they should get a tip. But by then they could have decided you aren't going to tip and they've spoiled your food. Kind of a Catch-22.]

And what about mixed drinks at a bar?

Brevity without Need
What is this tendency to abbreviate things to the exclusion of ever spelling them out completely? On the All Star Game telecast last night they had plenty of room to print out what AL stands for and instead they abbreviated it and quite short sightedly could have left a lot of people with a question on their mind. They could have very easily just printed out American League so that people not all that well acquainted with the sport might have a better idea of the sport.
I've seen the same thing on MSNBC alot of times.

Its just myopic and shows that people aren't doing all they can be doing to promote and ease the introduction of the sport to new people. Unless they intended to make people ask fans what it means to generate conversations and thus go to promoting the sport that way? But I doubt they'd be working on such a subtle marketing technique. It is much more likely that somebody dropped the ball and didn't think about it at all.

Found: A Great Sushi Happy Hour
I was going to add this onto the last post about Saturday but thought better of it and will post it on its own.

P and I never did get any more food on the way home although we did stop at the Fry's in San Jose just off of 17. Always a worthwhile stop as there are always sweet deals on some stuff I need or want. Saturday's purchases included a copy of Don Jaun Demarco on DVD for $6 (I don't care what the critics said, I think its a pretty entertaining movie), a cd of Gorillaz vs. Spacemonkeyz and a few other minor things. But it's just a fun place to stop in at and see what's available. There's only so much you can learn from looking at things online.

Anyway, we buzzed back over the hill and past the spot where there was an 18 car pile up on Friday afternoon that took the life of an 8 month old baby. It was one of the worst accidents in years on 17 and should serve as a strong reminder that this road is among the most dangerous in America even if it is loads of fun to drive fast. Or its even better on the Suzuki!

So, upon getting back into town we negotiated where we'd find some sustenance as both of us were starving by now.

No Mexican, no Chinese, no Afghani or the new vegie restaurant (the thought of the heavy curry in the heat of the afternoon made that an easy pass).

And then it hit us, let's go and get us some sushi. So we rolled up to Takara's Tiki Bar just down the street from our house. It was during their new happy hour deal and we dug into a pretty nice little meal.
Started off with a large sake (and another one later) and large Kirin on tap with some edamame (though they use lemon instead of lime it was still excellent).
Then into the rolls, P ordered something called a Yummy Yum or Yummy Yam because that was what was in it, tempura fried yam and avocado, and it was excellent. My choice was the sleeky shrimp which was tempura shrimp, avo and cucumber. And a seaweed salad that P liked alot and I thought was just okay.

They were cool enough to take a roll that I can't remember its name right now and tempura the whole thing. Flash fry it and then slice it up for us. It was awesome!

Fully gorged and happy, we got the bill and were both shocked at how reasonable it was, thanks to the Happy Hour deals. We left a large tip for our server who was awesome and still got out for under $40! Now that's some fine sushi action! And we're going back this week and will try to bring along some other folks so we can have more fun!

The best part of the meal was just spending non rushed time with P, especially since she was still all happy from landing the wedding dress. We had lots of laughs and probably pissed off the two women in the next booth but that's how it goes sometimes. We weren't being overly rude, just loud and having a good time together. I'm amazed at what truly wonderful company she is and how much fun we can have together without pressure to get things done. Life without the weight of the wedding upon us should be filled with lots of fun, I can't wait!

But there are so many steps between now and then that's its hard to imagine that moment when we're married and can begin planning the rest of our time together. It is coming though and I'm so excited for it. Almost as much as I am for the next place we move to that'll have a yard, some privacy, some peace and quiet (the neighbor's boyfriend drives this enormous diesel truck that rumbles our windows when he pulls up and the construction at the school starts early!) and space to stretch out. That way I can get my dog and then I'll be as happy as can be until we start making babies! Yeeha!

Another Marriage Milestone Passes Sans Four Figure Expense
I'm amazed at the expense that some folks get themselves into when it comes to the whole wedding thing. How easily numbers can be run up from something resembling reasonable to astronomical in a few days of frenzied selections and burning NEED to get things crossed off the lists.

Oh the lists, the thirty pages of things to do, the interminable lists of tasks, small, large and huge.

Saturday saw another big one crossed off the big list. Second only to the reception hall that was locked down a week or so ago.
P found her dress.

Oh yeah. Just like that. Not perfect but perfect enough (though I'm still a little confused why it had to be found now with just under 3 months to go before the wedding but those questions didn't go over all that well). She found a place in San Francisco that had it in stock and we could have had it shipped down to Santa Cruz but since San Francisco is only an hour or so away, we drove up on Saturday morning.

Once we found our way to the shop (Yahoo's directions were just a little squirrelly but can't held too much to task as SF has more one way streets and detours than most any other cities on the planet). But it was nice, the drive up was beautiful though San Jose was a flipping sauna. I cannot believe that people pay more to live in San Jose than in Santa Cruz where we've got the beach and far more temperate weather! Living in San Jose's gotta be like living in an oven that's permanently set somewhere between warm and roast. The heat emanating up from the concrete is amazing, normally the radiation of heat is about a foot or so but in San Jose its closer to three feet. Glad the Jetta's got cloth or velour seats as the vinyl would have been a serious drag to be continually peeling our skin off of.

The shop was a very small place with high ceilings and girl who was far too nice for someone who had to come in on her day off to help us out. I was banished to the outside which was fine with me as I've been addicted (truly, I played close to 16 hours in the last two days) to a game on my Clie right now. Its good fun and its only going to get worse when this arrives this week.

Which reminds me, I'm due for a write up of the Clie. Especially since I had to a chance to compare it to the new crop of even more powerful handhelds. Did you know the new one can not only snap pics but can also shoot low-res video as well? I didn't. It can also be a voice recorder for memos and can even be used as a wireless portal if you've got an 802.11b network in place. Or if you like to go to McDonald's or Starbucks (though I think you've gotta be on T-Mobile for Starfucks).

Anyway, P tries on the dress, chats with the nice girl and we're done. In and out and done in under 15 minutes. Which gives us a little time to spend in the city. We had to choose a spot to get to for some lunch before heading back down to home again. I've always wanted to go to Momo's, which is right next to PacBell Park, the home of my SF Giants. Its an upscale spot to see and be seen. And since P's mom was unknowingly treating us to lunch we posted up for a table out on the patio. The hostess let us know that they'd lost power a few minutes before so all we could do was get drinks.

I'd heard some of the waitstaff mentioning how good their mojitos were so we got a couple of them and spent more time planning wedding stuff, details, lists and more lists. For those folks that haven't been to San Francisco and those that haven't been in a long time. Its a very windy city, so much so that, if you're in the shade, its easy to get chilly and the big iced rum/mint and lime drinks weren't helping to warm us up. Four fully geared up firemen went in the front door of the restaurant and a few minutes later we had power restored.

But we'd taken a chill and decided to pay up and roll out.

I'd figured that the mojitos weren't going to be cheap but I was still taken a bit aback when the bill came for the two of them. How's nine bucks a pop sound? Yeah. Sounds like a high profit margin cocktail to me. For $9 they should have been another 50% as large. But whatever, it was still nice to kick it outside the ballpark.

And P could not stop saying how relieved and pleased she was that this big, big step was taken and out of the way. Another major crossing off of the lists. And I've gotta start figuring out what I'm going to wear and where I'm going to get it from. Oh boy! And the fact that the dress didn't cost a thousand bucks is pretty cool as I've always had a really hard time understanding the mentality of spending $5K on a dress that will, in all likelihood, be worn once. How does that work? What's the thought process behind wasting so much coin? P's happy with what she's got and we didn't spend an arm and a leg at all. I don't think I'm supposed to say exactly how much it cost but let's put it this way, it was alot closer to double digits than to quadruple digits.

But I've also got a half dozen new posts percolating right now and wish I'd been able to sit down and write them all out when they hit me but I took my notes and will hopefully be able to capture the posts again when I do get a little time to write them out.

Shopping Joy

I thought this might have been on the Noah's site but no, instead all you get is an irritating Flash site that is poorly executed.
Instead go to Noah's Bagels, Buy a Sandwich, Get 6 Free Bagels to get a cool printable coupon.

I used this a couple of weeks ago and it expires at the end of July. Jump on it.
Found the coupon a site called Freebies for Mom which has now been added to my shopping sites links down along the sidebar.

Also added Buzzflash and Take Back the Media to the Intelligence section.

And by daintily dirty to the Blog Stuff section along with Vin Blog and Sporked.net.

Welcome to Intellectual Poison!

Truly Unsettling
This is a story that is not for the queasy or faint of heart. Or for those people who don't like to think about anything but pee and cum emerging from a penis.

But, if you're sufficiently fortified then click on through, Fly Boy Continues to Struggle.

There are probably alot of jokes in the offing about this but damn, I think I'll be back after checking myself and then hurling a few times.

And In Its-Been-A-Slow-Week-For-News News
The furor over Randall Simon's vicious bat attack of one of the sausages in the Milwaukee Brewer's daily sausage race has gotten national attention. Why?

I've not even the faintest clue.

Even the most dense people in the country can see from the video replays that he had no violent intent as the over sized sausage tried to run by him. He was kidding around, swatted at the huge bratwurst and, because of the custome, the young lady inside fell and scraped her knee. And who hasn't fantasized about whacking a six foot tall running sausage? Just me? Okay, nevermind, let's move on.

The retarded nimrod, Rick Schlesinger, posing as the Brewer's executive vice president of business operations said he was sickened by the act. As if Simon had leapt out of the dugout and clubbed the girl into a bloody mess. Umm, dude, first order of the day is to remove your head from your ass, your baseball team sucks and this is the most sickening thing you've ever seen in a ballpark? Come on.

Anyway, here's an obligatory link to the story. All parties involved are like, what's the big deal? And its just the over-wound freaks and safety nazis who are calling for Simon's arrest.

People are worried about a ball player joking around with an over sized sausage while our government is admitting that they waged a war against Iraq on false pretenses? Umm, where in the FUCK are your priorities, America?

Some Fresh Cheddar X-tasy
I know, I know, people out there came close to offing themselves in the absence of the Cheddar X last week and the ever more yawn worthy Friday Five (who's your best friend, who in your past would you like to meet again?) YAWN!

Anyway, here's this week's questions. Got some of your own to ask? Get thee over to the Cheddar X and add them to the note board or leave them in the comments.

When was the last time you went too far?
Easy answer, I missed the turnoff to get to my pal's house last night and went too far. Ahh, I know that's not what this one is about.
Probably on a blog comment thread, maybe the one on Layne's recently where some knob was basically calling me a sycophant even if he doesn't know what the word means. Or maybe on the recent thread about Carnivorism versus Vegetarianism because no, I don't think its more barbaric to eat live plants over dead meat.

When was the last time you couldn't get home under your own power?
Um, last night. Went over to a pal's birthday party, forgot to have any dinner, drank one of those big bottles of Bacardi O3 (which is like liquid orange candy), a Guiness and a couple of puffs of some NorCal chronic. So instead of being a teenager and driving myself home and risking a ticket or stacking the new car up, I called P and she came and got me. Initially she was irritated but by the time she got there she was actually happy I'd called. Is this some sign of impending maturity?

What's the most crazy thing you've seen or done while driving/commuting?
Geez, I've lived out here in the land of set-your-clock-by-it gridlock for almost a decade and I've seen all kinds of things. Guys getting blowjobs (and grinning like chimps), people putting on makeup, I think I passed one guy who was jacking off once, a car getting inverted five or six cars ahead of me as we came out of Oakland and the double lane swerve as Mr. Executive converses on his cell phone. But I think the winner is a woman I saw in Chicago one day who literally from the 'burbs into the city was slamming her upper body back and forth into her seat and smashing her head against the head rest. She did this for about thirty miles! I think to keep from falling asleep.

Ever been bare down there? (this is a reference to the Secret Garden as Carlene calls it)
Yep. Next question.

If you had a week to live, what would you do?
Run up all my credit cards living as large as I could. Rent a couple of cars, go visit people I've not seen in a long time. Sit and stare at the ocean. Have lots and lots of sex. Write thank you notes to my family and friends and wish them well. Go for long rambling mountain bike rides. Go skydiving. Eat the best food possible.

Would your eating habits change if your vegetables struggled or cried before you ate them? (a direct question from a controversy this week)
Um, yeah, if my tomatoes were weeping because I was eating them then I'd likely figure out some other food to eat. Or I'd kill it first and then eat it.

When was the last time you were embarrassed to be seen with someone and why?
Embarassed is a tough one, there have been a few times recently when I've been uncomfortable being associated with someone.
It was probably me doing the embarassing though so I guess I'll have to say me because sometimes I speak my mind or take actions even though other people tell me to hush up. Like when I get shitty service at a restaurant and want to leave an explanation of why I'm not leaving a better tip. That one always seems to make people freak.

What To Do, What To Do
This may come off as a very sexist post though its not intended to be and I don't consider myself sexist at all.

But I'm curious as to what other people do when a women who is wearing a rather revealing shirt continually bends over and pretty much displays her chest. It happened to me the other day with a friend of mine who either didn't notice or didn't care but it kind of made it hard to concentrate, it was not helped by the fact that she was not wearing a bra either. Not because I was consumed with the irresistible desire to stare down her shirt. Quite the contrary, it became hard to concentrate because I was making an extreme effort to not look down her shirt.

But it was damned near impossible to not at least glance at her cleavage because it was just so THERE. So in my face that it was impossible to miss.

The male analog would be to try and hold a conversation with a man who was sporting a serious horizontal totem pole in his pants. Heck, if I were talking to a guy with a raging hardon I'd not be able to contain myself and would have to burst out laughing. Or, if it were a pal of mine then I'd know they were playing a joke on me.

But damn, it was tough.

Is this something that women do and don't realize it? Or do they do this as some tease of some kind? Or do they just truly not give a damn that their boobs are fully on display?

There's another post that's along these sorts of lines but I'll hold off on that one for now so as to not muddle the current issue.

Raging Against the Criminal War Machine Posing as Our Government

Was reading my Google News this morning and this, obviously, caught my eye. US Changes Reasons for Attacking Iraq or from the Washington Post, Why the CEO in Chief Needs an Audit
I'm not sure but isn't declaring a war on someone and lying about the reasons for doing it tantamount to commiting a gross crime against not only Iraq but against the American public?

What in the fuck are they doing? How do they honestly think that they can get away with lying to the American people and continue to be able to do their job?

Our government is a conspiracy of criminally inbred morons who obviously don't give the first damn about the country they were elected or appointed to govern over.

First the fleecing and theft of millions and billions of dollars for the Texas energy fucks that made Dick Cheney millions and now this disclosure about committing acts of war on false pretenses.

I am now pretty well positive that if that asshole gets re-elected then I'm done with this fucking country. Any populance stupid enough to re-elect an out and out criminal is not a nation that I want to have anything to do with. This is fucking sickening. I have this vision of a chortling Cheney while Shrub runs around the White House drunk and stoned out of his freaking mind while brainstorming about ways to further corrupt and injure our image on the world stage. These people are dangerous criminals and they are in charge of the most powerful nation in the history of mankind? How? How in the hell did they get elected? Oh yeah, they "won" a state run by the president's brother, how convenient.

I'm thoroughly disgusted with my country and am ashamed of what has happened since this microminded, partisan, Texan dumbfuck took office. Anyone who votes for Bush in 2004 is, effectively, flushing this country's future down the toilet or they're on his payroll (i.e. they're rich enough to be part of his gravy train of trickle down money for the top 1% of the country).

This whole bullshit may be enough to get me started in working for the democrats or the Green Party or anyone who can oppose these crooks who are stealing every last penny they can.

Which makes me wonder, where is the Democratic outrage? Where is the Democratic party, why haven't they voiced their fury about the deception? Why hasn't anyone risen to the top to take on these idiots? What the hell is wrong with the Democratic party that they can't even field anyone with enough clout and charisma to counteract Bush? I couldn't even tell you more than one or two of the Democratic candidates. Why? Because they have no identity.

This whole thing is incredibly disheartening and truly does make me seriously consider other places where I might be able to live and not have to deal with this utter and overt corruption.

Where is the Oversight for the White House? Where are the checks and balances on these obviously corrupt fucks in charge of our country? Where is the public outrage? Or is the nation so loaded up on Prozac, Paxil, Viagra and all those other big pharmaco drugs that no one can bring themselves to give a damn as long as Oprah's on and the remote control's batteries still work?

This is all so, so wrong. I keep hoping I will wake up and things will be normal but I can't wake up because this isn't the American Dream, this is the American Nightmare as perpetrated by ShrubCo. And everytime I see his shit eating smirk I will remind myself that he cannot be allowed to win another term in office, no matter the cost, he must be removed. And should be thrown in jail or exiled. Same thing for Rumsfeld, Cheney, Ashcroft and all the other war monger profiteers posing as elected officials.

MLB News: On This Date
This is a first for Intellectual Poison and will likely not become a regular feature but, since its about the Dodgers (oh the hated Dodgers!), I had to share it.

On July 9, 1894, in a National League game, Louisville beats the Brooklyn Dodgers by a score of 20-8. Nothing all that unusual except that there's no team in Louisville anymore and the Dodgers moved to LA. But the best part is that the score got that high because every Dodger's fielder made AT LEAST one error in the game. And THAT'S amazing!

Any slaps against the Dodgers is good news in my book!
And it coincides with the Dodgers mid season change from sparkling club to the slide they always go through. My permanent motto for the Dodgers is: Sparkle and Fade. And they look to be holding true to form by winning one game out of their last ten!

A Morford Sighting, a Morford Sighting! Oh My!
Was reading my deliciously over-invected Morning Fix this afternoon (for the sheer irony of it all and the fact that I didn't have time to get to it until now) and came across the link a recent interview with Mr. Morford!

Its at Poynter Online and is a pretty good read though I skimmed it and will have to get back at it again to get all the good stuff on my favorite columnist.
And a pic for kicks.....


And a New Word Sighting As Well
Came up with this one on the way back from the water cooler (which has no space to congregate around and talk shop or sports or anything! damn!).

Willionaire - someone who's done nothing with their life but still has tons of money because their parents or grandparents left them millions in their will.

Cody was unimpressed.

Defending the Carnivore
My post from the other day about PETA's lawsuit against KFC (had to change the post here because my archives are screwed up, again oh wait, try this, just tested it and it seems to actually work although I've no idea why my archives keep getting screwed up) elicited a strong reaction from Leblanc at Intellectual Properties that I feel compelled to respond to.

But first, an appropriate quote for the pending argument.
The sign of intelligent people is their ability to control emotions by the application of reason.- Marya Mannes.

The gist of the post is that its no more justifiable to be a vegetarian if the reason for your being a vegetarian is based on the presumption that plants cannot feel pain. She called bullshit on the argument as just another way to justify being a meat eater.

However, I don't think it works that way. Regardless of whether plants can feel pain, I will eat them and the same goes for animals. Why? How can I justify the killing of another animal for my survival? Because its how the world works. The entire tapestry of biological history is one huge food chain of who ate who or what. There are animals that eat vegetation exclusively, they're called herbivores and they include animals like cows, koala bears, deer, rabbits and grasshoppers. Then there are the carnivores that eat herbivores and other carnivores. And then there are omnivores that eat pretty much anything.

We're monkeys, or primates more precisely. Our evolutionary track includes a bump, a moment in our history when we went from being scavengers to hunters. Primates eat meat whenever they can get it, it tastes good and provides a huge burst of energy as well as the building blocks to repair damaged tissues. When we made that leap to becoming hunters, our cultural history truly began for a number of reasons. One, the hunt provided a group bonding experience. Two, the proteins digested from the kills made us stronger and more capable. Three, to hunt successfully we had to be able to communicate.

And no, this isn't mere conjecture on my part. There are scholars that I've read that support this theory as well. Robert Wright among them, the guy who wrote the book I'm currently reading (slowly), Non Zero, the Logic of Human Destiny.

Now let's take a look at vegetarians. We happen to live in a society where one can make choices about one's diet. There are more food options available to people now than ever before in history. And it is possible to live a healthy life by balancing out one's diet so that all of the necessary nutrition is brought into the body. But its an unnatural state for primates to not ingest meat. Yes, its a choice, yes, you can do it and be healthy. But we're meat eaters, our dentition is the most obvious proof of this fact.

Choosing to not eat meat is a choice. Its not a necessity as it is for animals that do not have the physical capacity (i.e. enzymes, digestive system, teeth, etc.) to consume and process meat.

Now let's return to the earlier argument. And no, I'm not saying that all vegetarians don't eat meat because they feel that killing animals is wrong. Some just don't like the taste, some don't like the idea, some just prefer greens. Whatever. But in my construct here, the vegetarian declines to eat meat because they don't feel its proper to take the life of something else to survive. Or that causing pain to a living creature is wrong.

The first of those two statements is very, very easy to dismiss. Pulling an ear of corn off a stalk kills that ear of corn. There's no way to argue to the contrary. Yes, it is the fruit that the plant was bred to produce. But you are killing it nonetheless. Same thing for chard, lettuce, beans and everything else. Once you prepare it to eat, it is dead or dying.

I can hear someone saying that it doesn't kill the plant to pull off the ear of corn but that's irrelevant. Are the Masai less hate worthy because they bleed their cows for nutrition instead of killing them for their meat? They don't kill the animal but they use its parts for their own lives.

And causing pain to a living thing as an argument for vegetarianism is bunkum as well. Its incredibly naive to say that a plant cannot feel pain because it doesn't have nerve endings. Its narrow minded to denounce the argument that all living things cannot feel pain because part of life is the reaction to external stimulus, either wind, rain or the slice of the farmer's scythe. The fact that we cannot currently register that pain on any scale that we can understand certainly cannot be taken to mean that it does not exist. That's incredibly poor deductive logic. It would be like saying that the other side of the moon doesn't exist because we can't see it. Its the fundamental tenet of Cardinal Berkeley's argument for proof of the existence of God and it fails in this instance as well as in his.

The basic fact of life is interaction with the environment. Once that interaction ceases then life has also ceased. Part of that interaction is the response to assaults by bugs, animals or man (maybe that should be animals, including man). Thinking that plants cannot feel pain though they respond to other stimulus is untenable. And yes, their sensation of pain is almost certainly nothing like we know it to be. But the fact that plants react to attacks, by recoiling from flame, by starting new growth to replace the lost growth, by scarring up when possible, is a strong argument for the fact that plants can and do feel some sensation that has an analogue to the pain an animal feels when its injured.

So, the argument of being a vegetarian out of a sense of not wishing to cause pain to living things fails. Just because we cannot register the injury to the plant for having its fruits harvested or its roots torn up or the simple act of cutting the grass, certainly does not and cannot be taken to conclude that they do not feel pain.

I'm sure there are holes in my argument here but the basic foundation is reasonably solid. And I'm more than willing to discuss it further, either in comments or via email or IM or over beers. But come armed with a counter argument that's got some weight, not just calling bullshit and leaving it at that. The world is still a monstrously unknown place for us, why is it so hard to believe that plants can feel the pain of being yanked from the ground.

I could actually even argue that its more barbaric to consume plants because they are still very much alive when we eat them usually. The animals we eat, by and large, are dead and cooked. How easy would it be to be a vegetarian if that lettuce you're eating was trying to escape back to the garden or was squealing as you chomped down on it?

Mommas, Don't Let Your Sons Grow Up to be Assholes
I'm not quite sure why or even really how but I've been feeling like I've been an asshole lately. I can trace a little bit of it to this last weekend but I think that's more symptom than cause.

When I think about it, I can trace it back to the continuing situation with the person I work with who drives me nuts. And that's wrong. There's no way I want this tiny microcosm situation to infect the rest of my life with its poison. So I'm going to make a more concerted effort to be less asshole and more pal.

I'm not even sure if its something that anyone else notices or even cares about but I've left a few conversations and meet ups with pals wondering why in the hell I said some of the things I did. Or when I talk with a co-worker who tells me about being more PC (a term I really and truly fucking hate because its basically a throttle on being who you are but maybe that's a post for another time).

So there ya go, my overt attempt to reprogram my daily interactions. However, that sentiment might have to take a back seat for the second half of this post.

New Humor Link and a Good Story to Start it Off With

I've just added Oddly Enough from my Excite home page because its got some damned funny stories that come up (not all of them are funny though, like the one from yesterday about the skydiver's parachute cords getting cut on purpose so he'd fall to his death).

But this one is worth a laugh or two. Though I feel somewhat bad about someone as abysmally stupid as to hold a gun store with a toy gun. And then the next question is, what in the hell is a gun store doing in Paris?

Neighborhood News
Apparently the 4th of July is about a 96 hour day for some people because its still being celebrated by some dumbasses in my neighborhood. Last night at quarter past eleven some dipshit with his head up his ass thought it would be a good idea to shoot off a mortar, one of those big suckers that has a sonic boom and a spray of colors as it blooms a couple of hundred feet in the air.

This is fifteen minutes after 11 p.m. and they're doing this. Not that I'm asleep by then ever but I'm sure it woke up some of my neighbors. I know it scared the crap out of the animals in the 'hood. And I can only imagine what a joy that must have been for one of my neighbors who had just driven back up from a long weekend down south and was beat.

I just can't get over how inconsiderate and narrow minded some people are to their neighbors. I wish I knew who had done it so I could give them a little piece of my mind.

One More and then I'm Done for Now, Promise
Did anyone else watch Monster House last night on Discovery? It was on after American Chopper (which was another excellent show with lots of views of some of the finished bikes and they really need to make a better gallery on the website!) but Monster House was interesting.

They were turning a house into a wild west saloon type house. Kind of a neat project if a little nerdy but whatever. My favorite part was the "electrician" who was this hulking stud of a man who was absolutely as stupid as a doorknob. He spent three days trying to rewire one outlet. In the end, he quit the show because of gross incompetence. It was kind of funny really because he was your proto-typical high school football star turned gas pumper/fry guy or insert your McJob here.

The Double Commercial Retardo Marketing Technique

I used to think that this was more a sign that some engineer was sleeping on the job and passed out with his hand on the repeat button or something but its not. I'm pretty sure that some companies are resorting to the repetition method of marketing by playing the same commercial again.

The latest one I've seen is actually a pretty funny commercial, the first time. The second time is bugs me. And I will generally resolve to not purchase whatever product they feel they need to force feed into my cranium multiple times.
Its the Comcast commercial of two geeks at a soiree and they approach two technically hot but bitchy superiority complex women. One introduces himself and offers his hand but Ms. Thing rolls her eyes. The other geek can't keep his eyes off of the other's ample and very much on display boobage and says "You must be a model."
When geek #1 tries to work the angle and get the women to go out with them, bitch number one picks up the remote, flips through the directory and puts the TV on a Star Trek rerun because everyone knows that geeks can't pass up a Star Trek episode. Its like a bug zapper for geeks or something.
Anyway, the final scene is the two geeks, enthralled on the couch, the two women are nowhere to be seen.

Not a bad commercial and pretty clever, if more than a little insulting.

But then they replay it again, its not funny at all, its irritating and stupid.
Why would they do this? What possible good can come out of the over marketing of the same ad to people who had literally just seen it a moment before?
Could it be that the network had a quota of commercials they had to fill for that client and this was the only way they could definitely get them all in?

Or is it really a marketing tactic to beat your viewers into submission with the same thing again and again?

Makes no sense to me at all.

Blog Geek Side Note
I've adjusted the color on TypePad IntePoi so as to not effect a convulsive regurgatory upheaval as Jivha suggested the green color scheme might be able to elicit.

So far I'm really liking the interface and customizability of the new system. I will very much look forward to migrating over to it once all the bugs have been worked out though I've yet to run into a single issue with it.

Wedding Info Update
Can someone please explain to me what the crazy mad deal is with women and wedding dresses? P is truly going mad because she's not able to find the exact dress she wants. The one she did find was all beaded but otherwise perfect but she hates the beads so its out.
The search must continue until her prey has been sighted, seized and sized for her. My joy is boundless.

One good note is that we now have the reception site reserved and security deposited so its now ours for those 5 hours on the 4th. And I can cross off one thing on my list of millions of details to be dealt with.

Dubious Honor Work Site News
I will be, in two weeks when our current top sales person has left, the second most senior employee with my company. I'm not sure how to feel about it aside from the fact that I like my job and enjoy the work. But it is strange especially since I've been here for a little more than a year and three months now.

Evil Usage of Media Powers Exemplified
MSNBC Fired Michael Savage for his wishing of AIDS upon a caller, um yeah, good riddance. What an idiot to think he could get away with pretending to be Bill O'Reilly.

Hmm, Maybe I Could and Should Use My Powers for Good
By discussing concept farms like SeaWater Farms that purport to aid the environment by the use of renewable resources and saltwater tolerant and loving plants.

Its a pretty impressive idea and I hope it works actually because we'll have to evolve our agriculture if the planet's going to continue to sustain the ever growing population and demands on resources.

The link comes by way of MetaFilter which has been a hit or miss deal lately. Half the time, my browser reports that no such site exists.

And it has also come to my attention that my blog's been lagging badly on some systems. My thinking is that this was due to a buried archive script in the page code that has since been removed. Please let me know if anyone is having continuing issues with page loads.

Cool New Blog Action News
I've been chosen as one of the hundreds and thousands of beta testers across the blogging world to try out Six Apart's new TypePad blogging system. Its a refined and much more easily implemented version of Movable Type. I can't really say much more than this aside from linking to the new blog, it'll mostly reflect posts from here but may also feature some unique content as well.

Check out the New Intellectual Poison and let me know what you think.

Because It Made Me Grin
I share just a small fraction of the interesting, bizarre and downright creepy internet news stories that I come across in any given day. Today's news link will be no different.
PETA Cries Foul on KFC's Treatment of Chickens

And yes, this story is true and pure uncut comedy gold.
Sure, there's a real issue here (that of chickens being drugged, abused and then slaughtered inhumanely which isn't cool or good or laughable at all) but there's much that can and should be pointed out.

Things like PETA's director of vegan outreach, Bruce Friedrich. They have someone in charge of reaching out to the vegans? And the crux of the lawsuit is that KFC may be treating the animals legally but they shouldn't be lying about it on their website and in their ads. Oh and if they wanted to stop killing and eating chickens then that would be just fine too. Which really must be seen as an overriding and driving goal of PETA in any case. For what more ethical treatment of an animal could there be then to not slaughter it, cook it and eat it?

And the fact that PETA was indignant about their emails to KFC and their parent company, YUM Foods (which is a pretty sick and stupid name in its own right but we'll live it for now), about their deceptive wording on their site. And the fact that no one bothered to write them back. Which makes emminent sense really. If you were legally marketing and legally selling a good that a certain group of people had personal convictions against then would you really care about whatever they choose to yap about? I'm sure there are people within organizations like PETA that spend all day, everyday writing emails, newsletters and other missives to fast food companies and other organizations that they oppose.

And its their right to oppose them, don't misunderstand me at all. People in the USA can and should be able to protest whatever they choose to. Within limits and within the rules.

I eat with vegetarians all the time, I live with one and love one, and there's a more or less unspoken rule about the two camps. Don't piss on my dinner and I won't poo poo on your tofu (that one was for you, Ryan). Every so often some politico veggie ascends the soap box to yap at me about eating animals and how wrong it is. Some will try to disgust me by talking about the body parts I'm ingesting and how wrong it all is. None of this works. And, in fact, it can backfire horribly. Ever see a vegetarian recoil in horror because a meat eater decides to eat with his mouth open? So they can see the meat? Yeah. It puts an end to the soapboxing very, very quickly.

And strangely there's another facet to the issue. P is a vegetarian but eats seafood whenever we can. Lately I've been on a marinated skirt steak kick (well, more so than normal) and while I don't think she's overly tempted by it, I do know she can appreciate its alluring scent and how delicious it looks on the plate, the shiny glazed meat with drippings and charred parts (which are part of the experience for me and I wouldn't have it any other way).

As I've written before, I'm not a very selfish guy in general but get me around skirt steak and I don't want to share anymore. I want it all for myself. Its that good. It is, without a doubt, my most favorite food in the world, even surpassing my lifelong love affair with the God of Cheese, Reggiano Parmesano.

And on that tangent, I'll try to wrap this sucker up with a final thought. The inherent benefit of living with a vegetarian of never having to worry about sharing the skirt steak. She won't eat it so its all mine. ALL MINE! HAHAHAHAHA! Ahhhh, meat bliss!

Side Note/Question
I've been wondering this one for a while now and would like to pose it to the blogging audience, of which I know several are vegetarians.

Why is it more okay to yank fruits, nuts, vegetables and tubers out of the ground or lop them off a tree or other plant than to eat an animal? Is it because animals can display their desire to continue to live by running away or crying or whatever?

It can't be because plants don't feel pain, they do. Perhaps not in the same manner that you or I do, or that succulent fat chicken trying to run away from the chopping block but yes, plants do register and feel pain. Trees form scars where axes have hit them. Part of gardening involved pinching off parts to foster more growth in other areas.

So how can it be justified? My thought is that its more easily justifiable as the lesser of the evils and the fact that we've, as yet, not had to hear the screams of pain that plants make when they are plucked.

It reminds me of a Roald Dahl story I read years ago about an inventor who created a machine to listen to plant life. The inventor was shaken to his core by the screams of agony he heard when he tested the machine by whacking a tree with an axe.

Just because they don't have mouths to scream and legs to run away with doesn't mean that plant life isn't harmed terribly by the action of preparing it for consumption.

So how does that justification work?

My thought would be that the alternative would mean to eat rocks and they are notoriously low in digestable content. Perhaps that's the crux, digestable content. If its digestable then it must be alive or have been alive and if its been alive then it must have been able to feel pain and by feeling pain it is, effectively, the same as an animal.

Just some random thoughts but I would like to hear from some vegetarians about this to see if I can understand how it all works.

The Blog Posts No One Likes to Read or Think About
There comes a time in most bloggers postings that they have to report potentially unsettling and disturbing news. This is one of those times.

Its not as dire as it may seem but its a difficult time for my family and that means its a difficult time for me as well, even given my 3500 mile emotional cushion.

A short background update.
Several weeks ago, my sister gave birth to her second child, another little boy. Born a little early but otherwise in pretty good shape.
He had some seizures and other medical issues that caused the doctors to put a shunt into his head to drain off the bad blood (sorry, that's about all I really know or need to know of this whole process) instead of letting it accumulate.

The baby, Nicolas, is doing reasonably well, has had to have the shunt replaced at least once and is currently in a wait and see mode to find out if the shunt will need to be permanent or not. There's a chance of some brain damage and we're all hoping that hasn't happened.

I didn't think it would be this hard to write about because I'm not obsessing over his health although he is very much on my mind. And perhaps my short temper lately is somewhat tied to this pending angst, the stress of the unknown. Knowing the emotional roller coaster my sister is riding with her baby and her husband's illness as well. And just so I don't leave any dangling story lines, he's sick but not bedridden or anything like that. At this point he is bring treated and is doing just fine with a decent chance of a full recovery. But the emotional toll on them all must be overwhelming at times.

So, Baby Nicolas, get well or get better. You've got a big family that wants nothing than for you to be a happy and healthy little boy.

It sucks because he didn't do anything to deserve this, he's hurt no one, can hurt no one. He's a sweet little tiny baby who's already had the deck stacked against him. And the whole Life's-Not-Fair bullshit just serves to irritate me. Life may not be fair but so what? Does that make it okay? Does disclosure of unfair rules make the game valid?

Sunday Night and I've Still Got All my Fingers and Toes
And really, after a weekend of alcohol and explosives, what more can you ask for?
I will get pics posted ASAP tomorrow but there are also some videos that I will need to work on a bit.
Nothing too outrageous as I was still burning things when Johnny attempted to rally a huge crowd of people into a massive streak. It didn't quite happen but it was another memorable moment of Johnny sprinting around the neighborhood all a floppin'.

Some mystery police action stuff towards the later end of the evening. Rumours abounded about the what-fer's. It turns out that the most dominant story is that someone whacked someone else in the head with a shovel. Said smackee apparently took some measure of umbrage with the action and retaliated by pulling out a knife and stabbing the smacker in the chest a few times. [Update: Here's the item from the Santa Cruz Sentinel: Two Stabbed in Seabright during 4th Festivities]. And there's one excellent bit in there that MUST be reprinted here:
"A Soquel woman was injured when she fired a shotgun into the air and the butt of the gun knocked out some of her teeth, said Santa Cruz Police Sgt. Terry Moore."
Which just goes to say, don't hold the stupid shotgun in front of your face and fire it, dumbass.

Which is generally not the most favored way of spending a holiday or any other day. No news on Saturday and none today although I've not checked the local police report yet.

But other than random and theoretically justified stabbings, it was a pretty good night overall. Enough excitement to cause an old housemate to blow a fuse and toss a beer on me. For P to eventually fall asleep standing up next to me as we surveyed the beach below.

I got to watch the rangers clear the beach like a well oiled machine, six or seven trucks moving from firepit to firepit and rousting people. A second exodus from the beach after all the festivities had officially ended. It strongly reminded me of one of the last dead shows I went to years and years ago in Chicago at Soldier Field.

Once the show was over, the police showed their arm in arm marching capabilities and rousted every single one of the hippies that had hoped to party all night long in the parking lot. Instead, the mass was expelled into the city. But it was the ruthless efficiency and absolultely-do-not-fuck-with-us-'edness of the clearing that struck me. That and their shiny knee high jack boots, soooo reminiscent of the Gestapo but perhaps that was the mild acid we were all on?

Anyway, it was a happy fourth, spent on bicycles among friends and lots and lots of strangers and with the ever present accompaniment of a frosted beverage.

The best new past time I've got going these days? Researching land or houses to potentially buy. There are some crazy deals for land on Ebay and other spots but it would appear that lots of the land available in California is in Ridgecrest where the crime rate is twice the national average and houses selling for $30,000 are lauded as examples of the prime investmentness of the area.

But its fun to check out what's there. And the insane prices that people want to get for their land or houses or whatever. What? Are these people unaware that the economy is sliding and the dotcom bubble burst like two years ago? Ahh, more likely they bought at the top of the boom and are being absolutely abused for it now.

Next weekend is big time wedding planning weekend.
With some beach time, volleyball and bike time thrown in to keep me from going insane.

Sorry the Cheddar X didn't really happen this week, got side tracked and didn't really get around to it. But there really wasn't any crazy outrage so I'm guessing that the world can run a little longer without the questions.

Flipping the Coin
After a post filled with lots of anger, displeasure and unhappiness I feel compelled to try and balance things out with some good stuff.

And, on my short trip to the post office, I got to see lots of good stuff.

Spring and summertime in California cannot and should not ever be overlooked as one of the best times in the whole world to be alive. Not only is Santa Cruz itself just bursting with nature and other good beauty but there are masses upon masses of beautiful women everywhere.

Its truly amazing some days. Just gorgeous women everywhere. Long blond hair, short blond, curly brunnettes and all the other permutations set atop active bodies that are as alluring as their faces. Its a great time to be walking around town as you will undoubtedly see more than a few of those California beauties of legend. Quite uplifting!

The weekend should be loads of fun too as its a long one with Fireworks day tomorrow! And our beach is the center of all the illegal fireworks for miles around. I will try to snap a pic or two before it gets too out of hand. But imagine a huge beach covered with people, all of whom are setting fire to some fuse or another. Its hard to be unhappy amidst all the excitement. And yes, there will be a crew of vollunteers out on the beach on Saturday morning to clean up the firework debris.

It'll be a fun one!

Two Top 5 Lists: Public and Private Personalities That Make My Blood Boil

You voted, I counted and here's the post. I'll get to the runners up in the next couple of days unless I have to launch into a flame war against an asshole commenter over on Layne's site.

I should note that this may seem like an awful lot of anger and hatred but its really not. This list was a tough one to put together because I really am, generally, an upbeat and happy guy. But there are those people that do get my dander up. Let's say that again, I'm not an angry person in general. Normally I am cheerful, interested and engaging or I try to be.

Let's start with the Top 5 Public Personalities:
1. George Bush, ShrubCo's CEO and the means by which we alienate and assault any and all cultures on the planet. Why does Bush make me so angry? Because he's so overlty operating the country like it was his own little private company that its revolting. He has manipulated the taxbreaks for the rich so that they'll kick down vast sums of money for his re-election campaign. He manipulated the USA into an illegal war of aggression in Iraq to root out the terrorist menace and used the 9/11 tragedy as a lever to force Americans into it. Umm, none of the hijackers who caused 9/11 came from Iraq, they were Saudis mostly.
The wrongly named Patriot Act is nothing but an erosion of our rights as citizens of this country.
George Bush is the architect of the rise of corporate greedism that will unravel and derail the US economy for at least a decade after he's out of office. And he will have generated billions upon billions of dollars for his fat, white, old man pals.

2. Bill Gates for dozens of reasons. The first of which is that Microsoft was built upon technology that he STOLE. Based on theft the company has pursued a filthy business model of anti-competition, draconian licensing and upgrade requirements while producing among the worst software available. There are more bugs in a Microsoft software package than there are cockroaches in a Mexican kitchen. And this bugger's the world's wealthiest man? He's a thief.

3. Bill O'Reilly and other hand puppet talking heads for the Republicans. If you're going to be a bitch shill then say so, don't attempt to elevate yourself above the fray and then talk shit about things you don't know. The guy's poison to the American conscious. He spews anger and hatred and calls it a viewpoint and then refuses to allow any possible alternates to enter into the conversation by berating and beating down anyone who dares challenge his decree. He bills himself as a journalist but there's so much bias in him he's positively crooked.

4. Web trolls who spend their time going from site to site attempting to stir up as much trouble as they can to bolster their miniscule self esteem and make them feel important when all they really are is hate spreaders. People that can't see beyond their own stupid, ugly faces and are compelled to knock down anyone that's not living in the muck with them. These are the same assholes who ruin as much of life for other people as possible offline as well as on. And they don't realize that no one likes them, people merely tolerate their presence because they have to, not because they want to. And when they go away, no one hopes they return, people are just happy that the unahppy loser has moved on to other pastures to defile, degrade and debase.

5. Hugh Grant. Or the entire cast of Friends. Hugh Grant because he had the most rude audacity to hire a hooker for some trashy sex (and a damned ugly nasty looking hooker at that) while he had been very seriously involved with Elizabeth Hurley. who is among the most beautiful women on the planet in my mind. That and he always plays the same stupid, foppish English wanker character in every movie he's been in. And he's some kind freaking sex symbol? Why? He's a pasty nimrod with about as much talent in his whole body as someone like Gene Hackman's got in his fingernail clippings. Yeah, he drives me nuts. And this one also gave me a further idea, a few people that used to be on this list but have since been removed for various reasons.

And Friends? I can't stand that lame dick shitty show. Sure, they are all beautiful people on the outside but they are fucking idiot losers. David Schwimmer? What's his character's main trait? Being an insecure dumbshit. Drug Boy? What's his name, Matthew Perry? He's the frenetic over reactor, oooh big stretch there. Matt LeBlanc, he's the dumb guy, again huge stretch, work those acting classes. The women are all beautiful but so severely irritating that they'd get a slapping. The show is disreality, its about as real as twinkies. Here's my big question for Friends. How in the hell can six people live in New York City and never, ever see a black person on the show?

I hate Friends because its a homogenized and sanitized limp dick show about insipid characters. I know lots of people LOVE it but so what? Lots of people love watching Nascar but I couldn't care less about the "sport". I like shows like American Chopper, Monster Garage, Junkyard Wars, Futurama, The Daily Show, Baseball, Iron Chef and almost anything on Discovery or TLC or the Food Network. There are plenty of other TV personalities that bother me, Dharma and Greg is pure garbage, ditty Will & Grace, Jenny Jones (who is so bothersome my blood pressure goes up just thinking about her), Everybody DOES NOT Love Raymond and dozens of other shows that are just time fillers without even the slightest drop of creativity to them.

And I do hate bad marketing or marketing intended to piss you off (ala Carrotop selling collect calls) or marketing that's just confused like the Coinstar commercial with the tooth fairy in it who changes in all the coins into bills. But the tooth fairy doesn't collect money, she leaves it so how in the hell does that construct work? What, is she going to start leaving paper money for teeth? You can't go shifting paradigms like that in a commercial. Its just a bad idea taken from the drawing board to real life and should have been killed when it was first aired.

And now let's get to the Top 5 Private Personalities That Enrage Me:

There are a bunch to choose from so I'll have to cut down on the criteria some. It would be far too easy to put in the person I work with who's a loser with their head firmly planted in their own backside. But they are just not important enough to warrant the thoughts. So let's get started. All names with held in the interest

1. A guy who lives in the house behind my old house. He has a way of rubbing EVERYONE wrong and seems to not understand when someone is WITH another person that its really very, very uncool to keep trying to pick them up. In fact, its a really good way of getting the shit kicked out of you. Which has happened to him on at least one occasion I know of. He's not a bad guy when he's not trying to pick up your fiance but that's a major character flaw that's just about impossible to overlook.

2. Another guy from the neighborhood who would inflict his company on me from time to time. He'd come over to see my housemate and would end up trying to hang out with me instead so he could tell me about how awesome he is, how popular he is (so much so that he had to delete one name from his phone directory so he could add a new one). A wank that attempted to penetrate our group of friends under some very suspect pretenses. He lied about what he'd been in jail for when in fact, he'd gone to jail for using a pistol as a club to beat the crap out of a guy and his ex-girlfriend.

3. My ex-housemate from Tempe, Arizona. Years ago this dumbfucking moron got the great idea to use a color copy machine to make fake twenty dollar bills and buy $10,000 of marijuana from the Mexican mob. And then he skipped town but not before he'd helped himself to some of my things on the way out the door. So I was not only out some of my prize possessions that he stole but I also had to deal with a very, very displeased guy from the Mexican mob. It was only because I was so genuinely and thoroughly pissed off at him that this guy didn't hold me responsible for this asshole's idiocy. And no, I'm not making this up.

4. Another housemate from Arizona State, he was actually the subject of the motorcycle accident post from a few weeks ago. He was a pretty good guy when I first met him and we were good friends. But, over time, he slowly and inexorably slipped to the dark side, the mullet wearing dumbass crowd that thinks culture is reading the bottle of low budget beer you're drinking from. I once witnessed him eat popcorn all weekend because he didn't have any money and they were throwing it out from the theatre where he worked sometimes.
After his accident and splitting his head open, he became worse and worse. His nickname became, "Can I Have a Bite of That" because that's what he would say everytime anyone was eating anything. Someone could be eating horseshit with cocktail sauce and he'd ask for a bite. I honestly think it was one way he supplemented his diet.
He had to go after he and another room mate got the brilliant idea of stealing toilet paper instead of buying it. I was awoken at 3 in the morning by the cops one night and came out to a pile of toilet paper, candy bars and assorted vending machine crap that they'd stolen from a couple of machines they'd smashed.
My guess is that he's still drifting through Tempe, breaking into cars at night and basically inflicting his presence on whomever will tolerate him.

5. The last is a minor dislike now, it had been a raging angry red hatred for a long time but now its just a dull throbbing reddish dislike. Why waste the energy on someone who's not worth the time? But she had been for a while. We'd gone out together for a bit, she'd gone on the wagon (and man did she need to break that cycle) and we had a lot of fun for a while. But she slipped and fell off the wagon in a huge way, slept with my housemate and then accused me of being a drama queen. And when I told her about my pending nuptuals, she had no response at that moment but the next thing I knew, she'd grabbed her gear and run from the bar. The sole person in everyone either P or I told about the wedding that was not enthusiastic about it for us. Her response was shock and anger. So she gets to be number 5 and that's only because I don't really feel like dredging up the guy who jumped me a few years ago (though I somewhat deserved it) or any of a few dozen other jackhole wanks who deserve a public lashing.

And that wraps up the enraging people, how about finishing up the post with a little good news and talk about those people that used to make my blood boil but have since been removed from those lists?

Top Few Removals from the List of People that Enrage Me

1. Ben Affleck. Not because of the whole stupid J. Lo thing because, quite honest, I don't see the uber attraction to her. Sure, she's a great looking woman but so what, there are plenty of great looking women in the world. No, Ben used to drive me nuts because he was a one face actor for a long time. That one look of sardonic surprise and that New Kids on the Block hair was bad in the worst way.
What changed my thinking? It was a slow process of erosion of my dislike (much to my brother's chagrin who now dislikes him and used to bait me with Ben Assflap leading questions). First off, Dogma kicked ass. It was a damned good performance by both Matt and Ben and it made me laugh alot. What else? He's a Boston guy and he's tried to stay as normal as possible after becoming a super star, he still hangs out with his high school pals and is a pretty down to earth. So Ben has been pulled from the blood pressure spiking ranks.

2. Actually that's about all I can think of right now. I'm sure that more will come to me as the day goes on and I'll try to revisit this post to add them in but for now we'll just go with Benny.

A Little Ganja for your Chips, Mon?
Got this news from Jay and I went out to track it down because I couldn't believe it at first. But no, its true, Woman Finds Bag of Dope Inside Bag of Chips.

That's about it for now but I've got another post I'll start working on. It would appear that #7 Top 5 Public and Top 5 Personal people I harbor a severe dislike for (and, of course, why). I know the first couple will be very easy to pick out but those last few will be hard.

Google Goodness
I got this neat Google trick forwarded to me by Esther this morning.

Go to Google and enter in "Weapons of Mass Destruction". Then click "I'm Feeling Lucky" and you'll get a little surprise.

I've got a lot of things to talk about and no time to do it so maybe I'll try blogging by committee. Here are the choices for a post this afternoon.
1. Product review and epiphany from using the new portable lie detector.
2. More techno fun reviewing the Sony Clie SJ30 (even though its about to be replaced already).
3. Wedding updates.
4. Family news, its not great but its also not horrible.
5. Fourth of July plans.
6. Personality facets to examine, my desire to learn how to be left handed, my tendency to save things until they expire, etc.
7. Top 5 Public and Top 5 Personal people I harbor severe dislike for.
8. Domestication joys.
9. Possible Honeymoon destinations.
10. Buying a car.

So there ya go, a hodge podge of concepts I've got bouncing around and these are just off the top of my head. There are plenty more. And I've got Cheddar X Questions going as well.

Leave a comment with what you'd be interested in hearing about and I'll see which post gets written this afternoon or evening.

Today's Quote -
The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues.- Marcus Aurelius

Um, Why Does this Scare Me?

Because its a sign of very unsettling times to come.
U.S. Develops Urban Surveillance System which, the article says, will be used to protect Americans in foreign countries and that's all well and good. But who's to stop our government from turning the camera's on us?

This new software and imaging system will record data for months at a time and allow our government to analyze any site on the planet. The software also allows high speed data analysis of bank records and other financial transactions to get a sense of what the terrorists are up to. But again, what's to stop them from using this on Americans? Or what if they redefine terrorist to mean anyone who doesn't agree with ShrubCo? What if a terrorist of tomorrow is just a Democrat today?

Scary quote of the day - "Government would have a reasonably good idea of where everyone is most of the time," said John Pike, a Global Security.org defense analyst.

Not that I expect things to happen that quickly but we are quickly approaching an Enemy of the State kind of scenario with the ability to look into places that the government has absolutely no business being able to look into. It scares the shit out of me to think about what privacy laws will be like in ten years or fifty years. There are already cameras everywhere, so much so that its impossible to go into any sizable town and not have your image recorded, without your consent or knowledge, for later analysis. Well this new software gets rid of that "later" part and goes straight to the analysis upon recording the images.

It'll be an easy seque from use overseas to "protect" Americans to being used by the police in the US to catch criminals to being used to make sure that crimes aren't being planned to having a camera on every man, woman and child in America at all times so that there will be no sedition whatsoever.

To which I say, when that happens, I am sooooo out of here. That or I'd better get my ass into politics so I can fight the system from the inside.

What in the hell is happening to freedom in this country anyway?

And this isn't even to mention about the rightness of being able to look into any other country. What gives us the right to spy on the world? Sure, there are matters of national security and what we need to do to protect the unholy sanctity of the American Way of Life. But do we really possess the right to do almost whatever we feel necessary to preserve ourselves?

What about our interests? Our allies? Our oil suppliers? Our cheap electronic device suppliers? Our cheap car makers? Where does it end?

Stripperella Turns 36 Today
Yep, Pamela Anderson's 36 today and is still the reigning uber hottie on the planet, shame she's got such terrible taste in men. But maybe that just gives hope to the legions of men who lust for her from the palacial confines of their double wides.
Which, of course, gives me a chance to repost the Stipperella cartoons from last week.
and the stamps



Happy Birthday to the Modern Day Aphrodite!

Morning Wood, Damage Control and Spinning the Church's Sexual Abuse Issues
Warning, religious rant dead ahead, be forewarned.

Ahh, nothing like a sick day to revitalize one's motivations. And it would appear that leblanc over on intellectual properties could have done with another day added to the weekend and subtracted from the work week.

Yesterday was spent gathering up a whole bunch of project threads and finishing many of them off. It felt good to cross a few things off of my lists. Of course, the list continues to grow with each passing moment but working towards the end is an end in and of itself.

We're now knee deep in invitation planning and design. There will be a pre-invite mailing to a bunch of folks to make sure they have the day saved or marked off or something. We're planning the favors, entertainment, food and about five thousand other things, each of which costs money, money, money. Loads of fun, this whole wedding thing, really.

But it is coming together and we're both enjoying ourselves thus far. It does strike me from time to time just how short the time we've been together really is. Half a year now. That's amazing to me, where we started and where we are now.

By this time next year I would expect that we'll be way further down the tracks.

Another nice thing that's happening right now is the old house I was in, the place I'm supposed to be the property manager for, yeah, that's being taken out of my hands altogether which is just fine. I just don't have the time or inclination to do it, nor the patience to deal with a house full of 20 something guys who don't really notice that their mommas ain't there to pick up their shit. There will be a walk through today to determine if they will be allowed to stay or whether the house will be cleaned out, cleaned up and re-rented to a bunch of new people. Which is a bummer on some levels because I love the house but I just can't do it there anymore.

So, onto the other topics in the headline.

I saw the Boston Archdiocese replaced Cardinal Law (should have been in Judge Dredd comics with that name) for his mishandling of the Church's little sodomite problem it was having with the preacher men. Umm, how hard is it to deal with men molesting children? Take them out back and beat them senseless with ax handles until they denounce their actions. Come on now.

Anyway, the news said that the replacement Cardinal is going to have a sit down meeting with the molested kids (and, I would assume, their families as no self respecting parent would fall for that trick twice). I imagined what he might say, italics are his internal dialogue.

"Well now, folks, thank you very much for coming." oh God, did I just say coming, oh shit, they're going freak on me
"I know there have been some horribly actions undertaken in the Lord's house in the past but those days are behind us." holy shit, I just said behind, now they think I'm talking about the boy's backsides, those lovely and lucscious buttocks, oh shit, shut up and talk
"I would like to be the first to tell you that things have changed, the bad people have all been removed and we can all get back to the matter at hand, that is the worship of Jesus Christ, our lord and savior. That's the one thing I would like all of you to take home with you today. The unspeakable actions taken by the Lord's agents were not done with his permission, they were done in direct opposition to the teachings and ways of the Lord. Please don't hold God responsible for what these men have done in the past."

To which, Timmy asks, "But if they work for God and God knows everything then how could he have not known and somehow made it okay for Father Angry Inch to touch my bottom?"

And Cardinal Spin Doctor replies, "The Lord works in mysterious ways, son. The only thing I can tell you is that these men were not men of God and their actions were reprehensible. But do not let their actions change how you feel about the Lord, he has not foresaken you, his love for you is greater than ever before. He needs your love as much as you need his. Please don't leave, don't allow the tremendous body of scientific knowledge, theory and experimentation to penetrate your skulls to the fact that God's merely a construct, a facade created by man to explain the unexplainable which has since been explained and now the Church is the societal equivalent of the coccyx, the vestigal tailbone. It sits at the base of the spine and is a reminder of our past but really has no bearing on who and what we are today. No, the Lord needs you more now than ever before. And as payment for your continued faith, we offer a permanence, an eternity in heaven. Sure, there's no proof that there's a heaven or that all your efforts in this lifetime will grant you entry to the realm but we can offer it safely and securely in the knowledge that its not possible to disprove the existence of heaven because you've got to die before you get in. And dead people tell no tales which is what I told the priests that were buggering parishioners. Anyway, don't allow the weak willed men who fondled you in the name of the Lord break your faith in the Lord, it wasn't the Lord commanding them, it was their own perverted (and mutated) sexuality that drove them to it, that and the draconian laws of sexual practices forced upon men of the cloth."

Maybe it wouldn't be quite so drastic but what can he say to these people that have already been so damaged by the Church? He doesn't want them to leave the Church but he's caught between a rock and a hard on here.

And yeah, on that excellent pun I will leave this off as I'm just rambling and really need to get to work!

Happy July 1!