Intellectual Poison

And they shall breed the heathenous Blue Staters out of existence for God shall visit again and again and again the wombs of God fearing Red state women. Meet the Duggars, all 17 of them (that's 1 daddy, one extraordinarily tired mommy and 15 children in 16 years), members of the Full Quiver Movement (basic belief of the movement: get pregnant as much as you can and make as many "believers" as possible) and, not surprisingly, the White Supremacists love them.

Me? I think being pregnant for 15 of the last 16 years is insane in and of itself. But learn about this Full Quiver Movement and you realize that these are some pretty messed up folks. The women are called "Prairie Muffins" (link is to the Prairie Muffin Manifesto and no, it isn't a joke), are subservient to the men, dress up like Little House on the Prairie and basically have no life except to be baby factories for their menfolk.

Via.

Recipe for instant tv success.

1. Hire hotties to be the characters. Make sure they have no problem dropping their clothes whenever needed (i.e. when rating sag or the storyline comes up against some implausible "realities").
2. Do something stupid, crass or both to generate a ridiculous amount of buzz and interest. Like, I don't know, a stupid lead in to Monday Night Football of nudity, interracial sex and whammo, instant ratings!

I'm sure Desperate Housewives' success has nothing to do with the shock marketing they employed a couple of weeks ago. I'm sure its really about some Busybody body putting 'Housewives' over top.

And the lesson learned here is that it doesn't matter how you get people to look, just that you get them to look.

Has anyone been following Janet Jackson's and Justin Timberlake's sales numbers since their infamous "wardrobe malfunction"?

We are a nation of overtly shocked gaspers who then crowd in to see what's going to happen next. And that's just really pretty fucking sad.

I for one will never watch Desperate Housewives. I wouldn't have anyway but I'm going to go out of my way to give it three red thumbs down on the Tivo. That'll show 'em!

Here are the first four of many pictures from the holiday trip back east starting with the Family arrives in Boston and then we plunge right into the festivities with Cam playing guitar above Nic, later an extra-happy Nic and the Joy Horse and, the last of the first round, a surreal P in swirls.

There will be more, that's for sure. And there's lots more news to report as my first full day back in the beleaguered office and all the scuttlebutt. It ain't good. Although no one got fired while I was gone so that's something. But there were some public smackdowns and those rarely bode well.

You're Drunk...who You Gonna Call? and that's the problem. Most people don't really dig on the incoherent horny ramblings of ex's looking for sex's. And the incoherent rambler will almost certainly regret the attempt the next day.

So now a company is allowing its wireless subscribers to "turn off" certain numbers that you might be likely to call in a alcohol fueled fit of passion. That way you can get pissed to the wind and have one less thing to apologize for the next day.

That's technology working for ya!

Side note: Two thirds of people responding to the iWon poll about Martha Stewart's genetically driven requirement to make a sickening profit off of everything little damned thing she does and her latest effort, writing a book about her prison experiences, say that "No, not a chance" that they would be interested in reading her book. My prediction is that she'll make at least a hundred million off it anyway. Unless there's some steamy hot shower sex scenes, then she'll make a half billion and sell the movie rights for another $200 million.

I found this, Mom admits cutting off baby's arms over on Partnership for an Idiot Free America.

So this nutfuck chops her 11 month old daughter's arms off and then calls 911 and waits for the paramedics to come while her child bleeds to death and she listens to church music.

I say her punishment is the same as her crime. Chop her damned arms off and wait for the paramedics but make her listen to Marilyn Manson or some awful shit music.

The article discusses a few other recent incidents of mentally munged up moms killing their children on God's orders.

Let's say this again as I'm sure I've already said it before. If "God" is telling you maim your children then perhaps its time to find a new God to listen to. Any God that would want you to kill or maim children isn't deserving of any worship and should be recast as a fucking devil. There is no God but even if there were, he wouldn't be telling mothers to kill their children. Unless he was drunk and pissed off.

But then, this all happens in Texas so maybe the God in Texas is a drunk asshole who tells moms to butcher thier kids. Another good reason to be an athiest, God don't come a-knockin' at my door.

WalMart's green just ain't anywhere near as cool as Target's : Entertainment : Marijuana. (backup screenshot just in case someone over there realizes its up and pulls it.)

via.

"Mother is the most beautiful word in the English language, followed by passion, smile, love and eternity, according to a worldwide survey."

There was no mention of where "Father" placed.

Man, that Dorothy had it way too freaking easy with those ruby slippers. Click your heels together and zappo.

Maybe its because I left my ruby flats at home on this trip that we had to fly, well, drive and then fly and then fly and then drive.

There will be lots of pictures to go through and many stories to tell but we are happily home again. All in one piece though all of our nerves are pretty well frayed almost to the breaking point.

It was a long, long day but tonight we sleep in our own bed with Nande by our side.

And Pontiac? They don't even know how to spell "gauges". The proof is forthcoming.

Good night and thank my foresight for already taking tomorrow off because there ain't no way I'm working tomorrow. Nope.

Maybe because the horror stories of travelling with little kids are wildly told and embellished to Homeric epics of toil, hardship, screams, cries and tantrums, but I was a little nervous as we packed up the Huh? family and headed back east for the old time Thanksgiving tradition.

But we really needn't have worried at all, Graydon was nearly an angel the entire trip. He cried a little bit but was, for the vast majority of the time, mellow, curious and not a problem in the least.

It was when we got to Boston that trouble found us for a little while. Nothing overly serious, just things that slowed down the process of getting from airport to my mom's house several hours away.

First, the car seat they tried to rent us was awful and most likely completely illegal. The brought in another one but it didn't have the base to lock it in to the car. The third one was the charm and was a good fit, in good shape and not a hazard to my son's life.

So I got it loaded into the car and we were just about to head out when I noticed the front driver side tire was resting on the ground. No air in it at all. And we were about to head out on a 160 mile trip? Yeah, they switched us out for a new car lickety split.

By the way, Pontiac Bonnevilles? I don't understand how a car so huge on the outside could be so terribly badly designed on the inside. Cramped space, stupid use of space and the over riding sense that American cars are still pieces of shit.

The next stop was the rudest McDonald's on the east coast. Literally everyone in the place acted like we asked them to drink battery acid when we tried to put an order in. The food was disgusting (more so than usual) and I demanded our money back. Those people in that McD's suck and they should be bundled up and shot into the sun.

The rest of the drive up was uneventful but lots of rain, fog and tired eyes.

But the fun was only just beginning. When it finally became time to sleep, Graydon's stomach was massively upset and there was no sleep. For any of us. Pretty much all night long.

So here I sit with another big day ahead, almost no sleep and a hankering for some deep fried Tom Turkey followed very shortly by some massive men bashing into each other in pursuit of a pigskin. Ahhh, I love Thanksgiving!

So it's Thanksgiving week now, my family has already begun to mass up back on the east coast and we're prepping for Graydon's first trip, first plane ride, first visit to New England and first Thanksgiving.

It should be a great time if all the puzzle pieces fall into place at the right time in the right order. But that's what today is all about. Tracking down the verifiable confirmations of arrangements and doing as much as possible to get the others as locked down as possible.

I finished the fence yesterday and did a pretty damned fine job if I do say so myself. I did screw up one or two areas but I think I can fix one spot pretty easily and the other is just gonna be messed up. Its not bad by any means and I'm really very proud of my huge gate I built in. Especially since it now swings freely and has two locking mechanisms on it so it should last a little while. I'll be putting in a little but of time out there today but most of the day will be spent running errands and wrapping up loose ends.

I didn't win the football either, my best week and I wasn't even in the running for the pool. Oh well, I'm still climbing through the ranks so maybe I'll win the whole thing without winning a single week. That'd be fine.

By the way, I picked up a sweet new cordless drill at Home Depot yesterday. Its a Skil X-Drive 18v drill with speed charge batteries (that's right, it came with a spare!), a worklight built into the handle, a T-handle for extra pushing power and even a spare laser level to help hang pics properly. It was a bargain and we really needed it. The quick charge batteries worked perfectly too. I had to switch them out twice as I worked through the afternoon and into the night. But they were always ready to go by the time I needed them.

So I'm off to start working my chores list. Its extensive today.

Metafilter | Redesign Contest. Pretty straight forward, redesign MetaFilter, win cool stuff. Easy. I wonder what I should do after lunch?

There's not much that's very techy about a post hole digger, either the hand held bladed model that is mashed into the earth time and again to remove handfuls of dirt at a time or the gas powered auger version.

But there's a decent amount of technology behind quick dry cement, pressure treated lumber and the very sweet and worth every penny of it No-Sag Gate Frame Kit that's now given me a bat door exit from my yard.

The fence is nearly complete, one or two more trips to Home Depot should about cover it. Oh yeah and the phone company needs to come out and make sure I'm not gonna kill my phone line with the last post.

And then, once the fence has been completed, then I will burn as much of the old fence as I can. I'll have my grill and sausage ready in case the fire department comes out to investigate. But it should burn damned fast since its such bone dry shitty wood.

On a positive note, it looks like I'm in good shape to finally win the damned football pool. We'll see though since its always conceivable that someone ran the table.

And, lastly, I might stay up late and waste time and play video games because I don't have to work tomorrow! Oh yeah, I am off work until next Tuesday! And lots of fun travel stuff in between now and then.

But it really does feel good to have built a fence to be proud of. I've gotten several compliments already. It'll be nice when its all done.

I got the link to an article at MSNBC called Addiction to porn destroying lives, Senate told over at Ryan's. The gist of the story is that people who are addicted to porn suffer from an addictive pull that's stronger than heroin.

Which makes me wonder, what if a heroin addict is also addicted to porn?

US military 'still failing to protect journalists in Iraq' (Guardian reg. req. use login: grauniad@stereo.lu and pass:grauniad from bugmenot.com).

"Actions speak louder than words. The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the US military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by US forces," Mr Jordan told an audience of news executives at the News Xchange conference in Portugal."

I'm sorry but what the fuck? And detaining journos for extended periods without even charging them, just holding them? Yeah, I'm sure we're winning friends and influencing people all over the world with this shitty behaviour.

[Update: From Ryan's comment and a couple of new sites I've been introduced to. Common Dreams, US Admits Killing Arab Journo, Does The US Military Want To Kill Journalists, a list of dead journos and another list from AlJazeera.net, The Guardian's Journo Death Toll Tally: 51.

And I just added a post to IP Politik that details what $87,000,000,000 looks like as well as what the death toll in Iraq looks like when represented by silver BB's.]

There are a few things that are more depressing than watching a 15 year old boy walking to school and smoking cigarettes along the way.

He's setting himself up for a rougher life than he has to.

What does the condemned man think about just before the axe comes down and severs his head from his shoulders? What does he think in that last moment where his conscious mind can see his head being removed and tumbling into the basket below?

That's right folks, its time to cull the ranks again here at Joy Corp. The writing's on the wall, the judges have arrived to sit over the proceedings.

I know the axe is poised to chop a head off, I don't think its me but I'm tied down just like my co-workers. Someone's going to get shorter and deader.

And, even if it isn't me, I'm reminded that its time to really put some time in and effort in to get my resume back out into the workplace and see if there's another place that would like to have me. I think the first thing to do is list out those things I want in a workplace and those things that I refuse to have in a workplace (like Leblanc's hatred of flourescent lighting and windows that don't open).

But for now, I'm keeping my head down, lest it be severed from my body. Metaphorically speaking of course.

It has been a closed community for a long time but has now been reopened to signups, there is a one time $5 fee but that's a bargain considering how much time you can spend there.

Check it out if you want in, New Member Signup.

Yeah, another WTF? news post: Homosexuality Worries Get School To End Cross-Dressing Day.

Yeah, because everyone knows you get "The Gay" by wearing a dress if you're a guy.

I'm more surprised that this was EVER allowed in a homo-hating state like Texas.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this so I'm just going to post it and see what happens. Mom Breastfeeds Puppy to Protect Baby.

Um, how's that work?

Do people who smoke while driving actually think that driving around with their arm thrust out their window keeping their little smoking cancer stick outside will make them or their cars smell any less like noxious smoke?

Or do they think it looks cool?

Especially when the window is only partially rolled down and they have to rest their forearms on the diagonal section and they have to sit forward?

Not cool, it doesn't work, your car smells like ass, you smell like ass and you look stupid doing it.

Speaking of smelling like ass, today was the first morning in several where the entrance to the slough where Nande and I walk every morning, today was the first day in several where we didn't have to wade through some heavy, stinky and sulphuric swamp gas aka methane from the sewage system.

Made for a nicer walk and our new favorite game is to toss rocks for Nande to race after down into the brush along the side of the slough. She's so fixated on the little rocks that she barely even noticed the walkers going by.

Next up, getting the first CYOB post up. I think what I'll do is repost the stories in their entirety after they are complete including those option stages. And maybe if I've got an extra day or two, I'll actually set up the html pages to actually make the mini adventures work for reals. It is possible to include graphic elements this way too. It could be a good time but time's the factor I just don't have in much abundance these days. Though I am about to have all next week off so maybe I'll squeeze it in then.

You have achieved a new milestone, congratulations.

You are now on the same marketing level as AOL. With your fucking mailed out signup CD's, your store handouts and your other in-your-face marketing, nicely done.

You're also like leprosy. I wouldn't touch you for money.

And, because you shitholes saw fit to mail me out yet another over sized signup CD, I had to wait in the fucking line at the post office to get your junkmail. So I smashed it into many small pieces and threw it away.

Keep sending me your stupid signup CD's and I'll just keep smashing them and telling everyone who'll listen what a lame ass fucking company yours is.

Have a shitty day, you marketing asswipes.
Sincerely,
Johnny Huh.

PS. For wasting another 20 minutes standing in line, I will expect a check to reimburse for my time and now for my mental anguish. I think a nice even $25 million should cover it. You already have my address.

This is going to be some pretty shameless product plugging in this post but its also a cool convergence story so maybe it'll be interesting outside of the geek factor.

I've slowly been learning more and more about the Tivo machine we now use to filter the fluff on television. By the way, quick side note, if you want to save some more money on your cable bill, call them up and chat them up for a bit, P got them to kick down $10 coupons through the next year just by asking!

So the Tivo helps make it so that I don't really watch much television anymore aside from what I've got taped or if its some sports. I've found that I really don't care all that much about the sports once the outcomes already been decided so I have to watch it live.

Anyway, I wanted to get the Tivo hooked into my network at home so that I didn't have to worry about the wonky telephone line it tried to dial into for updates. And I wanted to be able to access my iPhoto library and my iTunes library.

I bought a Linksys WUSB11 wireless network adapter for the Tivo for $50 at Staples, didn't get it set up at all, just plugged it into the USB port on the back of the Tivo and it immediately recognized my network.

A little monkeying around with settings later and I published a bunch of photo albums and nearly my entire musical library to the tv downstairs. Its pretty cool, not overly fast to scroll through the library and the graphic rendering is a little slow but its nice. The system works very easily and I can now very easily show off slideshows I've made of Graydon or Nande or my Arty Pics. And I can very easily set up the Tivo to play dinner music or baby music or whatever I want. Its cool, very cool.

If you've got a wireless network and you've got a Tivo, go get one of these sweet little adapters and you can increase the usefulness of your Tivo exponentially as well!

Add in the ability to program the Tivo over the web and I'm just becoming more and more impressed with this magic box. I wish I'd gotten the model with the DVD burner built into it but I still really, really like this set up. And I can't wait until they finally get HD in my neighborhood because that will totally kick ass!

Check out this pic and tell me you're not a little scared.



No? Sorry, you're lying.

Its time for this week's Cheeser Cheeser questions but they aren't questions this time around, they're word associations and I think I'm going to do the double up again. Go through the list once, write in whatever words leap to mind and then use the generated list to go through it again. Sound like fun? Go and get in on it!

Fluffy bunnies - Harvey the Rabbit
Coffee - Mine's cold
Flat tax - Seems fair enough
Fair and open - Unfair and obfuscated
Truth - Endangered
Justice - nowhere to be found
America - like a sinking ship
The Culture of Fear - Baaaaah! Sheep go to heaven
Honesty - Weakness
Justice - Scott Peterson
Freedom - Not free
Comfort - A baby's smile
Soothing - A baby's coos
Healing - Knowing nothing lasts forever
The Future - See Healing above.

Yep, that'll do it for me, I don't really feel like running back through them right now, maybe I'll get to it later on when there's not so many hot items in my in-box. Want some Cheese? Go and get some!

In what will likely be a pretty shockingly massive exodus of cabinet members over this week, Colin Powell has quit working for George Bush.

He will likely go on a two or three week bender, get all those nasty memories burned out of his skull and, in a year or two, he'll start thinking about 2008 and a run for office. He played ball for them (those becloaked shadow masters of the GOP), they owe him. I'm not sure if they owe him a presidency but they do owe him big. What's the going rate on dignity, professional reputation and public ass kicking?

Anyway, I got into a conversation with a friend this weekend and she was adamant that 2008 will be the election cycle of the woman. She thinks Hilary Clinton is going to run and she thinks that the GOP will post up Condeleeze Rice.

Yes, folks, I had someone actually trying to tell me that the GOP, a noted group of racist mysogyinists are going to allow a black woman to run for the highest office in the land? She refused to listen to the basic fact that the majority of the electoral base of the GOP would NEVER, NEVER vote for a woman OR a black candidate, combine the two and there is literally no chance she'll get the nomination.

She also suggest Elizabeth Dole as a possible candidate. But hey, whatever, people are welcome to whatever pet crackpot theories they want to subscribe to. (Actually that's a good name for a blog or a band, Pet Crackpot Theories. It could be good fun.)

See, the problem with these cabinet resignations? If we could only get George Bush to quit, then we'd be in better shape. Except he'd likely be replaced by Dick and that would usher in a whole new era of clamp downs on rights that I don't think anyone is very interested in seeing.

Colin's out, who's next?

Don't hit your house's water line with a post hole digger. It'll pretty much ruin the rest of the day.

On the positive side, I learned a new trick. On the negative side, I lost all day Saturday to some pretty decent flooding.

And I had to have water shut off until after 8. And the water to my neighbor's house, the one who doesn't like me already. It was good fun, let me tell you.

Another quarter of the fence is complete now though. And I'll be working on the gate this week to make next weekend pretty straight forward, I hope.

In a strange crossing of news stories, I was talking about ODB's Collapse and Death in New York Studio but my wife thought I was talking about Dick Cheney and his hospital trip for a cold.

Nope, someone with real talent, a funny guy and someone who will be missed. I mean, how could you not like a guy named Ol' Dirty Bastard?

Cause of death hasn't been revealed yet but I'm guessing that either drugs or the aftereffects of drug use. But that's just me.

Man, I hope it doesn't turn out that he was poisoned or anything, that would mean there will be retribution killings and the rap world will get all nasty again.

And, playing San Andreas, I keep listening to Eazy E and think about that damned funny spoof commercial from a few years ago when they had rappers talking about what's on their Palms and all of them said, "Every chick Eazy got with because I ain't getting the AIDS like him. Poor sucka!" Maybe it was funnier then.

So, I've been thinking about ways to make Intellectual Poison a more enjoyable blog for the five or ten folks who read here regularly (and aren't still trying to find picks of the girl that Kobe Bryant raped, ohhh so sorry, allegedly raped).

What I came up with is a Choose Your Own Adventure style blog postings. I am thinking that I'll start a post that sets up a story and then offer a few possible directions to take the story in. Depending on responses, the story will follow the will of the people.

Sound like fun? It might be. I was also thinking it would be fun to start a story here and then pass it around to friends to add on to and build a story kind of like the old game of telephone. I'm not quite sure how it'll go but I'm keen to give it a run.

And I think that is the first real teaser post I've put up here in quite some time.

Its not what I would call nice humor but I did think it was clever and marginally funny, check out the NYPost Front Page for a little fun bashing on a widow (yeah, it sounds very, very uncool written out like that).

via.

Scott Peterson Convicted of Murdering Wife

First degree murder in the death of his wife and second degree murder in the death of his son. There will obviously be an appeal but I'm glad he was found guilty. I've thought he's been guilty ever since it happened.

Now the question is, should he be put to death or should he be allowed to live out his days in prison?

I found a link to BlogExplosion.com over on Easy's site the other day and like the idea of it (basically, you can earn credits for exploring through their catalog of signed up blogs to get folks to come and explore your blog).

The system works well and I've already come across several blogs that I hadn't known before and will likely add them to my reading lists.

Check it out and see if you start to get a nice little bump in your daily hit rates.

So unless you've been living in a cave in the Tora Bora mountains, you've no doubt been exposed to the latest Pixar mega hyped flick, The Incredibles and their incredibly creepy characters.

No, I haven't seen the movie, which is, by all accounts, a very good and entertaining movie. But the stills I've seen and the advertising blitz surrounding this release is going to inevitably turn me off to it. And the characters look creepy, they do. Especially the little blond kid, Dash.

Anyway, I was picking up a little fat, sodium and egg sandwich for breakfast and I saw the lifesize ad on the door. And it occured to me that it would be easy and funny to cross out or otherwise remove the "CR" from Incredibles to get Inedibles, which is nice because McD's, though convenient, is poison.

So go forth my minions and mark it up, mark it out, laugh it up and subvert the marketing. Or not. Maybe I'll just get some stickers to slap on them where ever I see them.

And she is a very gorgeous and very compliant (to a point) Virtual Bartender. She'll tease and tittilate and pour you a beer.

See what you can make her do, I got the big fat bouncer guy to come in a couple of times and say "Uh uh."

Oh well, Friday Fun shall continue!

But if I did ever leave my house and do something, then I would really like to do something like what Dirk Goin did, check out his EarthFlyer site. He got a rig set up to board sail all over the Australian Outback. Simply too cool!

Everyone wants to get a faster internet experience, right?

Well the good folks over at Wired have some good options to make your browser faster, that is, if you use FireFox (and why wouldn't you, it makes IE look like the piece of shite). There are some links over there to get yourself into Optimizing Firefox.

I've downloaded a copy and am starting to get into using it. There are some very minor hiccups but overall my pages are loading faster and all I had to do was download a new build.

Very cool stuff indeed.

Also, I asked Ask MeFi (which is now open to non-members as well, go ask if you've got something on your mind and can't find an answer anywhere else) for some kid's music recommendations Kid's Music.

And, last one, I came across Lab Tested Dog Toys last week too. A good site for good info on dog toys that aren't worth money and ones that are definitely worth the goods!

It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce that I am an uncle again!

My brother and sister-in-law welcomed their daughter into the world this morning and everyone is doing well. I hope to have more info soon but I have a new neice and her name is Tallulah (not sure on the spelling yet).

So a huge hot damn for the fam! I hope that they will be able to get up north for Thanksgiving in a few weeks but we will be seeing them either way even if we need to trek south from New Hampshire to do it!

Welcome to the world, Tallulah. I can't wait to meet you!

Its far less important in light of the new baby news (which is why I'm posting this below the baby announcement) but it is still worth a note here.

I have been wondering around without a wedding band on for a few months now since my last one (a very, very low budget mood ring) finally was destroyed by a run through the washing machine. Besides, I was getting tired of having a stained finger from the copper in it.

I went back to the jewelers where I got P's wedding band made and got an estimate that seemed a little on the high side for such a simple item.

So I did a little comparison shopping and found a place almost right around the corner that had exactly what I wanted for a third of the price. They got it shipped in overnight and I picked it up after work last night. Its nothing fancy, just a plain simple thin gold band around my finger. But it symbolizes alot more than that to me and I'm happy to display my "taken" status again.

And its funny but I notice more women noticing me. Or maybe that's just my cynical imagination.

This winter is going to suck extra hard sportswise and the only good thing is that we'll have the Red Sox World Series to carry us through.

No hockey this year because of greed. And that just sucks. Badly. When are owners going to realize that holding out will cost them so much more in the end? How many fans are they losing for good? How many fans will they never get a chance of winning by killing off this season? And I like playing Fantasy Hockey and those fuckers ruined it for me.

And the lack of a hockey season this year means that the only daily sports game in town: basketball, a sport I despise.

And I even figured out a new reason why I dislike it so much. Its gross. Seeing these pituitary freaks rubbing up against each other while sweaty is really just kind of disgusting to think about.

Its not just a thuggish sport of showboating, individual glory above team glory and rapist superstars, its gross too.

So there.

And what's with almost no Thursday night football games anymore? Is it more or did there used to be a bunch more of these?

Nothing like some retro Japanese styling to take my mind off the depressing state of affairs in the US right now.

Let's take a gander at Honda's MotoCompo and the Suzuki Front Coupe with stylin' mirrors and a wheelbase about as long as my Suzuki motorcycle.

Lots more goodies to see at the Japanese Product Design Database.

via MeFi.