Intellectual Poison

Family Fit Lifestyle Month....International Creativity Month....International Balance Month....National Be On Purpose Month....National Clean Up Your Computer Month....Get Organized Month....National High-Tech Month....National Hot Tea Month....National Personal Self-Defense Awareness Month....National Reaching Your Potential Month....Oatmeal Month....National Walk Your Pet Month....Eradication of Colonialism Month....National Radon Action Month....National Clean Out Your Desk Month....National Birth Defects Prevention Month....National Bread Machine Baking Month....Autism Awareness Month....National Eye Care Month....National Glaucoma Awareness Month....National Soup Month....Fat Free Living Month....Reminiscence Month....and much more.

is actually the twin headlights from my new motorcycle that I went to go try out some today, pay for and get a new helmet. Because we've been basically getting inundated with rain, the bike, a clean and large looking Suzuki V-Strom DL650 in black with zero miles.

It is, in my mind and without having been ridden, a better bike than its big brother. For me, at least. One, I know the engine well already and the smaller engine results in a lower standover height. I stand flatfooted on the 650, tip toes on the 1000. The 650 weighs a little over 400 pounds, the 1000 weighs a little under 500.

I've gone from a 17 inch front wheel on the SV650 to a 19 inch front wheel. I've gained a couple of gallons of fuel capacity. I've just gotten a bike that's offroad capable and still able to turn in sports car shaming runs. I have this dream of tearing along the beach in Aptos at daybreak, buzzing in and out of the surf at high speed. Then jumping back up onto the road and tearing away before anyone can even get their head fully off the pillow to have a look.

And I was also able to slip in a pretty new helmet too. Incidentally, the helmet has been getting excellent reviews which just makes me all the happier. Next up is a new riding suit and some new boots and new gloves too.

Now the weather is going to have to cooperate or I shall get cross! As its been, I'll be lucky to ride late next week. Stupid winter rains.

Sri Lanka's Kalutara Beach that just happened to have a satellite passing over as the tsunami hit. Before, During and After

Also, Banda Aceh's before and after are pretty horrifying to consider.
Before and After.

Its just unreal to see, to hear the reports, the massive, massive death toll that keeps going up and up and up. Wow. And terribly, terribly sad.

From another Tsunami MeFi thread with links to videos (#1, #2 and #3).

A comment consisted of this.

Hello sarah,

I've been getting literally hundreds of emails from people asking me and about my experience during the Indian Ocean tsunami. Long story short, lucky to be alive. I've been evaced to Male, after the experience...Here's my account:

I was in my office at the narrowest part of the island (20 meters across) at the northern end with the sand bank, when I heard a strange bump against the wall outside my office, I ran down the hall to find water streaming in under the door and I could barely open it. As I got it open my eyes popped out of my head when I saw the sea was not only level with our island, there was a wall of water coming, frothing, boiling, and fucking angry as hell, bearing down on us. In the distance, I watched as the 50 water bungalows that lined the reef edge were disintegrating like matchwood dumping guests and furniture into the sea. Eddies and vortexes whirled round and there was a strange mist everywhere, smelled like death, as this wave moved towards us in slow motion. I remember turning to run towards someplace safe. But how can you be safe, 1 meter above the sea, water on all sides, with just flimsy thatch buildings made of coconut wood all around, and a wall of water bearing down? I literally stopped breathing, and ran. I didn't get very far, as a wave smashed me against the wall of the executive offices and instantly my cell phone, keys, watch, ID and wallet were sucked out of my pockets. As I struggled to stand up I heard screams as children and guests were washed past me through reception straight out to sea... I grabbed the ones I could and screamed at them to hang onto my arm, and we inched our way along the wall that was now breaking up from the pressure of the water....in front of us were guests running like crazy from the disintegrating water bungalows and water restaurant that had now collapsed....

As the water rose, Planks and debris smashed up against the walls of the exec offices, and the next thing I knew, the next wave came and tore it open, washing away staff, computers, hard drives, and filing cabinets in a second, straight out to sea. As I reached reception with the two guests I threw them on top of the counter as mattresses and tables and broken windows smashed through the reception, taking everything with it. By now the water was up to my chest, and I grabbed an 80 year old woman who was just drifting past, and hauled her up on top as well. The next thing we knew, the guest shop and water sports center collapsed, and terrified people, on the roof, were desperately clinging to it as the thatch fell apart. My staff stood there on top of the counter, as guests screamed and grabbed them. One security guard handed me a talkie and fled. As the water was continuing to rise, so fast it was like a horror movie, I frantically called out on the talkie to see if any staff were there. No answer. By now I could not hang on any longer and hauled myself up onto the counter, as the big debris from the water bungalows tore through reception, taking what was left of the shops and offices. We were left there, with water surging all around us, with a wall behind us that collapsed into the jewelry store. Then a guest showed me her husbands leg, with a gash so bad I could see his bone, and I frantically got a towel to stop the bleeding. with 2 meters of water in the lobby now, waves 1-2 meters higher, All I could think was how long before we die. how far does the water have to go before we are all washed away into the middle of the Indian ocean? We stayed like this for about 20 minutes, just waiting for the building to collapse, but as suddenly as it came, the water vanished, leaving fish flopping on the floor, and seaweed draped everywhere. As we tried to take stock of what had happened, I looked in the opposite direction of where the wave had come and saw, to my horror, that it was coming back, bigger, madder, and full of dangerous debris.....

Some guests and kids had thought the worst was over, and were starting to get off the trees and remaining roofs. I screamed at them THE WATER'S COMING BACK!!!! STAY OFF THE BEACH!!! And we had even less warning the second time, because the wave just crashed into us with refrigerators, water heaters, computers and smashed wood. We rode out the wave, just waiting to die, as the guest with the gashed leg fainted. His wife was grabbing my throat so hard I could hardly breathe, and for the next 20 minutes the water was up and we could do nothing as the reverse wave filled the lagoon and destroyed what was left of the restaurant, we watched tables get dumped into the water, and 3 gas canisters from the kitchen exploded. With smaller waves now, I tried to evacuate the guests to the other, larger end of the island, I realized the island had been cut in half, a deep dangerous trench had developed and we were trapped. Just then, a second series of waves came through, as large as the first 4, and desperately we ran to the spa, where a cement building without its roof still remained. There, I found other guests with 4 broken bones, massive cuts, and twisted ankles. For the next four hours, we watched as these waves came again and again, some as high as the first, as debris from coconut trees to roofs washed back and forth, as the only staff there, I set up a triage unit to treat the people with the resort doctor (who was so traumatized he could barely speak) about 2 hours into this, we heard a seaplane land in the lagoon.... And I grabbed the talkie and ran down the jetty, screaming at them to take off....

It was too late, they had tied up to the pontoon, and They could not see the water was now coming back, and the eddies were so strong that the plane (with its engines still screaming) was actually being sucked underneath the water.... I ducked down, expecting the engines to disintegrate, but at the last moment, a cabin crew cut the rope, the plane bobbed away and took off, dipping its wings to show us help was coming. Eventually we go all the guests at one end of the island, but walking past the rooms, every single one had been demolished, and suitcases and passports were washed up on the beach. That afternoon, we sandbagged a building and got all the guests inside, and waited for the next waves, which we heard were coming. At least we were safer than at reception, where 30-40 meters of the island had been destroyed, washed out to sea. That night, we set up beach patrols to watch for more waves and 2 times had to send out the alarm that the water was coming back. With the moon full, we had a high tide at midnight, and we were extremely concerned if the waves came back. They didn't. we had no food or water as everything had been washed away, we watched the sun rise and everywhere on the beach were passports, champagne bottles, smashed wood, brochures and business cards not just from our resort but from others too. It took us 2 days to get the guests off, and another day for the staff to leave. We got to male with no belongings, as the staff quarters were washed away completely, it wasn't until we got to male that we had even heard of the devastation everywhere else. I�m in Male now, waiting to go home if I can get a flight.

More news soon, Dave

Pretty amazing stuff. The second video above, by the way, the couple in the flow that get swept away, the man was saved but the woman has not been found. The quake and tsunami were strong enough to change the Earth's rotation.

The scope of the disaster is beyond my small comprehension. There are lots of places to donate to: give give give give give.

Damn, if you're heading to Tahoe, get there soon. Its gonna get deep soon.

"UP TO 6 FEET OF SNOW POSSIBLE IN THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS"

In other news, it sucks having the week off and having crappy weather the whole time. But I am very glad that we don't live in a freezy area with a little boy. Just alot more hassle, I'd think.

Speaking of which, we're headed off to go and visit the doc today. Graydon's had an ear infection that's hopefully all but gone now. And in the meantime, I offer a small token from the holidays, Graydon's X-Mas nap.

I would have maybe preferred to pull a win in the football pool this and next week but I'll take the wins where I can get them.

And yesterday I got the triple win!
Not only did I surge from the back of the pack to win both of my fantasy football leagues (barely) but I also ended up being the winner at last night's impromptu poker afternoon into night!

Never a bad way to start a week. We rallied up at about 1 yesterday and played cards until well into the night. I headed home at a little after 7:30 and left my full poker kit there. I'm now the proud owner of a full poker set, nice chips and a quality fold out table to play on. And it was inexpensive since I got the table at a half off post X-Mas sale and the chips on eBay!

Good fun almost all the way around. And a good way to burn a crappy weather holiday day off.

New motorcycle is en route now. I've switched to a blue model as its closer and I'm getting a few hundred bucks knocked off the price. Now if only the weather will clear up some so I can get some saddle time in!

And Lily, I'm guessing that the weather's not so nice today as it has been? I saw the flood news this morning, crazy stuff all over the place!

And at a discount too!

Follow the link to Walmart.com - How Walmart Is Destroying America And The World: And What You Can Do About It and you will find that WalMart is selling this book and even undercutting Amazon!

Destroy WalMart AND save 31%?

That's amazing. Now why would they be selling this?

Not all of these are of this latest disaster but most of them are and its truly staggering to behold.

The disaster overseas is devastating and nothing I can write will mean anything in the face of so much upheaval and chaos and loss. Pictures can help to convey the scale of the tragedy to a tiny degree.

Flickr: Photos tagged with tsunami.

More Pictures from Phuket and later, after the initial surge was over.

via.

Here's some fun to start the week with.

Rat Armor

Cat Armor

Dog Armor

Pretty neat stuff.

Hope you all had a pleasing holiday break. I have pictures coming. And I'm still waiting to get my big present to myself.

My advice is to get your kids, turn it up really loud and rock the heck out to Santa Santa Santa Badger Style - Flash Animation.

It gets tiresome a few minutes in but your kids will totally love it!

The Humanga Tongue Dog Toy is almost as cool as the bottle of Hard Licker I got for Nande a while ago.

The 20th of January is Inauguration Day for George W. Bush to be resworn into office for another four years of mayhem, hijinx and crookedness. And while I'm still pissed about the election, I'm resigned to the fact that my party isn't going to do a damned thing about it now. Its over and its time to move forward and think beyond yesterday.

And so, its with that in mind that the Democratic Party has begun Not One Damn Dime Day set for Thursday, January 20, 2005 (Inauguration Day).

The rest has been moved off to IP Politik to save space on the front page here.

U.S. cuts aid to food charities.

Yes, I'm sure there will be some readers going "well Johnny bitches about Bush's spending habits so why wouldn't he be happy about saving $100 million?" and the reason is that you don't promise to provide aid to a group and then decide later that its the easiest thing to cut. Not when those people have been planning and expecting the influx.

If the charities in question weren't quite so religiously based, I'd suggest taking up a collection for them. But I had it pointed out to me that a collection was already taken up for them and the money was stolen to use elsewhere.

So I'll just say, Shame on you, George Bush, shame on you and your two faced asshat practices. Shame on you for supporting an asshole like Donald Rumsfeld. Shame on you for many, many things but shame on you for promising aid to charities and then breaking the promise just before Christmas.

You're an even bigger disappointment today than ever before.

I noticed that I got a bunch of quarters in change this morning during my first trip to the new Trader Joe's next door to my office (let's see, they opened on the 10th and I've gone there pretty much every day for lunch but one).

By the way, try the Walnut Struesel Coffee Bread, its excellent. Also the Italian Chop Salads are really good too (and there's enough space to actually toss the salad some).

Anyway, among the quarters was a Vermont State Quarter and I haven't seen one before. I thought that was pretty cool. It says they've been out in circulation since 2001 but I truly don't remember seeing one before.

And I like it, its got maple trees and a syruper on the back. If there is another classic Vermont image, I don't know it. 'Course, he's doing it the old fashioned way that involved lots and lots of heavy lifting. Modern style is to have light sap lines running down from the trees to one central collecting space. Much easier.

I just thought that was kind of cool.

Also, ShrubCo has decided to go back on their word to fund charities this Christmas. Nice, eh? "...the administration has told representatives of several charities that it is unable to honor some promises." Maybe he needed that $100 million to give to Halliburton for imaginary food and supplies to our troops?

Who says Disney isn't sexy? Check out the Disneyland Memorial Orgy auction on eBay.

Those are some damned happy 'toons!

This first one, Girls Made to Show Panties at School Dance is from 2002 and missed me the first time through and is truly astonishing in how unutterably stupid and disrespectful the school was.

Administrators in public school systems seem to believe that they have some say-so over what kids think and say or do. Oh yeah, there's also this little piece about a southern belle who wanted to show how proud she was of her heritage so she made her prom dress to look like the Confederate Flag (wow, her heritage is racism and slavery! aim high, sweets!). Anyway, she was kicked out of her prom and is now suing, of course. The sentiment is that its a put up by the Southern Legal Resource Center though.

And how about some fresh and stupid stuff?

Your son's just been killed in action in Iraq, you would like to maybe save all his emails that he sent so you ask his email provider for access to his account and they say "No". WTF? Doesn't even begin to cover this. Family of Dead Marine Pleads for Access to Email.

All I can say is that Yahoo is risking a pretty tremendous PR nightmare if they don't remove their collective heads from their collective asses and realize that this isn't beyond any privacy checks, this is about helping a family find some closure and to remember their dead son as best they can.

I'm sure the iceberg is quite huge today but these are the few I'm going with. It's upsetting to think that people continue to behave this way. And I probably will take a moment to drop Yahoo an email and let them know that I think they're being ridiculous and they are wrong.

[Update: Word has gotten out about Yahoo's refusal to give his password to his family. So now there's plenty of help to get this sorted out. Father Seeking Marine's E-Mail Gets Help. Good!]

Psychic TV `rumpologist' becomes huge hit on Spanish-language TV and yeah, she has her subjects drop trou and allow her to get up close and all of the personal with said posterior.

I don't buy seeing the future, but I could buy reading the past.

Some good news, the Tiniest Baby, born at a pretty scary 8.6 ounces (that's just over a half a pound!) is doing well.

There's a pic on the link and its amazing how tiny, tiny, tiny she is. Medicine is truly remarkable!

Wow, what a stunner, who would have thought that Steinbrenner would go after the best left handed pitcher in the league?

And Carlos Beltran and every other super star that he can overpay and all but guarantee another World Series for the asshat Yankees.

Way to help promote an interesting and competitive baseball season, you fat dickhead.

Why don't you just go and bitchslap little Buddy Selig around until he allows you to sign anyone, no matter if they've got a contract already or are happy where they are? Come on, George, you don't need restrictions, you've got more championships to buy. Actually, you know what? Fuck playing the games altogether. Why don't we just start charging you $200 million for next year's World Series win, then $225 million for 2006? Your just gonna pay for it anyway so why not cut out the middleman?

If baseball doesn't get a salary cap soon, we're going to have individual players on the Yankee roster making more than entire teams do elsewhere. And the game will continue to suck ass majorly.

Thoughts on Pedro Martinez:
Dude, do the entire world a favor and just SHUT THE FUCK UP! Everytime you open your piehole to badmouth someone, you come off like an enormous douchebag.

I know, you're an angry little Dominican. What-the-fuck-ever! Grow up and quit trashing people who are no longer useful to you.

I'm glad you're going to run out your career on a shitty team that will never do anything. Its exactly what a pint sized asswipe like yourself needs to do. I hope a few National League pitchers show you why you should have stayed in the AL with its pussy Designated Hitter rule. A fastball in the ribs oughta shut you up for a little bit.

[Update: No Randy in NYC so far and it looks like the hated Dodgers came to their senses at the last minute and realized that they would have almost no offense without Green. Good. The Dodgers still suck but now they suck just slightly less than they did before.]

Hi, did you know that you're a big, fat loser if you don't get your wife or husband a $45,000 car for Christmas this year? No? Well now you do.

And they are competing too. There's BMW and Mercedes Benz effectively saying that you will win if you spend an enormous chunk of money for your wife or husband. And don't forget about the diamond ads....

Did you know that Macy's is actually attempting to hypnotize viewers into spending a pile of cash for some sparkly rocks? Oh yeah. Its a thoroughly infuriating commercial and it might just make me swear off ever going into Macy's again. It starts with a watch swinging back and forth and then a female voice over repeating "Diamonds" again and again in what sounds like a shrink's voice. It is among the worst ads I've ever seen and nearly made my blood boil last night when I saw it. Luckily Tivo saved me.

Dear Christmas Merchants,

Re-fucking-lax. Do not try to use guilt as a means of hawking your wares. All you risk doing is burning potential customers permanently.

Macy's is on the edge and I think I will write them and let them know how truly uncool their ads are. I wasn't ever going to be buying a Benz so who gives a damn, ditto for a BMW.

We in my family have moved away from Consumer Christmas. We don't do a whole mess of gift exchange anymore. We get presents for the kids and will, on occasion, get something of particular interest or coolness for someone. But its not the focus of the holiday. And it shouldn't be.

And, by the way, there was a guy who got busted breaking into a jewelry store the other day. Why do you think he was breaking in? Because he'd been conditioned to want jewelry but couldn't afford it and was going five finger discount shopping for Christmas. That's how fucking warped this holiday has become.

How are you fighting back against the spend, spend, spend messaging?

I know that other places have real winter with real ice, real snow and all those other joyous wintery accoutrements.

But not here. We're not supposed to get cold weather here. And yet my car was thoroughly glazed with frost this morning and its cold.

Put it this way, its cold enough to go out, start the car and then go back inside to let it warm up some before driving. And that's only partially because I drop Graydon off at daycare every morning.

Methinks I'm going to be getting a full set of riding leathers with the new bike because I don't want to freeze my tuckus off riding into work. But I will be in the new year, that's almost a given. Unless none of the 13 motorcycle dealers in a 50 mile circle can get both the 650 and 1000 prepped for me to testride. Did you know that alot of motorcycle dealers won't let you test ride a bike before buying it? I'm no longer willing to accept that. If I'm dropping $10K on a bike, I think its reasonable to expect a chance to test it out before buying it.

Meet the The Beastles.

A new mashup worth a look and a listen. I'll be doing both tonight.

via.

I came across Frontline's: Secret History of the Credit Card site today and was amazed by it, and not in a good way.

The site includes alot of useful and less than well known information like "universal default" clauses that allow your credit card company to raise your interest rate when you're late on a payment to another creditor and there's no limit to the late charges a credit company can lay on you as well as no limit on the interest rate they hit you with. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Of particular interest: credit scores explained and an examination of credit responsibility. There are also interviews with lawmakers (including the infamous Bill Janklow). Not sure how well versed you are on credit card info? Take the quiz and find out. (I did badly).

Of course I posted it to MeFi.

With quite alot of fanfare and an enormous pipeline of traffic, the new California Megan's Law web site opened up last week. It got shut down within a few hours because of the immense interest in the site.

What it does is to allow anyone to check their neighborhood to find out if there are any convicted sexual offenders nearby. I checked mine and yep, there are two pretty despicable bastards within two or three blocks of my house.

So what has that information done for me? Aside from knowing who they are, what they did, what they look like and where they live? Not too much. Its just another bit of information to add to everything else I already keep an eye out for.

But it is pretty amazing to think that there are (or were as of Friday) 118 sexual predators living in my town. That's alot more than I'd thought and those are just the ones that have been caught. I treat sexual predation like cultural cockroaches, if you see one then there are a hundred or a thousand that you don't see. And yes, that is a truly depressing thought.

I have many more thoughts on this and will likely just update the post from time to time. I would also be interested to hear what my mother thinks about this site and the concept behind it.

Some of the ethical issues with the site. Does the need to inform the public outweigh the convict's right to privacy in the wake of his release (and the metaphorical repayment of his debt to society)? If this information is used to conduct witch hunts to run sexual predators out of towns, then is that an appropriate use of the info? Shouldn't these criminals be known so that more people can keep an eye on them? Does this site set us down a slippery slope where other crimes and criminals information will be made freely available on the web?

I know that if one of the two nearby people had turned out to be my neighbor, I'd be taking some serious precautions against them. As it is, I know what they look like, I have shown their pics to my wife and will have no problems letting my non-asshole neighbors know about them as well.

Because I'm not the only one with a child in the neighborhood and I'd hope that others would let us know if there were a potentially violent and dangerous felon living near them.

But, so long as the sexual predation remains in their past, I have no issues with these people trying to get by. So long as they don't harm anyone, they are free to exist and work and try to make their lives better. But the instant they even think about molesting a child or raping someone, yeah, they should go back to prison. Sorry, that's just the way I see it.

The ensuing MeFi free for all was an interesting and mostly civil discussion and includes a few more links to relevant sites and a few links to irrelevant sites. As well as some interesting stories that give a human face to the issue and demonstrate that the system isn't perfect and there are people who have innocently fucked up and are permanently fucked for life because of it. A sexual predator label is pretty damned damning and damned hard to get off. If a 19 year old attempts to engage in cybersex with someone who says their 15 (and is really a 35 year old male cop) and his life is pretty well ruined because of it, what cause is being served? I definitely agree with the philosophy of the program but I also think that it needs overseers who will pluck those cases needing a closer examination and see if the sexual predator label is really warranted.

There's plenty more to think about on this but I'm impressed with the utility of the site, the only thing I'd like to see is ALOT less of those "THE REGISTRANT MAY HAVE SUBSEQUENTLY RELOCATED" because that basically says that a violent criminal is off the grid or the data just needs an update. And that's a little scary too.

I'm thankful for the resource (and will be employing this again when we get ready to start thinking about places we're going to move to) but its still in process and I hope they continue to improve it.

Did IP load up a little more quickly for you this morning? A little zippier, less drag as connection after graphic after connection was made?

Good. The overall look of the site is pretty much the same but the graphic elements have been dropped from like 60 plus down to less than 5. As well as the dropping of a couple of server connections. And bam, load times should be about half what they were last week. But let me know what you think. Does it need more?

So that's a good start to the week. I'll get a little wrap of the weekend later on today, I hope. Depends on what the work is like this morning.

I don't think about these things but I bet if I did stop and give a damn what TIME is going to do. I'd have almost no trouble coming up with the TIME: Man of the Year 2004. Who else? Shrub.

G.W.Bush.

Good for him. Stalin got it too, twice. So did Hitler. At least he's in the right company.

Can someone stop by and let Avril Lavigne know that her 15 minutes is up? One decent song and an ultra-post-retro-modern fashion sense do not make for a long and fruitful celebrity life.

It could just be that I was listening to some crappy song of hers called "Happy Ending" which basically is her wailing up and down the octaves. Its bad. She's cute but too angry and the fame timer has just popped up and she should be done.

Sure, who needs human rights when there are terrorists, sorry, alleged terrorists to illegally detain and deny rights to?

From iWon's Survey today.
Britain's highest court yesterday ruled that foreign terror suspects cannot be detained indefinitely without trial. Lawyers for a group of foreign men now held without charge in the UK claim their clients' detention is a violation of human rights. According to AP, "The British government had argued that the detention without charge of some terrorist suspects is a tough but necessary measure to protect a free society from the threat of devastating attacks." (Related AP article)

Do you agree or disagree with the British court's ruling?
36% - Agree - detaining terror suspects indefinitely without charge is a violation of human rights
45% - Disagree - detaining terror suspects indefinitely without charge is necessary to protect a free society
17% - I'm not sure
2% - I don't care

Let's be clear, a majority of people favor illegally detaining suspected terrorists, denying them their human rights and that's okay with most people responding to the survey.

Sorry but if you're willing to give away even more of your supposedly inalienable rights then you're a fucking fool.

Check out EvilURL for some fun ways to send nasty URLs to innocuous sites to your friends.

For instance, GeorgeWBush.com can now be reached via http://evilurl.com/burnTURDBURN. And that, my friends, is internet comedy gold!

I just heard a story from one of my neighbors during Nande's morning walk.

One of her direct neighbors and an occasional morning dog walk companion is off out of town burying her mother today. She's already got more than plenty on her plate and really didn't need the pile on but crooks rarely give a damn about the result of their efforts.

Thieves snuck down a long driveway, went in between two houses and into an area that was well lit and should have been a thief's last choice to go shopping. But they raised her car up, removed all four wheels, left the car sitting, not on cinderblocks because those things are heavy, no, they left the sitting on four upturned bricks. Said bricks were obviously nowhere near enough and the car slammed into the ground.

So, after putting her mother to rest, this woman is going to come home to hassle with the lame realities of assholes who work in the dark of night to ruin people's days and drive all of our insurance premiums up.

I'd hoped the car had caught one of thieves when it slipped off the bricks but nope, no luck. How damned pathetic.

Huzzah! A new pet peeve has been born!

I now officially hate people that park in handicapped spaces so they can run and use the ATM when they are totally unhandicapped.

And I hate them even more if they stand ten feet from their car and overtly set the alarm. As if a car thief is going to steal their precious Bimmer the instant they aren't watching it.

So there ya go, a new peeve for Thursday.

Cannibalism (Wiki) is chic. With the consensual cannibalism of Armin Meiwes and a psychosexual facet as well as arguments about the religious
aspects as well as how religion stopped cannibalism along with some tips, "The natives told Father Zumbohm that the fingers and toes were the choicest morsels." And now even a Donner Party Cookbook (no, no recipes on how to serve man). Can cannibalism be considered as taboo as it once was?



Of course, there are bound to be humorous sites, movies and even a musical. And heck, why not even a Letterman Top Ten?

I've never had any cannibalism fantasies but I know a few people I wouldn't mind seeing get eaten. And now posted to MeFi.

I had to dump Bloglet to push IP out to the few brave subscribers, it was publishing draft posts as regular posts and that was just pissing me off. That and the support was just a little slow in reacting (read that, they didn't react at all to my requests for help).

So there's a new subscription game in town, I've gotten set up with NotifyList and will see how they work. Let me know if anyone signs up and has problems with the system.

Businessman Drugged with Date Rape Drug and Robbed, the woman made off with his 5000 pound watch (which seemed like a bit less than portable to me), his 2000 pound clock and a 900 pound video camera.

I'm thinking this guy's gotta be built like a robotic gorilla to be hauling around all this heavy stuff. Oh wait, I bet he's English or something with that silly monetary thing when they're on the metric system.

And its not the first instance of a GHB induced mugging. Maybe it was a tv show but I heard about a prostitute (sorry, sex worker) who put GHB on her breasts so that the John would lick her boobs and then pass out, to be robbed and filmed in compromising positions to keep him quiet afterwards. Come to think of it, it probably was a tv show.

Anyway, we had the first of many poker nights last night. With top shelf equipment, good players and a pretty rousingly good time was had by all. The drive home, late, wasn't great fun and neither was waking up this morning but I do so in the knowledge that there's today and tomorrow and then the weekend. And this might be a dandy fun weekend for the Huh? house!

Because I may be rolling one of these beauties home! Which means I'll be paying alot more attention to fan sites like these ones and learning the in and outs of the bike.

Who knows? Mama Huh? might even let me go to the shooting range too!