Intellectual Poison

Go on over and read Ryan's Jerkin' McGurkin entry or, rather, take in the graphic silliness of the newspaper clipping.

This is why I keep going back. Not only is the tagline ridiculous, the Pastor's name is Bates, Pastor Bates? Which has given rise to a brand new word(s), Pastorbate and Pasturbation.

Thanks for adding a stupid grin to my Wednesday morning, Rhodes!
Tags: proofreading, mistake humor, funny

Is there an inverse relationship between how much you spent on your car and how high your IQ is? I swear I see more utter dumbfucks behind the wheels of $50k and up cars than any other. Not to say that there aren't morons driving around in crappy old Chevy Caprice's with beanie babies piled in the back window. No, they still exist but I'm amazed at what goddamned morons there are in the higher end rides.

Of course, I have a pertinent example of this from my morning commute or I wouldn't be writing about it.

There's a stoplight just before the parking garage where I park to go into work. Its a left turn and there's a pressure pad that your vehicle's gotta be on to make the turn signal go. This isn't rocket science, it really isn't. And yet, this morning's moron had pulled his expensive and roll over prone Range Rover too far forward to depress the pressure plate. And not far enough forward so that the car behind him could trigger it. So we got to sit and watch the lights change and didn't ever get our green arrow. I sat through two full light exchanges before pulling back into the through traffic and going into the garage the longer way. Last I saw, they were still sitting there and my guess is the idiot in the Range Rover was getting pissed off at the "broken" light when it all his fault.

Do people not know about those switches? Do people really have no clue what makes the lights change? I guess a good portion of the people do not. Dumbasses.

[Update: I'd forgotten that I wanted to link to this MeFi thread about a Flickrite who commutes in Kuwait everyday and sees expensive cars stacked, racked and smacked all over the road. Kind of sobering to realize that there were serious injuries and death in just about every one of these pictures. Some are pretty shocking so click through at your own risk.]
Tags: commute, morons, idiot drivers, Flickr

Bonds begins taking light batting practice: Last week, the 41-year-old Bonds began sprinting and cutting at the UCLA track. Sprinting is good, cutting is good. Batting practice is good. A late run would be good, especially in the sad little loserland that is the NL West.

Finally, the Giants might have some kick before the end of the year. Which would be nice because they've pretty well been kittens all season, though Noah Lowry's been impressive and Schmidt's pitching well if not dominating.

The A's have been exciting to watch. Two games up in the West? Nice work. Nine from Zito with 9 K's and 1 earned? Excellent work.
Tags: baseball, San Francisco, Giants, Oakland, Athletics, Barry Bonds

Highlighting some of the pretty racist and ugly comments on some of the pictures coming out of the wake of Katrina over on a MeFi thread called Liberating the Loaves of Bread.

Check out the links to the pictures and read the short comments with each picture (mirrors 1, 2, 3 in case Yahoo yanks them). Black people are seen doing the same thing that white people are only the black people are labelled as looters while the white people are labelled as borrowers and finders.

Someone should be fired for this crap as its completely unwarranted and outrageously racist.
Tags: racism, hurricane, looting, finding, disaster

I've never really considered myself much of an artist. I can't draw very well, can't paint very well and am better at bashing things with a hammer than I am at sculpting. Though I am pretty good throwing pots on a wheel and working with clay. Though I do, on occasion, take a fairly decent photograph or two.

But this remains one of my most favorite "art" shots with embedded commentary. I guess part of the idea for the image came after reading a page from Maddox's Best Page in the Universe (some incredibly excellent rants and rips, well worth a detour off the polite Info-Superhighway) about Christopher Reeve is was an Asshole and I guess it struck a chord. Because his point of view is actually pretty spot-on even though its impolite to speak or write nasty things about the deceased.

Not only that, it felt good to be clever and do this too. Its good to feel clever every now and then. Its also good to shuck clothes and go running into the surf in the middle of the night too. And its good to feel your body work up a good sweat either riding your bicycle, lifting weights, doing aerobics or whatever.
Tags: photo commentary, Maddox

What's that sound like? Busy. Busy, busy, busy bees. From phone calls to emails to interviews to data pulls, today's shaping up to be another busy one in a series of busy ones.

It sure makes the day rip right by but sometimes I'd like to have a quiet day where I can surf for fun, cool and interesting stuff. I feel like I've been offline for the last week or so as I've been intentionally limiting my 'net time at home to spend more time helping out and playing with my little boy (who's hitting his terrible two's about ten months early).

But here's something to consider. Why is Snoop Dogg doing Chrysler commercials and why are they done so incredibly badly? The post production on the ads is atrocious, maybe its intentionally bad to be "edgy" or something. Doesn't make a damned bit of difference to me as the chances of my buying a Chrysler haven't changed ever, its been at zero and will remain at zero. Sorry, Lee Iaco-cizzle.
Tags: busy

After several weeks of off and on trying to track down this stupid little non-sending email problem with my work computer , I finally figured it out today. Finally after much hair pulling, after much under-the-breath cursing, after much fist shaking threatening actions and after much cross checking of working systems' settings.

Finally, after all of that, it was a fargin' default checked box blocking my access to port 25 so as to prevent me from sending any email out through, Calypso, my bulk mail program (part of my job requires me to email lists of editors with press releases and other information). One little checkbox defaulted, just one little thing and about fifteen Google searches, much reading and finally it came down to one suggestion to dig into the McAfee's firewall settings.

And, lo and behold, there it was. The blocked port and two seconds later, a click and a window closing and I'm back in business. What a complete fucking waste of time that was.

I hope you Windows-heads don't jump down my throat but I cannot fucking stand Windows XP or 2000 or any of the goddamned stupid ass Windows bullshit. It all blows. Sorry, anyone who likes it is a masochist. There's not a thing about XP that's intuitive, there's no means of figuring out what the hell's wrong with it without using the web as a resource. And its just stupidly put together. Things aren't where they should be, there could be redirects, there could be a thousand better ways to resolving stupid little issues like this one. But there aren't because Microsoft is too busy sucking its own dick and sending the bill to itself so it can write off the blowjob on its taxes.

Microsoft produces garbage software, they produce garbage operating systems and yet, the world's standardized on this garbage? Are people incredibly stupid or was there one of those three card monty switches right before people decided to take the other card? The only MS program I don't utterly despise is Excel because it allows me to make my pretty little charts and graphs so easily and so flexibly. I'm sure there's better more powerful programs out there to use but Excel works for me for now. Word, on the other hand, is like old Elvis, fat, bloated, stupid and overpriced. Today looks to be the only day in recent memory where Word won't crash on me as I shut down my machine (since I'd already shut it down during the witchunt).

The only good thing about having to use this shit operating system and software at work is that I'm so much happier when I get home and fire up my OS X. It makes Windows look like the pile of steaming yak butter that it really is.
Tags: microsoft, microsoft sucks balls, windows xp, calypso, garbage software, junkware, default setting, McAfee, anti-virus, anti-spam

Luckily some lessons can be learned by watching other people suffer. This evening I had occasion to watch someone driving a pick up truck with a new washer and a new dryer in the bed of the truck. For some reason, they had not bothered to tie the two large metal appliances in. And the gate was down on the pick up truck.

When the light turned green and the driver of the pickup truck accelerated and turned left, the bed of the pickup truck spewed one of the two appliances out the back. It was the washing machine. Hopelessly ruined by falling off the truck and landing on the concrete. It hit and sprayed parts everywhere, done.

So, a five dollar investment in some basic tie downs would have saved that, at minimum, three hundred buck washing machine. Bummer on that one. Not really a lesson I needed to learn but one that was certainly a good reminder to take precautions to think things through or risk spewing your project all over the road.

From my own end, this was a pretty busy weekend. The result is a redone downstairs bathroom. New (working) sink and vanity, new floor, new paint and brighter bulbs in the fixture. It looks good.

And I got to go to the local city dump. One hint, don't try to cut the line, people don't think its very funny, even if you do make an honest mistake and try it. Its a wash time wise almost, I waited in line for about 20 minutes when it would have taken me less than that to go to the other dump. But it was good to get more crap out of the garage. The space is almost workable, which will be nice.
Tags: doh!, house projects, bathroom, washing machine, smashed, ruined

Me likes the Flickr widgets that people keep coming up with. Here's the latest, magazine covers customized with whatever image you want, lots of text placements to choose from and you end up with a great looking cover instantly.

Its pretty darned cool and I'm pretty happy with my first completed work as it makes me smile. I've got a few more shots that would work well for the magazine cover treatment but they'll have to wait for another day. Though working on this has made me miss my little guy and I am pretty darned happy that its Friday and I get the whole weekend to play with him (and do house chores).
Tags: Baby Food Review, Flickr, magazine cover, Flickr widget

So this is the top of the stairs at the parking garage, the same overdone and stupid obstruction was at the bottom of the stairs. Stupid plastic straping and dinky chains. Dinky chains I guess because they figure everyone in the building that might see them is a woosy candyass. Not everyone is or was. I didn't care so I walked around to the open stairs (where one of the workers had left his hammer, pencil, tape measure and a screwdriver as he hurried off work this afternoon) but one of my co-workers said she wasn't going to go walking around so she tore through the tape, wiggled through the chains and then did the same thing at the top.

As happens, my work and my general contentedness with my working environment is on a roller coaster. Right now, its bottoming out again and that makes me get interested in pursuing other avenues of income.

With the heavy turnover we've had in the last year and alot of other factors that I can't discuss (because the ears have walls and I may have already said too much), its time again to look to spreading my wings and making a change.

And that's what I'm planning on doing this weekend. Getting things ordered so that I can start to really actively look to make a good change in what I do and who I do it for.
Tags: work, work issues

There are some developments to report on Graydon's development progress. The biggest and coolest was the other night when we were in the kitchen and he decided quite clearly that he was thirsty. So he walked to the counter, pointed at his sippy cup, stamped his foot (which was just adorable) and said "Ba-ba" and then pointed again. He then started nodding his head up and down like he was agreeing with himself that he wanted the Ba-Ba.

That was pretty cool and is the first time, to our knowledge, that he's asked for something specifically.

His other new tricks are designed to add gray hairs to his parent's head. He's taken to standing up without hands on his cart that his grandma got for him. And he's already tumbled off of it once or twice. Last night he was standing on it, very proudly, and decided he was going to do a little dance. Well, the dance threw off his balance and he fell down. He landed on his butt and rolled to his back and never hit his head at all on the ground but he was shaken up for a moment as he assessed what had happened and whether he was supposed to start crying or not.

His last new "trick" might not really qualify but he's been waking up at around midnight or so lately. And he starts crying pretty loudly. One of us goes and gets him, brings him into our bed and he's out again for a few hours. Though, this morning he head butted twice in the same place on my cheek, which kind of sucked especially since I was trying to sleep.

He's got all kinds of other funny little things that he does that endear me to him ever more. I love his charge hugs where he toddles from across the room, arms outstretched, to collide with me and wrap his little arms around me as I do the same for him. I love watching him light up when he is able to do something he's been trying to do, like putting his smiley ball in a cup or when he rolls a ball right back to me. He's a bundle of joy, that boy.
Tags: baby, baby steps, dangerboy, verbalization

The KneeSlider has a really cool post up right now about a bike called the Goldwing Retriever and it is too cool!

A motorcycle that converts into a tow truck when you need it? It can split lanes and tows up to 5500 pounds. Amazing stuff, the product of a Swedish company called (appropriately enough) Coming Through. There are videos of this machine in action to be had at the Discovery Channel as well as on Coming Through's own site.

I guess this means we need a new word, eh? Towbike.
Tags: motorcycle, towing, towbike, Coming Through

Nationals manager wants Palmeiro's records wiped out for failing a steroid test after swearing up and down and categorically that he has never, ever, ever done steroids, period, to a congressional committee looking into steroids in baseball (because, you know, everything else has already been taken care of).

But this very quickly becomes a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? What about those games he won for the Orioles or Rangers? Do they get erased too? How far back do you go to "set the record straight"? Isn't it kind of crazy to change the rules after he's been found guilty and then level a whole new range of punishments against him?

Better to work forward instead of backward where the inherent nebulosity of history clouds any investigation.
[Update: I would also like to add that I believe Rafael Palmiero's bid for the Hall of Fame is gone. He has no chance of getting in now nor should he expect to with his tainted records and hypocrisy over steroids. But I cannot support the wiping of his records, there's just no way to know what's 'roid powered and what's not and I don't think its feasible to wipe his entire career as it appears Frank Robinson wants to do.]
Tags: baseball, steroids, Rafael Palmiero, Frank Robinson, scandal

"If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed."

-Chinese proverb
via.

I won't go into why this is poignant to me right now but rest assured that this is a pretty spot-on proverb. And I am looking to change course because I don't like where I'm heading right now.
Tags: proverb

What a crap way to start the commute this morning. I rode down to the bottom of my hill and was just about to pull out on to the road when my motorcycle stalled, kicked forward and then rolled over on its side, tossing me into the street and breaking off part of my front brake lever.

So yeah, that pretty much sucked ass. And then, when I picked the bike and tried to restart it, I learned that my clock is also an engine reporting unit as it told me the bike was flooded.

A few minutes later, I rode the bike back up the hill, parked it in the garage, checked it over for more damage, stripped out of my riding gear and drove in. Which was fine as there's a slight misting in the air that makes the roads dangerous without being really wet.

Damage is restricted to my right brake lever and cover. I've got a replacement brake lever from the SV but that cover's gonna have to be replaced. Joy!

But I'm fine, just pissed off about it, is all.
Tags: motorcycle, rollover

U.S. evangelist calls for assassination of Chavez, note, that's Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez he's recommending be assassinated, the head of a foreign country this hypocritical asshat Christian Coalition is advocating the murder of.

Let's see aside his blatantly hypocritical religious views (you, turn the other cheek, thou shalt not kill, those little things). Let's just focus on a spokesman for a large group of religious people advocating the assassination of a foreign leader. Has that sunk in yet? That Pat Robertson is around the bend, batshit insane and off his fucking rocker? Are you there yet? I'll wait.

Here, here's a quote from the linked article,

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said during Monday broadcast of his religious "The 700 Club" program.

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

From later in the article, it appears Pat missed his window since "Political assassination as U.S. policy has been prohibited since 1976." Damn, time to get that time machine project underway again, isn't it, nutjob?

Yep, that's how we deal with people we don't like, Pat, we murder them! Yeah, Christianity. Yeah! By the way, Christianity rhymes quite well with Insanity, I wonder why that is?
[Update: Guess who's trying to retract his moronic statements? Hmm, not hard to figure out that he's attempting to spin his statements to mean something else. So now he's saying he didn't intend on calling for an assassination of a foreign leader, just a kidnapping, which is still illegal, still ridiculous for him to say and still grounds for his public derision, shunning and pointing-at-him-and-laughing. But its kind of hard to spin garbage like this:

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."

How is that discussing taking him out, this is very clearly talking about assassination.]
Tags: batshit insane, assassination, Pat Robertson, 700 Club

Its working gangbusters for the Democrats while you look like an unbelievable tool.

Ignore her until the end of the month, George, watch your approval rating continue to slide into Nixon territory. I heard on the news last night that a mere 36% of the country approves of your performance as president. That means two of every three people in this country disapproves of your performance as president. You'd be voted off the island if we voted right now and yet, you still strut and preen like a prize rooster who has a mandate. But you HAD a mandate, now you've got a growing populance that's tired of your smirks, chirps, lies and cowardice.

And ignore the mounting death toll, ignore the more synchronized attacks, get visibly angry that those durned Iraqi's won't just bully the Sunni's into signing a Constitution to hit your deadline for their ratification of their articles of law and rules for co-existence. Yeah, you look like the resolute leader. Oh yeah.

I think its pretty funny in a sideways sort of manner that Lance Armstrong gets hit with a doping allegation the day after he goes for a publicity pedal with the president, who's just a great bit ol' dumbass dope himself. I don't think Armstrong doped to win the Tour de France but I certainly appreciate the timing of the news.
Tags: approval rating, Bush, Cindy Sheehan, Iraq

Be prepared to pick your jaw up from the floor. Good friends, strangers and folks, I give you the Masturbating Monkey (actually, the toy costs $7.99 and satisfaction is NOT guaranteed).

But wait, there's more monkey love for you. How would like an honest to goodness faked phone call from a monkey? Oh yeah. Check our MonkeyPhoneCall and, for only $10, you can have someone pretend to be a monkey on the other end of the phone for you! Woot!
Tags: monkey, monkey fetish

CostCo, the best warehouse shopping company that doesn't exploit their workers or buy $15 billion in goods from China while professing to be pro-American (like Wal-Mart), is giving away 20 free digital camera prints to members.

Go here, enter your email and member number and they'll send you an email with the link to get your free prints. Easy, cheesy and please-y. Note, there is fine print and you will be signing up for mailings but they are easy to unsubscribe from so I'm not complaining.

Which reminds me, we need baby wipes.
Tags: CostCo, free, giveaway

This is how I get to spend my days, playing with this wonderful, beautiful and really funny little boy. His sleep was off this weekend due to an unscheduled late evening pick up but he soldiered on. This weekend's new techniques to age his parents a year in a moment? Balancing on top of, well, everything. From his rolly cart to the rocking chair to the big pack of diapers to his rocking giraffe, this kid is all about working on his balancing technique.

The most amazing one of the bunch was in the rocking chair. He'd climbed up into it on his own (also fairly new on his skills list) and stood up, not quite realizing that the chair didn't stay still. As he balanced some the chair rocked and, for an instant, his eyes got really, really big before he threw himself forward into the chair. I think, for an instant, he got just a little scared. But he was also just thrilled with himself for doing it too.

One of the other funny things from the weekend, aside from me finally taking a hand with pocket kings, was watching Graydon's reaction to the two neighbor kids riding their bikes around for him. He could not stop laughing. He was laughing so hard he had to double over! He would chase after them, stop, laugh, laugh harder and then chase after them some more. It was really incredibly sweet and funny.

The downside to the weekend was that iPhoto crapped out after loading up about 50 pictures from my camera. The photos are still on the computer but, for some reason, iPhoto can't recognize them as pictures. I was still able to send some up to Flickr, including the one above but its bothersome that some of my shots won't be easily available to me. I might just load them up, download them as fresh new jpgs and then import them, that'll teach iPhoto!
Tags: my son, baby, boy, laughing, cowboy

Because I've got a bunch of stuff to get done this afternoon I won't be able to put together a rant or review.

Instead, I'd recommend swinging on by The Hype Machine and gathering in vast armloads of mp3's from all over the blogosphere.
Tags: mp3, Hype Machine

In the latest PopSci, someone's come up with a better, albeit more technologically challenging, way of harnessing wind into usable energy.

Like the monster mother of all kites, a company called Sky Windpower (which sports an excellent website about high altitude wind power) has been founded by an Australian engineer with three others to attempt to harness the near limitless windpower of the jet stream with a machine they call an FEG (Flying Electric Generator).
They're currently seeking $4 million to build a 200 kilowatt prototype but still need to get FAA clearance to fly it. The production models would generate 20 megawatts each and would be flown in farms of up to 600 turbines to generate enough power to light up two cities the size of Chicago. Power and control of the huge machines would be handled by a three inch thick tether connected to a winch on a ground station.
Man, I love Popular Science!
Tags: energy solution, wind power, jet stream, wind, kite

Indeed.

So, last night was poker night with my crew of pals. A night where I had good luck but not enough good luck to win many hands. Case in point, I was dealt pocket kings not once, not twice but three times last night.

One time, I'd dealt and ended up with the pocket kings. And then I flopped three jacks, bam. Just like that I was sitting quite pretty with a full boat, jacks over kings and I was pretty sure I was gonna score a nice juicy pot. But no, you see, I'd also dealt a pair of pocket aces to a pal of mine to my immediate left. So she was sitting quite prettily with Aces full of Jacks.

I thought someone might be sitting on the fourth jack but it never did appear and I ended up losing to those damned pocket aces. But I had my redemption a little later on in the evening so I'm not complaining too much today.
[Update: Played again on Saturday, got pocket kings THREE more times, lost twice and, on the final time, those pocket kings secured me the win and a nice juicy pot that saw a corner being turned and the chips rolling back to me rather than away. Which was, to say, pretty sweet!]
Tags: poker, beer

I've just coined a new term for the three game sweep of the Oakland A's by the Baltimore Orioles, bittersweep. Because I like both teams an awful lot, its bittersweep that the O's took all three games.

I hate it when two of "my teams" play each other because one them has to lose. The A's could afford the losses a little more easily as the O's have a bigger hill to climb back into the race in the AL East (and what would be sweeter than bumping the Yankees out of the playoffs altogether?).

And yes, I did have to razz my A's megafan pal a bit.
Tags: baseball, Oakland, Athletics, Baltimore, Orioles, , sweep

Reward Grows for Duck Killer, there's a San Jose Mercury News hosted video (Real) and images of what some presumably teen or early 20 something asshole did to some ducks with his car and then with his bare hands. It isn't pretty, gentle or nice and now he's got a growing pricetag on his head. $10,000 as of last evening. It'll keep getting bigger and one of his pals who's as appalled as everyone else will drop a dime on his sorry ass.

The story is reminiscent of Andrew Burnett throwing a woman's bichon frise into traffic and killing it during a road rage incident a couple of years ago which sparked donations totalling more than $120,000 to find the dog's killer. But this duck killing is far more calculated and angry and wrong. This wasn't a spur of the moment event, this was a planned duck massacre and people are rightly furious.

He will be caught soon, given up by a pal lured by greed and disgust over his actions, just like the rest of the rational universe.

And then an angry mob will likely tear him limb from limb and feed him to the surviving ducks which is fine by me.
[Update: The reward is now up to $14,000. The heat is getting hotter and hotter on this mistake of a human being.]
Tags: animal cruelty, mob justice, ducks, road rage

That's right, I said it, "Fuck the Olympics". The Olympic Games have changed from being an global event in the spirit of international goodwill and fair competition and are now about money, money, money. In fact, in this recent thread on MetaFilter, I refer to the Olympic Committee as monetary terrorists because its really what they are.

They bestow the honor of the Olympic games on a country and then spend the next six or seven years making them leap through ridiculous and expensive hoops. The latest new hoops they want to force on the UK for the 2012 Olympic Games? They want to make it illegal to use the words like like "games", "medals", "gold", "2012", "sponsor" or "summer" in any form of advertising unless those using the terms are official (and by official that means they've paid for the privilege and paid handsomely for it!) sponsors. They want businesses with Olympic in their name to change their names permanently. They want a mountain range to be temporarily changed because its got Olympic in its name. They want to be able to fine transgressors as much as twenty thousand pounds.

The Olympic Committee is completely out of control, its a horribly corrupt and poorly managed group that behaves like a landless dictatorship in their proclamations and requirements.

And that doesn't even touch on the games themselves. One, allowing professional athletes to compete, as in the "Dream Team", pro baseball players (woops, don't have to worry about that anymore since they canned baseball and softball), pro hockey players and the like, letting these professional athletes compete with amateur athletes is the most agregious breach of the Olympic spirit I can think of.

These professionals have absolutely no business competing amongst amateurs. Its is an insult to the spirit of competition when the Dream Team players' salaries are more than some of the entire COUNTRIES they are competing against. How is that parity? How is that fair? How is that even competitive? Its not and the fact that they are allowed to play in the games is extraordinarily bothersome.

Two, dropping baseball and softball is ridiculous. These are two sports with monstrous followings around the world. And yet there are incredibly stupid sports left in the games like distance walking, handball (handball?), shooting (seems kind of stupid with the draconian gun laws around the world nowadays) and yachting.

I'm sure there are plenty more knocks against the Games but these are plenty to get started with. The Games are no longer about friendly competition, they are about huge, huge revenue streams, megamillion dollar tv deals and under the table kickbacks. As such, my interest has waned tremendously in the last few years. If I wanted to watch professional basketball players playing then I'd watch the NBA but I can't stand basketball. If I wanted to watch pro hockey, I'd, well, I'd wait until the NHL gets its collective head out of its butt and gets a season going again.

Is there any reasonable argument for allowing professional athletes to compete in the games? Or is just the same old lame crap that other countries were doing it? I think I will make an effort to avoid the Olympics from here on out. There's no point in giving the Olympic Committee more power than they have already assumed.
Tags: stop the olympic committee, stop the olympic games, olympics, out of control, fuck the olympics, Dream Team millionaires, monetary terrorists

I saw this earlier today too, Crosses vandalized at antiwar mom's Texas camp site.

What kind of a true shitheel do you have to be to drive over the symbolic markings of dead soldiers? Man, oh man, oh man. Some days I just can't believe that people can be so ugly to each other. Cindy Sheehan's not breaking any laws, she's trying to be as considerate as possible in seeking answers about the death of her son and some asshole drives over her crosses? That's cold, bold, sick and wrong.

Just like Bush's neighbor who is frustrated by the protest so he shoots his shotgun in the air. Now, let's forget for a second that I think George W. Bush is a war criminal and an embarrassment to his family, the nation, the presidency and the human race. But he's still the president and we have one of his neighbors discharging a dangerous weapon on his vicinity? Larry Mattlage, the shotgunner, says he wasn't threatening anyone, adding, "This is Texas." Which, of course, makes total sense. In Texas, you can shoot your gun at any time, its just like honking your horn or flipping the bird, just with a little extra Texas-sized force behind it. Um yeah. Remind me to detour around the Loon Star State next time I'm headed across country, alright?
Tags: Sheehan, war on terror, Texas, shotgun

Here's A nominee for the sicko hall of fame. What kind of scumbag do you have to be to send fake emails to the relatives of victims of last December's tsunami telling them that their relative is alive and well?

Man, there are some sad and depraved assholes inhabiting the planet.
Tags: tsunami, hoax, scumbag

Post Drops Plan to Promote Pentagon Event, the Freedom March, the Pentagon's combined commemoration and recruitment drive all in one has lost a sponsor in the Washington Post. Because the event is offensive to the memory of those who died on 9/11.

Also, it should be noted, again, that Osama bin Laden is responsible for 9/11. He's still running free. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 and we took over his country. Its important to keep those facts in mind given the ever nastier spin from the GOP about the war on terror.

The best alternative I've heard of so far for 9/11 is to make some homemade cookies and deliver them to your local firehouse or police station. Let those who serve, protect and save know that their loss (along with the greater loss of life) is still felt deeply by the people. Their sacrifice should not be in vain and it should not be a recruitment tool for the military to continue their illegal oil war.
Tags: war on terror, Freedom March, offensive, 9/11, Washington Post, recruitment

First, create your own rocket pack like James Bond had in Thunderball and then make sure you've got your video camera set before you do the Stuck throttle test. Warning, this video is funny enough to get you in trouble in the office because you will laugh out loud (I woke up the baby watching it last night) so watch it at your own risk.

The joy of the internets, it used to be only a handful of people could see your colossal screwups. But not anymore! via.
Tags: jet pack, stuck throttle, funny

Please shoot me before this happens to me. Freezing to death in a plane and then having that plane auger into the top of a mountain? Wow, how awful a way to die.

Cyprus plane crash victims "frozen solid", it is appearing that the plane crash in Greece was caused by a serious malfunction of the air circulation system and that the passengers and crew of the flight were dead well before they hit the ground, frozen solid in their seats.

And that, my friends, is a pretty horrible way to die. One of the passengers sent a text message to a friend before they died that the pilot was blue and they were freezing to death. How terribly, terribly sad.
Tags: cypriot, Greece, plane crash, malfunction

I got one of these through a catalog because it sounded cool and didn't cost an arm and a leg. And I was feeling mildly indulgent so I mildly indulged. I got a Battery Free Wireless Optical Mouse from CyberGuys to replace my Bluetooth mouse that was cool and all but went to sleep alot and used batteries alot when it didn't.

The no battery appealed to me for two main reasons, the obvious lack of need to constantly replace batteries and the lack of the weight of those batteries. When it arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to see it was from A4, a company I'd gotten mice from in the past and they'd always been good for me.

Anyway, set up was basic, plug in the USB to a powered spot and you're good to go. Its got a red power light to let you know its on, a flashing green run light when you move the mouse and a tune light that I don't see do much, which I guess is good.

The sole drawback to the design is the need to use the included mousepad which supplies the power. Which is more or less of a big deal depending on how married you are to your special mousepad or not. I'm not so I don't mind using the powerpad. I wouldn't mind if it were slightly bigger but its perfectly usable as it is. And the buttons have a good positive click to them as well as the rubberized scroll wheel amidship.

The mouse fits my hand well and so far I have no complaints about it. The bluetooth mouse will go into my travel bag as this new mouse has knocked it off the desk.

Recommendations:
If you like cool and cutting edge stuff, this will appeal to you. It works great, looks cool and never needs batteries, how can that be bad? If I didn't have one, I'd buy one.

Link to Epinions review.
Tags: a4 tech,battery free, product review, wireless optical mouse, epinions

My litte guy having his fun out on the beach yesterday. He has definitely not become afraid of waves or water as of yet, he'll charge straight into waist high water without a care in the world.

It was a really overcast day and the water was pretty brutally cold but we had a great time nonetheless. Nande got to splash and run and chase and sniff and leap and do all of her fun doggy things too.

I freely admit that I'm a big fan of Survivor and its with genuine excitement that I read the news of the "Survivor: Guatemala" Cast Revealed

Here's a quick rundown of who will try to outwit, outlast and outplay:
* Brandon Bellinger, 22, farmer/rancher from Manhattan, Kansas
* Danni Boatwright, 30, a sports radio talk show host from Tonganoxie, Kansas
* Margaret Bobonich, 43, a family nurse practitioner from Chardon, Ohio
* Brian Corridan, 22, an Ivy League student from New York City
* Cindy Hall, 31, a zookeeper from Naples, Florida
* Gary Hogeboom, 36, an ex-NFL quarterback and real estate developer from Grand Haven, Michigan
* Rafe Judkins, 22, another Ivy Leaguer from Providence, Rhode Island
* Jim Lynch, 63, a retired fire captain from Northglenn, Colorado
* Morgan McDevitt, 21, a magicians assistant and waitress from Decatur, Illinois
* Lydia Morales, 42, a fishmonger from Lakewood, Washington
* Jamie Newton, 24, a water ski instructor from Hollywood, California
* Amy OHara, 39, a police sergeant from Revere, Massachusetts
* Judd Sergeant, 34, a hotel doorman from Ridgefield, N.J.
* Brooke Struck, 26, a law student from Santa Monica, California
* Blake Towsley, 24, a commercial real estate broker and model from Dallas, Texas
* Brianna Varela, 21, a makeup artist and retail salesperson.

Without knowing a thing about them aside from these short bios, who's gonna be the backstabber? Who's going to be the sleeper? Who's going to be the first show fodder?

Let's see, it'll depend on what kind of 63 Jim Lynch is, if he's got the body left to compete. And the next oldest is 20 years younger at 43. And I'm having a hard time making anything out by their names and ages and locations. But I think Blake might be a troublemaker. No reason. Just a hunch. Maybe Amy, the police sergeant will be a little too much too. We'll see. I'm looking forward to another season.

And I remain convinced that Jeff Probst, the host of the show, has the best job in television.
Tags: Survivor, reality tv, Guatemala

There's a growing trend among news outlets online to auto launch video streams when you go to their home pages and it needs to be stopped before it becomes more widespread than it already is. Auto launched music and videos are presume a style of browsing that just isn't inline with typical surfing, i.e. one window open at a time. The new paradigm, for those people who have rejected MS's piss poor excuse for a browser in IE, is tabbed browsing.

Webmasters, webdesigners and people with a say in this, Stop auto launching your multimedia! Nothing makes me get away from your site faster (well, except for a forced flash splash page without a means to circumvent it) than launching a video or music or crap without an easy means to turn it off. Wake up and realize that not everyone's interested in seeing a streaming video of Bill O'Reilly (well, I'm not interested in seeing anything in regards to O'Reilly unless its him being led off to prison).

Theme music for this post: Electric Six - Danger! High Voltage
And here's a treat, blogfans! Check out The Hype Machine - Today's Blog Music and find yourself a veritable cornucopia of downloadable mp3's from the blogging world. Updated constantly and with lots of music from all genres, its an amazing resource. I'm currently listening to The Flaming Lips' cover of the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army". Too cool! And LargeHeartedBoy's got an A-Z list of music sites online to download music. Its a great spot to launch from (but not auto-launch from!).
Tags: autolaunch, internet explorere, antique browser, mp3, Electric Six

Best large (2+ MB) but still pretty good this size as well. This is an orange dahlia from my boss's office that I had a few minutes to capture properly yesterday.

One of the things I've learned in doing macros is to not hold the camera. And now I'm learning to not touch the camera at all. I set my self-timer (which sounds like a gibbering monkey right now and is awesome!) and then back off and let it do its thing.

And, come to think of it, that's not such a bad metaphor for life maybe. Get it set up, get it started and then let it do its thing. Ahh, maybe not so much.

But its a great photo if I do say so myself.
Tags: dahlia, macro, hello dahlia, flower

Radio host, two station officials fired after Giants brouhaha. The brouhaha in question? Larry Krueger, during an impassioned post game radio show, after complimenting Felipe Alou, the Giants manager, multiple times, had the audacity to say his mind has turned to "Cream of Wheat" not in that Felipe was an idiot or retarded or anything but that he'd tried everything he could think of to get the Giants to play better and win more games. He was sympathizing with Alou.

The crack about Caribbean hitters swinging at slop is, well, kind of accurate. Look at the numbers, look at the Giants' record. The Giants are awful, they have terribly numbers across the board and all of the players are swinging at slop, not just the islanders.

Larry Krueger got fired for racial prejudice when the reality couldn't be further from the truth. This is a passionate sports fan watching his beloved team perform terribly. This isn't racism, this is Felipe Alou being frustrated with his team, being frustrated with the criticisms and using whatever scapegoat he can find. The Giants and Larry Krueger have often been at odds because of his intensity and vociferous criticisms, its been postulated that this firing was based on personal dislike of his show rather than these pretty trumped up racism charges.

The "pundits" talking over this issue are doing so without the benefit of context, without the benefit of a pause button (live radio waits for no censor) and have condemned a man without even really considering all the aspects of the case. Its sad and its made me lose alot of respect for KNBR, the Giants and especially for Felipe Alou who I think is one of the greatest minds in the game of baseball. But not even he is able to make an undertalented team perform above their level.

And while I'm not a big fan of Kreuger's, I did like his show when I would hear it and think he got a raw deal. You can't let a sports team dictate a radio station's actions and that's exactly what happened here.
[Update: I've taken a few minutes to write to the general email box at KNBR to let them know that I disagree with the firing and will be making an effort to listen to other radio stations from now on as I can't support a radio station that allows its staffing to be dictated by an overreacting and fiery baseball manager. (And I thought Dusty Baker was an over-emotional cry-baby!).

You can write them too, here's the email address. Or if you want to write to an individual show, here are all of them.]
Tags: baseball, racism, KNBR, SF Giants, Felipe Alou, Larry Krueger

Pentagon to host 9/11 march, show to demonstrate support for the troops fighting a war in Iraq which had nothing to do with the attacks on the US on 9/11, no matter how many times the GOP parrots this utter line of bullshit. Saddam did not plan 9/11. He didn't. A guy named Osama bin Laden planned 9/11 and he's still roaming free in the Middle East.

The depths of my being appalled go ever deeper with the pure unmitigated gall of these asshats in charge.

The daily insults from the White House are becoming more and more outrageous every day. Now they are trying to take 9/11 and use it as a recruiting tool for the illegal oil war in Iraq they used 9/11 as an excuse to launch.

People, do not forget, Saddam Hussein did not have anything to do with the tragedy of 9/11. No matter how often or how loud its repeated, it does not become true simply because ShrubCo wills it so.

And Karl Rove is still guilty of high treason and yet retains his top level security clearance.
Tags: gall, unmitigated gall, 9/11, lies, George Bush, Pentagon

Mark Morford has a reply to the charge that liberals are intolerant. To which I would merely add, right on!

Its okay to be intolerant of somethings, like corporate cronyism, illegal oil wars, falsifying intelligence, the outing of CIA agents and subsequent non-dismissal of the perpetrators of that outing (we have not forgotten about your treason, Karl Rove) and the rolling back of our environmental protection laws so that corporations can strip our land for profit, destroying centuries old forests so they can boost their bottom line.

Yes, its okay to be intolerant of alot of things. To not be intolerant of the rampant douchebaggery in Washington and across this country would be to have given up and given in. And I love my country far too much to give it away to religious freaks with step-back-in-time agendas.
Tags: Mark Morford, intolerance, SFGate, cronyism

The intolerant hate mongers hiding behind children and the Bible at Focus on Your Child would like to help you answer the question: Is My Child Becoming Homosexual?

And don't you worry, Xtian soldiers, help is available. Intensive therapy can bury your child's natural desires and replace them desires of your choosing! Does Timmy like to play with Barbies too much for your liking? We'll reprogram that little bugger (oops, little guy) so that Barbie is for "fags" and GI Joe is for real boys.

And the best part is that playing with GI Joe as a kid makes him much more susceptible to "Bang the drum slowly" recruitment drives for incredibly stupid illegal oil wars. You son will want to enlist and he won't even know why! Halleluhahgobble!

So parents, print out the checklist, make sure your Timmy is looking to be a Betty. Make sure you're Tabitha isn't looking to be a Tommy. Its important. You need to make sure Teh Gay doesn't infect your children or they'll like boys when they should like girls and that's just so icky.

We can eradicate the scourge of gay love but only with intensive therapy, electrodes, powerful drugs and your help.

Oh yes, and don't forget to stop by the Ministry and give thanks to God for being a part of his grand plan. Halleluhahgobble.

Okay, this is ridiculous. There are sexual re-education camps that parents are sending their children to in order to make sure they don't "go gay" like its as simple as paper or plastic. It doesn't work that way and the attempts to force it to work that way are just going to result in more and more Republicans asshats being "outed" in their mid-40's for being hypocritical dickwads.
Tags: wrong, intolerance, homosexuality, sexual reprogramming, christian hypocrisy

Jerry Garcia: 10 Years Later, the bad news is that he's still dead, the good news is that his music and legacy (and merchandising) lives on. I didn't know he is/was one of the top earning dead musicians but it makes sense.

What's your favorite Jerry Garcia moment or show or song or memory?

For me, its probably any of the couple of dozen shows I've been to. And there's a moment when Jerry's in his moment, playing away, deep in his own world. And then he looks up, realizes there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people revelling in his moment with him and he breaks out that trademark ear to ear smile. I actually just got goosebumps thinking about it now while typing this up.
Tags: Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead, music, American icon

So I finally got out for a good long motorcycle ride last weekend (the one before the one two days ago). I've been itching for a good ride for a long time but it turned out that the other day was the right time.

I started out by heading up Highway 1 to get into Santa Cruz and bopped off onto Highway 9 which leads from town up into the hills, to Felton, Ben Lomond, Brookdale and finally Boulder Creek before giving way to uninhabited asphalt above and all the way to Skyline Boulevard or Highway 35.

Skyline runs up to and through La Honda where Alice's Restaurant is, though I didn't stop yesterday. I just rolled on through behind the two slowpoke Harleys that were probably just as happy when I did finally get a moment to rip open the throttle and whip past them, followed fairly closely by a guy on his Yamaha R1.

The views are astonishing. On a clear day, you can see the Monterey Bay on one side and Palo Alto on the other. And its fast. Sometimes stupid grin inducingly fast. The fast you don't actually write because your mother reads this blog and would worry fast. And fun, long winding, sweeping turns with nicely radiussed arcs. Slow climbing hairpins where you just hope no one's coming down with too much heat on to cross the apex and blow you off the corner.

Part of me is envious of the guy's who ride in the packs. Either the buzzing sportbikes or, to a much lesser degree, the cruisers. Packs are fun. But I don't really do well following other people and either go too slow or too fast for people to follow me so I ride alone. Its more fun that way anyway, I don't feel pressured to burn to hot or that I am burning people who are trying to stay with me.

It was one of the first times I've had to really get out and flog my V-Strom since I've gotten it. Its a very different bike from the SV even though they share the same engine. The V-Strom sits so much more upright than the SV and the short windshield works well to direct the majority of the buffeting up and over my face.

It is a different experience than a drop down and dirty sportbike. Not really much slower but way nicer, especially for those bikers like me who get tired of being half hunched over all the time. I'm happy to let the young'uns have their crotch rockets. I get a better view and my back doesn't wear out so quickly.

Skyline runs the ridge between the coast and inland and is one of the most fantastic riding roads in the whole world, or certainly among the roads I've been able to travel upon. Its the right combination of vistas, tight turns and passing zones. I'm sure the folks in the cars that get up there on the weekend are less than thrilled with the near constant passes taking place by the much, much faster biker set (unless you're on the aforementioned Harleys and cruiser kings).

There are some breathtaking spots to pull off and enjoy the view along Skyline but I rolled by them all. Nonstop riding because I knew it was going to be a long day no matter what.

And I was right. I got to the end of Skyline and had the option to turn right and head down into the valley where I could jump on 17 and buzz over the hill back to Santa Cruz or I could hang a left and head down into Half Moon Bay for a run down the coast on PCH 1. Was there really any question? I hung a left and dropped down, down, down into very heavy stop and go traffic as many other folks wanted to get out to the coast as well. After hooking up with another biker similarly mired, we rode the shoulder down for a bit until things opened up and he headed back into the hills for more twisty fun and I pointed my ride down 1.

Highway 1 is another amazing road with great vistas, sweeping and nicely radiussed curves punctuated by state beaches, slow trucks, big hills, cold shadowy forested sections and foggy chilly exposed road areas where nothing keeps the ocean's afternoon fog from sending a chill deep into your bones.

It was much too much fun and, by the time I got home, my legs were burnt, my hands were cramped and I had a grin that took several hours to wipe off. It was such a great time and my V-Strom took it all in stride as I knew it would. Great fun made all the greater by my bike. Next time I'll be able to follow my route with my GPS unit and, with the new SD500, I'll be able to stop and catch some tiny bit of the lush splendour all around.
Tags: motorcycle, Highway 9, Skyline, Suzuki, V-Strom

Players for the Cincinatti Reds Comfort Stricken Man's Grandson. The boy's grandfather had a heart attack in the stands and later died. While the boy's family was contacted, the Reds gathered around him and kept him company, kept him occupied and showered him with Reds goodies.

This is a good story. Baseball needs more good stories, not 3000/500 guys testing positive for powerful steroids after swearing most vociferously to the Congressional hearings that he has not ever taken steroids. Bad show, Raffy, really, really bad show and I am, personally, having a hard time reconciling my liking you as a player and the fact that you're a big fat friggin' fraud and a cheat.
Tags: baseball, heart attack

Curious as to how long your lunch walk is? Or your lunch ride? Or just curious as to how much energy you use in walking all over town at lunch?

Then you could almost certainly make good use of GMaps Pedometer to calculate how far you've gone.

Too cool. I learned my lunchtime bike ride is around 4 miles. And later on I'm going to figure out how long my Friday ride was.
via.
Tags: pedometer, googlemaps, google

What do you call a lawsuit with a potential of 1.6 million plaintiff's? How about time to change the way you do business?

The latest in the never-ending series of lawsuits against Wal-Mart's been filed, the Wal-Mart Lawsuit alleges a discrimination against female employees by paying them less, passing them over for promotion more and didn't give them raises as often as their male counterparts.

Nice work, Wal-Mart, still getting that front page publicity. But its not hurting your bottom line, is it? You're still making ten to twenty times multiples on the schlock you have slapped together in China. Thanks for working to further undermine the US economy.
Wal-Mart, WalMart, lawsuit, discrimination

Men, you must realize that, in today's society, you are culpable for whatever damage your little swimmers get into. Yes, even if you are out the door and down the streetm, you left behind your DNA and that DNA can get your ass in trouble. Banking some sperm to a sperm bank in the hopes that you'll be able to get your wife pregnant at some point down the road, only to realize down that road that you don't want to be with your wife so you stop paying the sperm bank to keep your little frozen squigglers.

The only problem is that, unbeknownst to you, your soon-to-be ex-wife took up those lapsed sperm freezy payments and went ahead and had herself inseminated with your child even though you're getting divorced. And that's how you end up with a Bizarre Child Support Battle In Brooklyn.

The husband had no idea his soon-to-be ex was paying to keep his sperm alive and did not consent to the wife using his sperm to get pregnant. Should he have to pay child support? Apparently so. And that is seriously fucked up because it appears that the wife got pregnant for no other reason than to throw a big old monkey wrench in her ex's life. Yep, a revenge pregnancy. That's just sickeningly pathetic.
sperm, child support, wrongful pregnancy

Let's face it, professional motorsports pretty well suck. Watching a bunch of people go in a big circle around a track for 500 miles isn't my idea of fun. But this year was different, this year there was a new face and a new gender to deal with. Danica Patrick not only raced in the Indy 500, she led it for a little while and ended up in 4th. Impressive.

But the Focus on IRL's Patrick Rankles Some of the other drivers, so much so that 4 of the big babies boycotted an autograph session because she's getting alot of press right now.

Boo hoo. Don't hate her because she's way better looking than you, don't hate her because she's a better driver than you, embrace the attention she's drawing to the sport.

Maybe now saying someone drives like a girl won't be seen as such a pejorative?
Tags: Danica Patrick, Indy 500, Indy Racing League

I knew it was much more of a question of when and not if I was going to find a little blood sucker that had made the jump from my hound to me. And it happened yesterday. Not quite dead center in my back but in a place where I would have been hard pressed to completely remove it, there was a little tick making itself at home.

It hadn'thttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif been there long but it had been there long enough to latch on and start siphoning my blood for its own procreative purposes.

So we swathed it in petroleum jelly (the kind with lidocaine) and let it suffocate before P carefully removed it. Well, it hadn't suffocated and had quite a bit of fight left in it but it wasn't really going to cause any damage from inside the zip-lock baggy it had been conscribed to.

We washed the little wound out with alcohol (and the lidocaine sure helped this not be a little scream fest!) and saved the tick in case any signs of appear. It looks like its all out and I will end up being okay but now I've got a bad, bad case of the creepy crawly heebie jeebies. If I feel a scratch, I have to look to make sure there's no army of ticks marching up my leg. If I have a twinge on my back, the shirt comes off and I do an inspection in the mirror.

I don't know about you but I hate, hate, hate the thought of little blood sucking bugs using me or Nande or Graydon for their food supply. But maybe I'll snap a macro or two of the little bugger now that its dead.

Tags: tick, Lyme disease

Too cool! Check out a couple of shots astronaut Steve Robinson took of himself while on his spacewalk to repair the shuttle. NASA - Self-Portrait.

There are bandwidth mean hi-res versions available too.
Tags: nasa, shuttle, self-portrait

Bill Thomas was a witness to a pretty horrific bombing back in 1959, there was no therapy counseling, there was no discussion, the children just showed up to school the next day.

In attempting to come to grips with the experience, he created a series of photographs called Suicides. They are pretty well done but the overwhelming thought I had was that this was Rube Goldberg meets Harold and Maude.

Not to make light of his issues or ordeal but his suicides seem wackily excessively complicated.
via
Tags: suicide, bombing, photograph, coping mechanism

How do you get news coverage if you're a Yankee in New York, do it the Gary Sheffield way, Open mouth, insert foot, repeat.

And then, follow it up by playing the race card, yet again.

"It happens because you're white and I'm black," Sheffield said [about his reputation]. "My interpretation of things is different. You don't see it the way I see it. You write how you understand it, how you would articulate it, not how I, as a black man, would articulate it."

Mr. Sheffield, people don't dislike you because you're black. They dislike you because you're an arrogant asshole. There is a major difference, one is racism, the other's not. Its not racist to dislike you, its racist to use that tired old excuse for your hostility to pretty well everyone.

What's your legacy going to be? That you were a good player on the field and a pretty complete asshole off it.

As for saying you're the leader of the team? I'm pretty sure there's a few other guys on the team who've been there longer who would contest your "leadership". Not that I care because you are all a bunch of underachieving overpaid wankers who just might miss the playoffs altogether. And that would be fine, especially if George has a stroke because of it.
Tags: baseball, Yankees, Gary Sheffield

Spring's sprung and the summer slumber's upon us. How do I know this, aside from the beautiful days and beautiful people out on the beach? Well, the skin on my fingers and hands is molting. Every year, about this time, I'll get a dry patch or two or three that slowly grow until pretty much all the skin on my hands comes off in tiny spots.

I'd always just figured it was from all the chemicals I used to handle as a bartender but it appears to be a permanent condition because I stopped pouring drinks professionally about five years ago. But my hands look mildly leperous today and no, moisterizers don't help at all.

Oh yes, today's theme music is brought to you by George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Close your door, lock it in, turn it up and rock out! Gearjammer, You Talk Too Much, One Bourbon One Beer and One Scotch and, of course, Bad to the Bone.

And I must say that I love Noah's Bagels' Turkey Sausage Egg mit Cheese on a dark toasted Everything bagel! What a fine breakfast, especially combined with some deep, dark Kona with funky creamer in it (current flavor is Creme Brulee and it is excellent).

[I should note that this one the first of two large strips that come off my left foot, nearly the whole top of my foot in two big chunks. It was both very cool and kind of gross at the same time.]
Tags: skin, peeling, molting, George Thorogood

What do you do when you can't broach a subject, when you can't even open a line of communication to discuss things that are grating on your nerves? When every attempt to try and open a dialogue is met with hunched shoulders and defensive retorting? It makes it both incredibly frustrating and incredibly irritating.

Or, let me put it this way. If you gave someone something of reasonable value that you'd had for a little while and was in good usable shape, and they broke it within the first couple of weeks. Wouldn't you be justifiably irritated? Wouldn't you like to know that the other person feels badly about it? Wouldn't you like to know that they plan on making changes in how they take care of things instead of being so careless? Would you be looking forward to getting them some new bauble?

I don't think I'm crazy in thinking that if someone accepts a hand me down or something brand new and they mistreat it, lose or break it, I don't necessarily think that person should be expecting to get more stuff to mistreat, lose or break.

And then to not even be open to hearing some criticism of their behaviour? And then to ask what they get next? I'd have to say its kind of galling. And it is.
Tags: carelessness, impasse

I love early deliveries and I love early deliveries of my new tech toys when I wasn't expecting to get them until this afternoon at the earliest.

The new SD500 arrived a few minutes ago, the battery pack is charging (and looks like it is the same battery as in the S400 and S230 so that's cool beans!) and the 1 gig SD card is seated. I'm just waiting for the little charger light to go from red to green and then I'm going to shoot some snaps and see how I like my new camera!

I would have loved to have had it at last night's ballgame but that didn't happen and the Giants lost again anyway. We still had fun and our seats were really nice, just to the first base side of homeplate. Lots of foul balls hit in the territory but we didn't get any.

And we didn't get home until after midnight and I didn't get to bed until after 1 so I am feeling the anchor weighing me down today. But that's alright, I've got my slick little camera ready to roll and I am going to get out and capture some spectacular!

[Update: Battery is charged and I've snapped a few shots already, it feels like I'm using a camera I've had a for a long time. The controls are in the right place, the zoom works flawlessly and the pictures are pretty darned excellent. Why, oh why did I ever think I could find something I liked better in the Sony line up?

Now to get some replacement sounds in it so it doesn't sound goofy! But initial impressions are extremely favorable for this little camera. I am looking forward to really playing around with it and seeing what it can do. It also looks like I'll be able to use my low-budget telephoto lens (hmm, might have to do a full site republish, the link goes to an old template of IP, funny) set up so that's even better.]
Tags: Canon SD500, SF Giants, Canon

Bush: Intelligent Design Should Be Taught notwithstanding the basic and irrefutable FACT that "Intelligent Design" is just a cute and modernized term for "Creationism", the concept that God created everything. And the basic fact that Creationism and Intelligent Design aren't theories, they are beliefs, they are part of a belief structure that has absolutely ZERO basis in reality.

And yet, we have our asshole president appealling to his Bible-humping powerbase with transparent garbage like this. What's next, Georgie?

Let me translate this "news": SMOKESCREEN! George and Co. want to divert attention from the real damage he's doing and not doing, he wants to divert attention from Rovegate to something less sensitive to his sweet Turd Blossom. Though he did have this to say "Karl's got my complete confidence. He's a valuable member of my team," Bush said. Which basically means, no matter what he did, no matter what harm he's caused to our intelligence community, he's not going anywhere because he's part of Bush's inner circle, so yeah, fuck the investigation, fuck the high treason, fuck the rest of the world, he's standing by his bitch.

Thanks America, yet again, for electing an exponentially increasing embarassment to a second term.

[Update: Because I've already been visited by some of those who want to hold Intelligent Design as a real alternative to the Theory of Evolution, I think it would be a good idea to clarify why and how Intelligent Design fails as a theory and as an alternative to the Theory of Evolution as well was what a scientific theory actually is and is not.

ID fails because its not provable or disprovable. It begins with the premise that there is a higher power and ends with that as a conclusion. That's not a theory, that's a logical argument construct given assumed premises. I could make an airtight logical construct that all men are women if you accept my basic assumed premises.

The Theory of Evolution is widely accepted by the scientific community as the prevailing best explanation for how we ended up here. It is built upon the foundation of science, subscribes to the scientific method and is repeatable, that is, I can test evolution myself.

Intelligent Design isn't a scientific theory in any way, its an attempt to explain the universe through theological means that are not verifiable, not repeatable and have little basis in the reality that we exist in. Using ID to explain the universe is a never ending series of "Who created the creator" arguments. If ID were true then who created the creator, who created the creator who created the creator and so on. It fails because it cannot sustain itself upon examination.

Lone Ranger says in his comments that my belief system is harder to sustain because it is so complex. But the reality is that my belief system sustains itself. It proves itself day in and day out. We gain a deeper understanding of natural process and our beliefs are reinforced by scientific progress as well as basic interaction in the world. My belief system does not require me to leap across a logical chasm to believe in a creature I can't see, hear, taste, touch or smell and yet is supposed to be responsible for everything? Yuh, my belief system does not require me to wear a blindfold and still proclaim that I can see everything.]
Tags: intelligent design, creationism, evolution, Karl Rove, embarrassment

Those are the approximate dimensions of the asshole in my life. His latest proclaimation to retain his throne? "I hate it when motorcycles go between the cars so I swerve in front of them to slow them down."

And then he tried to play it off like he was joking and hadn't just admitted that he's attempted vehicular manslaughter on more than one occasion because he doesn't like it that bikes can split lanes and don't have to sit in traffic. So he will slow them down a bit and, if they hit him, he's got his blinker on so its the biker's fault.

Um yeah, he's bothered by bikers doing something perfectly legal so his reaction is to put bikers at a much greater risk of serious bodily injury. And then he tries to laugh it off? There's not a damned thing funny about intentionally creating a more dangerous situation because it bothers you that bikers can and do ride between the lanes.

I told him that he'd damned well better not pull that crap on me because I'd put my foot through his window. And then I think he began to understand a tiny bit of the utterly assholish statement he'd just uttered. A tiny bit and that's about all.

My depths of disgust for him knows almost no bounds. Just when I think he's bottomed out, he scraps through the false floor and sinks deeper. I don't know for sure yet but I think his personal motto is "Overpromise, under-deliver and throw anyone and everyone under the bus if it'll keep the heat off."

And yes, I have made a concerted effort to make it hard to figure out who he is. Not impossible and I know some of my readers are well aware of this person's identity. But I am going out of my way to blur the details for plausible deniability at the very least.
Tags: assholes, vehicular manslaughter, motorcycles

Nobody else remembers the song by LL Cool J? Damn. Oh well, it was cool once.

Done deal. I went to a wedding on Saturday and saw an SD500 in action, then I went and played around with one (strictly consensual) and finagled a nice deal on a camera, 1 gig SD card and a 2 year dumbass warranty (even if I'm a dumbass, I get a new camera). The catch? I don't get it until Wednesday.

In the meantime, I'll start putting the auction together for the P-200 and all its fun additional stuff. It did get kitted out pretty well in the short time I've had it. With the dock including its remote control, macro lens, bolt-on lens adapter, telephoto lens and wideangle lens. And the mini tripod too. But I'm keeping that. I don't need to rush though as the P-200 is going in for repairs anyway.

With any magnification, it has a very noticable blur spot dead center in the image. Kind of distracting, no?

Wahoo, I can't wait to get my new camera! And its only the tip of the iceberg this week! Hehehe. And we're going to go camping next weekend, it'll be Graydon's first camping trip so that'll be a great time too.
Tags: sd500

So, a couple of things happened over the weekend that needed to be noted.

One, Intellectual Poison was hacked by a bored Russian hacker on Saturday or Sunday. No real damage sustained but it was a wakeup call to more regularly scheduled password updating. While I normally appreciate attention, I don't really like it when it screws up my works and adds tasks to my day. This has been a pain in the ass to get working again. Thanks to Jay for bringing it to my attention!

Two, it was with great excitement that Eric Byrnes, the ex-Oakland A who'd been traded to Colorado, has been traded again to the Orioles who are looking for some spark. He will provide energy, hustle and never say die-ism to the guys. And they need it even more now than ever. Because......

Third, Rafael Palmeiro (shown here along Mark "I Will Not Answer That Question" McGwire and Curt "Ban 'em All" Schilling at the Senate hearings earlier this year) has been suspended for violating MLB's steroid usage policy. He's still denying ever taking steroids but its kind of hard to say you didn't when they have at least one and likely two positive results for him. I'm disappointed in yet another guy falling to the steroids ax. And yes, I'm disappointed that he's now a tainted player and his records mean alot, lot less than they would have without this charge against him. It may be enough to keep him from the Hall of Fame.

Fourth, Sammy "Say It Ain't" Sosa. Dude, if there's any more object display of the lack of power and size after de-juicing, it is Sammy Sosa. Here's a 'roided up image to compare to the slender guy flailing and failing at the plate these days. And don't forget, he's also a guilty bat-corker as well. My guess is that he's just the tip of the drop off on the power curve, but Bret Boone's sitting right next to him with no power and a pretty astonishing reduction in size as is Marquis Grissom. Alot of guys have slimmed down considerably from last year to this year. That steroids were so rampant and we're now seeing what these guys are like without the juice is illuminating to say the least.

Tags: baseball, steroids, cheaters, tainted legacy

Its now the first day of the 8th month of the 5th year of this new millenium. There are five full months left in 2005, five months that will see quite alot of changes.

For this August I am going to strive to be more intuitively proactive, more demonstrably loving and less prone to letting shit get to me. Its a trifecta of tolerance and shiny happy feelings but its worth a roll or two. I will also be setting a goal of three solid workouts a week in addition to my lunchtime bike rides.

I think the watchwords for August will be Getting Back in Shape, or, Getting Everything Back in Shape, not just the physical, the mental, the emotional and even the house and work spaces.

Happy First of August to you all, I expect big things out of this month.
Tags: August