angry chad

on tipping

2011-06-16T11:12:00.001-04:00

The topic of tipping came up again. Here are my thoughts on that:

People who don't tip, or tip poorly for good service, are assholes. Period.

Tipping has been calculated into the cost of certain services by everyone involved. By the establishment, by the staff, the customer, society. If you're not tipping, you're not paying your fair share. You're making others pay for you. You're a leech, and the scum of the earth. Stop trying to justify being cheap, you worthless sack of shit. Have fun being hated by everyone.

teabaggers: you didn't get angry...

2010-11-05T08:21:00.003-04:00

I'm sure by now you've seen this floating around the internets, but in case you haven't...

You didn't get angry when the Supreme Court "Conservative Judicial Activists" Five stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn't get angry when Cheney allowed energy company officials to dictate energy policy while excluding any environmentalists from that meeting.

You didn't get angry when on Spet. 10 2001, 1 day before 9-11 Rumsfeld announced the Pentagon lost 2.3 TRILLION dollars.

You didn't get angry when Bush's generals let Bin Laden escape from Tora Bora.

You didn't get angry when a covert CIA operative was outed because her husband did his job and exposed Bush's lies about yellowcake uranium.

You didn't get angry when the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the John Warner Defense Bill were passed and our Constitutional rights were shredded.

You didn't get angry when Bush illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn't get angry when it was revealed that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Rice all lied us into the illegal, unnecessary war on Iraq.

You didn't get angry when Bush spent over 600 billion dollars (and counting) on the illegal, unnecessary Iraq war.

You didn't get angry when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.

You didn't get angry as thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed or maimed in Bush's illegal, unnecessary war.

You didn't get angry when it was revealed U.S. soldiers and the CIA were torturing people, including in former KGB prisons.

You didn't get angry when Bush admitted the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.

You didn't get angry when it was revealed that Bush ignored many warnings of the 9/11 terrorism.

You didn't get angry when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed Military Hospital while you claimed you "supported our troops".

You didn't get angry when Bush let New Orleans drown.

You didn't get angry when mostly white people were helped in New Orleans.

You didn't get angry when it was revealed Bush ignored warnings about Hurricane Katrina and the levees.

You didn't get angry when Bush gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich.

You didn't get angry when Bush turned Clinton's budget surplus into a gigantic budget deficit.

You didn't get angry when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark, and our debt hit the thirteen trillion dollar mark.

You didn't get angry when Exxon earned more in profits than any company ever, but paid zero U.S. taxes.

You didn't get angry when, using reconciliation, a trillion dollars of our tax dollars were redirected to insurance companies for Medicare Advantage which cost over 20 percent more for basically the same services that Medicare provides.

You finally got angry when Obama decided that people in America deserved to see a doctor if they are sick, but you got angry at Obama, not the insurance corporations and drug companies that wrote Obama's bill. If Obama were white, would you hate him so much?

Illegal wars, killing Americans and Iraqi and Afghani women and children, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you.

But an African-American President taking the first very flawed, very insufficient step to getting health care for all of us?

Hell, no! That's "socialism"! you say, as you depend on Social Security and Medicare.

Socialism for corporations and the rich doesn't make you angry. Only "socialism" by Democrats is "un-American" to you.

Only "liberals" are your sworn enemies.

Are you aware that liberals and progressives fought to get us all: vacations, the 40-hour workweek, weekends off, the minimum wage, worker safety laws, child labor laws, the right to vote for women, environmental protections, food inspections, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, to name just some of the social improvements which are hallmarks of a civilized society?

Wake Up... Wake Up... Wake Up

And yeah, in the last post I promised to post some personal stuff here, but I've decided to wait on that, at least until my probation is over.

riiise from your graaave

2010-09-10T15:13:00.002-04:00

A couple months ago I almost deleted this blog, but now I'm resurrecting it. I've been going through some shit lately. I have a lot of get off my chest, and this seems like the best place to do it. More soon.

here's what republicans had to say about the president's economic plan

2010-01-19T14:15:00.002-05:00

Currently floating around the interwebs:

Republican Rep. Joel Hefley said: "It will raise your taxes, increase the deficit, and kill over one million jobs."

Republican Rep. John Kasich said: "This plan will not work...your economic program is a job killer."

Republican Newt Gingrich said: "I believe this will lead to a recession next year."

Republican Dick Armey said: "Clearly this is a job killer in the short run. The impact on job creation is going to be devastating."

Republican Phil Gramm said: "Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose their jobs because of this bill, and the President will be one of them."

Republican Rep. Jim Ramstad said: The Democrats’ plan "will stifle economic growth, destroy jobs, reduce revenues, and increase the deficit."

Republican Rep. Phil Crane said: It's "a recipe for economic and fiscal disaster."

Voice Over: The only problem is, all these Republican quotes were from 1993 after President Bill Clinton passed his budget without a single Republican vote. That budget led to the greatest economic boom in world history. Weren't you better off with Bill Clinton and the Democrats running the economy in the 1990s? The Republicans predictions could not have been more wrong. Yet they make almost word for word the same predictions again today about President Obama's economic programs. President Clinton left us with a projected $5 trillion surplus . . .

a rothbury observation

2009-07-09T12:15:00.009-04:00

The vast majority of people who were at The Dead, and I presume String Cheese Incident (I don't know because I didn't see that show), are not fans of music. Or at the very least, they weren't there for the music. That's not to say that there aren't fans of The Dead (and the like) who are absolutely all about the music, but only that they were very under represented at the show.

Steph and I saw 27 bands at Rothbury this year, and the contrast between most of the shows and the "jam band" shows was stark. It was all in the facing. At most shows, people were actually facing the stage, or in that general direction, obviously focused on the music, usually dancing. There was some dancing at The Dead, but mostly people were walking around talking, smoking weed and yelling "WHERE'S THE PARTY?!"

They were there for the party, not for the music. Maybe like 80% party and 20% music. It reminded me more of a tailgate party than a concert. I'm not sure why this surprised me, but it did. I felt a little sorry for some of the acts there who were performing for much smaller crowds than they probably should have with 40k people in attendance, because everyone wanted to be where the party was. Where everyone else was. Probably better that way, now that I think about it. I'd rather be with a smaller group of enthusiastic music fans than a giant mob of loud, drunk assholes. I hope The Dead come back every year, like a giant annual black hole, sucking all the douchebags away from the better stages.

pissing me off today: harmonix and valve

2009-06-03T11:45:00.003-04:00

Harmonix and Valve, without a doubt two of the best video game companies out there today, and certainly personal favorites. I say this to you both with heartfelt sincerity: EAT A DICK. Beatles Rockband and Left 4 Dead 2 are both shameless money grabs that will divide the online user base. You should've made these add-ons for your existing games and you fucking know it. Now I have to pass on content I would otherwise be really excited for and buy without hesitation, or encourage this kind of bullshit. Goddamnit.

confessions of a formerly short-haired man

2009-04-27T13:55:00.004-04:00

People are nicer to me now that I have long(er) hair. I'm not joking and this is no exaggeration. Someone literally told me that they used to think I was stuffy and uptight, but that now I seem more laid-back. Granted this person didn't know me very well to begin with, but when I pushed her on the point she admitted that it was probably the hair. Almost unanimously people have told me that The Hippie Hair™ suits me better. More strangers smile at me, which freaks me out a little bit.

It's been an interesting social experiment. I think it's similar to the notion that fat people are jolly; hippies are harmless. I'm going to let them keep thinking that. Grow my hair a bit longer. Wait for them to let their guard down completely, and that's when I'll strike.

the nine

2009-04-09T12:12:00.002-04:00

Somehow, despite the fact that I rarely post here anymore, this blog still manages to pull in an average of about nine unique visitors per day. Who are you people and what do you want?!

sick pleasure

2009-03-20T10:22:00.003-04:00

I don't know if it's coincidence, but it seems like it's the republicans I know who have been hurt the most by the current economic downturn. I wonder if it was worth it for them. Were eight years of Bush worth the beating they're taking right now?

osx is shit

2009-03-04T09:10:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago I bought one of the newish aluminum uni-body 13" Macbooks. Partly because I had a few iPhone app ideas I wanted to work on, and partly to feed my addiction to shiny electronic gadgets. Well after a few weeks of near constant use, I can confidently say that OSX is the biggest piece of shit of an operating system on the market today.

- The idea that Macs are expensive because you're getting a lot of value in bundled software is a myth. OSX comes with less software than Windows, and way, *way* less than Linux. What little software Apple has included is of little practical use, unless (to paraphrase The Onion) you're just dicking around in Garage Band. Where's the fucking office software? Where are the codecs so I can play something other than goddamned Quicktime files? And let me just say that it takes some engineering genius to design a text editor that's worse than Notepad.

- "It just works" as long as what you want to do is extremely limited. Try to configure anything and you'll find that the options just aren't there. You'll probably need to buy some very expensive software to replace the basic crap they threw in for free, because no one develops free software for Macs. And actually, a lot of it doesn't "just work", which brings me to my next point...

- Reboot. Reboot. Reboot again. I'm not the kind of guy who typically minds rebooting. I'm used to working with multiple-boot drives (rather than virtual environments), so rebooting is kind of in my nature. But geezus fucking kriest I'm sick of rebooting every time some random process or service decides to take a shit on me. I'm a software developer, and I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around some of these bugs. Like how the fuck can all my Firefox plug-ins lose connection to the internet but I'm still able to surf the web? Of course killing Firefox does nothing. Only a full-on reboot seems to fix most issues.

After reading this you might think I'm regretting my purchase. I'm not. The hardware is AMAZING. I was using a fairly new Sony Viao prior to this, and as nice as that was it's still clunky jumbled mess when compared to the Macbook. After weeks of use, I'm still in awe at how thin and sleek it is. It's just a shame the software sucks. Come April I'll be putting the latest version of Ubuntu on it for when I'm doing anything other than writing iPhone code.

re: using twitter to mock democrats

2009-02-25T12:42:00.004-05:00

Via Think Progress: Gingrich’s Bold New Idea: Using Twitter To Mock Democrats

Conservatives love Twitter. Many have embraced it as the future of the Republican party’s outreach to young people. Prolific Tweeter Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) has said that such technology is “the next revolution that’s going to take back the Congress.

Reminds me of a conversation Clive Thompson and I had in comments on his blog about how throughout history Republicans have helped pioneer new mediums (AM Radio) because they claim the old ones are biased (The Liberal Print Media!). They just never fucking learn, and they're going to keep running forever. How long until we hear the words "Mainstream Liberal Twitter"?

would you keep it to yourself?

2009-01-27T09:54:00.006-05:00

My step mom's brother Ken, who I'd only just met last summer, passed away yesterday from liver cancer. It was a surprise to everybody, because he hadn't told anybody; not even his wife and son. I can see how some people might be hurt by that, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. Why burden your loved ones with the inevitable? Why spend your last days making everyone around you sad?

It's hard to say how long he knew. But based on the several week long vacation he took last summer, it's probably a safe bet to say that he'd known for months. He was born here, but lived most of his adult life in New Zealand. So when he took two months off to visit with with friends and family here in the states, it didn't seem out of the ordinary in the least.

For part of that vacation he came down to Florida, where my dad and I had a couple days to hang out with him during our vacation. The guy definitely made an impression on me. My dad had always talked about how friendly, laid-back and funny he was, and it was true. Think kind of guy you almost want to hate because he's so likeable.

Looking back, this seems like an especially amazing feat. To be that calm and relaxed around friends and family, knowing it's very possibly the last time you'll see them, never telling anyone what you're going through. It couldn't have been easy, but it was his choice to make, and I think it might have been the right one.

ridiculous time limits on digital video rentals

2009-01-21T09:36:00.005-05:00

On the rare occasion that I run out of stuff to watch from Cable/DVR/Netflix/Watchnow/Hulu/Bittorrent, I turn to the Xbox Live Video Marketplace. I'm pretty sure it's exactly the same content as can be found on On Demand from Comcrap, but Microsoft charges $0.50 less (at least for HD stuff), maybe for the inconvienience of having to download as opposed to stream.

I'd like to use either service more, but both the Video Marketplace and On Demand have the archaic time limitation of 24 hours on your rental from the time you start watching. Microsoft does one better by letting you delay the start for up to two weeks, but once you hit the play button, the timer starts ticking.

WHAT THE FUCK FOR?! Are you affraid I might watch the movie more than once? Do you need your precious zeros and ones back so the next person can "rent" them? Brick and mortar DVD rental shops limit the window of time because it takes away from someone else being able to rent it. What's the excuse if copies are free and unlimited? Knock it off, you greedy fucks. For five bucks, I should get the movie for at least three days.

i feel like the worst person in the world right now

2009-01-12T09:03:00.004-05:00

Yesterday Steph and I started watching the now canceled show Dead Like Me. In it, the mom says something horrible to her daughter, not knowing that her daughter was going die hours later, and that it would be the last thing she would ever say to her.

The other week we were supposed to go to a sort of post-holiday coming home party for Steph's cousin, who couldn't make it to the family Christmas party because he was in prison. In fact, almost no one showed up to the party. I think everyone was just fed up with the lying and the drugs. This morning, he's dead. He was 24.

music everywhere

2008-12-01T11:26:00.005-05:00

Seems like only a few years ago that I was completely amazed by the fact that I could carry around my entire music collection in the space that a deck of cards would occupy. It was a big deal for me, because it meant I could finally ditch the gigantic binder of CDs I'd been lugging around in my car for years, which still only represented a small portion of my catalog.

But why lug around a hard drive any more? My pocket real estate is valuable. Fuck iPods I say!

Enter, The iPhone. SimplifyMedia lets me stream my entire music collection from home. And applications like Last.FM and Tuner are better for music discovery than terestrial radio ever was.

But there are at least two problems with this setup that need to be addressed:

1) Headphones.

2) Buttons.

I mean seriously, how difficult could it be to embed a tiny 3g chip in my head linked to some eardrum audio transmitters? For the controls, I propose an optical component, attached directly to my retina, which creates a semi-transparent overlay. But none of that Minority Report shit. I don't want to have to actually lift my arm to navigate controls only I can see. I want eye-twitch, better yet nerve impulse, control. Steve, there's your next i-whatever. Get on it.

reposted for truth

2008-11-25T11:51:00.002-05:00

Re-posting Jim's re-post over at bad juju.

Whaddaya know, groups of atheists aren't as crazy as groups of sun-worshippers, idolators, and hate-filled carpetbaggers. We do, however, rampantly and lazily paraphrase. From Balloon Juice:

Turns out, societies that have more non-believers murder and rape each other on a much lower level than we here in America:

In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don’t go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don’t believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they’re nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.

Denmark and Sweden aren’t exceptions. A 2005 study by Gregory Paul looking at 18 democracies found that the more atheist societies tended to have relatively low murder and suicide rates and relatively low incidence of abortion and teen pregnancy.

So, this is a puzzle. If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well—better, in many ways, than devout ones.

****
The sorry state of American atheists, then, may have nothing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like Schlessinger, find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one.

Unsurprising, and worthy of a discussion.

Nope. I'm with Hitchens on this one. Religion poisons everything.

bad dream

2008-11-21T14:02:00.001-05:00

"Daddy, I had a bad dream."

You blink your eyes and pull up on your elbows. Your clock glows red in the darkness—it's 3:23.

"Do you want to climb into bed and tell me about it?", you say to your daughter.

"No, Daddy.", she says.

The oddness of the situation wakes you up more fully. You can barely make out your daughter's pale form in the darkness of your room. "Why not, sweetie?"

"Because when I came here a few minutes ago, the thing wearing Mommy's skin sat up."

For a moment, you feel paralyzed; you can't take your eyes off of your daughter. The covers behind you begin to shift."

Via.

mandate for progress

2008-11-05T08:26:00.004-05:00

This is a complete repudiation of conservativism. We tried it your way, republicans, and you failed miserably. Now let the smart people come in and clean up your mess.

whew that was close

2008-11-04T10:17:00.004-05:00

For weeks now I've had this fear that I would some how accidentally vote for McCain. My hyperactive imagination concocted all kinds of ways that this could possibly happen, ranging from a failure to comprehend the ballot to temporary retardation or psychosis. Luckily none of that happened.

...unless of course part of the psychosis is that I think I voted for Obama when I actually voted straight-ticket Republican. Shit, I need my ballot back!

halloween 2008 / jill's 40th

2008-11-01T01:40:00.003-04:00

Successful first test of Qik live video broadcasting on the iPhone.

obama's loss traced to chad lewis

2008-10-31T08:59:00.003-04:00

Single Nonvoter Tipped Election To McCain-Palin Ticket

Thanks dad :|

a wonderful new drug hits the market

2008-10-24T08:35:00.003-04:00

frightening prospect

2008-10-19T13:16:00.002-04:00

My new wallpaper.

http://www.frighteningprospect.com/

i really need to watch southpark more often

2008-10-09T09:05:00.002-04:00

Edit: Damnit, the embedded video screws up the formatting of the page. Only douchebags screw up the formatting of their pages. Just go here at watch it.

michelle obama and wendy

2008-10-06T08:58:00.003-04:00

Shelby Township resident Wendy Pulaski told the crowd -- before she introduced Michelle Obama -- that she was amazed one day when her husband announced he was voting for Barack Obama.

"This is basically a miracle," said Pulaski, 29, a campaign volunteer and restaurant manager and bartender. "He's been a staunch Republican all his life. He knows this country will not be repaired without Barack Obama."

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081002/METRO/810020474/1022/rss10

Wendy and her husband Jason are friends of ours. When we first met them earlier this year, Jason was still supporting McCain. He actually came to the light side only a few weeks ago. I'd like to think my drunken rantings on the evils of republicans were at least partially responsible.

I guess Wendy was contacted by Obama's speech writer early last week and asked if she would tell her personal story and then introduce Michelle. Prior to the event Wendy got to hang out with Michelle for a while. During the speech, Michelle stepped out into the audience to hug Wendy and Jason's kids. Afterward, Michelle signed the speech.

Dude, I totally know someone who met someone famous. I'm so cool.

when was the last time an atheist was arrested for something like this?

2008-09-26T09:42:00.002-04:00

Evangelist arrested in child porn case

Over the weekend, about 100 federal and state agents authorities raided Alamo's 15-acre compound near Texarkana, Arkansas, and took six children into temporary custody.

The children were interviewed as part of a two-year investigation into Tony Alamo Christian Ministries to determine whether they were physically or sexually abused, said Bill Sadler of the Arkansas State Police.

My real concern is for the officers involved, who are probably going to hell. Obviously Jesus had a good reason for telling Tony Alamo to have sex with these children. Who the hell do these cops think they are questioning the word of GOD?

dear red states

2008-09-24T09:37:00.001-04:00

Old, but still good.

Best of Craigslist,

Dear Red States...

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon,Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss. We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy b*****ds believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Peace out,
Blue States

kissing hank's ass

2008-09-22T14:27:00.002-04:00

This morning there was a knock at my door. When I answered the door I found a well groomed, nicely dressed couple. The man spoke first:

John: "Hi! I'm John, and this is Mary."

Mary: "Hi! We're here to invite you to come kiss Hank's ass with us."

Me: "Pardon me?! What are you talking about? Who's Hank, and why would I want to kiss His ass?"

John: "If you kiss Hank's ass, He'll give you a million dollars; and if you don't, He'll kick the shit out of you."

Me: "What? Is this some sort of bizarre mob shake-down?"

John: "Hank is a billionaire philanthropist. Hank built this town. Hank owns this town. He can do whatever He wants, and what He wants is to give you a million dollars, but He can't until you kiss His ass."

Me: "That doesn't make any sense. Why..."

Mary: "Who are you to question Hank's gift? Don't you want a million dollars? Isn't it worth a little kiss on the ass?"

Me: "Well maybe, if it's legit, but..."

John: "Then come kiss Hank's ass with us."

Me: "Do you kiss Hank's ass often?"

Mary: "Oh yes, all the time..."

Me: "And has He given you a million dollars?"

John: "Well no. You don't actually get the money until you leave town."

Me: "So why don't you just leave town now?"

Mary: "You can't leave until Hank tells you to, or you don't get the money, and He kicks the shit out of you."

Me: "Do you know anyone who kissed Hank's ass, left town, and got the million dollars?"

John: "My mother kissed Hank's ass for years. She left town last year, and I'm sure she got the money."

Me: "Haven't you talked to her since then?"

John: "Of course not, Hank doesn't allow it."

Me: "So what makes you think He'll actually give you the money if you've never talked to anyone who got the money?"

Mary: "Well, He gives you a little bit before you leave. Maybe you'll get a raise, maybe you'll win a small lotto, maybe you'll just find a twenty-dollar bill on the street."

Me: "What's that got to do with Hank?"

John: "Hank has certain 'connections.'"

Me: "I'm sorry, but this sounds like some sort of bizarre con game."

John: "But it's a million dollars, can you really take the chance? And remember, if you don't kiss Hank's ass He'll kick the shit out of you."

Me: "Maybe if I could see Hank, talk to Him, get the details straight from Him..."

Mary: "No one sees Hank, no one talks to Hank."

Me: "Then how do you kiss His ass?"

John: "Sometimes we just blow Him a kiss, and think of His ass. Other times we kiss Karl's ass, and he passes it on."

Me: "Who's Karl?"

Mary: "A friend of ours. He's the one who taught us all about kissing Hank's ass. All we had to do was take him out to dinner a few times."

Me: "And you just took his word for it when he said there was a Hank, that Hank wanted you to kiss His ass, and that Hank would reward you?"

John: "Oh no! Karl has a letter he got from Hank years ago explaining the whole thing. Here's a copy; see for yourself."

From the Desk of Karl
1. Kiss Hank's ass and He'll give you a million dollars when you leave town.
2. Use alcohol in moderation.
3. Kick the shit out of people who aren't like you.
4. Eat right.
5. Hank dictated this list Himself.
6. The moon is made of green cheese.
7. Everything Hank says is right.
8. Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
9. Don't use alcohol.
10. Eat your wieners on buns, no condiments.
11. Kiss Hank's ass or He'll kick the shit out of you.

Me: "This appears to be written on Karl's letterhead."

Mary: "Hank didn't have any paper."

Me: "I have a hunch that if we checked we'd find this is Karl's handwriting."

John: "Of course, Hank dictated it."

Me: "I thought you said no one gets to see Hank?"

Mary: "Not now, but years ago He would talk to some people."

Me: "I thought you said He was a philanthropist. What sort of philanthropist kicks the shit out of people just because they're different?"

Mary: "It's what Hank wants, and Hank's always right."

Me: "How do you figure that?"

Mary: "Item 7 says 'Everything Hank says is right.' That's good enough for me!"

Me: "Maybe your friend Karl just made the whole thing up."

John: "No way! Item 5 says 'Hank dictated this list himself.' Besides, item 2 says 'Use alcohol in moderation,' Item 4 says 'Eat right,' and item 8 says 'Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.' Everyone knows those things are right, so the rest must be true, too."

Me: "But 9 says 'Don't use alcohol.' which doesn't quite go with item 2, and 6 says 'The moon is made of green cheese,' which is just plain wrong."

John: "There's no contradiction between 9 and 2, 9 just clarifies 2. As far as 6 goes, you've never been to the moon, so you can't say for sure."

Me: "Scientists have pretty firmly established that the moon is made of rock..."

Mary: "But they don't know if the rock came from the Earth, or from out of space, so it could just as easily be green cheese."

Me: "I'm not really an expert, but I think the theory that the Moon was somehow 'captured' by the Earth has been discounted*. Besides, not knowing where the rock came from doesn't make it cheese."

John: "Ha! You just admitted that scientists make mistakes, but we know Hank is always right!"

Me: "We do?"

Mary: "Of course we do, Item 7 says so."

Me: "You're saying Hank's always right because the list says so, the list is right because Hank dictated it, and we know that Hank dictated it because the list says so. That's circular logic, no different than saying 'Hank's right because He says He's right.'"

John: "Now you're getting it! It's so rewarding to see someone come around to Hank's way of thinking."

Me: "But...oh, never mind. What's the deal with wieners?"

Mary: She blushes.

John: "Wieners, in buns, no condiments. It's Hank's way. Anything else is wrong."

Me: "What if I don't have a bun?"

John: "No bun, no wiener. A wiener without a bun is wrong."

Me: "No relish? No Mustard?"

Mary: She looks positively stricken.

John: He's shouting. "There's no need for such language! Condiments of any kind are wrong!"

Me: "So a big pile of sauerkraut with some wieners chopped up in it would be out of the question?"

Mary: Sticks her fingers in her ears."I am not listening to this. La la la, la la, la la la."

John: "That's disgusting. Only some sort of evil deviant would eat that..."

Me: "It's good! I eat it all the time."

Mary: She faints.

John: He catches Mary. "Well, if I'd known you were one of those I wouldn't have wasted my time. When Hank kicks the shit out of you I'll be there, counting my money and laughing. I'll kiss Hank's ass for you, you bunless cut-wienered kraut-eater."

With this, John dragged Mary to their waiting car, and sped off.

Thanks for the link, Patrick.

cody update

2008-09-22T12:27:00.002-04:00

Haven't heard much from my brother, who enlisted in the Navy on September 11. He called my mom a couple days after he left, said something like "Arrived safely. No time to talk. Call you in a few weeks." Not surprising.

Because brainwashing is such an invasive form of influence, it requires the complete isolation and dependency of the subject, which is why you mostly hear of brainwashing occurring in prison camps or totalist cults. The agent (the brainwasher) must have complete control over the target (the brainwashee) so that sleep patterns, eating, using the bathroom and the fulfillment of other basic human needs depend on the will of the agent. In the brainwashing process, the agent systematically breaks down the target's identity to the point that it doesn't work anymore. The agent then replaces it with another set of behaviors, attitudes and beliefs that work in the target's current environment.

http://people.howstuffworks.com/brainwashing.htm

political emails

2008-09-17T12:34:00.003-04:00

Usually the only political emails I see are the ones forwarded from crackpot conservatives (FW: Obama wants to eat your babies!). So it was nice to finally get this one from my dad today:

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather reporter, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you teach children about sexual predators, you are irresponsible and eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate and lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America 's.
* If your husband is nicknamed 'First Dude,' with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that hates America and advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

spore

2008-09-12T11:01:00.000-04:00

my theory on this october's surprise

2008-09-03T17:47:00.003-04:00

Palin will either not accept the nomination, or will step down sometime before the election; at which point Lieberman, or more likely Romney, will join the ticket. Overjoyed right-wingers will be so excited that Palin the Disastrous is gone, they'll completely forgive the shortsightedness republicans showed in choosing her to begin with. This also shortens the window for digging up more dirt on LiebeRomney prior to the election.

Is this scenario even legal? What's the cut-off for something like this to happen? How is it even legal that, in a democracy, we don't get to vote on the VP candidate in some sort of primary?

food poisoning

2008-09-03T13:29:00.003-04:00

A few people have asked for the whole story, so rather than email it to everyone I figure I'd post it here.

Sunday morning on our way back from Steph's cousin's house we picked up some sausage and egg sandwiches from ~~Poison~~ Burger King. After, we went to Macy's to look for a suit for me, and a dress for Steph, for use in a couple weddings we have coming up soon. We didn't look too hard. After not getting much sleep the night before, following a day spent in the sun and mixed with a little alcohol, it kind of made sense that we weren't feeling so good. We decided to go home and sleep it off, which was probably a huge mistake.

I think we slept for around three hours, giving our bodies lots of time to absorb the poison. I woke up suddenly and offered a partially digested sausage and egg sandwich to the porcelain gods. Then I woke up again, realized I'd only dreamed about throwing up, and decided it might be a good idea to make it happen IRL. Steph followed suit about two hours later. The fact that none of Steph's cousin's family were stick tipped us off that we were probably dealing with food poisoning from the BK. The diagnosis was confirmed the next day (Labor Day) when I took Steph to the ER because her temperature still hadn't come down.

Steph and I both worked impromptu half-days yesterday. It seems that we're more or less fine, until we exert ourselves, at which point our bodies overheat and we feel noxious again. Steph still isn't eating much, which is probably a good thing; a self-defense my body apparently lacks. I go through these cycles where I start to feel pretty good, then I get really hungry, and then I feel like crap again after I eat. Not fun.

better know a lobby - atheism

2008-09-02T14:55:00.002-04:00

If not the best Colbert interview ever, at least the best interview finale ever, and not just because of the subject matter.

kansas outlaws practice of evolution

2008-09-02T09:37:00.001-04:00

"If Earth's species were meant to change over successive generations through physical modifications resulting from the adaptation to environmental challenges, then God would have given them the genetic predisposition to select mates and reproduce based on their favorable heritable traits and their ability to thrive under changing conditions so that these advantageous qualities would be passed down and eventually encoded into the DNA of each generation of offspring," Olathe public school teacher and creationist Joyce Eckhardt said. "It's just not natural."

Best Onion article I've read lately.

palin fits right in

2008-08-29T11:09:00.003-04:00

She's currently being investigated for possible abuses of power. Nice.

Commissioner dismissal

On July 11, 2008, Governor Palin dismissed Walter Monegan as Commissioner of Public Safety and instead offered him a position as executive director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which he subsequently turned down.[43][44] Monegan alleged shortly after his dismissal that it may have been partly due to his reluctance to fire an Alaska State Trooper, Mike Wooten, who had been involved in a divorce and child custody battle with Palin's sister, Molly McCann.[45] In 2006, before Palin was governor, Wooten was briefly suspended for ten days for threatening to kill McCann's (and Palin's) father, tasering his 11-year-old stepson, and violating game laws. After a union protest, the suspension was reduced to five days.[46]

Governor Palin asserts that her dismissal of Monegan was unrelated to the fact that he had not fired Wooten, and asserts that Monegan was instead dismissed for not adequately filling state trooper vacancies, and because he "did not turn out to be a team player on budgeting issues."[47] Palin acknowledges that a member of her administration, Frank Bailey, did contact the Department of Public Safety regarding Wooten, but both Palin and Bailey say that happened without her knowledge and was unrelated to her dismissal of Monegan.[47] Bailey was put on leave for two months for acting outside the scope of his authority as the Director of Boards and Commissions.

In response to Palin's statement that she had nothing to hide, in August 2008 the Alaska Legislature hired Steve Branchflower to investigate Palin and her staff for possible abuse of power surrounding the dismissal, though lawmakers acknowledge that "Monegan and other commissioners serve at will, meaning they can be fired by Palin at any time."[48] The investigation is being overseen by Democratic State Senator Hollis French, who says that the Palin administration has been cooperating and thus subpoenas are unnecessary.[49] The Palin administration itself was the first to release an audiotape of Bailey making inquiries about the status of the Wooten investigation.[47][50]

Wooten and the police union alleged that the governor had improperly released his employment files in his divorce case. However, McCann's attorney released a signed waiver from Wooten demonstrating that Wooten had authorized the release of his files through normal discovery procedures.[51][52]

lights in the sky

2008-08-25T10:16:00.000-04:00

bill maher on his movie religulous

2008-08-21T08:52:00.001-04:00

I'm glad they decided to show the clip in the beginning of this video, because long after I walked out of the theater this was the one that stuck with me.

we both go down together

2008-08-18T12:34:00.001-04:00

So *that's* what the song is about.

soon to be no longer living in sin

2008-08-05T14:13:00.007-04:00

Sucks. I like sin :(

the reason i love debugging other people's programs

2008-07-23T12:10:00.001-04:00

I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason for this, but it's still hilarious.

a real apology

2008-07-17T13:55:00.003-04:00

I've never been a particular fan of Jesse Jackson, but I have a lot more respect for him after hearing his apology on the news this morning.

"I am deeply saddened and distressed by the pain and sorrow that I have caused as a result of my hurtful words. I apologize again to Senator Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, their children as well as to the American public. There really is no justification for my comments and I hope that the Obama family and the American public will forgive me. I also pray that we, as a nation, can move on to address the real issues that affect the American people."

I am deeply saddened and distressed by the pain and sorrow THAT I HAVE CAUSED as a result of MY HURTFUL WORDS. Real men know how to apologize. Cowards backpedal or feign apology. Exhibit B:

"I'm sorry if my statement offended anybody. That, of course, was not the intention."

Bill O'Reilly "apologizing" for the Michele Obama lynching comment he made a few weeks back. Not "I'm sorry for what I said", more like "I'm sorry for how you took it". Pathetic.

another great reason to not vote for mcsame

2008-07-16T13:46:00.007-04:00

Every single year for the past eight years my health insurance benefits have been cut while costs continue to rise. Steph's benefits just got cut again today. Now she has to pay 30% of any procedure, and 50% of any prescriptions. This is "full" coverage we're talking about here. This is fucked.

There's no way we're going to chance having kids until this problem gets fixed, which means firing the Republicans. Republicans are the ones who started this shit during the Nixon administration. Republicans are the ones who think our current privatized health care system is just fine. "Oh no, not socialized medicine! If we had that, our health care system might be *gasp* half-way decent, instead of 31st in the world. "

deep thoughts

2008-07-15T10:16:00.003-04:00

My dad just sent me an email that kind of puts the Anheuser-Busch take-over into perspective.

Anheuser-Busch has been in business for 156 years. They have survived dozens of takeover attempts, The Civil War, The Great depression, Prohibition, and two world wars.

They could not survive 8 years of George Bush.

How much worse do things have to get before the 60+% who don't support Bush aren't seen as crazy liberal alarmists?

a heavy solution

2008-07-02T08:28:00.004-04:00

I love Team Fortress 2. More than that, I love Valve; the only video game company who, for me at least, never fails to totally obliterate expectations.

Recently, Valve started the TF2 Official Blog, to keep fans up-to-date on their constantly evolving game. This latest post is easily the best blog post from a video game company ever. It gives us a glimpse into part of their design process, in the form of a sort of design exercise. I'm not sure it would make sense to anyone who hasn't played the game before, but for those who have it's fun to think about.

Here's my stab at it, which I think meets most, if not all, of the constraints and extras:

The first thing that popped into my head was the movement of The Heavy character. Movement is huge in this game, and The Heavy is the slowest character by far. Making him any faster might risk encroaching on another class, breaking a primary constraint. So then I thought why not take away his movement entirely; make him stationary like a turret? Give him a gun that requires even more setup time and does even more damage. Maybe it's a larger caliber gun on a tripod or something.

But then there's the issue of making The Heavy more useful without a Medic, and without a cumulative effect. So instead of making it a tripod, why not something like a small stationary tank or something? A giant gun which when deployed opens up some sliding metal panels that cover and protect The Heavy. Obviously he wouldn't be able to move while inside, and this would also shield him from The Medic's Medigun.

The only real downside that I can see is that it would take a ton of work designing and testing the model with existing assets. Maybe there's another way to accomplish the same thing without affecting understandability or something (semi-transparent shield thing?), but I'll have to work on that more later. Fun stuff.

Edit: Not sure when comments stopped working, but they're fixed now.

new argument strategy

2008-06-30T15:46:00.003-04:00

I've grown tired of rattling off lists of indisputable facts and superior logic to people, only to watch as their eyes glaze over with incomprehension. My new approach will be to simply state "no, you're wrong", then shoot them down at every turn if/when they attempt to explain their stupid, incorrect position.

friendless mcsame

2008-06-27T15:31:00.000-04:00

http://digg.com/elections/

obviously

2008-06-12T10:00:00.002-04:00

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/HealthSci/Intelligent_people_believe_in_God_less/articleshow/3123270.cms

privilege test

2008-06-12T09:31:00.002-04:00

From ei-nyung.

-Father went to college (assuming an associate’s degree counts)
-Father finished college (after my parents divorced)
-Mother went to college
-Mother finished college
-Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
-Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers (class?)
-Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
-Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
-Were read children's books by a parent
-Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 (trumpet)
-Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
-The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively (kind of iffy on this one)
-Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
-Had or will have less than $5000 in student loans when you graduate
-Had or will have no student loans when you graduate (community college ftw!)
-Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
-Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
-Went to a private high school
-Went to summer camp (http://www.wathana.org/ I still remember the camp song :| )
-Had a private tutor before you turned 18
-Family vacations involved staying at hotels
-Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
-Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
-There was original art in your house when you were a child
-Had a phone in your room before you turned 18 (which I paid for)
-You and your family lived in a single family house (later on)
-Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
-You had your own room as a child (later on. at one point, I shit you not, my “bedroom” was the hallway. lack of privacy aside, it was actually kinda cool)
-Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course (my prep course was getting drunk the night before the last and only time I could take the ACT. I still got a 27)
-Had your own TV in your room in High School (which I paid for)
-Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
-Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
-Went on a cruise with your family
-Went on more than one cruise with your family
-Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up (mostly Cranbrook Science)
-You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

drinking liberally

2008-06-10T09:22:00.003-04:00

What is Drinking Liberally?

An informal, inclusive progressive social group. Raise your spirits while you raise your glass, and share ideas while you share a pitcher. Drinking Liberally gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place to talk politics. You don't need to be a policy expert and this isn't a book club - just come and learn from peers, rade jokes, vent frustration and hang out in an environment where it's not taboo to talk politics.

Bars are democratic spaces - you talk to strangers, you share booths, you feel the bond of common ground. Bring democratic discourse to your local democratic space - build democracy one drink at a time.

While drinking liberally, always remember to drink responsibly, and make liberal use of designated drivers. Drinking and driving is reckless and irresponsible, like a neocon war or corporatist tax cut. Liberals, don't do it.

Find your local chapter.

the great progressive state of florida

2008-06-04T14:58:00.005-04:00

Those of you who don't follow my Twitter or Flickr posts obsessively (shame on you) may not be aware that I recently spent a few days in Florida with my dad at his place in a little town called Homosassa, and its slightly larger neighbor city of Crystal River. The area is roughly an hour from Tampa, and it was my first time in that part of the state. For the most part it was pretty much as I expected - lots and lots of relatively normal, albeit mostly filthy-republican, retirees. Every once in a while though, we'd come across some real Deliverance style mutants, looking like they just crawled out of the swamp after having sex with a sibling, like this guy:

Thanks for the link, Danny.

short-term memory

2008-06-02T12:12:00.005-04:00

This article I found on Digg prompted a conversation which got me thinking about my own memory issues.

For the most part I have a horrible short term memory. I never remember where I park. In parking garages I tend to park very near the stairs, because it's less walking to go up or down a level or three than to walk around the entire level looking for my car. Over the years I've built up all kinds of stupid little tricks like that to compensate for my forgetfulness, handed down to me from my dad.

But there have been instances where I've displayed amazing (to me at least) short term memory. There was a restaurant I worked at where the door was quite a few yards from the valet booth, but still visible from the valet booth. The normal procedure for car retrieval would go something like this:

1) Customer(s) exit the building
2) Head to the walkway to get the ticket from the customer
3) Run back to the booth to look up the keys based on the ticket
4) Read the model and location from the ticket attached to the keys
5) Run to the lot to retrieve the car

There's a lot of waiting around in that scenario. First the valet has to wait for the customers to meander their way through the garden to get to the end of the walkway (we weren't allowed to approach them before that point). Then the customers would wait for the valet to look up and fetch their car.

So without really thinking about it, I put my memory to use to speed up the situation. Even on nights were we parked in excess of 100 cars, I was able to recognize the face of anyone who's car I'd parked (or seen parked), remember what it was they drove, where their keys were on the board, and usually even where I parked it. So now the process was:

1) Recognize the customers
2) Grab the keys and pull the car

Customers were usually a little put off by the fact that I would start running away the moment I saw them, thinking it was going to take even longer for me to get their car now, but pleasantly surprised when they reached the end of the walkway to find their car waiting for them. Sometimes I think it even resulted in a bigger tip.

It's not like that was long term memory either, like in band when I had entire concerts worth of music memorized from previous years. Unless it was a very regular customer, that same person could come back the next week and I'd already have completely forgotten their face and what they drove.

I wish I knew exactly what I'd done to tap into that crazy good short term memory I used to have.

roku netflix player review

2008-05-29T18:07:00.003-04:00

I'm not going to bore you with all the things that have already been said about it, I'll just put down some of my initial impressions.

The build quality seems to be pretty solid. No moving or rattling of wires inside when you shake it. I wasn't sure the form factor was going to work with my setup, but it's so small you can set it next to other components. Obviously setting it sideways isn't going to be a problem either.

I paid the $20 for the extra cables and it was well worth it. You get red/green/blue component cables, an optical audio cable and an HDMI cable which is what I used. Pretty decent value, I'd say.

The remote is IR and feels better than the Soundbridge remotes. It's much simpler, it functions *way* better (almost going through walls, it seems) and it's very responsive.

One of the initial complaints of the box/service is that there are no chapter markers as in DVDs. Once I plugged the box in and set it up on my wireless network, there was an update available which of course downloaded and installed automatically. I think the update may have added the ability, which I later discovered by pressing up on the directional pad, to skip ahead to a scene in a movie. They're not chapters per se, but a chronological list of screen shots from various points in the movie, which make it quite a bit easier to skip ahead. Not that you'd really need to since the Watch Now service keeps track of your position across all browsers/machines, but it shuts up the whiners.

I don't like the fact that you can't turn it off. I guess you're supposed to leave it on all the time and just switch to that input on your TV when you want to watch, but that seems a bit hackish to me, not to mention wastefull. There is a screen saver, but the only way to cut power to the device is to uplug the cable from the back, according to Roku's website. Meh.

Overall I'm pretty happy with it, but I'll be happier once there's some better quality content, and a way to stream my own content to it would be nice too. For now, 8 out of 10.

here's a little legal/moral exercise for you, based on a true story

2008-05-28T11:24:00.005-04:00

A woman calls a police station to complain about a van with darkly tinted windows, which she has observed parking near a playground every day at the same time. The van's windows are so dark that nothing can be seen inside. No one is ever seen coming or going from the van; it simply parks near the playground for about an hour, then moves on.

The police decide to ambush the van and open it suddenly. A man is found masturbating inside, apparently while watching children play in the park. Should the man be arrested? If so, for what?

And before some smart ass comments, no the pedophile is not me.

Edit: There are actually comments to this post, but since I removed Disqus commenting, the counts on the main page aren't displayed. Future posts will revert to the default Blogger commenting system.

texas polygamists get their kids back

2008-05-23T07:16:00.004-04:00

Texas seizure of polygamist-sect kids thrown out

In a ruling that could torpedo the case against the West Texas polygamist sect, a state appeals court Thursday said authorities had no right to seize more than 440 children in a raid on the splinter group's compound last month.
The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.

Good. If we allow one group of people to make up and enforce rules based on their version of an imaginary sky daddy, then we have to let them all, even when children are involved. It sucks, but this is the world that religious lunatics have created, and we have to be consistent.

bioshock is quite possibly the worst game ever made

2008-05-20T21:14:00.004-04:00

I finally trudged my way through that awful piece of shit called Bioshock. Jesus what a horrible fucking game. I swear I've never been so bored playing a videogame before. Probably the first time I've actually completed something that I didn't enjoy *at all*. Shoulda been a movie. As a game, it's completely broken. And the ending... holy shit the ending was fucking terrible. I tortured myself playing that game for 20 hours for a 30 second cut scene?

Bioshock developers, would you kindly, kill yourselves.

the great progressive state of west virginia

2008-05-16T08:53:00.002-04:00

I wont name names, but I know people (IRL) who use these exact arguments. And no, not ironically.

disqus

2008-05-15T15:49:00.002-04:00

Trying out a new commenting system. Disqus.

pre-judge

2008-05-13T11:55:00.004-04:00

Here's my random, completely unoriginal thought of the day:

When does prejudice become simply judgmental? Probably not very often. Prejudice : making a decision before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case or event. How often do I really have *all* of the relevant facts before I pass judgment? Probably not very often. I assume too much, too quickly. Republicans still suck, however.

freedom is dead

2008-05-09T08:40:00.003-04:00

Michigan Senate OKs ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and workplaces

Look, I'm all for banning smoking in restaurants and even most bars, but these laws go too far. Perhaps a better solution than banning smoking everywhere outright would be to offer tax incentives to establishments which choose to disallow smoking. Call me crazy, but I think people should be allowed to run a business that caters smokers. Businesses like these which have been hurt, in part or wholly, by smoking bans. Nanny laws suck.

the death of message boards, and soon facebook

2008-05-06T11:02:00.004-04:00

Reposted from TGF.

Back in the day, and even now on occasion, people would post news stories on message boards to start a conversation. With the proliferation of better RSS readers and blogs, everyone pretty much gets stories at the same time now. So if someone were to post a story, everyone else would be like "Yeah, saw that." Basically the situation we have now.

Then gReader added sharing, so I could see the stories my friends were interested in. Now the shares can have comments, so I can see the story they read, and why they shared it, then I can respond with a note of my own. You don't even need to be subscribed to a feed to share either; you can post anything.

I honestly think Google is trying to take down FaceBook from the opposite direction. Expect big things from the Google Shared Items page customization options in the future. Ninjas are just the beginning. I wouldn't be surprised to see some Digg style voting at some point either.

google reader is becoming my entire internet

2008-05-05T20:54:00.001-04:00

Now Google Reader lets you share anything, even if you're not subscribed, and even if it doesn't have a feed. Also, attach notes. Fuckin' A.

http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2008/05/share-anything-anytime-anywhere.html

troubleshooting

2008-05-02T14:58:00.005-04:00

I just received a call from someone claiming to be having trouble with their wireless keyboard. They couldn't type, so obviously the keyboard is at fault, right? NO! Try another keyboard, maybe a wired one. Troubleshooting isn't a tech skill, it's a life skill. Swap stuff out. Change things around. Narrow down the possibilities. Don't be afraid to break stuff. Actually, try to break stuff; it's the best way to learn.

there will be ambition?

2008-04-28T11:21:00.004-04:00

I've long held the belief that grotesquely wealthy people only get that way because they're willing to screw people over. There are lots and lots of smart people who could be filthy stinking rich, if only they didn't have a conscience.

There Will Be Blood, while obviously a fictional movie, has a lot of truth in it, I think. Specifically in the Daniel Plainview character, who represents the kind of ruthlessness that I imagine most über-rich assholes possess.

Throughout the movie I wondered what it was that drew Mr. Plainview specifically to oil to seek his fortune. I'm sure there were any number of other opportunities a tenacious man like himself could've pursued to the same end. Without getting too spoiler-y, the movie kind of reveals the reason - oil is finite.

It's for this reason that I think humanity is pretty much doomed on the renewable energy front. No super ambitious, completely selfish individual has sought to make money on renewable energy, because it can't be controlled exclusively by one entity. There is no owning sunlight. You can't get a monopoly on wind. No monopoly means constant competition. Competition is great for most people, but bad for someone trying to become obscenely rich.

Renewable energy - ruthless people aren't interested, and interested people aren't ruthless. Fuck republicans.

Oh and TWBB is amazing; put it on your queue.

shift in focus

2008-04-25T11:18:00.003-04:00

You may or may not have noticed the relatively recent addition of a Twitter feed on on the sidebar over there ->. That's probably the place you want to go for more timely updates. Moving forward I think I'm going to be posting here less, reserving the space for lengthier thoughts, which seem to be in short supply for me lately.

Don't know what Twitter is? Check it out.

Twinkle is a pretty cool app I use to access Twitter from my iPhone, which allows me to attach photos and geotag entries.

gee, i wonder why gas prices are so high...

2008-04-24T09:09:00.003-04:00

via C&L

aheist quote of the day

2008-04-22T08:50:00.001-04:00

"What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."

- Bertrand Russell

Found in comments on this Digg submission.

do you believe in evolution?

2008-04-21T14:01:00.004-04:00

No. You either accept (the truth of) evolution, or you don't. There is no "belief" involved here.

awesome

2008-04-14T09:39:00.002-04:00

This picture is probably older than the internet, but today is the first I've seen of it. Click for the full size.

where does all the pork come from?

2008-04-03T08:23:00.003-04:00

Why, republican pigs, of course.

In the Senate, the top three big spenders were Republicans, who together scored about $1.8 billion in home-state projects. Those senators are: Thad Cochran, the senior Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Richard Shelby of Alabama, and Ted Stevens of Alaska

At least they're keeping us safe from the terrorists, amirite?

TP

friendfeed day 2 review

2008-04-02T10:35:00.004-04:00

It's working more or less like a bucket for my social network related rss feeds, so for my uses it's really just another layer on top of gReader. If fact, I'm pretty certain I could add all these various services to my rss reader manually and cut out the middle man. I guess there is some value in that they encourage everyone to add all of their accounts in one place, so I don't have to track each one down for every one of my friends. Once again though I find myself wishing Google would just add some sort of comment/reply/messaging system which, for me at least, would make all these other services obsolete.

feed your friends

2008-04-01T09:03:00.004-04:00

I'm still trying to make sense of all this social networking mumbo-jumbo. Wasting time online was so much easier when everyone just posted on message boards and blogs. Now I'm struggling to figure how who's posting what where and when. Maybe this FriendFeed thing will make things easier. Maybe it'll just be another account to sign up for and neglect. Who knows. I wish it would let me change the order of my feeds.

9/11

2008-03-31T10:17:00.003-04:00

My youngest brother will turn 18 on July 4th of this year. 69 days later he will get on a plane bound for a U.S. Navy Boot Camp; September 11th. Fuck.

religion kills

2008-03-27T13:15:00.004-04:00

These people need to be punished to the full extent of the law.

An 11-year-old girl died after her parents prayed for healing rather than seek medical help for a treatable form of diabetes, police said Tuesday. Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said Madeline Neumann died Sunday.

“She got sicker and sicker until she was dead,” he said.

Vergin said an autopsy determined the girl died from diabetic ketoacidosis, an ailment that left her with too little insulin in her body, and she had probably been ill for about 30 days, suffering symptoms like nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness. The girl’s parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, attributed the death to “apparently they didn’t have enough faith,” the police chief said.

The family does not attend an organized church or participate in an organized religion, Vergin said. “They have a little Bible study of a few people.”

This goes well beyond child abuse; it's torture plain and simple. The fact that we as a society do not openly denounce and ridicule religious nonsense is directly to blame.

Crooks and Liars

expelled

2008-03-21T08:34:00.004-04:00

For those not familiar, Expelled is Ben Stein's dumbass new creationist "documentary". I can't wait to pirate it and laugh my ass off at stupid strawman arguments that any eight year old science student would be able to debunk. Anyway, I thought this was hysterical:

You see … well, have you ever heard of a sabot? It's a kind of sleeve or lightweight carrier used to surround a piece of munition fired from a gun. It isn't the actually load intended to strike the target, but may even be discarded as it leaves the barrel.

I'm a kind of sabot right now.

They singled me out and evicted me, but they didn't notice my guest. They let him go in escorted by my wife and daughter. I guess they didn't recognize him. My guest was …

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php

smartest kids ever?

2008-03-12T08:37:00.006-04:00

The kids in this video belong to Stephanie's cousin. They're 2 and 4 years old. How many of these places would you be able to point out on a map?

Oh, one more thing - they've only had the map for two weeks.

Via.

justice perverted

2008-03-10T11:25:00.004-04:00

The name Perverted Justice is ironic because entrapment and vigilantism are perversions of justice.

the golden rule for atheists

2008-03-06T09:59:00.003-05:00

Click for the large version.

Via Digg.

seriously hillary, just stop

2008-03-05T12:12:00.003-05:00

You're going to fuck it all up. You're just wasting Obama's (my) money. Unless you resort to shady back room deals to get more super delegates, or break the rules to get the Michigan and Florida counted, you're S.O.L.. Stop thinking about yourself and throw in the towel. There's too much at stake.

debating with stupid people: obama is a muslim

2008-02-25T11:12:00.003-05:00

Last time, on Debating with Stupid People, I told told you how to avoid a common pitfall when arguing with anti-choice zealots. This week, we explore what's sure to become an increasingly common falsehood as we approach the November elections (because seriously, Clinton doesn't have a chance) - the claim that Obama is a muslim. The rebuttal to this case is a simple two-parter. Feel free to print out the following and recite it verbatim should you encounter someone attempting to spread this lie:

First of all, no. He's just not, and you don't have any evidence, so shut your stupid pie hole. Secondly, so what if he is? Are you saying that being a muslim is bad? Do you hate all non-christians or just mulsims?

Just as with the anti-choicers, we're dealing with a misdirection. They're spreading a lie in hopes that you'll confront it head on rather than point out the fact that it's not even a negative.

cube of meat

2008-02-25T10:53:00.001-05:00

If the cube of meat isn't an enemy in the next Gears of War, I'm not interested.

this guy should be obama's running mate

2008-02-22T10:25:00.004-05:00

Obama has it in the bag; there's no stopping him. Clinton's out and McCain will go down easy. The Presidential race is all but over. But who's going to be Vice President? Edwards adds nothing. Clinton detracts a lot. What we need is an old white guy to soften the blow and make dumbass middle America feel more at ease with voting a black man into office. Someone like Jim Webb. Dude served in the military. He's a senator in Virginia. He's pasty white. It's perfect!

Thanks to Sunil for pointing this guy out.

one could almost devote an entire blog to this shit

2008-02-19T15:41:00.000-05:00

More Republican Follies: Bush’s Crossdressing Judge & Kiddie Porn!

what matters

2008-02-14T12:49:00.003-05:00

I've started to notice recently that there's an inverse relationship between someone's enthusiasm for politics versus their enthusiasm for sports, at least according to my highly scientific anecdotal evidence. Most fall into the category of caring a bit more for sports than politics, but not very much for either. With the few hardcore sports nuts that I know, they almost universally don't give a shit about politics, and vice versa. Weird.

stabby you stupid bitch

2008-02-12T21:57:00.003-05:00

First the Military Commissions Act, now this shit. Debbie Stabanow is a fucking traitor.

The Dodd/Feingold amendment to remove telecom immunity from the bill just failed by a whopping vote of 31-67 -- 20 votes shy of the 50 needed for a passage. A total of 18 Democrats joined all Republicans in voting for immunity: Bayh, Inouye, Johnson, Landrieu, McCaskill, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Stabenow, Feinstein, Kohl, Pryor, Rockefeller, Salazar, Carper, Mikulski, Conrad, Webb, and Lincoln. Obama voted against immunity, and Hillary Clinton was the only Senator not voting. Thus, the breakdown on the vote was similar to what it always is:

Democrats -- 31-18

Republicans -- 0-49

I can't believe I had her signs on my lawn. I feel so dirty.

iphone of the not-too-distant future

2008-02-08T20:55:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week I wrote about the newly released iPod touch and of course there's the new 16gb iPhone too. I'm sure the next release of the iPhone will include a 32gb version, as well as 3G. With a faster always on network, I have no doubt that Apple will finally open up the portable version of the iTunes music store to more than just Wi-fi. Now if they'd just add Podcast subscriptions...

I'm envisioning driving along in my car, listening to music on my carPod, when I get a notification that the latest episode of TRS has finished downloading. " Would you like to listen now?", my iPod asks me. Sure!

One step further - why doesn't the iPhone accept voice commands yet? Windows Mobile has been doing it really well for years. It even lets you run programs and play music. How cool would it be if I could tell my iPhone what artist/album/song to play, or to pick up an incoming call. I mean come on, it's already got the speaker phone!

The moral of the story is - it doesn't matter how cool the technology you give me is, I will always want more. More damn you!

MyGoogleBook

2008-02-08T10:17:00.000-05:00

Shared items in Google Reader is the best thing ever. It's starting to get to the point where I don't even bother to scroll through unread items in my various feeds, because everything worth reading has already been shared out by one of my contacts. Huge time saver. There's also this sort of feedback loop effect created when everyone shares out the same story. There's definitely some sort of communication going on there, only very indirectly.

There are a few pieces still missing from the puzzle though, mostly comment related. There needs to an easier (than coComment) way to find out which posts your friends are commenting on. Per-post comment subscriptions in Blogger alleviate it a bit, but I'd like the option to see them in my Reader in addition to the email notifications.

It almost seems like Google Reader and these social networking services could end up in roughly the same place, albeit from two totally different directions. I have MySpace and Facebook accounts, but I never use them. It feels like a big step backward from RSS subscriptions, since I'd need to add a bunch of crap to get all my blog news in addition to the friend stuff, and that's really what I'd need to make it the kind of site I'd check on a regular basis.

24: the unaired 1994 pilot

2008-02-07T11:07:00.000-05:00

It was posted November of last year, but I just stumbled across it this morning.

hillary is fucking everything up

2008-02-06T08:45:00.000-05:00

After last night, there are now two possible outcomes for the general election.

1) Obama v. McCain
2) Clinton v. McCain

If Obama wins, more Republicans will simply stay home. Hell, some may actually come out and vote for him. If Clinton wins, Republicans will come out in droves to stop who they see as the embodiment of evil liberalism from getting into The White House. In short, if Clinton gets the nomination, we're fucked.

I was predicting big wins for Obama last night. I thought Democrats would be smart enough to recognize that a lot of people really fucking hate Hillary Clinton. I guess I was wrong.

Another issue Democrats are being really fucking stupid on, as usual, is electability. For some reason it seems to be taboo to talk about how sexist/racist this country still is. I think some of it comes from people isolated in very blue bubbles on either side of the country. Living in a just-barely-blue state however, I deal with this shit on a regular basis. Even some of the Democrats I know here are sexist and racist. It's a big deal.

That said, I think it's important to consider who these ignorant fucks are more likely to vote for. Who do stupid rednecks hate less? It's pretty simple really - black males. They gained the right to vote 50 years before women did. Why has no one mentioned this?

Edit: Co-worker input

Co-worker #1 brought up an interesting point - President David Palmer. Has Fox inadvertently made a black male president more viable?

Co-worker #2 pointed out the fact that Obama did much better in red states. Who gives a shit about California and NY? They're going with which ever Democrat gets thrown out there. We need someone who can pull votes in the fly-over states as well, like Bill Clinton did.

steve jobs can kill your ipod on command

2008-02-05T08:48:00.000-05:00

And I have proof! Last night Apple.com was updated to include a decently sized 32gb model of the iPod touch, fixing the only real complaint I had with the device. This morning, my nearly five year old iPod photo, which I use every single day and have never had a single problem with, quit working. Two different computers fail to recognize it. I can't even put it into disc mode; all I get is the sad iPod icon.

Am I pissed? Nah. I'm just glad the Apple Overlords let me prolong my upgrade for this long. Five years is very generous indeed. I've been a bad little consumer, and it's time to pay my dues. $500 is a bit much though, so I've got my eye on the 80gb Classic for half that. And since I mostly use my iPod in my car, I think I'll stick with the familiar old school interface instead of trying to navigate Cover-Flo while I'm driving.

deja vu

2008-02-04T16:00:00.001-05:00

Interesting how these education maps seem to mirror election maps, which in turn mirror Civil War free vs. slave maps.

Via Digg.

god is a loser

2008-02-04T08:57:00.000-05:00

Random atheist thought: Since Huckabee claims that god is directly influencing his campaign - If Huckabee isn't elected president, is that proof against the existence of a god, or just that god is a loser?

that's right, run bitches

2008-02-03T20:39:00.001-05:00

Click the image to enlarge.

I know it's wrong, but I just couldn't resist.

nin pack in rockband? oh.hell.yes.

2008-01-31T08:25:00.000-05:00

More Rockband content coming up. No track previews for you this time though. I'm too damn busy.

March 4 - Thrash Pack
At The Gates: Blinded By Fear
Evile: Thrashes
The Haunted: Shadow World

March 11
Bad Company: Shooting Star (COVER)
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Simple Man
The Police: Message in a Bottle

March 18 - NIN Pack
Nine Inch Nails: March of the Pigs
Nine Inch Nails: The Collector
Nine Inch Nails: The Perfect Drug

March 25 - Metal Pack
Iron Maiden: Wrathchild (COVER)
Black Sabbath: Supernaut (COVER)
Metallica: Fuel

Message in a Bottle and the NIN Pack are insta-buys for me. Not so sure about the rest.

i'm ready to make my prediction

2008-01-29T15:40:00.000-05:00

Obama vs. McCain. Obama wins.

the real reason i drink

2008-01-28T08:15:00.000-05:00

Work Out and Drink Up!

People who don't drink at all and don't exercise had the highest risk of heart disease. People who drink moderately and exercise had a 50% lower risk. Teetotaling exercisers had a 30% decreased risk, as did moderately drinking couch potatoes. "There's an additional protective effect to doing both," says Gronbaek. "That's the new finding."

Based on the research, I figure there's a 1:1 relationship, exercise and drinking being pretty much equal. So I've modified my regimen slightly to - one or two exercises a day (walking to and from my car counts, right?) and thirty to sixty minutes of intense drinking.

omg this looks amazing

2008-01-25T13:41:00.000-05:00

For some reason I hadn't been paying too much attention to news about the upcoming Starwars game The Force Unleashed ...until now. Maybe I was just burnt out on all of the merely average Starwars themed shooters that have come out in recent years, but this video has completely changed my mind.

I get to play as Darth Vader's secret apprentice? And fight an Albino Rancor monster? SIGN ME UP!

Via Kotaku.

anon?mous propaganda

2008-01-25T08:43:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago I started seeing more than the usual amount of anti-scientology articles on Digg. A lot more. I think most of it stems from the appearance of this video, and also this open letter to the church. Apparently this Anon?mous (blogger?) group has leveled some pretty sophisticated DoS attacks against scientology supported websites.

That's all well and good, but I'm wondering what it is about scientology in particular that gets people all riled up. I mean in the grand scheme of things, scientology isn't nearly as harmful as most other religions. Sure, a few whack-job followers have suffered because of their anti-science stances on drugs and psychology, but that hardly compares to the billions that have died, and will continue to die, at the hands the world's major religions.

While I admire what the hackers are trying to accomplish, I wish they would focus on something a little less trivial.

jesus loves you

2008-01-24T19:24:00.000-05:00

This guy's videos are all really good, but I found this one particularly funny as well.

the reason fed-ex sucks

2008-01-23T17:59:00.000-05:00

Straight from the Horse's mouth.

Support Unions, or get shitty service.