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January 28th, 2005

Big Hurt Ball

Ok, one more quick link.

Posted by fad at 6:44pm

Nacholess

Well, since no one cared enough to fetch nachos, I'm going to call it a day. Have a good weekend.

Posted by fad at 5:56pm

That'll Get Me Through

And here I woke up so full of the joy of posting, and ended up with a worthless, boring nothing. I hate when that happens. Someone fetch me some nachos.

Posted by fad at 3:38pm

Trouble For The Sake Of Trouble

Somehow you knew a story involving drinking with Hunter S. Thompson would include something like this.
Well, he took me to the toughest bar I'd ever been to in my life. Nothing but 250-pound street guys with ponytails. It was the kind of place where you drink your drink and stare straight ahead and speak when spoken to.

So we're sitting there, and Hunter has been quiet and all of a sudden he says, out of the blue, "This place ain't so tough."
Thems the magic words.

Posted by fad at 12:54pm

Let's Try This Again

cashews

Posted by fad at 12:46pm

Freedom

Hmmm, maybe Canada really is the true land of the free.
A Canadian who masturbated at a window in his house won his appeal against a conviction for indecency on Thursday after Canada's top court ruled there was no evidence of intent to commit an indecent act, and a home was not a public place.
[...]
The woman said she spotted [him] while she was watching television with her two young daughters in their family room.

She alerted her husband, and the couple observed [him] from their darkened bedroom for 10 or 15 minutes -- also using binoculars and a telescope -- before summoning the police
Good thing they spent a whole 10 to 15 minutes on observation. Made them better witnesses at trial, I'll bet.

A friend in college had a roommate who was busted for his evening habit of sitting on a table in front of the dorm room's window which faced another dorm, aiming two desklamps at his crotch, and merrily whacking away. He also thought he was a vampire.

Posted by fad at 10:32am

A Friday Meme

  1. Imagine you are a raisin.

    Ok. I'm a raisin.

  2. Do you realize, now, how pointless it is to imagine that you are a raisin?

    No, actually I find it rather empowering. Surprisingly, as a raisin, I find myself free of the Thetans and ready to take on that mean, ol' Xenu.

  3. That is forbidden knowledge!

    Not to a raisin, baby. You just caused your own downfall because of a silly lark.

  4. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

    Don't shout at me! I'm a raisin now and will not tolerate any of your sass.

  5. Is there any way we can end this?

    Yes. I'll stop imagining I'm a raisin if you get me some nachos.

  6. Never!

    Then I'm afraid we are at an impasse.

Posted by fad at 9:58am

Glacial

Soon justice will be done international community style.
A Serbian army general, Vladimir Lazarevic, has surrendered and will go to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague next week to face charges.
Which means his actual trial will begin sometime in 2009. The prosecution will rest its case around June/July 2014 at which time a three year recess will be called. The defense will be given a strict schedule of only 3 weeks to lay out its case. However, these three weeks will be parceled out over seven more years. Finally, he will be found posthumously guilty in 2034, and everyone will feel a deep sense of satisfaction, though they no longer know what the hell the whole thing was about, as they enjoy the traditional post trial nachos.

Posted by fad at 9:41am

January 27th, 2005

About Damn Time

Finally, civilization has reached its peak. Or is that peaks. Ok, tits.
Today Mantra Films, the company behind the hugely successful Girls Gone Wild video series, introduced the sexy, young women taking part in the Girls Gone Wild Halftime Games.
[...]
The Girls Gone Wild Games will pit beauties against one another in a series of physically challenging, nudity inducing outdoor games -- including activities on trampolines, in the pool, on the bronco bed, and down a giant inflatable water slide. The four teams are: Daddies Little Girls in pink, The Rack Pack in red, Team Shocker in black, and the Teachers' Pets in blue.
[...]
The Games will run approximately 50 minutes, with a notification to viewers when the Super Bowl is about to resume. The Games are being made available to customers for just $14.95.
Anyone got $15 they wanna give me?

Posted by fad at 5:50pm

Not Your Concern

puddin'

Posted by fad at 5:15pm

Day Of Remembrance

The last Thursday in January is also the day NASA has set aside to honor those astronauts (and others) who died "in the cause of exploration and discovery." Today is the 38th anniversary of Apollo 1, tomorrow is the 19th of Challenger and Tuesday is the 2nd of Columbia.

Posted by fad at 3:02pm

In Which I Am Unfair And Unimformed

Crime in Britain is up, but don't worry, they know who is at fault.
Alcohol has been blamed for a rise in violent crime and anti-social behaviour in the UK, by outgoing Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens.
[...]
He also said the drink industry should take responsibility for the problem.
Which makes sense, because we all know that, until the last few years, the British were not known for drinking. Oh, a snifter of port at Christmas, perhaps. Maybe a sniff of blackberry brandy to clear the sinuses, but drinking heavily? Never! And most never of all was there a stereotype of a little drunken fighting and violence in decades past. Thankfully Constable Kwikwit has spotted this dramatic change in social behavior.

Posted by fad at 2:16pm

Tax Cranky

Wonderful. St. Louis County, who takes taxes from me, has to fork over $499,391 stolen from a company in overcharges. What's the big deal about that? Sure, if the County overcharged that money, it should be paid back. But a little detail.
The heart of the case was the criminal activities of [one woman]. Between 1995 and September 2001, she overcharged Investors Title $865,455 to cover up cash she stole from the recorder's office to feed a gambling habit.
Statute of limitations only allowed recovery of nearly $500,000 of that. The county never saw that money; she took it all. So that money isn't being returned by the county, but is extra payout. As far as I'm concerned, this is just another $499,391 she stole. This time partially from me.

Posted by fad at 1:58pm

Probably Result In More Grandstanding

At first, I was just going to make some lame jokes about this, but it got a little more intersting as it went on.
They won't have a blooper reel and you can't get them at Blockbuster, but Illinois House proceedings are now available on DVD.
[...]
Each disc from the House clerk's office will cost $5.
Boring as all hell for the most part, but I can see how that could be very useful for schools to use and such. But some pols aren't all that happy that video archives of sessions are now so easily available to the people.
Still, Rep. Bill Black (R-Danville) is concerned that the recordings may be put to political uses. He said footage could be edited, or even altered electronically, to make a lawmaker look bad and then used in a negative campaign commercial.

''We always worry about being taken out of context,'' Black said. ''But if you do that to a digital video disc and use it as a campaign commercial it could be devastating.''
And he is right, but is fear of future (mis)use a good enough reason to prevent people from access to this information? I don't think fear of political embarrassment is a weighty enough reason.

Posted by fad at 12:53pm

Sure As Heckfire Isn't 'Level'

The New York Times goes vodka tasting.
Some of those names did not even make our Top 10. Grey Goose from France, one of the most popular vodkas, was felt to lack balance and seemed to have more than a touch of sweetness. Ketel One from the Netherlands, another top name, was felt to be routine and sharp
Grey Goose -- not just because it's French -- always did seem overrated to me. Good, but never worth the price.
None of the Russians made our list, but two of our Top 3 were from Poland. The Wyborowa, which comes in a striking bottle designed by the architect Frank Gehry, was elegant and mysterious and seemed to keep drawing us in. The Belvedere was exceptionally pure and smooth.
Belvedere I've only had a couple times, but it was always extremely good. Again, though, hard to justify its price. Ok, now it's time for the important news: which vodka was deemed best?
After the 21 vodkas were sipped and the results compiled, the Smirnoff was our hands-down favorite.
That's plain ole, red label Smirnoff, too.

Posted by fad at 11:54am

Washed Down With Real Blood Bloody Mary

"Mad cow hard to get, study suggests"

A-ha! A challenge!
A person would have to eat 1.5 kilograms of brain and viscera from an infected cow in a single sitting to contract the human form of mad-cow disease, according to a new study in the medical journal The Lancet.
Sorry, but threat or no threat, nothing will make me give up my Sunday brunch.

Posted by fad at 11:27am

Shameful Knowledge

Time for a Pop Culture Barometer Check. Read this extract from this story.
A woman arrested after failing a sobriety test and telling police she drank three glasses of Listerine has pleaded guilty to drunken driving.
Now, how many of you thought of vanilla extract and/or Tom Hanks?

Posted by fad at 11:09am

Not A Chance To Stay Posted

Today marks the 60th year since the liberation of Auschwitz. Single day things like this always strike a bit false. Too organized; too formal. Everyone comes out, somber and stern, says the right things, but there's a sense when the ceremonies are all done there's some brushing off the hands and a, "Ok, that's done. Who wants nachos?"

Distilling it to one big day makes it, should it come up or need to be discussed, too tempting to toss aside with a, "Dude, didn't we just do that in January? Forget about it until then when we'll get all stern and somber again." "Never again" has fallen into the too-typical international relations false formulation to exaggerate some events (Jenin, Guantanamo) for political/PR gain while ignoring others (Darfur) where real risk and effort are required.

It is good that, for a time here, a higher focus is on what happened. It is good that there are big documentary specials on PBS (even if they came with Linda Ellerby hosted 'discussions' after each segment). But I just hope the Holocaust doesn't become a "couple days in January and only when the anniversary year ends in 5 or 0" type of thing.

Posted by fad at 10:44am

'Arry Po'er

Fans do creepy things.
Corporal Harry Potter, a member of the Royal Worcestershire regiment, was killed 66 years ago during fighting in the southern West Bank town of Hebron and was subsequently laid to rest in a cemetery in the town of Ramle.

"Every day tourists and visitors come wanting to see Harry's grave,"
I mean, if I was in the area and was that big a fan, I might pop over for a gander, but not a special trip. The article doesn't say if people are leaving Potter-the-fictional related items or weeping over the grave, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Posted by fad at 9:54am

Nearly 40 Years Later

Oh, those hep cats always with their 23-skiddoo ideas.
Former Beatle Ringo Starr and comic book mogul Stan Lee announced a partnership Wednesday to launch an original entertainment franchise of an animated persona based on and voiced by Starr.
[...]
Starr's alter ego is described as an "evil-battling, Earth-saving - though reluctant - superhero with a great sense of rhythm."
As long as evil attacks in 4/4 time.

Posted by fad at 9:41am

Anti-Life

I've read many essays that try to create, and practically celebrate, the idea that the suicide bomber and those he murders are actually willing partners joined in communion in some sort of sacrament of justice. You'd think by now I'd be a little bit conditioned to them, but they never cease to sicken.

Posted by fad at 9:16am

January 26th, 2005

He Pompously Declares

The fact that Quiznos has brought back the evil "talking baby" bullshit in its ads has lost it all good feeling it may have once had for using the spongmonkeys in an ad. Not only is all good will gone, but now it is replaced with anger. Anger and gas. Ok, mostly gas. And a mustard stain.

Posted by fad at 6:25pm

Balance Will Be Found

I think I have decided to fear this.
In April, Bacardi Global Brands plans to introduce a flavored rum called Island Breeze that is promoted as having half the calories of regular rum or vodka. Unlike other flavored liquors, Island Breeze has no added sugar and is sweetened with sucralose
Then again, it is hard to turn down a name like "Island Breeze". Why, it's transporting, it is.
A standard 1.5-ounce shot of Island Breeze has 48 calories, half the calories of a shot of normal rum and 70 percent fewer than some flavored drinks like Absolut Vanilla and Smirnoff Cranberry Twist. Island Breeze will also be 18 percent alcohol, instead of the normal 40 percent.
So, half the calories, but half the alcohol. Gee, I wonder how that might end up working out.

Posted by fad at 4:32pm

Psych Out

I didn't know that Robert Downey was making a movie about that singer dude from Journey.

Posted by fad at 3:38pm

The Robert C. Byrd Title To A Robert C. Byrd Post

Now that it's harder to get Congressional Gold Medals, we need to look to other ways to honor our honorables.
New York may be forced to privatize some major roads, bridges or other transportation assets to help pay for much-needed improvements and overall maintenance,
[...]
Boardman said bridges might be stronger candidates for private operation
Bridges. Perfect. I say we pool our money, buy one of these bridges and name it after the Robert C. Byrd conscience of the Senate, Robert C. Byrd. It's a crime that this great man has to stare down the last few years of his career with only 457 bridges named after him. Let's make it an even 458.

Posted by fad at 3:21pm

Note To Self

You're experiment to see if you could make it to 5:00 without caffeine is a failure.

UPDATE: Caffeine administered. Bonus: got a buy one get one free cap.

Posted by fad at 2:29pm

Ions!

Moon pictures from the ESA's arrogantly named Smart-1 spacecraft. The second picture is one of those that exposes a problem I've always had looking at top down pictures of cratered landscapes: all the craters look like hills and mesas rather than craters. It's weird.

Posted by fad at 2:08pm

Third Beer

A Missouri state senator wants to make this a no titty state.
Legislation pending in the Senate would impose a 20 percent tax on revenues of all "sexually oriented businesses," charge a $5 fee for each person entering their doors and prohibit them from staying open late at night.

"The goal of the bill is to make Missouri inhospitable for these businesses," said Bartle.
That is a bit vague. Now, since I'm such a devil with the ladies, would any business I engage in fall under this? Anyway, this doesn't affect St. Louis. Everyone knows you go across the river to Illinois for your stripper action.

Posted by fad at 1:00pm

Impressive Consumption

More proof that the government is trying to kill us with flouride. That is when it isn't being used to activate the mindcontrol chips they implanted in us during those phony-baloney mobile hearing tests they made us take in school.
Instant tea may be a source of harmful levels of fluoride that can lead to bone pain, researchers discovered after they looked into the case of a woman who drank one to two gallons of super-strength tea daily.
I bet she's the one to ask if you need to know where the closest bathroom is, though.

Posted by fad at 12:54pm

No Title

Well, doesn't this look smooth.
The inclusion of Myron Kuropas in the U.S. delegation to Sunday's inauguration of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, which was led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, appeared to be an embarrassment for the Bush administration.

Kuropas [argued] that Jews played a driving role behind Soviet leader Josef Stalin's murderous policies in Ukraine
If this accurately reflects his current views, does anyone check on people before these trips? Sometimes it seems like they go through a rolodex and just pick someone with the right ethnic name.

Posted by fad at 11:29am

Stir 'Em Up

It'd be quite funny if one legacy of the Bush administration is to destroy the perceived cedibility of conservative commentators. Next we'll be reading a story that goes like this:
"It was revealed today that the Justice Department paid Ann Coulter to be a horse-faced raging bitch. Coulter defended the payments by saying, 'That's just who I am anyway, so the money didn't change anything.'"
Well, ok, maybe not.

Posted by fad at 11:05am

Art Art Art

Except for the tax-funding, in theory this isn't all that bad.
The air kissers with the interesting eyewear were all there. It was the art opening of the season, and the cognoscenti gathered to sip chardonnay and wax poetic about the work on display at one of the city's most prestigious galleries: the dump.
[...]
Mendoza holds one of the most coveted positions in the San Francisco art world: one of three current artists in residence at the San Francisco Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center, a fragrant 44-acre font of inspiration otherwise known as the dump.
Why stop at three? There's 44 acres of the stuff. There's enough for everyone.
"It's very textural, very architectonic,"
How true; how true. I was thinking it looked a bit more from the Frombabulent school with a bit of erotitexturization around the edges, but "architectonic" is a perfecly cromulant description.
The resulting artwork, like [...] "Raymond Chandler" -- a noirish tableau created from salvaged bullets and a 1930s circuit panel spattered with what appeared to be vintage blood
Vintage blood?
The artists in residence, about 50 since the program began, are financed through 2 cents of the $18.90 a month San Francisco residents pay for garbage collection. Each artist receives a $1,800 stipend, though it has been temporarily suspended because of the downturn in the city's economy.
At least it's been suspended. It would be better if the artists paid for the access to the material.

Posted by fad at 10:33am

Claiming My Rights

I just realized that in nearly three years of doing this, I never took steps to protect my genius. So I have made a slight change to the template to correct this. I hope no one minds.

Posted by fad at 10:15am

January 25th, 2005

Of Course If It's True, It's Not Slander

Damn good thing I don't live in Washington anymore.
The Seattle Democrat is sponsoring a bill to repeal a 1909 Washington state law that makes "slander of a woman" a crime.
Though most of my targets were out of Washington. Would it cover women slandering over state lines, or is that just a federal issue?
It is not that Kohl-Welles, a women's studies lecturer at the University of Washington, wants to hear women slandered. But she believes the law is a relic of a time when men put women on a pedestal and denied them basic rights.
What do you know. I agree with a women's studies lecturer.
The law has not been used for decades. The state Supreme Court upheld it in 1914, affirming the conviction of Mattie T. Paysse, who had been fined $50 for slandering another woman. Paysse's offending words did not make it into the historical record.
What? A woman slandering another woman? But I was taught that all women are a sisterhood, full of compromise, cooperation, gentleness and nurturing. I bet she was forced to do it by a man. That's the only explanation. The system that causes women to do such things is a sickness.

Posted by fad at 6:15pm

A Lesson Learned Today

A box of 20 trash bags lasts a really long time when it is actually 45.

Posted by fad at 4:32pm

In Which I Make Fun Of Something Serious

Your tax dollars and Homeland Security bring you emergency tips.
The booklet also contains guidelines for determining whether a biological, chemical or nuclear attack has occurred.
First sign of a nuclear attack is that you are dead. Other signs will be provided to you on the other side.
Signs of a chemical attack include watery eyes and trouble breathing.
So watching Steel Magnolias is a chemical attack?
"Many sick or dead birds, fish or small animals are also cause for suspicion," the guide says.
Or I had one of my...incidents...again. Good to know it's a talking guide. That helps out the illiterates like me.
Depending on the situation, you may want to "seal off" the room, the guide says.

That's where duct tape comes in. The adhesive and plastic sheeting can seal doorways and cover windows and vents.
Back to the duct tape again. Someone in that office must have a bizarre fetish for it, own stock in a company that produces it, or, as in the case of outgoing Health and Human Resources Secretary, Tommy Thompson, both.

Posted by fad at 4:01pm

Senator Always-Given-A-Pass

In a story about Senators bravely lambasting someone who isn't there in front of them to respond, comes this last bit about the Robert C. Byrd Senator from West Virginia, Robert C. Byrd (D - The Robert C. Byrd Represented West Virginia Where Robert C. Byrd Represents).
Byrd, the longest-serving Democratic senator and a student of the Constitution,
"Especially that 3/5ths part. Dem shame we lost that one. Dem shame. Why me and the boys in that social club I used to recruit for always used to talk, during late night socials around the bonfire, about how we wish we could return to that purity of the Constitution."

Posted by fad at 3:40pm

The Always Sensitive History Channel

Sometimes, not just from news stories, but just running the dial on any given morning in any given market, I get the feeling that the greatest collection of stupidity can be found in wacky morning DJs.
A New York radio station apologized on Monday for repeatedly airing a joke song that ridiculed victims of the recent tsunami in South Asia and used racial slurs, saying the piece was in poor taste.
[...]
The piece used racial slurs to describe people swept away in the disaster, made jokes about child slavery and people watching their mothers die.
This thing apparently pissed off everyone and got the fascist dissent crushers revved up.
"At a time when virtually the entire world has come together to help in the tsunami tragedy relief, employees of [this station] have come up with this song," said New York State Assembly member Jimmy Meng, a Democrat from Queens. "We are disgusted and demand immediate action by the FCC."
Personally, I wish the History Channel would have renamed some of the tsunami related programs they have been compelled to put in heavy rotation to take out the "Wave of Death!" or other similar subtitles. That they waited a couple weeks before airing them was pretty impressive.

Posted by fad at 2:32pm

You've Got The Touch

"Transformer problem leads to power outage in Lincoln Park"

Those damn autobots and decepticons. Why did they have to bring their intergallactic war here? WHY?

Posted by fad at 12:54pm

I'm Probably Reading It Wrong

Am I reading this wrong, or is the BBC just saying something stupid? An otherwise interesting article about the creation of a polymer from oils in orange peels and carbon dioxide ends with this.
CO2 is the principal greenhouse gas caused by human activities, and is emitted by fossil fuel burning and deforestation.
Not to mention breathing. How can deforestation emit CO2? Isn't it more proper to say that deforestation results in less processing of CO2 by trees which may result in more CO2 left in the atmosphere? Deforestation doesn't add (emit) any CO2; it may result in less subraction, though. Maybe functionally the same, but I guess I'm splitting hairs on the difference.

Posted by fad at 10:53am

It Was Deep Like A Papercut

No blood for bags!
San Francisco, which has long prided itself on environmentally friendly policies, is debating whether it should become the first U.S. city to tax grocery bags to encourage recycling.

On Tuesday, the city's Department of the Environment will vote on whether to recommend a 17 cent fee on each bag, be it paper or plastic, in an effort to curb the use of an estimated 50 million bags a year in the Californian city.
One nice thing about the self-checkout lanes at the stores -- besides the fact that it helps my continuing alienation from society by not requiring me to interact with any human being in the slightest when at the store -- is that fewer bags are used. The baggers at this store have been known to put every single item into its own bag.
Donna Dempsey, an official at the Society of the Plastics Industry, said, for example, that a San Francisco Environment Department claim that the United States uses 12 million barrels of oil annually to make 30 billion plastic bags is just wrong.

Instead, she gave a figure of one million barrels of naphtha, an petroleum derivative.
Just think. If this tax had been in place from the start, there would have been no littered bags floating in the wind. We could have been spared the preachy horror of "American Beauty"!

Posted by fad at 10:02am

Wonder If They Swap With The House Ever

"'Honeymoon over,' Senate Democrats say"
"The honeymoon is over and we are now in the full throes of our new marital arrangement here," said Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip, after he and his fellow Democratic leaders yesterday unveiled a priority list that was sharply at odds with one put forward by Republicans.
It's nice to know Senate Democrats see "marital arrangement" to involve harrassment, verbal abuse, divergent paths, harangues..... Huh. I guess it does look like a normal relationship.

Posted by fad at 9:35am

And The Nominees Are....

...eh, who cares. I saw maybe 4 new movies this year, of which it was unlikely any would do well in the nominations. The only fun thing with these is to catch part of the ceremony and make fun of everyone.

Posted by fad at 6:02am

January 24th, 2005

Dodge

I did get called first thing this morning. We were told the case is expected to take at least the rest of the week to try. This wasn't great news, of course. We hit the courtroom at 10am, had 2 hours of questions from the prosecutor, lunch, an hour and a half of questions from the defense, then sat around for a while waiting. Finally at just before 4, they called those who had been chosen, in an almost anti-lottery, to be the jury. My name wasn't one of them.

So, phew! I'm done with jury duty. Made me a sweet $10 at it too.

Posted by fad at 6:15pm

Some Brief Things From Jury Duty

Posted by fad at 6:13pm

Change Not Forthcoming

I had a lot of time today to think about the direction of this site. I think it's time this place became one of those sites where I take thin-skinned offense whenever something less than praiseworthy is said about me or my opinions. Then I can start an obsessive series of barely funny, tinged with bitterness posts under which my commenters rally 'round the Pavlov to tell me how much I rule and to watch out about slipping on the other person's drool.

That'd be cool.

Well, except for my commenters would probably join in on the other side. You treasonous worms!

Posted by fad at 6:11pm

In Which You Get Lectured As You Deserve

More evidence of what Oliver Stone calls the "raging fundamentalism" in this country which keeps people away from fine movies.
The Razzies, which mock the worst in film, gave "Catwoman" a leading seven nominations Monday, among them worst picture, worst actress for Berry and worst supporting players for Sharon Stone and Lambert Wilson. "Catwoman" also was nominated for worst screen couple for Berry with either Stone or co-star Benjamin Bratt.
Remember, Sharon Stone said that a lesbian kiss/scene was left out for fear of the Bush administration and all you right-wing freakazoids out there. With that one scene, the movie would have been "On The Waterfront" + "The Matrix" = Best Movie Ever! But because of George W. Bush, you weren't allowed to see the movie as it should have been. Your own "raging fundamentalism" robbed you of true beauty. I hope you feel as ashamed of yourselves as I am of you.

Posted by fad at 5:58pm