June 27, 2004
Because the world doesn't always give immediate feedback, a parent has to go out of his way to bring the consequences home in a way that will make an impression, be it a spanking, cutting their allowance or something else. As a friend of mine once said, there's really only two ways to punish somebody: hurt them or take their money.
Thanks to Mindless Bit Spew, I've come across an excellent example of good parenting in action. A kid misbehaved, so his parents set up an eBay auction titled: "Selling Son's Beloved Play Station 2 For Punishment!"
As a little bonus humiliation, they explained exactly WHY the sale came about. Here's a short excerpt:
Here is the kicker…………..Husband finds the corkscrew in the floor and part of a cork in the floor. Ask son who is play his beloved Play Station 2 if he has any thing he would like to tell us?Son- “No”
Dad- “Really?
Son- “No”
Dad- “what did you use this corkscrew for?”
Son- “To open the beer.”
Dad- “What about this cork?”
Son- “What cork?”
Dad- “This cork.”
Son “Oh, THAT cork. I drank some wine too.”
Dad- “Well I hope you enjoyed that because it cost $120.00 a bottle!”
Parents might want to print this one out for use in their next idle threat.
Hurry, because these auctions don't stay posted forever. The link will probably be dead in a couple weeks.
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09:49 PM
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Apparently the Bush administration recently commissioned a memo analyzing the legal definition. Via the Showcase, I found that Red Line Rants took the time to read the memo. He gives a fairly thorough run-down of what torture is and isn't in the legal sense. Very informative, and worth the time to read. Good ammo for your next argument.
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09:41 PM
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Wow, some of you may have forgot all about this by now, but I did not. I do want to finalize the final contest. Marty McKeever of Vigilance Matters was the tie-breaker, and voted to give the final title to News from the Great Beyond, who from hereforth shall be the only ever Queen
of the Blogs.As host, and creator I have decided to not give Walloworld a loss, and make him the longest reigning king, and thenceforth the King of the Blogs. Therefore the final result is split, and both walk away as winners, but News from the Great Beyond has the final and last victory. Judges, as a last act please post this result.
So the cruel and tyrannical King Bill of Walloworld retains his throne, after a fashion, as his subjects across the blogosphere weep in anguish.
However, a beacon of hope still shines, as the goodness of Queen Songstress of News From the Great Beyond will seek to spread peace, justice and happiness (and possibly a few naughty fantasies involving scepters and ermine robes) throughout the less corrupted parts of the realm.
As for the future, a message in a bottle recently washed up on shore, bearing Nick's signature:
[...] what if we revive the idea of King of the Blog as a sort-of Blog Review, and have a ranking system, and so forth along with it. Top tier blogs would receive special recognition, and we would end up with some sort of outlet for all these entries I continue to receive. Whatcha think?
I'm intrigued, and I'd love the chance to keep acting like I know what the hell I'm talking about when it comes to blog style & design. Anybody out there interested in having there blogging design & writing skills criticized?
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09:35 PM
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Normally I defer to Matt's judgment on things military, but I'm not seeing how sending troops to Sudan furthers the missions that need to be accomplished in the War on Terror.
I'm sorry people are killing each other, but there's no strategic reason to put American troops there, as far as I can tell.
An American Soldier's blood is far more precious to me than the blood of a non-US citizen. If the first is expended for the sake of the second, it needs to be because there's also a benefit to US civilians.
Let them slaughter each other. If we do nothing, it won't spill over to us.
Cold, but true.
If I'm mistaken, please correct me.
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11:46 AM
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(click to enlarge)
I thought the ones where you could also see a rainbow were kinda freaky.
(link via Blogless Brother Roy)
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11:04 AM
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June 26, 2004
You are my first, last, and only dream at night.
(CAUTION: Romantics beware - comments may contain naughtiness)
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10:08 PM
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| How to make a Harvey |
| Ingredients: 1 part pride 5 parts brilliance 1 part |
| Method: Add to a cocktail shaker and mix vigorously. Add a little curiosity if desired! |
Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com
You're NOT allowed to snicker at that last ingredient or the word "cocktail"
From the same source comes an indication that you probably shouldn't drink the Harvey once you've made it:
| Harvey is poisonous! Induce vomitting if ingested. |
POISON |
From Go-Quiz.com
By which I'm sure they mean, "spit, don't swallow".
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02:50 PM
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To celebrate, I'm buying him a bigger closet.
Oh, and it turns out that that one picture of his I linked recently wasn't a fluke. He really DOES have artistic talent.
Considering what pen and paper do when I try to put them together, I assume he gets it from his mother.
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01:57 PM
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(via Steven of USS Clueless)
"Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came? Why then, the war would come to you!" -Bertol Brecht.
(via Gerard of American Digest)
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01:23 PM
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YAY!
In the same post, there's a full-length picture of Goldie with her 4 sisters. Goldie's right in the middle, and although she's not naked, that little blue number she's sporting does a good job of revealing the outlines. Must've been pretty windy that day.
The picture's work-safe (and click-to-enlarge), but your thoughts won't be after you look at it.
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01:17 PM
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Day after day, I would receive picture after picture of stick figures, being eaten by sea serpents. They would be sitting on a boat deck and suddenly get eaten. Or there would be 10 – 20 of them holding hands on the bottom of the ocean and a great three (3) headed serpent would swoop down and eat them. It was graphic, for stick figure art. There was a lot of dismemberment with swirly blood floating in the ocean. The line of stick figures in the water? Oh some would be missing heads, while others were eaten in half. There were stick bodies floating in the water.
Despite what Sally suspected in the comments, I never really drew violent stick figure cartoons (or boobie pictures). Drawings just took too long to make, plus I had no artistic talent and I knew it. When I wanted to amuse myself, I looked at other people's drawings. That's what libraries are for.
However, I couldn't completely avoid art. Every grade school has art classes, and they were forever making you draw something. So I perfected one drawing to get the Creativity Gestapo off my back. Here it is:
Served me well in every art class from 1st through 6th grade, after which those sadistic sessions stopped being mandatory and I was at last freed from the torture of being creative.
But I guess Sally is right about me being a naughty boy, since I did have one all-purpose dirty picture that I drew. I'll put it in the extended entry, since it's technically not work safe. more...
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12:51 PM
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Your words are my food, your breath is my wine. You are everything to me.
(CAUTION: Romantics beware - comments may contain naughtiness)
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12:02 AM
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COMPUTER (and other) PROBLEMS
First, a little back-story. I know a lot about computers. I could point you to a lengthy article I wrote about how to buy a computer, but it isn't available right now, as will soon become apparent.
In my home, I have about 10 computers. I am an anal-retentive control freak about them. They are each setup to do a job, and the important ones have backups. Kinda.
Laptop:
This laptop is the one I use to do _my_ work at work - if you know what I mean. :wink: :wink: Well, last week it stopped wanting to connect to the network at home. Then the shutdown option disappeared from the menu. Then it kept trying to reboot. And it won't perform an MS Update at work. Stupid OS. Probably a worm. Yes, it has anti-virus. Now I'm gonna have to reload the damn thing. But it's got a lot of important data that I can't backup because I can't get it to connect to the File Server at home. That's gonna take some creative copying to save the data and reload. It takes time, hours - perhaps days with my schedule. While annoying as fuck, it's not a big problem.
Web Server:
I have one *really* expensive server that hosts my e-mail, primary website, game server, dns, etc. It is a beast - dual CPU, dual drive controllers, 6 drives setup to mirror each other, and a power supply that doubles as a hair dryer. It has been running almost continuously for about 5 years. Only when
*really* bad things happen is it off. It runs on Linux. It's been acting up lately. I came home a couple of weeks ago and it was powered off. I live alone (well, a wonderful dog, but she doesn't go downstairs). The server has a UPS. It is physically impossible to shut this thing off remotely. Hmmm. Then it happened again a week later. This week, on Tuesday, I came home and heard a sound like the warbling of a British police car. It was coming from the computer room in the basement. Not.Good. This thing was complaining. Everything in this computer had a mirror to provide redundancy. Except the System Board. Everything is plugged into the system board. And it had taken a shit. Fucking. Great. Not only do all my other computers go out through that computer, everything coming in goes through that computer. Now I'm really fucked. The failed part is not "off-the-shelf", and replacing it has required me to get a different CPU, new memory, and a different power supply. Why? Well, because "technology advances" have made it so that new shit doesn't plug into old shit. Finding the exact replacement part isn't easy, provides no assurance that nothing else is about to fail, and will take time. And time is a luxury I don't have at this point. I didn't want to screw around playing "Is this the broken piece to the puzzle?" Well, $1,000 and two days later (special order!), I have the parts I need. I'll be spending this weekened installing the OS, upgrading, and configuring. At least I won't lose any data. But it's still a pain-in-the-ass. And my business is offline right now. That fucking sucks monster donkey balls. (And yes, I do have a spare DSL Modem - already programmed, spare network hubs and cables, and am working on a spare firewall.)
File Server:
In the (relative) silence that came with the shutting off of the "Industrial Hair Dryer", I noticed a soft ticking coming from another computer. WTF? Switching to that PC, I see a little icon flashing in the corner. The pleasant message informed me that the primary hard drive had failed (who knows when), and that it was running on the backup drive. The good news is that my anal-retentive nature of using RAID-Mirrored drives paid off. No data will be lost. The bad news is that another $200 and more time will be needed to replace the drive and bring my File Server back online. It holds all of my MP3's (about 20 gig of music). Plus it gets feeds from my other computers (aforementioned Web Server, plus the webLog Server that my webLogs run on, the laptop, Quicken files, pr0n collection, etc.) to backup their data. It has a DVD Burner so I can make archival copies to store off-site. Did I mention I am an anal-retentive control freak? So right now nothing is being backed up, and I can't crank up my favorite hate music. And that makes me cranky.
Right now I'm about to lose my fucking mind. I can appreciate that software fucks up and hardware fails. I plan for that. Fine. But three *major* things in one week? What.The.Fuck.Is.That? I'm gonna go play Keno just to miss all the damned numbers. This "incredible timing" has got me as frustrated as a blind man at a strip club. I feel like Harvey trying find his pecker on a cold day. 
Where in the hell is a good astrologer when you need one? You can't tell me shit this horrible wouldn't have shown up on even a *bad* fortune cookie. It probably would have read "Prepare for really bad mojo."
Oh, and I had a cavity found at my cleaning on Wednesday, so I had to have that drilled and filled ("Can you stay? We had a cancellation, we'll just move you to another chair."). And "While I'm here, I'm gonna replace this old silver filling with a new one." Oh joy, fun at the dentist. But, being the bad-ass-mother-fucker that I am, I skipped the Novacane and just had him do the work. Yeah it hurt. But what the fuck, might as well have some physical pain thrown into the mix. It can't make things worse. Besides, I scammed a script for Vico-prophin outta the deal.
But, getting that bastard filled was an adventure in looney-land. See, "Vico-" anything is a "Federally Controlled Substance". Let's follow along, shall we;
Pharmacy #1:
- "Can you fill this?"
- "Yes, do you have insurance?"
- "Yeah, but I'll just pay cash."
- "Then we won't fill it."
- "What?!"
- "Have a nice day."
Pharmacy #2:
- "Can you fill this?"
- "No, the script is pre-printed on the form. Your doctor has to write it out."
- "What?!"
- "You can have your doctor call it in."
- "It's 7 pm, dumbass."
Pharmacy #3:
- "Can you fill this?"
- "No, we're out of that."
- "Any suggestions?"
- Phone call to another store. "Yes, they have it a few miles away."
Pharmacy #4:
- "Can you fill this?"
- "Are you the one sent over from the other store?"
- "Yes"
- "Do you have insurance."
- "No"
- "OK. 15 minutes"
The things I go through to satisfy my addictions.... :/
Oh, but wait! It get's better! I got a letter from the Credit Union where I have my Personal and Corporate Checking Accounts. It said "We are no longer handling corporate accounts here at your friendly Credit Union. We hope that 90 days will be sufficient for you to find a new place to take your corporate business." Oh joy.
Oh, and I just remembered, my barber shop got bought out, and is being converted into a fruit market. I don't have much hair, but in my neighborhood, all the other barber shops have signs that don't include English. I'd prefer the person holding a straight razor to my neck be able to understand my instructions. I don't want my last memory to be hearing "Allah Akbar!". Just a minor detail of my anal-retentive control freakish-ness. (This paragraph is probably not politically correct, but it is accurate.)
Where do I sign up for a stint at Abu Ghraib? I think I'd rather have some butch-like-bitch pointing at my privates and laughing while her buddy takes a picture. :/
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June 25, 2004
I was having trouble with my computer. So I called Harold, the computer guy, to come over.Harold clicked a couple of buttons and solved the problem. He gave me a bill for a minimum service call. As he was walking away, I called after him, "So, what was wrong?"
He replied, "It was an ID ten T error."
I didn't want to appear stupid, but nonetheless inquired: "An ID ten T error? What's that, in case I need to fix it again?"
The computer guy grinned, "Haven't you ever heard of an ID ten T error before?"
"No," I replied.
"Write it down," he said, "and I think you'll figure it out."
So I wrote out I D 1 0 T.
I used to like Harold.
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11:39 PM
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As an adult it becomes harder. Beliefs are propped up by stone pillars of selected evidence, and that which does not fit the structure is not considered, much like drapes that don't match the carpet.
Yet sometimes, through either wisdom or circumstance, one is forced to re-examine the truths that give structure to one's life. The results are either a strengthened belief in what one already stands for, or a seismic shift that collapses the belief-temple, requiring you to pick up the pieces and start anew to construct something newer and better that's worth believing in.
These are never easy times, but the caring and support of loved ones can ease the transition.
It's harder when it was the loss of loved ones that caused the collapse in the first place.
It's harder yet, when the loved ones who remain give you, not support, but contempt and ridicule.
There is no greater loneliness.
Via the Showcase, I came across Michele of Letters From New York City, who is going through such a time right now. Previously a liberal/democrat, she lost dear ones in the 9/11 attacks, and she has come to question everything she previously believed. Now she has made her decision:
The truth is I can no longer remain subdued in my arguments, just as I cannot temper my level of disgust with the DNC. I am at the point of revulsion. I can no longer debate like a lady. I simply want to take my gloves off, get into the ring and throw a few well placed punches of my own. I can no longer stand by silently and know that brave Americans are being accused of untruths and vile things. I can no longer live with that lie silently.
Part of her new life includes disassociating herself from certain organizations.
Now if I were a member of one of those organizations, what would I do? I would probably say something like, "I'm sorry to see you go Michele. I liked you as a person and a member. I'm disappointed that we can no longer see eye-to-eye on some important issues. But, even though I can't agree with what you're doing, I still wish you the best of luck in the future."
What was actually posted in her comments lacked even this chill warmth, let alone even the tiniest shred of class or dignity.
I swear, I never thought people this crass and unfeeling actually existed outside of poorly portrayed movie villains.
I know better now.
And I feel slightly dirtier for the knowledge.
To cleanse myself, I'm asking that anyone with decency and a soul stop by Michele's place and welcome a brave woman who's just taken a tremendous leap of faith and landed solidly on her feet.
Show her that it really is better over here.
UPDATE 6-29-04 6pm: Michele's blog was hijacked recently. She was able to rescue the content, but not the comments (either the cruel or the supportive). I changed the links in this entry to point to Michelle's post at its new site. You'll just have to take my word that the comments were harsh, thoughtless, and vindictive.
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11:35 PM
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What Glenn Reynolds is saying about the Alliance - the unabridged version (there's some screamers in there, so don't miss this one).
New Filthy Lie assignment: What will Evil Glenn be doing for Independence Day?
A non-assignment related Filthy Lie.
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11:25 PM
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Rashdan said he has sent several letters to various U.S. officials, including Attorney General John Ashcroft, requesting for his client "the basic rights anyone on the face of this Earth has: the right to a representation and fair trial."
I'm just thinking about all the rights Saddam's victims enjoyed, and I'm trying not to put my fist through my monitor.
So, to cheer myself up, I'm having two visions:
The stadium scene in Dirty Harry:
Harry fires his gun and fells Scorpio with a second wound to his bloody leg. [...] the utterly despicable and cowardly Scorpio piteously pleads and bleats like a cry-baby to be spared, to have his civil rights honored, and to be taken to a doctor when Harry aims his gun at the killer and single-mindedly wants to know where the girl is buried and hidden. [...] :Scorpio: No, no, no, no. Don't do anything more. You tried to kill me...Please no more, I'm hurt, can't you see I'm hurt? You shot me, please don't, don't! Let me have a doctor...Please give me the doctor, don't kill me.
Callahan: The girl, where is she?
Scorpio: You tried to kill me!
Callahan: If I tried that, your head'd be splattered all over this field. Now where's the girl?
Scorpio: I want a lawyer!
Callahan: I said, where's the girl?
Scorpio: I have the right for a lawyer.
Callahan: Where's the girl?
Scorpio: I have the right for a lawyer, don't shoot me, I have rights, want a lawyer.There is a terrific cinematographic, helicopter shot - a spiraling, aerial view pulling up and away from Harry, as he uses strong-arm tactics to torture and crush Scorpio's wounded, bleeding leg under his grinding foot and heel - alone in the flood-lit stadium.
And a scene from Frank Miller's Batman comic book, "The Dark Knight Returns". In this scene, Batman is chatting with a wounded criminal who doesn't want to tell Batman where Two Face is:
Criminal: NO!... Stay back!... I got RIGHTS!Batman: You've got rights. Lots of rights. Sometimes I count them just to make myself feel crazy. But right now you've got a piece of glass shoved into a major artery in your arm. Right now you're bleeding to death. Right now I'm the only one in the world who can get you to a hospital in time.
I think about these two things.
And I smile.
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12:21 AM
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June 24, 2004
I love when my heart smiles, but best of all, it smiled because of you.
(CAUTION: Romantics beware - comments may contain naughtiness)
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10:47 PM
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[Hello! Hi? How R U? {heart}]
Yet another closing time approaches at Madfish Willie's Cyber Saloon, as desperate women begin to vie for the Bartender's attention.
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10:45 PM
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Like the French, Jake will make loud, annoying noises for unimportant reasons. Unlike the French, Jake eventually shuts up.
Jake only smells REALLY bad when he's wet.
Jake doesn't respond with a haughty sneer when I speak English to him.
Jake has never voted Socialists into power.
When I do something nice for Jake, he doesn't piss on me afterwards.
Well, there was that ONE time, but he was just a puppy then.
Like the French, Jake sometimes makes big, stinky messes that someone else has to clean up. Unlike the French, Jake was never occupied by Nazis, so I don't expect him to know better.
Jake takes a bath several times a year.
Jake has never claimed that Jerry Lewis is funny.
Jake has never surrendered to the Germans. However, he does sometimes tremble uncontrollably and piss on the floor when he hears a loud noise, so I guess that one's a tie.
Jake has never asked me for assistance in fighting a war in one of his Southeast Asian colonies.
I had to finish off a woodchuck for him, once, but that was completely different.
The only time Jake ever interferes with my unilateral aggressions is when he sits on the unfinished sections of the lawn while I'm mowing the grass.
When I tell Jake to do something, he doesn't retaliate by f****** with me at a UN Security Council meeting.
Finally, Jake is a brave soul who would gladly risk his life to protect his loved ones, and he wouldn't be afraid to help liberate a foreign country to help accomplish this.
Unless doing so involve loud noises, in which case he would tremble, piss, and hide under the bed.
But at least Jake would TRY.
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10:38 PM
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