"Democrats save the day"

I hear constantly on conservative blogs that good news in Iraq is like the plague. It really does feel like the MSM is in on some unwritten conspiracy that prevents allowing the current administration looking good in any light. There are huge positive movements going on in the war. It really does look like the surge (20% more troupes) did the trick in Iraq.

If there is an unwritten rule in the MSM, it will suddenly flip the minute Obama takes office. All of a sudden, the outlook in Iraq and wherever will be as rosy as the cheeks children's play about nonsecular global activism. Democrats, who were simply cogs in the machine that got the job done right along side Republicans will claim victory.

Yes, I do not believe that Democrats deserve as much credit as Republicans considering the Democrats fought victory at every step. It is as though many people would rather the U. S. loose soldiers and civilians than let their political rivals look as though they made a correct decision.  "Democrats save the day"

It has got to go both ways. There have got to be situations where Republicans have done the same thing. I'll keep my ears open. Republicans have been spending money like Democrats for several years. Bastards.

So, why are the Democrats all against drilling for new oil deposits in the U.S.? Because that oil will not come online for ten years. Who knows if a Democrat will be in office by then. They want a fix that will kick in six weeks after Obama is in office.  "Democrats save the day"

PLANE!!!!!!

That plane looks like it had a bit of trouble getting it up. I like the kid "That was awesome!"

SMAKE!!!! ... I mean SNAKE!!!!!

That is a huge frigging snake. I would prefer if they fed it cats. Not that I'm a dog person or anything. I like pet rocks. I have some, somewhere. They do not suffer separation anxiety.

Iranian Special Forces

These guys put the 'special' in special forces. They are as special as every one else.

Is that a dodge?

Very Local News

• Went to lunch with some friends. We ate grilled buffalo and jalapeños burgers. I felt like I gained ten pounds. I'm glad no one one expected much this afternoon. I'm glad I finished up a bunch of work this morning. Felt like I was going to die there for a while. Those burgers were the size of softballs.
  
• I've been hearing green this and green that. Now green collar workers. These are the people who make their living off the made up wealth of carbon credit trading. So, Gore et al.
• NPR sucks.
• Some guy tried to say that 90% of the cells in the human body are bacteria. I'm calling BS on that one.  To Google!!
• NPR had a story about how much Europeans are ga-ga over Obama. They can have him. I'm sure the rest of the world would love a handsome articulate gullible fool in charge of the U.S..
• Another guy was on Talk of the Nation podcast today. He was like you know, ... something. .... Oh, I mean an idiot. He was talking about education or reverse white flight or something like that. His canter was distracting. He sounded like a dumbass. Like ... you know. No, you are here to tell me. That is supposedly why I'm listing to the frigging podcast.
• Every goddamn story from NPR is deliberately spun to talk about environmental change. Isn't that change bad?  But don't they want change from the new president? Is that what the Obama sound bite means? "I'm the candidate of <whisper>climate<end whisper> change!" That would be funny.
• Some other chick came on and could not get through the first sentence of her shpeel before saying "you know". I terned it off.
• Nat had dinner on the table when I came home. That felt kind of cool.
• Helped give Elle a bath.
• Watched a movie called "The Contract". It was pretty good. I think the teacher would have lost it long before the end of the movie.
  
• Burned some data DVDs.
• Read some blogs. That is, my computer read some blogs to me. I used the same espeak reader at work today for work stuff. It was great having it installed. It helped greatly.
  

Watched a wreck this morning

I got off the and was just about to make it to the street next to my work that I cross every morning. It is an unprotected left. Guess what. There was a wreck. Someone turning left was smacked in the rear right panel by some one going straight the other way.  One of the cars was out of commission and needed to be pushed out of the intersection. The other started to pull across the street in to a parking lot.

But before this could happen, the light changed. People acted like it was GTK meets Frogger trying to get around the two cars. No one felt like they could wait a single minute for the cars to clear the intersection. A guy in a wheel chair, a lady with some kids and myself were nearly run down while traversing the intersection in agreement with the light. The situation did not call for honking and the shaking of fists.

I'm sick of Huston. I, and Nat for that matter, hate people. Planet Earth would be a great place if it weren't for about half the people.

Too much free time

How can people afford this kind of hobby?

Dumbass drag racer

Sucky Race Car Driver

And he is on a track no less. What does it take to qualify for this track? Imagine how frigging stupid the numskulls are racing out on the street.

Glad I'm not a cop

I would not make it as a cop. I would beat way too many people to death on my first day. Does the term 'rookie rage' already exist?

Very Local News

• It took two weeks for the news of Lincoln's death to make it to Europe. Reuters (the man, not the service) beat his competition to the scoop by a week. He took a ship. Can you imagine any piece of news taking two weeks today? It is not news if it is twenty four hours old. It is history.
• I buzzed my goatee. It was just too hot and got too much stuff stuck in it.
• The MSM (Main Stream Media) is very busy complaining about telling stories about covering the war. I guess they ran out of bad news coming out of the war zones to cover.
• Worldview podcast had some chick on today justifying the MSM bias that presents the Palestinians as the victims. She says something like "I wish we had more contextual information that told us why this conflict is still ongoing." I like that statement by itself. The trouble is, the reason is because one religion says to kill all the members of the other in it's holy book. It is not complex. This chick sounds good, but she is off by a mile. * At work, we have these doors in the hallway (for some fucking reason). It is an issue when people are headed both way through the door. They push open so it is easy from the not opening side to just bull-rush one's way through and knock any one headed the other way in the nose. I've gotten myself in to the habit of knocking just before I go through. Today someone pulled the door open from the other side just as I was about to knock and I nearly fell forward. It was just that disrupting to have the door pulled from in front of me as I was shifting my weight to both knock and push the door open.
• The one thing so many people agree regarding the current financial situation in the world is that it is not over. More of the same. Invest in MREs, water purification, and shotguns. $90 a case? Are they mad?
  
• Nat used iTunes to download one of her favorite TV shows. It is like $1.99 or something. Not too bad. All she has to do is ask me.
• Elle is getting big. She is smart as a whip too.
  
• McCain is countering Obama's trip by announcing his vice president candidate known. My God, they are just trickling bits one at a time. They deliberately drag things out and drive me nuts. Yes, they want to make my head explode. That is their ultimate goal.
• We need to start thinking about Faire plans soon. I think I'll send round an email.
  

One thing at a time

Weekend in review here. Nothing of consequence happened. Nat and I were invited to the new Bat Man movie, but couldn't get a babysitter. We tried to go to Hellboy II Saturday night, but it just didn't work out. I've read a million blogs and complained about them. Nat has been marathoning ER all weekend that she borrowed from the library.

I will walk in to work tomorrow with a lot of hard work waiting for me. I can do it. I'm looking forward to it. I need some numbers from people. I'll get them. I need to focus. I'll do it. I need to tell others they need to wait. I'll do that to. One thing at a time. One thing at a time. Do it and do it right. Then move on to the next one. One thing at a time.

Stack of bills. Stack of tasks. Stack of honey-do. One thing at a time.

Blogs suck

I've been reading blogs for quite some time. I've been publishing to one for a while too. I've figured out that my blog is not the only one that has started to suck lately. Well, over the last couple years really. Blogs used to be interesting. Now, there are a bunch of blogs that have rat-holed themselves in to one or other topic. Maybe it is just the election, but I can't bring myself to read some of the blogs I typically frequent. Defense Tech used to have several posts a week. They have just a few. now. The guy who does the blog is off posting on some pay site. Sell-out.

There is a level of complacency that is gathering in the blogsphere. People want something else to move on to. I fear this a bit because blogging is quite an outlet for me.

Blog entry types seem to fall in to categories any more.

• Heads up - Warning of some kind. Propagation of hoaxes and those stupid emails we all get.
  
• Politics/religion/abortion - Could be for or against something. Might be propagating crap that was received in an email from the previous bullet. Some people are just plane making shit up as they go. This category might be called persuasive.
  
• Look at me - Say something for the sake of keywords just to get hits.
• Complaint - This is my specialty. The idiots are out in full force racing around Westheimer and doing donuts. I could go on, but you get the idea.
• Product pro/con - Say something for or against a product without getting paid for it. This almost seems like a waists of time, but people do it. I suppose it affects local sales a little bit and might keep a friend out of the bad restaurant you just suffered through.
  
• Video comment - Rather than commenting on a video on YouTube, LiveLeak or where ever, people, including myself, seem to prefer embedding the video on their blog and making their comments there.
• Cookie Cutter - This is cat blogging or commenting on pictures you took, particularly of your own kids. This is different than the video comment only because the poster and possibly other relatives is the only one really interested in what is put up.
• Life altering - Some people only put up epiphanies on their blog. Some put up everything but the good stuff. Readers miss out on day to day stuff and thus forget to read the important stuff. People gripe about their lost childhood or that they have to grow up and get a real job.
  
• Informative - The poster vaguely vales something in order to get a message across to someone who reads the blog.
• Regurgitated news - This is a big one. I did this a lot more in the past. I've tried to sway away from most of it unless I have something to add or a personal anecdote to go in to.
  

There must be a hundred different categories. I haven't thought of them all by a long shot. The thing is, they are all sounding the same. Maybe it is just me. Maybe main stream news is starting to pick up a bit. Maybe I've just become jaded by all the political blogging that goes on right now. I have found myself heading to the blogs that don't typically do the political thing lately.

What does not kill you , pisses your enemies off

Found here.

Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog

It has the captain from Serenity and I think it is the guy from Dougy Houser MD. Not sure. I suppose I could look it up, but I'm quite lazy. It is a silly Sci-Fi sing along movie thing available on the inter-web. Amazing what they can do with electrons these days.

Enjoy. Link

P. S. When the spell checker hit how I misspelled Horrible, it substituted Honorable. That cracks me up.

Defensive Lasers for Aircraft

It kind of pisses me off I have to hear about this stuff in a British blog. Apologies for reposting the entire post. It is very short and straight to the point.

Defensive lasers for aircraft Dale Amon (Belfast, Northern Ireland/Laramie, Wy)  Aerospace Here is a fascinating teaser for a Janes subscription only article: US military pinpoints date for HELLADS ground test. The United States military told Jane's it is on schedule for a 2010 ground test of a lightweight high-energy laser that could be installed on a tactical aircraft to destroy missiles, rockets and mortars. The laser, known as the High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS), is being developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and General Atomics, along with several other contractors. It is all coming together about as I expected, although perhaps a little faster than I really believed. samizdata.net

I keep hearing whispers of this sort of thing. What makes me think it is the real thing is how difficult it is to find any concrete information about it. I saw a TV show a million years ago talking about a big rotating mirror on top of a DC-10 or something that worked for zapping ground to ground missiles as they were taking off. Every little bit you weaken the missile on take off, makes for a huge difference as it flies to its target. This sort of design sounds like a smaller version that attacks things headed straight for the aircraft.

Natalie

Yesterday, around 10:00 I just called Natalie out of the blue. She was upset and muttered something about Elle's school and that I had to come get the car. I heard the word ambulance. She said she had to go and we hung up. I spent the next fifteen minutes maybe thirty minutes trying getting some work done while I called around looking for Elle's school's number. I got hold of them and finally got some information. The head of the school road along with Nat to the hospital a couple of blocks away.

Here is the story second hand. Nat had a dull headache for about four days. She got a sharp pain early Friday in her head and while driving to Elle/'s school experienced blurred vision, a sharp pain, and she felt faint. She made it in to the school's parking lot and got Elle in to the school. Then she asked the head of the school to call an ambulance.

Ken gave me a ride over to the hospital. Where I found Nat, sat and waited, gave a bunch of information, and paid the deductible. I called my parents to help us get the car. Nat got out after a scan that turned out to be all clear. The doctors turned her loose around 15:30 or maybe it was 16:00. We, my parents, Nat and I, got the car, something to eat and meds. My father and I had a nice conversation at the house while waiting for the girls (my mom driving) to get home from CVS.

We got home around ... I think 16:45 or 17:00. Maybe it was earlier than that. Nat and I ate our hamburgers. My parents took off. That is the last thing I remember until about 23:30 when I climbed out of bed. and read some blogs while Nat slept. I was falling asleep at the hospital too. I didn't get up today until 14:00. It was Nat asking me if I wanted anything from Jack in the Box.

I suppose things are back to normal.

This is way better than that other viral video

I like the Pop-Eye-Snort chick at the end.

There is a really bad video that has the same kind of following as this one. I have not watched it, but I've been told what is in it. Do not go look that other one up, I implore you.

Hard ride home

They made us ride on the outside of the bus. You didn't show up late, let me assure you. That ride was even worse.

Very Local News

• Blogging from death row. How am I supposed to follow that?
• More bad news on manufacturing. Just plane bad. It may be true that GM is in bad enough shape that the old gal will go bely up. I cannot imagine a U. S. without GM somewhere. Not that I haven't seen this coming. Part of me hopes GM pulls it off and stays what it is right now. Part of me hopes GM is not sold off to Chinese or  UAE, though it would server we Americans right.
• While standing at the bus stop this morning, I noticed the light changing and one whole side of the road just sat there for a couple seconds. I'm not sure, but I think they were all just not paying attention. Someone honked and they all took off at the same moment. This made me think. The people at  the front of the line at light have the stress taken off and there for may become complacent. People farther back may feel like they have less control over the situation and thus pay better attention to the light. That or the angle of the sun made it more difficult for people at the front of the line to see the light than the people in the back.
• I am burned out on climate change or global warming or what the fuck ever those bleeding heart pinkos are calling it these days. It seems to me they have to keep moving the targets in order to keep people interested. People have made careers out of making the public fear their tail pipes.  It makes me scratch my head when I remember that the term climate change came before the current energy crisis and food crises and financial crises. ...
  
• My goatee has gotten long enough that people are calling it a beard. I think I'm the only one at the company with a beard at the moment. I must trim my mustaches. It is driving me up the wall. Nat refuses to let me use any of the dozen sets of sizers in the house.I suppose I'm going to need a dedicated set to appease her. Not a battle I choose to fight. When it turns white and is long enough to throw over my shoulder, I will call myself a Zen Master, just for the hell of it.
• Dr Karel disagrees with Myth Busters about breaking a wine glass with the naked human voice. He things the Myth Busters guy may have used diamond rings to put small nicks on the glass when no one was looking or some other shenanigans.  He and some colleagues did some experiments and figured the amount of energy needed to break a wine glass was too great for a normal human voice. Just one more layer to a wonderful myth in my opinion.
• I got espeak working at work. It had been a while since I had a reader at work. I had some time this afternoon while waiting on people to get me something I can use. I got one out of seven somethings at 17:30 or so. Thanks guys.

Lost Stick

I lost my flash thumb drive this morning. I noticed it wasn't in the pocket of my back pack. I turned the office over and ran around looking up the skirts of all the machines I might have put it in. Nothing. Just as I'm trying to come up with a list of suspects, I think, you know, I should look in the back pack more thoroughly. So, I start pulling things out of the bag like I always do when I'm looking for something in the bottomless pit of lost things I use for personal storage. Sure enough, it had fallen out of the pocket that it is normally in and fallen in to one of the other pockets. This probably happened when my bag got dumped upside down. This only happens occasionally because the bottomless pit of lost things does not like being jostled.

The huge corporation was the company where I worked where things were most likely to be taken. The two smaller companies less so. I guess that boils down to people knowing each other and the faceless anonymous feel of a monstrous company. There may have been a feeling of "they can afford it" because some people there made very good money. I was not among them.

How bad to you need that $40?

That over hang didn't put up with very much punishment. It went over like a house of cards.

Very Local News

• Still haven't seen Wall-E (how ever it is spelled). I think Elle is off to see it today as a school outing. 2008-07-16.
  
• The financial institutions of the U. S. are off the deep end. Five Trillion ( 5,000,000,000,000 ) dollars worth of mortgage holdings are worthless because no one can prove they are worth the paper they are printed on. This is so big that Fanny May and Freddy Mac cannot be aloud to fail. They would take the rest of the economy with them down the crapper. In contrast, the Savings and Loan bail out in the eighties was around half a billion ( 500,000,000 ) dollars.
• GM says everything is great. No chance of going belly up any time soon. Just a few lay-offs/cut-backs/cost-cutting, then everything will turn around. That is all. ... Time to worry?
• Didn't Daimler buy Chrysler for the Jeep unit? The same Jeep unit that tanked with $3+ a gallon gas? Then Daimler dumped Chrysler like a flaming badger.
  
• A teacher in China blogged about leaving the school children to fend for themselves as he fled for his own safety during that big quake  a couple weeks ago. He is now called the most hated man in China. "I am not brave enough to risk my life for others." He was fired, not for leaving his kids, but for speaking on his blog about what happened. This is not the first job he has lost for speaking on 'taboo' issues. He is now suing in China to defend his freedom of speech. Sounds like a brave action to me. Other Chinese people say the school buildings falling apart was what killed children during the quake. This man is a scapegoat. Ironically, other bloggers in China chastise him for 'overexercising his freedom of speech.'
  
• The amount of swearing increases as quitting time approaches.
• If the Daily KOs and Code Pink joined up It would be the Daily Pinkos. Wait a minute. It is the Daily Pinkos already. I'll have to come up with a better one than that.
• Found a new add on for Firefox that allows you to switch scripting on and off per site. Nice. Been looking for this for a while.
  

Online Radio

I got hooked on online radio when I worked at my old job. I listened to Five Live. Their after noon show played at the same time as my early morning. Evening shows are typically more relaxed and easy going in my experience. That was nice. I don't need someone yelling in my ear and forcing a laugh every minute to wake me up and get my day going. I need useful news and sane people talking to interesting people. I need something that helps me think, not dull my senses.

I work in software development and we are many layers separated from the internet. This is normal for software development. Thus, I have no access to online radio. This is the problem with podcasts. The idea behind podcasts is you can download them and put them on your portable device. You then take your device with you and listen to the podcasts on the run. This is problematic because devices are increasingly on the internet while on the run. Thus, no need for podcasts. The pressure is off for people to make a podcast and just output the live stream. This also solves some of the DRM troubles for the product owners. They are all for this coming change.

This screws me and my coworkers. We work in a place where normal radio reception sucks anyway. Radio sucks these days, but that is another blog entry. Right now we have a dab of music out there to listen to.  I must listen to news for some reason. Apparently, some other folks want to do the same.

We have all boiled down to the same software package called streamripper. On Linux, it is all command line with a ton of parameters. This means it can be easily atomized. On Windows apparently there is a GUI that requires user intervention that means it is a nightmare to automate. I have only gotten it to download like five minutes of a stream last night and gave up because  of frustrations listed in detail below. It shows promise. Adam attempted to use it to download huge swaths of online radio in one big file and had problems. He is using the windows version. It looks like both versions will let you capture slices based on seconds and just slap them in a folder with a number at the end. Apparently if the software has any kind of connection trouble it just dies. This makes the automation a bit more complex.

You can't get to most raw streams any more. Radio stations and other companies seem to use flash for the most part in order to force people to open the little window that displays ads for the radio station.  Thing is, even the BBC is doing it and they are not a commercial entity. It is just the way things are being done. That is interesting because the portable internet devices mentioned above for the most part do not run flash. The streams of audio and video have to get on to those devices somehow. If you can do it with a hand held device, then you can get it on a computer. It has got to be a matter of playing with it and googling the correct terms.

There is something psychological going on with online radio. It makes people at my work feel better hearing new music all the time. Only some of the streams will be news. There are many young folks up here and listening to the same songs, or even their own collection every day drives them nuts. It drives me nuts too. I think that is the real reason I listen to new so much. I'm sick of music all sounding the same. That's another blog entry too.

No free time

Not bad lip syncing.

Harold And Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

This movie has a long scene with dozens of pretty women who are bottomless. I don't remember the rest of the flick. It was not memorable. There was something about a cyclops and something about that guy who played a doctor at the age of like fifteen.

Dragon Wars

How do you fuck up a movie about dragons? One part over done shitty CGI. If you can't afford good CGI, put in a lot of shitty CGI. One part taking your self too seriously. One part poor, choppy, incoherent direction. One part bad sub-titles. One part over done plot line. And, last but not least, Oriental dragons as apposed to European dragons. Mix it all together and poor glue on it and call it day.

I would rather have read a comic book about dragons. I would rather have listened to some one tell me how bad this movie was before I waisted thirty minutes of my life on an hour and a half flick that had CGI dragons and still managed to suck.

Diary Of The Dead

Worst zombie flick ever. It was just hard to watch. Not for the gore or anything. It was just piss poor lame. I'm not sure how to describe the agony. They attempted to do something that had been done to death in a different way. They did that. It still sucks. I wish I had talent so I could do the perfect zombie movie. What would I do different? I have no idea. I have no talent. I don't try to make zombie movies. My movies would suck. I'm saving the resources for other things like yelling at the racers and blogging about my cat.

How do they just keep getting worse? 28 days later was OK. I haven't seen 28 weeks later. Need to catch that one. Heard it isn't that bad.

Very Local News

• Someone asked why 6.8 mm when it comes to a new caliber for the military? Where did they get that number? It is more or less a .270 caliber. My father swears by that round for hunting those miniature deer in East Texas.
• If we had used BFC instead of CFC in refrigerant, we would have burned through the O-zone decades ago. (Dr Karel) It sounds like it was a coin toss in the thirties which to use.
  
• The two place Israel could feasibly fly over in order to perform an attack on Iran are Turkey and Iraq. Turkey certainly wants no trouble with Iran. The new, American supported, semi-independent (soon to be independent) Iraqi government supports Iran's right to have a nuclear program. This heard on Left Right and Center. Frigging Pinko's.
• There was a fire in an apartment complex not too far from where Adam and I used to live. Nat noticed the smoke on the way home.
• Texas teens are having more sex than in other states. Texas spends more money on abstinence than most states. Your tax dollars at work.

Where the hell is Homeland Security!?!

This is a paintball century. It detects movement and adjusts to shoot at it. How cool is that. I could use one of these in front of my refrigerator.

This guy is working out if his closet with parts nabbed from old bits of junk lying around. The CIA should higher him before he puts this thing on the market. I've heard people rigging doorbells to blow up trucks passing by in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the same kind of ingenuity, but with American know-how added in. I wonder if this kid went to public school. If so, I have to find that school district.

Did I mention that I'm impressed?

'OH Shit' Moment

So, there I was today trying to figure out what files under my user folder I could get rid of. I ran a command that allows you to tell how much data is stored under each folder.

> du -hs .*

'du' is short for disk usage. The 'h' and 's' control the output and make it readable.  I kicked it off and went to do something in the lab. I came back and saw the following.

...
../billy/projects permission denied
../Joe/docs permission denied
../Amanda/mail permission denied.
...

This feeling of dread came over me because my user folder is on the same drive as every one else's. In that split second of seeing every one else's name just pass by with a permission warning nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought for sure I had deleted the entire user drive. It felt like i had been punched in the stomach.

The 'du' command is read only. Still, even knowing that, my heat skip a beat. I guess this is a good thing. The proper command to use is something like the following.

> du -hs `find ./ -type d -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1`

This got me the information I needed.

Get 'em Paw!!

I can hear the quots.

"Brother to sister. "Watch this."

Sister to mom. "I said, he's in the machine."

Mother under her breath. "I can't believe you are this stupid."

Mom to little boy, again under her breath. "Get in the fucking car."

The father poses only to roll his eyes.

Weekend Summary

We called the cops on the racers last night. Actually, Nat did. I went outside and gave people dirty looks until the cops came. It is now Sunday evening and the assholes are racing up and down the road again. I swear to God, I'm going start calling the cops any time I find someone parked in the parking lot next door after hours. They keep pulling in to the parking lot behind the buildings behind our house. I assume they are selling drugs.

I love hoe the cops deal with things. They show up and hit the lights until every one peals out of the parking lot and goes somewhere else for an hour or so. I need to humiliate the police in a way that makes them show up and start arresting people until they stop coming back. The only way I can think to do that is to get the cops and bad guys on video when nothing happens. The cops pull away before every one has left. Several people just don't leave. Soon, the racers come back. The cops don't care. They will after I get some video and start hitting the news stations.  Didn't this all happen a couple of years ago?

I hate this house. I hate the neighborhood. I hate the area. I hate the businesses. I hate the fact that the police do not do their job around here. That or their are not enough resources for them to do their job. I hate Harris county. I hate through traffic. I hate Texas Department of Highways that refuses to mow the fucking side of the road where people walk. I hate the county for not getting on the owner's ass of the next jungle lot next door.

Had I know that this was the wild fucking west I would not have moved here. I was under the mistaken impression that there would be police coverage. their should be a warning to prospective home buyers in this area that it is not a civil settled area.

Oh, they fixed the street lamp like last week.

My head hurts from reading all the blogs about death and loss. If it isn't a post about people dying, it is a post about loosing freedom or cameras. Yikes. So, why can't I stop and hang out with the family?

Nat is marathon watching ER that she got from the library. Elle is on the couch watching with her.

I mowed and weed-whacked the front. I nearly fainted from the heat. I had to come in when I was almost done and cool off. Lots of breaks they say. I bet I drank a gallon of water. I had to mix up a new batch of two stroke gas. I'm so glad I kept the little one gallon bottle of oil, even though empty, to help me measure. I'm not sure the mix is perfect because the gas looks dark. I'm worried. I do not need to fry my machines.

My head is killing me. Nat gave me some Tylenol sinus. They have not touched my headache. Every little bit, the TV cries in agony or screams in fear. It seems like ER was all about people blowing a gasket. I think a woman is on now giving birth to a motorcycle and letting the whole world know about it.

Already blogged about the attempt to get the laptop working with full Ubuntu.

I read a friend's blog where she complained about life getting her down and where did all the dreams and great jobs go. Rather than being sympathetic and telling her not to let it get her down, I said 'welcome to adulthood'. How rude of me. True, but rude.

The sun is going down on the last day of my weekend. I do not look forward to staying home if I had the opportunity. Truth is, I want to go to work and get some things done. I like hanging out with the family, but I don't feel like I am getting anything accomplished here. I should. I bet the affects I have at home will last longer than the ones I do at work.

That chick having a motorcycle on TV is getting to me. "AAAA!!! AAAA!!! AAAA!!!" ... "<huff> <puff> So beautiful.". It is a very special ER. Then, weren't they all?

The back fence is about to fall down. The fence posts nearly fall over every time it rains. The ground is boggy on our property because the builders used shitty fill materials and because our property is on the edge of the whole neighborhood. I'm surprised the shit hole house has not slid in to the field next door out of gravity assisted suckyness.

Ubuntu on the laptop

So, I tried full Ubuntu on the laptop. It boots off the CD, but will not run the install program. Oh, the network does not work when booted from the CD. The network works under Xubuntu, but not the sound. There is some goof-ball error during bout that complains in a manor that looks like a core dump. Then it just boots like it did before. I'm at my end. This old laptop is not going to work for my needs. Thanks Adam. It has been fun playing with the box, but do you want it back? Xubuntu runs, but no sound.

All I'm really looking for is open office and wireless networking. I want to view PDF files and google stuff while playing DnD. I want to view movies and read blogs from other rooms in my place. I would also like to take the laptop along if we ever do go places that have connections to help me blog cools stuff as apposed to crappy stuff like lately.

That isn't too much is it?

Think you have trouble at the pump?

Again, who don't I have this kind of free time and drive to be creative?

I know, I know, I said fewer videos. blah blah.

My blog is to sexy for flash

The video below about 6.8 mm weapons, I had to grab that video off a blog. There was not an "embed" option on the video itself and I could not find jack on Military.com. I have this plug in in Firefox called 'web developer' and 'extended clipboard' that allows me to copy as text or HTML. I use copy as text for most everything. It cleans out the extra crap that gets in the way of just putting the information where I want it. Copy as HTML allows you to click paste and the HTML code comes up as apposed to the formated text. This time, the HTML is what I wanted.

I highlighted the line of text before the video straight down to the line of text below the video and copied the HTML. I then pasted in to my favorite text editor and turned what I had in to a web page by adding the proper head, body and other bits around the information. I had to edit the code to close the <embed> tag. I've had to do that before. Somehow, the video sites do not use the trailing </embed> tag so the editor on Blogger blows a gasket. Half the time I can't get the embedded code (the videos) to work if I have touched the code other than a straight up paste.

When I go to my blog, Firefox crashes on my computer. I have too much going on within the main page. I have had to use another plug in called 'flash block' in Firefox on my own site so I can check that things have shown up properly after I post. How messed up is that. It is a travesty. No, it is a wake up call. I'm also backing off to seven days from fourteen on the front page. Not that that is a real fix. I just need to cut back on stupid videos a bit. Only publish what is worth publishing.

Time for a glass of scotch.

New 6.8 mm round

I've heard the complaint about no knock down power for years. Troops have been bitching that the .223 (5.56mm) is good for rats. I wonder if this new caliper will grow legs. The bit about standard silencers (suppressors) I've heard too. That is, that all new military weapons will have a silencer/suppressor option on the ground.

Hat tip

WordPress Sucks

I don't even use WordPress. I do not know if they have software for Linux or not. I'm glad I do not use WordPress. Ill tell you why.

I wanted to leave a comment on someone's blog who uses WordPress. You need a login. I happen to have one. I looked up my password and tried to enter it. It said something was invalid. I clicked on "forgot password" for the first time. I filled out the little questionnaire thing and waited about three seconds. Then I checked my email. There was the email. It had a link to click on. I clicked on it and a window popped up saying that the key I had pressed was invalid. ???? What key. I went to the WordPress front page and clicked the "forgot password" button again. Same result. I clicked on register only to find that both the email address and user name were already taken. It is unique and I know no one else has it. It is me who has it. When I try one more time to enter the loop back system that gives me a new password, I get the same result.

So, I email support that after like ten minutes automatically sends me a response that sound computer generated that says basically - Click on the "forgot password link". I know this worked at one point because I have commented on the same blog in question a way back and it worked fine.

This has got to be due to the fact that I'm using Linux and Firefox. How many times is the road less traveled going to bit me in the ass? You know what, Fuck WordPress!!! I don't need to contribute to their illusion anyway.

Another cat video

What did I just say? How high is that fence?

Cat jumps 7 feet, just for fun

.. And they didn't think a say tigers can't clear 19 feet. My ass. The tigers just are not properly motivated. I'm telling you, I could get the tigers going with a laser pointer and half of the would clear the wall without even thinking about it.

"I think they got it this time"

I like the back chatter. "Shut-up!" "They hit the road. - dumbasses." Nothing like the peanut gallery. Particularly when the peanut gallery is full of marines.

Very Local News

• Europeans are finally coming to grips with the failure of multiculturalism.
• Some U. S. politicians are learning the difference between Islam and Islamist. Islam is a religion. Islamist is a political movement that wants Islamic law to blanket the world.
• These new boots are killing  me. It turns out they are too big. Not as bad as my old boots did when I got them. I've learned a few tricks to protect myself.
  
• Turn the tops of your socks inside the socks. This creates a double layer of sock that rub against each other while protecting the heal. Turning them outside the bottom of the sock makes them head straight for the toe of the boot for some reason.
• Duct tap is your friend. Band aids in over the area kind of works . Slick top duct tape seems to work well, as long as it doesn't stick to your skin too harshly. Sticking duct tape to your skin (heal) doesn't seem to cause a lot of bad things as long as the skin is healthy. I put duct tape over a band aid that was over a sore and suffered no ill affects (that I know of). I'm sure there is a better solution.
  
• Ware two pares of thin socks. This allows the socks to rub against each other instead of your skin.

Very Local News

• Red Hat 5.2 is out. Has been for a bit. I finally got it up on the yum server at work .CentOS had an issue with the version of yum inside the updates repo. It kept asking for some a stupid dependency that caused the whole upgrade process to hang. The file it was looking for is basically a little program that finds faster mirrors on the internet. We are not on the internet. No need for that stupid program.
• No one uses IM any more. Hell, no one uses email at home either. Every one has gone to Facebook or MySpace.
• Elle is yelling at the cats. The cats don't seem to mind. They neither care, nor do what she says.
  
• Nat seems to not care about the extra Ram in her computer. It does run faster.
• Had hot dogs for dinner.
• It's hot outside. This is a drag when it comes to walking. The humidity is the worse. I really moved on the way home this afternoon. I passed three people on the way home. The county needs to put in a sidewalk. Enough people use that area.
  
• I spent half the evening looking around on Facebook. I joined a couple groups and found a "Way of the Gun" fan site. Happy days.

Assholes on two wheels<

We have a theme again today. These videos were featured today. Assholes on bikes.

Can't be bothered to keep one hand on the handlebars, or to watch where he is going.

I thought people only drove this badly on U. S. roads. Those are awfully small bikes for racing around. I've heard people say the smaller ones are more fun anyway.

Scariest tornado footage yet

Shot from inside a trailer. Excuse me. Shot from within tornado food. One trailer gets demolished right in front of this person. They stay in the trailer and film the remainder of the tornado. My heart was in my throat.

I'd much rather be in this thing. At least it looks tough.

Bunny letter opener

Hey, it is all natural and biodegradable and probably against a frigging law.

Very Local News

• Politicians are lining up, crawling over each other to say we need an energy policy. Where did this come from all of a sudden? Our policy for decades has been to use as much energy as possible and put it all on our credit card. What changed?
• I had the Smurfs theme going through my head for a while today. I had to listen to some Helmet to root it out.
• I really want to get Elle's computer on the network so she can play some of the educational online games. Nat did some research in to what I call sandboxing. There are a number of software packages that allow children to experience the web, but only from a limited number of places and with controls that allow us to monitor what she is doing.
  
• News flash today, "Whistle Blowers Fired". This does not surprise me. There is an effort for a whistle blowers protection act for national security folks. Let's face it, if an FBI agent witness something, they are required to report it by law, but the only protection they have from that point on is at the whim of the higher-ups who they just tattled on. No wonder there are so few people who step up. Bad things happen to those who embarrass their leaders.
  
• Assigned to answer a phone that never rings. (actually happened)
  
• Parrish
• Allowed to stumble and thus get fired.
  
• The number one country for the reception of U. S. aid in any form (Foreign Aid and Military Aid)  is Israel. Pakistan is second.
• We got home and Nat started making dinner. The TV is just sitting there. Apparently there was some promise of the movie made when we got home. Elle said "I'm waiting real hard."
• 
  

RAM

My RAM came in. Three gigs makes the machine run great. The thing you notice by upgrading RAM is consistent performance. You know how you use a computer for a couple hours and as you open and close a bunch of stuff, the machine gets slower, right? Well, adding RAM holds this slowness off for longer periods of time. This is true for windows and Linux, but Linux seems to recover memory in my opinion where Windows just dies.

The change sped up my boot and I notice the machine just plane responds faster to everything. Even when I have twenty five windows open, I open the twenty sixth window and it just pops up like it is supposed to. Nat's RAM should come in pretty soon. I hope she has an even higher response.

My work computer has 512 mb of ram. It runs for weeks at a time. I use it for a bunch of terminals to other computers, VNC, spreadsheets, surfing three internal sites, listening to some music and a email. That is about it. I can't build software on it because it is too slow and will simply grind to a halt. For my home computer add to that the infinite limitations of the world wide web to inflict trouble, downloading podcasts, reading blogs (which involves opening sometimes thirty web pages in tabs of a single browser), listening to the computer read each blog's text to me, watching videos and movies, and the occasional editing of video.

Natalie's computer grinds to a crawl after three explorers pointing to MySpace pages are opened. She is running Vista. Going from one gig to three gig will help that situation. She might make it to <gasp> five windows.

Firecracker are FUN!!!

The human race is doomed.

Thirty seven people injured. These were being handled by professionals, or so it seems.

There are two kinds of things that go bang.
Those that explode when you plan,
and those that take off your hand.

Birds

Swarm of Starlings

Flying in formation

Couple of low passes

Not the most impressive low passes, but cool.

Spitfire haircut

French choppers getting in on the act

Boing

Winners: firefighters

Just another day at the office for these folks.

Then, ther is this guy

More Fedora Gripes

Every time you boot Linux, there is a stream of information that goes up the screen. It is basically telling you what services (programs that run every time you start the computer) worked, and which had problems. This stuff scrolls up the screen pretty quickly so, someone long ago said "Thou shalt reside in a log file like all useful information that scrolls to quickly or hides from site."

There is a place for this information. All things log-ish reside under /var/log/*. This is great. Things have sensible names like /var/log/boot.log. When one log gets big, it is renamed and a new log starts like /var/log/boot.log, /var/log/boot.log1, var/log/boot.log2... This sounds great until, in Red Hat's case, you try to read one of these boot log files. It is empty. The real data, found only after a google search, is in /var/log/dmesg. Why? No one knows. It is a mystery of the politics of software development.

I did not learn this until my playing around with the script I worked on all day. I would love to sit down and add up all the ridiculous shit I have to put up with regarding computers. Windows is littered with ridiculous shit that was never on a plan until nothing else worked and 'it' was what was left when people stormed out of the conference room.

For years, simple things like where the fucking boot messages go was controllable by the open source community in open source projects. When one mini-despot got to uppity, they were overthrown by the masses and all was good. Now, Red Hat has taken it upon themselves to become Microsoft 2.0 and willingly distribute software that has a growing number of ridiculous shit that just kind of happens all over the place.

Very Local News

• Left Right and Center is pissing me off again. They are still Kinda Center, Leftists and Pinko in my book. The guy who is supposed to be conservative says the Taliban is stronger than ever. Prove it. The main debate on the show this week was how Obama might loose his campaign if he doesn't move to the center, and that any move is inevitable and necessary to win. Why do I listen to this podcast?
• World View is another of those liberal podcasts. Conservatives want money for their podcasts, so I don't get any of those. Anyway, This guy from the world bank was proud of the fact that he had been tear-gassed on four continents while protesting some international rule about poverty. I laughed for five minutes after hearing that very proud accomplishment.
  
• One of the guys in toe office is about to be a dad for the third time. For the last week or so there has been a good chance he would not make it in. This morning, no one expected him to make it. His poor wife is shopping for trampolines.
  
• Dr Karl
  
• Dr Karl brought up some interesting points about one child per family in China. A) There is a huge number of people who do not have birth certificates and live in a cash economy. B) This next generation will have no relatives left after their parents die. No brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, or cousins. That is kind of harsh to think about. You don't exist on paper and you have no relatives to speak of. Yikes.
• 242,422 place of  pi is 424242.
  
• 42 minutes is how long it takes to drop an object from one edge of the earth, through the center, to the other side of the earth in a vacuum, assuming you make adjustments for rotation, yadda yadda.
• On my way back from lunch I noticed two young ladies waring bright colored skirts. They were mid calf length or so.One had long hair and the other had short hair.  It made me think about how few young women I see on a day to day basis waring skirts. I miss women waring skirts and long hair. Maybe they will make a come back.
  
• I worked on one script all day. I wrote it and then tested it. Then, I checked it in. I'll find out tomorrow that it doesn't work. Until then, I bask in a minor sense of accomplishment.
  

7/7

A couple of years ago there was a terrorist attack in Lindon on July seventh. When I was a kid, I remembering 3/3/83. I also 8/8/88, but is only because I happened to be hanging out with some friends that day. Otherwise, I would have missed it. I was getting ready for collage at the time.

How I spent my Saturday evening

Getting worse and worse.

That black TA is what we drove to Florida

I think I like the old car chase better. A friend of mine had a '73 Mustang. It was a piece. I'm starting to wonder if it was the same one used in the movie.

I once paid $0.50 just to see this scene at U of H in 1989.

And my favorite car chase scene.

Learning

Saturday

So, I officially hate Independence day. Nat ran around the driveway and picked up twenty pieces of fireworks. We popped none. It was the little bastards from across the street. They had a roman candle war in the dry grass of the field across the street from our house. I'm not sure how all the trash ends up in our driveway except it most come from the field adjacent to our house.

Ordered some more RAM for both computers. Nat really needs some on her Vista box. I just can't let her out do me on RAM so I ordered some too.

We went to Sam's and spent over $400 on a month's food and supplies. I do not know where to go with that statement. I am dumbfounded.

The new over pass goes over Sam's Club too. We had to flip-a-bitch in the middle of Highway 6. Nat squealed the tires and everything. Very Top Gear.

Off to eat pizza and lick my wounds after paying the bill.

Looks like fun

I've heard the M203 is easy to use and very much liked by troupes who use it. I've also heard it has already been replaced by another model that does basically the same thing with better ergonomics.

Friday off

I slept in until alike 14:00 or something. Nat got lunch. Elle and I are watching Reba. There is an episode on where Reba is attempting to flip a property to make money. It makes my skin crawl because so many real estate people got bitten in the butt by attempting to flip properties. It extends to me thinking about Reba and her hard life. If she, the character, is still a real estate person she is in trouble. The whole pool of real estate folks as thinned a bit since the housing issues this past spring. I wonder if the show is still going. I wonder if Reba, the character, is still a real estate broker/sell/agent or whatever they are called.?

It is the same episode where the car has an OnStar type service. It is like Hal on 2001. The disembodied voice gets mad at Brock, calling him Dave, locks him in the car and starts honking the horn. This is far too funny. It covers some fears I have with that system. I don't like someone in India or China having the ability to shut down that many cars in the U. S..

Elle has attempted to climb in the window and cross country ski using the cat scratching boxes. She has a room full of toys and refuses to play with them. It must be the quest for new experiences. I remember when I was a kid, it wasn't the number of toys, it was the constant inflow of new information and new things to play with. I'm not sure what stuck around. I've never thought about it.I used to use sticks and stones for toys. I remember my father threatening to never buy me another toy. He was just going to wrap up sticks and put them under the tree from then on.

Last night there were people popping firecrackers in the field adjacent to our house. We called the cops and now there are signs all over the fireworks stand that say you can't pop firecrackers within 300 feet of the big yellow box. I believe that includes our next door neighbors driveway. How cool. It just might be a more relaxing Independence day. This evening we plan on calling the police and let them decide if who is and is not in the 300 ft radios.

Yes, yes, we have officially become old farts.

New Boots

Breaking in new boots sucks. New boots typically get me at the tendon above the heal. I limp around for a bit and complain a lot. I remember in Die Hard where Bruce Willis had no shoes for a good portion of the movie.  It bit him in the butt several times. I've thought of making a movie where our hero has a new pare of boots to break in and gets stuck running around. It would not be as cool as the plot points in Die Hard, but it would vindicate my suffering.

There are many theories of the best way to break in a new pare of boots. I've heard the old west pioneers might have walked through a stream and walked them dry.  Pound the leather with a baseball bat. Or is that for baseball gloves only? Ware three pares of socks the first time, two the second, then to one pare. Grin and bare it. Ware them for a short walk on day one and gradually increase the time and distance over a week or so. the ideas are endless.

Me, I walked a mile and a half in the new shitty socks I bought. I didn't know they were shitty socks until after the mile and a half over tough terrain. At least the boots held up well. I had to double up the socks. The back of the socks, where my heal hits the leather, is already showing some ware. Imagine my feet. I'm just waiting for someone to ask me why I'm limping and grumbling. It seemed to get better, then seemed to get worse, then seemed to get better as the day went on. My feet don't know what to do with the new boots.

I bought two pare. The pull up boots are 11.5 and the lace up boots are 11. I'm not sure I got the correct sizes. That is just how things felt in the store. It is the pull up boots that hit my heal funny. That is always where they get me. I needed new boots because I had two old pare that were both waring out at the same time. The boots and six pare of socks ran just under $150. Yea-gads.

Boots hold a special meaning in my life for some reason. I'm not sure what the deal is. It is important that I ware plane, but functional heavy boots. I ware sneakers/trainers occasionally, but not often. They feel like moccasins. There must be some subconscious point of well being when I ware work boots. I think all my current pares are steel toe. Perhaps they are a sort of security blanket. Not sure I mind.

Very Local News

• Cannibal women in the avocado jungle of death. Someone paid for this movie to be made. Written by the same screen writer who wrote Pretty Woman.
• I didn't get to sleep until after 02:00 last night. I'm trying the no caffeine thing to get back on track. I'm pretty sure that is why I was unable to drift off.  Then a buddy comes in today and says he was up late, among other things, reading my blog. He complains about not having enough time to spend with his family or playing video games for that matter.
  
• I had to kill a spider last night. Merlin, the gray and white cat, had it cornered under a night light in the hall. Nat said she didn't want to kill it because she doesn't want to bring harm to living things. I protested that killing a spider that is potentially dangerous to our collective family is not really harm. It is self defense in my book, even if it is preemptive. To me, the word 'harm' implies more than damage. It implies an intent, or willingness to allow damage. I just didn't want the spider biting one of us or the cats.
• There have been more of these Very Local News blog entries lately. I've had a couple people tell me they like them, so I'm putting more of them up. They come out pretty readable and keep people informed. I can cover a bunch of topics that I do not have more than a paragraph of information or opinion about. If a Very Local News bullet turns in to a couple of paragraphs, it can easily be put in its own entry. Let me know if you hate them.
• The walking stick gets used every day. Nat ran me up to REI a couple weeks ago to get one. It being summer, my ears are all messed up from allergies. I use the telescoping walking stick between the house and the bus stop. This afternoon I noticed a guy walking from the parking garage to the building with a cane. As I caught up to him I noticed it was a similar device to mine, just a bit shorter. He looked to be in his thirties. I wonder if he had an injury or something. He was walking with a limp.
• I got a bunch of little things done at work today. Nothing big really. Sometimes that is best. The little things needed doing.
  

Puppies!!!!!

Crazy Dogs

Awwww!!!

Caterpiller of Death

News Link

Is there hope?

At first, those in their cars, on motorcycles and passing by on foot thought they were witnessing a traffic accident. It was only as the terrifying screams of terror victims emerged, those being systemically crushed in their cars by a bulldozer, did the public realize that they were in the midst of a terror attack. At least five people were murdered and 66 wounded this afternoon when a Palestinian bulldozer driver targeted innocent civilians in Jerusalem. Among the dead were two babies.

Who?

Police said the incident was definitely a terror attack, but stressed that they had no specific warning. Three terrorist groups claimed responsibility for the attack, including the Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigade, which is affiliated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement. The other two were the Galilee Freedom Battalion, which is suspected of being affiliated with Hizbullah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a fringe left-wing terror group. Israel police said the terrorist, a 30-year-old Palestinian from Arab east Jerusalem, apparently acted alone. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the man was working on a railway project in Jerusalem.

So, Palestinians killed Jews. Notice it was not a single Palestinian. Why?

About two-thirds of Jerusalem's 700,000 residents are Jews, and the rest are Palestinians who came under Israeli control when Israel captured their part of the city in 1967. Though Jews and Arabs have little social interaction, Palestinians perform much of the city's blue-collar work and the sides frequently come into contact. In contrast to West Bank Palestinians, Arab residents of Jerusalem have full freedom to work and travel throughout Israel. Many Jerusalem Arabs work in the construction industry. Jerusalem City Hall spokesman Gidi Schmerling said all east Jerusalem residents who work in construction for the city must pass a police screening. He said Dwayat worked for a private construction firm. The contractor who employed him could not be reached for comment. The terror groups claiming responsibility included the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, which is loosely affiliated with Abbas' Fatah movement, as well as the Galilee Freedom Battalion, suspected of being affiliated with Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a fringe militant group. Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and is currently maintaining a fragile cease-fire with Israel, said it did not carry out the attack but nevertheless praised it. "We consider it as a natural reaction to the daily aggression and crimes committed against our people," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said, "We condemn any attacks that target civilians, whether Israelis or Palestinians."

Weather Jew or Muslim?

The BBC shows bias again.

While BBC Online currently covers the story "Bulldozer rampage hits Jerusalem," this was not the original headline reported HonestReporting.com "Offering a glimpse into the BBC's warped journalism, the initial headline read "Israel bulldozer driver shot dead". "That this terror attack took place opposite Jerusalem Capital Studios, the local headquarters for many international media outlets, including BBC, Sky News and CNN, ensured that footage and coverage were available almost immediately. The BBC's very own correspondent Tim Franks even witnessed much of the incident from his office window. The BBC can have no excuse for not having the basic facts of the story in front of them from the very beginning," said HonestReporting.com

There is some hope, if this is for real.

Among the many comments of anger wrapped around the many YouTube videos of the terror attack, was one statement coming from a citizen of Jordan who said that he was ashamed of the Muslim who carried out the attack and sent condolences to the families in Israel. "Not all Muslims are murderers," he said. "I and my family want no association with this type of racist hatred. Many Arabs and Muslims want peace and it is time that we began to confront those Muslims who make us appear like barbarians."

Where are the American coeds throwing themselves in front of the Palestinian bulldozer in front of the press? Where are is the coverage, the international outrage? Where are the protesters outside Caterpillar protesting the killing of Jews with one of their bulldozers?

Very Local News

• All Before Five is a local radio station news run through in New York. I live it. I normally hate anything from New York and California. This local radio cast is helping me figure out that not every person in the state is a crushing liberal. The presenter is professional, but just wished his brother happy birthday. They have a story on about a bunch of Trekies making new episodes of the old Star Trek by hand.
  
• It is official, Christians are being murdered and in many ways persecuted in Iraq. It is all the fault of the American administration for invading of course, but at least it is happening. It is official because the stories are appearing on 60 minutes. It is about time.
• Elle got a new Barbi Dall recently. A friend' of Nat's gave it to Elle. She came over to me last night and explained that she was using her normal brush like a Barbi brush to get the knots out of Barbi's hair. Apparently sitting in a box for a long time puts knots in your hair.
• Phase 4 of Major Combat Operations (Post invasion and dealing with locals) sucked.
• Phase 3 was so easy, people wanted to declare victory and go home.
  
• We didn't ask enough questions.
• We made mistakes.
  
• Them not surrendering and continuing to fighting us was not in our contingencies.
• Both civil and military leaders failed.
• Hard to convince people in leadership the war was still going on.
• There is nothing a Christin based army can do to be accepted in the Muslim world. Period.
  
• Movies I need to watch
  
• Hell Boy II
• Pan's Labyrinth
• Children of Men
• Wale (just because I wanna)
• The BBC has this podcast called Daily Mayo. Some bloke named Simon Mayo interviews folks. I like how he works. This week they are at Wimbledon and interview people between matches or during rain delays. It is quite interesting. Sometimes they have cometary about the match that kicks off in the middle of the interview. Sometimes they talk about people in the crowd or any royals who turn up.
• Starbuck's is closing over six hundred stores. They said they are going to concentrate on Starbuck's that compete directly with other Starbuck's.
• Chicago has the highest sails tax in the nation of 10.25%. It is 11.x% at restaurants. I say Houston should have like a 20% sales tax at restaurants. It might curve our distinction as the most dining out city in the world.
  
• Got some new boots. Two pare. They are nearly identically to the boots I ware every day except one of the pare is pull up instead of lace up. I haven't used these before. They felt good in the store. They looked like they were worth a try. If I turn up weeping tomorrow, you will know how things went. The best report would be to completely forget there are new boots at all.
  
• Ell came over and asked me to read some of her story to her. I read a couple of words, but I insisted on reading them out phonetically and making her identify the letters and mimic the sounds. She gets board pretty quickly, but she really does seem to be picking up at least the connection between letters and sounds. It is a long road to go.

"Good Morning"

I blew right past my bus stop this morning. Luckily I noticed before we made the toll road. I got off in front of Hollywood Video and walked back to the building.  A complete stranger walking down the road the other way and apparently texting said good morning as we passed. That put a smile on my face. Funny how things work.

It caught me off guard. I turned back and said good morning as I walked off to my day of toil, a bit better off for the experience.

Nothing gets done

Did you ever wonder why it seems like nothing ever gets done in the Middle East. Well, Dubai is growing leaps and bounds. Oil platforms seem to pop up like weeds, high rise revolving apartments that go for ten million a pop abound. Then there is the rest of the people. They try to make a living. They try to do what needs to be done. They are either set upon by people who want to wipe them off the face of the earth or the conditions they work under are so unbelievably horrible that it is difficult to feel sympathy. Didn't they know? Why do they bother? Well, because they are trying to live.

Israel, West Bank

Mecca, the most holy city in Islam

My Political Cause

I was listing to NPR today. I listen to NPR podcasts because talk radio charges for their podcasts. There is an organization called New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty. Well, no shit. I should have guessed. Just hearing the words "New York" mentioned in the same sentence as "death penalty" should have been enough for me to imagine this organization and even come up with it's name out of thin air.

I want to start an organization called Texas for Putting Down as Many Bad People as Need It. What do you think? We can hold barbecue meetings and list things like skeet shooting, bass fishing, and tractor pulls  as get-together ideas. We can hold member drives at Nascar events. I'll be proud when we open the Berkley California chapter.

Those New York folks better count their blessings that I'm so lazy.

Very Local News

• FLDS is selling apparel online.
• eBay lost the case for allowing the sale of counterfeit name brand goods. This is bad for eBay. I'm not sure how they can police that without just cutting off swaths of sellers. I remember a car dealer hitting eBay and finding several stolen headlight kits.
  
• I'm getting tired of hearing about Zimbabwe. Things are in a bad way over there. People are dying because they do not agree with the leaders. That is scary.  What pisses me off is that no one seems to be doing anything concrete about the problems. "Please refrain from kill people who don't vote for you, or we will as very nicely again." It is another situation where the West bitches and waits for the bad guy to die rather than doing something about it. It makes me think that kicking Saddam out of Iraq was a good thing just on principle.
  
• The inflation rate in Zimbabwe is nearing 4,000,000%. How messed up is that?
• Talk of the Nation podcast is boring. Then they have a show about comedians. That isn't even as interesting as I had hoped. Three or four chuckles, tops.
• The Today Show podcast is far too up for me. They have too much fun. I'm not the target audience. That and they have the weather in the podcast which makes no sense considering most people listing to the podcast are a day behind and a continent away.
  
• GM closed at a 33 year low last Thursday. They say the rumors of breaking up GM are hogwash. That is what soon to be broken up companies say. Doesn't GM employ like a hundred thousand people in the U.S.? I can't wait to find out what those folks are going to do come the end of unemployment.
• A muskrat dug a hole through a levy and flooded a large group of homes. Frigging muskrats.