Heaven and hell

Heaven is knowing what you have done and knowing it is good. Hell is knowing what you could have done, and knowing it was great.

Joke

A large group of Taliban fighters is moving down a ravine in the Korengal Valley, in southern Afghanistan, when they hear a hoarse voice call from behind a sand-dune in a mocking tone, "Yo, muj, did you know that one Marine Marine is better than ten of you smelly Talib?" Insulted to the quick (though he did indeed smell), the Taliban commander sent ten of his best men over the rocky hill, whereupon a gunbattle broke out immediately. The gunbattle was short, but vicious, punctuated by screams of agony and fear in Dari and Pushtu. Then there was silence. A moment later, there was a snicker, then the same voice called out, "Bad Muj! Didn't you know one grunt is better than any hundred so-called Taliban fighters?" Furious now, the Taliban commander sent his next best hundred men up and over the incline and instantly a terrible gunfight ensued. The sharp chatter of M-4 fire barked out in counterpoint to the dull clatter of the Kalashnikovs, interspersed with the detonations of grenades and screams of agony and fear in Pushtu and Dari. After a full five minutes of battle, silence reigned heavily across the valley. A moment later that same mocking voice called out, though to be fair to the muj, the grunt was obviously breathing at least a little bit faster. The voice called out, "Bad Muj, silly muj, you have to know that one grunt is better than one thousand sheep-loving Taliban!" Thoroughly enraged now, the Taliban commander mustered a full thousand of his fighters and sent them into the fight. RPGs hissed and boomed, hand grenades exploded, echoing down the Korengal Valley and even PKM fire rattled and roared over all the small arms fire. At last, one badly wounded muj fighter appeared, crawling down the military crest of the ridge. "Don't send any more men," he gasped as the life fled his body, "It's a trap. There's two of them." Defence Tech

Good night everybody!

B52 makes it home

"... the fuel proves structural integrity for the wing ..." Learned something new. I've heard that said about the B1. The B1 leaks like a sieve, or sweats fuel, until it gets to altitude where it immediately refuels before heading off to it's mission.

That pilot is probably younger than the plane.

Good times

Ah, Summer. I could say this reminds me of when I was a kid, except for the safety helmets. Wait, was that me? I suppose one too many raps on the noggin.

Very Local News (2009-05-29)

• The CIA is recruiting out of work bankers and financial annalists. it is a pay cut, but it is a steady job hunting down the financial footprints of drug dealers and terrorists.
  
• "This is the first generation in China to have the luxury of selfishness." Buick and Volkswagen are number one sellers in China. No one has siblings or aunts or uncles or cousins. It is a nation of only children. What else do they have besides themselves?
  
• Places like Africa are bypassing computers. People have a mobile phone and use it for banking and all communications. There are only 10000 land line s in Congo (which is a country by the way). The price of coper may drop as countries bypass land line all together. SMS is increasing literacy rates around the world (text short hand anyway.)
  
• "Why do we have such an expensive navy if we never use it?" Because, that way, we never have to use it. our navy is so go, no one else even tries to compete. They have navies. Not like ours. It can't even take out a bunch of chicken-shit pirate-wanna-bes.
  
• On the BBC, there is a guy I like to listen to named Mayo. Mayo does insiteful interviews and yet sounds like a human being while doing them. So he sounds smooth. Mayo is on vacation at the moment. A guy named Bacon is standing in for him who sounds, well, crunchy and loud. No wonder my cholesterol is high.

Why I use Twitter

As I turned forty, I was racked by pangs of guilt for having not done so much in my youth. I have friend, I think she is 24. Here are the last 18 or so hours of her life on twitter.

• i love austin radio - josh abbott live on kvet about 17 hours ago
• a bit drunk, thanks trudys! about 14 hours ago
• my buzz was killed when my friend turned into a trailer park for a party this is austin! i thought i left east tx! about 13 hours ago
• bleh it reeks of wee d about 13 hours ago
• honestly i worry about my bestie & the questionable friends she makes about 13 hours ago
• gay bar about 12 hours ago
• i think i need to stay somewhat sober tonight & babysit - fuck about 12 hours ago
• ust got told i was gorgeous by a guy in the group about 11 hours ago
• bleh! no more shots! paalease! about 11 hours ago
• i dont know why but i feel the need to sign thank u when i say it, esp. when drunk about 11 hours ago
• dude please! not into gay guys! about 10 hours ago
• so much for staying sober! fuckkk about 10 hours ago
• dude a guy who looked like a porn star hit on me about 9 hours ago
• im Fing hungry! & McDs is only taking cash! bitches about 9 hours ago
• my head...ugh 23 minutes ago
• why were there so many shots last night 21 minutes ago

I missed nothing as a tween, teen or twerty. Twerty being that 21-35 I'm an adult now. Get out of my way era.

She is not doing anything wrong. She is not doing much that is stupid, except possibly riding around from place to place with the most sober person behind the wheel instead of the sober person behind the wheel. I'm not wagging my finger. I'm just saying this is a great reminder that I did some of this and made the decision to become an old fart. I did this as a means of self preservation and I should not think of all that partying and casual sex that I didn't have as a bad thing. I'm in it for the long haul.

Link to Mrs Priss Twitter MySpace

Very Local News

• The Norks blew a second nuke, just to say that the first one was not a fluke. The leader of North Korea is still nuts, but now appears to be dying of some disease. Who will get the keys?
• The supreme court judge says her race will play a large part in her decisions. NPR was talking about a family that are owned by blacks. This whole race bias generation makes me sick. Racism is racism.
• The only thing that will fix the automobile industry as a whole is 40% fewer cars beeping made. This from someone who said they were an expert on a BBC podcast. It must be true.
• Stores have "earthquake supply" isles in some California communities. Sounds about right. We have hurricane supply kits here that look remarkably similar.
• In Briton, a dog was lost for 25 days. It had been down a hole somewhere and was only able to escape because it lost weight. They only found him after someone said something on a local radio station.

Time Warner vs AOL

I knew the moment I hard the two were joining up that AOL and Time Warner wouldn't last. The marriage outlasted my expectations. I thought five years was the magic number. They were the kind of combination that marketing and management things will work, but engineers and grunts know is doomed. A competitor to the internet and a provider of TV commercials don't have much in common. The only thing they had in common was a tenancy to sandbox their customers. That they agreed on.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when two companies split and one is just left to fend for itself, isn't that a sign of its impending failure? The wording of the news note I got this morning was vague and neutral. Not that I expected  anything more definitive.

"Time Warner will exact AOL like a cancer, leaving it to fester, wither and die, stock holder be dammed."

At least that would make for better water cooler conversation. I just don't think AOL has a sustainable business model unless it starts to compete with iTunes or Facebook in some way. That is what AOL wanted to become after all. They failed in their own special way. Maybe this is a second chance to fail a third time.

Very Local News

• NPR had a snippet in one of the podcasts bitching how much the Swine Flu virus has delayed illegal workers from picking tobacco and other crops. They just don't get it.
• The only thing I have against the BBC at the moment is that they treat tennis like a sport.
• The MSM is just now getting in to Twitter and Facebook. I hear that Twitter and Facebook are running in to problems in the area of making money. They only sites that are successful on the internet it seems are free sites or sites that are run by Google. think of all the new wonderful ideas that are not making it to the internet because no one can figure out how to make money at them.
• I ran out of podcasts before lunch today. Drag. I think one of the services went down. ARGH!! I'm going to have to look in to it.
  
• I lost a friend's information. I'm sure I lost it due to my own incompetence at keeping track of such things. this friend is going to be difficult to find because everyone I think of to ask for his info is not on speaking terms with him.
• Bumper sticker "If guns kill people, do pencils misspell words?" I like that one.

I'm old

I have bad cholesterol. My LDL (bad) is to high and my HDL (good) is too low. I have five times higher risk of heart attack than I should. I have to take a pill that slowly destroys your liver for six weeks and reassess. A life of salads it is for me.

Zombie attack

Someone at work asked "How does it feel tome come to work when it looks like the plague has wipted out half the population?"

I laughed and answered " You half expect Humvees with guys in has-mat suits to wave you through check points."

Oddly enough, the bus was packed with people headed to retail jobs or somewhere with the kids. The bus number '2' does not run on holidays. Who knew.

Where are the zombies? This scene needs zombies. Wait, I feel like a zombie. I have to work on a holiday. I have to get eaten alive by mosquitoes giddy for the meal. I had trouble sending a tweet for swatting at them. I walked in to a spider web earlier. I can't find any bites. God was with me.

I'll play the part and go bite someone's head off. I'm the red headed zombie smiling and happy to be outside and away from work.
"Brains... BRAINS... BRRRRAAAAAAIINNS!" That's it.

Very Local news

• I wonder now if my monitor is the problem or if it is a piece of software causing my trouble. The symptoms I described the other day continue. The only time I leave my computer on long enough for the power saver function to kick in is when I run gpodder over night. I need to do some further testing.
• Kelly to God. I would love to win the lottery and call myself a writer.
• Several of these 1 U servers need half hight cards.The face plates need to be swapped on the small PCI cards to make them fit. It is annoying when you have to trade up.
• Investment brokers make money via the inefficiencies in the market. These inefficiencies are also known as investors.
• My father gave me some shirts. The one I'm waring is blue with some raised horizontal stripes. While checking to make sure I had the shirt on right side out, I noticed it is an Izod. How old is this shirt?
• Our old Maytag dryer was 220. We had someone put a 110 plug on it. I'm told that may have contributed to it's demise.
• In Briton MP (elected representatives) are in trouble for expensing way too much for second homes. There is talk of building them an apartment block for their second homes. I will laugh my ass off if all those folks have to live next door to each other.
• The star of an Oscar winning movie is now homeless. the nine year old girl in Slumdog Millionaire is on the streets with her family. Their home was knocked down as part of a clean up effort in Mumbi India.
• Under Taliban rule, a woman cannot take a sick child to the doctor without a grown male escort.
• Mowed Woo-hoo!! The front yard only. No weed eating. Still, Woo-hoo!

Wichita Pandemonium

I was born in Wichita. How proud I am that this asshole is the first chance I get to blog about my home town. I don't think any one I know lives there now. Wichita is where B-52s were built in the fifties and sixties.

The music is well placed. I read somewhere that some one got hurt, so we are not supposed to laugh.

This infant of a man was asked to turn his music down and drove down the street and through city hall.

I've done this

Only, I didn't get my teeth kicked in.

Hold the weapon away from your face and do not try to lock your arm.  I've fired a pistol grip shotgun with two hands up toward the face, from the hip and one handed held out like a pistol. It ain't easy. It is wicked fun though.

Engine assembly (virtual)

I've always liked exploded diagrams and engine animations. This one is just too easy. It seems like they missed something.

Monitor

My monitor is dying .It did not give me enough life. It is out of warranty. I'm going to have to replace it.  Drag. Today is not a good day for the broke. I am in luck. 22 inch LCD monitors run about $200 on Amazon. That is not too shabby. Some are more and some are less. of course. I do want DVI connections. and I would like 1920x1080 resolution. The one I have is a smidge short of that. No big deal to be honest.

I kind of want to buy this and then find a use for it. Not sure why.

If I were buying today, this is the one I would go with. It is a Dell, but I won't hold that against it. There are a ton of monitors still available that do not have DVI. That cracks me up.

The symptoms of my current monitor are similar to things I've seen in the labs at work. The monitor switches on dimly and then switches itself off. You turn it off and back on and it tries again. Sometimes it comes on for good. The number of times you have to switch it on before it stays increases and patients to deal with it decreases as time passes. One day it stops working all together. I've found that turning the brightness and contrast all the way up helps the monitor survive a bit longer.

My parents bought me this monitor. I've really gotten good use out of it. I use it every day.

Father's day Ideas

Handy toy, er tool to keep in the shed. I'll mount this thing on the roof and give the racers a five second head start then it is 'pew pew pew!!!' "Scatter you you parasites!" 'pew pew pew!!!' Bet I could sell tickets to that.

V

I grew up a while ago and we watched V on TV. The new one looks a bit like the old one. Better CGI, well it has CGI. The old one had a moment where some chick's jaw came loose and she ate a mouse while it was kicking. My parents watched V. Every one watched V. It was some kind of event. It was before everyone had cable. We still do not have cable. I prefer having the internet. Screw cable TV.

Where was I? Oh, this time around will not be an event. I plan on skipping the TV showing of V and waiting for it to hit the Internet in legal form. If that does not occur in a comfortable length of time, I will consitter other options. Same as always.

Watch

I haven't worn a watch in a long time. I have one watch I like. I t is stylish and charges itself. I have a problem where watches go dead sitting on my arm. If there is metal to skin contact the battery in the watch goes dead long faster than I like. The watch I have is a self winding watch. I would still ware it, but the band is worn out. I have a feeling the following watch would do the trick. It is tough and charges with exposure to light. It would charge during my walks to and from the bus every day so my super power to kill watch batteries would little effect on it.

Amazon.com Product Description The rugged and sporty Casio G-Shock digital watch features atomic timekeeping via radio signal for extreme accuracy, enhanced shock resistance, and water resistance up to 660 feet (200 meters). This solar powered watched comes with a power saving function and offers a battery life of 11 months on full charge without further exposure to light. The stylish gold-toned digital display comes with an automatic electro-luminescent backlight with afterglow, and three circular digital displays at the top provide additional information such as mode, timing, and battery level. The world time can be set for up to 29 different time zones (30 cities), with optional daylight savings and a city code display. The automatic calendar shows the month, date, and day below the time and is pre-programmed through 2099. This convenient, world-savvy watch also comes with a 1/100 second stopwatch, four daily alarms and one snooze alarm, a time recorder, and hourly time signals. Designed for durability, the watch is built with a stainless steel bezel and a mineral dial window. The dark gray case and band are made of resin and further the watch's ruggedly casual look. This watch is backed by a 1-year limited manufacturer's warranty. Amazon

I used to ware a watch that look much like this one. I miss having a water resistant watch.

Amazon.com Product Description Set a course for adventure every day you wear this Casio Pathfinder Triple Sensor men's digital watch (model PAG40-3V), which includes a built-in digital compass, altimeter, barometer, and thermometer. The digital compass displays 16 directions and has a 5-set memory capacity that captures direction, month, date, and measurements time data. The altimeter measures up to 32,800 feet (10,000 meters) in 20-foot (5-meter) increments, and it can store 50 sets of altitude memory with date and temperature. It also provides a target altitude alarm and graphing capability for target and altitude tendency. This large, round watch features a gray/green resin case that's topped by a black bidirectional bezel with compass markings. It offers a 1/100-second stopwatch with a 60-minute measuring capacity and elapsed time, split time, and 1st/2nd place time modes. It also includes a daily alarm, optional hourly time signal, and 12/24-hour formats. Other features include a comfortable resin strap, scratch-resistant mineral crystal, and AfterGlow LED electro-luminescent backlight, and water resistance to 100 meters (330 feet). Amazon

That is another watch that is like the first one on steroids. It is a bit over the top. No, it is way over the top. Tells temperature and altitude for God's sake.

Anti-artillery

Quote from the original poster.

Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar System used to defend Balad AB Iraq. It may not be 100% effective but it has saved many lives.

The original poster says this is Iraq. I can't quite get the accent of the man speaking toward the end. He sounds upset more than from any particular place. I can't blame him.