Epic Weekend

No, not mine. I spent it writing Geography papers and quizzing myself in Algebra.

And reading these two epic posts.

First, from Steve Greenhut at Reason.Com – How Public Servants Became Our Masters

Essentially, they’re the ones who were supposed to have their hands in the cookie jar, so we didn’t really notice until recently that they’ve stuck both hands and a ShopVac in there.

———-
Also, Kevin Baker has had some time off between jobs. And it shows. Failure to Communicate

Deep down inside, you knew all this. But it is very nice to be able to read an extensively research post on the topic so that you don’t start believing you’re the only one.

It’s Monday. You’re boss probably expecting all that much productivity from you today. Use your time wisely.

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RNS Quote of the Day: 02/01/10

We’ll start out February by continuing to talk about something that happened in January

Obama chose to call out the only 9 guys in the room that did their homework in law school. And the rest who ended up settling for politics stood and and cheer it.

Dennis Miller

It’s funny becasue it’s true.

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Taking their guns away didn’t work

I wonder how the Australians will react when the government bans their porn?

The Board has also started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year. Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint’s Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications. “We are starting to see depictions of women in their late 20s being banned because they have an A cup size”, she said. “It may be an unintended consequence of the Senator’s actions but they are largely responsible for the sharp increase in breast size in Australian adult magazines of late”.

I know that Judge Juggs prefers his women top heavy, but I would have to guess that a third of the population disagrees. Our good man, Professor Booty didn’t mind one way or the other. Blamed it on genetics, if I remember correctly.
Maybe now they’ll stand up and say “too much”?

Found via Boing^2

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | 1 Comment

Got Sum

IMG00057.jpg….30-06 Greek. 192 rounds, with 24 enbloc clips, in 4 bandoliers. I paid $140. Yes I know CMP’s got it for much cheaper, but I still haven’t done the work to qualify for CMP status shot at a CMP match (good Lord, when I start thinking of shooting as work, something’s wrong!) and I am feeling very much that I need to shoot the Garands sometime soon. So now I have ammo to do that!

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel | 3 Comments

Insomnia

One of the problems with staying up ’til 1am three nights in a row to meet a thesis deadline is that it’s really difficult to fall asleep before 1am on night four.

With the wife blissfully snoring breathing beside me after a successful meeting with her thesis advisor, I surfed the TV. While watching (and thoroughly enjoying) 10 Things I Hate About You (can’t beat Shakespeare for source material, and I’d watch Julia Stiles recite the phone book) I saw a trailer for the upcoming Wolfman movie, and for a brief time I thought they’d at last made a decent film of the great James Blish’s ne plus ultra werewolf short story, There Shall Be No Darkness. Alas, that’s not the case. But if you haven’t read it, you really should; it’s truly excellent.

I followed that with a dose of bracingly cold water in the form of The Resident Patient, my favorite of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes adaptations. I apologize to all and sundry for my earlier blasphemy. Brett is Holmes, and Burke is Watson, and that’s all there is to it.

Two sequences make this one of the greats. In the first, at about the 5:39 mark, the director sets things up and allows the rest of the cast to go utterly silent for several minutes of screen time as Holmes examines the room. It’s a brilliantly done bit of work.

In the second sequence, and one of my favorite parts of the entire Brett-Burke collaboration, we get to hear Holmes on the Strad, monomaniacally trying to get the fingering down on Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. It’s not Canonically correct, but just watch and listen and you’ll see they nailed the characters perfectly.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

The Golden Horde

Toodling around Cyberludite’s blog led me to this blogger’s interesting and valuable reflection on actual Golden Horde experiences in Katrina.

The classic of course is Listening to Katrina.

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Extraterrestrial

Watch this quick CGI flight out of Mars’ Mojave Crater.

That’ll prepare you for this video from the same folks of the Gale Crater. This one has a cool soundtrack as well.

Just make sure you have some free time before you do. The other videos that appear along the lower portion of the frame when the vids are done are plentiful enough to last most of the morning.

FYI: Choose the 720p versions and go full screen.

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WANT!!!!11one!!

I’m grumbling to myself for two reasons:

1These kickass solar shingles are still a little ways off.

2 – When The Wife and I bought the house it had had a 20 year metal roof put on.

When I say “a little ways off” I don’t mean 20 years.

Posted in Kewel! | 3 Comments

Software question

My school has joined forces with Microsoft to offer the MS Office Ultimate 2007 package for $60.

I’m currently using OpenOffice with ease, but I have to drop what I write onto my laptop (which has MSWord on it) load up the essay written in OpenOffice and saved in Word format, save it as a MSWord doc back onto the thumb, then transfer it to my instructor because he, for some unknown reason, can’t open my OpenOffice docs.

I understand that $60 is a decent price, but I don’t know if I’ll use any of the other programs included.

Thoughts/Opinions

Posted in Color me confused | 6 Comments

More Friday Fiction: All Reet!

The last time I tried this YOU LIKED ME, it YOU REALLY LIKED ME it! so I’ll do it again.

Tam’s post reminded me of Alfred Bester’s classic short tale — which lo and behold, is available for free reading — and was way too intense for me to read at the tender age of ten. Really uhhhm affected me, that did. (Exits, cackling….)

Click below for a buggered-up html-to-text version if the pdf link doesn’t work.

Continue reading

Posted in Friday Fiction | 2 Comments