Proud to be a U.S. citizen

So the new torture legislation makes all the torture we’ve been doing legal. Sure, we don’t kill, rape or mangle our prisoners, but anything short of that is A-OK. The Republicans had a meeting with the Republicans and decided torturing people is an effective element of national security. Of course, it’s not, but oh well. I’m sure it’s not a big deal.

Oh, and Democrats? Way to contribute to the debate there fellas. We all appreciate the effort it took to wrinkle your brow in consternation during the debate that the Republicans were having.

In other news, the White house asserted recently (via official mouthpiece Tony Snow) that the Supreme Court actually can’t decide the constitutionality of something, that’s the president’s job. No one’s really called them on it yet, but I’m sure someone will get around to it.

Our government is horribly broken. What I tend to wonder is, at what point does my government killing and torturing of innocent people tar my own soul? Does voting for the other guy get me off the hook? I hope so, because that’s what I’m doing this term. And I’m thrilled that I get to vote for the spineless mute party as opposed to the pro-torture, pro-war, all incompetence party. It’s a smorgasbord of options that overwhelms me with delight.

Quote and Code of the day

“Yeah, how I miss those days,
more than a little
growing young in the dumbo sun.” -- Tracy bonham (Dumbo Sun)

* hbot3000 primary algorithm

age = 0

do while(age.le.ageofdeath)

maturity = age
if(numactionfigures.gt.50.or.numlegos.gt.50) maturity = maturity - 12
if(age=30) then
call commencerandomnostalgia()
end if
if(maturity=30) then
call commencemidlifecrisis()
end if

age = age + 1
end do

A case of the Tuesdays

It’s official: I make too much money to live in my apartment now. And I need to be out before the end of September or I don’t get my deposit back.

In other news: fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

P.S. FUCK. A. DUCK.

More eloquently: God damn it! FUCK. FUck fuCK.

Okay, I feel better now.

not really.

A case of the Mondays

Short Story:

Last Thursday I check my voicemail to find the following message:

“This is Mike from The Bluffs [my apartment complex], please give me a call back, it’s a matter of some urgency.”

I dutifully call back the next day, some airhead answers the phone, doesn’t know what I’m talking about, says “oh, from Mike? it’s nothing, he’ll call you back if he needs to. la la la.”

So today upon leaving the apartment I notice an envelope attached to my door. It essentially tells me that upon review of my account, I may now be making too much money to live there (they are low income housing, and get a tax break if X percent of their tenants are low income). It says that I may now reapply for housing, or move my ass out in 30 days. I am not confident that reapplying does me any good as that’s what started the problem in the first place. I will reapply because I don’t particularly feel like moving, but I am not confident that it will do much good. In the meantime, I guess I’m apartment or house hunting in case I need to move.

I didn’t need this right now.

Oh Pluto, what have they done to you?

So Pluto is now demoted. Actually, I like this definition better. Dwarf Planets. Yes. That is a decent name. And the definitions seem to be better and more accurate. Oh the controversy, I know, but poor Pluto. Nobody loves large rocks of ice anymore.

I predict in another two weeks the controversy will get so large that Pluto will be declared never to have existed in order to solve the problem. Immediately after which all of our space program resources will go to making sure that is true, using as many nuclear weapons as possible. Come to think of it, what a killer way to de-nuke this planet eh? This is why I should be a world leader.

Lazy or Incompetent?

I have never seen this movie, but it’s very existence has been gnawing at my soul.

Dr. T and the Women, Lazy or Incompetent?

In this case, your answer may refer to either to the title or the movie itself. For my money, this has to be the worst, most hideous movie name in the history of time.

Getting back to my roots

I am not sure what to think about such decisions. On the whole, I think I like the change overall. It gives planets a more decisive definition that I tend to like. Also, it distinguishes nicely between the classical, large planets and the smaller, icy ones. Essentially it distinguishes the planets by formation type, which I also approve of. Also, I find it interesting that the asteroid ceres is now considered a planet.

What I don’t like is calling these smaller planets “plutons”. It sounds more like the name for a sub-atomic particle. Also it is very silly. Why not names reflecting the formation of each type? Why not Kuiper planets (well, that wouldn’t work for ceres I guess)? Or even a simple Rank A planets and Rank B planets. Or hell, Planetoids works great. But Plutons? Give me a frickin break.

I believe this starts a new feature here on the blog:

Lazy or Incompetent?

Was giving lower rank planets the name of “Plutons” lazy or incompetent?
(where here incompetent is defined as “couldn’t have thought of a better name if they tried.”)

I have nothing to add

to this.

I must regenerate

My fanboy credentials are clearly fading. I’ve missed a few crucial fanboy products that I should have caught. Therefore, I will be returning to San Diego this weekend to indulge in all that is the San Diego Comicon. My sweet Lupita and I will be making a daring one-day visit on Saturday this year due to work constraints. But there we shall bathe in the non-judgemental purity of geek paradise. Or something like that. In any case, not too lake to make your last-minute, impulse travel arrangements.

Speaking of comic books, in reading 40 years of X-men I have so far discovered the following:

1. The professor had a crush on Jean Grey early in the series. As it seemed incredibly creepy (especially since Jean spends most of her energy early on keeping the other 5 students from humping her leg) it was a plot thread soon lost. Only to reappear somehow during the onslaught miniseries if I’m not mistaken.
2. The blob was originally a circus performer. After rejecting Xavier’s offer to join the x-men, the blob rounds up the circus to destroy the mansion. So the big fight at the end is of the mutants beating the crap out of circus clowns and acrobats. Also, cyclops shoots an elephant in the face at point-blank range. I did a little head-scratching on that one.
3. The weirdness of Stan Lee’s stories aside, Jack Kirby’s art was very good and I found myself enjoying the first run of issues with Stan as author and jack as artist very much. But they are pretty cheesy.
4. the other mutant power that all x-men have is to have 8 complete sentences worth of dialogue while doing a backflip or falling 5 feet. There was actually a panel where I think cyclops and jean have this whole conversation while falling 5 feet and they end it with something like, “Watch out for the ground!” They either talk very fast or gravity doesn’t work the same for them as it does for us.

Quote of the Day

“There is no fish of the second freshness.” -- Apparently a Russian saying, but the internets have lied before. In any case, I liked it.

Pigeon hole

While showering yesterday I thought I heard several thumps. Nothing was repeated so I assumed they came from the apartment below and forgot about them. When I walked out of the bathroom, the cat was patiently waiting for me. As soon as I came out he ran down the hall started meowing loudly and frequently. I wandered down and said, “what’s all this noise abo . . . oh.” Much to my dismay, a large, crap-filled pigeon had flown in through the open patio door (so the cat can go out there) and refused to leave. It was immediately clear that the thumps I had heard in the shower came when the cat, in an attempt to reach said pigeon, had knocked over his cat tree. He must have then decided to wait for me to solve it and come back by the bathroom to wait until I got out of the shower. Although, I suspect he didn’t so much want me to get the bird out, as to get it for him so he could play with it.

Wielding broom and chair, I then began to try and shoo the thing out of the door. Unfortunately, the pigeon first confused the un-openable pane of glass above my patio door as an exit. So he kept flying into the pane and cracking his head. Feeling bad and not wanting to kill him, I put up a cloth over it so he wouldn’t think it was a window anymore. Shortly thereafter He found his way behind the cloth and proceeded to pace back and forth along the window, looking for a way out. So I took the cloth down again, shooed him away and put the cloth back up so he couldn’t sneak behind it. This is about 2 hours worth of fun. The next and final hour was spent thinking up more exciting ways to get him to leave. I did some googling and read about people gently knocking the bird senseless so it could be removed outside, but felt that required too much finesse. A capture and release program was briefly implemented, with no luck on the capture portion (the cat was locked away during these crucial endeavors). The quest began to take more immediacy as I was late for work and the damn thing was crapping everywhere (which was oh-so-much fun to clean up last night). Finally, the damn thing landed on the ceiling fan. So I stared at it, silently cursing. The problem now was that it wouldn’t fly low enough to see the sky through the patio door. It was either too afraid to fly that low or didn’t think it was an exit. So a weird thought came to me. What if I start the blades spinning? I turned the fan on briefly and got the blades moving a little. The pigeon, while apparently getting a little dizzy, was unperturbed. Hmmm. But I had made it dizzy. So I put them on a bit longer, get the blades going a bit faster and now hope to make the bird dizzy enough to fall so I can grab it and throw it out the window. What actually happened was a little funnier. It got spinning just fast enough that the bird had to use it’s wings to stay on the rotating blade. Eventually it was too much and the bird was actually flying a few inches behind the blade trying to land on it again. Unfortunately, the wings were flapping hard enough to keep the blade moving and the bird began a futile chase of the blade for about 3 revolutions. At this point he was just tired and dizzy and finally dropped alititude by a few feet, saw the sky through the open patio door and few out. Success! I ran over and yelled at it to “stay out!” and slammed the door.

Lesson: Whenever you get a captured bird in your house/apartment, simply get them to land on the fan and spin the blades. Foolproof!

P.S. The cat was very disappointed at my solution to the problem.

Forehead Smacking, Part the Second

This isn’t really THAT big of a deal, but our illustrious president made fun of a blind reporter this morning for wearing sunglasses at the press conference. Basically it makes me shake my head and laugh at our magnificent leader.

Because This Blog Needs Another Post

powered by ODEO

When I think of HBOT3000 choirs of school girls sing.

this is the end, my friend

Here’s a disrespectful look at some end times national ID and mark of the beast stuff. I could go on at length about this, but I’ll keep it short. I just want to point out how growing up Adventist it was about how Adventists were going to be persecuted by such technology and other churches. Later, one might admit that God’s chosen existed in other flocks, but by and large it was Adventists who were going to be persecuted. When I read articles like this, it reminds me that other denominations think they’re going to be persecuted by everyone else as well which leads me to wonder: Just how many churches think all the other churches (along with the athiests that are part of Satan’s church) are going to persecute them? It’s this type of thing that helps keep me away from church these days.

The Price is Wrong, Bitch!

The Price is Right has infected our culture in an odd way. I occasionally encounter people that think that the better approximation of a number is always the lower one. For instance, in an admittedly trivial discussion on whether the price of gas was $3.20 or $3.19 when the price is $3.19 and 9/10, I took the position that $3.20 was obviously a better estimate of final price than $3.19. His main argument seemed to be “yes, but $3.19 is under the actual price.” This argument only makes sense on the price is right and it is not the first time I have encountered it. I can only attribute it to Bob Barker’s ever-growing demonic powers.

Twice Removed

I just got an email from the parents’ church (of which I guess I remain, technically, a member). It says they’re going to the park or some such nonsense to hand out this book. Yeah, I’m not sure I’ll be turning up for that. While the scare tactics about the end of the world hold a special place in my heart (as they were the main source of adrenaline for me into high school), I’m not sure spreading the fear around as a means of increasing the flock is identified as particularly christian in my book.

“It’s the end of the world! Only by joining our church and giving us 10% of your income can you be saved! Hurry! It’s happening now! Is that Satan behind you? Quick, run in here!”

Okay, now I’m just being silly.

Conquering Thailand

Check out this commercial (look for yellow text and play button to play) and see if you don’t spot someone from the same factory as the hbot3000. It is very cool and I am, sniff, so proud!

Good Citizenry

Matt was gracious enough to give me “The Good Citizen’s Handbook.” What hidden message there was in that gift, I don’t care to speculate. Regardless, on first glance it is a camp classic. In fact, I’m trying to decide if it’s serious or some horrible parody. In any case, I thought it would be amusing to read through and decide how much I fit this person’s model of a good citizen. So, the introduction begins, “A good citizen is well-groomed . . ..” Huh. Well, I’m damned six words into it (tosses book out window). I see “Big Hair” (as opposed to Big Tobacco) has bought and paid for this advocate’s book. Sad. More later, once I get past the horrible dejection I feel from having failed the good citizen test in the first sentence.

Disaster Porn

You know, I enjoy reading the Clusterfuck Nation Chronicles (linked to the right), but it’s become hard to take seriously. Someone on his site described what he does as “Disaster Porn” and I find that description hard to dispute. I must admit I like reading his site for the same reason I like disaster movies, just an abject fascination with apocalyptic/disaster scenarios. So, for the record, I don’t want an oil crisis to destroy the country. As much as I find it interesting to examine the possibilities, I do cherish my electricity and my easy motoring. Having said that, I do agree with Kunstler on what a silly idea suburbs, strip malls and long commutes are. I do think that gas prices are going to become higher and cause some significant problems, but I in no way really want it to happen. In any case, gas is edging up again this summer and my thoughts once again drifted to the demise of oiled civilization. Having said that, it is funny to watch the “we’re all doomed” side crow when oil and gas prices go up with the “sensible” I-heart-my-SUV crowd saying fluctuations are normal, only to see positions reversed completely with no trace of irony when prices go down again.

In a related note, I see that some people are getting a little upset about the confirmed report that the Chimperor is considering using nukes (“but they’re tiny!”) to destroy some targets in Iran. The report says that the Bush Administration believes that they can bomb Iran into Democracy. So, uh, yeah. Crazy people run the government. This guy probably sounds a little hysterical, but his feelings closely mirror my own. In short: Bombing Iran with tiny nukes = Stupid Fucking Idea. That is all.

An open letter

Dear Daylight Savings Time,

FUCK. YOU.

That is all.

Sincerely,

Hbot3000