Claire's blog

Also very interesting is this video that explains how Wikis work, and the fact that Democracy TV player just got a $100,000 grant. Read on for the coke & pot found in Roman air, the stick up Germany’s ass, and the rest of the links. (more…)

So, I’ve been posting pictures to My FlickR account for quite awhile now.  I do them in chronological order.  I frequently gather my favorite photos from other photographers who were at the same event, and post them at the same time I post mine.  This has worked so far because I’ve been years months behind in posting.  But it wont last, and I am wondering if there is a better solution… (more…)

Imagine having a criminal record for the rest of your life simply for putting your foot on a seat. Now imagine the civil war in 4 minutes! Now imagine women who prefer ugly men! Now imagine the 10 coolest trees in the world. Now imagine getting fingerprinted in Amsterdam. What??? Read on for the links…

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Because it does. A lot. (more…)

Pedophile police don’t get arrested when caught red-handed photographing 5-year-olds up their skirts. You see — police can do whatever they want, such as ripping a man out of his car, knocking his tooth out, breaking his ribs, then arresting him for disorderly conduct for daring to allow them to torture him.
Don’t trust the police. Also, do not trust Trusted Computing. It doesn’t trust you. In a similar vein, Don’t Let AT&T Ruin the Internet.
Meanwhile, Laura Mallory is a hypocritical religious skank who should be forced to live in a prison somewhere, where she can be protected from other peoples’ values.
Does this news suck? Need something happy? How about a white tiger that swims!? (more…)

My dad commuted over the 14th street bridge from DC to VA — the one that got hit by a plane on January 13th, 1982. That was my birthday. I was in 2nd grade. (more…)

Also: Kevorkian is still truckin‘, but unfortunately making no progress.  DON’T MISS the top 25 censored news stories.  They are great. (more…)

Yes, a choose your own adventure story based on the Virginia Tech Massacre. And New Jersey is suing to have this video suppressed, so watch it while you can. And be scared of the mind-reading machine. Read on for the links. (more…)

Is this really the land of the free? Read on for the links… the iGasm in particular seems like an interesting device – a sex toy for females that vibrates in tune to the music being listened to. (more…)

The Holocaust denial in particular pisses me off.  But the sex toy prosecutions are just a societal waste of taxpayers’ money at the expense of peoples’ personal sexual freedom!  Read on for the links. (more…)

Actually, it adds a 2-pixel black border surrounding an image, and then adds a drop shadow (going southwest) to the image. This increases the image size by about 15×15. Since it is a script, it is easily automate-able. It requires ImageMagick, outputs in PNG format, and makes a backup of the original. (more…)

So, we didn’t know you had to use paint thinner on a brush after you used it.  Whoops.  Neither of us have ever painted before.  I’m not sure if the original brushes can be recovered or not.  I’m also not sure how much paint thinner is enough, or how through you need to do things to get the brush working, or what.  I just don’t know.  (more…)

Just another day in a sick sad world. I really liked what Trent Reznor had to say, though! (more…)

An image gallery of teachers who have sex with students. This gallery is bound to fuel much male fantasy….My fave is of course Debra Lafave, who appropriately has “fave” in her name. Hopefully she can still have a career in porn. I also feel sorry for Mary Kay Letourneau — she may have raped a child, but once he turns 18, there’s no reason for the state to continue protecting him from her, considering they got married. Sometimes one has to realize love really can trump all, even if nobody else understands it.

Nazis, however, cannot be justified in the slightest.

Also: The next big job? Archiving old TV shows and movies. I’ll start working on my resume. (more…)

Personally, I think Rocky Horror, and the whole subculture associated with it, easily beats the pants off Hedwig.  Hedwig just seemed like they copied the idea, tried to make it a A-movie with A-songs instead of a B-movie with campy B-songs.  No real participation, and I didn’t think the songs (or the play, which I saw) were that good anyway.  Though I do love Type O Negative‘s cover of Angry Inch. (more…)

So we used the rest of the stain on our cabinet innards to attempt to make it look more even.  It didn’t really work.  It’s pretty much stained dark enough, but we wish the staining was more consistent. (more…)

We all knew Alabama sucked already, when 40% of people there voted against interracial marriage. But did you know if you are a lady, kyou are not allowed to legally pleasure yourself? At least, not with anything other than your fingers. Unless you buy from out-of-state. Uhh, Hello? Sexual freedom calling. It’s the 2000s. We’re supposed to be past this old-millennium Puritan-repression bullshit. Meanwhile, RFID chips are being used to track cars, to make sure they wont speed. Read on for the links. (more…)

Well, the staining wasn’t dark enough.  So yesterday, we did the second coat on the inside of the new cabinet. We got better results than with our test board, partially because we left the stain on longer-than-specified (3 minutes) (but it takes more than 3 minutes to do an area, so the parts you do in the beginning are on longer than the parts you do at the end — how do we reconcile?).  We left it on for 10 minutes this time, which was a mistake.  It started to become very sticky, and we had to really scrub (with yarsale t-shirts) to get the stain out.  This left visible marks and made it much less even.  We used another 40% of the container, with 10% left.  The color actually seems like it is dark enough now!  We’re going to put the final 10% of stain on just in an effort to make it look more uniform tonight, and do some more sanding.  Then, tomorrow, we can do the polyurethane sealant (coat 1 of 2).  I think I need to buy some 400-grit sandpaper (the finest sandpaper there is), which is used for “between coats”.  That might help it adhere more consistently.  I hate this crap.  It smells, too.  Should be taking pictures, but kind of lazy.

Beginning this past Monday, ISPs have to obey new spying rules.
Stop talking through shitty corporate voicemail menus & talk to a real human instead! Technology being used in reverse to keep corporations from wasting our time — I love it!
Also: “24” renewed for 2 more seasons! (more…)

We finally sanded and wood-filled enough to start our wood staining project.  We did just the inside of the new cabinet.  Since it was interior, we didn’t quite sand it as fine (220 grit) as they said you should, since it’s just the interior.  The Minwax brand gel wood stain we got definitely isn’t dark enough.  A second coat applied to a test board did not darken it any from the first coat (contrary to the claims of any how to guides we see).  Damn is it messy, and smelly.  Even the next day, I don’t want to be in the same room.  Anyway, we got the smallest container, and used half of it just on 1 coat on the inside of the cabinet.  So we definitely need more.  I think we are going to go for a darker color than the color of the stain we had.    And we still have plenty of sanding to do (start at 60 grit, work out the rough stuff, then go up to 120 grit, then 160 grit, then finally 220. What a pain.)