I’d been meaning to tell this story because it had come up in casual conversation. But seeing the “Stupid Monkey” logo from Robot Chickenreally made me remember that I had to blog about one of my greatest moments in stupidity: macing myself in the face.
Well, actually, it was tear gas. A yard sale near my house in Woodbridge was selling tons of tear gas self-defense canisters for a mere 25 to 50 cents each. I stupidly only bought one. Had I bought them all, I’d still have had them today, and Carolyn wouldn’t have had to spend $11 on pepper spray prior to her trip to Chicago. (I insisted she have something to protect herself with.)
I pretty much had the tear gas in my pocket at all times for protection, as I walked around Virginia Tech. Brass knuckles or a bb gun (loaded with a single, small dart) in my right pocket, and tear gas in my left pocket. I especially did this in D.C. Teargas someone first, and they wont be able to dodge the brass knuckles. A nice one-two set-up.
One time I really should have used both on this combative person, but … We let him steal my lighter and harass us. I did him a favor by not leaving him in a pile of his own blood as he called me chicken 1 inch from my face while my brass knuckles were slipped over right hand, ready to punch. What a dick. I regret not kicking his ass, but I suppose I took the high road. (Carolyn, Wayne, Shehab, and some others may remember that incident.)
So anyway, as I mentioned — I carried the tear gas with me everywhere. At some point, we discovered that if you sprayed it on a paper towel and inhaled it, that it would increase your buzz. It would also make me sneeze — exactly once. Which was kind of novel as well. This was definitely “college student thinking” at work. Who the hell wants to inhale tear gas? Apparently, me.
So I was really drunk at one party, sitting on the balcony outside. I noticed I had a paper towel in one hand, and the tear gas in another. What the hell — let’s have a whiff of the stuff since there were no cigarettes around. The problem was — as soon as I pulled the trigger of the tear gas, it ricocheted off the paper towel — directly into my eye!
At the time, I was drunk enough that my reactions were slowed down. But my mind hadn’t slowed down nearly as much — I remember thinking, “No. I’m spraying myself in the face. This sucks. Stop pushing the button. Stop. Now.” I remember it like it was yesterday.
And it hurt like hell.
But you know what? If you douse your tacos in Tabasco sauce, then eat them and let it drip on your hands, and then scratch an itch in your eye?
You gotta love corporations that want money for you to play the damn radio on your own farm in front of your horses and/or 2 employees. Watch the dinosaurs in their death flails.
Nevermind that real classical music is public domain. We're not even protecting the artist here, we're protecting session musicians who may have recorded it recently. You wanna get paid? Do some work. I wish I could sit back and continue to get paid for my work for 70 years. Or paint a house, and get paid everytime someone sees it.
Ridiculous. I guess 60yo people aren't allowed to find porn featuring people their age. Wow. Talk about selective enforcement. First they come for the pedophiles… But like all government movements, it never stops at the first drawn line (child porn), but instead continues to creep and creep and creep. "Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile."
Of course this is from the Democrats who are big big fans of legislating behavior between consenting adults. Who do you think gave us smoking bans and put people in jail for 45 days for selling a bacon-wrapped hotdog in California? The nanny-state Democrats. They're as selective about human rights as the Republicans; just in a different way. Two sides of the same coin.
HA. HAA HAH. HAHAHA HAH AHAH AH AH AHAHAHAHAHA HAHA. Really? After 70 years of this shit, there are really people who think that a drug war can be won? Who are the fucktars idiotic enough to vote for such people?
Anyone remember Thailand a cpl yrs back? When the cops just decided who were drug users and shot them in the back of their heads execution style? Notes sent to people telling them to report to the police station, where they were then shot?
3000 dead. And the drug war didn't get won there. It's not going to get won in Mexico (with 1,000 dead in drug-related violence this year alone), it's not going to get won in America, and it's not going to get won in Thailand.
Or anywhere.
Not in our lifetimes, and not in our grandchildren's lifetimes.
Get over it, prohibitionists. You've lost. And you've caused thousands to die or lose liberty by forcing your morals on the rest of the world. And thousands more will die because of your freedom-hating stubbornness.
QuickTime blows in so many ways, and everyone in the video know has known this for eons, since the 90s. It is from the same caste as RealVideo. Much better options have come along, but by far the most workable is the mpeg4-based Xvid (or the predecessor Divx), which can be thought of as “the mp3 of the video world”. Especially since they are both technically mpeg standards. (Though for high-def movie and show distribution, h.264 MKV is the shit. But it’s not as workable with as much software, unlike AVI.) (When I do VOB->AVI encoding for movies these days, I use h.264.)
Anyway… I was a bit aghast that my new camera takes videos in QuickTime. I wish the video codec could be changed at the firmware level. That would be nice. MPC (Media Player Classic) can’t even play the video files out of my camera, only VLC Player. And MPC works for most stuff (though not nearly as much as VLC, which plays just about anything in existence.)
So I wanted a simple command that I could execute to convert all the videos in a folder without ever having to think again — to just type “convert-camera-videos” in a folder of new stuff off my camera. Easy enough:
convert-camera-videos.bat (requires 4NT to use @NAME):
for %%1 in (*.mov) call mov2avi.bat "%%1" "%@NAME[%%1] (xvid).avi"
call deprecate *.mov
The first line uses “mov2avi.bat”, which is: move2avi.bat:
echo using fixed_quant=4
echo ...... 1-3=very little improvement/huge files
echo ...... 4-5=good for high qual vid
echo ...... 31=lowest
mencoder %1 -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -xvidencopts fixed_quant=4 -o %2
^^ Note that I left some comments in there should I decide to change the quality to make my files smaller. In fact, I had to change fixed_quant to 11 to get the videos small enough to work with my command-line Flickr API uploader.
The 2nd line uses “deprecate.bat” which is really not required. Deprecate is simply a bat I have to rename files to “.deprecated”. It’s my way of deleting something without deleting it. I frequently deprecate photos that I don’t really want in my collection, but that I don’t want to delete either. It helps my data hoarding by allowing me a way to remove things from thigns without having to actually delete them.
Deprecate.bat::
@echo off
set NOQUOTES=%@STRIP[%=",%1]
ren "%NOQUOTES" "%NOQUOTES.deprecated"
unset /q NOQUOTES
Anyway — From now on, no more bullshit QuickTime for me! Xvid only! And if I feel my files are too big, I can always raise the value of fixed_quant in mov2avi.bat. (more…)
You mean there were people who acted like Israel didn't have nukes? C'mon, who's really dumb enough to pull the wool over their eyes like that?
Apparently Obama. After all, if we publicly acknowledge Israel have nukes, it would be illegal for us to give them $3B in aid every year. Symington Amendment. 1976. Makes assistance to countries developing nuclear weapons illegal.
So wow. Our own aid is in violation of our own law. The Israel lobby is apparently quite powerful.
This may be helpful to others. If you are uploading flickr photos via Perl, and you would like your caption to automatically include a link to the original photo — all it requires is this tiny snippet of code:
NOTE!!! I HAVE COME UP WITH BETTER CODE FOR THIS HERE!!! YOU SHOULD PROBABLY USE THAT INSTEAD!
my $FLICKR_PHOTOID_URL = “http://flickr.com/photo.gne?id=”;
if ($file =~ /([0-9]{10})_[0-9a-f]{10}_[a-z]/i) {
$caption .= “Originally posted at $FLICKR_PHOTOID_URL$1\n”;
}
NOTE!!! I HAVE COME UP WITH BETTER CODE FOR THIS HERE!!! YOU SHOULD PROBABLY USE THAT INSTEAD!
Note that this only works if you keep the numbers from the filename that flickr gives you when you save a picture. IE “3375260709_1eb18b2012_o.jpg”. You can of course add anything else to the filename, but the “3375260709_1eb18b2012_o” part must be in there for this to work. (more…)
"police officer in his 30s was mistakenly hit by a taser" — "he collapsed and lost consciousness, not breathing, eyes rolled upward, foaming at the mouth, arms and legs jerking for about 1 minute and then confused for many minutes"
Yes. Tasers are not non-lethal. They are less-lethal. They were supposed to be used IN PLACE of shooting someone in the chest [cops don't go for legs, ever.] Not as pain or order compliance tools. How many must die (over 360 so far) before this is realized?
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] When enough people you know start mentioning a movie… it’s time to watch it. So we did (on 12/3/2008)…
HAIKU: Stupidfilm titles Permeate the industry!
I almost skipped this.
LIMERICK: There once was a movie named Tropic Thunder.
A stupid title that made me wonder.
Actors I didn’t recognize?
What a pleasant surprise!
I’m glad to find out it wasn’t a total blunder.
PEOPLE: Believe it or not, but it’s actually a bit of a spoiler to say who all the actors are. You’re best off not thinking about it. We managed to be fooled and not realize who a couple of the actors were at first — and that was a big part of the fun.
QUIRKS: Fake trailers at the beginning. They were awesome! The whole movie takes place in an “alternate earth”. But not at all in a sci-fi/fantasy way. Simply… An earth with differently-named actors. (Who happen to have the same faces as actors here on our Earth…)
“Fairly popular?” No, Obama. It was THE most popular question. Nice way to dodge the issue. Oh, and while you’re at it, insult everyone intelligent enough to try to have a voice and use your website that you bragged about as being “Change”.
Some comments I enjoyed:
“Barrack Obama was quoted on January 21, 2004 saying “The War on Drugs has been an utter failure. We need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws.” He goes on to say “But I am not somebody who believes in legalization of marijuana. What I do believe is that we need to rethink how we are operating in the drug wars and I think that currently we are not doing a good job.” What happened between then and now? He won’t even think about decriminalization now. He’s wrapped around someone’s finger” -phokuzbt@youtube
“Obama, I voted for you but you are slowly losing my confidence in your ability to put science before theology. Surely someone with the education you have knows that hemp (aka marijuana) was made illegal for all the wrong reasons. You are slowly losing your grassroots supporters, you have already lost me.” -sahenke13@youtube
“The only reason they opened up that forum on the whitehouse site was to make people feel like they have a voice, and that it’s being heard. Clearly that is not the case. Prohibition of alcohol failed. Prohibition of marijuana failed too. What is the big deal? They know it could bring in huge tax revenue. What could possibly be turning them away from that. “Look, when I was a kid, I inhaled frequently. That was the point.” -Barrack Obama” -phokuzbt@youtube
“what was disturbing was his chuckle(laugh). I guess it’s funny that 800,000 thousand non-voilent offenders get lock up every year or we spend billions apon bilions of tax payer dollars to “try” to fight the war on marijuana.” -dub@MPP blog
“He spent a good amount of time on Financial Aid. If Obama knew his facts he would realize that over 200,000 students have been denied Financial Aid do to cannabis convictions.” -Solon594@MPP blog
“I am offended and disappointed at President Obama’s response to our questions… and then making a joke of what we collectively think should happen is simply not ok. I am so tired of the same old attitude and stereotypes… I thought he was a fresh thinker, a brave new political maverick… Someone that could see past previously held beliefs and find truth… I voted for this?” -dw@MPP blog
My response: Well, DW. Some of us were smart enough not to vote for Obama. Did you really the Democratic party was going to change anything? They just swing the pendelum in the other direction. That’s not the same as change.
“Well, now we’ve been given our official lip service. Once again a gullible majority believed a politician. What a HUGE surprise. It doesn’t matter if they’re republican or democrat, grey or gray. They will never stop being opposite sides of the same old coin.” -JW@MPP blog
“what change? looks like obama favors the status quo. i wonder if he even realizes how and why marijuana was first criminalized in the first place. racism anyone? first black president? wha… this administration is a joke. this isnt about change at all… it’s about certain vested interests. we got played.” -Jon Stotz@MPP blog
Anyway, I’m still waiting for this so-called “change”. Let’s see how things are in 4 years… (more…)
I’m a techie. I was the first human being I ever knew to have cable (’79ish), have a VCR (’80ish, $800, separate UHF/VHF knobs), have a personal computer (’80), write a program (’83), get online (’88), record and play music on my computer (’90-91), use the internet (’91), use a TV as a monitor (’95, but my dad did this around 1980), have a webpage (’95), use google (’98ish, I emailed my whole addressbook telling them about it), use a social networking site (SixDegrees in ’98, and not ONE friend accepted my request–people didn’t get that social networking had great potential… it took another 10 yrs for facebook to take off), control lights in my house with a computer (2002ish), transmit audio over FM with my computer (2003ish), use gmail (2004), flickr (2004), or have a YouTube account (2004). Y’all are slow at figurin’ this technawlogee out. Not to toot my own horn (but isn’t that what 25 things is for?), but you might want to follow my lead when I get into new things. I’m often onto things before others. I was called a geek for a lot of these things, then every trendy person on the planet turned around and did most of them 10 yrs later. PWNED.
I first got online in 1988 with a dumb terminal. That means there was no software, and you had to type out most of the phone numbers you dialed (it could store 10) manually. And of course you couldn’t download. No disks. No operating system. No computer. Just a monitor and a keyboard. I called BBSes at 2400bps, 1200bps, and 300bps. 30 characters a second is REALLY slow. It wasn’t long til I had lots of online friends, as well as phoned in death threats to my house.
I once rear-ended a purple limosine. I pretended to be poorer than I was, and the owner, a reverend, never called.
I only have mid-digital hair on my left ring finger.
I love warmth, but I think I’d be content with never seeing the sun again. I’ve gone about 3 weeks without seeing it before and it didn’t bother me a bit. But I would be the first in any group to die of exposure if tied to at ree.
I once stabbed my dad in the arm with a fork. I was pretending to, and it broke his skin, and felt just like picking up a piece of cut steak. Gross.
I once slit my dad’s throat with a piece of paper. I was pretending to, and flicked it, and it actually paper-cut his throat. Oops!!
By the time I graduated high school, I had only drinken alcohol 8 times.
I’ve never used chapstick/lip balm, except for 2 times that I’ve taken so much Mucinex that it dried me out. I really don’t understand why it’s so critical for people.
I’m 35, and I still get carded if I shave. Yet my first legal drink at 21, they didn’t card me. WTF.
I didn’t learn to really talk or use a toilet until I was 3, but I could read by the time I was 4 (before kindergarten), and at an adult level by 7. Listening to other kids read out loud in class was always EXTREMELY painful. I first corrected a teacher in kindergarten; I was right, she was wrong.
I’ve never been out of the country. (Canada at age 3 doesn’t count!)
I dislike being in public, because there are rules. True freedom only exists on private property.
I’ve been tested as typing at 104WPM with 99% accuracy. (Temp agency, college)
We had our first computer when I was about 5 or 6 (kindergarten, 1979-1980). I wrote my first computer program around age 8 (3rd grade). It merely printed to the screen that my high score in bowling was 30. Ha!
Because I learned how to program for loops by copying my dad around age 8 or 9, I thought the loop control variable always had to be called “T”. For YEARS. (Nowadays I use $i!)
I have Gilbert’s Syndrome. Basically, glucoronyl transferase enzyme deficiencies cause abnormal bilirubin (what makes your pee yellow, a byproduct of broken down hemoglobin) levels in my blood, making me succeptible to a harmless form of jaundice and possible bouts of fatigue (which would explain a LOT). But it lowers your rate of heart disease and artery hardening. Bacon, here I come. If my skin or eyes seem a bit yellow, this is why.
I prefer to floss with plastic (10-pack-o’-gum bags, sandwich bags). Plastic never cuts your gums, and you can fold it over for farther apart teeth, use the edge, or use the middle for strange-shaped teeth gaps (a crown is only worth replacing so many times before you accept having a “food trap” shape between 2 teeth). Also, the dental tape (not floss) kicks ass for the same reasons — but plastic is free. I do keep floss around. At work, in my car, at home. It’s a basic emergency need. People not having it is how I discovered the plastic trick: Parties where the host has no floss tend to have smokers present, and the cellophane from a pack of cigarettes works just as well (But it’s stronger than plastic, and CAN make you bleed.)
I have no friends my age who have been in a relationship as long as I have, and wonder if I ever will.
I once refused to sneeze for a period of several years. And was successful.
It seems like my tendons NEVER heal. Pull my back? 3 years of agony. Walk on sand? 9 months of constant discomfort [so far]. Any unknown treatments for this?
I’ve had surgery 3 times, but only one was “real”/asleep surgury. Nodule in my thumb, and a radicular cyst in my gums (twice, it grew back even tho it’s not cancer). You’d think with all this, I’d be lumpy… but I’m not. Unless you count a gut. But that doesn’t have lumps.
I didn’t learn to swim until my parents bribed me with a stereo at age 13. I despise water. If I were one of the 4 “elements”, I’d be fire. Then earth. Not air, and definitely not water.
I’m a 3rd gen I.T. guy. We’re a rare breed. But it’s harder to find work if you don’t want to help kill people.
Ahh, this article casts more light on some of the facts surrounding the recent Dominion Virginia Power rate increases. Like the fact that 11 legislators own >$10K of Dominion stock and would stand to personally benefit from such rate benefits.
Sick of new, high Virginia electric bills? The Virginia State Corporation Commission approved this rate. Aren't they supposed to protect us?
If Virginia has to rely on so much coal and so little nuclear power, perhaps this is not the best state to live in if you don't want to be gouged on your bills?
Only 40 people wrote to the commission to oppose the increase. Likely because most of us didn't find out about it until we were hit with huge bills. It now costs us the same to freeze our ass off and wear a hood 24/7 indoors during 5 months of the year as it did to be somewhat warm in previous years.
Special thanks to all those scared of nuclear power, exercising NIMBY ("Not In MY Back Yard!") RE: power plants. You helped keep our rates up. Hope it's worth it.
I could have guessed Jim Carrey would be in this. Not because he's very much like any of the stooges, but because he is a master of physical comedy. I don't know about Benicio as Moe, though. And am kind of ambivalent about Sean Penn as Larry.
In the name of security, are we going to sacrifice all privacy? This is NOT what the founding fathers envisioned. Is their vision of freedom going to die with a planet scared shitless by the media? Hate to break the news, but violence has been going down for decades. We're safer than ever. We're cowards for submitting to this kind of mentality.
A new movie about Israel's repression of Palestine. Brings together many points. For instance, it is a myth that jews and arabs have been fighting for thousands of years. That would be like if Britain bombed us, and someone said we'd been fighting britain since 1776. Current fight != past fights. Movie clip five, Historical Myths In israel/Palestine, talks about this.
"This 71-page report provides witness accounts of the devastating effects that white phosphorus munitions had on civilians and civilian property in Gaza. Human Rights Watch researchers in Gaza immediately after hostilities ended found spent shells, canister liners, and dozens of burnt felt wedges containing white phosphorus on city streets, apartment roofs, residential courtyards, and at a United Nations school. The report also presents ballistics evidence, photographs, and satellite imagery, as well as documents from the Israeli military and government."
Is that enough proof yet?
Of course american media doesn't harp on this too much, since we committed the same war crimes in Fallujah using white phosphorous there. At least our reason for a bullshit war was *slightly* more palpable than Israel's reasoning.
Peter Chung, creator of Aeon Flux and other animated genius, is working on a movie! It's about time! Too bad the idea of reviving the animated Aeon Flux did not pan out. HT Compn.
Due to all the chicken drumsticks I ate at Jay’s birthday party this weekend…. I got to thinking about moral vegetarianism … Not eating stuff because it has to be killed and suffer. And it all goes back to me thinking: At least they don’t comprehend the hell they are in until they got killed. Because it sucks to be raised to be slaughtered.
Though I do think, along the same lines of “better to have lost love, than to never have had love”, that it is “better to have lost life [to be someone else’s dinner], than to have never had life at all.” In other words, I’d rather live as someone else’s dinner than to not life at all. Life is a great blessing if you are not constantly suffering. It might suck to be veal, but I’d rather be veal than a child laborer. I’d rather just lay there than be in a forced labor program. But I digress; this is not about veal.
In the end, I think a great deal of life depends on the consumption (and thus destruction… and thus suffering) of other life.
The difference is that we can make a choice. But why should we only eat that which cannot suffer? And if that is the case, can’t we eat jellyfish? They have no brain or central nervous system! They have nerves, but no consciousness to say, “ouch”.
Anyway — it’s not fair to that which is being slaughtered to be slaughtered. It’s not fair when I kill the ants that climb up my bathroom sink drain every year. But life isn’t fair. Some alien race could come along, decide we’re its food, decide our minds are so incredibly feeble that we can’t truly comprehend the horror, and slaughter us for dinner.
It would suck, but that would be that. There wouldn’t be anything we could do.
Then I think about the vegetables.
They don’t eat meat — with the exception of the Venus Flytrap (and a couple others?[citation needed]). They get their energy directly from the sun. Morally, they can claim themselves superior. Although there are a few exceptions, for the most part, photosynthesis is the most non-violent form of sustanance available.
If we wanted to solve a lot of things, we could alter our genetics to make us perform photosynthesis. We’d possibly turn green, but we wouldn’t need to eat (except maybe at night?). There would less of a need for violence against animals. (Hunting would still be necessary. Deer = 45,000 car accidents in one state in one year. You always fight for your team/species when lives are at stake. Mountain lions would still attack people if not put down. etc etc.)
And what do the vegetables get for their non-violent, moral superiority?
A bunch of vegetarians saying “let’s eat them, because they can’t comprehend the horror”.
Is that any different than the hypothetical aliens eating us?
I know there are likely holes in my logic here, but these are my thoughts. The plants suffer less, but they still die based on the fact that they are a lesser being. (more…)
Remember the CIA? The ones who help topple governments and set up puppet governments in other countries? In a case of the pot calling the kettle black, a CIA cybersecurity expert has suggested that many elections were rigged — such as Venezuela’s — via their use of electronic voting machines.
Nevermind that such machines were used here. Of course, he said he “wasn’t speaking for the CIA and wouldn’t address U.S. voting systems”. Of course.
Look like I’m going to have to agree with the Stigall here. Electronic voting machines are BAD. And without physical evidence (at least an electronic printout guaranteed for uniqueness and verifiability), ANY election can be stolen. Take a look at Clint Curtis’s testimony to the Ohio Supreme Court in 2004 — sworn under oath that he was paid to write a vote-flipping program for the makers of the voting machines.
And who made the Venezuela machines? Smartmatic, which owns Sequoia, who used to be called Diebold – who promised Bush electoral votes
Innocents put away by mystery black boxes protected by “trade secrets”. How is that a just justice system? Maybe I can sell some “you’re guilty” boxes and make some money…
A friend of mine had the audio removed from several of his youtube videos for similar reasons. Copyright law being used to stifle expression. YouTube could simply put some banner adds for the infringed companies on the same page. In fact, there were deals in place to do that in the past. But instead they’d rather fight it, and give us another name to hate: Warner.
Just yesterday I was saying that Wikileaks is like “Eyes Only” from the show Dark Angel. In many cases, the last free, public voice to disseminate information. In a world full of countries that are supposed to respect free speech — publishing a list of links to be censored can get your house raided.
Fucking ridiculous. The governments of the world are doing their best to not allow the citizens of the world to freely exchange information. Child porn is being used as the rally cry for the iron fist, and it’s pathetic.
They actually put “distribution of pornographic material” on the warrant — as if posting a link is the same as posting what is AT the link. Ridiculous.
A nice article about how the Schick Quattro TrimStyle For Women is not about women conforming to a [now non-exsitent] “porn culture”. Another WIN from The Legal Satyricon, a great blog.
Ahh tasers. Introduced to us as “a non-lethal alternative to lethal force”, and then lethally used in situations where lethal force would never have been allowed. If the cops shot this 15-yo in the head for fighting, there’d be an investigation. The whole way tasers were sold to the public was as a life-saving substitute for shooting someone to death.
As i suspected when the trend first came out, red light cameras have resulted in shitloads of cities getting "caught" adjusting the timing of lights so as to get more tickets.
Other studies have also shown that accident rates don't go down, but the nature of accidents changes [people get rear-ended].
Couple this with further studies that show that removing a light completely doesn't affect an accident rate — people take the same risk regardless, no light = less risk, but stupidity and mistakes remain a constant because people attempt to take the same risk (similar to antilock brakes not actually reducing accidents when they performed a study on a fleet of taxis, half with, half without).
So I'm glad people are finally starting to wise up to what I said when the whole trend first started, so many years ago.
Yup, you heard that right. The police decided there was no reason to arrest these people, but they wanted to take their picture. If you're not under arrest — you're free to cover your face, walk away, or do anything else. But instead ,they slammed him to the ground — hospitalizing him — and put him in jail for 6 months.
Of course all charges were dropped. Can you imagine how big this lawsuit is? Lawsuits are already pretty damn big just if you injure someone and don't arrest them. Imagine the money tacked onto a lawsuit for being in jail for 6 months?
America: Where your rights make no difference, because if you choose to assert them, you go to jail anyway. Six fucking months in jail for a non-crime? Utterly ridiculous. That's not freedom.
Officer Ray M. Corll II — you are an utter piece of shit. If you're not arresting somebody, you don't have the right to boss them around and arrest you for not listening. Fascist piece of shit — go move to China or Saudi Arabia.
Really? I'm pretty sure that if school is compulsory, and your taxes pay for the bus … That that gives you the right to ride the bus regardless of your flatulence. This isn't like pissing on the bus. Farting is something everyone does. Nor do they have a way of proving WHO farted. This is just another ridiculous advancement of a fascist agenda resulting in a uniform population. Are we going to have to start holding in our farts to keep the state from punishing us? Ridiculous!
Keep in mind there is no parole in federal prison. Charles Lynch faces 5 (mandatory minimum) to 100 yrs in prison for running a dispensary that has been legal under California legal code for 14 yrs. He asked the DEA about the legal status, and they said it was up to the states.
But dickhead Sheiff Pat Hedges is a fascist bastard who doesn't give a shit that he lives in a democracy. He doesn't care what his fellow Californians voted for. He convinced the DEA to raid the dispensary (something Obama has stopped them from doing as of last month). There were no arrests. 2 months later, they raided his home again and charged him with violating federal marijuana laws.
These are the same federal marijuana laws that Obama has directed the Department Of Justice to no longer enforce in states which have medical marijuana.
As far as I'm concerned, anything less than a full and instant pardon from Obama proves that Obama talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk.
I just read a 3-page article in Maxim about the Great White concert that killed 99 of the 300 people in the club. I have long thought this would make an incredible video game, but only if they could make you feel real pain so you’re really trying to escape. Tasteless, but intense.
Anyway, the fire originally only spread 1 foot per minute, but that was fast enough. They also had a diagram showing the exits, where people were, etc. Based on this, here is my advice, with the most important advice first:
1) The second you see any fire — even if it doesn’t seem to be a threat — run away fast. If you manage to “panic” before everyone else, you will be at the head of the herd and can possibly even use the main exit without getting stampeded. People didn’t freak out at first. The edgy ones who did increased their survival rate.
2) Keep in mind that most kitchens have an exit to outside. That might even be in the zoning code, to allow people to throw grease fires out back, etc. Most people aren’t going to be thinking about this, and will try to exit the way they came. This is a mistake:
3) The secret to surviving, as always, is to not follow the herd. Don’t act like a sheep and you wont be culled like one.
4) If a band is playing on stage, and THEY run away in a different direction than the rest of the crowd — follow THEM. They know more of the layout than you. They know the VIP/backstage area. Great White’s guitarist stupidly didn’t follow the rest of his bandmates to the back exit, and burned to death because of it. Don’t act like a sheep — unless you’re a sheep following the band. They KNOW things.
5) Club bathrooms often don’t have windows. If they’re charging a cover, the window could be used to sneak in. If you have to make a choice, don’t opt for the bathroom OR the front door.
6) A flashlight on your keychain very well may save your life by allowing you to see your way out, but don’t count on it once it gets too smoky.
7) If you do find yourself in a stampede, try to protect your kidneys. That’s what breaks when you get crushed by people (3rd most common injury after the Great White concert: kidney failure).
It’s good to consider worst-case scenarios.
And if you go to sporting events in football stadiums.. You might want to get a sense of how fast a fire can spread in a stadium:
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Watch out! There are a shit-ton of movies called “Loaded”.
PEOPLE: Monica Keene (aka Rachel from Undeclared) as Brooke. Jimmy Jean-Louis (aka The Haitian from Heroes).
BAD STUFF: I watched this 6+ months before getting around to review it. Apparently, it is not at all memorable. May as well just read the summary here.
It is apparently a revenge tale — a character even reads Count Of Monte Cristo in the movie.
CONCLUSION: I have no clue if I liked this or not.
RECOMMENDATION: If you like Undeclared and Heroes, you may want to watch this just to see Rachel and The Haitian. Otherwise, I can’t really recommend one way or another. I would have remembered hating it. Probably just another generic movie.
Sorry for the non-informative review; When 2009 rolled around I started reviewing movies I’d watched in 2009, and have a backlog of 2008 movies that still need review. Fortunately, I am forgetting them, so the reviews go by faster :) (more…)
Good. Losing your internet because someone falsely accuses you of doing something 3 times would be teh suck. No ISPs want to police their customers, and no customers want to be policed by private corporations.
There was no reason for the administration to intervene at all in this case. There was no legal requirement for them to take a position in the case. The RIAA can't win in the courts, with advertising, or education. Lobbyists haven't been able to get new laws passed. So the CEOs get their guys into Obama's Big-Business-Loving DOJ.
What did we expect?
The punishment is incredibly disproportionate. If he'd physically stolen a cd, it would be an issue of $7. Instead he's facing a million dollars in statutory damages. Ridiculous.
This is why the Free Software foundation filed an amicus brief in this case. It's a ridiculous example of corporate overreaching. From the administration that gave us the crooked Bailout. It's not like record companies (or any company) are "too big to fail".
Pro-Israel people have argued with me that if the Palestinians had peacefully assimilated into Israeli citizenship, nothing bad would have happened. This neglects the fact that they had martial law for over a decade. They were literally second class citizens.
I don't know if the Palestinians here are Israeli citizens or not, but it doesn't really matter — Israeli police LITERALLY popped children's balloons, confiscated flags and banners, and did not allow people to celebrate the city's designation as "capital of Arab culture".
No reports of violence.
20 Palestinians were detained.
Barricades were set up on routes to Islam's 3rd holiest site.
Flags and banners were confiscated.
Children's balloons were popped.
Of course in the West Bank — those who refused to bow to Israel's — were still able to celebrate.
And people wonder why rockets are fired randomly from an oppressed people that have no other recourse? Really?!?!?!
Fucking ridiculous. The exact issue of armbands already went to the supreme court during the fucking vietnam war (which people were right to protest). But these teachers that supposedly teach kids what they need to know wont even teach them their most basic constitutional right.
I'd love to see a school sued, and the money to come out of something like, say, the football team. I.E. If they lose a lawsuit, they should lose their football team. THAT would wake people the fuck up.
Part of the reasons americans are such pussies about asserting their rights is that schools train them that the rights they actually have don't exist. The Principal should be fired, end of story.
PEOPLE: Will Smith as Hancock. Jason Bateman and Charlize Theron return to being a couple here — like on Arrested Development, except she isn’t [highlight for spoilers]→retarded in this movie.
QUIRKS: A superhero movie! Yayyyyyy. And one that deals with more real-life issues, which has been an increasing goal of superhero artists since Stan Lee first wrote the Fantastic Four. This one in particular has Will Smith as a drunk hero, who basically unnecessarily destroys millions of dollars of property while saving one life. And of course the authorities don’t like vigilantism. So there you go. Oh, and there’s a twist. :) I saw it coming, but didn’t know the nature of it…
CONCLUSION: Good stuff! Nothing profound, but this is a high-budget movie, and feels like one. It’s no Batman — after all, they’re making up a new hero, not building on something people have been ape-shit about for more than half a century. But it’s way better than, say, Darkman, or other movies with made-up heroes. It’s better than My Super Ex-Girlfriend too, as this isn’t some romantic comedy. It’s more of a dramedy.
We rated it: Netflix:Clint:4,Carolyn:4. IMDB:Clint:7,Carolyn:8. Hmmm. We both liked it, but I guess Carolyn rates higher?
RECOMMENDATION: Superhero fans — especially those who like a modern polish, and real-life problems (like in The Venture Bros., though this film is not a straight comedy) should see this.
MOVIE QUOTE: Rail Crossing Crowd #2: I can smell alcohol on your breath!
Hancock: That’s cause I’ve been drinking bitch!
I always prefer a solution where I type exactly what I want in as few keystrokse as possible, and go straight to my result without having to click around, load a bunch of webpages, or point my mouse at things. Flickr is no exception. If I want to go to my photostream, I just click the flickr icon in my toolbar or type “flickr“. But if I want to, for example, see all pictures of Carolyn — I ust type “flickrCarolyn“. Everyone else would have to go to flickr, probably type in the URL or click a toolbar, then type in what they are searching for, then click submit. Extra page loads. Extra time. Extra effort.
Power users don’t play that waiting game. We script solutions. My flickr.bat is damn simple, and has probably saved me well over an hour of pointless clicking. I’m very good at timewasting, so it’s important to give myself as much time to waste. People who do crap manually are just inferior users of time.
This stuff isn’t genius. It’s obvious. I could have done this with the skills I had in 1987 — if the web existed back then.
It’s very useful when someone is over here, and they say something like, “Who is Jane Doe? I don’t know if I know here.” I respond: “You probably met her at one of our parties” and then type “flickr janedoe” at the command-line. A few seconds later, pictures are on the screen with a minimal amount of effort, waititing, or bandwidth. So here it is. It’s not genius. It’s obvious:
“Stupid Monkey” courtesy of Robot Chicken closing credits from S4E09. Buy the DVDs at Amazon!
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