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According to an article I read, this is supposedly the most comprehensive site on finding cheap gas, containing 185 "websites" (is that like "internets"?)
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That was NOT threatening speech. "You make me feel like killing you" is in no way the same as "I'm gonna kill you". I'd be sick of cops harassing me if I had a brain injury that made me walk like a freak too.
"he repeatedly explained to the officer that he'd sustained a traumatic brain injury in a work-related accident and was disabled, not drunk….was taken to…Hospital where the stun darts were removed from his back. A blood test…confirmed…no alcohol or drugs in his system. … Was charged with misdemeanor assault two days after… The District Attorney's Office later asked that the charge be dismissed "in the furtherance of justice." "
Yea. The DA dropped the charges because he knew their cops were full of shit.
Officer Gabriela Saavedra is a shitty cop, but Officer Donald Cline sounds like a straight-up pig for tasering a man simply for walking funny. Because in the end, none of this would have happened if Gonzalez was able to walk like a normal person.
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Yes. IBM failed to stomp out clones; Apple's ultimate fate should be NO different. Too bad Psystar went bankrupt… This is antitrust; consumers rights are far more important than Apple's "right" to mis-apply the law and prevent a fair market from occurring.
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Once again, while government regulation and licensing makes sense and is a good thing — taking away the option to make unlicensed, unregulated purchases is extremely anti-capitalist and anti-freedom.
I wouldn't expect a casual babysitter to be licensed by the state as a child caregiver, anymore than I would expect a 12yo mowing my lawn to have a license for yardwork, anymore than I would expect an old man to have a taxi driver's license if I asked him to drive me to the grocery store for $5. Similarly, I don't expect to be protected from old dangerous products at a yard sale.
If the government has any intention of getting people in trouble for what they are selling at a yardsale, that's just another strike against freedom. Another elimination against mom & pop-type commerce, and another step up for the corporate takeover of any and all commerce.
Fortunately, they say they're not doing this. But I have yet to see evidence that government can restrain itself in the long run.
May 2009
May 31, 2009
May 31, 2009
VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Horton Hears A Who (2008)
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Media, Movies, People, Reviews, Video[5] Comments
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] We put off watching this for awhile.
PEOPLE: Directed by an animator for Toy Story 2 and some other nobody, this did have well-known voice actors, none of whom we recognized while watching: Jim Carrey played Horton (but we never realized this while watching it, so it’s not “over-Jim-Carrey’ed” like some movies). Steve Carell played the mayor of Whoville. Carol Burnett was the bitchy Kangaroo. Will Arnett (aka GOB from Arrested Development) (who we had previously been on a quest to see every movie of) played Vlad, the vampiric vulture. Seth Rogan was Morton. Voice actor Jess Harnell, from Comic Book:The Movie, was in this too.
QUIRKS: Based on the Dr. Seuss book. Computer animation. There’s also a lot of subtle references to other Seuss works, that may be missed by anyone who doesn’t read the IMDB trivia page.
BAD STUFF: Mostly directed at kids. The humor is not particularly sophisticated. There aren’t [m]any jokes that only adults would get.
GOOD STUFF: This *is* a chance to see one of Dr. Seuss’s stories come to life. And there are some good lessons:
1) Just because you’re the only person who believes in something, doesn’t mean you’re wrong.
2) A person is a person, no matter how small.
3) Authoritarians who want their rules and opinions obeyed at all times are douchebags.
CONCLUSION: Generic pass. At least it looks nice in HD. Seuss is great, but this wasn’t really any more complex than the book itself.
RECOMMENDATION: Seuss fanboys might want to watch this. People who want something to watch with their kids could watch this — it’s not nearly as annoying as some of the childrens’ stuff out there.
MOVIE QUOTE: “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant — an elephant’s faithful, one-hundred percent.” Yes, this quote actually isn’t from Horton Hears A Who, but another one of Seuss’s stories with Horton. But it’s not like we remembered that. These were books we read as kids. It felt very authentic because Horton did say that in the books. Just not in this book. It’s still the quote-of-the-movie as far as I’m concerned.
FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Benj loved it. Christian D liked it. (more…)
May 30, 2009
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Yes. IBM failed to stomp out clones; Apple's ultimate fate should be NO different. Too bad Psystar went bankrupt… This is antitrust; consumers rights are far more important than Apple's "right" to mis-apply the law and prevent a fair market from occurring.
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Once again, while government regulation and licensing makes sense and is a good thing — taking away the option to make unlicensed, unregulated purchases is extremely anti-capitalist and anti-freedom.
I wouldn't expect a casual babysitter to be licensed by the state as a child caregiver, anymore than I would expect a 12yo mowing my lawn to have a license for yardwork, anymore than I would expect an old man to have a taxi driver's license if I asked him to drive me to the grocery store for $5. Similarly, I don't expect to be protected from old dangerous products at a yard sale.
If the government has any intention of getting people in trouble for what they are selling at a yardsale, that's just another strike against freedom. Another elimination against mom & pop-type commerce, and another step up for the corporate takeover of any and all commerce.
Fortunately, they say they're not doing this. But I have yet to see evidence that government can restrain itself in the long run.
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Nice to see Spain is on the p2p side, now that Sweden seems to be clamping down.
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It's longer than what I really read, but this more or less confirms my opinion that the bailout is dead wrong.
Too big to fail? Local community banks do a lot of lending, and these aren't the ones that needed to be bailed out. Credit would not just disappear without the bailout. The bailout is bullshit, and I'm surer than ever.
Unfortunately the web version is only about 10% of the full article, which blows.
It's like they think they're going to sell magazines by NOT telling us the news. Meanwhile, Rolling Stone comes to my door in print form despite me never ordering or paying for it. No wonder the news industry is failing…
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That's too bad… Christiania seems to be one of the last bastions of freedom in the modern world. I guess the 38 year "experiment" is due to end soon.
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Child rape cover up — in the name of God and the sky fairies. Pathetic. If these children weren't going to church, they wouldn't have been raped.
(Okay, some of them would have by other people, but probably not as many, because nobody else has the word of god to instill a fake trust.)
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Let's see. THREE separate eyewitnesses, all several blocks from one another, claim a police vehicle was following a speeding white mini-van that struck and killed someone. But the NYPD wont acknowledge this, because it might make them liable for the death. Typical.
May 29, 2009
JOURNAL: COMPUTER: My 1998 configuration
Posted by Claire CJS under Clio, Computer, Hardware, Journal, old school (non-BBS), People, Pointlessness, Technology[3] Comments
Pointlessness warning! I found an old file stating in way too much detail what my computer configuration was in 1998. Figured I’d post it here as a backup/old-school-computing memory, so that I could delete the file without a feeling of loss. I’m gonna add some comments in red (11 yrs later!) to make fun of the past. (more…)
May 29, 2009
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Nice music hacking! Changing music beats/sounds via the command-line. Command-line beat-boxing. Awesomeness.
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This says a lot about America, when even black *police* get shot by white cops who shoot first and ask questions later.
I view this as a good development. If enough cops are killed by other cops, they might actually change their procedure. If they kill black civilians, nothing changes. If they kill black cops — investigations automatically arise.
Dude was shot at 6 times, hitting him twice.
The department does not interview officers involved in fatal shootings until a prosecutor determines whether criminal charges will be brought. Does that even make sense? So basically, New York cops can shoot and never be accountable, unless charges are filed. But without an interview, how will the circumstances that let a DA decide whether charges need to be filed come to light?
This is not the first time this has happened in New York! It's actually the 3rd time in 3 yrs.
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Neat. Capitalists bought factories with World Bank loans, defaulted on the loans, and tried to fire all the workers. The workers physically occupied the factory, resisted multiple police eviction attempts, and have kept the factory open, giving people jobs where capitalism would have failed them.
Amazing story. Apparently tons of Argentine factories are now controlled by workers without bosses. -
Yes, our hysteria about child porn has reached the point where a man has gone to jail for possessing manga comics. NO CHILDREN ARE EXPLOITED when somebody draws something.
What next — putting people in jail for imaginary murder? What if I draw a city getting nuked, should I go to jail for imaginary terrorism?
This is pretty much thought crime. Virginia and Iowa are the 2 states that have taken this stance. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund funded this guy's defense, but then the idiot went and plead guilty.
How can a DRAWING be a "minor"?
He faces 15 years in prison — for having Japanese comics that American culture doesn't like.
Part of freedom is allowing unpopular behavior. Nobody was actually hurt; nobody was actually exploited. This guy hasn't molested anybody, and didn't have any real child porn. Nor was his collection centered around these comics.
Even if he IS fantasizing about children — thoughts are not, and should not, be illegal.
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Yea, the guy is a creep. But a criminal? Three years in jail? Please!
He had pornography on his person. That is not illegal. He did not have child pornography.
He had "drawings depicting children" on his person… Not child pornography, or they would have said that. Hey, I've carried X-Men comics before. That's not illegal.
He asked a boy to pose for a picture in an arcade. He didn't touch him. He didn't restrain him. But the boy said he felt like the guy had a gun or a knife. So because of some child's active imagination the guy goes to jail?
This isn't his first time. But last I checked, we don't live in the fictional land of Minority Report. You have to actually commit a fucking crime before you can be incarcerated!
"Asking someone to pose for a photo can't be considered detention," his lawyer said.
I agree. -
"According to Wikipedia administrators, this marks the first time such a high-profile organization has been banished for allegedly pushing its own agenda on the 'free encyclopedia anyone can edit.'""
You lose, Scions! Muahahhaa. Hail Xenu!
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Typically, when you imagine countries that put up barriers to people leaving — you imagine countries like North Korea, China, pre-unification East Germany, etc.
Not for long. Now America wants to take fingerprints of everyone leaving — even american citizens.
Being treated like criminals. But don't worry. We'll all get used to it.
Maybe we should just put up a wall? Oh yeah, we're working on that too.
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Sure, he's going to jail for 20 years. But let's face it: This is attempted murder. This is not "reckless injury". When you shoot someone in the head or face, YOU ARE TRYING TO KILL THEM. I think this is the thin blue line at work. Cops rarely get the same sentence.
Imagine if this had been a black man who shot a white woman and a white girl in the face. You can bet he'd be put away longer than 20 years. District Attorney Patrick Kenney should think about that.
I don't care or know if the sentence would be the same; the fact that there was no attempted murder charge here sickens me.
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Seriously, Israel. It wasn't right when the UN "gave" you a country that was already settled by existing Jews and Arabs. It wasn't right when you waged an illegal war in 1967 and took even more land — borders STILL NOT RECOGNIZED be international law. And it still isn't right when you bulldoze people's homes, build housing developments on private property (anybody builds an apartment in my back yard — I'm burning it down).
Surprisingly, the Obama Administration has strengthened their stance. No settlements. Not some; none. No outposts. No "natural growth exceptions" (which is merely doublespeak for "we have more people so we should get to take more of your land").
P.S. It wasn't right when we did it to the Native Americans, either. But at least we didn't wall them up with no resource and then bomb them when they fought us. Of course, their price for settling peacefully is the lowest life expectancy, economic status, and literary rates. OPPRESSING INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IS NEVER OKAY.
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Slowly but surely, medical marijuana is becoming something that exists in the majority of states in the country.
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It's a felony to fuck with an ambulance driver performing his duty. The cops wanted to arrest him, but the DA stopped them from doing so. The cops wont release their video either.
This is a road rage incident combined with racism. A whole gang of white cops choking a black ambulance driver WITH A VICTIM IN THE AMBULANCE WAITING TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL.
The cop was upset that the ambulance didn't yield for him?!?! What the fuck? Aren't they supposed to be on the same team?
I'd be quite happy if the officers involved in this paid the ultimate price for their racist road-rage abuse of authority police brutality tax-dollar-wasting crimes. This is seroiusly fucked!
Someone please give me the names of the officers. They deserve to be named.
This isn't the first time cops have pulled over an ambulance driving to the hospital with a patient. This isn't the first time *THIS YEAR*.
Why not give the police department a piece of your mind? I did: choffice@dps.state.ok.us
May 29, 2009
JOURNAL: DREAM: Two dreams – supermarket sports, Virginia Tech revival
Posted by Claire CJS under Clio, Dreams, Journal, PeopleLeave a Comment
20090528:
I dreamed I was in some sort of sporting event, which was a sled race. It was in a supermarket parking lot. During the summer. No, this doesn’t make sense. I managed to win by sledding all the way across the entire supermarket parking lot in about 2 seconds, beating everyone else. My “sled” was comprised of an 8×11 wooden clipboard, covered in clear plastic. No.. No sense here.
20090529:
I dreamed I was back at Virginia Tech again, in a dorm. No clue why. I didn’t have a roommate, and the room was perhps a bit smaller than those dorms really were. Brent (Mark’s brother, who was my roommate in college, and who’s getting married tomorrow) was in a room in my hallway. There were a lot of drugs around. We ate at the cafeteria, which was in the same building as our dorm rooms. My high school ex-girlfriend Tiffany D was there. I had a lot of disdain for her in the dream, as in real life. I never knew who did it, but in the dream, someone stole a joint from us.. and we think it was her. The food was pretty good. I went back to my dorm room and started to clean up/move in, but then the real life phone rang repeatedly and woke me up.
Normally I dream I’ve gone back to high school, pretending to be a senior when I really had graduated the previous year. My sister has that dream too. Not this time — this time it was college! (more…)
May 28, 2009
SURVEY: What is your true inner nationality: A quiz of global clairvoyance
Posted by Claire CJS under Clio, People, Surveys[2] Comments
Another stupid Facebook quiz with terrible, terrible questions like how you would react if your friend fell in love with a monkey.
Your Result: You are German.
You are precise yet romantic, efficient yet dreamy, friendly yet somewhat suspicious of others. You rarely smile, but when you do it’s very meaningful. You like it best when there is a group consensus, and yet you are easily annoyed by the slowness and/or stupidity of others. Sometimes you think that if only you could live on an island or move to some wonderful place far away, everything would be better, and if you can’t realize this dream you often lose yourself in books/vacations/recipes/sports — anything for an escape! All in all, however, you make your peace with life, and have many old friends. (more…)
May 28, 2009
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What, you want to surf the net without being logged? Good luck doing that in the EU. The EU is suing Sweden for not doing this.
What ever happened to sovereignty? You don't get it when you join a union. And when USA joins the North American union, we'll lose ours. These are the beginning steps to a one world government.
Not being able to dissent or have dissenting laws is extremely dangerous — there is far more strength in heterogeneity than homogeneity. It's why America was supposed to be 50 separate states with 50 separate laws. (But we saw how that worked out…)
And make no mistake: This is about probably driven by the copyright lobby, and those who are scared shitless of terrorism (even though the governments of the world, and not terrorists, are the ones who have murdered the vast majority of murdered people.)
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wow…. corporations enforcing their own rules. Sounds like cyberpunk science-fiction. It's amazing that for breaking a civil law, corporate operatives are willing to break real law. Impersonating someone with the authority to search your house is far worse than infringing copyright!
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Oh? And KOTH is finally dead? It's about time, but I'll still miss it. That final episode was pretty good. I guess Boomhauer's gonna stay hooked up with that French-Canadien chick.
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"in order to win the war on drugs… we must flood the country with drugs" reminds me of "in order to save the village, we had to destroy it".
This is sooooo not gonna work, and will totally backfire.
Imagine if they tried this in the states? "In order to win the war on drugs, we've decided to flood the united states with marijuana so cheap that it will be worth less than wheat".
Sounds pretty fucking stupid when put that way, huh? Now take in mind that opium is worth way more than pot. GOOD LUCK!
Just another way in which the war on Afghanistan will not be won. But this particular way fills me with laughter instead of anger…
May 28, 2009
COMEDY: RELIGION: “Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat”
Posted by Claire CJS under Comedy, Media, ReligionLeave a Comment
May 27, 2009
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"In a 5-4 ruling, overturned the 1986 Michigan v. Jackson ruling, which said police may not initiate questioning of a defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one unless the attorney is present."
But this is just a subtle nuance, right? Nobody will ever go to jail for a coerced confession that occurred without a lawyer present, right?
It's bad enough now. People left and right are being held without a lawyer, not given a lawyer when asked for, and not even being appointed a county lawyer (Remember the Texas guy who rotted for 83 days in jail because he didn't go to jury duty — He asked for a lawyer and they never gave him one!)
Not only did the supreme court take away some rights, but the fucking "change and hope" Obama administration *ASKED THEM TO*.
All the supreme court justices voting against this were appointed by Democrats. Yet a Democrat president asked them not to rule the way they ruled. Obama's coming out more like a Republican here. Just sayin'.
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Yet they allegedly influenced things such that he want to jail for 12 years, even though he didn't have the STD the rapist had. Wow.
What city? Corrupt-cop Chicago, of course. The city that's tortured 10s of 1000s, extracted false confessions, and has a record comparable to Texas with respect to jailing innocent people in order to make it look like they're doing something about crime.
Dean Cage deserves millions. You can't get 12 yrs of your life back.
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People in democratic countries shouldn't stand for this shit. Want an internet filter to stop porn? Move to fucking Iran, asshole. Get off my cyber-lawn.
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Just in case there are still people out there who don't believe the government dosed soldiers with LSD, PCP, etc, without their knowledge in the cold war era…
…here's a PDF straight from our own government's webserver verifying that.
Just sayin'. They denied this for many years, didn't they? They couldn't possibly be lying about anything else they deny, could they? ;)
Our own government experimented on over 200,000 people without their participation.
Think Al Queda will ever victimize those many people?
Most victims of chemical agents and bombs on planet earth — were victims of governments, not terrorism. If you want to be safe, keep your eye on your own government.
May 26, 2009
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Yup. While we're busy attacking countries that had little or nothing to do with 911, we've been helping North Korea to have nukes. Both the Clinton Administration Democrats, and the Bush Administration cronies.
BOTH PARTIES and the people in them == FAIL.
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Yup. Thousands of dollars were spent by the Canadien government to come up with a report on copyright — so they simply plagiarized U.S. copyright lobby group documents.
Talk about a FAIL! -
Obama's all about change, right? But he's still part of a political party: A group that says "conform to our group, or don't be part of it". Both political parties have been big failures when it comes to freedom and transparency.
You really thought if you voted for the lesser of 2 evils, that our government would suddenly become good? Stop deluding yourself.
This is the Democrats doing. You can't blame this on Bush, or the Republicans. Those of you who won the 2008 election are the ones responsible this time.
And don't say "A republican sponsored this", because in a filibuster-proof Democratic-controlled Senate, the Democrats are ultimately responsible for what goes through. There were only 3 votes against this in the entire senate. Funds to close Guanatanmo were stripped to.
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Nice freedom over there, huh? And people wonder why Palestinians are pissed? Imagine 60 yrs of this shit, with 40 yrs of it including illegal borders not recognized by international law (including America).
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Mixing *two* groups of people who are generally fucking idiots: Religious people, and alcoholic sports fans.
Christian on Christian violence? This is as stupid as Sunni Vs. Shia.
Where are all the atheists beating people for their religious beliefs? Huh? I thought being religious guided people into doing good? You sure that's working? After 2,000 yrs of wars thanks to Christ, and 1400 yrs of violence thanks to Mohamed? Or how about all those dead Africans thanks to The Pope and Catholics saying "don't use condoms"?
Yeah. Sure. Keep telling yourself religion guides people to do good. The implication seems to be that without religion, people would do all kinds of terrible things. But we have religion, and they still do, so I don't think it's working.
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How ridiculous. And here is the perfect comment, from slashdot:
"Pure cocaine sells for, let's say, $30,000 per kg. To get a kilogram of cocaine from RedBull would take 2.5 billion liters, or roughly 7 billion 12 oz cans. A 24-case of Red Bull seems to cost about $34.80, or $1.45 per can. In other words, to get 1 kg of cocaine from Red Bull would cost $10 billion, not to mention the enormous expense of purification. And all this would only be worth $30,000. It would cost 340,000 times more for the Red Bull than the cocaine would be worth."
^^^ http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1244773&cid=28088619I couldn't have said it so well had I tried. But I didn't try, because I'm not drinkin' Red Bull.
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My half-uncle talks about how stupid it is to deny the Singularity.
I have been eagerly awaiting the singularity for quite some time.In 30 seconds, while I'm asleep, I often download more than the entire
size of my harddrive 20 years ago. And I have 273,084 times the storage
space that I had 20 years ago as well. I also connect to the world at
1,310 times the speed I did 100 yrs ago (multiply that by 8X for the 300bps
Commodore 64 BBSes I called, but I was at 2400bps).The tide is hard to ignore.
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This is one of many reasons why a newspaper bailout is a bad bad idea. Government-funded media means government-influenced media. Mainstream media is already really terrible about posting any kind of anti-establishment news; imagine how it would be if it were funded by the very government it's supposed to be reporting on?
May 26, 2009
VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: YPF aka Y.P.F. aka Young People Fucking (2007)
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Media, Movies, People, Reviews, Video[4] Comments
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Another sexual comedy! (We actually watched this about 3 months before Strictly Sexual, the last movie I reviewed.)
PEOPLE: Josh Cook (Dixon from Wasted (2006)) is in this, but really it’s another movie full of (and made by) people we’ve never heard of.
QUIRKS: It’s one of those “separate stories” movies. Most of the script was written over email.
A fast-paced sexual comedy about five couples going through 7 stages of sex. Each couple is shown in the same order for each stage, so the movie breaks into 35 sections. The movie is shot in 5 bedrooms. There are 258 profanities (avg = ~3 /minute). “Fuck” is said 178 times. Strangely, I didn’t remember this movie as being particularly vulgar. It’s just humans being humans, with all their exciting variety and strangeness.
POLITICS: It caused national uproar in Canada, with religious leaders and government officials picketing the release of the film. They then introduced bill C-10, a bill to allow Canada’s federal Heritage Department the power to deny funding to films and TV shows it finds offensive. The bill was rescinded due to public outcry — of the sane, secular, human, non-religious people.
And why the fuss? Because it has a controversial title?! It’s a pretty straightforward movie. Sure, a strap-on dildo is introduced, one of the 5 couples is actually a threesome, sex is talked about openly, and people … GASP … have sex … But C’mon. Most of that happens in most movies. Fucking religious nutheads protest a movie that is frank about sex? Governments tried to take away freedom from the people over this? Figures!
The war for sexual freedom, the war to use technology how we want (we can fuck, but make a movie about it and suddenly it’s bad?) — most government oppression is about keeping us from fucking how we want and using technology (including movie cameras) how we want.
BAD STUFF: Not super-memorable.
CONCLUSION: The structure of this movie was the ultimate quirk, and made it very interesting. Being able to compare 5 sexual situations in 7 different stages was extremely interesting. This movie has a higher-than-average interest factor to make up for the fact that it’s not the most exciting movie. The 5 separate situations have nothing to do with each other, so it’s almost more like a loose anthology of sexual [mis]adventure.
Still, this is a good movie. This gets better than a “generic pass”. Perhaps 7/10 on IMDB and 3.5/5 stars on Netflix. Except Netflix doesn’t let you do half-stars, so I’m gonna go with 4.
RECOMMENDATION: Better sexual comedies would be Zack & Miri Make A Porno or Strictly Sexual. But this movie has a more interesting structure than both of those. And is, perhaps, slightly more sexualy explicit. It is unrated, after all.
FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Glen & Melanie B have it in their queue :) (more…)
May 25, 2009
JOURNAL: COMPUTER: Cat hair compounds into having to open all 3 computer cases…
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Computer, Hardware, Journal, People[8] Comments
Sometimes I hate the domino effect of computer problems.
Our downstairs machine (“Hell”, Gateway XpHome 2004 computer) had been rebooting INSANELY lately. After weeks of this bullshit, I was just planning to downgrade it from XP to Windows 2000 Advanced Server, in hopes that that would stabilize it. Finally we got an error message stating that the CPU had overheated, and that was why it shut down. The previous weeks, it was probably just getting hot enough to crash windows. Today, it finally got hot enough that the Gateway BIOS shut it down without even consulting windows. This was good — I finally knew the problem.
Opened up Hell and cleaned it out. Indeed, a dust/cathair combo had completely clogged up the CPU cooling part. We finished our last 2 cans of almost-empty compressed air (can someone steal me a can from work or something?!?!), and that was that.
But I had to go and make things worse — I decided that since Carolyn’s CD drive on her computer stopped being able to rip CDs this week, that we should take the DVDRom from Hell and put it into Carolyn’s computer (“Magic”). Then she wont have to rip CDs downstairs, AND the missing drive would allow Hell to stay cooler.
Well, Carolyn puts it in, but her machine is the machine that absorbed all the harddrives from TWO dead file-servers. She has *eight* harddrives and 2 optical drives in this machine. *THREE* external SATA controllers, because her motherboard came out just before SATA harddrive support started being included on all motherboards.
Well damn. One of the drives was not recognizing; and all the standard tricks were NOT bringing it back up. Of *course* it’s the drive holding the 18,000 mp3s that need to be tagged. Fortunately, I *JUST* started backing those up 3 weeks ago, and we had a backup from 5 days ago. But I don’t want to lose 5 days work! Or the drive.
Finally, I move it to my computer. So ALL THREE computers had to have their cases open! At least I got my L: back! All the files are there! Nothing is lost! Yay!
I imagine most people as:
1) Not having backups.
2) Not having spare computers, or cases large enough, to simply move a drive to another computer.
3) Losing their files and just going out and buying another computer. (more…)
May 25, 2009
VIDEO: MOVIES: REVIEW: Young Person’s Guide To History
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Live-Action Shows, Media, People, Reviews, Video1 Comment
[IMDB link] [Wikipedia link] [Not available on Netflix] [WATCH CLIPS ONLINE HERE]
PEOPLE: Directed and produced by Peter Girardi (Friday After Next, Crank Yankers, The Batman, Teen Titans, and producer of Saul Of The Molemen, Minoriteam). Also directed by Dave Willis (Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Space Ghost Coast To Coast, Squidbillies, Perfect Hair Forever, and writer of 6 episodes of Sealab 2021).
Starring a rarely-seen-in-live-actrion Dana Snyder as Benjamin Franklin (he was Master Shake in Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Alchemist in The Venture Bros., Granny in Squidbillies, Todd in Code Monkeys, Gazpacho in Chowder, Strata Operator in Saul Of The Molemen, Dr. Wang in Minoriteam); Hugh Davidson (Robot Chicken, Bertrum from Saul Of The Molemen, and writer on Robot Chicken and Saul) as Thomas Jefferson; Gary Anthony Williams as Paul Revere (Malcolm’s friend’s dad Abe in Malcolm In The Middle, Uncle Ruckus in The Boondocks, Stroker And Hoop, Saul Of The Mole Men).
And with the shortest appearance of Tim And Eric ever. They’re in it for about 30 seconds, then they get “replaced”.
This is basically the same team that did Saul Of The Mole Men, and it’s produced in the same style — live actors with computer-generated/animated backgrounds. It’s actually a spinoff from the “Poor Clancy’s Almanack” episode of Saul.
QUIRKS: What… The… Fuck!?!?!?!? This history is not accurate! This history makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. Ahh, AdultSwim. You know how to melt my brain just right.
CONCLUSION: I’m not sure how this would have fared had it been picked up as an actual series. But as 22 minutes of insanity, it works VERY well.
RECOMMENDATION: AdultSwim fans should find this and watch it! Or use the link at the top of the article to watch various clips of it. I’m not sure that watching the clips in order even matters! This is one of the most random things I’ve watched in my life! (more…)
May 25, 2009
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She was 98 years old.
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Wow, it sure is good that religion is guiding these people to do good. I'm sure without religion, the father would be such an asshole. Wait a second — he's an asshole now! Actually, without religion, he would not be threatening to report his daughter to the FBI for being an atheist!
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He appealed his firing and his punishment was reduced to a reprimand.
I wonder if *I* could bite a baby with no real consequence other than a reprimand?
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It's so good that people are sending themselves to holy authorities to learn such great lessons. Must be the good of religion. Because I'm sure that 8yo girl would have become a murderer without the blood of christ flowing through her veins. [/sarcasm]
May 24, 2009
MUSIC: my favorite Theatre Of Tragedy songs – Der Tanz Der Schatten, etc
Posted by Claire CJS under Clio, John The Canadien, Journal, Media, Music, Music Video, People, VideoLeave a Comment
John The Canadien recently posted a Theatre Of Tragedy fanmade anime music video to his Facebook. I thought I’d respond by posting another Theatre Of Tragedy YouTube video, which is really just a compilation of gothic photos.
This is “Der Tanz Der Schatten”, pretty much my favorite Theatre Of Tragedy song ever. It’s in our party playlist. Such daulity/disparity between the two vocalists. It’s beautiful to me. The genre is “gothic metal” or “black metal“:
And no. Their songs aren’t normally in German.
If you’re really curious, here’s a live version:
[youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeHX2AkqiX4]
And here’s “Seraphic Deviltry”, which I consider the song most similar to Der Tanz Der Schatten:
Unfortunately, they ultimately ditched the 2nd (low growly) singer, become more industrial metal instead of gothic metal, then became a more dancy/clubby/poppy no-guitar band, and are pretty terrible these days. You gotta stick to their first 2 albums or so.
One more! “A Fair And Guiling Copesmate Death”:
Okay! I can’t stop! Here is “Dying – I Only Feel Apathy”. Another one full of gothic photos. This one has lyrics, if you click through to the YouTube page:
May 24, 2009
And old quiz I took in 2002… No longer online… But here are the results:
| You are Heavy Metal! Angry, sad, and disillusioned, you are Heavy Metal. You are the embodiment of the darkness of the human heart. Your main themes are sadness, anger, and hopelessness. You are frequently misunderstood by others and many link you to devil worship. However, those willing to look through the shell of darkness and anger find you to be very intelligant, poetic, and artistic. Too bad your inclination to look for the beauty in darkness and your general attitude of frustration with humanity as a whole tends to send most people running for the nearest exit. But despite that, you wouldn’t have it any other way. |
May 24, 2009
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The current intellectual property holding corporations want to act like fair use rights never existed and don't exist. They want to rewrite the law their own way. And since they lobbied for the DMCA, they more or less have gotten their way. RealDVD should win this case, but who knows what will really happen.
As usual, people lose rights they don't exercise or understand.
The irony is that Real Networks once argued against Fair Use themselves, when they put Streambox VCR (which I of course own) out of business.
Anyway: If you can't back it up, it's not worth paying for. Period.
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Kinda scary.
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Here's a good "poor man's RSS feed" of stories about the evil of religion
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This was one of the best serialized cartoons we've ever seen, so it's great that M. Night Shyamalan is making THREE movies based on Avatar:The Last Airbender! Here are pictures of some of the live-action cast, alongside their cartoon equivalent.
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This guy insisted it wasn't torture, like many conservatives. He lasted 6 seconds; 3/4th of a gallon of water. Mancow had to eat (drink?) his own words. "I hate to say this, but yes, this is torture" is more or less what he said.
The video is not disturbing. Everyone, including ManCow, is calm and professional. But he went from calm and composed to visibly shaking afterward — in just 6 seconds.
Now imagine having this done 82 times in a month. Wouldn't you sign the confession? Anyone would. That's not proof that these techniques "work", that's proof that any man can be broken by torture.
We were supposed to get past this shit after the middle ages. Other countries probably stepped up torture because now we can't tell them "don't do that!" because they can simply say "but you do that!". Nice going, conservative America.
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Allegedly rape and/or assault 3 women? But you're a cop? No jail time for you!
Ex-Sheriff Lt. Allan Wayne Schaeffer, fired after allegations came out, failed a polygraph test, has 3 women accusing him of rape/assault, and wont be going to jail anytime soon.
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And why the hell SHOULD Syria make peace with Israel? Israel's occupying their land! Would America sign a peace accord with Canada if Canada was sitting there, taking up space in Maine? Hell no. Israel took a LOT of land illegally in 1967. This has nothing to do with terrorism; Israel was at peace with its surrounding countries before the post-WW2 European Jews went there.
Indigenous people being pushed around is never right. Not when Britain pushed around African countries, not when USA pushed around the Native Americans, not when indigenous tribes in Brazil are being forced out by loggers, and not when Israel does it too. Yes, the Jews were shit on on the Holocaust. Two wrongs don't make a right.
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It's starting to sound like we've been lied to, and Last.FM, via parent company CBS, did seem to indeed leak information (in violation of several laws) to the RIAA. See, the RIAA wanted to know who was listening to albums that weren't released yet. And since Last.FM logs every track you play (if you want), they wanted to go after people for having listened to songs that weren't released yet. (Hey! What if I have industry connections?!?!)
The person who leaked the info was fired.
TechCrunch comes to the rescue:"We believe certain U.S. Whistle Blower laws may protect you from retaliation from CBS in this matter. We’d like to provide you with legal counsel at our cost."
Nice!
Last.FM is a damn good service. It's a shame to see them manipulated by the RIAA into violating their own privacy policy like this.
Note to last.fm: start purging IP addresses from server logs instantly.
May 23, 2009
JOURNAL: YARD SALES: Jamaican Yard Sale revisited; New Record: $200/hr in savings
Posted by Claire CJS under Carolyn, Clio, Hobbies & Activities, People, Yard Sales[3] Comments
Got out of bed around 9:15AM and yardsaled for 3 hours. Not nearly as hot as 2 weeks ago. We even wound up at the Jamaican yard sale we’d blogged about before and got a better bread machine from them!
Total money spent was 37.75$, counting an estimated $5 of gas (~30 miles). Estimated value of our take is $645 (60% of that was 1 item). Only $2.50 of that was stuff that was definitely needed (lamps shades, plumbing snake), but it was all great stuff.
In total, we “made” $645 for $37.75, a profit of $607.25 for 3 hours work. That’s $101.20/hr per person, or $202.41/hr as a couple (if we actually worked for that money, we’d have to pay 30% to the government!). To take $607.25 home from a job, you have to earn about $910 before taxes!
Most of that was the faucet we got. If you don’t count the faucet, the numbers are still pretty good: We “made” $258 for $27.75, a profit of $230.25, which is $76.75/hr as a couple and $38.38/hr each. To take that much money home from a job, you’d have to earn $387 before taxes.!
So here was our take:
$10: Moen faucet – Monticello Series – matches the one that we paid $110 for in our other bathroom, but it’s polished bronze instead of chrome, which would match the existing color in the other bathroom. It’s a low arc instead of a high arc, but still higher than the previous one. Best of all: It costs $387 new! The sick part is I just loaned Eve C my crescent wrench 12 hours before getting this :)- $10: Breadman Deluxe Rapid Breadmaker – 59minute 2lb bread ($65 online, though retail is $120)
- $2: *10* rolls of Christmas wrapping paper; some is more fabricy-feeling than the cheap paper we usually get (EV:$15+)
- $1.50: 3 lamp shades – generic white – 1 ~15-inch (EV:$13), 2 ~10-inch (EV:$8/ea)
$1: Nordicware Belgian Waffler (stove-top/non-plugin and thus space-saving cast aluminum waffle maker, still in 1970s-looking box) (EV:$26 is the cheapest I can find formodern versions online, tho some sell for $50)
$1: Misfits girl t-shirt with skeleton hands covering the boobs. Carolyn didn’t even realize it was a Misfits shirt when she got it! ($20)- $1: plumbing snake. Amazingly, we’ve misplaced ours. ($30)
- $1: picture frame: wooden, engraved corners, 3 circular vertical pictures (EV:~$20, maybe more – can’t find something like this online)
- $1: step stool. Carolyn’s short. They’re useful. We’re always having to move ours between upstairs and downstairs. (EV:$9)
- $1: dispensing cat feeder (EV:$5)
- $1: Pencil Sharpener. Boston brand. Table/wall mount. These are hard to find for us, though simple to get online. Home Depot never has them. Been looking for one for a long time for our wood-filling pencils (and Carolyn’s makeup pencils) (EV:$12 — current $9 ones have plastic parts, where mine is old-school and has metal parts, and some are $20 too…)
- $1: Delicious Ways To Control Diabetes Cookbook, for my diabetic cousin (EV:$5, various books in this series range from $1 used to $20 new on Amazon)
- $0.50: 2 12’x9′ picture frames with Van Gogh art in them. Will keep Starry Night, but replace Arles With Irises with something of my own (EV:~$10 for frames, $0 for prints)
- $0.50: container full of 12 Christmas bows – slightly fancier than generic / more variety (EV:$2 tho it could be more)
- $0.45: belt-attaching lighter (knife) holder – I refused to pay $1 for one of these 2 weeks ago. They wanted $0.50 but I was a nickel short. (EV:$3???)
- $0.10: safety googles (glasses-style/no straps) – now my chemistry-class googles (straps type) can go back to the kitchen for onion-cutting (EV:$2, tho they can come cheaper and more expensive)
- $0.10: large (~0.5in) drill bit (EV:$5??? drill bits of this size range from cheap to over $100, but the expensive ones are specialized and this one’s pretty generic)
An amazing take with the faucet. We broke the $200/hr mark, a first in our entire life of yard saling. (Though I’ve done better as an 8-year-old, getting two pool tables for $40 each.)
And here it is, finally installed:
Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings. (more…)
May 23, 2009
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Holy shit, one of my favorite childhood shows is being redone?!?! And not as some Hollywood movie, but as a TV show, where there will be enough time to re-do EVERYTHING? WOW!!!!!!
Claire's blog 