Claire's blog

• DRUGS: ALCOHOL: DRINKS: Hurricane – Cocktail Recipe
  What we're making for our hurricane party! These aren't the same hurricanes we drank from 1994-2005ish — the Hurricane served at [some bar] in Blacksburg (Virginia Tech) was completely different than this.

  Thus, our drink-recipe shrine (taped inside cabinets) now has a "Blacksburg Hurricane" and a "Hurricane Irene" drink :)

  Weird that Giant doesn't sell Simple Syrup. You can only get it at the ABC. All the other ingredients are best bought at a grocery, where it's cheaper.

  For PassionFruit juice you will need to look in the Spanish sodas area.

  (tags: drugs alcohol drinks mixedDrinks recipes cocktails Hurricane passionFruit simpleSyrup About.com articles personal party)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Ralph Bakshi!! In 720p!!

PLOT SUMMARY: Insert generic fantasy plot here.

HAIKU REVIEW: Good vs. Evil.
Epic fantasy battles.
This is not our earth.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ White people fight wars using oppressed black people.

PEOPLE: Directed by master animator Ralph Bakshi (Fritz The Cat, The Lord Of The Rings, Cool World, Spicy City)!

Voice actors include Susan Tyrell (Powder, Tapeheads), Maggie Roswell (Maude Flanders/Helen Lovejoy/Miss Hoover/Milhouse’s Mom from The Simpsons) as Teegra, Stephen Mendel as Nekron.

Not worth mentioning except on a personal note — this movie stars a voice actor named “Big Yank”. Why is this funny? When Carolyn & I honeymooned in Las Vegas in February of 2000, I forgot all my underwear. Had to stop at a local store to buy some for the week. The brand they were selling? “Big Yank”. It’s been a joke for us ever since — So seeing this name in the credits made us laugh a lot.

QUIRKS: Fantasy war on a fantasy world. Fire vs Ice — with fire being the good guys, and ice being the bad guys. This world seems like it was cut from the same cloth as other great fantasy worlds, such as the worlds depicted in Conan The Barbarian, or Krull.

VISUALS: Ralph Bakshi animation — but rotoscoped. You can tell that it’s all hand-drawn, due to the “shimmer” given by the slight inconsistency in the thickness of lines between frames. I commented several times that the movement seemed very organic and fluid, but now that we found out it is rotoscoped, this makes sense: The movement really was based on real, organic actors moving. Thus the realism.

The backgrounds were very interesting. They were all hand-painted by famous fantasy painter Frank Frazetta — who had done cover art for Conan The Barbarian comics. They were NOT detail oriented at all, and lent a kind of abstract feel to the landscape. The lack of detail is most certainly more obvious in the blu-ray/high-definition version of this movie. Samurai Jack‘s painted backgrounds definitely seem to have been influenced by the look and feel of this movie; Samurai Jack plays like a modernized and more cartoony (no rotoscoping) version of the animation style used in this movie.

And Teegra? She is one of the sexiest cartoons ever. She is wearing an itsy-bitsy see-through bikini. She was originally animated naked the entire movie, but they went in and added the bikini later.

POLITICS: Most battles and grunt work are performed by the “sub-humans” — who are basically racistly-drawn black people who speak in animalistic tongues. But by calling them sub-humans, there is the implication that they are a different species on this planet than the white humans (or the purple “Ice People”). Since man evolved from apes, and was originally black — it would make biological and evolutionary sense that “sub” humans would be black, since white people did not emerge until homo sapiens mutated. Despite this fact, a LOT of people are going to simply see racism — and nothing else — when they watch this movie. Of course, most of Bakshi’s stuff has been pretty racially charged, and this could actually be a social commentary about our planet — where expendable people, often of color, are frequently controlled and exploited for the gain of the wealthy elite. This topic is heavily discussed on this IMDB message board thread.

BAD STUFF: It is a very cliche fantasy movie: Good vs evil; The princess is kidnapped; The lone, unaffiliated anti-hero saves her; A final epic batttle ends the war of good vs evil. The dialog and characters are not very well developed. This movie is more about style than substance. It could definitely be considered cheesy by people who demand cutting-edge, modern animation and plot.

CONCLUSION: This movie is more about style than substance, but definitely succeeds in painting a uniquely visual, unearthly fantasy world, full of epic battles between good and evil. Any fan of the Heavy Metal cartoon would probably enjoy this. Just don’t get offended by the racist overtones–this is fantasy!

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
The native public rating for this movie is Netflix: 3.4/5 stars (3.5/5 stars for people who rate like me), IMDB: 6.5/10.

RECOMMENDATION: Animation and fantasy lovers should check out this cult classic.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Heavy Metal. Conan The Barbarian.

QUOTE: “He was going to pound that guy’s head in with a rock…but he got a kiss instead.” -Carolyn
“That’s like, the most metal thing ever.” -Clint

TRIVIA: In a cut scene from the script, Darkwolf was revealed to be Nekron’s father.
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Got up around 8AM, made it out driving by 8:34AM, ate during 9:14AM-9:38AM, and went out until 12:19PM, for a total yardsale time of
3 hours, 21 minutes.

Spent $19.35 plus ~$11.46 gas for 43.8miles of driving (14.9 mpg @ $3.90/G), for a total cost of $30.81.

We bought 27 items – 39 if you count separate hangers, cookies, camping forks – for a total estimated value of $317.33, leading to a profit of $286.52. To earn that much after taxes you’d really have to earn $409; money saved (by not having to spend it) is actually worth more than we realize when the government’s cut is taken into consideration.

Anyway, this works out to a “wage” of $85.53/hr as a couple or $42.76/hr per person.

Someone was asking for $30 for a used toaster oven!? I had just recently checked, and that’s the price for one new at Target! People trying to sell stuff for retail cost at a friggin’ yard sale need to learn the hard lesson of hauling all their un-bought junk back into their house after nobody bought it. Have fun burning in the sun, you fucks!

• $3.00: waffle maker (EV:$12)

• $2.00: four deer warning alarms (EV:$9)

• $2.00: jeans, blue, carpenter’s (EV:$10)
• $1.00: shirt, tank-top, black, built-in nursing bra (EV:$25)

• $1.00: mouse, optical, 2-button, wheel, Logitech, model no. M-BT96a (EV:$10 refurbished)

• $1.00: mouse, optical, 2-button, wheel, HP/Logitech, model no. M-UAE96 (EV:$8 USED)

• $1.00: mouse, optical, 2-button, wheel, IBM, model no. MO28UO, SN 23-212373 (EV:$16)
• $1.00: Huntington’s flip-it mitt, for pet hair (includes Jr. Mitt too) – actually works really damn well! (EV:$13.87)

• $1.00: shoes, baby, hiking (EV:$4)
• $1.00: shoes, baby, sneakers (EV:$4)
• $1.00: water filter, Brita (EV:$1, It costs $8 to get this, but the replacement filters cost $7 or so, and the $8 filters COME with a replacement, and this didn’t, thus, it’s really only worth $1.)

• $0.75: Elmer’s Craft Bond spray adhesive (EV:$3)

• $0.50: orange wastebasket, plastic, 10.75″ x 8.5″ x 8.5″, does not really glow in the blacklight like we had hoped (EV:$4)
• $0.50: camping forks, 4 (EV:$2)

• $0.50: cookies, chocolate chip, (2 @ $.25 each) (EV:same)
• $0.50: hangers, plastic, white, (8) (EV:$2.56)

• $0.25: pan, skillet, Cuisinart, GreenGourmet GG22-30H 12″ V#22418 (EV:$59.95)

• $0.25: pan, skillet, Cuisinart, GreenGourmet GG22-24 10″, V#22418 (EV:$49.95)

• $0.25: ashtray, Harley Davidson (EV:$7)
• $0.25: rug, runner (EV:$10)
• $0.10: mirror, “Bob’s Bar”, 17×9 with .5″ wooden frame (EV:$20)
• $0.10: action figure, Thundercats, Cheetara, 6″ high (EV:$10)

• $0.10: pez dispenser, Garfield, 4″ high (EV:$5)

• $0.10: toy, Simpsons, Maggie, riding turtle, 3″ high (EV:$20)

• $0.10: toy, Inspector Gadget, 3.5″ high (EV:$3.50)

• $0.10: toy, Gargoyles, view-finder, Burger King Kids Club, 4″ high (EV:$6)

• $FREE: floss, mint – went straight into my car! (EV:$1)

Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.

* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person).

(more…)

• THIN BLUE LINE: Police union brags that they force 80% of fired cops to be re-hired
  THIS IS WHY WE HAVE A PROBLEM. Police face artificial standards that do not apply to the rest of us. In any other job, if you fucked up and got fired, you would generally STAY fired.

  Look at their examples? Officer Thomas Jones was arrested on felony domestic battery and strangulation, then later admitted to committing insurance fraud. People with no ethics, like this pig, have the power to kill us, arrest us, and ruin our lives?

  Or Deupty Christian Silva, a 29 year old who fucked a 17 year old girl after getting her drunk? He got rehired. Hell, he didn't even get charged, even though my civilian standards he should be a registered sex offender.

  No wonder people hate cops and call them pigs.

  (tags: politics ThinBlueLine police unions policeUnions brags rehired PalmBeachCounty BrowardCounty BenevolentPoliceAssociation PalmBeach ThomasJones arbitration)

So I’ve run Windows 7 for a few months now. I really like it. But I dislike having to run it. I dislike being forced to endure change. The flux of computers actually makes me like computing, as a hobby, less. I get tired of spending time creating the same solution over and over again. To me, most of these problems have been solved.

[[[ I often have problems with the fact that I’ve solved a certain problem before most people ever realized they had it. For instance, I was tagging my photos in 2000. It was awhile before web sites like flickr popped up (2005ish) and got into tagging more. So while new people got to go straight to tagging in flickr, I had to figure out a way to programmatically import tags from my pre-existing system into the existing one. Another instance: Playlists. I have playlist generation down pat. My music is strictly managed on a per-track basis, with me making adjustments on a daily basis. The problem is solved. But then iTunes comes along. They don’t let you import your music directly. So I can’t just take a playlist, and have a program copy all those songs to an iPod. Nope. I’d have to write an apple-approved app, even though I already have a program that works just fine (on Android phones, non-Apple mp3 players, etc). I’m actually penalized for having solved the problem before it became trendy to do so. This situation is another one: Somebody just starting to edit audio today would choose from a choice of modern programs, and would hopefully choose one that lets you edit one file while saving another. I don’t have that choice. I’m locked in to what I know and am experienced with. To learn something new would waste more time than this blog post…]]]

So anyway… one thing I do is I run CoolEdit to edit audio. I RUN IT TWICE. I actually copy the folder to two instances, and run each EXE separately with cooledit1.bat and cooledit2.bat. Why? That way, I can be editing on 1 while the other is saving the last file I edited. Some people buy 7200RPM drives and brag about how much faster their files save, but I kept all the money and never had to wait for a file to save anyway, because I’m in the other CoolEdit, clipping away that annoying 10 second trailing silence… while the other cooledit is saving. Or perhaps I’m looking through files and realizing they don’t need to be edited at all, while the other cooledit is loading more files. Either way, running two definitely helps. And you couldn’t just run it twice.

Enter Windows 7. But now I have a new motherboard with multiple “soundcards”, one per each jack. These cooledits don’t seem to be able to share audio. Let’s try setting one to SPDIF digital audio. Let’s try setting the other to the speaker analog audio. Maybe I’ll still be able to hear it from the downstairs speakers (which are hooked up to the “2nd soundcard”)? I am NOT fucking editing files listening to speakers on another floor! Maybe I can set one for Microsoft Sound Mapper and the other for SPDIF. Goddamnit. Okay. I think I got both sharing sound finally. But no. They crash a lot. Which 20 files did I have open in them again? Arrrgh! Keeps crashing! WTF! Damnit. Let’s try compatibility modes for the EXE files. Let’s set them for coolpro.exe in both folders. What a pain! Still crashing.

Finally, I realized something: I was assuming I needed 2 folders at all anymore. Sure, that was the case from 2000-2011, but maybe that isn’t the case from 2011-present?

I ran cooledit1 twice. And I got 2 instances of it, even though it’s the same folder and same EXE file. WTH? And they share sound with each other perfectly too!

Apparently Windows 7 has improved the way things run, allowing you to run multiple instances of certain programs that could never do this before? Praise Peter Quistgard! I can finally dump that second CoolEdit folder! Next time I re-install Windows, it will be nice to not have to set up my hotkeys and preferences TWICE. (more…)

• MUSIC: Al Jourgensen Talks Ministry Reunion and Real-Life Horrors
  Okay… So rumors of Black Sabbath reuniting may have been a bit premature…. But Ministry is going to reunite! So… it's not a week devoid of good music news. :)
  (tags: media audio bands Ministry musicians AlJourgensen Fear.net interviews reuniting reunion)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] A low-rated spoof movie? Sounds right up our ally.

PLOT SUMMARY: Kids try to go to a Halloween party, but have to make a delivery first. Everything that could possibly go wrong does.

PEOPLE: Steve Howey (Van Montgomery from Reba) as Stan Helsing. The amazingly-hot Diora Baird as Nadine. Do a google image search for her. You wont regret it, I promise. She was also in Fifty Pills and Young People Fucking. Kenan Thompson (Saturday Night Live, Snakes On A Plane, Kenan & Kel, All That, and the black female principal in the awesome Sit Down Shut Up cartoon) as the black guy. Desi Lydic (Not Another Teen Movie) as the ditz.

…And Leslie Neilsen. As a woman (I guess).

Also, a brief role by Darren Moore, who shares the same name as a friend of mine. That’s the only reason I’m mentioning him.

QUIRKS: A spoof-genre comedy movie that spoofs horror movies in the form of a “Saturday Night road trip adventure”. Spoofs include Hellraiser, Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday The 13th, Child’s Play (Chuckie!), Van Helsing, and others. For instance, in the opening scenes at a video store, they have a special line for people returning the movie “The Ring”. A pile of dead bodies is next to the return slot. If you’ve seen The Ring, that’s pretty funny.

They pick up a copy of The Garbage Pail Kids movie and joke about watching it with the lights out. Sadly, we have actually watched that actual movie with the lights out. And yes, it’s pretty bad!

VISUALS: Diora Baird. Hot damn. I thought Rachel Bilson from Jumpers was hot, and then we watched this on the same night. She’s like Rachel Bilson with bigger boobs.

BAD STUFF: With the exception of Scary Movie 1 and 2, people seem to really really hate these kinds of movies. Every time they make one, there are comments saying “worst movie ever”, “piece of crap”, “why do they keep making movies like these?”. Really, I think there are not enough comedies in the world, and I dislike when something makes me laugh and people complain about it. If you don’t like these kinds of movies, stop watching them.

CONCLUSION: A better-than-average spoof-genre comedy, and one quite appropriate to watch during Halloween season. This could have simply been titled “Horror Movie”, in the same fashion as “Date Movie“, “Epic Movie“, “Disaster Movie“, “Not Another Teen Movie”, etc etc. People either hate those movies, or don’t. We like them all. They certainly aren’t the greatest comedies in the world, but most of them make us laugh enough times to be worth it. This one was actually better than average, and definitely served us up 1.5 hrs of decent laughs.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6.5/10.
The native public rating for this movie is Netflix: 2.6/5 stars (/5 stars for people who rate like me), IMDB: 3.7/10.

RECOMMENDATION: If you are very forgiving and enjoy all the spoof movies everyone else hated — then watch this. This one is actually better than most. But try to watch it around Halloween season.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Scary Movie, Extreme Movie, Disaster Movie, Date Movie, etc, etc.

COINCIDENCES: (Stan Helsing, Sit Down Shut Up) 2 videos in a row with Kenan Thompson. (more…)

Went out for food, late, past real yard sale time. Only took 3 miles of detours, and BOTH were BOTH yard sales we’d been to twice before. STOP WITH THE RE-RUN SALES!! What is the point? Keep putting your junk out there until someone buys it? I recognize the junk from last time! Give it up, people! 65 cents of gas and a good 20 minutes wasted, and nothing to show for it.

Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings. (more…)

• IMAGES: Bachmann-eyezed!
  Not quite as scary as Steve Buscemi eyes — but still pretty fucked up.
  (tags: media images Tumblr blogs MichelleBachmann eyes MichelleBachmannEyes)
• MUSIC: It's Official: Reunited Original Lineup Of BLACK SABBATH Working On New Album
  Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  (tags: media audio music bands musicians OzzyOsbourne BlackSabbath reunions reunited BlabbetMouth RoadRunnerRecords news articles fromMetalChris)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

PLOT SUMMARY: Kid discovers he can teleport — and eventually discovers that there has been a secret society trying to kill these “jumpers” since medieval time.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Crime doesn’t pay…Unless you can teleport.

PEOPLE: Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker). Jamie Bell. The incredibly hot Rachel Bilson (The O.C.), with her incredible brown eyes. Samual L. Jackson — as a bad guy, for once. With white hair. But only his hair. Not his beard. Also a TINY part by Kristen Stewart (Bella from Twilight), who ends up being the main character’s sister. Young Millie is briefly played by the main female star of Bridge To Terabithia, AnnaSophia Robb.

QUIRKS: Based on a book.

VISUALS: Excellent fights involving teleportation!

BAD STUFF: Some might complain that this is more action-heavy than story-heavy. Or that it’s cliche. Uh.. yea. This is a comic book in movie form. Expect that.

CONCLUSION: A generic, but solid exploration of superpowers. Comparable to “Push”. Good fight scenes. Not much story. It’s also a very short movie, and is over quite fast. I liked this better than Carolyn.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10. “I’m not sure why I didn’t like it.  The story had good potential, but I was annoyed by the acting or something.  Also, maybe it felt too rushed.”

The native public rating for this movie is Netflix: 3.4/5 stars (3.7/5 stars for people who rate like me), IMDB: 5.9/10.

RECOMMENDATION: Superhero-lovers should check this out.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Looking forward to Jumper 2 in 2011. Looks like [highlight for spoilers]→ his mom is gonna be the antagonist next time. Too bad I didn’t see this before Disaster Movie, which briefly spoofs this. I’d say the movie most similar to this would be the movie Push.

MOVIE QUOTE: David Rice: Let me tell you about my day so far. Coffee in Paris, surfed the Maldives, took a little nap on Kilimanjaro. Oh, yeah, I got digits from this Polish chick in Rio. And then I jumped back for the final quarter of the N.B.A. finals–courtside of course. And all that was before lunch. I could go on, but all I’m saying is, I’m standing on top of the world.

COINCIDENCES: (Terminator 4:Salvation,Jumpers) 2 movies 2 nights in a row where someone wanted to blow the bad guys up in a way that would also kill innocents, with someone else objecting to this and going in to save them.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Eric M & Jordan really liked it. Christian liked it. Rebekah & Daniel H hated it.

(more…)

[Not listed on IMDB.] [Netflix link]

PLOT SUMMARY: Jackassery continues. “Lost” tapes from the Jackass series. Extended and alternate cuts.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Idiots hurt themselves, do digusting things, and engage in uncomfortable humor.

PEOPLE: Jackassess.

QUIRKS: Jackassess.

VISUALS: Pain. Disgust. Hilarity.

MORALS: Hurt yourself on camera. It’s funny.

BAD STUFF: You know it’s bad when even *I* have to gag at something. The Vomelet (vomit omelet) returns!

CONCLUSION: Some of the most intense video watching of my life, as usual. Scenes of utter disgust the likes of which are hard to imagine. Stunts and idiodic feats that no hman should ever try. And of course a healthy dose of absurdest situationism that is neither gross nor violent, but just plain funny. Every Jackass “skit” is either violent, gross, or absurd. An hour and 45 minutes of it is almost too much for the soul to bear, but we were both laughing our asses off at many points as well. And some of the stuff they do is quite awesome — I’m jealous that they basically get to play with adult-sized toys sometimes, like a human-sized “hamster wheel” made out of skateboards.

One great moment was having a prosthetic hand, then pretending to have it stuck under the tire of a car. As he screams for help in a parking lot, bystanders swarm around him. I thought the gag was going to be that he would pretend to rip his hand off, but no, it wasn’t. Instead, he asks a random guy if he will rub his back while he has his hand stuck and other people attempt to lift the car up. The guy kind of straddles him and starts rubbing his back a little. AWWWWWWWKWARD! Jackass could easily lose all the grossness, and stunts — and still be a damn funny show. The absurd comedy moments are like Monty Python’s Flying Circus meets Tom Green.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 5/5 stars. IMDB: 9/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
The native public rating for this movie is Netflix: 3.2/5 stars.

RECOMMENDATION: Jackass fans should check this out. Though apparently if you’ve religiously watched the MTV series, this is mostly re-runs. However, I’m not sure if that’s completely accurate. I recognized some of these clips, but these were extended versions. Like when Knoxville dresses up as Satan and tells people he’s not such a bad guy — they don’t just show a random religious fanatic breaking his sign; they show the entire ass-kicking. He was actually attacked for wearing a Satan suit! Aren’t Christians awesome? (more…)

Yard sale double date with Matthew and Julie!

We had planned this several weeks in advance, though in retrospect, Memorial Day weekend isn’t the best weekend for yard sales. Less people throw them because people are out of town, and although there is less competition at the sales (so the stuff-per-sale was cooler), there is way more distance and time between finding the sales.

We took Matthew’s jeep, which meant we could get larger items than usual. The 7 yaffa blocks (which stack to my ceiling upstairs) were attached to the roof of Matthew’s jeep.

But not very well. We lost them on the road right before getting to my house. One block was about 0.15mi away before our house; another got pushed by a car right up to our driveway; and a 3rd was found on a side street 0.15mi past our house. That one had major burnt/scraped plastic. They still work, though.

Paranoid guy wants to sell his computer, but not to me.

I also made an offer to buy a guy’s computer (during which Matthew surreptitiously photographed me) — just the box — for $20. But he was all concerned about getting his personal information off of it.

He took my info, but never got back to me. Sheesh. I’m not interested in your data, as interesting as it may be. I just wouldn’t mind an extra CPU+motherboard+case, so I could build a computer in a pinch if one broke down. Oh well.

Paranoid guy's yard sale.

Me waiting around for paranoid guy to hem & haw and decide not to sell his computer to a white guy.

Got up around 8AM, waited for Matthew & Julie to show up, and made it out riding in Matthew’s jeep at 9:04AM, and went out until 1:28PM, for a total of 4 hours & 24minutes.

Total spent $61.50.

NO GAS for 42.2 miles of driving because Matthew drove.

We bought 16 items – 24 if you count each coolant bottle / yaffa block separately – for a total estimated value of $385.92, leading to a profit of $324.42. To earn that much after taxes you’d really have to earn $460; money saved (by not having to spend it) is actually worth more than we realize when the government’s cut is taken into consideration.

Anyway, this works out to a “wage” of $73.73/hr as a couple or $36.86/hr per person.

THE HAUL:

• $10.00: billboard sign, programmable, Moving Message by Dynasty, 28″ x 3.5″, screen 2″ (EV:$120)

• $10.00: yaffa block shelves (x2 but since combined into one). 7 blocks. (was 8, but one is lost. 2 are damaged because they fell off the roof of Matthew’s Jeep) (impossible to find original yaffa blocks on sale, but based on this link I’d say $5/block, so this would be EV:$35)

here they are in a temporary place in our house

• $6.00: luggage, wheeled, 16.5″ x 12″ x 26″ (EV:$40)
• $5.00: bongo, furry (EV:$10)
• $5.00: bongo, wooden (EV:$12)

not at all the same thing as these.. but hey, they're bongos

• $5.00: light, halogen, black (EV:$30–docked $5 for missing bulb and curtain guard)

• $4.00: tent, Hillary, model no. 308. 71206, HUGE size, no poles, turned out to be useless. Kept the bag. (EV:$0 because it’s useless.) *** RIP OFF OF THE WEEK ***
• $3.00: coolant (3 bottles @ $1 ea) (EV:$21.63)

Carolyn's car leaks a LOT of coolant , so this always comes in handy

• $3.00: shelf, over monitor, as seen on tv — missing the main screws – same sale as the dud Hillary tent (EV:$$6–docked $2 off for missing screws)
• $3.00: charging station, 3 sections, 12″x8″ (EV:$32, though Clint finds these utterly worthless, and has been vindicated by the fact that devices have fallen off these slanted charging stations in our house and smashed onto our hardwood floors more than once — at what point does the negative value of losing a whole device come into account?)

• $3.00: lamp, leopard print (EV:$15, since the shades themselves go for $10)

• $2.00: kimono – too small for Carolyn unfortunately (EV:$40)
• $1.00: lamp, round, low center-of-gravity (EV:$5)
• $0.50: goggles, safety (EV:$1.29)

• $0.50: lamp, red, flexible (EV:$15)

this seems so familiar - i think we owned this at some point in the past, or maybe growing up

• $0.50: lampshade, trippy, orange – a bit tattered, but way more interesting than our existing lampshades, and it goes well with the ‘Love’ hippie poster in the corner of our house under the spiral stairs (EV:$3)

No free stuff this week! Strange.

strange "yard sale" that was mostly 40 mexicans partying and cooking tons of food in like 6 BBQs..... there was hardly anything actually for sale

Click here for other Yard Sale-related postings.

* EV stands for “Estimated Value”, which I estimate by looking things up in Google Shopping/Google/Amazon/Ebay. I don’t always deduct for an item being used, unless it’s actually in worse condition in a way that matters. For example, I estimate books at the cover value. I also try to only count shipping if it’s the type of thing that would need to be shipped, and only if the price isn’t “fixed” (i.e. 1 cent items that cost $10 to ship would not be $10 in person). (more…)

Yup. I got kicked off a multi-line paid chat BBS around 1990. I was the first in the county, as this BBS was the first in the county. YAY NEW HORIZONS!

It's a rare thing to find a random picture containing 3 loves of my life: J.R. "Bob" Dobbs & The Church Of The SubGenius, BBSes, and Beavis & Butt-head.

Two things you need to know about for this story: 1) BBSes, 2) JIVE.com.

1) Back in the pre-internet days, there were these things called BBSes. I’m not going to explain it every time I post about it, but it was way more rewarding than the internet.

the opening ANSI to my BBS

It was, however, very sparse. There’s only so many people online in your calling area, and when you can only use a BBS one person at a time, it takes awhile for things to happen.

Imagine having to read a forum on a webpage where, 99% of the time, you would get a 404 NOT FOUND error — because someone else was reading it at the same time.

Imagine having to reload that webpage throughout the day, hoping to get a chance when the page will actually load, and give you a chance to read and write on it. That’s what BBSing was like, metaphorically.

Also, imagine the page loaded slower than how fast you could read. Furthermore, everyone you met was guaranteed to be local, so this made it “creepy” in ways the internet isn’t. I got to be assaulted multiple times in real life, at the mall, while sleeping at my best friends’ house, at a concert… I got death threats phoned in. I’ve called police both in Prince William County and at Virginia Tech. BBSes are nice and cozy — everyone is within a few miles of you.

Check out this scare piece on BBSes, probably written around 1990.

Dave N's old BBS add, GIF format - very advanced for the time :)

So anyway, the year was around 1989. The county was Prince William County, VA. The first multi-phoneline BBS, Info*Share (703-803-8000), emerged. It was a chat board. That’s all it was. Call, and go into channels in chat (there was usually only 1), like in IRC.

IRC was around, but I never did it at home until over 10 years later

You paid per the minute, too. But I believe I got a 1 year, or maybe lifetime membership for $30. That’s how much I wanted to use the computer to talk to interesting people. The people I met in meatspace weren’t nearly as interesting as the people I met in cyberspace. And the best part is, I got all that money refunded to me in the end!

BBS gathering in 1993

2) JIVE.COM. The other component to this story is JIVE.COM. (No, jive.com is not a website. In 1988, .COM was an executable extension, like .EXE. JIVE.COM and JIVE.EXE would mean the same thing).

So anyway, there was this program called JIVE.COM. It was, basically, a racist comedy program to convert text to “jive”, like the “jive” language featured in the movie Airplane.

If you want to try it out, download it here. The file’s date is 10/25/1986. My computer won’t run it anymore, unless I use DosBox, which doesn’t support copy and paste, so I can’t provide a sample of the output. The closest thing I could find on the web is the Dialectizer, but you need to change the dropdown from “Redneck” to “Jive”. It’s NOT the same conversion algorithm, though. Jive.com would chainge every exclaimation mark to “Slap mah fro!”. It was ridiculous.

Airplane is a hilarious, 5-star comedy. AND DON'T CALL ME SHIRLEY.

So anyway, I happened to have a good understanding (for a kid my age) of input/output redirection, and I knew my modem was on the COM2: port. So I had the brilliant idea of piping the entire chat room through jive.com, by using the command:

JIVE <com2: >com2:

Of course, I had to drop to DOS from my BBS program, because you could only run one program at a time back then. So I didn’t get the luxury of seeing what happened during those 5 minutes that Jive redirected all of Info*Share’s output back into Info*Share, converted into Jive.

these huge outdated cards I threw away in 2009 were obsolete by the late 1990s, and probably not even manufactured yet at the time of this story

I didn’t get to see the flooding of the channel I caused. One of Prince William County‘s first denial of service attacks. Nobody could chat for those 5 minutes, because anything typed would cycle through my computer, come out as jive, go to the channel, come back to me, get converted to jive again, creating an infinite loop.

I stopped after 5 minutes. Some people thought it was funny. A few people were pissed. I got kicked off, and refunded my money, which meant that I spent a whole summer having more fun than I otherwise would have had for free.

And became the first user in Prince William County to be kicked off a pay BBS. This was before the internet or AOL was available to people. This was back in the CompuServe days… I like to think I’m a pioneer in techno-anarchy :)

NO MICE BACK THEN. So much easier nowadays.

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• POLICE STATE: Cartoonist Targeted With Criminal Probe For Mocking Police – Chief Prosecutor Shawn Arthur pisses on the consitution
  Hello? First amendment calling?

  Until a law is passed that punishes people for pissing on the constitution, those in power will continue to abuse it, even 235 years after our rights were firmly established :/

  That is why I am calling for Prosecutor Shawn Arthur to voluntarily turn himself in to the FBI for a civil rights probe against his actions. He should be prosecuted for his unamerican conduct, as well as disbarred.

  Fuck you Shawn Arthur. You're a piece of unamerican shit, and a far greater threat to our American rights than any terrorist group.

  (tags: politics PoliceState ConstitutionalRights FreedomOfSpeech speech freeSpeech 1stAmendment rights FirstAmendment police RentonCity KIRO KingCounty KingCountySuperiorCourt searchWarrants Mr.Fiddlesticks cyberstalking bullshit YouTube videos parody satire ShawnArthur)
• POLICE STATE: Police shut down little girl’s lemonade stand for Ragbrai riders
  Once again: Licensure is good. It lets you know your professionals are qualified for the job. It means they have passed certain certifications.

  However, what's better than licensure, or being protected? FREEDOM.

  Including the freedom to use an unlicensed person. If I want a friend to babysit my kid, he shouldn't have to get a license for this to be legal. If I want to pay someone to drive me to the airport, they shouldn't have to become a licensed taxi service. If I want to buy a fucking lemonade from a little girl on a street corner, I should have that freedom.

  Freedom FROM licensure is important too. Freedom FROM regulation. Free (as in anarchy) markets don't work. Over-regulation doesn't work. In short, A LOT OF STUFF SUCKS. Let people decide for themselves.

  SIXTH time I've seen this now.

  (tags: politics licenses licensing lemonade lemonadeStands children OverlyHarshPunishments news articles YourTaxDollarsAtWork government food Coralville Iowa KGAN RAGBRAI AbigailKrustsinger QCTimes)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] [Wikipedia link] Been meaning to watch this series for quite awhile. We finally plowed through all 56 episodes in about 25 days.

PEOPLE: Created by Tom Fontana (St. Elsewhere).

The cast is incredibly varied, with prisoners entering, dying, and moving all the time. So it’s a revolving door cast with only 9 characters in at least 50 out of the 56 episodes, 17 characters in at least 40 out of 56 episodes, 26 characters in at least 30 out of 56 episodes, 34 characters in at least 20 out of 56 episodes.

Characters: Beecher is Lee Tergesen (jerky older brother Chet Donnelly from the Weird Science TV series, Terry from Wayne’s World 1-2). Vern Schillinger is J.K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man movies and Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon, Megamind, I Love You, Man, Jennifer’s Body, Juno, The Ladykillers, Law & Order, Poseidon from Flapjack). Warden Leo Glynn is Ernie Hudson (Winston from Ghostbusters, Sifu Norris from Dragonball: Evolution, Miss Congeniality 1-2, Airheads, Agent Fowler in Transformers Prime, 1 ep of Childrens Hospital, 2 eps of Heroes). Harold Perrineau as Hill, the handicapped narrator (Link from The Matrix 2-3, Flynn from 28 Weeks Later, Mercutio from Romeo + Juliet 1996, Lost).

Tim McManis is Terry Kinney (who I’ve never run into, tho he was in 7 eps of thirtysomething). Sister Pete is Rita Moreno (Carmela from 780 episodes of The Electric Company) (pic of her young, pic of her with blue hair).

Ryan O’Reilly is Dean Winters (who is actually Irish-Italian) (30 Rock, Rescue Me, Terminator:The Sarah Conner Chronicles). Bob Rebadow is George Morfogen. Agamemnon Busmalis is Tom Mardirosian. Kareem Said is Eamonn Walker (Dr. Mathison in Unbreakable, Kings, Justice, The Bill, In Sickness And In Health). Father Ray Mukada is B.D. Wong (The Salton Sea, a cockroach voice in Joe’s Apartment, Mystery Date, Law & Order:Special Victims Unit, All-American Girl). Alvarez was Kirk Acevedo (Band Of Brothers, The Thin Red Line, Fringe, The Black Donnellys, Law & Order:Trial By Jury).

Officer Joseph Mineo was Philip Scozzarella (only ever in Oz + 1 bit TV movie part). Cyril O’Reilly was Scott William Winters (Clack from Good Will Hunting, Agent Samuels from 4 eps of 24 S6, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back). Dr. Nathan is Lauren Velez (Maria LaGuerta from Dexter, New York Undercover). Chucky “The Enforcer” Pancama is Chuck Zito (Man On The Moon, Gia), who is a real ex-con. However, he was a biker in real life, not a Wise Guy. Chico Guerra is Otto Sanchez (Push (2006), Kidnapped). Chris Keller is Christopher Meloni (Law & Order:Special Victims Unit, Frank from the movie Carriers, The Grand Wizard from Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo, Freakshow from Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, Gene from Wet Hot American Summer, Runaway Bride, Sven the Clerk at Flamingo Hotel from Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, the movie Bound, Twelve Monkeys, Hal Jordan/The Green Lantern from Green Lantern:First Flight, 1 ep of Michael & Michael Have Issues, 5 eps of NYPD Blue).

Poet is Craig muMs Grant (Dark Water), and has served actual time. Officer Sean Murphy is Robert Clohessy (Boardwalk Empire, Kidnapped, Ohara, Arthur 2011). Jaz is Evan Seinfeld aka Spyder Jonez, ex-bass player of Damnocracy, porn star/director (which explains why he likes to flash his dick so much). Simon Adebisi is Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Heavy Duty from G.I. Joe:Rise Of The Cobra, The Bourne Identity, The Mummy Returns, Hitu from Ace Venture:When Nature Calls, Mr. Eko from Lost). Robson was R.E. Rogers, writer/director of F–K and Crash&Burn, but not really in much stuff outside of Oz. Governor Devlin was Zeljko Ivanek (Emile Danko from Heroes, Andre Drazon from 24, Homicide:Life On The Street, In Bruges, Black Hawk Down, Hannibal, Donnie Brasco, The Event, Damages). Officer Claire Howell is Kristin Rohde (Homicide:Life On The Street).

Enrique Morales is David Zayas (Sgt. Angel Batista in Dexter, The Expendables). Officer Diane Whittlesey is Edie Falco (Carmela Soprano from The Sopranos, Nurse Jackie from Nurse Jackie, 4 eps of 30 Rock). Omar White is Michael Wright (Elias Taylor from the original V series). The O’Reillys’ mom is Betty Buckley (Eight Is Enough). Death-row Shirley Bellinger is Kathryn Erbe (Stir Of Echoes, Law & Order:Criminal Intent). BTW, she was married to the actor who played Tim McManus — though they divorced in 2006.

Clayton Hughes was Seth Gilliam (The Wire). Nino Schibetta (the father) was Tony Musante (Detective David Toma from Toma way back in 1974). Peter Schibetta (the son) was Eddie Malavarca. Mobay is Lance Reddick (Fringe, The Wire, Jonh Hex, Godzilla 1998 [uncredited bit part]). Raoul “El Cid” Hernanzes was Luis Guzman (Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Dumb And Dumberer, Anger Management, Punch-Drunk Love, The Salton Sea, The Count Of Monte Cristo, Traffic, Magnolia, Arthur 2011) (NOT from Weeds). Nikolai Stanislofsky was Philip Casnoff (How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Strong Medicine). Officer Dave Brass, the basketball player, is Blake Robbins (Agent McGuinness from 1 ep of Firefly, Tom Halpert from 3 eps of The Office). Carrie Schillinger was Jenna Lamia (Hi-Life). Supreme Allah was — get this — an actor named Lord Jamar. Pro basketball player Vahu was Rick Fox (in lots of stuff, but nothing I’ve heard of).

Napp was Mark Margolis (Black Sawn, The Girl Next Door, The Fountain, Daredevil, Infested, Requiem For A Dream, Pi, Ace Ventura:Pet Detective, Arthur 1981 [uncredited wedding guest], The Equalizer). Rev. Jeremiah Cloutier was Luke Perry (Dylan from Beverly Hills 90210). The chick who (SPOILER ALERT) almost got Beecher out on parole that one time was Sandra Purpuro (5 eps of Days Of Our Lives, 2 eps of 24).

And Miss Sally was Whitney Allen.

Also weird: Steve Buscemi directed 2 episodes.

PLOT SUMMARY: Jail sucks ass. Oz chronicles life in an experimental prison ward called Emerald City, where prisoners have more rights. It is considered an experiment, and a luxurious unit for a prisoner to live in compared to GenPop — the general population units where fights and rape are that much more common. The main character (if there even is one) would be Tobias Beecher, a lawyer who killed a girl in a drunk driving accident, now serving 15 years. He is the “everyman” compared to the typical scum that resides in this prison. You watch as group after group struggles for power, and then struggles to stay alive. Muslims, Latinos, Aryans, bikers, Christians, gangstas, Italians — almost every group is separated by lines drawn via racial or religious categorization. Life here — even in this experimental unit where it’s not as bad as GenPop — is very hard. Staying alive is hard for almost anybody. Jail sucks ass.

BACKWARD PLOT SUMMARY: Corpses re-animate into prisoners who join other prisoners, all of whom serve prison term, are released, and then go on to commit crimes. (Hmmm — that’s barely different than the plot in forward order!)

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Tax dollars fail to rehabilitate prisoners.

QUIRKS: Jail. Struggles for power. Violence. Violence. Violence. Tension. Struggles for power. Violence. Politics. Violence.

VISUALS: Bleak, and mostly the same sets over and over. In this series, you only see the outside world maybe 5 times before it’s over.

SOUNDTRACK: There isn’t really much of one. Though in the last 2 seasons, they have this “whoo whoo” sound they use during high tension/spooky moments, which make me & Carolyn imitate Bubb Rubb from the Whistle Tips videos on YouTube. Funny stuff. Look it up. “Y’all should be up cookin’ your eggs!”

MORALS: It’s not the who or how that’s important when people die — but the why. That’s the only human part of the story.

POLITICS: Lots of politics about the American prison system, and how fucked up the laws are, and how they don’t necessarily solve any problems. Most of this is done through Hill’s narration each episode, but some of it is done via characters such as the asshole governor Devlin.

GOOD STUFF: Great character development and interaction. For instance, I liked how they kept you guessing about Keller. I changed my mind about my opinion of him at least 4 times! They kept me guessing! His character reminded me a bit of the main character from The Rules Of Attraction.

Beecher was awesome when he was crazy. (“Who else would you get to represent you? Beecher?” [Beecher throws cards up in the air in the background.])

The series actually has a lot of comedic moments too, despite being pretty bleak and depressing.

The series finale wrapped up most of the story lines relatively nicely, all things considered.

BAD STUFF: Slight shark jumpings throughout the later seasons… The religious angles got a bit preachy. The musical episode with the LSD overdose — c’mon! Ridiculous! The writers of that subplot should be shot – no amount of LSD will leave you brain dead! Occasionally a plot or character would be dropped without mention in between seasons. (Remember Glynn’s hot black secretary? Poof!)

CONCLUSION: A great series about prison life. TONS AND TONS of characters and subplots.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 5/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 5/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10. “My favorite characters were Beecher, Ryan, and Cyril, I felt bad for Omar White. All he wanted was a friend, but he was pretty nuts… Vern Shillinger was a dick, and I guess his granddaughter didn’t change him after all. And then Keller… wow… that guy was nuts…”

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 9.2/10 (wow!), Netflix: 3.9/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was also 3.9/5 stars).

RECOMMENDATION: This series is not for the faint of heart, but it is an excellent (albeit exaggerated) look into prison life.

SPOILERY SUMMARY: S1=Beecher’s Vern’s prag,prison riot,Whittlesby smuggles cigaretes,shoots guy who was in biker gang with her during riot,Alvarez’s baby born,dies,he cuts his face, S2=Beecher’s gets crazy,bites tip of Robson’s dick off,shits in Vern’s mouth,falls in gay love with Keller,gets arms&legs broken,Adabizi gets sober briefly,O’Reilly kills Dr.Nathan’s husband via his retarded brother Cyril,Said refuses clemency,Hill wants to escape,lays in coffin, S3=escape totally glossed over!,Beecher’s lover rats on Vern,gets shived,health care privatized,Alvarez gouges out C.O.’s eyes,goes to solitaire,hangs self,boxing exhibitions,crazy C.O. stalker chick,Snake the family-murderer arrives;Hill rats on him;to protect Hill wiseguys kill Snake, …, S5=Beecher’s childhood friend is a prick,becomes Aryans’ prag,Keller on death row,Cyril’s trial,Omar White’s so pathetic,learns to sing,S5E6=jump the shark musical episode with LSD overdose making guy brain dead; Keller/Cyril/Hoyt on death row,narrator(Hill) killed, S6=Robson cuts his ‘nigger gums’ out but still becomes a prag,gets aids from Cutler,Beecher paroled,Keller tricks Beecher into violating his parole, Said shot dead,killer wants Omar White to kill him,Omar wouldn’t,so he kills Omar, Keller death sentence commuted, he kills ex-prag who killed Beecher’s dad, Cyril almost executed,then later is, Leo Glen killed,Devlin implicated,Kwerns back as warden, Alvarez inherits all of Cutler’s stuff, even tho they didn’t know each other, Agamemnon Busmalis marries Norma, Beecher kills Schillinger AND Keller, both by accident, bio-terror attack takes out Aryans, ends Oz.

SIMILAR SHOWS: I’ve actually never watched a prison show before, so I got nothin’.

SHOW QUOTES:

Agamemnon “The Mole” Busmalis: This is the best Miss Sally ever.

Robert Rebadow: God told me.

Augustus Hill: The worst stab wound is the one to the heart. Sure, most people survive it, but the heart is never quite the same. There’s always a scar. Which is meant, I guess, to remind you that – even for a little while – someone made your heart beat faster. And that’s a scar you can live with. Proudly. All the days of your life.

Martin Querns: DON’T fuck with Querns!

(more…)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Pixar movies are great to watch in high-def!

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Violent elderly widower kidnaps young boy, kills childhood hero.

PEOPLE: Ed Asner (Hudson from Gargoyles) as the main old dude. Christopher Plummer (General Chang in Star Trek 6, Dreamscape) as Charles Muntz. And a brief vocal “cameo” by Cliff from Cheers, who is the only person to ever have a voice in every Pixar movie! Jess Harnell is in this too, but only for a few seconds.

QUIRKS: Houses carried by balloons == awesome.

VISUALS: Great pixar CGI, as expected. When did they add depth of field effects to their CGI? They made things look a lot more like what would come out of a camera — though I wonder if this will actually cause these films to look MORE dated 100 years from now.

MORALS: Anyone with an infinite supply of helium can achieve their dreams.

BAD STUFF: This is a kid’s movie, after all. But that’s never stopped us from enjoying something. And it does get a bit sappy. But what do you expect? It’s Disney/Pixar…

Also, the beginning is actually really sad. I was like “Wow, this is kind of a downer!” But things only went “up” from there.

CONCLUSION: A great kids fantasy movie — even enjoyable by adults.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10. Very tempted to rate this 5 stars. Maybe I should have.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
The native public rating for this movie is Netflix: 4.2/5 stars (4.5/5 stars for people who rate like me), IMDB: 8.5/10 (Top 250: #60 — but probably only because it’s a recent release).

RECOMMENDATION: If you’re avoiding this simply because it’s a kid’s movie… That’s your perogative. But if you can stand kids movies, you should really check this out.

MOVIE QUOTE: Carl Fredricksen: Do you want to play a game? It’s called See Who Can Go the Longest Without Saying Anything.
Russell: Cool! My mom loves that game!

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Ian loved it. And I’m pretty sure Dave O liked it a lot, too.

WILHELM SCREAM: 1.

FACTOID: You would need over 600X more balloons than shown in the movie to actually lift a house.
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