31 August, 2006

I Am Not A Terrorist

For one thing, I drove a taxi at night.

See? We're all good here.

27 August, 2006

Lesson 16

When in a social gathering and you find a tray of Jaegermeister shots laying around with no one paying any attention to them...

LEAVE THEM THE HELL ALONE!

This helpful tip has been brought to you by the American Association For Hangover Prevention in association with the Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash.

PS: If anyone has a few spare bottles of Excedrin laying around, I'd be happy to take some of them off your hands. And white backgrounds on Blogger's Dashboard really hurt the eyes. Ow.

25 August, 2006

Adventures In Housekeeping



You know, sometimes I actually want to make my bed. And all I get is this triple glare indicating that they like it just as it is, thank you very much. And to think that I had just been in that bed a mere 5 minutes before, and none of the cats had actually moved.

But that's okay. If that was an example of the Glare Of Dissapointment, just imagine the Clear Feline Death-Ray Of Disdain that will be coming my way after I get home from tonight's little escapades.

So if you see on the news that a man in the Denver area was found slaughtered, apparently by his cats... You'll know what happened to me. But the Bash will be worth it.

UPDATE - 1:55p: This is a scary thought to walk out the door with.
I'm officially starting a countdown to when Goldstein appears in drag on this show. And my money is on next Friday. Who's in?
I just hope it's not tonight. But if it is, I hope that I have enough of a blood alcohol level to not panic.

Ugh.

Via Instapundit.

EDIT: What edits? I was just removing some Blogger-forced errors. Like double comments, and disappearing pictures. That's not an edit, that is preventing the population growth of Typo vulgaris from outstripping its food supply. Nothing to see here.

24 August, 2006

Haven't We Heard This Line Before?

From a reader email to Talking Points Memo:
Theme number 1 - Iran is a bigger security threat and more important to deal with quickly than Bin Laden.

Theme number 2 - Iran is supporting Bin Laden anyway, via their intelligence services and funding, so going after Iran is really the same thing as getting Bin Laden.
Hmmm... A case of deja vu all over again, perhaps?

Too bad they used these exact same justifications in the run-up to Iraq, really. If they would have saved them for Iran, they might have actually worked for the population in general. Now, all it does is read like the same tired reasoning as they used to bring about the fall of the Hussein regime.

I find it ironic, really. People will look at this and dismiss the possibility of Iran being a possible credible threat to the region simply because the former government of Iraq turned out to be an impossible uncredible threat.

That's not simply a case of shooting yourself in the foot. It's a case of firing an entire magazine into your leg before getting into an ass-kicking contest.

23 August, 2006

Untitled... For A Reason



From David Darlington at In The Agora comes a series of motivational posters.

Old school Star Trek-style.

My personal favorite is this one.

Spread the news. We have a new leader in the clubhouse. Now go and pick one for yourselves. Maybe two.

Who knows... We might end up seeing these in a Spencers near you. If so, I'm buying at least three of them.

22 August, 2006

The Legacy Of Happy Harry Hard-On

Sixteen years ago today, a movie hit the theater screens. At the time, it was not well noticed, just another movie to be reviewed through Hughes-colored glasses, to use the words of one writer. Yet today, Pump Up The Volume has a meaning, and message, much more appropriate than those innocent summer days of 1990.

For those of you who have never seen the movie, first let me say this. What are you, crazy? Go now. Rent it. Buy it. Amazon it with next-day air. Because for us here in Blogville, it personifies our raison d’être in a way that nothing else out there can.

Right now, there are 51.8 million blogs being tracked by Technorati. Each and every single one of us started off as a lone voice crying into the wilderness. We had no audience. We had no feedback. We had no clue that anyone even knew we existed. Yet still we sat, sending our missives into the vast emptyness of inner space, not caring that there was no ears to hear our cries.

Certainly we all have our own vast and varied reasons for starting in this enterprise. Yet, when it’s all said and done, our reasons are eventually reduced to one: getting things out of one’s own head. Regardless of how we do so. (Or how often.) Regardless of the programs we use. (Even Myspace. Ugh.) Regardless of the time we do it. (No fair glaring at the timestamp, people.)

For the average blogger, we will eventually find that we have an audience, however small or large it may be. Like-minded souls (or sometimes opposite-minded ones) who found our words to hold a certain something: a deeper meaning, an excellent analysis, an interesting turn of thought, or whatever comes to mind. And soon, where there was once wilderness, tiny villages of interaction are formed.

Some remain static and remain as they are, small outposts still able to contribute to the whole like my own little island of inane rambling. Some become shining beacons, providing direction and certitude to a vast multitude, like Glenn Reynolds and Duncan Black. Some, like ourselves at Creative Destruction, become crossroads, bringing together those of us who, by ourselves, would never have thought to cross paths. Some grow beyond all imagination, creating entire civilizations of thought and discussion, such as DailyKos and Little Green Footballs.

Yet still, the basic concept remains the same regardless of how big or small our traffic counters become. These are our thoughts, our emotions, our ideals, our philosophies, our selves we set into these pages. By doing so, we have taken control of an entire medium of our own creations. (Although who was first on the scene seems to be up for debate.)

And as such, we have fulfilled the battle-cry of Harry.

Sieze the airwaves. They are ours. Pick a program. Choose a name. Find your voice. There is nothing that they can do to stop us. They can try. And they may stop some of us. But they will never stop us all.

And the day will come when they will look inside themselves and see us waving up at them.

Naked.

Type hard.

[Crossposted from Creative Destruction]

15 August, 2006

BOOOOOO!!!

Remember back in January when I said that if someone "proves that there's a chemical in coffee that causes impotence" would get a cup of Sanka as punishment?

We may have our first winner. Not really entirely within the lines of the concept, but it's close enough.
"One cup or less of coffee per day may set off heart attacks in people with a sedentary lifestyle or with three or more risk factors for heart disease," said study author Ana Baylin, an assistant professor in the Department of Community Health at Brown University, in Rhode Island.

This latest finding will most likely keep the coffee debate percolating among health experts. Previous research has suggested that coffee does not raise heart risks, and might even protect against high blood pressure and diabetes. As a matter of fact, only decaffeinated coffee has been shown to possibly boost the chances of cardiovascular trouble.
Definitely decaf Sanka. Less than one cup per day, even.

[Turn signal: Ezra]

13 August, 2006

British Humor

Seems like the folks at the Guardian have an even greater penchant for humorous article titles than we Yanks do.

Turn Signal: David

01 August, 2006

A Day Late

Don't you guys just hate it when you're wandering around, knowing that you're forgetting something important but you can't for the life of you remember what it is? Or, for you women out there, when the man in your life forgets something that's important to you?

I've been doing that for the last three days. Something was supposed to have happened yesterday, and I couldn't remember what it was.

Now I remember.

One-year blogiversary.

The good news is that you don't have to go out to dinner, buy a dozen roses, and do all the household chores for a full week in a futile attempt in apologetic exercises to your blog. Inanimate objects rule!

(Of course, my computer is a bit put off. It's been making Winamp start of with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" for the last week or so. And I don't even have any Beatles songs on my hard drive... Ummmm... Someone call the Turing people. I may have a problem here.)