"Upper Decker": (American slang); 1. in the game of baseball, a home run hit into the upper deck of a stadium; any baseball hit into a spectator deck that is elevated above field level. 2. any spectator at a stadium event sitting in the upper deck 3. the practice of defecating in the tank of a toilet rather than the proper receptacle bowl, causing a prolonged offending odor from the unseen excreta.

Confession of an Upper Decker

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>From Tex Texin (Progress Email Group), supplied by G:

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Satellite topples to floor in mishap

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A scientist from Southampton University has invented a bra that keeps women's breasts from jiggling and prevents the nipples from pushing through the fabric when cold weather sets in.

At a news conference announcing the invention, the scientist was taken outside by a large group of men where they proceeded to kick the shit out of him.

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Yes, it's Crappy Post Day. Yippee!

I spent my writing time this morning in trying to fix the blog to display well on non-Borg browsers. Everything except Mozilla should be seeing things normally now. I've tried every trick I know but I can't get Mozilla to see straight. It seems to have some real issues with CSS and div tags.

For those Mozilla users out there - my apologies but it's going to be freaky probably up to the next Mozilla build. The content is still there, you'll just have to continue scrolling past the whitespace to find it.

New: Added a "Top Referrers" section in the left sidebar (entries are listed alphabetically instead of numerically - I just like to be different). I'll update it whenever I feel like it about monthly. I put up 12 instead of the traditional 10 since Instapundit and IMAO are on there and they're likely going to be permanent fixtures.

Crappy posts to follow! It is Crappy Post Day after all. ;-)

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Lovely Wife and I aren't very religious. Depending on the state of the world I wax from agnostic to part-time believer. She's much the same but trends toward the believer side. As a result we're not the most regular churchgoers. You might say that we're not churchgoers at all but then people might look at you funny and wonder why you were talking to your monitor so I advise against it.

As far as religion goes we'd like our kids to make up their own minds. That requires a bit of exposure to religion that, as previously noted, we're not the best at providing. To get them that exposure the two older ones go to a religious preschool. This has a couple of side benefits as this particular preschool is both eminently affordable as well as being the best school, hands down, in our area. In addition to the normal preschool stuff learning letters and numbers, playing, learning to get along with other kids and celebrating September 8 birthdays on September 11 (I'm not bitter, why do you ask?) they also attend a mini service once a week and do other little religious things. One of those little things is a "prayer angel". A prayer angel is a little white stuffed bear and a prayer journal that the little guys take home on a rotating weekly basis. The kid gets to pray with the angel and after a week the kid and parent can write down how they pray, what they pray, etc in the journal to share with the class.

We don't pray. I shouldn't say we never pray. We just don't pray in the traditional sense. We pray in the profane sense that is a no-no according to one of the big 10 rules. We don't do it often, generally only at especially painful mishaps or unusually offensive drivers, and never around the kids. This prayer angel was a problem for us. Bear brought it home yesterday and we were at a loss what to do with it. Fortunately for us Bear is a bit better at this than we are.

We had the prayer angel on the desk all night and since that's in our bedroom we forgot about it when we put the kids to bed. Bear woke up and remembered it and hollered until we brought it to him and he slept with it all night. That's not really what it's for but we figured "what the hell, might as well get some use out of it". (That's one of those not-quite-a-traditional-prayer-things I was trying to explain above.)

This morning he greeted Lovely Wife with a hug and instructions. "Mama, write in the book that I prayed for the soldiers. I like soldiers, they are heroes."

Do I have great kids or what?

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Ilyka's got the dirt on America haters. I'm cracking up so bad I can't even think up a suitable comment. I'll have to fall back and punt with Rachel's ball:

Funniest. Post. Ever.

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Blogspot is pooched again. Grrrr.

Formatting is screwed, total blog death this morning, preview and actual blog look totally different.

At least it made it through my Instalanch in decent shape.

Get me outta here!!!

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Darn. I can't remember from which blog I picked up this story: One 5-year-old's allergy leads to class peanut ban. It's about a California school (and isn't it always California?) that outlawed peanut butter from all kindergarden classes because one child in one class is seriously allergic to peanuts and treenuts. Anyway, Parent Center is polling to see what their readers think about it and I think the blogospherians should chime in with their votes. Go spread the word.

(Hat tip to Lovely Wife for the link.)

Incidentally, isn't it fun to say "peanut"? I like "walnut" too but "peanut" is just a little closer to naughty.

Q: What do you call it when you have two nuts in a urinal?
A: Peanuts

Q: What do you call it when you have two nuts on your chest?
A: Chestnuts

Q: What do you call it when you have two nuts on the wall?
A: Wallnuts

Q: What do you call it when you have two nuts on your chin?
A: A big fat dick in your mouth.

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Giant squid deaths puzzle scientists

Umm...

I'm not a marine biologist or anything but I could safely posit the cause of death as being "Chopped in half".

(Hat tip to Lovely Wife for the link.)

Update: The article now says that "the scientists" are blaming scientific experiments (presumably being carried out by "other scientists") of the Spanish Navy for the squid deaths. Spain has a navy?

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This is pretty neat. It's free (as are all elements of this blog - remember how cheap I am) from Bravenet and I found it at the Everyday Stranger. Give it a whirl.

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This week's Carnival is back where it all started at Silflay Hraka. Bigwig posted excerpts with the links which makes sampling oh so much easier.

As a side note, Snooze Button Dreams will be the Carnival host on January 14th, just before my 6th blogmoniversary. If you'd like to host the Carnival just send an email to Bigwig.

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Click the banner to see more truth in advertising at Valley of the Geeks.

(Hat tip to G for the link.)

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Depending on where you live in the States you probably have a different general opinion of Canada. Down here in the South most people think that Canada is a separate country. Back up in the North, Canada is viewed either as a retarded step child or the largest of the 51 states. This article (link found over at Common Sense & Wonder) points strongly towards either the "retarded step child" theory or the growing "Really North California" theory.

It seems that the Canadian courts ordered that "patients should not be forced to get their marijuana from drug dealers on the streets" so Health Canada (motto "Socialized medicine at its finest!") gave a C$5.75 million (about $4.2 million real dollars) contract to have government weed grown. The problem (assuming our heads are far enough up our rectums not to notice any glaring problems yet) is that the weed blows. Comments from the first users include "Disgusting" and "It's totally unsuitable for human consumption".

The government of Canada spent C$5.75 (The "C" stands for "counterfeit", by the way) million to grow bad weed. How do you grow weed that is that bad? A good start would be to grow it "deep underground in a vacant mine section in Flin Flon, Manitoba". Yes, that's right. They are growing a crop of plants in an abandoned mine. While this might be a reasonable step for somebody trying to grow a cash crop of marijuana in the States, it does not seem quite so intelligent when you note that in this case the crop is not only legal but being grown under a government contract.

Okay, let's get off the idiocy of the farming and concentrate on the basic program. C$5.75 million (at today's exchange rate - tomorrow this could easily be eleventy billion) sounds like a lot, because it is a lot to us rational folk, but it's really not too bad for a government program. After all, this program will serve all of the marijuana using patients in Canada. Or not. Maybe it will only be servicing a handlful of people because only "Ten patients have registered with Health Canada to buy marijuana directly from the government to alleviate their medical symptoms. Another 39 applications are pending."

Yah. 49 people total, including applicants not yet approved, are reaping the benefits of this particular travesty of government idiocy. But they're not really reaping much since the weed is unsuitable for human consumption. A little basic arithmentic shows that the investment per participant is over C$117,346. That's close to 8 times what an average Canadian takes home in a year after taxes. (Note that this last statistic is an estimate. Canadian tax codes are so oppressive confusing that the average Canadian has no idea how much they take home after taxes.)

What's an unsatisfied customer to do? Well, "Wakeford and Barrie Dalley, a 52-year-old Toronto man who uses marijuana to combat the nausea associated with AIDS, are returning their 1-ounce (30-gram) bags, and Dalley is demanding his money back -- about C$150 ($110) plus taxes. Wakeford is returning his unpaid bill for two bags with a written complaint." Unfortunately, according to Health Canada spokeswoman Krista Apse "the department will not accept returns or provide refunds".

As I was a neighbor of Canada for many a year I feel deeply for our northern cousins. I will take it upon myself to solve their weedy woes. I will start a collection and when it reaches $29.99 (that's real currency, not funny money) I will personally send a subscription of High Times to Krista Apse. We'll send the free T-shirt to Jim Wakeford to help take the sting out of blowing his cash on that bad gubmint weed.

Update: I love my current job but if they need some Quality Assurance help up there I might be willing to relocate.

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In order to do this, left click over the Z (below) and hold the button down as you drag it over to the J. This will test the click/drag coefficient of your mouse.

ZStop farting around and get back to work!J

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It's an Instalanch! I was going through my RSS feeds catching up on the Instaposts and was shocked, nay I was stunned, to open a link and find my own blog. Yes, the mighty Blogfather has linked to SBD. I will now take a few moments to wallow in the hits. Oh yeah, it feels so good.

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The Letter of the Day is "B".

"B" is for Bystander, like the people who watched as Anna Lindh was chased up an escalator and stabbed to death.

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The first time I did it there was a problem with the Ecosystem so NZ Bear let a bunch of us compete again. The second time I did it I had a brain fart and screwed up my own link. NZ Bear once again has let me into the contest. I must win this time! I'm running out of excuses for why I keep losing!

Seriously though, go look at the New Blog Showcase. Vote for my entry and as many others as you wish. It's easy - all you have to do is link to a contestant's post on your own blog.

My votes for this week are somewhere in here:
argghhh!!: McDonald's to Launch Adult Happy Meals
Forgotten Fronts: Kill the Imam.
Bawstin Sports Pundits: Red Sox Nation
Sequitur/Non: Clark's AntiWar Credentials
Twothings Sites and Places of Interest: Twothings Sites and Places of Interest
MIXBAGOFMUSINGS: Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Crazy Thinking: The WTO disaster and the security threat within
Ilyka Damen: A Happy Epiphany
The Enemy: "The Enemy" Brief Outline
Perspective on the BS of TV Pundits: Tinsel Town Deficits
darrenkaplan.net: Aftermath--The New World 9-12-01
Tom's Nap Room: Beatles take a bite out of iTunes
Terrible Swift Word: Pathetic
Gold and Silver Blog: Mahendra's Hurricane Isabel Prophecy

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Listen close ye lubbers fer I'll not repeat miself fer the likes a you. This Friday that be approachin' be talk like a pirate day and none other. That's right ye scurvy dogs. Four days hence ye'll be hearin' the dulcet tones of the Queen's own English from one corner o' the Blogsea to t'other. An if ye don't, well Captain Smilin' Jim Feathersword 'll have a word or two to say 'bout it!

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