Sorry folks, just too busy. There'll be some editorial and/or serious stuff later since I can pump that out without thinking. Humor is harder and I have to give it actual concentration and effort. Real stuff just sort of forms in my head while I'm doing other stuff or it is from carpool conversations with G so I'm basically just transcribing when I write those.

Posted by: Jim at 07:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, the RIAA is offering an "amnesty" (note the scare quotes) to people who are currently sharing copyrighted materials. No, I'm not linking to it because if I did there's a chance one of my loyal readers might actually go and apply for it. That would be a bad thing. You see, it's a negative sum game. The amnesty is not available for people who are currently being sued and all you really have to do to avoid being sued is stop sharing (which you must do anyway to qualify for the amnesty). The EFF has some other recommendations on how not to get sued.

Applying for this RIAA amnesty will only identify you as a copyright violator, there is no guarantee that the RIAA will keep that fact to themselves and the RIAA is not the only group out there pursuing action against copyright infringers. If you were one of these other groups, wouldn't you pay some cashola for a list of confirmed and admitted copyright violators?

Some folk are a bit vocal (and humorous) about how you would be screwed by applying for the amnesty.

I don't share or download tunes. Not that I'd feel particularly bad about it, music just isn't that big for me. I used to be way into music and I have a massive CD collection but I haven't added to it in about 10 years. I got pissed because it would cost close to $20 to get the one song I wanted, along with 19 crapful songs, so I just stopped buying new. I then got into the BMG thing where you get 12 for 1 and did that for a couple years, cancelling my membership each time I met my obligation and then joining again for the big special when i wanted some CDs. That got old as their selections never really changed and I pretty much had everything they offered. I started buying used but that didn't last long either as the CDs I wanted to purchase generally weren't there. Eventually I just stopped buying music, period.

Over a couple years my music fetish atrophied and died. By the time file sharing came out I was just over it. I played with Napster a bit but even that was more effort than I was willing to put into what was once my favorite hobby. Too many downloads aborted, too many bad files. As far as the whole file sharing shebang goes, Randy Nieland sums it up nicely:

Posted by: Jim at 07:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Don't forget this cool feature over at The Truth Laid Bear. Each weak, NZ Bear hosts a contest for new blogger sites to help introduce them to the blogosphere and the blogosphere to them. The contest is easy - each new site submits one post to be voted on by the Ecosystem at large. If you have a new blog you can join the contest here. All y'all can see the entries here. Voters and contestants alike can vote for as many of the entries as they want simply by linking to them on their own blogs.

Due to some Ecosystem problems (that are all fixed now, phew!) the contest I was in got a bit messed up. The contest stretched for a couple weeks and a lot of votes were lost as voters' sites rotated older posts off of their main pages. So, I'm in it again! Yay! I've entered Why oh why do I have to love women? for the contest.

Side Note: Speaking of the Ecosystem, I am now a Flappy Bird! Boo yah!

Posted by: Jim at 02:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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C is for Cheddar. >From young and smooth to aged and sharp, everybody can play along.

Posted by: Jim at 01:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If you thought my Fecalation post was humorous, see Everybody Poops over at Tenth Muse for the female perspective.

Side Note: Everyone Poops is a great kids' book from Taro Gomi. If you have kids and/or a sense of humor you should buy it.

Posted by: Jim at 01:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Kate was late putting up the weekly Snarkfest. In the spirit of "anything you can do I can do better", I'm linking to it even later than she was posting it! Bwah, hah, hah, hah, hah!

Posted by: Jim at 08:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Wish I'd gotten this up earlier 'cause more than 140 of you have already come here from Anger Management, Don Watkin's blog. Better late than never though, right?

Don, thanks for the linkage. You made my biggest weekend since this thing here started. Woo hoo! Now put me in your sidebar. The Gooder category would be acceptable but I should really be in the Goodest portion. Just kidding, of course. The Gooder category isn't really acceptable.

Posted by: Jim at 07:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Normally Mondays are not heavenly. Normally they suck with the inexorable draw of a black hole. But not this Monday, oh no! This is the first Monday of football season. Not only is it the first Monday of football season but every single game had results that proved God is an armchair quarterback.

Buffalo mauls New England 31-0
New England was supposed to be the measuring stick that the new Bills would be measured against. They grabbed the measuring stick and used it to repeatedly bash Tom Brady over the head.

The Texans burned Miami 21-20
The underdog Houston team upset the 14 point favorites, thus becoming my second favorite team in the NFL this week. If you wish to know why any team beating Miami becomes my second favorite team you only need to know that my favorite team is Buffalo and has been since I was 3. Miami did rude things to the Bills for a goodly portion of my life. We hates them, my precious.

The Falcons crushed Dallas 27-13
This is important two ways. First, Atlanta is my adopted home team. I'll be rooting for them every game they don't play Buffalo. Second, we hateses the Cowboys. See the Texans blurb above for the reason why.

The Dawgs roughed up Middle Tennessee 29-10
I'm not a huge college ball fan. I spent most of my formative years up north in a city with no real college teams so I never caught the bug. But when in Rome do as the Romans do. When in Georgia, worship college ball or die. Luckily for me my adopted home has The Bulldogs, the best damn team in the SEC.

The Hornets embarassed Auburn 17-3
Georgia Tech is the "other" college team down here. They get my nod after the Dawgs. The Tigers were supposed to be the shiznit this year and started the season ranked #6. Even though they were blown out in their opener they were still ranked #17 and favored to beat Georgia Tech. Freshman QB Reggie Ball (yes, an actual freshman starting at QB) showed them why they were such idiots to withdraw a scholarship offer to him. Yeah, the QB they could have had has effectively ended their season in its second game. Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?

Posted by: Jim at 07:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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1. What is the best or most sentimental vacation you have ever taken and why?
Last year Lovely Wife and I took the bairns to Chattanooga for a long weekend. We stayed at the Choo-Choo Hotel, rode the Chattanooga Ducks, took the Incline Railroad to Lookout Mountain, had a midnight horse carriage ride through downtown and generally just had a smashing good time. It was especially sentimental as we had gone the year before and not had such a wonderful time. That one was before Burger's surgery and his health problems put a pall on Lovely Wife and I and the kids picked up on it. This time it was just magical.

2. Which poses the next-what is the worst or most regrettable?
That first trip to Chattanooga qualifies.

3. If you could go back and change one decision or action that you made, what would it be?
I don't think I would change anything. Everything that I have done has led to what I am right now, today. You remember the old adage of "For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the knight was lost, for want of a knight the battle was lost, for want of a battle the kingdom was lost"? I believe pretty firmly in causality and would not tamper with what has made me what I am today.

4. What are you most proud of in your life?
That's easy! Bear, Bacon and Burger.

5. What one memory from your childhood sticks out most in your mind?
I was about 6 or so. Big Bro was about 13 and Lil Bro was around 1. Big Bro was swinging Lil Bro up and down, doing airplane rides, etc. He had lifted Lil Bro up high above his head and both of them were laughing out loud. Then Lil Bro blew chunks into Big Bro's open mouth. It was the single funniest thing that I had seen in my life (and since then as well) and is probably the source of my wacked sense of humor.

6. What are your thoughts on homosexual marriage?
Nope. No way. You want to get married then you better have a round peg and a round hole involved. Oh, wait. That should be two round holes. No, wait again. Three round holes. Ah, shit. Let me start over. You better have one round peg, period.

I'm just funnin'. I don't think there's anything wrong with homosexual union. If two people love each other and want to commit to a life together then they should receive the legal benefits of that commitment regarless of race, religion, creed, sexual inclination, asshat status, etc. In fact, call any joining that's done outside of a church "Union" instead of "Marriage" and half of the opposition will go away.

7. What 3 laws would you change or enact if you had the power to do so?
1)Abortion - 3 strikes and you're out. After the third abortion you get the anti-baby implant.
2)Political Parties - Gone. A merit based system would be implemented. Candidates would compete to winnow the field to the top five and then we'd have the election.
3)Fallow Field Subsidies - This is when the government pays farmers to leave fields fallow. The gov would still pay the farmers but it would be to grow food. That food would then be the property of the government and could be distributed as foreign aid.

Posted by: Jim at 07:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Letter of the Day is was "I".

I is for inanity as in frivolity or lack of seriousness.

(Hat tip to G for the link.)

"I" as a phoneme is very cool. It is one of very few phonemes with intrinsic and autonomous meaning and it has several different ones:

• There's "I" as in "I wish that certain media lines would take their collective heads out of their collective asses."


• There's "Eye" as in "If one more hysterically biased anti-American article comes out of Reuters somebody is getting an eye gouged out."


• Then there's "Aye" as in "Are you serious about gouging somebody's eye out?" "Aye, count on it."

Posted by: Jim at 06:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Man, I wish I was gay. Life would be so much cooler if I was in a relationship with a guy. Just imagine, there'd never be an argument about what to watch on TV. The game! If there's no game on then the selection automatically runs down through action flicks, nature shows on sharks, StarTrek, classic cartoons and That 70's Show (of course my favorite character would probably be Fez then but I can handle that).

If there wasn't anything on the boob tube we could always pop in a porno. What guy doesn't like porno? And since there's no gals around there would definitely be a nice sized collection. Sure, it would be gay porno but that's what I'd be into anyway.

And we'd be watching it on a massive TV. Guys know how to prioritize purchases in ways that women just can't grasp:

Man, it sucks being straight.

(Blame Credit for this one is 100% on G, my chief idea man.)

Posted by: Jim at 06:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Talk Like A Pirate Day is September 19. Get your basic vocabulary down here and pick up some phrases with the English to Pirate translator.

Avast, ye scurvy lubber! Take yer eye orf me beauty or I'll be runnin' yer carcass thru th' scuppers!

I am SO ready.

I be tippin' me hat to that bilge rat th' Instapundit fer shinin' th' link. Arrrr!

Posted by: Jim at 11:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Nah, I value my hide too much. I'll settle for Extreme Tracking, which I've just added. It seems to offer much better reporting than Sitemeter and I've heard many bad things about how inaccurate Sitemeter is. I'll run 'em parallel for a while and see which one floats to the top (I love mixed metaphors, don't you?).

I don't see any easy way to specify the overall start count on Extreme. For the record it's 1,991 right now according to Sitemeter.

Posted by: Jim at 09:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Since Allah has a blog now he is the most accessible deity that I know of. Wouldn't it be great if he would deign to answer some questions that we've all been curious about? Things like:

• If male martyrs get 72 virgins, what do female martyrs get?


• Are there grades of martyrs? Like if some guy blows up prematurely and only catches a couple of kids does he play second fiddle to a guy that takes out a disco?


• On the same line as the previous question, is it better to be a "mastermind" behind an attack or the actual exploder? Do these masterminds accumulate points or something like that? I mean it would suck to organize a dozen successful bombings then slip on a banana peel and wake up dead and without virgins.


• I'm not sure how accurate this is but I remember hearing that the eye of Allah is upon you during the light of day. Is it okay to booze it up after sundown?

Posted by: Jim at 07:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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All hail Venomous Kate, Queen of the Memes.

F is for Fib. That's what Dell wants you to do.
(Hat tip to G for the link.)

Posted by: Jim at 01:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Warning: Potty humor ahead

I have just done something I absolutely hate doing. Something that disgusts me more than an image of Michael Moore and Hillary Clinton making the beast with two backs. I crapped. In the john at work. I loathe myself now.

Lest you think I'm overreacting here, there are several reasons for this disgust with birthing a stink pickle at my place of employment. First and foremost, the mens' room here has an extremely odiferous reputation. This is due to exceptionally poor ventilation and the contributions of "The Morning Regulars". Our many requests for better ventilation have resulted in a stand-alone HEPA air filter. Despite early misgivings this has actually helped quite a bit but nothing can cope with the depradations of the "Sunrise Commandos". These are a handful of gentlemen that descend upon the mens' room stalls shortly after arriving in the morning. They are armed with newspapers, magazines and enough collective colonic problems to put a gastroenterologist into a shiny new Lexus. Annually. Our bathroom is rectangular with a door on each end. It is not at all unusual for a person to walk into one door, see the stalls closed, and sprint to the other door in asphyxiated horror. For those with an especially refined disgust of olfactory scatagrams this can be a very painful time. The odor is so foul that I have seriously considered a ruptured bladder to be preferable to suffering through a urinal session while surrounded by the clouds of doom. It takes the air filter anwhere from a quarter hour to forty-five minutes to get rid of the fecal aroma depending on what was for dinner but this seldom happens. Remember that the "AM Crew" is comprised of a not inconsiderable number of gastrically challenged individuals. What normally happens is that they arrive in staggered formation and sentence the blighted restroom to consecutive punishments. It is sometimes noon before it is completely safe to enter.

So there is the general problem of not having a facility that allows me to breath normally while doing my business. That by itself is quite a deterrent. My second reason for not wishing to practice the fecal arts at work is of a more personal nature. It's freakin' gross! Crap at home! Don't bring that nastiness to your place of business! It's one thing to peal porcelain in the comfort of your own bathroom, it's quite another to use a public throne and then wonder just who the heck knows that you are the source of that curious combination of rotten cabbage, fouled eggs and sulphur. And foreign asses have been on that seat! Asses not related to you by blood or marriage. Bare skinned asses belonging to persons of the same sex as well as heterosexual orientation (as far as you know). Your only protection against ass cooties and pooples (butt pimples from seat nastiness) is that paper ass gasget. A microthin sheet of wax paper that cannot possibly be a barrier to any significant contaminant and that you just know is going to wick potty water up onto the seat from that part that dangles in the bowl.

Shudder. Shudder.

The final warning flag against corporate crapping is the toilet paper. Is this toilet paper? I use toilet paper at home all the time and this just doesn't resemble it except superficially by shape. It is resistant to tearing. It has no quilting. It is not two ply. It is not absorbent. In texture this work TP is more like the roll of message paper next to the phone. It fails the most important goal of toilet papers, that all important function that is the one thing it must succeed at. Specifically, it is not capable of getting shit out of your ass crack. You end up with fistful after fistful trying vainly for a feeling of cleanliness but you shall never succeed. It is like trying to clean spilt latex paint off of linoleum using only newspaper. Every wipe gets some more but there is always more on the next wipe. By the time you can no longer see dookie streaks on the paper (and you DO look at it, don't lie to me) your anus has been sanded to a bloody remnant of its former glory.

The horror. Oh, the humanity.

So for these reasons I avoid making a lincoln log cabin at work but occasionally, like this morning, there is no other recourse. I blame the Taco Loco I had for lunch yesterday for the way I feel right now. I sit here typing, hoping ever so much that the feeling between my cheeks is just nervous perspiration. Or maybe blood. I'd go in for a secondary wipe right now but one of the "Magnificent Seven" just headed in there with the morning paper.

I want my own toilet. I want my own TP. I want a freaking baby wipe.

Posted by: Jim at 11:30 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Carnival of the Vanities #50 is up at Rhetorica. Nice selection this week. Go. Read. Enjoy.

Posted by: Jim at 06:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My penis is nicely sized, thank you for your concern. I have no need for your penile enlargement drugs or devices. I am generally a happy fellow so no thanks on the discount rate Zoloft and psychotropics. Similarly, I am blessed with a libido that can be stroked stoked by the merest of feminine charms. I really don't have a use for bargain basement prices on Viagra. Thank you for thinking of me though.

I have a real life job that takes up the bulk of my daytime working hours and on the weekends I like to relax and enjoy my family. Otherwise I would be more than interested in making up to $6,000 a month from my home. As you see though, I wouldn't have the time to invest to take full advantage of this wonderful opportunity. You should try to help somebody else with that one.

I'm very happy that my resume was accepted, my application approved and that you are replying to my review, but every time I try to read the emails my wacky virus protection kicks in and won't let me. Could you maybe resend those without the attachments? I think that's what is getting the antivirus so upset.

Yes, i do love music but I haven't purchased a CD for any price in almost a decade. Even though you are practically giving them away I am afraid that I'm just not interested. I could forward your offer to Lovely Wife if you'd like. She is still a music consumer.

Those are really great deals on those software titles but I don't think they would run on my computer. I'm terribly sorry but I got rid of my Win 3.11 system several years ago. Had I only known the amazing deals that would become available I would certainly have held on to it.

Could you do me a favor? There are apparently billions and billions of unclaimed monies in abandoned accounts scattered all over Africa. Unfortunately there seem to be some disreputable people trying to smuggle it all out to America. Although I could certainly use a couple million bucks myself I couldn't take it at the expense of its rightful owners - the poor folk of Africa. Since you are a real internet business person I'm guessing you're pretty well connected. Could you let the proper authorities know? Thanks.

Oh, one more thing. If it isn't too much bother, would it be at all possible for y'all to get some sort of idgit scale to correlate with the addresses on your mailing offer lists? I'm imagining a simple scale starting from Intelligent and working down to AOLer. That way you could omit sending quite so many amazing offers to those of us at the top end and concentrate your efforts on the folk that might actually buy your stuff.

Thank you ever so much.

Sincerely,
Jim

Posted by: Jim at 03:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Discovery of this phenomenon has made my life much simpler. I can now judge the relative evil of a person at a simple glance. You may doubt my conclusion now but after reading my uncorrelated, anecdotal, and harshly edited and/or manufactured evidence you will no doubt agree with me. We shall begin my recitation of facts with Bear, our largest (and therefore least evil) child.

Bear has just turned 4 and is in all ways a model child. He is polite to a fault, caring, giving, nurturing and posessed of a sweet temperment. His primary goals in life are to watch television, play video games and protect his possessions against the depradations of his younger siblings. In other words, Bear is a carbon copy of me. Except for the caring, giving, nurturing crap - I am sadly lacking all of those. But I do love the telly and video games and I'm quite protective of my worldly goods. Bear has occasional episodes of evil but they tend to relate to his life goals. For example, he may have a conniption fit when one of our more compact children take his Ozzy Osborne talking doll (which features such gems as "I love you all but you're (bleeeep) mad!" and "Sharon! I can't get this (bleep) (bleep) TV to work!") and occasionally throws a tantrum when it's time to turn off the Monsters, Inc game. All in all, Bear's evil quotient is less than 25% even under the most dire circumstances.

Our next example is Bacon. Bacon will turn 3 in a week. Bacon wants money for his birthday. Bacon wants money at all times, for all occurences. Bacon does not want toys for he has discovered that he can simply take whatever toy he wishes at any time. Bacon spends much of his time on his hands and knees looking for dropped change. We emptied the piggy bank yesterday and took his money to the big-green-machine-that-eats-your-spare-change-and-counts-it-for-you-for-the-low-low-price-of-only-8.9%-of-whatever-you-feed-it-so-you-don't-have-to-roll-it-up-in-those-stupid-paper-rolls-and-put-25-forms-of-ID-on-it-before-any-cashier-will-accept-it-and-where-can-you-get-those-blasted-things-anyway-cause-God-forbid-you-ask-at-the-bank-where-the-teller-will-look-at-you-like-you-are-an-idiot-while-the-frigid-bitch-assesses-your-account-with-a-$2.50-fee-for-your-temerity-in-actually-going-to-a-freaking-teller-when-everything-you-do-now-should-be-through-the-internet-or-at-the-non-bank-employee-time-wasting-ATM. He had over $6 there. While some of this was odd change given to him by Lovely Wife or myself the bulk of it was money he has found over the past year. Money is Bacon's sole obsession and he will lie, cheat, steal and kill to get it. We estimate Bacon's evil quotient at close to 50%.

Our third example is Burger. Burger is somewhere between 1 and 2. His birthday is in January but as a male I am unable to peg his age down to months like Lovely Wife does so you can do the math yourself if you are interested. Burger's obsessions include turning off the television, standing in front of the television when people are playing video games, taking toys from Bear and stealing Bacon's money. His other hobbies are ripping up Daddy's books and throwing food. And he bites. And throws complete dive-to-the-ground-kicking-and-screaming tantrums. In public spaces. Like churches. Burger's evil quotient is an astounding 87%. The only reason it is not higher is that he is incredibly cute while sleeping.

Although these three anecdotal and highly biased examples are far more than would be required to prove a point and then become dogma at the DNC I sense that some of you may require further examples. Very well.

Napoleon. Perhaps the most famous short dictator the world has ever known. He enslaved most of europe, using his size induced evil to his utmost advantage.

Hitler. Not only was Adolph a crackpot, egomaniacal madman, he was also short. One can only wonder how different history would have been if Adolph had achieved a normal height. And if he wasn't a crackpot, egomaniacal madman.

Mini Me. Talk about compression of evil. Yes, I know that Mini Me was a character in movies and that he "turned good" in the third one. However, he was brought to life in such convincing fashion by Verne Troyer that we cannot but help thinking of him as a real person. And nothing in Goldmember counts! Nothing! That movie didn't happen! Nah! Nah! Nah! I can't hear you!!

So you can clearly see that I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that shortness (or "The state of being vertically challenged", to be politically correct) is a primary indicator of evil. Put this knowledge to good use. Protect yourself and your loved ones from the diminutive forces of darkness. And always remember that despite my own mid 5' height I am an exception to this rule, am firmly on the side of good, and would never mislead you.

Bwah hah hah hah hah hah!!!

Posted by: Jim at 08:00 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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