Happy Birthday, Helen! It's not quite your birthday here but it is where you are so there you go!

Godspeed and safe travels on your vacation. Have fun (but not too much fun) and don't do anybody anything I wouldn't do.

Posted by: Jim at 08:49 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I had my first memorable nightmare in quite some time on Saturday night. It was one of those genuinely distressing heartwrenching real-emotion emoting dreams.

Most of the dream was fuzzy and I don't remember it. The scene that so affected me was in a garage with a generic androgynous friend (does anybody else have generic androgynous people in generic roles in their dreams?). He/she was smoking and offered me a smoke when he/she realized I didn't have any. I said no but took a drag of his/hers.

Then it hit me. I had just had a damned cigarette in my mouth and I smoked on it. Immediately following that realization was crushing guilt and extreme anger at myself. Then I was pissed and basically said fuck it. If I had a puff I might as well have a whole cigarette so I took one from generic friend's pack (generic friend wasn't there anymore - can't blame him/her as I was quite irate and most likely not fun to be around).

I smoked that thing in an absolute rage. I was so unbelievably mad and feeling like crap because there are a whole bunch of people pulling for me to quit smoking successfully. There's also a $100 price tag on the first puff of nicotine and I was mad as hell that I screwed up that bet too.

The dream sort of faded out (at least out of memory) after that. I woke up angry, which is never good. When I realized that I had dreamed it and that I had actually not smoked a cigarette I felt blessed release and a great calming.

I'm going to make it, y'all, but this psychological warfare that my subconcious is playing on me is totally unfair. Damned id.

Been off the Welbutrin for over a week. Occasional cravings but otherwise doing quite well.

One month, three days, 5 hours and 6 minutes. 644 cigarettes not smoked, saving $101.47. Life saved: 2 days, 5 hours, 40 minutes.

Posted by: Jim at 04:39 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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A lot of people just don't quite understand what the big deal is. I mean, if you break the law you go to jail, right? Well, here's the best way I've found to explain it:

WEEEE-OOOOOOO WEEEEE-OOOOOO (that's a siren, y'all)

A State trooper with the lights on and siren blaring is in your rear view, letting you know that you're screwed now. You pull over to the side, heart a bit a-flutter and sharing confused and slightly frightened glances with your passenger. The trooper walks up to your window with one hand on his gun and the other holding his shoulder mike. He leans in menacingly, never taking his hand off of his weapon.

Trooper: Do you have any idea how fast you were going?

You: I'm sorry, officer. I thought I was going the speed limit.

Trooper: And just where did you get the idea of what the speed limit was?

You: Um, from the road signs?

Trooper: ARE YOU SURE?! I think that your passenger there told you what the speed limit was. I don't think you saw the sign at all!

You: Please, officer. I really saw the sign. It said "Speed" on top and then it had a big "55" in the middle and it said "Limit" on the bottom. I swear!

Trooper: You're under arrest.

You: For what? I wasn't speeding!

Trooper: Because you lied about seeing the speed limit sign.

You were cruising along, not breaking any laws. The cops stopped you without cause and started interrogating you as if you had broken a law. You really were told about the speed limit from your friend but you panicked or were intimidated or freaked by the situation or whatever and you said you saw the speed limit sign. Even though you didn't speed and there was no reason for you to be pulled over you are now going to prison for lying about where you got the information that you used while not breaking the law in the first place. The kicker is that you were allowed to get the information from the sign or your friend so there was no reason to get flustered over it in the first place.

That is why the whole Martha Stewart thing irks me. There was no crime until the feds germinated one.

Posted by: Jim at 10:49 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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Expect nuthin' today, y'all. The weather is gorgeous and I've got serious Spring Fever. I'm playing hooky and will be spending the bulk of the day in relaxation at various outdoor locations.

Ahhhhhh...Spring...

Posted by: Jim at 09:25 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Every parent thinks their kid is special. Well, unless the kid has to wear a helmet or something. In that case they think their kid is special, meaning retarded. What I'm talking about is pre-politically correct special, as in actually special.

Yesterday I was helping the Bear fill out his Murphy Journal. Damn, need background here. Murphy is a mouse (stuffed) that goes home with the kids of Bear's class on the weekends. One kid per weekend, that is. The kid who's hosted Murphy takes pictures of the rodent and writes about the things that Murphy did in their Murphy Journal. Seeing as these are pre-schoolers they're obviously not actually writing the stuff in the journal - they dictate to us secretaries parents. So anyway...

Yesterday I was helping the Bear fill out his Murphy Journal. Crap, need a bit more background. Bear learned lower case letters in preschool and also how to sign his name. They haven't learned any upper case letters in school but he's picked them up all by himself through a combination of observation and questioning us. The point is, I already knew that he knew his printed alphabet in both cases. So...

Yesterday I was helping the Bear fill out his Murphy Journal. As intimated above this means I was writing in the journal as he dictated to me. (Hah! Bet you half thought I was going for more background in this paragraph, didn't you? Joke's on you 'cause the story's on, Baby!) Lovely Wife had done the previous entry and that was in script. Being the toady follower type person that I am I was also writing in script. After a rather longish bit of dictation Bear looked over my arm at what i was writing, rather in the stern aspect of a strict and micromanaging employer. He began reciting the letters as I wrote them down.

He knows letters in script. We did not teach him letters in script. His school most certainly did not teach him letters in script. I don't think he's picked this up from SpongeBob or the Power Rangers either.

Is my boy precocious? How will I ever know, seeing as my proximity in affection and location makes me a hopelessly compromised judge?

And more importantly, if he is a child genius, do my genes kick ass or what?

Posted by: Jim at 01:37 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Just came across this book excerpt. This looks frighteningly accurate, doesn't it?

Islam and the Palestinian Problem

Published by: Dar al-Salam, Cairo, Egypt
Year Published: 2001
The author: Dr. Abdallah Nasih Alwan

No other nation in ancient and modern times has carried the banner of fraud, evil and treachery as has the Arab nation. No other human race throughout history or from anywhere in the world has acted in such a cruel and corrupt manner and provoked such conflicts between nations as has the Arab race. (pp. 23-24)

... [in] their [the Arabs'] machinations in present times, at the beginning of the 14th century after hijrah [the "Prophet's" journey from Mecca to Madinah], the Arabs (may Yahweh's curse rest upon them) have been using devious ways of conspiracy and deceit in order to achieve their aspirations and carry out their plans of establishing their rule over the world, and take control of the world's core powers. They are targeting three main objectives:

1. The first objective: spreading dissent among the nations


2. The second objective: corrupting the faiths of the nations


3. The third objective: founding the State of Palestine, with Israel as its center, and stretching from the Euphrates to the Nile. (p. 36).

Isn't that amazing, coming from an Egyptian publisher and by an anti-Israel radical? Well, I have one little confession. I altered the excerpt according to The Radical Islamic Cypher of Truth ™. It's really pretty easy. Take anything written by any Murder Bombing supporter and switch "Jew" for "Arab" and vice versa and "Yahweh" for "Allah" and vice versa. You will transform tripe to truth faster than Jesus changed water to wine.

Pretty cool, eh?

POINTS: Where does the title of this post come from? 3 points to the first person to tell me. No searching, y'all!

Posted by: Jim at 11:53 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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As you can likely tell by the title to this post, it is Tactlessly Correct essay time. The subject of today's conversation is profanity and the misperception that camouflaging profanity allows us to discuss it in a non-profane manner.

Take the title for example. When you read it you did not interpret it as F!Bomb you, you fcuking f*ck!. You interpreted it as Fuck you, you fucking fuck! That is of course what my intent was. So what did I accomplish by obscuring the actual words? Well, I made it a bit clunky for the reader. It adds another level of forced interpretation so it takes a short bit longer to read. If the reader is not familiar with F!Bomb then I've added a confusing element where the message will not be understood until yet another level of interpretation is completed.

Look, language is all about interpretation. If i say F-word what I mean is fuck and what you understand is fuck so why would I say F-word at all? Because it's more polite? Whatever we're discussing it has something to do with fucking so it's not going to be targetted towards delicate sensibilities, right? more...

Posted by: Jim at 02:38 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Dopple-G loves MUD games. That's Multi-User-Dungeon, like the famed Everquest and others. You buy the game and then buy time on their servers to play at the same time thousands of other people are playing. They're not called MUDs any longer but I don't know what the current term is. They aren't my cup of tea.

Anyway, Dopple-G is all excited over an upcoming MUD game called City of Heroes. You get to make up and play a super hero. What could be cooler than that? Who hasn't dreampt of having a superpower? Hell, in my imagination I've had dozens of them. Still, I'm not into the playing nicely with others gaming concept so I doubt I'll play City of Heroes.

Besides, I doubt they have the superpower that I'd want.

POINTS: 3 points to the first person who can name the hero who yelled out the title to this post. No searching, y'all!

Posted by: Jim at 08:30 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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...I had this wierd drunken rambling incoherent thought. It rattled around in my skull for the better part of a couplefew hours without getting much farther than the initial concept stage. Basically, it's this: Political Correctness sucks.

Yeah, that's about as far as I got. Join with me as I mentally expound without actually organizing my thoughts prior to writing them down (this should be interesting or horrific, not sure which).

Political correctness sucks. Big time. I mean, I got ragged on the other day for saying "Oriental". You can't say "Oriental", you have to say "Asian" now. Well, I didn't mean "from Asia" I meant "from the Orient", therefore I used "Oriental" which was a perfect description for what I was talking about. Doesn't matter. You have to use "Asian" because persons of Oriental origin might be offended if you use the word "Oriental". So does that mean I should go shopping for "Asian" rugs now? No, apparently it's still okay to call rugs "Oriental". So now how do we call a person who is of formerly known as Oriental heritage so as not to confuse said person with somebody of Russian or Indian heritage? Well, you just use "Asian" and then everybody knows that you really mean "Oriental". more...

Posted by: Jim at 04:06 PM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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It's been known for a long time that appeasement doesn't work. Kipling put it very eloquently a century ago.

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,

To call upon a neighbour and to say:

“We invaded you last night—we are quite prepared to fight,

Unless you pay us cash to go away.”



And that is called asking for Dane-geld,

And the people who ask it explain

That youÂ’ve only to pay Â’em the Dane-geld

And then youÂ’ll get rid of the Dane!



It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,

To puff and look important and to say:

“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.

We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”



And that is called paying the Dane-geld;

But weÂ’ve proved it again and again,

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld

You never get rid of the Dane.



It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,

For fear they should succumb and go astray,

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,

You will find it better policy to say:



“We never pay any one Dane-geld,

No matter how trifling the cost,

For the end of that game is oppression and shame,

And the nation that plays it is lost!”



Rudyard Kipling

(1865-1936)

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

Posted by: Jim at 11:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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[Click to biggerize]

What's your job like? Mine is a whole lot like that picture above. I take tools (in my case they are computer programs) and use them in ways that the designers never contemplated having them used. Anything that I can do is fair game. The designer never intended me to use my forklift to pick up another forklift that was picking up industrial tanks and lifting them way, wayway higher than allowed in any of the specs? Well, if the designer doesn't prevent me from doing that I'm going to do it 'cause you can be sure as hell that eventually a user is going to try to do it (the proof is in the picture).

Of course there is one big difference between how I abuse product and the way it's being done in that picture. They're stretching the limits in an attempt to get something constructive and necessary done. If it was me doing QA testing I'd be rocking that thing back and forth until something broke or crashed.

The moral of the story: I love my job.

Another moral of the story: It's probably a good thing that I work in software and not at a forklift manufacturer.

Posted by: Jim at 08:15 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Lovely Wife went out with her galpal last night to get nails done and do some kbitzing. That gave me just enough time for an abbreviated Guy's Movie Night. I decided to watch Underworld. I'd heard mixed reviews on it but since Susie recommended it I knew it had to be good (five points for Susie, by the way).

As far as vampire movies go it wasn't very good. As far as werewolf movies go it wasn't very good. As far as action movies go it was awesome. The vampire/werewolf thing was really just used as a story device and to add flavor and I thought it did really well as such. The action was excellent with lots of nifty Matrix-like effects. more...

Posted by: Jim at 10:22 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I was really sad that Spain elected a communist socialist government. I mean, hasn't the failure of the socialist system been more than amply proven? Seriously, name a socialist country that isn't bankrupt or rife with monetary problems.

Perhaps more apropos to America's interests, it also means that Spain will be pulling out from the Coalition of the Willing unless we turn over control of Iraq to the UN. As that's remarkably akin to turning over a gas pump to a pyromaniac I seriously doubt that Dubya is going to go that route.

Spain pulling out of the only organized anti-terrorist coalition in the world really struck me as bad. I mean, the terrorists are definitely going to be looking at this as a win. They blew up some trains, murdered a whole bunch of people and scared the Spaniards enough that they elected the Appeasement Party. Al Qaeda and the rest of those scum are going to look at this as proof that their terror tactics work. more...

Posted by: Jim at 09:26 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The 2004 Peacock Invitational is now in progress. Our contestants are:

Me
Tiffany
Joey
Jeremy
Tiger

The five of us are now on our honor to not smoke until March 15 of 2005. That's no smoking, period. No taking a single puff off of a buddy's cig. No pipe or stogie in the champagne room. No chaw or other sneaky ways to get nicotine either*.

The penalty if anybody fails is to pay each of the other betters $25 each. That means that for all of us the next cigarette we smoke in the next year would cost us $100. If that's not an incentive not to suck on a butt then I don't know what is.

Good luck my compatriots. I sincerely hope I don't see a dime from any of you.

* Exceptions are valid quit-smoking aids like Nicorette Gum or the Patch.

Posted by: Jim at 04:05 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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As mentioned previously tonight was Guy's Movie Night. The festivities began with Die Unendliche Geschichte, more commonly known as "The Neverending Story" (and just what the hell is up with IMDB putting up a title like that as the primary one? Sheesh!). The boys loved it (the two older ones that is, the little guy didn't make it to movie time) and I appear to have been spared from anybody screaming over scary wolf nightmares (knock on wood). Helen gets the points for this one. She didn't just recommend it, she bought it for us. Helen, you're awesome beyond words' poor description.

Once the lads were abed the grownup fare came out. I watched Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. I'd been putting this one off for a long, long time. You see, Terminator is one of my all time favorite absolutely most loved and cherished movies in the universe. Terminator 2 is quite likely the first sequel I've ever seen that didn't totally piss me the fuck off. On the contrary, it rocked as much as the first one (although in a different way). So I've been terrified of watching #3. I mean, Cameron wasn't even involved in this one! What if it totally sucked? Or didn't totally suck but went all eXtreme and shit and pissed me off in those more subtle suckass ways? Well, it didn't. It wasn't the movie that 1 or 2 were but it wasn't that far behind and it most definitely didn't tarnish its predecessors. Once I started to relax (when I acknowledged that it wasn't sucking ass) I really started to enjoy it. Very excellent ending, too! So long as they keep Jerry Bruckheimer very very far away from it, I'll watch #4 too (you just know that there's going to be a #4 after an ending like that). Points for this recommendation go to Christine.

Honorable mention go to Underworld and Intolerable Cruelty (Susie and MojoMark, respectively). Those were my next choices and will probably fill my slate on the next Guy's Movie Night.

Posted by: Jim at 01:40 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 My pleasure

Posted by: Helen at March 15, 2004 08:10 AM (6dPV0)

2 I just wanted to mention that I SAW that you also "rented" some kind of "erotic" type of movie on our beloved VOD. When will you EVER learn that the FREE ones SUCK!?! Hell,what am I saying?THANK GOD THEY ARE FREE! I just hope the boys didn't get to see it...I rather pay for them to see a GOOD one! :-)

Posted by: LW at March 15, 2004 11:00 PM (saeHM)

3 VOD kicks ass! Okay, so the free erotic movies don't have a plot or any decently graphic sex. They have boobs and asses and those are still fun to watch.

Posted by: Jim at March 16, 2004 05:09 AM (saeHM)

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Lovely Wife will be going on hens' night this Saturday, leaving me all alone and at the mercy of the three spawn boys. This is cool for a couple of reasons.

First, she gets out and away from the kids to bleed off some of that accumulated kid rearin' pressure. Sure our kids are an unbearable trial great but she's got at least one of them 24 x 7 except for the rare occasions when she runs out to the store when I'm home. This lets her relax so the chance that she'll snap and just de-skin one of the buggers is dramatically reduced.

Second, she comes back with cool stories. Like the older lady that was trying to pick up The Godfather (part 1) when he was visiting from The Netherlands. Or the time she got touched by Bill Gentry (while she was wearing her galpal's shirt so she can't possibly give that shirt back now). Or even the infamous Purple Velvet Cowboy. Yes, an actual human type person went to a night club in a metropolitan area dressed in a purple velvet cowboy outfit. You just can't get stuff like this from a night at home.

Third, and most importantly, I get to watch movies. Don't get me wrong, we do watch movies together as well. It's just that those movies are ones that only she likes we both like. Ones from the Lifetime Network or Oxygen or The Oprah Channel or like The Usual Suspects or From Dusk Til Dawn. Pretty much anything that makes a temporary vagina grow on male viewers or ones that are mob, true crime or vampire related but not a lot else. Specifically, no sci-fi or fantasy or general horror.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to suggest movies for me to watch this Saturday evening. They should be very good ones that are available now on DVD and for the love of GOD, no chick flicks. They don't have to be recent ones - I sure haven't seen everything.

POINTS: Why the heck not? Five points if I end up watching the movie you suggest. Points awarded to the first suggester only.

Posted by: Jim at 01:46 PM | Comments (22) | Add Comment
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We're getting close. The 2004 Peacock Invitational starts this Sunday night (at midnight). We've got 5 people who are willing to pony up $100 if they smoke at any time for the year of the bet. Care to join us?

I started a bit early, having had my last smoke on Feb 27. That puts my quittin' stats at: One week, five days, 22 hours and 5 minutes. 258 cigarettes not smoked, saving $40.70. Life saved: 21 hours, 30 minutes. (Stats courtesy of this nifty little proggie I heard about from Tiger.)

Posted by: Jim at 09:38 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Most arcade game manufacturers go for racing, fighting or some sort of shooting galery concept. As far as I know the repeatedly ram a giant plastic finger into a virtual rectum milieu is virgin territory. Or it was until recently anyway.

The Boon-Ga Boon-Ga game allows the intrepid player to sodomize one of eight characters including ex-girlfriend, mother-in-law, prostitute and child molester. As you spank and invade the nether regions of your selected victim they scream in agony on the game screen. At the end of your session you get a card that gives you your sexual proficiency rating.

Although the game might seem a bit gratuitously violent (and otherwise disturbing) at least it is promoted by big soft cuddly characters. One is a giant version of the probing fist of doom and the other is a six foot tall shit monster.

I don't have anything else for this one. It's well beyond any satirical skills I may have previously possessed. I'm pretty much just stunned and running on at this point. Let me leave you with a portion of the game review from SeanBaby:

This game does more than threaten the future with an army of highly trained madmen proctologists, it shames America's industrial complex. First we lose the space race to the Commies, and now Japan and Korea have beaten us in the great Virtual Digital Rectal Stimulation Simulation race. And if you're anything like me, you've already asked yourself about the dangers of this ass technology being in the hands of two foreign powers known for giant radioactive monsters and nuclear weapons, respectively. And again, if you're like me, this train of thought quickly hits a wall when you realize that you're not an accredited expert on foreign colon-probing policies. So until one of us is, let's just assume that we're all going to die, but not quite as quickly if we stay far away from Boong-Ga Boong-Ga.

Amen, brother.

(Hat tip to Dopple-G, may he burn eternally for exposing me to this)

Posted by: Jim at 03:57 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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A powered dish scrubber? I couldn't believe my eyes when i saw a commercial for this one. It's a powered screwdriver with a scrubber at the end! The commercial showed the happy housewife getting a bunch of fresh food residue off of otherwise squeeky clean plates, just like any other dishwashing commercial. The difference was she did it with this extrememly slowly rotating two and a half pound appliance.

There is no poor-man's dremel that is going to make dishwashing fun and easy and this seven dollar toy isn't going to do anything that some hot water and a sponge can't do faster and better.

It's a shame that Wal-Mart is going to sell a bajillion of these things and encourage some other dumbass to give birth to the next useless helper appliance.

Posted by: Jim at 12:50 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Heh, I won't waste my money on it. My "power dish scrubber" is named "Scott" and he only scrubs once a week. That disposable toilet brush? That I may invest in. I have coupons

Posted by: Tiffany at March 10, 2004 02:27 PM (rDyup)

2 haha.. I'm surprised they didn't call it the"kraft-matic power dish scrubber"!

Posted by: jim at March 10, 2004 03:42 PM (lN8eP)

3 You obviously didn't read how Bacchus over at Erosblog employed it. Apparently, it never came near a dish.

Posted by: Christine at March 11, 2004 08:52 AM (Q/NXM)

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I've got this love/hate thing with cats. Some are ultra cool. The cats living in my house are this type. Henk is a sexy black beast who thinks he's a dog. He comes when you call, wants to play and be petted constantly and gets along well with the canines in the house. Apple is a fat lazy thing and the only doglike quality she has is that she's a bitch. In other words, she's more of your typical cat. She's still cool though since she likes me and comes out specifically for a Jim petting when the mood strikes her.

I've lived with cats that I thoroughly hated as well. When I was in high school my sister had an evil black monster named Misty (which was also the name of one of my cousins and boy did I get a couple laughs out of that). She hated men. No matter how nice my dad and I tried to be with that cat it would hiss and run away and get its fur in a bunch just like those Halloween stereotype cats. I still kept making the overtures until one day when I got home from school and noticed a nasty smell in my bedroom. Specifically from my dresser. Because that spawn from hell had pissed on my clothes. It was open warfare after that and I took extreme glee in waging a guerilla campaign against that beast that made the last years of its life a frightening glimpse into the hell in which it would spend eternity.

So what has got me thinking about evil cats all of a sudden? The feral beasties that live around my house. I am sick of finding dead bird pieces in my yard. I'm sick of cat prints on my car. I am sick of cats shitting where my kids play. I have had enough of these half wild, half starved, vile, disease carrying felines. I am declaring war.
I am buying a pellet gun and any time I see any of the 8 or 9 miscreants anywhere near my property I am going to shoot the fucker. I'm going to shoot it as many times as I can before it gets out of my range. I'm going to teach Lovely Wife how to fire the gun so she can defend the castle when I'm at work.

And if that doesn't do the trick I'm going to escalate the conflict and get a paint ball gun. I'll put out cat traps. I'll go Carl Freakin' Spackler on their asses!

This is your notice, cats. I'm coming for you and there's not a damn thing your friends at PETA or in France can do about it.

POINTS: 2 points for the first person to source Carl Spackler. No searches, y'all.

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