The tongue must be heavy indeed; so few can hold it.

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

Posted by: Jim at 04:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I get these things constantly. Email messages from corporate servers telling me that my message was not delivered because it was infected with a virus and that I am a scumbag and that women are secretly turned off by my exceptionally shapely nipples. I know that they are incorrect on the nipples - I mean just look at the activity on that nipple post! Yowza! I'm pretty sure that I'm not a scumbag either. I know my older brother was one and I'm about as unlike him as possible so that's gotta make me some sort of anti-scumbag or something. I am also damn bloody sure that I did not send anybody a virus.

We've got antivirus at the provider level, at our mail exchanger level and at the local desktop level. I don't use the preview pane in Outlook. I don't open anything that anybody sends me unless I know exactly what it is. I don't download anything (excluding nudes and pictures of kittens of course). My non-work email also has anti-virus at the mail server level and we've got anti-virus software at home that Lovely Wife updates religiously.

So why do I keep getting messages saying I've sent out a virus? Why do I keep getting emails returned to me that I didn't send in the first place? It's because I'm being spoofed. And that leads me to the entire point of this post: this Security Watch article by Robert Vamosi. It's concise, no big words, semi-entertaining, and explains spoofing far better than I could. Go give it a read. What? You don't have 3 minutes to spare? Humor me.

Posted by: Jim at 07:57 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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We have a bottle of Pert Plus "Fresh" in the shower. I guess it was on sale or something and Lovely Wife picked it up. Being the inquisitive fellow that I am I of course gave it a gander. It has a refreshing 2-in-1 formula that is enhanced with a natural cooling ingredient you can feel. It's our coolest experience for lively hair! Well, what's not to like about that? Shampoo and conditioner in one - that alone will save me at least 15 to 20 seconds. And a natural cooling ingredient that I can feel? Why that does indeed sound like the coolest experience for my lively hair!

So of course I tried it. It lathered up quite nicely and as I was working my finger magic I started to feel it. A little tingle. A bit more tingle. A distinctive coolness, like when you dunk your head in a rain barrel on the hottest day of summer. Oh, what a cool experience! Truth in advertising and a product that worked, who'd a thunk it?

A whiff of the scent coming off of my head revealed how they did it. Eucalyptus...nice touch. A bit of menthol in the shampoo and you've got a whole new bathing experience. Gimme that koala juice, baby. I'm loving it.

And then I rinsed the shampoo from my head and realized in a grand hurry why it is not a good thing to have menthol in your shampoo. You see, shampoo is used on your hair which, for most people, is located on the top of their head. Just south of the top of your head is your face and smack dab in the middle of your face you have eye balls. Eye balls and mentholatum do not mix well. Not well at all, buster.

My eyes were closed and that is the only reason that I can see well enough to type this missive. I felt the chilling burn of menthol rinsing down my face, covering my eyes and face. I immediately felt the burn in the soft sensitive exposed parts - the corners and along the lid. And it was getting worse by the moment.

I frantically scrubbed my face with soap, trying in vain to get the napalm off. As anybody any guy who has used IcyHot can attest, menthol does not wash off of skin (think hands) well enough to allow the handling of sensitive body parts (think penis). The same rule applies to menthol that is on your eyelids and face - you can't wash it off enough to open your eyes with confidence.

Eventually I had to stop washing my face and get out of the shower. As soon as my eyes cracked open the slightest bit they were assailed by the burning fumes impregnated in the skin around them. The burning, the watering, blurry vision and pain lasted for an eternity, like the very fires of hell that await Michael Moore a good fifteen minutes as I stumbled blind through my morning ablutions.

In summary I cannot in good faith recommend this product. Although it does clean and condition as advertised, the side effects are too eerily reminiscent of coating the inside of your eyeballs with Vicks Vaporub unpleasant.

Posted by: Jim at 01:10 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 546 words, total size 3 kb.

Quite a few of the blogs I read regularly have questioned why there is no grand hue and cry from the muslim community against the actions of al-Quaeda, Hammas, and other hardline fundamentalist Islamic terrorist groups. I mself was curious about it and asked one of my muslim coworkers. She said that the average muslim is as horrified as everybody else at what these people do in the name of their religion but the majority of Islamic organizations are not run by average muslims. She compared it to the Catholic priest/pedophile thing. Catholic churches and organizations tied to the Catholic church were not the voices heard screaming about these abuses. That is simply because they take their lead from Rome. In a similar fashion the Islamic mosques and organizations here are tied very closely with sources in the Middle East. Many are directly dependent upon funding from those sources or were started by those sources or simply take their cues from those sources.

I countered that you heard plenty of Catholics quoted with their opinions on pedophile priests. She counter-countered that the same happens when moderate muslims are quoted. The problem is that they generally aren't approached and the ones that try to get heard just aren't. Single voices aren't heard and the organizations that could be heard aren't talking.

The answer seems pretty clear-cut to me. Get those single voices grouped up so they can tell the groups that are supposed to be speaking for them what they want them to say. To that end I've started up a petition to help. Muslims Against Terrorism is pretty simple. It defines terrorism, rejects it, rejects people who support it and rejects fundamentalist proponents of it. It asks that Islamic groups do likewise.

Please do me a favor (maybe do all of us a favor) and spread the word. Either link to this post or link to the petition itself at http://www.petitiononline.com/islxterr/petition.html and let people know it's out there.

Posted by: Jim at 11:05 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Many people have a problem with April Fools Day. For the most part it's because they see April Fools pranks as juvenile, cruel and stupid. Boy are they right (for the most part). The problem with most April Fool jokes is that they just aren't funny. The object is not to "get" somebody, it is to craft a unique and unexpected situation that the victim reacts to and ultimately appreciates. There are no points for playing a joke on somebody who either doesn't get it or doesn't appreciate it. That's just being inane or cruel, depending on what you do.

A proper prank takes planning and build-up. It should wash over the victim in distinct stages:

1. Victim encounters prank and suffers a moment of total confusion. The changes to their environment do not match what is expected and they have to pull out of autopilot and react with intentional reason.


2. Victim undergoes brief but severe disorientation. Realization that the expected environment is not there has reached the reasoning centers. Perhaps the victim looks around - is he in the right location? Did he make a wrong turn or somehow enter the wrong office?


3. The victim gets a spike of anger, fear, loss, humiliation or other negative emotion. As he realizes that the environment truly is altered and no simple mistake on his part can explain it away he'll suffer one or more negative emotions. Which emotion is suffered depends on what the specific prank was and how his personality reacts to the changed environment. Knowledge of the victim is very important in order to evoke acceptable negative emotions. People react to things differently and you need to have a good idea of how the victim will react. If a negative emotion is too strong or misplaced or simply not one the victim can handle then the humor has turned into cruelty at this point.


4. The victim feels immense relief as he realizes that the changed environment was the result of external intentional influence (a prank) and that his original environment has truly not been compromised in a harmful fashion. Coming from the negative feeling in the last step this can be an actual euphoric sensation. This is where many pranks fail miserably. If there is no reference for the victim to catch to realize he's been pranked he's stuck in the negative emotion above. If that lasts for any serious length of time there will be no emotional recovery when the prank is revealed.


5. The victim enjoys the humorous aspect of the prank played upon him. This stage works much better when the prankers are there to share it with the victim. Smiles and guffaws are passed around with "Man, you really got me" and "Oh, you should have seen the look on your face!", etceteras. If the joke doesn't bring the victim to this stage then it wasn't a joke.

Posted by: Jim at 10:17 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Since they insist on continuing to put up fantastically lousy sayings on the welcome board I've made Bad Sayings an actual post category. With such regular fodder for my acidic wit I'd be a fool to let such an opportunity pass by. Today's tragedy is:

Excuses are the nails to build a house of failure.

My first thought after reading this as I came in this morning (okay, my second thought - right after "what the fuck?") was "what do they use for the boards to build a house of failure?" This was followed quickly by "if the house of failure is a functional house then is it really a failure at all?"

I like that second question (okay, third if you count the "what the fuck?" as a question). I mean, if it keeps the rain off then how can you call it a failure? And if it doesn't keep the rain off you can fix it really fast just by making up a couple of excuses. Leaky roof? "I was caught in traffic." Bang, bang, bang, all fixed. Door falling off? "The vendor never called back." Bang, bang, bang, door is rehung.

If they wanted to use a good saying to denigrate excuses they should have used the old tried and true one:

Excuses are like assholes. Everybody's got one and they usually stink.

(Half credit to Dopple-G)

Posted by: Jim at 08:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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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
Post contains 219 words, total size 2 kb.

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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