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10.31.2003
Carpenter






If I could only pick three movies to watch each Halloween, these'd be the ones.



Yeah, Baby

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said he does not know whether or not he has lost his mojo, as a leading news magazine suggested, largely because he doesn't really know what mojo is.

..."Have you lost your mojo?" a reporter asked Rumsfeld during a Pentagon briefing.

Rumsfeld said he did not consult a dictionary -- as he has for words like slog about which he has sparred with reporters -- but he spoke with an aide who had.

"And they asked me that, and I said, 'I don't know what it means.' And they said, 'In 1926 or something, it had to do with jazz music.'"




HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA



10.30.2003
Butterfly Ballots Aren't All That Bad, I Guess

Electronic-voting machine manufacturer Diebold sends cease-and-desist letters to persons linking to or mirroring copies of leaked internal memos regarding Diebold's electronic voting security and certification.

Slashdot is making this out to be conspiracy over the right to vote, but I don't see that particular sinister angle -- the line in question appears to be a quote in a .sig file and not a statement from anyone representing the company. Nevertheless, Diebold is attempting to use the threat of a suit under the DMCA to stifle serious and legitimate questions about its product at a time when it is actively courting election commissions to endorse and adopt the same for their electoral process. This is obviously a problem, both in terms of the validity and security of electronic voting provided by a company with pretty well-defined political leanings and in terms of the misapplication of an ill-advised piece of federal legislation.

Found on Joe Szilagyi's Worst Weblog Ever -- thanks, Joe.



Trick.

Email from my father, whom I love more than life itself:

"Please advise your lovely wife to refer to the Food Section in today's Dispatch. Among its many worthwhile and factually accurate items is a piece listing the 10 worst candy items a Halloween trick or treater could receive this year. Number two on the list is................CIRCUS PEANUTS!!!!!"

Which same list also apparently includes such items as a toothbrush, pennies, and candy corn. The first two I get, but candy corn?

(This is all hilarious because Val loves circus peanuts. I can assure that in this, she stands alone.)



Passing of the Torch: RIP Savant

Everything ends sometime, I guess.

Nice to see some of the guys I worked with doing something else/new, though. Good luck, fellas.



10.29.2003



10.28.2003
Panel

The Kapital City Komix folk I mentioned earlier? Here's what they're doing now: PANEL.

See also: Ferret Press/PANEL weblog; book debuts next month at Mid-Ohio Con.

(I picked up the first PANEL antho a couple of months ago and was astounded at what these boys are doing. Check out the previews above -- you won't be disappointed.)




10.27.2003



10.25.2003

Picture003.jpg

Val and Worthington at the bicentennial bell casting.
posted from Gus's phone



10.24.2003
Good Questions, A Little Late

On October 16, 2003, United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld suddenly realizes that all these reporters are asking some good questions.

Page one // Page two



10.22.2003
You May Already Be a Winner

Received in email:

SUNTER INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY STAKE NL
KENVENSTRAAT 29,
6324 JS AMSTERDAM,

THE NETHERLANDS



FROM:THE DESK OF THE MANAGING DIRECTOR
INTERNATIONAL PROMOTION/PRIZE AWARD DEPT
REF:HW2/204119318/04
BATCH:18/103/JGS.

ATTN:CEO


Sir/Madam
We are pleased to inform you of the result of
the Lottery Winners International programs held on
the 22/10/2003. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number
653164251591-6011 with serial number 7321-410,batch
number 7151085135,lottery ref number 6376527711 and drew lucky
numbers 4-9-17-36-44-78 which consequently won in the
1st category, you have therefore been approved for a
lump sum pay out of US$ 500,000.00 ( FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND
United States Dollars)

CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Due to mix up of some numbers and names, we ask that
you keep your winning information confidential until
your claims has been processed and your money
Remitted to you. This is part of our security protocol
to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of
this program by some participants.

All participants were selected through a computer
ballot system drawn from over 40,000 company and
20,000,000 individual email addresses and names from
all over the world. This promotional program takes
place every year. This lottery was promoted and
sponsored by Association of software producers. we hope with part of your winning,you will take part in our next year US$20 million
international lottery. To file for your claim, please
contact our fiducial agent MR. FRED ADAMS of the,

GOLDEN TRUST AGENCY.
TEL:+31-630-215-842
FAX -31-645-588-384

Email:sunterlottory@netscape.net

Remember, all winning must be claimed not later than
15th. of November 2003. After this date all unclaimed
funds will be included in the next stake. Please note
in order to avoid unnecessary delays and
complications
please remember to quote your reference number and
batch numbers in all correspondence. Furthermore,
should there be any change of address do inform our
agent as soon as possible.

Congratulations once more from our members of staff
and thank you for being part of our promotional
program.

Note: Anybody under the age of 18 is automatically
disqualified.
yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Tina Amstrong.
Lottery Coordinator.


I'm not forwarding this one on to the Secret Service, though I probably should.



Long Time Listener, First Time Caller

And so with new futurephone in hand, I join the ranks of mobloggers worldwide, for no damn reason. I am quite sure that my boss will think this particular feature is as stupid as the push-to-talk thingy from Nextel; nevertheless, I am quite in love with the new gadget.

Other things I've wanted to talk about but haven't bothered to compose a full post about:

Saw KILL BILL on Saturday night, managing not to have really read anything beyond a bare-bones plot synopsis about the film in advance. Trailers for RETURN OF THE KING and MATRIX REVOLUTIONS were the highlights; everything thereafter was more than a little disappointing (and I'm a Tarantino fan, so it's not as if I have some snobbish opinion of him already.) As PJ pointed out, I didn't hate it as much as, say, NATURAL BORN KILLERS (which was one of the worst films I've ever seen -- don't get me started on that one), but I wasn't really all that jazzed about waiting to conclude the damn thing in February. Too bad. (Interesting how the violence of the thing has spawned its own little tempest in a teacup among the blogosphere cognoscenti.)

Only one more week of Lamaze childbirthing classes, which is good, because I'm not sure I can sit through another one like this week's, where we discussed alternative forms of "pain management" for the laboring mother -- i.e. the epidural, which apparently everyone believes is the ideal alternative until they tell you it's a catheter in your back. This doesn't even really affect me at all and I'm feeling squeamish about it.

Which also reminds me: wondering if I'll be able to do the Kapital City Komix Drinkup on the 8th (with the date getting closer, I wonder just whether I can really bring myself to go somewhere else for a couple of hours...) Probably should get Sean to go out for those promised beers before then...



10.21.2003





10.20.2003
Hip Hop Haha

Judge Raps Out a Ruling In Favor of Eminem

In a footnote to the 13-page opinion issued Friday, the Macomb (Mich.) Daily reported in Saturday's editions, Macomb County Circuit Judge Deborah Servitto added a 10-stanza verse that read, in part:

Mr. Bailey complains that his rap is trash,
so he's seeking compensation in the form of cash.
Bailey thinks he's entitled to some monetary gain,
because Eminem used his name in vain.
The lyrics are stories no one would take as fact,
they're an exaggeration of a childish act.
It is therefore this court's ultimate position,
that Eminem is entitled to summary disposition.


AWESOME.

spotted on donewaiting.com



10.17.2003
Raise Your Goblet of Rock

Disclaimer: I adored School of Rock. That said:

But School of Rock was written with a new breed of adults in mind—and their driving fear isn't that the youth of tomorrow will fall prey to what Frank Sinatra once described as "the martial marching music of every side-burned delinquent." It's that the kids might never get their rocks off in the first place. When Black first meets his school kids, who are young enough to be Dylan's grandkids, Led Zeppelin takes a backseat to Latin, and rock 'n' roll is as sexy and redemptive, in their eyes, as a square dance at a retirement home. Which might explain why Stephen Holden's New York Times review mentioned in passing that hip-hop has usurped rock's place in the public imagination; if he's right, it makes sense that the substitute teacher played by Jack Black should have to introduce his charges to the pleasures of rocking out rather than the other way around.




10.15.2003
Not Since 1945...

Mark Prior, Sammy Sosa and the Cubs cruised into the eighth with a 3-0 lead, set to end their 58-year absence from the World Series. At that point, it was almost as if the baseball gods woke up and realized these were the Cubs.

What followed was a sudden collapse that would rival anything in the Cubs' puzzling, painful past — and the emergence of baseball's most infamous fan since Jeffrey Maier.

A 26-year-old wearing a Cubs hat prevented Alou from catching Luis Castillo's ball down the left-field line.

"When it happened, Mark Redman said to me, `Let's make this fan famous,'" Florida's Derrek Lee said.

They did.

Given the last-gasp chance, the Marlins broke loose. That's about when security decided to escort the fan out. He threw a jacket over his face for protection, but not before other fans hurled beers in his direction.

"You cost us the World Series!" one fan yelled at him.




10.14.2003
A Great Disturbance in the Force



Joe Lieberman, right, converses with Ben Kenobi, left.



Yoda announces his candidacy for President of the United States.



That Looks Like It Hurts



COPA-cabana

High court to revisit online-porn law

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 — The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to revisit the thorny question of how to protect children from online smut without resorting to unconstitutional censorship.

THE CASE ASKS whether, in the name of children, the law restricts too much material that adults have the right to see or buy. On a more practical level, the court will decide whether the government can require some form of adults-only screening system to ensure children cannot see material deemed harmful to them.

This is the second time in as many years that the high court has reviewed an Internet pornography law passed by Congress in 1998 but never enforced.

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing booksellers, artists, explicit Web sites and others, challenged the Child Online Protection Act as an unconstitutional damper on free speech.

The Bush administration appealed to the high court, arguing that children are “unprotected from the harmful effects of the enormous amount of pornography on the World Wide Web.”

Nothing really further to add, I suppose, other than to register my amusement at the government's continued claim of an "enormous amount of pornography on the World Wide Web", which for some reason makes me laugh. Ah, if only there was a study that had evidence to back up that claim...



10.10.2003
Afghanistan::Iraq::Cuba

Bush Seeks Ideas for Cuban Regime Change

WASHINGTON - Eager to please a key Florida constituency, President Bush directed his secretary of state and his Cuban-born housing secretary Friday to recommend ways to achieve a transition to democracy in Cuba after 44 years under Fidel Castro.

Secretary of State Colin Powell and Housing Secretary Mel Martinez will chair a panel that will "plan for the happy day when Castro's regime is no more and democracy comes to the island," Bush said during a Rose Garden ceremony.

"The transition to freedom will present many challenges to the Cuban people and to America, and we will be prepared," the president said.


Must be where Saddam hid the WMD.



Setec Astronomy

Three days after a Princeton graduate student posted a paper on his website detailing how to defeat the copy-protection software on a new music CD by pressing a single computer key, the maker of the software said on Thursday it would sue him.

In a statement, SunnComm Technologies said it would sue Alex Halderman over the paper, which said SunnComm's MediaMax CD-3 software could be blocked by holding down the Shift key on a computer keyboard as a CD using the software was inserted into a disc drive.

"SunnComm believes that by making erroneous assumptions in putting together his critical review of the MediaMax CD-3 technology, Halderman came to false conclusions concerning the robustness and efficacy of SunnComm's MediaMax technology," it said.


... then wouldn't he just be wrong? What's the point of suing?

SunnComm alleged Halderman violated criminal provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in disclosing the existence of those driver files.


HAHAHAHA. I'm pretty sure that's not the point of the DCMA's provisions -- wouldn't that permit a software company to put some sort of hidden data mining code in their product without fear of reprisal? Doubtful at best. (Though I will admit I haven't read the specific provisions of the DCMA which might deal with this point, but only because I suspect they're not in there. It was a dumbass bill, but it wasn't that shortsighted.)



Lockstep



10.09.2003
Drinky Drinky

Just in time for the latest Democratic debate in Phoenix tonight, it's a Dem Debate Drinking Game!



10.08.2003
Crybaby

Presidential candidate Wesley Clark's campaign manager quits because he believes Clark's new political and campaign advisers aren't taking Clark's Internet support seriously enough.

...

Wonder why one might think Internet politics isn't worth taking seriously?



Politico Slapfight Go

Now that the futuristic death robot has been elected Governor of California, it's time to get back to the real political issues facing the 2004 presidential candidates:

Kerry Accuses Dean of Liking the Yankees

BOSTON - Massachusetts Senator John Kerry is again challenging presidential rival Howard Dean's allegiance to Red Sox Nation.

With Boston preparing to face archrival New York in the American League Championship Series, Kerry said Tuesday that if New York beats Boston in the best-of-seven series that begins Wednesday, he'll send New England clam chowder to Dean's campaign. He wants Manhattan chowder from Dean if Boston wins.

Kerry last month accused Dean, the former Vermont governor and current front-runner for the Democratic nomination, of being a Yankees fan.

Dean, a New York native, called the accusation insulting, and insisted he backs Boston.

And people wonder why I'm cynical.



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