Sunday, July 29, 2007

hmmm...

what am i doing

i think something needs to change

Saturday, July 28, 2007

i've seen them roaming through at night....
and at dawn...
circling the pond thinking about fishing...
with their beady eyes and ringed tails...

but this morning i think i saw them disappear under the deck...

yes, i may have terrists living in my yard

hey mel - come chase them away for me

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

While I'm Waiting to do something productive and as we all watch LiLo perform the toilet death-spiral of her nascent career...

I finished watching Kar Wai Wong's 2046 the other night... one of the best pieces of cinema I've seen in years. Spectacular. I never knew where it was going and it tore me up. Zhāng Zǐyí is an actress... damn...

Watched The Departed afterwards... probably a mistake - since it felt like a poor imitation of a hong kong police action drama (of course, there's a good reason for that). Ok fine - it might well be better than the original 'Infernal Affairs' (which i havent seen) - but after seeing 2046 I couldn't help but feel I was watching a knockoff. A screenplay that hollywood loved, but to me felt piled high with caricatures and mediocre performances (sorry, but Nicholson just felt like The Joker sans makeup). Then again - maybe it's Wong's fault for making such a good film.

Followed that up with a couple truly crappy films... as i'm running out of things in my queue that are worth watching. Not that that bothers me all that much - i've found a couple really really good series of fansubbed anime that have taken up the slack. (Yes, I'm embracing my inner geek... but some of this stuff has just gotten REALLY good). Kanon requires some patience and a willingness to get past the big-eyed style - but man when the hooks sink you're screwed. Shakugan no Shana was fun too in a far cheesier and less adult sort of way, as are a number of the Spring season releases from this year. If your experience with anime is Speed Racer, Robotech, and /or Pokemon - you might consider a new look - afterall - you cant judge Morrison's Invisibles or The Watchmen based on Ditko's ROM or the old Archies. This stuff has become a remarkable medium for storytelling.

And now that you're giggling at my childish source of entertainment - i'll go back to reading Cormac McCarthy - which is the other thing i've been doing - so piss off ;)

Friday, July 20, 2007

Unbelievable...

Guilty of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit larceny, housebreaking, kidnapping, false official statements and murder for his involvement in the death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad - an Iraqi Police Officer.
And he gets what... a year in jail and now he goes home?

I'm really beginning to question my support for the military men and women who serve... and that's screwed up. Who signs up for the military these days... because if this and the other stories like it is any indication - it's right back to the days of the Texas Rangers - Rapists, Thugs, and Murderers - all in the guise of authority and wrapped in the flag. WTF is happening to my country.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

heheh...
i love this

"His mother isn't exactly making the most of her high-speed connection. She only uses it to read Web-based newspapers."

So, hollywood... you afraid yet? you should be...

I love the president.
I think what we're doing in Iraq is absolutely the right thing.
I really want to encourage him and all the people that support him.
Because, in the end, he's a great man... and so are all the wonderful people who agree with me.

There...
so please don't take all my stuff.

(when does someone stop him from using the constitution to wipe his ass? - oh crap... did i say that out loud... kidding!!! i was kidding!!! really....)

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Watched CSPAN all night....
Listened to Hillary drone (she just doesnt have the *fire*)
Listened to Norm Coleman (he just doesnt have a brain)
Listening to Kerry (wtf were the dems thinking with this dumbass)

why cant we have senators who can hammer this issue - it's not like it's a surprise... eloquence? rhetoric? nah... but nice ties and tailored suits.

ahh well... it's a democracy... you cant have everything.

Also saw that there's a rebuttal to william kristol's tripe from a couple days ago (the W will be seen as a great president spew). The 250 pages of responses had to rattle the WP's editorial board... since they were almost all better considered than Kristol's cheerleader routine. The problem, of course, is that Kristol could be right - and no one sees it...

my response:

There is only one thing Corn misses here... Bush is a symptom. The problem is the 27% of this country who still - in the face of such overwhelming evidence - 'feel in their gut' that Bush is doing a great job. We have a terrifying minority in this country - driven to the irrational - willing to put their own egos before reality or the interests of their families, friends, communities, or country. Kristol and Podhoretz are canaries - there is a poison in the Republic - and if left to fester, god help us, a future America could evolve that all but worships W. Afterall - which among you could have imagined the absurd state of our current political rights and freedoms 10 years ago?

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Next time i'm in china...

The World Needs More Bears

The Christian thing to do is to love them...
to forgive them for what they've done.

But when i see stories like this...

My heart goes out to the father who not only has to grieve for the loss and empathy for the things his daughter went though - but also has to struggle with the worthless and bitter taste of vengeance...

Me? - makes me glad i'm not a christian... Fine - call me a barbarian texan - but i'd cut out that son of a bitch's small intestine, nail it to a tree, and stake the chained bear to the adjacent post myself (an old native american method of disposing of people like this). And when those good hearted people who oppose the death penalty ask 'but who are you to judge' i'd say 'i'm the guy with the bear'.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Diaper Dave Apologizes

So Diaper Dave, the esteemed senator from Louisiana, has said he's sorry he got caught having sex with a prostitute. And now that he's said he's sorry - he wants to move on - get on with the business of representing the values of the good god-fearing republicans that elected him. According to him "I'm not going to answer endless questions about it all over again and again and again and again" - ok - how about answering some endless questions once, maybe twice.
In the mean time he wants to get back to work... seeing to the erection of fences on our borders... making sure I-49 gets laid promptly and efficiently... and improving Louisiana's problems with mother nature's overly exuberant discharges.
The beautiful bit though? Wendy...
"I stand before you to tell you very proudly, I am proud to be Wendy Vitter."

When you proudly proclaim your pride...

Proverbs 6:16 - These six things doth JHVH hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 - A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 - An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19 - A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.


Lake of Fire? Why yes... i believe they'll take a window and an aisle if they're available...

how many times to i get to combine politics and work in a post?

So one of the lawyers for Antigua in the WTO dispute with the US was interviewed recently - and this is the result. If you didnt understand the situation before - it's a great primer.

Now - lets talk about what happens. "Antigua didn't bring this case so it can sell cheap Microsoft products or DVDs" is a great indicator. When the flag goes up on this - i expect a lot of 'certificate of authenticity' shops to go up in antigua. Redmond is going to suffer - badly - because its going to be SQL connector licenses that go out the door first. The film industry will be next - esp if Antigua begins offering 'legal' copies of movies on the internet that havent hit the theaters yet (yes - that will happen - quickly i might add).

So what's the Bush administration's best method for dealing with this? Bush doesnt have fast-track trade authorization anymore... that expired... so... i guess... this? This is going to be a massive political problem in about 4 months... really...

I never thought Adam Sandler was funny. Not when he was on his Remote Control days (i only watched that to see the beautiful Marisol... not Kari Wuhrer)... not when he was on SNL as _____-guy, idiot with guitar singing sophomoric cringeworthy songs on weekend update... not when he was in any of his copy-paste romantic comedies where he's put in some absurd situation with some beautiful woman and hairbrained hilarity ensued. He wanted to be Bill Murray... badly... and he was always just a shadow. A mimeographed copy - with the blue smudgy color and the get you stoned smell.

But for all that - i never wanted him to be hit by a train.

Until now.

DIAF Adam.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

They really just dont get much stranger than this... (the comments are worth reading - but the video... bwahahahahaah)

Friday, July 13, 2007

Saw a painful story on homeless mentally ill being shoveled into prisons in florida. Makes me want to give up on fixing anything here... Maybe open a take-out BBQ joint in Beijing... franchise it... call it Perfecto or something... "I will start a chain of BBQ Joints in the world. This will go down in history. Take out for everyone there. Perfecto." The 15 yr old just had the wrong product. Too much exposure to Chertoff's gut...

Thursday, July 12, 2007

One to make you feel better about the future....

because some days, like today where the president admitted someone in his administration leaked the name of a covert CIA operative specializing in nuclear nonproliferation for personal political gain and he was pretty much ok with it and just wanted to move on....

and where Joe Biden pretty much nails the current situation in Iraq with "Absent an occupation – which we cannot sustain; or the return of a dictator—which we cannot support; Iraq cannot be governed from the center"...

some days you need it.

Truth to power. It doesnt help - but like the kid said - "silence betokens consent"

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

The Iraqi port city of Basra, already prey to a nasty turf war between rival militia factions, has now been gripped by a new fear -- a giant badger stalking the streets by night.

It gets better... (from the article)

"I saw it three days ago at night attacking animals. It even ate a cow. It tore the cow up piece by piece. I tried to shoot it with my gun but it ran away into the orchards. I missed it," he said.

In Iraq there can be only one explanation for an animal so vicious.

"I believe this animal appeared following a raid to the region by the British forces," said Ali Mohsen, a farmer in his 40s from Karmat Ali, near the air base used by the multinational force.

"As we are close to the airport, they probably released this animal into the area," he reasoned.

Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi, director of Basra's veterinary hospital, has inspected the corpses of several dead badgers and tries to reassure his fellow citizens that they are not a new post-war arrival in the region.

"These animals appeared before the fall of the regime in 1986. They are known as Al-Ghirayri and locally as Al-Girta," he told AFP. "Talk that this animal was brought by the British forces is incorrect and unscientific."

Dont let the lies fool you. The British have obviously been working on improving their advanced Hedgehog technology... and are just using Iraq as another venue to test their weapons of terror!!!

and now for your moment of zen....

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

And today's winner of the Colin 'Mobile Biological Weapons Labs' Powell "I tried to do my job for 2 1/2 whole hours" award for ineptitude and cowardice goes to Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona.

Yes - yet another Profile in Non-Courage for this administration. I guess if you're going to pick lapdogs that are going to whine about how shitty things were - at least they did right by picking ones that hold the whining until the team is mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

hehehe

In 2000, Wendy Vitter told Newhouse News Service she could not be as forgiving as Livingston's wife or Hillary Clinton.

"I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary," she said. "If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."

Put up or shut up Wendy...
I'll even buy you the knife...

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Colin 'Mobile Weapons Labs' Powell on Iraq

THE former American secretary of state Colin Powell has revealed that he spent 2½ hours vainly trying to persuade President George W Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today’s conflict cannot be resolved by US forces.

“I tried to avoid this war,” Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. “I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.”

Wow. 2 1/2 hours. You did your job for a whole 2 1/2 hours. Bully for you. You deserve a cookie. How can you sleep at night you piece of shit. Suck eggs.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Oh Noes!!!
Religious Extremest Terrorists!!!
in Texas!!!
Bombing Churches!!!

nevermind... they're white christians...
nothing to see here - move along...

Full points to MSN for their Live Earth coverage. Great functionality at the site... and tremendous crowd response. I mean - i HAD to watch it just for the Spinal Tap reunion (and Big Bottom featuring 30 bass players was pretty damned funny). Foo Fighters was what you'd expect - Grohl owning the scene (they really are remarkably talented) - but I was pleasantly surprised by Keith Urban and the Abingdon Boys School.

I'll be flipping about the rest of the afternoon. The upcoming Jpop scares me... but how can i miss it ;)

----- edit

Ok - Alicia Keys is really really pretty and i love her voice... but for some reason Dave Grohl is sexier. Hmmm... not sure how i feel about that.

Friday, July 06, 2007

hmmmmmm.....

George Bush should resign, retire to his 'ranch', and never be heard from again.
George Bush should resign, retire to his 'ranch', and never be heard from again.
George Bush should resign, retire to his 'ranch', and never be heard from again.
George Bush should resign, retire to his 'ranch', and never be heard from again.
George Bush should resign, retire to his 'ranch', and never be heard from again.
George Bush should resign, retire to his 'ranch', and never be heard from again.
George Bush should resign, retire to his 'ranch', and never be heard from again.
George Bush should resign, retire to his 'ranch', and never be heard from again.
George Bush should resign, retire to his 'ranch', and never be heard from again.
George Bush should resign, retire to his 'ranch', and never be heard from again.
George Bush should resign, retire to his 'ranch', and never be heard from again.
George Bush should resign, retire to his 'ranch', and never be heard from again.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Transformers - The Movie

Ok. It's not like anyone who's going to go see this thing is going to see it or avoid it because I said so... but since it's 2 am and I'm bored and i have this LOOOONG diatribe about housing and city planning and burbclaves and outgrouping that I dont really want to go post on Sharon's blog (i know... i know... shoot me)...

Freedom is the right of all sentient beingsSo instead I'm going to talk about robots. Now just because I used to use Transformers as the naming convention for all our servers at the ISP... and I actually OWN a mid 80s version of Optimus Prime and he's sitting on top of my monitor right now... that doesnt make me biased. Well... ok... maybe it does. Cause see... Transformers is ROCKIN COOL. Ok - maybe not THAT cool... but it's a lot more fun than that insipid Shrek crap and a HELL of a lot better than anything Pixar has done in 5 years. There. Got your attention?

Lots of graphic violence without the violence... there are homage shots to the way they did violence in the 40s... giant scorpion robot chases special forces soldier across ruins - special forces soldier is screaming like a banshee - scorpion robot whips its tail back - piece of rubble gets in the way JUST as the tail comes down and the sound cuts off. No blood. Just an implied 'fatality' (if only he had said 'GET OVER HERE'...) Anyway - the plot is silly... but it is SUPPOSED to be silly. They're GIANT ROBOTS looking for the allspark!!! - a giant cube that makes machines into psychotic killers (would loved to see how the 30s engineers handled their cement mixers back in the day). But it never takes itself seriously... there's big city fight scene - where one transformer protects the others from harm by holding up a truck full of furbys... another scene where Megatron is disgusted by having landed on a bunch of humans (they did refer to humans as insects previously - so that sorta holds up) - all achieved in an absolutely absurdly bloodless environment. Lots of dead people - 0 buckets of blood - no boobies (but the film does make Megan Fox look pretty damned good)... NO hubris bobs - because the damned movie even pokes fun at its constant hawking of chevy cars (they use the pontiac commercial music at one point)... only 3 Bobs for Predictability (which is impressive for a movie where you KNOW whats supposed to happen) because Bay just basically strings one crazy explosive chase seen into another and you really dont know where he's going to take it... and, of course, 5 bobs for stupidity - but name a film that's been greenlit in the last year that didnt earn 5 of those. Great contributions from Turturro and Bernie Mac in a movie that really isnt about the actors - its about the GIANT FREAKIN ROBOTS. And VERY good to get the original voice of Optimus Prime in there guys. Full points on that one (if Ebay doesnt use Optimus in a TV ad - they're idiots).

Bay and the studio could have done bad things to this... made it into an Inspector Gadget sorta film... but they didnt. They made it gritty and violent - peppered it full of sappy military montages (which are almost a guarantee of imminent military deaths), and lots of absurd fun.

At the end of the summer, do you want to look back and say 'i should have gone to see Transformers'... yeah - exactly...

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Olberbmann nails it...

I'm sick of that evil son of a bitch... if there were a just god...

Monday, July 02, 2007

Worst President Evar

He's an evil horrible man with a tiny dick taking it out on the world - and i'm tired of apologizing for him. I cant tell you how wrong this is... there aren't words to describe it... i hope this puts more people on the 'impeach that SOB Cheney' bandwagon. I'm liking Kucinich more and more these days (and it has nothing to do with his totally hot wife)

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Once upon a time...
there was a country. Oh sure - the country took itself a little seriously - and had this odd sense of purpose - they called it manifest destiny in some circles, they called it flat out arrogance in others, and in yet others they called it imperialistic capitalism. One thing that was certain - there was a whole lot of ego involved.

So this country got itself into a land war in asia - something we all know is probably the second greatest classic blunder one can make. But I'm getting away from myself. The year was 1968 - and a campy fairly unpopular show was in its second season on network television - taking shots at those that felt war and violence was 'the answer' to political problems.

So fast forward 40 years... yes - its been nearly 40 years... and today we find ourselves in a much stranger position. Senators from the opposition party arguing for the elimination of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms... a vice president acting without regard to the rule of law... and the supreme court having to reconsider the question of whether those detained and in custody on american soil can be held without trial, without rights, without the sorts of guaranteed safeties the Eee Pleb Neesta was written to guarantee...

The overacting canadian said it right...

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
"These words, and the words that follow, were not just written for the Yangs, but for the Kohms as well!"
"But the Kohms–"
"They must apply to everyone, or they mean nothing! Do you understand?"
Leave it to us to let a canadian rub our noses in how far we've fallen - and do it in a cheesy sci-fi timecapsule commentary on the last big military failure of our nation. Happy Canada Day - and thank you. Rub our noses in it every time if you would...

You might ask yourself - 'why is he so glad to be back in Austin?'
Is it the people?
Is it being in his house for a change?
Is it sleeping at night in his own bed?
or is it...