VV Day: Victory over Verizon

Consumerist has been hot on the trail of Verizon since they notified customers of a change to their service agreement. Basically, with or without a text messaging plan, you're going to have to pay for text messages to and from international carriers (which the current plan covers), and the rate for them is going up from $0.10 to $0.15 per message. That means if Guapo in Honduras spams your phone with a text message from Donkey Cellular, you're getting a bill.

Since I love any opportunity to play hardball with the Ivan Seidenberg gestapo, I decided to make an issue of this and see if I could get a better deal on a contract extension. Instead, they rolled over and waived my early termination fee so I can go elsewhere.

Thank you for contacting Verizon Wireless through our website. My name is April, and I am happy to provide you with the details on how to port your number out. However, we value you as a wireless customer, and would like the opportunity to retain your business.

I regret to hear of your decision to cancel your service with Verizon Wireless and port your wireless number to another service provider. In the event that you do chose to port your number out, you will not be billed an Early Termination Fee.

Now that I got exactly what I want, I need to figure out what I'm going to do about it. I mapped out my usage for the past six months:



I keep coming back to the same judgments I made a year ago when I switched to Verizon (in order from best match to worst match):

Selection of phones: 1.) Cingular 2.) T-Mobile 3.) Verizon
Quality of service: 1.) Verizon 2.) Cingular 3.) T-Mobile
Service plans: 1.) T-Mobile 2.) Verizon 3.) Cingular

fucking ::sigh::

Off the donor list

DSC01633.JPG, originally uploaded by jweisen.

All day, I've been wondering if I might need a new liver. Wow.

Thanks to everybody who made it out. For those who didn't, the photos are on Flickr.

Happy Birthday To Me!

First, thanks to all the well-wishers. It's nice that so many people remember, especially when I always forget their birthdays.

Now, if you're wondering what to get me, here are some suggestions.

An all expenses paid foam rave in Ibiza:



An adorable squat mammal (chocolate lab):



Or, for my house to be done, and Joyce DeWitt and Suzanne Somers to be my new roommates:



Any of those three would be great.

If you'd like to join the festivities, Joey sent out one of her famous Evites yesterday.

Thanks =)

Sun One + ColdFusion: GET /buttfucker/CFIDE/administrator/ HTTP/1.1" 302 0

Apologies to my non-nerd readers who don't get this, and can only see the anger rising off the screen.

I've been sucked back in this Content Management project, even though I did my part and ran the entire proof-of-concept to pick the software. The product we chose runs on Adobe ColdFusion. For the proof-of-concept, we used the webserver built into ColdFusion since we only had like 5 users hitting the thing. For a production system, however, you need to deploy ColdFusion inside of another webserver.

Barry and I have been playing circus seal to try and make that happen, and today we finally got Sun One to a point where we could install and deploy ColdFusion...but it doesn't work. We keep getting this error:

Error [service-j2ee-2] - The Graphing service is not available.This exception is usually caused by service startup failure. Please check your server configuration.

Now, we know what the problem is. There's a non-headless deployment and a headless deployment, and a bunch of bullshit related to X11 fonts blah blah blah...nobody fucking cares. Their knowledge base had nothing useful to fix this. We just paid a mint for an Enterprise CF license, but I can't get any fucking support from Adobe without selling my right nut because we got it under our volume license agreement. They're supposed to provide free install support, but their website makes submitting the question almost impossible. So I turned to the message boards on their website to find out what the web rats had to say.
There are three Java arguments in dispute:

• -Xbootclasspath/a:cf_root/WEB-INF/cfusion/lib/webchartsJava2D.jar
• -Djava.awt.headless=true
• -Djava.awt.graphicsenv=com.gp.java2d.ExHeadlessGraphicsEnvironment

Now, the webchartsJava2D.jar contains both the ExGraphicsEnvironment and ExHeadlessGraphicsEnvironment class files. So why are we getting an error that ExHeadlessGraphicsEnvironment can't be find?

Clearly, if I just delete and redeploy the EAR it will be fixed...

Will: so you hate the coldfusion?
theAlphaJohn: ><
theAlphaJohn: we're having a lot of trouble getting coldfusion to run inside another webserver
Will: and [redacted] is going to try and get a special server contract with ITU
theAlphaJohn: huh/what?
Will: yeah
Will: he is so angry because you guys don't call him back within five minutes of the requests that you cannot perform
Will: so he wants a contract
theAlphaJohn: lol
theAlphaJohn: what 3 person company did he work at before this?
Will: hahaha
theAlphaJohn: we have 150 people in IT
theAlphaJohn: which would make us slow
theAlphaJohn: and then add the fact that we're a university
theAlphaJohn: which makes us slower
theAlphaJohn: and that we're a state agency
theAlphaJohn: which makes us useless
Will: hahaha
theAlphaJohn: haha
Will: and [redacted] is driving me up a wall
Will: jesus h
Will: i am starting to loathe inefficient web 2.0
theAlphaJohn: i need some liquor 2.0
theAlphaJohn: i'm redeploying coldfusion to /buttfucker on zetes1
theAlphaJohn: we'll see if that works

It didn't...but the access logs make me cackle.

Ouch...that smarts

At Christina's bequest, (read: constant nagging), I finally went to see an orthopedic surgeon about both shoulders on Friday. I've had trouble in the pool and in my strength workouts for a couple months now; nothing serious, but some tenderness, pinching, and occasionally if I overdo it during swim practice I will have a shoulder 'fail' and have to get out of the pool.

I only had to wait a week for the appointment. The orthopedic did a brief exam on range of motion and strength before he sent me back for a set of x-rays (right on premises). I came back in the room with the x-rays and he read them right there. Other than bone spur on the right shoulder, everything is fine structurally. It looks like I have tendonitis in both rotator cuffs. That seems to jive with what I've been feeling.

Prescription: rest, ice, 400mg advil three times per day, and physical therapy.

Fucking swell.

Welcome Snow Gods

Plowed into light posts, we pray to thee:

Huh...I wonder what kind of truck that is??

Hey look! It's the Honda dumbshit!

Your car's model name is on your registration, and it's 18 inches to the right of your license plate. Did you really need to pay $10 extra a year so it's on the plate too, asshole?

Did you??

Why work when you can talk about genitals?

I've done a lot of work this week, but every non-work conversation this week was about suicide, glory holes, or genitals. So emotionally, I'm about half my age this week.

Will: so josh thinks the name of the flag football team should be the JC Jumpers
theAlphaJohn: !!!
theAlphaJohn: no one will allow that
Will: ya think?
theAlphaJohn: i fucking love it though
theAlphaJohn: i'd rathy be "thompson's glory holes"
Will: haha
theAlphaJohn: we went from softball to flag football?
Will: hahaha
Will: more people are down for football
theAlphaJohn: like i care. i suck equally dude
theAlphaJohn: i'll man up and do whatever
Will: when i played on the softball team a couple years back
Will: i used to smoke and play at the same time
theAlphaJohn: LOL
Will: so
Will: it's not exactly serious
theAlphaJohn: i'll bet you got mad trim for that
Will: shaking it off with a stick
theAlphaJohn: even your tee shirt that said "i have herpes and my religion forbids valtrex"
theAlphaJohn: still needed a bodyguard i'll bet
Will: hahaha
theAlphaJohn: the ladies with smoking fetishes wanted your junk in their trunk
Will: well
Will: they don't call me STD for nothing
theAlphaJohn: VD
theAlphaJohn: it must be latin for "will"
Will: haha
Will: i am making the homepage button for the vaginia monologues
Will: i want it so when you scroll over you get
Will: "rockin'
theAlphaJohn: LOL
Will: "rockin' the va jay j Februrary 12th Harris Theater"
theAlphaJohn: how hot is that?
theAlphaJohn: the vagina monologues: rock out with your cock out
Will: i am scared of the vagina monologues
Will: hahaha
theAlphaJohn: i am too
Will: rock out with your clam out
Will: hahahaha
theAlphaJohn: it scares me how evil i can be around you
Will: actually now that you mention
Will: i do this to lots of people
Will: hahaha
theAlphaJohn: are you like the naughty muse?
Will: i must be
Will: with a heart of gold
theAlphaJohn: aww
theAlphaJohn: you're so adorable, all i can do is pinch your cheeks and wish a horrible death on muppets and children

Tom: Glory-osky! I loved the post about the posting on the glory hole in the men's bathroom.
theAlphaJohn: lol
theAlphaJohn: kirsten cracks me up
Tom: Yeah. She was shocked to hear about such things. I am not sure if was more shocked over that or that I knew what it was ;-)
theAlphaJohn: i know. it's like everyone was keeping a secret from her
theAlphaJohn: i told her that in sex ed, when they separate the boys and the girls, they warn us of such things ;)
Tom: lol. Well I will have to say that interesting things are surely afoot at GMU. People drilling holes in stalls and other events (sadly enough). GMU has all of a sudden become an interesting place to be, kind of.
theAlphaJohn: indeed

theAlphaJohn: why didnt [redacted] slice a lip off her labia and hire that?
Will: wow
Will: hahahaha
Will: i am sure she would of
theAlphaJohn: (1) exactly what she wants, (2) cheap hire, (3) equally useless
Will: if she didn't have a penis
theAlphaJohn: !!!
Will: yep
Will: haha
theAlphaJohn: ...we need to talk son
Will: hahahaha
theAlphaJohn: is it really a penis if it's made of silicone?
Will: word on the street
Will: it's real
Will: real real freaky
theAlphaJohn: something tells me if she stuck it through the thompson hall glory hole, it would go unsucked

::rim shot::

Supply called; demand can't make it

From Brad's Deals:

Through March 1st, USA Today has an introductory offer of 8 weeks for $14, 53% off the newsstand price. This is the lowest publicly available offer for USA Today and one of the best deals for any newspaper (certainly for a national paper). This breaks down to only $1.75 per week or only $0.35 per day (it is normally $0.75).

That's a good deal for everyone involved. You get the McPaper for $0.35 per day, and USA still makes a profit by marking $0.07 worth of news up 500%.

Ramone and Frunkus in the morning

Talk about role reversal.

Opie: Straight man
Anthony: Inside Joke Douche

I almost pissed myself when I heard him say Ramone and Frunkus in the morning.

If you don't get the inside jokes, Jim Norton burns through most of them in the outtakes for O&A's new XM commercial:



That...that's terrible. I'm sorry.

The DJ AtomX Podcast

Your pal and mine DJ AtomX followed the New Years resolution I sent him and setup a Podcast on Podomatic.

Out of nowhere today, "A State of Pants, Volume 4" just appeared in iTunes. I can't remember the last time I was so delightfully and genuinely surprised. My inner sycophant shot a thank you email his way:

From: theAlphaJohn
To: DJ AtomX
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:57:18 -0500
Subject: state of pants vol 4

I fucking love your podcast. iTunes was like "bitch, you have a newpodcast" and I was like..."huh?"I sprang like 8 boners when it just showed up. Fucking love this man.

I'm listening to it now, and it fucking rocks. It even has Dangerous Power on it. Do me a favor if you haven't checked him out already and go subscribe.

Please add "glory hole" to our marketing material

With last week's suicide here on campus, I was sick of blogging about Mason by the time Thursday rolled around. I decided to wait until last week's Police Blotter was posted this week so I could properly immortalize Thursday's fantastic act of faggotry:

2007-000370 / Destruction or Property. Joseph Christopher Mcardle, 44 y/o w/m, from Springfield, Va. was arrested and charged with being "Drunk In Public" and "Destruction of Property" after being found drilling holes in bathroom stall divider. A secured bond was set for $500.00. (36/Gannon).

Sadly, his breath only smelled like alcohol before he was removed from the building. I was in Kirsten's office last week when Brian told her this, and she was surprised that Brian and I weren't more shocked. Brian, unfortunately, has walked in on people in our men's rooms, while I've just read the writing on the walls. Kirsten decided to seek a higher power, and called her gay friend Ron (since Wikipedia doesn't have a good entry on glory holes yet):

Kirsten: i just got off the phone with ron...
Kirsten: he said the hole (the one's in the bathroom) are called glory holes...
Kirsten: lmao
theAlphaJohn: lol
Kirsten: no kidding... i was laughing so hard when i was telling him...
Kirsten: he said do you know what thats called? i said no... he said glory holes...
Kirsten: and then he described exactly how they are used...
theAlphaJohn: gross
Kirsten: that is too funny...
Kirsten: i called tom and told him ... and he knew exactly what they were for too...
Kirsten: lmao
Kirsten: i asked [my husband] and he too new exactly what they were for...
Kirsten: i asked barbara if she heard the news and what the guy was doing and she had no idea ... so i had to explain it to her...lmao ... now that is too funny
Kirsten: i had her laughing her ass off...
Kirsten: kathy knew exactly what it was for...
theAlphaJohn: lol
Kirsten: jingxiao and i both thought it was for looking into the girls room
theAlphaJohn: i love that you took a glory hole survey among your peers
theAlphaJohn: did you check with charlie too?
Kirsten: i had to... i was too funny not to...
Kirsten: brian had to explain it to me...
Kirsten: glory hole...that is just over the top...

Strange, drunk men drilling holes in our stall walls. Put a tent over this circus.

Half Pony / Half Monkey Monsters

I know I'm not discovering the wheel here, but Jonathan Coulton may have written the funniest song lyrics ever in Skullcrusher Mountain:

I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you don’t like it
What’s with all the screaming?
You like monkeys, you like ponies
Maybe you don’t like monsters so much
Maybe I used too many monkeys
Isn’t it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

Both Google Images:



and Jonathan's Blog show examples that his song has been a muse for:



The idea of ruining ponies is diabolically enlightened. Think of all the little girls waiting in line to ride the ponies, but alas they never will.

Steven Colbert on Telecom

A succinct explanation of Cingular's decision to change their name back to AT&T:

"My Asian Girlfriend"

I suspect the first 88 drafts before MYASNGF went something like this:

"Hello my fellow caucasian friends. Though I am white, 5'6", weigh 145lbs, and enjoy both Mountain Dew and fluffer nutter, I would like you to meet my girlfriend, Sookuntra."

but that was taken, so then he tried:

"Sup dawg? Check it -- I gots me some yellow fever!"

but that was too long, so the next attempt was:

"Recognize: Crooked Pussy."

and DMV was like, "nuh uh". So homeboy bought her an Orange RSX and ordered those up on dmvnow.com.

This is a tragedy that makes Dafur look like a bake sale.

Micronations make my head hurt

In her attempt to kill me with an aneurism today, Mary made a reference to Sealand, a micronation:

The Principality of Sealand is a man-made off-shore installation named HM Fort Roughs, a former Maunsell Sea Fort located in the North Sea 10 kilometres (six miles) off the coast of Suffolk, England, as well as territorial waters in a twelve-nautical-mile radius.

Since 1967, the population of Sealand has consisted of the associates and family members of Paddy Roy Bates, a former radio broadcaster and former British Army Major. Critics claim that Roughs Tower has always remained the property of the United Kingdom, a view that is disputed by the Bates family. The population of the facility rarely exceeds ten, and its area is 5920 sq. ft.

Sealand's claims to sovereignty and legitimacy are not recognised by any country, yet it is sometimes cited[1] in debates as an interesting case study of how various principles of international law can be applied to a territorial dispute.

Ok...so a British DJ squatted on what is essentially an oil rig platform (but built for port defense in WWII), fought off the British Navy with a shot gun, and crowned himself price?

Do what??

While I desperately plugged my ears to keep my leaking brains from spilling out, Mary continued to look at micronations until she ran across the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands:

On June 14, 2004, the group claimed the Coral Sea Island Territory and seceded from Australia after sailing to the largest island in the group and raising the rainbow flag there. One of the group's members, Dale Parker Anderson (born 1965), was declared Emperor, as Dale I. The "secession" was staged in protest at a decision to ban same-sex marriage made by the Australian federal parliament.

Since 2005 the Australian group has reportedly been embroiled in internal disputes and secessions by various factions. These include two American-based groups, the Gay and Lesbian Commonwealth Kingdom, headed by Jaix Broox, the Unified Gay Tribe, led by Bill Freeman and Enrique Pérez, and the German based Gay Homeland Foundation led by Victor Zimmermann. None of these other groups claim the territory of the Coral Sea Islands.

The kingdom's claims are not recognised by any state, and as no permanent settlement has been established, the Coral Sea Islands remain uninhabited. The kingdom claims to have begun operating a mail service on January 1, 2006. It is presumed this service operates between the Coral Sea Islands and Queensland, however as of July 2006 there is no independent verification of its precise nature and frequency. The kingdom issued its first stamps in July 2006, and intends to issue stamps conservatively "with the aim of creating a high and distinctive reputation amongst the philatelic fraternity." The kingdom's website asserts that tourism, fishing and philatelic sales are its only economic activities.

...

Are you kidding me? Here are their stamps:



My favorite are the circle-symbols: man & woman, man & man, woman & woman, and a fucking tranny.

Christ. A tranny stamp. But wait, there's more. Here is the bio of their emperor:

His Imperial Majesty the Emperor
Born in August 1965, Dale Parker Anderson is the eldest of identical twins and is the 19 x great grandson of King Edward II of England (the gay King) and Queen Isabella of France via their son King Edward III. The Emperors Imperial Standard carries the royal arms of England and France.

Yes, you read correctly. "The gay king".

Don't get me wrong. I don't care that it's a homo nation, I care that's it a psuedo-sovereign nation of fucking nutbags. I wish all the LARPers would move to their own island so we could blow that up.

It's that time of year again

Apparently we need to review and update our useless job descriptions and meaningless employee work plans (ewp) every year. In reviewing mine, I found this under "Critical Thinking Competencies":

Exents communication level of effort to other key technical personnel within the University and possibly to other State agencies that share the same application software.

These are my concerns with this bullet:

(1) Virginia is a Commonwealth, not a state
(2) University is capitalized, to imply a proper noun (Mason), when in fact the document only personifies Mason as the embodiment of George Mason University, not University
(3) Most important: what the fuck does this even mean??

Mason student death ruled a suicide

Just received an email from University Relations about the student who died Tuesday:

Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:52:25 -0500
From: University Relations
Subject: University Mourns Campus Tragedy

STUDENT DIES FROM FALL IN JOHNSON CENTER

George Mason University is saddened to announce the death of one of our students that occurred Jan. 9 from a fall in the Johnson Center. The death of Martin Klapproth, 26, an economics major, was ruled a suicide by the Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The university extends its deepest condolences to Mr. Klapproth’s spouse, Maryam, (BIS graduate 2004) as well as other family and friends.

Consultation and help is available in the Counseling Center to any Mason student, staff or faculty members seeking assistance regarding this tragedy. Contact the Counseling Center, SUBI, room 324, at 703-993-2380.

When this was mentioned on DCist yesterday, they were the only ones to tie the accident to this New York Times Magazine article which references Princeton Review's study showing that Mason placed 15th on a list of 20 schools where the students are least happy.

Suicide makes me a very sad panda.

Mason student falls to his death

Yesterday at 3:14pm, after Carlos came by with the news, I im'ed Will to see if he knew anything (since he works on that side of campus):

theAlphaJohn: have you heard about the JC?
Will: yeah
Will: i was actually eating in the bistro when it happend
theAlphaJohn: wtf?
theAlphaJohn: what happened?
Will: dude or lady fell four stories
Will: and died i think
theAlphaJohn: no idea if they jumped or were pushed or it was an accident
Will: no idea
Will: actually the body fell right in front of danny
theAlphaJohn: omg no way
Will: yeah
Will: he went home and refused to talk to the media
theAlphaJohn: holy shit i would too
theAlphaJohn: is the media there?
Will: they were
Will: there have been a lot of calls to this office but so far none deal with me
Will: just press releases
Will: stuff like that
theAlphaJohn: what does the release say? something bad happened and it's being investigated?
Will: i would bet so
Will: but the fucked up thing is josh and i were eating in the bistro when the kid fell and when the cops were there
Will: and we had no idea what happened
Will: they cleaned it up hella quick

I was hoping the news would have more information, but not-so-much right now:

Student Falls to His Death at GMU
Jan 10th - 6:10am

FAIRFAX, Va. - George Mason University Police are investigating how a 27-year-old student fell three stories to his death at the university's student center.

The man was with a group of students when he fell from an open-air staircase to the tile floor below shortly after noon Tuesday, investigators say. He died at a hospital.

It is unclear whether the man was pushed or jumped.

Although school is not yet in session, the building was crowded with people preparing for the start of classes.

People saw the body falling and saw him land, but no one saw him go over the side, school spokesman Dan Walsh says.

Investigators are talking with the man's wife and the people who were with him.

Replacing my Pool Gear

In the process of turning the WRX in, I somehow lost my pool bag with all of my gear in it (goggles, paddles, pull buoy, fins, and sandals). I've looked everywhere, and the only thing I can guess is that I left them in the trunk of the WRX when I turned it in.

In any event, I needed to replace everything. I made a trip to Sport Fair in Arlington and was able to get goggles, paddles, and fins. I decided that I could get away with those for the next couple practices and ordered the buoy and sandles on the internet(s). I was asked when I checked out how I found their site:



I wonder if they'll think I'm serious...?

iTunes and box checking

I know that over time, all of you populists rewrite history and pretend that you were an early adopter too.

I tend to be an early adopter. The rest of you benefit from the beta testing that my fellow mavens and I do.

I bought a 2nd Gen iPod (the first 20GB model) in March of 2003, right after iTunes for Windows came out. This was long before I got my Powerbook and made the switch to the dark side.

There is a magic check box in iTunes:



Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized it says. Until this weekend, that box was never checked. Why? Because I used to have a page on my website that listed all of my MP3s, which did so off a copy of my music files that used the organizational structure I developed for my MP3s in 1998 when all you motherfuckers were still hiding in caves; afraid of the sun and shit.

Anyway, I don't have that page on my website anymore, but I still keep a replica of all my MP3s out on my server. I deleted all my MP3s on kaitain, checked the box, then began rsync'ing them back up. It will probably take 10 days to get them all back in sync.

In the process, I took a look and noticed that iTunes had not put things where I expected. Then I found this delightful bit of faggotry:



The Is Compilation attribute is a point of disagreement between iTunes and I. If this album is all songs spun by DJ Irene, then it's not a compilation. A compilation implies that the album contains a variety of artists, not a variety of songs all spun by an artist.

You don't agree with me? Then explain why the fuck a Pink album is marked compilation in Gracenote? Are you telling me because The Indigo Girls collaborated with her on Dear Mr. President it's a fucking compilation album?



The people at Gracenote need to fattened up like Thanksgiving turkeys and sent back in time to Jeffrey Dahmer's dinner table, cause they're fucking useless.

House Speaker Grandma-natrix

Witness as she emasculates the important (wo)men of Washington with her legislative riding crop.

How fucking hot is that?

File Under "douche bag"

Mary shared this article in today's Rocky Mountain News about a sad little man who thinks that Lady's Night discriminates against him:

A self-proclaimed "agitator" against feminism declared ladies nights at Colorado nightspots dead Friday after prevailing in the first stage of a civil rights complaint against the Proof Nightclub in southeast Denver.

Steve Horner learned Thursday that Colorado's Division of Civil Rights for the Department of Regulatory Agencies sided with him in his complaint that men were unfairly having to pay cover charges and higher drink prices than women at the Proof's ladies nights.

"Ladies night is now illegal," said Horner, a 59-year-old corporate speaker, who says he's been on an anti-feminist crusade since his wife left him with two young children several years ago.

At this point you're thinking, "That seems like a really douchy thing to do, but maybe he's just one of those touchy-feely Colorado residents who eats too much hummus and has read the writings of Betty Freidan one too-many times". Then you get to this quote which proves that Steve Horner is a complete fuck-face:

In the meantime, Horner plans to catch any club owners who continue to offer women special deals.

"This is now a violation of law. I will now make it a point to visit as many ladies nights as I can every week. I'll have my rights violated, then I'll sue them in county court and collect my $500 (the maximum penalty in county court for each incident of discrimination)," Horner said.

"I feel it could net me $3,000 to $4,000 a week easy, and I'm going to do it," he added. "It takes me five minutes to be discriminated against."

At which point you realize that the only left for you to do is drive to Colorado, kidnap his children, cover their faces with dirt, and smuggle them to some 7th world country where their next meal will come through UNICEF donations. Anything is better than growing up in a household with an asshat motivational speaker as their role model.

Cleansing my electronic music pallet

I've been on an electronic music bender for weeks; nothing but trance, break-beats, drum and bass, and the occasional house track. Without even thinking about it, I open iTunes this morning and it was half an hour before I realized I'd been listening to Smack That on repeat.

I had to use the Google to find out what a Lamborghini Gallardo looked like. After all, I'm not a 12 year old boy anymore.

Six Years in my personal Gitmo...

...came to an end this morning:


OMG is payback a bitch. The comments on Wonkette from the trolling opposition are hysterical:

Where's (1) mandate daily reading of Koran in every elemntary school classroom, (2) abolish Christmas Trees and Easter, (3) put Charles Drawin's face on the $1 dollar bill, (4) humbly surrender to Al Queada ... and Japan and (5) appoint Michael Fox head of NIH?

I need to add Redstate to Google Reader so I can get my daily dose of schaudenfreude! This is the graphic on their front page today:


There are no words for the delight I will feel for the next two years. I might have swerve to avoid little children in parking lots from now on.

Google Reader Delights Me

To know me is to know how much of the Internet(s) I traverse in a given day. Often, I run out of Internet(s) to read because it can't make news fast enough. Not only do I check many different types of sites, but I check them all pretty often.

It is, frankly, a huge waste of my time.

I tried using an RSS reader (Thunderbird) a couple times, but the experience was really annoying. I gave up and went back to checking my sites the old fashioned way.

While George has extolled the virtues of Rojo for some time, I didn't like that either.

And then, while I was enjoying my holiday break, I saw that Google Labs has incubated a little something they call Google Reader. Though the name is uninspired, it has changed my browsing habits.


All the sites I visit are subscribed in the left hand pane. I clickity-click a button:


And I only see sites that have unread articles (if there are any). As you can see in this picture, the Internet(s) need to get busy and make some more news. I hit refresh for 147 seconds until Google News made something up:



As you can see, "Google News" appears and it tells me I have (4) unread articles. When I click on the feed, I can get a list view (with just headlines):


Or I can pick the expanded view and see a snippet of each article (along with pictures if there are any):



This way, I can scan the 20 posts that Autoblog puts up in an hour in list view, read the one I want about the Mercedes S-Guard, and mark the rest read. This miracle frees me up to find another way to waste an hour of each work day.

CNN.com's editor celebrates 7th birthday

What the fuck is this?



Pandas are faggots.

So long, Scooby!

I turned in the WRX tonight after 36 months; I think it's the longest relationship I've ever had. [According to my credit report, I've had a trade line with Citibank for the past 89 months.]

While Andrew certainly got me a phenomenal deal, my own actions made it a more expensive endeavor than it should have been. Let's take a look:

$14,000 Payments ($400 * 35 months) [includes: GAP, Warranty, all Maintenance]
$500 Deductible [Accident July 3rd, 2004]
$1200 Tires and Rims [April 2005]
$0 The delight of driving a Gold Dodge Stratus
$460 Autocross ($160 Tuition + $240 Helmet + $60 hotel)
$800 New Tires [August 2006]
$780 Bumper #3 [November 2006]

$17,740 Total

More than I should have spent, but more than fair to enjoy the best three years and 39,658 miles of a $27,000 Japanese sports car's life.