big cliché

Yahoo! News - Kidman: Men Aren't Beating Down the Door

Heads up, single guys!

FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - U.S. Makes Early Handover of Iraq

I guess they fooled us, didn't they? I'll probably put up more on this when I get home.

The meal was standard Navy fare, as we were to find out over the next 11 weeks. Breakfast was always some type of pork, eggs, dry cereal, milk, coffee, tea, sliced breads, hashbrowns and if we were lucky, a selection of fresh fruit. This was the best meal of the day, as far as I was concerned, so I actually grew to look forward to it. The other meals were usually comprised of 2 different meats, sides and a desert with coffee, tea, milk, or water and sliced breads. Very cafeteria, very ho-hum. By the way, this was boot, so to make sure you didn't enjoy your meal time (which was the only real time we had a way from the CCs on a daily basis) too much you had exactly seven minutes from the time the last newbie sat down to finish your meal--Bon Appetit!

That particular morning, most of us were really to stressed to eat, but we did anyway, and that became abundantly clear after the meal, out on the grinder. You should know though, that until you commissioned, you were not allowed to march. How's that for a joke? As if marching is somehow a privilege reserved for the elite newbies. Instead, they walk you from place to place, but before we could even walk, they formed us up in a group (so they could do a headcount) each recruit standing as close as humanly possible to the other, in four ranks. They called this, for obvious reasons, nut-to-butt. And they loved yelling this at us repeatedly.

As I mentioned, there were some folks who just shouldn't have eaten, and those folks made this fact known by vomiting on each other. Seriously. I recall standing there, and hearing the first wretch, praying that it would not set off a chain reaction that ended up with Wayne covered in stomach grease. Sure enough, all prayers are answered and the chain of vomit was broken about 8 guys forward of me. When it was all said and done, I think there were 4-6 guys who hurled and a few more who were wearing it. Yeah, it is gross, but I always thought that kind of summed up the pressure that we are capable of putting on ourselves in what we perceive to be stressful situations. Obviously, the food was not rotten, or we all would have spewed, so it had to be the nerves.

That pretty well sums up my first 6 hours of boot camp. After the first day, they are practically carbon copies through to the end. Sure, there are some high points, like the gas chamber, ship-board fire fighting, shooting range and of course graduation, but the daily grind is just that. Pun intended.

The whole intent of boot camp is to first break you down. They are very good at this, and they had me convinced that I was every bit as useless to the Navy as they told me. Even though my Dad and Grandfather warned me, I still succumbed to their complimentary indoctrination brain-washing. After you are broken, dehumanized and degraded, they start spoon-feeding you little nuggets of accomplishment to begin rebuilding your confidence--the whole time teaching you all the "Navy" stuff you need to know.

There is an entire language you have to learn when you join any branch of the service, so they start with this from day one. The floor is now a deck, the ceiling is now the overhead, walls are bulkheads--all of this with the intention of getting you used to the ship-board lingo, because most folks coming through Navy boot are going to end up on Navy ships. They even printed a kind of dictionary in the front of The Bluejacket's Manual, which is essentially the 'boot camp bible'. It has everything a fresh squid 'needs' to know about being a squid, all the way down to the proper way to 'fake out a line' (lay out a rope for immediate access) on the deck of your ship.

Then there are acronyms. Dear God, the government loooooves their acronyms. Somewhere, I actually had a reference volume for nothing other than their stupid acronyms.

The other real purposes of boot camp are to teach the individuals to A) pay attention to the little things, while B)acting as a team. At first, I thought this was rather silly, until I realized that I really didn't want the guy who couldn't lace his shoes properly to be working the missile control system on my carrier. Similarly, if a fire breaks out at sea, you have two choices: put out the fire or start treading water. With this in mind, it then becomes apparent why they harp so hard on working together as a team. They started beating damage control and fire fighting into us on the first week, which made perfect sense. This method insures that any group of squids on a boat or in a hanger, knows exactly which fire-fighting agents will work on which fires, and how to use them to best put out said fire without anyone having to stop and ask "Hey, does aqueous film-forming-foam work on an oil fire, or is it Purple K powder?" Everyone just knew. Thank God I never had to employ my mad fire-fighting skills.

They way they enforce all of this learning is with sweat and tears. If you as an individual mess up, you will be face down on that surface-of-the-sun hot grinder, doing push-ups until you know whatever it is you were supposed to learn. If the company messed up, the company would be doing push ups in unison, or even worse, the dreaded eight-count body builder. Twenty-five of those were enough to educate even the simplest of recruit. For the fortunate among you haven't met with the eight-count bb, I offer this explanation. Start standing, now do a jumping jack (counts one and two) now squat straight down so your hands rest on the floor and your knees almost hit your chin (count three) thrust your legs rearward (count four) so you are in push up position. While you are there, do a push up! (count five and six) Pull your legs back under your hips (count seven) and then spring back to the standing position (count 8). Now repeat 25 times! If you missed it, each 8-count provides you 1 jumping jack, one squat thrust and 1 push up all in a catchy, dance-inspired 8-count beat. Tasty, huh?

If you were one of the truly stoopid, and individual punishment wasn't enough, the CCs would have the entire company doing your push ups while you counted them off. Now that makes friends fast! There was this one particular guy, Mike, who almost got himself a genuine blanket party. Everyone should remember the blanket party from Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. If you don't, go rent it or pull it off your shelf and watch it again. Mike had been screwing up very frequently with regards to the fifteen-count manual of arms (rifle drills) and we had been doing a lot of push ups to pay for it. On the night in question, our Recruit Chief Petty Officer and Assistant RCPO, who were both transfers from the Marine Corps, very quietly belly-crawled over to his rack. One of them put their hands over his mouth, the other threw the blanket over him, pulling it tight. Then, rather than beating him silly, I suppose they told him exactly, in excruciating detail, what would happen if he kept dropping his rifle during drills.

The next day, Mike was a new man.

Yahoo! News - Rapper DMX Arrested at Kennedy Airport

World's stoopidest car thief?

You ever have one of those days where you don't feel like doing a dang thing?

I just had four in a row.

I'll feel up to it again soon, though. Soon.

Yahoo! News - Judge Suspected of Masturbating in Court

Now here's a guy who loves his job! Perhaps a little too much?

Yahoo! News - World Photos - AP

Can you imagine the smell? Think about it: he has been toting that hair on the end around for 31 freaking years! Ewwww.

FOXNews.com - Foxlife - Mary-Kate Olsen Treated for Eating Disorder

And so it begins....

Remember this post?

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com

This is just plain crazy. Someone should've bought old boy 4-wheeler. Courtesy o' Chris.

After leaving the contraband room, it occured to me that I had just quit smoking. I hadn't decided to quit smoking, mind you, but Uncle Sugar had just told me so in no uncertain terms. Just before entering the contraband room, the large, Samoan CC had asked if I had any unopened tobacco products then produced a box containing assorted tobacco products. Of course I did, being an unabashed smoking fool, and hey, my recruiter told me I could bring two packs. He wouldn't have lied, would he? I figured I would be able to buy more once I arrived. Boy was that a naive thought. The unopened pack went into the box, the open pack's contents were dumped, unceremoniously, into that stinking black hole in the floor. I figured out later that the unopened ones would be left in the CC lounge, or wherever, for them to pick and choose their favorite brands, coutesty of the newbies who they were about to beat unmercifully for the next 8 weeks.

Speaking of eight weeks, that was the amount of time I was supposed spend in training while in boot. Not so, kind friends. That is eight weeks once you start training. Turns out I was not the only one who wanted to take the summer off before starting boot. San Diego RTC was so backed up that August, it was two weeks before we could even be "comissioned" as a company. They commissioned two companies of about 90 recruits a day in this lame ceremony complete with base commander and the recruit marching band, and those two were referred to as 'sister' companies. For the most part, they would go through the common areas of training together.

In any event, after another 40 minutes or so of sitting on my personal black tile, It was coming to the point where I was either going to need some food or a long nap. Somewhere around 03:30 pdt they formed us up and walked us over to the transient barracks, which were conveniently located across a large blacktop expanse known as a 'grinder', but more on those in a bit.

We were told to pick a bunk and get horizontal because they would be back in 2 freaking hours to feed us. I don't think I got a solid hour of sleep for fear of the 'real' boot camp starting just as I dozed off. I was sure they would wake us by slinging the trashcan down the center of the room, flipping bunks and just generally making as much noise as they could, a-la Full Metal Jacket. Again, I was let down. Although it was not in an unpleasent fashion, mind you. Instead of the trash can-slinging and general ruckus, they turned on the lights, walked casually down the center of the room informing us all that it was time for chow. It wasn't even the same recruit assistants from earlier that morning, and the huge, Samoan CC was nowhere in sight.

I finally asked one of the recruit assistants where all the CCs were hiding and when they would pounce. He was cool about it, and told me that there weren't any available and that we would not get our own CCs until after we comissioned. Why didn't I think of that? Probably because I had less than an hour of sleep, unless you count that semi-unconscious time on the flight as sleep, no food and was suddenly in the middle of 90 complete strangers--all of us waiting for hell to break lose. Yeah, I can see why I may have missed that. All the CCs all had their own companies to mess with and until we were officially commissioned, we would be handled by the recruit assistants. Those guys, by the way, were either waiting for their orders to come in after completing boot, or were stationed at the base on and were temporarily assigned to the RTC.

The area we were bunked in, Recieving and Outfitting, was on the 'old' side of the base, where the guys who fought in WWII were trained. Nice bit of trivia, but the real thing to note about the old side is that it was almost 3/4 of a mile away from the chow hall, on the other side of a shipping channel. Normally, 3/4 of a mile is not really that far--about 12 blocks. But now try to imagine walking that far in a group of 90 scared witless dorks led by guys who have only just finished boot themselves. It took almost forty-five minutes to get there. Once we were there we had to wait a bit longer because we were the only ones not on a time schedule--again, because we hadn't comissioned yet. We quickly realized there were lots of things you couldn't do until you were commissioned. Since we didn't have to be anywhere at any specific time, they just let us hang out, on another grinder, in the dark until they could squeeze us in.

Now, about grinders. A large portion of boot is learning how to march. Why on earth sailors need to learn how to march, other than passing in review on graduation day, is beyond me. The only time I ever marched after that was in A-school, but that was it. Anyway, to accomodate all those newbies learning to march, you need large areas that are suitable for marching, i.e. concrete or blacktop. Both were evil for different reasons, but I think the blacktop was worse. It was a bit softer than the concrete when standing for extended periods, if you can imagine that, but being black of course meant that it radiated heat like a grill on those hot, August, San Diego summer days. So basically, anywhere there was a large, open area it was paved. No fields, no flowerbeds, just evil, foot-blistering pavement. These were also the areas where we staged for various training drills so a day without a grinder was just not going to happen. To this day, I still have no idea why they are called 'grinders'.

Ah, finally some food. Or what they called food. This was my first real introduction to institutional style foods. Sure, there was that stuff in school, but we have to keep in mind that Lexington wasn't much of a school, and they only had to prepare about 250 meals per service. This galley was cranking out at least 1000 per service, and the quality was inversely proportional to the quantity.

ChannelOklahoma.com - News - Robber Politely Asks Bank Customer For Getaway Car

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? I almost feel bad for this guy, cause you know when he gets to the pokey, he ain't gonna last. Dolt.

Dang! Last night when I sat down to post part 2 of Howard Yarch, blogger was kaput. No posts for you! One night!

I'll get up on it tonight, hopefully, and have a little something up for the weekend.

As I tooled around Norman today running errands, I was wrapped in all kinds of cityscape sounds. Construction equipment, the traffic itself, but most notably the vehicles you can hear and feel before you even see them. Usually, they are pumping out the most bass-rich selection they can find. Since I have been going sans air conditioning (to try to save a little gas money) lately, it suddenly occured to me exactly how much of a dork I must've looked like to all those around as I proudly, and loudly, rocked The Smith's Girlfriend in a Coma for the whole world to enjoy from the driver's window of the big black truck. What a dork.

The other day at work, Chris and I were reminiscing about our primary military training--also know as boot camp! We didn't' go through together mind you, rather we were discussing the subtle differences between the two branches' take on the whole indoctrination theme.

Later that day, it occurred to me that there is probably a large percentage of you who haven't had the experience of doing pushups until you puked, simply because someone told you to do so. In all actuality, the only time I lost my lunch in boot was immediately after a healthy dose of CS gas on 4-4 day, but we'll get to that soon enough.

When I was 16, or so, I started seriously thinking about what I was going to do with my life. I know I wasn't supposed to be worrying about it at that age, but I did, mainly because Oklahoma has never been know for its booming job market. I was sure I was not going to be able to hack another 4 years of school and would immediately flunk out, had I gone way of higher learning. Another option, since I knew I was going to be attending communication electronics courses at vo-tech, would've been to apply at Hitachi here in Norman. Again, not too enticing.

After about a year of thought, I started to consider the military. Or maybe it was Robert H. who put the idea in my head. I figured I could get money for college, get a free ride on rent and meals (so to speak) and get a chance to see something other than the south-central United States. My Dad had been in the Marines (which much to their chagrin is a department of the USN) and I regard him as a good man. My Grandfather (may he rest in peace) was a retired lieutenant commander, so the Navy couldn't be all bad, could it? The real clincher was when Derrel's dad told me one day "Wayne, you stay out of the US Army" completely matter-of-fact and without even a hint of a smile. Since he had spent over twenty years in, I considered his the voice of authority with regards to all things green.

So it was settled. Four years of service in the US Navy would begin the summer after I graduated high school. I even decided to keep an open mind to the option of re-enlistment if the first four didn't kill me.

I arrived at the San Diego CA Recruit Training Center at the perfectly atrocious hour of 1:30 a.m. local time on August 27th, 1988. Since CA is two hours behind OK, that means my body clock was at 3:30 a.m. and just not very happy about the whole situation. There was no large group of company commanders (CC's for short; the Navy version of drill instructors) running around the bus when we arrived, simultaneously barking orders and shouting insults. Remember, Dad is a Viet Nam era Marine, and Grandpa was a Korean War era Naval officer. Between their horror stories of boot camp and OCS survival village, I was fully expecting to be beaten just for breathing. Not so.

We were greeted by one CC and about 4 recruit assistants. Not very scary, even at 1:30 in the morning. The first thing they did was march us into this room which was not at all air conditioned and sit on the black tiles, which were spaced out on the otherwise white tile floor so that we could not reach one another. I was a bit curious as to why they would waste so much space, but it became apparent that this arrangement was so anyone stupid enough to bring in a sack o' reefer would not be able to pass it to his bud when it was time to go to the 'contraband room'.

This 'room' was really a bathroom stall (and now that I think about it, the only one in the whole of the place still possessing a door) with the toilet removed so the hole was left exposed. The drill was simple: if you were stupid enough to bring in any unauthorized pharmaceuticals you simply put them in the hole when it was your turn. No questions asked. They didn't have to ask, really, because the next hour was spent participating in operation 'golden flow' so if you had been smoked out, by your boys back home, Uncle Sugar was about to find out.

Yahoo! News - US jailers likely to guard Saddam, under Iraqi legal custody

I'm guessing I can't be the only one who is a tiny bit concerned about turning saddam over to the Iraqi's. Surely not.

I have this inescapable feeling that once that joker is back in the sand, those leftover loyalists will start pulling all kinds of crap leading up to a jailbreak which will result in saddam being at large all over again. Not exactly in charge, but you can't tell me he doesn't have mad money stashed away somewhere. And if he didnt' have a reason to nuke DC before the war, I bet he feels he has a pretty good one now and I would be willing to wager he could find a group willing to do it for the right price. Heck, they might even do it for martyrdom if he was to buy the bomb and pay for gas, meals and tolls.

Can you imagine just what kind of bounty he would put on Bushy Bushy's head and the kinds of nut jobs that would come crawling out of the woodwork to cash in on said bounty? If he were to escape, I wouldn't go within 100 feet of Bush.

This has got to be my least favorite time of year.

It is starting to get hot outside and there is only one more holiday between today and Labor Day, which is obviously the Forth of July. This leaves us with a long, hot summer before vacation time rolls around.

I try to break up the year by taking some time off around Christmas, then again in April around the birthday/anniversary, but this always leaves the long haul through summer to Labor Day. We usually take our vacation either the week of, or after Labor Day so things are a bit cooler and we get the 'off season' rates on hotels or condos. Granted, September in south Texas really isn't that much cooler than say, August in Oklahoma, but every little bit helps.

But to get back to the point, this is the time of the year when I just don't feel like doing anything, because it seems like there is really nothing worth doing until vacation hits. I remember about this time last year we hit the outdoor range and it was so miserably hot that we couldn't even pick up the rifles because we had forgotten to shield them from the sun. Man, talk about a suckfest. How bad is it when a shooting trip gets ruined? Bad, indeed.

Time slows to a crawl and the days just seem like endless carbon copies of themselves, over and over with a few Saturdays and Sundays thrown in just so you don't go off the edge altogether. There aren't any landmarks to tell one week from the next and the weather doesn't help--hot, sunny and no wind at clean through 'til October.

However, on the other hand, I'll wake up tomorrow next to my loving wife, put on clean clothes, hop in the recently paid-off truck, drive the 2.75 miles to my cushy, air conditioned job and play with a computer for 8 hours.

I suppose I'll be content to count the days (and my blessings) 'til Septermber rolls around, placated by the knowledge that even with the doldrums trying to cast their spell of despair on my days, we are doing just fine.

I've been listening to the scanner while typing these posts, and I just heard a call go out for a robbery on the south side. While being robbed is no laughing matter, the circumstances of this one just plain cracked me up.

The dispatcher relayed to the responding officer that this occured over an hour ago and the male victim is just now calling it in. "Why?" you may ask? Simple: He got robbed by a girl! Even more laughable is that he picked her up at Opie's (local dive) probably thinking he was going to get a little action when she asked him for a ride home. Hubba hubba.

When they got to the parking log where she supposedly lived, she pulled a knife, relieved old boy of all his cash then hopped into a red honda that was standing by.

I guess he did get a little action after all. HA!

There is no better way to start a weekend than to get up waaaay to freaking early and drive straight to the shooting range. I know I have said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again. Mostly because it is true, even if I am on-call this weekend.

Rob H. and I headed straight for H&H as soon as I was able to drag my self out of bed and get some new targets and another 100 rounds of 9mil. While we were there, I found a coupon good for 2 FREE. Yes I said FREE full-capacity magazines for my Berettas. How absolutely delicious is that? I was thinking about getting a few more and had even been looking on GunBroker for a deal, but had come up bust. For those of you who may not realize what a stupendous deal this really is, let me elaborate.

You may recall my earlier tirades about the assault weapons ban. One component of this dispicable law made it illegal to distribute any magazine capable of holding more than 10 rounds to anyone who is not active duty law enforcement or the military. Ergo, the price on 15 round (full-capacity) magazines doubled over night. In some cases (glock, HK) they have even tripled or quadrupled. However, any magazine manufactured prior to that fateful day was 'grandfathered' in and referred to as "pre-ban". Even now that the prices have settled a bit, pre-ban magazines still fetch a hefty premium so to get 2 more brand freakin' new mag's from my friends at Beretta is like getting....well free magazines from Beretta! I am absolutely stoked. I am about one new pistol away from having the Beretta log permanently tattooed on my forehead for all the world to see. Well...maybe not but you get the picure.

After returning from the range, Aimee and I headed back to OKC to look at entertainment centers and found out one universal fact: contemporary = expensive. I thought cars came with sticker shock until I saw a $13000 sectional at Suburban Designs. Sure it was marked down to $6500 becuase it was a floor sample they wanted to clear out, but I wonder how many there were able to sell at $13K? It would seem, once again, I find myself in the wrong line of work.

I made a few observations during all this driving around the OKC 'metroplex' and I'd like to take a few to share them with you. (You knew I was getting to this, didn't you?)

1. Refer to last month's post regarding why stoopids should be paying attention while driving.

2. If you are over the age of 15, put that stupid hat on straight. Unless you are infact, P-Diddy or 50-cent, you are never, ever going to be hip enough to pull that off and you will forever end up looking like a sad, sad little man. Even more so if you are one of the guys from observation #5.

3. If you are pulling a trailer, read #1 and multiply by two. Stoopid.

4. If you are pulling a trailer, please remember the account for the additional length of the trailer when changing lanes.

5. If you are driving any compact car with 4 doors that Old Moms gave you when she bought the minivan, leave the 20" rims off the car. And the catback exhaust. And anything NEON for that matter. That 'sweet' ride is not, I repeat not meant for this, and will not get you 'in with the honeys'.

Ok, that's enough for now. I am starting to crush my 'free magazine' groove, so I'll leave it at that. I think I'll go clean the pistol. That always makes me feel all warm and tingly inside. Sometimes, I get that Vince D'Onofrio in Full Metal Jacket kind of feeling: "It's been swabbed....and wiped. Everything is clean. Beautiful. So that it slides perfectly. Nice. Everything cleaned. Oiled. So that your action is beautiful. Smooth, Charlene."

MMMMM MMMMMMM MMMMM Good! As I sit here, I am enjoying the first of the season's peach desserts. Our harvest from the peach tree in the back yard has been quite abundant this year despite the lack of rain and they are juicy, sweet and oh so peachy!

Seriously now, I know you have picked up peaches at the grocery that are hard, woody, and have about as much flavor as wet a paper towel. You know the ones.

Anyway, this peach crumble thing that Aimee makes is the absolute best way to prepare fresh fruit, I think. She literally picked the peaches off the tree; washed, peeled and sliced them, added the topping (which is essentially butter, flower, cinnamon and brown sugar cut together with a pastry knife and sprinkled on) and popped it in the oven. 42 minutes later, plus cooling time, and I am in cinnamon-enhanced peachy heaven.

Peaches and Herb probably should have called themselves Peaches and Cinnamon. They would have lasted longer.

You'll have to forgive the cheesiness, but I had to post this to give my sweetness her props--she's got game!

FOXNews.com - Top Stories - Sniper Killed in Shootout

Am I the only one tired of the media referring to anyone with a rifle as a "sniper"? Not only is it incredibly disrespectful of properly trained military and law enforcement sharpshooters but it is entirely inaccurate. "Snipers" train for weeks on end in all kind of crappy conditions under constant duress at the hands of their instructors, who are trying as hard as they can to trip them up. If someone is not cut out to be a sharpshooter, it is best to discover this during the training program--not while in the field.

They must memorize ballistic coefficients, bullet drop, windage, spotting, and target ranging, on top of mastering camouflage for any locale they may be delpoyed to. Anyone who has ever used a Mil-Dot reticle scope will immediately appreciate the amount of technical expertise required to pull off a 500 meter shot at a man-sized target, even under good conditions. Then, they get to chew on the thought that if they miss the shot their life expectancy has just dropped to somewhere a few clicks above zero.

But most importantly a true sniper, and his spotter, must be able to get to their objective through any kind of terrain undetected hit their objective, then get out again undetected. If you see a "sniper", he or she is not doing their job very well.

Calling these lamers "snipers" is roughly akin to calling someone with a piano in their home a concert pianist. Sure, they have the required hardware, but not the needed skills.

Double-dang! I have spent the last two nights trying to rid this machine of some downright cantankerous scumware/adware which was installed courtesy of KAZAA. Or rather some idiot who is obviously in league with Lucifer himself. I tell you what, if the miscreant responsible for that stuff had come to the door last night or earlier this evening, I would be writing this post from jail, kind friends.

I must've ran McAfee virus scan and LavaSoft's AdAware at least a dozen times each over the last two nights and it is just now acting right after deleting over 600 'objects' of questionable nature. I also had to manually remove KAZAA because their uninstall tool mysteriously failed. You know what their website says to do? That's right, manually uninstall the folder from your programs directory. The absolute best part of the whole event was how this demonspawn software just kept propagating itself! There were at least 5 programs in my c:\windows directory that were doing nothing but generating pop-up after pop-up and jacking with the IE settings as well as creating new programs to do exactly the same thing. I probably even deleted some things I shouldn't have in my zeal to get rid of that crap.

So the moral of the story, I guess, is that I finally paid for all those, ahem, downloads with my time and frustration, so as usual: there is no free lunch!

During the times when I'd grown weary of fighting the evil demons of KAZAA, I was working on putting up a few items on the auction block. To be exact, a few cameras. I am listing one for a guy at work as well as one of my personal cameras so I can finance a new lens purchase. Since I've gone digital, my N90s body has been just sitting in the close waiting for someone to use it. Obviously, that was not me. I have used that camera once in the last year, and that was only because my cousin wanted some black and white film pics in addition to the ditigal pics I shot for their wedding. So (here comes the shameless, blatant plug) if you know anyone in the market for a film camera, have them check out ebay and look for auctions by 'hollowman'. And I still have one more to do! Egad.

FOXNews.com - Top Stories - N.Y. Teacher on Leave for Soapy Punishment

This gal should be getting a medal, not a suspension.

eBay item 3916036497 (Ends Jun-14-04 13:52:18 PDT) - Graduate School, University of Miami, Yacht, Investment

Now this loser needs a smack. I am almost tempted to bid just so I can default and waste his insertion fee. If it weren't for my feedback rating, I would do it in a minute. Thanks to Jason for pointing out this dork.

Tongue Tied - River Ruckus

Speechless.

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com

Can you imagine how delightful this is going to smell in 3 days? (Link is courtesy o' Chris).

Over the last week or so, Aimee and I have watched a few of the more highly rated films from the last year or so. Among them are Bend It Like Beckham and Lost in Translation

While both are indeed notable, I enjoyed Lost in Translation more out of the two. Which is thoroughly unexpected because I absolutely despise almost everything Bill Murry has done. I see his face in a movie and I will change the channel regardless of what it is. It is a reflex action. I can't control it.

For me, the story is about life. The principal characters are on both ends of it, chronologically. "Bob" is towards the end looking back across his life and wondering about the choices he's made. "Charlotte" is a newlywed fresh out of college who tags along with her photographer husband to Tokyo and is wondering what will become of her life. Charlotte has a philosphy degree, so she is a more introspective, but not too deep or contrived. Bill Murray as "Bob" is quite good--somehow turning all that goofy, slapstick, waaaay over the top crap from back in the day into a believable guy who is at the end of his career, and knows it, and probably not too far from divorce. Seeing him in this role makes me wonder if he didn't take his motivation from his own life. I can certainly see how the two correlate sine that is pretty well how I see Bill Murray anyway.

I am taking the time to write about it because it very pleasantly surprised me. Not a fast mover by any means, but certainly well told and expertly photographed. Well worth a peek.

Rachel Lucas: And so it has been done, and it is beautiful

Weehaw! I just noticed that Rachel Lucas is back in the blogosphere! You have to check this one out!

For the last two days, I just plain haven't had it in my to write anything. Not even a post-it note. I did start the story of how Derrell broke his back and was then on his feet two weeks later--albeit a bit gingerly--but that one is very important, and I don't want to rush it or put it together just to get it done. So it sits in my 'drafts' area waiting for the attention it deserves.

We spent most of last night figuring out that you can download songs from, of all places on earth, the wm website. And get this: they had an import that Aimee could not find anywhere on the p2p nets. We nearly had matching coronaries when we saw that wm had Zero 7 When It Falls available in its entirety. Well, actually figuring out that we could download them went relatively quickly, it was the conversion and burning that took a bit.

You see, they have sample song which is a straight-forward mp3 download to make sure you know what you are doing and that you have the required software installed. Simple enough. But when you buy the entire album, you don't get the mp3 or wma files, rather you get this little 'license' file that handles the downloads for you. Guess what? The files that are downloaded are stricly wma files because they had to control the digital licenses for these things or the record companies would not give them up. Winamp wouldn't even recognize the files, let alone play them. So what this means to your average geek is that your super-sweet copy of Nero 6 Ultra is useless. May as well be minesweeper for all the good it did trying to burn the songs to CD. You have to have WMP9 loaded and then use it to burn your legally acquired songs to CD. Lame-o-rama. And they wonder why people don't want to do things this way. Dorks.

Once that bit was done it was easy enough to use Simple Burn to rip the CD to MD for ease of transport and all around ultra-tasty goodness. Seriously, folks. If you want to buy an MP3 player instead of a Minidisc player, you should just go ahead and give me the money so I can buy more blank MDs for me and the Mrs.

And in un-related news: now that we have finally finished all the paperwork from when the contract changed hands, we're 'acquired' by a different company! We got an email from one of the HR peeps I haven't even met, or at least recall meeting, explaining in almost no detail that we have been bought by a different company. There will be a meeting in about 5 hours that I will not be attending, for obvious reasons, that should explain the whole situation. And there will be quiche and danish for all. Seriously. I love quiche as much as the next guy, but not that much. Probably more to come on this one--possibly in the form of a giant rant about having to fill out even more insurance and 401K paperwork. Woo-hoo.

On the workfront, today was one of those days. There was just waaaay too much going on. And then you can factor in this day of mourning, Friday, for the Gipper. Since our building has a lot of federal employees, they will all be off or given admin leave. However, since we are all contractors, we aren't going to be afforded a day off or the admin leave. Which is to be expected. They said all "federal" employees, not contractors, sub-contractors, or company chickens. However, the site manager was still forced, by the sheer number of queeries, to send out an email explaining why we would not be getting the day off--unless you want to use vacation hours. This is a universal fact: if the rest of the building is closed, the HD will be working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We all know this, and we tell every perspective employee this fact from the first interview. That this still surprises people is just beyond me.

Finally, another factor contributing to my bloggin delinquency is a video site that Rob H. hipped me to: STUPIDVIDEOS.COM! Some of them are classics, some are new to me, but now that they are all in one place I can't get anything done. Well, I could but I'm obviously not trying real hard, am I?

CNN.com - Cheese artist installs bed of ham - Jun 3, 2004

Seriously now, could someone please explain to me how three hundred pounds of ham on a bed equates to art? Maybe if he had splattered the whole thing with mustard...nope. Still not working as art for me. Someone smack this guy.

I've been meaning to put this up, but I keep forgetting. A while back, Jason found this on-line game called Pingu Smack or something like that. I guess we played it so much, we overloaded old boy's bandwidth and it disappeared in two days.

Well, a little while and some googlin' later, I managed to find Yetisports.org which has the original Pingu Smack, plus 3 other games and the author is going to release a 4th on the 17th of june.

The premis of all the games isn't to abuse the penguins, but rather you are trying to help them learn to fly.

Click the YetiSports perma link under oddbits and enjoy. Don't say I didnt' warn you when you've wasted an hour!

FOXNews.com - Top Stories - Mourning in America: Ronald Reagan Dies at 93

May he rest in peace.

Thinking back, I now recall that I voted for Reagan in 1980. Most of you will immediately realize that I would have been way too young to vote in 1980. While this is technically correct, as I was in fifth grade in 1980, there was a children's magazine that held mock elections with each election year's fifth grade class, nationwide, to try to teach us civics and the election process as a whole.

The social studies teachers facilitated the whole thing, and we did it all from the nominating of the candidates at the mock party national conventions, to the actual elections. I remember Brian Snow and myself making these huge "Vote Reagan" posters with big red, white and blue elephants in the middle of the poster between the two words. Before the elections, I even drew a cartoon of the USSR's army on the shores of the east coast with one tiny dilapidated US aircraft sputtering towards the Communist challenge with the caption reading "Tell Carter to get of his "BEEP" and defend this country!". Cheesy, yes, but I was 10 and the Cold War was in full swing.

When the "election" was over, Reagan was announced the winner. Shortly after that, the November, 1980 elections took place and Reagan was, again, announced the winner. Turns out that these mock elections had accurately predicted the outcome of the presidential race since they had been started.

FOXNews.com - Top Stories - O.J. Simpson: 'I Am Angry' With Nicole

Way to bounce back, O. J. Good to see you're still looking for the 'real killers', you lying murderer.

While over at wm earlier this evening (we decided to buy Return of the King, rather than rent it, to get us through 'til the extended director's cut comes out) I saw what can only be equated with pure DVD gold. I have never heard of Media Blasters, INC, but Jhonen Vasquez apparently convinced them to distribute the first 9 epi's of Invader Zim on DVD.

Man-o-man, I'm dancin' like a monkey!

So I'm sitting at work and I have all my paperwork and such done for the evening. I open my wallet to see if I have enough bread to rent LOTR Return Of The King tonight and I notice I have all $1s. I joked to Jason that it must be time to head to the nudie bar. Jason politely reminds me that Aimee is not a big fan of the nudie bar--or perhaps more accurately, not a big fan of Wayne going to the nudie bar. Actually, if we're to be perfectly honest, I'm not a fan of the nudie bar anyway. In any event, this reminds me that I have serveral friends who routinely take their wives/girlfriends with them to the nudie bar. And they have a blast. Am I just missing it? What is the deal here--cause you know if the shoe was on the other foot, those gals are not getting their guys anywhere near a speed-o covered sausage review.

FOXNews.com - Top Stories - No Longer 'Ladies Night' in New Jersey Bars

It would seem that Mr. Gillespie never wants to enjoy the company of the fair sex again.

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com

So if there were fifteen to twenty of them, how many jerrycans did they use? Dorks.

Thanks again to Chris for pointing this one out.

It seems to me that a lot of the criticism directed towards the Bush administration is alleging that the war in Iraq is ‘all about oil’. Well I have a solution for that.

Most of us (in OK and TX anyway) remember the oil boom of the 70s and 80s and subsequently, the oil bust of the late 80s. A lot of us were even personally affected by the former, so my solution is based on putting American’s back to work. However, before I get into the ‘meat and ‘taters’ let’s take a look at a few things.

Almost everywhere in the US gas prices are at an all time high, approaching or even breaching the two-dollar mark. People are freaking out. Especially those who thought the $1.29 gas prices were endless and as a result, had no qualms about buying the least fuel-efficient vehicle they could find. Granted, I drive a full-size truck but I knew that the good times wouldn’t last for ever when I bought it and moreover, I didn’t buy it for the gas mileage. Anyone who drives a full-size anything should automatically have to shut their mouth when gas prices go up, because we knew it would be an issue when we bought that behemoth. Just for comparison, I checked gas prices in the UK since they seem to be a pretty fair comparison as far as industrialized nations go. Currently, the Brits are paying around 80 pence per liter. A liter is 3.78 US gallons, so that comes out to about 302.8 pence, or ₤3.03 per gallon. At the current exchange rate, that equates to $5.57 per gallon! All of a sudden, $2 a gallon seems a lot more palatable, to me anyway.

Based on that, I say it is time we wean our country off the teat of foreign oil. You can’t tell me (maybe Dusty will crunch the numbers for us) that putting Americans back to work in the oil fields of Oklahoma and Texas would drive the cost of a gallon of gas up so high that it would not be worth it in the end to get off this reliance on foreign oil. I can’t see how this is anything but a win-win situation. First off, we put Americans back to work, which is always good. Second, we tell OPEC they can keep their dag-nab-it oil--we won’t need any more, thank you very much. Third, we limit our reliance (and by extension our presence) on the middle-east. Obviously they don’t want us there, so why shouldn’t we oblige them and just get out? Quite frankly, I’m sick of policing the world when we still have so much to do at home. (Isolationism, baby; embrace it). I think we should have our ‘house’ in order before we start telling the world what to do with theirs. Unless, of course, they ask for some help with the house cleaning. Finally, as an added bonus, we get to tell all those ‘oil war’ fanatics to go find something else to wank about.

Another positive benefit is that automobile manufacturers would be forced to fully develop their alternate fuel and hybrid vehicle programs if they want to ‘keep up with the Jones’, so to speak, eventually nullifying the higher cost of gas. No more doing it as a half-measure to keep the greenies happy. It would become a matter of getting the technology to an affordable level and getting it in the marketplace as quickly as possible, or just plain give up on their large-scale vehicles. Seriously, if Honda can get 22 mpg hwy and 240hp out of their Pilot, all the while keeping it a LEV, why can’t Ford, Chevy and Dodge? Who knows, we may even rebuild Am-Trak and Greyhound back to their former glory. (I absolutely love travel by train and wish it was more of an option here in the Midwest, but using "glory" in the same sentence as "Greyhound" is laughable).

I firmly believe this would work, and I’m ready and willing to put my money where my mouth is, but we all know Americans are too greedy and cheap, generally speaking, to take that personal hit in the wallet to make this theory a reality, even if it would benefit us all in the long run.

National WWII Memorial

All I can say is that it is about damn time these fine men and women had their own memorial. I look up to the men and women who endured those years of loss and suffering, knowing full well that some gave all to make this world a better place.

What a wonderful weekend! I always think this, but a three-day treat is not be casually disregarded. In fact, when I'm asked how my weekend was by friends or coworkers the answer is always the same: delightfully weekendalicious, or something similar.

To pick up where I left off last time, we can add to the list, washed and waxed the truck, sprayed for ants (not glamorous, but necessary nonetheless) finished the Matrix trilogy (ho-hum) and walked around campus for an hour or so taking pictures! Is there a better way to end a weekend than taking pictures? I don't think so, which brings us to the real subject of this late-hour post: POT? #10.

While strolling around campus, I was able to get a floral subject I have been trying to shoot for 2 years. Obviously, I hadn't been on campus or it would've been a moot point, but I finally got it done. Curious? Check out the POT? permalink and all will be revealed.

Here's hoping you enjoyed your weekend to it's fullest!