Gotta get me one
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(via Chizumatic) YES!

'Nuff said.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Saturday, April 29 2006 04:12:53 PM

The (not quite) R10.03
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1. Forbidden City - Twelve Girls Band (Fobidden City)

2. Antidote - Morcheeba (the Antidote)

3. I Found Love - Kenny Wayne Shepherd (Trouble Is)

4. Sense of Doubt - David Bowie (Heroes)

5. Water from a Vine Leaf - William Orbit (The Best of Strange Cargos)

6. Tantalizing with the Blues - John Lee Hooker (Blues Legends)

7. Free Flying Spirits - Ron Boots (Detachment of Worldly Affairs)

8. Changes - Santana (Zebop)

9. In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel (Secret World Live )

10. Soap Commercial - Psychedelic Furs (The Psychedelic Furs)

Favorite: probably 5 (tonight, anyway)

Cut I wish had been something else from the same album: 10

Cut from a CD I got autographed by the artist: 7 (long story)

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, April 28 2006 01:09:17 AM

It's just hard water
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This is what happens when baseball sized hail hits your truck:

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, April 27 2006 09:31:50 PM

Gas Map
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First, I don't think there is anything wrong with the price of gas. Sure I would like it better if it cost less. No, I don't think we need a Congressional investigation. And, no, I don't begrudge the oil companies their profits. (Aside from the fact that I'm sharing in them due to my meager investments, people get all wigged out about the huge numbers, forgetting that if you make a profit on huge amounts of a valuable commodity, the profit numbers will be really big. Besides, the profit margin for the oil companies is less that the profit margin for the newspaper industry and no one is calling for an investigation there.) I especially lose patience with those on the left who call for Government intervention to make us decrease our use of gasoline. Here's a refresher from Econ 101: when the price goes up, people use less.

Still, the price of gas is a non-trivial issue. If you are interested you might check out the National Gas Temperature Map. It has the average gas price for every county in the country. If you zoom in, it goes all the way down to discrete prices by individual zip code. (And for those of you not blessed by living in Kansas, check out the prices here in central Kansas as opposed to wherever you are. No fair if you live in Wyoming.)

Update: I had intended to mention this earlier but forgot about it while I was playing around with the Gas Temperature Map, but got reminded of this simple fact when I was listening to a Jimmy Doane podcast: If any of the oh-so-concerned politicians you hear moaning about the price of gas and what it is doing to us "little people" really and truly wanted to help us "little people" out, they could vote to suspend (temporarily) or eliminate (permanently) the federal tax of $0.49 a gallon or so that we are currently paying.

To quote Mira Sorvino in The Replacement Killers, "I didn't think so."

Also: From Radley Balko at the Agitator: ...Let's assume a gas company, gas station owner, or refinery owner is selling his product at inflated prices. So what? Until it lands in your gas tank and you pay for it, it's his damned property. I've never understood why politicians feel the government should have the power to determine the price at which one person must sell his own property to somone who wants to buy it.

Might I add that you are not obligated to buy it from that particular individual or company.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, April 27 2006 02:48:09 PM

Pissing people off for fun and profit
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Well, I'm stuck for the moment, waiting on calls from 2 doctors and the body shop. I've been killing time by listening to podcasts and alternating between working on policy stuff for work and catching up on some corners of the blogosphere I usually don't have time to get to.

One of the stories I find most interesting is the manufactured controversy regarding some deliberately offensive cartoons published by a leftist newspaper (the Insurgent) at the University of Oregon. (via Michele Malkin's Hot Air and the Oregon Commentator). Badly drawn cartoons of Jesus with an erection are tasteless and offensive to a lot of people. That said, I support the Insurgent's right to publish them and am especially heartened by the Commentator (a conservative student publication) response of support. I certainly agree that the best response to this kind of nonsense is not questionable attempts to ban this kind of material. Rather, I think this sort of thing should be dealt with on it's merits or lack thereof. In the words of Ian :

Regardless of content, people and organizations should not be censored for speech that’s considered “offensive” or “hateful.” Indeed, we support the publication and round denunciation of ideas and opinions which are bigoted or inappropriate. The best way to counter the free expression of bad ideas is with the free expression of good ideas.

(I'll comment on that in a bit.)

What really fascinates me is the way the various parties close (and not so close) to the situation are positioning themselves. I also think it is fascinating that if you go to the Insurgent website and click on the "current issue" link you get some stuff from 2001. Meanwhile, the Commentator folks have a link to the entire current Insurgent issue.

As for the ideas, I confess to being rather disappointed. I thought a few of the "Mohammed" cartoons were stupid, but several were quite clever. I think there are some criticisms of mainstream Christianity that could be dealt with through cartooning that would offend many Christians. Unfortunately, the "Insurgent" cartoons don't do that. Take the "Mohammed's turban/bomb" cartoon. Offensive to a lot of Muslims? Yes. Does it make a point about the trappings of Islam being wrapped around a violent agenda? Yes. Take the "Christ on the cross with an erection" cartoon. Offensive to a lot of Christians? Yes. Does is make a point of some kind? Christ was a man? Christians are masochists? I don't know. You tell me. My point is simple. The "Mohammed" cartoons made some points about how Islam is being used by Islamic terrorists. Jesus nailed to a hang-glider says...? I guess it says, "See how intellectual and edgy I am? I can piss off Christians."

Being offensive for the sake of being offensive ceased being funny some time after Eddie Murphy became an actor and quit doing stand-up. I found the Insurgent cartoons to be derivative at best, and completely un-original and pointless at worst. And I welcome their wider distribution, as it only serves to reinforce how marginalized people like the intellectual heavyweights at the Insurgent have become.

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Thursday, April 27 2006 12:38:51 PM

No wonder I like these guys
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Brian Micklethwait is one of my favorite contributors at Samizdata. Things like this may be why:

The constant temptation for writers here at Samizdata is to focus only on politics, and as a direct consequence to get depressed. Politics is always depressing. Depressing is what politicians do. They say they are going to encourage this or that, but these thises and thats generally involve extorting yet more tax to pay for such encouragement, which depresses taxpayers yet more, and the encouragement as often as not turns out to be the opposite, while nevertheless scaring away any non-governmental encouragers who might really have helped, which is especially depressing for everyone who got their hopes up.

So, I will now write about opera on DVD, which is not nearly such a depressing subject as politics, and especially not right now. True, opera is often paid for by governments - which goes a long way to explaining why most new operas now are such junk. And true, the stories told in operas are often themselves very depressing, involving, as they often do, politicians, as well as other sorts of bad people doing bad things. But, despite all that, the presentation on DVD of the operas that date from the time when opera was show business and when people ran opera houses for fun and profit, rather than out of a sense of cultural duty, is now getting seriously into its stride.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Wednesday, April 26 2006 06:54:07 PM

If Monday happens but I'm not awake...
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We had a major hailstorm this morning. I'm not sure when. I vaguely remember the Head Rat being quite exercised about the whole thing. She saw a baseball sized hailstone hit the windshield on the ratmobile. Meanwhile, my inner ear problem apparently flared up and I've been dizzy and unable to focus. So, I've slept all day.

Unfortunately, the fact that I slept through the whole day apparently doesn't alter the fact that I need a new windshield.

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, April 24 2006 05:24:04 PM

Not so hard
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I've been reading about podcasts for some time now, but I never took the time to investigate. Well, it turns out podcasts aren't all that difficult to deal with. Basically, they are just a way for people to put up audio files on a server so that you can go download them and listen to them when you want. Kind of like a radio show that starts whenever you want it to. Like an RSS feed, there are special aggregators that go automatically download new podcasts from sources you've subscribed to. I'm using one called Juice (recently renamed, as it used to be called iPodder). It is (as one might expect, knowing me) free, and if you are interested, it can be found here. It has built in support for iTunes, Windows Media Player and WinAmp. I use WinAmp most of the time, but for downloading music to my PDA, I use Real Player (it has a version for Palm OS devices). I was pleased to find that the podcast files work in Real Player as well (not that there is any reason they shouldn't, the are just mp3 files, but the way my luck runs, I wasn't sure.)

So, what does this do for me? In the grand scheme of things, probably not much. But I now have the ability to download trance music podcasts and the latest IMAO humor and listen to them at work. There are days when little things like that can help a lot.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, April 23 2006 12:38:03 AM

Ouch!
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I used to be a big hockey fan. The lockout last year kind of put me off of it, but it is playoffs time now, so I've been checking out some games. All I've got to say about it tonight is: Tonight it really sucks to be RJ Umberger.

Umberger plays for the Philadelphia Flyers. He got knocked down/out tonight in a game against the Buffalo Sabres. It was the most lethal hit I've seen in hockey in a long time. To me, it looked clean, it was just one of those things where he was picking up a puck coming from behind him and as he accelerated forward he got leveled just as he was bringing his head around to look up the ice. Absolutely beautiful. But, aside from the headache/concussion, the reason I say it sucks to be Umberger tonight is that that hit will undoubtedly make every major sportscast and playoff highlight reel. He will never be able to get away from it.

How would you like to be famous for getting knocked out in a hockey game?

by Cziltang 
Posted: Saturday, April 22 2006 11:24:39 PM

Kill them monkeys
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This excerpt from Planet Moron:

Did you know that every time you eat a Chicken McNugget you are aiding in the destruction of the Brazilian rainforest? Well, if you're eating that Chicken McNugget in the UK anyway. Here in the US you're just aiding in the destruction of your coronary artery system.

In a "six degrees of separation" kind of indictment, Greenpeace International found that the McNuggets sold in Europe come from chickens raised in the UK which are fed soybeans distributed by Cargill which are grown by farmers in Brazil who use land that may or may not have once been rainforest.

In other words, buying a McNugget is pretty much the equivalent of personally strangling to death a Red Faced Uakari monkey (except you don't get a choice of dipping sauce).

 

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, April 21 2006 02:16:32 AM

SSDD (the Not Safe for those with weak Stomachs Version)
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I thought I would take a vacation from weird this week. I also thought I would be suave, debonair, handsome and rich. So much for the best laid plans of rats and men.

Monday I had dental work done, including the removal of another one of my wisdom teeth. This one didn't go quite as smoothly as the first one. Apparently one of the roots extended into the sinus cavity. One of the features of a situation like this (this is one of those "this is a feature, not a bug" arguments) is it provides for some really unusual opportunities. When such a tooth is removed it creates a column of nothing where the tooth used to live, extending from the sinus cavity through the upper jaw into the mouth. This direct connection provides a new, exciting alternate route for air molecules inhaled through the nose to visit the lungs, stomach and a number of other destinations not normally available to said molecules. So I'm trying to take a drink to wash down the pain pill and the little bit of suction created by trying to take a drink is causing air from my sinus cavity to gurgle through the blood in the column of nothing and into the back of my mouth. Cool, right? It creates sort of the same sensation you got as a kid when you had a really loose tooth that wouldn't fall out, but was loose enough that you could turn it around backwards.

By Wednesday the column of nothing had closed up and I was thinking that things were getting better. About 5:00 AM Thursday when I was getting ready to go to bed, I bent over to pick something up and blood started running out of my nose. The Dentist and I have come to the consensus that the column of nothing must have still been bleeding into the sinus cavity. When I put my head down, the pooled blood all ran out.

I took the Head Rat to have an acupuncture treatment today for her back and shoulders. While I found whole process fascinating, she (who is, by the way, terrified of needles) was somewhat less enthusiastic. We will see if this helps, but aside from the needles in her back, she was a tad miffed that the doctor thought she should leave the needle sticking out of her ear for two hours.

Tonight Rat, Jr. decided to make dessert. Angel Food cake with cherry pie filling on top sounds reasonably good, right? Jr. isn't a good enough cook to get creative with flavors and cooking processes, so her fall-back strategy for culinary experimentation is food coloring. While Dr. Seuss is famous for not liking green eggs and ham, I personally refuse to eat blue eggs, and I wasn't too crazy about tonight's masterpiece, either. Blue and green streaks through a flat angel food cake with cherries. OK, it wasn't horrible.

I tried to get caught up on current events and my regular blog reads tonight, but I just couldn't get focused on it. So, you get this personal drivel instead of drivel of a political nature. Because I'm all about sharing the weird.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Friday, April 21 2006 12:24:22 AM

Adventures in Molar Land
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Yes, boys and girls, I'm now minus another wisdom tooth. This one didn't go quite as smoothly as the last one, which pretty much sucks for me. Of course, it is only mildly discomforting at the moment because of the drugs. They will wear off sometime in the middle of the night.

I was going to write about Ubuntu Linux this evening (like I could have concentrated enough to do that) but one of the extensions or themes or custom toolbar items or something I installed recently caused my Firefox to quit working. It was acting like some of my former employees: it said it was working, it told Windows it was working, but when you went looking for it you couldn't find it and couldn't access it. I'm now minus a few marginal extensions and everything is working fine.

There was supposed to be a point there, somewhere, but I forgot what it was. I must be fuzzier than I thought.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, April 17 2006 11:36:37 PM

When the going gets weird...
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When the going gets weird,

The weird turn pro.

Hunter S. Thompson

Today would have been a good day to turn pro, were it not for the fact that if Weird was like Golf, I'd be in the Masters.

Sometimes I just sit and wonder how a man gets to this point. How is it that a man can slide (albeit, not quite gracefully) through the morass of perverts, junkies and thugs that is my life without batting an eye, and then go to work with criminals every day? How does one get to the point that a dotted line tattooed across the inside of a wrist labeled "hospital", and a dotted line tattooed lengthwise from the wrist up the arm labelled "morgue" sounds like a good idea, and funny, to boot? And why, now that I think I've got something to say and the time to say it, do my little and ring fingers on one hand go numb so I can't feel the keyboard?

Well, although I'm not a big believer in destiny, I think it is practice for days like today. All sorts of strange things are happening at work, some of which I am part of instigating. And, as usual, I really can't talk about it, other than to say that someone must surely have cursed me with the (allegedly) ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times".

Well, I've killed enough time with this nonsense that it is finally past 11:00 and I can call work to take care of some other, still pending business.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Tuesday, April 11 2006 10:54:02 PM

Of course they do...
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Most of the time when I try to hire staff I have a hard time trying to find people who want to work on 3rd shift. A lot of times it ends up being a matter of that being what's available and if you want a job you take 3rd shift. Right now I've got a couple of openings on 3rd and a couple of openings on 2nd. After a day of interviews today, not one single eligible person wanted 2nd. I've never had an applicant pool where everyone wanted to work 3rd shift.

There's no real significance here, it's just one of those puzzling things.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, April 10 2006 11:05:01 PM

Today is brought to you by the letter R
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or

(in the style of Rocky and Bullwinkle)

Of Rubies and Rugers

The Head Rat has a Ruby ring. It's nothing fancy or terribly expensive, just a nice, tasteful small ruby. Ruby was her mother's birthstone, so it is primarily of sentimental value.

The ring went missing a couple of weeks ago. She looked all over the house. After searching all the usual places and some not quite so usual, she became convinced that it had been taken. There was a pretty long list of suspects, ranging from one of the variety of less-than-scrupulous acquaintances to one of Rat Jr,'s ne'er-do-well friends to the one neighborhood girl who just walks into people's houses when she's bored. Basically, she figured she would never know what happened. Even the individuals we suspected of taking it aren't stupid enough to steal a ring and then wear it to our house.

Last night Rat Jr. came upstairs asking if the ring she was holding in her hand was the one her mother had been looking for. Surprise of surprises, it was, indeed, the missing ruby ring. The Head Rat has absolutely no clue what it was doing in the refrigerator at the bottom of the crisper with the carrots and celery.

As for the Ruger; I have one. It's a P89. Maybe a little bulky for concealed carry, but I like it anyway. And, it has never been an issue, as Kansas has been one of only four states that has had absolutely no provision for private citizens to carry concealed weapons.

It is no longer a moot point. The Kansas Legislature passed a concealed carry law, the governor vetoed it but both the House and Senate voted to override the veto. So, in the future I will be able to apply for a concealed carry permit, which I will, of course, do.

Being a proponent of concealed carry is one thing when it is not a possibility. Confronting the actuality is quite another. There is an awesome responsibility associated with carrying the potential means of someone's death. Thinking about the concept is a new and different thing for a lot of Kansans as they decide whether to get a permit or not. I would maintain, however, that it is no greater responsibility (and statistically much less likely to lead to a lethal result) than hopping in one's car, drinking coffee, grabbing a bite to eat and talking on the cell phone while driving. The responsibility of herding several hundred pounds of assorted metal, plastic and fiberglass down the road at high speeds is no less awesome, we're just jaded by the everyday-ness of the driving experience.

Two things about the concealed carry situation in Kansas have me really annoyed.

First: I was reading the Wichita paper a few days ago. Some spokesman for the Wichita Police Department was quoted as saying the WPD was against concealed carry. He went on to say something to the effect that now the police were going to have to approach each situation as if there might be a gun involved.

WHAT?

You mean they don't already approach each situation as if there might be a gun involved? Do they really believe that because we haven't had concealed carry none of the bad guys have been carrying guns? And do they really think they can tell who the bad guys are before they stop them? And if they can tell who the bad guys are why are they stopping people who aren't bad guys?

Look. Here's a helpful hint for the folks running the training programs for the WPD. Just like you treat every gun as if it is loaded even when you "know" it isn't, you treat every incident with a member of the public as if they are armed. If they are, you are prepared. If they aren't, it only cost you a little caution and you didn't risk being dead because you "knew" it was a low risk situation.

And another thing: The people who are likely to shoot a cop aren't all waiting around to get their concealed carry permits. They already carry guns, and probably weapons that won't be legal anyway. Concealed carry permits will not increase that risk in the slightest. On the other hand, people like me who will go through all the appropriate steps to legally carry a concealed gun aren't going to shoot a cop. Period. Again, no increased risk. I really wish these "spokesmen" would think this stuff through before going on the record.

Second: As written, the new concealed carry law virtually ensures that the possible benefit of being armed will not be available to me at the times and the place where I need it most. Part of the law is that concealed weapons will be prohibited in a number of locations, including government buildings. I work in a government building. I have worked with all sorts of criminals, some of whom are gang members, some of whom don't like me very much and some of whom have friends and/or relatives who don't like me very much, not to mention the individuals who I was instrumental in sending to prison and/or their friends and/or relatives who are pissed off that I got little Billy Bob sent up to the joint.

The cul-de-sac I live on is long and narrow and not conducive to drive-bys. I live in one of the statistically safest areas of town, in no small part due to my retired neighbors who have nothing better to do than mind everyone else's business. While this is often annoying, it virtually assures that no suspicious activity goes unreported. I don't hang out in bars. I'm not a really public person.

In short, I am most vulnerable to being attacked or shot in a drive-by as I leave my office and walk to my truck, which is the one time where being armed could be of significant benefit to me and which is the one time when I will not legally be able to carry a gun. I've spent 26 years trying to make a difference. Trying to impact public safety. Trying to give folks a chance to change their lives while weeding out the ones who don't want to change and sending them to prison.

And the one place every current and former client of mine who might want to kill me knows I will be 5 days a week is the one place I can't defend myself.

Is this a great country or what?

 

by Cziltang 
Posted: Monday, April 03 2006 09:06:46 PM

Returned from the Dead
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OK, I wasn't dead. Although it would have been hard to tell during the past week. I spent last week working 7 PM to 3 AM in order to spend some time with my staff on second and third shift. It was actually quite productive, not to mention enjoyable. I have some really talented folks on those shifts who don't get the recognition they deserve. Unfortunately, that is the way it works, and it is one of the reasons I like working at night. I am, by nature or by habit, a night person. However, there is a big difference between going to bed at 3 AM and getting off work at 3 AM. It wouldn't be that bad, except for the daytime meeting obligations I have during the week. Still, it was worth the inconvenience.

The crowning glory on the week was a trip to the Dentist, during which, aside from all the poking and scraping and prodding and drilling, I had one of my wisdom teeth removed. What a marvelous experience.

I have only one thing to say about having a tooth pulled: COMBUNOX.

Combunox is a lovely little combination of ibuprofen and oxycodone. I suspect I have been in a great deal of pain this weekend. I'm not sure whether I just didn't know it or whether I just didn't care. In either case, it is 4 PM on Sunday afternoon and I am finally conscious enough to write, but since I don't really remember much of anything other than a couple of really weird dreams about some people I worked with on a Dude Ranch in 1977, I think I'll leave well enough alone.

by Cziltang 
Posted: Sunday, April 02 2006 04:03:47 PM