Cuppacafe

A while back I told you that I acquired a (free) pound of coffee from Dunkin' Donuts by donating a pint of my blood to the American Red Cross, well, I picked up the coffee (finally) and added it to my stash of ready-to-be-ground coffee beans.

This pint puts me on the plus-side of 15 gallons that I've donated. I try to go every two months, and by now, know most of the nurses at the donation center where I usually donate.

On an entirely different matter, I know that tomorrow is Superbowl Sunday, but just the other day I (finally) received a special Union Mets pin of the new Shea...er Citi Field. No, I'm not in a union, but my brother, Ron, is, (abnd is a HUGE Mets fan), and he pointed me in the direction of the pin (which was free for the asking).

Well, I requested the pin back during baseball season, and just received it.

Cool, eh?

Well, I'm off to run some errands with the ball and...er...wifie, so I'll be back later.

The Perfessor

Well, today is going to be one of those scatter-shot days. I'm running around, and I came up with a few interesting (and fun) things that I thought might interest you all.

I can see it now, a new law that requires cars to lock our hands on the wheel and keep out head pointed facing forward at all times.

What am I talking about? Well, this, for starters...

A female Driver who was apparently painting her nails at the time (yes, while driving!) crashed into, and killed a a female motorcyclist.

A northwest suburban woman was thrown from her motorcycle and killed Saturday evening after a female motorist -- allegedly painting her fingernails at the time of the crash -- failed to stop at a red light and slammed into the bike, authorities said.

The incident happened about 5:30 p.m. Saturday in a southbound lane of Route 12 at Old McHenry Road in an unincorporated area near Lake Zurich, according to Lake County Sheriff’s police Sgt. Scott Morrison.

You see, the Keller said the woman driving the car told the police that she was painting her fingernails and did not notice the light was red. So I’m guessing that it was the fault of whoever pout the light there in the first place, as well as whoever determined the timing sequence for the light itself.

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Well, here is yet anouther reason NOT to do drugs (as if you actually needed another reason). Apparently they make you not just stupid, but, well, incredibly stupid.

... a man called the police at 12:40 a.m., "asking them to arrest another man because he had given the man $150 to buy cocaine, but the seller never handed over the drugs."

It seems that because possession of small amounts of Pot have been decriminalized in Mass the caller had been smoking (perhaps a tad too much) too much pot, and simply forgot that the decriminalization didn’t extend to the cocaine that he was purchasing.

====================

Here is where life imitates art, in a scene that was (apparently) swiped from the film The World According to Garp. A woman bit off her lover’s penis in a car crash.

A boss and his secretary who were having an affair saw their romantic tryst interrupted in a wince-inducing manner - after a car crash led her to accidentally bite his penis off.

You see, according to the reports in China Press and Sin Chew Daily, the 30-year-old woman was performing oral sex on her boss in a parked car in a Singapore Park, when the car they were in was struck by a van that was backing up.

====================

Yeah, that last one hurt me too.

The Perfessor

Yeah, yeah, I know that it is Walt who usually posts these random bits of silliness here, but he’s apparently out getting drilled and I just had so many things come across my virtual desk today that I had to jump into the fray:

First up, 100 day in: Want to know why we measure a Presidency by his first 100 days? me too, so I looked it up. Apparently, Fair or not, the first 100 days of all new presidents are compared to those of FDR.

Setting priorities for his first term in 1933 was easy for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He had to save America from economic ruin. He had to at least begin to pull us out of our Great Depression. He did, and he did it during his "first hundred days."

=======================

You Swine!: I just learned that they discovered the “Patient Zero” for the Swine Flu.

Pucker up!

=======================

You Swine! Part Duce: Anyone out there got Gene Wilder’s number? (Tell me you’ve seen Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask). I’m not entirely sure what to make of this, but, well, here it is...

She oinks, snuffles in a trough and has a fetching set of trotters.

But it's not just her tail that's curly.

Elizabeth the pig wears a golden fleece that could pull the wool over enough eyes to make her the pride of the flock.

OK, the image has been photoshopped, but it wasn’t me. I swear! It was this guy.

=======================

Rocks in his box!: Yep that’s what this Florida teen found when he opened his new Nintendo DS (that he bouthg from Wal-Mart).

Florida teen finds rocks in Nintendo DS box: According to WTSP-TV, the confused teen opened up his gift only to find bunch of stones and a rolled up Chinese newspaper in place of the popular handheld.

When his mom contacted Wal-Mart they initially said it wasn’t their problem,and sent the woman to Sony, which also told her to pound sand with a rake. Needless to say, Wal-Mart ultimately blinked, and gave the woman a working DS. Apparently they learned that the same box of rocks had been previously returned by another disgruntled customer.

The story goes on to say that earlier this month, a PSP system bought at a different Wal-Mart store in Florida was found to contain a memory stick filled with pornographic images. (Personally I’m not certain I would have returned that one.)

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One for the Gipper!: Almost forgot this one. It is for Walt. I read this in a recent Entertainment Weekly. The book Laura Rider’s Masterpiece (Jane Hamilton) is a book where the protagonist — an aspiring romance writer — stops having sex with her husband, then arranges for him to have a mistress so she and observe and write about the affair.

Sound like anyone we know?

Walt?

Alison?

Anyone?

=======================

Well, I’m done for today, especially as I’ve got a bottle of tequila and a six-pack of Iron City chillin’ here in the fridge. So I’ll move on to whatever is next and come back for more tomorrow.

Ciao y’all!

The Perfessor

First, to celebrate my son's birthday (see previous post)
an article that he would appreciate. During his high-school years, Mike worked at a computer gaming parlor, but one that had a side business of reading old tapes for oil companies. It seems that the oil companies would store their geologic data on archival tape. Most of it was seismic lines. The tapes survived the test of time for the most part, but the machines that put the data on the tape? Not so much. Mike's company had those tape players and Mike knows how to get the data off of the tapes and into a usable format.

Well, it turns out that NASA is on the lookout for a working tape player as well. It seems that some of the data beamed back from the Apollo missions was recorded on special tape players and then the tape...

was lost. Well, not lost actually. It was misplaced before it was archived. Thrown in a dumpster perhaps? Nope. Just hidden under the floorboards of a theater.

The tape player needed to play the tapes back is about the size of a refrigerator, and there happens to be one in the Computer Museum in Australia, where the tapes were originally made

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/10/2415393.htm

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When ya gotta go, there's a place out back

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Sometimes you feel like a nut
Sometimes you don't

I had January 7th in the pool of "When does Lindsey Lohan decide she wants a penis again?" and I was so wrong. It was November 16th.

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Republican ghost writers must be chomping at the bit to write Sarah Palin's memoirs after reports started filtering in of the estimated 7 Million Dollars advance on the manuscript. I use the word estimates, because there's no official word, and this is just reading the entrails from the publishers and booksellers I slice open every other week...

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Graphic novels don't make the New York Times Bestseller lists, much to the chagrin of comic book publishers and cool paranormal mystery writers.

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Where staying AWAY from the Dr. made this woman lighter.

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Folks around the Houston area simply didn't get their electric meter read during the time when the hurricane came through and the company was working on getting power restored. Last month's bills were a generous estimate, but now the meters are read, there's a huge sticker shock. [Chron.com]

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Am I the only person in America that enjoys watching the American version of LIFE ON MARS more than the original English version?

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Update on Blogging RanchoCali -- The well spud date got pushed back by ten days or so because of insurance issues. I hope to have an additional update later in the week.

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Finally, all those comic book based movies. Here's a list of 75 comic book based movies coming to a theater near you.

You'll note that T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS is not one of them. There's a reason for that. And I won't tell the tale. yet.

As we move into the last couple or three weeks of presidential politics, the candidates are coming into the home stretch. If they can’t make their case now, they never will. It is for all the marbles this time.

Needless to say, as the candidates keep stressing (or in some cases, McCain changing) their messages the comedic possibilities of what is being said, have become downright hilarious.

First up, is my old pal, Jon Stewart talks a little bit of the potential danger in whipping up an audience into a mob:

He then went on to comment on McCain’s “New” Stump speech...

Still, while it is all fun and games, there is tonight’s debate (zzzzzzzzz). Yeah, if you are starting to snooze over the concept of yet another debate (that doesn’t involve that cute Palin gal winkin’ at us). So if you want to enliven the debate, I suggest one of these 20 ways.

Still, the best I’ve seen of late is this website that gives us a clear picture of what Sara Palin as President will truly look like.

Hopefully if it actually happens, I will laugh as hard.

Just to be sure, it isn’t all fun and games, as political pundit Keith Olbermann points out:

And finally, yes, Sara you have foreign policy experience because you can see Russia from your porch, but then again (according to you) New Hampshire is apparently part of the “Great Northwest.”

Me, I’m going back to drinking heavy and blowin’ up stuff.

The Perfessor

*** UPDATE *** UPDATE *** UPDATE *** UPDATE ***

This just in from The Times-Tribune apparently the Secret Service is taking its job seriously, and investigating threats emanating from the crowd at a Palin rally:

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a threatening remark directed at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama during a political event in Scranton.

Apparently, a hateful remark came from the crowd while congressional candidate Chris Hackett was addressing the crowd at the Riverfront Sports Complex. (Someone shouted “Kill him!” after a mention of Obama’s name. The story went on to indicate that there was no indication that Hackett or Palin — who took the stage a half-hour later — actually heard the remark (They are Republicans, it isn’t in their job descriptions to actually LISTEN to the electorate).

Read the full story, here.

The Perfessor (again)

Scariest costume for Halloween is one using Al Gore's face to frighten other children into thinking the earth is melting. The costume consists of an Al Gore mask and bunch of made up statistics. Since the statistics don't matter, make up your own. Meanwhile, here's the Al Gore mask:
http://images.forbes.com/media/halloween/2007/masks/algore.jpg

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The Sarah Palin train rolls into the debate tonight after cramming hard enough to look like she's had more than a fourth grade edumacation. The woman CAN recite what she's been told -- that's clear enough. So she might do well, surprising everyone. It's when she's forced to think for herself that the talking points start tripping over themselves.

Biden talks so much he could fill the hour long debate all by himself. He might even do it while tickling his own tonsils with his toes. You see, Biden HAS a fourth grade edumacation, but he got the diploma off of a box of Frosted Flakes.

It'll be interesting to see if the polling numbers change on the governor's capability compared to the one taken this week.[MSNBC]

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I realize that being asked to talk about famous cases that have gone before the Supreme Court is only expected of someone who's might one day be expected to choose a candidate for our nation's highest court, but Governor Palin reportedly minored in PolySci, so it's not like she's never been asked that question before, right? The Painful Video Express continues

Cringeworthy? Yes. I love the part where Governor Palin tries to say that some cases need to be judged on a more local level. It would be interesting to see which cases she would give as examples...

Repubs who are defending Palin: What does she mean when she says:
"I'm a Federalist in that I believe states should be able to make those decisions themselves" ?

Remember, this is the same woman that, when asked (in another video not posted here),
"What newspapers do you read?"
responded with
"All of Them".

The long version of Biden and Palin on the Supreme Court at CBS

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Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire:

[Interviewer] INNSKEEP: Given what you've said, senator, is there an occasion where you could imagine turning to Gov. Palin for advice in a foreign policy crisis?

MCCAIN: I've turned to her advice many times in the past.

--Innskeep's Interview with Senator McCain on NPR.org

Senator, how long have you known Gov. Sarah Palin?

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CBSNews wanted news videos shot by citizen journalists, and so made an application for folks to shoot and upload their news videos. Apparently home made porn is news these days...

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Today's XKCD comic has a secret message, slamming SciFi author Neal Stephenson. You have to hover over the comic to see what it says.

For those of you with short attention spans not prone to figuring out puzzles, I'll just say that Neal Stephenson's latest book has a LOT of made up words.

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When you have to put a second shuttle to get ready to rescue the first shuttle, it underscores the risk of spaceflight.

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Finally

VP Debate Beer Bingo Card at Newsweek

If you wanted to know why, when the power got turned back on briefly and then went out for good, here's a visible example.

The power company workers even marked that there was a pecan branch hanging on the line and someone knew that it had to be cleared off before the power was turned back on. Well, someone else didn't get the memo, and when the power was restored, this homeowner went out and filmed what happened next:

Sound req'd

Full story at Chron.com

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Is this depiction of Sarah Palin sexist?
.

Because, I don't want to be sexist when talking about the presidential election.
.

.
I mean, John McCain has one of those things too, right?
.

.
After all, what is fair when talking about the fair sex?

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There are significant gasoline shortages in various parts of the South. Stations that are out have refused to pay the huge price increase because of price gouging on the part of their suppliers.

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Yankee Stadium is closing so they can make a new stadium that generates more income. I don't know why people get nostalgic about buildings. Do people get nostalgic about an old TV set they're about to throw in the trash? I mean, I know that buildings are Object's of Art, so yeah, but you're about to tear it down. And that the building represents many of the events that took place inside. I get it, as long as you're talking about the entire building. But grabbing a chunk of a seat cushion or a swath of infield grass is silly. That grass doesn't represent anything, and neither does any other single piece of the whole.

When a person dies, sometimes they wish to be cremated. What to do with the ashes? Stick them in some cabinet? On a shelf? In the ground with a plaque over the urn? No. The ashes are just a small piece of the remains of the person and it's silly to keep just a piece of something you used to hold dear. Out of context, it's just fancy dirt. Mixed in with something (or someone!) else, you couldn't tell one from the other. People quit being special when they quit being.

Buildings quit being special when people quit using them. Honor people and things that deserve the honors while they're still alive.

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There was some economic meltdown this past week.

It seems the financial gurus we trust to look after our money were incapable of looking after our money.

George Will on this past Sunday's THIS WEEK (ABC) implied that with the ownership of the financial services to the tune of whatever we're going to spend, the United States government is now Socialist.
That's how much of this country those financial institutions now control, and the United States now owns their collective pink slips. Which means the people do. Kind of.

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If you're too caught up in the financial mess, just sit back take a double allotment of your prescription of Soma and watch tonight's season opener of HEROES.

This year's tagline:

SAVE THE 401K, SAVE THE WORLD

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NASA's Tuesday news conference (mentioned in my Twitter) about the "dying sun" isn't really about the dying Sun -- but the Sun is being rather quiet these days. The Sun always goes quiet every 11 years or so, but this cycle is longer than expected. We've seen it this quiet before -- back in the 1950s, and again in the 1930s, so this isn't anything to worry about just yet.

It's just a coincidence that during the "quiet period" of the Sun in 1933-34, New York City set a record cold temperature of -15degF. Technically, there's no relation between the two, and temperature records are too scattered to try making anything more of this coincidence...

So in a completely unrelated news item, the ski season in parts of Europe is opening this week, earlier than in many of the last several years.

And we won't speak of the record cold winter Australia and other parts of the Southern Hemisphere are just exiting, because that's just related to oceanic current changes.

Therefore, if this winter season is rather chilly for North America, it's a complete coincidence and a total surprise.

Have I told you I trust weathermen less than I trust financial gurus?

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Thought experiment:

Why is child pornography considered different?
Because in theory, the child involved is innocent and should not be involved in exposing body parts for the prurient interests of others. Others who are looking for gratification of those under age.

Okay, makes sense. But what of a picture, taken of a mother by the baby daddy of the mother breast feeding the child? That picture is then stolen by, lets say Wal-Mart employees, and then distributed because the mother herself is famous.

Theft perhaps. But the subject matter being the spare boob of a 17 year old mother breast feeding?

Not child porn.

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And finally:

The guy who goes around the world giving away free hugs to anyone who needs one found something else he will give away

His kidney

Thoughts and links, because you deserve it.

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ATTACK OF THE HEATHERS

The following is sliced out of context so please go read the whole thing, addressed to a major author:

[...] a blog is not a personal journal. It is a statement for any one out in the public to read, consume and comment on. If you did not want public feedback, why not have a diary that is kept at home for no one else to read? Or why not lock your posts so that only a select few are privy to your thoughts? To blame someone else for the consequences of your own actions seems very irresponsible.

You’ve stated very offensive and demeaning things towards readers in the past, in essence implying that they are smart enough to spend money on your books but not smart enough to provide any reasoned critique.

Tess Gerritsen is pulling her blog down after Dear Author and a comments thread there got critical and then got out of hand. "Pulling her blog down" isn't correct. Putting on hiatus without removing the posts is more accurate.

I haven't followed the controversy to date, so I'm in catch-up mode. But the deeper I look into this, the more I don't want to know. I'll occasionally read Tess' blog, but only because I enjoy her sense of humor. Apparently, it's a humorous remark that made Tess seem like she was defending someone ... well, apparently it's a deep subject and I won't say more.

If you remove the actual details of this situation, I'll attempt a meta point here. The masses of readers on the internet will tend to bunch up in clumps, and sometimes those clumps become cliques. Yes, cliques, just like back in high school. Authors, when they choose to become public figures by chatting with their friends and readers online can unknowingly be a part of their own clique -- but also they can become targets of other cliques.

Cliques around blogs and bloggers form, just like they can around authors. Mark Cuban, rich guy and blogger with a certain level of idiocy, attempted to ban other bloggers from the locker room of his NBA basketball team. However, the bloggers who Cuban sought to ban were also credentialed with legitimate news agencies, the NBA overruled him. So Mark Cuban has people he hates in his locker room throwing questions at him, all up close and personal. [NewYorkTimes]

The thing about cliques, however, is that there's less loyalty there than you think, and the criticism they might throw out has the lifespan of an ant bite.

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NO FOOD FOR OIL!!

Europe was going to be an area completely free of "genetically modified foods"... well, until the price of food started rising fast with no end in sight. Japan and Korea had the same idea, but apparently they've buckled under the pressure of high prices and started buying genetically engineered corn for use in food products like soft drinks and snacks. [NYTimes]

Question: When you fill up your car with gasoline containing 10% ethanol, are you stealing corn tortillas from the people of Mexico?
Related: SaveOurTacoTrucks!

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A Part Time Dog?

British people wonder about it, but in Tokyo Japan, it's been available for a while.

In other pet news closer to home, I noticed the distinct lack of our neighbor's cat in the last few weeks. That changed when I heard our neighbor's loud voice chastising the cat for not being a good mommy cat and leaving her newborns all over her back yard. Yes, this is the second litter of cats for our neighbor cat. Obviously they never watched Bob Barker.
Here's a 30 sec. You Tube that expresses Bob's and my thoughts on our neighbor cat:
[Let's Get Neutered Song]

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The Amazon Kindle is back in stock, so you can quit following those Ebay Kindle profiteering auctions

The Kindle is still overpriced, even without the Ebay auctions.

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Got a hankerin' to call someone in India beside tech-support?

It's $9.95 a month for all the international calls you want [Chron.com]

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I've upgraded a few WP blogs under my control to the latest version, 2.5. Unfortunately, some things got moved around, including some stuff that's supposed to be to the right of the posting window in the admin section. Here's a fix for that.

Not critical for you the reader, but it's a pesky thing for WP bloggers.

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And finally, a story about a dog named Snickers

-- not our dog also named Snickers--

A Cocker Spaniel that was adrift with her masters for three months before washing up on a South Pacific island, but being prevented from going home with her owners and facing the possibility of a death sentence [LATimes]

photo credit: AP

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Snickers the Sea Dog is barely more than a pup, but he's already an old salt.

The 8-month-old pooch spent three months adrift in the Pacific with his owners and a parrot until their 48-foot sailboat ran aground in December on tiny Fanning Island, 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. Snickers and Gulliver had to be left behind as their owners hitched a ride on a cargo vessel.

Then in March, the SOS was sent out in a boating journal that the orphaned critters were to be destroyed on Fanning, one of 33 scattered coral atolls that make up the remote island nation of Kiribati.

As word spread, a bevy of people worked to rescue the cocker spaniel and the macaw, including a man who desperately wants to adopt them: retired Las Vegas resident Jack Joslin.

"I love animals," Joslin told The Associated Press on Friday. "I had two dogs up until the middle of March. Then I had to have my border collie euthanized. The day they called saying the ashes were back was when I read the story (about Snickers). It occurred to me I could do something."

On April 9, Norwegian Cruise Line workers rescued Snickers from Fanning and dropped him off on Oahu island, Hawaii, where he will remain in quarantine until he is flown to Los Angeles.
[2news.tv]

It's not over yet, because of the issues of the McCaw parrot are stickier (American importation laws) so the parrot is at risk of being ... uh, a dead parrot...

But as far as Snickers goes, all I can say is

AWWWWWW...

On this day of love, manufactured by some chocolate dealing card maker, I thought I'd toss a few links your way -- with love

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Things That Go BZZ! In The Night
After fighting it out in court, Texas has given in and will allow the sale of sex toys to be sold... as get this... sex toys! [Chron]

Ever since the Eveready Bunny got involved in the sex business, Texas has been first in protecting its citizens from the dangers of unprotected buzzing! Sex toy sellers have been able to sell most toys under the guise of "educational displays" ... so as to... uh... teach contraception... yeah, that's the ticket. Now me, I don't know all the Ins and Outs of sex toys that go in and out, but having a government prevent the sale of sex toys is an affront to all things holey...

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Mystery Date
You're a guy, and you have found it hard to get dates. What to do?
Why not go to the local jail and ask to bail out poor female victims of justice?
Then take them home with you.
Talk about an appreciative woman!

Man Accused Of Posting Bond For Women In Exchange For Sex

How does this guy manage to find women in jail you ask?
Go here (http://www.stopcrime.org/suspectsearch.asp)
and tell the search tool you're looking for a female, 25 years old +/- 5 years, and see the pictures that pop up.

Is there anything the Internets can't do?

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NOT YOURS!

"I was in bed laying with my girl (and) I heard something rumbling underneath my bed. I thought it was my dog."

What Jeremy Lynn heard was not a dog, but from a peeping tom who had broken in hoping to see his girlfriend naked.

"(When) I looked underneath there, I saw these eyes staring back at me. I was like 'what the crap! This ain't normal,'" said Lynn.

WHEN PEEPING TOMS CLIMB IN THE ROOM TO GET A BETTER LOOK --

AND THEN GET THE CRAP BEATEN OUT OF THEM BY THE BOYFRIEND AFTER THEY'RE DISCOVERED --

FILM AT 11! [Fox News, North Carolina]

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HELLO, ROCK 105? CAN YOU PLAY, "I'M JUST NOT THAT INTO HIM?"

Radio station gives away your final Valentine's Day gift:

A divorce

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Here at Cuppacafe Central, the mail yesterday had the annual gift:

A very large oversized (12in. x 12in) magazine HARLEQUIN ROMANCE REPORT 2008

that you can see presented at Harlequinromancereport.com.

Seemingly half of it is about confessions, lies and what can break up a relationship. All those marketing dollars, and not a lick of marketing.

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Perhaps nobody is really out there looking for love

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Happy 10th Anniversary, Alison! I love you so much!

Alison and I got married ten years ago today in a little room with just four witnesses. Keeping the complications out of the wedding ceremony? Priceless.

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Perhaps you've noticed a change in the theme for Cuppacafe. I was feeling festive and figured we'd don a brightly colored theme for the holiday season. The current theme is credited to Petr Kratochvil and can be found here. EDIT: I killed that theme because it looked terrible with IE6, something I didn't notice until I used a different computer this morning.

The header that's been on this blog in support of the writers strike I kept as a header longer than any other header I've created. I stole the Hollywood sign photo from somewhere, and added the word "STRIKE". I thought it was slightly clever, but now that I see that it was used in a post on a popular blog that deals with the writers strike [DeadlineHollywoodDaily], it looks positively brilliant! (just kidding, it's still a cheesy idea that was probably thought up by dozens) - see original -

And if you support the writers, drop by the store selling the "We Write. They Wrong" gear and drop a few bucks.

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Speaking of the writers strike, I see that Tim Kring says HEROES will change from the original plans because of the writers strike. The guy that plays Sylar WAS going to have a scheduling conflict, as he is contracted to portray "Young Spock" in the upcoming STAR TREK "prequel". He couldn't film his role on both the TV show and the STAR TREK movie. The strike has delayed all TV programs including that of HEROES, so by the time that HEROES starts filming, Sylar will be available to be his bad old self again.

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The SCI-FI Channel got its highest ratings ever with TIN MAN.

The ratings, however, don't indicate if I'll like it or not, and unfortunately, I don't. I've watched the first two segments, and I'm waiting for the twist in the third segment. There WILL be a twist, right? It can't be this straight forward, can it?

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How would you like to have a gas available where, if you inhaled it, you wouldn't get sick for a week afterwards? [HouChron]

Truly science fiction material.

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Watched a 12 year old Leno show tonight. Well, just the opening. Wow, is NBC putting on the lousiest reruns of Leno on purpose? NBC just happened to choose the night where all the jokes bombed. Close to the end of the monologue, Jay makes a couple of jokes about his guest David Copperfield and his impending marriage to supermodel Claudia Schiffer. Bizarre to listen to, knowing so much about how David picks up girls these days.

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You folks suffering from the weather in the Northern sections of the country, take care, and keep warm and dry, okay?

Hi, my name is Walt, and I've neglected my blog posting

{Hi Walt}

Since I don't have to clean or prep for any food holiday, I figured I'd catch up with a blog post filled with as many leftovers as my fridge:

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Regarding my cooking:
The Spinach Dip is easy, but it's never perfect enough for me. And what I think is the best Spinach Dip, others don't like as much.

Sweet Potatoes are easy, but people like them too sweet. You shouldn't have dessert as a side dish, but again, that's what people expect, so I make it that way. I got impatient when cooking off the cobbler style nut topping and burnt the top. That's the price you pay when you're using one oven to cook/warm two turkeys and about ten side dishes.

Squash Cassarole: I rarely make it the same way twice. Water control of the cooked squash dictates how moist the stuff is; this year I used frozen sliced, and true enough, it turned out a bit better than working with fresh. That said, I'll probably do this again for Christmas, and I will try it with fresh again. Side thought: Isn't it amazing how modern technology can get you fresh summer type vegetables in cold weather?

Turkey Breast from heaven: I bought a generic WalMart $1.50/lb frozen turkey breast, and thawed it, put it in a gallon sized Ziploc bag and added a brine for about 15 hours. I couldn't find a "turkey brine" at the store, so I fashioned my own. Chicken soup mix, salt, various herbs including sage (I found some spare "Pork Rub flavoring" and used that) and topped it off with some Apple Cider. Don't over salt the brine. I used about 16 ounces of brine because my gallon Ziploc bag was mostly full of turkey breast. The ultimate ratio should be about a cup of salt to a full gallon of brine, but if you're using chicken soup mix as a partial flavoring, reduce the salt accordingly. The turkey breast turned out perfect this year, so I did something right.

Dessert: I really loved all the desserts that were brought over. Too bad we were all too stuffed to actually try any. It's almost as if you should have to have a separate day for eating the desserts. I like to try something I've never done on Thanksgiving and did so this time -- yes, I screwed it up, but we won't talk about that, mmkay? And no, you can't cover up your kitchen mistakes with whipped cream. But you can try!

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Babies know right from wrong at an early age [Newsweek]

And they're secretly judging. Notice the part where the babies quit judging when the researchers removed the oversized eyes from the toys.

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There's a secret behind those "viral videos" and that secret is... they're gaming YouTube.

I'd heard about this before, people charging to get a particular video seen. But here's a guest post on TechCrunch by a guy who says his company doesn't even charge if he can't get your video seen over 100,000 times. One of the more interesting parts? They resubmit the thing and even change the name of the video in order to get the most viewings. They'll also do NOT put on tagwords until about a week after it gets popular, so as to NOT have "related videos" that aren't yours on the same page.

Of course, having a post explaining your success on the hyper popular tech site TechCrunch is interesting... I mean, couldn't they have, you know, made a video about this?

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Thing is, now I suspect all videos of being faked wanna be viral videos ... like this one

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The CALIFORNICATION lawsuit by Red Hot Chili Peppers against the people who created the cable show of the same name:

Uh, you can't copyright titles, especially if the term was part of a popular bumper sticker in the 1970s.

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I've been busy trying to put together a Linux driven computer, but ran into a buzzsaw when trying to make it wireless. I purchased a wireless USB dongle (WG111T from Netgear), but I can't get the software to work on the computer without locking the whole computer up. The Linux software was simple to install, but some custom things I want to do just take way too much research time to accomplish.

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We're babysitting a dog, and our dog plus another dog equals mischief and mayhem. We didn't get much sleep last night, and so... it's time for a nap.

Notes from all over, in no particular order:

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Ladies, I know you're checking shoe size

Dr Dunlop describes the male "purring" sound as a "C'mon baby" call to females, used as a mating signal.

"The lower the sound, the bigger you are," she said.

There's a joke here involving Brad Garrett's recent divorce, but I've got nothin'.

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It's spin and the lack thereof

When the runoff from farms comes down the Mississippi River and empties into the Gulf Of Mexico, the fertilized water blooms, dies, and then that dieing life decomposes, sucking the oxygen out of the water, starving the fish in the area of oxygen. It's a seasonal thing called The Dead Zone.

But when scientists attempt the same thing in the ocean, [NYTimes] they're saving the planet!

Nobody talks about the carbon dioxide being sequestered by the fertilizer runoff coming down the Mississippi.

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The first casualty of the 2007 Writer's Strike is a comedy scribe for a late night show on FOX.
Tom Johnson, head writer for Talkshow With Spike Feresten, suffered a broken leg when he was run over by a car.

Crime scene photo of shoe

DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com

A lot of the West Coast writers are following Nikke Finke's blog because many of the normal trade papers take waaaay too many ads from the studios. Variety could be putting out even handed information, but it's too easy to assume that they'd never say anything nasty about the tactics of the studios.

And yes, the studios reportedly have already pulled at least one dastardly negotiating ploy. Read

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You know those nasty staff germs that are supposed to be resistant to all of our modern antibiotics?

They're apparently not resistant to our ancient antibiotics.

The $1/day generic drugs from the 30s win!!

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Not So Desperate Housewives

Nothing like a good old fashioned sex party. Wait, who invited the City Council?

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Being very pregnant hurts new album release sales. I'm not sure why.

When you add in the diva factor:

"[She] costs too much money and doesn't sell enough. The woman requires everything short of flying monkeys to get on a stage."

All you get is the rumor that you're going to be released from your contract.

And you don't even get to keep the flying monkeys.

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And finally, a flop in the (Re)making:

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL is being remade.
[Original][2008 version with Keanu Reaves]

Why? Is this some sort of anti-war rhetoric in a boring movie being passed off as a cool update to a classic movie? How could this possibly be spun to make it the least bit interesting? A spoof version would be better than a straight remake.

Dear Keanu Reaves: Why do you persist in choosing really crappy movies to get paid for?

Dear Producers of crappy remakes: I have a couple of dozen ideas that are better than this. Contact me. I could get you the movie rights to a project that a big well known Hollywood movie producer (one of them a Keanu Reaves movie!) had to release over contractual issues.

Stuff from anywhere my browser hit:

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What will it look like when Apple has a monopoly on computers?

CollegeHumor.com

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One of the worst fighting grounds in the worst sectors in Iraq a year ago is now controlled by one of the best police forces in Iraq and is arguably the most peaceful over the last few months. Micheal Totten [freelance, working for tips off website] Iraqi Police in Ramadi are favorably reviewed in the linked article, but quality police in Iraq are still the exception.

Baghdad is still a mess -- mainly because of the conflicting militias, but it's nice to see some bright spots.

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The Americans invaded Britain about 100 years ago, and have just about taken over the whole island.

The American gray squirrel has pushed the native red squirrel north. It seems our grays don't have very good manners. [NYTimes]

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1. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat was invisible, and he maded the skiez and da earths, but he did not eated it.
[LOLcatBible]

No illustrations as yet, but it's a work in progress.

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You know who else got a Halloween celebration banned because of his costume?

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Alison uses her instant on-instant save-runs off three AA batteries "Dana" keyboard because it's so fast to turn on and start using.

How would you like if if you could turn on a computer and have the full boot process take only five seconds?

This new motherboard can boot up Linux because all the important stuff is on the motherboard.

It's a geek thing, but we've been headed this way for a while, thanks to cheaper memory.

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On another geek subject, I'm pretty much against having a space station that does little besides provide a place for astronauts to go. That's the situation of the ISS, something America will quit funding the moment the thing is all put together.

If I ever have to eat my words as to the usefulness of the ISS, this son of T.Boone Pickens will probably have a role in it. [Wired] He wants to rent the space station.

Thomas Pickens III wants to make pharma drugs cheaply by using processes only available in the micro gravity environment of the space station. His company, however, is still a penny stock, and had some financial trouble of late.

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The Power Of The Pussy:

A few years back, it was leaked that Nicolas Cage had to get rid (a good chunk ??) of his comic book collection before his marriage to a waitress.

Now, Charlie Sheen is getting married, and to please his bride to be, he's having his 13 tattoos removed. [M&C]

That's a lot of pain to go through for Charlie.

Not the tattoo removal.

Getting married again.

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And finally, for you affected grammar freaks out there:

Links from all over -- The fresh ones and the stale, all links must go!

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AOL IM is vulnerable to attack and AOL won't patch it until sometime next month

When the good guys are trying to demonstrate that an attacker can format your hard drive or run any nasty process on your machine, they instead call up the Windows Calculator. The link shows that with the right malformed link in your AIM, some random person can pull up your calculator on your Windows Machine. (The so called "Proof of Concept" that the hack works.) Obviously if a bad person were to give you this same thing, you could kiss your computer goodbye.

I use Trillian, which connects to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ...
Apple's iChat is not vulnerable.

[via Wired]

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If you're old enough to remember why Americans were forced to switch coolants in their automobiles, you know that the formula for Freon had to be changed. You know that it was chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that persisted in the atmosphere, slowly migrating to the North and South Poles to then be broken down by sunlight high in the atmosphere, destroying the Ozone layer. That was 21 years ago[National Science Foundation].

Well, that's probably still true. But apparently the calculations of the breakdown process were off, and by a large factor, too. Some atmospheric scientist says that new calculations say that the rate of breakdown of the CFCs can't be right, and his work is being published in an upcoming issue of the well respected NATURE magazine.

Now, we can see how big the hole in the Ozone layer grows each year, but now the scientists are saying that they can't figure out the exact method of how that happens. CFCs are still responsible for the process, but their role may go from "primarily responsible" to a "partly responsible" role.

This is all a geek way of saying that we switched away from the wonderful Freon because of a scientific overreaction.

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Your moment of Lizard Zen [LAist]

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The Silent Conspiracy Theory

Stay with me, because this gets complicated. Back in July, there was a chemical weapons accident deep inside Syria. At least 50 people were killed when some chemical weapons were being loaded onto "Scud" missiles. Additionally, a strange ship from North Korea docked in a Syrian port, and unloaded what some folks believe were North Korean nuclear materials.

On September 6th, Israeli jets went on a daring bombing raid, deep inside Syria. The jets dropped their bombs in the middle of the desert and left. The Israelis called it Operation Orchard.

Here's the deal: The Israeli operation bombed something, but nobody knows what it was. It was either nuclear materials or the chemical weapons area.

Here's the upshot: The Syrian paid for the best antiaircraft protection system in the world, and it was apparently completely and totally silent for the entire Israeli raid. It's a Russian system, one that the Iranians have started investing in. And Syria has remained silent about the entire affair, acknowledging only that Israeli jets violated its airspace and dropped some bombs in the middle of the desert, recently claiming that the bombs didn't even go off. (Of course, these bombs that didn't go off would be called "extra fuel tanks" but we'll let others figure that out)

But here's the REAL DEAL: The Iranians are freaking out. They have noticed several things about all this, and realize that Iran, and their entire nuclear program are vulnerable to attack, and if they get their nuclear sites bombed, they won't even know until the bombs are dropped. There's no secret that Iran would like to destroy Israel. The issue is, if Israel can fly bombs around through any air defense, the Americans can too.

Scary stuff.

[link]

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Guess which way Larry Craig voted in the Senate when homosexual hate crimes legislation came up?

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Would YOU watch a new KNIGHT RIDER series starring K.I.T.T?

What if KITT could transform into different cars?

What if David Hasselhoff was nowhere near the show's production? Ahh, I have your attention now. Good.

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One of the longest articles on Wikipedia, and yes, it's on something that nobody cares about.

The line of Royal Succession to the British Monarchy, carried out to the 1286th person in line to the British throne.

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And finally, what happens when you build a house over a coal mine, and the land subsides, causing the house to tilt 15 degrees?

Turn it into a pub! When you get drunk, everything seems all upright!!

More pictures here: The Crooked House

Was it a meteorite that fell from the sky in Peru, causing the locals to turn into zombies?

Uh, no.

But the locals pointed out this giant crater, and all the locals got sick from it.

The giant crater created by a meteorite would have be powerful enough to set off earthquake detectors.

So then, a satellite fell from the sky and the plutonium power pack has broken open?
Maybe it was a US killer satellite? And it was downed by anti-American forces, thwarting an attack on Iran?

Uh, no.

What you have there is a crater and fumes that are sulfurous and that usually means a hot spring coming up through sulfur bearing rocks.

Deadly to those exposed to the fumes, but deadly boring to others, unless you're a geology type nerd.

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Teabagging For Science

Looks like the next source of stem cells will come from human testicles.

Guys, don't look to donate your sperm just yet. No. It seems it's the flesh that makes the sperm that they want to study. Ow!

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Your IM client. AOL? Yahoo? MSN Messenger?

Not keeping yours up to date means it's probably the easiest way of getting a virus to go around your virus program and straight into your machine.

Yahoo is probably the worst of the bunch. They've had their ninth exploit exposed just this year.

-- MSN Exploit news
-- Skype (text chat) exploit
-- AOL IM has a recent exploit too, but it may not be quite as severe.

I use Trillian (one of the All In One) IM client and even that is subject to exploit. I've since patched my version.

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Ever see IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE? Remember the run on the bank? Ever thought it could happen to a bank just a block away from your house?

It's happening in Britain now.

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The most famous moment in the CAROL BURNETT SHOW was when Carol played Scarlett O Hara from GONE WITH THE WIND. She dressed in anything she could find, which ended up being a window curtain, complete with curtain rod.

And here is the modern day version of a window curtain dress, sans curtain rod, as worn by the previously lovely Justine Bateman.

Which reminds me, I think I need to wash my quilted bedspread.

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Knowing you're going to die, and giving your last speech.

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Why change your mind over gay marriage?

Because your daughter tells you to.

Why would she tell you to?

Oh.