Allen August 26th, 2005
Man, does ScrappleFace have a great "satire" entry: Leak: Draft of Bush Answer to Cindy Sheehan.
Quoting from the article:
Dear Mrs. Sheehan,
You have asked me to identify the noble cause for which your son died. I have not answered you personally out of respect for the nobility of your son’s sacrifice.
Being president forces me into the spotlight, but I would rather stand in the shadows of men like Casey Sheehan.
Directing national attention on my response to your protest creates a distraction from what matters. The focus of our attention, and our admiration, should rest on people like Casey Sheehan, who stand in the breach when evil threatens to break out and consume a helpless people.
The running story on the news networks should be the valiant efforts of our troops — the merchants of mercy who export freedom and import honor. They trade their own lives for the sake of others.
As a result, we live in a nation where a woman can camp outside of the president’s house and verbally attack the president for weeks on end without fear of prison, torture or death. And the number of nations where such protest is possible has multiplied thanks to the work of our military.
You ask for what noble cause your son died?
In a sense he died so that people like you, who passionately oppose government policies, can freely express that opposition. As you camp in Crawford, you should take off your shoes, for you stand on holy ground. This land was bought with the blood of men like your son.
More at the article, so be sure to read it.
The only satire to be found, I think, in the article is the fact that this should be the response that George should give, but won’t. Such a shame that we don’t hear more of this from our actual leaders.
Allen August 26th, 2005
At our Boy Scout patrol meeting last night, we were discussing activites that they would be interested in doing. Some of the suggestions were: Laser Quest (a lasergun tag game that takes place in a maze) and paintball. I know that paintball is not allowed for Scout activites and some districts don’t even like the laser tag games.
I can understand the paintball ban. Shooting a projectile at another minor during a sponsored event is the something trial lawyers dream of.
I did tell the boys they could go shotgun and rifle shooting at a local gun club. They did appear interested in that, so we might schedule this as an upcoming activity.
Someone in the group mentioned how an air marshals may (or may not) have be aboard a flight flight they took recently. I got to thinking about the safety the air marshals seem to provide. During any given flight, I can’t be sure that one is available during an emergency. If some Islamic fascist decides that he wants me along for the ride when he gets his ticket punched for paradise, I definitely would want one aboard.
I think the airlines should offer every sober adult passenger a handgun when boarding the plane. Granted, your frothing 72-virigin geek boy will have a gun, but so will every other frothing red-neck on board.
The guns would be sealed so that people couldn’t steal the ammo and you have to check the gun back in when you leave the plane. If you don’t check your gun back in or your gun is found not in your possesion during the flight, you are banned from flying that airline ever again and charged a stiff penalty. Oh yeah, you also have to surrender your gun when you purchase a beer or mixed drink.
So now when a terrorist stands up and proclaims that he is taking us all to paradise, he will hear something other than silence….
Allen August 25th, 2005
If you haven’t tried Firefox (a web browser), please give it a try. It is one of my favorite applications and I now rarely use IE except for pages that are broken (hear me Yahoo Mail?).
One of the nice things for Firefox is the ability to add extensions. Here is my current toolset:
- Yahoo! Toolbar
- Allows you to access all your Yahoo! goodies from your browser. My Web, email, etc. Of course, if you see Yahoo as the embodiment of all evil, you probably won’t want this toolbar.
- NoScript
- Allows you to block JavaScript of all websites, by default. You can authorize JavaScript for those sites you trust.
- BugMeNot
- Ever visted a site that required you to register? This allows you to left-click into a text field for the user name and get a fake user name from BugMeNot.
- IE View
- Allows you to re-open a window in IE (or mark it as always opened in IE).
- Popup ALT Attribute
- A somewhat controversial extension for web-purists. This displays the ALT tag when you hover over an image — just as IE does. The TITLE tag is what web authors should be using for this field, but many use the ALT tag instead.
- miniT
- One of the newest extensions I’m trying out, it allows you to drag tabs around to re-arrange them. BTW, tabbed browsing is one of the best features of Firefox.
- SessionSaver
- Remembers all the tabs and where they were when you exit out of Firefox. Next time you fire up, the browser appears exactly as you had loaded last time.
Allen August 24th, 2005
Not sure exactly where amazed is in the Crayola box, but it must be close to stupified.
Apparently I’ve been nominated for Best Political Blog in the 2005 Okie Blog Awards. Just found out via a comment from Monica, who has an excellent site.
My blog postings have been rather spotty at times with lots of readership dropoff while I was blogging less while looking for a job. I still can’t figure that one out (the blogging less, not the drop in readership). I guess I need the security of a job in order to feel I can write. Guess that definitely rules out being an author as a means of support.
Anyway, if you are an active Okie blogger, stop by the 2005 Okie Blog Awards and vote for your favorites.
Allen August 23rd, 2005
I was filling out paperwork last night for insurance and happened to catch One Hour Photo.
It is a creepy and eerie movie where Robin Williams plays a photo technician at a super center photo processing center. He "stalks" a family who he sees as the embodiment of a perfect life. When that life is shattered by the infidelity of the husband, it is more than Robin can take.
The last half of the movie revolves around Robin procuring the tools he needs to confront and torture most gruesomely the husband and his lover.
Now I don’t want to give away the ending of the movie, but the rest is simply too shocking to not talk about.
Still with me?
OK. I was really horrified when, at the end, Robin bursts into the room and screams, "Oh NO!! My dog isn’t nearly as shaggy as that!!!"
Allen August 17th, 2005
My wife’s grandfather passed away some years ago from Alzheimer’s. My cousin’s grandmother is currently suffering from it. And a friend just told me that his grandmother has it as well.
What is so frightening about Alzheimer’s is that it robs you of who you are. If you are dying of cancer, at least you are still you. But Alzheimer’s transmogrifies you into someone else. It’s the modern-day vampire or werewolf bite.
So how to combat it? A rather dark-humored suggestion is noted by Scott-O-Rama ? The Picnic Pact.
Here’s how it works: A group of friends of the Pacer’s decided they would rather check out of this life then lose their minds to senility. They made a pact that once a year they would call one another and invite each other to a picnic. The thing is, there would be no picnic. Instead of a nice lunch outside while enjoying the splendors of nature, they would take you deep into the woods and shoot you. The idea is that if you were invited to this "picnic" and your response was "Hell no!," you proved you still had your mental faculties. You obviously remembered the pact. However if your answer was "A picnic would be lovely, dear," then it was time to fulfill the arrangement and shoot you.
Actually, it struck me that this would be a good premise for a mystery novel.
While this seems a bit drastic, there is a certain dark satisfaction in the knowlege that your last days wouldn’t be spent trying to fend off the attacking Indians (a favorite of my wife’s grandfather).
All said and done, however, don’t sign me up. I’ve already made arrangements for my own picnic.
Allen August 17th, 2005
One of my favorite bands, Jimmy Eat World, is performing tonight at the Ford center in OKC. I’m sorry to say that I couldn’t make the concert, but it should be a real treat for power-pop/alt-rock fans. One of my favorite albums is "Jimmy Eat World" (originally titled "Bleed American"). This is an excellent CD with lots of complex rhythm patterns and great melodies.
I think they are being followed by a bunch of idiots.
The fact that Jimmy Eat World is performing in Oklahoma is further proof that God exists. The fact that they are the opening act is an indication that he has a twisted sense of humor.
Allen August 17th, 2005
Come to Frontier City for the Fun!
And stay for the great rides! Get the #@$% out of here. Why are you bugging us?
My mother-in-law took my daughter and niece to Frontier City yesterday afternoon for a day of fun. It was pretty fun until Frontier City decided that they weren’t making enough money and closed the park early (at 5:00pm). Given that they had arrived at around 2:30 and were planning to stay until closing (at 8:00pm), the campers were not happy.
After my mother-in-law complained, they gave her tickets to come back another day. But the problem is the extra time and effort needed to come back another day. My niece lives in Tulsa, so this is not an easy trip to make just to attend Frontier City.
Large groups of people filing out into the parking lot were not happy either. Of course, most of them didn’t complain and didn’t receive free tickets in recompense. Quite a few of them were from out of state and couldn’t come back even if they did have free tickets.
Now granted, businesses are not in business to "serve the greater good" or "keep people happily employed" or even "delight the customer". They are in business to make money.
But something tells me they just lost a lot of goodwill in their customer base. For a company whose way of making money is to provide enteritainment, this was a short-sighted decision. Perhaps they saved money for that one day, but it will cost them much more in the long run.
So, in conclusion, it’s good to see that Frontier City is managed with the same clarity and foresight that seems to drive most businesses today.
<sigh>
Allen August 17th, 2005
(sung to "Where Have All The Flower’s Gone?")
Where have all the Unix gurus gone?
Long time going.
Where have all the Unix gurus gone?
Long time ago.
The AT&T research department that invented Unix has finally disbanded.
So Where Have All the Unix Gurus Gone?
I don’t fault AT&T for disbanding this group — a ghost of its former self. The seeds of this destruction were sown in the Judge Green breakup of AT&T. Once AT&T was no longer a monopoly, it eventually was not going to be able to support the Unix parasite. Not that I think Unix (and its derivatives) are parasites. It’s just that Unix was never really a focus for AT&T.
BTW, I know the guy who told Bill Gates that he couldn’t use the ‘/’ as a directory separator. He was an engineer where I used to work a long time ago. Apparently AT&T patented that concept and didn’t want to give it to this young software geek who was bothering us. So stupid software patents are not something that is new.
[Via SlashDot]
Allen August 16th, 2005
From dictionary.com:
- Appropriate to a purpose.
The weekend of the 6th, as noted in an earlier post, our family took a trip to look at colleges for my son. After touring the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri, we wound up our vacation with a brief stay in Branson.
We had reserved a room via Expedia for the Comfort Inn and Suites there in Branson. Expedia had charged our card and we thought we were all set. We arrived late Friday night on what turned out to be one of the busiest weekends for Branson (tax-free shopping and last summer fling) and found out that the hotel had already notified Expedia that they were all full up and we didn’t have a room. I called Expedia who finally refunded my money. No other attempt was offered to "make right" on the problem. When prompted, they thought perhaps they could check around for other rooms.
Now I must admit that the fine print on the "confirmation" letter I printed out from Expedia’s page says that the reservations are not guaranteed, but isn’t that why I made reservations in the first place? To guarantee that I have a room?
Expedient? I think not.