so rumored by zargon...

so verified by google.



a man asking bush about brokeback mountain.

Like The Mists of Time...

The 2005 Vaporware Awards: Not just for games anymore.

I'm Sure He Was Totally Honest

The hearing began with a sudden and sharp partisan dispute when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter ruled that Gonzales did not have to be sworn in to testify. After Democrats strongly objected and demanded a roll-call vote, Republicans prevailed and the attorney general did not testify under oath.

This is the kind of thing they invented militias for, right?

In the latest twist in the debate over presidential powers, a Justice Department official suggested that in certain circumstances, the president might have the power to order the killing of terrorist suspects inside the United States.

Last.fm is pretty cool. You type in a band you like and it serves you streaming mp3s of music that people who like that band also liked. As it streams, you can say whether you like a song or not and I guess that gets added into its calculations of what to serve you next.

Yeah, it's nothing new but I just clued into it and it's way better than any of the other interweb radio stations I've listened to.

The tracking seems kind of screwed up on OS X, so my music snob page isn't as snobby as it should be. Um... yeah, that's it.

Your local police, working for (and shooting), you!

Senior Airman Elio Carrion, 21, had been riding as a passenger in a Corvette that was involved in a brief, high-speed chase with the deputy that reached speeds of 100 mph before the Corvette crashed into a fence, authorities said. The videotape, shot by Chino resident Jose Luis Valdes, shows Carrion sprawled on the ground and repeatedly telling the deputy, "I'm on your side." The deputy then seems to shout, "Get up!" after which Carrion appears to lean forward. "I'm going to get up, all right?" he says. The deputy then fires his gun three or four times from about five feet away. "Shut … up, you don't get up …!" he shouts. Moaning in pain, Carrion responds: "You told me to get up." The deputy then radioed in to dispatch that shots had been fired. [LA Times]

So um, yeah. Link is to the actual video of the deputy shooting the guy three times, point blank, for no apparent reason.

Crank up them TiVos

Instead of debuting in the theaters as had originally been believed, Hurst's sequel to the Boll classic will have its world premiere on the cable channel on February 11th at 9/8 central. At least it has a catchy tagline: It only took a single zombie to spawn an army. It'll take everything humanity has to stop it.

I'm not sure exactly which constitutional right this violated

Capitol Police dropped a charge of unlawful conduct against antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan on Wednesday and apologized for ejecting her and a congressman’s wife from President Bush’s State of the Union address for wearing T-shirts with war messages.

“The officers made a good faith, but mistaken effort to enforce an old unwritten interpretation of the prohibitions about demonstrating in the Capitol,” Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer said in a statement late Wednesday.

One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

Sit 'n' Spin

The amazing Bill O'Reilly on Letterman.

I have noticed that flattops are especially popular with computer geeks, weight lifters, police officers, and professional military men. All are non-nonsense, self-sufficient, hard-working types.

When I pass a stranger with a flattop, I usually say, "Sir, that's a great haircut!" Almost always, I'll get a smile, and some reply that confirms the common bond among flattop men.

Regrettably (I think), flattops are still almost exclusively a man's hairstyle. The most notable exception is beautiful Grace Jones, whose portrayed a woman of great discipline and moral courage.

Dean to bush: Fuck you

Howard Dean's scathing response to Bush's state of the union jack-fuckery.

So retarded, it's funny....

Chewbacca's blog.

threads for your body.

threadless' new batch of t's are up, giving me an excuse to post this image. seriously, check'em.

re-writing your youth.

musically.

take a trip to the 'criticism corral'

courtesy of our prez.

For a limited time only.

Imagine taking a paper clip and throwing it at someone 20 feet away, and imbedding it deep in his forhead.

This and other techniques can be learned in 30 days, for only 49.95!

no backwash!!??

do you think alien civilizations had the same turning point?

He leaves the store with a nice blue suit and a nice gray. A good start, but they're just extra skin, really, holding together a walking welter of anxieties. The clothes don't eliminate his sense of being an impostor. He isn't sure what will make that feeling go away, or if it ever will.

Conspiracy Monday, Also

What really knocked over the Twin Towers?"

Even if you don't agree with some of the proposed theories, this academic brings up some very interesting points...

Who should i hate?

This site tells you the top 50.

Not a Model

Could've fooled me.

Meaty Monday

Two favorites together again. What do I mean - Hitler and Goering? No, it’s two of the Institute’s most notorious offenders. You’ve a Jello dish on the left, and yes, that’s meat entombed in that gelatinous horror. On the right, the infamous Cabbage Stuffed with Meat, a dish to be featured. in the upcoming Al Roker Show feature on the Gallery of Regrettable Food.

More 50's meat goodness.

Paranoia Thursday

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.

...

Interesting patent from Apple- incorporates the camera into the screen:

An integrated sensing display is disclosed. The sensing display includes display elements integrated with image sensing elements. As a result, the integrated sensing device can not only output images (e.g., as a display) but also input images (e.g., as a camera).

And yet it is only a middle-sized star

(also, Feezer -- because honestly no one else will care -- those stats are for the entire /home partition (what?), not just my mp3s)

Choose your adventure

You have been mailed an invititation to register for E3. You are not actually affiliated with any game-making apparatus in the slightest. Do you:

• take a vacation and impersonate (choose one of the following:) John Carmack, Gabe Newell, Hideo Kojima?
• start a lame video game Web site/Web comic specifically to pretend you're a member of the press and therefore allowed in?
  
• chortle to yourself and blog about it, because you're too much of a wimp to make decisions for yourself

Just imagine that it's Klimas making this post...

"Russian man has tumor removed from his back….but it’s really a "Russian man has tumor removed from his back….but it’s really a 35-year-old embryo that should have been his twin brother."


Also, Holy shit.

Maybe Not So Hot After All

Beware

The newest iTunes version tells Apple every song you listen to... at least by default.

Three-star Conspiracy

So apparently we've been lied to all these years. The North Star is actually not one, but Three stars. Go figure.

haven't you ever wanted to sit next to me while i chortle my way through 'dinosaur comics?'

now you can, thanks to clickwheel.

I know you MAC fags know already....

But Steve Jobs' keynote at Macworld is this morning. Check out endgaget for live updates "as it happens", and such.

Torgo is dead

With Hal typecast as the hero 'Hal', the rest of the cast was largely recruited from the local community theater: Diane Mahree, as the damsel in distress; Tom Neyman, as the Master, who wears a black cape lined with red-embroidered fingers; and the tragic figure of John Reynolds, whose creepy Confederate-uniformed character of Torgo so endeared himself to MST3K that they incorporated him into their act.

"I heard a rumor on the net," I said, "that John had committed suicide."

"That's no rumor," said Bob. "He killed himself about six months after the movie was finished. John was a troubled kid; he didn't really get along with his dad, who was an Air Force colonel, and he got into experimenting with LSD. It's a shame, because he was really a talented young actor."

Seriously, the man is a goddamned genius.

Uwe talks Bloodrayne.

1UP: Several times you've mentioned Loken's sexiness as one of her defining traits. Do you consider sexuality an important part of your films?

UB: yes - because VAMPIRES movies are sexy

Last month Grant Goodman, an 81-year-old retired University of Kansas history professor, received a letter from his friend in the Philippines that had been opened and resealed with a strip of dark green tape bearing the words “by Border Protection” and carrying the official Homeland Security seal.

Planning Ahead With Science!

If Hurricane Katrina, which in 2005 pounded New Orleans and the Delta with surge and heavy rainfall, had followed the same path over the Gulf 50 years ago, the damage would have been less, because more barrier islands and coastal marshes were available then to buffer the city. Early settlers on the barrier islands offshore of the Delta built their homes well back from the beach, and they allowed driftwood to accumulate where it would be covered by sand and beach grasses, forming protective dunes. The beach grasses were essential because they helped stabilize the shores against wind and waves and continued to grow up through additional layers of sand. In contrast to a cement wall, the grasses would recolonize and repair a breach in the dune. (A similar lesson can be taken from the tsunami-damaged areas of the Indian Ocean. Damage was less severe where mangrove forests buffered the shorelines than where the land had been cleared and developed to the shoreline.)

A scientific look at how New Orleans should be rebuilt.

Soon CH Won't Need Real Friends

But he will need a PC.

a winter's worth of heart-warmth...

...on a single webpage.

note to zargon: yeah, i did get it there.

It's Friday

If We're The Top...

What does that say about the rest of the country? Baltimore is named the fittest city in America

cobra diary, pt. ii

We had breakfast and caught up—his jaw just about dropped through the table when I told him about the day we had the Joes on the run, only to be stymied by the sudden appearance of Sergeant Slaughter. (Who knew that a pro wrestler would be so devastating in combat? I hate the team he fights for, but that Sergeant Slaughter is a true warrior. He's a gallant foe, worthy of my steel, and, across the gulf of war, I salute him.)

In the future we will all live in the panopticon

"The family has decided to share their location with the other members of the family, so we're able to track that. Here we've got some news that picks the items that are of interest to us. There's a storm here that's interrupting the supply chain of a lot of companies including mine. I touch the clip to say I'd like to track that video on my way to work, so it's transferred to my cellphone as I go to work.

"Toward the end of the day I get notice that I need to leave earlier for the airport to make my flight..."

So in summary, the future will be (check at most two):

[ ] boring
[ ] stupid
[ ] scary

Yes, but can i alter the code to keep the robber of my fucking brick?

"As you can see in the pics, the Entertaible features a 30-inch horizontal LCD touch-screen which has been designed for use in all lighting conditions. "Multi-object position detection" means it can tell where real life playing pieces such as pawns and dice are, and the electronic nature of the whole thing makes for "dynamic playing fields and gaming levels", apparently."

That's right folks, CES is here.

Aw shit

Michael Olesker, a columnist for 27 years at The Sun, resigned yesterday amid allegations that he had used sentences and paragraphs from other newspapers in some of his columns without attribution.

He was my hero growing up.

good night, ladies!

you have 31 years. you get to decide what to do: a.) begin a carefully scripted training regimen, collect firearms, build bunkers. b.) quit your job, drink for three decades, save enough for airfare to wherever will put you directly in the impact zone.

A Double Whammy

Doug Flutie is still playing football and the dropkick is still legal! Who knew?

The BBC is always right... right?

The = sign was invented by 16th Century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde, who was fed up with writing "is equal to" in his equations. He chose the two lines because "noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle".

for our friend bzzzzt.

who, lured by the photo, will visit chez mcswny's.

spamm'd

You will never be able to judge for yourself how bad it is

Advice will be given to you on the radio.

Zeitgeist

It's the Google 2005 Zeitgeist! Learn to be depressed by what your fellow Americans used the internet for this year.

the discreet charm of chris parnell

snl isn't all that bad.

ACT II - SCENE IV - DEATH STAR, TRASH COMPACTOR

Fun with flash...

Hot damn. God bless people with flash and way too much time on their hands.

Note that skipping to the second chapter is recommended, unless Ryu/Sakura fic is your thing.

I'm a little bit late to the party

Any suggestions on other games I missed out on, growing up with an Apple II? No Windows era stuff allowed.

Scared of Santa

at least losing to the pats in the play-offs won't feel so bad now...

the colts done fucked up.

as the jerk store's resident (and impartial) sports analyst, i will share some information that will make some of you look less homosexual when you saunter up to the water cooler and into a conversation about the nfl play-off 'picture,' as it is called. the name of the team who beat the colts is 'the chargers.' they play in san diego. they have very good linebackers on their defensive squadron, and they sacked peyton manning (simultaneously the most popular player and biggest dipshit in the league) four times. the colts were undefeated until sunday.

the patriots, on the other hand, dismantled the tampa bay 'bucs', title-contenders and winners of nine games this season. the bucs have the league's second-ranked defense. the patriots shut them out 28-0 to clinch their third consecutive afc east title. the pats were able to shut them out thanks in large part to a restored defense (you may recall my post from earlier in the season detailing the list of injuries that read like a dispatch from vietnam), and in particular a restored linebacker corps.

so...the colts lose their first game of the season on the day that the pats win their most important. the colts are beaten by a team with outstanding linebackers, and the patriots' linebackers have been restored to outstanding. in their three super bowl wins, the patriots have faced and humiliated the colts in the play-offs. my impartial analysis? FUCK THE COLTS

Bast was another one of the senior officers aboard the first Death Star. He appeared to be subordinate to General Ulric Tagge and an aide to Grand Moff Tarkin. His insignia indicate a rank approximating that of Major General. He is best known as the insightful officer who tried to inform Tarkin about the discovery of the Death Star's vulnerability to starfighter attack. Evidence from the STAR WARS Holiday Special proves that, like Lord Vader, Bast actually survived the battle station's destruction.

yay.

Zargon, aren't you a fan of this guy?

late 2004, revisited.

i've spent the morning been cleaning up my ipod, only to be interrupted by a call from apple (i know! apple called me! *titter*) telling me that i've had the thing for a year, and would i please like to extend my warranty. a year? amazing. so i organized my library by date and went through the very first additions, piled on during my initial and crazy itunes spending spree. i haven't listened to any of these songs since i bought them, but it is nice to know that i would have been cutting edge a year ago if i didn't feeser away my opportunity. it is also nice to know that they are awesome.

enjoy my new tradition, 'illegal music fridays!'

songs for your consideration:

scissor sisters
ladytron
the mountain goats
the arcade fire
fagosaur

omg forward this to all of your friends!

Subject: FW: 10 things to ponder

Number 10 - Life is sexually transmitted.

Number 9 - Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can
die.

Number 8 - Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him
Without an erection, make him a sandwich!

Number 7 - Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a
Person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.

Number 6 - Some people are like a Slinky.....not really good for
anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble
down
the stairs.

Number 5 - Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying
in hospitals dying of nothing.

Number 4 - All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no
attention to criticism.

Number 3 - Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars
And a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents?

Number 2 - In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now
the
world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

AND THE NUMBER 1 THOUGHT FOR 2005:

We know exactly where one cow with mad-cow-disease is located among the
millions and millions of cows in America but we haven't got a clue as to
where thousands of illegal immigrants and terrorists are located.
Maybe we should put the Department of Agriculture in charge of
immigration.

just because it is an art school does not mean isn't an office.

ye olde honorable governor horatio sharpe

governor of maryland, no less. and, i might add, a fine correspondence artist:

I wish you would be kind enough to send us a few Grenadoes from one of your Magazines by any Vessel bound either to this Province Virginia or Pensilvania & if you should receive any Intelligence from Oswego or any other Quarter of the Enemy's motions toward this part of the Continent I flatter myself you will not delay to advise me...

Know thy code...

So apparently the fabled Konami Code has been in over 60 games...and Contra wasn't the first one....who knew?

Maybe if the army wears these, the will to fight will disappear...

Official We Love Katamari merch. Note the awesome commentary by the designer (as well as his awesome picture).

Get while the gettin's good

There's no more room to bury the dead, they can't be cremated and laws forbid a new cemetery. So the mayor of this Brazilian farm town has proposed a solution: outlaw death.

Mayor Roberto Pereira da Silva's proposal to the Town Council asks residents to "take good care of your health in order not to die" and warns that "infractors will be held responsible for their acts."

remember that time...?

if you haven't been lately, you should go.

The Best of 2005

The Best Webcomics of 2005, according to the Webcomics Examiner. Assumedly, this selection process as well will eventually be replaced by a computer program.

get your information straight from the source.

now available on itunes.

Duckeology

I will admit that my knowledge was sorely lacking.

Now I am Unstoppable

Ok, jerks, next time you tell me I've used a word that isn't a word... guess what, it will be a word.

Fuckers.

Why We Don't Believe Klimas

Prediction is one of the pleasures of life. Conversation would wither without it. “It won’t last. She’ll dump him in a month.” If you’re wrong, no one will call you on it, because being right or wrong isn’t really the point. The point is that you think he’s not worthy of her, and the prediction is just a way of enhancing your judgment with a pleasant prevision of doom. Unless you’re putting money on it, nothing is at stake except your reputation for wisdom in matters of the heart.

Read more about why experts are stupid.

toothpaste for mondays.

because otherwise t.p.f.d. has been unreadable lately.

Ix-nay on the oker-pay...

So either poker's venue needs to change tomorrow, or it will have to be cancelled entirely...I'll be in sunny Reston, Virginia, starting on my Apple certification.

Maybe I am doomed

Getting close to a guy might mean that you'll be very intimate. You might even feel the inside of his butt hole with your finger, if fate allows for it. But after you're done being intimate, in the following moments to hours when you're lounging around the pad, for christ's sake, man, put on some god damn pants.

thanks to haddock for putting me on the trail. 17mb download for a game based on something that bores most of you. enjoy.

Speaking of the x-men...

Get your X3 trailer on.

Because they couldn't make a game that didn't suck donkey dong...

Akklaim went bankrupt. And now, you can buy the publishing rights to any of their old games/series at auction.

b and h photo: working for you!

note the ease with which steve dealt with my question, a deft simplicty that we could all stand to learn from. ask steve what you should do, and he'll give you the answer you always wanted to hear: yes.

Chris Harring: Question about Sony Production Monitors
STEVE: Welcome, Chris Harring , We are reviewing your question and will be with you shortly.
Chris Harring: The actual question is: what additional accessories do I need to purchase to make the Sony PVM-9L3 9-Inch Color Production Monitor link up with my Mac, and more specifically, communicate with Final Cut Pro?
STEVE: im sorry you would need to ask the editing dept for issues with macs
Chris Harring: Actually, I just want to know if it will hook up with my computer out of the box, or if I need to buy additional accessories. Should I ask the editing department about that?
STEVE: yes
Chris Harring: Great. Do they have an email contact, or a phone number I could contact them by?
STEVE: it would be better if you called in
Chris Harring: OK. Thank you.

ed. note: i swear on fuck that this is unmodified. for the record.

An Unstoppable Force

The Juggernaut has been cast.

target locked.

mcswny's, best known for how alternatively hard and tender i suck their cocks one after the other, has announced a new dvd quarterly called 'wholpin' which will be beaming short films through your local mail route very soon. i would put a link here to the submission guidelines, but mcswny's is down right now (as i, with unnerving force, ejaculated into my internet connection and blew their malaysian-based servers to sticky pieces).

the point is, my goal is to be on that dvd, goddammit.

Be the first nerd on yr block

To have heard of Google Calendar. Weee! It's exciting because it's Google.

Git-to-Gittn'-R-Doned

SO, I went and got your book, "Gitting-R-Donned", and excitedly skimmed past the joke about that one time you farted and something farty happened, on past the thing about the fat girl who farted and finally found it, . Well, needless to say I farted. I farted up a fartstorm right there in the Flyin' J Travel Center. I fartingly bought the book and took it home with an excitement I haven't experienced since I got Bertha Chudfarter's Grandma drunk and she took her teeth out and blew me as I was finger banging her while wearing a Jesus sock puppet in the back of the boiler room at The Church of the Redeemer off I-20 (I don't care who you are, that's funny.)

More of David Cross's open letter to Larry the Cableguy.

Higher-Class Nerdery

Ok, this is nerd to the extreme, but still an interesting read: an academic analysis of what went wrong with Star Wars Galaxies.

the funny thing is, they kinda do.

everybody loves chris ware. or at least those of you under the sway of the mcswny's mafia, that is. (they are sooo koool!)

Sayeth Philip K. Dick:

In 1970 I wrote a novel called Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. One of the characters is a nineteen-year-old girl named Kathy. Her husband's name is Jack. Kathy appears to work for the criminal underground, but later, as we read deeper into the novel, we discover that actually she is working for the police. She has a relationship going on with a police inspector. The character is pure fiction. Or at least I thought it was.

Anyhow, on Christmas Day of 1970, I met a girl named Kathy—this was after I had finished the novel, you understand. She was nineteen years old. Her boyfriend was named Jack. I soon learned that Kathy was a drug dealer. I spent months trying to get her to give up dealing drugs; I kept warning her again and again that she would get caught. Then, one evening as we were entering a restauant together, Kathy stopped short and said, "I can't go in." Seated in the restaurant was a police inspector whom I knew. "I have to tell you the truth," Kathy said. "I have a relationship with him."

Stop looking at that there Dundalk porn and get your read on. After this part, there's a whole thing about how he retold a story from the Bible without ever having read it... then, eight years later, he lives the entire scene as he wrote it.

Nerdery

Wizards of the Coast has reference docs for 3.5 available online.

Does this look like the correct rules to you who actually have the books?