Important Checklist

Ahhh it is so interesting digging through your old bookmarks sometimes. Here is a gem I found a long time ago. It is (slightly editted) from Peter's Evil Overlord List, where he also has some additional items that did not make the top 100.
 
Without further ado, though, this is the checklist of the "Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord":
 
1. My Evil Minions will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.
 
2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
 
3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
 
4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
 
5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my only weakness.
 
6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.
 
7. When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."
 
8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
 
9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.
 
10. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum - a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.
 
11. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
 
12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
 
13. All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
 
14. The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.
 
15. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
 
16. I will never utter the sentence "But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know."
 
17. When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.
 
18. I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.
 
19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.
 
20. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.
 
21. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Evil Minions, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.
 
22. No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.
 
23. I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way - even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless - my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.
 
24. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)
 
25. No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.
 
26. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.
 
27. I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.
 
28. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.
 
29. I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.
 
30. All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.
 
31. All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.
 
32. I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.
 
33. I won't require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.
 
34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.
 
35. I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Gen-X.
 
36. I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.
 
37. If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Evil Minions are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he's my trusted lieutenant.
 
38. If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.
 
39. If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Evil Minions, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.
 
40. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
 
41. Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.
 
42. When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.
 
43. I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.
 
44. I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.
 
45. I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say "And here is the price for failure," then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.
 
46. If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.
 
47. If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.
 
48. I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge and a snack.
 
49. If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper.
 
50. My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with any standard laptops and Macintosh powerbooks.
 
51. If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess' cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.
 
52. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.
 
53. If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I'll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well" and kill her.
 
54. I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.
 
55. The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place among my Evil Minions. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.
 
56. My Evil Minions will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 metres will be used for target practice.
 
57. Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner's manual.
 
58. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.
 
59. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.
 
60. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.
 
61. If my advisors ask "Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?", I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
 
62. I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.
 
63. Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.
 
64. I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.
 
65. If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.
 
66. My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.
 
67. No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.
 
68. I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they'd better save my life again.
 
69. All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.
 
70. When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.
 
71. If I decide to test a lieutenant's loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is "No".
 
72. If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.
 
73. I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.
 
74. When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk "Project Overlord" and leave it lying on top of my desk.
 
75. I will instruct my Evil Minions to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
 
76. If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)
 
77. If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutentant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.
 
78. I will not tell my Evil Minions "And he must be taken alive!" The command will be "And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical."
 
79. If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.
 
80. If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.
 
81. If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.
 
82. I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.
 
83. If I'm eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.
 
84. I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.
 
85. I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more along the lines of "Pull the lever."
 
86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
 
87. My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.
 
88. If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.
 
89. After I capture the hero's superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.
 
90. I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.
 
91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.
 
92. If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead I will say this his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)
 
93. If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and an underling who failed or betrayed me, I will see to it that the hero is scheduled to go first.
 
94. When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.
 
95. My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it's an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.
 
96. My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.
 
97. My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces, anything flammable or any item that can be unravelled.
 
98. If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However if circumstance have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each others' lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.
 
99. Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.
 
100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited broadband Internet access.

Say WHO?

It has been ages since I wrote on here. I've just been so tired and what little energy I have had left has been consumed by other things. For a lot of people that wouldn't leave them worn out, but for me it means I have just been soooo busy it isn't even funny, given that I am normally functional well under 11 hours out of 24 on a good day.
 
So busy, in fact, that although there are only about 8 TV shows in a week that I will definitively reserve time for, I've mostly had to record them or get them from torrents after they aired. Sometimes I wish we had TiVO but... half the time it would probably fill up with stuff I would never get around to watching.
 
However, there are some shows I will always make time for: those being Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica and the 2 Stargate series. All have been on hiatus and all but Doctor Who are not available on regular television in Canada until far after they have been broadcast in other places. That means that almost universally I have to get torrents of them and watch them in bed with my laptop. And that's where we stand right now, that's what all this preamble has led to: I JUST finished watching Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion, and it was SO DAMN GOOD I had to write about it NOW. Now, because it airs on CBC tonight at 8pm and if anyone keeps up with my blog at all I don't want them to miss it.
 
This is possibly the best Doctor Who episode EVER made. I know, "The Christmas Invasion" brings up images in everyone's mind of some hokey lame-ass Star Wars Christmas Special idea. Come on, you know when you were 10 years old that show seemed good for 5 minutes but then it sunk in that, like that smell emanating from Kentucky Fried Chicken, you were drawn in by the "Star Wars" - but when you actually tasted it, you realised - THIS FUCKING SUCKS. ON top of that is the sometimes-campy aspect that Doctor Who has shown in the past causing you to think this might be just one big joke. I even saw a post on an IMDB message board making that exact statement: "The Christmas Invasion? Is that a JOKE?" NOTHING could be further from the truth. The Christmas Invasion is exceptional: brilliant, quirky, and hilarious.
 
The Christmas aspect isn't pounded into the story like a tree graft, it is merged into it seamlessly. Although there are fun bits like a killer brass band of Santas and a malevolent and destructive Christmas tree, it is merged into the early part of the story with humour and that borderline horror aspect of delicious good-things-gone-horribly wrong irony. You want to laugh but if you have any investment in the characters at all, you are also terrified by what is happening to them. Even those who have not watched the new Who, or perhaps never watched the Doctor's adventures at all, will find it entertaining.
 
After the dark turn of Christopher Eccleston - which although I enjoyed immensely, didn't feel like the same confident Doctor of the past - David Tennant brings back the old aspects of the Doctor. You feel like there is some Pertwee, Troughton, Davison and McCoy in there now. You can also feel the Eccleston Doctor's influence in that there is clearly a darker side to the Doctor, but he seems more balanced in Tennant. Time will tell.
 
Of course, that previous paragraph is only going to be understood by long-term Who fans. What we get in this show is an episode that allows you to step into the Doctor's Universe without having watched all the old incarnations of the Doctor. If you came into this with only a passing interest and little knowledge of Doctor Who, you can still enjoy this special. Amazingly, the writing has taken a slightly Whedonesque turn as well, and I certainly mean that in the best way possible. The subtle pop-culture references are there including a throwaway comment by the Doctor about Arthur Dent. The story has the pacing and structure of some of the best action type feature films of recent years. It is a worthy debut for our new Doctor, and a brilliant portrayal of what happens to the Doctor's companion when he regenerates. Rose shows all the inecurities that a real person would: will I like the new person? What happened to MY Doctor? Billie Piper shows great acting skills in passing along that sense of grief and loss that the Doctor that she knew and loved IS DEAD and she has no idea where Rose will be without him.
 
When the Doctor recovers to save the day, which of course, he always does (I wouldn't consider it much of a spoiler to say it) - it is in the truest action-hero style the Doctor has ever shown. He also shows that he is still a guardian of the Universe and not Earth alone in how he addresses Prime Minister Harriet Jones in the post-attack scene. The closing Christmas dinner scenes are paced just right so as not to drag the whole thing down from being overloaded with red and green paint. It all makes nice, balanced sense. The Doctor (& the TARDIS), ailing from a complicated and difficult regeneration, brings home Rose in time for Christmas only to stumble into a planetary crisis, a crisis which is accellerated by the Doctor's presence on Earth in an incapacitated state. It could have happened any time since this is a time-travel show, but it just happened to occur at Christmas. No further ridiculous plot explanations necessary.
 
The story is a fun romp with great pacing, emotional upheaval (which for followers of the series is gut-wrenching, tear-inducing stuff), great effects and lots of humour. It even respects the continuity of the series in some nice, subtle ways like seeing Big Ben/The Westminster Palace clock tower still under repair from the damage suffered in "The Alien Invasion" in a wide shot of London's cityscape. Then, at the end of the show were the tantalizing previews of the upcoming new series of Who episodes, including Giles (Tony Stew Head) of the Buffyverse and Sarah Jane Smith of the old Who.
 
Seriously, see it on CBC tonight if you have access to it, or download a torrent and grab it with BitComet or some other bittorrent client. You won't be sorry. Unless, of course, you are a Scrooge.

Should you worship God at the Kingdom Hall with Jehovah's Witnesses?

In honour of the Holiday Season, here is a little something to think about. Ever thought that Christmas and all this stuff was too much? How about becoming a Jehovah's Witness? They don't do all this holiday foolishness. So, should you worship God at the Kingdom Hall with Jehovah's Witnesses?

Serenity.Now.

Go see it. You won't be sorry.
 
Joss has done it again.
 
Who's up for Wonder Woman?

How I Met WHO?

What can I say?
 
I watched all the publicity all summer about this show while watching lamearse Big Brother and really thought I liked the idea of how this show was going to work. I pictured a sort of "Mad About You" type thing with a more expansive feel - the early days of meeting and dating evolving into what would become a long term relationship. What a tremendous premise if it was done in a "looking back" way. I even thought it might be something like a look-back-to-the-80s sort of thing although that wasn't really clear at all in the previews.
 
When I started watching the first episode and I saw the "Wonder Years" type narrative form, I thought, hey, this could be actually a really great concept... borrowing from others but making a completely new form. 2030? Ok, so the setting will be more present day - I can live with that.
 
Then, I watched the show. And then the second episode. And the third.
 
How disappointing.
 
The concept should have led to a really original idea. The cast have that familiarity born of folks who have been around TV in somewhat different roles but they should be believable in these ones. I admit it - I LIKE Neil Patrick Harris and Alyson Hannigan in this. Or at least, I SHOULD like them if they were actually given some material to work with. I guess the expression I am looking for is – I WANT to like them, they are working so hard.
 
What's wrong with the show? Well, after you get past the premise - almost everything. I don't think you can blame the cast - it is like they have been handed an armload of coal and asked to make diamonds. There just is not enough substance or originality in the writing. The jokes are various combinations of old, predictable and lame. All the spark and humour that made classics like “Night Court”, “Cheers” and “Seinfeld” work is completely absent. There is also no trace of farcical or out-there innuendo that made shows like “Three’s Company” and “Mork and Mindy” hilarious.
 
I remember in the “golden era” of the sitcom, sometimes sitting in front of my television with my ribs aching from laughing so hard. This show should have been the kind of thing that I would find somewhat hilarious. Many of the “old classic” shows have found new life in recent years by revisiting the concepts originally envisioned and updating them – for example, Battlestar Galactica. Others have touched me in different ways I have I aged and my life has evolved. Since I now have kids of my own, I often enjoy stories based on premises like “how we met” or “how we started a family” – I guess age, experience and wisdom allow me to relate well. I enjoyed “Six Feet Under” not only because of the interesting concept and brilliant writing, but because it kept me grounded in a way by reminding me to live life to its fullest because everyone is going to die.
 
Why am I bringing all this up? Because I think this show has, or maybe just HAD, great potential. Strong writing and a dedicated network could have turned this into the next long-running television classic sitcom in spite of this era of “reality” television and the proliferation of copycat special-FX driven crime dramas. Instead, it is just a pale imitation of the far overrated Friends wrapped in a “Wonder Years” wrapper. (Don’t get me wrong, I liked Friends, but it was only really funny for a couple of seasons – I didn’t LOVE it like some other sitcoms.)
 
I’m going to try watching a little more. Heck, I gave “Joey” 4 months before I gave up on it. My advice to others would be to check it out but don’t expect too much.
 
You’ll likely be just as disappointed as I was.

Only Cause It's True

I don't know why but I just found this too damn funny:
 

 
My ex-wife was bipolar. That's the biggest reason she's ex. Also probably the biggest reason she was my wife in the first place.

3 Hour Tour

 
Gilligan is dead.
 
So long, little buddy.
 

FIGJAM?

Oh you dozen of loyal readers have just overwhelmed me with why I changed the name of my blog. Ok, so no one actually said a word. Sue me.
 
FIGJAM is not for toast.
 
It stands for something, semi-sarcastic, but suited to the purpose of why I write here.
 
Anyone know what it stands for?
 
No?
 
Fuck I'm Good - Just Ask Me.

Cool Picture

This is a photo from NOAA of Hurricane Katrina: Interesting shot... it really shows how huge it was.
 
We were touched by Katrina with some high winds and heavy rains but nothing like what happened to the southern U.S.A. It ripped a tarp off our boat which I am trying to repair and knocked our dining tent all over the backyard, but it was pretty minor. Our driveway is halfway under water, but our house still has a roof and 4 walls.
 
Our best wishes to those in the affected areas. I'm filled with sadness every time I see news reports about it. There are some people on an email list I am on about Chrysler boats who live down there. One has probably lost his sailboat for sure. Some others, we have not even heard from. I hope they're ok.

Media Idiocy

Good news and bad news greet the astronauts as they open the doors of the 60-foot-long payload bay, where future flights will stow up to 32.5 tons of cargo. The huge doors open right on cue, but they also reveal the loss of one complete thermal tile and pieces of 15 others that were insufficiently bonded to the orbiter's engine pods.

From: National Geographic, Vol. 160 No. 4, October 1981 - page 488

Neither of us could sightsee, however. In less than 4 minutes we had to jettison the external tank. Pieces of white insulation from the tank drifted by our windows. They looked spectacular, like chunks of ice.
 
-Robert L. Crippen, Pilot, Columbia, STS-1, April 12-14, 1981

From: National Geographic, Vol. 160 No. 4, October 1981 - page 486

What the hell happened?

Way back in the olden days, the media used to support the space program. They used to actually TRY to understand even if most of them were know-nothing tools who had no clue and had stumbled into careers in broadcasting after dropping out of high school or college.

Today? Oh no, we don't believe in our astronauts. We don't believe in NASA. We are all SMARTER than that - just because we are still dropouts or might as well be dropouts (a.k.a. "degree" in Journalism) doesn't mean we don't know just as much as anyone else about everything. We are all a bunch of Cliff Clavins here at {insert broadcast news outlet name here}.

So, the shuttle goes up. NASA says things are going fine. NASA... you know, the rocket scientists. The guys who got the world to the MOON. Mars. Laid the groundwork for us to have satellites for things like, oh, television broadcasts of extended cable news stations. And what does the "news" coverage say? What do they report? What questions do they ask?

What are you going to do about all these PROBLEMS on the flight? What are you going to do about that piece of foam that came nowhere near hitting any goddamn thing? How will you RESCUE the astronauts? Eek, the sky is falling! The shuttle's gonna crash! The shuttle fleet is too old, it needs ot be retired. NASA is spending too much money.

WTF? Who said ANYTHING about astronauts needing to be rescued? They surveyed the shuttle and discovered it had less tile damage, dings or marks than ANY previous shuttle flight. NO one needed any rescuing. They removed some gap fillers which had slipped and it became some kind of repair on the order of Obi Wan shutting down the goddamned Death Star tractor beam to allow the shuttle to escape (sorry I mean Millenium Falcon)... Just a clue, IDIOTS - they had observed these things before. They had observed that there was "tile slumping or shifting" in past missions which had no ill effects but meant more repair time between flights. They hypothesized that the gap fillers may have been the cause so decided, hey, we can stop that from happening. Send a guy out to use all this fancy-schmanzy new stuff just to see if we ever had to make a more serious repair, it could be done. Perfect opportunity for a TEST during a TEST FLIGHT. It proved that they could use the equipment to get to the belly and work on it, but it was NOT the first repair of a spacecraft in space (Uhh Apollo 13 was a true story, retards). Hubble was repaired. They just finished fixing the goddamned SPACE STATION before they picked off the shuttle's wee tiny booboo, a far greater accomplishment but what are they focussed on? A guy picked something barely more than LINT off the shuttle. Stop the presses! It's time to rewrite the history books!

I am not trying to minimize the work done by the Discovery Flight Engineer Steve Robinson, it takes serious guts to go out there and do what he did risking becoming a barely-noticed flare in the afternoon sky over Malaysia if something goes wrong, or being smeared like roadkill over the orbiter belly if the robotic arm or its operator frigs up. He proved that given the right materials and tools (the opposable thumb, in this case) they could patch up a serious problem so they don't lose any crew and another costly spacecraft. That's good news! But that's not what the mediots focus on.

Newsflash for you, media dipshitz. The shuttle has flown with more damage, worse rockets & tanks, fewer tiles, less computer power and safety features and has made it back to earth over 100 times. It has carried 703 crew or passengers, deployed 61 satellites, made over 16000 orbits and spent the equivalent of more than 2.8 YEARS in orbit. It has flown nearly 700 MILLION miles. For most of these flights, I could not find more than the barest minimum of coverage or information and I learned everything I could by reading books, studying web sites, getting all the info from NASA and other sources that I could. From childhood I have studied the development, building and flight of this fantastic machine, going back 30-odd years. I'd think I know most everything there is to know about the shuttle short of being a flight engineer working on one, and I don't feel that I am qualified to even hold the clipboard of the folks who built and fly the things. You, with your 10 minute review and brief skimming of the NASA front page are not qualified to even ASK the questions you ask which you can't understand the answers to, let alone provide any analysis of value. Most of you can't even fathom how to change (let alone CHECK) the oil in your Chevy Impalas, so STOP TRYING TO FUCKING TELL THE WORLD THE SHUTTLE IS "BAD".

Discovery and the STS-114 crew were never in danger (should I say unexpected danger), at least not any more than the guys on the space station or anyone else venturing into and returning from an environment like space. SpaceShipOne was likely just as risky but we didn't hear the media sheep bleating about the dangers those guys were engaging in. NASA knows what they are doing, and they know what they are talking about. In over 40 years they have had only 3 serious mishaps (Apollo 1, Challenger STS-51L, Columbia STS-107), and although it is not quite as safe as driving on the freeway to go to space in a shuttle, it certainly is not going over Niagara Falls in an Oak Wine Barrel carrying a snorkel.

So, until you know what you are talking about, media, you need to (to use the current 'net vernacular) STFU. Just because you would like to get a "scoop" by "predicting" the death(s) of our valiant spacefarers does not give you the right to apply a standard of idiocy to reporting that exceeds that of the current holder of the office of POTUS. Your job is to REPORT what you are TOLD, not to MAKE SHIT UP as you go along to make your role seem important.

One side note - I used to think that out of all the people in the media out there, Miles O'Brien of CNN - although not the towering intellect he thinks he is - was one of the few "good guys", who genuinely tried to understand and honestly and accurately report on the space program. Then I watched him STEAL a quote (I was watching NASA TV's post-landing press conference/briefing on the 'net and CNN on TV at the same time) directly from the head of NASA. While smirking and acting like he thought it up himself, used it when asking an interviewee (a former astronaut) a question. I don't mean PARAPHRASED, I mean word-for-word used it as an "insightful" comment from his "witty" self.

Mr. O'Brien, for this act you are stripped of your rank of Chief and summarily dismissed from your position on DS9. Report to the nearest airlock for spacing.

This Completely Rocks

It has been ages since I typed here, I really need to get it all sorted out... but when I saw this today I knew I had to stick it here: Oprah's Crusade
 
An excerpt before you go read it all:
 
'(Gayle) King, a witness to the incident, said it was one of the most humiliating moments of her life. "It was like something out of Mississippi Burning," she said.
 
"In some ways, it was worse than what Rosa Parks faced. At least Sister Rosa was welcome to move to the back of the bus. They wouldn’t even let us in the back of the store," King said. "Which would’ve been insulting enough, but at least that’s where they have the leather bangle bracelets. Have you seen them? They’re adorable. And only $800 apiece! They also have sterling silver bracelets for $1100, but that would be too painful a reminder of our history as slaves."'
 
Oh Oprah, get over yourself. Apparently this was more humiliating than all the sympathetic spin put on her "tragic childhood" in her A&E Biography?
 
What can I say but... BARF!

Wonderful News (At least for me/ME)

It was with great delight I found out today that the Ontario Government and the OMA have finally recognised ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as an official illness. I am so happy I almost can't contain myself. Ok well actually I can... but it is a huge difference. Click the title link for a page from ME/FM Action about this news.

So, Dr. Michael K.D. Fan, Dr. Jaciw and others, shove it right up your know-it-all overeducated ass - you can't "not believe" in my illness any more you self-righteous pricks. Look up OHIP Diagnostic Code number 795, you fucknuts. Put that in your bong and smoke it.

I am so happy that the work of my former physician Dr. Jeff Sherkey, who died of a brain tumour a while back, did not go for naught. Dr. Sherkey also had ME/CFS like I do. He tried to help me, and he was always a sympathetic ear, as busy as he was and plagued by the ravages of the same illness I have. He persisted in the face of idiotic other medicos and tried to give help. Apparently at least a third to a half of his patients improved. I was not largely improved but for a while I did have appropriate medication - which I have no longer and therefore am much worse. Anyway, his main goal was to see that the medical authorities recognized and had a diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS, and although he did not live to see it that finally has been achieved.

What does this mean? Well, first of all it means I MIGHT find a doctor who understands the condition and will try and help because he will now be provided information from the OMA and the Government about it. It means that next year when my disability is reviewed my illness will be listed and there will be little doubt about the EXISTENCE of my illness and no one will have to call it Fibromyalgia. It means that someone could actually do some real research into the illness and find some help and maybe just maybe someday I can get better and have MY LIFE BACK!

An Incredible DVD

The Incredibles. I mentioned it casually, almost in passing once before, a long time ago, but the DVD came out a few weeks ago and I just had to write a review of it. Originally it started out as a post for a Yahoo shopping page but it evolved into more when I realised I wanted to share my feelings about this movie and DVD here as well.

First of all let me start with the technical, and then possibly the only negative aspect. There are not enough superlatives to describe the animation in The Incredibles. It is, in a word, OUTSTANDING (note I resisted using the word incredible). The best way to assess this? You forget at times this is an animated movie. For someone who does not understand this as a triumphant technical achievement, you won’t notice – and that is a GOOD thing. For those with some grasp of what goes into this stuff: wet hair, underwater sequences, fire, ice, water, lava, smooth rapid motion, natural human movements – it is all here, almost as though director Brad Bird wanted to make the PIXAR artists prove they are the best in the business. When you watch the extras on the DVD, you get an appreciation of the work involved, and what they had to give up in order to meet deadlines; it gives you a real appreciation of the work involved in a project like this. The only real issue I have had with the movie relates to the sound. Now, this can be considered a general beef about many movies but it is very noticeable in The Incredibles – very often the action sequences are far, far out of proportion volume-wise with the dialogue. In the movie theatre it is not that big an issue because they have the volume cranked so loud no one notices – but at home, you might find yourself tampering with your volume control trying to balance between hearing every word of every character’s dialogue in this treasure and knocking over your neighbour’s house with a wall of sound during action scenes. Most likely this is only an issue if you have a home theatre surround sound system, so if you are just watching it on a regular TV you likely would not notice. On the other hand, the surround is excellent and great fun and if you can just crank it up and let it run, by all means do so. You may go deaf when the Omnidroid attacks, but if you have to go deaf this is the way to go.

The Incredibles is not only visually stunning. It is one of those exceedingly rare films which is both parody and serious. It pokes fun at the entire Spy/Superhero genre of comics and film and does it subtly in some ways and blatantly in others. Periodically it even pokes fun at itself, and it takes a brave creator to make fun of your own project in your own project. If you enjoy James Bond or “Comic-Book” hero movies, you will see frequent tributes and winks to scenes from those classics (and even not so classics). If you have ever been a comic book aficionado you likely will find yourself delighted with the story aspects borrowed from many classics – Fantastic Four, Moore’s Watchmen, Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and a myriad of other storylines. The savvy comic-book reader from the 60s through the 80s will spot dozens of references that add to the fun of the movie without taking away from its flow. There is almost no way one person could get every joke and reference – everything PIXAR did in the Toy Story movies, Monster’s Inc., A Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo is done tenfold here. I watch The Incredibles again and again just to look for references I have missed. I can tell you after literally dozens of viewing I STILL want to see it again and again to see if I missed anything. Some of the briefest things are the most hilarious.

However, you do NOT have to be a comic-superhero-geek or Bond nut to appreciate this movie. The plot encompasses numerous topics: mid-life crisis, juggling family and career, changing careers, reliving ones youth, traditional roles of family members, and many other things all revolving around the central theme: the mundane meets the exceptional. The humour is not all based on in-jokes – those tend to be very subtle and geared toward that audience. There are tremendously amusing scenes relating to family life, being a kid, school and other “mundane” life aspects as well as humour relating to what it would be like to have superpowers and sometimes screw up or want to make less-than-heroic use of those powers. To me one of the lines which best sums all this up in the movie is this: “Is this RUBBLE?” Those who have seen the movie will understand. Those who haven’t yet watched, watch for it and you will hopefully understand why I think this is a great illustration of the central theme. The movie could be considered to have a level of social commentary, where Bird confronts head-on the topic of how North American culture has fallen into celebrating the mediocre and the fact that more and more we seem to be living by the credo “If at first you don’t succeed, lower your standards and try again.”

The casting and voice work are well done. I personally did not find myself thinking of the voice actors when I heard their work; I was absorbed by their characters on screen. In some animated films (for example, Nemo or Monsters, Inc.) I found myself unable to NOT think of the actor – Ellen or Billy Crystal in those cases – when I heard their voices. The voices in The Incredibles suit the characters well, and Holly Hunter strikes just the right tone in both being a Mom, as well as in the opening sequence when she plays a liberated female superhero named Elastigirl who laughs off the thought of retiring to start a family. Brad Bird does a brilliant job as Edna Mode, which seems incredibly unlikely on paper but the results are hilarious on screen.

On the kid’s side, well, there are concerns for those who may be uptight about violence or death in a movie. I have a 4-year-old who adores this movie and does not find it in any way disturbing. Frankly, I was relieved to see a movie that does not insult a child’s intelligence - The Incredibles neither glossed over nor dwelled on death – it is simply a fact of life in this movie. Some of the characters die – even one of the main characters. My daughter was not disturbed or upset by this. It is only because I am fully aware that the people who best knows a kid’s sensitivities are that kid’s parents that I am mentioning this. There is no blood or gore, just explosions and violence and one scene of a dead Superhero’s skeleton. Other than that aspect (and it is only a concern for people who may not let their kids watch TV) kids love the show too. They will get the more basic humour while largely ignoring the stuff adults “get”. The first half hour of the movie might move slowly for the littlest ones, but when the action picks up they are riveted to the screen. I think the best demonstration of how a kid relates to this movie is to explain the evolution of my daughter’s viewpoint: originally, when asked what the best part of the movie was, she said, “The super-fast little boy.” We have since had an addition to our family, a baby boy, and now my daughter’s favourite character is Violet, the “invisible” teenage daughter, because now her baby brother will be Dash when he grows up. It seems that kids relate to child superheroes with some dependence on their situation. Other than X-Men 2, there have not been many movies which have portrayed children with super powers so this aspect alone makes The Incredibles attractive to the kiddoes. Now my daughter insists that we must have another baby boy so that we will BE The Incredibles – the new baby would be Jack-Jack.

The DVD extras are great fun. There are no staged “bloopers”, but there are some animation errors in a “Blunder Reel”. Jack-Jack Attack is great fun and really ties up some questions you are left with after viewing the movie – just wait until AFTER you have seen the feature before watching it. You can, however, watch the adorable although sometimes corny “Boundin’” and learn all about its director Bud Luckey (voice of Agent Rick Dicker in the movie), one of the first PIXAR employees. The deleted scenes are a treasure in animated storyboards. Possibly one of the most amusing portions, though, is in the Top Secret section where you will find Mr. Incredible and Pals, a cartoon reminiscent of the old and horribly lame animation in Superhero TV Shows of the past. It is not Mr. Incredible and Pals that is the real fun, though, it is the commentary by Mr. Incredible and Frozone when they are apparently shown the finished product for the first time years later.

All in all, this may be the best DVD I have ever purchased. It is well worth the investment. With the current Disney/PIXAR schism it may be the only true Incredibles production ever to be released. I am not sure how Disney may deal with PIXAR distribution in the future but if you are at all interested in The Incredibles, go out and grab it today to be sure you get the edition you want. Even if you don’t have kids yet, someday you will want to show this to your future descendants.

Help... If You Want.

I am going to grovel a little now. Due to my illness (ME), I am often unable to get out of bed from sheer exhaustion and pain. I nap numerous times some days just to keep up some energy. Due to this fact, I can't do much of anything involving sitting around at a computer. Often my blog entries are done in numerous small steps and take hours and hours to accomplish. We came to the conclusion that what would be best woudl be to get a laptop so I could work from bed, as there is no way I can move around a PC to the bedside to work comfortably (already tried that). I only want a basic machine, nothing that is $3000 or anything, but it is still $1000 plus taxes for a machine that would have what I need. Please, don't suggest used, I have already tried that route and unfortunately in order to get even the bare minimum of what I need they want 6-700 bucks. And that is with no warranty, no battery, and about 4 years old. I think people asking that for a 4-year-old computer are freakin' NUTS but what is more nuts is that people are PAYING that! What the hell is wrong with these insane people on Ebay that they will pay retail prices plus 10% PLUS SHIPPING to buy stuff USED?
 
The big thing is I would happily pay monthly installments for something but due to being in receipt of government disability I can't qualify for credit. We would happily be off of disability if we could find a way as a family to earn an income, but so far we can't even make enough doing stuff to break even. I have never been paid for writing so I earn nothing. My wife has a grassroots magazine (I help and write for it when I can), but the inability to get subscribers and publicity makes it simply a break-even exercise. We have considered trying to publish large numbers of magazines and distributing them for free in order to generate advertising revenue, but hey - guess what - costs money. And on disablity you can't get credit. Around we go in the circle again. Dizzy yet?
 
Anyway, if you have enjoyed anything I write and/or would like to read more (and more often), or if by nature you are a compassionate person who would like to help someone out with a difficult financial situation due to a chronic illness, please, you can help out by donating something on the link at the right of this page. This page does not get a lot of traffic but even a few dollars from a few people would get me a little closer to possible self-sufficiency. It would also earn you a great deal of gratitude from our little family.

Wow Another New Hero

First of all, let me say I am really sorry for the lack of updates. With a new baby and everything going on, I just have not had the energy to sit and write anything. I am only semi-coherent much of the time lately, and I really hope I can at least get back some of my strength over time.
 
That said, in the time I HAVE actually spent reading... I have found a very cool "new" writer (new to me, not to anyone else). His name is Carl Hiaasen and if you have never read anything he has written, well, neither had I until a couple of days ago. He has had a newspaper column, novels and kids books published over many years apparently, and from what I have read of his columns I think he is brilliant. My wife thinks he writes like me, or rather, I would have to say I write like him (since he has existed much longer), although like I said I had never heard of him until recently. I always thought I had a "unique style" of writing, in the range of sarcastic arsehole meets Dennis Leary and Dennis Miller (although I know I am not as funny as those guys by any means). When I read Carl Hiaasen I feel like I have found a kindred spirit. He is located in Florida, and when you read what he writes you discover why Fark has a specially dedicated "Florida" tag.
 
I think I have found a kindred spirit at least in the sense of personal expression, although I doubt that I could ever write as many books as he has. Cool beans, I tell ya.

You Go Golis

Eric Margolis. One of the only journalists I have ever admired for his courage and intestinal fortitude. Almost everything he writes I find I agree with, and that is significant for someone as contentious as me.
 
I'm too tired to get into a big rant right now, so I will give the link to his recent story instead (click this blog entry's title), along with a couple of brief statements of my own..
 
Israel - as a nation you are morally bankrupt. The sins committed against Jews in the past can in no way justify your actions of the last 40+ years any more than the perceived wrongs done to Germany after World War I can justify what they did in World War II.
 
Palestine - please, stop killing yourselves to try and get your rights and your land back, and begin massive peaceful protests. Put the guns away and sit down. Anywhere and everywhere.

Cheesy Art

You know, I have only been on a site called SheezyART a few days. I haven't done a lot other than upload pictures, but I did go and read a couple of things by the site’s admins. To be completely honest, when I read some stuff I thought "WTF, are these people on crack?" All I wanted to do was have a place to post my pictures and get a little feedback, more than anything from friends and family than anyone I knew from there. Now I have found that it’s also nice to meet some new friends with similar interests, especially since my friends and family don’t really give a rat’s ass about anything I take a photo of, being the lazy ne'er-do-well I am (that IS Sarcasm with a capital S, for those members of my family who may not understand that - I'm saying you are way out of fucking line in your judgements, but that's another rant altogether).
 
Now, having looked around a little more, it is giving me some pause - not because of a direct effect on anything I might do or not do with my photos, but because it is an injustice. I hate injustice. I hate immaturity as well. Most of all, I hate censorship.
 
There is a stupidity about the word "porn" and what "porn" is. Well, I can tell you - porn is SEXUAL material. That isn’t some kind of “special” liberal interpretation, that’s what it means. Some people think that anything can be interpreted as sexual, even a nipple, but that's just crap. If someone takes a picture of their own genitals, that is not really porn, unless it is in a very specific context. If they take a picture of their genitals while masturbating – that’s porn. Breasts are not porn in even the remotest sense unless they are being portrayed as part of a sexual act – they are for feeding babies. Yeah, they look nice. I like ‘em. I’ll stare at ‘em for hours. But I like eyes, too… you can convey more with eyes than you can with breasts. Doesn’t that make eyes pornographic? How about hands? Don’t most people use their hands to perform sex acts of some form or another? BAN PICTURES OF HANDS! AND EYES! All those awful perverted hand and eye pictures are ruining our society’s family values. Should I even point out that you wouldn’t have a family at all without having sex? Somewhere, sometime, someone has to have some kind of sex to make a child. Even adopted children are products of that horrible dirty sex. Test tube babies? Well, the sperm had to come from someone having sex with their hand, right? While they fantasized about sex? Maybe they were fantasizing about eyes while they did it?
 
The nude human body is NOT porn no matter what some uptight evangelist or the Republican Party of the United States would tell you. How can you even consider "moral judgements" from a completely immoral government? These are people who think it is evil and wrong for someone to see or even hear about you sticking your penis into any orifice on another completely consenting adult, yet they stick their big phallic military equipment into any country they feel like, any time! Hey you, don’t fuck your boyfriend in the ass that’s wrong – now, bend over, Iraq, while I lube up my missles. You’re next, Iran, better get ready.
 
How can anyone even think that it's OK to show our kids killing, death and violence EVERY DAY on free television, but oh no, the world will end if they see a woman's breast? What kind of a sick world is it that kids learn at 4 years old how to beat people up with Martial Arts Mighty Morphin' Power Ranger moves, but when they get to be 16 they have no idea how babies are made, or if they do it is because they have already been practicing in secret because they are afraid that someone would find out and punish them??? What's next, do we find some old Nazi War Criminals and ask them to decide what books can be published based on their "unbiased insight"?
 
Maybe it’s a sign that I don't really belong on SheezyART after all. Maybe I don't belong anywhere.
 
It is hard to find a place where you can concentrate on the stuff you do without having to be able to write HTML code as well (I can do it but it wears me out nowadays). I am on another site called “DeviantART” – what a stupid name for that site, since there is nothing actually Deviant about it – no nudity (except in one category) or sexuality is allowed, and violent acts which are portrayed are often censored. The only thing Deviant about DeviantART is the fact that they are making money off the backs of artists while the speed and quality of their servers indicates that not much cash is being cycled back into improving service. They keep half of anything you might make from something sold from their “store” using the artists work, and that is after they have already recovered their expenses. If I sell a print for $50 that costs them $10 to print, I get $20. They get $30. Ok, yeah, recover your costs. But why the heck should you get HALF of the value of MY WORK in PURE PROFIT? I don’t believe there are any other agents that would have the balls to ask for more than 25%. But then, maybe I am naïve. But that would go with the fact that I have never had an agent, I suppose. They aren’t really interested in making 10% of nothing.

The Jolly Roger and the Curse of the Black Pearl

Pirates. Ain't they cool? Well, it depends on who you ask about it, doesn't it. If you ask the Movie Industry, pirates are cool if they want you to go and see them at the theatre. But... they aren't cool if they are downloading movies off the internet. No, we aren't talking about the mass-produced foreign DVD copies of movies distributed for profit. We are talking about them going after Joe Average who decides he'd like to invest the patience in trying to get a movie from the 'net that he is not sure he wants to spend the money on.
 
Fact is, I have downloaded a movie or two in my day. I've borrowed them from the library and made copies. I've also paid for a lot of really really shitty movies in theatres that were not worthy of being released. Some stuff I have done is perfectly legal, some may not be although sometimes I can't be sure. For example, you can legally watch Night of the Living Dead online for free... are you allowed to save it? Watch it again? Transfer it to a videotape so you can see it on your TV? Hard to tell, in spite of "Fair Use" laws. What I do know is that I am not putting movies online for others to download, nor am I gaining anything financially by exhibiting them to people for an admission charge or copying them en masse and selling the copies.
 
So... if someone downloads a movie, does it really make your ticket price rise? Not likely. If some third-world country rips-off a movie, makes a DVD of it and sell 10000 copies of it in the supermarket parking lot? Probably.
 
If you really like a movie, you are likely going to pay to go see it. If you download a movie that you aren't sure about and you really like it and want to see it as it was meant to be, you are also likely to pay to go see it or buy a DVD of it.
 
If people are expected to pay $12 a head or more to go and gamble whether or not a movie is a piece of crap or not and not know if they are flushing money down the toilet... well, all I can say is that the movie companies have largely made themselves victims of their own hype and false advertising and poor production values by artificially inflating the value of what they do to the point where people don't feel they are getting their money's worth any more.
 
You can liken it to a situation that occurred a few years back here. The government thought they could reduce smoking. So, they increased cigarette taxes. Smoking went down marginally. So they thought, "Hey, paydirt!" and increased the taxes again, this time by a substantial amount. Smoking went down marginally again. So they tried it one more time. Then they hit the sticker. Sales of cigarettes fell. Substantially. They almost dislocated their shoulders patting themselves on the back. Prematurely. Because where did all those cigarette sales go? Well, people didn't quit. It just reached the point where even the most law-abiding smoker was not willing to pay $8 a pack when they could get illegally imported or grey-market "native" smokes for less, even if the less was only a buck less a pack. Law enforcement officials were swamped by the massive overload of smuggling. People were getting hurt. The government wasn't getting ANY money on the sales of the smuggled cigarettes. They had just taken aim, a deep breath, and shot themselves squarely in the foot. They broke down, lowered the taxes... sales went "back up" - legal sales that is. The smuggling market fell apart because it lost its cost-effectiveness. Of course, you can still get illegally imported smokes if you want to - but the fact is: why bother, when they don't cost enough less to be worth the risk?
 
The movie industry has priced themselves out of their own market. Even at a discount movie theatre I have to pay $7 for my 3 year old to go to a movie. She sleeps through the thing half the time! Do I get my money back for that? No. Do I get my money back if I feel a movie was rated less than a 5/10? No. Can I afford, like I once did, to go to the movies a half dozen times a month? No. Did anyone download movies when bandwidth was limited to 33.6K, in spite of the movie industry using downloading to justify these price increases in recent years back to before that speed being the benchmark? Are you KIDDING - of course not.
 
The movie industry's logic is flawed. They assume that every movie downloaded is a lost ticket - not true. They assume that there is no other way for people to see a movie for free or cheap - also not true (ever borrowed one from a friend or the library? Ever got a freebee at Blockbuster because the guaranteed one is not there?). They also fail to recognize that in spite of all this piracy, movies still set records in attendance - and I mean in people numbers not in inflated dollar-price ticket sales. They also obviously have not ever looked closely at a downloaded movie that is currently in the theatre shot with a camcorder or some other way - I had a friend who used to do this, and they were horrible to watch, especially if it was something you wanted to see. It is not worth the time it takes to download or the hard drive space or the cost of a CD, I assure you.
 
Rest assured, any movie I want to see, we take money from our extremely limited budget and go see. Anything that is just not worth paying for, I don't go rushing out to pay for, I borrow it or get it from a library or find some other way to watch it. An example? I wanted to see Farenheit 911 out of curiosity. Not enough to pay the $25 or so it would cost to go to a theatre. A friend turned up one day with it on DVD. So I borrowed it from him. It appeared legit enough, until we played it. Sound was OK but the video was... odd. It was like it was full screen but with the top and bottom cut off in letterbox. I turned on captioning and we almost died laughing - they made no sense at all. One memorable line was something in the dialogue saying "went to bed in clean linen sheets", and the caption said something like "Wet the bed with creamy lemon treats". I went online and looked at the release date on the IMDB. I noticed my calendar and it was NOT October 5th yet, if you know what I mean. But, seeing it satisfied my curiosity. Might I buy it someday in a legit, discount pile? Maybe, as a nostalgic memory of this time. Would I have paid full price to see it or own it? Not in a million years. DOes this make me a nasty, evil thief? According to the MPAA, it should.
 
When they figure out some better system... I know I will likely spend more on movies. If I can buy a ticket for a reasonable price, I will. If it costs $12 to see a movie but I can come back and see it again as many times as I want if I like it and see another movie for free later it sucks, maybe I'd be more likely to go more knowing it was a sort of investment more than a crap shoot. If I can pay to own a movie on my computer for $10-15 and watch it as much as I want in the privacy of my own home, I'd also go along with that - and I say that price is maximum because I'm not taking up any of their real estate space, heat, oxygen, labour costs or anything else in a theatre and they have to do nothing but make a digitally available download so it costs them nothing in media but the server. If I know I am going to want to own the DVD of a movie, if they even let me apply half of my ticket prices to the purchase of that DVD I'd also be less reluctant to go and pay several times for the same thing.
 
Get with the times - sell me a personal LICENSE to a movie for a reasonable cost, so I can make fair use of it. I promise, I won't pass it around the internet - why would I? Of course, this kind of enlightened and forward-thinking philosophy is not likely to come from the same dumbass industry who tried to have VCRs outlawed because they would "infringe on their rights"... they didn't complain too much when people started buying movies on tape, did they? Idiots.
 
Try and continue live in the glory days of the silver screen, when there was nothing else for people to get entertainment from (no TV, no Internet, no video stores) and sooner or later, your market WILL begin to fade even if it has not already. The day is coming.

Check This Out.... IF YOU DARE!

Go visit here. Its all about the babies...
 
So, Gimme some sugar, baby...

Its A Groundhog... er... Boy!

Please say hello to our new addition. 8lbs 13 oz/4000 grams, 20"/51 cm long, born into my hands at 4:38 pm EST 2/2/05. His big sister got to cut the cord... for real, too, not just the cut the cord for show thing they do in a hospital.
 

No, I Will NOT Open My Eyes:
 
  One HUGE Yawn:
 

 
  Then there were 4.
 
  His appearance means at least 6 more weeks of night feedings.

Oi Vey

First kid, 7 hours total. 45 minutes of real labour and she was out.
 
Second kid, we are at 30+ hours with no clear indication of when things might end.
 
Groundhog day baby, maybe?
 
As long as they don't stick their head out, see their shadow and decide that there should be 6 more weeks of labour.

Here Comes The Son... or Daughter...

Well, we're in labour here... the wife is progressing along nicely. Its been about 6 hours or so, approximately at this point.
 
We'll have baby soon... the pool is full and Mommy is floating in it comfortably. We aren't at transition yet but it should be soon.
 
I'll post again as things change...

Monday Morning Biochemists

You know, it seems that each year that goes by, the Internet proves more and more that old chestnut/axiom/proverb: "A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing."
 
First of all, let me preface with this: Those who know me will know that my wife and I birthed our daughter unassisted, at home, in an inflatable pool. Hardly mainstream... pretty radical to some people - but it is something we believe strongly: birth is natural, and birth belongs at home, unless there is some compelling medical reason to go to a hospital (or anywhere else). People in other countries birth alone or with midwives, all the time. Of course, there are those among you who are saying "But... they don't have hospitals available, that's why they do it - they are in third world countries." Sorry, that's bullshit. I am not talking about some poor country in Africa or South America (although they do it there, too)... I am talking about developed countries where the technology that exists is the same as here. I am talking about countries whose infant mortality rates are infinitely better than those in North America. Canada ranks 20th on the list; the United States is 35th! All the technology available here, and we are embarrassingly bad compared to many other countries in keeping babies alive to 1 year of age. It just goes to show that messing with nature is not always a good thing. Did I say not always? What I meant to say was pretty much never a good thing.
 
Back to my point: I caught my daughter, and her mother and father were the first people in this world to touch her, ever. No doctors, no midwives, no nurses. No "heroic" ambulance attendants, "heroic" cab drivers, or "heroic" firemen getting instructions by phone or radio what to do and being there to keep the baby from bouncing off the floor (our standards for heroism have sure fallen - or is that only on slow news days?) In order to prepare for this event, I researched... I read books, medical papers, first aid guides and most of all I used the internet. I did the equivalent amount of studying in the final months of that pregnancy that any midwife or anyone else does, and I did it on my own and with my wife. I am not claiming I AM a midwife, or that I am better than a midwife - but I do know that I know as much as or more than a lot of midwives, and if I had to write some sort of test to qualify for such a position I could probably pass. I don't have the hands on experience, though, having only attended one birth, but that one was a doozy since it was my daughter's own. The internet was my lifeline for cross-referencing information, gathering many (sometimes opposing) views, quizzing full-fledged midwives, helping me find support that there were other people doing the same things and believing the same things, and overall the best source of information of those I listed above. If it wasn't for the internet I am not sure I would have felt nearly as confident or competent. I can tell you that thanks to all the research I did, I never once felt a moment of panic, I never once freaked out, and I certainly never fainted as so many stupid-ass TV commercials portray fathers doing. I caught my daughter, I assessed her condition with APGAR, I handed her to my wife, I cut the cord tying it off one of my shoelaces sterilized in alcohol because I had nothing else at hand, and with a pair of scissors I had boiled and then dipped in alcohol as well. For me, and in that circumstance, the internet was an incredible, fantastic resource - as long as I double and triple checked anything that was ambiguous, contradictory, vague or otherwise misleading.
 
Not so, it seems, with most other people. For many it appears that if it comes up first on their Google search, it must be the truest, most accurate source of information. Forget cross referencing, forget asking someone experienced or an expert, and geez, forget the damn library, why go there when I can sit on my arse at home? Even better are those who look stuff up on the internet while at the library and never bother to double check anything with them newfangled things... umm... what do you call them... its on the tip of my tongue... hang on... oh yeah, BOOKS.
 
I have seen numerous examples of misinformation, as well as attempts to staunch the flow of the largest portions of this insipid stupidity. It seems that if you can get someone to read it (whether by being particularly articulate, hysterical with fear, persistent or whatever), it must be true. To hell with pesky things that get in the way... like FACTS or scientific evidence.
 
The latest example of this disturbing trend I have observed had to do with the use of pine or cedar shavings for small animals. It actually started with someone telling me that my budgie could not be near pine because it is "toxic", which I thought seemed odd. Upon researching further, the first reference I found claimed that pine bedding released Aromatic Hydrocarbons. Now, having lived near the Sydney Tar Ponds, I have some idea what Aromatic Hydrocarbons are - they may even have contributed to my illness (key word being MAY). Obviously, this person didn't, yet this is the first result if you look for something like pine shavings, toxic and budgie (I wish I had the exact search). This person had absolutely no idea why there was an issue with pine bedding, so they just pulled one out of their ass, posted it online, doing zero further research and managed to get their site to come up high on results list. For the most part, the information seems plausible and articulate but it is absolutely false. So, I decided that since it has people in such an uproar, I need to find some scientific facts. And find them I did (Of course, in the meantime I found numerous remarkably enlightening attempts to support the "dangerous" theory, including ones citing studies of human workers in the lumber industry who have breathed DUST for years with no breathing protection, and people who worked in chemical processing plants which processed chemicals extracted from saps, and the like. One absolutely telling "factoid" was an idiot who said his grandfather worked in a sawmill all his life and had eventually died of emphysema, so it had to be the pine that killed him - dude, I don't know how to tell you this, but it was his 3-pack-a-day habit that killed him). The fact is, there is nothing dangerous about pine or cedar or any other natural wood shavings for any particular small animal. There is a concern that for some animals they should be thoroughly dried, because some saps could be toxic (e.g. they make turpentine from processed pine sap). I found someone who was a small animal breeder with a Bachelor of Science degree, whose husband is an organic chemist, who had travelled around to some local Universities to ask questions of other scientists about this apparently well known, well documented problem. And it turns out it is a well known, well documented problem - for scientists. The ones doing very specific studies relating to the liver and how it processes and responds to drugs. Certain substances slightly change the enzyme balance in the liver and this causes problems in their tight control groups. One of the substances is the phenols in softwood bedding. Some other examples of such dangerous and toxic items are barometric pressure, cage design, cleanliness, diet, gravity, handling, humidity, light cycle, noise level, temperature, age, cardiovascular function, castration and hormone replacement, circadian and seasonal variations, dehydration, disease, fever, gastrointestinal function, genetic constitution, malnutrition, starvation, pregnancy, sex, shock and stress. Just try it, do a search for small animal bedding, pine and cedar. I bet you will find dozens of sites explaining how it causes cancer, lung disease and various other bogeymen. It is the biggest steaming pile of crap ever - well maybe not ever, but certainly a fine example. No scientist ever said it cause cancer or any such thing, they just notified researchers that they need to adjust their results under certain conditions. Some neophyte animal breeder wrote a book after reading something scientific-sounding that they didn't understand, jumped to conclusions when they didn't understand what they were reading, and decided that they were just as qualified to evaluate biochemistry as someone who has 4-8 years of University education. Internet being what it is, the good old "I told two friends, and they told two friends" combined with "broken telephone" and suddenly this has become "proven" junk science fact #7298123.
 
I know I linked to Cokelore at snopes.com before. I used to get crap like those red-dotted items in email on a regular basis; I suppose because I drink Coke and prefer it to any other soft drink. Here are some other "proven facts" I have found on the Internet:
 

 
1) A grown man referred to as goatse can now, after a lot of practice, fit an Austin Mini up his butthole. He cannot, however, leave it parked there during snow removal operations.
 

 
2) Nike produced an ad portraying an intact, but blood-covered, Nike shoe with the caption "You may not survive the blast, but your shoes will." Therefore, we should all boycott the company. Heck, let’s boycott all footwear companies and go barefoot in the snow.
 

 
3) Homosexual people have a form of minor brain damage that causes them to be gay. Apparently, though, the people making these claims have much more severe brain damage.
 

 
4) In the year 2007, the rights of Black people to vote will expire in the United States since the whole thing was only meant to be on a "trial basis". Ahh, if only it were true of Republican voters in October of 2000....
 

 
5) People in Taiwan eat human foetuses as a delicacy. Evidently they taste like chicken.
 

 
6) I need to delete the file jdbgmgr.exe IMMEDIATELY if it is on my Windows system. It is the worst virus, ever. Come to think of it, I just need to delete the entire Windows system - for the same reason.
 

 
7) If I want a kitten but I don't want it to grow into a full-sized cat, all I need to do is stuff it into a bottle that has holes allow feeding and waste removal. I think I might try this, but not with a kitten - I am going to do it with the first politician I can get my hands on.
 

 
8) Iraq had huge stores of Weapons of Mass Destruction. They just made a deal with their mortal enemy, Iran, to hold on to them until the US leaves. Ayatollah Khomeini unavailable for comment.
 

 
9) More than 90 percent of the children who witnessed Janet Jackson's breast baring during the Superbowl XXXVIII halftime show said they were still "confused and afraid" a year later. 100% of adults reported the same feelings about Janet Jackson's breast whether they saw the incident or not.
 

 
10) We all need to shut down our Internet connections every year on March 31st and not connect for 24 hours for a system wide "clean-up". You know, given the contents of this rant, this seems like a REALLY good idea.

 
But, that's another rant altogether...

I Was Feeling Artsy

I've been stressing a lot the last few days, over a lot of things going on. At some point I will recover enough energy to tell you about my debate with a bigotted self-aggrandizing idiot, and about my completely screwed up lifecasting attempt, and my inability to take my preferred available-light photography due to shakiness and weakness in my hands. By the way, if you believe in breastfeeding at all and the protected rights women have to do so however they choose, go and read that little link above.
 
So, I decided to focus on our newish pet "Sunbeam" and digital art for a while, and I made this pseudo-painting (click the pic to view a full-size version if you want to actually get some detail, it looks "incomplete" even as a large thumbnail).
 

 
Feel free to comment as always. I know you won't.

Huct Awn Fonix

ARGH!
 
ARGH!
 
ARGH!

 
Ok, that did not really help any... I hoped some bloggish primal screaming might, but no.
 
I know that sometimes I end sentences with adjectives. I know that I dangle the occasional participle. I make typos and errors in editting when I decide a sentence needs to be rephrased or moved which end up being difficult to understand.
 
I can take a few metatheses and typos. The split infinitive in "To boldly go where no man has gone before" doesn't get to me. But...
 

I can't take any more of this 21st century grammar-free-zone bullshit. I just can't.

 
Last night, it was a grammar-school teacher on the IMDB message board who apparently can't spell words like "definitely" (among other things) in a message railing about how wrong it is to tell a kid they are wrong. This is someone who is teaching our kids (well, not mine, I wouldn't subject them to the mediocrity-fest of the public school system short of circumstances where I was being tortured to death). Today, it was looking through Web Ring Descriptions. I figured, man I put a lot of time into writing these things, and in my circumstances, it is a lot of work - I need someone to actually read it and leave an appropriate comment now and then. Why write if you aren't being read (but that is another rant altogether)? I found aWeb Ring that sounded like it suited my content, although the description was a bit snobby. However, it had no right to be snobby considering this grammatical gem:
 

If your blog is about what you had for breakfast how cute your children or your cats are how upset you are with your boss the research you did before buying the perfect camera case or similar subjects please don’t apply to join this web ring. We re seeking blogs that reflect thought how your mind processes your experience what do you think it means. We do not want a description of your life; but a review. If you have something to say please join us; if you don’t please say it elsewhere.

 
What the hell is this? They have no idea how to use a comma or where to put a period, yet they make a bizarre attempt at the semi-colon in a last-ditch effort to save them looking like complete grade-school dropouts? The first sentence is run-on, virtually punctuation-free, and borderline incoherent. The second takes the step right over the edge into the wtf was that world, forcing you to read it again and again... Is that We're with no apostrophe or were, or a typo in the word "are"? Experience what, or should it be experience - what ...or what? How many clauses can you include in one "sentence" without punctuation? Although the idea of the ring seemed to be more-or-less what I was seeking to join, I could not bring myself to apply for it if the "administrator" was so moronic. I guess, on the bright side, at least most of the words are spelled correctly.
 
I was not aware that part of the Y2K problem was related to the rules of grammar. I had no idea that all those programmer/analysts worked all those years to make English syntax obsolete along with the 2-digit year format. Apparently, I was so concerned about the bank screwing up access to my cash that I forgot to pay attention to the part about making English indecipherable (this is on my banking institution's front page: There are some things money can't buy for everything else there's Preferred MasterCard..) It seems that sometime in the last few years, the rules of the English language were declared problematic and thrown out in favour of a new non-standard.
 
I have participated in many a debate on message boards in the past. I usually enjoy it, in spite of the time it can take me to compose a message. At times I have found discussing something frustrating because the person I was discussing it with could not speel, use the write werds in context, or did not use punctuation. When I mention that fact, rather than reacting like "Sorry, I am just bad that way" I get a response like "Wow, you have a real problem". No, buddy, I don't have the problem - you do. You can't communicate clearly and effectively and it is affecting how I can relate to you - it makes you look incompetent and moronic.
 
More than half the time, the people I talk to in these situations are high school graduates; often they are in college or beyond it. How did they get past grade 7, let alone high school? How can you not know which "right" is right: write, rite or right? Sure, some of it can be chalked up to typographical errors - but not the same error over and over again. Not substituting something that means "ritual" for something that means "correct".
 
There are dozens of online dictionaries. There are dozens of online sources for grammar rules. There is also the concept of owning a dictionary, or even just pasting your post into your word processor to use a spelling-and-grammar-checker. Even most email programs have rudimentary spell-checkers to avoid to most egregious errors, you could always paste into that and then copy back after corrections. And, may the heavens forbid - there are these things called libraries where they have books - not just about grammar, but other books you could read to see examples of correct usages.
 
I guess it just relates to that common theme - people just don't care, because they have been told that mediocre is ok. There is nothing wrong with looking stupid, because there is nothing wrong with being stupid. I know that lots of kids when I went to school would get back essays that had more words in red ink than the original paper contained, but somewhere between my school experiences and my younger brothers teachers apparently decided this was too much work.
 
People, being a lazy idiot is not creative. It is fun in chat programs to occasionally use different spellings to convey different emotional meanings, like using "KewL" to show sarcasm for something somewhat immature, but this has no place in regular writing to replace the description of the weather outside. The letter "r" is not a replacement for "are", and 4 is a number while "for" is a function word to indicate purpose; If you are so slow a typist that you need to reduce keystrokes in this way, get some "Learn To Type" software, you unmotivated weiner! You are going to need to know how for at least a little while longer, 'cause voice recognition just is not cutting it yet.
 
I'm bewildered as to how some of these people get jobs and function in the world - you'd think it would be difficult. As sad as it is when you see spelling mistakes in the credits for your favourite movie, or a book, restaurant menu or newspaper, it just shows you how easy it actually is for them to find employment. Apparently the employers can't tell the difference either. Sad.

I Sooo Miss Back When

Don't you remember 
The fizz in a pepper 
Peanuts in a bottle 
At ten, two and four 
A fried bologna sandwich 
With mayo and tomato 
Sittin' round the table 
Don't happen much anymore 
 
We got too complicated, 
it's all way over-rated 
I like the old and out-dated 
Way of life 
 
Back when a hoe was a hoe 
Coke was a coke 
And crack's what you were doing 
When you were cracking jokes 
Back when a screw was a screw 
The wind was all that blew 
And when you said I'm down with that 
Well it meant you had the flu 
I miss back when 
I miss back when 
I miss back when 
 
I love my records 
Black, shiny vinyl 
Clicks and pops 
And white noise 
Man they sounded fine 
I had my favorite stations 
The ones that played them all 
Country, soul and rock-and-roll 
What happened to those times? 
 
I'm readin' Street Slang For Dummies 
Cause they put pop in my country 
I want more for my money 
The way it was back then 
 
Back when a hoe was a hoe 
Coke was a coke 
And crack's what you were doing 
When you were cracking jokes 
Back when a screw was a screw 
The wind was all that blew 
And when you said I'm down with that 
Well it meant you had the flu 
I miss back when 
I miss back when 
I miss back when 
 
Give me a flat top for strumming 
I want the whole world to be humming 
Just keep it coming 
The way it was back then 
 
Back when a hoe was a hoe 
Coke was a coke 
And crack's what you were doing 
When you were cracking jokes 
Back when a screw was a screw 
The wind was all that blew 
And when you said I'm down with that 
Well it meant you had the flu 
I miss back when 
I miss back when 
I miss back when 

 
 

-Artist: Tim McGraw;  
Songwriters: J.Stevens, S.Smith, S.Lynch;  
Album: Live Like You Were Dying,  
Released 2004

 
 
The real story is in the links.