The whole argument is that you’re denying life. Right-to-lifers say that life starts at conception. Anti-genetic filtering-ers essentially say that life starts before conception.

Ok, taking those two pieces of information and assuming them as truth for purposes of a thought experiment, riddle me this [batman]. How many counts of murder should we charge an assailant with who kills a person (man or woman)? If the victim is a man, how many sperm could be created by that man that, by Anti-genetic-filtering-ers standards, is already life? And if the victim is a woman, the same question for her eggs. Now, extend that one step further. If even a single sperm or egg matures and becomes a living, breathing, walking human, how many sperm/eggs will that human create? And so on. We quickly see that the assailant should be charged with essentially infinite counts of murder. (For those who are confused and believe that there is a finite number, look up the mathematical term “limit” in your nearest pre-calculus book.)

This is wholly ungainly. Sure, the assailant has committed murder either way, and will face the stiffest penalty of the jurisdiction.

I do agree that the view held by some segments of our population – that looks at abortions like going to the dentist – is horrifying, but I also see that, in certain cases (rape, terminal illness, etc.) the parent(s) should be allowed a choice – assuming they pass a proper psychological screening and such.

As for genetic filtering, I think that selecting out certain genes – cancer (if determined), chrons, etc – is valuable and necessary for the survival of humanity.

So there. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Would you vote for a bill that creates and regulates every building code in the country and will purposefully overrule any “city, county, parish, city and county authority, or city and parish authority having local authority to enforce building codes and regulations and to collect fees for building permits”?

Would you vote for a bill that reaches into every neighborhood by eradicating “any private covenant, contract provision, lease provision, homeowners’ association rule or bylaw, or similar restriction” to force localities to accept “green technologies” whether it fits in the neighborhood or not?

Would you vote for a bill that defines “energy-efficient mortgages” (with our favorite GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so what could possibly go wrong?) that artificially boosts the income of the borrower based upon how much “green technology” is employed? In other words, the socially engineering mortgage underwriting standards again? (This is just as the Democrats did in the nineties, which will lead to yet another financial disaster.)

Would you vote for a bill that moves billions in new expenses into programs that govern every aspect of human life including, but not limited to, farming; fertilizers; animal husbandry and animal diets; feedstock; soil; land use (forested, cleared, wetlands, etc); “manure management”; and creates gigantic new government bureaucracies (unionized, of course) to regulate, monitor and control American citizens?

YOU JUST DID. And that was only in the Waxman-Markey “Managers Amendment”!

Shame on you, Congresswoman Brown. You voted FOR a bill that will destroy this country. Did you actually READ HR2454? Or is abominable addition, delivered just 17 hours before you voted for it? If you didn’t read it, you’re nothing better than a lemming, following your Demonrat…sorry, forgot a “c”… colleagues off the cliff. The really terrible part is that you’re going to pull all of America over with you.

I will do everything in my power to see you NOT re-elected and have an intelligent, conscientious, worthy person put in your place who will actually READ the drivel put out by the current majority.

——————-
I did email this to her and will likely snail-mail it to her as well. I thank Doug Ross’ post for a wonderful summary of everything the Manager’s Amendment – 300 pages of filth delivered just 17 hours before HR2454 was passed – contained. Those of you who did vote Democrat in this last election, PLEASE go read the post and see what your side pushed through. Read past the obvious slams on your party (there are actually few for how much text is there), and see what they think you approve of – which boils down to removing any and all personal freedoms. If you don’t approve of this, and I sincerely hope you don’t, vote appropriately in 2010 for a new congress. More importantly, send your states’ senators this letter or one just like it, as they will be voting on it in the next few months.

The company I worked for was a registered iPhone Enterprise Developer. They wanted me to look into developing iPhone software to be deployed to sales pukes spread across the country. They were cheap, and I already had an iPhone, so they said to just put the beta stuff on my personal phone instead of buying me one specifically for dev purposes.

• March 17: Apple announces 3.0 beta 1
• March 18: Apple’s site is finally available for me to download 3.0 beta 1 from. I did, and I installed it on my phone.
• March 19: I got laid off.
• March 20: I checked developer.apple.com, and my former employer had removed my developer’s access to 3.0, effectively barring me from any future betas before the final release.
• April 12 (today): Fired up my phone after waking up to see the “connect me to iTunes or only make emergency calls” screen.

Plugged the phone into iTunes, and it told me that my phone’s software had expired and that I’d need a newer version to continue to use it. ‘Cept I don’t have access to download 3.0 beta 2. I could torrent it, but it probably wouldn’t activate with iTunes. So, now I’m stuck with a $400 brick.

I called Apple’s iPhone support number. After talking with a script-reader, she transferred me to a “Product Specialist”. I gave him my sob story, and he authorized a warranty replacement. Yay? I would have preferred access to beta 2, but oh well. Bye-bye copy/paste and notes syncing, wide-screen email and texting, and the bugs that cause half the apps I’ve bought to not work. He told me to just go to a local Apple Store and they’d take care of the replacement. Ok, cool. That was this morning. Well, today is Zombie Jesus day, which means ALL THE APPLE STORES ARE CLOSED!!

Kudos to Apple support. I’ve had issues with Apple products before, but their support staff always makes it right. Any problem I’ve had they’ve been able to fix. Apple and Nintendo are two great companies when it comes to supporting their loyal customers.

For today, I’m stuck with Melinda’s old Sony W580i and none of my phone numbers cause she can’t find the sync cable. I feel naked. (I’m not – I’m fully clothed at the moment.) I don’t have my calendar, no email, no games. How will I survive the next 20 hours?

Oh yeah, I’ll be packing my shit into boxes. So: surviving, painfully, and exhaustingly.

Of course this has to happen within a week of us moving to the other end of the country.

In other news, I was already planning on giving notice – I accepted a position with the Jacksonville, FL Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday. Melinda, Kona, and I will be moving down there in the next few weeks once my start date has been set. We’ll miss all our friends, but good riddance Wisconsin.

The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.

Ok, no biggie. But then there’s this great article (which is only great in the context of the above quote) where Obama was quoted:

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times [...]“

Riiiiiight.

Look, I get it that most politicians are hypocrites. But this… Obama was supposed to bring “change” and “new ideas” to our government. Instead, he’s bringing the same old idea of hypocrisy (…and socialism, but that’s not the purpose of this post).

In minor site news, I’m going to be keeping track of my hatred for our current president by both tagging all posts regarding him with “hypocrite” and naming posts specifically about him “The Great Hypocrite“.

I should add here that the band I run lights for, Left On Sunset, was playing a show at the Brookfield Sheraton hotel in their Grand Ballroom, a gig that, for the past 6 years, was played by the Boogie Men.

T-minus 11 seconds: brain went to naughty words and trying to gather all possible causes for the loss of an entire dimmer pack: (1) blew a breaker (2) blew a fuse in the dimmer pack (3) loose cable.  Then it was T-minus 10, and my plan for the countdown was shot out the window with four of my ten color cans being out.  I can’t remember what I did, but it was probably some sort of flashing junk to make it look acceptable.

More pre-midnight backstory: Melinda decided that (somewhat correctly, but not very conveniently) that I MUST make out with her AT midnight.  I explained at least three times that I had too many things to concentrate on (lights, fog, balloon drop, etc) to have time for that.  Did she listen?  No.  ‘Course not.  Also need to add that, at this show, I was forced to use THREE separate light boards – one for front lights, one for the back color cans, and one for all the moving lights.  The balloon drop: 20-odd feet long, about 2-3 feet in diameter, we figured about 250 balloons, and at least 4 hours to fill the balloons, load them into the net, and hang it from the ceiling.  Each end is zip-tied shut, and the bottom is stiched together with fishing line that can be pulled at the correct time (and not a SECOND before) to release the balloons.  The line wasn’t long enough, so we got another spool of fishing line to tie on and make it long enough to reach my post.  My instructions from the band were to NOT pull the balloons at midnight when they started playing Auld Lang Syne, or even when they started the next song, 99 Red Balloons.  Find the song, listen to it.  About a minute into the song, after the first breakdown, the song really kicks in and starts pumping.  THAT’s when I needed to release the balloons.  I spent 10 minutes at Jeff’s (the drummer) house going through that song specifically so I knew when to pull.

T-plus 2 seconds: walked over to Melinda (who was right behind me) yelled (cause it was already loud in there), “I just lost a third of my lights.  Happy New Year,” and kissed her.  Turned back to my work only to see FOUR PEOPLE HOLDING THE LINE FOR THE BALLOON DROP.  Once it was loaded, the only person allowed to touch it was me, and only when I was ready to pull.  I can’t count how many times I yelled at the top of my lungs at these drunk bastards (including one of the technical managers for the hotel) to NOT PULL THE F*#%ING LINE!  Meanwhile, the band was staring up at their end looking worried that it might drop too early.  I had other waitstaff and audience members behind me telling me to pull, and I had Melinda yelling at me that the band was motioning me to pull (which I found out later they weren’t).  I musta pissed off about 15 people in those few minutes, but I finally got them off my ass and away from the line.  As the band was finishing with Auld Lang Syne, I had to change the lights up a bit, but I was still holding the line that I had just gotten away from the horde.  The tech manager was still standing there, looking fairly pissed off, and I said/yelled, “HOLD THIS RIGHT F*#%ING HERE!  DON’T F*#%ING MOVE IT, DON’T F*#%ING PULL IT, DON’T LET ANYONE ELSE F*#%ING PULL IT!” and handed him the line.  He thankfully listened.  I fixed up the lights as best I could, then returned my attention to the line.  I grabbed it from him, pulled the line taut, and when the band hit the right note of 99 Red Balloons, I pulled.  Man, I pulled like there was no tomorrow.  The balloons dropped, and for a few scant seconds, everything slowed down.  It was amazing.  Literally over a hundred people crammed on the dance floor, arms up, cheering, getting covered in balloons.  To borrow a word from my friend Matt, it was absolutely stunning.  And just like that, the joy ended when that tech manager walked around behind the table with the look in his face that he was going to punch out a few of my teeth.  He didn’t, but he did leave me a few choice words of his own.  I turned back to my table and realized that in the process of pulling the line out, it knocked over a small plastic cup of champagne all over one of my light boards and Andy’s laptop that we’d been using to play music between sets.  Picked up the light board first, turned it over, shook it, and set it back down, still working, thank Jesus.  Picked up Andy’s laptop (a 2+ year old Macbook Pro I convinced him to buy) while holding the power button with my thumb to force it off while letting it drain.  I handed it to Melinda with instructions to take it somewhere and dry it off, then told one of the sound guys from Badger Sound to get me paper towels for my board and the table.

Side note: in reliving this to type this entry, I’ve become so re-furious I’m literally shaking.

He finally got back with the paper towels, and I dried off what I could.  Whatever the next song was (wasn’t paying attention), I ran up to the stage, pretty much knocking over anyone in my way, to diagnose my dead dimmer pack.  Thankfully, it was simple – power cord pulled out somehow.  Plugged it back in, and it fired right up.  Problem 1 solved.

Problem 2: all the people I pissed off, most importantly Melinda.  Never found the tech manager, but I did flag down the guy that hired LOS, Adam.  (Using his name because he was really cool about the whole night, and really liked the band and our production.)  I gave a somewhat-inebriated Adam the Cliff’s Notes version concerning the tech manager, and he said not to worry about it because it looked great and made all kinds of sense in how it was [eventually] executed.  That helped.  I didn’t (and still don’t) want to be the reason LOS isn’t invited back next year.  As for how angry at me Melinda was, we straightened that out as amicably as a married couple can.

Problem 3: Champagne-ified light board and laptop.  With the laptop off, there was no way to play music after the end of the third (and final) set, but thankfully the band left me a few CDs that they’ve used in the past.  Handed one to the sound guy with instructions.  3a solved.  With nothing else available, I spit-cleaned any sticky areas of the light board.  I don’t know if any liquid got inside (which I expect it did, around the buttons and sliders and stuff), but the board continued to work without issue the rest of the night.  3b solved-ish.  Andy’s laptop: all I can say is that I turned it off as quickly as possible.  This morning, he said he was able to turn it on and use it, so it might be alright.  I don’t think any liquid got to the keyboard area or onto the trackpad, so I think it’s just some sticky areas on the case and spots left on the screen and keyboard that he’ll need to clean up.  3c solved-ish as well.

When the show was completely done and over with, we (four band members + me) unanimously agreed that this was the best show ever for the band.  With confirmed attendance over 300 (still waiting on the exact numbers), it’s the largest crowd LOS has ever played to as the headlining band.  We had every age group in attendance represented on the dance floor, from 21 to 71 (and maybe older).  The guys played Shout (Bon Jovi style, without Bad Medicine tho) and Jump Around (with sequenced-in high-pitched screech), neither of which they’d played before to a crowd (maybe shout, but I don’t think so), and both completely owned the entire room.  It was beyond amazing.  Every single song was a hit, from Every Rose (has a Thorn) to Crazy Bitch, from Save a Horse to My Own Worst Enemy.

My right knee kills, my voice is screwed (probably from F-bombing so much), and my throat feels like 2-grit sandpaper (yes, two).  (To be fair, I’ve had a cold since Sunday night, so the drainage isn’t helping at all.)  I made over twice what the band usually pays me, they bought me a room package deal so I could just sleep at the hotel after the show, and I made another $15 from a drunk guy who wanted me to add a couple songs to the between-set music playlists.  Listening to the band talk today during cleanup, it’s obvious they have a ton more confidence now after last night’s show.

Here’s to hoping the rest of 2009 is better than the first 10 minutes.

…you know, I never did get any of that champagne.

Welcome to the Socialism.

I’d salute, but I need to excercise my left arm as it hasn’t been raised and outstretched for a while.

– edit –

I could go on and rant about how socialized healthcare doesn’t work, about how bankrupting the coal power industry isn’t the greatest idea, about how Mr. (and I use that term begrudgingly) Obama hasn’t even yet proven he’s legally allowed to be president, about how his campaign was started in the home of one Bill Ayers (a known domestic terrorist), about how Obama wants to force unionization on workforces who don’t even want to be unionized, about the rapidly-dropping tax-”cut” limit, about how the liberal media basically placed him in office, about the hypocisy of preaching “spread the wealth” but leaving a brother in a shack in a squalid housing project in a run-down country living on $1 per month, about how Obama wants to form a “Civilian Defense Force” with as much funding as our military gets and essentially force people to join (reminds me of some left-arm-raising folks in Germany), and about how ACORN commited enough voter fraud to take care of any conservative votes the media didn’t convert.

Oh wait, I just did.  Silly me.  I sure hope I’m wrong.  Then again, history has shown that there will be greener fields ahead.

I remind you, these are the stories that made the front page.  As in, enough people “dugg” these articles that Digg’s fanciful, mysterious algorithm decided it was important to foist upon everyone.  Let’s take a gander at that list and try to determine why they made the front page. 

Strip Search of 13-Year-Old for Advil Ruled Unconstitutional

Horny teenage boys see “strip search” and “13-Year-Old” and immediately digg it.  Commie and hippy left-wingers see something about a pharmaceutical and the word “unconstitutional” and immediately get a Down-With-The-Man stiffy and smack the digg button.  Bam, front page.

Cute Girl: “You know, I’m really just a geek inside” [COMIC]

Starts with “Cute Girl”.  ‘Nuff said.

Analysts: 150 U.S. Banks Nationwide May Fail Next Year

Basic fear-mongering at work here.  Yes, it’s possible, but hyperbole gets you everywhere, including the Digg front page.

Redskins Football Team Allowed to Keep Racist Name

Ok, seriously.  Racist?  The team’s name is no more racist than calling crackers (the snack food) crackers.  The author puns his way through the short article: “A group of Native Americans went on the warpath then went to the courtroom…”  The judge took the right stand and basically told the plaintiffs they waited too long to look for the payout.  The best part: Sports Illustrated commissioned a poll that ended up showing that 75% of the Native Americans asked don’t mind the team’s name.  Thankfully, the court system denied this idiot of his payday.  Too bad the same court couldn’t have handled Nintendo’s controller suit.

10 (More) Pieces of Incredible Transforming Furniture [PICS]

Please.  This is the same 10 More I saw last week.  And the week before that.  And two weeks before that posted on College Humor.

Bush is Burning the World to the Ground

No, he’s not.  Has he picked up a flamethrower?  Ordered napalm dropped from our geosynchronous satellites?  Nope, pretty sure he hasn’t.  Although I didn’t even read the digg summary of the article, I assume the original writer invokes the Goreacle’s sacrosanct Global Warming (which doesn’t exist, btw).  C’mon, get some facts before you digg trash like this.

Develpors [sic] using unfair practices in the Apple App Store

First, does no one use spell check?  Second, I read this article the day before at TUAW.  Old.

Give Me #3 Value Meal, Super Size, With An Order of Linux

Ok, this one I actually remember reading.  I didn’t see it posted anywhere else I normally check for a couple days.  First good article in the list.

How To Beat The Claw Game

Man, this one (like the Claw Game), has been beaten to death.  Just Google it.

Turns out that Give Me #3 article is the only article I actually read from this whole list.  However, did it enrich my life?  Not really.  It just made me a little more disgusted with Best Buy for trying to sell Ubuntu for $20.  Made me more disgusted with the average consumer for not knowing better.  And, I saw it on other sites I regularly read anyway a couple days later.

Why does this piss me off?  Every time I check GReader, the unread digg story count is over 100.  I normally check it at 6:30 am, 11 am, 4 pm, and between 8 and 10 pm.  That’s over 400 stories to (pardon the pun) dig through every day for only a pinch-full (less than a handful) of worthwhile articles.

Here’s the best part: about once every couple weeks, a story bubbles up about how broken Digg’s algorithm is.  Here’s an article I found with a simple google search about it.  Here’s another.  And another.  And another.  And another.  The results just keep going.  Look, kudos to K-Rose and the rest of their team.  Digg pretty much launched Revision3, and quite a few of their shows rock.

I’m just tired of Digg.  Too many stories, too little quality.  Digg needs to implement some sort of maximum diggs per time period limiter to stop people from just digging at the first three words of the title.  That might actually make some of these snot-nosed bumblefarts from digging anything with “girl” in the title.

I chucked Digg into its own folder in my GReader account a week ago, and I’ve only opened it once.  Accidentally.

Good riddance.

Just a little something I found while browsing the blagonet a while back. Last night, I was flipping through channels waiting for Jail to return from a commercial break when I stumbled upon one of the 20/DatePrimeLineTimeLive shows. They were talking about “bloggers”. Yeah, I don’t think I’m included in that, since I post once a week. Maybe. (Incidentally, I kinda posted on this before.) Anywho, they were talking about how these “bloggers” often sit at home in their pjs and talk about whatever is on their mind, posting videos to sites like Youtube and podcasts (which are then explained in a short sentence) to iTunes. I didn’t watch more than 30 seconds of it, but it was enough of John Stossel’s increasingly-high voice to piss me off. He’s talking about it like people who write about what they want online are doing so while smoking a reefer, snorting coke, and getting pleasured by a prostitute while hacking the military’s computers on a second computer. I expect that the sentence after I changed the station went something like this: “These youngins are destroying the validity of reported news by polluting the airwaves and wirewaves with their self-righteous ramblings that nobody reads!” [Do note that, while you read that sentence to yourself, you have to increase the volume and pitch of your voice with each word, to the point that you sound like a deranged 3-year-old at the end. Because that's what he sounds like. A deranged 3-year-old.]

What does he know about the digital age? Does he understand that most people under 30 realize that most mainstream media is contrived? Even if he does, it’s not like he’s going to report that…his employer is mainstream media. Why bite the hand that feeds?

We, the rising youth, report our own news, our own important events. What’s better is that we hear about most things a day or two ahead of the news media reporting it.

An aside moment for local news: other than weather, traffic, and local professional sports teams, local news outlets are pretty much worthless. Incredibly detailed analysis shows that (read: IMHO) 90% of the rest of the local broadcasts are human interest crap. I don’t care if some local woman’s house is overrun by cats. Good for her. I hope she doesn’t reproduce.

Returning, a second item that’s burned my shorts. I’ve had this iPhone for a week. In that week, I’ve had no less than 6 people if I like my “$100 per month phone bill”. To which I reply: “I like my $60 per month bill just fine. What is this $100 monthly bill you speak of?” Yes, the iPhone plans from AT&T are tiered, and the most expensive plan is $100 (I think…what, you assume I’d fact check? Psssh.), but that doesn’t mean that you must get the most expensive plan to “fully” enjoy the device. In fact, news outlets only reported the total monthly bill, not the cost of the data plan. Let’s look at the plan I’ve got. For $60, I get 450 anytime minutes, 5000 night & weekend, 200 text messages, and unlimited internet data. Those first two stats are very similar to a non-iPhone plan. In fact, it’s exactly the Nation 450, which is $40 per month. The iPhone plan adds 200 text messages and unlimited internet for just $20 more. The next step up in iPhone plans is $80 per month. Just like the lower plan, it’s exactly the same as the Nation 900 (900 anytime, unlimited night & weekend), albeit with added text messages & internet. Twenty dollars is all that separates the Nation 900 and comparative iPhone plan. The most expensive plan is the same. So what’s this about “Oh, man, I gotta pay $400 for a phone and $100 per month just to use it?” NO, dumbass, you pay $400 for a phone (which is right in line with fresh on the market, top of the line smartphones) and only $20 more to get a data plan over the voice you would use anyway. You’d be paying someone for voice, so that’s factored out of the equation when comparing the luxury cost of the iPhone. A personal Blackberry data plan from AT&T is a $35 per month option, $15 more than the iPhone data plan. Is the iPhone expensive? Hell yes, it’s brand new technology. (Ok, fine, all of the tech has been around, but this is the first time it was all combined in this way. It’s a brand new device. )

The movie opens with a hungry raccoon trying to steal food from a hibernating bear. The bear wakes up, gets pissed, and threatens the raccoon with death if he (the raccoon) doesn’t replenish all the food that was just decimated by a passing semi. Pretty cheery plot for a kids movie, eh? Anywho, the raccoon happens upon a familial group of wilderness animals: a very conservative turtle who happens to be the group leader, a spastic squirrel who is male (but exhibits certain *other* qualities), a group of “up-norte-eh” porcupines (dad, mom, and three small children), a single and very feminist skunk (voiced by Wanda Sykes), and a father-daughter pair of possum (where the dad is very dumb and quick to, well, play possum while the teenage daughter is hip, cool, and generally resents her dad). If you forget the fact that they are all wilderness animals, this could be any network television sitcom. Lovely. I forgot to mention that the raccoon joins this group as the rebel character who is immediately at odds with the turtle. Very soon after the raccoon meets the group, we get the biggest, most blatant piece of art-student-liberal propaganda shoved in our collective face. In short, upper-middle-class suburbia eats to excess, drives gas-guzzling SUVs, and generally isn’t concerned with the environment.

Can’t you just see the writer and give the major points of his life story? Raised by a single mom who got knocked up in her late teens, the mom was a child of the 70s. Peace, love, and DOWN WITH WHITIE. Probably raised in a half-bedroom apartment they could barely afford in the middle of the downtown area of any major city. He grew to resent anyone who could afford nice things (ie. those who went to college and got good jobs because of it), and is now a card-carrying member of at least two treehugger groups. I bet he’s torched an SUV or two in his day. What better way to get your hippy point across than to deliver it in a computer-animated feature film, to be viewed mostly by the children people who live in those exact suburbias around the country?

Yes, those of us in these United States of America who can afford to live in excess do. Why? We know it is our constitution-given right to do so. I believe the exact wording is “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. What better happiness can a human experience than knowing he/she is so well off that they can just throw away food? We can afford large vehicles to carry lots of stuff at one time, to protect us in the case of an accident, and to display our affluence. Why? Because we can.

I hate being preached to. I hate being told I should or shouldn’t do something just because someone else says so, just because it will “make me a better person”. I had a KFC Big Box Meal for dinner tonight. For those not in the know, it’s one leg or thigh (original or crispy), a chicken strip, a small box of popcorn chicken, two sides, a biscuit, and a large soda for only $6.99. It’s a TON of food, and it’s only $6.99. If I hear anybody seriously respond to the existence of the Big Box Meal with the statement, “But there are starving people in Ethiopia! We could ship this food over to them!”, it really burns my balls. Tell you what, go ship that food over there. I ordered this big freakin box of food, and I’m damn sure gonna eat it, I don’t care how many SUVs you torch or trees you have sex with. You know what? If those Ethiopians were meant to have this food, then they’d be standing behind me in line with $6.99 + tax in their bony hands waiting to order. They’re not? I guess they weren’t meant to have this food. Darwin, right? Survival of the fittest. Looking at my stomach, I can see Darwin didn’t necessarily mean physically fit; it was more of a philosophical state of fitness. I born into a family of love and sufficient wealth that I was able to have quality schooling that got me a good job. (Let’s just assume “good” means “steady” and “reasonable paycheck” for now.) I can afford to eat a Big Box Meal pretty much whenever I want. I can also afford to impress a woman enough to somehow make her want to marry me, and the two of us are financially fit enough to own a home. At this point, we’re surviving. Can someone in Ethiopia claim to be as fit as I? It depends. That Ethiopian can probably outrun a charging African lion, whereas I would be kitty food. Survival of the fittest is not only a philosophical statement, it is also situation-dependent.

There. I think I got it all out of my system. Don’t watch Over the Hedge. Puzzle Quest is total videogame crack. Maybe I’ll write about it tomorrow when I’m waiting for the dealer to finish my truck’s oil change. Assuming I don’t have my head buried in Puzzle Quest, that is.

Ok, ok, I can hear you, game devs. “Our high score lists will be malformed if we allow huge names!” Bullshot. Scroll any names bigger than the field you’re allowing. It’s not hard. Yous guys are all about slick animation. Something like if(name.length > fieldsize){ animate } else { display }. If the animate() function is smart enough, you don’t even need to call a separate display function. It’s not that hard! Until a big game developer sits me down and explains to me why it’s so freakin difficult, I’ll continue to curse them every time I’m limited to 3 characters. It comes down to one thing: laziness. I can’t be the only one annoyed by this. If any of my 2 readers agree, comment on it.

In other news, Ross Lectric has branched out to installing shower doors. Sweet.

The Lord allowed the Bears to see the promise land, but were then refused in the most glorious way. In the fallout, I foresee the Bears having a new starting quarterback next season. They might keep their respectable defense, but the Bears’ offense will be in shambles. With Favre returning for an astounding 17th season, we could see the Bears’ 15th starting quarterback in as many seasons. Hah.

I was originally gonna post with a link to the Greenpeace article, but the digg link is so much better. The comments contained within are priceless:

i hope those lights don’t run on batteries.

Right, I’m sure Apple uses some bizarre amount of harmful chemicals. Target somebody worthwhile. I think the setup to this little event went something like this:

Greenpeacer #1: Dude, I heard that, like, Apple, like, uses chemicals in their computers.
Greenpeacer #2: Man, that’s bogus.
#1: I know. We should, like, do something about it.
#2: Yeah, but I’m way too stoned
#1: What if we just go shine a bunch of lights at that big glass box on 5th avenue?
#2: Can they be green?
#1: Sure.
#2: I’m in, dude.

Hippy/attention whore is a dangerous combination.

My favorite comment has got to be this one:

Friends, there is a much more serious threat to our environment than Apple. This offender leeches thousands of tons of sulphur and smoke into the atmosphere every year. It ruins natural habitats, killing countless millions of plants and animals, turning their habitats into barren wastelands. Who are these gross murderers, you ask? They only go by one name…

Volcano

What are these kids thinking? Do they not understand how we, as a race, do things? Their coats, their shoes, their food, and (in this case) their flashlights with green filters are all made without regard to any environmental concerns! What about the digital cameras they used to record the event, or the servers used to host their website? If they really believed what they preach, Greenpeace couldn’t exist. Rather, it could, but all its members would live in the wilderness. Except that wouldn’t work, because they’d still need to eat, which means they’d have to kill animals and/or destroy foliage. Greenpeace is self-defeating. All the little hippy rich kids need to go home and do something productive. Like sending me some of their rich parents’ money.

I was mindlessly going through digg posts over the weekend and stumbled across this gem:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/dtBYUz43G_M" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Right. The pansy you see running away like a little girl is Carmello Anthony. He got in his one open-hand slap and turned tail. I thought he was supposed to be this big baller, this new breed of “basketball gangster”. In the video, you can see Mr. Anthony and direct participants looking for someone to “hold me back” so they don’t tear into their adversary.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Basketball is no longer about the team. End of story. Certain players have tainted the game with their juvenile attitudes and disrespect for the institution of the game. (I’m not naming names because (a) there are too many to mention and (b) i honestly don’t follow b-ball enough to know who they are.) These players may have grown physically and may have improved their basketball skill set, but their maturity level has (if anything) dropped. Why? Why has basketball devolved into a gang war fought with and excuse for rules and an orange ball? How has the game of American football been given a relative pass in this case? This is not to say football hasn’t had its own share of problems (the Vikings Love Cruise is just one example); however, football games are still games about the teams. Why? Why are we allowed to enjoy football as a team sport, commenting on the teams’ offense and defense as if they were a cohesive unit? Because, little Johnny, you can’t see the players’ faces in football. On the field, every player is every player. Unless you’re really up on your stats (or have an HD set and can read the names), it’s somewhat difficult to know who just caught the quick drop for 8 yards. Furthermore, to play football, you need a team. It’s pretty much impossible to play a football game and make successful scoring attempts (even in your backyard) with only one person on a team. In basketball, you can see the players’ faces, and it only takes one guy to drive the ball from the far side of the court and slam the ball in the hoop.

You may be thinking that I’ve been living under a rock and haven’t noticed that football has just as many star players as basketball. Au contraire, I recognize that football stars are just as plentiful. The difference is that every one of those football players would be nothing – NOTHING – without a good team to back them. How good was Brett Favre when he had a solid offensive line? Damn good. How good is he now that his offensive line could be replaced with swiss cheese and his receivers’ hands ooze butter like well-oiled movie popcorn? Not anywhere near as good. Michael Vick: pretty good, but give him to the Cardinals and watch his stats tank. Now for the basketball analog: back in the day, you could have put Michael Jordan on any team in the league and he’d have done very well. The same can be said of any good player in the sport. I already explained why: you don’t need more than one person on a basketball team to play the game. Sure, the other guys are good distractions, but only one player needs scoring ability. “But Ross, basketball keeps track of assists!” Bah. Worthless. No one is going to think you’re badass just because you’ve got the leading number of “assists”. What, you couldn’t finish the job? Pansy.

Now that I’ve listed the problems with “professional” basketball, I should probably attempt to provide solutions. The only problem is that I can’t, short of firing half the players and imposing strict behavioral rules on the remaining players. And force players to attend social-awareness training. And shock-therapy away their inflated egos. We could force the players to wear full-face helmets, but we’d still be stuck with the ability to have a single player run the game. In short, the game itself can’t be fixed. The players simply need to grow up and realize that the antics they could pull as teens can’t fly in the world of professional sports.