dvd rental review

Last night Deb and I watched two DVD rentals: Hot Fuzz and Deathproof. Deathpoof, a Quentin Tarantino movie, was everything I expected; hot girls, cheesy dialog and lots of gratuitous violence. The lap-dance scene was well worth the rental. No, not his best work, but entertaining nonetheless. Hot Fuzz was another well made comedy by the same dudes who did Shaun of the Dead. Both DVDs were well worth the rental.

snoring remedy

from slate.com:

"Tennis ball, $2.50 for can of three
The MacGyver remedy. Or, as I like to call it, fetching with Pavlov's dog. Put a tennis ball in a sock, and then safety pin the sock to the middle of the back of a T-shirt. When you sleep in this T-shirt, it's painful to sleep on your back, so you turn on your side, where you're less likely to snore. If you sleep with the sock enough, your sleep self will supposedly associate sleeping on your back with pain, and you won't need the T-shirt anymore.

I'm not used to sleeping with a shirt on, so this—not to mention the heavy sock tugging at the back—took some getting used to. Also, it is surprisingly painful to have a Wilson jut into your back. But the remedy worked immediately. The morning after the first night, Elizabeth reported no snoring. I felt great, too. The second night, my deceitful sleep self did manage to outmaneuver the sock, swinging the tennis ball between my arm and side, allowing me to sleep on my back and snore. But the next day I adjusted the sock so that it was tighter against the shirt and could not be stretched out. For the rest of the trial, there was no snoring.

By the fifth night, I was attached to the ensemble. There was something ritualistic about putting the shirt on every night, and the thought of moving on to test another remedy made me sad. Elizabeth loved it, too. Improbably, she even found the get-up cute, which solidified this remedy's place as the clear winner."

WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

we have illegal wiretapping, "free-speech zones", arrest without charges, torture, and now we can all be tasered for asking a question. Yes, here in the Land of The Free, we get to do anything we want, as long as we stay in compliance, never resist arrest, and act like sheep before a benevolent, all-powerful government. They can read your emails, listen to your phone calls, arrest you without charges, torture you, search your bags and bust down your doors. But don't worry, it's for your own good.

So sleep well America, Big Brother is watching over you.

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

what awesome game was he playing?

from cnn.com:

Man dies after 3-day gaming binge

BEIJING, China -- A man in southern China appears to have died of exhaustion after a three-day Internet gaming binge, state media said Monday.

The 30-year-old man fainted at a cyber cafe in the city of Guangzhou Saturday afternoon after he had been playing games online for three days, the Beijing News reported.

Paramedics tried to revive him but failed and he was declared dead at the cafe, it said. The paper said that he may have died from exhaustion brought on by too many hours on the Internet.

The report did not say what the man, whose name was not given, was playing.

The report said that about 100 other Web surfers "left the cafe in fear after witnessing the man's death."

China has 140 million Internet users, second only to the U.S.. It is one of the world's biggest markets for online games, with tens of millions of players, many of whom hunker down for hours in front of PCs in public Internet cafes.

Several cities have clinics to treat what psychiatrists have dubbed "Internet addiction" in users, many of them children and teenagers, who play online games or surf the Web for days at a time.

Two Book Reviews

#35 When Will Jesus Bring The Porkchops?	George Carlin	2004	* * *	This book is both very good and very bad. The entire thing is just little sections of thoughts and ideas. He has parts that are fiction, and these parts are damn near unreadable. But his observations about society and language are fantastic. His non-fiction is hilarious. His fiction is atrocious. The nice thing is, you can spot the fiction and non-fiction pretty quick, so you end up skipping the horrible fake character sketches and sketch comedy scripts and focus on his take on euphemisms and observations. Well worth the half-read. ~ September 08, 2007
#36 The Communist Manifesto	Karl Marx and Frederick Engels	1848	* * *	The first part was great, but the last part had some crazy ideas about women. Plus, once the revolution is over, somebody's going to take the place of the bourgeoisie aren't they? ~ September 12, 2007

Read them all at my book review page

zombo.com!

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When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?

I just finished reading George Carlin’s When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?. This book is both very good and very bad. The entire thing is just little sections of thoughts and ideas. He has parts that are fiction, and these parts are damn near unreadable. But his observations about society and language are fantastic. His non-fiction is hilarious. His fiction is atrocious. The nice thing is, you can spot the fiction and non-fiction pretty quick, so you end up skipping the horrible fake character sketches and sketch comedy scripts and focus on his take on euphemisms and observations. Well worth the half-read.

Read all my awesome book reviews by following this awesome link.

Angel Hair Pasta: The Horrible Truth

I will never eat “angel hair pasta.” I’ll tell you why: I saw a show on the Discovery channel where they explained how they harvest angel hair. Yes, angel-hair pasta is actually made out of the hair of angels.

There is a lot of preparation involved with killing an angel: First, they forge crossbow bolts from the iron collected from the wrecks of cars where teenagers have died in late-night, country-road accidents fueled by alcohol and wide-eyed innocence. Then they dip those crossbow bolts in the tears of children kept in abusive after-school child-care facilities.

After that, sexually abused adult alter-boys with questionable hygiene climb peaks in the Andes Mountains and wait. The angels, unaware that they are in danger, often fly around mountain passes playing their harps, because they are bored out of their minds from an eternity of problem-free existence, and no cable television.

Finally, the alter boys shoot the angles with their crossbows. When the angels fall to the ground, their heads are shaved and the hair is taken to the angel hair pasta factory and turned into angel hair pasta.

That’s why I will never eat angel hair pasta.

did you know the "do not call" thingy expires?

That's right.

If you registered for the national "do not call" list, it expires in 5 years.

But don't worry, you can go to https://www.donotcall.gov and register again.

The website, being a government website, doesn't have the word RENEW anywhere, because that would be way too easy.

There is a VERIFY button, and a REGISTER button, but of course, no RENEW button anywhere.

I used the VERIFY button to see that my number would drop off the list in June of '08.

I just REGISTERED, and now it doesn't drop off until 2012.

That is my public service announcement for this week. May each and every one of you have a somewhat satisfying day.

reading and running for the betterment of humanity . . .

4100 pages in 45 days equals about 91 pages a day. That’s where I’ve been, reading the entire seven books in the Harry Potter series. I am a dweeb. The story moved, except for the last book which was about three-hundred pages too long, and it really dragged in the middle. I’m glad I’m through with it.

You can read all about the awesomeness of my reading at: dan's book reviews.

Other than that, I’ve been fixing computers and setting up networks. And I’ve been running and or jogging. Lots and lots of running: for me anyway. I’m running 4 miles three times a week. Yes, that’s it, I’m bragging, and I’m not ashamed to admit it!

You can see the awesomeness of my running at: workoutdump.com

smoking rocks!

that's the funniest thing I've seen in awhile

New Baby!

Congratulations to Brian and Ann: they had a baby girl, Audrey.

Today I did yard work, yard work, and yard work. I weeded, thatched, mowed fertilized, and planted mums. Yes, that’s right. I planted mums. That doesn’t make me gay.

I also ran 4 miles.

And I read about two hundred pages of the fifth Harry Potter book.

No animals were harmed in the posting of this blog-post.

Hi. This is Ginger the dog and Lilly the cat. Ginger did not ingest the cat when this was taken. They play once in awhile, that's all.

Thanks.

That is all.

the Harry Potter movie marathon

Today I fixed a scan.msi problem, some HP printer update jagged up a computer in a law office. Then I showed them how to do a backup, since the last backup they had was dated somewhere in 2005.

After that, a new Vista laptop with docking station. I hate docking stations. A docking station on a laptop is like an airplane drink-cart duct-taped to an Olympic sprinter. It’s a big, stupid Steven-Hawking-Wheelchair on a ballet dancer. They are stupid, I hate them, and that’s all there is to it. But I will gladly set them up for money.

And then we enjoyed the Harry Potter movie marathon. We got the last two DVDs in today, and we watched them both, back to back. Those movies are LOOOOONG.

Oh yeah, and Karl Rove quit today. That fat bastard.

iPod + washing machine = sadness

Today after my run I managed to wash my iPod in the washer, ruining it. I am sad. I cleaned the bedroom, straightened out my desk, took down the pool (some more) and swept the porch.

I went to my writer’s group, but only one other person showed up. We talked about nothing for fifteen minutes and then I went across the street and got another iPod. I’ll try not to wash this one this time.

My toe really hurts.

I walked to Speedway and got gas for the lawn mower. I started out just getting ready to mow the lawn, but instead I started picking weeds. I put my iPod on and listened to podcasts. 4 hours later, the lawn was weed-free. I took down the pool. I got stung by a bee. I mowed the lawn. Because the weeds were about a fifth of the lawn surface, I got some topsoil and grass seed and did a little patchwork. I also bought a new $5.00 sprinkler. I entered a bad poetry contest at slate.com.

I figured out some new running routs with the gmaps pedometer (thanks bri!) and I’m going to run somewhere beside around the block tomorrow morning.

My toe really hurts.

Cowden Lake

Today kicked ass. We all went to Cowden Lake, which is in Coral, Michigan. Someone Deb works with, her parents own this cottage on the lake. We jet-skied, inner-tubed behind a speedboat, and rode the paddle boat. The water was perfect, we were the only ones on the lake, and the weather was fantastic. Not too hot. Deb and I can’t seem to get on a jet-ski at the same time. Savannah and I paddled out across the lake in inflatable rafts and looked at fish and stuff. I ran 3 miles this morning, and I’m beat.

after having a thrombo . . .

Today I installed a wireless network at an accounting office downtown, dropped an ancient HP pavilion with windows 98 goodness off at a welding shop, fixed a PC in a JCPenny’s heating and ventilation area (you wouldn’t believe the air-handling units they need at a mall anchor store), the guy at the Apple store told my my mac-mini is pretty much crashed, when I got home I managed to crash my bench server with a client’s files on it, recovered same files after having a thrombo, put the files back on the client’s laptop, and returned it no problem. I cut the weeds and grass growing between the cracks on the driveway, rebuilt my bench server with an additional HD to back up the backups and now I’m trying to unwind.

generic blog post

Yesterday our Mac Mini crashed. I guess Macs aren’t supernaturally reliable after all. I golfed. I ran. I picked up two machines to reformat. I scheduled two calls for tomorrow. I am tired. Goodnight.

the blog post I posted Sunday

Saturday morning I golfed with Brian and Tom. I did Okay, Brian and Tom did better. Took the kids to The Simpson’s Movie. I picked up a new game for the Wii: Mario Strikers. It is awesome. It’s a cross between soccer and a video game, with all the Nintendo Mario characters. You can play it across the Internets against other people, or your friends.

I’ve been plotting my book out, mulling it over and planning before I set one word down in the first draft. Planning. What a concept huh?

I’m running again, and I’m losing some weight. My gut has no chance against my awesomeness now.

I bought the movie 300, the violence is a work of pure art.

Talked to Barry on the phone, cleaned the toilet, reformatted a couple of machines, cleaned the pool, put up a tire swing, cut my toenails, drank some tea, read a book, read another book, watched television, ate a grapefruit, went to some garage sales, stopped smoking, etcetera and so forth.