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Archive for December, 2004

Thursday December 30, 2004

The death toll from this tsunami continues to rise. It’s now well over 100,000 and I’ve been hearing that disease and starvation is expected to start claiming even more lives. What’s worse is that some areas are expecting more tsunamis, as a result of aftershocks. However, I’ve read that there isn’t a great deal of evidence that more will emerge; it’s more of a precautionary measure. GW got out of his hot tub for a few minutes yesterday to let everyone know that the US intends to lead the disaster relief effort. He claimed that the insultingly-low amount being pledged so far is due to the fact that damage estimates are still being calculated. Let’s hope that’s the only reason, but here’s some figures you just can’t argue with at this point.

Some jagoff purportedly in Warrensville Heights, Ohio decided to shine a laser beam into the cockpit of a Continental 737 on approach to Cleveland Hopkins Airport. Okay, so everyone recently read about the Delta pilot who suffered retina damage due to a laser hitting him in the eye. More than likely this is the work of some dipshit teenager who has no idea what the consequences of his actions would be, were he to succeed in blinding a pilot. The good news is, the FBI is on the case, and somehow they were able to trace the source of the beam, so at least they’re on the hunt now. This isn’t the only report of beams shining in cockpits lately, either. It’s becoming “all the rage!” Fucking fantastic. When one of these geniuses gets caught, I hope they sentence them to “public punching” … where everyone lines up and gets to pop ‘em one. Including Mike Tyson.

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Last Thursday, all of us Clevelanders woke up to find an incredible amount of snow had come down overnight. I was supposed to work, but upon noticing my bumper was hitting the snow surrounding my car, and that our road hadn’t been plowed yet, I realized I wasn’t going anywhere. It was 11pm or later before it finally did get plowed, but we had to get our cars off of the street just in case. There was a layer of ice under the snow that made plowing really difficult. While digging my car out, a plow got stuck at the end of our street! I snapped a few pictures of the scene, so have a look:

Snow pic #1 - The snowdrift there is about 3 feet high, and is pretty much still intact.
Snow pic #2 - The pile of snow on the curb is where I dug my car out. You can see I had to drive over some deep shit to get to “the tracks”.
Snow pic #3 - I managed to swing my car into the driveway somehow. This picture really doesn’t do any justice to how deep the snow was, but you get the idea.

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Wednesday December 29, 2004

Oh, one more thing. If you still have a fucking Bush/Cheney ‘04 sticker or yard sign displayed ANYWHERE, take it the fuck down. They won, and you’re a jackass for not already taking it down.

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Well last night I broke out my new sewing kit. Wow, was that ever exciting. I sewed up my mitten, which was actually a pain in the ass, since it’s made of leather. I had to use the thimble for the unintended purpose of shoving the needle through. It worked though, and my thumb is no longer drafty. I forgot to sew up the sweater I’m currently wearing though, so for the rest of the day I have to disguise the ever-growing hole on the sleeve.

This tsunami thing is getting more and more upsetting by the moment. The death toll has risen to almost 70,000 and is sure to get higher. I feel so awful for all the victims and their families. Few of these people have insurance, and many of them will be out of a job, a home, a community. I wish it were easy to volunteer, hop on a plane, jump out and start cleaning up.. but I suppose the next best thing is to donate to the cause. Here’s a link I found that’s tied with the Red Cross where you can donate. Speaking of donations, the US has been getting some flak for having donated what amounts to jack shit so far. We’ve given $35 million, and plan to give more, but let me just join the group of people calling us “stingy”. For fuck’s sake, we’ve WASTED well over $200 billion demolishing Iraq and committing war crimes there… don’t you think we can swing a bit more? I’m glad to see we’re even getting involved, considering what a bullheaded administration we’re forced to cope with. We are sending military support, and that’s good to know too. I would post pictures of the disaster, but I’m sure you all can find enough of those on your own. They’re all so horribly upsetting.

Sick and tired of those fucking magnetic “Support Our Troops” bumper stickers? I thought so. Well, how about you get one of your own to retaliate? This company offers magnets that question the war, poke fun at other magnet owners, etc. Take a look. My favorite is “Support our troops, end the war”.

An Ohio family turned on public access Christmas morning expecting to see some local choir music. What they got instead was, and I quote, “full-frontal, get-the-hell-out-of-here pornography.” I guess this isn’t the first time something like this has aired around here, either. Interesting. flips on cable

I just now learned that a city-wide snow ban on parking is in effect here in Cleveland. You can get a $50 ticket just for leaving your car out on the street! Okay, well then I’d like someone from the city to come out and show us exactly how we can fit 5 cars in our driveway. Especially given that one of them is still snowed in, and has a 3 foot high snowdrift behind it.

That reminds me, this morning I went out to my car and realized that, since the snow had melted a little overnight, my car was just spinning its wheels. (Our street has never really been plowed completely, and I was in some fairly deep snow.) Fortunately, my neighborhood garbage men were right there and gave me a push! Fucking kick ass, man. Thanks.

Get your Ancient Roman Name people! Mine is Mamercus Marcius Albinus. (From what I can tell, what you enter in the blanks has no impact on the result.)

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Found this via the golden jew. Reminds me of begging for teeth on the inbound lane of the expressway. Back when cutting was valued. When a man’s worth rested on his lapel: on his tidy lapel and keen vision. The world moved forward then, in jerks and thrusts. People were active. Economic booms, reaptides.

But the work grew tiresome and we crapped out. Let the smoke & ashers take charge. Fuckhum, hey? Tell jokes instead? Indeed. Here’s one for you.

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Tuesday December 28, 2004

USGS info on Sunday’s disaster.

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Last night John and I managed to get ourselves tanked before 9pm… it made for a lazy, confusing evening, but at least we drank some good beer.

Are we in for some interesting weather after this tremendous earthquake? Scientists say that an earthquake above 9.0 on the Richter scale can change the earth’s rotation. However, this isn’t the first time since we’ve been able to measure earthquakes that one exceeded 9.0. The actual amount of change is extremely minimal, but we’re all aware just how perfectly balanced our planet has to be in order to sustain life. As for the human impact, death figures are now between 30,000 and 40,000. Terrible. I can’t even imagine looking around at my neighborhood in ruins, let alone losing loved ones on top of that.

Here’s an article about the lack of media coverage on Fallujah… something I’ve wondered about myself. It really does seem as if the Pentagon has put a gag order on reporting about the situation there. The guy makes some really valid points, like.. how do we expect people to return to their homes when 60-70% of them are destroyed, as well as the electric grid and the water treatment systems? Does our leadership understand that we rendered an entire city uninhabitable, and is that why we’re not hearing about it?

Rumsfeld may have slipped up, but regardless, he referred to the 9/11 Pennsylvania plane as having been “shot down”. Strange, we were all told it crashed. Read for yourself… it’s at least probable.

Funny comic.

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Monday December 27, 2004

Don’t tell me you never wanted to make your hotdog into an octopus.

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Last night, Ken and I converted this everyday household plastic man’s torso into a working lamp! A wife-beater, some black underwear, and a studded belt was all it needed to look its best. Oh yeah, we stuffed his crotch too. He was lookin’ a little flat down there. There was only one mild incident… my finger getting sliced open by his Dremel tool. The wound is doing fine. The other pic is this morning’s sunrise over Cleveland. It was prettier than that further to the east, but I didn’t want to go sliding off the road!

A really terrible tragedy occurred in Asia today. As many as 20,000 people were killed as a Tsunami caused by a 9.0 earthquake crashed onto many coastlines. There are still probably thousands more bodies yet to be discovered, and millions lost their homes. The wave was traveling at 500 mph and created a wall of water 20 feet high. Jeez. This is really horrific. My thoughts are with all these people.

In the Ukraine, Vicktor Yushchenko has claimed victory. 98 percent of the ballots have been counted, and thus far he has an unbeatable lead. Fantastic! Now.. can they fix his skin? That poor guy.

Now that the end of the year is approaching, it’s time to look back at the predictions made by psychics and see how they did. Hmm… looks like 0 for 1000. In this past year, Saddam was supposed to be shot, animal bones were to be found on Mars, the Pope was to pass away, Osama was to be brought to NY, and Colin Powell was to win the election. Great work guys. Hit the showers and let’s get ready for a fresh new year to continue your asinine career of translating your dysfunctional thoughts into predictions.

I’m glad to hear that Michael Moore has given up on trashing GW Bush in favor of going after the pharmaceutical industry. Not that he didn’t have plenty of more material to cover, but.. it’s just that he already failed to rally any support and, in fact, confused a lot of lesser-minded people who were on the fence over the election. We needed those votes, but the smirking chimp won them over with his antics. Back on topic, the drug companies are issuing memos telling employees to watch out for his fat mug around the office! If you work for one of those companies, wouldn’t this make you realize your employer is evil? Or at the very least, that they have plenty to hide from the public. One could argue that they might just hate Michael Moore, but if they didn’t have a hell of a lot to hide, why would they tell their employees to avoid him? Hmmmm… yeah, I think you get it.

Here’s a piece about the Seminoles and freed/escaped slaves taking on the US Army back in the 1830’s. I suppose it’s to compare and contrast that occupation of Florida with our current Iraq occupation, but it’s damn interesting no matter what.

Alright, this is fucking nuts. This guy plans to use one of those “wingsuits” (you’ve probably seen them on Discovery.. they have flaps between your legs, and between your arms and your torso, so that you can free-fall for way longer) … well, he’s planning on trying to land while wearing one, without a parachute! They’re working on the glide angles and making sure he can slow down enough.. but man, just imagine him coming in … that’ll be insane. They plan to go for it this coming summer.

This is pretty cool: a concrete park full of statues.

Last night, the Browns and Dolphins put on a very comedic performance down in Miami. The final score was 10-7, after a field goal in the last few seconds (which I missed after passing out on the couch for only a couple of minutes). They describe the funniest play, which was a Miami interception, followed by three laterals which included two fumbles, and the final fumble was recovered by a Browns player! I was actually laughing out loud watching everyone trip over their own feet! But yeah, we fucking lost.

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Wednesday December 22, 2004

I made some serious xmas progress last night, at the expense of passing out on the couch at 11pm. I still have to wrap some things and take care of a few other tasks, but nothing major.

24 soliders were killed in Mosul while eating in the mess hall. They were hit by an “insurgent” rocket attack at roughly high noon. While this is certainly a tragedy, I don’t think it deserves any more attention than other deaths throughout the world. Our soliders are no more important to this planet than the 49 people who died in a bus crash in a Peruvian jungle. Let’s not pretend they’re somehow superior to other human beings.

And while witnessing the loss of nearly 1,000 Cleveland school teacher jobs was disheartening, so is the loss of 1,200 local Ford jobs. A very Merry Christmas to those who will be losing their job this December 23rd.

Through your incredible intuition, you no doubt noticed I was being sarcastic in that last sentence. Yet what if you didn’t know me well? Or if you couldn’t recognize my usage of sarcasm in an Instant Message or anything I typed? Strangely enough, this is something I’ve discussed with several people recently, and just in the nick of time, someone has come up with a (stupid) solution. This gentleman suggests the invention of a new form of punctuation: the sarcasm point. Sure it might help the linguistically-challenged, or even the chronically-dense… but the author of this piece DOES cite Norm McDonald as someone who might call this blasphemy, because sarcasm is supposed to be impromptu, not planned. I have to agree, and you will likely never see a “sarcasm point” on this here blizzog.

So what the fuck is this about? There’s a picture that the Mars Opportunity Rover picked up that almost blatantly shows water, and nobody’s talking about it. Click that link, and take a look down at the bottom. It’s not fuckin’ Cherry Coke here people! Seems pretty obvious to me, yet even the page I found this on offered no explanation whatsoever… just a link.

I like the cut of this guy’s jib: man wants a mech, so he takes matters into his own hands. That’s right, he’s building his own mechsuit just because he doesn’t want to wait around for someone else to do it. If I only knew where to begin constructing a teleportation device.

And you’ll all be happy to know, Christmas has been saved by the weed delivery guy. Sweeeeet. He totally came through.

Oh damn, I almost forgot… Festivus is being celebrated FOR REAL! More and more people are enjoying the Seinfeld-invented holiday which features an aluminum pole and, my favorite, the airing of grievances. Kick ass. The article explains a lot of stuff, like where the idea originally came from. Very informative. (Oh, and if you can’t get into the NY Times site, use BugMeNot.com to get a username/password. I did.)