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Sunday, November 30, 2008

«Chain-Letter Emails»

Ok, we all know (I hope) that noting bad will happen if you don't forward these to everyone in your address book. We also know (again, I hope) that nothing good will happen to you, either. That is to say these chain-letter emails have absolutely no power or influence over your luck, health, love life, finances or otherwise. So why send them? Is it that they are mildly amusing to you? Or is it that you received this annoying piece of crap and had to inflict it upon others?

Putting aside the fact they are annoying for a moment, there is a tangible downside to these. It's called spam. You see, each person these are sent to gets their email address tacked on to the message. Somewhere down the line this will get sent to someone that runs a spambot. They will extract the email addresses from the To:, Fw:, Cc:, and From: fields (and any list that spilled into the body of the message) and enter those into his little spambot and share (or sell) the list with all his spambot friends. Next thing you know, everyone the chain-letter email has ever been sent to is getting a lot more spam in their inbox.

The same thing happens to any email that keeps getting forwarded and sent around like those cute little joke emails. Oh, you know the type. They usually are filled to the brim with lame jokes and animated gif images.

So please, do everyone a favor and stop forwarding such things. But if you absolutely must send an email to multiple people, please use the bcc: field instead of the Cc: field. At least that way you won't send everyone the entire list of emails.

See the rest of “Chain-Letter Emails”»

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Friday, November 28, 2008

«UDWotD: Black Friday»

Urban Dictionary Word of the Day: Black Friday

Black Friday
The day after Thanksgiving, when stores decide to open at the asscrack of dawn to start Christmas sales. Most people fall for this ploy and wake up at 4am to fight other mothers for cheap presents.
Bah, humbug I say. I'm staying home.

See the rest of “UDWotD: Black Friday”»

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

«Questionable Health Lately»

My health has been somewhat questionable since I posted about not feeling well on October 24th. What I seem to be having problems with is my gag reflex. I'm not really nauseated in the stomach, it's in the back of my throat; kind-of like sticking your finger on the very back of your tongue. I don't feel it all the time. Usually when I'm eating or after I've eaten. I've felt it mildly other times as well.

Yesterday my lymph nodes under my jawbone swelled up a little, but have sense returned to normal.

I'm beginning to get a little worried; lasting this long it might be something serious. I don't seem to have any other symptoms, other than a slight weight loss because I'm not eating as much, and maybe I'm sleeping longer than usual. Anyway, even without health insurance I decided to make a doctor's appointment yesterday. I didn't make one earlier because the symptom is not always there, it's on-and-off with sometimes days between. However, with the lymph nodes swelling up, it's probably some sort of tangible infection.

They're backed up a bit right now at the doctor's office, so my appointment was set for December 3rd. They told me to go to the emergency room if I get worse before then.

Of course, trying to diagnose yourself on the internet always leads to the worst possible condition.

See the rest of “Questionable Health Lately”»

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

«Creation is Damaging»

11 -- Creation 'Science' Made Easy


I can just see someone that would have figured out the cure for cancer instead just accepting that it's God's will and not researching it any further than that.

There are more videos in this series. Just take a look in potholer54's YouTube channel.

See the rest of “Creation is Damaging”»

Monday, November 24, 2008

«Motivational Monday: You're A Geek!»

I definitely saw the d20 first...
You're A Geek! / If you saw the D20 first and then the girl then I have some bad news for you...
For those of you totally out if it, d20's are 20-sided dice. Just in the same way a d10 is a 10-sided die and d6 would be your average 6-sided die. The common shapes are d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20.

See the rest of “Motivational Monday: You're A Geek!”»

Sunday, November 23, 2008

«No Free Dr. Pepper»

Dr. Pepper LogoDr. Pepper promised a free Dr. Pepper soda to everyone in the US if Guns N' Roses managed to release their album, Chinese Democracy, in the year 2008. Well, the album came out today. Dr. Pepper is offering a coupon for a free soda on their website today only.

So, there's a rush on the Dr. Pepper website. Like anyone would expect, all this extra traffic is essentially a DDoS attack on their servers and it went down. I can't help but think that not only did they not prepare for this, but they expected and wanted this. As long as their servers are down due to an overload of traffic, they have an excuse to not deliver on their promise.

Even if or when you do get it to load, the average person is not going to sit and try for two strait hours to finally get the page to load. And yes, they knew about this day a few weeks ahead of time. They had plenty of time to prepare.

EDIT: I managed to get the page to load enough to get a phone number. I tried submitting my information, but when I submitted it I just got a Page Load Error. So, here's their number: for questions and concerns, call 1-800-696-5891.

See the rest of “No Free Dr. Pepper”»

«My Religious Search»

The question was raised about my atheism and where my parents stand with it.

When did I become an atheist? To tell the truth, I don't remember. I think I stopped believing in God before Santa Clause (despite the fact that Santa had the exact same handwriting as my mom). I didn't give too many hints of my beliefs for quite a while. With Santa, I was afraid I wouldn't get as many gifts if I said I didn't believe. With God, I wasn't sure what the reaction would be and it seemed best just to keep it to myself.

You know, you tell a child all these lies about Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy... You may think it's just all in good fun. But when a child starts to realize the truth, they may start to question if God and Jesus were lies as well.

My parents come from different religious backgrounds. My mom was raised a Catholic, had it forced upon her and hated it. She's basically rebelled against it. Whether she actually believes in God or not, I'm not sure. We don't talk about it much.

My dad was raised Lutheran, and although he's drifted away from the literal interpretations of the Bible, he does believe in God in the Christian sense. He feels the Bible was written by man, and thus has been exaggerated and had human biases inserted. Really, who can blame him once you've looked over the Old Testament (or even much of the New Testament).

My parents are fine with what I believe. I'm old enough to have my own beliefs. My grandparents, on the other hand, are not happy with it. I've had a couple of talks about it with my grandfather. But, they love me just the same.

I was never forced to go to church as a child. When I got a little older I did a fair amount of research on a wide variety of religions; for a while it was almost an obsession. It didn't take long to dismiss the major religions. Although I admit I didn't put too much time into Buddhism or Muslim. I found the more “occult” religions fascinating, particularly Druidism. I spent some time talking to a friend online that is a Druid, as well as a classmate in real life that was a Druid. I even spoke to a true Witch in real life (Wicca). However, I just couldn't believe the prayers (read: spells) had any power. No matter what religion I looked into, they all had some beliefs that were downright silly.

You may think I should have given the major religions such as Christianity more time. However, I don't believe in a God. Everything else was based on that belief, and all evidence they provided was circular logic back to the belief in God.

So here I am. If one day God should make himself visible and prove himself to infact be God, I'll be inclined to modify my beliefs. And he'd better make it good, because extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Until then, I am an atheist.

See the rest of “My Religious Search”»

Friday, November 21, 2008

«Vampires Everywhere»

What's with all the vampire stuff lately? The season finale of South Park was about vampire wanna-be's, Drek talked about a TV commercial on his blog...

If you think about it, common vampires have all sorts of seemingly random weaknesses such as:

  1. Sunlight
  2. A Christian cross
  3. Wooden stake to the heart
  4. Holy water
  5. Garlic
  6. Must drink blood for nourishment
  7. Cannot willingly cross through running water
Yeah, that running water bit is a lesser known weakness.

Where am I going with this post? Nowhere really. It's just that everyone else is talking about vampires so I thought I'd jump on board.

See the rest of “Vampires Everywhere”»

Thursday, November 20, 2008

«Fuel Prices Still High Here»

One of the many drawbacks of living on an island is the lack of competition. While fuel prices are dropping below $2.00 and even down close to $1.50 elsewhere, the people of this town still have to pay out the ass for fuel. It's still $3.759 for regular unleaded and $4.259 for diesel here.

Sure, it was always a bit more here than down in the lower 48 states: by maybe 10 cents/gallon. There's a public outcry in town about it. The gas stations are saying that they have to charge this much for it because they bought it at the higher prices and still have the "more expensive fuel" stored. However, as you might have guessed, it doesn't work that way when the prices are going up. It was changing daily to match the raising prices. Also, their reserves of the higher priced fuel seems to be lasting a long time...

That always happens around here. Any excuse to get the prices up, then when the markets change the prices still stay high here; and it's not just with the fuel.

See the rest of “Fuel Prices Still High Here”»

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

«Atheist Billboards»

Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake.It's amazing that atheist billboards are causing such an outcry. There's been a few atheist ads and billboards in public places lately. On the buses in Washington DC, as well as 11 billboards in Denver, Colorado. They are starting to appear in other places as well. There's not an outcry from religious billboards.

Tell me, are the beliefs and teachings of your church so fragile and weak that you feel this threatened by a few billboards? Oh, wait... I guess so...

See the rest of “Atheist Billboards”»

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

«Bellybutton Tube?»

Ok, I give up. What are the Japanese up to now?

I don't even know how to begin to describe this.

Click image to view full

See the rest of “Bellybutton Tube?”»

Monday, November 17, 2008

Sunday, November 16, 2008

«Gay Marriage and Non-Kosher Foods»

Gay marriage backers rally in Manhattan, other cities

If I were in one of these cities with the protests for gay marriage, I think I would go out and support them. It's not just gays that support gay rights. It's not just gays out there marching alongside them.

I don't fully understand those who oppose gay marriage. If you don't like the idea of marrying someone of the same sex then don't; but please, don't stop others. I've seen the argument (from Looney, in fact) that a government recognized gay union would be saying that God supports it. In Looney's exact words:

As Thomas Jefferson noted, our rights come from our Creator, which was understood. Thus, the California Supreme Court, by declaring this right to gay marriage, has effectively stated that God endorses gay marriage. The justices of the supreme court have made a purely religious statement and declared themselves to be God's spokesmen.

- Looney

The US government is not a theocracy. There's a phrase called "separation of church and state". It is traced to the letter written by Thomas Jefferson himself in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists, in which he referred to the First Amendment in the United States Constitution as creating a "wall of separation" between church and state. That seems like enough for me to say that the government does not represent God or God's wishes. It also means these justices of the supreme court clearly do not have the jurisdiction to claim to be "God's spokesmen". They simply speak for the government, not for a religion.

Let me use a parallel religion-based example, in this case the right to eat non-kosher food. Kosher food is food that meets Jewish dietary laws. The consumption of any other food (called treif) is forbidden. So why does the FDA allow foods that are not kosher? After-all, if the Jewish God says not to eat it then why should anyone? It's against God! Yet the FDA (an agency of the US government) approves such foods! Oh, such an injustice! The US government has taken it upon themselves to be "God's spokesmen" in this issue already, by Looney's logic. What's that? Not everyone is Jewish, so not everyone has to follow their laws? The government is not God? Exactly.

Not everyone is Catholic or Christian. Not everyone has to follow their laws. The government shouldn't be forced to, either. There shouldn't be government laws against gay marriage any more than there should be against eating non-kosher foods. That's fine if you believe you shouldn't, it's your choice what you eat or who you marry. But don't force your beliefs on others.

See the rest of “Gay Marriage and Non-Kosher Foods”»

Saturday, November 15, 2008

«Caturday: Damnit Cookie Farted»

I think my biggest problem now is keeping track of the ones I've already posted so I don't start doing duplicates.

It's Caturday God damnit!! Post some cats!!
I made you a cookie... but I eated it.
Eew u fartid

See the rest of “Caturday: Damnit Cookie Farted”»

Friday, November 14, 2008

«Helicopter Lifting»

You might be wondering why I haven't been posting as many photos lately. Quite frankly, it's because there's nothing interesting to photograph this time of year. It's dark and gloomy, so it forces longer exposures and blurry images. Also with the constant rain and wind, I don't want to expose the camera to the elements.

Anyway, here's one of the last pictures I took... It was on November 3rd.
Helicopter lifting an AC unit into place.

Click image to view full

See the rest of “Helicopter Lifting”»

Thursday, November 13, 2008

«CAD Comic: How it Used to Be»

This is about the V.A.T.S. (Vault Assisted Targeting System) in Fallout 3. When you enter V.A.T.S the game pauses, zooms in on the enemy, and gives you your percent chance to hit specific parts of their body. This comic is showing what the real-life equivalent would be...

Raider: I'm going to use your scrotum as a hackey sack! / Hero: Wait! / Hero: So, if I wanted to shoot you in the head... Taking into account wind velocity and the distance between us... Multiplied by my relative skill in Small Guns... Divided vy the size of your head and your rate of speed... I&#39:d have a forty-five percent chance to hit. Now, if I wanted to shoot you in the torso... / Raider: C'mon, man, I wasn't kidding, I've got a game at three-thirty...

Click image to view full. Source

Here's a video showing the V.A.T.S. in action, as well as a few heads rolling. After selecting your targets, it shows it play out in slow motion.

Fallout 3 - V.A.T.S - Combat - AfterRelease Footage

See the rest of “CAD Comic: How it Used to Be”»

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

«Fallout 3»

I've been playing Fallout 3. The game takes place in and around the Washington DC area in a post-apocalyptic Earth in the year 2277, 200 years after the Great War. Basically everything is a nuclear wasteland. As the story goes, tensions built up between countries as oil reserves and other natural resources were used up. Eventually it came to a head in 2077 and a nuclear war sparked between the US and China. It only lasted a few hours, but it was enough to destroy civilization.

There were some underground vaults built that could sustain some humans in the event of a nuclear holocaust, although not nearly enough for everyone. Basically this is how humanity survived. Some vaults opened as early as 10 years after the Great War. As I said, the game takes place 200 years after. My character lived in vault 101, and this vault was not suppose to re-open: ever. Well, my character's father escaped so I had to go out looking for him.

Now, I'm not sure what the world would look like 200 years after a nuclear holocaust. But it appears almost none of the flora has returned yet, and although you can generally walk around without being exposed to radiation, all the water and food is still contaminated. Of course, it wouldn't be a game without horribly mutated, hostile creatures running about. And zombies (well ok, they're called feral ghouls, not zombies. They're humans that were exposed to ungodly amounts of radiation and didn't die).

I'm playing as an evil character. Why? Because it's fun, why else? The two things I'm most proud of so far are detonating a left-over nuke, crazy people built a town around it. I don't think anyone will make that mistake again. The second thing is selling a child into slavery. Usually in games children are strangely absent, because being able to kill children would raise the age rating on the game. It's nice to see children sometimes, adds to the realism (and the deliciously evil fun).

See the rest of “Fallout 3”»

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

«Get the Water Yourself»

You'll get better results.

Blue Shirt: Ahhh... / Blue Shirt: Get me some more water. / Green Shirt: Uhh... Okay. / Blue Shirt: This isn't water. / Green Shirt: And I'm not your bitch.

Click image to view full

See the rest of “Get the Water Yourself”»

Monday, November 10, 2008

«Motivational Monday: Creationism»

This guy found proof that the world is not as old as scientists claim.

Creationism / There are indications that the world is not as old as we are told, for instance, at the bottom of the world it says made in China, it is also made from a form of plastic rubber which was not around until 1943.

See the rest of “Motivational Monday: Creationism”»

Sunday, November 9, 2008

«Food Fight»

I never knew hamburgers were such effective weapons of war.

Food Fight

See the rest of “Food Fight”»

Saturday, November 8, 2008

«Caturday: Cat vs. Printer»

Here's a video instead of images this week. It was brought to my attention by one of my readers, thanks Rick. I'm sure many of you know the frustration that comes along with owning an inkjet printer.

Cat solves printer-problem(with subtitle)

See the rest of “Caturday: Cat vs. Printer”»

Friday, November 7, 2008

Thursday, November 6, 2008

«Congratulations California»

Congratulations California on passing Prop 8

  1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans™ always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
  2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
  3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
  4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
  5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
  6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
  7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
  8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
  9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
  10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

See the rest of “Congratulations California”»

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

«The Answer Suddenly Came to Me»

I was just finishing up with reading the various blogs I read every day in Google Reader, and the answer to that Qweb Riddle suddenly came to me. So I finished it. Funny how things can come to you when you're not even thinking about it.

Go to the Winners Page and look for the name Marf on 5th November 2008.

See the rest of “The Answer Suddenly Came to Me”»

«Congratulations Obama»

Barack Hussein Obama has been voted in as the 44th President of the United States. It was the outcome I wanted to see. It is also the outcome most of the rest of the world wanted to see.

Let me say, I have no racial or religious prejudices against him1. That being said, I can now share this picture with you...
Evil Obama picture

Click image to view full

I found this a while ago, and I decided to hold on to it until Obama was elected President. And no, I don't feel that Obama is evil or that this image is a correct representation of him.

I listened to both McCain's and Obama's speech. The striking difference I noticed was the contrast in reactions of their followers when the other was mentioned. In McCain's speech, the name "Obama" invoked boos from the crowd. Though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. That's how McCain ran his campaign. He spent so much time bad-mouthing Obama that he never really spent any time talking about himself. However, in Obama's speech they still cheered at McCain's name. Is this a sign that Obama has what it takes to see a newly unified America, and not just more of the same?

As Obama said in his speech, "A new dawn of American leadership is at hand." I like the sound of that.

1: I really hope this little disclaimer won't be required every time I poke fun at our new President.

See the rest of “Congratulations Obama”»

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

«Voting Day in the United States»

Isn't it great to have a choice?
There are of course, other choices. I'd vote for a Libertarian president in a heartbeat if I thought he had half a chance. But I'm afraid the write-ins for Mickey Mouse might outnumber his votes...

We have to face it, for whatever reason Americans hate both of the two major parties, but they keep voting for one or the other.

Why isn't the Libertarian party more popular? They're all about personal freedoms and less government intervention. Their goal is a more streamlined, smaller, less top-heavy, more efficient government.

I'm registered as nonpartisan, but I consider myself as Libertarian. Where does the Libertarian party sit in the left/right wing political map? Top center:

Political Map showing Libertarian and Statist as well as Left and Right.

See the rest of “Voting Day in the United States”»

Monday, November 3, 2008

«Motivational Monday: Political LOL»

LOL / Those retards are actually voting for us
I shall not be one of the retards voting for them. I'll vote for Obama for president, and probably Libertarian for everyone else.

See the rest of “Motivational Monday: Political LOL”»

Sunday, November 2, 2008

«Featherlike»

Reminder: For those of you who do, it's time to change your clocks for daylight savings time, if you haven't already. Set them back an hour... At least on this end of it, you'll be an hour early for an appointment if you forgot to change your clocks.

Featherlike, by Gregor Czaykowski. Click an image to view full.

Featherlike, page 1 of 5.
Featherlike, page 2 of 5.
Featherlike, page 3 of 5.
Featherlike, page 4 of 5.
Featherlike, page 5 of 5.

See the rest of “Featherlike”»

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