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July 28, 2003
Iraqi Executioner Speaks : Uday Rivals Fed to Lions
An executioner employeed by Uday Hussein has spoken to The Sunday Times about his duties for the now-riddled-with-American-made-bullet-holes Iraqi prince.
His duties included feeding two 19 year old rivals of Uday to a caged lion.
I saw the head of the first student literally come off his body with the first bite. By the time they were finished, there was little left but for the bones and bits and pieces of unwanted flesh.
It is reported that Uday himself never watched the killings live, but rather preferred to have them videotaped and watch them alone.
Original article can be found here.
Posted by Christopher at 03:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Loud talkers
Don't you just love people who intentionally talk loudly so people will overhear what they're saying?
The next door cubemate has one of those dudes visiting him now. He's whining about some problem evidently very important to him but that no one else even cares exists. My neighbor is giving him the "I'll placate you because I'm bored" occasional "man that sucks", but is ignoring him otherwise.
I'm amazed such things amuse me.
Posted by Christopher at 02:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Creepy photo
This really freaks me out.
I have never gotten over seeing Jaws in 1975. I was 5 years old and saw the film with my parents. It totally freaked me out. What the hell were they thinking? You don't bring a 5 year old kid to see that kind of movie.
To this very day, I will NOT step foot in open water. If it isn't a pool, I'm not getting in. River, lake, ocean? Fuggitaboutit.
Posted by Christopher at 12:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Bush losing credibility?
Much has been written about the Bush administration's loss of credibility after the war in Iraq and the lack of WMD evidence or ability to bring in Saddam himself.
It really struck home with me today. NPR had a story quoting this article saying "the noose is tightning" and "Saddam is on the run an is unable to mount a resistance." The very next story was about the 14 soldiers that died last week in the most bloody 7 days since the war ended.
Humm.. Saddam is unable to mount a resistance, yet the violence against US troops is increasing, and 14 soldiers are dead as of yesterday.
The punchline is the very same story quoted by NPR details the death of 4 US soldiers and tells about how violence is getting worse.
Posted by Christopher at 09:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 25, 2003
Rock Crabs -- Everyone wants to be one!
Hot off the presses!
The results are in for the DAoC New Server Type survey.
Which of these new server types would interest you most?
A. Realm Invasion 73 votes
B. No stealth, limited buffbot 1 vote
C. All rock crab 3,821 votes
D. Naked kibbies 33 votes
F. Trolls in thongs 2,153 votes
The surprising showing of the "Trolls in thongs" server is surprising and my lead to the first "M" rated server for DAoC. This will be forwarded to Mythic for development immediately.
Posted by Christopher at 11:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 24, 2003
The Police, Oct 11th 1983
I have no idea why this just crossed my mind. Maybe because I'm listening to some old Police music?
It was October 11th, 1983. The Police's Synchronicity was one of the biggest albums in the nation. Every Breath you Take was one of the top singles. The Police were arguably the most popular band in the world at that moment. I had never been to a concert in my life, and I had tickets, my very own 13th row seats at the Police concert that evening for their show at Louisiana State University. I was 13 years old.
The plans were for my best friend, Shane, to pick me up at 7 and head to the show which started at 8. Shane was 16 and had an old, barely working Toyota somethingoranother. The car looked like a piece of wadded up aluminum foil with 4 wheels, but it was transportation and it was taking us the concert.
My memory is fuzzy about what exactly happened to the car or how Shane ended up at my place, but it was broken and he was already at my house early in the afternoon for some reason. We spent the day working on the car (like either of us knew what we were doing); one thing led to another, and the project got a lot more involved than we thought it would be. Before we knew it, 7:00 was upon us and it was time to leave. The car was working. Mission accomplished.
Shane said he was going home to shower and change clothes and would be back for me shortly. I rushed inside to get ready to leave. I was heading to the bathroom with a change of clothes in tow when my dad stops me.
"Where are you going?", he asks.
"Police concert, remember?" I respond.
"Oh yeah. Well it's a good thing you cut the yard like I asked you to, otherwise you wouldn't be going anywhere."
Oh fuck me. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. While dealing with Shane's car issues, I totally forgot to cut the grass. Cutting the grass was an all-day affair. We had about an acre and a half and my dad was a perfectionist. I had to edge the driveway every time, detail with the weed-eater, and sweep the driveway. Not to mention putting all of the grass from the grass-catcher on the mower into garbage bags and washing and drying the lawnmower and weed eater. Did I mention my dad was a sadistic prick who loved tormenting me?
Needless to say, he took great delight in telling me that not ONLY would I not be going to the concert, but I would go outside right then, in the dark, and cut the grass. Oh, as an added bonus, we were out of gas for the riding lawnmower (it used regular gas) and I would have to use the PUSH MOWER. (it used a mix of gas and two-cycle oil, which we had).
I have never been more humiliated. I had to call Shane and tell him that I couldn't go. I had the tickets, so he had to come get them. He got to see the reason I wasn't going to the concert. I was pushing the lawnmower around the yard when he showed up. We spoke briefly, and he left.
The Synchronicity Tour was the last for the Police. They broke up shortly after the tour was over and never made another album.
I regret never seeing them perform. Even more, I regret the reason why I missed the concert. Being a parent is all about discipline, but it should never be about humiliation.
Posted by Christopher at 08:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 22, 2003
Practical UNIX Terrorism
While perusing The Register I ran across this item.
For you lazy bastards who won't click the link, it is a t-shirt depecting the cover of a fake technical instruction manual titled "Practical UNIX Terrorism".
Am I the only one who finds this somewhat tasteless and not the least bit funny?
If you agree, please let the marketing manager for The Register know what you think. His name is Phillip Mitchell and his email is philip.mitchell@theregister.co.uk.
Posted by Christopher at 04:57 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Saddam's Sons Killed
Saddam's son have been confirmed killed in a firefight in Iraq.
Hear that, Saddam? You're next, bitch.
Full story here.
Posted by Christopher at 04:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 18, 2003
Bad Boys 2
It was entertaining in a low-brow sort of way. Will Smith is a very underrated actor, imho. Martin Lawrence is basically worthless.
My biggest gripe was the stereotypical way the computer geek was played. Why did he have to wear cokebottle glasses? Why did he have to be a geek? If Bruckheimer would have put Smith or Lawrence in blackface and had them do a song and dance act, people would be outraged. But it's someone ok to portray computer scientists as geeks?
Action: 9/10 for the chase scenes
Sex: 8/10 for the awesome boobs on the dead chick in the morgue
Dialog: 8/10 for the good chemistry between the leads
Plot: 5/10 for the totally predictable character played by Lawrence's sister
Editing: 2/10 for cutting all but one of Henry Rollins' scenes
Posted by Christopher at 10:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 08, 2003
Suicide web sites
CNN has a story HERE about the growing popularity of suicide web sites.
The story describes how the sites are particularly popular in Japan, and how they offer specific advice such as which buildings to jump from and the most lethal over-the-counter drugs.
Suicide sites, often designed with an ominous, pitch-black background, post disclaimers about the dangers of their content. Delving further into the sites leads to chat rooms spilling over with death wishes and exchanges of ideas on how best to take your own life.
Interesting, if not completely morbid stuff.
Posted by Christopher at 01:57 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 06, 2003
Dark Age of Camelot: Foundations
For anyone out there trying to install the Foundations housing expansion for Dark Age of Camelot, here is a link that you will find very helpful:
http://mrtg.planetmirror.com/pub/gamershell/demo/
For some reason, DAoC producer Mythic Entertainment has selected 6 or 8 companies to host the housing client for download and ALL of them require you to register with their site. I attempted to register with two of them and had errors with both. What a pain in the ass.
I plugged the name of the housing client executable into google and found the above site. It is an open directory behind the scenes of one of the hosting companies where you can save the file directly without going through any of the stupid registration crap.
Yes, I am a geek.
Enjoy.
Posted by Christopher at 04:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 04, 2003
Preacher asks for sign from god, is struck down
No, this is NOT an Onion story. Original is here.
Lightning Strikes Preacher Who Asked For Sign
Bolt Hits Steeple, Travels Through Guest Evangelist's Microphone
FOREST, Ohio -- Damage to a church in Forest, Ohio, is estimated at $20,000 after a preacher asked God for a sign.
A member of the First Baptist Church said a guest evangelist was preaching repentance and seeking a sign from God when lightning struck the steeple.
Ronnie Cheney called the incident "awesome, just awesome!"
Cheney said the lightning traveled through the microphone, blew out the sound system and enveloped the preacher, who wasn't hurt.
Afterward, services resumed for about 20 minutes until the congregation realized the church was on fire. The building was evacuated.
Posted by Christopher at 02:57 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 03, 2003
Lying With Statistics, Shame on Drudge!
It really bugs the shit out of me when people use statistics to lie and just assume you're stupid enough to fall for it.
Case in point, this graphic was the splash from Drudge Report this morning. Under it was the headline "HOW HIGH CAN IT GO?"
Glancing at that graph, you'd assume the unemployment rate has increased by about 1100% since February 2001.
But look at the scale of the Y axis. It does not start with 0, it starts with 4.0. And the increments are very small, 0.2%, making small jumps in unemployment look very large. A more accurate representation of the data would look something like this:
Those two graphics look very different but present the same data.
The first one makes the data look like it has increased very rapidly over the past few years. The second shows the same increase, but it does not look like as radical a change.
The Media (tm) does this all the time. Learn to see through this bullshit and draw your own conclusions about what The Media (tm) feeds you.
Posted by Christopher at 10:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 02, 2003
Insurgent's motivation still baffles bush
President Cowboy^H^H^H^H^H^HBush is quoted by the Washington Post here as saying:
"There are some who feel like that conditions are such that they can attack us there," Bush told reporters at the White House. "My answer is bring them on. We have the force necessary to deal with the situation."
It should be obvious to even the most brainwashed right-winged fascists out there that Bush is completely out of touch with the reality of the Iraq situation. There will be no large-scale, organized insurgent force to challenge the might of the US military in Iraq. Fighting at the battalion and division level is over. What there will be is more suicide attacks against US interests, both military and civilian. Small military patrols, NGOs, especially those who have Iraqi popular support, power lines, the water supply, and pipelines leading out of Iraq will be targeted. These are the issues everyone was referring to as the "hard part after the war". These problems will not be solved by military means, yet Bush is trying to do just that. These aren't military issues, they are political issues. Sure, the attacks are violent and occasionally directed against US forces, but the motivation is NOT to diminish the strength of the US military force in Iraq, but rather to turn around US and Iraqi opinion. And it's working.
The US in general and Bush in particular simply can not understand the motivation or fathom the resolve of the factions they are fighting against. Bush still thinks this is a military issue. The attacks against our interests in Iraq are not military, they are political. Bush has a box full of military hammers, so all of Iraq's problems look like nails to him.
Until we diversify the forces in Iraq by bringing in the UN, NATO, other Arabic countries to help police Iraq, these attacks will continue and his approval rating will continue to decline. At this point, I don't know if that's a bad thing. Bush is testing my resolve as a good, voting Republican. At this point, I can't say I want him for another 4 years.
He better wake up or he'll be following his father's footsteps in yet another way.
Posted by Christopher at 12:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 01, 2003
Murder Suicide Survivor Dies
The company I work for has a large presence in the Boston area. Over the past 2 years I spent some time working on various projects up there. I was having dinner with a group of coworkers one evening when the topic of murder suicide came up. One of the older Boston natives mentioned the case of George O'Leary, a guy who killed his wife and 5 of his 6 children.
I didn't think much about it until just now when I came across this story.
Here is an excerpt:
The phone rang by Teresa O'Leary's hospital bed with a cryptic, terrifying message from the father whose beating had put her there. "I want you to have your mother's jewelry," he told her. Then he hung up.The next day, the panicked 15-year-old left the hospital against doctor's orders, pushed through the unlocked front door and stepped into a horror that never left her. Her father had murdered her mother and five siblings with gunshots to the head, then killed himself.
O'Leary spent the next three decades in state hospitals to deal with her lingering shock.
The article goes on to describe Teresa's mental problems and her own eventual suicide.
This is a very good example of the devastating effect suicide has on those that are left behind.
Posted by Christopher at 07:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack