I Can Has Last Minute?

Yes, I know, I'm late to the Caturday party. It was a rough day, didn't really have a chance to post anything earlier than now. But hey, the 11th hour isn't too bad, right? Anyway, here are my Caturday favorites from today's Fark Thread. See any you like, click to embiggen...







And finally, an old favorite, for all you haters out there. You know who you are, love you all to death!

I (heart) Caturday!

And Now For Something Completely Different

Here's one Justin ought to love: Welsh Rap group (snicker) Goldie Lookin' Chain (snicker snicker) has released a song called "Sex for Christmas" (ROTFLLMMFAO).

OK, I think I can stop laughing long enough to finish this post now. You have GOT to be kidding me. So I go to their MySpace Page to listen to this abomination of a song, and what am I greeted with? How the band (if you can call them that) wants sex for Christmas with a girl who looks like Abi Tutmuss.

I get British humor, but I guess I don't get British Rap, other than Lady Sovereign. The fact that it's Welsh just makes it even more amusing, I guess. Wonder if they'll do a Welsh language version of this track...

Get A Full Box

With all the negative bile I either spew or spew about on this blog, it's sometimes easy to forget that, somewhere in this world, there are good - and sometimes even great - things happening. From population-freeing revolutions to the smallest acts of kindness, this world does still have some non-evil in it.

As a former volunteer firefighter, this story hit home double for me, so you can imagine the fun I'm going to have trying to cover it up at work with just a roll of cheap TP for tissues. If you have access to a box of Kleenex or Puffs or whatever the hell your favorite brand is (even the chincy little travel pack jobbies), you'll want to get them now, before you click through.

Got them? OK, away we go. This is the story of a seven year old boy with terminal cancer, and the last-minute effort to make his biggest dream come true. I haven't hit the Thread yet, but I do hope that Farkers are showing love and respect for this poor kid and his family.

Here's to our little fallen brother, the bravest of us all. Sound the bell...

SupercalifragilisticexpialidoWTF

Once again, I've bravely trolled the Farkives for this week's Nanny State Roundup. But things in the Farkives look pretty bleak...

• Treats Trumped (Thread): A British production has been banned from tossing sweets into the audience out of fears that some git might sue if their precious little snowflake got bopped with an errant toffee. They don't call it a "Nanny State" for nothing, I guess...
• PMITA Poetry (Thread): A so-called "lyrical terrorist" was handed a nine month suspended sentence for writing "extremist poetry" on till receipts and what not. So, I guess just writing down terroristic ideas is a crime now. Wouldn't want to upset anyone now, would we...

Um, uh oh. Only two this week? I could have sworn I saw more Nanny State articles than just these two. Oh well, you get the idea, right? Right. I'm sure the UK will come up with more Nanny State madness in the coming days. After all, they need to protect their hapless citizens from the worst threat of all: themselves...

Fearless Leader Reviews The Rock

Wil's at it again, and this time his Geek In Review (at Suicide Girls, so it might be NSFW at times) comes out rocking hard: With reviews of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, and the new kid on the rock block, Rock Band.

I'ma have to wait til Christmas to play GH3, but that's all good with me. What has me salivating is the fact that Tom Morello (ex Rage Against the Machine, current Audioslave) is a playable character once you beat his boss battle. AWESOME! And the encore after that is Bulls on Parade, which will freakin' rock the house!

Yeah, I can't wait. But I have to, so Wil's review is all I get for now. Maybe I'll post my own in a few months, once I get to the point where I'm actually somewhat OK at playing the game. I missed out (for the most part) on the other Guitar Hero games, mostly due to my lack of desire to own an next-gen console other than the Wii. But, with a loaner PS2, I can now officially get by...

It's The Network

Yeah, Verizon sucks.

At work and at Angel's, we have Verizon DSL. While it works nicely when it's chugging along like it's supposed to, the times when it refuses to do so are quite the pain in the ass. These past two months have been like riding a bandwidth rollercoaster, but one with sudden, neck-wrenching stops at random intervals.

For the first month or so, service was incredibly sluggish, especially at work. Pages that, on even a basic DSL connection, should only take a second or three to load ended up taking fifteen or more. Less image-heavy pages like this blog, which load almost instantly, took just as long as any other page during the slowdown.

Recently, though, there have been more and more instances of the modem's Internet light either beaming a bright shade of red, or not being on at all. Those, my friends, are the fun times, and they explain my lack of posts the last two days. I knew I should have typed something up while I was at the Avenue working, damnit.

With the outages come other problems as well. Every chance I've had to edit the video from my 30th birthday party has been foiled by Verizon's crap service, lagging connections to codec servers to the point of time-out (they don't try for very long before declaring a time-out, either), if not disallowing me before I even sit down thanks to the Red Light of Death. There's some cool stuff in those vids, since it was just the crew there that night, and we had free reign over the joint. Plus, there's some footage of Andy, Fred and I doing some acoustic stuff, which is awesome.

The first recording of Tetsaiga. Rock on!

But all this is being cockblocked by The Network. It was bad enough when it was Bell Atlantic, back before the takeover and before DSL was available here in the sticks. Phone lines didn't have much latency, so already-slow connections were further choked down.

And yet they still charge an arm and at least a good portion of a leg for their service. Good lord, I hope FiOS isn't this bad...

Which Is Funnier?

The story, or the comments it generated?

First of all, The Story (Thread): A man with the surname Whitelightning gets plowed and steals a Kirspy Kreme truck, going on a joyride. Cops from two police agencies are chasing the guy, with donuts flying out of the back of the truck. The whole thing is caught on the dash camera, and when the video goes public, even the DA says it'll be a hit on YouTube.

And now, The Comment, posted by a mysterious user known only as James Beam:

James Beam says:

Misdemeanors imposed upon Mr. Whitelightning include:

==Discharging a donut within city limits

==Improper use of a donut

==Endangering public safety by use of donut

==posessing unlicensed donut

==posession of concealed donut

==reckless endagerment of giant red-hot pickled sausages

==non-payment of donut

==posession of donut paraphranalia

==driving under the influence of donut

==Exceeding daily bag limit of giant red-hot pickled sausages

==non-registration of giant red-hot pickled sausage

==placing posessing or using bait to elude police

Cliches come to life, only on Fark!

Inciting A Holy War 101: Cristian Stupidity

And not just stupidity. Let's add Arrogance, Bile, Ignorance, and Complete Disregard.

Also Moron, Nutcase, Idiot, Dumbass, Dicksplash, Asshat, Fucktard, and Half-wit.

This is what happens when Jesus takes the wheel (Thread):

All common sense? Gone. After Muslims in Sudan went batshit crazy, wanting to execute a British teacher for allowing her students to name a stuffed teddy bear Muhammad, this fuckwit has the audacity to name a stuffed pig the very same.

For those of you who don't really know: In Islam, there is no lower creature than the pig. To them, the pig is filthy, as it eats the wastes of other animals (mostly humans' tab;e scraps anymore, good ol' slop) and rolls around in filth (usually mud). This is why Muslims won't eat any pork products.

Most of you should know, however, that Muhammad is the big prophet of Islam, and to insult him is, more often than not, a death sentence to the hardliners.

So yeah. Let's create an image of their prophet in the form of a pig. Real smart there, Reverend.

A Day Late...

Yesterday's Caturday Thread on Fark had lots of good, fresh LOLCats posted, as well as a few other LOLCritters. So, in order to create a new tag, and to give me something to do on Saturdays, I'm going to start posting my favorites from each Caturday from here on out.

Everyone say it with me: Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...

As an aside, there's an effort underway to translate the Bible into Kitty Pidgin, the language of LOLCats. Teh blessigs of teh Ceiling Cat b pwn u, lol!

Sunday Fark-Up, Snowed In Edition

It's Sunday. It's snowing like a motherfucker outside. It's going to turn to freezing rain a little later on, followed by a whole bunch more snow. The plow just drove past the house, making it's rounds on it's futile quest to keep the roads clear. No, they'll still be, at the very least, slushy and slow-moving by the time I have to leave for work.

If I have to go, that is. We'll find that out later. In the meantime, here's some links to hold you over, all found on Fark. There's some big news hidden in here, so read carefully. The rest is just filler, which is what most news is these days anyway. Drew said so (Thread). Alright then, off we go:

• Google is getting into the Wireless Business (Thread). Do you know how AWESOME this is? Google is a central cog in my Intarwebs (which is a series of tubes) experience, including playing parent company to this very blog's host. Hell, 'google' has been made an official verb in the English language! How can you NOT love the idea of an all-in-one GooglePhone? And the fact that Google fought to make sure the owner of the coveted "C-Block" (snicker) of the bandwidth spectrum up for bids comes with guaranteed consumer rights built in makes it even more teh hawsome...
• Rolling Stone is running a piece on the blazingly obvious: The "War on Drugs" is an utter failure (Thread). Um, duh! It's about as big a failure as the "War on Terror," only not as overtly costly (that we know of, yet.) I suppose you could call it the lesser of two evils, but it's no less an example of the collective idiocy of the United States Government. Boy, those fuckers sure know how to blow other people's money, don't they...
• Penny Arcade's Child's Play Charity is auctioning off two tickets for dinner with Fearless Leader in Seattle (Thread, WWdN:IX Post). AWESOME! 100% of the proceeds go to PA's wonderful children's charity, so if you're in the Seattle area (and I KNOW I have readers up there, you guys are stopping by at least once a week) and have over $1K laying around doing nothing, cough it up for the kids! Bidding ends around midnight tonight, so you'd best hurry, too. This could be your one and only chance to be able to recommend the New York Strip to Ensign Crusher...
• With the release of "Bender's Big Score" this week, Futurama is officially back! I've seen it, and it is teh hawsome! Even better, IGN has an interview (Thread) producer David X. Cohen about the three remaining Futurama movies, including basic plot details and the fact that, yes, the next one will pick up where BBS leaves off. Apparently, the movies will be carved up into four episode mini-arcs, all to be aired as a pseudo-sixth season on Comedy Central. Oh well, at least it's new Futurama, right? Right!

Verizon's having issues tonight, no doubt weather-related, so I think I'ma pop in a movie and try to get back to sleep. I'm not entirely sure if I have to go to work or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did. Fun fun fun, living in Central PA this time of year...

Nanny State, Nanny State, Baker's Man...

Oh, you'll love this one. UK readers, take notice, because the wonderful Nanny State you've created is about to cut off your metaphorical balls:

The UK is considering lowering the legal blood alcohol level.

To 0.00.

Yep. They're going to make it a crime to have even one sip of one drink and drive a vehicle. Granted, yes, this does have the potential to drastically cut alcohol-related driving accidents and deaths, but COME THE FUCK ON!

How in the fuck are you supposed to expect a nation of people who drink like bloody fishes to even remotely consider following this statute? Your jails would be filled to capacity! If they're actually serious about enforcing one of those asinine Zero Tolerance policies, then you have to come down with the hammer each and every time to get your message across.

And with millions of Brits having pub fetishes, that could get a bit crowded.

I urge all of you in the UK: Stop this madness. Destroy the Nanny State. I don't care if you revert to total monarchy, as long as you tell your government to stay the fuck out of your lives. You're PRIVATE CITIZENS, not little children who need to be mollycoddled and led around by the hand.

Once, it was said that the sun never sets on the British Empire. Looks like you'd all better take Sir Elton's advice and not let the sun go down on you. Or at least on your watch.

Britons! Arise! Tell Mary Poppins that the wind has changed and you no longer wish to live in a Nanny State! PROTECT YOUR RIGHT TO BOOZE!!!

...Lies The Key To Imagination

It's Redneck Hospital 2: Electric Boogaloo.

You know, the ignorance of Rednecks never ceases to stop amazing the crap out of me. That's just a given anymore. I mean, these people are oblivious to the fact that they singlehandedly keep the human race needlessly tethered to lifestyles and ideals that went out with the dawn of the airplane.

All too often, stupidity is tied to that ignorance. Take, for example, the devout NASCAR fan I ran into this morning at the doctors' office. How did I know he was a NASCAR fan, not to mention a devout one? The jacket said it all, and said it loudly. Not only was the NASCAR logo plastered all over the bloody thing, but it's once-bright blue color was stained to high heaven with what could only be several different kinds of natural and synthetic industrial and automotive lubricants.

The mullet didn't hurt my deduction, either.

At any rate, we were behind this older couple, waiting to check the Bear in for his follow-up. Off to our left, looking obviously impatient and worried, stood Captain Stock Car, a hillbilly of about 45 years of age, looking more like 55 after years of Church and Go Fast, Turn Left action on Sundays and raising some rowdy kin-folk.

Well, the old couple taking a bit I can understand. Let's face it: they're old. If they do anything fast anymore, it's pretty much a medical miracle. You can't fault them for their age, nor the fact that they're living in an era that's way ahead of them in terms of social speed. But Captain Stock Car was looking like he was desperate to cut in front of us, even though we had what was obviously a slightly-under-the-weather 11 month old with us.

So, when the old folks were done, he asked us if he could cut in line real quick. His all-important question, the one that forced him to cut in front of a sick child?

Could he use one of the dozen or so wheelchairs sitting in the lobby - which are there for patients to take and use if they need to as soon as they arrive in the building - for his mother.

Idiot thought he needed permission. Yeah, in a place where people are sick and time is of the essence, you have to throw a wrench in the works to ask if your sick mother can use a wheelchair that they put there for people like your sick mother to use without having to ask.

Seriously. They let these people have kids? If the blazingly obvious passes you by completely and you don't even feel the breeze, you need to seriously rethink your situation.

Sure, it was only a hold-up of about 15 seconds, and the Bear wasn't in any dire need of medical care (it was just a follow-up to his ER visit on 500 Years of BS and Turkey Day), but come on! If you'd come down out of the hills every so often and see what civilized people are doing with their newfangled advancements, maybe you'd know things like medical centers put wheelchairs by the entrance for patients who need (or feel they need) them.

What a modern concept that is. Go home and watch Speed Network, hillbilly. FAIL.

How My Poor Heart Aches

So, really. Where do you draw the line between fandom and stalking? And is there any chance that, in place of a line, there could be some sort of grey area where you're teetering on the razor's edge of that line, but not quite falling over to the other side?

I suppose Lawyer Mama is trying to answer that question for us all.

LM is a fan of Wil's, much like myself and thousands of others. Let's face it: man can spin a yarn, and spin it well. And oh yeah, there's that whole actor thing, Star Trek, something or other, I don't know. In a nutshell, yes, he's quite worthy of having good, loyal fans.

Poor LM, though, she's in the grey area. While the rest of us revel in Wil's blog posts and the occasional reply to an email with a question about the site or whatever (I myself got one once, which was cool), LM took the step into the not-black-but-not-white-either are of fandom and is now attempting a small feat of stalkery: Trying to get Wil to pop one comment on her blog.

Yeah, you'll want to scroll to the bottom of that post for the Wheaton info, unless you're up on the topic of breastfeeding in America. I just wanted to link to her most recent post...

Yep, grey area. I don't see where this is harmful. After all, she's not at his house or off tailing Wil's oldest at college, and she's not really all that obsessed the way you'd think your garden-variety stalker would be. She's just a fan who'd like that one moment of semi-contact. Kindof like meeting your favorite actor or writer at a convention: That 30 seconds of time can mean the world to someone.

For LM, her 30 seconds would be Wil posting a quick comment on her blog. And honestly, I think it'd be a bit of alright if he did. I'm not saying he absolutely should, mind you, just saying that it'd be cool of him. And what's halfway decent is, Wil is, within certain boundaries, a "celebrity" who's fairly accessible to his fanbase.

So, I'm going to wish Lawyer Mama the best of luck. As a blogger who's had that 30 seconds with Wil and several other "famous" folk over the years, I can attest to the joy you get when you meet/communicate with those you admire for one reason or another. So, to inspire her on her quest, here's a picture of me with one of my all time favorite musicians, Sascha K. of KMFDM, from back in October, 2004.


Good luck, Mama!

Chim Chim Cheroo

I clicked on the Week-long Archive link on Fark tonight, determined to find out just how many Nanny State articles about the stupid BS going on in (not-so?) Great Britain, and this is what I found...

• Prison guards have to be nice to prisoners. The Sun is there, along with Fark.
• Illegal Skin Bleaching: Scourge of the Empire. Thread.
• As covered in Yesterday's Post, Thread.
• Scotch Grandma can't see her grandkids because of too many sweets. No, really.
• If you aren't a regular patron with a proper regular patron card, get the fock out. Not Circket.

Eh, not as much as I'd expect from the seven day Farkive, but still, it's all kind of childish when you think about it. And what's even more sad is the fact that this kind of crap is trying to get itself established here in the United States as well.

Why am I posting all this nonsense? Well, I've noticed a rash of readers from the southeast of the UK, from about London to Canturbury. What say ye, Englishmen and women? I'm interested in your thoughts on the goings on in your own country, as well as your perceptions of what's going on here...

Not Yours

Just when you thought that the "Nanny State" conditions in the UK were getting to the point of outright laughable, a story like this emerges. In what is fast becoming a large Fark thread, discussion is raging on about the sad tale of a young expecting mother who had to beat feet out of the UK and into hiding in Europe, simply to keep Britain's Social Services monsters from taking her baby away from her... immediately after her birth.

Fran Lyon suffered through a bunch of disorders when she was a teenager, which sadly is a pretty common occourance for the current generation. But she managed to fight back and win herself a normal, happy life, including damn-fine grades and a spot in college. But when she became pregnant with the little girl she's already named Molly, Social Services stepped in and, using her history against her, said that they were going to snake Molly from her out of fear that she may suffer abuse at the hands of a mentally unstable mother.

Despite the fact that several of her doctors stood up for her at a hearing, and despite the fact that Scoial Services' own appointed independent expert even said there was no obvious danger whatsoever, they still want to gank her kid from her.

Now, let me just speak on this for a moment. Social Services, whether in the UK or here in the US, have started a trend where they cross the line from protective to meddling. They routinely destroy families in the name of protecting children, often as a knee-jerk reaction to what amounts to trivial and slim chances of anything negative ever happening.

In Lyon's case, they're trying to punish her for her past, despite the fact that she's spent the last four years living a normal, healthy life and having her mental diagnosis reversed. And they were so adamant about it that she was forced to flee the country out of fear that she would lose her baby despite everyone's best efforts.

Dirty pool, old man...

This kind of bullshit has to stop. This Nanny Government business is getting really old, really fast. George Orwell is probably rolling over in his grave right now, trying to break through to the surface just long enough to scream "I told you so" before he returns to the protected, un-Nanny-able confines of his coffin. Britons need to say enough is enough and take back their personal privacy rights.

And if ANY government agency here in the US even THINKS of enacting policies like the ones in the UK, you might want to think twice...