Too. Much. Info.

SignOnSanDiego.com: Two hurt, eight arrested in Orange County protest against Minuteman Project – A protest against the founder of the border-watching Minuteman Project turned violent when a car drove into the crowd, slightly injuring two people, and at least eight people were arrested, police said.

It’s not that there was a protest of a speech that’s the Rant… oh no, the Rant is in the back story.
Continue reading Too. Much. Info.

Er… Video Game Strike?

Kotaku: Video Game Strike Vote Coming – …a strike is on the table for video game actors. […] The industry says the main disagreement is about the details of residuals, that’s the money actors receive which is based on game sales. The union wants it built on a sliding scale that is based on sales, while publishers want to make a single up-front payment.

Er…
Continue reading Er… Video Game Strike?

Yet More Swag

I can’t even call it a shameless plug, but there’s yet even more swag available now. And how isn’t this a plug? Cuz I mark up the items over cost, so I don’t make anything from the sales, that’s how. I just dig on seeing someone walk down the street with my blog URL on their back.

OK, granted that usually only happens if I wear the shirt and walk past a mirror backwards or something… but the sample images look nifty.

Yikes!

Seattle PI: Tainted gasoline causes rush for repairs – Some Western Washington auto-repair shops are being flooded with complaints of cars running roughly after reports of bad gasoline hitting the market. ConocoPhillips is warning that a batch of gas from its Ferndale refinery distributed to … one of the roughly 300 ConocoPhillips stations in Western Washington, which operate under the name 76. Gasoline stations that operate under other names could have received the gas as well … as many as 14 Western Washington counties was contaminated with a chemical compound that clogs fuel injectors.

Thankfully, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a 76. For some reason, they always seem to be rather pricy. Chevron too for that matter. I typically go to Arco: even though they have a 35 cent surcharge per visit for using your ATM card – which pisses some people off, but rarely have cash handy – they are often 15-20 cents less per gallon. Even so… scary stuff.

Besides, I don’t even think my Wrangler has fuel injectors.

SharpMT 3.0 Beta 3 (Update)

Bug fix time, while waiting for Visual Studio 2005 to ship! Beta 3 addresses the problem with all open drafts being posted when only the current draft was supposed to be posted (the Post All Drafts still works as expected), the fact that sharpmt:// links wasn’t opening SharpMT properly, and the preview HTML template is back to “normal”. Please keep the bug reports coming – although, I am hoping there aren’t many more left!

Update: For some reason the Minimize to SysTray got lost in the shuffle – I’ve recompiled the EXE (it’s now dated May-22) and updated the installs. I have a feeling that Beta 4 will be a while down the line, so I thought I’d just update Beta 3.

Download SharpMT [3.0 Release]: EXE | MSI

View SharpMT FAQ: FAQ

Download: .NET Framework, version 2.0 – Beta 2 (required to run SharpMT 3)

Episode III

No worries about spoilers… I mean we all know how this movie ends, right? Anyway, I had a low expectation for this particular movie, given Episodes I and II – I was pretty much happy with how it played out. A lot of things were tied together (including a few lose ties in V and VI!) but for the most part, it was what I expected… just with better special effects than my mind usually imagines + a few one liners that were actually funny.

And from the previewes, I now want to see The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe – before today, I was skeptical about it being in Disney’s hands and I’m still unsure that there will be seven movies before it’s done – and wouldn’t mind seeing Fantastic Four, The Longest Yard and Batman Begins (which I would have been eager to see were it not for four Batman movies and three different Batman cartoons over the last 25 years – the dark knight should take some time off soon!)

I’m sorta jealous of the kids that are just getting to be Old Enough to see the double trilogy… it would have to rock, seeing I – VI for the first time, in that order.

Rockstar Games on Crack?

It’s either a stroke of brilliance or a sign that the coders of Rockstar Games have been living the crack scenes of Grand Theft Auto… I present to you, The Warriors – the video game.

I saw this movie on the late, late, late, late show one weekend in the mid 90’s – amazing what ya find on TV when the house you’re staying at doesn’t have cable – and… well. It was so bad that you had to keep watching it. It was about a gang – The Warriors – from Coney Island that went up to the Bronx for a gang peace rally. They then get framed for a killing some high ranking peace guy by a rival gang and are then hunted for the rest of the night as their big hair/afro heads have to fight their way from the Bronx back home… Which should only be a 25 minute subway ride – that’s what makes the whole thing so laughable, honestly.

What’s more is that it was the follow up to Michael Beck’s performance in Xanadu – both of which were supposed to “make” his career. I guess it made it, since I don’t think he’s made a movie since.

Time will tell if Rockstar Games has hit gold with a cult classic or hit the ground at mach 2…

Yet Another Red Sox Rant

I have to ask the question: are all Boston fans inbred? Is there any other possible explination for them and how they act in public? We’ve had lively debates on this blog before about the Red Sox and the Yankees, but I feel that I’ve turned a corner on the issue… I still dislike the Red Sox – yet I can still say some nice stuff about most of their players: Manny’s bat, Veritek’s heart, Ortiz’s fat ass power to the corners – but I’ve been driven to the point of dispising every single fan of the ball club.
Continue reading Yet Another Red Sox Rant

A Yankee in Ichiro’s Court

Safeco is an amazing ball park. It’s cozy and it’s got more amenities than even I can shake a stick at. It’s got Dixie’s BBQ (and yes, The Man is there as well) and a whole lotta microbrews, not to mention lots of coffee. The Roof was out tonight, but you still got an occasional misting every now and again, if you were sitting in the outfield.
Continue reading A Yankee in Ichiro’s Court

*snort*

MSNBC: Newsweek magazine, under fire for publishing a story that led to deadly protests in Afghanistan, said Monday it was retracting its report that a military probe had found evidence of desecration of the Quran by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay.

And you probably thought I was nuts when I asked “Who polices the media“…

I’d like to see a wave of pressure from everyone – politician and citizen alike – that forces the media to be a little more responsible about their stories. Make them think twice about responsibility and maybe fact check a little more, seeing as there are very real consequences to their newsstories. That’s what I’d like to see, but what I expect to see is a right wing push to censor or control the media and a left wing push to beat the right wing group with a cast iron copy of the Constitution, meaning that nothing will get done and the media will continue to run amuck.

Like I said to Chuck earlier today, “you can’t be a moderate anymore – if you’re moderate you’ve got no skin in the game and ya got no real feelings about a topic: unless you’re a radical, you don’t count anymore. I swear it gives me gout.”

Yet Another Argument Being Waged Wrong

RealID. Complex issue, on many levels. Overkill? It might be… I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t been following it as closely as I could have. One thing that I have determined is that this whole push for RealID is being made in spite of our open southern border and that only leads to more complexity… I got at least one thing to say about the whole thing: stop blaming Republicans for the success of this bill.
Continue reading Yet Another Argument Being Waged Wrong

Renee’n’Kenny?

I didn’t know where to file it, frankly, but it’s a pity Renee Zellweger is now married… And to Kenny Chesney of all people? I guess it works. It’s funny cuz like you hear about Pitt and Jolie, a bunch of people are all “awww mannnn! S/he hooked up with someone?!” but for these two it most people give it a “huh?”. Like mere mortals would have a shot at Pitt or Jolie. At least with Chesney or Zellweger, frankly, they seem like normal people. In fact, I know that most of eastern Tennessee has to be reeling in shock from this… and a few people on Long Island are probably heart broken over Renee.

There might have been a point to this but three phone calls, four emails and two IM’s later, I seem to have misplaced it. Hah.