The sound of loons in the air

For the last week or so, the neighborhood has been filled with the cries of loons. Loons are a wonderful bird with a high, whistling, rather lonely cry, and it's good to hear them.

Unfortunately, it hasn't been loons. It's been going on far too long and it's a little regular and it's, honestly, getting right annoying.

I drove off to grab a heart monitor at the cardiologist this morning (no, no, I'm fine, they're just making sure that the meds I've been taking are working out as well as they appear to be) and I was finally able to peg it down: it's the sound of a power saw cutting the funny hard roofing tile they use in the houses here. Hardly as bucolic, but definitely irritating.

I can only figure that they're not going to be doing this much longer, as they're working on the last few houses around here. I may keep the windows shut for a while until they wrap up.

The sound of loons in the air

Here's a special kind of stupid

From the East Valley Tribune (Phoenix, AZ) today:

Man charged for starting fire while cooking meth in toaster

Christian Richardson, Tribune

A 19-year-old Chandler man has been arrested on accusations he cooked methamphetamine in a toaster, setting fire to his condo and prompting him to take unusual steps to try to put out the blaze, authorities said Thursday.

Jonathan Zaletel was unable to douse the fire with water when it broke out late Tuesday, and tried to put it out with window cleaner, Maricopa County sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Paul Chagolla said Thursday.

When that didn’t work, Zaletel then went to a local Wal-Mart store to purchase a fire extinguisher. By the time he got home, Chagolla said, firefighters and police were at his condo at 1287 N. Alma School Road, and sprinklers had doused the fire.

He was booked into jail on suspicion of manufacturing dangerous drugs, possession of chemicals and equipment to manufacture dangerous drugs, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of marijuana and criminal damage.

Here's a special kind of stupid

Sacred site to be cleansed after Bush visit

From correspondents in Guatemala City, Source: AFP, news.com.au

Indigenous Guatemalans said today they would hold a spiritual cleansing rite to remove bad spirits after US President George W. Bush visited the sacred Iximche Mayan ruins.

About 50 local people broke through a security cordon to reach the entrance of the park around the ancient city founded in 1470 by the Kaqchikel Mayans.

Four were detained by police, according to the protesters, who said they would carry out the cleansing ritual to remove "bad spirits and bad energy'' left by Mr Bush at Iximche, 90km west of Guatemala City.

Mr Bush and his wife Laura visited the site with Guatemalan President Oscar Berger and his wife Wendy.

In Tecpan, near the ruins, protesters set up banners that read "Out with Bush, the murderer, invader, fascist, criminal".

"No more blood for oil", said another banner.

Later in a visit to the village Santa Cruz Balanya in western Guatemala, another group of indigenous women weavers presented a hand-made woollen rug and jumper to Mr Bush.

Sacred site to be cleansed after Bush visit

Names for Texas Hold 'Em hands

Here's some names for Texas Hold 'Em hands that I discovered while cleaning out my inbox:

A A - Pocket rockets
K J (offsuit) - Bachelor hand
K 9 - Dog pound
Q Q - Siegfried and Roy
Q 3 - Gay waiter (queen with a trey) (Okay, yes, it's tacky....)
J 8 - Jeffery Dahmer (ate jack)
J 5 - Motown
5 10 - Woolworth's
6 9 - Big lick

Names for Texas Hold 'Em hands

At the STC SoCal Awards Banquet

I was one of the presenters at the Society for Technical Communications SoCal Awards banquet this past Saturday in Irvine, CA. It was a really nice event, held at a restaurant that did not serve the usual rubber chicken dinner. I caught up with several folks I've not seen for quite a while. I also got to see my co-workers dressed up to the nines, which was fun. A very pleasant evening all 'round.



Me at the STC SoCal Awards Banquet, March 3 2007.

At the STC SoCal Awards Banquet

A nice, snappy little video on the police state

I checked a website I haven't checked for some time and saw this link. The video's really quite good, with excellent animation. Music's nice, too. It's short and office safe.

A nice, snappy little video on the police state

Scooter Libby got convicted

I'm sure that the SOB is going to get some slap on the wrist and probably pardoned by President Dimwit when he leaves office and is nominally untouchable, but, damnit, I'd really like to see Scooter Libby sentenced to the maximum 20-25 years for the crimes he's been convicted of and then have to spend it in a Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

Scooter Libby got convicted

"Black Sheep" -- coming this summer!

There was a link to this movie on a discussion forum. It's very silly and I wasn't entirely sure if the trailer wasn't simply another bogus trailers for YouTube-like silliness. Could've been, after all: a movie about sheep in New Zealand suddenly becoming massively aggressive and cannibalistic after black-helicopter-genetic-experiments have gone disastrously wrong? "Sounds might fishy to me, Bill."

But no!! This is a real movie! IMDB.com has a listing for Black Sheep. It even has a pretty decent rating and people think it's a good comedy/horror film.

Well, I think we all remember silliness like Night of the Lepus (which didn't fare nearly as well as the user rating for Black Sheep) and Piranha (which did fare okay) and other such oddments. This'll be on cable soon enough, I'm sure; paying to see it seems like a baaa-aaa-aaaad idea.

"Black Sheep" -- coming this summer!

George Takei is so cool!

As I've said earlier, I really like George Takei. I always have. I now have one more reason to like him.

Tim Hardaway, basketball star, made a public rant about hating gay people. (He retracted it pretty quickly, but the NBA has sanctioned him even so.... and good.) But George Takei made a great public service announcement about this on Jimmy Kimmel's show. It's all over YouTube - just search for "George Takei Hardaway" or "George Takei PSA" - but you can try clicking here or here for a copy of the clip. George's response is a classic for making a point without getting angry. I love the way he laughs, too.

George Takei is so cool!

"Waging a war against Christianity"

Another great cartoon for y'all:

"Waging a war against Christianity"

Just an idle thought

I was mentioning something to a friend who'd just sent me some fun buttons in email and I thought that it was time that I put this story on the blog.

Years ago, I rode up in an elevator at a science fiction convention with two women, one of whom was blonde, incredibly chesty, and covered in a skin-tight black velvet top with a Cinderella skirt (more black velvet). Surmounted on the... apex? peak? well, tip, anyway, of her left breast was a button that said "If we are what we eat, I could be you by morning."

My stop was a few floors below theirs. I got out of the elevator and walked down the hall in what could only be described as a reflective mood....

Just an idle thought

The Omega Code drinking game

I caught up with my old friend Delta's blog today for the first time in weeks. She posted a drinking game for the movie, The Omega Code, which she was somehow talked into seeing again (Again? Delta, sweetie, I knew it was shit as soon as I heard about it... but you must like experiencing truly awful movies just for the value of wallowing in the horror of them.)

For those of you who have forgotten or who have successfully suppressed the memory, this movie from 1999 is one of the worst made in a decade, rivalling Battlefield Earth for sheer suckiness. It's the first movie made from Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of novels written for the hard-of-thinking and terminally gullible, so it's an excellent model of "garbage in, garbage out."

Anyway, here's the Omega Code Drinking Game:

1) Drink until the movie is good.

2) Go to a hospital, because you're about to die of alcohol poisoning.

BTW, when I was getting the link for the movie from IMDB, I wanted to pass on the following great comment from one of the many people who spent a few moments to describe how awful the movie was:

Do not see this movie. If you are ever forced to at gunpoint, take your chances, if you live the bullet, will be far less painful than watching this piece of garbage. If you die, you can die never having seen the Omega Code, a feat I only wish I will be able to claim on my death bed.

The Omega Code drinking game