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Yesterday’s poster updated

So rather than report on North Korea’s fireworks show, I thought I’d have fun with some allusion to where these actions could lead. How about great tv! So I remade a movie poster.

I started with the original movie poster and rushed through the title trying to pull as many words from the original as possible.

“‘M*A*S*H’ is what the new freedom of the screen is all about!” -Richard Schickel, Life

became

“‘M*A*S*H:THE SEQUEL’ is what losing freedom in America is all about!” -http://blog.siliconholler.com/

But I was really stretching. Now it reads:

“‘M*A*S*H:THE SEQUEL’ Bush’s next repeat operation!” -http://blog.siliconholler.com/

Incase a little explanation is in order, operation both refers to MASH being a medical offit with surgeons and that we call our wars "operations" now. The 1991 Persian Gulf War was Operation Desert Storm. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was called Operation Iraqi Freedom. Next of course refers to the fact that GW enjoys the power of the oval office too much not to leave office without doing something in addition to Iraq. Repeat refers to Bush’s inclination to not doing anything original. Iraq, did it in 91 but he did it again in 03. Ok, N Korea? Did it in 50 but Bush is going to do it again! Come on. Let’s do something original with this administration. Let’s invade Canada! Oops. Apparently we did that in 1775 and 1812. Steve Burgess at Salon says we should do it again and right now!

It didn’t support the war, it’s soft on pot and gays, its economy is rolling and U.S. troops are bored. Anyway, reasons to invade countries are no longer needed!

Someone has asked me to explain the first quote on the poster.

"Because you were too young for Nam and too old for the Gulf but thanks to new legislation this is the perfect war for your midlife crisis!"

This quote is totally about the legislation to allow new recruits as old as 42 into the Army. See where the numbers fall. Of course this raises concerns about the draft but so did Operation Desert Storm. Here are the typical accepted recruitment ages. As for the quote, if you are 42 you should be deeply entrenched in a midlife crisis. Plus you were definitely too young for Vietnam and, although technically eligible, you were probably older than the demographic fighting in either of the Gulf Wars.

The "Coming to a country soon" reference should be self-evident. I will go ahead and mark the date. January 13, 2007 the United States begins strategic bombing raids on North Korea.

Why associate a comedy with something as dark as North Korea? Understand that North Korea is crazy.

The poster.

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Another win!

Blingo

Woohoo! One of my referrals won a movie ticket on Blingo so I win too! I received the choice of a movie ticket or a $10 iTunes gift certificate. This time I chose the movie ticket. Cathy has won 4 times and I’ve won 3 times. We use the iTunes certificate or movie ticket as a bribe for Sarah.

Today’s Blingo Blog notes that Blingo is becoming PCHBlingo. Yes, you read that correctly. Publisher’s Clearing House (promise to give away $10million while secretly stealing old people’s retirement under the guise of selling magazines) has purchased Blingo!

Over the last two years you’ve come to enjoy great search results and fun prizes at Blingo. We’ve given away over 22,000 gifts since we started, but in an effort to give away more, even bigger prizes, Blingo has partnered with the king of sweepstakes. Yes, you guessed it: Publishers Clearing House, the folks who give away things like $10 million at a time. The new PCHBlingo will be the same great site but with a bit more punch.

Watch the site for new features and exciting prizes, and thanks for searching and winning on Blingo!

I’ll hold my judgment. Maybe I’ll need to switch to Ask’s Searchchips.com. Ask has produced some better search engine results than Google here lately anyhow.

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Do you still have a land line?

Have you done away with your land line yet? We have a land line that is mostly for the kids. I use it because it is more clear than my cell at times and conveniently located beside my workstation with a nice headset. We are horrible about checking it for voicemail. There are actually two lines. One is the primarily line and the other is a line dedicated to the children and a fax machine. We mostly use the fax machine for making copies. This setup runs me roughly $80 per month (which is nearly $1000 per year!). The primary reason for keeping it is that I’ve had the main number for over a decade. Even people that haven’t been in touch with me in years can call me. By the same rationale I used to hang onto a post office box that took me nearly a half an hour drive in one direction to get the junk mail out of it. In the same vein, the primary caller to the land line is the ever present bill collector.

Yes, sometimes I have a hard time letting go. Today unless I miraculously pull $200 out of my hind quarters, that piece of nostalgia goes away forever. At least I have the convenient excuse of telling people "we only use our cell phones" instead of "my cash flow is so screwed up that I can’t hang onto basic utilities."

As I write this, I become increasingly comfortable with the idea of simply arming each family member with their own cell phone (3/7s the way there already) and never again using Hellsouth (aside from their relationship to Cingular).

Watch for this weekend’s followup installment: Learning how to live without electricity!

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I rode The Dragon

Julie posted a reference to The Dragon. Years ago I rode The Dragon on a 1981 Honda CM400C (the C apparently means "custom" and is bored out to have the displacements of a 600…basically means a 600 will take me from the line but at cruisiing speed we pull the same RPMs). Sometimes a comment deserves to be a post so I repost here:

I rode the Dragon once. It tightens your butt cheeks quite well.

Motorcyclists have a rating system called “pucker factor” which is the degree to which your gluteus clings to your seat. The Dragon has a high pucker factor.

Once thing about the Dragon is you come out of it knowing how to take a turn. I was loaded down on an underpowered bike really designed to stay in the city and heading to Atlanta and I recall this one turn that I went into with a lot of lean. It was graffitti defying antics nearly dragging peg (that means the piece of metal your foot rests on drags the ground). That turn kept on going and going and going. It felt like I made a full circle three times! I certainly surpassed my comfort zone on that one but really learned the capabilities of my bike.

I hope to high heaven that I-3 gets shot down and does not destroy the Dragon.