Do it yourself, with shredded foam!
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6.29.2001 |
I'm about to head off to Salmonfest, in Lesterville, MO. I've been threatening to go camping for years now, and I guess I'm actually doing it finally. I have all my gear, I'm mostly packed, and I'm ready to go. I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off for a nice five day weekend. Heading to Chicago after the bluegrass festival to see the folks and some friends from school. But speaking of which, I need to get going in to work so I can get on the road at a decent hour. It seems that I'm going to have close to a 7 hour drive this evening to get out to the campsite, which pretty much guarantees that I'll be setting up my tent in the dark. That's always fun. But the sooner I head into work, the sooner I can get on the road. Hope everybody has a good fourth, and I'll try to update the Road To Springfield brackets from Chicago when more of your pathetic uninformed picks are eliminated with extreme prejudice. But off to work now. See you at Salmonfest... |
|
6.29.2001 |
I
sympathize with anti-globalization
protesters, but mainly in an adolescent fight-the-power kind of
way. Every once in a while though, something comes along that helps
me justify my slip away from my old laissez-faire libertarian politics.
I just finished reading Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser. I knew going into reading this book that it was going to be screamingly liberal, so I did decide to take it with a grain of salt, but he does make some excellent points about the effects of corporatization of our food supply. In recent years, meat packing plants have shifted to largely migrant labor, a group with high turnover. At the same time, line speeds in meat packing plants have increased, while the high turnover rate leads to less skilled workers. As a result, some of the steps on the line which actually require skill (gutting the cattle without spilling shit on the meat, for example) start to slip. As a result, we get E. Coli contamination killing people. The USDA doesn't have the power to order recalls of meat, and he pointed to several examples of inspections turning up tainted meat, and companies fighting recall until tainted meat had been sold. (Oh, by the way, last month's shipment was bad, can you send that back to us?) I guess I'm coming to the point where I think that maybe a bit of government regulation can actually help occasionally. Corporations exist only to make profits for their share holders, and it often seems that they'll do whatever it takes to make the profits. For example, it's recently come to light that ExxonMobil actively abetted rape, torture and murder by the Indonesian military. Personally, I won't be buying ExxonMobil gas until I find out a bit more about this story. Beh... I tire of this... |
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6.29.2001 |
More blood spilled in our Road To Springfield Challenge. Only three of the combatants still have a chance for a perfect bracket. Two of you poor bastards have had picks going all the way to the finals eliminated. Reminds me of my picks in this year's NCAA tournament. I've added a handy link to the bracket tracking page on the bar on the left, under "Stuff". Today's matchup is a no-brainer... |
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6.27.2001 |
Voter Fraud on the Road to Springfield. The Mayor Quimby/Lionel Hutz matchup has been restarted with a 2 P.M. Pacific time deadline. I knew you people weren't trustworthy... |
|
6.28.2001 |
The first eliminations have happenned in the Road to Springfield Challenge. The upset defeat of Seymour Skinner has caused the first dropping of points by our combatants. Too bad... Of course, this is all for naught, seeing as Moe will defeat Comic Book Guy in the Sweet Sixteen anyway... Today's matchup of Lionel Hutz vs. Mayor Quimby is extremely close, with Quimby with a 1 vote lead out of ~6000 when I just voted... |
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6.19.2001 |
I've never dieted long enough to hit the dreaded plateau, but I think I might be there now... And it's starting to piss me off. But then again, it doesn't take much to piss me off anyway. |
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6.18.2001 |
And they're off... Seven entrants, who will come out on top? Today's matchup is Nelson Muntz vs. Miss Hoover. An altogether irrelevant battle, as far as our brackets are concerned. In a showdown with Troy McClure, Dr. Nick and Wayland Smithers it looks like none of us thought that either would make it to the elite eight. |
|
6.18.2001 |
My appearance on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me is posted in their archives now. I'm right at the beginning, so you won't have to fast forward or nothing... |
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6.17.2001 |
Of course everybody should be checking out the progress on the Road to Springfield. Apparently we're running a contest here at Gimpysoft. Email me your elite eight and up brackets and we'll see who has the goods... Two entrants so far, and the deadline is approaching fast (Deadline is noon on Monday, since that's when the battle between Grandpa and Bleeding Gums Murphy is over). |
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6.17.2001 |
I think that this tax cut will probably save me more money per year than Dubya's income tax reduction. Be sure to call your congressmen. And comment at Plastic. |
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6.17.2001 |
Last
night I went out to Lawrence to see a band called Tortoise. It was
definitely one of the best shows I've seen recently. I can't remember
the last time I've seen a band with two drummers, or that utilized
marimbas in the show. I'm definitely going to have to get myself some
of their CDs. On another good note, I just found out that I have an opportunity to make my funk the P-Funk next friday. The Mothership itself will be landing in Kansas City, MO when George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars play the City Market. I can't even remember the number of times I've had a chance to see them and didn't go for one reason or another. Well, I will not make that mistake this time... |
|
6.15.2001 |
I just got done taping my segment for Wait
Wait... Don't Tell Me. They told me they would be calling at ~10:15,
so I made sure I was home by 10:05 or so. They didn't actually call
until 11:00. I got all three right on my segment, and the silliest
thing I did was call a "Komodo Dragon" a "Kimono Dragon". But they
accepted the answer anyway... Unfortunately, they called so late I
had to rush back to work right after the segment. So even though Carl
Kassell should be doing my answering machine message, I don't
know how to arrange the actual transaction. Hopefully they'll call
my cell phone after the show's done taping... I also don't know if he's just going to read a standard answering machine message, or if I get to tell him what sort of a message to leave. And if I get to provide a script, what should I have him say? Suggestions? |
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6.15.2001 |
Monty Python and the Holy Grail is being re-released to theatres with 24 seconds of new footage. See it in selected cities. |
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6.14.2001 |
The Onion AV Club has a review of Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. I guess I need to get this book soon, but I just borrowed another book from my boss... |
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6.14.2001 |
The New York Times did a nice piece on the folding of Suck and Feed. |
|
6.14.2001 |
Good God. I guess that's what happens when you don't eat dinner. A completely unexpected new low... |
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6.12.2001 |
I just got a call, and I'm apparently going to be on the NPR program "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me". If I win my segment I get to have Cark Kassell do my answering machine message. I asked to do the limerick segment of the show, but they called back and said that they already had someone for limericks this week, so I could do the limericks next week or do a differrent segment this week. So for some reason I volunteered to do "Who's Carl"... Apparently I forgot that that segment of the show is hard. Not only that, since I downloaded a bunch of CDs this weekend I've been listening to Steve Kimock for the last four days instead of listening to my normal Morning Edition and All Things Considered. I'm doomed. And if I don't win a news quiz show, I'm going to be quite upset with myself. I think that NPR's website has archives of recent programs. Guess I'm just going to have to spend the next couple of days listening to all the recent programming. Time to get back to work... Studying will be tonight. |
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6.12.2001 |
Wow! Never thought I'd find something quite this cool... Shockwave.com is hosting new episodes of The Critic! I've always had a soft spot for Jon Lovitz and it's been sad to see funny roles for him (News Radio, The Critic) just go nowhere. I'll be watching all these when I get home... |
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6.12.2001 |
Another article on Brian Walker, the man planning to launch himself into space next spring. Once again, more balls than I... |
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6.11.2001 |
Almost two years after the last new episode, and just when I had given up all hope, it seems that The Cartoon Network is finally going to air some new episodes of Space Ghost: Coast To Coast. Watch for them in September in a new block of adult-oriented (not that way, you pervert) animation called Adult Swim. Well I'll be watching at least... |
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6.10.2001 |
On Friday I purchased a spindle of 50 new blank CDs. I proceeded to go on a downloading binge, and snagged 5 CDs of Steve Kimock, so far. I've been busily burning CDs for anyone I think might be interested, and burning off other stuff I've had sitting around on my hard drive since the last time I had blanks. The worst part is after two days, I'm almost out of blanks. But luckily I'm out of stuff to burn, so I guess it all works out. And I've finally filled up my monstrously oversized CD wallet. I guess I need to get a new one of those too... |
|
6.08.2001 |
And keeping with the "I take stuff too seriously" theme,
the death of Suck.com continues to bother me. I think I'm one of
the few people that actually purchased a Suck shirt, and I still
wear it. I'm wearing it right now, as a matter of fact. |
|
6.08.2001 |
I continue to be amazed by the closeness of the races at the Road to Springfield. I am still baffled by the fact that Scratchy was taken out by Otto. Yesterday's was a no-brainer, Krusty vs. Dr. Marvin Monroe. Dr. Monroe went to his grave with a vote of 2425 - 538. However, in today's seeming no-brainer, Professor Frink is only up on Jimbo by a vote of 300 - 100. God, I take stuff too seriously... |
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6.08.2001 |
A moment of silence please... As of today one of the oldest publications on the web, Suck.com is on "vacation". Suck has been a daily joy of mine since about 1996, and I'm certainly going to miss it if it isn't back soon. As one poster on Plastic said, "If you can't make enough money off of something that good to keep it alive, that's one of the biggest reasons yet I've seen to worry about the future of the medium." I've never really taken all the "The Web Is Dead" talk too terribly seriously until now... Come back soon, you will be missed, at least by me. |
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6.06.2001 |
Last
night, my web server's lovely 65 day uptime was spoiled by my lack
of a UPS. I need to move all my computers into my other bedroom in
preparation for a roommate who is moving here at the end of the month,
but I've been putting it off because I want to get a UPS before I
move them so I will never have to shut that machine down again. But it was an excellent thunderstorm last night. It was raining when I finally managed to get to sleep at around 1 AM and it was still raining when I headed in to work in the morning. One thing I've noticed around here is that even in storms with a lot of lightning, the thunder doesn't seem to be as loud or echo as much. I guess it's that plains thing again... Nothing for it to echo off. Or at least that's my guess. I still haven't caught a tornado, though. I hit a new weight low earlier this week, but I'm feeling like a slacker. In the last two days, I've eaten out twice and I haven't been to the gym since last Saturday. I've been busy trying to finally finish Half Life and working on some other projects. Ugh, but it's too late now... If I lay down now, I just might be able to finish up The Great Shark Hunt and finally move on to a fresh book. |
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6.06.2001 |
Are you a hard-core Dune fan? |
|
6.06.2001 |
A little song about Dune. |
|
6.06.2001 |
Had I known, I wouldn't have voted for Harry Browne... |
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6.06.2001 |
Today's matchup at the Road To Springfield: Otto vs. Scratchy. It was a tough call, but I had to go for Scratchy. |
|
6.05.2001 |
And one more link that I just can't pass up. The American Family Association recently successfully lobbied to get Yahoo! to stop carrying DVD Porn. Well, the patriots at Yahoo's Don't Close Adult Clubs club have struck back, getting Nordstrom and FTD to cut ties with AFA affiliated groups. My thanks go out to you... Somebody needs to stand up for my God given right to view pornography. Larry Flynt's getting a little old. |
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6.05.2001 |
Well, you can now purchase Choke
by Chuck
Palahniuk. Myself, I haven't bought it yet. I am about 20 pages
from finally finishing up The
Great Shark Hunt and I've sworn to myself that I'm going to finish
up at least one
of the two
books currently on the queue before I purchase any more. Salon's bestseller's list currently has Choke in second place, behind the paperback release of Tom Robbins' Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates. I'll take second place to Tom Robbins any day. And I'm going to finally finish up Half Life. I can't believe I've had that game for this long and have still never finished it. I bet I'll get it tonight, but I have an appointment for NTN trivia tonight at Tanner's. |
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6.04.2001 |
At the Road To Springfield, the minor characters from The Simpsons are set up on a single elimination bracket. Every day, the host takes votes on today's matchup, and one is elminated. Today's matchup: Chief Wiggum vs. Helen Lovejoy. Of course Wiggum gets the vote. In the overall, my money's on Ralph Wiggum, but for some reason Net is the #1 seed. Be sure to cast your vote. |
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6.02.2001 |
I
made it out of bed early enough today to lay out by the pool and try
to get some color. After laying in the sun all day for two days last
weekend and barely noticing a difference, I figured that an hour and
a half today would be no problem. Maybe there's an ozone hole over
Kansas City now, but I am rather red right now. After I got back from that, I got sucked into watching Iron Chef all day. Now I'm torn between watching the rematch tomorrow or watching the season premiere of Sex In The City. I figure I'll watch Iron Chef since Sex In The City will more than likely be repeated at least six times a day all next week. But now I'm going to take my dehydrated sunburned ass to bed. |
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6.01.2001 |
Rather unmotivated after an excellent weekend. I haven't updated here
in a while, so I figure it's about time for a full accounting of the
weekend in Texas. Well I headed out for Dallas at around 4:00 Friday afternoon. The route between my old college roommate's place in Fort Worth and mine in Lenexa is fairly simple. Get on 35S, drive to Fort Worth and take exit 68 in Fort Worth and make your second left. Or something like that, anyway... I got in late, and we got on the road to New Braunfels early Saturday Morning. We hit traffic going through Austin, but we were set up with tubes on the Guadalupe River by around 2:00. The rest of that day consisted of sitting, floating and drinking beer. The rough plan had been to spend Saturday in Austin, but we enjoyed the river so much we just decided to head back there on Sunday. Sunday was a bit more interesting. Our first time out, our group of four ended up floating near a group of three unescorted ladies. There was some quite mild flirting going on by others, but then a guy staying in a house on the river dove in the water and pulled the three of them over to his dock. We then lost the three. On our third trip around the river we once again floated by that dock. One of the three girls was sitting on the dock. We eventually made it over to her and started chatting. At some point, she began flashing us. She told us that there was an orgy/porno shoot taking place in the house. One of the guys in our party made his way up onto the dock, and they commenced making out, rubbing, and so on while the other three of us chatted. About the most they did was him performing oral sex on the lovely lady. Eventually it started to get cold and she wandered back up to the house. We went back to turn in our tubes. As we were turning in our tubes, the guy who owns the place told us that he had heard that there was a guy eating some girl out on a dock on the river. We were forced to admit that that was indeed our party. But I guess that was the most exciting event to take place over the weekend. I guess I've learned that I need to buy/rent a house on the Guadalupe River some time if I ever want to get my pornography production career off the ground. As a matter of fact, one of the tube vendors had a "For Sale" sign on the outside of the shack. I wonder how much something like that would sell for, and if you could actually make a living doing that. I certainly think that I could get used to living out there. I just doubt that they have cable modems out there, so I'd probably have to get real web hosting. Regardless, I had a great time that weekend, and I was spoiled enough by the weekend to really want to find some water around here this weekend. I've been told that there are some lakes around here, and I'm going to see if I can't find them. I'm going to be missing a Big Smith show in Fayetteville this weekend, but I'm not too worried. I think I'm going to catch them at Salmonfest in Lesterville, MO. It's a weekend-long festival consisting of a lot of bluegrass/jam bands at a campground on a river. Hell, $65 isn't too bad a price for three days of camping minus the music, but add in a lot of bands besides Big Smith, and I think this show is something not to be missed. It's at the end of June/beginning of July, so I think I'll be taking the 2nd and 3rd of July off for a nice five day weekend. Hell, five days camping and listening to good music, I'm not sure if I'll make it back to work at all. But I'll dispatch this and start trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my broke-ass this weekend. Again, I apologize to those I missed while on my trip in Texas, but coordinating multiple groups of friends is always difficult, especially in two different cities. I'll be making a trip to visit the Houston crews later this summer. |