Do you have a drinking problem?

I fall at exactly the average.

Only 134 Olsons in Norway?

In this application's defense, there are 54,000 Olsens. I've heard that Olsons are actually Olsens who had their names misspelled after immigrating to the US.

Bex and I are looking for a bar in Kansas City that will be showing election coverage Tuesday night, preferably a place that'll turn up the volume on the TVs rather than play the jukebox.

Does anybody have any suggestions for local places that would be likely to do this?

Update: I've never seen Bar Scoop before, but they have a couple of suggestions.

Many of these comics are wrong.

So very wrong.

Busy with the move and work, so not much from me today probably. Since I can't leave my reader hanging like that, I'll fall back on the ever popular:

Search Engine Referrals - October 2004

It's that time of year, so Christopher Walken Mask is my top search result for the month.
(The mask can be founc here.)
"Robocop Dance Till You Drop" is still a popular search result. I need that mp3.
"robotic technology" - You are not in the right place.
"phish and drugs" - No connection whatsoever
"traficant quote bathroom sword crotch" - I think this is the winner for weirdest
"nihilists halloween costume" - Damn, now that's not a bad idea.
"lauren graham nude" - There's always hope
"product placement where to complain" - Some people have too much time on their hands
"young pups ryan olson" - Well, you did find the right place
"naked girls bonnaroo" - A few, but not a whole lot
"kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahn!" - You're looking for this
"fuck tucker carlson" - No. Just no.
"arthur bryant s burnt ends" - Why did I wait so long to go here? That is dinner for the bachelor party, guys.
"halogen fluid" - Time to change your headlight fluid?
"met cake s lead singer" - No, the fuckers won't even come to town.
"bistate question 1" - Vote No, please.
"mike mckenzie band" - Oh, hell no.
"playing age empires over network faq" - Do y'all still have your copies handy?
"rosedale bbq" - Not as good as Bryant's
"najeh davenport defecation" - All you'll ever be remembered for, buddy.
"chesters fayetteville" - Chester's is no more.
"newsradio on dvd" - Still no release date
"karr acronym" - Knight Armored Roving Robot
"pig is a shameless animal" - You know what, it really is.
"i would walk one thousand miles" - But would you...
"walk one thousand more" - Oh.
"ryan olson prowlers" - I swear it wasn't me.
"city of shawnee question no 2 charter ordinance no 32" - If even one person found my site and decided to vote yes for Sunday Liquor, my job has been done.

Yeah, comment and referral log spam is really getting out of hand. Although my rejected comment spam entries aren't in the 10,000's like they are at Matt's place, over the last week or so I have been rejecting a couple hundred comments a day.

Good thing I have mt-blacklist installed... If I had to deal with this much crap in my comments I would have shut down a while ago. (Now that you know what it's going to take for me to go away, go to it...)

My referral logs are a joke, though. My stats script shows that I've had over 550 different websites referring to pages on my server, and I'd say maybe twenty of them are actual links. The sad thing is that it's not just porn sites and penis pills like it used to be, it looks like most of the incorrect referrers are just random weblogs, so I assume this is some sort of robot doing this.

It kind of sucks when you head over to a Redskins fan site looking for some smack talk and all you find is people being all respectful.

Rock on. I knew this day would come soon, and here it is. Biotech firm Allerca is now taking reservations for genetically engineered hypoallergenic cats. OK Greg, no need for that blood sample from Kitty now, I won't be needing to clone her.

Now where am I going to get $3500?

The editorial staff here at Gimpysoft has conferred, and we're ready to announce our endorsements for Election 2004 in the city of Shawnee:

President: John Kerry
Yup, I supported the wars. Both of them. Afghanistan goes without saying, the Taliban had to go. Iraq was a different thing, but in the end I supported it because I thought that a democracy in the Middle East would be a good thing, and I was genuinely concerned about Iraqi WMDs falling into the hands of terrorists. I remember in the run-up to the war feeling that the evidence Bush and company provided for WMDs was fairly weak, but like most people I believed that the weapons were there.

I also was worried that the Bush administration didn't seem to be preparing the American people for a tough time of rebuilding and for an extended engagement that I still feel we're in for. It seemed like he was trying to convince the American people that the conflict would be quick and relatively bloodless. At the time I thought he was being a bit disingenuous, but didn't think he could prepare Americans for a long slog and still maintain support for the war. In retrospect, I think he was telling the truth. He really did think the Iraq war was going to be a cakewalk.

From the premature Mission Accomplished to his supposed comments to Pat Robertson, I think that the evidence points to Bush thinking that Iraq would be easy, and this thinking led to him not sending enough troops or rebuilding money to Iraq, and has led to the spectacular failure of the war that we see today.

I still think that the war could have been done right, but I just think that Bush failed. For this, more than anything he deserves to be fired. Now the only question is whether Kerry can be trusted to go on from here. Personally, I think he can. I think that if Kerry is elected, we're going to have a lot of folks on the left angry when he isn't out of Iraq by the end of 2005. People still think of Democrats as weak on national defense. Kerry is a savvy enough politician to know that if elected he's not going to be able to do anything to make him seem weak on defense.

On top of that, I think that just the act of changing leadership here in the US will help some to repair our diplomatic ties with the rest of the world. No, a Kerry administration isn't going to be able to replace all US troops in Iraq with troops from other countries on the strength of Kerry's diplomatic skills. Nevertheless, as much fun as it is to crack jokes about "Old Europe" and make fun of the French, having allies in the War on Terror is important.

So on the war I trusted Bush, but feel my faith has been let down. Short of that, what reason do I as a moderate/libertarianish guy have to vote for Bush on? He supports the Family Marriage Amendment, enshrining what I feel is bigotry in the US Constitution. Tax cuts are nice, but Bush's tax cuts were mainly for the rich, and since Bush and the Republicans have shown no desire whatsoever to cut spending to balance the budget, I can get behind Kerry's plan to roll back the cuts on the upper brackets.

Finally, I am truly frightened of who Bush and a Republican controlled Senate would put on the Supreme Court if they need to make an appointment. I believe that Bush absolutely would appoint a Supreme Court justice that would overturn Roe v. Wade, and that's something that I just can't support.

US Senate (Kansas): Sam Brownback, Republican Lee Jones, Democrat
No, it's not hard living in Kansas as a mushy libertarian, it's hard to put together reasons for why you're voting when you haven't been paying much attention. Well, not paying much attention to the Kansas Senate race, which is not even remotely in play. I think I got Sam Brownback mixed up with our other senator, Pat Roberts, who is not that bad a guy, and who I like because it's nice to have a senator on the Intelligence Committee. Since posting this, I've read articles mentioning Brownback as the Social Issues candidate for President in 2008. I pegged Brownback as a moderate just because his website didn't prominently display support for the FMA and call for an abortion ban, but those positions are on there if you dig. I haven't heard much about Brownback, mainly because he doesn't really have to run a campaign this time around.

So I'll be casting my futile ballot for Lee Jones, making me now vote a straight Democratic ticket. I'll definitely need that Comet shower after the election. My original assessment of Brownback follows, left up here for the sole purpose of causing me further embarrassment.

It's hard living in Kansas as a mushy libertarian. No, Brownback isn't exactly what I want, but he certainly doesn't come from the Phill Kline/Kris Kobach religious nutjob strain of the Kansas Republican party, and I like having my Senator on the Committee on Foreign Relations. I want the Republican Party to moderate a bit, so I think it's important to support the (relatively) moderate folks the Republicans put on their tickets.

US Representative, Kansas District 3: Dennis Moore, Democrat
I registered as a Republican this year just so I could vote in the Republican primary and try to keep Kris Kobach off the ballot. Unfortunately, Kobach won the primary. No fucking way am I voting for Kobach. He supports the FMA, is rabidly pro-life, and is rabidly anti-immigration. I consider myself a libertarian Republican, but the libertarian/moderate wing of the Republican Party in Kansas is dying, and Kris Kobach is one of the folks trying to kill it.

State Senator, Kansas 10th District: Pete Roman, Democrat
The incumbent, Nick Jordan, was the deciding vote against lifting the ban on Sunday Liquor sales statewide in Kansas. He has to go. Several weeks ago, a Pete Roman campaign worker knocked on my door to give me some literature. A bit later, Pete came by himself and shook hands with me. When I told him my name, he said "Oh yeah, I've read your website". Damn. You got my vote there.

Johnson County Question 1, Bistate 2: No
A new quarter cent sales tax to fund repairs and upgrades for Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums and to fund arts programs in Kansas City. I don't have much against the arts funding, but I think the improvements to the stadiums are just a waste of money. I'd much rather they built new stadiums downtown now rather than in five or ten years from now.

City of Shawnee Question 2, Sunday Liquor Sales: Yes
Yes, yes, Oh God yes. Anybody reading this who might be tempted to vote no on this, just realize that you're only hurting your town. These blue laws are on their way out whether you like it or not. All of the cities around Shawnee have already lifted their bans, and by keeping the ban in Shawnee, we're only forcing Shawnee residents to take their tax dollars out of the city.

City of Shawnee, Questions 3 and 4, Parks and Safety Center: Yes
Local taxation to improve parks I can deal with. It helps property values, so I'll definitely be voting yes on Question 3. Question 4 is a bit selfish on my part. The city wants to move the combined Fire/Police station from across the street from my house to Johnson Drive and I-35. I just want to be able to sleep without being woken up by fire trucks screaming out of the station at 10:30. Usually they're pretty good about not using their sirens, but every time they forget and blare on the siren I want them gone. The new center seems like a good location. There isn't much residential around there, and it's on some nice roads where they'll still be able to get where they need to go quickly.

Well, that's pretty close to straight ticket Democrat. Sorry Republicans, you need to draw a bit back to the center to pick up my votes again. I'm keeping my registration Republican and hope to help you out in that regard in 2006. And for the love of God, can you please let us nominate McCain in 2008?

I've been hard at work on the campaign trail making sure I'm getting out the vote for City of Shawnee Question 2:

Shall the following be adopted? Shall Charter Ordinance No. 32 entitled: A Charter Ordinance exempting the City of Shawnee, Kansas from the provisions of K.S.A. 41-712 prohibiting alcoholic liquor sales on Sunday and certain holidays take effect?

There seemed to be confusion among some at the bar over whether they should vote yes or no to this question. I think that the phrase "prohibiting alcoholic liquor sales" in the question is throwing everybody off. Just remember to vote yes. A simple device to help you remember:

Liquor? Yes!

The season is not over yet:

And in still other NFL news, as the Cowboys and Titans fade, can the Packers and Chiefs rebound? Both are burdened by losing records, yet both practically shook their stadiums with monster wins Sunday. Kansas City beat a division-leading opponent by 46 points, and did not try to run up the score -- the Chiefs passed only twice in the fourth quarter. Methinks we have not heard the last of Green Bay and Kansas City.

Bex's dad went to the Chiefs game on Sunday, and it looks like he picked a good one to head out for. My folks sold the tickets to the Green Bay/Dallas game because they had a wedding to attend. Hopefully the people they sold the tickets to did not decide to use the facilities reserved for the opposite gender, as happened last time they sold their tickets.

Onward to Washington, then bring on Minnesota.

Oh, and:

Stats of the Week No. 5

For the second consecutive week, a Green Bay tailback threw a touchdown pass.

Hey Sherman, would you mind not poaching Favre's touchdowns? Personally, I think this is an elaborate setup for Minnesota. They'll throw another tailback pass against Washington, then run this play again against Minnesota having Ahman Green pump fake then blast into the end zone unimpeded.

Checking on Jambase to see if there's any good music coming to town soon I see that the New Vintage Big Band is playing tonight. I've never heard of these guys, but apparently they're a real Big Band group here in Kansas City. If I didn't have darts tonight, I would totally be heading out to Molloy's for their gig tonight. Hell, I might see if I can arrange for a sub so I can go.

What's more, doing some looking around I see that Jay Sollenberger, one of the trumpet players for Chase plays in this big band. Also, New Vintage is always looking for folks to join up.

Therefore, if I hadn't sold my trombone when I moved away from Houston, I could be playing with one of the former members of Chase. Damn my luck.

Next target: The Washington Redskins.

And there's more at stake than Green Bay's season this time around.

After further reflection, I withdraw my support for "J-Walk" as a nickname for Javon Walker.

That's just silly.

Dear Dallas Cowboys,

You are our bitch.

Love,
The Green Bay Packers

Some prases I would like everybody to stop using:

MSM
Reality Based

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Bad joke day over here. A couple of my favorites:

Q: What's brown and sticky?

A: A stick.

Q: What's the difference between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War?

A: George W. Bush had a plan to get out of the Vietnam War.

Ah nang nang nang nang nang nang...

I can't entirely figure out why these folks decided to advertise on a Texas TV station's website, but whatever.

Bex, Christmas present?

Again, it's too early for optimism, but I was just looking at Minnesota's schedule to see who they've played so far this year:

Week 1: Cowboys (suck) W 35-17
Week 2: Eagles (good) L 26-17
Week 3: bye
Week 4: Bears (suck) W 27-22 (almost lost this one)
Week 5: Texans (so-so) W 34-28 (almost lost this one too)
Week 6: Saints (suck) W 38-31 (almost lost this one)

Hell, they haven't played anybody of note other than the Eagles, and Green Bay already has several of the tough NFC North matchups out of the way, but Minnesota is just hitting a touch stretch. They play Tennessee this week, the Giants next week, and Indianapolis the week after that. Let's see how Minnesota does against some good teams before we give them the division.

Oh, cry me a fucking river.

From this Football Outsiders column:

Oasis or Mirage: Javon Walker, WR, Green Bay – 535 receiving yards, 5 TD

Vivek: It is hard to consider any Brett Favre wideout as a mirage, since someone will have to pull in a big chunk of 4000+ passing yards annually. This is Walker’s third year in the league, and it is well documented how receivers traditionally blossom in their third season. This is the start of a great career. Al touches upon Walker more in this week’s mailbag.

Al: Why don’t people call him J-Walk? It’s a great nickname. I’m going to start doing it. When everyone is talking about J-Walk in a few weeks, remember where you heard it first.

Damn, that is a good nickname.

After years working at Sprint, I didn't think I'd ever be happy to see an Org chart, but these ones for The Wire make things a bit easier.

I'm finally working my way through all the books I'm in the middle of. Usually if I'm in the middle of more than one book it's because I got bored with one and decided to start another, but this time all four are books that I am interested in, I just read whichever is at hand whenever I have a chance to read.

The Dark Tower and Snow Crash are in my car, so I read one or the other at lunch, and The Corner and Neuromancer are at home, so I read one or the other when I'm going to sleep.

It's getting kind of confusing. Neuromancer and Snow Crash are just very similar books, and there's a character named Armitage in both Neuromancer and The Dark Tower. We have drug dealers in The Corner and Snow Crash. I'm just waiting for Roland to jack into his deck and visit a simulation of late twentieth century inner city Baltimore. That would totally blow my mind.

I thought it had been a while. The last time Green Bay and the Dallas Cowboys met was apparently in 1999:

Playing without the injured trio of quarterback Troy Aikman, running back Emmitt Smith and receiver Michael Irvin, the Cowboys rolled up 339 yards of offense led by backup quarterback Jason Garrett and beat the Packers 27-13 on Nov. 14, 1999, at Texas Stadium.

Ugh... Beaten without Emmit, Troy or Irvin? We need some revenge.

And Bex, though our mortal enemies are the Rams and the Vikings, everybody hates the Cowboys. Add that to the file.

Since Errol Morris probably won't have a movie out for a while, tide yourself over with his campaign commercials.

If you asked me in 1996 what bands I thought I'd be following in eight years, I doubt I would have put Cake on the short list. I doubt they'd have made a list of any sort, as a matter of fact. "The Distance" was in heavy rotation back then, and I liked the song, but I really didn't think the slacker rock thing was going to hold up. I thought they had one hit wonder written all over them.

When 1998's Prolonging the Magic came out, I remember hearing "Sheep Go To Heaven" on the radio occasionally, and thinking it wasn't too bad. It wasn't until 2001's Comfort Eagle that I realized that there really was something going on there, and I went back to check out their previous albums. It turns out that those albums were very good, and they've cracked my top five artists list in the last couple of years.

So when I heard earlier this year that they were working on a new album, I got pretty excited. As a matter of fact, the album kind of snuck up on me. For some reason I had it in my head that Pressure Chief was going to be released in November so I didn't snag a copy until yesterday. After a few listens, I'd have to say I'm happy. It's definitely Cake, with some minor tweaks. There's a bit more synth than in previous albums. After having heard "No Phone" on the radio I was worried that this album was going to be very synth heavy, but it's not omnipresent.

Nothing has really jumped out at me as an earworm, though. As a matter of fact, after the first couple of listens, I found that I had songs from previous albums stuck in my head. I'll give it a listen in my car and walk away humming "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" or "Italian Leather Sofa". Which is not to say that this is substandard. If you've enjoyed Cake's previous efforts, you're going to like this. It has the same poetic lyrics, the same familiar Trumpet, and the phrase "All Right" is used often.

In short, if you like Cake (and you should), you'll enjoy this one. If you're not yet a Cake fan, I'd suggest heading back to Comfort Eagle before you jump in here.

Remember when all the right-wing blogs had specific counter-blogs? Remember Instapundit Watch?

Those were the days. Who is confronting Glenn's fascistic agenda these days? I'm afraid he is apparently running unchecked.

Can somebody please run gimpysoftwatch.com for me? I'll register the domain name and host it for you if you'll just post.

Oh great, now the Lambeau Mystique has been officially reversed. From today's Power Rankings:

A win against the Cowboys and the Packers are right back in it. Of course, the game is at Lambeau, where the Packers are 0-3 this year.

Great.

Maybe that fellow is right... I should just change the name of this website to McKenzieWatch.com. I swear, I'll lay off eventually. From today's Tuesday Morning Quarterback:

Curious Management, Dr. Watson

Tuesday Morning Quarterback always wonders why teams trade for disgruntled players, who rarely become re-gruntled at their new homes. New Orleans just gave up a No. 2 pick and a decent backup quarterback for disgruntled Green Bay corner Mike McKenzie, who looked awful in his Saints' debut as the Vikings netted 417 yards passing. Obvious next question: Why, given this, would anyone in his right mind trade for Ricky Williams?

More to the point, why is he bothering trying to come back? It's too late for a trade and would Miami actually take him back?

Well, Sunday's win felt good, but I think that these folks are right in saying that it's too early to start talking about Green Bay making the postseason this year. I'll get my hopes up again after the Packers beat Dallas this week and the Redskins in week 8.

Also, what was the deal with Favre playing that whole game? He's banged up, and the game was well in hand for the entire fourth quarter. One of the commentators here was wondering the same thing:

It might be nitpicking, but coach Mike Sherman should have played backup quarterback Craig Nall for a couple of series.

Here’s why: With the game in hand early in the fourth quarter, why risk injury to Brett Favre? Granted, his job at that point consisted mostly of handing off the ball, but there’s still a chance he could get hurt on a fluke play.

...

Few think Nall is the heir apparent, but he might be the guy to bridge the gap between Favre and his eventual long-term successor. If this is indeed Favre’s last season — as some think it could be — the sooner the Packers know if Nall can fill that role, the better.

I didn't think that Nall as heir apparent was even on the table. In the fourth quarter I was discussing the same thing with some patrons of The Crossing, but honestly I'm more interested in seeing JT O'Sullivan, the QB we traded McKenzie (ptooey) to New Orleans for. I've seen Nall, and haven't seen anything too impressive out of him. I know absolutely nothing about this O'Sullivan fellow.

Speaking of The Crossing, I was kind of disappointed in the Johnson County Packer Fans. I know the team isn't doing all that great this season, but this was a division game this week. On Green Bay game days when the game isn't on TV, that bar is normally packed. I showed up at 11:40AM to make sure I'd be able to get a seat at the bar, but by game time we only had one other table of four Green Bay fans. A few more trickled in over the course of the game, but I don't think we had more than fifteen total by the end of the game. Shame on you all. Now this Sunday's game against the Cowboys is on local TV, so I'll understand if you don't make it out this Sunday, but I'd better see you all back out for the Redskins the week after.

I had a chat with one of the owners of The Crossing on Sunday. Back when The Crossing was Mulvaney's (just over a year ago), the owner was a big Packers fan. When the bar was sold at the beginning of football season last year, the new owners took down all the Green Bay decor and didn't seem to be too happy that they were saddled with an invasion of Green Bay fans on Sundays. Well, they didn't last long, and The Crossing is under new ownership as of last May. The new guys welcome the Pack fans and want to keep us there. There are a lot of places you can go to watch the game, but not many of them are going to put Green Bay's game on the big screen and the sound system, particularly when the game is up against the Chiefs. Hell, if you're a Chiefs/Packers fan you've got the best of both worlds. Green Bay's on the sound system, but they have side-by-side HDTVs, one with the Packers, one with the Chiefs. It really is a nice setup. We've got a good thing here, let's not lose it. Come on out on for the Redskins game and I'll buy you a beer.

Also, it was nice to see Donald Driver back in the game again. It seems to me that that neck injury a couple years ago slowed him down a bit. He doesn't go crazy jumping for balls like he used to, and with Javon Walker really coming on strong this year, he hasn't had to. It's nice to see that we still have a guy to go to when Javon isn't available. I've always liked Driver... He's from Houston, and he's just a great guy with a great backstory. I totally need to head down to Houston for his golf tournament next year.

Soft Cell's lead singer Marc Almond was seriously injured today in a motorcycle crash.

Get well soon, buddy.

Kansas City local politics ahead, proceed at your own risk.

One of the big issues on this November's ballot is County Question 1, a bistate sales tax to fund the arts and renovations at the Royals' Kauffman Stadium and the Chiefs' Arrowhead. The arts funding I am surprisingly not too upset with. I just think that it doesn't seem to make too much sense to renovate stadiums that are going to need to be replaced in the next five to ten years. I'd much prefer that they push this forward and move either the Baseball or Football stadiums downtown now.

Apparently I'm not alone, and there's even a grassroots organization dedicated to doing just that. A lot of the Kansas City bloggers seem to agree.

Hey Mike, do you get in on this one, or is your county too far out to be involved in this Bistate tax thing?

Oh yeah, in the excitement over seeing Mike McKenzie lose, I forgot to mention that the Packers managed to snap their losing streak by beating Detroit 38-10 in Detroit. Green Bay is now 2-1 on the road and 0-3 at home.

Though they're certainly not the cream of the NFL crop, Detroit isn't quite the laughingstock they had been recently, so I'm going to call this a quality win. We didn't turn the ball over on offense, and the defense stepped up, even making a big, probably game decding play when Darren intercepted a ball and ran it back for a touchdown.

I'm certainly not going to get cocky, but things could improve. We get Dallas at home next Sunday, and that certainly is a winnable game. From there, we go to the not-much-improved Redskins before Green Bay's bye in week nine. We could be at .500 by the halfway mark, and hopefully will get some of our injured players back around that time.

For now, one game at a time, fellas. Please don't lose to Dallas, guys. I just don't think my poor heart could take it.

Well, I suppose it would only be schadenfreude if I was in any way ashamed:

Submerged in all this offense was that stupendous 43-yarder from Culpepper to Moss in the opening minute of the second period. The Vikings were facing third-and-15. Moss was running a sprint along the right sideline with Mike McKenzie, the Packers' expatriate who was later benched for a long stretch.

"I saw that little wave of his hand, so I let it fly," Culpepper said.

The Moss wave came inside the 15. By the time he reached the back corner of the end zone, the ball was there, and he snatched it. The Vikings led 14-0 and the Saints were running uphill in this track meet the rest of the night.

Sorry New Orleans, you get what's coming to you when you make a deal with the devil.

Dear Mike,

Your sins are many. You held out, and I hate players that hold out. When it looked like you would get what was coming to you by missing your paychecks, you made a weak attempt to rejoin the team, putting in the bare minimum effort to collect your check, and ended up with a very convenient hamstring injury.

Over the course of the next two games, you proceeded to poison Green Bay's locker room and in effect steal unearned money from the Green Bay Packers organization while you rested your hamstring "injury".

Then you got what you wanted, a trade to another team. Now New Orleans, a team I've always had a fair amount of respect for, is tainted. Yes, you kept up appearances by not playing in the first game you could have played in for New Orleans. I'm sure the hamstring was still bothering you.

But now you've committed the ultimate sin, Mike. I'm watching you play your first game with New Orleans against Minnesota. I want nothing more than to see you burned for a touchdown. In this, you have brought out the worst in me.

I am rooting for Randy Moss.

Fuck you Mike, you're dead to me.

Love,
Ryan

Dorks, don't ask, just click.

(via Farm Accident Digest.)

I scored 200 on UGO's Name That Tune Challenge on my first try. Categories are Rock, Hip Hop and Movies.

Nice: Team America: World Police has pissed off Salon's movie critic.

The new film by "South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker starts off strong, but then resorts to lame anti-left jokes that could have been written by Ann Coulter.

I'm definitely going to see it now. Silly me, I thought Salon would be smart enough not to bite, but they apparently got reeled right in.

Lots of music this weekend. We missed LTJ Bukem last night, but there's still plenty to come. Tonight is a Bex show when we go to see Death Cab For Cutie. I've liked what I've heard that she's played for me and am looking forward to seeing what their live show is like.

Tomorrow night is all for me, as Robert Randolph & The Family Band are in town. For some reason the show is outdoors. Why anybody would schedule an outdoor show in Kansas City in the middle of October is beyond me. The forecast is a high of 57°, and the show doesn't start until 8:00, and that's the warm up band. Randolph problably won't go on until 10:00 at the earliest, and it'll probably be in the low 50s or high 40s by then. Don't you have problems keeping instruments in tune when it gets that cold? Poor planning, and Robert Randolph deserves better. Maybe they'll come to their senses and put Jackopierce outside so that Rob can have the Beaumont. One can hope. Otherwise, we'll be bundled up for the show.

Sunday is for Bex again, Sonic Youth and PJ Harvey. We went to see Sonic Youth in Columbia in August. As a matter of fact, it was after that show that I smoked the last cigarette I've had. Anyway, I don't know much Sonic Youth, but they put on a pretty good live show in August (what of it I saw), so I'm looking forward to seeing them again.

Also, I have to work in a showing of Team America: World Police and design my deck this weekend. Anybody seen Team America yet?

Since my support for the Red Sox (sister in Boston) and the Astros (used to live in Houston) seems to be killing the teams, I'd like to formally announce that I am switching support mid-series. My sister and my Houston buddies can thank me later after the comeback victories.

Go Yankees!
Go Cardinals!

PhysicsWeb has tallied the votes and announced the 20 Greatest Equations of all time. Maxwell's equations edged out Euler's Equation for first place (Damn you Electrical Engineers!!!), but all the greats are there.

A whole article on the Greatest Equations Ever can be found here.

Of course, we can't forget the fact that all third party candidates were shut out of the debates. I mean, even the most important candidates were shut out. They're not too happy about it either.

The Commission on Presidential Debates should be ashamed of themselves.

Yeah, I wasn't impressed with Bob Schieffer either. I did see his appearance on The Daily Show, and was watching him on Charlie Rose just before the debate, and he seemed like a very nice guy, so it was too bad that his questions were, for the most part, completely inane.

I think next year we need to have Charlie Rose moderate the debates. Maybe he'll ask questions so long that the candidates won't have much time to respond.

That'll be a good thing.

Well, that was fun. The one observation I have on the process is that it is too difficult to drink beer while trying to keep a running commentary of the debate. Also, I wanted my commentary to be funnyish, but it turns out I'm not too good at that sort of thing, and during the debate the candidates did say a couple things that really did upset me a bit.

Overall, this debate pretty much removed any lingering doubt that I'll be voting for Kerry. If all Bush has to attack him on is that whole "liberal senator" thing, that's simply not going to cut it with me. Liberal how? He's pro-choice? That's a plus in my book. He's against Bush's idiotic Family Marriage Amendment? Another plus in my book. He's going to raise spending? Can he actually do much worse than you and the Republicans in congress did, Bush? He's going to raise taxes? Well, if you're not going to cut spending, then I suppose that's what needs to happen.

All in all, I'm not feeling nearly as bad about voting for Kerry now. I still will be showering when I get back from the polls, and on November 3rd I'll be getting in touch with John McCain to see what I can do to help his run in 2008.

Oh, and fuck the Cardinals and fuck the Yankees. It's like every team I like this year sucks.

9:27 PM: Closing statements, and I don't care. I'm switching back to the Astros game. And I should never have switched away. 6-4 St. Louis, and an error at first to score another Cardinal. Fucking fuck. That was completely Bagwell's fault. 4-7. This is definltely more entertaining.
9:24 PM: And Bush, you're wrong about why McCain is supporting you for president. He's only doing it so you and your fuckwad friends won't sabotage his run in 2008. If they don't, maybe we can actually have somebody on the ballot that won't make me feel like I need to take a shower after I vote.
9:23 PM: That's the last question? What have you learned from your wives? Damn, we definitely need Lehrer next time around.
9:19 PM: Religion, blah blah blah. I don't care. The "would you try to bring the nation together again" question is kind of asinine too. Can we just let Jim Lehrer do all these debates in '08?
9:15 PM: How are the Astros doing? Tied up again in the top of the sixth, 4-4. I should be watching this instead.
9:13 PM: Assault Weapons ban, NAACP, blah blah blah. I'm getting sleepy.
9:08 PM: I don't think it made a lot of sense for Bush to bash Kerry on the "Global Test" thing when Kerry had a chance to respond. But he did get the last word, and dropped Kerry's vote against the first Gulf War at the end. I don't think I've ever really heard Kerry explain why he did vote agiainst that one.
9:05 PM: Kerry: He would add two divisions. Don't we have the stop loss orders because we can't get enough new recruits? How does he expect to populate two additional divisions when we need stop loss orders to keep forces at the levels they are at today?
9:01 PM: Nice on trying to nail down bush on overturning Roe v. Wade. What is Kerry talking about here now? This doesn't have anything to do with the abortion question. And what's wrong with a litmus test for judges? I don't want no alien judge with acid blood.
8:54 PM: Kerry: Under Bush we've seen the middle class tax burden go up? I don't think that's going to pass the smell test. My pals with kids say that the child tax credit is a big deal and that they do thank Bush for the tax relief. I'm just upset at how much the top tax brackets were lowered. Bush threw a bone to middle class families but threw the steak to those earning in the top brackets. If he had reined in spending, I wouldn't be complaining, but he didn't, so we're either going to need to raise taxes or cut spending. I'd prefer spending cuts, but if that's not going to happen (and it isn't), I'd prefer Kerry's plan of reunlowering the top bracket tax rate. He says he's not going to raise taxes on folks under $200K, and God help me, I believe him on that. (Of course, I am dumb.)
8:46 PM: It is kind of cool to see Democrats busting on Republicans for their lack of fiscal discipline. It would seem kind of ridiculous if the Republicans hadn't been in charge for the last four years, but the fact is that they are in charge now and they don't have any discipline. As a libertarianish person what is it I'm supposed to like about the Republicans?
8:44 PM: I need another beer. This time New Belgium Trippel Belgian Style Ale. Much better than the 1554.
8:41 PM: Well that CBS joke of Bush's fell pretty flat.
8:37 PM: The negotiating of drug costs for Medicare is a big deal. If you're going to have a large government program to purchase drugs (and we can disagree on whether we should), at least the government should be able to negotiate mass purchase prices. Pops works for the VA, and he specifically mentioned how dumb that was to me when the Medicare bill was making its way through congress. That's one of the big ones that convinced me that Republicans can't be trusted for fiscal discipline. Not being able to negotiate drug prices is straight up corporate welfare, and the Republicans should be ashamed of themselves.
8:36 PM: What's the deal with the big black bar behind and between the two candidates?
8:30 PM: The thought of Bush getting someone on the Supreme court who would overturn Roe v. Wade is probably one of the biggest reasons I'm voting for Kerry this time around. Let's see if he'll deny that he'd do that. Nope. Abstinence programs though. Joy.
8:27 PM: The homosexuality question is interesting. Bush won't give an answer on whether he thinks it is a choice. He's calling for a constitutional amendment again. Did Kerry actually vote against DOMA? I didn't know that, and that's a big positive for Kerry in my book. Now Kerry's doing the same "Cheney's daughter is a lesbian" thing that Edwards did, and I think that's kind of offputting.
8:26 PM: The "most liberal senator" thing doesn't work on me.
8:18 PM: On the subject of oursourcing, Bush mentions that his response to an oursourced worker would be to provide funding for education, to attend a community college. This will of course help us to do the jobs of the twenty-first century. Does he think that oursourcing is only affecting manufacturing or something? Personally, I think that outsourcing is somewhat inevitable, but I think it's going to ring hollow for an unemployed IT worker with a college degree being told that the solution is going to Johnson County Community College so they can get a job.
8:17 PM: Paygo. Paygo. Paygo.
8:10 PM: Hey, I lost my health insurance this year too! It must be George Bush's fault.
8:07 PM: That "outsourced the job to warlords" line is so last week, Kerry.
8:05 PM: New Belgium 1554 Belgian Style Black Ale: Not recommended. It's too dark for an ale, but too aley for a proper stout.
8:03 PM: The candidates have taken the stage. I need a beer.
8:00 PM: I've just tuned over to PBS to watch the debate since I'm apparently a pussy-ass liberal these days.

I think that Fox Sports does the best football coverage, but this baseball program is just ridiculous. What the hell was that "Scooter" thing? I've come late to baseball, is this something that's been going on for a while? Besides that, they just cut away to a highlight reel for one of the players, and they had some background music over the piece that was so loud you couldn't hear the voiceover.

Laughable, man. Laughable.

OK, time to switch over to the Debate, which I will be liveblogging, since everybody else seems to be doing it.

It's the only way to be sure. Earlier this summer, I was at a music festival here in Kansas, and ran into one of those Rock The Vote folks at a late night show. I wanted to change my party affiliation to Republican so I could vote in the Republican primary, so I asked for a registration form. Several months later, but before the deadline to register for the primary election, I checked online to see if my registration had been changed, but I was still listed as a registered Libertarian, and therefore would not be able to vote in the Republican primary.

I went into the election office in person and got myself reregistered in time to vote in the primary. I'm still somewhat convinced that the Rock The Voters decided that they didn't need to be registering Republicans to vote and my registration card conveniently disappeared.

Well, it looks like the Republicans are doing the same thing in Nevada. Anyway, if you want to register, you'd be well served to go to your local election office and register in person. At least that way you know it'll make it as far as the election office.

Whether they decide to count your vote once you've voted on the touch screen is anybody's guess.

(via kos. (I'm reading kos? What the hell?))

In this story about arrests and ejections in the stands at the Green Bay/Tennessee game last monday they seem to be missing one imporatnt fact: Is 13 arrests and 44 ejections significantly higher or lower than any other game? I'd honestly like to know.

My parents couldn't make it to the home opener, so they sold their tickets to somebody who lives near thier place in Wisconsin. A couple of days after the game they got a letter saying that their season ticket status was under review due to the arrest of somebody holding their ticket. They called up and told them that the tickets were sold and promised we won't be selling to those folks again, so my folks didn't lose the tickets, but I'm sure there's a red flag on our account now.

The neighbors had bought the tickets for their daughter and son-in-law. Apparently the son-in-law couldn't wait to urinate, and finding the women's bathroom open chose to use those facilities. He was arrested.

If I lived closer to Severain, we'd have to do this during the debate tonight.

Over at least a twelve pack.

I truly don't understand why Kerry and Edwards' attendance records get brought up so often. When some legislation is held up because either of their votes are needed and they're not there, let me know. Otherwise, just shut up about it. Running for president is a full time job and if their votes would be truly decisive on any important bill I'm sure they would make it back to cast their votes.

If legislation is truly being held up by their absence, show me what it is. Otherwise, just realize that that's how the game is played, and please drop that as an issue.

This sort of crap is why I moved all my domains away from Network Solutions last week.

In other news, there are now websites at hobosack.com and kitchencouch.com. Kitchen Couch will probably become a shared blog for Bex and I. That will happen whenever I get around to setting things up properly over there.

Is there a mercy rule in football? I mean, I know we got our asses handed to us this evening, but I swear that in the fourth quarter I saw two plays where our receivers caught passes, ran out of bounds, and the clock kept running. I know it wouldn't have made a difference at that point, but what the hell was that about?

Fuck the fucking fuck fuck fuck. Fuck to the fuckity fuck fuck with those motherfuckers. Fucking fuck fuck fuck, fucking fucks.

Fuck.

Yeah, if Pink Floyd did get back together, I guess I would have to go to the show.

I hadn't seen this Football Outsiders website until just recently. If you're a stat junkie, you'll probably enjoy it. I don't know if Al & Vivek do this every week, but this week for some reason Al has worked four lines from Bon Jovi's "Living On A Prayer" into his responses. Also, they do some interesting analysis to see if the new five yard chuck rule enforcement is having an impact on passing yards this year.

In short: No. I guess I shouldn't have overvalued wide receivers like I did this year in all my fantasy football drafts.

Oh, I see how it is Gurney Halleck... You send out your fantasy football taunt, then fill up your mailbox so I can't respond to you.

Well, I'll have you know that as confident as you may be, you have no chance to win. You see, I have Chris Brown on my fantasy team, and he is running against Green Bay's defense, so he will single handedly score over 175 fantasy points.

YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED HYPNO-TOADS! BACK TO THE CELLAR WITH YOU!

Dear Houston Texans:

Please beat the ever living crap out of the Minnesota Vikings this week. Even though he's hurt I will be starting Randy Moss, but I'm willing to take the fantasy hit if you can shut him down.

Now come on... You took out the Chiefs at the one football game I'll probably see in person this year, and that was up here in KC. You have the Vikes at home... You should be able to handle this.

Love,
Ryan

So Bex and I finished up our lessons the Thursday before last. I've been out to a driving range once since then, so I figured I'd try to get one last try in at a course before it gets too cold for it.

I have a tee time for 11:44 AM on Sunday at Minor Park, but it looks like it's going to rain.

How late does the golf season go down in Texas?

Of course, it is very sad that Rodney Dangerfield has died. I think I might need to rent Caddyshack this week.

Those of you interested in revisiting some of his material can be indulged here and here .

OK, I know I have some engineers in my audience, so I thought I might bring this to your attention:

The Bleach Eating Freaks Office Bricolage contest. $50 prize to the best weapon designed using office supplies.

An example entry can be found here.

My guess would be that those of you working in the defense industry can not include components commonly found around your office, but rather general items found in offices everywhere.

Get to work, slackers. You only have until October 15th to get your submissions in.

I think I'm looking forward to this movie more than is actually healthy. There are sneak previews of Team America: World Police tomorrow, but I already have plans. Oh well.

I borrowed Bex's copy of Brian Wilson's newly released Smile last night, and just listened to the whole thing over lunch.

I like it, and now I need to borrow her copy of Pet Sounds.

Hey, has anybody noticed a new sort of referrer spam going on? For about the last month, I have just hundreds of blogs showing up in my referrer logs, but the referring URLs are almost always comment scripts or bad addresses, like the directory the blog's archives are stored in. What's more is that the sites don't really seem like the type to be involved in referrer spam, I assume they're just being used as referrers by a robot of some sort.

Has anybody else noticed this, or does anybody know what's going on with that? It's filling my server logs with so much junk that I'm quickly losing my ability to obsessively check my referrer logs to see who is linking my site.

I saw this at Tuesday Morning Quarterback of all places...

Richard Posner has a new book out called Catastrophe: Risk and Response. The book generally explores how we as a society should deal with potential disasters that could befall humanity. As you would expect with a public policy book like this, the normal disaster scenarios come up: Global Warming, Asteroid Collision, Captain Trips style bio-weapon disaster. However, Posner knows where the true danger lies:

...Even conquest by superintelligent robots - all these potential extinction events, and others, are within the realm of the possible and warrant serious thought about assessment and prevention.

Damn right they do.

Schwarzenegger/Posner 2008: Give the Robots What-For! I'll be starting a 527 next year to raise money for Robotic Apocalypse Issue Advocacy.

I was wondering if Gil was going to come back to Kansas or if he was staying up in Wisconsin. This may be idle speculation, but nevertheless:

Q: Lee of Racine - Have the Packers looked into putting Gilbert back on the roster? Is it even an option at this point? I am sure he's not in game shape but was he ever? He can definately fill the hole in the middle of the line.

A: Michael Hunt - There's been some chatter in that regard, but I'm not sure what kind of shape he's in. Supposedly he's still hanging around Green Bay waiting for the phone to ring.

I'm all for bringing Big Gil back. Gilbert Brown was and will always be my personal hero.

If you don't make it back onto the team Gil, you're always welcome back here in Kansas. Beer and Cheeseburgers are on me.

And finally, the prick is gone. Mike McKenzie has been traded to New Orleans. Good riddance.

What I want is Green Bay to get its money back for the games he didn't play because of the "hamstring injury" he conveniently sufferred after "ending his holdout".

Fuckhead... The trade is a bit unfortunate, too. I always kind of liked the Saints, now I have to root against them. We did do something about the backup quarterback situation, though. Let's see how this O'Sullivan looks.

Well, I'm back up. I had to make some changes to the home network to get a wireless access point on there, and in the confusion I killed the web server. With the girlfriend moving in and the start of football season, fixing the web server for a blog I never update isn't high on the priority list.

I just can't be down for that long. If I'm not careful, I'm going to lose my #1 Google ranking to this guy.

The girlfriend and I are currently attempting to come up with a name for a group blog. Unfortunately, most permutations of Fort Awesome are already taken. There's fortawesome.com, fortawesome.org, fortawesome.net, fort-awesome.com, and fort-awesome.org (my personal favorite) just to name a few. And here I was thinking it was at least original in my choice of sitcom reference.

I did notice that hobosack.com is available. I think I'm going to register this domain name and put up a store to sell items to the residentially underserved. We'd sell sticks, cloth to wrap your belongings in and tie to the stick, Thunderbird and Mad Dog (Tasting notes for this product are not available), and perhaps jackets.

Well, I'd better get to registering that domain name before somebody beats me to it. Stay tuned for the name of the new site. That's where all the activity will be once we get that put together.