SafeTinspector Main Blog

2009-11-01T01:39:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

I haven’t been very regular with my postings for the last few months, and therefore when I noticed the site had grown slow, I put off investigating it.

Tonight I first upgraded to the latest version of WP and then took a closer look.

I found that SafeTserver had an outdated DNS nameserver defined and Akismet was timing out attempting to communicate with its web site.

Problem now solved, my site returns to its former glorious ignominy; carry on.

2009-09-18T17:19:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

I informed a customer yesterday that it was not possible to name his new server “BOB_BOB” because, for technical reasons, Microsoft operating systems do not allow for the use of palindromic names with an odd number of characters.

”This is why,” I told him, “you have never seen a Microsoft Exchange server named ‘MADAMIMADAM’.”
”It would be better,” I continued, “to name the server ‘BOBBOB’, as this is an even number of characters and would not result in the irrevocable loss of all your business data.”

2009-09-03T12:59:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

VMWorld, for me, is about to end.

Do I regret not going to the big party last night? No. Not because I don’t like Foreigner (although I really wouldn’t care if they all got respectable jobs in the wholesale sourcing market and developed terminal palsy) nor because I don’t drink (I don’t). No, it was because VMWare wanted to charge me $279.00 in order to allow Heather to come as my guest.

I can buy a lot of top-shelf liquor and a few Foreigner box sets for that level of scratch.

So we took half that amount, bought a set of tickets for Wicked at the SF Orpheum and had a night of it.

First, it was necessary to fortify myself with a vegetable curry pot pie purchased from a pieman. (who let me sample his wares)

2009-09-02T21:44:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Don’t get too excited. You’ve already seen essentially everything this cartoon has to offer. It was, however, suggested to me that I might as well try entering something into the Aniboom/Fox Holiday Animation Challenge, so I hastily edited together the first four Don Juan Frankenstein shorts into the form of this:

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at Aniboom

    The grand prize winner not only receives a large quantity of cash but also the opportunity for a development deal with Fox. Not that I’m holding out an inordinate amount of hope for that, but hey, if a hack like Seth MacFarlane can have two fucking shitty shows on that network, why not a hack like me?

    Which brings me to the point: Four of the five finalists will be selected by a mysterious Fox voting panel of mysterious voting. The fifth selection will be made by fans via a nearly equally mysterious voting process that I’m assuming is tied to the Aniboom rating system and/or the number of times a cartoon happens to be viewed. Honestly, I’m not exactly sure how it works, but if you’re so inclined, you’re more than free to drop by and rate me.

    Besides, my birthday’s coming up–I’m turning the big three-oh, as the silly people like to call it–and you know what I’d like more than anything? A development deal with Fox so that I can sneak into Seth MacFarlane’s office and shit on his desk while he’s out enjoying the fruits of being the highest-paid TV writer in history, for God’s sake. Please! Help me shit on Seth MacFarlane’s desk!

2009-08-31T11:01:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Heather and I have arrived safely in San Francisco.

At least, I assumed we were safe as the flight staff seemed unconcerned about the noises, smells, flashing lights and open flames.

I did my best to act nonchalant, which was made more difficult because one of the retractible wheels on our coffin-sized suitcase had grown shy over the years and the result was a scrapey-draggy mess.

We are staying in the “Good Hotel“, a conscientiously eco-friendly place which boasts furniture made from reclaimed wood and offers to lend out bicycles to the guests for free.

The room is very small, but comfortable, and we slept well. The eco-friendly tone seems a little superficial, but I think they mean well.
(there’s a reduce-reuse-recycle sign above some disposable individual packets of instant coffee)

Heather is still scrambling for things to do today, but my GPS tells me it’s a short walk to Moscone.

2009-08-09T22:06:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

    Hello, yes. I do live in the state of South Carolina. Always have.
    In the past, my state’s big claim to fame has always been that it was the first to secede, plunging the country into Civil War, during which time, thank God, my state’s side lost. Its most famous politicans have always been the pro-slavery John C. Calhoun and pro-segregation Strom Thurmond.
    At least until Mark Sanford–that brave soul–decided that this state should go down in history for something even stupider than not liking black people.
    As you may heard, Governor Sanford mysteriously disappeared for about a week back in June without telling anyone where he was going or bothering to transfer gubernatorial power, leaving open the very pertinent question of just who the fuck was in charge at this time. When asked about Sanford’s whereabouts over that Father’s Day weekend, his own wife responded with a curt “I don’t know where he is.”
    When the Governor finally returned, he held a tear-streaked press conference during which he admitted to having an affair with an Argentinian woman.
    Of course, Governor Sanford vowed to attempt to work things out with his wife, all the while telling everyone that the Argentinian woman was his “soul mate.” Which his wife, presumably, was not–obviously good, solid ground for attempting to reconcile a strained marriage.
    But, it turns out that wasn’t the full extent of Governor Sanford’s incredibly, magnificently stupid plan to get the State of South Carolina remembered for the dumbest thing ever. No, he’s been working on this for years, and only now is the extent of his grand scheme being revealed to the public!
    Because, with his Argentinian excursions, the Governor’s usage of state funds in his travels has come under increasing scrutiny.
    Because, the man who likes to make such a big deal over government spending, the man who refused to accept federal money for our state’s schools on the grounds that he didn’t like President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan (again with the black people!), the man whose Web site features a page drawing attention to the South Carolina Budget Waste of the Day … This man! is responsible for inspiring this AP Story, of which I will now quote my favorite section verbatim:

On March 10, 2006, a state plane was sent to pick up Sanford in Myrtle Beach and return him to Columbia, the state capital, at a cost of $1,265 — when his calendar showed his only appointment in Columbia was “personal time” at his favorite discount hair salon. He had flown to Myrtle Beach on a private plane and attended a county GOP event.
The trip home on the state aircraft took off at 1:50 p.m. and arrived in Columbia at 2:35 p.m., enabling the governor to keep his plans for a 3 p.m. haircut across town.

See, he was being thrifty. It was a discount hair salon. Thank God he made it in time for his appointment. The results speak for themselves.

2009-08-08T20:23:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

    We’re all familiar with generic, store brand, ripoff products. They’re those products that are extremely similar to some more well-known product, but subtly different and decidedly cheaper.
    There comes a very important point in the development of any knockoff product, however, when the makers have to decide: What the Hell do we call this shit? You see, they have to come up with a name that’s similar enough to evoke images of the actual product they’re emulating, but different enough to avoid a lawsuit. This sometimes leads to interesting results.
    I’ll never forget, for example, when my mom would go shopping and come home with a bottle of Extra Strength Non-Aspirin. What was in the bottle, I couldn’t tell you, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t aspirin.
    Still, few product names have amused me as much as this Food Lion brand Isn’t It Butter.
    I mean, Fabio may not have been able to believe it, but at Food Lion, they’re still not really sure. Isn’t it butter? It might be … We think it is … Y’know, we really can’t tell.
    Ultimately, though, the brand “Isn’t It Butter” won out over alternate names “It Tastes Like Butter,” “I Swear To God, I Really Think This Must Be Butter,” and “Here, Try Some Of This And Tell Me If You Think It’s Butter Or Not.”
    Still, though, at least this product name is slightly less ridiculous than that of the product it’s ripping off. Do you think Fabio can believe that?

2009-07-27T19:21:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

The following is an actual email conversation which took place following a system upgrade at one of my client sites between a user and the on-site IT staff.
The names have been changed to reduce legal liability.

_____________________________________________
From: Carmilla Richie
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 12:08 PM
To: Scott Dartanoin
Subject: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account
Scott:
Why would an email in my private yahoo account be blocked by our system?
Carmilla Richie
Senior Loan Officer
crichie@mortgagematic.com
_____________________________________________
From: Scott Dartanoin
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 12:09 PM
To: Carmilla Richie
Subject: RE: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account
Did you send this to yahoo or receive it from yahoo?
_____________________________________________
From: Carmilla Richie
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 12:10 PM
To: Scott Dartanoin
Subject: RE: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account
It is a daily message that I get and it is blocked saying it is occult.
Carmilla Richie
Senior Loan Officer
crichie@mortgagematic.com

_____________________________________________
From: Scott Dartanoin
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 12:11 PM
To: Carmilla Richie
Subject: RE: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account
Where is the message you are expecting sent from?
_____________________________________________
From: Carmilla Richie
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 12:12 PM
To: Scott Dartanoin
Subject: RE: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account
Astrology center.
Carmilla Richie
Senior Loan Officer
crichie@mortgagematic.com
_____________________________________________
From: Scott Dartanoin
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 12:15 PM
To: Carmilla Richie
Subject: RE: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account
C,
The Mortgage-Matic corporate IT department does not support the Astrology Center. You’ll have to read that through your Yahoo Account.
However, if you need the messages from Astrology Center, feel free to request through the appropriate channels.
S
_____________________________________________
From: Carmilla Richie
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 12:59 PM
To: Scott Dartanoin
Subject: RE: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account
This block is new? yahoo is access to many business contacts to.
Thank you Scott.
Carmilla Richie
Senior Loan Officer
crichie@mortgagematic.com
_____________________________________________
From: Scott Dartanoin
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 2:12 PM
To: Carmilla Richie
Subject: RE: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account
C,
Yes this is new.
Are your Business Contacts failing to reach you?
Please Advise,
S
_____________________________________________
From: Carmilla Richie
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 2:26 PM
To: Scott Dartanoin
Subject: RE: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account
no they are not. Is this just because of the server we are on?
Carmilla Richie
Senior Loan Officer
crichie@mortgagematic.com
_____________________________________________
From: Scott Dartanoin
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 2:42 PM
To: Carmilla Richie
Subject: RE: Access denied on my personal Yahoo Account
C,
If you feel as if you have a business need to receive occult messages via Mortgage-Matic corporate email, please forward your request through your department supervisor for review.
S

2009-07-19T16:17:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Riley, shown here completing a work schedule for a local family restaurant.

I’ve recently stumbled upon the design for a new weapon.

First, locate a crying toddler.

Second, pick up the toddler and hold him/her under your arm with the noisy end pointing toward your enemies.

Congratulations! You’ve assembled your very own Sob Cannon.

This surprising* weapon is capable of clearing public restrooms, busy shopping aisles and other public spaces.

It may be an effective form of self defense against obsequious wait-staff or commissioned salespeople as well, though I’ve yet to try it on anything more threatening than a timid waitress who apparently was immunized as a child. I found that in her case a stern glare was just as effective but deprived me of a much-needed coffee refill.

Unfortunately, it seems to have the opposite affect on my parents and other older relatives.

* Surprising in that no one expects a Sob Cannon attack. NO ONE.

2009-07-17T21:37:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

It’s not every day that one gets to write about a genuine miracle. As a skeptic, cynic, and general nonbeliever, it pains me to even admit that an actual, according-to-Hoyle, hand-of-God miracle might exist … But, I may have just found it. Read on in amazement:

    Yes, do you see it? Do you see!

    The Kraft corporation has apparently done the impossible. The Miracle Whip¹ you see before you proudly advertises two amazing and seemingly incompatible qualities: It is simultaneously “New & More Amazing” and “The Tangy Original.” At the same time! thereby making it the only blatantly self-contradictory sandwich ingredient I happen to be aware of.

    How did they achieve this? How did Kraft manage to create something that is both “new” and “the original” in one gooey, white substance? Obviously, such an amazing thing must be a well-guarded company secret, so we can only speculate.

    Perhaps Kraft has simply learned to exploit the ever-popular Schrödinger’s cat effect, where the relative newness/tangy-originalness is dependent on some reaction at the sub-sub-subatomic level, causing both possibilities to be equally true until someone observes the mayonnaise.² This may well be the very first example of a condiment marketed on the basis of quantum physics. However, we have to consider the fact that tasting the mayonnaise certainly counts as observing it, which would cause the Miracle Whip’s waveform to collapse, bringing a sudden, disappointing end to its inexplicacality right there in your mouth, which is where it would have really mattered, anyway.

    On the other hand, perhaps the Miracle Whip was made “New & More Amazing” simply by adding even more tangy originality. Thus, the levels of newness and originalness would be directly proportional to each other, but this does still leave us with one question: How did they increase both the amount of tangy originality and new & more amazingness … without increasing the size of the jar! This insinuates that a high degree of tangy originalness would have to be compressed down into a smaller unit. This might avoid increasing the volume, but it would certainly increase the mass of the mayonnaise and, by extension, its weight, which doesn’t seem to have happened.

    Which pretty much brings our conventional line of scientific reasoning to a dead end, leaving us with only one real conclusion: This Miracle Whip is, in fact, a miracle, bestowed onto the Kraft corporation by God Himself. Why does God favor Miracle Whip so? Why does He see fit to offer such blessings to the people at Kraft? I dare not presume to know the will of the Lord Almighty, but He certainly seems to be showing a great deal of support for His preferred sandwich spread.

    So, you should probably eat more Miracle Whip.

Yes, I eat Miracle Whip. And, yes, as a matter of fact I do prefer it to real mayonnaise. Screw you. [↩]

Yes, I called Miracle Whip mayonnaise. Come on, mayonnaise is a funny word. Cut me some slack. [↩]

2009-07-05T20:29:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Improving Your IQ - If only it were that easy.

English Grammar Workbook For Dummies - I don’t honestly know how effective this will be, but it’s sorely needed.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Journaling - Preserve your dumbass thoughts for future generations.

Vocabulary for Dummies - Dummy vocabulary, hmm? Maybe it can help explain this “Git-r-done” I’ve been hearing so much about.

Poetry for Dummies - I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that most of these include the word “Nantucket.”

Etiquette for Dummies - While I don’t expect that a simple book is going to start making stupid people behave in a civilized fashion, I certainly applaud the attempt.

Research Papers for Dummies - Notice it doesn’t say “Writing Research Papers.” Perhaps it’s just a collection of reports the student can hand in as is.

Signing for Dummies - I know it’s really about sign language, but please … Just let me pretend it’s about signing your name.

Baby Signing For Dummies - Mr. Dummy! Mr. Dummy! Please sign my baby!

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Poetry - I assume it describes the method where you run through the entire alphabet trying to find a word that rhymes properly … Aoperly … Boperly … Coperly … Dammit, this might take a while.

Screenwriting for Dummies - I think this book is probably solely to blame for the state of the motion picture industry, right now.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Clear Communication - Clear communication is important to learn. Because the typical idiot method of saying things like “Fruit bat canoe hop a speedy boat house” just isn’t gonna cut the mustard.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Web Animation - Yeah, only idiots make web anima … Wait …

2009-07-04T14:27:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Now! Even more accurate with Amazing Additions!

On the 4th of July in 1776 America declared independence from its oppressive colonial masters. The surviving humans of the North American slave colony of New Jersey discovered, with the help of Ben Franklin and the then time-traveling Theodore Roosevelt, the fatal weakness of our alien masters, the D’Aret Krang.

Ben Franklin’s research had revealed that the D’Aret Krang, a race of beings so genetically pure that they shared a single set of chromosomes, collectively suffered from a genetic propensity for epileptic seizures when exposed to bright, flashing lights. His rudimentary experimentation with electricity had failed to yield reproducible results, so Theodore Roosevelt was summoned from his time crypt once again to assist in finding a weaponizable source for blinky-blinkies.

Unfortunately, Theodore Roosevelt’s time-travel machine had only one seat and this, combined with Thomas Edison’s homophobic fear of sitting on the manly lap of the massive Roosevelt, led the rebels to conclude that Edison could not be a part of the solution this time. Without Edison there was scant technology available to the desperate slaves of the time to take advantage of the newly discovered weakness.

Fortunately Dolly Madison had an extensive collection of aesthetically pleasing incendiary devices gathered during her youthful journeys in the orient as a silk-trading ninja. A deployment of this technology was quickly organized by Paul Revere and El Quakerudo*, one which culminated in the simultaneous detonation of approximately 50 metric tons of saltpeter, gunpowder, and ‘fireworks.’

The D’Aret Krang fell as one to the ground in a jiggly, hooting mass of alien flesh. George Washington and Nathaniel Hawthorn led bands of men in dragging our quivering former-masters into the very space craft that brought us our hateful overlords. They then programmed the ships to dive into the sun and America celebrated as the fleet of invaders burnt itself to cinders in the heliosphere if our favorite star, Sol.

So join us in celebrating our victory, planet Earth! Thanks to our American forefathers (and a time-traveling Teddy) humans have been free to oppress themselves in peace ever since.

FREEDOM IS OURS! -peace out.

* Quakerudo is a musical group made up of youthful Quakers. As they discover their degenerate suxuality** they are replaced with fresh-faced and prepubescent replacements. There are always more fresh-faced and prepubescent replacements…

** I know what I said.

2009-07-03T09:54:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

It’s over at Davecat’s place and it’s better than the movie. Even if you are somehow unable to enjoy his prose, you’ll have to admit that reading it took less money and time than watching this awful movie would.

I have not, nor will I voluntarily, watch TF:ROTFL*, but I did watch the first Bayformers movie and concluded that it was offensive to what passes for my intellect.

I’m actually quite surprised Davecat went to see the sequel in the theatre, as I couldn’t imagine a universe in which he could find that movie acceptable on any level other than ‘useful adjunct to an effective mental torture regime for purposes of extracting information from or inducing Stockholm Syndrome in hostile prisoners.’

Lord help me, I almost typed “prehensile prisoners”

The real tragedy? Both these movies were so obscenely lucrative that there will inevitably be at least one more theatrical sequel and then a series of straight-to-DVD movies and possibly a goddamn Christmas special.

* TransFormers: Revenge of the Fallen… Laughing?

2009-06-26T21:46:00.000-04:00

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2009-06-21T11:46:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

2009-06-18T19:43:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

2009-03-20T23:18:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

At around 8:45 on Sunday morning he walked into my house unannounced, carrying a short stack of mail.

He’d been in the area, he said as Samantha gave him a hello hug around the legs, and had decided to stop by and say hello.

Furthermore, he stated mildly, he now knew about the colors.

I wondered at his real purpose for visiting. His scrubby stubble, combined with the fact that my home is hardly “in the area” for him, meant that something was wrong. I asked him what colors he was talking about, speculating as I did so whether he’d had a fight with his wife or something.

”The colors“, he answered, tilting his head with an expectant expression, “of the teams“.

”The… teams?” But he didn’t answer this time, and my thoughts turned to more sinister possibilities than a little marital tiff. I asked him if his wife knew he was at my house, a question which he answered with a firm “maybe“.

I began to suspect something was very wrong. I invited him to sit down in my kitchen and have some coffee, and presently he plopped down and laid his little pile of mail on the table. Was he OK? “Yes, ” he answered, he “was fine.“

Watching me nervously pour him a mug of coffee, he straightened out the the Popular Mechanics magazine and the two letters he’d inexplicably brought into my house, leaned forward and spoke earnestly:

“I have been encouraged to invest in a civil war chess set and I was told you might have one,” he stated and, after a pause, “What do you think of that?“

I disavowed any knowledge of any such Civil War Chess sets and, as I did so, I picked up my cell phone and began tapping out a text message to my wife, who was out of town. I didn’t have his wife’s cell phone in my contact list, but she did.

2009-02-21T21:24:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

My creativity and weight* are both at all time lows according to my bathroom Mass-Creatometer^tm.

By doing some basic correlation** and by drawing an attractive timeline in the snow with an uncooked spaghetti noodle I’m able to draw this startling conclusion:

There is a correlation between physical fitness and creative humorism.

I wasn’t absolutely sure, so I did what I always do. I hit the lab, donned my ceremonial latex hand coats, Leica manufactured goggles, ate three pieces of chalk and started writing on the wall with my tongue.

One half hour later I stepped back to admire my work:

Incontrovertible proof of the Piscopolean Mediocrousy.

Correlation(r) = NΣXY - (ΣX)(ΣY) / Sqrt([NΣX2 - (ΣX)2][NΣY2 - (ΣY)2])

N=the number of samples, in this case four

X=each instance of funny creativeness recorded. (on a ten scale where 1=humor sucking wasteland of absorbent pap and 10=gut-wrenching and devastating cleverness the likes of which would make a victorian bishop cook muffins on a stormy night)

Y=each weight recorded at the time in metric pounds.

date X Value Y Value X*Y X*X Y*Y
July 2005 6.5(300) 215 1397.5 42.25 46225
June 2006 8(ep21) 230 1840 64 52900
Dec 2008 3(60′) 182 546 9 33124
Feb 2009 2(!!!) 177 354 4 31329

ΣX=19.5

ΣY=804

ΣXY=4137.5

ΣX²=119.25

ΣY²=163578

NΣXY - (ΣX)(ΣY) / Sqrt([NΣX2 - (ΣX)2][NΣY2 - (ΣY)2])

(4*4137.5)-(19.5*804)/Sqrit([(4*119.35)-(19,5*19.5)]*[(4*163578)-(804*804)])

16550-15678/Sqrt([477.4-380.25]*[654312-646416])

872/Sqrt(97.15*7896)

872/Sqrt(767096.4)

872/875.84

Correlation coefficient: 0.99

* 177lbs at present. I haven’t been this light since middle school

2009-01-16T09:20:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Only feet from a rich source of food, this Crowleys VC Strider succumbs to the elements and slowly converts its stomach contents to dried leaves, a natural process which is used by many arborists for reforestation in brownfield environments.

2009-01-05T16:31:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Curiouser and curiouser. Why would a bug want to copy a legitimate Microsoft OS DLL into the root directory of a computer and then rename it to a random string with an EXE extension?

More importantly, why would anyone be browsing the internet from their server console?

Some people really shouldn’t be allowed to operate their own computer equipment.

Microsoft, I know you’ve taken plenty of heat lately on security issues, and that IE7 is actually pretty secure provided it is

updated constantly with the many security fixes you provide

operated in a completely paranoid manner by technically savvy individuals

But if a user is even slightly incompetent or credulous–as the average human is–then within an alarmingly short period of time most Windows-based computers are compromised. Add this to the many shortcomings of the bloated server offerings and unwieldy desktop offerings and I am more satisfied with my decision to use Linux on my laptop every day.

And yet what alternative do we have in the business space? I can’t sell open source business solutions to save my life! People always complain that they aren’t compatible enough, can’t be integrated easily enough. And if I do happen to sell an open source–or even a non-Microsoft closed source–solution and ANYTHING goes wrong with it I get blamed for the recommendation. You sold me this crap. It’s your fault, says Mr. Unhappy Customer.

If a Microsoft solution fails–as they sometimes do–then I can usually pass the blame on Microsoft, and the customer is cool with it.

In the really old days there was a phrase: “No one gets fired for buying IBM.”

Unfortunately, these days this phrase equally applies to Microsoft.

2009-01-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Around 2:00am this morning Sisco the cat staged a fight with one of my new snow gloves in the front room

The ensuing melee scared the crap out of Tera the dog, who then spent the rest of the early morning as a panting, drooling mess in the upstairs hallway.

Such is life with animals.

2008-12-30T18:20:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Christmastime always drills home the fact that American consumers, myself included, produce more trash unwrapping our crap than we probably do throwing the crap away at the other end of the craptispan.

We succeeded, primarily, in convincing relatives and friends that our daughters would rather have clothes than toys this year, but even so the wraptermath was dismaying*.

Piles of nearly unrecyclable and glossy four-color print boxes, tough and deadly pieces of twisted plastic blister-packaging, wee little metal twist-ties, and paper! Paper! PAPER!

There has to be a better way, man. Like, why not have just one pretty display box per item of crap at the store and then just put the crap–a Microsofe Zune**, for instance–into a burlap sack at the check-out counter? I could re-use the burlap for a thrifty business-suit or several sets of underwear. Or, at least, I could use burlap for underwear easier than I could wear a razer-sharp fragment of the Zune’s plastic blister-packaging after I’ve torn it apart with a pair of depressed, short-lived scissors.

* only glossary hoverers will note the redundancy.

** I do not now, nor will I ever, own an actual Zune***.

*** Unless one is gifted to me, after which I will unashamedly sell it on eBay or something.

2008-12-27T08:52:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

60 Degrees on Dec 27? Why the heck not?

Note the piles of startled ice and snow converting to airborne water vapor in embarrassment.

Three days ago it was, literally, 1 degree Fahrenheit (-18C).

Cold enough that no amount of bundling could make a man feel cozy.

This morning I woke up and it was 60 degrees Fahrenheit (16C).

Warm enough for me to go outside clothed only in a toddler and a pair of sweatpants.

Whoever knew that signs of impending doom could be so amusing! Its as if Buddy Hacket had assumed the role of grim reaper in tonight’s production of “Death and Dismemberment in The Age of Enlightenment*”

* Not an actual play but, you know, it should be!

2008-12-19T07:10:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Pop country music sucks.
     There, I said it. Not really going out on a limb, but I feel as if I’m taking at least a slight risk making such a judgemental statement.
     Some ass in a stetson, already angry because there’s no naked women on this page (not counting Milla Jovovich), with his pants around his ankles, a bottle in one hand and his johnson in the other, is even now spitting a mouthfull of Milwaukee’s finest all over his monitor and cursing me for questioning the quality of his chosen musical pursuit.
     Sorry, Marlboro man, but pop country is musically boring, with songs that are virtually indistinguishable from one another, seem to always center on drinking, sexual bravado or sappy Hallmark Card sentimentality, and with an audience so white I gotta wear shades.

But whilst watching a bit of CMT (Country Music Television, for those without American cable TV), I began having a strange feeling of deja-suck-vu. This suckiness happened to me before, didn’t it? I really think I’ve had this much suck on my TV once before…

     I hereby posit that the current despicable pop-country music crop is socially equivalent to the pop-rock of the late 1980’s.
     The same quality white-trash girlies throw themselves at the men, the same level of sexual bravado and hard-drinking is sung about and lived by the artists. The same trite, contrived songs are popularized and are often based on a single clever phrase or pun. (She’s My Cherry Pie = It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere)
     There’s a few differences, and I’ve tried to provide you with an equivalence chart here. Please tell me if I’ve missed anything.

Equivalence Chart (scroll down to view)

1988 Hair Bands	2005 Country Bands
Slutty Girls Screaming in Torn Jeans	Slutty Girls Screaming in Boot Cut Jeans
Music Videos are Overdramatic Mini-Movies	Overdramatic Music Videos Are Mini-Movies
90% White Fan Base	99% White Fan Base
All Lead Singers Required to Wear Randomly Placed Bandanas On Legs And Expose Their Chests/Stomachs	All Lead Singers Required to Wear Boots On Legs And Expose Large Belt Buckles
All Lead Singers Required to Grow Long Hair On Head	All Lead Singers Required to Wear Cowboy Hats On Head
All Band Members Drink Heavily, Smoke Dope	All Band Members Drink Heavily, Smoke Marlboros
Disinterested Observers Cannot Differentiate Between Bands’ Formulaic Music	Disinterested Observers Cannot Differentiate Between Bands’ Formulaic Music
Annoying Screechy Guitar Solo	Silly-Ass Slide Guitar or Screechy Fiddle Solo
Songs Either Brag About Band Member’s Sexual Prowess Or Complain About Romantic Misfortune. Sometimes They Tell An Inspirational Coming-Of-Age Story.	Songs Either Brag About Band Member’s Sexual Prowess Or Complain About Romantic Misfortune. Sometimes They Tell A Patriotic/Hallmark Card.
Hedonism, Mysogeny	Jingoism, Mysogeny
$Money$	$Money$

Not sure how to equate the mandatory goatee/mustache on the country men to a similar feature of the late eighties.
Well, that’s it for now!

Disclaimer: I actually like OLD country. Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson. They don’t suck. Toby Keith, Garth Brooks, Shania Twain; they suck!

2008-12-19T07:09:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

My daughter. Beautiful, but about as calm as a your average robo-hampster.

Nice coat, you say? Yeah, grandparents are good for that sort of thing.

Bona-fide “Hannah Montana” merchandise, the coat signifies Sam’s enthusiastic endorsement of a fictional persona adopted by a real manufactured celebrity who is herself the offspring of a manufactured country “star”.

Miley and her alter-ego, the only slightly less real Hannah.

The 90% synthetic pop-country singer Billy-Ray Cirus.
As of this posting there is no direct evidence that he has an alter-ego named “Harvey Montana”.

For further reading on the topic of Country Music, please see

Toxic Equivalency

Friday Night at the Pops Country

2008-02-18T22:25:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

I’m not interested in Symantec Endpoint Protection, it hasn’t the charisma of melba toast.

How many people actually want to experience life through the lens of this crappy, crappy product? I admire the sheer audacity of it, and there are features they have here that would be awesome had they not been nestled so lovingly in the pile of shit that surround them.

Maybe this is a product for the future, but I think its more dystopic than I want to survive in.

Damn you, Symantec! Why you so nasty?

2008-02-12T14:40:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

The Dead Ringer

Able to make any cell phone ring tone sound identical to any other cell phone ring tone.

2008-02-08T17:44:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

The Radishist:

If the Radishist sits still and concentrates really hard for 30 seconds or so he can cause a spontaneous manifestation of radishes to pop into existance within about two meters of his head.

He can only manifest a maximum of one kilogram of radishes at a time and he has to go have a lie-down to recuperate afterwards. When he is despondent or melancholy the radishes are wilted.

The only crime-fighting potential I see for it is if the Radishist could get close enough to a criminal to manifest the radishes directly inside his or her colon…

Of course, I would just do it as a joke if it weren’t for the four hour refractory period. A kilogram of unexplained radishes in your stool makes for a great practical joke, if not an effective crime fighting strategy.

2008-02-06T17:38:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Heroes is off the air, possibly forever, but I wtill want to talk some more about something they never adequately covered.

Seems like all the paranormal abilities that were detailed on the show had practical applications.

Flying, super strength, invisibility, mind control, direct manipulation of space-time(!); all these abilities are really really cool.

If you grow a hand back after sawing it off people are going to be impressed. If you perform a super-sonic fly-by over a crowded intersection folks will take notice. Even the “as-seen-on-TV” girl could use her lame ability to pretty good measure.

But if these abilities are random mutations, then surely the useless superpowers would outnumber the cool ones by a huge margin.

After all, for every useful adaptation like opposable thumbs there’s a thousand six-toed dead-ends… with hairy moles.

Here’s a list of super-powers that wouldn’t really end up getting much screen-time on Heroes:

The Operator:

Whenever he eats rich food his power takes effect and causes people to dial his phone number up by accident. Only strangers are affected, and the side effect is that he can no longer count above the number 2. In self-defense, he now uses a base 3 numbering system. He no longer trusts anyone who apologizes to him on the phone.

The Operator might try to fight crime by answering his phone in front of a criminal and then violently arguing with the confused party on the other end about American Idol.

2008-01-28T18:46:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

After arcane shenanigans involving mysql command line interface (I tricked WordPress into thinking my database was vintage 2.1.x and then let it re-run the upgrade) I have re-enabled the categories within SafeTinspector. And while this allows me to specify categories once again, it did not restore them. They are all lost.

But now I fear that these nuggets of precious data, with entries such as “suck”, “foot”, “stench” and “tax accountancy”, will be lost to time and posterity alike. If you or any of your friends or relatives have unexpected pain, stiffening of the joints and/or arteries or come upon piles of unexplained moneys or excrement please let me know.

I hope we all survive.

The object shown above is a horrible cookie.

2008-01-26T17:08:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Ages ages, I had some pages with things I wrote on my knee.

I think I carved them with a knife and had my way with rampant vice.

Vermicelli was like a noodle to my needle haired Christopher, wangled with wangly wanglehood.

2008-01-24T07:12:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

I upgraded WordPress and it destroyed the category list which was so carefully imported from Blogger. Well, good riddance, I say. The blogger import utility had converted all my Blogger “tags” to categories, which had resulted in hundreds of them. We start fresh, and hope that new efforts will not be so fleeting.

2008-01-22T11:38:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

My old laptop, as you may remember, was smashed in the same car accident within which I lost my virginity and self-respect. I replaced it with a big-screen laptop which seemed like a pretty good deal.

Problem was that the thing wasn’t really compatible with Linux; however, I’ve been using OpenSUSE as my operating system since 2006 and had no real interest in switching back to Windows unless absolutely necessary. After much struggle everything as working except for 3-D desktop. Something I cherished.

My old laptop supported XGL, which is a direct-render 3-D desktop solution. This would NOT work properly with the ATI card built into this laptop.

I heard of AIGLX and compiz-fusion, an indirect rendering version of the same dealy that XGL did for me. I couldn’t get that working, either. Months go by and ATI released a new version of their “proprietary” driver–a family of code legendary for its inherent crappiness in comparison to nVidia. I tried to update, but lost the ability to support the proper resolution. So I rolled it back, but now 3-D acceleration was busted and but good.

After many hours, friends, I was finally able to determine that ATI’s installer had, at one point, dumped a copy of its driver (fglrx.ko) into /lib/modules/2.6.22.13-0.3-default/extra, while subsequent versions had placed newer versions of the same file in /lib/modules/2.6.22.13-0.3-default/kernel/drivers/char/drm

I simply copied the newer atop the older, restarted, and YES! I now have what I wanted.

Still runs kinda poorly, never exceeding 90fps, but as you can see above I now have 3-D desktop… and its snowing inside.

2008-01-17T07:23:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Sing it to the tune of “Everybody plays the fool,” and you may giggle just a little. Under your breath. Provided you are an idiot like me.

In the meantime, let me tell you how much it sucks to be married to SafeTinspector:

First, SafeT gets the flu on Sunday, so you end up with no assistance with the general production of proper parenting during the all-important second half of the weekend. Production schedules are off, backlogs grow long, and shareholders threaten you with lawsuits if some quality nurturing doesn’t get made RIght Now.

Second, both your daughters get sick on Tuesday, with the toddler being so pitiful that you can barely catch your breath from going, “Awww….” all the time. And, of course, by this time SafeT is back at work so you get to tend the flu-ridden without his assistance.

Cap this off with the near absolute certainty that you, yourself, will soon be afflicted with the flu (probably just in time for the weekend) and we have the orgasmic bliss of SafeTmarriage. Hats off to you, Heather!

The picture above was taken with Heather’s cell phone and sent to me with the caption, “I don’t feel good, Daddy!” I felt bad, but I still smiled.

2008-01-15T12:29:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Saturday night I had some coughing. By Sunday afternoon my brains were basting themselves with 102.6 degree blood.

I spent yesterday in bed, but am working under the influence of powerful medicines today. Off to the bouillabaisse!

2008-01-11T17:52:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Train your eyeballs on the sidebar and you’ll see I’ve subtly altered my environment here. I’ve added a quotes module and a random posts module. WordPress has EVERYTHING.

Off to the arcade, people. These dancey games aren’t going to play themselves!

2008-01-09T07:46:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

An Early American Cable Box

    Cable came to our house before just about anyone else’s.

    It was 1980 and the technology was primitive. So much so that the “remote” control provided by our cable company (MacLeod, I think) was made up of a bank of buttons and a three-position switch tethered to your television with a long cord. The switch selected which of the three channels each button would represent when depressed, providing the techno-shocked and amazed subscriber with access to as many as 37 stations.

    I hadn’t thought much about it in the last few years but whilst touring the amazing Henry Ford Museum, I came upon my youth under glass as shown above. My memories of early cable TV:

A&E, which actually stood for “Arts and Entertainment,” routinely broadcast opera and ballet.

Nickelodeon, with promo spots showing a roller skating mime hand-cranking an honest-to-god nickelodeon, was so desperate for programming that they actually aired a show made up entirely of a man reading comic books out loud. Slowly the camera would pan across each page of the featured comic-book while the narrator simply read the word balloons. The rest of Nickelodeon’s schedule was made up of warmed-over British kids TV such as:
- The Tomorrow People- Featuring psi-enhanced teenagers, my favorite memory of this show involved a scheme to clone Hitler–who was actually a rat-eating space alien–multiple times. As the cloning creches (which looked suspiciously like old Frigidairs) opened they each revealed a fully formed Adolf complete with his distinctive moustache and Nazi uniform. I suppose the uniform was clonable as well, but how did the cloning cabinets trim the Fuhrer’s facial hair?
- The Third Eye- Made up of several sci-fi miniseries from New Zealand and England, the only part I remember is “Children of the Stones”, in which creepy choral arrangements surrounded dramatic shots of stone-henge like rocks throughout a small town. I think–but am not certain anymore–that people or critters were turning into these stones somehow.
- Danger Mouse- a cartoon in which a secret agent mouse and his hampster side-kick Penfold had ridiculous adventures. Their primary adversary was a toad and his crow side-kick and they lived in the top of one of those crazy British letterboxes.

TBS was just some UHF channel from Atlanta which was owned by Ted Turner. It somehow ended up as a national cable station chock full of typical UHF programming and local Atlanta advertising.
- Incidentally, Atlanta’s roofers universally refused to visit my house. This was excusable considering the distance they’d have had to travel and the fact that the voice ordering up the free estimate was obviously an 8 year old boy.
- I liked this station because it usually had old Warner Brothers cartoons on.

Showtime filled in the time between movies with independent short films and nearly pornographic “aerobic exercise” videos.
- I only remember three of the short films. In one, a black fellow–possibly a film student–is attacked and ultimately consumed by a huge mass of unspooled videotape.
- In another, a POV piece, a monstrous woman attempted to use cash in public. In the end she is killed when a lynch mob burns a credit card into her forehead.
- In the last one I remember, we spend five minutes watching a man working in his basement crafting something out of wood while we hear his wife upstairs nagging him non-stop.
  
  BY using very close camera angles the filmmaker hides what the fellow is actually making until the final shot, in which the cuckolded man sets off the finely crafted and massively scaled mouse trap, breaking his own back.
- The aerobic “exercise” videos were preceded by a disclaimer stating that you should consult your physician before attempting to play along.
  The viewer would then be treated to several minutes of porno music and tight, slow-panning shots of beautiful women wearing unitards and leg warmers, pumping the floor slowly while coated in a light sheen of sweat.
  
  Usually there was more than one lady, sometimes criss-crossing each other as if playing Twister or working out back-to-back or face-to-face.
  
  Considering the creative camera movements and dramatic lighting, there would be no conceivable way a viewer could emulate the girls and actually get some exercize.
  
  What possible use could these little routines have been? Too bad I was pre-pubescent at the time; I simply found the confounding videos to be a boring and unnecessary delay between repeat airings of “Moonraker”.

HBO- At first, they were just like Showtime. But it was only a year or so before they brought Fraggles to the American masses. That alone made cable worthwhile to me… ‘Course, I wasn’t paying for it anyway…

MTV… well, they actually showed music videos, ‘natch. I had no interest, though; I was too young and too square to get into pop music at the time.

2008-01-08T21:24:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

My Car is Screwwed. I drive just a little bit on the crazy side. Not that I speed–I don’t!–but I don’t believe in wasting any time on my way to the posted speed limit. Further, I don’t see why I should lose any of my hard-earned velocity just because I need to make a turn. Probably just another aspect of my consumptive nature, which leaves most of my possessions recyclable, but hardly repairable let alone reusable.
Anyway, the thing started to sound a bit like a jack-hammer. BANG! BANG! BANG! Satisfyingly loud, I paraded my noisey ride around for a day before listening to my wife and driving it into the dealership.

Turns out that it has a bad crank-shaft bearing. Engineers from Ford were summoned to examine my car. I’m gonna be famous! Well, famous amongst the rarified population of Ford motor passenger vehicle powertrain engineers. I’m patient zero, and proud of it. The engineers are replacing the motor and oil-pump, but they are taking their time at it. I’ve been driving the dealership loaner car for over two weeks now….

2008-01-04T10:20:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

My New Years resolution is two-fold:

1 - Eat less crap

2 - Write more crap

In service to the second resolution: The picture you see here is the last known photograph of my cat, Odo. He passed away a year ago this past Thanksgiving, and his clownish antics and dog-like loyalty have been sorely missed. By perusing my voluminous output from before that time period and my meager mediocrity afterwards, I have no choice but to conclude that he was my muse.

Even though I have no shortage of other joys in my life, many of which were greater than anything a cat may provide, somehow this cat had embodied a vital part of my mojo and his passing reduced me immeasurably.

I have another cat now, one whose name is Sisco. We adopted him as a kitten from a rescue agency in the beginning of the year, but despite his presence in the house my creative spark remained very small. I despaired quietly that it would be gone forever more, and that a cat is not enough–or had nothing to do with it in the first place.

The spark seems to be returning of late, however. I was initially at pains to explain it, but have come upon a new working theory.

My new theory is that I require an adult, male, neutered cat in order to write worth a damn. Sisco wasn’t providing the mojo because he was too young. Perhaps he could’ve fueled some potty-humor or nursery rhymes, but I didn’t try to produce any of that in the intervening year.

But he’s all grown-up, now, and is radiating the necessary element, I think. With his adult feline presence shedding hair and purring at my side 2008 is going to be a productive year, I think.

Here’s a picture of Sisco watching Meercat Manor:

2008-01-01T09:44:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Click to go to Flickr

This morning I woke up to this. Pretty, but ultimately exhausting. Happy New Year.

2007-12-29T15:05:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Click to Visit my Flickr

    The snow from last week has turned not to water, but directly to fog. As a player of videogames I’ve long lived with the concept of “draw distance,” which is the most distant object a videogame will display at any one time.

    A low draw distance means that objects, such as trees or buildings or people, simply burst into existence as you near them. This can provide a jarring reminder that you are playing a video game and ruins whatever simulation of reality the publisher was attempting to convey. Covnersely, a good draw distance may allow a game to display objects which are persistent and appear in the frame from the same point that a real object might have been visible under the same circumstances.

    Unfortunately, draw-in is sometimes inevitable, and so a game designer will try to hide the sudden manifestation of objects that should have been there all along by reducing the visibility of the environment. By simulating a natural cause for your restricted vision the author seeks to match your expectations to his limitations.

    In other words, you don’t expect to see an object that is obscured by fog or smoke, so the game fills in the draw distance with fog or smoke.

    My neighborhood is like an ice level from Turok, Dinosaur Hunter. As the snow and ice melt it seems to pass directly from a solid to a gas, and the look makes me feel as if the neighborhood is desolate.

In a year or so perhaps this neighborhood will be desolate. How many of my neighbors have crazy mortgages? How many people are trapped owing more than their home’s value? Am I one of those? I’m afraid to get my house appraised for fear I may be in the same camp. I’ve never borrowed against the equity, but what little I have from my original downpayment and the principal paid in the last four years may have evaporated in the last few months. There is already one foreclosed house on my block (about a quarter mile south of mine) and another on the next street over. In addition there are about three houses for sale that have been on the market for more than two months.

One of those is owned by Home Depot (the original owner was a Home Depot manager who was relocated to Traverse City), but what of the others?

This week’s been rough on Heather. Holidays are the times when some people reflect on the things that aren’t right, or how they don’t match expectations of self or situation. She is frustrated with her unemployment, her limited social life, and having Samantha home for Christmas vacation has her frustrated multiple times on a daily basis.

I try to help, but I have no job to give her and while I can (and always have) been her friend I can’t provide her the sort of companionship a woman friend (or circle of women friends) can. Not even in my best dress and finest pumps.

Which brings me to Christmas. Those pumps were a present from my Mom. Thanks, Mom! I feel very pretty. I’ll bitch about how spoiled my relatives are making my girls next time. Just consider: they have no first cousins, and second cousins are all pretty distant. Everyone gives each girl between 2 and 4 presents, and there are about 20 people giving them gifts. So there’s between 40 and 80 presents each. How important is gift number 30 versus gift 29? How much gratitude can a little girl really be expected to show?

2007-12-26T14:18:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Samantha was game for the assist but actually netted a negative effect. But darn, wasn’t she cute doing it?

2007-12-14T18:19:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

    What your people call episode three my people call episode two. No maize need enter the conversation unless you’re jones-ing for some corn.

    Mmmm…. corn…. That reminds me about one of my favorite throw-away jokes from the now-defunct cartoon show “Invader Zim” was spoken by the hapless protagonist, Dib. When he asks the teacher if he may be excused to use the bathroom he is informed that he’s used up his allotment of bathroom breaks for the current semester. In protest, Dib wails,

    ”But that was corn and mayonaise day!”

    And that, friends, is one of many reasons Nickelodeon killed Invader Zim.

What my first sentence was alluding to in the most tenuous way possible was that Closure’s rewrite marches on and the new series is in episode two. If you’re a reader of the first run of book one then you’ll find that the majority of the events in the current episode two were actually episodes three and one…. Eh, its all nuts and bolts. Note I’m using Sarah’s excellent interpretation of Bruce. Oh, Sarah, how I miss your visits; I’ve been a beast, however, and haven’t visited you either. Apathy will kill us all, mark my words. Well, apathy and natural causes.

    I promised cute kid stories, and here’s a couple.

    In a conversation with Samantha regarding the cat, Sisco, we got to talking about names. For some reason I found myself explaining that a boy cat shouldn’t have the name Buttercup.

    ”Why not?” asked Sam, who was sitting in her bed about four feet in the air.

    ”Because its not really a boy’s name and Sisco is a boy cat. It wouldn’t make sense for him to be Buttercup.”

    ”We could always call him Mister Buttercup.”

    Here’s another. Riley, who is now not-quite a year and a half old, has discovered the joys of having books read to her. Nice, thick board books with bright colors and pictures she can point at. To initiate the cuteness, we start by saying,

    ”Riley! Go get a book! You want to read a book?” the child then pounds across the room, arms swinging, towards her stash of baby books. She seems to pick one with care (often tossing undesirable fare aside) and then toddles back with a big grin on her face.

    She doesn’t go straight up to you, however. No, when she gets within three feet or so she turns around and slowly walks backwards into you. If you are sitting on the floor she will then plop her little but onto your lap, book already in position for you to read it to her over her shoulder. This maneuver makes a bit less sence when you are sitting on the couch, as you must pick her up to get her in your lap, but its still a bit more convenient since you needn’t turn her about.

    My toddler is all about efficiency, apparently.

    One last story, and then I gotta go. One day a week or so ago I was serving hot-dogs to Riley. I had just placed the wiener on the plate and sat myself down in front of her high-chair to feed it to her. I presented the food to her and proclaimed,

    ”Hot-dog! This is a hot-dog!”

    To which Riley replied–quite clearly:

    ”Woof-fffffffffffffff!”

    Yes, she said woof (because its a dog, naturally) and then blew towards it, because I had said it was hot. Get it? A literally hot dog? Now that’s getting it wrong the clever way.

2007-12-06T20:53:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Anyone remember Closure?

It was my serialized scifi-noir I ran from March of last year through September of last year, and its second-to-last installment marked the end of book one.

At its peak it had a decent following, and episodes had as many as thirty or so comments (form probably only six or seven people, but still). I’ve been meaning to get back to it all this time, and… well….

I’m rewriting book one in order to correct some continuity issues as well as improving the pacing and reducing the exposition. The episodes will be posted one a week this time, ensuring that I’ll easily keep up with the volume (I burned myself out running two a week last year) and, as a matter of fact, I’ve returned to working on book two, which should comprise the surprising completion of the story. You might think you knew where it was going, but I doubt you were correct.

Here’s the deal, though: as part of an experiment to spread my seed in other wombs I’m posting the episodes at a place you might now know about, The Observationist.

I’m not sure how good a fit my material will be over there, but it will at the very least expose it to a few new people. I’ll cross-post a couple days after the episodes show up at The Observationist, for those who feel more comfortable in my big, strong, safe arms.

If you’ve already read all the original episodes, there will be only a few changes and you might not even notice them if you weren’t paying really close attention the first time around. You’re welcome to comment if you like, or to pass on the whole mess (if you feel betrayed by my one-year-plus hiatus).

Tomorrow is my office Christmas Party, during which I will do my best to get banned from the go-cart track.

2007-11-24T08:05:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

When six year old little girls call the shots then crowns, earrings, bracelets and rings become mandatory as we all stretch mediocrity to the stature of royalty. I did not partake at the time, because I’m far too pretty as it is. Any prettier and there will be morale issues at my office, and I’ll not sabotage my beautiful face again.

2007-11-22T08:33:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

I love this man platonically and the place not at all. No further descriptions will be forthcoming because, frankly, you don’t deserve it.

2007-11-20T08:05:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

IN homage to my MIA blog-mate, Arthbard, I bring you this field photograph of what might be the most redundant expulsion of the Idiot’s Guide series*. I suppose it might be bested by a theoretical “Idiot’s Guide to Idiocy,” but until then, this will do nicely.

If you find that your superstitious fears are too complicated and confusing, and you’re tired of all the overly-technical textbooks on the subject, then here’s your book.

* For a far superior exploration of the Idiot’s Guide series, you might wish to consule Arth’s insanely humorous article, Blog Entry for Stupid People.

2007-11-17T22:07:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

I drive before my American shrine to the ancient fertility goddess, huge and pendulous breasts drape across the instrument cluster; gray and plastic and nonetheless blessed. Surrounding these maxi-boobs are the pert and perky miniatures which adorn the rest of my environment, and from their areolas gust winds of heat and cold and universal good.

Purchased for $2000 from my beneficent and meticulous brother, Gerald, this sculpture of torpid lividity* is a 1999 Grand Am, 129,000 miles young.** I only wish you could fondle it the way I can fondle it every day.

Theoretically there could be an extra breast explosively visited upon me should I strike another object as I once struck an object not so very long ago. But that was in a car which was not only a different color, but provided almost 100% less boob-esque. I should stop typing, as it is strictly prohibited by my automobile insurance riders.

First, I must tell you about the spreadsheet. Entrusted to me at the time at which I took custody of the rolling Shiva, each row indicates a service or product visited upon her in times past, and the columns details date, type of service or purchase, location at which said purchase or service was proffered, wether or not there was a warranty and when such an thing might expire and the odometer reading at the time of service. From this record I’m able to determine two things:

My brother is doing nothing to disprove the stereotypical image of the engineer

My mobile Aphrodite is well maintained and a fitting addition to my family, albeit one which can neither consume health insurance premiums nor eventually participate in the selection of my retirement home (should the occasion arise).

* I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.

** About 207,000km

2007-11-13T21:59:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

No Explanation Shall Be Forth-Coming

2007-11-13T21:56:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Samantha has been taking piano lessons and Saturday was her first recital.

The fourth child to play the crowded recital hall at the local Evola music center, she performed two pieces. Each was only about 30 seconds long, but she did a great job at each. Her posture was good, her hand position was proper, and she kept her eyes firmly on the sheet-music. Confident and happy, Sam eagerly posed for the above picture during intermission*.

She says she can’t wait until she gets to do a recital again, which warms my heart. I’m so happy to be able to offer her these opportunities.

One of my enduring regrets is that I never really took piano lessons.

When I was about ten or eleven my family purchased a larger home. It was pretty big, and attached to the living room was a small library/den. One wall was taken up by a set of built-in bookshelves and the other wall was conspicuously blank.

Purely for aesthetic reasons, my parents adopted a 1934 Kimball upright piano and ensconced it here. As the aged instrument was mainly intended as a piece of attractive furniture, the fact that it was no longer in tune and had several dead keys was not a concern. It was this piano which I fooled around on for the years I lived in that house.

Though I was not shy about my interest in the instrument, and the Kimball was loud enough that my activities with the thing were hardly secret, I was never offered any opportunity to get lessons and, to make matters worse, I was frequently told to stop that noise. So here I am, 35 years old and unable to play any recognizable tunes nor able to read music. Not to mention the fact that, because of the Kimball’s many dead keys, I was forced to play everything in one of two keys, both of which were mostly made up of black keys. And, lastly, the constant requests to stop playing undermined my confidence to the point that I usually don’t want to play in front of others. Despite this, I have placed many of my compositions on SafeT’unes, so you can listen to the wreckage that ensued.

I want to make sure that Samantha (and Riley, when she’s old enough and if she’s willing) will have the opportunities that I didn’t have. So when she showed interest in the piano, I put her in lessons. And no matter when she asks, I always tell her its OK to play the piano.

And I make a point of telling her to turn the volume up so I can hear her.

If I have anything to say about it, she will never be told to “stop that noise.”

2007-11-10T12:09:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

I stepped into my boss’ office and stood next to him. As he cringed, rightfully intimidated by my aura of unstoppable masculinity, I placed one booted foot upon his desk and leaned in close, sliding my aviator glassed down the length of my nose to better show him my smoldering coals of manly eyesight.

”Let me tell you something about law and order, Jeff,” I said, resting one hardened, muscular hand upon his girlish shoulder.

His response? The only one possible under the circumstances.

”Get that thing away from me!”

I apologize for making every other man on Earth feel more girlish in comparison, but I really don’t have much choice in the matter. Take it up with your God–he signed off on it.

2007-11-07T14:17:00.000-05:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

I don’t know about you, but personally I am expecting to see some f@^&ing brilliant picket signs. There better be, or else the irony will give me blood poisoning.

Step it up, people. Is this the best you shiftless lot can come up with?

2007-11-02T22:10:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

I’m not ignoring you, but I’m transitioning to a new laptop and I’m coming down off of several weeks of intense projects at work. You’ll soon get some holloween pictures.

2007-10-26T13:18:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Kraft is marketing medicated cheese now. Employing the same strategy that countless veterinarians have used to drug your dogs and vaguely promising that its “probiotic” cultures will help you lead an active lifestyle, the cheesemonger of all cheesemongers has aired commercials showing stylishly dressed professional women grabbing small sacks of cheese on their way out the door to work…or wherever stylishly dressed active people go whilst toting dairy products with dubious medical benefits.

This is all assuming that a lump of squishy, nauseating, processed cheese is going to do anything for you other than acting as the rectal caulk you and I already know it to be.

My brother, Gerald (shown here with a rented floor-sander), has agreed to sell me his 1999 Pontiac Grand Am SE, which has 129,000 miles on its odometer but looks nearly new due to the tender loving care that my anal retentive brother has showered it throughout the long eight years its been rolling around on our little world. I thank him profusely in advance, as a zero-coverage car insurance policy is all I will be able to afford until October of next year due to my frighteningly careless driving record.

I’m actually a little excited, as I’ve not “owned” a car in a long while, having been a lessee for the last ten years.

    In other exciting news, I recently heard a contemporary recording of an Andrew “Dice” Clay stand-up routine on Sirius Satellite Radio’s uncensored “Raw Dog” comedy channel. Filled with all the same crude, misogynistic crap you remember being funny in 1991, only delivered with the desperation that only a middle-aged lecher on parole could muster.

    Aside from Dice’s material, the recording sported only a smattering of uncomfortable snickers as Andy Clay failed over and over again to win over the crowd. After awhile he started trying to get some audience participation by asking them if they were married, or gay, or anything else he might have a canned response for. Apparently he never found what he was looking for.

    Near the end, as I was marveling to myself that anyone would have released this recording to the public–especially since the material didn’t even work for the people who were actually there to begin with–Andrew actually said something slightly amusing to me. Here it is:

Better Midler farts yodels; nobody believes me.

Sure, Bette isn’t exactly current events anymore, but the absurdity and relative cleanliness of this joke struck me. If Dice had just abandoned his anachronistic and increasingly unbelievable gutter-Lothario persona and had gone down this road, maybe he wouldn’t be exuding flop sweat so strong that it can be smelled over the radio.

But I think the world has already passed you by, Dice.

2007-10-21T20:22:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

    My poor, poor autocar.

    State Farm Insurance company’s claims adjuster did one quick lap around the corpse and pronounced it “99.9%” totaled. Which is wierd, because the seats seemed fine and they account for more than 0.1%, right? Splitting hairs, I suppose, and I take his point.

    My brother-in-law, Scott, is the manager of the auto shop where the little yellow car spent its last days in repose and he retrieved my personal affects from the poor thing. In so doing he tells me that he found the dashboard was split down the middle and even the back doors are now crooked. This means the entire structure of the car is twisted, and not feasibly repairable. State Farm and Ford Motor Credit had a little talk and, subsequently, my lease agreement–and the underlying vehicle leased thereby–have both now evaporated into the ether from which all credit comes and goes.

    So now I have no car. And, according to my insurance company, I’m darn-near uninsurable because of two tickets I already had on my record prior to the accident. I’m a menace, apparently, and for once I’m not talking about my seditious perversity. In Michigan you are not allowed to drive without car insurance, so I’m not quite sure what to do next. I’ll keep you posted as I figure it out.

    Here’s some more pictures of the Focus. Click them to go visit Flickr, where you can see them enlarged if you should so desire.

Here’s one last picture, and its my favorite. Look closely; can you see the car battery? How about the driver’s side windshield wiper?

Yeah, I thought that was pretty funny, too.

* A “beater” denotes a very inexpensive car, normally aged and with high mileage, which usually would represent no great loss if destroyed. Typically you would put minimal insurance on such a thing, making it affordable for dangerous people like me to continue terrorizing the public grid.

** The saddest part of this accident is that I’d always assumed my car would last a long while. My lease was only two years, but I had some solace in knowing it would be sold to someone else and continue its life without me. By wrecking the thing in its prime I not only lose its use to me, but I also lose it for all the people who would’ve owned it after me. Plus I put several thousand pounds of metal and plastic into a junk yard, which is not ecologically the best place for it.

2007-10-17T09:04:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Here’s a bar joke you can tell the next time such things become conversationally appropriate in your life-style:

    A one legged man walks into a bar and sits down. The bartender approaches him, and the one-legged man asks him to serve him a double-shot of whiskey.
    The bartender ignores him in favor of an attractive young lady sitting next to him who orders a “Bay Breese”.
    The one legged man waits a while and then leaves. A few minutes later the young lady excuses herself to go to the bathroom. A third fellow of no importance then sits down on her recently vacated stool and fidgets nervously.

    The bartender accidentally breaks a bottle of expensive vodka.

2007-10-15T09:07:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

I half-heard the radio tell me,
“Fertility and Agility: Pontiac”

There’s a transparency to this sort of advertising campaign; I find it refreshing.

I know, all of the car companies like to imply that my automobile purchase/lease will have a direct and pronounced effect on my sex life. They never stop to consider the contents of the glove-box when making these bold and hasty claims.

One gander at my collection of Unspeakable Decay, auto maintenance schedule booklet and tire-pressure gauge is enough to throw my potential mate into rabid, frenzied fury as she tramples the crowd in a mad rush towards my waiting and rubbery arms–slick as they are with both wet sweat and dry sweat in my fertile and agile car. Both she and I are augmented agilitudinally and that’s what Pontiac intended.

Do you think it would work on my wife as well, or is a divorce necessary? If the latter, I’ll stick with Fords. Staid reliability and endurance is more useful in a monogomists bedroom after all.

2007-10-14T01:07:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

    SafeTinspector has completely wrecked his 2007 Ford Focus hatch-back and, apparently, sprained his sternum.

    Driving home from a friend’s house on Thursday evening, I came upon a mid-nineties model Pontiac Sundance stalled out at the corner of 18 Mile Road and Mound Road in the right-most northbound lane of Mound Road.

    As this sort of Pontiac is wont to do, it had been spewing thick clouds of black smoke prior to expiring, so the tail-lights were preternaturally dim and unviewable even with the hazard lights activated. A nice lady in a mini-van therefore didn’t notice the stalled car until it was almost too late for her to stop.

    She did, however, stop in time. The four cars behind her, mine included, didn’t do so well. I actually had no idea there was ANY stoppage in traffic and piled into the last car while driving about 45mph (about 70kmph). As the car I struck was not the car I remembered driving behind, I suspect the car in front of me swerved at the last moment, leaving me to my fate. I’m not ABSOLUTELY certain, as it happened very fast and I was in a slightly confused state after the accident.

    One second I was driving along, moving with traffic, and the next cacophonous second I was looking at the back windows of a Jeep Cherokee which was somehow WAY too close to my smashed windshield. Did I scream in terror? Did I wag my head? No. As the stinky airbag slowly deflated in my lap, burping sulfurously, I yelled–in anger!–to the world at large:

    ”OH! I HAVE BEEN IN A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT!!”

    After making this declaration I pried my door open and staggered out, taking stock of my physical integrity (mental and/or social integrity not withstanding) and determined that I probably had no broken bones. I also noted the number of cars involved in the accident (four!) and the weather (dark, damp, chilly and windy). No one was seriously hurt, although one girl claimed that her shoulder was hurting and had a friend drive her to a doctors office, eschewing the offers of the attending paramedics to ride in their pretty, flashing ambulance.

    I received a citation from the responding police officer (failure to stop within assured clear distance) which can put two points on my driving record and may ruin the current relative affordability of my automobile insurance.

    My brother-in-law, Scott, manages the paint line at a local automobile body shop so I had my wreck taken there where insurance adjusters will examine it on Monday or Tuesday. Chances are that the little Focus will be consigned to the ghoulish predations of a scrap yard attendant and I will be left with no car. No car payment either, but that is a temporary condition as I must have a car for work purposes.

    In the day since the accident I’ve discovered that I have some very colorful bruises upon the upper left side of my chest and on both hips. These are most likely the result of my seat-belt handling me roughly in its single-minded determination to keep me from exiting the car via the windshield–a task it performed quite well. The patch of bruises on my upper chest is lumpy and by this morning had become peppered with little pimples, most of which broke in an tiny orgy of pustulation as I toweled myself off after my shower. As I gazed into the bathroom mirror I noted that the slanted, eye-shaped welts on my hips make it look like my naked pelvis is a large cat with a worm hanging from its furry nose*.

    The bruises are nothing. A little tender, but I’m used to bruising. My sternum, however, is more disquieting. If I sneeze, sniffle, cough or blow my nose I get a painful reminder of the accident. Through judicious probing of my ribs and surrounding musculature I know there is nothing broken, so I assume my sternum is merely sprained or slightly torn. There really is nothing to be done, so I’ve not gone to see a doctor yet.

    I mean, if I went to the doctor’s office the most that would happen is that he’d give me Motrin, which I already have. There’s no medical intervention that can help with this sort of thing, just time and careful restraint. I don’t need to pay for an office visit and a chest X-ray just to be told to do what I’m already doing.

    I’ve asked Scott to take pictures of the wrecked Ford for me, and as soon as I have them, I’ll post them here. In the meantime, rest assured that regardless of the dismal fate of the SafeTmobile the SafeTinspector is still Safe.

* insert “eww!” here

2007-10-12T09:07:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

One Friday a while back Heather dragged me to a country music concert. It was Brooks & Dunn with “special guests” Big & Rich.

There are, perhaps, two songs from Brooks & Dunn that I like, and one of them is a cover tune (My Maria). Hated it. Wanted to leave the moment the “music” started to play.

It wasn’t helped by the fact that the sold-out crowd of mouth-breathers knew every friggin’ word to every gimmicky, boring, predictable song and acted as if they were all recitations of divine revelation. (”Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” makes a nice bumper sticker, but if you repeat it twenty to thirty times it becomes a hit country song! Same thing with “Weee-oooo! Play Somethin’ Country!”)

Big and Rich, however, were quite entertaining in ways they certainly didn’t intend. Their touring carnival side-show was complete with multi-ethnic backup singers, what appeared to be a 13-year-old guitar player, a miniscule dwarf with crutches named “Two Foot Freddy” and a large black rappin’ cowboy named “Cowboy Troy”.

I once wrote a piece on how today’s country fulfills the same cultural niche as the hair-band rock of the late-1980’s. Big and Rich validated my claims by wearing Tom Petty style head-wear, and with far more electric guitar than twang. I’m all for fusion, if it has some merit, but this stuff was little better than Poison or Bon Jovi at its most vapid.

Meh.

2007-10-10T18:17:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

    On a beautiful Sunday afternoon I took Samantha to a coin-operated car wash, ostensibly to help wash the Triple-B*. In actuality it was really part of a transparent ploy to prevent my wife from murdering us both in self defense.

    At the car wash I found that Samantha was incapable of staying by the car or even in the wash-bay we were using so I resorted to tossing her into the car with an Armor-All** soaked sponge and directing her to immediately begin rubbing anything that isn’t metal or glass. This worked about as well as you’d expect, and I squinted through a smudgy windshield the whole way home.

    It was about half-way home when she lifted the unused center-passenger seat belt and began talking into it.

”Breaker-breaker,” she said, “we need backup!”

I looked over at her serious expression, “What’s going on, Sam?”

Wide, faux-worried eyes looked up at me. “We’re surrounded by police!”

”Oh, no!” says I, considering that perhaps we were fugitives on the run, “but then who were you calling for backup?”

”The good cops to save us from the bad cops,” she chirped. Of course!

Gripping my steering wheel a little tighter, I asked, “Should I drive faster?”

She looked around and then, evidently satisfied, nodded definitively. “We lost them. Don’t worry.”

”Oh, good,” I said, relaxing back into my seat in relief. We drove on in silence for a minute or so, Samantha singing quietly to herself. Suddenly, she sat bolt upright and pointed in front of us.

”Look out,” she cried, “there’s a dinosaur!”

”A dinosaur, Sam?” a worrying development, to be sure, “what should we do?” Sam doubled over in laughter at this point and patted me on the arm.

”I got you good, Daddy! That’s just a fake dinosaur!”

”The pretend dinosaur is a fake?” I sort-of felt the rube for having been taken in by the obvious fakery. After all, that imaginary dinosaur hardly looked convincing at second glance.

”Yes! Its fake!” she continued, laughing at my foolishness.

”Yeah, you got me good, Sam. That dinosaur-”

”Look!” she interrupted, excitedly pointing out the windshield again, “It’s

Mickey Mouse!” The mouse had made an unexpected appearance.

”Yay,” I gamely enthused, “I love Mickey Mouse.”

”OH NO! He’s got a gun!” dramatic concern was writ broadly across her angelic features, and rightly so; we were obviously in trouble if the Mouse was bearing firearms.

”A gun?!? What should we do, Sam?”

”Ah…Its OK,” she said reassuringly, “Minnie Mouse blocked his shot.”

I considered this for a second or two, mumbling, “well… that was nice of her.”

”Yup! And she gave me this,” she said, holding up a closed fist for my inspection.

”What is that, Sam?”

”Lolly-pop!” she then mimed licking the invisible treat with slurpy gusto.

”Minnie Mouse gave you a lolly-pop after getting shot by Mickey?”

”No,” she said, raising her fist in triumph, “she gave me six lollypops! And,” she continued, motioning towards her torso, “this MInnie Mouse costume!”

”That’s a very nice costume Sam,” I told her appreciatively, “I imagine Minnie carries those around for just such an occasion?”

”Yeah! But, you know,” she began, tilting her head quizzically, “that was the first time I ever heard her talk in person. Her voice was a lot different than I thought it’d be.”

”Its like that with a lot of celebrities, Sam.”

Well, what else can you say to that?

* “Triple-B” stands for Big, Bad, Buick. It is a 1973 Buick Centurion convertible which was passed down to me by my grandfather.

** Armor-All is a vinyl and plastic rejuvenator/protectant. It stinks badly, makes any surface feel and look greasy, but it prevents old vinyl and plastic from drying out and splitting. My thirty-four year old car has exchanged most of its original molecular structure for complicated strings of Armor-All compound over the last few decades.

*** My daughter is very ADHD, a trait that she inherited from me despite the fact that it is much less likely to occur in girls. During the school week and on Saturday she takes a mild dose of Concerta to allow her to perform normally in school and scheduled activities. On Sundays we give her none, a practice known as a “medicine holiday”. Those days are maddening because of her lack of impulse control, manic activity levels and uncontrollable distractibility. If anyone tells you that ADHD is a bogus illness dreamed up by lazy parents they have never really tried to deal with a truly ADHD-addled person. No punishment regimen, discipline strategy or feel-good empathetic parenting trick can help. Ask me how once, when I was 10, I forgot to take my medicine and got paddled THREE times in one day by the principal at my parochial school.

2007-10-08T09:21:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

    A few weeks ago my brother married. As best man, I was expected to give a speech, and I performed admirably. At first, I had composed a speech which was full of lies, exaggerations, and anecdotes that struck me as funny.

    After consulting with people more experienced than I, and watching “Wedding Crashers” several times, I retooled my efforts to create a speech which was tailored to be short and sweet, to highlight the bride and groom without humiliating them unduly and–most importantly–without stealing the spotlight which should remain upon them throughout their special day.

    The result has almost no teeth, is gently humorous and doesn’t seem very SafeTinspector. But perhaps you’ll enjoy it nonetheless.

    Before you read, you might be interested to know that my brother and his new wife are both notoriously shy, quiet and very reticent to show affection in public. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen them hug…. Anyway, scroll down and read!

I’m Joe Whited, and I’m honored to be speaking to you not only as Gerald’s step brother of 29 years, but also as his proud best man and as the newly minted brother-in-law of Irene.

Now, you may all know Jerry as a quiet, patient, trustworthy man of great intelligence. But I grew up with Gerald and think I might know a little bit more about him than you do; so believe me when I tell you that in all actuality Gerald is a quiet, patient and trustworthy man of great intelligence.

So when my wife Heather and I finally met Irene, months after we’d heard rumors of her existence, the phrase ‘opposites attract’ came immediately to mind.

Yes, after talking with her a while and watching her play with Samantha, our extremely energetic daughter and also today’s lovely flower girl, Heather and I turned to one another and said, in unison, ‘wow!’

This was because we realized at once that, unlike Gerald, she seemed like a very quiet woman, patient and trustworthy and with what I can only describe as a great intelligence.

They were so cute together, with a shy courtliness that brought out the best in the both of them, and a love so strong that it needed no crude public displays of affection to shine through for all to see. And so their engagement was a shock to me; how two so very different people could recognize their soulmate in one another’s eyes is just one of life’s wonderful mysteries.

We found out about their engagement at one of our family gatherings. Every member of my family, including myself, is perfect, charming and completely normal* so it came as a surprise to me that, after meeting us all on more than one occasion, she was still willing to marry him.**

But what better way to bring two families together than through these two? Today, Mr and Mrs Bittas have welcomed Gerald into their family with open arms just as our parents, Mr and Mrs Respondek, welcome Irene into ours.

(to the bride and groom) With a love like yours I know that you will weather any storm, master any challenge the two of you face together, overcome any difficulty… even Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family.

So… To Gerald and Irene: may your life together be interesting, and full of love, hope and understanding. Congratulations again to the both of you and to you, Irene, good luck.

* Originally this part read: not crazy in ANY way, but was advised against it.

** At first, this paragraph ended with, “Irene, on behalf of all of us on the groom’s side of the family, I would like to apologize in advance for all the painful, embarrassing and awkward moments yet to come.” Upon sober reflection I realized that this was a bit too pointed and true for the room.

2007-10-06T09:13:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

    You may remember a couple of years ago I smashed my finger to the point where I nearly became an investment banker and drank a latte.

    This isn’t the same thing at all, in that not only was there no door involved in the painful injury, but my finger remains unaffected by the injury at this time.

    Observe the contours of the big toe shown above, the variegated coloring, the throbbing and listen to my hushed, manly whimpering. How did this happen?

Nick: Ok, you got it?

SafeT: Yes.

*WHAM!!*

SafeT:inarticulate screaming

Nick: You said you had it!

SafeT: I didn’t understand the question!!! inarticulate groans

Lisa* (from top of stairs): Bandage, ice, or ambulance?

Nick (to SafeT): You bleeding?

SafeT: No… inarticulate whimper

Nick (to Lisa): Ice!

* Lisa is Nick’s lovely wife.

The ice worked its tender magic and the injury is healing well, although the ice melted in the days since the incident.

2007-10-05T15:20:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

I half-heard the radio tell me,
“Fertility and Agility: Pontiac”

There’s a transparency to this sort of advertising campaign; I find it refreshing.

Do you think it would work on my wife as well, or is a divorce necessary? If the latter, I’ll stick with Fords. Staid reliability and endurance is more useful in a monogomists bedroom after all.

2007-10-04T11:33:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Bless his heart, this man is a student of “Order Where Order FIts”. He carefully leveled his licenseplate in relationship to the Earth, where his truck is woefully incapable of doing so.

2007-09-24T21:14:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

I have this friend who busted his leg really bad and I ate pizza at his house, only twelve feet or so from the couch he had been confined to for several days. I did handle the modified coat hanger he’d been using to itch the skin beneath the cast, but I don’t think that makes me gay in any way that counts.

Speaking of which, I’ve determined that I’d make an ideal gay man from a purely bio-mechanic-logistical standpoint.

You see, I crap logs on a regular basis that are bigger than any man’s penis could ever be, and I do so with almost no discomfort.

I also don’t think this makes me gay in any way that counts.

2007-09-20T15:00:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Due to current budgetary constraints, Detroit kindly asks all citizens to spit their used chewing-gum into the nearest pothole.

Everyone can make a difference.

-Kwame Kilpatrick

Mayor, City of Detroit

2007-09-15T10:34:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

    I’m a bit on the short side and I have a tiny penis; these two facts combine to make it difficult to pick up women from the comfort of my car. Plus I can’t go anywhere without people pointing and staring at me on account of how damn visible I am and I’m getting tired of fighting off the wolves and bears which randomly assault me throughout the day.

    If only there were a solution to all my problems that didn’t involve any underhanded ninja techniques.

    Oh! But there IS!!!

BECOME INVISIBLE

    But Joe, I hear you say, how will invisibility help you with your inability to pick up chicks while driving around, not to mention your short stature, miniscule penis size, and all those angry animal attacks?”

    It covers all those bases and then some. What you are looking at is the most creative item I’ve ever seen for sale on eBay–trust me on this; I once personally attempted to traffic an unholy thing from hell***.

    According to the seller’s ad-copy, this incredible solution to solving your lamentable visibility problem also comes with two extras which might normally stand alone as worthy of purchase in their own right.

    The first, Secrets of Sexual Seduction promises to teach you, among other things, techniques for “breast and crotch” that involve heat and touch, gorilla tactics for seducing women from your home and car, two distinct cures for baldness, methods for growing 4″-6″ (10cm-15cm) in height, lengthening your penis* and achieving weight loss without diet or exercise.

    That takes care of my height, length and attractiveness issues, but I’m still dealing with constant attempts by the local fauna to eat me without proper condiments.

    Its a good thing that billwwilliams also includes his spectacular Wizard’s Book of Animal Secrets. And, as Bill says, a strong command of animals is the mark of a wizard. This collection of ancient animal secrets guarantees that soon after purchase you will be able to command wild animals. More specifically, it will help you control flocks of birds, tame wild horses (even after others have tried and failed), and come to know the quiet world of frogs and toads.

    Haven’t you ever wanted to keep squirrels in your pocket** or bring dead creatures back to life? With this book you can. You CAN.

Sounds like bullshit, right? Well just LOOK at the customer feedback! Everyone is happy with the product, except for the few that expected invisibility cloaks or magic potions which are specifically excluded in the ad-copy.

BillWilliams, whoever you are (Bill-Bill?), you are a genius. You’ve gotten at least 348 people to pay you $24.95 each for PDF files. At least 28 in the last month, not a small bit of side business to be involved in, even if you really don’t know how to keep a squirrel in your pocket.

* Not applicable to women. No vulva enhancements offered

** To use as scouts, most likely. That’s what I’d use them for.

*** Click here to reveal your damnation!

2007-09-12T07:13:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

If you came here via http://safetinspector.blogspot.com but aren’t sure how that all happened, then everything worked properly.

I’ve replaced the SafeTinspector blogspot template with a bit of JavaScript that bounces you over to this, my new place. Tomorrow I should have my final best man speech posted, but it probably isn’t worth a revisit since it was edited for general family palatability.

Did you ever use the selector at the top of the old blog? I’ve been debating whether or not to reprogram it here. Also, photogalleries are ideal for porn, but can porn be applied to SafeTinspector without making him sticky or chaffed?

2007-09-06T17:51:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Meet SafeT’s Brother:

    He’s getting married this weekend and I’m the best man. I’m down to the wire and haven’t written the best man speech yet. Granted, his “toast” at my wedding seven years ago was a bit on the awkward side, and delved into my medical history in precisely the way that I would’ve chosen to avoid had I been asked. But I want to say something nice and memorable for him.

    So if you want to help me out, I’d appreciate it. Write me a speech, throw in as much information as you can fit into 250 words or less, and please include stuff about his towering intellect and how his gigantic wisdom causes people within 15 meters of his cranium to gain three IQ points on average and where there was this time he saved a burning kitten from a little building.

    I’ll interleave every other sentance of all submissions and go for it. Thanks in advance for your assistance in this matter.

The New Site

2007-09-01T10:45:00.000-04:00

I've outgrown this Google Blogger site, and wanted my own door to hang a shingle on. So safetinspector.blogspot.com--which you've come to know and love--will soon be a thing of the past, but let me tell you about www.safetinspector.com, the new home of SafeTinspector and Arthbard. First, the technical stuff:

Servername: SafeTinspector
DNS name: www.safetinspector.com
OS: Debian Linux 4.0
HDD: 4.0GB
MEMORY: 256MB
Blog Engine: Wordpress 2.2.1 on Apache2, PHP 5.2, MySQL 5.0.32

    Wait! sez you, what's with the wee little bit of RAM and the teeny tiny hard drive? Do they even SELL 4GB hard drives anymore, SafeT?
    No, but this SafeTinspector isn't a real computer in the classic sense of the word. He is a Virtual Computer. Read on; but I warn you now that geek shall be spoken so cover the ears of the underaged and the uninsured.
    To build SafeTinspector I downloaded the Debian net-install CD image and VMWare Server, a free computer virtualization product.
    Then, using the VMWare console, I created a virtual computer with a 4GB disk drive and 256MB of RAM and told it that the Debian Net-Install file was a real CD inserted in the CDRom drive and booted from it.
    From there I installed Debian as if it were going on a real computer. Debian is great for this kind of single-purpose server installation. The net-install CD comes with almost NOTHING and you install each required component one at a time using a simple command, APT-GET, which automatically connects to the internet, downloads and installs the desired program. (Ubuntu, a debian based desktop replacement OS, uses this same command).
    So, piece by piece I installed Apache2 web server, an FTP server (to let me upload files to it), SSH server (for secure remote access and file copies), PHP (the engine that drives many popular web apps like WordPress), MySQL (a database server WordPress and many PHP applications use), WebMin (web-based server administration tool), and a few other bits and pieces like 'make' and 'gcc' and whatnot.
    There were a few challenges along the way. For instance, WebMin is no longer supported directly by Debian so I had to jump through a couple hoops to make it work. And likewise the MySQL support in PHP is now a manual integration prcess. But in the end it was running and I rested. (was it the seventh day already?)
    I downloaded and installed WordPress from wordpress.org, selected a base theme and downloaded a handful of useful plugins. I even programmed my own widget! (a closure episode selector you will see on the right-hand side of the screen when you visit)
    Next, I needed to move all my SafeTinspector files over. That is, there was already a hosted web site using the name www.safetinspector.com and it was busily hosting most of the graphics and audio files from all the many SafeTinspector blogs and blogposts. I made a big compressed lump of it all, uploaded it to the new SafeTinspector virtual machine and unpacked it all so that, when the time came, the new server would transparently replace the old without anyone noticing the difference.
    Once that was done I connected my external hard drive up to a VMWare server in my office and uploaded SafeTinspector to the server's Virtual Machines folder, booted up, set the IP address and... you now have http://www.safetinspector.com!
    In the end I have a pretty tight little server that runs very well with only 256MB of ram (it never uses more the 125MB or so) and has almost 2GB free of its original 4GB. Even so, most of the used space is taken up by the audio and image files I transferred from the old web server.
    It is still not done, but I encourage you to change your links to point to the new site, as I am only posting new content there from now on. As a courtesy to you during this difficult transition period, I have installed and configured a cross-posting plugin that will automatically post all new www.safetinspector.com entries here at safetinspector.blogspot.com. But that will also go away eventually and I'll replace safetinspector.blogspot.com with a bounce page redirecting all traffic to the new site.
    If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please speak up now or be apathetic for all I care.

2007-08-30T21:28:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

    In the parlance of the geekarati, we went to a “Ren-Fair.” I’m not sure when the term was coined, as I’ve always called it “The Renaissance Festival,” and I’m still resisting the term this year.

Say what you will about these things, to me the Renaissance Festival has always represented cheap, affordable live entertainment in a pleasantly rustic environment.

    Certainly, you’ll see all manners of food impaled on sticks including not only the perrenial hot-dog but also “steak”-onna-stick and macaroni-and-cheese-onna-stick. Yes, and there’ll be wave after wave of local teenagers butchering a faux-British accent*. There’s the obligatory pickle pimp, and the creepy incense shops. Often the two are dangerously adjacent.

    But there’s also many stages hosting live entertainment, including a local favorite, “Dead Bob,” shown above. A little overrated, this cadaverous take on a ventriloquist act hasn’t changed his act appreciably in over a decade. But, as I’ve often said, if you haven’t seen it before then it is new to you, and with that in mind we took Sam to meet the fellow. Notice she was actually frightened of the apparition and I had to use the “KNEE” to hold her in place long enough to get this washed out and crappy picture. Eh, what can you do?

    Elsewhere in the fair was an abbreviated performance of MacBeth put on by three people in a mud-pit. The concept turned out to be far funnier than the execution; the only impressive aspect of the thing was the actors’ ability to pretend that they weren’t freezing their nuts off in the chilly mud-pit. I enjoyed watching their quivering tummies and lower lips.

    ”Zoltan the Mediocre,” a fire-eating block-head, was actually pretty funny and the juggling comedy duo “The Zucchini Brothers” made me laugh pretty hard. At one point in their act a troll, complete with prosthetic ears, teeth and grotesque contact lens, played a passable rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” on an accordion.

    More child specific was this elaborate baby dragon puppet act. The baby dragon puppet was operated the same way Big Bird is, with the head being manipulated by the puppeteer’s left hand and the left hand of the creature being worked by the puppeteer’s actual left hand. Skillfully done, really. Samantha is the overall-clad girl with the pink shirt sitting in the front row on the left.

    There was also a “fairy tea” ceremony in which Samantha was plied with brownies and lemonade and presented with a fairly well done story-telling by a group of African-American women.

    Behold the parade.

* Because wood recording made during the Renaissance show that everyone spoke with 20th century British accents.

2007-08-28T22:54:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

Some of the various things SafeT approved of today.

She went to the restroom and left me in her office. I’d already fixed her problem, so spent the intermission examining her horrible dolls. I love these sorts of dolls, they look for all the world like shellacked babies, but none of them look like my babies. It is very reassuring to know that my children have not been shellacked. I approve.

2007-08-26T16:41:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

2007-08-24T09:11:00.000-04:00

This entry was originally published at SafeTinspector

What follows is an email conversation, names have been changed to protest the innocence.

SafeT: We should redistribute the batteries sooner than later. Also, I have been told that you have batteries complaining of brown-out. Tell me about that. How does this make you feel?

Warton:It makes me feel… Well, Blue.

SafeT:So is it true, though? Is a battery or batteries complaining of brown-out conditions? Have you tested the outlet with a multimeter to see if there is a genuine issue?

Warton:Today, the two batteries in the new Broken Latch Rack whined about brown-out conditions. Tomorrow, it may be a different battery or nothing at all.

I no longer have a multi-meter. I burned it up by sticking it into places where I thought it belonged. : ) But, I wouldn’t have been able to check fast enough. It was only complaining for about 53 seconds.

SafeT: Oh. You should go get a new multimeter and then place it in a hip-holster for faster access.

Warton: I could duct tape the leads to my fingers. Then, if the power goes blinky I can make a dive to the outlet. Is this a good strategy?

SafeT: Yes, but you should actually apply the leads to rubber gloves and then wear the rubber gloves constantly. This would reduce the risk of electric shock while retaining that “always ready to meter” look you are going for.

Warton: Lead Condoms?

SafeT: Compatible, but inapplicable. Have at it.

Sneak Peek

2007-08-22T23:35:00.000-04:00

www.safetinspector.com
Shh! Don't tell nobody, and nobody gonna need baked goods.
It is nowhere near done, will look much different in the coming days before going live, but I'd love to hear any comments or ideas you have.

No, the link list isn't done. No, the graphics aren't done. No, the server isn't real.

Human Cattle Drive, The Woodward Dream Cruise

2007-08-19T06:49:00.000-04:00

    What if I were to tell you that there was a place on this Earth where 16 miles of pavement would be temporarily mobbed by 1.7 million people milling about while 40,000 old cars creep past them, showering the landscape with soot and geriatric pop music? And that this happens every year at this time?
    Would you say, SafeT! Count me in! That sounds great!?
    Oh, but there's more, hypothetical and enthusiastic reader. The 40,000 cars are, for the most part, over thirty years old. This means that even the individual specimens that have catalytic converters don't have very good catalytic converters. All the carbon monoxide you could ever want, just there for the breathing. Lean towards the road and inhale that history! That... toxic, crappy history. Still interested?

    It all started in the mid-90's:

(In 1995) Car clubs, car buffs, oldies music fans and people of the generation who remembered coming of age during those heady days on Woodward were ready to reinvent the past.

-Woodward Dream Cruise official website

    Romanticizing the past is not uniquely American. I've read stories of Germans longing for a return to the "innocent" days of the GDR* and of Russian apologists idolizing Stalin. But we in the Detroit area go one further and over-inflate our nostalgia in the way only the country sporting not one but FOUR World's Biggest Balls of Twine can.

    Ignoring the fact that our country's past is a sexist, alcohol-stewed universe of institutionalized racism, mandatory military service**, medicinally applied mercury tinctures and music by "The Archies", the Dream Cruise still bears as much resemblance to the weekend cruising of old as the Goodyear Blimp resembles a latex birthday balloon.
    Its not enough to re-enact the idle pursuits of our parents' squandered youth, we need to make it so monstrously huge that it can be photographed from space and impacts the local economy as if it were Christmas.
    Remember how much you liked butter on your toast? Well, that memory should make you happy to eat an entire tub of margarine with this parfait spoon. Go ahead, I'll wait. ...ok, moving on.

    I have friends who live close to this intentional redneck traffic jam*** who actually flee the area on a sort of forced-vacation every year. And I've heard that the local authorities will begin distributing Dream Cruise Survival Kits next year. These kits will include a small Chinese manufactured gas mask, a bottle of water, duct tape, 4oz of name brand corn chips and a late model Koontz or Grishom novel****.

    I should provide a disclaimer, here. I actually own a 1972 Buick Centurion, a massive barge of Detroit steel which barely fits in my garage. It was left to me by my grandfather, I drive it only on weekends in the summer, and usually only to a local park with my eldest daughter. I think it's unique and special. I bet most people with classic cars think that they own unique and special vehicles.
    That's what makes the Dream Cruise so great. What better way can there be to validate the specialness of your classic car than burying it in a crowd of 39,999 other old cars?*****

    So what do you think of this massive money shot on the alter of our Lord the Internal Combustion Engine? Good? Bad? Carburetted?

* Say what you will about totalitarian security states, but there's a certain attraction to any society that would actually build and drive the 25hp Trabant.
** Say what you will about American military quagmires, at least there's some small solace to be had in knowing that every American in this one actually volunteered to go there. ...But I suppose that might be more of a sad statement of how desperate for employemnt and/or delusional our youth are.
*** His words, not mine. Not that I don't agree, I just can't take credit for it.
**** The survival kit may keep you alive, but not living well. No, not at all.
***** I'm assuming, in this example, that your car is the 40,000th.

Puss N' Boots

2007-08-15T07:13:00.000-04:00

Get it? You get, right? TELL ME YOU GET IT!! HA HA HA HA!

    Aww... Lookit Sisco the cat. Not sure what he got out of such close proximity to my boots. But on the udder foot*, who could resist the odiferous charms of my Wolverines? I, for one, spend most evenings huffing my soul out and softening the resulting edge by consuming dishes full of Tostito Scoops and Salso**.      Gazing fondly at my foot coverings, I am once again struck by the notion that if I could bottle this stuff, I'd make a fortune. I don't have time for the marketing effort, however, as this boot won't huff itself.

    In other news: Mircea, a nice Romanian fellow who works for me, has had a baby son named Andre. He's at home right now, the beneficiary of genetic coupling with his wife Viorella. He is also enjoying a pile of perfectly re-usable baby supplies Riley has indicated either a declining interest in or has proven to no longer match the scale to which they were designed.
     Enjoy the baby food carousel, wind-up swing, baby chocks****, dog-eared copy of 'What To Expect in the First Year,' Bumbo seat, and collapsible bassinet*****, Mircea. See you next week... probably.

    In other animal young news, my company president, Jeff Cattin, has adopted a golden retriever puppy named Leyla. We gave him no supplies, as none of our young were recently puppies.

* Also known as a mammaropod
** a more masculine salsa. I'm a MAN, god-damn it, and I will not eat like a Latina***.
*** Latino is the male form, you monolinguists.
**** They keep the baby from rolling. What else would you all them? Heather has a word, but I've forgotten it in a fit of rebellion.
***** You would think it would be hard to confuse one of these with a collapsible bayonet, but yet there it was.

My New Friend

2007-08-12T00:10:00.000-04:00

    I've been working towards a rapport with some of the alpha carts from the local wobbles. This fellow let me stand next to him and seemed friendly. The camera noise startled him, however, and I was horribly gored mere seconds after this photo was taken.
    The camera operator, Vince, fled the scene disguised as a weekend sales circular.
    I don't blame the cart, who is a feral beast and had no idea what my intentions were and was acting in accordance with his instincts. No, I blame Vince.

I'm going to make Vince drink a pint of color safe bleach.

TRUE OR FALSE!

2007-08-02T18:46:00.000-04:00

One of these items is NOT a true fact about SafeTinspector.
Click on the SFT buttons to reveal more...

When I was 19 I drove a modified volkswagen beetle cross-country, resulting in temporary hearing loss and a noise pollution ticket from a bemused, yet sexy Michigan State trooperette.

TRUE

I can swallow my tongue at will and frequently probe my own tonsils for foreign matter.

TRUE

I lost my beautiful, blonde, bannana curls to the vagarities of testosterone poisoning at the tender age of 13.

TRUE

At the virginal age of 20 I followed my testicles through San Juan, Puerto Rico to St. Thomas, the Virgin Islands.

TRUE

I once sold a short story involving the modern identity of the real Santa Claus which was never published. Instead, some weeks later I received a peppermint scented cease-and-desist order from an invalid Alaskan mailing address.

FALSE

I was once able to leg-press 800lbs five times in a row on a regular basis.

TRUE

How are YOU feeling, SafeT?

Still Shiny.

Still Bald.

Sheriff Dan Minzey

2007-08-01T18:06:00.000-04:00

The fearsome Sheriff Dan Minzey says: Drive-offs Don't Drive in Washtenaw County!
This decal adorns the gas pumps throughout his jurisdiction, and I can think of no better deterrent than this image of Dan Minzey.

Special Features

2007-07-30T23:27:00.000-04:00

    So I've got some extra bits, some leftovers from the last Arth-imation, which might conceivably be interesting to fans--DVD bonus shit, so to speak.

    What Would You Do for an Iceberg Bar marks the first time I've used outside voice actors in my animation. SafeTinspector volunteered his vocal chords for the part of the alien and his little girl Sam read for, appropriately enough, the little girl. Before they did, though, I'd already done a little bit of work on the scenes in question. So, feel free to click the following link if you want to see an unfinished version of what the alien could have ended up sounding like.

    SafeT also added a bit to the script, including most of what the alien actually says--my initial version contained none of the pitiful earthling stuff--though I have to take full responsibility for misspelling the word "possess." Didn't know possess was misspelled in the 'toon? Never mind. Forget I brought it up.

    You can also keep an eye open for "Additinal Artwork" in the credits.

    Yeah. Proofreading is for dorks.

    But, anyway, SafeT gave me a bunch of different options for the alien, which were pretty much all funny, but I could only use one, so here's the rest, in no particular order:
Barney-Style Oop

Morbo Style

Fairies

Double Voice

    SafeT also did a version of the homicidal creep with the reverse Oedipus Complex. His take on the character was a little different than what I went for with mine, but I liked it, so I thought it was worth sharing.
Le Creep

    And, here's his version of the post-credit blow line:
Lets Talk Peppermint Patties

    Also, there was a whole different cut of the cartoon I did for an animation contest. The rules stipulated a 30-60 second runtime, so I had a lot of cutting out to do. I cut corners everywhere I could. The long version is better, I think, but if you're interested in hearing my version of the little girl lines, they're in here. I prefer Sam's version, myself, but I did my best, for what it's worth.

    Also, due to popular request (of one person), a completely unrelated zombie picture:

Shopping Zombie, yeah! -ed

Made-Old, the Stone Washed Universe

2007-07-27T09:38:00.000-04:00

Don't miss he Shopping Carts! Scroll down for more info.
    Lets talk about the made-old explanation of natural and geological history. In this, certain people of faith who think that it is spiritually important to come to a specific conclusion about the creation of the world have posited that one way to make a seven day creation (six plus a one-day vacation, really) seem plausible in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary is to state that God made the world looking old.

    I believe that this is remotely possible, provided you start with the assumption that there is a God and He is an omnipotent being capable of anything conceivable or inconceivable. In this, it could be said that God created the Earth in-situ, in process, like a rolling start.

    In following this theory, I might then conclude that all events that apparently happened prior to the act of creation are therefore synthetic, and manufactured. God is omnipotent, however, so His manufactured history is 100% convincing in all the ways we as lowly humans can ever perceive. So the only one who could possibly tell the difference between the manufactured history and the real history is God Himself.

    As a matter of fact, this could mean that God created the universe three minutes ago, including all of our memories up to this very moment. How could we ever know? My car, contrary to the evidence provided me by Ford Motor Credit, may be brand new and my bowels may be full of food I never really ate but only think I did.

    Ah, but that is getting ahead of ourselves. Lets go back to God having created the Earth about six thousand years ago sporting a stylishly lived-in look. If true, then scientists have no choice but to use the evidence and phenomena presented by God's manufactured reality in their quest to find answers and make predictions about the world around us. They must operate within the system set up for us by God. God seems to have made the artificial history completely seamless and predictive, and therefore removed the necessity of believing in his act of creation, an act for which he carefully provided us with no evidence.

    That is, if He did such a thing so very effectively, then He effectively did no such thing at all.

    With this, I think it is possible to believe in a seven day creation, and it is possible to believe that there was no seven day creation and both are not disprovable and can be valid paths to their adherents, though I am not among them, and fail to see the spiritual necessity of holding onto either concept. Why would the salvation through the love of Jesus require that we believe in a supposed seven day creation? (Well, six plus the aforementioned one-day vacation)

    But what if you believe that all of time, past and future, may have already been about to be existing all along? What if all of time was always created because it was all created at once?

Shopping Cart Spotters Annual

2007-07-21T07:12:00.000-04:00

Looking for the new Arth'toon? Scroll down for the latest incredible animation from Arthbard, my bestest blogmate ever.
    Greetings, fellow spotters. Its been an exciting year for Shopping Carts* in SouthEast Michigan, with both weather and economic conditions proving to have been the perfect breeding conditions for most breeds, really swelling the ranks of cart wobbles*** throughout the entire region. I'm excited to hear from all of you on how your local wobbles have been doing, as well as your diversity reports.

A shopping cart, separated from the flerd, wanders aimlessly.
    The distinct red patina and white rectangular flank markings of this Home Depot Cart catches the early morning light as it carefully navigates the shopping district. A careless human probably led this individual far from his wobble, and he must now rejoin them before he starves to death. The possibility of claiming a $250 gift card provides no comfort to him, as there is very little likelihood that this youthful Home Depot Cart can read English yet.

The last known Chrome A&P Screecher
    Remember, diversity in the wobble is just as important as population count. Many breeds have died out over the years, and the cart-spotting community still mourns the loss of the great Chrome A&P Screecher. There was some hope that a new colony could be established when one of the majestic beasts was spotted living in the wilds of the Star Gratiot Shopping Center. But a mate couldn't be found in time, and without a breeding pair this proud and lonely trolly died as the apparent last of his kind.

An adult Marshalls cart and young
    Here you see the mother Marshalls cart hovering protectively over her tender young. The bright red coat of the young male will eventually darken as he reaches adulthood, but for now serves to help his mother spot him should he become separated from the wobble. At this age he is almost completely dependent on convenience item shopping.

The bizarre behavior of the Chrome Vegas Food Mart wobble
    Here we have the perplexing phenomenon of the Vegas Food Mart, in which the entire wobble was photographed pointing their muzzles at the sky, laying in a nearly endless line. The only evidence as to the purpose of this congregation may lie in the two crumpled sales circulars and one soiled condom found wound around the lead cart's right-front wheel. The entire wobble lay like this for about six hours, eventually dispersing and going on about their normal shopping patterns.

    Due to an unexplained lack of vision, this sentence should now serve as the concluding paragraph of this article.

* Trollies for our UK brethren**
** And sistren?
*** Birds have flocks, cows have herds, crows have covens, carts have wobbles.

What would you do for an Iceberg Bar?

2007-07-14T01:01:00.000-04:00

Juicy Bling, the Slut Trainer

2007-07-09T22:26:00.000-04:00

If we ever want our little girls to make it in today's complex society, we need to provide them with polyvinyl roll models that are not only anatomically improbable like Barbie, but combine those exaggerated proportions with a certain level of cock-teasing sluttiness.
Look no farther, for here is "Juicy Bling":

Juicy Bling, the Slut Training doll by Mattel

No, this isn't Bratz. This is the Barbie take on the Bratz concept, and is made by Mattel for your discerning future rainbow-party* participant.

* You don't know what a rainbow party is? I'm not so sure they really happen, but read this Wiki article. Its good, clean fun!

Annual 4th of July Lesson

2007-07-08T13:03:00.000-04:00

If you've never read it, then it is new to you

A little history lesson for you.
     On the 4th of July in 1776 America declared independence from our oppressive colonial masters. The surviving humans of the North American slave colony of New Jersey discovered, with the help of Ben Franklin and then time-traveling Theodore Roosevelt, the fatal weakness of our alien masters, the D'Aret Krang.
     Yes, Ben Franklin discovered that the D'Aret Krang, a race of beings so genetically pure that they share a single set of chromosomes, collectively suffered from a genetic propensity for epileptic seizures when exposed to bright, flashing lights.
     Theodore Roosevelt's time-travel machine had only one seat and he was thus unable to pick up Thomas Edison due to Tom's homophobic fear of sitting on the manly lap of the massive Roosevelt. Without Edison there was scant technology available to the desperate slaves of the time to take advantage of the newly discovered weakness.
     Franklin, however, thanks to his youthful journeys in the orient as a Ronin, Ninja and silk-trader, had an extensive collection of aesthetically pleasing incendiary devices. A deployment of this technology was quickly organized by Paul Revere and Dolly Madison which culminated in a simultaneous detonation of approximately 50 metric tons of saltpeter, gunpowder, and 'fireworks.'
     As the D'Aret Krang fell as one to the ground in a jiggly, hooting mass of alien flesh, George Washington and Nathaniel Hawthorn led bands of men in dragging our quivering former-masters into the very space craft that brought us the hateful overlords. They then programmed the ships to dive into the sun, and America celebrated as the fleet of invaders burnt itself to cinders in the heliosphere if our favorite star, Sol.
     So join us in celebrating our victory, planet Earth! Thanks to our American forefathers (and a time-traveling Teddy) humans have been free to oppress themselves in peace ever since.

FREEDOM IS OURS! -peace out.

Look Ma! Short Hair!

2007-07-06T06:06:00.000-04:00

Samantha is six years old, four foot tall, and now has shorter hair.

    "C'mon, Sam! We're going out," said Heather.
    "Wait," I said, "where are you going?" Heather stood in the kitchen, purse already slung over her shoulder and sunglasses upon her face.
    "Not telling you," she told me as Sam put on her shoes, "Its a surprise!"
    Well, it sure was! Look at the HAIR! Short, but really very cute. This is the shortest her hair has been since she was three, and what a difference.
Here's a before and after:
Before

After

God Save the Queen? In Suburban Detroit?

2007-06-30T22:58:00.000-04:00

    "God Save the Queen!" A notable sentiment when expressed in red spray paint on asphalt in Utica, Michigan.
    What motivation could lead the painter of this message to scribe thusly? A further fifty yards down the street I found a discarded CDR, with no label. I thought that perhaps the content of the disk was related to the Anglophilic roadway notation. I took it home and upon inserting it in my wife's iBook was notified that I'd discovered someone's copy of the soundtrack for the movie "Armageddon".
    The Movie's title closely matched the CD's content, which heavily favors Steven Tyler and Steven Tyler derivatives. Note from the list below that the single nod to modernity contained therein was the overplayed and craptastic song Starseed, by Our Lady Peace.

    Neither the movie nor its soundtrack are British, but the shedding of the soundtrack might have been one of the steps the anonymous scrawler took on the road to psuedo-Brittanianism.

    "England, I cast aside Steven Tyler and turn to YOU! Love in my heart, and God Save the Queen!"

    Armageddon: the Original Motion Picture
    Track list:

I Don't Want To Miss A Thing - Aerosmith
Remember Me - Journey
What Kind Of Love Are You On - Aerosmith
La Grange - ZZ Top
Roll Me Away - Bob Seger
When The Rainbow Comes - Shawn Colvin
Sweet Emotion - Aerosmith
Mister Big Time - Jon Bon Jovi
Come Together - Aerosmith
Wish I Were You - Patty Smyth
Starseed - Our Lady Peace
Leaving On A Jet Plane - Chantal Kreviazuk*
Theme From Armageddon - Trevor Rabin
Animal Crackers - Steven Tyler

* Kreviazuk is such an interesting name. This track was not. Lazy alt-folk-rock crap with nary an intriguing accent. Kind of Natalie Imbruglia-esque. Wierd, that was an interesting name, too....

The Return of the Chaos Garden

2007-06-23T07:59:00.000-04:00

    When Samantha was a baby we purchased a toy called the "Bee-Bop Twirlin' Whirlin' Garden". My review of the product can be found here. I shall refer to it as Chaos Garden from here on out.

    As with many of her baby and toddler toys, we'd long since cocooned them in plastic and shelved it either in the basement or in the attic. Along with other age appropriate toys and clothes, we got the Chaos Garden out of storage for Riley (who is now almost 1 year old).

    The Chaos Garden is a platform made of counter-rotating disks upon which plastic toys can tumble from disk to disk in figure S and 8 patterns, clattering and tumbling as they go. You really can't have a conversation when it is activated, nor can you think about anything other than the noise and lights.

    We'd set it up for Riley when Samantha came down the stairs and spied it.

    "What's that?" Sam ran over and squatted in front of it, examining the inactive thing.
    "Its the Twirlin' Whirlin' Garden," I said as she pressed the blue button, throwing the noisy thing into action. Clattering and tumbling ensued. All non-Chaos Garden thought began to grind to a halt. I managed to get out "you used to love it, Sam."
    She gazed at the flashing lights and spinning disks and whispered, "....I still do."

* Picture is posted. Enjoy the sight!

Interest Check: My Right Foot

2007-06-18T17:48:00.000-04:00

    You've all made it clear that my left foot is probably a subject best left unattended, regardless of how important it is to me. Upon sober reflection, I've come to agree with you, although I'm interested in any suggestions as to how to remedy the situation.
    Topical solutions didn't help, even with aloe vera and lye. The fragrant result might have been more interesting to smell but I still beat the left foot at checkers three out of three times*.
    In any case, I'd like to turn your attention to my right foot. Please examine the included photograph before considering your response.

* I kinged it once by accident, having lost my balance somewhere around the third turn. At that time I obtained a bean-bag chair for additional stability, moving the checkerboard to the top of a rough wooden sheet of plywood which had been exiled to the garage for political reasons.

Happy Birthday, Olsen Twins

2007-06-13T09:34:00.000-04:00

The following is a happy-birthday reprint of my ode to the Olsen's from 2005. If you missed it then, it's knew to ewe. I've updated it, so it may merit a re-scan.

Happy 21st Birthday, Olsen Twins!
     I know, who doesn't want to kill these spoiled, skinny, shallow, vapid, little rich girls, right? I am no exception to this nearly universal rule, but my reasons for Olsenocide may surprise you.

     I don't care that they are annoying, or vapid, or talentless, or fraternal, or possibly animatronic. I don't hate them for that. No one forces me to see their movies, I never watched the damn TV show (primarily because Dave Coulier and Bob Saget make me itch and cast about nervously for automatic weapons) and I am not compelled by law to join their official fan club. No one forces me to deal with the Olsen twins of our decade.

     But yet I want to climb into a time machine with a bent pipe, travel back to 1992 and strike them about the head and shoulders repeatedly until they are dead. Don't get me wrong. I'm no sadist; I wouldn't do it happily, no. It would be hard on everyone involved, including their parents and myself. I might need counseling after I returned to 2007 with their Olsenite* blood dripping off my hands and bent pipe.

     But at least I would never have had to hear the records they made in 1992 when they were seven years old. A lifetime living with haunting memories of their pitiful screams for mercy would be worth it to never have ever listened to...well...

     See, we have this thing called Sirius Satellite Radio and amongst the music and news stations it offers is a children's station called, "Kid's Stuff." It plays nice songs by the Muppets, School House Rock, the Animaniacs, Trout Fishing in America and all sorts of kiddie music acts you may or may not be familiar with. I'm fine with them all. Sam enjoys it so much that she might not constantly whine when the car ride exceeds ten minutes, and I can sing most of those songs along with her for extra parental delightedness.

     "Kid's Stuff" has a dark side, though. Occasionally a painful exercise in tympanum torture emerges from their otherwise agreeable music catalog and you find yourself treated to *shudder* Veggie Tales, the Wiggles, or even Barney the Dinosaur**.
    The absolute worst thing I've ever heard, however, even when considering air-raid sirens and the mating calls of feral cats as logical alternatives, is Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen singing "Brother for Sale," "I'm the Cute One," "Desperate for a Dog," or "Identical Twins***."

    Sam, unfortunately, likes hearing their little voices lie about being identical twins or tell us that their brother is only worth 50 cents. So I let Sam listen, and I slowly grind the enamel off of my molars and shake with barely contained rage.

If I had a bent pipe... Wait, found one!
...
      ...Now, if I only had a time machine,

* Olsenite is an extraterrestrial radioactive element which reduces Jimmy Olsen to an even weaker and more ineffective supporting character to Superman. Under the influence of Olsenite, Jimmy usually just naps under the billowing cape and tentatively eats his own camera film.
** I often fantasize about Barney the Dinosaur and Dorothy the Dinosaur fighting over the corpse of a Triceratops.
*** Filthy lie of a title! Mary Kate and Ashley are actually fraternal twins. Lying little hussies.
**** My birthday was June 7! I'm 35. Samantha's birthday was June 8! She's 6.

Today's Bible Reading

2007-06-07T08:21:00.000-04:00

The Holy Illustrated Dictionary of Microcomputer Terminology, 1978

    An epiphany! A rebirth! I have become a new profit*! Through a chance encounter at a library book sale, a stranger drew my attention to this book by standing next to it and adjusting his hem. He was wearing a "Dog" T-shirt; knowing that the Dyslexicographic Theology Department** of St. Bernard's Jesuit Academy considers that to be the true name of the divine 'other', I paid heed. As soon as he left the room for the sanctuary of the men's lavatory, I stepped through the remaining cloud of sandalwood vapor and drew this tome from the stack.
    I knew it for what it was as soon as it rested in the palm of my hands. A holy book, the scripture of the new age. It is ideal.
    What it lacks for in narrative, it makes up for in declarative statements, which is the standard by which the best holy writs are judged. This is a troubled time we live in, with terrorism, internet porn, underage drinking, happy-slapping, American Idol and the inexplicable popularity of Rachel Ray all challenging the morality of our society. It becomes difficult to find meaning and direction when we are presented with so many conflicting messages.
    I think the Illustrated Dictionary of Microcomputer Terminology 1978 can bring clarity to our lives, can offer peace where it cannot offer direction, and bring anachronistic technobabble when we need it most. So it is that I present you with today's reading:

Teletype exchange--The exchange services such as TELEX or TWX, which provide direct-dial point-to-point connections using Teletype equipment. Facilities are also available to allow computers to ineterface through these services.

    What is the Illustrated Dictionary of Microcomputer Terminology 1978 telling us here? I, your humble profit, will do my best to interpret the ancient writings.
    We, alone, are all just isolated pieces of teletype equipment. Our vaccuum powered hammers lay still, with nothing to say and no way to offer anything to anyone else. We have no message. That is, we have no message until we reach out to one another by direct-dial and form point-to-point connections using TWX/TELEX. With the point-to-point connection established with our fellow teletype machines we can receive news and information from eachother, directions from those higher up in our organizational heirarchy, and perhaps even conduct business transactions for the betterment of all***. We can send love to eachother through direct-dial, and feed off one another's strengths.
    So go! Form a connection to the TWX/TELEX system and show them you are Illustrated Dictionary of Microcomputer Terminologians by your love... by your love. They will know you are Illustrated Dictionary of Microcomputer Terminologians by your love.

* I know what I said.
** Theology temnrepaDt, as their official letterhead reads.
*** All with a financial stake in the business in question during said transaction, providing that any such transaction produces a positive revenue entry or provides profit, that is.
**** This isn't the first time I've started a new church. See Church of the Holy Secretions for details on my previous avocation.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Torture

2007-06-04T19:17:00.000-04:00

    Ten years ago, if someone asked me if I thought that my country, the United States of America, would torture a prisoner in the course of an interrogation, I would grant that, perhaps, a rogue CIA agent might. But he or she would be acting on their own, and would be punished if caught.

    That torture would not only become a tacitly admitted policy of our government, nearing official endorsement and debated openly by Presidential     hopefuls on broadcast television seems like a side note from a dystopic William Gibson novel.

    In a future world where people have computer interfaces in     their molars and buy cheap knock-off organ replacements in back alleys, torture would seem a plausible part of the American way. But, I thought, not in my real-world land of self-evident rights and constitutionally mandated freedoms.

    I evidently thought wrong. First, Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo several years ago claiming that the Geneva conventions on torture are obsolete. A year or so later anti-torture legislation introduced in congress almost gets vetoed and is dismissed as "unnecessary" by the President and many like-minded Americans.

    Most recently, on May 16, during a televised GOP debate, an elaborately constructed story was presented to the amazing assemblage of old, white men in order to get a bead on their torture stances*. While the scenario seemed like the synopsis of a rejected TV pilot, it did effectively present the closest thing to a no-brainer for torture I've seen bandied about on prime time television.

    Convoluted plots aside, the question presented to the candidates ultimately was: do you think torture should be used if you thought that doing so was the only way to prevent the death of innocent civilians? Should there be a law allowing the torture?

    During the debate John McCain stuck to his guns, doing a little robot dance while declaring the utter unacceptability of torture under any circumstances. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, not only seemed enthusiastic about the prospect of torture, but tossed in his support for the recent suspension of habeas corpus for good measure by saying, "I want them in Guantanamo where they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil." He followed that up by proposing they double the size of the Guantanamo prison. That would help them shorten the waiting list, I suppose.

    In any case it was Giuliani that finally made me come to this essay's titular position. Basically, he waffled. He walked right up to the line of endorsing torture and....drooled stupidly on it. Interrogators should "use every method they could think of," he stammered, "Shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of."

    Obviously he was working with a different interpretation of the word "every" than I'm most comfortable with, but he's from New York, has guest starred on Saturday Night Live several times, and therefore is the recipient of my rare and coveted benefit-of-the-doubt. This sort of don't-ask-don't-tell torture policy seems duplicitous, but it illuminates the fact that these men, each of whom would happily vow to gladly give their life for this country, have no intention of laying their freedom on the line in the service of the public good.

    Of course you would torture the prisoner if it would save innocent lives. Should you ship him to Guantanimo first? No, that seems like a waste of time. Torture him in the nearest Holiday Inn for all I care. But I would NOT legalize torture. It should be highly illegal. It should carry mandatory, heavy jail sentences. If the torture should result in death, then it should be considered a capital offense.

    This would make the use of torture a sort of personal policy of mutual destruction whereby every person who engages in the torture of a suspect not only knows that they will likely go to prison for the rest of their productive lives but should go gladly, without fuss, pleading guilty as charged to every judge that he or she meets along the way. You don't get a free pass, and there should be no law that will protect you.

    If I would ask a police officer, a fireman, or a soldier to put themselves in harms way--even to die--for citizens like me, then shouldn't I ask our interrogators to put themselves in legal jeopardy for us as well?

    If you legalize torture under any circumstances, then you tempt authority to abuse the power you've given it. You would need to put in place regulatory mechanisms to ensure that torture isn't being used under false or inadequate pretenses. Such regulatory mechanisms would either be expensive or ineffective and neither of those are the kinds of regulatory mechanisms we can afford.

    Besides which, even if you satisfy the American public that torture isn't being abused, you establish a precedent by which we, as a country, lose our ability to act as credible protesters of the human rights violations of others on the world stage. Pots can't get away with calling kettles black, says the cliché machine. And I tend to agree with it when I'm the one driving. It would be better, I think, to be able to state unequivocally that torture is illegal. Problem solved; no regulatory requirements, no kettles crying foul.

    By making torture the legal equivalent of jumping on a grenade thrown into a crowd, you instill the appropriate amount of reticence and respect that the use of torture deserves. If you fear that this would make an interrogator lax in his or her duty and that he or she would allow "the bomb" to go off just because they don't want to go to prison then I say to you that such a selfish agent is the EXACT kind of person I would not want to give a free pass to. By refusing to take the legal bullet they've proven themselves to not be sufficiently committed to the good of the country to be trusted with that kind of power.

    So what if torture was the only way to save the lives of innocent people? I would take a real bullet to save the lives of my family. So why wouldn't I take a judicial bullet, too? I would torture the terrorist. I would get the information necessary to save the lives of my fellow humans.

    And I would go to jail for the rest of my life, every year of which would be bittersweet, but justified. If you would die for this country, you should be willing to go to prison for it, too.

* My torture stance is a kind-of a kung fu pose, normally assumed with a feather duster in one hand and a knotted length of barbed wire running through a bent-pipe in the other. Think Bruce Lee meets Marquis de Sade.

Fun with iPods

2007-05-30T20:01:00.000-04:00

    iPods are great. iPod lets me start a sentence with a lower-case letter and, for once, it's not a grammatical mistake. Take that, every English teacher I ever had! But such case insensitive freedom is nothing compared to the sublime prospect of putting one's entire CD collection into a light, portable device; one that fits in your pocket in exactly the way that a walkman with 100+ jewel cases doesn't.
    Naturally, it's not quite enough just to squeeze 3,500 songs into your pocket. Without the ability to listen to your music, the allure of miraculous containment would soon fade, which is why every iPod comes equipped with a set of earbuds: tiny, unsanitary little speakers you can cram right into your ear canal. For additional money, of course, you can obtain replacement noisemakers that can live where they are far less likely to come into contact with earwax. Big, high quality earphones are one option, but for a bigger sound you'll want to attach your iPod to that expensive home stereo of yours, and for that there are iPod docks that pipe out sounds via the appropriate audio cables.
    Want to play your iPod's music in your car? You have several options available to you. If your car happens to be burdened with a geriatric cassette-tape player you can just hook the sucker up with one of those cassette deck adapters that have been around for decades anyway. Those on a more up-scale budget could always buy a brand new car stereo with a built-in iPod dock to feed that need. A third option, like say if your car doesn't have a cassette player and has an odd dashboard layout that only fits funky-weird-shaped stereos, you may have to settle for an FM transmitter. An FM transmitter is basically a miniature radio station with silent, miniature DJ's--and you can carry it around in your pocket. It sends out a small FM signal that you can use to play your music over an empty station on your car radio.
    Now, here's where things start to get interesting. That empty station thing, I just said? Ignore it. The FM transmitter, or at least the one I have, may give off a weak signal, but it's still enough to overpower existing radio signals, provided they aren't particularly strong. Everybody with me on this, so far? What I'm saying here is that there are local radio stations that I can normally tune my radio into which, while not particularly strong, still play perfectly well under normal circumstances... And my iPod transmitter can completely overpower them. Okay, now, I don't know exactly how far this transmitted signal might carry, but I do know that it goes all the way from my cigarette lighter to my car antenna. See, my cigarette lighter (within which the FM transmitter I possess is ensconced) is nearer the left side of my car. Buuutt ... The antenna is on the right side of my car. Get it? So ... If I'm in the right-hand lane and there's another car traveling in the same direction in the lane immediately to my left ... My iPod's FM transmitter is closer to that car's antenna than it is to my own!
    That's right! It's PRANKIN' TIME!
    For examplatory purposes, we're going to find, say, a nice gospel station or maybe some conservative talk radio. Then, we're going to take our FM transmitters (if you're as excited as I am about this, then you'll get one!) and we're going to set it to broadcast on this very station. Now, we're going to go out for a drive. Cruise around a bit. Hang out around red lights and look for cars with Jesus fish or "Blame Me, I Voted For Bush" stickers on their bumpers. Finally, we're going to blast* them with music from our very specially assembled playlists!
    What should this playlist contain? Well, that's purely up to you, the prankster. Call it a matter of taste. Get creative. It doesn't even have to be directed at Christians and Republicans. No, we're equal opportunity pisser-offers here at SafeT and Arth. Want to look for pro-choice bumper stickers and play Bible verses at them? Feel free! Have the urge to spot anti-war slogans and pelt the drivers with jingoistic country songs? Go right ahead! Wanna follow me around and make me listen to adult contemporary lite** rock? Good luck finding me!
    But, in keeping with the stated example, here's my list of prank-ready music:

Highway to Hell by AC/DC - Sure, there are more offensive songs out there, and the band always held that it was really just a metaphor for life on the road anyway, but it's a classic and it's still got the word Hell in it a lot. Plus it's got a catchy guitar riff so the unwitting recipients will be hearing "I'm on the hiiggghhwayyy to Hell!" over and over in their heads for weeks to come. Bon would have wanted it that way.
The song also gets bonus points for the fact that you'll likely be playing it on a highway, so it's especially appropriate.

The Devil Went Down to Georgia by The Charlie Daniels Band - Okay, again, not particularly offensive--we're building up, here--but it is about the devil, after all.
Bonus points if you play it in Georgia.

The Fight Song by Marilyn Manson - Obvious, maybe--I'm sure most of you were thinking, "Oh, I bet Marilyn Manson's coming up in a bit," as soon as I started listing songs (unless you're a bit older, in which case you were probably thinking Black Sabbath who, by the way, just might be making an appearance in a few carriage returns) but I have to say that if a demon was going to rise from Hell to sing through my radio ... Well, he could probably sing however he wanted to, what with his magic demon powers and all, but I'd like to think he'd probably choose to sound like Marilyn Manson. In any case, this is what the prankees are likely to assume, anyway. And the chorus on this particular song has him singing "I'm not a slave to a God who doesn't exist," so it's all good.

N.I.B. by Black Sabbath - Okay. It's not blatantly offensive from beginning to end, but with a little effort you should be able to time it so that, just as you approach the target, you get to the verse that goes, "Now I have you with me under my power/Our love grows stronger now with every hour/Look into my eyes you see who I am/My name is Lucifer, please take my hand." (ed-that's why God--or Lucifer, I suppose--gave me the pause button)

Super-Charger Heaven by White Zombie - Really. The song begins with the lines, "Jesus lived His life in a cheap hotel on the end of Route 66/He lived a dark and a twisted life and He came right back just to do it again," and the chorus is comprised of Rob screaming, "Devil-Man, Devil-Man, callin'!/Devil-Man runnin' through my head!" over and over again. Provided you can decipher his overdubbed wailing, can you honestly think of a better song for this type thing?
Okay, well ... Maybe ...

Die, Motherfucker, Die by Dope - The title alone sounds pretty bad, right? Well, get a load of these lyrics:
I don't need your prayers
I don't need no religion
I don't need a thing from you

I don't do what I've been told
You're so lame why don't you just go

Die, motherfucker, die, motherfucker, die!
Die, motherfucker, die, motherfucker, die!
Die, motherfucker, die, motherfucker, die!
Die, motherfucker, die, motherfucker, die!
... And so on and so forth. Lame people ain't got no reason to live.

So ... Don't be shy, people. Let's hear from everybody in the comments. I want to know who you would piss off and what you would play at them.
-Arthbard

*Unfortunately, the FM doodad doesn't actually transmit volume, so all blasting is purely metaphorical.
**The hip-in-1922 spelling of "lite" is intended to indicate that all traces of badassitude have been surgically removed from the music in question, thereby allowing anyone and everyone to peacefully listen in total boredom without ever running the risk of their blood pressure rising beyond the level of contentedly sleepy.

Love Hate the Building

2007-05-29T21:35:00.000-04:00

    I took this picture of graffiti and desolation from the 8th floor of the financial district parking structure across the way. This is one of the ABUS* in Detroit. There was a time when I was young and stupid and I seriously considered gearing up for an urban spelunking raid in one of the many such empty office buildings throughout the city.
    I wanted to see if there were trays of unclaimed, petrified bagels in the decrepit conference rooms, or perhaps one or two vintage "you don't have to be crazy to work here**" posters pinned to the paleolithic proto-cubicles. The ghosts of meaningless labors past simply must walk the halls at night. They have to! I bet you can hear them whispering about where they'd like to eat lunch, about how they are not working hard nor are they hardly working***.
    If I sat in a filthy, half-broken chair behind the moldy old desk of a long-gone secretary named Catherine, would I hear someone whisper in my ear, "Cathy... you've changed," or would it lament that Cathy grew a beard?

cathy... you've.... changed...

You want to know more about the ABUS*. Here's how: www.forgottendetroit.com

* Abandoned Buildings of Unusual Size. Found in the fire swamps of Detroit.
** Say it with me, boys and girls: "But it HELPS!"
*** A quantum state through which one may become exhausted by the effort to become unproductive.

What? Money for MEEEE?!?

2007-05-25T21:07:00.000-04:00

Epinions says they have money for me!*
    Seven years ago (really? SEVEN?!?) I joined Epinions. It was the height of the internet bubble and I quickly earned some bread for a handful of reviews I wrote (all of which are still viewable if you want. Its SafeTinspector writing half a decade before the blog was a tilt in my kilt)
    But the bubble burst and the returns drained away. I stopped writing the reviews, and only very rarely checked in. Like two years ago, when I was starting up this blog and wrote a book review. So imagine my surprise when I saw that Epinions owes me over $50!
    I'm RICH, bitch! Should I cash out? Should I write another review and check back in two years?

* They also show me as living in Eastpointe and being 33 years old**.
** IN actuality I was the one that wrote I was 33. Bit I did it two years ago and the silly tits never updated it for me.

Downtown Funtime

2007-05-23T22:31:00.000-04:00

Alley next to the Buhl building
535 Griswold Street, Detroit

    "Man, I'm sorry, I didn't think I'd scare you, man. You ok?"
    "No, its ok, you just startled me. I didn't see you back there."
    "Yeah? I'm sorry anyway. Yeah... Haha.. Hey, you got any change?"*

    * Conversation with a middle-aged black fellow I met while walking through the alley shown above. He apparently lives in a cardboard-box-and-carpet-remnant lean-to on the far side of the dumpster you see on the left. He popped up as I was passing, just seconds after I took this picture, and I peed my pants just a little. I honestly didn't have any change.

Shrinkage Complete

2007-05-22T21:40:00.000-04:00

    The shrinkage has either stopped or slowed to the point where I can no longer discern additional loss of mass and height. Really, its difficult to measure anything with my stature anyway; my budget is more in line with elderly bathroom scales and cloth tape measures than it is with electron microscopes.

    I think I'll stop now, this is definitely the right size. As it is, I hop around the keyboard playing Archie to an anonymous Mehitabel. Ah, but you observe my punctuation and use of upper case; clever you!

    I am so small that I operate the shift key by self-induced quantum states. I am both on shift and not on shift. Every time someone walks in my office and sees me, however, it screws me up for hours due to the headache I get when my state collapses. What can I say, I live in Michigan; collapse is institutionally inevitable.

    The collapse remains literal, and not figurative.

Happy me, I am now small enough.

450 POSTS! Oh, and boring selector updates.

2007-05-21T20:21:00.000-04:00

     First things first, the SafeTinspector blog has trooped past the 450 post mark. On account of my dearthening (currently waning) and Arthbard's animation sabbatical, this last fifty took quite a bit longer than the previous fifty. Look for more content, though; the dearthening is almost gone and I feel great. I just needed to be properly sized. Ask me about how I use quantum physics in order to operate the shift key!

     Secondly, Arthbard has updated his selector*! This is great news for you, the reader, as it gives you quicker access to the nougaty goodness that huddles pink and quivering in his shell.
    At the top of this page, where you see "Normal ...for Arthbard," you can now click on "Normal" and choose a category of Arthiness. For his excellent animations, for instance, you may click on "Arthimation". Now, where you saw "..for Arthbard", you will see "Cartoons!" Click on "Cartoons!" and you will see a handy list of Arthbard animation for your viewing pleasure. Once clicked, a thumbnail pimping your selection should replace the crab graphic on the left side of the header. Now all that remains is that you click "Arth!" and off you will go to be amused and amazed.

* This navigation system is the SafeSelector, and is a bit of Javascript I threw together last year sometime. I know, I know, abso-friggin' incredible. Also a pain in the ass to maintain, which is why I'm entertaining the idea of moving to WordPad where such things can maintain themselves.

Caveman Theater: The Language Barrier

2007-05-18T18:51:00.000-04:00

date	X Value	Y Value	X*Y	X*X	Y*Y
July 2005	6.5(300)	215	1397.5	42.25	46225
June 2006	8(ep21)	230	1840	64	52900
Dec 2008	3(60′)	182	546	9	33124
Feb 2009	2(!!!)	177	354	4	31329