This Blog Is Full Of Crap

HOUSTON CHRONICLE: Ex-teacher guilty in sex case

A former high school teacher faces the possibility of up to 20 years in prison after a jury determined Monday she had sex with an underage special-education student.

Jurors found Adrianne Hockett, 26, guilty of one count of sexual assault of a child, agreeing with prosecutors that she had sex with a student, then 15, in the summer and fall of 2003 while she was a teacher at Hastings High School in the Alief school district. Hockett had been charged with three counts.

The punishment phase of her trial resumes today.

How hard up do you have to be to need to fuck a retard?

Hockett acknowledged giving her student special attention but has denied having sex with the teen, who prosecutors say reads at a first-grade level.

"Don't worry, Tardy, this book is full of pictures."

And she shows him the Kama Sutra.

One of my original blog ideas was to make a running travelogue of the Avatar through the world of Ultima 9: Ascension. I'd fill the blog with various screen captures and goofy narratives.

Instead of accomplishing the various quests, I'd get lost on side-tracks like potion-stacking or testing the effectiveness of various weapons against the hanging horse, etc.

Of course, Ultima 9 is way way way out of date, and I'm not pathetic enough to buy and blog a session of "The Sims 2."

So, where's the FriskyCAM?

Ship Method: UPS Ground Status: IN TRANSIT

Shipment Date: Mar 01, 2005

Destination: Houston, TX, United States

Mar 01, 2005 08:01:00 AM LITTLE ROCK AR US IN TRANSIT TO
Mar 01, 2005 08:00:00 AM DECATUR IL US DEPARTURE SCAN
Mar 01, 2005 07:59:00 AM DECATUR IL US ARRIVAL SCAN
Mar 01, 2005 03:34:00 AM ADDISON IL US DEPARTURE SCAN
Mar 01, 2005 03:07:14 AM Carol Stream IL USA SHIPPED
Mar 01, 2005 02:00:29 AM ADDISON IL US ORIGIN SCAN
Feb 28, 2005 06:12:42 AM US BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Yeah, it's probably stupid of me to post that I've ordered it already because people will figure they can stop contributing now, but unlike Andrew Sullivan, my objective is to get the content published first and not build up a vacation fund with empty threats and broken promises.

I figure it will be up and running by the end of the week. The likelihood of it arriving and my leaving it in the box as some sort of "incentive" to get folks to finish picking up the tab for it is not just zero, but less than zero.

Frisky is already in training for it, sleeping in his corner by the front door and... wait - he already does that.

Just in case you're interested, basementsforbloggers.com is still available.

Okay, so this guy writes in and he's shrieking about not having statistics for his site from last night.

I look at the log for the server, and it was down hard yesterday. Took three reboots and about an hour of system surgery to get back up and running. If there's any access logs for the thing, they're probably so full of holes that they could be used by Linus Torvalds as fishnet stockings.

Then I go back to a sales page and read through the guaranteed services. Sure enough, statistics are not guaranteed or even offered. It's just a menu option that happens to be there that nobody had the sense to remove before selling space on these things four or five years ago.

So, I find a nice way of saying "It's broke, we don't guarantee that this part works, it isn't even a part of the package we sell, and if you really want it you can move to a newer (same price) package that actually offers it in the list of services."

I'm ready for what comes next. I've seen this kind of thing before, and nobody takes a hint.

He seethes. He rants. He EEEEAAARGHS like Goshzilla struck by the Mad Scientist.

Statistics are critical for his business, he says. They're the life-blood of his business. Can't life without him. He'll lose thousands of dollars an hour if he doesn't have them. His children depend on them for nourishment and survival, etc blah blah blah.

I shrug. If your life depends on your taxi running, don't paint a Yugo yellow and pop in a farebox.

Life by the cheap, die by the cheap.

UPDATE:
The guy continues to whine, I keep telling him NO!

So he whines to the Customer Service group. Who immediately forward it right to me without any notation.

Welcome to the never-ending loop, pal.

Apparently, he can't take a hint that the server he was on had a MAJOR problem yesterday that took an hour and a half for a tech to barely repair. He's whining that his business is dependent on this thing, and I suggest "Hey, maybe you should migrate off of this end-of-life'd server on to a newer one" and he STILL resists!

Hold on a moment... testing... testing... concentrating...

Nope. Can't make his puny, single-track mind explode by sheer willpower.

Damn.

When I see .br, I shudder.

For some reason, Brazil seems to be a large component of the international clientele. I'm not sure why, but I've made mention of the differing degrees of English proficiency of the Brazilians, anywhere from none to a bizarre pigdin we call "Brazinglish."

Babelfish is about as good as translating from the Brazilian dialect of Portugeuse to English as Mumford the Magician on Sesame Street was at turning magic tricks. It's almost, but not quite, completely useless.

For a while, we had someone from Brazil here on the floor, and the Brazilians caught on to this fact. Just like the Spanish-speakers got pulled this way and that to hop into a chat or a phone call or whatever to cover a support call (when our policy is "strictly" English-only), the Brazilian got run ragged.

What was even worse was that word-of-mouth passed the news that there was an ultra-cheap option for webhosting that had a guy who spoke their language, so ther continued to sign up, encounter horrific problems with the operating systems and control panels they chose without regard to the scale of their operations or skill in managing them, and they'd all hound this one guy.

And then, it was Carnival Time. The guy goes off to Carnival, never comes back, and mails back his passkey.

All these people are expecting to get a hold of Mister Portuguese Guy.

This is what you get when you say there's one policy, but when you sniff money you bend a little and let the door open a crack. You find yourself flat on your ass, seeing stars, a doorknob-shaped impression in the middle of your forehead, and a jam-packed room full of people back to babbling Brazinglish back at you expecting you to know exactly what they're saying.

Isn't Brazil a capitalist country with some strong IT capabilities? Don't they realize there's a market for Portguese-speaking webhosting among their own people? I mean, what did they give up their nuclear ambitions for, anyway... pillaging and burning more of the Amazon rainforest?

Come on, Brazil... you're got a massive market right under your noses.

Don't think that I don't like Brazilians. I mean, they have a pretty flag. And they have Pele. And any time a white collar criminal is on the run in the movies, they say they're going to skip to Rio. I consider that a sign of hospitality. On top of all of that, they're not as infested with ex-Nazis as Argnetina or Paraguay.

Maybe it's because they can't farm out their support operations to India. I mean, it's bad enough when support is in Englishindi, but I hate to thing of what Hinduguese would sound like.

When Madrid's trains were bombed Gomez Addams-style, the UN Security Council condemned the Basque separatist group ETA by name at Spain's request, even though they weren't involved in the bombing and the bombing matched Al Qaida's operational style with no warnings and synchronized mass-casualty explosions.

But when it comes to dead Jews...

Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group with leadership in Lebanon and Syria, claimed responsibility for Friday's attack, which also wounded dozens of people.

An early draft of the council statement mentioned Islamic Jihad's claim. But that language was later removed because of opposition from Algeria, which represents the Arab world on the council, council diplomats said.

If Algeria represents the Arab world, then there's a serious problem with the Arab world that needs solving that can't be solved within the framework of the United Nations.

If there were a weekly Carnival for Houston blogs posts, what would it be called?

I have decided that when IMAO sends you a lot of traffic, it is called a "Frankalanche."

And when I send you traffic, even though I rarely link others because I'm lazy and just let trackbacks link back to people, you may call it a "Crapalanche."

Expanding your word power every day.

Mind of Mog tells all.

I've got one to add: do laundry and leave the warm basket out for the cat to lay on top of.

It's worse when the laundry's laid out on the bed... Nardo howls and flippy-kitties around on it while shedding a cloud of orange hair on it.

(Via The Great Malkin)

John Kerry promised on national television to release to sign form SF-180 to release his military records.

He has yet to do so.

This code will let you add a clock to your site to remind everyone that John F. Kerry, the man who could have been president of this country, doesn't keep his promises.

If I had a kerry.isfullofcrap.com site still going, that would go on the masthead.

HOUSTON CHRONICLE: Mother abandons baby at Houston fire station

Does the fire station get to keep the baby as a mascot?

When the baby grows up, is it indentured as a servant or slave to that fire station.

"Ooogli! Lay out the hoses! OOOOGLI! OOOOGLI! I HAVE THE WHIP OUT!"

I say: yes.

That's right. Frank J. is catblogging.

I wonder what Edloe is up to...

Why do we have so many catsitter DVDs? Because cats can't hit Rewind and Play.

(Via BlogHouston)

Well, looky here! METRO is auctioning off a bunch of crap.

Through March 9, surplus inventory items from METRO's former headquarters, 1201 Louisiana, will be available on the site. Beginning March 22, surplus inventory and vehicles, including buses, support vehicles, computer equipment, office furnishings and other miscellaneous equipment, will be featured.

Surplus buses? Hrm...

• Buy bus.
• Fill seats with C-4.
• Set sign to something generic like "EXPRESS"
• Wait until some local imam gets caught preaching "DEATH TO ISRAEL!" again while the parishoners Allahu Akbhar back to him.
• Drive the bus up to the mosque.
• Let it fill up with passengers.
• Get off.
• Hit the large red button on the remote while yelling "RIGHT BACK AT YOU, BITCH!"

Nah. I'll settle for Lucas Wall's balls. Even though they didn't get DeLay and Culbertson's rubber-stamp for their incomplete funding proposal, I'm sure they have no use for them now that they got their initial rail line.

CBC NEWS: 23 injured after reported fire on Pakistan-Toronto flight

In Pakistan, the chief of the airline's engineering department blamed the incident on a greasing problem in the wheels of the Boeing 777.

"This is the fifth incident of similar fire with our Boeing 777 and the matter was reported to the manufacturer," Mukhatar Qazi told the Associated Press.

Store the in-flight meals in the wheel wells. That'll solve the greasing problem.

The Supreme Court now says that we're not allowed to execute murderers if they committed their crime(s) while they were under 18 years old.

Dianne Clements, president of the Houston-based Justice for All victims' advocacy group, criticized the decision and said she hopes that when there is a Supreme Court vacancy a strong death penalty supporter is nominated.

"The Supreme Court has opened the door for more innocent people to suffer by 16- and 17-year-olds," she said. "I can't wait for the Supreme Court to have judges more concerned with American values, American statutes and American law than what the Europeans think."

It's not going to happen with Rehnquist, because...

CONCURRING: Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, Kennedy
DISSENTING: Scalia, O'Connor, Rehnquist, Thomas

Rehnquist is already on the side of the Bad Seed Killers. You're going to have to wait for Stevens to meet with the Grim Reaper for this one to get reversed.

Well well well... people pretending that some 17-year-old thug is just a kid when they're a psychotic bag of death-dealing. Same mistake that Amnesty Intermnible and Human Rights Watch does when some 17 year-old in a headband and an AK-47 shooting up a freeway full of Jews in Jerusalem gets capped... one doesn't need to differentiate between adult and children when the action the individual is performing is lethal.

Shoot back. To kill.

Watch for more instances of "kids" getting 9mm headaches and backaches by HPD to reduce the queue to the courtrooms.

Hell, if I see five headlines with dirtball "bad seeds" getting blown away by HPD saving the taxpayers the cost of warehousing these vermin for life instead of shuffling them off to Hell in Huntsville, I'll join the 100 Club.

Get cracking, Bubba Lawman! You got five overdue tickets to punch!

AP: Some Arabs See Beginning of New Era

Television stations broadcast Beirut's protests live into homes, coffee shops and clubs across the Middle East, with the dramatic images of Lebanese youths wearing red-and-white scarves and waving the country's red, white and green flag as they handed out roses Monday to troops who had been ordered to block them. The coverage, lasting all day with hardly a break on some stations, culminated with the Syrian-backed government's resignation.

Inevitably, it raised the question among many spectators: What about here?

"I wish this could happen in Yemen," Ahmed Murtada, an unemployed Yemeni, said in San'a. "But here, tanks would prevail."

The reason why it isn't happening in Yemen or other places is because you can't find your balls.

Here's a quick-and-easy solution, Ahmed:

• Reach between your legs. Look for some squishy, dangly bits.
• If you find anything, listen to them for a bit. If they don't shrivel up in fear, they will likely tell you "You're on your own." That's what they heard in Lebanon and see what it's gotten them.
• Get out in the streets with lots of Lebanese flags.
• When the authorities come out and say what's up, say they're in Lebanon. Yemen's that-a-way.
• The authorities run for Lebanon, thinking it's Yemen.
• Let the Lebanese deal with them. They seem to be more capable of handling this kind of thing that you are, wimp.
• Rejoice.

Okay okay... how about this?

• Do that ball-thing again. Listen.
• Hold a demonstration calling for "martyrs" to volunteer for suicide missions against Israel and America in their "occupation" wars of aggression, etc. Wrap it in lots of fatwahs calling for the freedom of the oppressed peoples, etc.
• When the crowds start to build up, ask those that volunteer "Hey, if you're willing to blow yourself up to get rid of American and Israeli aggressors and occupiers to ensure someone else's freedom, that means you'd be more willing to blow yourself up to ensure your own country's freedom from imperialist aggressors, right?"
• Give them a map to the nearest government building, a satchel full of C-4, and a roll of toilet paper to wrap their penis in so it survives intact when they reach Paradise. (Hold a few of those nutcases in reserve... you'll need them later.)
• Sit back, crack open a bottle of Vernor's Ginger Ale, and snack on a Twinkee or two. Listen for loud noises.
• When the tanks arrive, send the reserves after the tanks.
• When the dust settles scream "WE NEED PAPER AND PURPLE INK!" at the United Nations. If they do not respond, toss a reserve or two at Turtle Bay to wake their asses up.

  NOTE: Do *not* scream this at the Arab League. They will just send more tanks.

I think it would work.

I have an idea. It's a game for technicians to play as the calls, e-mails, chats, and tickets roll in.

I'll call it Webhosting Bingo.

You get a 5-by-5 card with a random assortment of common queries, requests, issues, and problems. As you encounter them over the course of the day, you check them off.

If you get five in a row, you get BINGO and win a piece of candy or some other prize for your shift.

I'm going to build up a list of common issues and work on the cards.

Look who didn't want me to go to work this morning...

Couldn't agree with him more.

In the mornings, I need to be extra-careful that I open and close the door quickly. Nardo loves to go out and play when he can, and Piper's as fast as lightning. They both know that morning romps are only for weekends, but it's pretty hard for a cat to tell the difference between a weekend and a weekday.

I wake up early either way. Maybe I should start waking up late on weekends so they learn what a weekend is?

Every now and then, Frisky tries to slip out if it's dark and dreary. He loves to go hunting and playing for half an hour or so when he knows that Nardo isn't around. If I'm awake at 02:00 or 03:00 for some reason or another, I always let Frisky know I'm awake to let him out.

By the time I've had a sip of milk and read a few pages of my book, Frisky's back and pawing at the door to be let back in.

Some of you may have noticed the tin of Pitr Pat feline breath mints with the Harley Davidson collar.

The results?

Nardo: Sniffed it, reeled back, sniffed it again, reeled back, slunk off couch with a desultory groan.

Frisky: sniffed it and then looked up at me wondering what this stinky bit of fish-shaped dirt was doing on his blanket.

Piper: sniffed it for a bit, reeled back, sniffed again, looked up at me, chirped, and then started batting it around on her rocking chair.

And there you have it. Three paws down.

Yeah, Piper's been sleeping in my chair a lot. She does this when the sun comes out more. She started off in her rocking chair, but she obviously prefers my chair for sun-time.

Nardo and Piper will probably have an argument or two over who gets my chair. Keep an eye on the leather chair for a pair of orange ears peering up at the chair now and then and Piper being pissed off and attacking her tail. If she doesn't chase Nardo, she'll get mad at her tail by proxy.

Also, you'll be catching more of Edloe as she wanders in there for some easy March sun. I'll probably end most workdays by sticking Edloe in the chair for all to admire:

The hard part about putting Edloe in the chair is timing the hand-feeding of kitty-treats so the camera catches it.

(The FriskyCAM appears to be in Little Rock.)

I had to be reminded this morning that NYPD Blue ended its 12-year run last night.

Never watched it. Never even watched the reruns of it on TNT Daytime when I was looking for work. Never even went to a website to look at episode summaries to see what I was missing.

From what I could tell, NYPD Blue was a knock-off of Hill Street Blues with a few changes:

• When the cast of Hill Street Blues swamped the stage at the Emmys, they actually had some competition running against them.
• Stephen Bochco learned a few valuable lessons from "Cop Rock" on how to make all female characters shallow, poorly-written sex objects.
• More shooting, more violence, more ass.
• Dude? Where's Charles Haid? We need Charles Haid! More Charles Haid!
• Why settle for one borderline-insane cop when all of them can be nutcases?
• Why settle for one character with a substance abuse problem when all of them can be nutcases?
• Dennis Franz had fully deluded himself into thinking he could act.
• Don't let a beloved actor die mid-series. Characters can die, but not actors. Now let's be careful out there.

At least they never fell into the trap that Law and Order did, having Sam Watterson's character sleep with his assistant prosecutors.

Well... maybe not. Ricky Schroeder was walking kinda funny in some episodes, I hear.

Must have been a sprained ankle or something.

Guy calls in to tell me that he's entered in a trouble ticket, and then proceeds to repeat everything he said in it.

"That ticket has been assigned to a technician and they are currently working on it."

They don't udnerstand what that means.

So I repeat and embellish: "That ticket is being worked on by a technician who is not located in this office and it is currently being worked on."

Because we're really not supposed to say "One of our crack squad of Indian technicians grabbed the ticket, will probably sit on it for an hour, then drop it when their remote connection fails as it does every hour or so."

I really should have said: "I'm sorry, but we don't do anything unless you send in a ticket, send an e-mail, start up a livechat, jump in the IRC channel, *and* call us. Oh, and don't forget a Candygram and smoke signals - those help, too."

(Kevin tossed me a note over this...)

The HPD Crime Lab tried to get its accredidation back, but was rejected by a national panel.

First, it was METRO sending a grade-school, piss-poor plan for funding to the Feds and getting rejected. The Houston Chronicle blamed DeLay and Culbertson for not ignoring METRO's pathetic attempt to submit a flawed plan.

So, when will the Chronicle attack the national board that rejected HPD's bid to get their credentials back when it's pretty obvious that our Police Chief was more interested in being able to wear a cop's uniform and make his cops a money-making operation than getting his crime lab's shit in order?

Houston is the Cleveland of the 21st Century. We're a World Class Joke!

If you're wondering why I am so quiet today, the idiot who does training put a class of 8 on the floor when there's only 4 phone techs and not enough ticket techs to handle all the shadows. So guess who gets stuck?

Right. The guy who does email and triage, which is what no newbie will EVER do.

Train 'em to do stuff they won't do for their job. Real smart.

Nor does he split the shadow trainees into multiple shifts so they all get a chance to shadow phones, which is what they will do when they're out of training.

Nor does he teach them how to do their major job functions. Just theory and having to listen to him kiss the CEO's ass.

Jesus, what a mess.

At least they're going to tape a training session of his to see how useless he is. Maybe they'll replace him with a department store mannequin.

Bush tells Syria to get out of Lebanon. Syria's dragging their feet, and Turkey has a suggestion to speed things up...

Turkish ambassador Osman Faruk Logoglu urged the administration to offer trade and other economic and diplomatic incentives to Syria.

"The chances of Syria withdrawing are greater than ever before," Logoglu told reporters. "But it is obviously going to take a long time."

One word: Appeasement.

Yeah, offering incentives really worked for getting you stupid Anatolian bastards to cooperate with our toppling of Saddam's regime. Let's see how bribery works with getting your fellow Kurd-killers to get out of Lebanon.

When Iraq completely collapses, we can bitchslap Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran in one fell swoop: declare an independent Kurdistan.

It's one thing to post up a fundraising drive for a dedicated Internet camera to post a webcam on a beloved pet to the world.

However, it's an entirely evil thing for some scumbag to threaten to kill his pets if he doesn't get the money:

So why are these animals going to die unless you help? It is quite simple really, I don't like cats and rodents. These two pets have made my house their home but it is not really a mutual living arrangement. If I do not receive 2,000 dollars by May 1st of this year the cat WILL be PUT TO SLEEP. And if the money isn't received by June 1st the ferret will be put to sleep. The only way I can even conceive letting these things stay alive in my house is if they benefit me. Right now however all they do is tear my furniture up and cost money to be fed. I do not hate animals nor am I complete psycho, I don't like these animals though and putting them to sleep will not bother me at all. I am simply a guy just like anyone else that has two animals he doesn't like and who doesn't have anything to do with them. By donating $1 you can help save these things and help me start to love them. If my terms are not met proof of the animals extermination will be provided.

You're going to kill a cat and a ferret if you don't get $2,000?

Let's do a whois on this asshole's domain name...

Administrative Contact: Simpson, Joshua contact@saveourpets.net 639 probasco st Cincinnati, OH 45022 US 5132665755 Technical Contact: Simpson, Joshua contact@saveourpets.net 639 probasco st Cincinnati, OH 45022 US 5132665755

In a perfect world, I could put up a PayPal button and collect up money to have Joshua Simpson put to sleep. Instead, I'll contact the first Google hit for Cincinnati Animal Rescue at theanimalrescue.com and ask for their assistance.

Heck, time to send the URL to the Cincy Police as well.

The update of the site says it was a hoax.

Mark your calendars... It looks like my RTW is having his teeth worked on again on Friday, so it's going to be Cabo's Friday for me.

He shows me the appointment slip with a (messed-up) grin on his face: "It's a Cabo's Friday for you!"
"Cool!" I exclaim.

I should arrive there somewhere between 17:15 and 17:30. You know you don't want to mess with Friday weekend traffic on 45 or 59 out of Downtown, right?

If you work Downtown and need a frozen, let me know in e-mail and I'll keep an eye out for you.

My wife stayed home from work because of a sore throat.

Since I wake up two hours before she does, I never know if she's gone to work or not.

I guess that explains why Edloe didn't show up. Edloe watched over her mommy all day, and then stole her chair when she got up to make tea and honey.

Abeer Mishkhas looks at the pathetic registration numbers for the Saudi elections and asks in the Arab News:

In all seriousness, why are people turning their backs on these elections? Why do they rush to buy shares, go to football matches and, strangely enough, even participate as voters on TV competitions such as Star Academy? Some said that in these cases people see the actual and immediate benefit of participation; they don’t have to wait to see its effectiveness.

In a comment in a local paper, a sociologist said that political awareness was not yet here. He’s right. We do not have the background nor the experience that comes with a long period of sustained political activity or even from a short period of political activity.

I contend that the opposite is true. People in Saudi Arabia are politically aware, but they're aware of the fact that the elections that they're being asked to register for are among hand-picked candidates for positions that are utterly powerless when compared to the religious and royal masters of the country already in place.

Or, if they're the so-caled loyalists, they have been taught from early on that one's fealty is to Islam and the House of Saud, so the elections are actually contrary to the political health of the Kingdom.

Then there's the fact that dissent in Saudi Arabia can be hazardous to your health. Showing your willingness to participate in any activity that questions the absolute rule of the monarchy means you're questioning the authorities, and this is a country that jailed protestors and open dissenters to torture them, tease with a public trial, and condemn behind closed doors when Amnesty International got bored and looked away.

Imagine what they'd do to those who openly question the Rule of Saud by daring to wish to have a ballot. Not a pretty thought, eh? Why add your name to a list to make it easy for them to find you?

There's yet another blisteringly insipid piece of tripe in the Arab News today, this one from Israeli Idiotarian Uri Avnery:

The word “only” deserves attention. President Bill Clinton’s last peace plan spoke about the annexation of 3-4 percent of the West Bank to Israel, in return for the transfer of 1 percent of Israeli territory to the Palestinian state. Seven percent of the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany is much more than the whole state of Saxony. Seven percent of the territory of the United States of America is more than the whole giant state of Texas. (Imagine: Mexico conquers Texas, builds a wall between it and the rest of the US and fills it with Mexican settlements.)

Okay, I'll imagine such a scenario. In fact, I'll try to match it to the timeline that Israel and the Arabs went through...

Edloe loves to watch the wind-up chicky toy dance around on the table. I wind it up, let it go, and Edloe tracks it intently.

Well, as intently as a lazy, flumped-over fat cat on a couch can pretend to show an interest in something.

However, when you put the chicky on the couch with her...

Not a happy cat. In between the time I snapped this picture and when the flash had recharged so I could snap another, Edloe had swatted the toy to the floor.

Sometimes, I have a little fun at other venues.

What can I say? For the moment, Kevin's my muse.

Hrm... lots of toys in the pile today.

It's time for the star of our show... ladies and gentlemen... Nardo the Magnificent!

For Nardo's first trick, he will make a toy disappear!

Which toy will it be?

And... it's...

So, where in the world is the FriskyCAM?

Ship Method: UPS Ground

Status: IN TRANSIT

Shipment Date: Mar 01, 2005

Destination: Houston, TX, United States

Mar 03, 2005 05:11:00 AM STAFFORD TX US OUT FOR DELIVERY
Mar 03, 2005 04:07:00 AM STAFFORD TX US ARRIVAL SCAN
Mar 03, 2005 02:21:00 AM HOUSTON TX US DEPARTURE SCAN
Mar 03, 2005 12:46:57 AM HOUSTON TX US LOCATION SCAN
Mar 02, 2005 06:10:00 PM HOUSTON TX US ARRIVAL SCAN
Mar 02, 2005 09:07:00 AM LITTLE ROCK AR US DEPARTURE SCAN
Mar 01, 2005 06:52:35 PM LITTLE ROCK AR US LOCATION SCAN
Mar 01, 2005 06:49:00 PM LITTLE ROCK AR US UNLOAD SCAN
Mar 01, 2005 04:16:00 PM LITTLE ROCK AR US ARRIVAL SCAN
Mar 01, 2005 08:00:00 AM DECATUR IL US DEPARTURE SCAN
Mar 01, 2005 07:59:00 AM DECATUR IL US ARRIVAL SCAN
Mar 01, 2005 03:34:00 AM ADDISON IL US DEPARTURE SCAN
Mar 01, 2005 03:07:14 AM Carol Stream IL USA SHIPPED
Mar 01, 2005 02:00:29 AM ADDISON IL US ORIGIN SCAN
Feb 28, 2005 06:12:42 AM US BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Stafford is the last step before it gets put on a truck. We'll see if the driver rememebrs to leave it with the office.

Thanks to everyone who's contributed so far towards the FriskyCAM. I'll psot a list of names, links, and so on as I tinker with the configuration (hopefully) tonight.

Of course, the RTW has been known to linger a bit after 4, stranding us in rain-soaked traffic for an hour or so, but it's not hard to convince him that the End Of The Day has arrived.

It's okay for a guy to want to build a fence to protect ducks from dying, but when the Jews try to build a fence to protect themselves from dying the whole damn world gets up in arms.

I changed the position of the floor cam from the side table to the subwoofer of the four-way speaker system. It'll give you a different perspective on Nardo snatching toys and Edloe flumping over in the sun.

I also want to see if the mid-day sun is as brutal on the camera's white balance at this angle as it is when the camera's on the table.

Yeah, now you can see the cord mess on the corner table where the radio and fan plug into. I figure I'll clean that up a bit tonight before... (drumroll) I work on the FriskyCAM.

UPDATE:
Piper's been going to her rocking chair now and then, Nardo's in my leather chair, and we may just have ourselves a Jackpot soon.

My wife usually wakes up around 09:00, so Edloe will get a little attention before wanting to take a morning dump in the litterboxes.

And we all know where Edloe flumps after she dumps.

UPDATE 2:
And... Piper and Nardo vanish.

After I railed on for sticking its head in the sand over Palestinian attempts to destroy Jewish religious sites in the past few years, the Palestinians tried to kill hundreds of Jews and destroy Joseph's tomb again:

A car bomb exploded early Thursday near a Jewish shrine in the West Bank as hundreds of Israeli worshippers prayed there, causing no injuries but damaging nearby Palestinian homes and underscoring the vulnerability of the Mideast truce declared last month.

It was not clear whether the explosives went off prematurely or whether the Joseph's Tomb shrine was even the target. The blast went off several hundred yards from the shrine, located on the outskirts of the Palestinian city of Nablus.

Nah, they were just out for a drive, reached for the cigarette lighter, and pushed the wrong button. A total coincidence that hundreds of Jews were being escorted to a Jewish holy place by the IDF on that day.

The explosion blew out apartment and car windows and scorched storefronts. There was no claim of responsibility.

Joseph's Tomb has been one of the flashpoints of fighting in the past four years of violence. At the start of the Palestinian uprising, Israeli troops withdrew from the enclave, which was largely destroyed by Palestinian militants. Since then, the Israeli military has barred Jewish worshippers, except for special visits under army protection.

You wouldn't know that Joseph's tomb had been desacrated and destroyed under the unwatchful eye of the Palestinian "security" forces from reading the State Department report, of course.

Frank left his e-mail on at home, and now he can't access his home email at work because the home box keeps snatching the mail from the server out from under him.

I've had this happen to me. I just change my e-mail password temporarily. The home box just sputters, chokes, and dies on authentication so I can just IMAP my stuff from work without having it swiped out from under me.

No shadow for me today, but one supervisor is gone (as usual) and the other hasn't bothered switching his schedule to make up for the recent departure of another supervisor, so all the phone-drones are under the mistaken impression that I'm some sort of authority figure.

Most amusing question so far has been from a customer who wants to have their site migrated but doesn't know if they need to make a backup of the site beforewe do it.

What kind of stupid question is that? Always back up your site. Back it up on a regular schedule and then back it up before every major change to the system.

Moving from one system to another is what I'd consider a major change to the system.

Heck, we've totally mucked up server the site is currently on. If they don't trust us to maintain the server their site is on now, why should they suddenly trust us when it comes to moving all the content? Seems to be a case of laziness on their part and not trust.

Besides that, anybody who asks "Should I make a backup?" shouldn't be in a position to ask that question. They should be on the beach, playing with shovels, buckets, and asking their mommy for ice cream cones. Preferrably, on a Northern French beach. Where they haven't cleared out all the old WWII landmines and unexploded bombs.

It's like asking "Should I wear a condom when I fuck that hooker?" Or "Should I wear a seat belt?" Or "Should I have someone taste my food before I eat it?"

Okay, so the last one only applies to Donald Trump. But you get my point.

Well, we've finally gotten a smattering of Carnival of the Cats linkback buttons submitted by loyal viewers, participants, and cat fetishists.

My favorite is:

Because I like Yankee Doodle Kitties.

You can never have too many variants of Law and Order.

How about Law and Order: Three Foot Rule? Send out Detective Pauly Shore, armed with a yardstick instead of a gun.

"Back! Back! Back with the nuggage, buuuuuuuuuuudee."

I still think that they ought to make Law and Order: Special People's Unit. And if they rip a few Houston headlines about teachers having sex with their students, they can merge it with Special Victims Unit.

"I got touched in a BAD place!"
"Did he tough your privates?"
"No, he touched me in the basement. It's smelly down there!"

Law and Order: Special People's Unit. Tuesday nights at 10, 9 central. That's 10, Junior. Show me your fingers. One-two-three-four... UGH don't stick that finger up your nose!

Why is everybody sending me this article?

WIRED: The King of Thrones

Makers of consumer goods generally try to evaluate their new tech under real-world conditions. For obvious reasons, that presents some problems with toilets. Decorum and taboo prevent researchers from testing fixtures with actual human waste, forcing them to rely on golf balls, sponges, sawdust, oatmeal and other "test media."

But there's nothing quite like the real thing. That lack of precision offended Toronto civil engineer Bill Gauley, who'd been working with home builders and water authorities to figure out which low-flow toilets really did save water. So in 2000, he began a search for the perfect fake shit.

To start, he went to his kitchen and mixed flour, mashed potatoes, cocoa powder, and water. The resemblance to real feces was striking, but his concoction got moldy and mushy too fast. Then, during a visit to the Japanese toilet maker Toto, Gauley observed researchers flushing cylinders of brown goop. It was miso, the fermented soy protein used in soup. In performance and appearance, the resemblance to the real deal was almost disturbing in its completeness. But alas, the Toto guys wouldn't divulge the proprietary recipe.

So Gauley began buying various brands of miso at Japanese food stores, trying to determine which was the shittiest. He found a winner, the name of which he's contractually bound to keep a secret. It makes a hell of a good soup, and extruded into 4-inch-long cylinders with an oversize caulk gun, it looks just like … progress.

Just what the world needs: artificial crap. Individualy, we produce literally buttloads of the real stuff every day, but someone has to go ahead and invent artificial crap to test toilets.

As Don King, crapmeister extraorinaire, says: "Only in America!"

"What's red, white, blue, and sues people?"

Just in case you're interested, bozothelawyer.com is still available.

CABLE NEWS NETWORK - AOL-TIME WARNER
PRESS RELEASE

ATLANTA - CNN is proud to announce that it is hiring hiring the entire cast of the recently-concluded television series "NYPD Blue" as news anchors and correspondents for the flagship CNN network.

After analysing the recent Andrea Thompson experiment on CNN Headline News, CNN came to the conclusion that the failure of audiences to treat Andrea as a serious journalist was not because she lacked any experience as a journalist, but she was working with journalists on the news set. The poor chemistry between a veteran anchor and veteran journalists was determined to be the source of the problem. By reuiniting Miss Thompson with her newly-available fellow "NYPD Blue" cast, she will be more comfortable and appear more genuine with other actors, thus improving the quality of the overall product.

This is a strategic move meant to head off the recent acquisition of the entire "Enterprise" case by MSNBC. CNN is well aware of the long and prosperous relationship NBC has had with the "Star Trek" concept, and CNN is making this adjustment pre-emptively to thwart their attempt to draw CNN's core audience away from America's Most Trusted News Source.

"Ugh... Helm on Windows 2003... why do people insist on doing that to themselves?"

It's time for the First Carnival of the Vain Godless Gay Capitalist Homespun Canadian Catholic Gun-Owning Hindi-Speaking Christian Canine Cat Storyblogger Philosopher Recipes in Iraq.

This week's entries:

Thank you for participating in the Carnival of the Vain Godless Gay Capitalist Homespun Canadian Catholic Gun-Owning Hindi-Speaking Christian Canine Cat Storyblogger Philosopher Recipes in Iraq. Tune in next week for the second installment of the Vain Godless Gay Capitalist Homespun Canadian Catholic Gun-Owning Hindi-Speaking Christian Canine Cat Storyblogger Philosopher Recipes in Iraq for all of your Vain Godless Gay Capitalist Homespun Canadian Catholic Gun-Owning Hindi-Speaking Christian Canine Cat Storyblogger Philosopher Recipes in Iraq needs.

I love it when someone shotguns the system with a bunch of tickets and e-mail on the same issue. Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside, like a harpoon through the face.

So there's this guy who had an additional card installed in his system, it freaked the system out, and he yelled to have that additional card removed. All the while, he's in a full panic, entering in about half a dozen tickets while someone's working on getting things set straight. Two or three techs get sucked into the quagmire of his server at once when all it took was just one making a few uninterrupted tweaks.

Nope. The new tickets kept getting claimed by others while this guy's just a fountain of panic and sweat. On top of this, he's just responding to any ticket alters in email instead of updating the tickets, and he's giving conflicting information in some responses.

Wait. I'm not done with this one yet. It gets better.

He eventually hires some tech-for-hire firm to unfuck himself, but he doesn't bother closing out the other tickets. Sure enough, his own hired gun butts heads with one of ours and blows the thing up again.

It doesn't take long for him to shriek like a fucked monkey. And... (drumroll please) he's shrieking that it's *our* fault that this conflict came about.

It's like calling every cab company in town to the surrounding three blocks in the thought that you'll just hop in the first one that arrives and screw the rest. And then, a minute later and the street turns into a sea of yellow, green, brown, and orange trying to hire a limo to get you out of the pileup it causes. Some of the drivers will eventually get to talking among themselves... one points at you in the corner, trying to duck into the limo...

And they all have one thing in common: they all have tire irons.

Update my blogspace photo...

I'm sure that I'll be shocked with how little has changed over time.

I know that #15 is at work.
I have yet to use the #28 candle.
The old computer #12 got junked.
The chair and blanket #8 got repositioned.
I no longer have Ziggy #35.
And the #36 camera points at the toy pile, which wasn't there at the time.
Oh, and the calendar on top of #31 was an Edward Gorey calendar. It's now a color cat a day calendar.
More Pez #4.
And the Dyson vaccum #2 lives in the closet.

Stay tuned...

Labels tomorrow.

Many of the customers running the least expensive (ie "cheap") webhosting packages tend to run on some sort of dialup connection. And those dialup connection ISPs are plugging their "accelerator" products like mad, suggesting that they give five times the download speed of regular dialup connections.

Bull. It's just a browser caching program that makes you think it's five times faster. The speed on your modem and connection hasn't changed at all.

Anyway, one of the side effects of this "accelerator" that isn't an accelerator is that it messes with any web browsing that takes place on ports other than the tried-and-trie port 80. If you're running some kind of management console on, say, port 81, sometimes the caching program chokes on it and reports that the site can't be found or reached or whatever.

Same goes for secure connections. For some reason, these programs get kinda weird with secure connections now and then.

So it's always amusing when someone's trying to get into their site's management panel and they've "accelerated" out of reaching it.

Even better is when they're trying to work on their personal stuff from Mega Corporation International Etc. Inc., their corporate masters have plugged every port but port 80 to the Internet, and they scream that they can't reach their site.

"Are you behind a firewall?" I ask.

"Um... er... um..." Is what their mouth says while their brain tries to come up with something to say other than "I'm on a corporate network at work and I don't know. I probably shouldn't be doing this stuff from work anyway."

Come on, folks. Be honest with me. Quit thinking you're going to trick me into figuring out how to break through that firewall your corporate masters have set up to keep you from doing what you're trying to do on the clock. I can only help you if you're being honest. Anything less, and we'll just go in circles.

Circles aren't fun. Circles make you dizzy. Dizzy makes you barf.

Nobody likes to barf. Especially at work.

UPS spaketh:

Mar 03, 2005 04:51:00 PM STAFFORD TX US DELIVERY

And let there be light:

More in a bit...

That's where I placed the camera for now. I'll play around with the mounting bracket tomorrow night to get some good angles.

I hate the variant of the theme music. It's like Mannheim Steamroller molested the Law and Order theme in a back alley.

There's Sam Waterson, pulling a cameo to launch it. As Jack McCoy launches the Law and Order-D, so did Dr. McCoy launch the Enterprise D.

Jerry Orbach saying "How do we know she's even dead?" was kinda creepy. He's walking gingerly, talking raspy and oddly modulated.

All this jury crap usually doesn't appear in the other series. Now we know why.

AP: Cat Survives 10-Mile Trip Atop Car

Torri Hutchinson's cat might just have one less life to live. Hutchison was driving along Interstate 15 one day recently when a motorist kept trying to get her attention and pointing to the roof of her car. She said she was wary of the man, but wondered if perhaps her ski rack might have come loose.

She pulled over to the side, but kept her doors locked and the motor running.

The man pulled up behind her. Hutchinson rolled down her window to hear the man frantically shouting, "Your cat! Your cat!"

He reached for the roof of her car and handed the shocked Hutchinson her orange tabby.

You know the House Rules, people: All your cats get treats to balance out the Kitty Karma.

Well, two treats if they're big grumpuses like Edloe.

During "Law and Order: Piss in the Jury Pool" I noticed Nardo pawing at a feather on the bookshelves.

I grabbed the feather-on-a-stick from the porch that I normally use to tease him through the monkey grass and played on the carpet with hinm a bit...

I kept trying to snap a good action photo of him, but I was doing the camera with my right hand and my left hand's not as dextrous as it used to be. Nardo's a bit partciular about how that feather dangles and jumps around, and my southpaw just wasn't doing it for him like my right hand does.

And, no, I'm not about to try to snap photos with my left hand.

Yeah, I could have asked my wife to snap the photos, but she was watching Law and Order. I wouldn't want to disrupt that, even for something as important as kitty photography.

Remember Carnival of the Cats on Sunday... get your entries to cats (at) isfullofcrap.com by 18:00 Sunday. Also, there's the Friday Ark at Modulator's today. Be sure to link to his Friday Ark post to get counted in his tally... after all, we'd hate to see Dogs overtake Cats on my charts, right?

I stroll in through the door, hunt down a chair because some idiot took it, reset the computer because the dimwitted scruffball who sat here overnight switched from Linux to Windows, and I discover that the DHCP server isn't responding to requests.

The setup for the Linux desktops depends on that working.

Great. I'm in a hamstrung version of Windows for the rest of the day until they fix it. Back to the old copy-highlight-switch from vnc-paste-and back again all day.

And I was getting used to Gaim working, too. Was kinda nice to chit-chat when cats appeared and vanished.

Even the new things around here are half-assed, rundown pieces of crap.

UPDATE:
10:30 and it's back.

Only one person could fix it, apparently. And they're somewhat nuts, to put it lightly. If "Are They On Their Meds?" were a board game, their face would be on the box.

Some call that job security. I say it's called keeping a flat tire in your trunk as a spare and tempting the fates.

If you're concerned about your neighbors stealing your wireless connection, read this news article.

Try not to be shocked that:

1. A daily newspaper is actually giving information and practical advice that you can use.

2. The Chronicle is publishing technology advice from someone other than "Fighting" Jay Lee none more surly than he (yeah, I'm listening to the Flying Fish Sailors right now) and Dwight "Tech God" Silverman.

Maybe "Eyder Peralta" is Dwight's secret crime-fighting name? Or porn-star name?