Bitches Deserving To Die This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Some people stain the planet by their mere presence. This bitch is one such miserable cretin who is a shit-stain on the reputation of humankind. The only justice in this would be that her own son finally turned her in after she forced her own children into torturing animals. If you like animals, you probably don't want to click that link. It's really upsetting. I'm just not going to talk about it further.

Traffic cameras are slowly working their way into select cities in Florida. In Florida, they are illegal so the cities found away around it. They issue civil violations and not traffic violations, so you get a ticket but no points. They claim it's to improve road safety, though everyone has long suspected and/or known it's really just to take more money out of your pocket. Politicians are scum -- it's a good basic starting to point to work from. So a special YAY to the mayor of Dalton, GA who removed the cameras in his city after coming to the same conclusion. This article in USA Today explains how cities increase their revenue by changing how long the yellow light lasts -- if that doesn't prove it's about the revenue, nothing goes. The first of these cameras was installed in Miami, this month. Expect more. Plantation, Sunrise, Weston, all have them as well. They're coming to you soon. Beware. Be aware.

The people in Haiti need many things, and I am pleased to report that Interstate Screw Corporation, where I work, sent in checks totalling $4,000 -- this includes employee and customer contributions plus our own matching funds on employee contributions. We sent half to the American Red Cross which provides food, shelter, clothing, and other supplies to people in need after a disaster. We sent the other half to Doctors Without Borders which supplies doctors and hospital supplies to places stricken by natural disasters. There are many charities helping Haiti, but these two are reputable and a very high portion of their fund-raising goes to the cause as opposed to more fund-raising. (If you want an embarrassing charity, check out your local PBA, many of which shovel nearly 80% of what they collect back into more fund-raising. Please, check your charities out before you donate.)

Speaking of things they need in Haiti, there's this link from Mark Fischel who offers some biting commentary on what they might do with these solar powered bibles in Haiti. Indeed, if you collected enough you could use them to build a roof. Sadly, they are not edible.

The Late Night Wars (O'Brien vs Leno, round 666) continue to amuse, though my desire to comment on them has shrunk considerably. This article talks about Jay Leno being "Mr Nice Guy No More" and then poses the question "was he ever?" -- a valid point to be sure. Read it and make your own conclusion. This video courtesy of John Carney, my resident source of most Late Night articles posted this YouTube video. I do not speak Japanese Chinese, nor do most of my readers. Although this 1m54s video is entirely in Japanese Chinese, I promise you that you will still manage to understand what is said. It's a serious news piece, but I laughed my way through:

Speaking of amusing videos, here's a second one that is the subject of much controversy by Kiwis. Air New Zealand produced some awesome safety videos under the tag "Bare Essential" using actual staff members wearing no clothes and body paint instead. They proved to be so popular around the world, commercials followed. Now there's this mystifying advertisement which is brilliant for 90 seconds and decided less so for the final minute and the sole reference is a link to their website at the end. The PC police are up in arms. I don't care one way or another, but it's worth mentioning here.

"Something, Something, Something, Dark Side" is the second instalment of Family Guy's retelling of Star Wars. The first one was awesome beyond all belief and was funny as hell even after repeated viewings. This one, not so much. It was amusing but not wet-your-pants funny. I'm not sure what to say on this. I wanted to like it and I didn't. Thomas, who watched it with me, agreed. It was just okay. As a direct-to-DVD release, I have to tell you to save your money and watch it free when they show it as a two-part episode at the end of this season. They're going to do the third one "We Have A Bad Feeling About This" though I am not optimistic after seeing this one.

An Enormous Post This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Fake Steve Jobs (aka Dan Lyons) wrote an amusing piece in his blog today. As you may have seen, Microsoft was planning to sponsor an entire episode of Family Guy. It was to be 30 minutes and sans commercials. The payoff for them was having all sorts of Windows7 references built into the show. Microsoft, aka The Borg, has pulled out. Fox claims they've got a new sponsor -- it would be ironic if it were Apple. 

I continue to not "get" Twitter. In my last blog post I wrote "I still find no point at all to Twitter. Do I have one? Sure, but I don't use it much. Does one really need to delve into the minutia of someone's life to the minute." My friend, Daniel Haun, left a snarky comment about that on Facebook. He said, "The point to Twitter is ego masturbation." I liked the comment so much I Twittered (Tweeted?) it. I think that's a bit ironic.

Another friend, Liz, commented "If you really still think that about Twitter, you're definitely not following the right people I don't know who else you're following, but you're following me. Don't I post interesting stuff?" Yeah, a lot of your stuff is interesting. But that's not the point. It's the insane minutiae that people post on a daily basis. I figure at least half the posts most users make, shouldn't be made. I don't care, nor does anyone, that you've been waiting in line for dinner for 5, 10, 15, 20, etc minutes. Yet people insist on posting stuff like that. I don't "get" it.

In regards to commentary (again on my previous blog post), I am going to start correcting my posts when there are errors. Broken links, I'll just fix when people point them out via email. If they're pointed out by comment, I will still fix them but post a comment that it's been corrected. Simple typos will be fixed. But if anything needs to be corrected correcting and it's significant, I will use the time honoured strikeout feature. As always, any new commentary to an old post (a rarity) is clearly marked with the date added. To be clear, I always appreciate corrections to the blog, through prefer e-mail. Comments are for comments and discussions.

In news almost nobody will care about, I've added a classifieds section on the PHMB but it's in the members only area. Because I was feeling contentious, I called it "YormarksList" (as in CraigsList) because everything in the topic is for sale -- and that's Yormark, everything is for sale. These are all advertisements of a sort and what better name than his? If you're a hockey fan, please take a moment and join the board. I really do think you'll enjoy it. When the official board changed to the new format about a month ago, our traffic spiked. Bad for them and good for me: they forgot the one thing that was most important. They forget "know your customer and what (s)he wants" and their activity has plummeted from what was in the off-season. Yeah, the season started and traffic went down instead of up. Censorship and a bad user interface is a guaranteed fail.

I have been thinking of taking up a collection to get a Panther jersey with the name "Yormark" on the back and "666" as the number. With everything it'll be around US$160. Everyone who contributes will be allowed to wear it to games. As John mentioned if we all take turns wearing it, at some point he'll wonder how many of them are out there, even though it'll be only one. The point will be at every game, someone will have it, wear it to the game and take at least one lap of the lower bowl before the game, and at each intermission. I will keep the jersey in the off season and be responsible for care and cleaning -- if you want to clean it during your possession, that's up to you. I'll have to get XL so everyone can wear it. I might be able to squeeze in a L if nobody needs the XL. In the corner where the "C" for captain goes, we'll have the official logo of Yormark (for which I will pick up the cost.) If there are leftover funds, they will be donated to Habitat For Humanity -- in Mr Yormark's name -- and everyone who donates will be given a full accounting of every last penny. If I do not collect enough, your money will be returned.

Dave sent me this link about the New Facebook (which is replacing the old New Facebook.) Users are totally up in arms. I really hate it, but just don't have the energy to do anything about it. You know, the bottom line is if they want to fuck up their service, let them. I don't like it because Facebook now unilaterally decides which posts you see from which friends. You can block someone, but if someone's not blocked, you don't see everything they write. If you go to their page, you'll see you've missed stuff. Of course you can use the live feed which picks up more, but even if you select it, it eventually returns back to the new news feed. Which is what everyone hates.

In regards to my Saturday post about AvMed. I got my prescription today. It's amazing what a very firm, demanding, and polite but threatening letter will do. I demanded a written apology, told them I am their worst nightmare and will dog them relentlessly as long as their 'staff' feels they know more than my doctor. I told them every time they fail to comply with my doctor's orders, I will file a formal written complaint with the state (and you all know I will, too). They, as I said, figured out that they should go bother someone else. Again, I am not asking them to do anything that I asked: I am asking them to do what my licensed medical doctor asked. I do not feel anyone that has not personally examined me and my case has the right to override what my doctor says. And this was stupid. The new pill costs half of what the old one cost. Seriously. How stupid can you get? Oh, and the lady never called me back as predicted. As a side bonus, the pharmaceutical company that makes the new drug picked up the tab on this first order (well, all but $5 of it).

I wasn't going to post Nucor news, but there is news and it's on the company Facebook page. I have no comment on an individual level. I only say, we're working on a filing if we can meet all the technical requirements. I've never seen anything so complex and confusing. No wonder those lawyers charge $2k or more per hour. Our corporate WiFi is working well (still) and from a technical standpoint the Vista and Windows7 laptops (our employees property, not ours) work with the least problems, though I am loathe to admit it. The Windows XP systems running XP Home are the worst.

I had mentioned visitors by country to the Interstate Screw Corp web page. Here's a summary from 1-1-09 through 26-10-09. There's an Excel version which is cooler because each country has the flag in front of it, but there was no practical way to post that here. I can e-mail it if anyone is terminally curious.

Countries		Pages	Hits
United States	us	54,820	355,033
Russian Federation	ru	4,470	5,330
China	cn	2,895	12,822
Japan	jp	2,325	2,839
Spain	es	1,542	2,612
Romania	ro	1,424	1,802
Canada	ca	1,402	6,782
Germany	de	1,159	1,885
Taiwan	tw	695	4,561
Great Britain	gb	524	2,533
Ukraine	ua	493	587
India	in	429	2,439
European country	eu	419	934
Chile	cl	419	3,567
Peru	pe	378	3,005
Jamaica	jm	345	2,461
France	fr	324	769
Colombia	co	314	2,037
Latvia	lv	310	353
Hong Kong	hk	304	1,136
Argentina	ar	297	1,891
Venezuela	ve	271	2,364
Mexico	mx	260	2,081
Netherlands	nl	252	493
Malaysia	my	216	1,534
Cayman Islands	ky	182	1,845
Sweden	se	171	590
South Korea	kr	165	1,082
Aruba	aw	163	1,395
Ireland	ie	162	2,190
Israel	il	158	712
Australia	au	139	996
Brazil	br	137	754
Panama	pa	131	1,138
Costa Rica	cr	129	1,351
Singapore	sg	128	762
Bahamas	bs	123	1,000
Antigua and Barbuda	ag	118	952
Turkey	tr	115	734
Dominican Republic	do	115	1,112
Italy	it	102	488
Austria	at	102	273
Guatemala	gt	100	636
Barbados	bb	98	686
Ecuador	ec	97	1,075
Thailand	th	97	536
Puerto Rico	pr	94	900
Egypt	eg	76	598
Ghana	gh	73	679
Hungary	hu	70	211
Suriname	sr	70	1,039
Greece	gr	69	529
Former Czechoslovakia	cs	66	192
Poland	pl	61	325
Portugal	pt	59	231
Haiti	ht	58	402
Philippines	ph	53	351
Trinidad and Tobago	tt	53	431
Czech Republic	cz	51	151
Iran	ir	47	264
Switzerland	ch	44	261
El Salvador	sv	44	324
Virgin Islands (USA)	vi	41	429
South Africa	za	41	189
Indonesia	id	39	207
Uruguay	uy	37	637
Finland	fi	36	245
Anguilla	ai	35	213
Turks and Caicos Islands	tc	34	287
Pakistan	pk	34	282
United Arab Emirates	ae	32	277
Denmark	dk	29	160
Nigeria	ng	28	196
Saudi Arabia	sa	27	101
Belarus	by	27	72
Moldova	md	27	27
New Zealand	nz	26	68
Qatar	qa	24	24
Bulgaria	bg	21	99
Belgium	be	21	136
Vietnam	vn	20	141
Nicaragua	ni	19	158
Norway	no	19	153
Guam (USA)	gu	18	138
Belize	bz	17	149
Guyana	gy	13	156
Slovak Republic	sk	11	68
Lithuania	lt	9	32
Slovenia	si	6	44
Angola	ao	5	15
Malta	mt	5	23
Luxembourg	lu	5	5
Senegal	sn	5	15
Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivoire)	ci	4	4
Kuwait	kw	4	15
Bahrain	bh	4	4
Croatia	hr	4	39
Jordan	jo	4	13
Estonia	ee	4	13
Yemen	ye	4	64
Bolivia	bo	3	31
Georgia	ge	3	15
Cuba	cu	3	36
Namibia	na	3	3
Saint Kitts & Nevis Anguilla	kn	3	38
Lebanon	lb	2	2
Cyprus	cy	2	2
African Regional IPO	ap	2	2
Netherlands Antilles	an	2	12
Bosnia-Herzegovina	ba	2	10
Paraguay	py	2	12
Myanmar	mm	1	1
Syria	sy	1	1
Tunisia	tn	1	1
Bermuda	bm	1	1
Uzbekistan	uz	1	10
Afghanistan	af	1	11
Gabon	ga	1	1
Iraq	iq	1	1
Kazakhstan	kz	1	27
Morocco	ma	1	4
Ethiopia	et	1	1
Liechtenstein	li	1	1
Armenia	am	1	30
Algeria	dz	1	2
Sri Lanka	lk	1	10
TOTAL VISITORS -->		80,788	454,208

Family Guy does Star Wars This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

In an earlier post I had said Family Guy jumped the shark, and true, it's been pretty sucky lately. But the new season première take on Star Wars was utterly, and completely brilliant. This may have been the best episode of the show. Ever.

It's a scarily faithful retelling of the original Star Wars (episode IV for the geeks) that begins with a hysterical crawl about Angelina Jolie. We have Darth Stewie, Leia (Lois), Han (Peter), Luke (Chris), Obi-Wan (Herbert, the pervert), C3P0 (Quagmire), R2D2 (Cleveland), Chewie (Brian) and the monster in the trash chute (Meg). We have cameos by just about everyone who's ever had a recurring role in Family Guy.

There's a great bit about John Williams, a funny thing with the couch, and watch out for the limp light sabre. This episode just really has a lot going for it. And the Asteroid Field. Yes. Definitely that. Lots of little cheap shots at Star Wars, done in an obvious fan-boy loving sort of way. There is more sexual innuendo in this episode than the entire last season combined. We finally learned why it's called a Tie Fighter. And there are cameos out the ass.

I cannot recommend this enough. It's a shame they'll break the two parter up, because it will lose a great deal if not seen as one continuous episode.

Man. It's amazing. A one hour animated Star Wars. It works, dammit. IT WORKS. I think I like it better than the real Star Wars.

Family Guy Jumps The Shark This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Yes, it's happened. A show that was clever and witty, if not original has jumped the shark. I specifically point to the extended musical number with Stewie that was coupled with an old live-action dancer (Gene Kelly?). It was boring, contrived, and irrelevant.

To be funny you have to have a point of some sort or be going somewhere. I suppose Monty Python is proof I'm not totally right on this theory. But it doesn't change the fact the Shark Has Been Jumped.

It pains me to say it, but Family Guy's time has passed. It's over. Stick a fork in it, it's done. A few funny moments don't make a good show. They've stopped being creative and are relying solely on pop-culture references which simply isn't enough. And the episode really sucked.

Not that you care, but I posted a survey about me as a bulletin on MySpace while I was waiting for Blogger to update. And I ate a tube of Smarties. Yay.

Family Guy This blog has moved to http://quagmire.darsys.net

Okay, I've stalled long enough. It's time for a new post, and here it is. Today's subject ::drum roll:: is the TV show Family Guy. I'm new to the show, actually. I just started watching it this season, by accident. I am loathe to admit I like it, because it's very lowbrow, but, I like it. A lot.

In fact, I like Family Guy so much I went and bought both DVD sets of the first three seasons. I'm almost done the first four DVDs and can't wait to go into the next set.

It's the kind of show that should piss me off. It uses lots of pop culture references which are supposed to be funny even though they're just thrown in. It's the reason that, although I liked Shrek, it never quite rang true for me. I hate throw-away stuff like that. The Simpsons uses the same types of references and weaves them cleverly into the plot.

Yet, I have to say Family Guy makes me laugh, so I'm watching it. Even without the pop culture throw-away stuff, it's still got a lot going on. It's well written (mostly), well voiced, and pretty damned entertaining.

I like Brian the dog the best, but we'll get to that in a moment. I like Stewie as well. Chris is interestingly done. I find Peter to be the least interesting of the lot: he's like Homer Simpson but a lot more stoopid (sic).

Ah, Brian the dog. He reminds me of an ex-friend. He's got the same voice, the same mannerisms, and I didn't even notice until today. I was on I-75 going about 80mph towards Sunrise to meet some friend for lunch and a hockey game when I had an Epiphany. Yes, it was Eric J. Hedlund, also known as Ptomaine*, disguised as a dog. Scary but true. So now, I think I like the show even more.



* Ptomaine is pronounced "Toe-Main" and if in the very rare chance any of his current friends read this post, be sure and call him Ptomaine :) If you want to know what it means look in a dictionary. I'm not telling.