Great opening scene

Opening to the movie Love, set to a civil war siege of a union fort:

Capt. Lee Briggs:  "They say, when you hear sounds of devils, all else is quiet. My general question to that is: how do you know that what you are hearing is the work of such devious beings? I would venture to say that most devilish noises occur when large numbers of men decide to force the hand of mortality upon one another. And I'd say further, that on such occasions there is not just one sound, but many. It is a quiet orchestra of death. It is also possible that the man who wrote that saying might've just had some broke ears . . . I had been moved from one wiped out regiment to the next, witnessing countless moral follies.  I met General McClain in the last summer of the war.  Peculiar man  . . . "

General McClain: "Captain Lee Brigss."

Captain Lee Briggs:  "Sir?"

General McClain:  "Man of nine lives.  You have any idea how many divisions have us pinned here?"

Captain Lee Briggs:  "No sir."

General McClain: "Let's just say, enough to make fate unfavorable . . . . Now, well, I've got a job for you, Briggs.  It has come to my attention that an object of the grandest design has been discovered east of the Colorado basin.  Given the undeniable truth that we here are on a collision course with destiny . . . neither I nor my men will be able to give witness to this object.  Someone ought to see it . . . . I reckon it should be you.  Sole survivor of the 22nd Connecticut . . . ."

General McClain:  "Even one man alive is homage to the rest.  Keep a record of your journey, Briggs . . . . . "

Captain Lee Briggs: "To be given a pass, to watch all others go, is perhaps the most troubling thing to one's being . . . "

One of the best opening scenes I've ever seen.  The rest of the movie is a little drawn out, but the first scene rocks!

Ready to work from home

The desk lamp is set up, have a fosters oil can, and the raspberry pi lurks in the shadows . . .

sums it up

this pretty much sums it up . . . .

Finally, some thing they agreed on

Now if we could remove these two lunatics from office, we may get somewhere

Mystery solved

His blood lead count was off the charts:

Name the movie: "you don't think it was the bullets?"

So much for the third R

You mean my math teacher is technically torturing me all those years?

Street justice

I felt a spanking would have been sufficient . . .

Not an onion article

This is an actual story.

I guess that's one way to improve your personal gas mileage!

The hell of Sandy, cont'd

Having finished a few Irish coffees, I was forced to forage for food in the refrigerator. I was luckily able to locate 5 eggs, a red pepper, and a bat of feta cheese. There was a loaf of French bread, yeasty morsel, which allowed the completion of my mad plan: Greek omelette sandwich. Omelette stuffed with feta, sautéed red pepper, onion, and black olives in olive oil on French bread.

Oh the humanity!

The hell of Sandy

How will we ever recover?

The dark truth

Bought on name alone. Smoked hops hint. Kind of nut brown taste. 9.7%. Nuff said

Day of firsts

You know, today may end up being the first day of a new era. Contemplating the fate of the Phoenix on day of comsistently unexpected outcomes.

The pic is of a fire we built in my pit. Full moon, hurricane coming.  Bourbon.  And the sense that things are changing.  That's all.

Pepco effectively replaced

Ready for sandy

Political Process

At work today, saw two contrails in the sky, one large, one small.  Figured two contrails that close signified Air Force one and an escort heading to the debates.

The wife is downstairs watching the debate.  Watching two assholes grandstand and dodge pre-fabricated bullshit questions.  Just like the other debate, just new assholes.  They'll be telling the same lies though.  Probably.  Or maybe they'll make up new ones.  No one will know the difference.

Lotta money in the election.  A whole goddamn industry devoted to distracting you from truth.  Pulling the wool over your eyes and making you think that you have a choice.  Keeping you from realizing that this country was bought and paid for a long time ago.  A system designed to keep power in the hands of two equally corrupt and purposefully ineffectual parties that have been payed off by the same interests.  And every four years they parade out the clones to make one half of you argue with the other half to convince you that you have some voice in the direction of the country.

Hilarious and humiliating at the same time.   The powers that be must be very pleased that the educational system in this country is so dysfunctional.  Else more people would figure it all out and they may have a real problem on their hands . . . . 

Time better spent

Instead of watching a debate or even bothering to vote, I highly suggest everyone watch the South Park episode "Douche and Turd" on Netflix. Still as relevant now admit was back in 2004.

And from the five minutes of the debate I unfortunately overheard, here's my acute response to each candidates performance:

Obama: take a debate class (i.e, loudest asshole wins)
Romney: we aren't all Mormon, fuckhead.

There's something you don't see every day

He's still dead

When will it end?

There's a storm brewing

Where's the dechedo when you need it?

Had to share . . .

Had to post some quotes from the newsroom, a show on HBO.  At the beginning of the show,  after listening to a liberal and conservative bicker over partisan issues, the panel is asked by an audience member at a college town hall meeting what makes America the greatest country in the world.  The liberal and conservative give textbook partisan crap answers. The main character at first the gives a joking answer, but when pressed by the moderator his reaction is below:

"It's NOT the greatest country in the world, Professor. That's my answer."

The he rips into the liberal guest to his right:

"Fine. Sharon, the NEA is a loser. Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paycheck, but he gets to hit you with it anytime he wants. It doesn't cost money. It costs votes. It costs airtime. And column inches. You know why people don't like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fuckin' smart then how come they lose so goddamn always?"

And then into the conservative on his left:

"And with a straight face, you're gonna sit there and tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The U.K. France. Italy. Germany. Spain. Australia. BELGIUM has freedom. Two hundred and seven sovereign states in the world and a hundred and eighty of them have freedom"

Then directs his attention back to the audience member:

"And you, Sorority Girl, just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there's some things you should know. One of them is there's absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. We're seventh in literacy. Twenty-seventh in math. Twenty-second in science. Forty-ninth in life expectancy. A hundred and seventy-eighth in infant mortality. Third in median household income. Number four in labor force and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies.

Now none of this is the fault of a twenty-year-old college student, but you nonetheless are without a doubt a member of the worst, period, generation, period, ever, period. So when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I dunno what the fuck you're talkin' about. Yosemite?"

Awesome. . . Keeping that last line in my pocket for election time.

Marketing works

Every once in a while a product calls to you from the shelf.

Add high content liquor . . .

You could make all kinds of interesting things from common wedding items, if one were so inclined . . .

Inadvertent discovery

Of a good use for a tie. Now I want you to hit me as hard as you can . . .

Bring in the zombie apocalypse

I'm ready

What collection is complete . . .

Without a tomahawk?

A picture is worth . . .

A thousand curses. Hiking sucks.

The guy with cloud envy

There's a character in Naruto that I identify with almost 1-1. He's a shirker with cloud envy (the name of our Main blog comes from this attribute). There's a situation in the series in which he is cornered and facing certain death. When told by his adversary to "Prepare himself," he has an internal dialogue with himself as shown in the graphic. Pretty much sums it up for me.

Dave's an ass

photographic proof emerges

Radio installed

Got Katy a new stereo for the car with an aux jack. Worst part was putting the after market cage together. Car was easy to rip apart and put back together.

Ban On Insider Trading By Lawmakers

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/09/146644196/ban-on-insider-trading-by-lawmakers-passes-house-heads-to-obamas-desk?sc=17&f=1001

No doubt Congress will tout their "productiveness" on this issue.  

Shouldn't Congress have to follow the rules that are set forth for government employees?  The answer, as always, is no.  They set one set of rules for them and one set for the plebeians.

I have to say I am surprised they passed it.  However, note the exclusion of family members fin the ban.  That way they can pass a law that is aesthetically pleasing while being easily able to circumvent it.

When the urge for destruction hits

Women are ill prepared for the shock

Goals met . . . mostly

What a year. Made my initial biking goal of 1500 miles in the summer, then revised the goal to 1800 miles. Fell about 25 miles short because of an untimely back injury just before the end of the year, but I'll let that slide. As for running, was on pace to meet the 600 mile goal when I started at the Rock. Then enter Dave Grant, running partner, and I blew the goal out of the water and ended up about 50 miles over.

Also shaved a total of 15 lbs this year. For 2012, the goals will be as follows:

Biking: 2000 miles (approximately the distance from home to Salt Lake City, UT)
Running: 750 miles (approximately the distance from home to Milwaukee, WI)
Swimming: 50 miles (approximately the distance from home to Quantico)

Weight loss: another 15 lbs